Month: June 2016
Your Saturday puzzle
How many lies does Trump tell in this 11-minute tirade about the Trump University case?
An answer can be found at RedState: The Media are Letting Trump Get Away with Telling These {number} Lies about Trump University. I love it when the right wing finds a way of criticizing the media for failing to pursue the Republican candidate with sufficient fervor. But the piece really is worth a read, because it suggests that Trump is using his racist comments about the judge in the case to obfuscate and avoid even more serious questions about criminal offenses.
And who knew that he has been ordered to pay $800k in legal fees to the named plaintiff he disdains as a disaster “for them” in this video? More like a disaster for him!
If that wasn’t entertaining enough for you, try Rabbi Michael Lerner’s eight minutes yesterday at Muhammad Ali’s memorial service:
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Declining, but not disappearing
Yesterday’s discussion of Russia: A Test for Transatlantic Unity at the German Marshall Fund’s Transatlantic Academy made for a grim morning. The European and American Russia scholars were pleased that the West has maintained a coherent and unified response on Donbas, including greater support for front line allies, unity on sanctions and support for Kiev. But they worry that sanctions will fray or even collapse in 2017 and that Ukraine is not making the reform progress it urgently requires.
Nor do they see any sign that Russia is prepared to deliver anything serious in Ukraine. Russian officials view the US as malevolently and incompetently denying Russia its rightful role in the world by limiting its natural sphere of influence. They believe the West is decadent and unwilling or unable to exert itself on behalf of Ukraine, while denying that Russia is directly involved there. Putin in particular is banking on the West weakening.
The only positive sign anyone reported was a palpable desire by Moscow officials to “engage” with Americans, which is difficult as they refuse even to discuss the war in Donbas. If Moscow wants progress, the Americans think it needs to deliver something on the Minsk II agreement.
On Syria, Moscow has gained some of what it sought. It is now engaged with the US in daily deconfliction of military operations as well as higher level political discussions. But we continue to disagree on Bashar al Assad and on who is a terrorist.
More generally, Russia is a declining power in key dimensions: its economy is in a tailspin, its population is imploding, its energy resources are no longer as irreplaceable as once they were. Most of Ukraine is lost, mainly because the West has proven more unified than Putin anticipated. His effort to reassert Russia’s great power status has largely failed except for Syria, where the reformed and refinanced Russian military has proven to have serious but limited capabilities. The Russian regime is self-deceiving, unable to correct its mistakes or face its own responsibility. It instead blames its problems on the rest of the world.
Even if the Ukraine sanctions were lifted, the Russian economy would not recover quickly. Nor would prospects for political change, which depend on an upper middle class that is shrinking because of emigration and economic difficulties. The regime has successfully repressed the political opposition and left it without significant representation.
Putin has become decreasingly pragmatic and increasingly ideological towards the West since 2012. He can still be pragmatic (e.g. with China) but less and less so with the West. He is openly preparing for more war as he challenges the West in Ukraine and the Middle East. His ruling circle is shrinking, becoming less predictable and disengaging from the West. He is unrealistic. The beat of the war drums coming from Moscow’s tightly controlled propaganda machine is loud. The risks are high.
The West is also subject to risk. EU unity on the sanctions may not last. Ukraine could fail to deliver on its part of Minsk II. Conditionality has worked with Ukraine on economic issues, far less so on political ones like electoral and administrative reform. The US election also raises questions, as even Hillary Clinton may not give priority to Ukraine and could try to reach out to Putin. Donald Trump is unpredictable, but he has said he is looking for a deal. That could mean divvying up Europe again, as we did at Yalta.
Washington in particular hasn’t made up its mind on the threat from Russia. Some believe Russia is a declining power that wants to deal with the US and poses relatively little threat. Neither its propaganda machine nor its military has proven very successful. In Ukraine and Syria, there is an imbalance of interests: they are far more important to Russia than to the West. Others think Russia is a serious and growing threat, evidenced by its burgeoning military strength. Still others think there is a need to reassess relations with Russia and in particular to anticipate an end to sanctions, striking as good a deal as the West can get before they collapse.
These uncertainties could become all too apparent this summer, as Moscow will want to react to the July NATO Summit. There is a real possibility of an August surprise in Ukraine or Syria, or perhaps in the form of a Turkey/Russia conflict, which would put NATO on the spot. Russia may be declining, but it is not going away.
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The trouble still brewing
Yesterday’s discussion at SAIS of Learning to Live with Cheaper Oil : Policy Adjustment in MENA and CCA Oil-Exporting Countries raised serious issues. Oil prices are now expected to remain “lower longer,” as IMF deputy managing director Min Zhu put it. While contributing to global growth, the price decline is posing serious economic and governance challenges to the rentier states of the region and their relatively poor dependent cousins.
The 2014 oil price decline resulted from three main factors: increased production of tight oil and gas, slackening demand (especially due to economic slowdown in China and Russia) and increased efficiency. While prices have risen sharply from their lows early this year, the IMF expects them to remain well below their previous peak, with only gradual increases over the next five years or so to around $75 per barrel.
Some efficiency gains have already been erased, as oil prices have risen from their lows at the sharpest rate ever, even if they are still far off their peak. The shale revolution is not going away, even if many less productive wells have been shut. But larger ones are still producing. Much of the shut-in capacity will return as prices rise again.
This puts the oil producers in a difficult and long-lasting bind. The immediate impact was on their foreign exchange rate reserves, which are down dramatically. Growth is slowing. Budgets are being cut. The oil producers cannot continue to subsidize food and energy prices as well as avoid taxing their populations.
Sharply cutting their budgets however will not be a sufficient policy response, especially as it will have growth-reducing effects like limiting bank credit. The oil producers will need to undertake structural reforms to generate private sector growth that has heretofore been lacking. This is basically a good thing. Low oil prices will force producers to do what they’ve known for a long time they should have been doing, including cutting government jobs, reorienting it towards revenue collection rather than distribution and privatizing bloated state-owned enterprises.
But it is still difficult to picture how the oil producers will generate sufficient jobs to meet the needs of their bulging youth populations. If they somehow manage it, the social contract that has enabled the often non-democratic regimes to claim legitimacy will need revision, with citizens receiving less and asked to provide much more. Governing institutions will be under enormous strain as they try t o learn to collect taxes even as they reduce public services. Legitimacy will be in question. This is a recipe for trouble.
The fiscal squeeze will affect not only the oil producers themselves but also the states of the region to which they provide support, either in the form of aid or remittances. The eventual political consequences could be dramatic not only for the Gulf but also for Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan and others. We have not seen the end of consequences “longer lower” will generate.
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Better than surrender
Colleagues at RAND have updated their peace proposal for Syria. This should be taken seriously, both because Jim Dobbins, Phil Gordon and Jeffrey Martini are sharp guys and because their previous version turned out to be prescient, or maybe just reflective of Administration thinking before the recent, now mostly lamented, cessation of hostilities. They want to put aside the difficult political question of transition, including the fate of Bashar al Assad, to focus on reducing the violence and extending the cessation of hostilities.
What they’ve done this time is to suggest four different ways in which decentralization could be implemented with Bashar al Assad still in place: one based on existing legislation, a second based on that plus additional taxing and security authority, a third acknowledges existing Kurdish autonomy, and a fourth that extends that autonomy to opposition and government controlled areas, more or less along the lines of their previous proposal. Wisely dropped from their original proposal is the ethnic/sectarian definition of “safe” zones, with the exception of the de facto majority Kurdish area along Syria’s northern border with Turkey.
All of this is perfectly reasonable as an outline of what might happen if the war continues. It just isn’t going to be possible for Assad to re-establish control over all of Syria. Decentralization is unquestionably part of the solution, as it is in Yemen, Libya and Iraq. The opposition already has local governing structures in northern and southern Syria, the Kurds are governing their “cantons” and ISIS unfortunately administers the territory it controls.
But as a proposal that keeps Bashar al Assad in place it looks distinctly like surrender. Assad himself yesterday made clear that he intends to reconquer all of Syria:
There is no sign that he would accept a peace that includes decentralization along any of the lines RAND recommends, even the one based on existing legislation. Nor is there any sign that the Russians and Iranians would compel him to do so. To the contrary: they are doubling and tripling down on their support for Assad’s offensives, most notably right now against Aleppo and Raqqa.
Nor is there any sign that the peacekeeping forces RAND mumbles quietly are necessary in both the original and updated version of its peace plan are going to be available. Even the Iranians and Russians are unlikely to deploy the tens of thousands required on the ground in Syria. Much less so the Qataris, Saudis, Jordanians or even the Turks. Years ago, the UN had polled more traditional troop providing countries and had identified 18,000 that might be made available. Today that number has certainly shrunk. A country the size of Syria would require well over 100,000 by the usual peacekeeping formulas.
The value of this second version of the RAND proposal lies in its careful attention to the pros and cons of different forms of decentralization. Assad is staying, but he won’t be able to achieve his territorial goal. The Americans, whose one real asset in Syria is the local governing structures they have supported, should be thinking about decentralization not with Assad, because he just won’t buy it, but despite Assad. Providing the security resources required to protect local governing structures, and weaving them together into a viable alternative to the regime, is a better plan than the surrender RAND is advocating.
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Trump’s defeat
With Hillary Clinton clinching the Democratic nomination, it is time to consider the far more likely scenario: that she will win the November election, become the first Madame President, and return to the White House in January. What are the implications for America and its foreign policy?
Trump’s defeat, the third in a row for Republicans, will leave the party weakened and possibly divided. It could well lose control of the Senate if not the House. Blame for this will be heaped on those who backed Trump, a blatant racist, misogynist and xenophobe. Balancing acts like this one will look ridiculous in the aftermath of an electoral defeat:
Those who did not support Trump will try to resurrect the direction the party thought it had chosen after the 2012 election: towards becoming more inclusive rather than less. That will be a hard sell once more than 70% of Hispanics (and 90% of African Americans), similar percentages of gas and lesbians, and a majority of women have chosen Clinton. Some of the defeated will try to launch a new party or join the Libertarians. Diehard Trumpies will head off into the white supremacist/neo-Nazi corner of American politics.
The Democrats will seek to exploit their moment of triumph. I imagine top of their priorities will be “comprehensive” immigration reform, including a pathway to citizenship for undocumented people. This would solidify their Hispanic support. I doubt Clinton will reverse her position on the Transpacific Trade Partnership (TTP), but she might well quietly encourage Barack Obama to get it done in the lame duck Congress, before she is sworn in, with some improvements. I hope she will back the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which raises fewer hackles that TTP.
Clinton will want to reassure America’s allies in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. She will look for ways to sound and act tougher on the Islamic State, Al Qaeda, Russia, Iran and China, which have each taken advantage of Obama’s retrenchment from the over-extension of the Bush 43 presidency to press the envelope on what Washington will tolerate. She will maintain the nuclear deal with Iran and likely try to follow a similar model with North Korea. She opt for a no-fly zone in northern or southern Syria, hoping to stop at that.
Clinton will try to sustain Washington’s tightened relationship with India, Vietnam and other Asian powers as well as ongoing moves towards democracy and free market economies in Africa and Latin America. She’ll try to avoid sinking more men and money into Afghanistan and will try to get (and keep) Pakistan turned around in a more helpful direction. Israel/Palestine will be low on her priorities–why tred on turf where others have repeatedly failed?–unless something breaks in the positive or negative direction.
Domestic issues will take priority, including fixes for Obamacare, increased infrastructure and education funding, reductions in student loan debt, criminal justice reform, corporate tax reform and appointment of at least one Supreme Court justice (unless Merrick Garland is confirmed in the lame duck session) and many other Federal judges at lower levels. She will support modestly increased defense funding and tax cuts for the middle class, funded by increases on higher incomes. She will tack slightly to the left to accommodate Bernie Sanders’ supporters, but not so far as to lose independents.
In other words, Hillary Clinton is likely to serve Barack Obama’s third term, correcting the relatively few mistakes she thinks he has made, slowing retrenchment and adapting his pragmatic non-doctrine foreign policy to the particular circumstances and events as they occur. It will take some time for the Republicans, or whatever succeeds them as the second major party, to figure out whether they are protectionist or free traders, anti-immigrant or not, interventionist or not.
Trump’s defeat will be momentous for the Republican party, but it will leave the country on more or less the same trajectory it has followed for the past 7.5 years. If she can keep it pointed in that direction for four more, we should be thankful.
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50 years on, who will be a hero?
I was in a chili joint on the south side of Chicago that night in the winter of 1967/8 when he walked in, bigger than I could ever have imagined: Muhammad Ali. He by then had won a gold medal at the Rome Olympics as well as the heavyweight championship, refused to be drafted, and was soon to be arrested and deprived of his title. No one should forget: America scorned him as draft dodger and a black Muslim with a loud mouth. Even today, his sharp tongue and mind will cause some to cringe.
But Ali has nevertheless become an icon, venerated far more than scorned. No doubt death will make that even more the case. There is no longer a risk he might say something that will offend.
Many have forgotten how they felt 50 years ago. It is now difficult to find the remnants of the “silent majority” that supported the Vietnam war, opposed integration and regarded the Nation of Islam as a serious threat to white people. Some of course have passed on. Some have simply gone to ground and will emerge to vote for Trump.
Others have changed their minds. America is not what it was when Muhammad Ali emerged on the scene. It is far less white, far more Hispanic and far more used to loud-mouth athletes, and politicians, of all races. Few Americans think Vietnam was worth fighting for and losing upwards of 58,000 of our citizens, more than eight times the number killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since the turn of the century. Most Americans today understand that Vietnam and the second Iraq war were mistakes that cost the country far more than any conceivable benefits.
Most Americans have also come around to the view that discrimination, segregation and racism are bad. That was not at all the prevailing view when Cassius Clay changed his slave name to Muhammad Ali. The white supremacist George Wallace was then governor of Alabama spouting, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” In fact, racial segregation has persisted in schools and housing, but few would now defend it. Muhammad Ali’s extraordinary boxing career was compelling evidence of racial equality, though why more proof was necessary more than a generation after Jesse Owens’ performance at the 1936 Olympics is a mystery to me.
So some combination of forgetfulness and changing attitudes has made the scorned character who walked into a south side chili joint 50 years ago a great American hero. I give credit for that, but we shouldn’t forget that it wasn’t always thus. Muhammad Ali is the greatest today because America has forgotten more than it remembers and because so many of us have dropped beliefs that were once dominant. Fifty years from now, which of our now scorned citizens will emerge as great Americans?
PS: THIS VIDEO OF MUHAMMAD ALI SURPRISING KIDS AT SCHOOL WILL MAKE YOUR DAY! https://t.co/JAJSKEfRrs
— Mike Sanz (@mikesanz19) June 5, 2016
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