Moving to my other blog

From now on, I will be posting all thoughts and commentary, political or otherwise, on my main blog. This blog will remain an archive of my older columns.

Keith Olberman Special - 9/11 5 Years Later

This is extraordinary.

What Good Is Being Right?

A few months ago, media pundits debated whether it was appropriate to host the G8 summit in Russia, with an increasingly authoritarian Vladimir Putin stalling action on Iran’s nuclear development. The response from the administration was essentially that we will never get the Russians onboard if we’re not nice to them. This answer was accepted with a “let’s see” approach and the controversy was forgotten.

Well, the G8 summit just ended, and I am hard-pressed to recall what was accomplished. Oh, yes – there were Bush’s open-mouth-chewing, blunt comments about Hizbullah to Tony Blair. What happened to the agenda being about Iran’s nuclear program? What a coincidence, its proxy militia provoked a regional crisis just in time. Teheran was undoubtedly on every leader’s mind, but I doubt there was much mention of nukes or sanctions. With Putin rumored to have turned on the microphone that caught the embarrassing remarks, the “let’s unite the world against tyranny by making Vladimir feel good” strategy has been another feather in President Bush’s cap of achievement.

As Congress debated whether Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, the man all our efforts have brought to power, should be allowed to speak in its halls, the president found himself in a straitjacket of his own policies. A diplomatically incompetent America is now straddling the divide between the Shia Muslim majority in Iraq and the Jewish state their ideological brethren are fighting in Lebanon. The geopolitical delusion of fallen dominoes rising from chaos into a perfect line of pro-American order – presented as the intellectual vision justifying the Iraq war – could not have burned more fiercely this week than all the American flags in Palestine. The figurative slogan, “the road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad,” has proven true. It is merely loaded with shipments of Katyusha rockets.

In the next few days, the Senate is supposed to take up the confirmation of our ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, who was snuck through the back door of recess appointments a year ago. By all accounts, the warnings by his critics have proved true. His bullying threats to cut UN funding if reforms are not implemented have isolated him among potential allies and made the achievement of those reforms even more unlikely. In a time when the UN Security Council is central to the administration’s agenda for dealing with Iran, North Korea, Darfur and other urgent challenges, contempt for multilateralism is counter-productive at best. Yet his confirmation is expected to be a slam dunk for the administration.

Next on the Senate’s foreign policy agenda is the nuclear alliance with India that was off the public radar for so long (if it was ever on it in the first place). Foreign policy experts must be shaking their heads in perplexity at that one. At best it is a necessary evil to maintain old promises and counter Pakistan’s continuing nuclear buildup. More likely it is a dangerous hypocrisy that will make dealing with real nuclear threats more difficult than Bush has already made them. Either way it amazes me that so much strategic nuance went into getting that treaty crafted, yet the plan for stabilizing Iraq continues to be an intellectual vacuum of “stay the course” that wouldn’t pass as a high school political science thesis.

The only voluntary exchange resulting from the WTO global trade negotiations which collapsed last week was the blame exchanged with whiny rhetoric between the US and EU. With another administration one might wonder why so much emphasis is put on elections in the Arab world, yet free trade, the economic cornerstone of truly open societies, is allowed to stagnate. But really, there’s no need to wonder.

While Condoleeza Rice went on her Middle East tour promoting the strategy of doing nothing until NATO agrees to get bogged down in a new war in South Lebanon, our dear friend in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, was on a tour of his own. From Belarus, where he formed a new strategic alliance involving weapons and oil, he went on to Russia and Iran, where we can safely assume support for America was not at the center of his discussions.

Meanwhile, the administration continues to insist it is right, everyone else is wrong, and public opinion at home and abroad be damned. An administration supporter might argue that we had many enemies in the Cold War, yet prevailed in our righteous cause. That (or any other argument supporting the president’s foreign policy) might hold some water, if the president actually led an Axis of Good marching in unity to counter all the Evil adversaries arising around the world.

But no such bloc exists. Tony Blair will be out of power soon and then our only European ally will likely join the ideological camp of its continental partners. With arms shipments to Israel coinciding with Iranian shipments to Hizbullah, and both countries deciding it’s easier to let others fight their war, Israel is more a proxy than a partner. The grand new idea for Iraq is an increased presence of American military policemen, making many wonder whether Al-Maliki is an adversary or a powerless puppet. The Romanian president was in the White House today, but I cannot even remember his name and I doubt I am the only one.

In short, the president has set in motion a chain of events that is bringing about the exact opposite of his grand long-term vision for the Middle East. He has lost every ally we had in a time when international unity is most critical, and the alternative, American unilateralism, has failed to achieve its basic objectives under his command. George Bush’s foreign policy has been ignorant in vision and incompetent in execution and there is no doubt the world is more dangerous as a result.

Looking at all this, I cannot help but ask the president: if you fail to achieve any of your goals, what good is being right?

Someone is speaking out - Wafa Sultan interview

Someone is speaking out - Wafa Sultan on Al-Jazeera (video)

Unspinning Sufia – A Response to Sufia Khalid

Every Tuesday for the past three months, my Daily Free Press colleague Sufia Khalid has written a weekly critique of American culture, politics and media. It is the editorial policy of that newspaper not to allow responses from fellow columnists on their pages. But Ms. Khalid’s piece last Tuesday crossed every reasonable line of tact and editorial quality, and so, believing that a response to her and the problem she represents is both necessary and proper, along with refusal from the Free Press editors to publish this response, I resign from the Daily Free Press and am writing this outside its pages.

Ms. Khalid matters because, as an Arab-American who lived for many years in Saudi Arabia before coming to BU, she represents a very important segment of Middle Eastern society: upper-middle class, educated, relatively affluent Muslim Arabs. It is this demographic that speaks English, can afford American universities and is familiar with Western culture, and is therefore the group most likely to be the future liaisons between the United States and the Arab World. If cultural accord is ever to be achieved between East and West, people like Ms. Khalid will be at the forefront of its Arab side. In addition, she chose to be the Arab-Muslim voice of the BU student body newspaper, and so it is not I making her the poster girl for her demographic, but she.

In her eleven columns, Ms. Khalid has never once condemned terrorism. She called suicide bombings “disgusting” (like a dirty bathroom), but only as a qualifier for Palestinian suffering. She mocked the terrorist threat – “that Bin Laden dude,” January 31^st; “9/11, terrorists, they're coming, aah!,” February 21^st. She condemned the “crumbling” American society in every single column; she has condemned American women, college students, Bostonians, the media and of course the government. Yet she has never once condemned a single Arab or Muslim policy, leader or action; never acknowledged the threat of radical Islamic terrorism; never offered a single constructive idea for dealing with it.

And therein lies the problem in the Muslim world that Ms. Khalid represents: a self-righteous obsession with the West’s alleged decadence, ignorance and oppression of Muslims which justifies their refusal to self-criticize and condemn violence by their own people. By excusing terrorism and mocking every Western reaction to it, Ms. Khalid pardons violence with a deafening silence. The pen will only triumph over the sword in the Middle East when people like her stand up and say that there is evil in the world and it is not all caused by the United States government. So far they have failed the challenge repeatedly.

In her last column, she wrote, regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: “Suicide bombings are disgusting, and Israelis do suffer. But Palestinians suffer much more frequently, and are ignored by the mainstream media.” This was one day after nine civilians were killed and over sixty wounded during holiday shopping in Tel Aviv by a suicide bomber, an attack condoned by the terrorist organization elected to run the Palestinian government.

Never mind that accurately counting and categorizing Palestinian deaths is impossible when the regime is accountable to no one (see www.seconddraft.org for an example of this). That is beside the point. It is also irrelevant to this discussion which side is “right” in the conflict. The real issue is Ms. Khalid’s mischaracterization of historical events – a reflection not only of her own ignorance but also of a broadly popular attitude. She writes, “Hamas officials have suggested that Palestine will recognize the state of Israel if Israeli leaders agree to respect the U.N. borders agreed upon in 1967. This means the burden now rests on Israel to recognize the state of Palestine – but I imagine Israel will continue to treat the idea of a Palestinian state as ridiculous.” Every single clause of that statement is factually incorrect. First, Hamas officials continue to demand the “right of return,” a de facto demographic destruction of Israel, so “recognizing” Israel on those terms is a farce. Second, there were no borders agreed upon by the U.N. in 1967; rather, the carefully worded U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 left the borders open to future negotiation. Third, the alleged burden on Israel to “recognize the state of Palestine” – there is not and never has been such a state. Except for a farcical declaration in 1988 – from Algiers, Tunisia – of a Palestinian state encompassing all of Israeli territory, the Palestinians have never declared a state, and for a very shrewd strategic reason: doing so implies an end to the conflict and a loss of their unrealistic dream. There is therefore no state for Israel to recognize; despite this, the last three Israeli prime ministers have stated publicly that they believe the Palestinians should have a state.

Where were the Ms. Khalid’s of the world when Ehud Barak offered Yasser Arafat a state at Camp David, only to have Arafat refuse and start an Intifada instead? Where was credit given when Ariel Sharon unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip to begin the process of establishing a Palestinian state? Why are they not condemning the Palestinian government now for squandering that opportunity and continuing instead to shoot rockets at towns and send suicide bombers into marketplaces?

The problem with the Palestinian cause and its benefactors such as Ms. Khalid is that a peaceful co-existence with Israel was never on the agenda. Arafat founded the PLO terrorist group in 1964 – three years before the occupation began – which over the next four decades hijacked airplanes, popularized suicide bombings, attempted to overthrow the Jordanian monarchy, fomented civil war in Lebanon and killed hundreds of Israeli civilians. Violence has always been the dominant modus operandi.There has never been a Palestinian Ghandi with a positive and realistic vision for his people. The Palestinians suffer today because the leaders they have chosen through elections or tacit consent have never constructively pursued their interests, and the Arab voices that speak for them (Ms. Khalid’s being that voice in this university’s paper) have never condemned their own self-imposed destruction.

Jews criticize the Israeli government all the time, because Israel is a democracy with a free press that covers a broad spectrum of ideas. Yet similar self-reflection on the part of Arab voices seems non-existent or mute. Constructive thought does not consist of praising or excusing everything one side does and condemning everything the other side does, and ranting from a self-righteous bubble adds nothing to the debate. Critics like Ms. Khalid offer no constructive solutions to real threats such as the Iranian nuclear program, nor do they explain why they are in fact not threats. They merely mock the media for discussing it and dismiss it as part of the oppressive, delusional American system.

It is a shame that Sufia Khalid matters to this issue at all, a shame that her voice is not drowned out by sharper, wiser voices. But the cultural discord between East and West is not going away tomorrow or next Tuesday, and if the self-chosen representatives of moderate Islam continue to excuse terrorism, ignorantly mock Americans and refuse to offer any constructive alternatives, we will continue to have a very serious problem.

A Holiday Ode to the Bush Administration

During the ritual Passover seder this Wednesday, a song will be sung called Dayenu, literally, "Enough for us." Each of God's actions would have been enough, it says, but God continued to give and give. So in that holiday spirit, here is a play on that theme, not about God but about the Bush Administration. This former semi-supporter would have been able to excuse each failure and mistake -- no administration is perfect -- but the blunders kept coming. Now, I say, it's enough, and in retrospect, it should have been enough at each step of the way.

*       *       *

It should have been enough when intelligence services dropped the ball on 9/11 and Iraq -- but we could blame that on Clinton. It should have been enough when they turned war heroism and mushroom clouds into campaign weapons -- but campaigns are rough. It should have been enough when they fired General Shinseki for saying we'd need more troops in Iraq -- but the troops had to be kept in line. It should have been enough when they exaggerated questionable intelligence about Saddam's weapons programs -- but our allies believed it, too.

It should have been enough when they leaked classified information to attack political opponents; threatened to fire the leaker; then used the leaks to attack the media, when the president had authorized the leaks all along.

It should have been enough when they used Terry Schiavo to stir up the fanatic base, and pushed a gay marriage ban before the election to get out the bigot vote.

It should have been enough when they tied AIDS and poverty relief to abstinence programs, and opposed sex education in schools because the theocrats felt uncomfortable.

It should have been enough when Afghanistan was abandoned before the job was done and replaced on the agenda by Iraq, which became the front in the War on Terror only by a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It should have been enough when ten years of Iraq war planning were thrown out because, as in the campaign, they opposed nation-building when they rushed to Baghdad without enough troops to stop the looting; and when they declared "Mission Accomplished" just as the real war was heating up.

It should have been enough when a State Department representative told Ted Koppel on Nightline that the war would cost no more than $1.7 billion, only to have the cost surpass a trillion dollars with no end in sight.

It should have been enough when Iraq reconstruction management was given to kids out of college; when no-bid contracts were handed out like playing cards; and when billions in cash went "unaccounted for."

It should have been enough when post-war Iraq czar Paul Bremer fired all the teachers and bureaucrats because they had mandatory party cards, then sent home the Iraqi army unpaid and armed.

It should have been enough when "oil addiction" was the theme of the State of the Union, after the Energy Task Force, a cabal of oil company executives, met in secret with Dick Cheney.

It should have been enough when 9/11 became a whip to snap at opponents and skeptics; when every attack on American soldiers was called terrorism; when the insurgency's existence was denied, then was "in its last throes"; when no prediction, no matter how blatantly absurd in retrospect, was ever regretted; and when no member of the inner circle, no matter how incompetent, was ever fired.

It should have been enough when the reason-of-the-month club for the Iraq war told us about chemicals, then mushroom clouds, then tyranny, then democracy; and when Saddam killed hundreds of thousands of people, but civilian casualties of the war and occupation were deliberately not counted.

It should have been enough when the president knew less about New Orleans than Brian Williams; and when heck-of-a-job Brownie was scapegoated for the failures of the Homeland Security department, which was slopped into place overnight because the administration didn't want it in the first place.

It should have been enough when ol' pal Harriet Miers was nominated to the Supreme Court, then dropped because she wasn't anti-abortion enough for the extremists.

It should have been enough when every speech was about evil and terror and enemies, but suddenly we were supposed to think with nuance about Dubai.

It should have been enough when no one in the White House had heard of Jack Abramoff (because after all, the president had terrible relations with Congress); and when they insisted that they "don't comment on ongoing legal proceedings" about indicted staffer Scooter Libby, right after the president pronounced Tom DeLay "innocent."

It should have been enough when low-ranking kids were scapegoated for Abu Ghraib; and when the torture bill was opposed, then supported, then nullified with a secret signing letter (because God or the terrorists anointed the president above the law).

It should have been enough when North Korea got nukes (those commies are crazy) and Iran wanted nukes (those terrorists are crazy), then India got a free pass on its nukes.

It should have been enough when the president was asked what mistakes he had made and he couldn't name a single one. Here are a few. Enough passing the buck. Happy Holidays.

 

Congress: When in doubt, lock 'em up

Congress took up the issue of illegal immigration this week. While I do not know the perfect solution to this issue, there is one aspect of the Sensenbrenner bill -- passed in the House in December and now being debated in the Senate -- that is very clear: The law would make every resident of this country not following legal immigration processes a felon. With the sweep of a pen, millions of people would become criminals, subject to arrest and imprisonment along with anyone who aids them. It is another case of congressional power run amok, and should be rejected not simply because it's a bad immigration policy, but because the mentality that drives this sort of legislation contradicts the basic principles of good governance.

An estimated 12 million illegal aliens live in this country, and presumably, the vast majority of them are gainfully employed at wages below what their American counterparts demand but above what their home countries' economies supply. So this bill, if passed, would take 12 million economically productive individuals out of the workforce. Twelve million new prison cells, 12 million mouths to feed, 12 million bodies to clothe by the federal taxpayer, 12 million jobs lost, 12 million stacks of legal paperwork for pro bono defense attorneys, 12 million court cases. President Bush had better start appointing new federal judges quickly!

That is, if this bill is serious. But I doubt there is any congressman who truly wants to arrest and deport 12 million people. So the bill is either a tactical stunt to shift the terms of the Senate debate to the far right, in which case the House passed a law it does not want to become law; or it is meant to be passed but not enforced, in which case, well ... why don't we give Congress some Monopoly money and Lego policemen and tell them to go play?

In fact, this is precisely the impression this bill creates of Congress. Legislators sit in their high chambers, devising fancy proposals that fill reams of legal jargon to keep the media busy. Votes for legislation are traded like baseball cards. Little things like the practicalities of enforcement are dismissed. Unintended consequences are ignored and the horizon of analysis ends at the next election cycle. It's all a board game, where the players can manipulate any piece for political advantage. With this kind of power it must be easy to forget that even the U.S. government does and must have limitations.

The problem is, while Congress plays SimCity, it is dealing with real money, real laws and real lives. Criminalizing millions of people is an absurd and frankly fascist way of thinking. It is not new, however. Prohibition made millions of people criminals by decree. The puritanical "War on Drugs" creates crime-infested cities by banning victimless behavior. The drinking age makes almost every college student in the country a criminal. A significant portion of the seven million people in the U.S. correctional system are criminals by definition, not by injurious action. In the case of illegal immigrants, those 12 million are criminals more for what they did not do -- wait in line for years -- than for what they did do. So politicians can say they're tough on crime, law enforcement can demand more funding and the public can rest with the illusion that the problem is solved.

It is little wonder that so many people are disenchanted from government when politicians treat them like playthings. The hatred for law enforcement expressed through rap music is fueled by laws that make decent people into criminals. This bill would simply create another second-class citizenry that hates policemen, and we'll be wishing we had 12 million people seeking employment just to fill all the law enforcement positions that will be needed. It is all the more hypocritical that the bill's stated goal is to end decades of disregard for unenforced laws.

Geographic boundaries are part of the definition of a sovereign state, and this country has every right to define the terms of citizenship, control the borders and regulate immigration. But laws are supposed to have reasonable and unambiguous power, and passing unenforceable and counterproductive laws like the Sensenbrenner bill would make a mockery of the system. The Senate has an opportunity in the coming weeks to come up with something better: a rational, workable, comprehensive policy -- something like the Kennedy-McCain bill -- that would fix a truly broken system. We'll see if they're up to the task.

 

V for Vendetta, F for Freedom

Last week I watched the movie V for Vendetta, and then watched it again, certain that this was the greatest political movie made in a very long time, perhaps ever. It is set in Britain in 2020, where the chaos of war, plagues, terror and “godlessness” have been replaced by the absolute order of pseudo-religious totalitarianism. But the movie is not about any particular political message. It’s not about a moment of history, a piece of legislation or a policy agenda. Rather, it’s about the reason why politics matter, about the human forces behind the machines of power, about the power of ideas to overcome brute force, about freedom without fear.

History shows that no country is immune to fascism. Every state, no matter how free, sees crackdowns on liberty and abuses of power in difficult times, and it does not take a great stretch of the imagination to see where that road leads. This country is great not because the government will never go down that slippery slope, but because there will always be people who stand up to stop it.

The sun keeps rising because, despite all the times when the masses sat complacently with hell burning all around them, someone stood up to the tanks in Tiananmen Square. Someone stood up with an orange flag in the Ukraine and someone is standing up now in Belarus. Someone fought in the French Resistance and the American Revolution. Someone agreed with V, the movie’s hero, that “people should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.” Many a tyrant has learned the hard way that this species doesn’t like to be told to sit down and shut up, and watching a movie like V for Vendetta, I’m proud to be a member of that species.

The movie has been criticized by some for glorifying terrorism. In a world in which deliberately ambiguous terms are branded as political swords whenever convenient, it doesn’t matter that the violence in the movie doesn’t fit any reasonable definition of terrorism – namely, targeting innocent civilians. Still, the critics miss the point. V’s destruction of Parliament – a reenactment of the infamous, failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605 – is fireworks, not warfare. As V himself says, the revolution is not in the exploding building – it’s in the hundreds of thousands who march fearlessly through lines of soldiers as the gunpowder goes off and the triumphant music blares.

At one point in the movie, when V has been cornered by armed henchmen, he declares, “What you have are bullets. But behind this mask is an idea, and ideas are bulletproof.” This is a lesson we wish others would follow, not in order to blow up parliaments – that’s art, not a policy proposal – but to rise up. Maybe freedom will come to Belarus through European sanctions, to China through the Internet and to Iran through a bloodless coup d'état. But none of that would be possible without people who believe that freedom is more than rhetoric, who wake up one day and decide to stop being afraid.

Indeed, there is no word with more power to inspire than “freedom.” The thirst for it is in our bones. People don’t change the world by making cold calculations of costs and benefits; they change it by deciding it needs changing. By saying out loud, as V put so simply, that “there is something very wrong” with the world. V for Vendetta is about that inspiration; everything else in politics is just the means to the end.

Freedom is, however, in danger of becoming a cliché – when we eat “Freedom Fries,” and every war is “defending freedom,” and “Freedom, freedom, freedom” becomes a monotonous drone by preaching bullies who scarcely understand the concept. Freedom is also not a one-size-fits-all package of capitalist democracy. South American socialists like Evo Morales are being elected as millions stand up to corrupt corporate-government alliances. Millions of immigrants come to this country every year seeking economic freedom. The dictionary that defines freedom as synonymous with U.S. Defense Department interests is a tragically flawed edition.

V for Vendetta is also about the limitations of symbols. The Parliament building in the movie is a symbol of oppression. Our Constitution is a symbol of liberty. But neither of these has any meaning in itself. The building, standing or destroyed, is only as powerful as the soldiers protecting it and the protesters marching on it. The Constitution is only as meaningful as the people who fight for it. If groups like the American Civil Liberties Union did not obsess over every mass murderer getting a proper legal defense, the Constitution would be no more than ink on parchment, and we could bet our boots the Bill of Rights would not grow legs and stand up to defend itself.

We are lucky that we don’t have to fight a revolution. Our liberties are ensured by others, and for that credit is due both to the symbols and to the patriots who make them real. But this movie is a reminder that such fortune is never guaranteed, and that the path to losing it is an easy one to go down. 1984 came and went without George Orwell’s dystopia becoming reality. Let’s make sure 2020 arrives the same way.

 

U.S. and Iran: Standing Down With Dignity

Twenty-seven years after the Islamic Revolution in Iran, a showdown over the country's nuclear program and continued hostility between Iran and the United States seem inevitable. U.S. forces on four borders and the effective nuclear deterrent of North Korea make nuclear weapons a strategic interest of the Iranian regime and a matter of national pride. For Americans, the war on terror and the phony election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the high pulpit of fundamentalist rhetoric perpetuate the image of a fanatical regime that must be stopped. But too many cards are stacked in Iran's favor, and none of the options on the table for deterring the nuclear threat is likely to succeed. A radically different option that could constructively reorient troubled American foreign policy in the region must therefore be considered: normalizing relations with Iran.

The current track of multilateral diplomacy is backed by the threat of eventual imposition of economic sanctions by the U.N. Security Council. But Iran pumps more oil than strategic reserves can compensate for, so a cut in its oil exports, caused either by sanctions or a voluntary tactical maneuver, would wreak havoc with global markets. The Security Council member states - especially China, whose strategic oil reserve won't be active until 2008 - as well as the ayatollahs all know this well.

The military options for destroying Iran's nuclear capability are likewise problematic. The experience in Iraq is a warning against overreaching American military power, and the neoconservative vision of geopolitical engineering has been discredited. NATO lacks both the troops necessary for a ground invasion of a state three times the size of Iraq and the desire to face the resulting insurgency. An air campaign would at best delay the inevitable for a few years, at worst expedite nuclear development at unknown locations. Targeting the regime would merely play into the hands of Islamic revolutionaries - of whom there would be no shortage to fill the power vacuum - so the government could simply live through an air campaign to fight another day. Similarly, an internal coup is as likely to be led by jihadists as by reformers, and the latter are in no position to pull off another revolution.

Should military action or sanctions replace failed diplomacy, Iran has many ways to retaliate. Its proxy militias could escalate the sectarian wars in Iraq, forcing the United States either to pick sides and suffer further casualties or withdraw in humiliation. Its Revolutionary Guards, long affiliated with global terrorism, could unleash an unprecedented campaign of terror and escalate already tense relations between Islamic states and the West. The notion that Iran could be brought down on its knees without inflicting tremendous harm on its adversaries is a dangerous fantasy.

However, there is an alternative to the Bush administration's strategy for dealing with this potential crisis. It relies on the assumption that the regime could be persuaded that the pride and righteousness it now gains from hostility would be far outweighed by the gains of coexistence. Specifically, the United States could offer Iran a formal pledge of non-aggression and normal diplomatic and economic relations. In exchange, Iran would end its military nuclear development under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Association; it would turn over information and suspects related to global terrorism; and would, in accordance with the American goal for all the nations of that region, recognize Israel following an eventual settlement with the Palestinians. It would be fully accepted into the global community, with all the benefits that entails.

An ideologically cold but practically constructive relationship would then develop, similar to the American alliances with Iran's Arab neighbors. The flow of information would be opened and any chance for democracy in Iran would be encouraged. The global economy would benefit from more stable oil markets, and the enormous unemployed population in Iran would gradually benefit from foreign capital. Libya recently adopted this path voluntarily, and stands as an example of a terror-sponsoring state that chose to stand down with dignity.

The long-term vision that President Nixon foresaw for China - global recognition leading to economic liberalization and possible governmental reform - was prudent in its time and would be a similarly controversial but wise strategy for Iran. Nixon's initiative also established a precedent: that coexistence, if at all possible, should trump ideological antagonism; and that the United States should live and let live, if only because the cost of remaking the entire world in our image is too high. This principle has served the world well enough for many years, and refusal even to consider normal relations with Iran is hypocritical.

How much time is left before the situation reaches a breaking point is unknown, but time is not on our side. Likewise, the obvious questions of whether Iran would accept such a proposal in the first place, or be sufficiently trustworthy to follow it, remain unclear. But President Bush's doctrine of liberalizing the Middle East to support democracy and open markets will never gain a foothold if the United States is constantly in a state of hostility with the strongest regional powers. While many would dismiss normalizing relations with Iran as a foolhardy scenario, the alternatives are too dire and the potential benefits too great to reject it out of hand.

 

How Low Can They Go?

It has been a very good week for cheap populism. The Democrats succeeded in hyping up an imaginary national security threat over the ports deal. As the president's approval ratings dropped even lower, the Republicans tried to distance themselves by jumping on the protectionist bandwagon. Both parties are betting that the midterm elections are no longer a horse race, but rather a game of limbo in which the bar of good judgment in our political system can never be set too low.

What gets muddled in all the ranting is the real issue at hand: The ports exist to facilitate global trade. The despicable nativism seen lately is the opposite of the global economic perspective that the United States and the Middle East need. It demonstrates a shameful short-sightedness on the part of Congress, and could have long term consequences that reverse a decades-long trend of progress.

Until we can teleport, the oceans remain the best way to transport goods in and out of ports, as they have been for millennia. Just as in ancient times, countries with sea ports have tremendous advantages in commerce and power. A growing economy needs growing port capacity, and that requires constant investment of capital. But Congress' fit over Dubai Ports World's financial interest in our ports did nothing to improve the quality of our commercial infrastructure. All it did was discourage sorely needed capital that foreign parties confident in the American economy were all too eager to invest.

Several Democrats, including Senator Hillary Clinton, proposed various measures that would limit foreign stakes in our "critical infrastructure." But in a globalized, 21st-century economy, few industries can be truly classified as non-critical infrastructure. Our economy needs thousands of systems to work flawlessly 24/7. To ban foreign stakes in every "critical" process of the economy would be tantamount to a total ban on foreign capital. Hooray for the American way.

The reality is that there is no guaranteed way to protect the economy in time of crisis. The reasonable strategy is not to ban unpopular investors, but to invest in improving the efficiency and genuine security of every aspect of the economy. Regulation should serve to encourage diversification that prevents the dangers of dependence, not to stifle innovation. Congress absolutely should not be swimming in the inherently corrupt swamp of trade controls. Rather, it should be using its constitutional power of regulating interstate commerce to knock down the barriers to transparent and open trade.

The fear of two scenarios drives nativist protectionism. First, in the event of war, an enemy country could disable its assets in the United States in order to harm the economic core of the American war effort. But every country with a significant stake in the American economy has an American stake at least as significant in its own economy. Michael Moore hyped up the threat of Saudi investment in the United States, but Saudi Arabia's economy is greatly dependent on oil exports in the other direction. Congress threw another successful tantrum last summer when China tried to acquire the oil producer Unocal, but China's economy would not grow if it did not export billions of dollars of goods. In a globalized economy, if the ship sinks, everyone sinks together. That is the gloomy potential of globalization. But the bright reality is that the threat of war with an economically interdependent rival is the best guarantor of world peace. And driving out investors because they pray to the wrong God or had the wrong allies before the war on terror officially existed is the wrong way to go.

The second fear motivating nativist protectionism is a legitimate one: that terrorists will smuggle weapons through our borders via the ports. But port owners have no financial incentive to sanction terrorism, and the government needs to implement the same measures for port security no matter who owns the terminals. More containers need to be checked both here and at their points of origin. Standard anti-tampering seals need to be required and monitored. Scanners to detect nuclear material need to be installed. The longshoremen working the ports need to undergo security and background checks. All of these and many more are reasonable measures that Congress should have dealt with in its appropriations years ago. That they suddenly discover the issue now - when an efficient, successful foreign corporation makes a wise investment in our growing economy - is simply shameful.

Bottom line: There is nowhere that globalization is more crucial than in the Middle East, and the United States could do nothing worse than discourage that progress by shunning Middle Eastern investors and promoting xenophobic protectionism.
 

 

Where Are The Olympians in Washington?

The Torino Olympic games began the same day Vice President Dick Cheney's aim proved less than worthy of the biathlon. The days since have illuminated the contrast between Olympians and politicians. If Washington functioned for one day as well as a single scene in the Torino opening ceremony, the world would be a much different (dare I say better) place.

As America's athletes respectfully compete against the nations of the world, operations at our major seaports face the ramifications of a different kind of global competition. But unlike in the Olympics, in politics cheap stunts can often score extra points. Pro-democracy reformers in the Middle East must be shaking their heads trying to make sense of American hypocrisy in demanding free markets, then shunning the Arabs who excel at them. The jury is still out on the security risks of the deal, and Congress needs to seriously investigate this with an open mind. But it will be a tragic midterm election if the defining campaign mantra is the administration's failure to ban business on the basis of race. Americans had enough crashes last week on the slopes of Sestriere. The slippery slope of xenophobia is far more treacherous, and history has shown too many times that there are no winners at the bottom of that course.

In the Olympics, timing is a matter of objectivity and accuracy. In politics, timing is a matter of perception. Cheney's delay in reporting that he shot someone was not about the number of hours; it was about a consistent record of secrecy, misstatements and cover-ups by the administration. It led people to wonder why, if he was as sober as he claimed, he did not go to the hospital with Mr. Whittington, and did not immediately inform the authorities. With abysmal approval ratings and "lame duck" status about to set in, handing late-night comedians a week's material on a silver platter was the last thing the administration needed.

In the Olympics, athletes are judged by impartial panels of experts. In politics, judgments are determined by agendas. Every pundit seemed to assume a political agenda behind the media's coverage of the Cheney shooting incident. But if not for reporters demanding truth and transparency day after day, even when the issue is not imperative to national security, we would know far less than we do about the inner workings of our already overly secretive government. Maybe we would have cured our "addiction to oil" in 2001 if the workings of Cheney's Energy Task Force of industry executives hadn't been classified. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if the press corps trailed the vice president on his weekend excursions. (Of course, we should be asking that he actually work with policymakers instead of play with campaign contributors, but let's not press our luck.)

In the Olympics, an over-hyped athlete, with every tiny mistake replayed in slow motion, goes from gold medal "favorite" to empty-handed "disappointment" in the blink of an eye, and the clock isn't stopped to correct mistakes. But in politics, inquiries of Katrina are blocked, dissenting generals making accurate pre-war predictions are fired, blame is spewed in all directions to cover up incompetence and assistants are instructed to break the law. Yet no one is forced off the podium.

In the Olympics, a judging scandal leads to a total overhaul of the scoring system and athletes lose their medals. In politics, a CIA chief's misjudgments can lead to thousands of deaths, but he still gets the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In the Olympics, the mere appearance of a coach associated with illegal substance use prompts a raid and investigation of a team. In politics, leaders mingle with people of conflicting interests every day, and we call it democracy.

Sometimes we're glad when rules are bent and strings are pulled. The extraordinary silver-medal winning ice dancing team, Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto, would not have made it to the games had congressmen not pulled strings to speedily approve Tanith's American citizenship in December. But there is no clause in the Constitution allowing the president to nullify legislation of Congress. Rules can be bent for national pride, but not for national security. Far more than medals are at stake.

It is unrealistic to expect Olympic perfection from the political process. It is not too much, however, to expect that the players be the best in their fields, that they be judged impartially and that they withdraw when their performances cannot live up to their positions. American figure skater Michelle Kwan withdrew from the highest podium in the world when she knew she could not give it the performance it demanded. It's time some less-than-Olympic government officials did the same.

One thing is certain: Both politicians and Olympians want to get ahead and win. It just seems a lot nobler in the Olympics.

Making Excuses for Insanity

The violent reaction to the Danish cartoons of Muhammad highlights the myth that there is a Western conspiracy against Islam, and that the legitimate defense against it is violence. The powder keg that exploded yet again last week is the product of an artificial doctrine of paranoia and hatred, and perpetuating the delusion that it is a genuine “clash of civilizations” only serves to re-ignite the madness.

When cartoons published in a small Danish newspaper drive thousands to shout “Down with Denmark” – when the Danish government has no authority over the free press – and “Down with America” – when America had no involvement whatsoever – we are led to believe that a unified West systematically abuses the Muslims of the world. Questioning the validity of this claim is considered “ethnocentric” and politically incorrect, so it is blindly accepted. Western apologists’ excuses for the violence include the war in Iraq, opposition to Iran’s nuclear program, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and anything else that allows them to pat themselves on their tolerant shoulders.

But Western-Islamic relations are far more complex than simplistic conspiracy theories. There are certainly causes for animosity between Western and Muslim powers, but for better or worse, the West has for decades supported the prosperity, stability and strength of the Muslim world. If anything, interference in the Middle East has been guided by the naive hope in the prospect of freedom, not subjugation.

Most societies are able to get along despite past grievances and present cultural differences. There is no inherent reason why Western-Islamic relations should be any different. The American people want nothing more than to withdraw troops from a stable and peaceful Iraq. United efforts to block Iran’s nuclear ambitions are guided by a desire to prevent mass annihilation. Decades of attempts to negotiate an end to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis have been motivated by the desire for peace with Islam. The 1991 Gulf War, military aid to Egypt and the purchase of oil from Gulf states are all guided by multilateral strategic interests, not conspiratorial malice.

Unfortunately, for decades the strategic interests of many Muslim governments have been best served by fostering the simplistic illusion of a Western conspiracy. It is easier to organize protests against foreign powers than permit domestic political dissent. It is easier to blame the West for insulting the Prophet than address poverty. It is easier to call for the murder of Salman Rushdie and condemn Western hypocrisy than permit religious freedom. As long as a radical ideology can make the West the scapegoat of all the region’s problems, it is within the interests of narrow-minded leaders to indoctrinate, encourage and fund such an ideology. All the better if the Crusades, nineteenth-century imperialism, Palestine and every other offense against Islam throughout history can be lumped into the same paranoid basket. But as we saw once again last week, this ideology comes at too great a cost.

Mocking religion, racial stereotypes, ethnic traditions and anything else that people hold dear is the beloved pastime of every open society. Monty Python mocks religion and The Producers satirizes the Holocaust, but this leads no one to bomb embassies. Sometimes lines are crossed and people are insulted. But civilized societies offer many avenues to protest insult; firebombs are not one of them. We should also not forget that Muslim newspapers constantly publish virulently anti-Semitic and anti-Western propaganda, with no violent reaction from the “victims.” The bigoted notion that Muslims can only communicate with violence, or are incapable of the self-deprecating humor so loved by the rest of humanity, does not help anyone.

No religion is inherently good or evil, peaceful or violent. Rather, religions are tools in the hands of those who choose to do good or ill. Faith can inspire the principle that “All men are created equal,” or it can inspire suicide bombings and delusions of world dominance. The question is, which voice is leading? Pat Robertson and his ilk impose ancient religious dogma on the 21st century and are verbally shot down on the networks. Unfortunately, the constructive forces in the Islamic world still seem to be on the losing side of this battle.

Credit should be given where due. Al Jazeera’s revolution in media discourse is essential to bringing some nuance to a world where reality is muddled and truth is whatever is shouted loudest. Jordan’s King Abdullah should be praised for his courageous stance against violence. And the thousands of Muslims in Switzerland and other countries that protested peacefully against an insult to their religion deserve our attention and respect.

The dominant visual image of the Muslim world today is a burning Western flag. Ultimately, the causes of this travesty are the product of incompetent governance and the elimination of all moderate dissent. The goal should not be a ban in the West on anything that might insult anyone, but a day when the free press of Iran can satirize the Holocaust, when the opposition party of Palestine can advocate fundamentalist Islamic law and when the world’s next Richard Pryor is from Baghdad. This day is far off, but blaming the West for the crisis will not bring it any closer.

 

When Turning Around Is The Way Forward

Often we think of great leaders as steadfastly sailing a straight course of conviction. Winston Churchill’s declaration in 1940, “We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end,” stands in history as a pivotal moment of this paradigm. The absolute faith to the point of death of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. in non-violent revolution will always be symbolic of tremendous heroism. But with Americans’ satisfaction with their government representatives appallingly low, and crucial decisions facing the world community, let us recall three great leaders who set a different example: that the best way forward is sometimes a sharp turn around.

In 1966, an economist and friend of Ayn Rand wrote a scathing essay in The Objectivist in which he blasted the Federal Reserve for being an instrument of tyranny, and called for the restoration of the gold standard. His name was Alan Greenspan. In 1987, he was appointed chairman of the Federal Reserve, the very institution he had condemned years before. Arguably the individual most influential on the global economy, he managed American monetary policy for eighteen years, a tenure during which he oversaw tremendous growth, maintained low inflation and smoothly handled fluctuations until his retirement last week.

History will remember Greenspan as a leader of tremendous genius, praised unanimously by economists of all stripes. His old colleagues from the Objectivist movement continue to condemn him for abandoning his dogmatic principles. But that curb on ideology may in fact have been his greatest strength. As a cover story in last week’s Wall Street Journal argued, “The essence of Mr. Greenspan is his distrust of any ‘ism’ or rule…his refusal to become invested in any particular model of the economy enabled him to shift gears whenever the prevailing model stopped working.”

On the other side of the globe, Ariel Sharon was a hero of his country since before its creation in 1948. A courageous soldier and commander through many wars, he retired from the Israeli military in 1973 and entered politics, where he became a champion of the settler movement. Although he was an architect of the 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, he opposed the 1993 Oslo Accords with the PLO and the subsequent, unreciprocated Israeli attempts at peace which culminated in the Intifada.

In February 2001, on a ticket that rejected a call for unilateral withdrawal from settlements, he was elected prime minister. The course he then set was revolutionary. Reversing long-held beliefs and years of policy, he recognized that short-term wisdom was leading to long-term disaster. Despite the opposition of his own political base, he held a bitterly divided nation together through painful disengagements from unsustainable territory; he gave voice to a disparate majority in support of his vision; and he changed the world’s perspective on the region’s conflict. The great legacy of Ariel Sharon is not merely his determination. It is his ability to see the world dynamically, to recognize when his own path is failing, and to steer the ship in the opposite course with the same resolve. That is courage.

In the campaign for the 2000 presidential elections, then-Governor George W. Bush called for a more “modest” and “humble” foreign policy. The limited success of President Clinton’s global policing showed that the post-Cold War world needed a new strategy of relative isolationism.

Then one sunny Tuesday morning, the winds of history suddenly shifted. The moment demanded a new course. The president grabbed hold of the nation’s helm and came hard about, sailing directly into the ambiguous storm. Whatever the other failings of the president, his ability in that pivotal moment to change the ideological and strategic direction of his policies in the face of new circumstances, and to unite the people behind him in doing so, was a mark of true leadership.

In last week’s State of the Union address, the president promised to make progress on securing the country’s long-term energy independence. Two days later, Republicans in the House of Representatives elected new majority leader John Boehner over Roy Blunt, in a gesture of rebuke against their corrupt former leader, Tom Delay. Although Boehner is also known to have close ties with lobbyists, he has called for an end to earmarking, the corrupt practice of dishing out pork which must be eliminated in order for public faith in the legislature to be restored. Now is an opportunity for the government to correct the troubling courses of energy policy and legislative integrity.

Leadership must be about more than blind determination to charge ahead. Ideology is important; ideals give people hope and purpose. But leaders must follow the compass of circumstance, rather than the auto-pilot of dogmatism. Let us hope that the leaders of the world continue to be dynamic as they captain our fleet into the future.

 

Lessons of Spreading Democracy

The shocking victory of Hamas in this week’s Palestinian elections presents yet another setback to the neoconservative vision of spreading democracy throughout the world. It seems prudent to take a step back and analyze, with an open mind and the clear vision of hindsight, the progress and lessons of the current direction of our foreign policy.

Much as the doomsday scenario of the cold war involved the world’s nations falling like dominoes to communism, the optimistic, alternative vision of the post-cold war, post-9/11 world proposed that the United States could, by setting the right ball in motion, lead the Middle East towards freedom, market economies and representative democracy, to the benefit of all. The vision was surely a noble one, based on an essentially valid, long-term strategic assessment of the region. Oil will eventually be replaced by more efficient energy sources. With no fallback position of free markets and stable government that do not depend entirely on oil revenue, it is inevitable that, unless there is a drastic geopolitical shift, the Middle East will descend into chaos, poverty and possibly Islamic extremism within a few decades.

Therefore, the reasoning went, the region must be planted with the seeds of democracy, free markets and open societies long before the inevitable collapse occurs. The easiest target was Iraq – its army was weak, its tyrannical regime was despised by the majority of its population, and it was believed to be developing weapons of mass destruction – so this was a logical place to start. The Iraqi regime would be removed, elections would be held, a democratic constitution established and a representative government would be freely elected. The world would applaud the American initiative, and Iraq’s neighbors, fascinated by the great success of freedom in their midst, would gradually join the party.

It is premature to judge the Iraq war a failure. In fact, I am still optimistic. But even in the best scenario, it is clear that the rosy dream presented before the war was grossly naïve and unrealistic. As the Palestinian election illustrates, even an eventual victory in the Iraq strategy would be fraught with danger. Specifically, four lessons must be learned from the current situation that will be critical to future policymaking.

First, as the Palestinian election shows, there must be a legitimate, powerful opposition party in place for democratic representation to be of strategic advantage. Holding elections with only bad candidates, or good candidates with no popular recognition or support, is worse than not holding elections at all. The opposition to the Fatah party was Hamas, so a vote against corruption was automatically a vote for Islamic extremism and the destruction of Israel. Whether this was truly the wish of the Palestinian people is not clear, but the election results make the distinction a moot one.

Second, spreading democracy is not a zero-sum game. Any victory for democracy in Iraq is also a victory for Iran, which has been and will continue to be a natural ally of the Kurdish and Shia majority. Similarly, American influence in the region gives the Iranians a stronger argument for developing a nuclear deterrent. Iraq will likely become a focal point, much like those of the Cold War, in which two powers, in this case the US and Iran, face off via their allies in a proxy state. This is a reality we must understand, accept and prepare for if we are to continue with this strategy.

Third, democracy in every country is not in our strategic interest. We benefit tremendously from the stability of the Saudi monarchy. Were a popular revolution to break out in Saudi Arabia, the resulting regime, even if freely elected, would almost certainly be worse than the status quo. Likewise, Pakistani president Musharaf, a crucial ally of the US, is far better than the Islamic parties which seek to overthrow him. In Afghanistan, the tribal warlords, supported by opium production, are preventing the Taliban from regaining control of that country. In Egypt, the Mubarak regime is opposed by the Muslim Brotherhood, long considered to be affiliated with terrorism. Similar arguments can be made for Jordan, Kuwait and many other undemocratic allies of the United States. The old cliché that the devil you know if better than the devil you don’t is particularly true for the Middle East.

Finally, realistic strategic planning must accept the reality that the United States’ status as the world’s sole superpower will be short-lived. We cannot simultaneously demand that China implement market reforms and open society, and yet not become a global superpower in its own right. Globalization, which is surely in our strategic interest, is bound to produce competing powers, which will not necessarily share our values or interests. We should see the emergence of competition not as a threat but as an opportunity, to forge broader alliances and stronger economic ties. Ultimately, it will be trade relations that deter military aggression, far more effectively than arms races or diplomatic sanctions.

 

A Vote of Confidence In The System

A week after closely watching the Alito Supreme Court nomination hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, I am still not sure whether what I saw was government respectfully performing its proper function or merely a partisan charade for the cameras.

It is clear that everyone had their mind made up before any opening remarks were made. Apart from the memorably dignified questioning of Senators Feinstein (D-CA) and Specter (R-PA), the Republicans, for the most part, heaped endless praise on the nominee, while the Democrats tried to nitpick at his character flaws. The Republicans drew a picture of a man with unimpeachable integrity and a consistent judicial philosophy that would treat all parties fairly. The Democrats told us, by thinly veiled implication, that Alito is a bigot, a liar and the enemy of the ordinary American.

In politics, everyone can be hurt by their own medicine. The convenient claim which every nominee now uses to avoid losing moderate votes, that one should not discuss issues that might come before the court, was a precedent started by Ruth Bader Ginsberg in 1993, supported by the Democrat majority at the time. The ruling party was eager for an easier nomination, then as now, and if inventing a new principle of judicial ethics served that purpose, then all the better.

But to call politicians hypocritical would be redundant. No one believes the propaganda by either side about “judicial philosophy.” Sandra Day O’Connor, nominated as a conservative justice by the Reagan administration, is now praised by liberals and moderates alike for judging every case on its own merits, an approach that is precisely the opposite of a consistent philosophy.

Liberals like a conservative approach to the Commerce Clause when it comes to regulating medical marijuana, but want the opposite approach for machine guns. Conservatives support state rights when it comes to abortion, but have no problem with the federal government overriding states on euthanasia. The Republicans do not want to ban filibusters any more than the Democrats do, because they know from history that there are cycles of power. The Democrats don’t really want Alito to be completely forthcoming, because it could come back to haunt their own nominees down the line. Should we demand from our government a consistent, principled approach to the constitution, thus gaining honesty but losing some policies? Or should we continue to take the pragmatic approach, that utilizes principled propaganda when it suits our policy agenda and rejects those same principles when it helps our opponents?

Alito will almost certainly be confirmed, and all assume the court will shift to the right as a result. In terms of policy, this will have advantages and disadvantages to both sides of the aisle. Politically, the Republicans need the victory to move past the corruption scandal, and the Democrats need it done with, one way or the other, to get the agenda centered on the NSA hearings and the war. The country would do well to have conservative rulings on such issues as eminent domain, following the horrible Kelo ruling last year, and religion, where recent trends have used the first half of the Establishment clause to eliminate the equally important free exercise clause.

Unless Alito was perjuring himself before the committee regarding his own judicial philosophy (and as a judge he is one of the few who genuinely has one), it is very unlikely he will try to overturn Roe v Wade. The realists on both sides of the issue realize that we are far past the point of questioning the legal reasoning in the 1973 decision. For better or worse, the court read a new right into the Constitution that had not previously been there, and the label "activist" is not inaccurate. But as Alito himself stated clearly in his testimony, consistency and continuity are cardinal principles of the legal system. Three decades of upholding and re-affirming Roe have created a precedent that should be stronger than the personal ideology or desire of the justices. That does not mean, however, that the unelected judiciary should override a clear majority in many states that favors some restrictions.

Ultimately, therefore, the Alito confirmation will be a testament of the American people and their representatives in the validity of the system. The framers believed that government, with the proper balances and ideals, can bring out the best in humanity for the benefit of the whole nation. Inherent in our judicial system is the belief that a candidate with the necessary qualifications, the unanimous accolade of his colleagues and long hours of sworn testimony praising the rule of law will live up to the great position he is nominated for. If we cannot trust that Justice Alito, at the very least, would carry out his duties with integrity and reverence for the rule of law, then we must ask ourselves whether that fundamental premise of our republic is not in fact a grave mistake.