No Trust? No Effective Government Posted by Morton H. Halperin

Co-Authored with Michael Fuchs

A new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll reveals that 47% percent of the country does not believe that Bush is “honest and trustworthy,” against 46% that believe he is.   

Forget for a moment that the Bush administration has broken the law by disregarding FISA in its domestic spying program.  The efficacy of government is being threatened because we can no longer believe the administration when it speaks in public.

Effective policies can only be maintained when the public and Congress trust the government.  On Iraq’s WMD, on torture and now on domestic spying, Bush administration officials have been caught lying again and again, eroding that trust. 

The North Korea Crisis: Still Simmering Posted by Jeffrey Stacey

While the current American foreign policy focus is split between the vagaries in Iraq and duplicitous protestations of nuclear innocence in Iran, the crisis in North Korea simmers on.  Why is the U.S. devoting so much time to an Iran that is ten years away from producing nuclear weapons compared with a rocket-proliferating regime that is now actively producing nuclear bombs?

The U.S. can hardly afford frittering away more time, as the window of opportunity for defusing this crisis is beginning to close—while the North may have already built as many as eight nuclear bombs, in December it announced that it was reopening nuclear plants at Yongbyon and Taechon.  This move came on the heels of Pyongyang’s announcement that as a result of new U.S. financial sanctions it is pulling out of the stalled 6-party talks.

In November the talks achieved an apparent breakthrough, when the North in principle agreed to give up its nuclear weapons in return for security guarantees and economic and fuel aid.  However, the very next day the North claimed it had not agreed to the timetable that the U.S. and China et al. had insisted on.  Since then, not only have no new talks been scheduled, but diplomatic tensions have risen, and all the while Pyongyang continues to pursue its nuclear ambitions.

Response to Another View Posted by Morton H. Halperin

One would have expected a federal judge to be able to distinguish between what is lawful and what one might want to ask Congress to make lawful if the constitution permits.

I worked hard to get FISA passed in the 1970s because I believed that the government needed to conduct electronic surveillance for intelligence purposes and that it should be done pursuant to a statute and with the court involved as appropriate.   The Ford and Carter administrations identified four situations in which a warrant should not be necessary (emergency, war for 15 days, certain embassy taps, and testing) and they were all included in the bill.

It is impossible to tell if some additional authority is needed since the administration not only did not ask for, but affirmatively said it did not want it.   If after 9/11 NSA needs more authority under FISA or even some additional emergency warantless authority it should say so and we should have that debate.

We cannot have it until we know what they want.  In the meantime we must insist that the law and the constitution be obeyed.

Palestinian Elections Posted by Lorelei Kelly

Here's an email I received from a friend of mine regarding the Hamas success in the Palestinian elections.  He is an international legal consultant--who is working in several Middle Eastern countries. The short of it: Hamas will have to moderate to survive:

Yes, it's not a surprise to me that Hamas did so well.  It's only natural that given a choice, people will turn against corrupt, repressive, entrenched regimes that have failed to deliver on their promises. You'd have a similar result in Egypt with the Muslim Brotherhood if they were allowed to mount a serious campaign.  (Maybe the current US leadership will feel a similar backlash)

As for what will happen, only time will tell.  I would guess that Hamas is in a bit of shock right now.  They would probably feel much more comfortable as the outside opposition party than as the ruling party that's expected to deal with the US and Israel as the voice of the Palestinian people.  Since they're not really qualified to do that (and don't want to be seen as cooperating with the US and Israel), they'll probably reach out to Fatah and give them some role in the Government. They are totally unprepared to govern at that level and if they try, they'll probably fail.  On the other hand, I'm sure there are lots of Palestinians who will be thrilled with the prospect of change and will be willing to stick with Hamas for a while despite some setbacks.  And of course there's the big question regarding who will fill Sharon's shoes on the other side of the "separation barrier." 

Most Palestinians, like most Israelis, want peace.  Let's hope democracy works in the sense that eventually it will result in the expression and implementation of the will of the people.

Wiretapping -- Another View Posted by Michael Signer

One gets the feeling of a rising hysteria on both sides of the NSA debate -- yes, Democrats are right that a rule of law has probably been broken, and that legal and political consequences should follow.  This analysis, however, is separate from the issue that unfortunately is the sword upon which the American left is impaling themselves again and again -- a failure to evince sufficient conviction on most matters of national security and homeland protection. 

On the other hand, the President's audacious Rove-led political offensive of the last week or so affirms, as always, the essential shamelessness of this team's willingness to politicize issues of national security.  Not only does politics not stop at the water's edge -- it takes over the entire ocean, as we saw when they staged the Iraq vote three weeks before the 2002 midterm elections.   

Hammered by Hamas Posted by Suzanne Nossel

President Bush called yesterday's Palestinian election results a "wake up call" for senior Palestinian leadership.  Only they didn't know they were sleeping on the ledge of a 10-story building, nor that the morning alarm would come in the form of a swift shove.  No one has had the time to fully digest the results, but here are a couple of observations in relation to US policy:

1.  Bush's neglect is Hamas' gain - As progressives, we've long criticized Bush for failing to fully engage in the Israel-Palestinian peace process.   Team Bush's involvement in pressing peace has been intermittent at best:  at first Bush seemed reluctant to wade in where Clinton had tried and failed; later in the Administration Bush was too distracted, mainly by Iraq. 

Hamas' victory grows out of this neglect:  at the simplest level, if it had reached a settlement with Israel, Fatah would still be in power.   More broadly, the US's failure to engage bred a sense of stagnation that fueled popular frustrations with the party.  Time passed, and the momentum built up at various points (for example, right after initial combat operations ended in Iraq, and right after the Gaza pullout)  repeatedly disintegrated into hopelessness.   This is an example of the unwillingness to take more risk has wrought a worse outcome probably worse than a policy tried and failed.

2. US Aid to the PA - The US funnels hundreds of millions a year to the Palestinian Authority.  If Hamas takes over key ministries and other functions, this money will go to the hands of a terrorist organization, something Congress has already resolved not to allow.  Yet a substantial cut-off in US aid could quickly doom the already precarious PA down. 

While we can wait until a new Palestinian government is formed, thereafter we should provide the PA with a list of clear demands - agreed with the Europeans and other major aid donors - that must be met for the monies to continue to flow.  These prerequisites would have to include revision of the Hamas charter provision calling for Israel's destruction, a platform the group's leadership has vowed to maintain. 

Here Bush can and should call Hamas' bluff:  they've run on a platform of delivering social services and basic needs to the population, and making good will require funds.  Yet a frightening scenario could involve Hamas responding to a US aid shut off by turning to Iran, Syria or others for support.  By turning its back entirely on Hamas, we may risk driving a pragmatic group toward its own worst extremes.

The key to avoiding this worst-case scenario may be getting moderate Arab countries - Jordan and Egypt in particular - to help convince the Hamas-led government that by isolating itself and aligning with Islamists and terrorists they will quickly lose their following among the mostly secular Palestinian population and/or see the Palestinian territories devolve into a failed state.   The last thing the Arab countries want is a Palestinian basket case of a partly-born nation on their doorsteps.  Jordan and Egypt each have their own domestic Islamist concerns which will complicate any mediating efforts.  But still, a unified front consisting of the US, Europe, Russia, and Palestinian neighbors is probably our best bet.

the US and Iran: anti-gay collaborators Posted by Lorelei Kelly

Even if they can't agree on nuclear power, seems the US and Iran are in harmony when it comes to discriminating against gay people (along with the Sudan). Three cheers for Representative Tom Lantos (CA)--co Chair of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus for revealing this incident in this letter to Ambassador Bolton:

Dear Ambassador Bolton:

I am writing to express my shock and bewilderment in learning of a very harmful and hurtful action taken earlier this week by your staff at the U.S. mission to the UN in New York.  As you may now know, U.S. representatives on the Non-Governmental Organization Committee to the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) on Monday supported a hateful anti-human rights motion brought by the Iranian and Sudanese regimes to dismiss the application of the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) and the Danish national gay and lesbian organization Landsforeningen for Bosser og Lesbiske for consultative status to ECOSOC.

I sincerely hope that the U.S. vote on this issue was a technical error or the unfortunate result of an undisciplined U.S. officer operating on his or her own without instructions.  In any case, I am asking you to clearly and publicly disavow and explain this anti-human rights vote before it does any long-term damage to U.S. moral authority at the UN.  I would also like to discuss with you, at length, any possible breakdown in State Department procedures that may have led to this most unfortunate U.S. action.

A Friendly Missive From Messr. bin Laden Posted by Jeffrey Stacey

While terrorism detecting eyes are averted to the stunning Hamas performance in Israel, in the campaign against terrorism the state of Al Qaeda is of far greater importance—particularly with regard to the ramifications of this month’s successful U.S. strike inside Pakistan. Not only thereafter did we hear from Osama bin Laden (OBL) for the first time in over a year, but in the course of threatening attacks in the U.S. heartland he also offered something of an olive branch.

Al Qaeda did offer a sort of truce with European governments a couple of years ago, but OBL’s offer constitutes an intriguing departure. Why such a message and why now? With a trove of American analysts suggesting the U.S. is losing the campaign against terrorism—and Al Qaeda’s success in broadening their recruiting, influencing moderate Muslim opinion, and OBL’s remaining at large—why would the leader of Al Qaeda do something that smacks of weakness?

It appears that OBL is feeling newly vulnerable, and he has reason to be. Certainly he could be motivated to snatch back some of the limelight that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (AMZ) has been hogging in Iraq, and OBL has consistently shown himself to be an able media manipulator—e.g. by making an overture he knew the U.S. would reject he comes off somewhat statesmanlike.

And no doubt by rattling the saber a bit he set off a fresh round of concerns about the post 9-11 Al Qaeda chimera’s ability to strike at will deep inside the West. But OBL has been comfortable in having his chief lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri (AZ), act as the public face of Al Qaeda for a couple of years now; moreover, he has an interest in remaining out of view to stoke those mythical fears even though he is becoming more frail. Granted, the OBL tape could well have been made prior to the strike, but the Al Qaeda death knell is sounding.

Al Qaeda has not only a significantly reduced direct capacity to carry out attacks but also a new reason to feel that OBL and AZ are not as safe in their Pakistani tribal refuge as they are accustomed to feeling. I am in no way writing the epitaph of Al Qaeda, nor foolishly dabbling in any “they’re in the last throes” rhetoric. Rather, evidence points to success against the top drawer terrorist organization even while its affiliates are achieving increased success of their own.

While the Madrid and London bombings indicate a continued threat of local motivated Islamic extremists in the West—the principal threat these days—Al Qaeda itself has been degraded.  By the end of December, in addition to OBL, AZ, and AMZ if he counts, only 5 other major operatives were still at large (in May top commander Abu Faraj al-Libbi was captured).

As of the strike this month, aimed at AZ, two of the other five were killed—Abu Khabab al-Masri and Abu Ubayada al-Masri, other top commanders—along with AZ’s son-in-law and another. It was a sizable blow to Al Qaeda and highly ominous for the remaining leaders. For the strike inside Pakistan itself was a departure.

That Pakistan allowed the U.S. strike to take place upon request is significant (President Musharraf’s delayed complaints are purely due to the protests spawned around the country) and presages future success as the U.S. et al. move toward eradicating 90% of notable Al Qaeda leaders. Moreover, the numbers of fighters who went through pre 9-11 Afghan training camps have been exaggerated, as is the report of vast new camps there.

I will say more in a future post about the specter of continued attacks from affiliated groups—including a proposal to open up a Pacific front in the global campaign against terrorism—but the steady eradication of Al Qaeda itself is significant and the day of OBL’s demise may be closer than we think (and especially if he is captured instead of killed, the effect on his followers will be less malign than most imagine).

Hamas Upset in Palestinian Elections Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Latest count has Hamas at 76, Fatah at 43.  For more on what this means, look here. 

I applaud Bush for saying:  "I have made it very clear that a political party that articulates the destruction of Israel as part of its platform is a party with which we will not deal."  I have always thought the Administration's refusal to deal with Arafat was sound policy with good results.  But now virtually everything needs to be rethought. 

This will prompt heavy introspection on democracy promotion, support given to nascent democratic governments and movements, the role of extremist organizations in democratic settings and virtually everything else about the region.  We will feel the reverberations of the ballots cast for years to come.  More later.

H2O in China: A Security Fundamental Posted by Lorelei Kelly

The World Economic Forum kicked off its 2006 Davos meeting today.  China was a headliner with vice premier Zeng Peiyan giving a plenary speech focussed on sustainable energy and environment. (podcast here, Forum weblog here)  Hopefully, America's security policy community is paying attention.

China's leaders are not do-gooders.  Sustainable environmental practices are a key security issue for China because energy resources--specifically water-- is the plaform with the most potential for nation wide citizen mobilization.  No doubt spooked by civil unrest, China's communist leaders are trying to figure out ways to introduce participation methods that will allow civil society to evolve in a controlled manner.   Responding to the mass concerns over water is one way to do that.

Environment has always been a security issue.  Today, however, America  must figure out ways to measure its impact on democracy so we can start to replace the military dominance premise that still prevails in US Government decision making.  I'd even argue that our failure to understand the intersection of environment and civil society is one of the reasons the end of the Cold War was such a shock.

I lived in Berlin in 1989--and had the good fortune to work with the underground democracy movements in the East during the twilight of the Cold War.  Among the places I remember best was a shabby basement on a street full of machine-gunned facades-- that housed a room made into an eco-library. East Germans shared their scraps of democracy in rooms like that--a book or magazine about the environment would get passed through hundreds of hands. The solidarity built through those knowledge networks is what made the impossible turn into the inevitable-- the Berlin Wall fell.

Since much of our security policy regarding China is as simplistic as a search and replace text excercise--substituting "Soviet" for "Chinese", are we making the same security omissions today as we did during the Cold War? I asked my great friend Carey Moore, who runs the Pacific Village Institute  in Seattle, to comment on water and democracy, and why we would do well to understand the security implications of environment and citizen participation.

Politics or Security? Posted by Morton H. Halperin

Of all the ways in which the Bush administration's actions actually reduce American security, none is more dangerous or more irresponsible then its effort to turn legitimate debates about how to combat terrorism into political campaign issues.

Starting with the Patriot Act right after 9/11 and continuing with its belated support of a Homeland Security Department and now with its response to reports of warrantless NSA surveillance,  President Bush has allowed Karl Rove to set the tone and to use the issue to attack Democrats rather than to seek a consensus about how to deal with terrorist threats while protecting civil liberties.

The administration response to the New York Times account of the NSA warrantless surveillance program is a textbook case of irresponsible behavior.  After conducting the program in secret, the President lashed out at the Times for publishing the story. He first said that any debate would harm national security.  Now he says he welcomes a debate.  He asserts that he only wants to listen to al Qaeda talking to Americans and his critics object to that.

This is of course total nonsense.

Rocks and All, A Moderate Gone Posted by Heather Hurlburt

It's worth pausing a moment over the death of Ibrahim Rugova this past weekend, before you hurry back to Iraq, Iran and domestic spy scandals.

Rugova was President of Kosovo; he was also, as Laura Rozen recalls over at warandpiece.com, a Sorbonne-educated Shakespeare scholar. 

He was famously eccentric and indecisive -- and even more famous for handing out chunks of Kosovo's native rock to foreign visitors.  (For a while, the size of your rock -- no, I am not kidding -- was a real status question in the Clinton foreign policy establishment.)

Over time, as Kosovars lost faith in the international community's promises, and violence created facts on the ground where negotiations had not, Rugova was pushed further and further aside, and this -- along with a deep Kosovo fatigue -- accounts for how little attention his passing received here.

But he remained Kosovo's last best unifying force, the living incarnation of all that was unbendable yet humane in the Kosovar spirit, the embodiment of a decade-long campaign of non-violent protest that built alternate institutions alongside those imposed from Belgrade and kept civil society functioning until the hard men took over.  Compare his political longevity, even with attenuated powers, to the fate of moderates in Bosnia, or Iraq.  Consider the size of the hole his passing has opened up in Kosovar politics.

My favorite Balkan wiseman says there is considerable question about whether Rugova's political party, still Kosovo's largest, can even survive his passing. 

With Rugova, the EU and US could still imagine that we might not have to choose between better government in Kosovo and the Kosovars' absolute determination to achieve independence.  With him gone, that dream -- which is what it was -- is gone as well.

Even given the ambivalent legacy of present-day Kosovo, and Rugova's often-frustrating passivity, I'm not sure one person could ever do more to lead a country toward democracy, moderation and secularism than Rugova.

Corruption from Ramallah to Ottawa Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Just a day after I touched on the role that Fatah's reputation for corruption and ethical violations in possibly tipping the scales toward Hamas tomorrow when Palestinians head to the polls, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin gets whacked at ballot box defeat by conservative Stephen Harper, largely as a result of his party's reputation for fraud and skimming.  In Bolivia, newly elected leftist President Evo Morales won on a platform of eradicating corruption.  All this comes just as Jack Abramoff's plea agreement riles Washington.

It may seem obvious, but corruption plays a huge role in politics the world over.   Harper's election may strengthen Canadian ties with the US but in general corruption serves to to set back socio-economic development, to cloud the legitimacy of democratic leaders, to cramp economic growth, and to promote instability and lack of confidence in public institutions.   The World Bank has identified corruption as the number one obstacle to economic and social development. 

The Administration deserves some credit for making anti-corruption a centerpiece of its Millennium Challenge Corporation, but so far only 7 countries have struck deals with that program (partly due to lack of sufficient funding).  Finding practical ways to assist countries to crack down on corruption needs to be elevated to a centerpiece of US foreign policy and aid.  Doing that credibly will, of course, require keeping our own house in order.

Why Not Just Pass a Bill? Posted by Michael Signer

Kevin Drum reasons through the Administration's current rationale for the NSA program and finds it unpersuasive, to say the least:

Administration apologists have argued that the White House couldn't seek congressional approval for this program because it utilized super advanced technology that we couldn't risk exposing to al-Qaeda. Even in secret session, they've suggested, Congress is a sieve and the bad guys would have found out what we were up to.

But now we know that's not true. This was just ordinary call monitoring, according to General Hayden, and the only problem was that both FISA and the attorney general required a standard of evidence they couldn't meet before issuing a warrant. In other words, the only change necessary to make this program legal was an amendment to FISA modifying the circumstances necessary to issue certain kinds of warrants. This would have tipped off terrorists to nothing.

So why didn't they ask Congress for that change? It certainly would have passed easily. The Patriot Act passed 99-1, after all. Hell, based on what I know about the program, I probably would have voted to approve it as long as it had some reasonable boundaries.

So there must be more to this.  But what?

Can anyone say "unitary executive"?

Notes on my weekend in Venezuela Posted by Adam Isacson

I just returned this evening from two days and three nights in Maracaibo, Venezuela, where I spoke about U.S. policy before a gathering of hundreds of faith-based peace and human-rights activists from both Colombia and Venezuela. While I’ve been to Colombia more than 25 times, I’d never set foot in Venezuela before. Here are a few impressions based on a visit that was much too brief.

Maracaibo is Venezuela’s second-largest city, in the country’s northwest about 2 hours’ drive from Colombia. It is a scorching-hot port (it was over 90 degrees in the shade) in the middle of the country’s oil-producing heartland. However, you wouldn’t know from looking at Maracaibo that Venezuela has been a top oil-producing nation for nearly half a century. The roads and other infrastructure I saw were in no better shape than what one sees in Bogotá, Medellín or Cali. Slums abounded, and many storefronts and shopping centers were empty.

African Union Stands Up to One of Its Own Posted by Suzanne Nossel

One of the most frustrating phenomena that bedevils the US at the UN is having to deal with dictators, failed states and rogue leaders that are routinely annointed to lead and represent regional groups.   This is how we wind up with the likes of Libya on the UN's Commission on Human Rights and Syria on the UN Security Council. 

Several regional blocs, including most notoriously the African Group, have traditionally determined their leadership on the basis of a strict rotation that is oblivious to the credibility or qualifications of countries for the leadership posts they seek. 

The premise of this policy, which is not impossible to understand, seems to be that with all the world judging them for their failures, they will refuse to stand in judgement of one another.   The result, however, has been to undermine the participation of Africa in international forums and to discredit the forums themselves on account of their inappropriate membership and leadership.

But there's finally some evidence this practice may be coming to a stop.  Based on the rotational system Sudan was slated to become the next President of the African Union.  Enmeshed in multiple civil wars, accused of sponsoring grave atrocities against its own people, and under investigation by the International Criminal Court the Sudanese government has hit an all-time low in terms of credibility on the continent and around the world.

To their credit, Sudan's African neighbors seem poised to break with tradition and deny Khartoum the top slot.   Faced with mutiny, the Sudanese government seems ready to end its bid for the chairmanship.

It's a small but potentially significant step forward.

As Palestinians Go to the Polls, Peace Holds its Breath Posted by Suzanne Nossel

This January is claiming a place in Middle East history as a critical turning point for relations between Israelis and Palestinians and for peace prospects in the region.  Ariel Sharon - who had improbably emerged as the region's best chance for reaching a final political settlement - lies in a deep coma.  His heir apparent, former Jerusalem mayor Ehud Olmert, has been making all the right noises and seems ready to assume Sharon's mantle as a fearless leader hellbent on moving Israel forward.   

On Wednesday, Palestinians will vote in Parliamentary elections that could determine whether Sharon is remembered as a Moses who led his people to the edge of the promised land, or a fleeting blip of hope amid decades of violent conflict.   Hamas has been steadily gaining on Fatah in political polls, largely because of Mahmoud Abbas' failure to root out corruption and address some of the most basic frustrations and indignities of life in the Palestinian territories. 

Hamas has called for Israel's destruction, has sponsored dozens of deadly suicide attacks, and professes unwillingness to negotiate with Israel.   Some, including Abbas and Condi Rice, believe that electoral victory may prompt Hamas' transition from a violent militia to a legitimate political organization, but this may be just wishful thinking.  For Palestinians, the attraction to Hamas may be motivated just as much by the party's reputation for delivering quality social services and refusing to tolerate corruption as it is by the group's stance on Israel.