Monday, December 30, 2002

[10:43 AM] The new issue of Foreign Affairs features several essays under the banner of “Middle East Countdown.” Of the ones I’ve skimmed so far (and only one is available full-text online), Michael Scott Doran’s “Palestine, Iraq, and American Strategy” caught my attention. One of Doran’s arguments revolves around the debate to form a Palestinian state before dealing with Iraq. Doran writes:

When toppling Saddam Hussein rose to the top of the Bush administration's foreign policy agenda, a chorus of voices protested that Washington had misdiagnosed the root cause of its Middle Eastern dilemmas. "It's Palestine, stupid!" was the refrain heard not only from European and Arab capitals, but from some quarters in the United States as well. These voices argued that attacking Iraq while the Israelis were reoccupying Palestinian lands would substantiate the claim, already widespread in the Middle East, that the United States had declared war against all Arabs and Muslims. The ensuing backlash would undermine the American position in the region and wreak havoc on American interests. What Washington really needed to do was postpone or abandon a showdown with Saddam and focus instead on achieving a breakthrough in the Palestinian-Israeli negotiation.

But Doran doesn’t buy this argument writing

Even if the United States were somehow able to broker a stable Palestinian-Israeli settlement that met many Arab aspirations, however, this would not necessarily generate a great deal of goodwill.

I’ve heard this pronouncement quite a bit, but I’ve never heard any explanation for it. Doran thinks that no matter what settlement is achieved, some Palestinians will be dissatisfied, and thus still hold ill will toward the U.S. That’s probably true, but that doesn’t mean that majority will. And that might certainly be true at the outset. But I can't envision the resentment of the U.S. two years after the formation of a Palestinian state, so long as it is viable and economically vibrant. It would seem to me that the freedom of self-determination would overrule any grumbling about “minor” issues left unresolved or resolved in a less than satisfactory manner.

At worst, this argument obscures a self-pitying argument that “they’ll [Arabs and Muslims] always hate us.” Maybe that’s a harsh and cynical assessment, but as is even with the case of Doran’s essay, no one cares to explain why helping the Palestinians build a state of their own, will reflect poorly on the U.S.

# posted 10:46 AM

Sunday, December 22, 2002

[11:32 AM] This article from the NYT details U.S. preparations in the Kurdish areas of Iraq for a U.S.-led invasion. A line jumped out at me: “They are also building relationships that would be valuable if the United States leads a war against President Saddam Hussein's government and later occupies this historically unstable land.”

I know what the author was suggesting, that the course of history—especially since WWI—has made modern Iraq a tumultuous land. But the way that line is written makes it sound as if there’s something in the water, rather than outside meddling that has led to this.

# posted 11:35 AM

Tuesday, December 17, 2002

[2:33 PM] Remember how President Bush said he'd focus on Latin America in his foreign policy? This was an easy pronouncement for the foreign affairs neophyte. After all he thinks he speaks Spanish, as Univision news anchor Jorge Ramos put it recently (this is actually very accurate if you've ever seen any of the interviews Bush has done with Spanish language television. He can't do them in Spanish. He always switches to English after uttering his one stock line in Spanish: "No quiero destruir un idioma tan bonito." Well then, I guess you don't speak Spanish, huh? I digress). Nicholas Kristoff takes Bush to task in the NYT today writing "If only Saddam Hussein ruled Brazil! If only Hugo Chávez were developing nuclear weapons! Then Washington might pay attention to the fire next door..." Kristoff doesn't even dwell on the mess that has become Colombia since it elected a new president last May.

# posted 2:46 PM

Monday, December 16, 2002

[4:00 PM] Another tri-border terrorism story! However, thanks to the Fields Report, you know everything in this one already.

# posted 4:07 PM

[3:57 PM] President Bush’s presidency has remarkably been consumed by foreign policy, his weakest area. Lately though I’ve been wondering, how it is he still gets a free pass in this area. I’m not one of those calling the war on terrorism a failure. I’ll give it and him the benefit of the doubt and assume that so much of it involves clandestine operations that there’s really not much that can be revealed about the day-to-day successes or failures. And after all weren’t we warned about this “new” kind of war and prepared for a long battle? But now we hear nothing. And when attacks occur like the French tanker that was bombed off the coast of Yemen or the Bali nightclub bombing, we hear the requisite remorse from the president. What we don’t hear is any sort of general statements or grand strategy about how the “war” is going, or where it’s going (except to Iraq). Simple bellicose rhetoric is more the norm. Given the gravity of the attacks on September 11th, this is shameful. However, there are other matters that deserve the president’s attention as well. When we will hear the president speak at length about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict or the situation in Iran or Colombia? In general, when will we hear the president step up to the podium and say “My fellow Americans, this is a crucial time for this nation and the world. Our ability to forge a peaceful future is eroding every day. Let me talk to you about my plan to strengthen the bonds among nations and stop deadly violence around the globe…” I won’t hold my breath for anything from the president, but will the media please re-engage (although if that means taking the heat off of Trent Lott, I take it all back; one crisis at a time). More later.

# posted 4:00 PM

Tuesday, December 10, 2002

[2:15 PM] Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment says we're not going to war with Iraq. Read his op-ed from Le Monde here. If Fields Report were a betting man (and he is), he would also put money on Cirincione's argument. Cirincione writes, "The declaration will not be full or complete, but it may reveal information Saddam believes the US already knows, such as secret imports or caches of old chemical weapons. It will not be obvious any time soon that Saddam is not cooperating. It will be very difficult, even for the most bellicose in the U.S., to initiate a war if Saddam does not blatantly obstruct inspections." This is the most compelling line of reasoning. The rest of the op-ed simply repeats a lot reasons for not going to war (damage to the economy, long-term occupation of Iraq, lack of public support for going it alone, etc.) that are part of the debate already, but doesn't explain how this will deter the Bush administration since it hasn't softened much of the White House rhetoric thus far.

Fields Report does believe however that Saddam will either declare items he believes intel sources already know about or he has already unilaterally destroyed them and will await another (post-sanctions) day to resume his WMD programs. What kind of odds can I get?

# posted 2:22 PM

Monday, December 09, 2002

[12:34 PM] The U.S. has taken control of the 12,000 pages of Iraq’s arms declaration. One of the tasks now at hand will be to translate the Arabic portions into English. Remember right after 9/11 the clamor for more Arabic linguists in the FBI and intelligence community? It wasn’t high enough priority to keep six Army linguists trained in Arabic at the Defense Language Institute who were recently dismissed from the Army because they are gay. Click here to visit the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military and read some news clippings on reactions from major newspapers and magazines. Of the big four newspapers, only the Washington Post ran an editorial denouncing the absurdity of the discharge of the servicemembers. Click here to see The Daily Show's hilarious take on the matter (to the right under video clips--"Whaaaa? Gay Linguist")

# posted 12:37 PM

Friday, December 06, 2002

[10:54 AM] Am I the only one noticing that the White House has gone around the bend on this Iraq thing? We’re less than two weeks into inspections, which have gone off without a hitch, but President Bush seems to be watching another channel. And yesterday came all the pronouncements from the Bushies that they have the smoking gun—we know for a fact they the Iraqis have WMD. No we won’t tell you any details and maybe we’ll share this information with the inspectors.

Now even if you come down on the side of “we must take down Saddam now,” I can’t figure what Bush is trying to do. If you’ve got the goods, produce them. This is about finding and destroying any weapons of mass destruction, right? (of course Fields Report doesn’t believe that, and he’s not even one of those oil conspiracy types) This strikes me as that joke where we see two guys about to get in a fight, but first they keep telling each other about what they will do to the other once or if the fight actually happens.

If you don’t have the goods, is this some ridiculously obvious way to rally support for going to war while misdirecting public attention from the fact that there isn’t much evidence we face any real threat from Iraq? Hey, you’ve already got the public support. What gives?

I can only think that the “Bush can’t take yes for an answer” explanation really seems appropriate.

This is on the heels of the
latest survey showing how much the rest of the world thinks American foreign policy is run by a bunch of cowboys (which it is). Where’s the Office of Public Diplomacy? Isn’t this where they should be sending a memo to the president saying to tone it down. If Saddam doesn’t view the reservist call-up and warships steaming toward the region as U.S. resolve, do you think these silly playground verbal quips will do much better?

# posted 10:55 AM

Thursday, December 05, 2002

[10:30 AM] Lots of reporting about a new Pew poll that, surprise, finds that American foreign policy isn’t too popular abroad but we do make some entertaining movies. This AP story puts it cutely

In the eyes of much of the world, this is America: an inconsiderate lone wolf that has really good entertainment but really bad values, that wants war with Iraq just to get oil but still should remain as the only superpower on Earth.

None of this is too surprising for obvious reasons. Plus the Council on Foreign Relations put out a report earlier this year urging the U.S. to upgrade its public diplomacy effort. In the report it synthesized several polls saying pretty much the same as the latest Pew poll.

# posted 10:35 AM

Monday, December 02, 2002

[8:38 PM] “I would venture to guess that 99.9 percent of most Americans and probably most candidates could not answer who is the president of Chechnya,” Karen Hughes retorted after the now infamous George W. Bush failing of International Politics 101 during the 2000 campaign. You may remember that Bush couldn’t name the leaders of Taiwan, India, Pakistan, or Chechnya after a reporter quizzed him.

Bush generally got a free pass on this goof, which I never understood. Karen Hughes’ quip was of course ridiculous because 99.9% of Americans aren’t chomping at the bit to send troops into Iraq and proclaiming an axis of evil. But she was likely right on the mark. A new survey by National Geographic generally reveals young Americans to be ignorant of basic geography. Could most Americans name the president of Chechnya? (shouldn’t Bush have snorted that Chechnya is part of Russia; so what do they need with a president?—but I digress) Most Americans couldn’t find Chechnya on a map. Okay, I don’t really know that. But 29% couldn’t find the Pacific Ocean according to the survey. Only 13% could locate Iraq or Iran on a map. Only 17% could pinpoint Afghanistan. And only 23% of young Americans (18 to 24 year olds) could name four nuclear weapons states.

These are alarming yet predictable results. What’s even more alarming is that our president likely wouldn’t fair much better.

Note: check out the full survey (in pdf format) to be truly appalled—and it’s not just the U.S.

# posted 8:39 PM

Sunday, December 01, 2002

[2:05 PM] “[S]everal top terrorist operatives met recently in the [tri-border] area -- where the borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay intersect -- to plan attacks against U.S. and Israeli targets in the Western hemisphere.”

This is from CNN’s story on terrorism in the tri-border region of South America from less than 30 days ago. Am I jumping to conclusions or connecting unrelated dots seeing a possible link to the bombing in Kenya? Perhaps. But what only now has struck me what the specific mention of Israeli targets. This is certainly nothing new for Hizballah, but a departure for U.S.-haters, al-Qaida.

In any case, what also struck me is that the intel sources speaking to CNN had some very specific information—targets and attendees (“representatives of Hezbollah and other groups sympathetic to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network.”). With information that specific, I’ll guess that a lot more is known about the subject matter of the meeting that can’t be revealed. Was there anything discussed that might have indicated an attack outside the Western hemisphere (Kenya)? Let’s see some news organizations with access ask that question.

# posted 2:07 PM