Uighurs

You may be familiar with the Uighur people as a result of our years-long detention (and recent deportation to Bermuda) of Uighur separatists held at Guantanamo Bay on suspicion of terrorism. It appears that, just as in Tibet, China's heavy-handed policy of cultural assimilation of minorities has sparked violent protests and riots in Xinjian province, half of whose population is Uighur:

As northwest China’s Xinjiang Province settled into tense stillness on Wednesday after three days of deadly ethnic violence, a Communist Party leader from the region pledged to seek the death penalty for anyone behind the strife that state news reports say claimed at least 156 lives.

Li Zhi, the party boss in Urumqi, the Xinjiang capital where the violence was centered, said that many suspected instigators of the riots had been arrested, and that most were students. His promise to seek the death sentence for those responsible came as China’s president Hu Jintao cut short his stay in Italy, where he had planned to attend a Group of Eight summit meeting, to return home and deal with aftermath of the riots, the worst ethnic violence in China in decades.

Mr. Hu had planned to meet with President Obama at the Italy summit to discuss climate change and other issues. China’s foreign ministry said in a written statement that he was returning to Beijing “given the current situation in Xinjiang,” where Sunday’s riots by ethnic Uighurs were followed Monday and Tuesday by reprisal attacks on the part of ethnic Hans.

The Uighurs, a Turkic ethnic group, once were the majority in Xinjiang but now comprise only about half of the province’s 20 million people. In Urumqi, the provincial capital of more than two million where the violence has been centered, Uighurs are greatly outnumbered by the Han, who make up some 90 percent of China’s population.

The immediate cause of the riots appears to have been rumors that Uighur men had raped Han Chinese women at a factory far from Urumqi, rumors that led Han Chinese to attack Uighurs, which in turn prompted attacks on Han Chinese by Uighurs, kicking off a cycle of ethnic violence. The proximate cause however, is China's policy of cultural annihilation, affected by the repression of the practice of Islam by Uighurs, as well as a state policy of encouraging Han Chinese to move to Xinjiang and so overwhelm the Uighur population. As in Tibet, China has expressed a policy of economic advancement, but the rising tide fails to lift all boats, as most of the benefits of the rapid economic growth go to the Han Chinese who have moved to the province. As in Tibet, Chinese leaders have responded to the violence by pouring troops into the region, and by rounding up those who they suspect of participating in or organizing the riots. As is always the case, there is no excuse for the killing of innocent men, women and children, no matter how grievous the injury inflicted upon your people. But Chinese leaders are well aware that their policies are the cause of this latest round of violence. So far the White House has only expressed "concern" about the rioting.

As a slight aside, here's the typical right-wing take on the violence in Xinjiang:

As with military coups, not all protests are created equal. Chinese officials have begun to blame foreign agitators for fomenting the violence in Urumqi and throughout the Xinjiang region, as did Iran with their unrest over the rigged presidential election. Unlike Iran, however, China has some factual basis for this claim. Al-Qaeda has recruited and trained Uighur radical Islamists, who want independence for Xinjiang in order to establish a Turkic theocratic state, just as the Taliban created in Afghanistan.

That doesn’t mean that other Uighurs don’t have legitimate claims on democratic reform and independence for better reasons, of course. The AQ-Taliban connection to the Uighurs makes it difficult to determine which forces are in play in Xinjiang at the moment, though. Broad assumptions in either direction would be a mistake, especially since the “freedom fighters” causing most of the trouble in that region don’t support freedom at all — just a change of tyrants.

Like a typical right-winger, Morrissey judges the validity of the Uighur's desire for freedom on what sort of freedom they'd like to have, and who they associate themselves with to get it (not what acts they perpetrate though; terrorism is okay, if it's perpetrated against a regime hostile to the United States.) Because the Uighurs desire a "Turkic theocratic state" (Morrissey demonstrating his command of Wikipedia with a reference to the Uighur's ethnic grouping) where the religious preference would be Islam, and because Uighur's are strongly suspected of having trained at Al Qaeda facilities (though only to return to China to fight the government there) their desire for freedom is not as legitimate as the desire of say, the Tibetans, whose religious preferences don't trigger pants-wetting on the part of right-wingers, and who do not affiliate with religious terrorists. Morrissey's judgement is not unusual in it's obtuseness, but it remains disappointing that right-wingers judge all matters in the world of foreign policy through their own peculiar lens. The Iranian dissidents are approved of, because they are opposed to a leader both feared and hated by the right. The dissidents in Honduras are not approved of, because they support a leader viewed with suspicion and disdain by the right. The rioters in Xinjian are not approved of because their separatists have mingled with Al Qaeda and because they are Muslim. None of this has anything to do with validity or invalidity of claims of religious or political oppression; it's all merely an ad hoc judgement based on who right-wingers do and do not approve of in the world. As an approach to foreign policy this is neither principled nor coherant (nor workable), but it makes perfect sense to a right-wing authoritarian who quivers under their sheets at night at the thought of Latin American electing quasi-socialist leaders, or Muslim terrorists slipping into their room at night to force them to wear burkas and pray to Allah.

UPDATE: Oh dear. Via Local Crank, more right-wing idiocy on the Uighurs. Honestly, who could have predicted that 9/11 would make right-wingers suckers for Chinese propaganda?

UPDATE II: And this post from Glenn Greenwald, who plays the thought exercise "What if the Uighurs were Christian?" You can probably guess his conclusion.

More of the Same

As I'm sure you can imagine, there are those who aren't as pleased with Obama's speech in Cairo as we are. One of the critics is Caroline Glick, an Israeli-American journalist and Israeli hard-liner. This is how her column begins:

From an Israeli perspective, Pres. Barack Obama’s speech today in Cairo was deeply disturbing. Both rhetorically and programmatically, Obama’s speech was a renunciation of America’s strategic alliance with Israel.

So at least you know where she's coming from at the outset. Her claim is ridiculous. It's difficult to come to the conclusion that our "strategic alliance" with Israel is at an end when Congress has slated to give Israel $30 billion in military aid over the next ten years. Have you heard any chatter about that promise being revoked? Me neither. And if you'll allow me a moment of realpolitik, what exactly our we getting out of our supposedly "strategic alliance" with Israel? During the Bush administration we sent military aid to Israel and essentially gave them carte blanche to do as they wished with Hamas and Hezbollah. In return, we are blamed as the facilitators of Israeli violence against Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, and Islamic terrorists use that support in their propaganda campaigns against us. Perhaps the Israelis think they are safer if they go to war repeatedly against Hamas, but are we?

Glick goes on:

In addition to his morally outrageous characterization of Israel and factually inaccurate account of its foundations, Obama struck out at the Jewish state through the two policies he outlined in his address. His first policy involves coercing Israel into barring all Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria (otherwise known as the West Bank), and Jerusalem.

"Otherwise known"? The "West Bank" is what everyone in the world calls the portion of Earth presently occupied by 2.4 million Palestinians, and the 300,000 Israeli settlers who would like to take that land from them, except the Israelis and some our very own special right-wingers. Calling it otherwise is propaganda, pure and simple.

Lastly, this paragraphs smacks of the short-sightedness that is entirely typical of Israeli hard-liners:

Obama claims that this policy will increase prospects for peace. But this is untrue. As Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas made clear in his Washington Post interview last week, Obama’s trenchant campaign against Jewish construction in these areas has convinced the Palestinians they have no reason to be flexible in their positions towards Israel. Indeed, Obama’s assault on Israeli construction and his unsubstantiated, bigoted claim that the presence of Jews in Judea, Samaria, and Jerusalem impedes progress towards peace ensures that there will be no agreement whatsoever between Israel and the Palestinians.

After all, why would the Palestinians make a deal with Israel when they know that Obama will blame Israel for the absence of a peace agreement?

[...]

The only silver lining for Israelis from the president’s speech in Cairo and his general positions on the Middle East is that Obama has overplayed his hand. Far from bending to his will, a large majority of Israelis perceives Obama as a hostile force and has rallied in support of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu against the administration. This public support gives Netanyahu the maneuver room he needs to take the actions that Israel needs to take to defend against the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran and to assert its national rights and to defend itself against Palestinian terrorists and other Arab and non-Arab anti-Semites who wish it ill.

It's certainly true that Abbas has taken a wait-and-see approach, and that he believes that since Netanyahu will never agree to a real settlement freeze his only course of action is to wait for Netanyahu to be pushed out of office. But the Palestinians will never agree to a comprehensive peace that permits the Israelis to continue the expansion of settlements in the West Bank (and why would they?) and that, coupled with Israeli insistence on at the very least the "natural growth" of settlements is a major sticking point in any peace agreement.  For Glick to call Israeli instransigence as an obstacle to peace an "unsubstantiated, bigoted claim" is especially absurd, since she just referred to an interview with Abbas in which he said quite plainly that there can be no peace with settlement expansion. Only by signaling an end to the past American policy of winking at the Israelis every time a settlement freeze is discussed, can Obama hope to push the peace process forward. So in fact, taking a harder stance on settlement expansion is the only way to move the peace process forward.  

As for her "silver lining"...well, that she may be right about. The Israelis may very well decide to rally around Netanyahu and continue to oppose a settlement freeze or restraint in their military actions against the Palestinians. This is frustrating no doubt, but neither is it an obstacle to peace in the long-run. Doing as Glick desires will result in the continued marginalization of Israel, which in turn will contribute towards a softening of American support for Israel, which in turn will reduce Israeli freedom to act unilaterally with the Palestinians, which in turn will help bring the Israelis to the negotiating table. It would be best for everyone, but most especially the Israelis, to realize this and so make moves towards peace now when they stand to gain a great propaganda victory in doing so. But provided Obama is in office long enough, and provided he continues to deny Israel American approval of the actions they take against the Palestinians, they will eventually come around in one fashion or another.

UPDATE: Another stupid response to the Obama speech:

“I have to admire the residents of Iroquois territory for assuming that they have a right to determine where Jews lives in Jerusalem.”

Thus did Israeli government press director Daniel Seamen caustically dismiss President Obama’s opposition to Israel’s right to “natural growth” of its settlements in Arab East Jerusalem and on the West Bank.

That's from the "you did it so why can't I?" approach to diplomacy. No one was more caustic about American segregation than the Soviets, who under Stalin deported millions of ethnic minorities who were considered a possible threat to the State. And now the Israeli government attempts to hoist the Obama administration on its own petard, I guess for having the audacity to not to give back land to the Mohawks, Senecas and whatnot before criticizing Israeli's activities in the West Bank. Any reader of this blog knows of our Native American affiliations, but that's just ridiculous. But that does prompt me to ask: why the Iriquois? They are hardly the tribe most well-known for having their land stolen, and for forced relocation. Of all tribes the Cherokee are possibly the most cogent example of forced relocation, but even tribes like the Sioux and the Apache should be more well-known examples, given how intertwined they are in the lore of the American west. Are Israeli children learning something different in school from us? Or was that also an unstated reference to the credit the Iriquois are given for inspiring American democracy?

Great job

While Rush Limbaugh and the people on FOX News were in a tizzy over President Obama's landmark speech to the Muslim world in Cairo, Egypt today, I found it interesting that the consistently crazy conservative blog Hot Air described the speech as "surprisingly good." It's qualified praise, of course, but still, any praise is astonishing given the "OMG President Obama is subservient to the Saudi King!" posts of the blog's recent past.

Anyway, it's not an overstatement that President Obama's speech (which was a campaign promise) was as rhetorically brilliant and substantive as normal. I highly advise you to watch and/or read it in full here. He offered tough words to Al Qaeda (who clearly don't know how to deal with him) and those who would justify 9/11 and deny the Holocaust, while simultaneously calling on Israel to stop the expansion of settlements (and promoting a Palestinian state) and admitting the the CIA's role in deposing Mosaddeq. He calls for expanded rights for women in the Muslim world but says that while the U.S. will always promote democracy it won't force it on others. He asks Iran to stop pursuing nuclear weapons, but recognizes their right to peaceful nuclear energy and recommits to a nuclear-free world in general (could this hurt Ahmadinejad's re-election hopes? Let's hope so). Seriously, Barack Obama is so different from what we've seen before it's still, even nearly five months in now, amazing to know that he is indeed the President of the United States and is making history everyday.

Of course, U.S.-Muslim relations will not instantly be rid of tensions with one speech, but it's a damn good start and a down payment on President Obama's promise of a new foreign policy.

UPDATE: Pro-western coalition wins in Lebanon and the man expected to be the next prime minister hails President Obama's speech. Others is the Muslim world also reacted positively.

Thoughts on Foreign Policy

This isn't really a developed line of thought so much as some random musings which I will attempt to organize into a coherent line of thought, so bear with me for a lack of organization. But I'm inspired to put some words down based on this column by Fareed Zakaria (via Daniel Larison) wherein he arrives at the conclusion that the Washington establishment has become far too used to an imperial foreign policy that is contemptuous of alliances, ignorant of the interests of other nations, and dismissive of the idea of restraint:

Consider the gambit with Russia. The Washington establishment is united in the view that Iran's nuclear program poses the greatest challenge for the new administration. The only outside power that has any significant leverage over Tehran is Russia, which is building its nuclear reactor and supplying it with uranium. Exploring whether Moscow might press the Iranians would be useful, right?

Wrong. The Post reacted by worrying that Obama might be capitulating to Russian power. His sin was to point out in a letter to the Russian president that if Moscow were to help in blunting the threat of missile attacks from Tehran, the United States would not feel as pressed to position missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic -- logical since those defenses were meant to protect against Iranian missiles. It's also a good trade because right now the technology for an effective missile shield against Iran is, in the words of one expert cited by the Financial
Times's Gideon Rachman, "a system that won't work, against a threat that doesn't exist, paid for with money that we don't have."

The problem with American foreign policy goes beyond George Bush. It includes a Washington establishment that has gotten comfortable with the exercise of American hegemony and treats compromise as treason and negotiations as appeasement. Other countries can have no legitimate interests of their own. The only way to deal with them is by issuing a series of maximalist demands. This is not foreign policy; it's imperial policy. And it isn't likely to work in today's world.

Zakaria gives the Obama administration credit for making an effort to disengage from the excesses of the Bush administration (which essentially bought into the idea of an imperial foreign policy) but I think it's fair to say that what's changed with the election of Obama is not so much our foreign policy goals, but rather the means by which we hope to achieve them. And lately I find myself wondering if that's as much change as we are in need of.

Consider for example Afghanistan. Any long-time reader of this blog knows that we have been calling for a more robust military, diplomatic and humanitarian effort in Afghanistan for years. We have slowly watched the Taliban crawl back into power as both years and lives were wasted in Iraq, but we have now finally arrived at the moment where it appears the focus of our counter-terrorism efforts will be aimed squarely where the greatest danger lies. I would venture to guess that most liberals (indeed most Americans) feel that we should boost our efforts in Afghanistan, sending more troops and making whatever diplomatic overtures are necessary to both allies and enemies alike. But there is also a sustantial minority of liberals who are opposed to a stronger military effort, as they believe such an effort will prove insufficient to counter the Taliban. And who's to say they're wrong? I'm certainly not willing to guarantee that sending more troops and more money to Afghanistan will entirely (or even substantially) defeat the Taliban. The Soviets, who didn't have to travle halfway around the world to supply their troops and were much less squeemish about the damage they inflicted on Afghanistans, met a humiliating defeat. Of course, admitting that a victory of any kind in Afghanistan, even one as limited as some kind of power-sharing arrangement with more "moderate" elements of the Taliban, may be impossible, requires one to ponder some uncomfortable questions about the limits of American power overall. And this is where the core question about the nature of our foreign policy begins to arise.

No one seems to question whether any of our foreign policy goals are appropriate, or even possible to achieve. The only real question seems to be how we should go about achieving them. In the matter of the Iranian nuclear bomb, neither the administration nor the Washington establishment (as Zakaria explains) questions whether we should be making so robust and effort to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The only issue is how we go about it (how much cooperation should we be willing to secure from Russia, for example.) In the Middle East, few question whether we should be a participant in the Palestinian peace process. The only question seems to be whether we should abandon a long-standing, unquestioning support for Israel's national security policies. In Pakistan, the consensus seems to be forming that it is our job to stave off the collapse of the Pakistani state, so as to prevent the rise of the Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies in that state as well as Afghanistan.

The question that so rarely goes asked, in considering all of these issues, is whether we have the power to actually achieve any of these goals. If Iran wants the bomb, can we really stop them, even if we were to engage in the use of force in an attempt to do so? If Hamas and Israel refuse to be coaxed to the table to negotiate a permanent solution to their conflict, do we have the power to coerce them? If the Pakistani government collapses, and Pakistan devolves into various warring militias, do we have the power to make the country whole again? 

You can see what I'm getting at here. Foreign policy goals are useful, but has it come time to consider whether our goals are within our power to achieve? I'll admit that I've been chewing this question over ever since I read Edward Luttwak's column in Harper's arguing for disengagement from the Middle East. Luttwak's argument has made me quite aware that it is intellectually insupportable to indulge in arguments about what we ought to be doing, without considering what we're capable of doing.

Don't get me wrong. Whatever alternative to our present foreign policy I'm imagining, it's not a return to isolationism. It's simply that an argument can be made that we're trying to do too much, with too little, and that we must alter our goals and our expectations accordingly.

But what got me started in this vein, goes back to what Zakaria has to say about the Washington establishment. Surely we can blame them for their eager embrace of an arrogant foreign policy, but it seems to me that the rest of us are also all too willing to accept the conventional wisdom about our foreign policy goals, and that the only thing we deride the Washington establishment for is a difference in tactics. Is it time yet for all of us to do some reconsidering about our nation's place in the world, and what we are capable of? One would think that our misadventure in Iraq would have taught us not only humility, but the actual limits of power. It seems though that we were rescued from our own foolishness by some measure of luck and resolve on the part of our military, and I find myself wondering if we'll be learning in Afghanistan the hard lessons we've thus far deferred.

UPDATE: Now, this is what I'm talking about:

The American people now have a new president who seems to have grasped the seriousness of the financial crisis, but the purpose of his foreign policy is still in doubt. The new uncertain administration seems still to live in the fantasy world of 1945 to 1973, when Americans had rising expectations and American industrial prosperity probably peaked. Today most Americans must live in a world of lowered expectations.

The immediate need of the Obama administration is to drop the ideology of the "war on terrorism." The future task of the Obama team is not only to withdraw American troops from Iraq, but also from Afghanistan. Mostly through cooperation with EU's major powers the US can maintain a few sea bases around the greater Middle East region. The nation cannot afford to use its military machine to maintain "the land of rising expectations" and “the American way of life” that Franklin Roosevelt had bequeathed to the American people by the victories of 1945.

Don't cheat though. Read the whole thing to see how historian Dr. Richard Whealey arrives at this conclusion.

Blockade

More on the ridiculous "pasta blockade" that Israel has instituted over Gaza:

For more than seven weeks, the international aid group Mercy Corps has been trying to send 90 tons of macaroni to the isolated Gaza Strip as part of a global campaign to help the 1.4 million Palestinians there rebuild their lives after Israel's recent devastating 22-day military operation.

Israel, which controls most of what goes into and out of Gaza, has said no repeatedly.

At first, Israeli officials said that they wanted to make sure that the macaroni wasn't destined for a Hamas charity. Then they said macaroni was banned because they didn't consider it an essential food item.

On Wednesday, days after American lawmakers raised pointed questions about the macaroni ban, Israeli authorities said that they were preparing to give the pasta a green light.

For the international aid community, the dispute is emblematic of the red tape and political maneuvering that have stymied efforts to rebuild Gaza.

"We're at the end of our rope," said David Holdridge, the head of Middle East emergency relief efforts for Mercy Corps. "This is just ridiculous. It's absolutely absurd."

[...]

The macaroni standoff drew the attention of U.S. lawmakers who made a rare trip last week to the Gaza Strip.

"Is someone going to kill you with a piece of macaroni?" Rep. Brian Baird, a Washington state Democrat who joined Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison in visiting Gaza, reportedly said after hearing about the aid restrictions.

Along with macaroni, Israel has prevented aid groups that are helping Gaza from sending in everything from paper and crayons to tomato paste and lentils.

As international donors prepare to meet next week in Egypt to discuss a massive, coordinated global rebuilding initiative, Israel is making it clear that it will block any projects that could help Hamas.

Since that definition could be expanded to include anything that keeps Palestinians alive, it's no wonder spaghetti is blacklisted. One would think that after the recent inauguration of a new President who is expected to scrutinize Israeli actions in Gaza more carefully, the Israeli government would be more careful about public relations. Instead they appear to want to give themselves a black eye over ridiculous, non-consequential food items.

Small But Significant Changes

First, the Obama administration has stated that they are sending $900 million to Gaza to help in the rebuilding effort. This is not the first time that an administration has slotted aid for the Palestinians, but it's an unprecedented amount as far as I can tell. The mere fact that we might help Palestinians rebuild their flattened homes is irritating enough to the Israeli hawks, but apparently Secretary Clinton is also not afraid to call out the Israelis over the speed with which the aid is being distributed (via Glenn Greenwald):

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has relayed messages to Israel in the past week expressing anger at obstacles Israel is placing to the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. A leading political source in Jerusalem noted that senior Clinton aides have made it clear that the matter will be central to Clinton's planned visit to Israel next Tuesday.

Ahead of Clinton's visit, special U.S. envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell is expected to issue a sharply worded protest on the same matter when he arrives here Thursday.

"Israel is not making enough effort to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza," senior U.S. officials told Israeli counterparts last week, and reiterated Washington's view by saying that "the U.S. expects Israel to meet its commitments on this matter."

What they're referring to our restrictions the Israelis have placed on the number of shipments of aid being allowed into Gaza on a daily basis. The Israelis say they're doing the best they can, but anecdotes like these make it appear that they are as cavalier about humanitarian aid as they were about avoiding civilian casualties during the Gaza offensive:

...an incident occured last week at a crossing into the Gaza Strip that gave a very different impression to a senior observer. When Senator John Kerry visited the Strip, he learned that many trucks loaded with pasta were not permitted in. When the chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee inquired as to the reason for the delay, he was told by United Nations aid officials that "Israel does not define pasta as part of humanitarian aid - only rice shipments."

Kerry asked Barak about the logic behind this restriction, and only after the senior U.S. official's intervention did the defense minister allow the pasta into the Strip. The U.S. senator updated colleagues at the Senate and other senior officials in Washington of the details of his visit.

Obviously, taking the Israelis to task over the pace at which aid is being delivered to Gaza is not the same as condemning the offensive in Gaza, but it's certainly light years beyond anything the Bush administration would've done.

Also, a change in the long-standing embargo of Cuba maybe be coming:

Monday's call by Sen. Richard Lugar for a major re-assessment of Washington's nearly half-century effort to isolate Cuba increases the likelihood that U.S. President Barack Obama will make substantial changes in policy toward Havana beyond those he promised during his election campaign, according to experts here.

"What's significant is that this is the senior statesman for foreign policy in the Republican Party, someone who doesn't have a long track record of advocating for changes in Cuba policy, who has decided to come out and really put his stamp on this issue by saying that the U.S. embargo doesn't favour our national interest," said Daniel Erickson, a Cuba specialist at the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank here.

"The fact is that Lugar has pre-empted Obama with his own proposals for changing the policy and in so doing creates a context that is much more favourable to changing the policy beyond the narrow of issue of lifting restrictions on Cuban-American travel and remittances" to the island, added Erickson, author of 'The Cuba Wars,' a recently published book on U.S.-Cuban relations.

"What you are seeing is momentum-building," agreed Geoff Thale, a Cuba specialist at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a human rights group that has long opposed the trade embargo. "With the policy already under review by the administration, Lugar is creating political space for Obama to take stronger action than he otherwise might."

A tougher line on Israel, a lessening of the embargo of Cuba? It's almost too much to hope for.

A "Sea Change"?

I'm far too cynical to believe that our relationship to Israel-which is mostly characterized by our acquiescence to whatever actions Israel seeks to take against it's enemies, however self-destructive and self-defeating-is about to change based on events to this point. I do agree with Greenwald that our national discourse about Israel is gradually changing and so the possibility of real change in our foreign policy is present, but we're talking about decades of conflating Israel's national security concerns that must be defeated first.

UPDATE: On the other hand, if the Obama administration is making moves that piss off the Israel hawks, maybe change is around the corner.

Obama and Chavez

Whatever new approach we might be taking towards Burma, it appears that Hugo Chavez will remain our favorite whipping boy in South America. I honestly don't know how it's possible to approach any diplomatic policy towards any Latin American or South American nation without keeping in mind the decades of hostile and anti-democratic intervention that we propagated during the cold war, or without the recognition of the democratic choices these nations are making today. We would do well to have less to say about the policies of Latin and South American nations that don't impact us directly. Also, we would do well to stop backing military intervention in these democratic countries whenever we think it might possibly just in case maybe support our policies.

Shift in U.S. Policy Towards Burma?

So hints Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that economic sanctions imposed by the United States and other Western governments have failed to pressure the repressive Burmese government, signaling a potentially major shift in U.S. policy.

Clinton, at a news conference here, did not deny that easing sanctions was one of the ideas under consideration by the Obama administration as part of a major review, saying that "we are looking at possible ideas that can be presented." She said she had discussed the issue with Indonesian officials.

"Clearly, the path we have taken in imposing sanctions hasn't influenced the Burmese junta," she said, adding that the route taken by Burma's neighbors of "reaching out and trying to engage them has not influenced them, either."

[...]

In an influential report issued last October, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group argued that humanitarian aid should begin to flow into the country and that bans on Burmese garments, agriculture and fishery products and restrictions on tourism should be lifted.

"It is a mistake in the Myanmar context to use aid as a bargaining chip, to be given only in return for political change," the report said. "Twenty years of aid restrictions -- which see Myanmar receiving twenty times less assistance per capita than other least-developed countries -- have weakened, not strengthened, the forces for change."

While Clinton has been careful not to tip her hand on the direction of the policy review, she has used strikingly mild language about the Burmese government, describing "the unfortunate path" taken by Burma, leaving it "impervious to influence from anyone."

During her stop in Indonesia, Clinton also visited the Jakarta-based headquarters of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a regional bloc of 10 nations that includes Burma but is often criticized as ineffectual.

As scores of ASEAN employees lined the balconies to applaud her, Clinton announced that the Obama administration would consider signing the group's Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, a nonaggression pact signed by 15 nations outside the region. The Bush administration had declined to sign it, in part because of concerns it might hamper policy toward Burma.

Clinton also said she would attend a regional security meeting in July, a diplomatic session that former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice skipped twice during her four-year tenure. "It really shows the seriousness of the United States to end its diplomatic absenteeism in the region," a beaming ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan said.

Sanctions are generally regarded as an appropriate measure to punish a government that refuses to abide by international law; in fact in the diplomatic realm, this belief is something of a truism. Hence the willingness of some to cling to the idea of sanctions towards Burma, even though the military regime is mostly impervious and completely unresponsive to sanctions, which mostly punish a civilian population that the regime has unrelenting control over. While I do not think violent and oppressive regimes should be rewarded for their bad behavior, I certainly have no problem with rewarding them for good behavior, especially when they shrug whatever punishments we are capable of. It will be interesting to see what carrots the Obama administration has in mind for the Burmese regime.

A Thought I Had Driving In

For most purposes, approaches to our nation's foreign policy can be divided into three camps:

1. People who think there should be no limitations whatsoever on our actions, that everything we do should be justified by self-interest, and that our interests are never actually (or are rarely) harmed by behaving in accordance with that belief.

2. People who think the same, but realize that there are times where such behavior is actually damaging to our interests and so moderate their approach when there's a possibility (to one degree or another) ofblowback or unintended consequences for behaving as such.

3. People who generally believe that we should act in our own self-interest when necessary, but also believe that the United States and other nations should be subject to the international rule of law (and may believe that being subject to such law actually benefits our nation in the long-run.)

Naturally, this is a simple-minded list and is not really meant to be a definitive statement on the diversity (or lack thereof) of opinion on foreign policy by those who work in that field. But I think it's sufficient to describe the general thoughts of lay people such as us. Agree? Disagree?

Underground

Israel lobby? What Israel lobby?

One ounce GOP hypocrisy with a dash of craziness

After criticizing Democrats for endangering relations with Turkey via a proposed resolution to recognize Armenian Genocide during WWI, guess what they decide is suddenly important?

Nineteen US lawmakers, nearly all of them from President George W. Bush's Republican party, have introduced a bill in the House of Representatives backing UN membership for Taiwan, a move that could anger China.

It was introduced on Thursday at the House Foreign Affairs Committee by 18 Republican legislators and one Democrat, with the move led by New Jersey Republican Representative Scott Garrett, congressional records showed.

The bill said Taiwan and its 23 million people "deserve membership in the United Nations" and that the United States should fulfill a commitment "to more actively support Taiwan's membership in appropriate international organizations."

Not that I don't support Taiwan, but obviously this will go nowhere because even the mere mention of it faces the ire of China and risks our relations. My point here is just to illustrate further the GOP's incessant hypocrisy.

And speaking of Taiwan, thankfully no one actually in the House is as crazy as this guy:

State Rep. AARON SCHOCK, who is running for Congress, has some audacious — well, maybe “shocking” is a better word — ideas about foreign policy...

In particular, Schock’s plan to offer nuclear arms to Taiwan if China doesn’t go along with U.S. policy toward Iran seemed odd to me.

An international relations expert I checked with agreed, saying that idea not only shows “incredible naivete,” but, if carried out, probably would lead to war between China and Taiwan.

Shock, a Peoria Republican, at 26, is the youngest member of the Illinois General Assembly. He also is one of the three Republican candidates to replace retiring U.S. Rep. RAY LaHOOD, R-Peoria, in Illinois’ 18th Congressional District. Schock made his intentions official Oct. 27 with events in Peoria Heights and Springfield.

In his speech, he noted that President RONALD REAGAN came to the aid of such rebel groups as the Contras in Nicaragua and the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan. Schock said Reagan also provided freedom movements such as Solidarity in Poland “with CIA training in organizing, and all the equipment necessary to function.”

“Any freedom movement in a totalitarian country faces enormous difficulty in organizing against the unlimited resources of a ruthless state,” Schock said in the speech. “Those freedom movements need help from free nations. In Congress, I will advocate for them.

Schock said he would propose spending the same amount to support “freedom fighters inside Iran” as Iran gives Hezbollah in Lebanon each year

“Let’s turn the tables,” Schock said.

The money could be used to train underground leaders in how to organize and prevent detection, satellite phones, communications, radio broadcasts from nearby countries, “and eventually arms,” Schock said.

“Funding a freedom movement to overthrow the regime will cause massive turmoil in Iran,” he went on. “No American troops will be necessary. We will simply facilitate the people’s overthrow of the Iranian regime, just (as) we did successfully all over Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, Ethiopia and Nicaragua.

In regard to Taiwan, Schock said the U.S. should put more pressure on China and Russia to go along with tougher economic sanctions against Iran.

“If China continues to be irresponsible about nuclear proliferation in Iran, we should tell them that if they do not care about proliferation — and since they are enablers of it in Iran — that if they don’t change their position, we will sell Pershing nuclear missiles to Taiwan for their defense.”

“Non-proliferation will either be enforced universally or not at all — it is their choice,” Schock continued. “The Chinese will come around, I have no doubt.”

I thought this seemed bold, to say the least, coming from a new candidate for Congress, so I solicited an outside view from PAUL DIEHL, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Diehl, an expert on international conflict, has written or edited 17 books and more than 100 articles on international relations matters.

Diehl, who said he’s personally a political independent, said Taiwan is a “very sensitive issue” in the region.

“The statement about selling nuclear weapons to Taiwan reflects an incredible naivete about international relations,” he said of Schock’s idea. “Transferring nuclear weapons technology to any state is a violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It would also encourage other states to do the same, specifically to enemies of the United States.

“I can’t think of anything more provocative to China than giving Taiwan nuclear weapons, assuming that they would even foolishly accept them. A nuclear Taiwan would not be strong enough to deter China and indeed (would) probably provoke an attack before the missiles could be deployed.”

Man, what a wacko!

It Was A Joke Guys

The "Bush doctrine" as I've written before (and before even that) has not so much died, as it never really existed. Even now though there are those who have not learned this lesson, as Ken Silverstein points out after listing a long series of shockingly naive op-eds in the Washington Post that bemoan Bush's betrayal of his own so-called "freedom agenda":

Indeed, the Post has been spotting the Bush Administration making a mockery of the freedom agenda virtually from the moment the policy was declared. In yet another column on the topic, Diehl (discussing the “de facto reversal of Bush’s freedom agenda”) asked, “Who can make sense of this disaster?”

Listen, Diehl, I know I’m not as smart as you are with your fancypants Yale degree, but let me have a crack at it: There never was a freedom agenda. Bush simply repackaged rhetoric used by past administrations about America’s commitment to democracy abroad, and cut the same deals they did that gave a free pass to dictators willing to support American foreign policy objectives.

Outside of American newspaper editorial pages, the “freedom agenda” is a joke. Pro-American despots across the globe know they’ll pay no consequences for jailing opponents and cracking down on the press, which is why they do it so routinely and scornfully. But rest assured, the next time a Bush-friendly dictator tightens the screws, the Post editorial page will once again bemoan the administration’s lack of action and scratch its collective head and wonder how things went so terribly, terribly wrong.

To all you Nigerian spammers out there, I know a few people who may be able to help you move your "inheritances".

What's Wrong with Hillary

I don't know why I'm even mildly surprised, but Hillary quite publicly refuses to repudiate the use of torture by the U.S. government:

Clinton was similarly vague about how she would handle special interrogation methods used by the CIA. She said that while she does not condone torture, so much has been kept secret that she would not know unless elected what other extreme measures interrogators are using, and therefore could not say whether she would change or continue existing policies.

"It is not clear yet exactly what this administration is or isn't doing. We're getting all kinds of mixed messages," Clinton said. "I don't think we'll know the truth until we have a new president. I think [until] you can get in there and actually bore into what's been going on, you're not going to know."

What? "Mixed messages"? I'm sorry, but we know quite clearly that the Bush administration has authorized the use of brutal techniques like water-boarding and stress positions, has refused to renounce such techniques, has authored secret legal opinions justifying them, and has only reluctantly backed away from such techniques after losing cases before the Supreme Court. If you are genuinely against torture, you would simply come out and say "I do not support the use of torture techniques such as water-boarding, stress positions" etc., etc. What are the reasons you wouldn't come out and say something like that? Either because you are genuinely not really against torture all that much, or because you don't want to say you're against torture because that's not "tough." Which is worse? I don't know, but Kevin Drum detests this sort of weasily spinning:

Politics is politics. Spin and ambiguity are part of the game. But if you can't even take a full-throated, non-weasely position against torture and abuse of prisoners in American custody, what the hell good are you?

Indeed. Who of us desires to vote a Democrat into the White House, only to find that torture continues in our name? Not I.

I like Hillary. I really do. I think she's tough, strong, intelligent and would be a hell of a President. But this sort of thing is really starting to chap my hide. I am seriously beginning to question whether or not Hillary lines up with my ideas on American foreign policy and national security enough for me to be comfortable with her as President. I hardly need to say anything about her infamous vote for the Iraq war, a vote that haunts her on the campaign trail, a vote she has yet to adequately explain. Even now she continues to hedge on Iraq, as if she's preserving some sort of maneuvering room that will permit her to keep us in the conflict longer than most Americans desire (though to be fair, all the major candidates seem to be having this problem.) Then there's her vote on the recent Iran resolution, followed shortly by her support of a proposal that would block funding of a military strike on Iran, a position which leaves people like me wondering exactly how much leeway Hillary thinks she's giving the Bush administration to act on Iran and to what purpose. It doesn't help that her list of advisers includes hawks suck as Michael O'Hanlon, defender of the surge.

Then there's the nuclear weapons kerfuffle from earlier this year, where Obama made the egregious mistake of saying he wouldn't unilaterally nuke thousands of innocent Pakistanis to kill a dozen or so terrorists, and Clinton called him out for his unseriousness in that regard, and for his willingness to waste time talking to heads of State we disagree with.

Then there's her approach to Cuba, which appears to be to continue the failed embargo approach of the last fifty years.

In contrast to that we have Barack Obama, who unabashedly and clearly repudiates the use of torture, spoke out against the war in Iraq, refused to back the Iran resolution, who thinks we should talk to our enemies, who believes it's silly to admit that we won't nuke peaceful citizens just to get to terrorists, who in fact believes we should ban nuclear weapons, who supports rapprochement with Cuba, and who employs a noted human rights activist as his most prominent foreign policy adviser.

Don't get me wrong. I don't support or oppose a candidate based solely on my foreign policy beliefs. But we are at a critical juncture in the history of our Nation, where our relationships with other powers can either be repaired and restored or where they can be broken beyond repair, where we can engage in war until it saps us of our military and economic might or we can begin the difficult road to peace and diplomacy, and where we can break with the ineffectual policies of the past to engage in a new era of world leadership. At this juncture, I think it's becoming clearer who is best suited to do all of these things, and it's not Hillary Clinton.

UPDATE: Dammit! The Hillary campaign ruins my anti-Hillary screed by revealing that Hillary was not quoted accurately by the Washington Post (check the link to Kevin Drum above for an update.) Her entire quote reveals about as unequivocal a stand against torture as you can ask for and I'm not going to over-interpret her words like Andrew Sullivan in an effort to sustain my original point (and Sullivan has his own weird problems with the Clintons anyway.) But I stand by the rest of my post, and her clear statement against torture isn't enough to change my mind about any of the rest of her foreign policy positions.

Turkey and Genocide

Congress is torn over whether or not to formally declare the forced relocation and slaughter of Turkish Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Empire early last century genocide:

A proposed House resolution that would label as "genocide" the deaths of Armenians more than 90 years ago during the Ottoman Empire has won the support of a majority of House members, unleashing a lobbying blitz by the Bush administration and other opponents who say it would greatly harm relations with Turkey, a key ally in the Iraq war.

All eight living former secretaries of state have signed a joint letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) warning that the nonbinding resolution "would endanger our national security interests." Three former defense secretaries, in their own letter, said Turkey probably would cut off U.S. access to a critical air base. The government of Turkey is spending more than $300,000 a month on communications specialists and high-powered lobbyists, including former House speaker Bob Livingston, to defeat the initiative.

How are things with Turkey right now exactly?

Turkey's ruling party decided Tuesday to seek parliamentary approval for an offensive against Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq, a move that could open a new front in the Iraq war and disrupt one of that nation's few relatively peaceful areas.

Some make the argument that such a resolution will only strain relations between the U.S. and Turkey, which denies that the genocide was in anyway systematically instigated or conducted by Turkish officials. For my part I say, if not now, then when? When Turkey is no longer a valuable ally to us in a region which is of prime national security importance to us? When exactly would that be?

Genocide is genocide, and Turkish official policy is still to deny that such genocide took place. This is inexcusable a century years after the event, after we've seen fit to condemn the Nazi Holocaust over and over. A resolution is only a resolution, and it will change neither what happened nor the modern Turkish response to it. But it will indicate our displeasure with nations that attempt to rewrite their history out of nationalist pride, embarrassment, or shame. History should be left to historians, but nations should be willing to stand in moral judgment of each other when circumstances warrant. Until Turkey is willing to accept the full scale of what happened, they should not expect the citizens of the United States in the form of their representatives in Congress, to standy idly by, silent.

"Benevolent Global Hegemony"

Matthew Yglesias takes neoconservatism at face value, and takes a stab at deconstructing the 1996 essay by Robert Kagan and William Kristol, "Toward a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy." Yglesias does a good job attacking the ideological incoherency of their approach. I'll take the easy way out and attack the results, as evidenced by the neocons ultimate dream, the invasion of Iraq. Here's an excerpt from the article:

Conservatives will not be able to govern America over the long term if they fail to offer a more elevated vision of America's international role.

What should that role be? Benevolent global hegemony. Having defeated the "evil empire," the United States enjoys strategic and ideological predominance. The first objective of U.S. foreign policy should be to preserve and enhance that predominance by strengthening America's security, supporting its friends, advancing its interests, and standing up for its principles around the world.

Let's see:

1. Strengthening America's security: failed
2. Supporting America's friends: failed (unless by "friends" we mean oppressive dictatorships)
3. Advancing American interests: failed (the Iraq war has not improved our access to oil)
5. Standing up for American principles: failed

So the neocons, thanks to 9/11, were granted the ultimate power to conduct a war of choice that would exemplify their foreign policy approach, and so far it has produced resentment among our allies, ground up our military in the sands of Iraq, destroyed our reputation as the shining beacon of liberty to oppressed nations, revealed us as torturers, checked our ability to deal with existing terrorist threats while at the same time producing new threats, and upturned the power structure of a region we are heavily dependent upon for energy resources.

The dream of the neocons is dead, and so is their absurd and childish fantasy of "benevolent hegemony", a dream that has never existed in world history and shall never exist so long as men are not governed by angels.

"Why do they hate us?"

Writing in last Sunday's Washington Post Outlook magazine, this Muslim writer recounts a question posed to him during a visit to Dallas. His answer is simple and straight-forward:

I still remember the politeness with which one elderly gentleman addressed me in a bookshop. He held a copy of my latest novel, "The Reluctant Fundamentalist," and examined the face on its cover, comparing it to mine. Then he said, nodding once as if to dip the brim of an imaginary hat: "So tell me, sir. Why do they hate us?"

Talk about why so many Muslims hate the United States these days, and you'll hear plenty of self-flagellation, at least in some quarters of post-9/11 America.

Part of the reason people abroad resent the United States is something Americans can do very little about: envy.

But there is another major reason for anti-Americanism: the accreted residue of many years of U.S. foreign policies. These policies are unknown to most Americans. They form only minor footnotes in U.S. history. But they are the chapter titles of the histories of other countries, where they have had enormous consequences. America's strength has made it a sort of Gulliver in world affairs: By wiggling its toes it can, often inadvertently, break the arm of a Lilliputian.

The residue of U.S. foreign policy coats much of the world. It is the other part of the answer to the question, "Why do they hate us?" Simply because America has -- often for what seemed good reasons at the time -- intervened to shape the destinies of other countries and then, as a nation, walked away.

For an example of this, you need only look to East Africa:

The report, obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, said Eritrea has shipped a "huge quantity of arms" to the insurgents, known as the Shabab. The shipments continued despite U.N. efforts to bring peace to Somalia and the deployment of African Union peacekeepers.

Eritrea denied providing any assistance to the Shabab, the militant wing of an Islamic group that ruled much of southern Somalia for six months last year. U.S. officials believe the militants have close ties to al-Qaida.

There are more arms in Somalia now than at any time since the country's civil war broke out in 1991 and "there is no clearly established authority that has the capability of exercising control over a majority of the arms," the report found.

We're not responsible for Eritrea sending arms into Somalia. We're not responsible for Ethiopia's gross human rights abuses. We're not responsible that guerilla fighters attack and kill civilians as part of their war against the Ethiopian-backed government. At least, we're not respnosible in the sense that we have asked anyone to do these things on our behalf. But we are responsible, in part, for the destabilization of Somalia and the outbreak of open war yet again. As part our ham-handed response to the threat of terrorism, we conflated the Somali Islamic government with the threat of terrorism, based on tenuous and unconfirmed connections between members of the ICU and supposed members of Al Qaeada. It is widely presumed, and almost certainly correct, that we gave Ethiopia the okay to intervene in Somalia militarily. Our forces attacked ICU militants who have so far posed no threat to us, and our intelligence and law enforcement agencies have interrogated prisoners that the Ethiopian military has rounded up wholesale without discriminating between actual militants and civilians. And now, whereas before some Somalis might possibly remember that we tried to help feed their country (before we killed a thousand or more fighters and civilians in the events recounted in the book and movie "Blackhawk Down") instead now they will remember that with something approaching the equivalent of a raised eyebrow or the nod of a head, we endorsed the invasion that plunged Somalia back into civil war. Having failed even to capture the "terrorists" that were supposedly in the country, we have walked away. The Somalis are on their own, and we leave the U.N. to try and clean up the mess.

So yes, something that will be a minor footnote in our history books-if it's mentioned at all-is now killing thousands of Somalis. And no, most Americans know nothing about it. Which, quite frankly, is inexcusable. It's not merely that with cold (and flawed) calculation our leaders decide to endorse the destabilization of countries and governments, but it's that in our laziness and selfishness, we as ordinary citizens don't even know anything about it. And then we have the gall to ask "Why do they hate us?" with naive and sincere puzzlement. That we have to ask the question at all is an indictment of our ignorance and arrogance as a nation.

"Success", Defined

George Packer writes today to applaud the success of international intervention in Sierra Leone. Frances Trix, writing at Informed Comment, says the success of the international mission in Kosovo is somewhat more qualified. There are two lessons to take away from these similar pieces. First, a humanitarian intervention can save lives and save a nation, if it's conducted with narrow tailoring to meet feasible goals. Second, we must always be on guard for the lack of knowledge or understanding of other people that makes hubris and over-reaching in humanitarian interventions possible or likely. Balancing competing considerations before engaging in humanitarian missions or nation-building is not as sexy as claiming that should do something before a "smoking gun becomes a mushroom cloud", but it's the only realistic way of approaching such problems.

Political Briefings for Diplomats?

Next thing you know, we'll be hearing about briefings for park rangers and border patrol agents:

White House aides have conducted at least half a dozen political briefings for the Bush administration's top diplomats, including a PowerPoint presentation for ambassadors with senior adviser Karl Rove that named Democratic incumbents targeted for defeat in 2008 and a "general political briefing" at the Peace Corps headquarters after the 2002 midterm elections.

The briefings, mostly run by Rove's deputies at the White House political affairs office, began in early 2001 and included detailed analyses for senior officials of the political landscape surrounding critical congressional and gubernatorial races, according to documents obtained by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The documents show for the first time how the White House sought to ensure that even its appointees involved in foreign policy were kept attuned to the administration's election goals. Such briefings occurred semi-regularly over the past six years for staffers dealing with domestic policy, White House officials have previously acknowledged.

If you're wondering how diplomats are supposed to benefit from an official political briefing, welcome to the club. Especially a briefing from a White House as out of touch as this:

According to a department letter to the Senate panel, Rove explained the White House views on the electoral disaster while Sara M. Taylor, then the director of White House political affairs, showed a PowerPoint presentation that pinned most of the electoral blame on "corrupt" GOP lawmakers and "complacent incumbents." One chart in Taylor's presentation highlighted the GOP's top 36 targets among House Democrats for the 2008 election.

I'm sure more than a few diplomats were winking at each other after they heard that. The real reason Republicans fared so badly in the 2006 elections is partly because the White House has stooped to politicizing everything, from the war on down, and these briefings are emblematic of that approach. Karl Rove and President Bush have never quite seemed to grasp that if you screw up big enough and long enough, the people will vote for someone else no matter how clever your marketing approach is.

Mistakes Led to the Rise of Hamas

This McClatchy article offers a succinct and condemning explanation of the various missteps the Bush administration made towards the Palestinian government after Hamas' rise to power in the 2006 elections, and how those missteps contributed to Hamas' military victory in Gaza last month. I won't excerpt any bits, as you should read it in full. I would like to think that 18 months is not much time to screw things up, but given the blunders in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea, Somalia and so on, I think I would be fooling myself. At this point I would trust a room full of Americans plucked off the street more than I would this administration on foreign policy and national security. Most Americans would know that they don't know anything about foreign policy, and would at least hire people who do, and not ignorant and arrogant know-nothings like this bozo. Of course, I also thought they wouldn't elect a President who reduces the complexities of the Middle East and Central Asia down to "good and evil"...