American Footprints

Knowing Is Only Half the Battle

Eric Martin — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:56:24 +0000

Gregg Carlstrom offered the following theories regarding the motivations behind the recent spate of arrests of Taliban figures by Pakistani security forces :

On the Taliban arrests, there are two major theories about Pakistan’s motives. One says Pakistan rounded up “moderate” Taliban leaders, those who favored reconciliation talks, so they would be replaced by a more “extremist” faction loyal to the ISI. The other argues that Pakistan plans to use the detained “moderates” as conduits back to the Taliban. (I guess there’s a sort-of third theory, that the arrests stem ~~more~~ partly from Obama’s diplomacy, but there’s still an element of Pakistani self-interest there.)

Both of these theories are good for Pakistan. One is good for the United States. Neither is good for Afghanistan: In both scenarios, Afghan interests will be subjugated to Pakistani interests during reconciliation talks.

Patrick Barry reacts to Carlstrom by preaching the virtues of awareness with respect to Pakistan’s intentions/objectives:

One of the main critiquesof the previous administration’s Pakistan policy was that it paid little mind to understanding Pakistan’s motivations. This inattention allowed President Musharraf to play a double-game with the U.S., extending assurances that he was committed to routing the Taliban with one hand, while actively working against U.S. policy for the sake of Pakistan’s interests with the other. It would be a shame if this administration forgot that lesson, all because Pakistan decided to arrest some militants for reasons that are a mystery to us.

While Barry is right to counsel that attention be paid to Pakistan’s motives, vigilance alone is insufficient. Our policymakers should take it one step further and actually seek to accommodate Pakistani interests (which center around maintaining its influence in Afghanistan as a regional counterbalance to India – whose influence in Afghanistan has increased at the expense of Pakistan’s post-U.S. invasion).

After all, awareness of motives only informs us of the reasons that Pakistan has played, and will play, spoiler. But the double-game, as well as the patient game, of frustrating U.S. designs will persist in some form or another unless and until Pakistan is satisfied that their prior proxy/ally/strategic redoubt is not converted from an asset to a liability vis-a-vis India. In seeking to broach a compromise acceptable to both the U.S. and Pakistan, the U.S. may be able to achieve some level of stability prior to departure, and ensure that Pakistan’s influence manifests in some less pernicious manifestation for the Afghan people and with respect to al-Qaeda’s presence. Without such an accord, the U.S. will either continue to spin its tires, or withdraw without exerting positive influence over Pakistan’s reassertion of influence.

As Carlstrom points out, Afghanistan will likely suffer in the process, but there is little the U.S. can do from half a globe away to change that equation when Pakistan sits right next door, with much shared culture, history, religion and ideology. Further, just as the U.S. has what it perceives as valid security interests in that region such that it demands other nations respect at the expense of their own, so too does Pakistan have its own perceived interests that they place above all others. No matter how much we insist, Pakistan will not substitute our interests for their own.

Thus, the goal should be to not only appreciate Pakistani motives, but to strike a balance that goes as far as possible in terms of protecting the Afghan people while remaining realistic about Pakistan’s vital interests. While unsavory in some ways in the sense that this process accepts some level of foreign interference in Afghanistan, what options aren’t unsavory or dependent on foreign patrons? A 20 year occupation by NATO troops? U.S. forces alone?

Besides, letting Pakistan attempt to cultivate influence in Afghanistan won’t be cost-free for Pakistan, nor will Pakistan be able to easily dominate its less populous neighbor. Alliances will depend on the realization of mutual interests on at least some level, and there are strong currents in Afghanistan that resent heavy-handed Pakistani interference - even within the Taliban movement. In fact, in his memoir, Abdul Salam Zaeef seems to harbor more resentment and animosity toward the Pakistanis than he does toward the Americans (despite his being detained and tortured at Bagram and Gitmo for several years).

Perhaps it would be prudent to get out of the way. There are few other feasible options regardless.

By Invitation Only

Eric Martin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:52:15 +0000

Peter Beinart is worried that if U.S. troops leave Iraq, the civil war will reignite and and all the hard work on the part of our selfless liberators will be for naught. His piece is all over the map (both literally and figuratively) and is as muddled a crie d coeur for the soon-to-be-abandoned Iraq as you’ll come across. Abandon. There’s that word again. But I digress.

Beinart begins his piece by reaching back into the history of benevolent democracy promotion to resurrect familiar Kiplingesque admonitions:

Sure, America has midwifed a democracy in Iraq. Yet when British troops left their African, Middle Eastern, and Asian dominions, they left behind many embryonic democracies, too. Most soon collapsed.

I’m not sure of the moral from these stories that Beinart wishes to impart on the reader. Is he suggesting that, as with his counsel for U.S. forces in Iraq, British troops should have stayed in those locales indefinitely? Didn’t the inhabitants have a say? Would longer dalliances have led to stronger democratic institutions not dependent on, and warped by, foreign interference? Beinart doesn’t expand.

One obvious and fundamental lesson would be that colonial rule, aggressive war and alien governance templates imposed from abroad are not conducive to the formation of durable democracies. For Beinart, however, acknowledging this truth would undermine the liberal hawk case for “war for democracy’s sake” that he so famously championed in the run-up to the Iraq war. So instead we get this vague and uninspired defense of colonialism and unprovoked war, and the inability of the natives to make good on the gifts bestowed at the barrel of a gun.

After praising the successof “the surge” - a policy whose primary objective was to foster lasting political reconciliation by giving Iraqi groups the room to negotiate outside of the paradigm of intense violence – Beinart provides a detailed, point by point recitation of the surge’s glaring failures:

Although security has dramatically improved, Iraq’s leaders have resolved barely any of the conflicts that nearly tore the country apart a few years back. There’s been no agreement on how to distribute oil revenue, on the distribution of power between the federal government and Iraq’s regions, or on the city of Kirkuk, which Arabs and Kurds both claim as their own. Stephen Biddle, a Council of Foreign Relations defense analyst with close ties to General David Petraeus, thinks the potential for civil war remains high, as does former Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. As the International Crisis Group’s Peter Harling recently put it, “Nothing” has “been solved in Iraq, fundamentally.”

Beinart cites these fears to support the contention that the U.S. military should remain in Iraq in large numbers past the withdrawal dates outlined in the SOFA. But his warnings belie his recommendations. The problem with the theory of the surge as fostering political reconciliation was that it had the dynamic exactly inverted. Iraqi politicians were not failing to reach a broad political reconciliation because of the fighting, they were fighting because they couldn’t reach that political reconciliation. Put a lid on the conflict and those divisions remain, as do the disparate objectives, historical grievances and competition for power that was what was driving the conflict.

But here’s the good news: Iraqis appear tired of large scale fighting. Much of the surge’s limited success in reducing violence stemmed from Iraqi decisions and other macabre trends not dependent on a temporary spike in troop numbers that came and went already. The various competing groups may just be able to cobble together a patchwork modus vivendi capable of forestalling a descent into chaos. But, as always, another year or two of large scale U.S. troop presence is not going to make or break the outcome, or affect the long term calculus involved for the various groups. They will either choose to compromise, or not, but the choice will be theirs, not ours.

After all, while our troops are supposed to be a force capable of interdicting violence, we should remember that the many tens of thousands of Iraqis that died in the civil wars/insurgencies, as well as the 4 million or so displaced, all suffered their respective fates with over 100,000 troops in country. Not only will Iraqis engage om their civil conflicts with or without us in country, but our presence past the SOFA deadline could ignite insurgent violence provoked directly and solely by our presence.

Regardless, the biggest risks for Iraq are structural, long term divisions and disparities that we can’t rectify within the confines of any limited timeline (if at all, and I have serious doubts), and yet we lack the resources to attempt a long term blocking pattern (a fact that Beinart himself acknowledges).

Nevertheless, Beinart marches on:

As a result, it’s a good bet that powerful people in the U.S. military will whisper in Obama’s ear that U.S. troops withdrawals must be slowed down, and that the SOFA must be reupholstered. Ricks, who like Biddle has close ties to the officer corps, says the U.S. will need 30,000 to 50,000 troops in Iraq for a long time if it wants to avoid a civil war that drags in the entire region.

My guess is that Ricks’ view will prevail. The military has invested epic quantities of money and blood in Iraq, and U.S. commanders don’t want it to be in vain.

What’s amazing about this analysis is that Beinart completely ignores and demeans the sovereignty of Iraq – despite his ostensible concern for the endurance of Iraq’s democracy. While praising one election, and expressing fears about the prospect for subsequent elections, Beinart completely strips the Iraqi people of agency - an opinion even – about such an essential decision as the presence of tens of thousands of foreign troops on Iraqi soil for years to come.

But it’s easier to ignore the Iraqis as their position is likely very problematic. As Gregg Carlstrom observes:

And if Ricks really thinks the Iraqi government will revise the status-of-forces agreement to extend the U.S. occupation — well, he’s wrong. Some Iraqi politicians might support that in private, but none will say so in public.

Right. Maliki’s rise to popularity was very much buttressed by his claim to having charted the course for American withdrawal. A major reversal now (or in the near future) would undermine his popularity – or the popularity of any successor faction (to the extent his competitors would be so inclined, certainly not the Sadrists).

Marc Lynch makes an excellent point:

The other main headline of the Iraqi election campaign has to be the overwhelmingly nationalist tone of all major politicians and the marginal American role in the process. The election campaign (as opposed to the results, which we still don’t know) showed clearly that Iraqis are determined to seize control of their own future and make their own decisions. The U.S. ability to intervene productively has dramatically receded, as the Obama administration wisely recognizes. The election produced nothing to change the U.S. drawdown schedule, and offered little sign that Iraqis are eager to revise the SOFA or ask the U.S. to keep troops longer. Iraq is in Iraqi hands, and the Obama administration is right both to pay close attention and to resist the incessant calls to “do more.” This doesn’t mean ignoring Iraq — the truth is, the Obama administration has been paying a lot more attention to Iraq than the media has over the last year. It means moving to develop a normal, constructive strategic relationship with the new Iraqi government, with the main point of contact the Embassy and the private sector rather than the military, and adhering in every way possible to the SOFA and to the drawdown timeline.

It is quite possible that the Iraqi government will request that between 5,000-10,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq passed the SOFA deadline in a training/advisory role. In fact, I’d say the odds are better than even. But a large scale presence is unlikely. And, most importantly, any such limited or large scale presence will be as dependent on Iraqi decisions as U.S. willingness - not based solely on the reluctance of U.S. military personnel to give up their position, and their whisperings in the U.S. President’s ear.

After all, you can’t raze a democracy to save it.

I Prefer to Give the Inhabitants a Say Before You Blow their Town Away

Eric Martin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:12:30 +0000

The residents of Iraq took to the polls Sunday for another parliamentary election. While the results in terms of voter preference won’t be known for several days, the turnout (in the 60% range) was solid, if not overwhelming (turnout was lower than the mid-70% seen during the last parliamentary elections in 2005, but up from the 50%+ turnout during the most recent provisional elections).

Despite the violence that claimed the lives of 38 Iraqis on election day (the result of multiple attacks carried out amidst a comprehensive security clampdown), Sunday was accurately described as ”relatively calm” – despite, further, the fact that “14 people were killed on Friday, 27 two days before that.” Yet that’s what passes for calm in a relative sense in Iraq when compared to what could be and what was. After all, despite the “success” of the surge, on average 300 Iraqis are still killed each month in political violence.

The fact that this achievement in body count reduction only takes on the faintest hint of success when compared to the horror of the prior monthly butcher’s bill, hasn’t stopped the usual suspects (and some slightly less typical) from claiming victory – and rewriting Iraq as a success (as if an eventual positive result could ever justify the unthinkable and immeasurable tragedy in lives lost and shattered, dollars spent and opportunity costs incurred in terms of neglecting other priorities). But that’s the thing.

To talk about success in this context is to pervert the applicable chronology of the war (the war started with the surge) focus exclusively on the benefits (a democratic Iraq, with Saddam dead and buried) exclusive of the costs (too many to list), and even then, based entirely (yet again) on best-case-scenario expectations (assuming smooth sailing ahead in terms of Iraq’s peaceful transition, and discounting the increased power and influence of Iran).

But other than that, mission accomplished! Daniel Larison is highly quotable on the subject:

Whenever possible, I refer to the Iraq war as a war of aggression, because that is what it is and has always been. One thing that has often puzzled me about the reflex to declare victory in Iraq, as a Newsweek cover story did recently, is that I don’t know what it could possibly mean to achieve a victory that anyone would want to celebrate as the result of a war of aggression. Tens and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of Americans are dead. Tens of thousands of Americans are injured, some of them severely, and Iraq now boasts one of the highest percentages of disabled people in the world. Millions of Iraqis were turned into refugees or displaced within their own country. All of this has come about because of a war that did not have to happen. All of this has come about because of a war we started. It is bad enough that our government unleashed this hell on people who had never actually done America any harm, but it is unconscionable that any of us celebrate what has been done as if it were something good and worthwhile.

Of course the new administration will try to make the best of it, claim progress and take credit for anything it can. That is in the political self-interest of this administration. Having inherited a mess that the political class has convinced itself was improving, it would not be advantageous to be the one overseeing the unraveling. The rest of us are not burdened by such considerations.

I don’t think it is particular noble to destroy another people’s country on the basis of unfounded, paranoid fears that its small, economically weak, militarily inferior government posed grave threats to the global superpower. There are many words that come to mind to describe this, but noble is not one of them. It is not especially noble to do this with no meaningful plan for restoring order and governance in the wake of the invasion. There is no nobility to be found in the afterthought of poorly constructing a democratic regime whose elections served as the trigger for massive bloodshed. Likewise, there was not much nobility when our government belatedly recognized its incompetence and failure long after it could do the civilian casualties any good and proposed a plan that would temporarily reduce violence long enough for the previous administration to get out the door. It is also hard to find anything noble in a sectarian-dominated governing coalition that oversees a politicized military and police force that has begun reviving the nastier bits of the old regime.

What a Danny Downer.

Khomeinism in Iraq

Brian Ulrich — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 02:26:45 +0000

Two posts I read today hint at some degree of increased strength for Khomeinist theories of government in Iraqi political. First there is Juan Cole:

“Ammar has a say in who serves as the Friday Prayer leader and sermonizer at the mosque of the shrine of Ali in the holy city of Najaf, a position of great influence. It is now held by Sayyid Yasin al-Musawi. Al-Musawi’s sermon on last Friday in Najaf contained a number of themes that suggest that ISCI may be returning to its Khomeinist roots. Al-Musawi praised political obedience to the Shiite grand ayatollahs, not just spiritual obedience. That sounded close to the Khomeinist principle of the guardianship of the jurisprudent, or rule of the ayatollahs, which prevails in Iran. And he warned of conspiracies against Iraqi independence, saying that these conspiracies were launched by ‘global arrogance and the secularists.’”

The Ammar in question is Ammar al-Hakim, leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. The other post comes from Reidar Visser:

“Among the more overlooked aspects of the Iraqi parliamentary elections that take place on Sunday is the fact that Kazim al-Haeri, a hardliner cleric of Iraqi origin residing in Qum in Iran, enthusiastically supports participation.

“Haeri belongs to a particular class and generation of Shiite scholars: He is an old-school Khomeinist. Always loyal to the paradigm of wilayat al-faqih, he has written extensive treatises on the inviolability of the power of the supreme leader, not only inside Iran but throughout the Shiite world. He remained supportive of such views when Khamenei emerged as Khomeiniâ€™s successor in the first half 1990s; after 2003 he has formed an important (if not always stable) bridge between Iranian leaders and the Sadrists of Iraq. In this role, Haeri forms the juncture where orthodox Khomeinism and radical Sadrism of southern Iraq meet, and where Tehran has found its best vantage point for domesticating radical Iraqi trends and transforming them into tools of its own interests.”

I note this without comment.

(Crossposted to my blog)

Isildur’s Bane

Eric Martin — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:39:25 +0000

Elrond and Cirdan counselled Isildur to destroy the Ring immediately in the fires of Mount Doom. But Isildur refused, saying: “This I will have as weregild for my father’s death, and my brother’s. Was it not I that dealt the Enemy his death-blow?” -The Silmarillion: “Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age,” p. 295

The Obama administration not only appears disinclined to destroy the “rings” forged by the Bush administration, but they are arguing for more and bigger rings:

The line between speech protected by the First Amendment and aid to terrorists appeared elusive at the Supreme Court on Tuesday, and the justices’ lively questioning complicated rather than clarified matters. They discussed travel to Cuba, the Communist and Nazi Parties, Tokyo Rose, treason and whether it is a crime to teach a terrorist how to play the harmonica.

Solicitor General Elena Kagan defended the law at issue in the case, which bars providing material support to terrorist organizations, as “a vital weapon in this nation’s continuing struggle against international terrorism.”Even seemingly benign help is prohibited, Ms. Kagan said. [...]Ms. Kagan gave examples of prohibited conduct. A lawyer would commit a crime, she said, by filing a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of a terrorist group. Helping such a group petition international bodies is also a crime, she added.Justice John Paul Stevens asked if there was an authentic risk that Mr. Fertig would be prosecuted were he to make a presentation on behalf of the Kurdish group at the United Nations. He seemed to expect a negative answer.But Ms. Kagan would say only that the matter would involve a “prosecutorial judgment.”

Think about that for a moment: the Obama administration is arguing that it is a crime for a lawyer to defend a group – or even write an amicus brief on behalf of a group! - that the administration declares (unilaterally, and without oversight) to be a terrorist organization. On their word. Accusation alone. Amazing. Actually, you can’t even make a public presentation at the United Nations – maybe, depending on the discretion of the prosecutor, which is a sure fire way to preserve individual freedoms.

Scalia (applying strict textualism, of course) waxes all “Say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos”:

“The Communist Party was more than an organization that had some unlawful ends,” Justice Scalia said. “It was also a philosophy of extreme socialism. And many people subscribed to that philosophy. I don’t think that Hamas or any of these terrorist organizations represent such a philosophical organization.”

As is his custom, he is spectacularly wrong. There are definite, if wrongheaded, philosophical and theological moorings binding groups like Hamas, and even and especially al-Qaeda. But no matter, the founding fathers clearly intended for the executive to have this power, etc.

(via BTC News)

I’m the Only One to Give Back Your Stolen Guns

Eric Martin — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:40:45 +0000

Via Adam Serwer, Spencer Ackerman on just the most recent findings of extreme misconduct, and law breaking, on the part of Blackwater:

Employees of the CIA-connected private security corporation Blackwater diverted hundreds of weapons, including more than 500 AK-47 assault rifles, from a U.S. weapons bunker in Afghanistan intended to equip Afghan policemen, according to an investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee. On at least one occasion, an individual claiming to work for the company evidently signed for a weapons shipment using the name of a “South Park” cartoon character. And Blackwater has yet to return hundreds of the guns to the military.

Here’s the kicker, though, from Serwer:

Meanwhile, as Ackerman notes, Blackwater is still being paid by the State Department to protect American diplomats and Afghanistan, and is also in the running for a new contract to train the same Afghan police force they stole weapons from.

But wait, it gets worse (it always does with Blackwater):

A lawsuit filed by two former employees of Blackwater charges that the controversial security contractor defrauded the U.S. government, including charging it for strippers and prostitutes, the New York Times reports.

Perhaps the most explosive charge in the lawsuit — filed by a married couple, Brad and Melan Davis, is that the company put a Filipino prostitute in Afghanistan on its payroll under the “Morale Welfare Recreation” category, then billed the government for her salary and plane tickets.

The Davis’s allege that Blackwater exercised little oversight of the billions in government contracts it has won over the last decade.

The lawsuit also claims that Melan Davis, who handled accounts for Blackwater’s contracts with FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security, approached her supervisors with concerns about the company’s book-keeping. But she was told to “back off,” and that she “would never win a medal for saving the government money.”

Davis was ultimately fired by Blackwater, now known as Xe. She claims the firing was illegal.

Considering recent legislation to withold government funds from ACORN, I think I understand the standard applied here, and it makes perfect sense: if some low level employees are caught giving advice (using a doctored videotape that greatly distorts the actual conversation) to a would-be pimp (not actually in costume), then the entire organization should be cut off from government funds entirely and in perpetuity. Can’t have that.

However, if an organization on the government payroll actually pimps out a prostitute for employee “use,” well then, no harm, no foul, boys will be boys, etc. Get it? Or, as Serwer puts it:

The Senate is holding a hearing today where several current and former Blackwater employees will be testifying, but honestly the only way Congress would stop giving Blackwater money is if it started registering black people to vote.

Pretty much. See, also, deficit peacockery!

Bab al-Mandab

Brian Ulrich — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:13:16 +0000

Normally al-Qaeda affiliates just make threats they can only carry out in their dreams, but in this case I’m not sure sure:

“Al-Qaeda has never attempted to seize and hold strategic territory, but this may be about to change, according to an audiotape message from the deputy leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). In the 12-minute statement, Sa’id al-Shihri (a.k.a. Sufyan al-Azidi) outlined a new strategy that would involve Islamist fighters from Somalia working in coordination with AQAP fighters in Yemen to secure both sides of the vital strait (al-Malahim Establishment for Media Production, February 8)…

“‘Following the offer of Somalia’s al-Shabaab Islamist movement to send fighters to join AQAP in Yemen, al-Shihri praises his ‘great brothers in Somalia’ and says they will operate on two fronts in the upcoming battle with the United States. ‘You and we are standing on the two banks of the Bab al-Mandab… We shall expel our enemies. We should complete each other in our war against our enemies, until God grants us victory or martyrdom, God willing.’”

“Elements of the Arab press quickly pointed out that al-Qaeda’s ambition may be beyond its reach. ‘Control of the Bab al-Mandab might not be easy, especially as it does not possess heavy weapons and modern boats that can be used for this purpose, but this does not mean it does not possess the logistical capabilities that can disrupt navigation in this vital international passageway’ (al-Quds al-Arabi, February 9). Nevertheless, Yemeni government officials said all such threats were taken seriously (al-Hayat, February 9; 26Sep.net [Yemen Defense Ministry], February 10).”

A Century of Fakers

Eric Martin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:32:32 +0000

In a recent piece in Foreign Policy magazine, James Traub struggles to divine the true nature of the Obama administration’s foreign policy posture – in particular, the quality of the Obama administration’s predisposition to pursue engagement with other regimes and institutions, regardless of the makeup of said organizations. In this, Traub agonizes over the potential willingness of the Obama team to compromise core values in the pursuit of perceived vital interests:

Virtually all conversations with Obama administration foreign-policy officials, no matter where they begin, come to rest at “engagement” — that vexing, mutable, all-purpose word. The U.S. president has “engaged” with rogue states, civil society, the United Nations, and citizens around the globe. Iran vindicates the policy of engagement — or discredits it. China is a failure of engagement, Russia a success. Inside the Obama realm, engagement has come to mean “good diplomacy.”

Barack Obama himself arguably encouraged this view during his 2008 presidential campaign by criticizing George W. Bush’s moralistic bluster, by regularly expressing his high regard for archrealists like James Baker and Brent Scowcroft, and by stipulating his willingness to meet “without preconditions” with even the worst tyrants. And since becoming president he has muted criticism of the regimes in Sudan and Burma, and referred respectfully to “the Islamic Republic of Iran.” [...]

But is [Obama-style engagement] not, still, a realist bargain, trading away those universal values that the president so often evokes in the hopes of geostrategic wins, whether on Iran or climate change or the global economy? [emphasis added]

Given that Traub recently penned a book on the subject of the role of democracy promotion in U.S. foreign policy, it would be hard to fathom that he is naive on such matters, and yet, so much confounding naivete is communicated in this piece (I prefer that interpretation to deliberate obfuscation).

The short rebuttal is that Obama, like every single President that preceded him, is likely willing to trade away values that are extolled rhetorically in exchange for “geostrategic wins.” This is how it has always been. Treating it as a new development is ahistorical at best.

Further, how curious to fret about mere diplomatic engagement with Iran’s regime – which Traub includes under the rubric, “worst tyrants” – when we not only engage on a diplomatic level with brutal, oppressive, undemocratic regimes in the region like Pakistan (until recently, a military dictatorship), Saudi Arabia (monarchy), Jordan (monarchy), Egypt (de facto hereditary dictatorship), etc., but we often lavish those same despotic regimes with generous aid packages, including top-of-the-line military equipment.

Not to mention that our closest ally, Israel, whose relationship with the U.S. is sacrosanct and whose conduct we never criticize (or even allow the UN to criticize), currently oversees an apartheid state, and commits grievous human rights abuses against the beleaguered populations in the occupied territories, as well as war crimes in its maintenance of control thereof.

And yet, the continuation of those relationships receives far less scrutiny and is not treated as an existential moral crucible for sitting Presidents in the same way that potential negotiations with North Korea and Iran are (see, also, U.S. government relations with China, Vietnam and other communist countries, but “principled” refusal to “appease” the Castro regime because…it’s communist).

In fact, though imperfect in obvious ways, Iran’s political institutions are more democratic, and less tyrannical, than most of our longtime favored allies in the region. Not to mention that before the Iranian revolution in 1979, we did engage the Shah’s regime (which, tyrannically, maintained power with the aid of the notoriously brutal SAVAK secret police) and favored him with money, state of the art military aid and other niceties. To tell the whole story, we not only supported his regime, we helped stage a coup in the 1950s, toppling the democratically elected regime in Iran, and replacing it with the Shah’s dictatorial rule.

But let us ponder whether Obama’s decision to engage the Iranian regime represents some serious compromise of American values.

It’s almost as if Traub is confusing Bush’s bluster for actual policy, and seeking to draw a contrast between Obama and his predecessor, when in reality, little has changed over the past century or so of U.S. foreign policy. Don’t be fooled by a couple of old-school, self-interested military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan that were packaged with a flimsy veneer of magnanimous “democracy promotion.”

Dick Cheney might have intoned, defiantly, that “we don’t negotiate with evil” with respect to the regimes in Iran and North Korea (and Iraq, presumably – after Saddam was a favored ally during the Reagan administration), but those words were uttered at the same time that the Bush administration was maintaining the aforementioned relations with regional despots, as well as pursuing a working relationship with Islam “Boil Dissidents Alive” Karimov for purposes of facilitating the war effort in Afghanistan – not to mention implementing policies of preventive war, torture, detainee abuse and indefinite detention that were themselves tyrannical.

One way that various U.S. regimes have tried to paper over the persistent hypocrisy between word and deed is to stuff wads of propaganda between the widening gaps between rhetoric and reality. In pursuit of this, regimes/groups that are amenable to our particular foreign policy goal are arbitrarily described as “democratic” and “moderate” (like Saddam when he was fighting Iran), while those regimes/groups that oppose our agenda are, by nature, “extremist” and “tyrannical” – even though there is often little rhyme or reason to the classification beyond our own ulterior preferences.

It is when we confuse the facade created by spackling the cracks with smooth reality that we look most foolish to foreign populations that are less mesmerized by our self-gratifying, exceptionalist propaganda. I’m reminded of a recent Rami Khouri piece in the Daily Star:

We are told that [Secretary of State Clinton's] trip to the region has two main aims: to strengthen Arab resolve to join the United States and others in imposing harsh new sanctions to stop Iran’s nuclear development program; and to harness Arab support for resumed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. In both of these critical diplomatic initiatives the US has taken the lead and achieved zero results…

The weakness in both cases, I suspect, has to do with the US trying to define diplomatic outcomes that suit its own strategic objectives and political biases (especially pro-Israel domestic sentiments). So Washington pushes, pulls, cajoles and threatens all the players with various diplomatic instruments, except the one that will work most efficiently in both the Iranian and Arab-Israeli cases: serious negotiations with the principal parties, based on applying the letter of the law, and responding equally to the rights, concerns and demands of all sides.

Two Clinton statements during her Gulf trip this week were particularly revealing of why Washington continues to fail in its missions in our region. The first was her expression of concern that Iran is turning into a military dictatorship: “We see that the government of Iran, the supreme leader, the president, the Parliament, is being supplanted, and that Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship,” Clinton said.

Half a century of American foreign policy flatly contradicts this sentiment (which is why Clinton heard soft chuckles and a few muffled guffaws as she spoke). The US has adored military dictatorships in the Arab world, and has long supported states dominated by the shadowy world of intelligence services. This became even more obvious after the attacks of September 11, 2001, when Washington intensified cooperation with Arab intelligence services in the fight against Al-Qaeda and other terror groups.

Washington’s closest allies in the Middle East are military and police states where men with guns rule, and where citizens are confined to shopping, buying cellular telephones, and watching soap operas on satellite television. Countries like Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Libya, as well as the entire Gulf region and other states are devoted first and foremost to maintaining domestic order and regime incumbency through efficient, multiple security agencies, for which they earn American friendship and cooperation. When citizens in these and other countries agitate for more democratic and human rights, the US is peculiarly inactive and quiet.

If Iran is indeed becoming a military dictatorship, this probably qualifies it for American hugs and aid rather than sanctions and threats. Clinton badly needs some more credible talking points than opposing military dictatorships.

From the days when the U.S. began establishing its colonial fiefdom in Central and South America, through the Cold War and now the ill-named War on Terror, the primacy of democracy promotion as a goal of U.S. foreign policy has been tenuous at best. All things being equal, and in nominal ways when doing so creates some minor friction, the U.S. will support democracy promotion. Immanuel Kant would not be impressed with our sense of conviction.

Worse still, we have also been willing to actively interfere with democratic elections through massive infusions of cash and propaganda in favor of preferred candidates in locales from Central and South America, to Italy, West Germany and France. In Japan, we plucked war criminals off death row and forged a political party with them at the lead that has maintained power (again, with massive amounts of aid from the CIA) almost unchallenged until relatively recently. We instigated coups to topple democratically elected regimes in favor of brutal dictatorships in places like Iran, Guatemala and Chile (not to mention failed attempts in several other nations). All along the way, we’ve coddled, armed, funded and propped-up all manner of nefarious dictator, monarch, despot and tyrant when doing so was deemed in our interest.

I would recommend that Mr. Traub familiarize himself with his New York Times colleague Tim Weiner’s work, which documents these many episodes using declassified government documents.

So, please, let’s not pretend that a decision to engage the Iranian and North Korean regimes represents some break from precedence or compromise of our values, or that there is anything “principled” about maintaining the counterproductive diplomatic cold shoulder. Engaging these regimes is not hypocritical. The hypocrisy is actually pretending that such diplomatic outreach would be unique, inconsistent or at all out of the ordinary.

(see, also, David Shorr’s take on Traub’s piece)

Break the Neck of this Apartheid

Eric Martin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:30:28 +0000

Daniel Levy rightly diagnoses the malady afflicting Israel at this juncture: it is infected with a deadly pathology, and yet the two medical teams prescribing treatment vary between ignoring and covering up the disease on the one hand, to offering a mild painkiller that offers no real relief.

In his keynote address at last week’s Herzliya Conference, Ehud Barak summoned up the most dramatic case for changing the status quo:

If, and as long as between the Jordan and the sea, there is only one political entity, named Israel, it will end up being either non-Jewish or non-democratic…If the Palestinians vote in elections, it is a binational state, and if they don’t, it is an apartheid state.

This quote is particularly remarkable for the specific wording chosen by Israel’s defense minister: He (perhaps unintentionally) suggested that the existing situation could already be described as apartheid.

Considering the Labor Party’s collapse, one may dismiss its leader’s comments, but Barak’s speech does matter, not because of its author, but because it articulates the core narrative of the centrist-pragmatic trend in Israeli-Jewish politics – from Likud realists like ministers Dan Meridor and Michael Eitan, to Kadima and the remnants of Labor and Meretz. Let’s call it the “retractionist camp” – ready to support a withdrawal from the occupied territories that meets the minimum necessary requirement for the creation of a dignified and viable sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel, and therefore a sustainable two-state solution.

They show realist tendencies, but there is a powerful disconnect (one that was pervasive in Barak’s speech) between most of this camp’s diagnosis of the situation (an “end of the world as we know it” threat of apartheid or binationalism) and their prescription for addressing it: resume negotiations, blame the Palestinians, more of the same. It’s like telling someone they have life-threatening yet treatable cancer and prescribing two aspirins a day.

If the situation is so dire, then bolder steps are surely called for. There are any number of game-changing options to consider. Maybe it is possible to engage Hamas (as is happening in the ongoing Shalit negotiations), to lift the Gaza siege, and to accept Palestinian unity instead of vetoing it, so as to facilitate an empowered negotiating and implementing address. After all, Israel spoke to the PLO before its charter was amended, and the United States engaged Sunni ex-insurgents in Iraq and is encouraging dialogue with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Alternatively, Israel could encourage internationalization of the conflict, handing the territories over to an international protectorate and international forces, or could embrace Salam Fayyad’s two-year plan for statehood and scale back its Area C presence, or even withdraw to the 1967 lines while negotiating over a way settlers could reside under Palestinian sovereignty. Perhaps a Quartet-driven or imposed plan could be encouraged. Anything but business as usual.

Yet most of those in the camp that favors retracting Israel’s occupation – let’s call them “soft retractionists” – eschew such bold positions. Their opponents, the “retentionists,” support retaining all, most or at least enough control of the territories to render impossible a real two-state outcome (indeed, a commitment to retain all of Jerusalem under exclusive Israeli sovereignty is enough to negate a workable two-state option).

Apartheid cannot be defeated with a band-aid.

Number One with a Bullet

Eric Martin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:13:18 +0000

Imagine if the Surge didn’t work, and we didn’t achieve victory in Iraq? Then you might read stories such as these:

An English based group called Maplecroft that studies human rights, the environment, terrorism, and politics issued its latest Terrorism Risk Index that found Iraq the number one country in the world most at risk for terrorist attacks…For the second year in a row Iraq was ranked number one. It was followed by Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Lebanon, India, Algeria, Columbia, Thailand, and the Philippines at number ten.

Maplecroft acknowledged that security had greatly improved in Iraq and that terrorist attacks were down, but it noted that over 4,000 people were still killed there in 2009, and that bombings and other security incidents are still daily occurrences. As reported before,…deaths in Iraq are at their lowest point since the 2003 invasion. That still means 100-500 people are killed a month, which is far too many. Violence has also leveled off since taking a dramatic drop at the beginning of 2009. Unless Iraqi politics are able to work out the many differences in the country its unlikely that the terrorist attacks will end in the short-term.

One wonders why the Iraqi people are not more grateful to the United States. Snark aside, way back when the Surge was being sold, its stated purpose was to create political room for reconciliation between the various factions, out of which a political compact would be forged that would lead to long term peace and stability. Despite the welcomed drop in violence, recent items in the news have included the Maliki government’s bold move to ban a large numberof alleged former Baathists from competing in upcoming elections, as well as whispers of ethnic/sectarian cleansing picking up pace in Mosul.

Not exactly indications of a broad-based governing philosophy. Nor will these moves allay the fears of recently disempowered minority groups.

Thus, with steady violence and conflict continuing to simmer under the veneer of calm, the political reconciliation that the Surge was supposed to deliver remains elusive, stoking fears that violence could…well, surge again in the near future.

Pride: In the Name of Love

Eric Martin — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 18:57:26 +0000

While Andrew Sullivan laments that Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett might be correct in their analysis of the strength and resilience of the Iranian regime vis-a-vis the Green movement, Sullivan nevertheless accuses the pair of being ”gleeful” in tone while mustering evidence of the soundness of their predictions as compared to those of their critics and opposing viewpoints. Daniel Larison rejects the accusation and insinuation.

Jim Henley, however, provides insightful, honest, explication of the relevant phenomenon – one of a fine writer’s finer efforts of late. I would excerpt it all if etiquette allowed, but instead I’ll provide a taste:

I agree that Sully’s critique is of a piece with anti-anti-war complaints after the Iraq conquest went sour, and that’s to his discredit. Some lessons, and Andrew has learned a lot about jingoism over the last decade, are hard ones. That said, I don’t think Larison offers a complete account of the complex of emotions involved in these kinds of disputes.

We doves got accused of glee-like emotional activities a lot from 2003-7, for the offense of demonstrating that hawks were fools and knaves. Hawks prated about “glee” because they didn’t have any better arguments. All they could do was slander their opponents. It had always been their core competence anyway.

But it would be a lie to pretend we doves never enjoyed our work. Do you think I didn’t have any fun at all explicating the absurdity of the arguments for starting and continuing the conquest of Iraq, digging into the monthly electricity statistics, cataloguing the endless examples of RSN Syndrome or explicating the government’s transparent lies about torture and treatment of civilians? People. I did that for six years. Nobody puts that much effort into something that isn’t satisfying on some level. Of course it was fun, for certain grim and bitter kinds of “fun.”

The above is the paragraph that hostile critics could excerpt out of context if such people still bothered to read me. Here’s the rest of the story. The kind of “glee” I discuss above is inescapably endemic to intellectuals, where an “intellectual” is merely someone who cares enough about ideas to bother arguing about them on a sustained basis…There is nothing, nothing, quite like the combination of satisfaction and aggression that comes from being right about something you care a great deal about, and we were right. You bet your ass that was “fun.”

This is not praiseworthy, because what we were right about was human evil, folly and suffering, so our satisfaction necessarily stemmed from a record of failure and misery. In Christian terms, it’s a sin of pride. (In secular terms, it’s just obnoxious.) But it’s how intellectual work ever gets done. And it not only “isn’t the whole story,” it’s not the whole story in important ways.

The reason doves engaged this particular issue was because doves wanted to prevent war crimes and the moral degradation and human waste that attend them, and then to contain and curtail those things – to prevent an illegitimate and stupid war in Iraq; failing that, to end it and avoid repeating it elsewhere. Doves did not want soldiers to be reft from their families, civilians gunned down at checkpoints, cities gutted by artillery shells and white phosphorus, hundreds of billions of dollars wasted or stolen, millions of people displaced from their homes, one nation devastated and another manic with aggression and self-pity. All this will come to pass, doves warned, and were laughed at, and then it came to pass. The petty satisfaction of “I told you so” was real, but bitterly inadequate to the grief and rage at seeing what we’d tried to prevent, happen.

Do read the rest.

(Larison’s response is also fitting)

That Word “Abandon”…

Eric Martin — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 18:25:29 +0000

It is not uncommon to hear pundits, politicians and commentators color their warnings about withdrawal from Afghanistan by hearkening back to the period following the withdrawal of Soviet forces from that same country. According to the narrative offered by these concerned historians, the United States “abandoned” Afghanistan in the wake of the Soviet defeat there, and that neglect paved the way for instability, civil war,the eventual rise of the Taliban and its subsequent sheltering of al-Qaeda.

The actual history is far more complicated, and the claim that our abandonment led to these outcomes is dubious at best given the nature of our involvement prior to our decision to disengage. If anything, our engagement itself was a major contributing factor in the destabilization and radicalization of elements of Afghan (and Pakistani) society, which exacerbated conflicts down the road, and provided impetus for the empowerment of anti-American radicals. Further, it is extremely unlikely that continued interference by the United States would have had a positive outcome given the possible avenues that were open at the time.

To properly assess the argument that we abandoned Afghanistan, and that our turning away led to (or greatly contributed to) its current dire situation, it is essential to examine the nature of our involvement prior to disengagement. Beginning in 1979, following the Soviet invasion to bolster the besieged, Soviet-allied Afghan government, the United States backed the Afghan rebel groups (though some argue that our support for the rebels began before the Soviet invasion as a means to induce Soviet entry).

To support the Afghan rebels, the U.S. began sending arms and funds (as well as medical supplies for insurgent forces), encouraged Saudi Arabia to provide funds to the same groups, and made common cause with efforts to entice would-be jiahadists from around the Muslim world to join the fight.

The conduit chosen for distribution of the money and material to the warring factions was Pakistan - in particular, the Pakistan intelligence agency (ISI). The ISI is the same group that is now refusing to cease its support for Afghan Taliban factions fighting NATO forces, just to provide some modern context.

Funneling the money through the ISI led to corruption within its upper echelons, as embezzlement and graft became the norm. Use of the ISI in such a manner also inadvertently increased its power relative to other governmental organs - an imbalance whose repercussions are still bedeviling the region to this day. Suddenly, the ISI was able to control a massive patronage system, with a deluge of foreign wealth at its disposal, which its leaders used to great advantage.

In addition, Saudi Arabia took advantage of the opening to establish religious schools and mosques throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan, which it then used to export its radical Wahhabist religious doctrine. Osama bin Laden himself set up shop in Peshawar Pakistan, the city through which much of the Saudi money – and foreign fighters – flowed. The congregation of so many extremists, and the sudden proliferation of a radicalizing religious ideology, had an effect on the character of the Afghan resistance, as well as Pakistani society as a whole - not least, the increasingly powerful ISI.

With radical ideology captivating many of its top officials, the ISI began to favor extremist elements in Afghanistan, such as Hekmatyar and Haqqani, at the expense of others. Soon, the groups that we should logically show aversion to empowering became the primary recipients of U.S. and Saudi largesse due to the ISI’s interdiction.

As the battle turned, and the Soviets began to pull out, Ahmed Rashid points to an intriguing chapter in the region’s history: the proposal of a possible power sharing arrangement between the disparate groups. Unfortunately the United States was more interested in exacting the maximum amount of pain from the Soviets, and so it passed up on what was likely the best possible chance for achieving a workable framework for stability in Afghanistan:

For thirty years Afghanistan has cast a long, dark shadow over world events, but it has also been marked by pivotal moments that could have brought peace and changed world history.

One such moment occurred in February 1989, just as the last Soviet troops were leaving Afghanistan. Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze had flown into Islamabad—the first visit to Pakistan by a senior Soviet official. He came on a last-ditch mission to try to persuade Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the army, and the Interservices Intelligence (ISI) to agree to a temporary sharing of power between the Afghan Communist regime in Kabul and the Afghan Mujahideen. He hoped to prevent a civil war and lay the groundwork for a peaceful, final transfer of power to the Mujahideen.

By then the Soviets were in a state of panic. They ironically shared the CIA’s analysis that Afghan President Mohammad Najibullah would last only a few weeks after the Soviet troops had departed. The CIA got it wrong—Najibullah was to last three more years, until the eruption of civil war forced him to take refuge in the UN compound in April 1992. The ISI refused to oblige Shevardnadze. It wanted to get Gulbuddin Hekmatyar [ed note: one of our most potent Taliban adversaries at the moment], one of the seven disparate Mujahideen leaders and its principal protégé, into power in Kabul. The CIA had also urged the ISI to stand firm against the Soviets. It wanted to avenge the US humiliation in Vietnam and celebrate a total Communist debacle in Kabul—no matter how many Afghan lives it would cost. A political compromise was not in the plans of the ISI and the CIA.

I was summoned to meet Shevardnadze late at night and remember a frustrated but visibly angry man, outraged by the shortsightedness of Pakistan and the US and the clear desire of both governments to humiliate Moscow. He went on to evoke an apocalyptic vision of the future of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the region. His predictions of the violence to come turned out to be dead right.

At that pivotal moment, if Shevardnadze’s compromise had been accepted, the world might well have avoided the decade-long Afghan civil war, the destruction of Kabul, the rise of the Taliban, and the sanctuary they provided al-Qaeda. Perhaps we could have avoided September 11 itself—and much that has followed since, including the latest attempt by a Nigerian extremist to blow up a transatlantic airliner, the killing of seven CIA officers at an Afghan base, and the continuing heavy casualties among NATO troops and Afghan civilians in Afghanistan.

With Obama’s controversial and risk-laden plan to first build up and then, in eighteen months, start drawing down US troops in Afghanistan, every nation and political leader in the region now faces another pivotal moment. At stake is whether the US and its allies are willing to talk to the Afghan Taliban, because there is no military victory in sight and no other way to end a war that has been going on for thirty years.

When that moment comes—as it must—will the US and NATO be ready to talk with the Taliban or will they be internally divided, as they are now? Will President Hamid Karzai have the credibility to take part in such talks and deliver on an agreement that might be reached? Will the ISI demand that their own Taliban protégés return to power? Will the Taliban hard-liners, now scenting victory, even agree to talks and, as a consequence, be prepared to dump al-Qaeda? Or will they sit out the next eighteen months waiting for the Americans to begin to leave?

So the question is, in what way (outside of this episode) did the U.S. abandon Afghanistan and how could a continued engagement have helped? Recall, the U.S. was providing military aid, via Pakistan, in pursuit of narrow U.S. interests. Relatively speaking, the U.S. was not providing significant humanitarian aid to Afghanistan prior to the Soviet expulsion, nor was it supporting nation building efforts. In fact, in rejecting the Shevardnadze offer, the U.S. was at best indifferent to the notion. After Najibullah’s fall, the only recourse was to become a party to the conflict that ensued, as game-changing levels of humanitarian aid and/or nation building support offered in the middle of such strife was impractical.

Should the United States have continued providing military aid? To which factions? Or would Afghanistan have been better off if we didn’t “abandon” it, but rather joined with the ISI in backing the Taliban? Certainly, the ISI and many of its allies felt abandoned as the spigot was turned off, but that is hardly a reason to maintain the flow.

On the other hand, should the U.S. have shifted its aid funnel to those factions that the ISI was now squaring off against by proxy? Without Pakistan’s assistance, how was the distribution of aid feasible? Regardless, would it have been wise for the U.S., after witnessing and aiding in the U.S.S.R.’s costly effort, to decide that now would be a good time to get itself knee-deep in an Afghan civil war (and wouldn’t the U.S.S.R. have relished the opportunity to return the favor)? I would argue no.

Outside of working within the Shevardnadze framework, there were few constructive options that the U.S. could pursue to avoid “abandoning” Afghanistan. Or rather, the alternatives to “abandonment” were likely worse given that large scale humanitarian aid and nation building support were likely to be inconsequential in the face of the conflicts that followed. Outside of continuing the provision of a certain level humanitarian aid (which would have been worth it if only in terms of mitigating some of the human suffering, assuming delivery and distribution remained possible in some way), at best, we could have become a participant ourselves in Afghanistan’s post-Soviet conflict, or chosen a favored faction to participate in our stead. But I think we’ve come to learn how futile that approach is over the past 8+ years.

As if the Soviet experience wasn’t tutelage enough.

Little has changed in terms of the attractiveness and workability of the alternatives to what is called “abandonment” – at least in so much as “abandonment” is being used as a euphemism for the withdrawal of U.S. military forces en masse (there are means of military and non-military aid available as alternatives to wholesale abandonment). The primary question that remains now is the one posed by Rashid: Will the U.S. pursue a power sharing arrangement in earnest now, and are there enough willing participants within Afghanistan and the broader region?

Heavy Metal Islam

Brian Ulrich — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 01:01:46 +0000

A couple of years ago, Mark LeVine, the occasionally blogging historian of the modern Middle East, published his latest book Heavy Metal Islam: Rock Religion and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam, about the important heavy metal scene in the Middle East and related areas, a work which expanded on one of the examples in his previous book Why They Don’t Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil. Both books are important for exploring the many faces of cultural globalization, and, in the case of Heavy Metal Islam, the role played by musical counterculture in debates within Muslim societies, especially among the children of the elites.

The book includes a quote from Moroccan heavy metal artist Reda Zine: “We play heavy metal because our lives are heavy metal.” The genre’s often harsh lyrics blend well with the cynicism and anger toward society, politics, and the world generally that characterizes much of the Middle East. Whereas in the United States and Britain, heavy metal has been long unmoored from its roots in the economic woes of the 1970’s, in the Middle East it still retains them, and represents not just a form of entertainment frequently criticized by the more conservative establishment, but also a critique of that establishment and the world it governs.

Potential connections between heavy metal and political dissent came through most strongly in the chapter on Egypt, where I learned that Shady and Noor Noor, sons of Egyptian opposition leader Ayman Noor, were both known parts of their country’s heavy metal scene. The “potential” in that sentence is important, however, as in much of the book the artists seemed most interested in protecting their music and expression rather than moving into action beyond the expression. LeVine also frequently sought connections between metalheads and Islamists, with what seemed like little success.

In his conclusion, LeVine illustrates the potential he sees with an account of Istanbul’s Barisha Rock for Peace Festival, a sort of Turkish Woodstock which in 2007 drew around 150,000 fans. His conclusion:

“Luckily, the metal-heads, hip-hoppers, rockers, and punks of the Middle East are no longer alone. They not only have each other; helped by the Internet and an increasing number of international festivals of various sizes, the world is starting to listen to their music and their stories. A real dialogue between cultures and countries is emerging, one that will not be cowed by authoritarian governments, silences by war-crazed administrations, overshadowed by jihadi propagandists, or co-opted by multinational conglomerates. It is being conducted by young people around the world, on their terms, and if they’re lucky, it will be free of the stereotypes, prejudices, and conflicting interests that have doomed their elders’ conversations for generations…

“The fear, the violence, the hatred in the Middle East can seem deafening, but it’s still not loud enough to silence the voices of resistance. A generation after Twisted Sister’s 1984 smash hit, kids across the MENA are screaming, in English, Arabic, Urdu, Farsi, Hebrew, Turkish, and French – online, onstage, and, however tentatively, on the streets – “We’re not gonna take it anymore.” It’s a message that used to resonate with Americans and Europeans. The sooner we rejoin the chorus, the sooner real peace, democracy, and reconciliation will be achieved – not just in the heartlands of the Muslim world, but in the heartlands of the West as well.

You can hear LeVine discussing the book’s topic here.

(Crossposted to my blog)

One Foot in the Grave My Friend, a Foolish Step to Take

Eric Martin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:42:25 +0000

Recent revelations regarding a “death list” of so-called high value al-Qaeda suspects (including U.S. citizens in some instances) targeted for assassination on the say-so of the Executive branch has raised several thorny ethical, legal and Constitutional questions with respect to the attempt to counter transnational terrorist organizations.

While a blanket grant of authority to the Executive branch to use military means against any and all individuals (both U.S. citizens and non-citizens) that it labels ”terrorists” regardless of their then-current location is an overly broad, and ultimately dangerous standard to establish, at the same time, there are certain legitimate uses of military force against known terrorists that pose a threat to the U.S. and that remain outside the reach of U.S. law enforcement.

In the case of al-Qaeda, the fact that Congress has authorized the Executive to use military force is significant. The fact that military force has been limited to those regions beyond the reasonable reach of U.S. law enforcement is also relevant. However, questions remain regarding the evidentiary standard applied, and the organ of government applying it. To appoint the Executive branch as judge, jury and executioner invites abuse. Yet shutting down the ability to use military strikes in any and all settings may also be overly restrictive.

Ideally, there should be a clear evidentiary standard codified, and an outside adjudicator appointed in order to apply checks on the awesome power being delegated (like a FISA court of sorts, but with a higher threshold considering the disparate impact of surveillance as opposed to death or serious bodily injury). This judicial oversight should apply to both U.S. citizens and non-U.S. citizens (with exceptions made for battlefield encounters, which is a different scenario than a calculated, methodical attempt at assassination). Further, use of force should should be limited to those settings beyond the reasonable reach of U.S. law enforcement.

One of the U.S. citizens cited as appearing on the “death list,” thus far the most visible face attached to the controversy, is Anwar al-Awlaqi, born in New Mexico to parents of Yemeni descent. He is accused of supporting al-Qaeda’s efforts at recruiting operatives, and heretofore, he and his family have denied these charges. However, he hasn’t done himself any favors in a recent Al-Jazeera interview (via the Majlis). Some excerpts:

The Western media says that you are ‘inspiring’ Muslims in the US and the West. Is this an exaggeration?

I have said in an earlier interview with Al Jazeera’s Yusri Fouda that the United States is a tyrant, and tyrants across history have all had terrible ends. I believe the West does not want to realise this universal fact. Muslims in Europe and America are watching what is happening to Muslims in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan, and they will take revenge for all Muslims across the globe.

Note the non-denial. Not exactly reminscent of an attempt to set the record straight given the stakes.

Have you met Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and did you issue a fatwa [a religious edict] allowing him to carry out the operation?

My fellow mujahid [a Muslim engaged in jihad] Umar Farouk, may Allah free him, is one of my students, and yes there was some contact between me and him, but I did not issue a fatwa allowing him to carry out this operation.

You have supported Nidal Malik Hasan and justified his act by saying that his target was a military not a civilian one. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s plane was a civilian one, which means the target was the US public?

It would have been better if the plane was a military one or if it was a US military target. Al-Qaeda organisation has its options, and the American people live [in] a democratic system and that is why they are held responsible for their policies.

The American people are the ones who have voted twice for Bush the criminal and elected Obama who is not different from Bush as his first remarks stated that he would not abandon Israel, despite the fact that there were other anti-war candidates in the US elections, but they won very few votes. The American people take part in all its government’s crimes.

If they oppose that, let them change their government. They pay the taxes which are spent on the army and they send their sons to the military, and that is why they bear responsibility.

While he displays a slight preference for attacking military targets, he avers emphatically that U.S. civilians are legitimate targets by virtue of the fact that they live in a democracy and pay taxes, and can ultimately change their government if they wish to dissent (no word on dissenting voters). This is the same rationale employed by bin Laden and al-Qaeda proper.

Even if we are still relying, unwisely, on the good faith of the executive branch in assessing evidence before green-lighting military strikes, al-Awlaqi seems intent on providing the hangman with some rope for the noose.

Letting Bin Laden Rewrite the Constitution

Eric Martin — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:59:52 +0000

Very quotable Dahlia Lithwick on our collective terrorist derangement syndrome, and its corrosive effects on the rule of law:

Moreover, each time Republicans go to their terrorism crazy-place, they go just a little bit farther than they did the last time, so that things that made us feel safe last year make us feel vulnerable today.

Policies and practices that were perfectly acceptable just after 9/11, or when deployed by the Bush administration, are now decried as dangerous and reckless. The same prominent Republicans who once celebrated open civilian trials for Zacarias Moussaoui and Richard Reid, the so-called “shoe bomber,” now claim that open civilian trials endanger Americans (some Republicans have now even gone so far as to try to defund such trials). Republicans who once supported closing Guantanamo are now fighting to keep it open. And one GOP senator, who like all members of Congress must take an oath to uphold the Constitution, has voiced his concern that the Christmas bomber really needed to be “properly interrogated” instead of being allowed to ask for a lawyer.

In short, what was once tough on terror is now soft on terror. And each time the Republicans move their own crazy-place goal posts, the Obama administration moves right along with them.

It’s hard to explain why this keeps happening. There hasn’t been a successful terror attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. The terrorists who were tried in criminal proceedings since 9/11 are rotting in jail. The Christmas Day terror attack was both amateurish and unsuccessful. The Christmas bomber is evidently cooperating with intelligence officials without the need to resort to thumbscrews. In a rational universe, one might conclude that all this is actually good news. But in the Republican crazy-place, there is no good news. There’s only good luck. Tick tock. And the longer they are lucky, the more terrified Americans have become.

This week Glenn Greenwald summarized how far the goal posts of normal have moved when he pointed out that “merely advocating what Ronald Reagan explicitly adopted as his policy—’to use democracy’s most potent tool, the rule of law against’ terrorists—is now the exclusive province of civil liberties extremists.” Upon being elected to the U. S. Senate last month, Scott Brown declared: “Our Constitution and laws exist to protect this nation—they do not grant rights and privileges to enemies in wartime. In dealing with terrorists, our tax dollars should pay for weapons to stop them, not lawyers to defend them.” As Adam Serwer observed, “This is the new normal for Republicans: You can be denied rights not through due process of law but merely based on the nature of the crime you are suspected of committing. Brown’s rhetorical framing, that jettisoning the legal system we’ve had for 200-plus years represents ‘tradition’ while granting suspected criminals the right to legal counsel represents liberalism gone mad is new, and I suspect we’ll hear it again.” [...]

Some of the very worst excesses of the Bush years can be laid squarely at the doorstep of a fictional construct: The “ticking time bomb scenario.” Within minutes, any debate about terrorists and the law arrives at the question of what we’d be willing to do to a terrorist if we thought he had knowledge of an imminent terror plot that would kill hundreds of innocent citizens…But here’s the paradox: It’s not a terrorist’s time bomb that’s ticking. It’s us. Since 9/11, we have become ever more willing to suspend basic protections and more contemptuous of American traditions and institutions. The failed Christmas bombing and its political aftermath have revealed that the terrorists have changed very little in the eight-plus years since the World Trade Center fell. What’s changing—what’s slowly ticking its way down to zero—is our own certainty that we can never be safe enough and our own confidence in the rule of law.

It’s amazing how much power we’ve ceded to Osama bin Laden, and how we let al-Qaeda and its pathetic offshoots completely warp our foundational principles of justice and the rule of law. What’s more amazing is that the people that are in the biggest hurry to grant Osama the most power over reshaping our society are the ones who claim the mantle of being ”tough” on terror.

Right.