Crisis Global, Solution Forced to be Local

I'm not an economist, which is why I've stayed away from commentary on the financial crisis that's metastasized from Wall Street. I probably wouldn't do much more than parrot the economic talking points of analysts that I read for other reasons, without really knowing what I was talking about.

I would, though, like to briefly register my agreement, at least in part, with Roger Cohen today, who takes foreign governments to task for failing to be a part of the solution (which they've evidently now formally refused to do). I understand that we haven't exactly been making friends and kissing babies over the last eight years, and I understand that schadenfreude would seem to dictate letting the United States stew in its own problems at the moment, but this is a global economy, and expecting our government to do all the financial heavy lifting (especially when we may actually end up bailing out foreign banks in order to maintain systemic integrity) is free-riding of a rather irritating kind.

I know, I know, pretty much every theory of international relations says that free riding is precisely what states do when they can. Still, especially from decades-old allies for whom the United States has made its share of sacrifices, it gets my regressive nationalist goat a bit.

North Korea Backtracks?

After complaining that the US had not followed through in removing their country from the US list of state sponsors of terror (Korean Central News Agency, "Withdrawal of U.S. Hostile Policy toward DPRK Urged in S. Korea," September 2, 2008), North Korea has now said that it... doesn't want to be de-listed. This was KCNA on Friday:

Now that the U.S. true colors are brought to light, the DPRK neither wishes to be delisted as a "state sponsor of terrorism" nor expects such a thing to happen. It will go its own way.

Things in the Six-Party Talks aren't going so well. The North Koreans have complained that the US is insisting on search measures, intended to verify Pyongyang's declaration of its nuclear programs earlier this summer, that are too stringent, while the US has bemoaned the North's failure to negotiate on such a verification regime. At the time of North Korea's declaration, the State Department made clear that, while it was preparing to de-list Pyongyang, it would not officially do so until a verification regime was actually agreed. I don't know if North Korea was told that, but it wasn't in the text of the October agreement sequencing the implementation of the denuclearization process and has now become an irritant in the Six-Party Talks. (Note to self: get it in writing next time!)

Furthermore, North Korea has "resumed" work at the Yongbyon nuclear compex - whatever that means. (If the steps North Korea is taking are easily reversed, the situation is not as dire as, say, actually resuming reactor operations or separating plutonium from spent fuel.) The good news here, if there is any, is that this present work is visible and time consuming. By that I mean that the US has a window into what is going on and knows that there is a substantial lead-time between these operations and a repeat of 2002-2003, when the situation was far worse.

There's a larger point here, which is that North Korea is a skillful bargainer with impeccable timing. North Korea's antics - whether justified (if the US was deceptive or lazy in negotiating sessions over the de-listing) or cynical (if it's merely a negotiating ploy) - beg for headline attention at precisely the time when the odds are stacked against this situation receiving the focus it needs, given the fact that the US is currently consumed by a gripping financial crisis, an intense election season, and the waning days of unpopular and outgoing administration. What's more, the latest developments usefully deflect attention from the murky status of Kim Jong Il's well-being, which makes the country look vulnerable.

What's driving North Korean behavior here is unclear. Is it merely playing for time and seeking to drag the disarmament process into 2009 or hoping to blackmail the US into accepting a less intrusive verification measure? Is North Korea hoping to put the Six-Party Talks on hold until its leadership situation is under control and either Kim Jong Il's health is restored or a successor is clearly identified? Or is North Korea even serious about actually disarming? The truth is there's only a handful of people that know (they're in Pyongyang...) and, to some extent, I don't think it matters.

What does matter, is that if it is indeed ever going to do away with its nuclear arsenal, Pyongyang is indicating that it expects a high price for doing so. But in signaling this, they've picked the time when the US is least likely to pay the cost. And if I'm right, and the North is successful in kicking the can down for a few more months, the next administration, whoever it is, will have their hands full.

Israel Coalition News

It appears that I may have been overly hasty in my assumption that Labor would fall into line with Kadima in order to avoid new elections. According to the BBC, the Labor leadership is actually seeking snap elections at the moment. Now, whether or not this is a real move toward a new poll or just bluster from Labor to show its supporters that it hasn't become a complete lapdog and permanent Kadima junior partner I'm not sure. I must say, though, that I'm not quite sure what Labor hopes to gain by having elections now, unless they somehow think that their long-term prospects would improve with a Likud victory (which polls show would be the likely outcome). It's a possibility I suppose. Perhaps Labor thinks that a Likud triumph would be the deathknell for Kadima as a viable party, and restore Labor's place as the principle alternative to Likud. Still, dealing with PM Netanyahu for God knows how long strikes me as a pretty high price to pay for that eventuality.

Livni is evidently having some trouble getting her own house in order as well, with Shaul Mofaz (who, in the end, she barely beat out in Wednesday's vote) announcing that he's leaving poilitics for a time. Her aides seem to see this as a boon, noting that he now won't be a force around which an anti-Livni camp in Kadima could form, but it would also seem to leave some Kadima supporters and members in a disaffected state. Olmert also seems to be taking his sweet time leaving office, which doesn't help.

Stay tuned.

On Spain McCain Reveals He Has No Brain

The title works best if you've seen My Fair Lady and pronounce "brain" with two sylables. Anyway, at first I wasn't planning on pointing out McCain's latest gaffe in which he wouldn't commit to meeting Spanish PM José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Campaigns are long. I'm sure Sen. McCain is tired. I'm not exactly an expert on Spanish politics myself. Something about glass houses and throwing stones etc...

Then Sen. McCain's campaign came out and insisted that the Senator meant what he said, and that McCain is not prepared to commit to a meeting with Mr. Zapatero. This presumably happened after the Senator had a chance to consult with his advisers and clarify just who Zapatero is (the democratically-elected leader of a major NATO ally). McCain still won't commit to meeting with him.

I'm starting to wonder if we should ask the McCain campaign to publish a list of world leaders with whom he would be willing to meet. If we're rejecting the Spanish, how about the British? The Canadians? Will he chat with the governors of non-Alaskan U.S. states, or are their democratic and human rights credentials insufficiently well-established?

Maybe McCain's people just figured it would be better for their candidate to seem a bit wacky than to seem outright senile, but this is pretty frightening.

My initial, off-the-cuff, likely-to-be-revised analysis of the Kadima elections

Okay, so the verdict is in, and Tzipi Livni is the new head of Kadima and, assuming she can form a government, will be the new Israeli PM, at least for the time being. Polls evidently favored her to win going into this election (which, for some perspective, drew a turnout of roughly 74,000 - intra-party voting isn't as big in Israel as it is in the U.S.), and she did so without having to force a run-off. Bully for her.

The question now becomes what kind of government she'll be able to form, if any. In principle, it wouldn't be out of the question to reconstitute the same coalition that leads Israel now, which includes Kadima, Labor-Meimad, the Pensioners and Shas. Indeed, from a mathematical perspective, there aren't many other coalitions that would be possible. Let's assume for the moment that Livni can bring Labor-Meimad back into the fold. Frankly, given the polls, Barak and the rest of Labor's leadership would be stupid not to join with Kadima again, particularly since the major ideological divisions between the two parties are barely worth mentioning these days. That gives the coalition a foundation of 48 votes out of the 61 necessary to form a government. Let's also assume that she can bring the Pensioners and their 7 votes on board by allowing them to keep the Health portfolio. No harm in keeping pensions strong for Israel's elderly. That's 55.

Now comes the big question. The other party in the current coalition is Shas, the Sepharidic ultra-Orthodox party that brings 12 votes and a whole mess of ethnic and ideological difficulties. While not as committed to the settler movement as the religious Zionists in the National Union and NRP, Shas has fervently opposed making territorial concessions around Jerusalem, and would be a thorn in the side of any coalition that tried to push for a real peace deal. Some have speculated that Shas would have had an easier time if Livni's principle opponent, Shaul Mofaz, who is himself Sephardic and who is more of a hard-liner towards Palestine, had won today. That said, Haaretz has issued early reports that Shas's leadership has indicated that it would not be averse to a coalition with a Livni-led Kadima.

Indeed, Livni may have little choice, even if the contradictions between hawk and dove, religious and secular, and Ashkenazi and Sephardic constituencies render her government too weak to make the diplomatic progress necessary to both peace and electoral victory over Likud. The math is hard to figure without Shas.

Kadima could conceivably reach left to Meretz-Yachad, the social democratic party that would bring 5 votes and support for aggressive diplomacy. Unfortunately, that leaves a coalition with only 60 votes, or exactly half the Knesset. For all you math majors out there, that's not enough to rule outright.

The idea of bringing any other party in the current Knesset into such a coalition would, best I can tell, be pretty much impossible. Likud wouldn't bite - and said so today, just to assuage any doubt - not that Kadima would want them to in the first place. Yisrael Beiteinu, the hard-line party that advocates population and land swaps with a future Palestinian state in order to maintain an unassailable Jewish majority within Israel, was actually in the ruling coalition until earlier this year. Given that any peace deal will almost certainly involve settlement dismantlement, though, it doesn't seem likely that it would come back into the fold. It would also make a deal with left-leaning Meretz difficult. The National Union-NRP is a non-starter for obvious reasons. The Haredi parties would pose some of the same difficulties as Shas, and bring fewer votes to the table.

This brings us to the final, potentially intriguing option: the Arab parties. Though the level and nature of their Arab identity varies, there are three Arab or Arab-leaning lists in the current Knesset that together control 10 seats. Most people who closely follow Israeli politics would say that for any of those lists to join a formal coalition would be impossible, and they're probably right. There is, however, a less radical precedent to which Ms. Livni could look. During the mid-1990s, there was a brief period in which informal Arab support (in which the MK's in question didn't join the government, but supported it during major votes) kept a Labor-led minority government in power. Mathematically, an alliance with Meretz, combined with the informal support of some Arab party (perhaps Hadash), would produce the necessary majority.

Now, I know that's a long shot, and perhaps not even a good idea. A government so constituted would be politically controversial and numerically fragile - hardly a winning combination, but still, it's worth thinking about.

In the end, I imagine that Ms. Livni will form the same coalition that's in place now, and try her best to muddle through. In that case, it will be interesting to see if there is any redistribution of ministerial responsibility, or if we're literally looking at the same arrangement Israel has now, sans Olmert.

I'd be interested to hear readers' thoughts.

*Picture from Haaretz

Tzipi Livni Wins Kadima Leadership Race

Exit polling in Israel now indicates that Tzipi Livni has won the top post in the centrist Kadima party. Now comes the hard part - forming a coalition that isn't so full of internal contradictions that it's doomed from the start to be a political eunich. More to come.

The Other Manpower Shortage in Iraq

Commenting on General Petraeus' departure from his post as the commanding general in Iraq, the FT has a good editorial today about the overall status of security and reconstruction efforts - in particular the loss of human capital there:

Iraq’s worst wound may be the haemorrhaging of its middle classes, its professionals and civil servants, its future nation-builders among the 5m refugees scattered across the country and the region. Their absence helps explain why there is so little reconstruction: no power or water but instead an unspent budget surplus of $79bn.

The US and Iran: Who will Blink First?

On Monday, the latest IAEA safeguards report on Iran was circulated. The bottom line is that, despite four consecutive UNSC resolutions (three of which imposed economic and political sanctions), diplomatic pressure, and the implicit threat of military action, Iran has expanded its uranium enrichment program. It's centrifuges are now running at an increased efficiency and there is a total of nearly 4,000 first-generation centrifuges in operation (in two separate units of the Natanz enrichment plant) and work on a second- and third-generation centrifuge continues.

The other significant developments are that, as expected, IAEA inspectors have been able to verify that all of the fuel is accounted for and has not been diverted; Iran is steadily building a stockpile of low enriched uranium (would-be fuel for reactors it currently doesn't have but says are in the planning stages) that could one day be quickly converted into weapon-grade enriched uranium; outstanding questions on possible weaponization work in the past remain largely undealt with (paragraphs 14-21); and this curious statement:

With reference to the document describing experimentation in connection with symmetrical initiation of a hemispherical high explosive charge suitable for an implosion type nuclear device, Iran has stated that there have been no such activities in Iran. Since the Director General’s previous report, the Agency has obtained information indicating that the experimentation described in this document may have involved the assistance of foreign expertise. Iran has been informed of the details of this information and has been asked to clarify this matter.

Yesterday, the IHT and McClatchy reported nearly identical commentary on this:

The senior U.N. official declined to elaborate except to say that it does not appear that the expertise came from a government or the Pakistani-led network that supplied illicit nuclear materials to Iran, Libya and North Korea. (McClatchy)

The official linked to the agency said a foreign government was not involved. He also ruled out the involvement of Libya and the remnants of the network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani metallurgist who built the world's largest black-market sales operation for nuclear technology.

A senior Western official said that North Korea, which has been accused of aiding Syria in building a nuclear reactor, was not involved. (IHT)

Iran's story has long been that, though it did business with the A.Q. network and did receive the referenced document, it was included (but unrequested) in a shipment of centrifuge designs and materials. (Iran handed it over to the IAEA last year. See paragraph 25 here.) The US has called bullsh*t on this explanation and the language in the IAEA report is much less cautious than usual on this matter.

Standing Firm

I still don't think Iran is going to comply with the US-led demand that it "suspend" its enrichment program as a precondition to negotiations. The more technical progress Iran makes, the less likely they are to back down and, consequently, the more bargaining power they accrue if indeed they are interested in one day cutting a deal on the program. At the same time, this will only cause the US position to harden, though I admit this depends to some extent on who becomes the next US president and how willing they are to engage Iran.

Short of one actor in the standoff swallowing their pride and blinking first, I don't see a reasonable way out of this dilemma. The credibility of both states is on the line - the US in delivering and sustaining a coercive strategy and Iran in resisting it.

Two thoughtful commentaries on solutions to the impasse can be found here and here. Both deserve considerable attention if an escape hatch is to be found.

Ukraine Coalition Collapses

The AP reports this morning that the coalition government in the Ukraine has collapsed amid infighting among its leadership. I'll say this, whether or not Moscow's recent adventurism in the Caucuses was strategically sound in the long-term (and I'm not convinced that it was), it does seem to be paying some short-term dividends. The initial AP analysis of the situation indicates that a new coalition government could be formed that includes the Party of Regions, giving Kiev more of a pro-Russian tilt. It will be interesting to see what this bodes in terms of NATO membership.

Turning Up the Heat in Latin America

Though it's been given short shrift in the American media because of the presidential campaign, the disaster of Hurricane Ike, and Wall Street doing its best October '29 impression in quite a while, news out of Latin America in the past week or so is worthy of some serious thought. Thursday, Hugo "Crackers from Caracas" Chavez announced that American Ambassador Patrick Duddy has 72 hours to leave the Venezuela. This move came in solidarity with a similar expulsion in Bolivia the day before, wherein Evo Morales accused the United States of supporting rebel groups in Bolivia's east, declaring that "we do not want people here who conspire against democracy." Honduras also declined to approve the incoming ambassador from Washington. Chavez also said that he had uncovered an American-backed plot to oust him from power. Washington responded with its own requisite ambassadorial expulsions (though it seems unclear which came first, the ambassadors' expulsion from Washington, or their withdrawal by their own governments - they're leaving in any case).

It is an unfortunate testament to our history in Latin America - recent and not-so-recent - that I'm honestly not sure whether or not to believe Chavez and Morales's excuses. It certainly wouldn't be the first time we've tried to overthrow a government in the Southern Hemisphere, and we're generally not very open about it until well after the fact, however transparent our role. Still, any direct move to that end, particularly in Venezuela, would smell so strongly of American orchestration that even the Bush administration would probably find the lack of subtlety to be problematic. But then maybe not. This is the problem with having treated Latin America as a pseudo-colonial playground for a hundred years. Even when we're not doing anything insidious, people believe we are.

In any case, this latest spat in and of itself probably isn't going to produce any seismic shifts in U.S. relations with the nations to its south. It seems, though, symptomatic of a longer-term decline in influence that ought to be worrisome to U.S. policymakers. There are several angles here. First, there's the obvious cyclical resurgence of anti-U.S. leftist politics that has been sweeping Latin America for several years now. That's a storm that we'll just have to ride out. More to the point, though, is the fact that Latin America may well see an increase in its relative importance to the United States in the coming decades. Assuming that energy costs, and therefore transport costs, continue to rise, the margins that make truly global resource and manufacturing networks possible could well decrease, rendering the availability of raw materials and manufactured goods from comparatively close locations economically critical. In other words, it may well start becoming cheaper for companies that wish to market their products in the U.S. to manufacture them in South America, rather than Asia, as transport costs outpace those of labor. All this to say that having productive, reasonably friendly relations with Latin America is in the best interests of the United States.

In my view, such productive relationships are not a lost cause. A change in American leadership, coupled with a change in American behavior, could help put us back on stable footing. We will, however, have to recalibrate the manner in which we relate to our southern neighbors. In particular, we will have to recalibrate the manner in which we deal with the narcotics trade. This is clearly a complex, politically volatile issue, but it is one that will have to be addressed if we wish to effectively treat a cancer that has plagued north-south relations in this hemisphere for decades. A comprehensive strategy for changing the focus of our drug war is the stuff of a book, not a post, so I'll just suggest that we focus more on consumer-end solutions, rather than on destroying the livelihoods of subsistence-level Latin American farmers. More generally, we are going to have to acknowledge that, while we will almost certainly retain significant influence in Latin America in the coming decades, the days of the Monroe Doctrine are unlikely to return, and we'll have to treat the nations of Central and South America with a bit more deference to their political autonomy.

Clashes in Pakistan

Sorry for the light posting of late. I'll have more coming soon. I just wanted to point out this story that came over the wires this morning, and ask if anyone can tell me who precisely we're at war with at the moment.

The Inevitable "Seven Years After" Post

Had I been sitting where I am now in northern Virginia this time seven years ago, I would be watching smoke pour out of a wing of the Pentagon - and with it the dignity, anger, fear, and soul of a nation. It's hard to believe it's really been seven years since that fateful fall day in 2001. I don't know if it's because my life has moved so fast within that time frame or because it's one of those events you can never shake out from your memory. Perhaps it's a combination of both. On days like today, I can still (frighteningly) relive the same emotions and apprehensions I felt then.

It's strange, really, how much has changed and hasn't changed since then. America was a naïve nation that morning, but it many ways it still is. America behaved as if it could act with impunity throughout far-flung corners of the world, but in many ways it still does. America was supposed to shift its focus to stateless and transnational threats in the wake of 9/11, but it many ways the US still operates and resides in a state-centric order. Did 9/11 change anything and/or everything? That debate is still unfolding.

At home, there was a powerful, undeniable, and understandable sense of camaraderie and unity that permeated throughout America for months on end following the attacks - but today that has long since slipped away as the violence that precipitated those feelings has done the same. In a strange way, I'd take today's divisions and endless fights and arguments and farcical political showmanship any day.

Rafiq on Zardari

I'm a little late on this one, as it's been up for a few days, but anyone with an interest in Pakistani politics would do well to check out Arif Rafiq's scathing critique of Zardari and the possibilities (or lack thereof) that his presidency opens up. Just brimming with optimism for the future.

Josh Foust in the CJR

Check out sometime-contributor and friend of FPW Josh Foust's latest piece, The Birth (and Death) of a Meme, in the Columbia Journalism Review. It examines some of the hazards of embedded reporting in Afghanistan. Definitely worth a read.

KJI is MIA in the DPRK

Press reports have been swirling the last few days over the ambiguous status of North Korean dictator Kim Jong il's health. The speculation and confusion has been prompted by chatter from South Korean officials after the absence of Kim from public view for some time (including from a military parade marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of the North Korean state). To cite just a few of the reports:

• Jae-Soon Chang, "Report: N. Korea officials deny leader Kim is ill,"Associated Press
• "Kim Jong-il No-Show Fuels Rumors of Ill Health," Chosun Ilbo
• Choe Sang-hun and Mark Mazzetti, "Kim Had Surgery After Stroke, South Koreans Say," NYT
• Shin Hae-in, "N. Korean leader recovering: intelligence agency," Yonhap News Agency
• Evan Ramstad, Jay Solomon, and Louise Radnofsky, "Korean Dictator's Health is Questioned," WSJ

This isn't the first time Kim has flown under the radar. And, if he is not on his death bed, it's unlikely to be the last. But, the short answer is that nobody probably knows with any certainty what is going on at the moment. The country is a literal black box to outside observers, and in many ways this works to North Korea's bargaining advantage.

Not-so-Random Speculations

If he is passing on, though, who will receive the torch is an unsettled matter as the question of succession for Pyongyang's leadership is murky. The WSJ and the NYT articles linked above report similar lines of thought, both without a solid answer:

Current and former U.S. officials say they're largely flying blind in trying to understand who might replace Kim Jong Il. These officials say it's understood that the North Korean military, through the government's National Defense Commission that oversees it, will likely be the ultimate arbiter.

They said it was likely that one of Kim Jong Il's four children would play a role in the new government, but perhaps only as a symbol. Speculation has centered on his youngest son, Kim Jong Eun, a 25-year-old in Switzerland. His two older brothers have fallen out of favor with their father, but the third son is considered too young to take power now. Many analysts believe Mr. Kim's brother-in-law, Jang Song Taek, 62, is the most likely candidate.

Mr. Kim's current second-in-command, Kim Yong Nam, whose official title is president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, could also take on a bigger role, but he is 83.(WSJ)

Since the founding of North Korea in 1948 under Soviet guardianship, it has had only two leaders: Kim Il-sung and, after his death in 1994, his son, Kim Jong-il. Unlike his father, Mr. Kim has not publicly groomed any of his three sons to eventually take power, said Nicholas Eberstadt, a North Korea expert at the American Enterprise Institute. There are doubts about the abilities of all three sons, and American officials tend to gravitate toward theories that a military committee might take over the country.

Underlying that guesswork are questions about who within the military hierarchy would control the country’s small arsenal of nuclear weapons.

“There are a lot of people who will give you a series of assumptions about what happens to nuclear control if there is a leadership change,” one senior administration official with access to intelligence on North Korea said Tuesday. “To put it charitably, they are guessing.”(NYT)

By far, the worst-case succession scenario following the demise of Kim would be an internal struggle among the party and military elite (political or physical), one in which Seoul and Beijing might feel compelled to ensure a known and seemingly reliable figure emerges the victor. And their preferences could easily be conflicting. (For two looks at possible contigencies, see here and here.)

Fears understandbly center on what what would happen to stockpiles of nuclear weapons and materials in the event of a state collapse or political rivalry becoming violent. I'm speculating, but I doubt the country's nuclear arsenal would necessarily be up for grabs if push came to shove; the military surely holds the keys and are probably the only ones in the country strong enough to fight for control in any event. Yet, a new leadership could easily take the Six-Party Talks farther south. I'd wager that whoever emerges from any succession battle will not do the denuclearization effort any favors: the last thing a newly-minted leadership there will want to do is to look weak by giving away the one thing in the country that can keep outside forces at bay.

Best Headline of the Day

Granted reporters don't write their own headlines, but this AP article by Pamela Hess runs away with the award for "Best Headline of the Day":

US intelligence thinks Kim Jong Il may be ill.

Hmm, you don't say?

The Cuban Missile Crisis and International Ethics

Over the past week or so I've been absolutely engrossed in transcripts of the tapes from inside the Kennedy White House during the Cuban Missile Crisis. For anyone with an interest in the physiology of decision making in international affairs, I highly recommend picking up a copy. You'd think reading glorified stenography would be dull, but frankly it's the most interesting book I've read in months.

One thing in particular strikes me about the conversations between Kennedy and his advisers during the first days of the crisis, when they were formulating the initial American response to the Soviet deployment in Cuba: the high level of concern for acting in accordance with international norms and American values. As anyone with some knowledge of this event probably knows, the initial reaction of most of the National Security Council - including President Kennedy - upon learning of the missiles' presence was to plan for a major air strike, followed by an invasion of the island. After several days of deliberation, a more moderate consensus emerged whereby the U.S. decided to blockade Cuba and give the U.S.S.R. a chance to back away from the brink. In retrospect, this was probably one of the most important political decisions of the twentieth century, as a more bellicose response could easily have touched off a catastrophic war.

What is fascinating to me, though, is that in addition to a careful weighing of the political and strategic implications of their actions (how action x would affect NATO, what the Soviets would do in Berlin, what the American people would say etc.), Kennedy and his advisers betrayed a keen desire to act in accordance with American values, and within perceived norms of international behavior. The idea of a surprise strike on the missile sites in Cuba, for example, was abandoned in part because it was deemed unworthy of the United States, and too reminiscent of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Even for the less bellicose blockade option, the Council was extremely concerned that they have a legal foundation under the Rio Treaty and the approval of the Organization of American States before they acted.

I bring all this up as a riposte to policymakers and commentators in recent years who have scoffed at the idea of international law, and who believe that to adhere to an ethical and moral code in our conduct of international affairs would somehow weaken us. Even at the height of the most dangerous international crisis of the postwar era, American leaders sought to respect international norms, and to keep faith with our moral traditions. These constraints did not make it impossible for them to resolve the crisis, nor did they force them to appease Soviet aggression. Rather, they provided American leaders with guidance and wisdom in a perilous and fluid situation, and in the end helped them to avoid war. Those who deride the notion that ethics should matter in international relations would do well to remember that.

As an interesting addendum to all this, I read this morning that Russia will be sending anti-submarine planes and a naval squadron to Venezuela this year for a joint military exercise in the Caribbean. The more things change...

Need Cash?

First off, sorry for the absence of late. I've got a couple of larger posts in the works, but I thought it'd be worth calling attention to some news out of Israel that came over the wires this morning. Evidently Ehud Olmert is promoting a plan whereby Israeli settlers in the West Bank would be compensated for voluntarily leaving areas that Israel expects to hand over to Palestine in an ever-on-the-horizon peace deal.

A few thoughts. First off, why the hell is Olmert bothering to promote anything these days? He should take a page from President Bush and just run out the damn clock. More to the point, though, this is one of those policies that sounds good in theory, but probably won't have that much of an effect. The Israeli settler movement is about a lot of things, but money isn't high on the list. Gush Emunim and its backers view settlement in the Jordan Valley as an ideological imperative. I doubt very many of them are just going to pick up and leave in exchange for a payout (a few might, I guess, but not enough to make a dent in a settler population that numbers in the hundreds of thousands).

Please understand, I'm not opposed to the idea of compensating settlers for leaving the land on which they currently reside. Much as I'm not a fan of the whole movement, I recognize that settlement activity has been encouraged - openly and tacitly - by the Israeli government for decades, and it's not unreasonable that it should provide these people with some compensation as it reverses that course. People will remember, though, that Israeli settlers in Gaza a few years ago didn't exactly abandon their houses with smiles on their faces. To expect that their counterparts in the West Bank would do so voluntarily is pretty absurd. If Israel wants a peace deal, it's going to have to drag a lot of these people out of their houses kicking and screaming (and maybe shooting). Not a pleasant thought, but a necessary one.

The Limits of the "Libyan Model"

As Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice lands in Libya on an historic trip to Tripoli for the top American diplomat, the Bush administration is heavily invested in touting as a foreign policy success Libya's renunciation of its WMD programs and its new status as a rehabilitated and model rogue state that chartered a new course in direct response to the administration's aggressive doctrine in its first term and a forceful display of American power. The White House and its staunchest supporters have routinely sought to make a direct link between the US intervention in Iraq (and the subsequent capture of Saddam Hussein) and Gadhafi's 180, assuming that the latter was not possible without the former and that the invasion of Iraq stood alone in framing Libya's calculus.

As VP Cheney said in his 2004 debate with John Edwards:

One of the great by-products, for example, of what we did in Iraq and Afghanistan is that five days after we captured Saddam Hussein, Moammar Gadhafi in Libya came forward and announced that he was going to surrender all of his nuclear materials to the United States, which he has done.

AEI's Joshua Muravchik takes it one step further in a recent debate with Harvard's Stephen Walt:

Walt says Qaddafi relinquished his nuclear project due to American renunciation of regime change. I suppose he didn’t notice the invasion of Iraq.

The actual story of events is much more complicated, and Muravchik's parsimonious analysis completely ignores direct talks between the US-UK and Libya - and the assurances and confidence building that these established - that began under the Clinton administration and continued into the Bush years. Like most any event, but particularly one involving government policy, Libya's decision to come clean on its WMD programs and support for international terrorism is not a result of any one singular source of pressure or persuasion. Indeed, even internal factors, such as business elites within Libya who wanted to integrate with global economic trends and sought foreign investment in the country's moribund energy sector, played a role.

I don't deny that the war in Iraq was a factor in Libya's 2003 calculations, but the idea that it resides alone as an explanatory factor is a stretch. "The truth probably lies somewhere between these two views," Robert Art and Patrick Cronin wrote ["Coercive Diplomacy," in Leashing the Dogs of War: Conflict Management in a Divided World (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2007)]:

The Iraqi war had an effect on Gadhafi, making him fear for his survival, but he already had good domestic reasons for worrying about his regime's survival, and it was these that had impelled him to seek normalization of relations with the United States in the first place. Had the Bush administration not provided assurances that it was not seeking regime change in Libya, Gadhafi could just as easily have been repelled from normalization by the Iraqi invasion and accelerated his WMD programs. The invasion increased Gadhafi's already-present concern about his hold on power, but the Bush administration's assurances that it did not seek regime change were necessary for Gadhafi to continue on the rapprochement path. In short, the threat of regime overthrow could work onliy if assurances of regime survival were also given.

And Bruce Jentleson, whose article "Who Won Libya?" (pdf) is a must-read on this issue, puts it best:

The Bush administration has wildly overclaimed that the invasion of Iraq and then the capture of Saddam Hussein were the keys to Qaddafi’s concessions. It is far from clear that Qaddafi believed that he was next after Saddam. With the American military so overextended and given the intense international opposition the Iraq war had generated, Qaddafi could have been even less worried about a US threat to his regime. Moreover, Qaddafi was not on the axis of evil rogue “top three.” A more measured assessment was that, as one key US official put it, the use of force in Iraq and Afghanistan helped in “clarifying” Qaddafi’s choices. Force was a factor, but not the factor.

I'd add that for the "shock and awe" to be so decisive and effective on the leadership of rogue states, it would have to have manifested itself in the policy reversals of more than just one country. The persistence of North Korea and Iran's nuclear programs and resistance to US-led coercive measures imply continued skepticism. And I guess it's important to note that if you're keeping score, that's 2-1.

America's Role in the World: Debate at Across the Aisle (Closing Arguments)

My final post at Across the Aisle went up this morning. I expect that Devil's Advocate will have a response up soon. Enjoy.