That Wacky, Wacky Krauthammer Posted by Michael Cohen

It's been awhile since I've done a post examining the wackiness of Charles Krauthammer but the man's latest missive in the Washington Post has woken me from my slumber.

Krauthammer extols George Bush's Freedom Agenda as well as the virtues of democracy in the Arab World - and helpfully welcomes liberals abroad the neo-con democracy bandwagon:

Today, everyone and his cousin supports the "freedom agenda." Of course, yesterday it was just George W. Bush, Tony Blair and a band of neocons with unusual hypnotic powers who dared challenge the received wisdom of Arab exceptionalism - the notion that Arabs, as opposed to East Asians, Latin Americans, Europeans and Africans, were uniquely allergic to democracy. 

Now it seems everyone, even the left, is enthusiastic for Arab democracy. Fine. Fellow travelers are welcome. But simply being in favor of freedom is not enough. With Egypt in turmoil and in the midst of a perilous transition, we need foreign policy principles to ensure democracy for the long run.

This makes a lot of sense because traditionally liberals have been skeptical of democracy and supportive of authoritarian regimes - while conservatives have never wavered in their commitment to democratic principles. But as I was reading this article I thought to myself "I wonder if Krauthammer will reconcile his call for democracy with the fear of many neo-conservatives that Islamists will come into power if democracy is actually allowed to flower."

Luckily I didn't have to wait long:

As the states of the Arab Middle East throw off decades of dictatorship, their democratic future faces a major threat from the new totalitarianism: Islamism. As in Soviet days, the threat is both internal and external. Iran, a mini-version of the old Soviet Union.

Bingo! And there's more

Just as during the Cold War the United States helped keep European communist parties out of power (to see them ultimately wither away), it will be U.S. policy to oppose the inclusion of totalitarian parties - the Muslim Brotherhood or, for that matter, communists - in any government, whether provisional or elected, in newly liberated Arab states.

Beyond the obvious question as to whether one can have democracy in the Arab world if one tells Islamists they need not apply - it's worth remembering that this tension between democratic aspirations and 'keeping Islamists out' is precisely why Bush's Freedom Agenda failed. The Bush Administration supported free and fair elections in Gaza, was shocked when the Palestinian people embraced an Islamist party (Hamas) and refused to recognize it - which effectively made clear the hypocrisy of our policy: we only wanted democracy in the Arab world if our guys won.

That is, of course, an untenable standard - and back in his Cairo speech of June 2009 I think Barack Obama laid out a more effective one:

America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard around the world, even if we disagree with them. And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments – provided they govern with respect for all their people.

This doesn't preclude the role of Islamists in Arab governments - and doesn't draw the conclusion, as Krauthammer seems to be doing, that any Islamist party is a totalitarian one. After all, you have an Islamist party in charge in Turkey and Islamist parties in Iraq. Indeed, one could argue that Turkey is as 'democratic' under its current leadership than any previous government in the nation's history.

Now in fairness to Krauthammer he makes clear that we probably lack the leverage to keep the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt out of power and that we should be supporting secular, democratic movements. That seems fair; but only up to a point. If we embrace democracy for the Arab world then we must embrace all parties that are willing to play by democratic rules - and that includes the Islamists.  

Our fear of Islamic political movements has led the United States, for years, to support authoritarian and dictatorial regimes - like Hosni Mubarak's - with predictably disastrous results. And contrary to Krauthammer's crowing for the Freedom Agenda, George Bush was guilty of the same crime, particularly in regard to Egypt where he backed away from calls for democracy when the US government decided we needed an un-democratic Mubarak more than an actual democratic process. 

We can't have it both ways - we can't support democracy and then reject political Islam. So long as Islamist groups are willing to abide by the tenets of democracy and participate in free and fair elections we should welcome their inclusion. To do otherwise . . . well it wouldn't be democratic.

A Defiant Mubarak and What Obama Should Do Next Posted by Joel Rubin

Embattled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak refuses to go.  Protestors in Tahrir Square are in agony. The Obama administration has just been called out. Now what?

According to Mubarak, the issue is no longer a choice between stability and chaos, but instead one of national pride as embodied in the life story of Hosni Mubarak.  To give in to pressure and leave power now would, according to Mubarak, be an insult to all Egyptians.  True, the youth of Egypt are to be listened to, but, according to Mubarak, they do not understand what they really need. To him, they’re children.

Mubarak is raising the stakes, daring the Americans to push him out, appealing to patriotism and staring down the protestors.  While he verbalized certain concessions that the U.S. has been calling for – although he made sure to say those concessions would only follow after restored stability – it’s clear that he has rebuffed President Obama’s call earlier in the day for a “genuine transition to democracy.” Mubarak’s reputation, which could have been rescued, will now likely be in tatters.

While President Obama should continue to stress that there should be no violence, that there should be a respect for universal human rights, and there should be an immediate political transition, the situation is more dire on the ground now than even a week ago.

Therefore, here are the key questions that the White House needs to ask if it hopes to rescue the situation, with whatever remaining leverage it has at its disposal:

1. What is the Army doing?  Will they follow Mubarak? There were rumors earlier in the day that the military would push out Mubarak, call for martial law and make steps to democracy. That scenario appears dashed.  The Administration needs to press all its contacts for real answers.

2. What will the protestors do?  Will more come out tomorrow? The protestors were planning on one million marchers for tomorrow.  Now how many? If they needed anything else to fuel their rage, Mubarak just gave it to them.

3. Is an “orderly transition” to democracy really possible with Suleiman or any other remnant of the Mubarak regime in charge? Mubarak said that he will transfer power to his vice president, Omar Suleiman, and will support changes to the Constitutional amendments, as well as move to end the Emergency Law -- but that has been said before, and Mubarak insisted changes would be made only after stability has been restored, which, after watching the chants from Tahrir, doesn’t seem likely. There’s a credibility problem here.

And here are some recommendations for the White House:

1) Stick to core principles: The White House needs to strongly reiterate its three key points of “no violence,” “respect for human rights,” and “credible transition to democracy”

2) Seek new leverage: The White House needs to explore new routes to sway the behavior of Mubarak and his cohorts.  The stale arguments about levels of whether to explicitly call for Mubarak’s resignation or whether to suspend military aid are clearly not enough to sway him.  The White House should consider fresh ways to show common cause with the protestors.

3) Stay on the offense: President Obama has been strong in his public statements.  Now is not the time to let up, just because Hosni Mubarak said so.  Now is the time to keep the pressure on and seek more concrete and viable changes in Mubarak’s decisions.



Shifting Deck Chairs on the Titanic Posted by Michael Cohen

I'm a little late in posting this to DA, but I have a new piece up at Foreign Policy making the case that recent signs of military progress in Afghanistan cannot mask the underlying strategic impediments in our current strategy:

Without tangible improvement in creating a capable and effective Afghan security force; without a competent and legitimate central government able to provide good governance to its people; without a choking-off of the supply of arms and fighters from across the border in Pakistan, the tactical gains being made by U.S. troops cannot be sustained and, quite simply, the war in Afghanistan cannot be won.

All the elements of the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan -- political, diplomatic, and military -- must be working if the effort is to be successful, not just the latter. But instead of recognizing these failures and shifting course, there is abiding resistance to any change among policymakers. Proposals to begin the process of political reconciliation with the Taliban are pushed aside because on the ground, after all, the insurgents are back on their heels. So why negotiate?

But this mindset creates a misleading sense of optimism that precludes any serious examination of the current strategy. 

Long overdue in Afghanistan is a sobering recognition by political and military leaders that the current U.S. and NATO strategy is failing, has little chance of success, and must be reformulated immediately. That is the public discussion that needs to be taking place. But none of that will happen so long as the U.S. president and his military commanders ignore the many signs that America is losing the war in Afghanistan -- choosing instead to focus their public rhetoric solely on rosy assessments of military progress.

You can read the whole thing here

The Progressive National Military Strategy Posted by Jacob Stokes

If President Barack Obama had said in his State of Union address last month that U.S. military policy will “emphasize mutual responsibility and respect” or even hinted at “shifts in relative power,” his political enemies would have wiped the floor with him. But those concepts frame the U.S. National Military Strategy, a document put together by the Joint Chiefs of Staff that was released on Feb. 8. The document is indicative of a profound trend in U.S. foreign policy: that of the military adapting ideas American progressives have long advocated for.

The most of prominent of those ideas is what’s known as a “whole-of-government” approach, or the idea that problems should be solved using a combination of diplomacy, economic incentives, development aid and military power. Conservatives eschew this concept. Figures such as Mitt Romney continue to push for outsourcing all U.S. foreign policy to the Department of Defense and Republicans in Congress are making every effort to eviscerate civilian diplomatic and aid agencies by cutting their funding. 

Compare that to the NMS, which says the relative shift in power politics “requires America’s foreign policy to employ an adaptive blend of diplomacy, development, and defense,” explaining that, “leadership is how we exercise the full spectrum of power to defend our national interests.” That differing concept of how to use the various tools of American power dovetails with the NMS’s more modern conception of the strategic environment, which it says is “characterized more by shifting, interest-driven coalitions based on diplomatic, military, and economic power than by rigid security competition between opposing blocs.” Both the realization of need to integrate the tools of power and the realization of a new strategic environment reflect an understanding that military power alone won’t fix most 21^st-century problems.

UN Bashing Redux Posted by David Shorr

In the category of right wing retreads, guess what's near the top of the agenda for the House Foreign Affairs Committee under its new Republican management. Did you guess witholding the dues our country pays to the big bad anti-American United Nations (subject of a January 25 hearing)? No? Well, it does have an eccentric pet peeve feel to it, to be sure. Not to mention serious tone-deafness about the United States' international image. But some Republicans just loooove to beat up on the UN, can't hardly help themselves.

In all seriousness, though, this is an issue that highlights a genuine contrast of perspectives. Those who support or oppose witholding America's share of the UN budget represent distinct ways of looking at the world body -- and the US international role, for that matter. Look at what Committee Chair Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said in her opening statement at the recent hearing (in the first para she's quoting her own earlier statement):

‘With significant leadership by the United States, the United Nations was founded on high ideals. The pursuit of international peace and development, and the promotion of basic human rights are core, historic concerns of the American people. At its best, the U.N. can play an important role in promoting U.S. interests and international security, but reality hasn’t matched the ideals.’

Accordingly, U.S. policy on the United Nations should be based on three fundamental questions: Are we advancing American interests? Are we upholding American values? and are we being responsible stewards of American taxpayer dollars?

Translation: has the UN proven itself worthy of our support? Unless the global forum is meeting the United States' expectations, we shouldn't have to pay. The argument combines "what have you done for me lately" with "I'm taking my bat and ball and going home."

Over at the Heritage Foundation's Foundry blog, Brett Schaefer kept the debate going by taking issue with a speech on the subject by Assistant Secretary of State Esther Brimmer. (She spoke at Brookings on February 1 partly to respond to the House hearing.) Here's part of the quote Brett cited:

No longer can our adversaries at the UN change the subject to our arrears when we press them on an important policy matter, as they did for so long. The President’s decision to pay our UN assessments in full means that we have had more political capital to galvanize support from allies, partners, and others for achieving our goals at the United Nations.

Where Ros-Lehtinen and Schaefer see a scandalously wayward culprit due for behavior modification, the Obama administration sees a vital diplomatic arena (e.g. Iran sanctions) where the United States has to be mindful of its reputation. In his post, Schaefer argues that for Brimmer to characterize witheld US dues as hindering diplomatic efforts merely shows a lack of confidence in the administration's own diplomatic effectiveness. In response, I'd say Brett shows a lack of appreciation for how effective American heavy-handedness is in arousing international resentment and resistance.

I should add that over the years, I've found Brett to be a conscientious partner in bipartisan dialogue. I would probably endorse many of the criticisms he makes in his written testimony for the recent hearing in the House. I would never claim that the UN has a stellar record of effectiveness, and to his credit, Brett acknowledges that the UN can claim some important contributions. The question here is one of proportion. For Republicans to devote one of their very first hearings to the UN's deficiencies and threaten to withold our dues hardly keeps things in perspective -- never mind the lack of self-awareness about the effects of American bullying.

The Taliban/Al Qaeda Link & the Facile Reasoning of Afghan War Supporters Posted by Michael Cohen

Over the past 18 months one of the key rationales that has been used to justify the US military presence in Afghanistan is that if the Taliban are somehow allowed to return to power in Afghanistan they will once again provide a safe haven to al Qaeda. Indeed, President Obama, when he announced a troop surge in December 2009 made this exact argument to justify the increased US military presence in Afghanistan.

However, this has always been something of a dubious argument, both on strategic grounds, but also basic common sense - after spending ten years to get back into power would the Taliban really allow the same organization that caused their demise to set up shop again as if nothing had happened and thus open themselves up to US military attack? 

Now thanks to Kandahar-based researchers Alex Strick Van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn we have a bit more meat on the bones of this argument - a new report that suggests the links between the Taliban and al Qaeda are not permanent and can be exploited for US political and military gain.

1. The Taliban and al-Qaeda remain distinct groups with different goals, ideologies, and sources of recruits; there was considerable friction between them before September 11, 2001, and today that friction persists.
2. Elements of current U.S. policy in Afghanistan, especially night raids and attempts to fragment the Taliban, are changing the insurgency, inadvertently creating opportunities for al-Qaeda to achieve its objectives and preventing the achievement of core goals of the United States and the international community.
3. There is room to engage the Taliban on the issues of renouncing al-Qaeda and providing guarantees against the use of Afghanistan by international terrorists in a way that will achieve core U.S. goals.

I won't try to summarize the entire report, but I recommend taking the time to read it. It provides and important basis for understanding why the foundation of the US mission in Afghanistan - preventing an return to al Qaeda in Afghanistan - is not only wrong, but actually might be self-perpetuating. In other words, by continuing the current strategy we may be strengthening the adversary our war is nominally geared toward weakening.

At the same time, if one wants to understand the intellectual bankruptcy of those who fervently and unthinkingly support continuing the current mission read what Max Boot has to say about this report:

It is worth noting that the authors have collaborated with a leading Taliban figure on his autobiography and have publicly opposed the American-led war effort in Afghanistan. Their “report” reads suspiciously like the Taliban propaganda line.

There is no doubt that the Taliban and al-Qaeda are distinct organizations. But there is also no doubt that they are closely linked — even more so now than they were in 2001, when the Taliban could have remained in power if they had simply handed over Osama bin Laden to the United States. Mullah Omar refused to do that, and he has steadfastly refused to renounce al-Qaeda in the years since, when it would be very much to his advantage to do so. Why would Mullah Omar & Co. suddenly turn on al-Qaeda if they were back in power? Talk about wishful thinking.

A couple of things here. First of all the authors worked on a memoir of a former Taliban, Mullah Zaeef - an important read if you want to get a better understanding of what motivates Taliban fighters. But of course in Max Boot's world seeking to understand the Taliban is akin to supporting them (and of course the none too subtle effort to link Alex and Felix to the Taliban - "collaborated" - is a grubby and obvious effort to invalidate their work. Classy as ever Max). Second, I'm not aware that Alex and Felix have publicly opposed the war in Afghanistan - but so what if they did. Can only those who support the current war effort actually criticize it? By this measure no one should take seriously anything Max Boot has to say because he is a knee-jerk war supporter.

But the worst part here is Boot's simplistic and unsupported reasoning for why this carefully researched report is wrong. He claims there is no doubt the Taliban and al Qaeda are closely linked - but actually provides no evidence, except the bizarre notion that Taliban thinking remains unchanged over the past ten years. He bemoans the fact that Mullah Omar won't trade away the chit of collaboration with al Qaeda - but why would he do such a thing before any serious negotiations with the US and/or the Karzai government?

By this argument America's enemies are not only incapable of strategic and pragmatic behavior, but should unilaterally disarm and rely on the good graces of the United States and its allies. Lastly, is it really impossible to recognize that the Taliban might have reason to turn on al Qaeda if they are returned to power - especially since the limitations on the use of US force that existed pre-9/11 certainly do not exist today and because al Qaeda would provide almost no benefit to the Taliban. At the very least isn't this a potential cleavage that we should be trying to exploit instead confidently declaring that the relationship between two organization with very different orientations and grievance structures is inviolate for all time?

Honestly, it's not a big surprise that war-addled correspondents like Boot would make this sort of argument - what's troubling is that this sort of shallow and facile reasoning actually shapes US policy in Afghanistan.

Running Out the Clock in Egypt Posted by Jacob Stokes

As the heady early days of the January 25 movement start to drag into the dull work of figuring out what’s next, the standoff between protestors and the government has turned into a waiting game. The regime wants to wait out the protestors, ceding as few concessions as possible along the way. The protestors, meanwhile, must struggle to keep up the momentum and pressure they’ve accumulated to exact real political change.

Joshua Stacher, writing in Foreign Affairs, makes the argument that the regime – of which the Egyptian military, although a highly respected institution, is still very much a central part – is playing both “the arsonist and firefighter” in this waiting game. That is, the police are seeding chaos in the streets, and creating an opening for the army to bolster its public support by returning stability. 

By employing this two-pronged strategy, Stacher argues, the regime is making life very difficult for the part of the Egyptian citizenry who aren’t the hardcore protestors lying in front of tanks in Tahrir. Stacher explains the growing exasperation of many Egyptians: 

Although some of these citizens may have sympathized with the protesters initially, their mood appears to be shifting. People are tired of being cooped up in their apartments, made anxious as their stockpiles of food and money decrease, and they are ready for a sense of "normalcy" to return. Ironically, the normalcy they pine for resembles the police state so many tried to banish just thirteen days ago. This method of wearing down the non-protesting public seems just as strategic as the violence employed on those airing their grievances in the streets. 

Steve Cook of CFR, who wrote a book on the Egyptian military, predicted this strategy back on Jan. 31:

New START Enters Into Force Posted by Kelsey Hartigan

New START formally entered into force this past weekend when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov exchanged instruments of ratification on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.  U.S. and Russian inspectors will soon exchange data on missiles, launchers, heavy bombers and warheads and in less than 60 days, inspections will resume.  According to my math, this means that by April 6, 2011, inspectors will once again be able to conduct on-site inspections.  My fellow arms control wonks will appreciate the timing:  President Obama gave his historic Prague speech on April 5, 2009 and signed the New START agreement with Russian President Medvedev a year later on April 8, 2010.  When inspections resume this April, the New START process will have come full circle.       

U.S.-Russian inspections ended in December 2009 when the original START agreement expired.  Since that point, the U.S. has only been able to use National Technical Means to monitor Russia’s nuclear arsenal.  National Technical Means, or NTM, is of course, just the polite way of referring to spy satellites.  As Mary Beth Sheridan explained in a piece last summer, however, reconnaissance satellites only go so far.  “For example, a satellite cannot peer into a Russian underground silo and see whether the missile inside is carrying one nuclear bomb or 10, officials say.”

“One of our dirty little secrets is, when the [Berlin] Wall went down, the United States reoriented a lot of intelligence capacity away from the Soviet Union and Russia. To some fair degree . . . the IC [intelligence community] was relying on U.S. inspectors to be on the ground," [Frank] Miller said.

The "boots on the ground" include people such as Phil Smith, a former Air Force crew chief for nuclear-tipped missiles. He has made about 20 inspection visits to Russian nuclear facilities.

"We have 15 years of experience under START, understanding where everything is. We've been through these sites multiple times," he said in an interview.

The U.S. teams typically arrive at Russian bases with only about a day's notice. Many of the inspectors' methods are surprisingly low-tech: They stretch tape measures along missiles and poke flashlights into trailers. The inspections allow each side to count nuclear weapons on a sampling of missiles, bombers or submarine launch tubes and look around one another's maintenance facilities and test ranges.

"If something is atypical . . . I will not be bashful about saying, 'Okay, we need to take a closer look at this one.' That's the kind of dynamic you have on the ground that you wouldn't have with a satellite," Smith said.

For more on New START’s inspection regime, it’s worth revisiting Ken Myers’ testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last June (pdf).  Myers is the head of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which is responsible for implementing New START’s inspection and escort provisions.

Incentives and Isotopes Posted by Kelsey Hartigan

Yesterday, NSN and the Center for America Progress co-hosted a forum on principled and pragmatic policy options for dealing with Iran.  Paul Pillar’s write-up in the National Interest offers an overview of his remarks and a reminder of why the current debate over Iran’s enrichment program isn’t getting us too far.

“For all the focus on uranium enrichment, the western side has done little to explore with Iran the possibilities for imparting greater transparency to the Iranian program as a form of safeguards against diversion to military purposes. Our leaders and negotiators have uttered a few things about how someday the west might trust Iran with its own enrichment program, but we have given the Iranians almost no reason to believe any such utterance.

“From Tehran's viewpoint, the overriding message being received is one of pressure and more pressure, of unrelenting animosity, and of lack of acceptance. It is quite understandable for Tehran to conclude that even if it were to end its enrichment program, the state of relations would not fundamentally change and that the principal U.S. goal is, and will remain, regime change. Such a conclusion destroys any Iranian incentive to make concessions on the nuclear program or anything else under discussion. And it increases the Iranian motivation to develop nuclear weapons.

“The fruitless quest for a no-enrichment solution, which has been going on now for some time, lessens the chance of achieving more feasible but still favorable outcomes. And if the saber rattling were ever to lead to the use of military force, among the disastrous consequences for U.S. interests would be to ensure the enmity of future generations of Iranians and to provide the strongest possible incentive for those Iranians to build, or rebuild, a nuclear weapons capability.

Olli Heinonen, former deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, recently floated an interesting proposal— one that could help alleviate the current stalemate on the enrichment question and begin to shift the dynamic Pillar describes above.  Heinonen suggests that the U.S. and its partners, presumably the P-5 +1, work with Iran to build a new research reactor that is designed to use low enriched uranium.

Iran is currently constructing a heavy water reactor, the IR-40, but it's not expected to be operational until sometime around 2013 at the earliest.  As ISIS explains, "If operating optimally, the IR-40 would produce about 9 kilograms of plutonium annually or enough for about two nuclear weapons each year."  If the U.S. and others worked with Iran to modify the reactor design it could ease some of the proliferation concerns and possibly create space for a future fuel swap.

“The offer to help build a new, more secure research reactor to replace the TRR could revive the fuel swap program, in which Iran would agree to send more of its enriched uranium out of the country to be converted into fuel for the new reactor. The outcome would provide Iran with a solid supply of medical isotopes and a new, up-to-date training facility for its scientists. And it would address proliferation concerns by limiting the increase of stocks of enriched uranium and future production of plutonium…

“A modern, more powerful research reactor will require a substantial part of Iran's current stocks of enriched uranium -- ensuring that they are not available for further enrichment for weapons -- and provide a secure, reliable supply of radioisotopes for decades to come. It would only be a first step, however. Iran will still need to address the world's broader concerns about the scope and intentions behind its nuclear program. But successful cooperation on a new reactor might make those conversations a little bit easier.

This would in no way be a silver bullet for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program but such an incentive could help temper the level of distrust that currently exists and provide a stronger platform for future dialogue, perhaps even on matters beyond the nuclear issue.

A Tale of Four Not So Great American "Allies" Posted by Michael Cohen

I've generally avoided writing anything about the situation in Egypt because it seems there are already enough people who know very little about Egypt publicly saying something - or have a personal agenda in commenting on the crisis.

Still I couldn't help but note an interesting linkage between what's happening with the United States in Egypt and three other countries in the Middle East and South Asia.

First there is Egypt where the day after the President of the United States called on our long-standing ally to begin a peaceful transition toward democracy and respect the will of its people . . . that same ally responded by sending thugs into Tahrir Square to beat up pro-democracy demonstrators. In effect, he spit in the eye of a US president.

In Pakistan, the US remains embroiled in a row with the Pakistani government over the continued detention of a US diplomat, Raymond Davis, who is accused to killing two people who allegedly tried to rob him. Now granted this is a complicated issue, but it's at pace with the frosty relationship between the US and Pakistan, which of course includes the continued refusal by Pakistan to end support for Taliban insurgents battling US forces in Afghanistan - or deal with the jihadist terrorists who want to kill Americans that continue to reside there.

In Afghanistan, the international community (including the US) had to drag our ally Hamid Karzai kicking and screaming to finally agree to seat the Afghan Parliament - and of course he remains an uncertain ally in the fight against the Taliban.

Finally, there's Israel and the Obama Administration's admission of defeat last December that it could ever get the Netanyahu government to freeze settlement building in the West Bank. 

What do these four countries have in common - well besides the fact that they are among the four largest recipients of US foreign aid? Each in their its own unique way is either fundamentally undermining US interests or is thumbing its notes nose at US demands. 

What's the conclusion that we should draw from this bizarre phenomenon?

In the case of Egypt and Israel we've defined our interests in regard to these two countries completely wrong. We've fetishized stability or influence (which granted are important) But we've done so at a cost to US image in the region - and as we are learning right now we haven't really gotten much stability in return. Indeed, when push comes to shove both Israel and Egypt (not to mention Afghanistan and Pakistan) elect to ignore us when they feel the behavior we're urging runs contrary to their perceived interests. And that's all well and good for Israel and Egypt to make those decisions (I for one applaud countries acting in their perceived self-interest!). But why then do we prize these relationships and also provide billions in assistance when both countries feel quite comfortable ignoring us when our interests and their interests diverge? Shouldn't all that aid buy us something in return other than a peace agreement that both countries currently seem to value - and shouldn't we be willing to use it as a lever to encourage policy changes that we support? 

Now I suppose nothing about this is terribly surprising; allies diverge in their interests all the time. But what's odd is that we seem to have flipped around that old maxim about permanent interests and permanent allies - the only thing that maintains permanence in US foreign policy these days is our allies . . . even when our interests change.

That leads to the next point; the way we define our interests is not the way our "allies" define their interests. Not surprisingly Hosni Mubarak doesn't feel like committing political suicide because all of a sudden we become very interested in seeing democracy take root in the Middle East. Israel doesn't feel much like stopping settlement expansion or taking risks for peace simply because the US wants to improve its image in the Arab world. And in Pakistan, they don't have much interest in cracking down on the Afghan Taliban or perhaps ending its support for jihadist terror groups simply because we're trying to extricate ourselves from a war next door. 

None of these are minor disagreements; in some respects they go to the heart of our bilateral relationships - so again at the price of maintaining "stability" or what we think is stability we are allowing our short-term interests in the region to suffer.

The saddest part of this is that we seem to have convinced ourselves that if we just find the right mix of carrots and sticks we can convince each of these countries to act in a way that furthers our interests - and acts against theirs. But do you notice how that never seems to work?

That leads to the last and perhaps most important point - we radically overestimate our ability to affect the behavior of other countries. Even with 100,000 troops on the ground in Afghanistan we can't get Hamid Karzai to stop stealing elections and engaging in corruption; we pile billions upon more billions to Pakistan, we declare a new direction for US-Pakistan relations and nothing changes - OBL remains on the loose & the Pakistanis continue to support the Afghan Taliban. 

Now perhaps it's a failure to wield more sticks - but even here our influence is overstated. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, we can't really use sticks because our foreign policy misjudgments (in particular, fetishizing the war on terror) have created a situation in which we need these countries and their leaders more than they need us. We could use a stick against Israel but domestic politics won't allow it; and as for Egypt - the threat of "Islam" or the impact on the relationship with Israel holds us back (and this pre-dates the current uprising). 

So on the one hand you could say we have terrible allies - and you'd be right. But the better takeaway is that we prize our "friends" (who aren't really our friends) probably a bit more than we do our interests. If we were more clear-headed about what out actual interests are then we might do a better job of not getting involved in such dysfunctional bilateral relationships.

Moreover, one can't help but come away from an examination of US foreign policy over the past few months and conclude that we're not quite as powerful as we would like - and we dramatically overestimate our own ability to shape global affairs. There is a myth of American omnipotence on the world stage and granted we are a powerful and influential nation, but there are real and significant limits to that power - and we don't seem to do a very job of recognizing they exist.  

And to that final point a good part of the reason why we don't recognize the limits of our power is because we define our interests in a limitless manner and then assume that we have the diplomatic, political and military influence to shape those interests. Well, as we are seeing right now across a broad swath of the Middle East and South Asia, we don't. That is perhaps the best takeaway from recent events - the need for a bit more modesty and realism in how we conduct our foreign policy.