Good News from the Islamic World Posted by Heather Hurlburt

Just as the Bush Administration decides to throw in the towel on post-conflict nation-building, there’s some good news from the slow-mo, frustrating, not-with-a-blunt-instrument side of the house where conflicts sometimes actually get resolved and nations get built.

It was easy to miss – one graf in the New York Times announcing the signing of a peace agreement in Aceh, the rebellious province of Indonesia where fighting since 1976 has claimed 9,000 lives and raised concerns about Islamic fundamentalism.  (To be fair, more coverage in the Washington Times and quite a bit more coverage in the Washington Post.  What’s the Grey Lady’s problem?)

"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">A previous agreement, signed in 2002, fell apart in five months.  But while my former employers the International Crisis Group caution that the road ahead will be difficult, their peerless Indonesia expert Sidney Jones writes that “’can-do’ excitement is in the air, however, as though the impossible may just be achievable.”

There's also some decent coverage on the BBC, but I'm going to plug ICG's report again, because the detail are fascinating.  Anyone thinking about how conflict resolution and peacemaking actually happen in the post-Iraq era ought to give it a look.

Why did this happen now?  Three reasons, says ICG:  Indonesia’s newly-elected vice president wanted to make a deal and reached out; Indonesia’s military offensive of the previous year had weakened GAM rebels on the ground; and the tsunami, which hit Aceh harder than any other region, had given everyone the opportunity to look for a fresh start.

A peace in Aceh has huge potential significance for the prospects of settling the archipelago’s other simmering conflicts and ultimately for the future of stability, democracy and moderate Islam in the world’s largest Muslim nation. 

After the peace was mediated not by the UN, US or ASEAN, but by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari (who helped pull the Kosovo peace out of a hat in June 1999), monitoring will be provided by a coalition of the EU and five southeast Asian nations.    ICG has some good specific points on what else is needed from the donor community.

It’s great to see the EU in the lead on the security side here; this is why common EU security institutions are good for US interests.  Now let’s see the US step up (and follow through) on the donor side to help a Muslim nation out.  And, press and punditocracy, let’s highlight what just might be a major Islamic peace success in the making.  (Remember, Indonesia is the world's one Islamic country where views of the US are improving.  Why?  Aid after the tsunami.)

Call it Mouse-FTA Posted by Heather Hurlburt

Isn't anybody going to call the Bush Administration on its claim that CAFTA marks "a major success?"

The six CAFTA countries (Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua) together make up the US's 13th-largest export market, absorbing $15 billion of US exports annually.  (The booster website freetradeforamericas.org comes up with the marvelous stat that this is more than the US exports to Russia, Indonesia and India combined -- a great example of totally irrelevant demonstration of addition skills.)  Nice, but not exactly earth-shattering.

OK, what's the potential for growth?  Their combined GDP comes in at less than half of Argentina's, one-sixth of Brazil's, and less than one-tenth of India's -- to name a few other places where we don't yet have free trade agreements.  So again, let's rein in our enthusiasm.

And what about the national security argument that President Bush apparently used to peel off enough Republican doubters?  Well, almost 80 percent of the region's products were already being admitted to the US under other trade preference systems.  So we may all hope (except the garment and sugar industries...) that the final 20 percent drives an export boom that lifts Nicaragua, for example, out of its competition with Haiti for poorest country in the hemisphere.  But I, for one, will not be holding my breath.

The truth is, and it would be nice to see someone other than Michael Barone point this out, that CAFTA was an important win for President Bush because he needed a win, NOT because of its earth-shattering impact on US and Central American economies.  Likewise, a loss for CAFTA might have put a final end to Administration hopes of driving through the becalmed Free Trade Area of the Americas on its watch.  Or reviving the current round of WTO talks -- where possible tariff reductions in areas such as agriculture could happen on a large enough scale to make a significant difference for US producers (some for the better and some for the worse) and for the developing-country producers we claim to want to help politically (e.g. Africa and South Asia.)

It might also be pointed out that Administration strong-arm tactics both in negotiating and ratifying this agreement may have done as much to harm as to help the cause of free trade.  But to know that, you'd have to ask the Brazilians, the Argentines, the Indians...

**Update -- Ed Gresser of the Progressive Policy Institute suggests that this 80% figure is unreliable and likely an overstatement.  He adds, "the CAFTA countries weren't getting off as easy as many people think."  Point taken.

Ed's own case for CAFTA predicts "modest" trade benefits and describes the agreement as part of the foundation for a wider hemispheric strategy for the next Administration.  I give Ed credit for honesty and creative thinking, both of which are in short supply.  He is always worth reading.  But I counter that part of the strategy for maintaining a good open trade policy is showing that you can create a discriminating open trade policy.

Hillary, Take it Back! Posted by Lorelei Kelly

Okay, now that I've come to terms with the fact that raising yucca plants and goats in New Mexico may be a fine career switch for  me, I must comment on the recent DLC proposals--contained in the new issue of Blueprint called "How America Can Win Again" put forward and roundly endorsed by many Democrats in Congress,  including Senator Clinton. Liberal bloggers are an editorial target in the issue--which has caused all kinds of fine rumpus online.

First, there's the call to unity"Less than four years ago, the attacks of Sept. 11 united Americans like no event since Pearl Harbor. For a brief, shining moment, country -- not party -- was all that mattered."

Yes, politics is ugly, but it was the rabid ideological pyromaniacs of the conservative "revolution" in 1994 that paved the path we are treading today. Maybe politics are polarizing further because some liberals have finally realized that since we're not even allowed in the ring anymore we might as well stand and fight on principle. The prevailing conservative mind-set is NOT a two-way street. It thrives on absolutes. As my dad (a former Republican) said --their ownership society is "I have mine and now I want yours!"  After watching this president and his cohorts on Capitol Hill bully their way into Iraq, and the conservative leadership of Congress capitulating on its own prerogative of checks and balances--I think some serious rabble rousing may be in order. They started it.

"We challenge Washington to increase America's Armed Forces by 100,000 troops. Iraq isn't the last war we'll have to fight, and we need a bigger army. We need to challenge more Americans to serve, and give them the means to do so. "

Okay, now stop this calling for all these new troops. This is a throwaway line unless you tell me exactly what items in the defense budget you are willing to cut in order to pay for the personnel.  Even the Defense Department has now cast into doubt the F22 and the Joint Strike Fighter. Why? WE CAN'T AFFORD THEM. Also, this expansion of troops assumes the normalization of pre-emptive war and you'd think that our experience in Iraq would diminish that option somewhat. Our future looks like Afghanistan, not Iraq.

The DLC could contribute much more to the debate by calling for a Manhattan Project-like effort to counter the problem of improvised explosive devices (IED) and embarass the defense industry for being such slackers about real warfighting needs. Or how about convening a joint conference with the Air Force entitled "Beyond Airpower"?  Secretary Rumsfeld is right about smaller, expeditionary forces being the need of the future. Where he's wrong is to stress technology over human beings as the way to achieve it. We need commanders who can take a city and then reorganize their battalion on the spot to restore the city. No Flash Gordon widget can do that.

"Washington ought to close the revolving door, so that members of Congress and administration officials can't become lobbyists as soon as they've left office."

Agreed. But there should also be much stricter controls on military officers who retire and then go into the defense industry. Yes they provide reality tested advice, but they also contribute to the hypnotic chant that more defense spending will purchase more security.  Who wants to argue with a military professional? Why doesn't the DLC help create an entire think tank for returned soldiers and retiring officers who would like to make a living doing something other than shilling for Boeing? Like advising policy makers?

"We challenge Washington to put its own house in order. It should cut congressional and nondefense staff by 10 percent, reduce federal consultants by 150,000..."

This one requires a little cognitive mapping.  This is trying to get a little bit of the "we hate government, too" action away from the Norquist trolls. Congress is broken. It is overwhelmed. It can no longer even perform basic functions of oversight. We need more talented congressional staff across the board, not less. Besides, if this order is carried out with the Republicans still in power, guess who is going to take it in the shorts?  How about roundly standing up for all public service? The reason we have so many consultants is because of the malarial fevered downsizing promoted by conservatives for thirty years.  The Agency for International Development is little more than a contracting shell because it has been stripped of its permanent professional specialists: the institutional memory so vital for capacity building is lost along with them.  Even the conservative's sacred cow--the military itself-- is being sacrificed in their "free market" . Witness the privatization of military duties in Iraq and the morale busting salary differentials that go along with it.

The overall problem with the DLC's ideas is that there's not much new in them. In the security sections, they still rely on the military to solve all our problems for us. Knowing this is the furthest thing from being "anti-military".  Civilians need to grow up.  Indeed, at the Marine's Irregular Warfare conference a few weeks back, one of the sessions inspired a lively Q and A.  It was about the military's ability to foster conditions leading to stability and IPB (Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield). Because Marines generally don't worry about manhood issues during policy discussions (unlike Karl Rove) it became clear that paying attention to   psychological and societal aspects of a culture is vital--as is institution building.  The military is in a process of learning backward. One marine said "if we had done the planning for phase four (rebuilding) we would not have fought this war."

It was the smartest thing I've heard in a long, long time.

Arsenal Abroad: Welcome Anita Sharma Posted by Heather Hurlburt

Now batting Wednesday mornings and whenever else she desires for the next week, please welcome Anita Sharma.  Anita is currently working tsunami relief in Indonesia for the International Organization for Migration, having previously served with IOM in Iraq, Jordan and Kuwait. She is also a veteran of the Woodrow Wilson Center, the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, and Kerry-Edwards ’04, among other fine causes.

I am leaving behind the laptop and hitting the road for a week, with my beloved, the BloggerBabe, a backseat of new car toys, and a frontseat full of reading to catch up on. (Granta, the New Yorker, Squandered Victory, Matt Bai’s piece on George Lakoff, a bio of George Balanchine, who am I kidding?).  See you offline.

Another Go at Exceptionalism Posted by Heather Hurlburt

Maybe it's because I am getting ready to head off to my high school reunion, but in the aftermath of the London bombings I've been remembering my first encounters with the different ways American and European societies confront our problems with ethnicity and race.

We had Swedish exchange students one summer, and the first thing those supposedly-sophisticated young folk wanted to do was go "see some black people in a slum."  I remember my mother shamefacedly trying to talk them out of it.

So you can imagine my astonishment when I got to puttering around Western Europe a few years later and discovered that Britain and France had slums and no-go zones, too.  Then I got to Eastern Europe and was hailed by a Nicaraguan student -- "ah, Americans, not racist like the Soviets."

If this is my 20th high school reunion I'm far too old to be shocked, but I was, um, surprised to hear people on the BBC feeling betrayed that this carnage had been unleashed by their "fellow Britons."

Americans who have lived in many European countries for any length of time will tell you, much as they love the people, the atmosphere, the politics, the way of life, they often are surprised at how much a foreigner they feel after decades, marriage, children, real commitment to the society.  Immigrants from less-developed countries will often tell you worse.

You want American exceptionalism, here it is:  we are better, not perfect, not faultless, not immune from such attacks but better, at offering anyone who comes here the chance to fit in as much as they want to.  Have dark skin?  You're still American.  Speak funny-sounding English?  Hey, join the club.  Practice an unusual religion -- you've still got a fighting shot.  Have a baby here, as of yet, anyhow, and the kid is an American, no questions asked.

This isn't something any political movement can claim credit for -- we're an immigrant society.  And it does have a dark side -- Americanization can be pretty relentless, and yes, the resulting culture can be rather lowest common denominator.  (On the other hand, much European tv is abominably bad too.) 

But this is something American politics can ruin.  We can ruin it by preaching a version of American exceptionalism that ignores our failings and is so grandiose we couldn't possibly live up to it. 

We can ruin it by undermining the level of tolerance we've achieved, by failing to use our secular and spiritual pulpits to keep America's climate open and inclusive.  (Compare the pronouncements of Blair, other British officials, and British religious figures with some of the things that happened after 9-11, when clergypeople from conservative and "liberal" denominations were denounced for appearing on pulpits with Muslim clergy.)

And, by the way, we could ruin it by slamming our doors shut on immigrants.

With that, I'm off to celebrate that temple to liberty, the American high school.  (Gulp.)

In Defense of Maximalism Posted by Derek Chollet

Yesterday over 30,000 people gathered in a small hill village in eastern Bosnia to mourn over 8,000 people – mostly men and boys – who were slaughtered 10 years ago at Srebrenica.  Much has been written about this grim anniversary over the past few days – about the horror of the biggest war crime in Europe since the Holocaust; about the failures of the United Nations, Europe, and the United States; about the pathetic fact that, a decade after thousands of international peacekeepers poured into Bosnia (first led by NATO, and now the EU), the chief perpetrators of this and other genocidal acts – Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic – remain on the loose, even though we know where they are and have the power to apprehend them; and about how far Bosnia has come, but most important, how far that deeply troubled country still has to go.

But there’s another reason to remember Srebrenica: for what came next.  After years of dithering, letting the Europeans take lead and trying endlessly to reach consensus before taking any action, Srebrenica forced President Clinton and his team finally to decide to move decisively and launch a muscular, no-holds-barred American effort involving both diplomacy and military force to end the war, culminating in the November 1995 Dayton peace accords.  Their policy had a patina of allied involvement and buy-in, but in the end it was—do I dare say it?—unilateral, rejecting the UN and keeping allies at long-arms-length (and ticking them off in the process) so the United States could basically do what it wanted.

Yes, the Administration tried to work with others first (remember the Clinton mantra: try to work together if we can, go alone if we must), but it tried for too long – after all, it did not prevent Srebrenica.  And many Clinton officials (including Albright and Holbrooke) were calling for decisive, unilateral U.S. action for some time. 

The course the Clinton Administration belatedly chose fit within a well-established American diplomatic tradition: a policy that challenged the status quo and rejected incrementalism, reflecting an all-or-nothing approach that was driven less by concerns about niceties or allied consensus than by getting something done.

In a recent article in The National Interest (and in a New York Times oped making many of the same points), former Clinton Administration official Steve Sestanovich describes this as “maximalism,” making the point that this is the way the U.S. typically—and successfully--addresses big international problems.  It often makes people nervous, and always ruffles allied feathers, but it gets results.   “Had the most controversial American policies…been more thoroughly compromised,” Sestanovich writes, “had they, to be blunt, been diluted by the counsels of allies—they might easily have failed.”

This is not a wholesale endorsement of unilateralism--we are seeing everyday, in Iraq and elsewhere, the costs of going it alone.  But thinking about Srebrenica does serve as a reminder that when it comes to solving the world’s problems, a little American muscular unilateralism—maximalism—ain’t always a bad thing.

Did I Go to Sleep and Wake Up in 1973? Posted by Heather Hurlburt

According to Newsweek's account, Karl Rove had a "double super secret background" conversation with Matt Cooper to tell him:

... Rove offered him a 'big warning' not to 'get too far out on Wilson.'  Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by "DCIA" -- CIA Director George Tenet -- or Vice President Dick Cheney.  Rather, 'it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip.' 

In all of the commentariat's heavy breathing about whether Rove gets indicted or not, I would hate for it to get lost that, whether or not it turns out to be illegal, it is now clear that Rove and others as yet unnamed were taking up a lot of time (paid for by taxpayers) to smear and embarrass two public servants, one of whom spoke in public certain uncomfortable truths which we now know to be, well, true.  I'm hoping to see this smear operation laid out in some detail somewhere soon (mass circulation, please?) so that more people have a chance to understand what kind of White House this is, indictments or no.

My better half sticks his head in and wonders, if Nixon was tragedy and Iran-Contra was farce, what is this?

The Public Wants an Energy Policy Posted by Heather Hurlburt

I'm weeks late to the party on this one, but this survey on environment/energy policy deserves even more attention than it got -- and some hard thinking by progressives.  How have we lost the environment as a political issue when more than half of Americans think our environment is getting worse and more than two-thirds think the government should do more about it?

Key finding for international affairs:  More than nine in ten Americans think that US dependence on foreign oil is a serious problem and want the government to mandate more fuel-efficient cars as a leading response.

Hmmm...

(Frivolous notes:  people who read blogs are more than twice as likely to know what fuel cells are than people who don't -- or more likely to say that they know what fuel cells are.  And people who know who Jon Stewart is are more likely to say that he is a trusted resource for environmental news than people who know who Bill O'Reilly is are to say so about him.)

The Arrogance (and Anxiety?) of Power Posted by Michael Signer

God knows why, but I woke up at 3:50 a.m. this morning and found only C-SPAN to watch on TV.  Apropos of the Karl Rove debacle, Senator Byrd was cross-examining Secretary Rumsfeld, on the rough topic of the arrogance of power.  I am going to paraphrase here, since there's no transcript available on-line, and I can't find Byrd's comments anywhere (please post below if you find them, and I'll incorporate).

Byrd, very delicately and diplomatically, said that he couldn't recall the Senate being lectured quite as much before by a Secretary of Defense.  He said that he feared that this Administration had forgotten the basic constitutional design of the American system, with three co-equal branches of government.  And he said that it was the unique job of the legislative branch to respond to the people -- and that because the people are anxious about Iraq, the Senate is doing its job to question the Administration aggressively about its answers to the situation there.

The look on Rumsfeld's face was amazing.  I missed his exchange with Ted Kennedy, which from the WaPo account sounds like it was more confrontational and fiery.  What was different about Byrd's monologue (and, believe me, I'm no fall-down fan of his; I think his perspective and career are unique, but his KKK past and grandiose self-conception as a Roman historian muddy the waters for me) was the tone of melancholy -- of a sort of historical sadness.  His reprimand was not angry; it was regretful. 

We truly see the outlines of an Imperial Presidency here.  I have a friend who's a professor of political theory who tells me that in his class on ancient theory, Thucydides has become more relevant every semester over the last couple of years.  Thucydides taught that Athens' empire waned as it became more arrogant with its power, and less interested in earning its authority as a leader from the world community of which it was a part.  Arrogation and demand are the tools of a weakening power; confidence and leadership are the instruments of a strong one.

All of which made me reflect further on what was underlying Rove's disastrous comments before the New York Conservative Party.  I understand our media habits of late of being fascinated by the retrospective derring-do of our political Svengalis, our Rasputins, ranging all the way back to McKinley's Mark Hanna to Reagan's Mike Deaver to Bush I's Lee Atwater to Clinton's James Carville to, today, Bush II's Karl Rove.  Fine. 

But to put my pop-psych hat on:  it's one thing for Rove to coolly diagnose how he tore his opponents apart.  It's another thing entirely for his diagnosis to be inflected (or infected) by his own partisan anxiety and rage.

I agree with Garance Franke-Ruta at the American Prospect that this was outrageous, and that he should apologize.  But what's going on underneath his remarks may be more interesting, and important.  How anxious are these conservatives now about this war they started but did not plan well, this insurgency whose raison d'etre is being supplied every day by their arrogance, and an American people whose patience is running thin?

Anxious enough to smear (as Kevin Drum acutely notes) the entire left as intentionally unpatriotic? 

(I agree wholeheartedly, by the way, with Heather's robust, forward-looking analysis of how to move forward and away from Rove's remarks).

America's Image Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Today the Pew Center on Global Attitudes published its 2005 poll, which is basically an international popularity contest.   The good news is that the U.S.'s favorability ratings are up just a tad.  But there's plenty of bad news too.  The full report is available at Pew's website, but a few highlights are:

• The U.S.'s image is recovering in Indonesia, Lebanon and Jordan.  It is up slightly in most of Western Europe , but down sharply in Turkey.  Pew logically attributes the Indonesia numbers (a jump from 15-38% favorable) to the tsunami relief effort, which demonstrates the impact compassion and generosity can have even in places where we're deeply unpopular.


• China's image is a helluva lot better than ours – of 16 countries surveyed, only Canada, India and Poland rated the U.S. higher than China.   All of Western Europe prefers China to the U.S. by a margin of 10% or more.  The same is true in Arab and most Asian countries surveyed.  This supports the theme of China's mounting influence and the success of their diplomatic offensive.  While Europeans do not want to see China becoming a rival to U.S. military might, people in Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey and Jordan do.


• Americans are coming to grips with how unpopular we are.  Sixty-nine percent of Americans believe our country is generally disliked around the world, a higher percentage than in any other nation.  But Pew apparently did not ask how concerned Americans were about this ill-feeling.  Is the concern strong enough to influence policy?


• As for the reasons why America is disliked, President Bush himself tops the list, followed by the perception that we act unilaterally.  Of note, though, we've gained some ground in terms of international views on how likely we are to take others' interests into account in determining our foreign policy. Again, Pew says this may be in part the tsunami affect.   


• One interesting finding is that America is waning in terms of being perceived as the world's leading "land of opportunity" with Australia, Britain, and Canada edging us out.   It's hard not to link this to negative perceptions of the U.S. and our crackdown on immigrants.   One question is what long-term economic implications this may have.


• One surprising finding is that in several places like Indonesia and Pakistan, while America's image has improved, American people are held in lower regard than in previous surveys.  We've always held to the notion that people around the world separate their views of the U.S. government and policies from their attitudes toward Americans; is this no longer true?  is U.S. public support for policies that are unpopular around the world narrowing the gap?  Will that make anti-U.S. feelings more durable?


• Most of the world continues to view the Iraq war as a disaster, though views are mixed on the U.S.'s role in promoting democracy in the Middle East, with credit going to Bush in some places. 


• Support for the war on terror is stronger, but slipping almost everywhere except for Indonesia.  So the tsunami affect carries over to the GWOT.  This suggests to me that the sort of grand bargain that Kofi Annan's been trying to push (we support the developing world on their priorities, and they us on ours) may have some potential. 

Lots more interesting stuff, so check it out.