The Politics Behind the Concert
One of my closest friends is a professional violinist, and as every musician knows, there is no concert without a great deal of politics.
Bruce's point here is therefore very pertinent. But I must respectfully disagree with where he comes out.
For a progressive politician, ranking national security priorities should offer two things:
One, a hard-headed assessment of our top threats and challenges, and how he or she will address them--to prove seriousness of purpose and the necessary toughness on national security. Two, a vision of progress that offers hope, optimism, and a show of how America can lead as part of a team.
The latter is an indespensible part of a progressive presidential candidate's political portfolio. It is that vision, that show of difference between the left and the right in our view in what will keep our nation secure, that the country is hungry for. It also offers a middle way between unilateralism (leading with no team) and the permission-slip style multilateralism that the electorate tells pollsters they prefer, but then votes against time after time. Being a quarterback within a like-minded team provides a positive role for America, within a framework that could actually achieve results (and pragmatic Americans like results).
The American electorate does not know a great deal about the nuts and bolts of many foreign policy questions--but they know what they think is morally right, and they have a gut sense of countries they trust, and countries they don't. Too often, policy-oriented progressives have seemed to voters to be out of line with these gut sensibilities. And in fact, today's national security establishment tends to teach one away from these commonly held feeelings. Showing we share American's gut sense is a very good way to show voters that progressives share their sensibilities in national security--and to gain the upper hand in optimism, always a crucial political chip.
The nuts and bolts politics of any concert will be far harder than I believe Ivo is predicting. Lobbying on behalf of a country like Egypt, the pressure to let in a backsliding country such as Thailand... these are going to be very political calls, informed far more by politics than by policy. A look at the European Union's admissions lobbying process, influenced heavily by historical and ethnic ties, is a telling example. And in that case, the stakes are far higher.
Nevertheless, a working concert would have major, serious benefits. Currently, it is too often the case that referring a tough issue to a multilateral body basically means killing it. Darfur is a good example. Nuclear sanctions in Iran are another. China's willingness to make business deals with many of the most unsavory regimes on the planet--and Russia's economic strength given the price of oil, as well as its growing retrenchment into tsarist era politics--means that the Security Council is not going to be a viable organ for many of the goals progressives want to see in the world.
So if we want to support multilateralism, because we believe that legitimacy is essential to wielding power today, we need to create multilateral bodies that can function, and have some legitimacy. Some form of a concert of democracies would seem to be our most likely choice.
Would Israel be a member? If the charter as is proposed by the princeton project, would other member states agree to admit Israel given what the charter implies and requests? Is Israeli membership a deal breaker for the US? Rachel, please don't avoid these questions. I'm genuinely curious as to what the view of the AA experts is on this.
December 17, 2006 9:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
First, Rachel, your initial paragraphs relating to electoral politics are out of place in this discussion and don't move me in the slightest. Aside from the insignificant fact that I disagree with you about the political assessment, let's try to remember that the question before us is about a proposed epochal change in US national security policy and global relations. It's the job of serious leaders and thinkers to decide these questions on the merits, with a long view of the global and national interest, and then sell the result to the public. We should never pursue such an important initiative, where so many lives are at stake, because it might give "progressive politicians" some sort of branding advantage in the next election.
I recently listened to an interview with Jessica Tuchman Matthews, of the Carnegie Endowment, on NPR. She made the sober and perceptive point that one reason for the inability of the international community to settle on a coherent and effective international policy toward Iran is that the US-Russia relationship has gone totally to hell over the last couple of years. And she counted it a top priority to get to work on repairing that relationship. I think this is exactly right. Unfortuanately a coalition of neoconservative wingnuts and liberal saps seems bent on re-igniting the Cold War. And Iran is just one issue in one region. Russia sits in the middle a substantial sphere of influence that contains a number of countries that are likely to become increasingly important over the next several decades.
And will Russia be in the Concert of Democracies? the fact is, you can't even tell me! Nobody knows, isn't that right? But we can't have these vital issues of security bound up with years of demagoguery and wrangling over who does and doesn't get into the Concert, and with interminable hair-splitting debates about whether Russia's particular form of centralized elected government is more or less democratic than India's, for example, or about what kind of press is freer: one that has substantial state-owned components, or one that is owned by a handful of private robber-barons.
A similar point applies to China. In this case, it's pretty clear that China will not make it into the Concert. But it appalls me that at this juncture in world history people would be considering moves to stick a knife in US-China relations, because they have decided this month to get themselves all worked up about China establishing relationships with "unsavory" governments in Africa. And yet compared to the history and present of US and European involvement in Africa, the Chinese are virginal newbies and pikers!
Do you honestly think the making of business and security deals with unsavory regimes will be affected one way or another by this Concert of Democracies? We have always made such deals where or national interest seemed to require them; we will continue to make such deals. Other countries will as well - including democracies.
You know, when Nixon went to meet Mao, Mao was a butcher. He was very, very, very unsavory. And do you think China now is an improvement of the China under Mao? Of course you do. It's not even arguable. The situation in China is phenomenally improved since the US opening. China is no political Shangri-La perhaps, but its people are far freer and richer than they were in the late sixties and early seventies. But if we had listened to the ideologues and hardliners of the right and left back in 1973, the people of whom you and your friends are the heirs, the situation would now be incomparably worse. They would have declared engagement with China to be incompatible with the principles and moral purity of the free world.
You mention Darfur and Iran. The defenders of the Concert keep coming back to these two issues. But these are simply the crises of the month. Two years from now we will probably be talking about two entirely new crisis. We can't predict with any assurance what these are going to be. But we can predict that whatevever they are, our chances of solving them will be impaired if the global system has degenerated further along the path of an ideologically tinged great power rivalry - the path promised by the Concert of Democracies - and if the great game for strategic control of global energy reserves, profits and markets has intensified.
Do you think any of your democratizing dreams are going to become a reality anytime soon if the US and China in 2010 and 1015 are in a pitched competition for influence and clients in Africa? What if the same is true with the US, Europe and Russia battling it out over alliances and pipelines in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caspian basin and the Caucusus? And do you think there is any hope for peace in the Middle East if a decade from now, the region is a warlord-torn wasteland of permanent regional insurgency, with local chieftains selling off oilfields for security protection to the highest oil-hungry bidder in the outside world?
And the other big global challeneges? Global hunger, slums and inequality? Environmental degradation? Water resources? Nuclear and conventional weapons proliferation? Population management? Forget it. These problems all require broad-based solutions that go beyond the limited opportunites offered by a Concert of Democracies. And the will and capability of addressing them will be sapped by the sideshow struggle of Alliance of Democracies against the Evildoers.
I believe you are fixated on a couple of present issues, and missing the bigger global picture. The Concert offers only short term, feel-good satisfactions to our moral vanity - not long-term global solutions.
When you talk about "seriousness and toughness", you are not a credible messenger. In fact the frequency with which you mention the need to prove "our" toughness and seriousness to the public only shows how insecure you are about the whole subject. If you want to persuade the public about the seriousness of your national security positions, then develop cool, analytical and unsentimental strategies for keeping them safe and looking out after their long-term interests and well-being, and forget the democracy jihads.
December 17, 2006 10:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
What a question!
First you make a list of the countries you want in and those you don't.
Then, and only then, you write the rules of the charter so they agree with your list.
December 18, 2006 7:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dan: You're breaking the rules! How dare you be thoughtful and intelligent and serious? I say this is very rude!
December 18, 2006 7:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Two logical disconnects in one sentence. Not bad!
One: An assessment of our top threats should be undertaken NOT to prove seriousness but to make sound policy judgments.
Two: The implied suggestion that progressive politicians are not serious or tough is as insulting as it is idiotic. Name names, Rachel, will you? Is Feingold not serious? Is Murtha too much of a wimp for you? Who are you thinking of?
Is the sport metaphor meant to relieve the stress on our little brains or is there a point to it? Is foreign policy some kind of game where two teams fight it out? We were told to worry about "seriousness of purpose" and now we're told to think of it as a football game!
Ah, that gut feeling! That gut feeling that there were WMDs in Iraq, that Saddam was in bed with Osama, that Iran is the axis of evil!
First it's completely false (we hate Iran because we're told to incessantly by the NS establishment).
Second, it's a statement of deep immorality.
What Rachel is saying is that if National Security people tell us Country A is fine but the people, in their guts, they hate country A, then the hell with National Security people, Rachel says we should all hate country A.
Ethnic demonization by the people, for the people...
What??? Darfur? What ignorance is that? I challenge anyone to tell me how a Concert of whatever would do anything for Darfur the US/EU couldn't do now.
As for nuclear sanctions, all I can say is Dream on, Rachel. That train left the station a long time ago. Iran can and will laugh off any sanctions anyone will impose on them.
Shall I give you a list of the unsavory regimes on the planet with which the US signs business deals? Even John Bolton would try to defuse the issue with some BS explaining why they're not so unsavory. But not Rachel. Is that what "seriousness of purpose" means: the ability to be hypocritical without even blushing?
December 18, 2006 8:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
When the United States forms alliances with other nations, those alliances should be for the purpose of addressing a set of specific measurable goals that are regional in their scope, and specifically address U.S. interests.
For example, the U.S. forms alliances in the Pacific, in Europe and South America for specific purposes. The NATO alliance provides for defending strong US interests in Europe, and the overarching goal of preventing another European war.
Other agreements focus solely on commerce, which is entirely appropriate.
For global issues, we have the United Nations, which is already weighted somewhat towards the democratic nations. Better to bolster the United Nations than to invent a vague alliance with vague goals, based on a vague philosophy, and the popular politics of the moment.
December 18, 2006 8:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
You might need to check your irony blindspot. You said:
Yet your basic proposal is to create another multilateral body, no?
But here's the thing. We are currently suffering from an identity crisis, and it seems your solution is to try to re-arrange the world so we can feel less insecure. Quite honestly, as Dan K has elegantly elaborated, it's all rather lame.
December 18, 2006 10:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Russia would not be in the concert of democracies because it is not a democracy. But, the creation of the concert does not rule out cooperation, either on a bilateral or multilateral basis, with states that are not members. It simply means intensifying cooperation with like minded states. You are extremely disingenuous if you frame this as concert = no engagement with Russia. We're all adults here and whatever our views on the concert we understand how this game works, I think, i.e. conditional engagement with Russia will always be important.
December 18, 2006 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
In my opinion, these security experts are fundamentally dishonest. Their goal is to create an institutional framework from which the US can more easily project power for (most likely) hegemonic purposes. Currently the two frameworks are the UN these guys wish to trash (after all they coudn't bully the UN into backing American invasion despite all the wiretaps of UN offices), or the unilateral go at alone approach Bush prefers.
It is not an accident that someone like Daalder signs the PNAC letters on Iraq in March 2003 supporting Bush's military aggression. None of these experts had a world view that permitted them to denounce the Iraq operation from the start. Once again Darfur is trotted out as a stalking-horse always is; but it is the next line that is the bottom line: sanctions on Iran (I am not sure what "nuclear" sanctions are, but presumably they are not what they sound like) for its nuclear enrichment program. I guess it does no harm to watch these exhibitionists play with themselves publicly, but I am really disturbed when they call themselves "progressives". Are we not supposed to have a "gut sense" that our chains are being yanked.
Here is a web address for the scurrilous letters from PNAC signed by Daalder:
http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraq-20030319.htm
and again
http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraq-20030328.htm
Progressives indeed!! The Iraq aggression was a progressive initiative. Who knew? Just look at the rest of the progressive signatories: Kristol, Wil Marshall, MAx Boot. Tod Lindberg, Frank Carlucci.
December 18, 2006 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
You don't understand the situation. The U.S. doesn't need much help in projecting its power. The wars in Iraq and Aghanistan demonstrates this rather well. Even the disaster of the outcome in Iraq and a messy retreat won't impact the U.S. nearly as long as it will the Middle East. Who now remembers the negative impact on the U.S. of leaving Vietnam?
Further, what you might call the projection of power is going on daily. The U.S. dollar is the currency of choice in large numbers of countries and U.S. companies are in virtually every nation. I understand there is a lot of disatifaction with current U.S. policies but who really opposes the U.S.s leadership role?
It seems the Concert is about constraining U.S. power. The U.N. no matter how admirables goals is a non-starter in the U.S. A new institution in which countries that will take on some of the burden of using the rule of law to the world and helping in other situations is likely to be one more likely to restrain the U.S.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
December 18, 2006 11:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
When NATO warplanes bombed the Chinese embassy, would the Concert of Democracies have been able to diffuse the situation? What about when the Chinese shot down that U.S. spy plane?
Is the Concert of Democracies going to make enough people care about Darfur to cause their democratic governments to act? Is the Concert going to make the Europeans forget their own history of colonial misadventures in Africa?
-- "Good people can have honest differences of opinion. So long as Republicans are neither, I'm against bipartisanship."
December 18, 2006 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, Russia has an elected President and legislature Architect. So how many democratic institutions does a country have to have in order to count as a democracy? Are we just going to juggle the democracy books until we get exactly the countries we want in the concert?
I agree, or course, that some measure of cooperation will always occur between the US and Russia. Even during the height of the Cold War, the US and Russia cooperated on a few things. But fundamentally their relationship was driven by intense geopolitical competition, deep suspicion, fear and proxy warfare.
I do think forming a Concert of Demcoracies would be a very significant step that would severely damage relationships with countries outside the concert, and poison opportunities for global cooperation that would exist oteherwise. It miight not push these relationships into the darkest Cold War-style doldrums. But I think most of the world would interpret the formation of the concert as a sort of a declaration of independence by a group of democracies. This group would be seen as drawing back and giving up to some extent on the broader global community, and forming their own private club and major power bloc to pursue their own more limited group interests, with fewer constrints, and in a way that it inherently threatening to the interests of those not in the bloc.
Countries not in the concert would naturally view the concert as a strategic adversary, and would be forced to protect their interests by forming a countervaling bloc. How do you think the US would respond, if for example, the nations of Japan, China, Russia, India and Indonesia announced the formation of an "Asiatic Concert" aimed at pursuing a unified economic, foreign and military policy?
December 18, 2006 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Daniel, isn't the motivation for the concert the idea that it would amplify US power by forming a bloc that is able to accomplish things working together that the US has not been able to accomplish on its own, or through traditional routes?
One of the main hopes of the concert's defenders is to create a new source of collective legitimacy, so that the US and like-minded countries can act in an internationally justifiable non-unilateral manner (or at least justifiable to most of the citizens of the concert countries themselves), particularly militarily, but without having to seek that justification in UN authorization, and with as much compromise with non-democratic countries.
The US ability to project power has been seriously weakened in the past six years. For one thing our military is stretched and depleted, and so military projects our leaders might otherwise consider are now off the table. And also, all of the many ways in which the US used to project non-military power, including the power latent in US prestige, have been harmed by Bush's corruption and unliateralism. So surely the point is "strength in mumbers": increasing US power by creating a US-lead and US-frieldly alliance.
December 18, 2006 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
The concert is a treaty between each member state so the US would have to agree that Russia was a democracy, that the US would never use force against it, and so on. Obviously that won't happen so Russia won't be in. Also, Russia may have elections but it does not have a free press and an independent judicial system. As for what would we do if the bad guys ganged up on us-- we'd be outraged and respond; but, remember, we're not the bad guys, we're the good guys. So it's okay for us to cooperate.
December 18, 2006 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps a Concert of Democracies is trying to address several issues:
- How to get more predictable buy-in and follow-through from other nations when the US wants to embark on an ethical, yet risky foreign policy move
- How to establish a more universal definition for legitimacy in today's world; moving away from defining legitimacy as what we do (unilateral) or as what everyone does (UN)
- Giving developing states a clear goal and power carrots for attaining that goal
- Providing an effective counterpoint to UN slipperiness that is not just perceived as angry/divisive/selfish, but inspires a way forward for all
These are good goals, but there's a cost to doing it this way:
- Nations who are not members, yet are powerful and well-established and who's political architecture represents the collective sentiment of their people at the time as to what is necessary or possible, will hate us more, not less
- It will be seen as a tool of the Great Western Powers, in a sense how the Security Council is spun by some, just more so
- It will create such a high hurdle to entry that states very far from being modern will not perceive a clear track, and will invent their own. Only states that are relatively close to entry parameters may go ahead and make a shift or feel that membership speaks to them.
- It will invite and inspire other Concerts, which is already happening anyway at regional levels
This is not to say that other Concert solutions are better, as in
- Concert of Great Powers
- Concert of the Willing
- Concert of Everybody
- Regional Concerts
- Concert of Close Allies
- Concert of Shared National Interests
They all have issues
But in the end what is needed is a way to get global processes to work better, which means working with everyone, yet doing so more effectively
We need a template for foreign relations that can be applied to any problem, build bridges in any situation, provide carrots and sticks appropriate to the reality
That template may or may not be a new Concert, but at least something like a framework that
-- is explicit and has non-fungible goals and parameters
-- is progressive and flexible (defines stages or types of engagement between states; states can move from one level/style of membership to another)
-- is reliable, predictable and enforceable (something like a treaty-agreement),
-- evolves over time (allows for gradual deepening of goals as states see this as viable)
-- that within the US represents a long-term bipartisan commitment, with adequate funding
-- that speaks to development in a multi-cultural, multi-polar world (realizing different states will have unique pathways to freedom and well-being; requiring different kinds of support; but can still participate in a real way as they develop)
This is not altogether different from the sum total of what exists if you combine all agreements the US is involved in, but they are not part of one larger vision or template, so any new venture starts from scratch or from a messy combination of approaches
Having one venue you go to, that is not a deliberative body or a body with many arms acting independently but instead is a place which only does real things as part of a coordinated structure, that would be good
If it allows and encourages participation at the level a country desires, then global shifts in areas like security are facilitated
Its goals could be very limited at first, establish success at the beginning, and role out depth over time, based on consensus buy-in from the members at any given level
December 18, 2006 2:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Members of the COD, insofar as they are also members of the UN, would still need to seek UN authorization before threatening or using force.
If it is believed that the COD would be able to just avoid the UN entirely, that is clearly false. If that belief is the foundation of support for the COD--and I think it probably is--then the COD would be founded on false premises and lead to illegal actions.
December 18, 2006 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Probably Daniel forgets the last time (pre-Bolton) when the US was determined to strengthen the UN. That was when the US insisted on the exclusion of "Red" China and instead insisted that Taiwan represented all of China. Do you remember that strengthening effort. Very productive. Now the Concert of Democracies is trying to achieve similar results. Exclude China, Russia, certainly Iran (although Iran has fairly democratic elections...by no means ideal but a whole different level better than Pakistan). Why mention Pakistan? Because India IS a functionning democracy and we dare not really have democratic voting in Pakistan or we will have true Islamic nationalists taking over. So without democracy in Pakistan are we going to favor India over Pakistan? What do you think?
December 18, 2006 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
We don't actually know if these assertions about the treaty ratification are accurate or not. The proposed charter as it appears in the appendix to the princeton report does not provide any methods of or restrictions on ratification. Presumably there would have to be, but we don't know yet. After all, it could be that other states would accept Russian ratification while the US rejects it. In that case, the charter would be in effect between those other states and Russia but not in effect between the US and Russia.
None of this is clear yet.
December 18, 2006 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reece, while what you say is true according to international law and the UN charter, and while the US is committed formally to these principles by virtue of the fact that it is a member of the UN and signatory to the UN charter, my understanding is that the main appeal of the proposed Concert of Democracies for its defenders is that it would "provide an alternative forum for liberal democracies to authorize collective action, including the use of force, by supermajority vote." In other words, if the UN fails to authorize action in a place like Darfur, the members of the concert would go ahead and vote among themselves, and possibly act without UN authorization.
The idea is to sideline the UN, or pressure it into greater "relevance" by creating a competing locus of legitimacy. The approach is not exactly unilateralism; but it's not internationalism either. That's why I have called it democratic multilateralism. This is all part of a growing intellectual and political movement that increasingly refuses to recognize non-democratic governments as in any way legitimate in themselves, and therefore as proper bestowers of international legitimacy.
Under the guise of pushing UN reform, the concert proposal is a trojan horse designed to subvert the last vestiges of UN independence and influence, and force it to become a compliant tool of the US-European conception of global security, or else fade into irrelevance. It is a logical continuation of the Bush approach to the UN articulated back in the fall of 2002.
December 18, 2006 4:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Does the UK have a free press? I can never tell, since they seem to have all sorts of crazy libel laws that cast a chilling effect on publication, but I don't know exactly how these laws work. I've read wild and outrageous stuff in Russian online publications that might be hard to get away with in a British publication. It also seems that one cannot go anywhere in England without being surveilled by some spooky camara. Is that a free society?
But I guess democracy is whatever the Concert of the Self-selected and Self-satisfied say it is.
December 18, 2006 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
"The American electorate does not know a great deal about the nuts and bolts of many foreign policy questions--but they know what they think is morally right, and they have a gut sense of countries they trust, and countries they don't."
A girl I know got a roommate who studies political science, and not to look like a moron she decided to learn something about international affairs.
Two weeks into this endavour she told me that she was surprised that there are more than a billion Muslim in the world, and, what was particularly surprising, the country with the largest Muslim population is New Zealand. If you think about it --- a big island nation, near Australia --- yep, New Zealand! Now, a month later, she seem to be getting all basics right, although I did not try to ask more difficult questions like "is Morocco an absolute, or a constitutional monarchy?"
And we are talking about a person with a degree in science who can use internet to find an aswer to a question within minutes (now that you wonder: Muslim population in New Zealand is ca. 25k).
To conclude, how many members of the electorate would conclude that we can trust New Zealand because of it has huge Muslim population, while the other day the President was stressing how friendly we are with Muslim countries (or where they Buddhist?).
Or, more seriously, how many countries are subject of the aforementioned "gut feeling"?
December 18, 2006 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am surprised Rachel is not a signatory.
I know why. They hate women: 26 names and 1 woman!
That's a progressive bunch, all right.
To see Ivo's name just cracks me up! I wonder how he'll be able to live that one down.
The man has been so deeply wrong on the most important question of our time and that won't slow down his pontificating.
You've got to admire those people! I just don't know how they sleep at night.
December 18, 2006 6:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
What went to hell are not USA-Russian relations, but the basic premises of effective diplomacy.
Ordinarily, when we deal with countries diffent from Blair's Britain, if we want something we also have to offer something. Now the idea is that such docile behavior is beneath our dignity as the only remaining superpower, so if we want something we browbeat others into submission. Or we complain that the others are "not serious", or "they are breaking the rules" etc.
And indeed, we have a great success with UK, Australia, Latvia, Denmark, Poland, UAE and many others.
December 18, 2006 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, it's a matter of repackaging Pax Americana, which is leaking pretty badly.
I only wish the proponents were honest about it, and not adopt a boy scout pose of good guys vs. bad guys that is supremely irritating.
Anyway, the CoD is DOA. The pros know that. They're just throwing the dems a bone to kill time.
But the intellectual weakness of their arguments is quite staggering.
December 18, 2006 6:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wasn't arguing with you.
December 18, 2006 7:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know Reece. That was mainly for the benefit of others who might be following the discussion casually.
December 18, 2006 7:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
What bothers me most is that these Democratic warhawks see the world problems in terms of security and security threats and that is all. They do not look beyond surface events. Now as much as they want to distinguish themselves from the Republican security apparatchiks, they cannot because they share the same methodology. That is why "our" warhawks (yes, you are right, it makes me gag), "our" DLC, are the foundation stones on which Bush builds his policies of aggression, domination, torture and mayhem; and it is also the foundation stones for Gingrich to call for imprisoning citizens for the crime of BAWM ("being American while Muslim") and for tearing up the bill of rights ("free speech is overrated"). Kleinfeld, in particular, has in the past, unambiguously called for NOT examining causes but instead finding the right measures to suppress terrorists (divorced from context). If you proceed with the same methodology you produce pretty much the same disastrous policy
December 18, 2006 8:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dan,
You wrote:
"Well, Russia has an elected President and legislature Architect. So how many democratic institutions does a country have to have in order to count as a democracy? Are we just going to juggle the democracy books until we get exactly the countries we want in the concert?"
Do you seriously think that Russia could be considered a democracy, or are you being sarcastic? It reads serious, maybe I am missing the nuance.
December 18, 2006 8:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
"we hate Iran because we're told to incessantly by the NS establishment"
You hate Iran? I thought America was the bad guy. Can you put the kool-aid down for a minute and think of maybe a few reasons why a rational human being would not look admiringly on Iran? Can you do that?
December 18, 2006 8:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think any concert would entail a huge degree of politicking behind the scenes--such is the nature of power and clubs. But the proper way to at least erect such a concert would be to establish some fairly clear rules regarding what a democracy entailed. It would have to be a great deal more than elections, since even Zimbabwe holds elections.
The Princeton Project spelled out, to some degree, some of the other essentials. Basic civil rights and minority rights, such as the rights of free speech, a free press, organization, and the others in the Universal Declaration. Ranking these would be an issue, of course--in practicality, it would probably use Freedom House or Amnesty International, or a similar such scoring system as a rule of thumb. In other words, these would have to be realized rights, not rights on the books. Basic checks and balances--most crucially, a functioning, independent court system, would be another prereq, in my view.
In other words, elections, minority and civil rights, and the infrastructure of judicial oversight, are the basic building blocks of any democracy.
On those grounds, Israel would count as much as America would--both have those three, and both have obvious problems. (Discrimination against Arab Israelis in Israel, discrimination against minorities in America, both against the law, and both regularly breached. Israel's courts are certainly less politically charged than America's--they beat us there. Both are better on at least the first and third counts than some of the new EU states which we would also probably want to allow in.)
Having worked with a human rights group for Arab Israelis in Nazareth, I think there is more institutionalized civil rights curtailment in Israel against that portion of its population--and a concert of democracies might be an excellent lever to change such anti-democratic forces in Israel, by using a change as conditionality for entering. Such would be the power of a concert like this, to push members that are borderline and aspiring towards improvement towards the brighter side of the line.
I think there would be no hope for using it as a lever against the really egregious problem countries, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and dozens of others, which are far far lower on the scale of democracy than any of those discussed here.
Director, Truman National Security Project
www.trumanproject.org
December 18, 2006 8:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
The greatest challenge in evaluating Israel as a democracy, Rachel, is that it has no proclaimed or internationally recognized and fixed borders. If one only looks at what some would regard as "Israel proper" - the country defined by the 1967 borders, then there is a stronger case for regarding Israel as a democracy. On the other hand, if Israel is regarded as including ill-defined masses of territory in the West Bank, comprising what some Israelis consider Judea and Samaria, and also territory in Arab Jerusalem, then the case for Israel as a democracy clearly becomes much weaker, since the state's territory then includes large numbers of people who have no rights at all to participation in the governance of the country.
Now I personally don't regard those territories as part of Israel, and perhaps you don't either. But a not-insignificant number of Israelis do regard some of thsoe territories as part of Israel, and so by their own lights exercise non-democratic rule over non-citizens inhabiting their territory. And the issue seems so politically vexed in Israel that no Israeli government has explicitly denied the territorial claims of the maximalists. So until Israel has a border, I wouldn't think they should be let in.
But the prospect of this kind of endless argumentation is one reason why I don't think we should have such a club to begin with.
December 18, 2006 9:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I seriously think Russia has a good claim to be considered a democracy. Democracy is not an all or nothing affair. There are a variety of democratic institutions, and many countries have some and lack others - including our own country. If the concert is only to allow in countries that are "pure" democracies, it will have no members. So presuamably, there is to be some kind of threshold that the members must pass.
It has become very common recently for people to argue that elections are not sufficient to make a country a democracy. But still, if a country elects its chief executive and national legislature, I think that is a very weighty consideration in favor of its being regarded as a democracy.
December 18, 2006 9:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
The issue is not whether to look admiringly on Iran. The issue is ethnic demonization, an art at which AA posters are skilled practitioners.
Please do explain to us why Iran is the latest scarecrow (on a day when that buffoon of Ahmadinejad got a huge slap on the face) but fully nuked-up Pakistan-- a charter member of the dictatorship league-- gets not even a slap on the wrist from people here.
Iran has not attacked anyone in hundreds of years. Iran has no history of aggressive behavior. Iran was attacked by a country we supported to the hilt, down to the chemical attacks Rumsfeld knew about when he went to shake Saddam's hand. Iran's democracy was thwarted because of a coup we engineered. Iran has plenty of reasons to hate us, and yet they don't.
The US should be apologizing to Iran.
But the posters on AA treat it like a pariah.
And want to slap sanctions on Iran for no reason they've articulated in any serious form.
December 18, 2006 10:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lumping together Iran and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
Memo to Rachel: Pakistan's leader got his job through a military coup. The guy's a dictator.
Saudi Arabia: they've never had an election! (except at the town level).
Iran: Not perfect. But they do elect their president in a real election. In fact, there's been more regime change in Iran than in the US lately.
December 18, 2006 10:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do I have this right-- you think Israel is a "borderline" case when it comes to classification as a democracy? Wow.
December 18, 2006 10:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rachel: [a goal of CoD would be to] show of how America can lead as part of a team.
Apparently inadequacy of an organization like NATO is that USA cannot simply tell other countries what to do, hence, no concert.
All goals stated by Princeton-Projectanians (-Projectiles? -Projectmongers?) are about as precise. A vision that we need a vision, optimism that we will find hope (or hope that we will be optimistic). Priority: making a hard assesment.
The remaining optimistic vision of hope is about making sanctions better --- and perhaps intervention in Darfur.
Clearly, were we so inclined, we can send troops to Darfur tomorrow. There would be loud complains from the usual suspects, but not much more than usual. "Concert" sanctions would not be better than sanctions enacted by EU and joined by Japan (but not by China, Russia, India etc.)
December 18, 2006 10:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, I do. But you didn't respond to the substance of my reason for saying so.
December 19, 2006 4:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why does Israel's borders determine whether it is a democracy? It is not their fault that Jordan so miserable lost the war in 1967.
Germany currently has ahistorical borders. Does that raise a question about its status. There are many border disputes around the world since when does that determine whether a countries internal system is a democracy?
During the American Civil War the South disputed the borders. France and England were prepared to recognize the CSA. Was the United States no longer a democratic republic? Was the South?
I find it fascinating that Western and clearly democratic countreis are so distained while there is such support for nations that are virtual theocracies, repress women, mainly by the men who write here, and those who reject the Wests concept of the invidual and the rule of law.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
December 19, 2006 6:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
They do not elect their leader in a real election. That is simply wrong. Do a little research.
Iran ranks 138 out of 150 in the world for democratic freedoms
Source: worldaudit.org
Iran ranks 139 out of 163 and is considered an authoritarian regime.
Source: The economist
http://www.economist.com/media/pdf/DEMOCRACY_INDEX_2007_v3.pdf
"Iranians cannot change their government democratically. The most powerful figure in the Iranian government is the Supreme Leader (Vali-e-Faghih), currently Ayatollah Ali Hoseini-Khamenei; he is chosen for life by the Assembly of Experts, a clerics-only body whose members are elected to eight-year terms by popular vote from a gov-ernment-screened list of candidates. The Supreme Leader is commander in chief of the armed forces and appoints the leaders of the judiciary, the heads of state broadcast media, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Expediency Council, and half the members of the Council of Guardians. Although the president and parliament are responsible for designating cabinet ministers, the Supreme Leader exercises de facto control over appointments to the ministries of Defense, Interior, and Intelligence.
All candidates for election to the presidency and the 290-seat unicameral parliament are vetted for strict allegiance to the ruling theocracy and adherence to Islamic principles by the 12-person Council of Guardians, a body of 6 clergymen appointed by the Supreme Leader and 6 laymen selected by the head of the judiciary chief (the latter are nominally subject to parliamentary approval). The Council of Guardians also has the power to reject legislation approved by parliament; disputes between the two are arbitrated by the Expediency Council, another non-elected, conser-vative-dominated body, currently headed by former president Ali Akbar Rafsanjani.
The legitimacy of the June 2005 presidential election was undermined by the Council of Guardians' rejection of all but 8 of the 1,014 candidates who registered to run."
Source: Freedomhouse.org
December 19, 2006 6:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think if you look at any of the recognized rating systems, Russia isn't even close. They score extraordinarily low on press freedom, corruption and democracy indexes.
December 19, 2006 7:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why are they demonized? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they act like demons.
Aside from the fact that the people of Iran are kept prisoner under oppressive rulers, they seem very happy.
Who needs a free press?
Who needs democracy?
Who needs a separate judicial system?
If you love the iron fist of Sharia law, Iran is a great place to live.
I would say that the government is a joke, but that implies that they shouldn't be taken seriously. Does anyone think that they would resist dropping nuclear bombs on Israel the minute they develop them?
noblesseoblige, you wrote:
"Iran has no history of aggressive behavior."
You actually wrote that.
December 19, 2006 7:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
PHN,
I agree with your analysis, but not your conclusion.
You wrote:
"the United Nations, which is already weighted somewhat towards the democratic nations"
The word "somewhat" is the central issue. Any international organization worth supporting should be considerably more weighted toward democracy.
December 19, 2006 7:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
I know. I have no illusion about Iranian democracy. What I am saying is that in Iran elections are "real". Real in the sense that no one knows for sure who's going to win until people look at actual ballots. And real in the sense that the top guy sometimes loses (as happened yesterday). Real in the sense that presidents step down and are replaced. And real in the sense that a political culture exists in Iran that's nonexistent in Pakistan, and dissent is a reality: something you'll never find in Saudi Arabia.
Of all (real) countries in the Middle east, only Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, and Iran are a democracy or have the prereqs to become one. The others.. not a chance.
December 19, 2006 8:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
I did write that because it's true.
Go ahead and name the countries it's attacked in recent history.
Come on. Do it. I am waiting!
December 19, 2006 8:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, we hope for hope and we're optimistic about optimism. We envision a vision and we project grand projects.
Piotr, you've captured the true essence of the PNAC project, oops... I meant, the PPNS!
December 19, 2006 8:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Any new organization of states will still have to deal with the abovementioned sovereignty question. Politics is about power and since no organization will possibly allow a single entity to wield more power than either itself or at least its closest ally, no organization will possibly be able to wield enough power to affect change in the places it is needed.
Also, would a coalition of self-professed democracies have a mandate to pass resolutions on the state of those states that are not members because they have not been deemed democracies by the lucky few? If so, would those states that are not democracies have a right to comment on the democratic nature of an organization that is trying to enact policies against/for them without in fact democratically including them in the organization itself? Isn't the idea of a coalition of democratic states formed to solve problems in non-democratic states a little bit hypocritcal? Something of an assumption of our own infallibility?
Since the major question resonating throughout all of this discussion is that surrounding the exercise of power, maybe it makes more sense to create an organization without ANY power as a means for those disenfranchised states, ostensibly non-democratic, to have a forum in which their greavences can be discussed without being held accountable by more powerful states and as a method by which the democratic states that wish to change them can air potential solutions without the spectre of powerful security council members vetoing their solutions.
Whichever way, it is evident that the formation of this organization is hinged upon only one thing - can it differentiate itself in some functional and practical way from the organizations that already exist? If not, there is no reason to bring it into being.
December 19, 2006 8:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Aside from the obvious- Hizballah's numerous attacks against America and Israel, and their current attacks in Iraq, and the various terrorist attacks in the 70s and 80s, the number one target of their aggression has been the Iranian people.
They are aggressive every single day they exist. For whatever reason, the behavior of the Iranian government doesn't bother you, so I am wasting my time.
If you don't see how terrible the regime is, no amount of factual proof will matter. Do some research and see what freedoms they have. See how their rules compare to ours.
December 19, 2006 9:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Rachel,
Your comments suggest to me that the basis for this proposal is two significant misperceptions.
One is that the failures of the Bush administration highlight a permanent problem for the US instead of a temporary one caused by the failed leadership of a particular administration and the second is that the most important means for achieving progressive ends in the world is the exercise of power.
You write:
Clinton was able to get sanctions imposed on Pakistan and India in response to their nuclear testing. He had everyone lined up in support of sanctions against N. Korea within months of the crisis there in 1993, which gave him the ability to negotiate from strength. He got NATO's approval for the Serb-Kosovo conflict.
And the first Bush Administration was quite capable of forming a coalition of the Arab world to fight Saddam the first time around.
We've never had trouble creating these kinds of coalitions UNTIL this administration. So why should I believe there is some larger problem here that needs fixing that won't be fixed by a change of leadership??
As for furthering progressive goals in the world, it seems to me the most important work in that regard is performed through NGOs, the Peace Corp, foreign aid programs, patient negotiations, moral persuasion and the example we set in the world.
Occassionally, there are moments when the exercise of power is needed -- such as the sanctions that helped end apartheid in S. Africa and actions to end ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
But even in the Kosovo action, I think we were right to spend years pushing for a solution through non-military means before taking the last resort action of bombing people -- even if those early efforts weren't successful.
Finally, I'm troubled by what appears to be in your post and others no recognition as to the limits of what we can do as a country. We can't solve the world's problems.
President Clinton, in defending his actions in Kosovo, acknowledged this.
And it's my recollection that in his original Oval Office speech announcing the war, he laid down a set of criteria for when we should intervene, and implicity, when we should just walk away because there's nothing we can do. But I can't find it now.
I believe it was along the lines of there must be a clear chance to achieve our goals in a reasonable time frame, regional countries must be willing to step in to provide both military, police and humanitarian support during and after the conflict, and there must be an agreement among the allies in the conflict as to what peacekeeping structures will be set up when the conflict ends and how forces will come to be drawn down (exit strategy).
(And in the case of that war, planning to put those things in place began the day the war started)
December 19, 2006 10:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Finally we found some middle ground!
I agree with your overall assessment of the political reality in the Middle East.
I would throw Iraq in there too, with your caveat, "or have the prereqs to become one."
Deciding what countries are democracies is difficult once you get past the top 25 or 30 easy ones. To me, part of calling yourself a democracy is having peaceful transitions of power.
Even though Mexico has had elections for years, they just had their first peaceful transition via their last elections. They might fall short in other ways, but Mexico has cleared that hurdle.
Iraq and Afghanistan have not cleared that hurdle yet, and they may never get there. I'll cross my fingers, but I won't hold my breath.
December 19, 2006 11:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
You missed my point Daniel. It's not that Israel's borders are ahistorical. It's that Israel has no declared or internationally recognized border.
Here's why this is relevant to whether Israel is a democracy: If a country contains many inhabitants that are not eligible to vote or otherwise participate in the governing of a country, then that is clearly a very undemocratic feature of the country. Now there are many Palestinians in West Bank territories that are not eligible to participate in the governing of Israel. Are these people, or are they not, inhabitants of Israel?
If they are, then Israel contains millions of inhabitants who are excluded from participation in the governance of the country, and therefore fails dramatically to count as a democracy.
If they are not inhabitants of Israel, because those territories are not part of Israel, then the government should clearly say so.
But in fact, a significant proportion of the Israeli population regards these territories as part of Israel, and the government refuses to disavow these claims. At the same time, the government has long assisted efforts to colonize and incorporporate those territories into Israel.
So, until Israel disavows these territorial claims, and the logical consequences of those claims - that Israel rules in an undemocratic manner over subject populations who live on their territory but are disenfranchised from participation in Israel's government - then I don't know why we should accept Israel's claim to being a democracy. They convict themselves of undemocratic rule by their own words and claims.
If, on the other hand, Israel made it clear that it regards only those territories outside the occupied territories as parts of Israel itself, then Israel woould clearly have an extremely strong claim to being a democracy.
And of course, everything would be different if, like the Confederate states of America, the Palestinians had seceded from Israel, and were eligible to participate in the governance of Israel, but had chosen not to participate. But obviously nothing like this is the case.
December 19, 2006 11:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps. But the question isn't whether Russia is an exemplary democracy or highly rated democracy, but only whether they simply pass the threshold necessary to count as a democracy of some kind.
Many of the ratings systems you mention are made in America and privilege peculiar American conceptions of freedom and democracy. For example, a lot of Americans would say that if a press organization is run by the government, and that government exercises some control over the editorial content of the press organization, the organization is not free.
At the same time, they would peobably say that if a press organization is owned by a corporation, and that corporation exercises editorial control over the organization's editorial content, then that press organization is free.
But of course, others might argue that if the government is an elected one, then govenment ownership means ownership by the people, wheras corporate ownership of media entails ownership by a non-democratic oligarchy.
December 19, 2006 11:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
These are similar issues to the ones England faced with Ireland and Scotland.
When you have people living within your borders, either they are in or they are out. The Palestinians are in limbo and that is half the problem.
December 19, 2006 12:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dan,
You make valid points and valid distinctions about government ownership of various media outlets. Private companies are held to a much stricter accountable force than votes, though. Votes are great, but money from consumers is a much stronger force. I think a big problem in America is that the media gives us what we want, and we want low-brow news. (but that is a discussion best left for other blogs)
I think Russia is a lot farther away from press freedom than you think, though.
It certainly isn't just American organizations that feel that way. Here is a decidedly anti-American ranking:
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=19381
America is ranked 54, which I think is pretty low, but Russia is ranked 147. You don't get ranked 147 by accident.
When you murder members of the press, you are not even close to having freedom of speech. In America, the government gets criticized for arresting reporters regardless of whether it is justified or not. We have a culture that says the media is always right and the government is always wrong. In Russia, speaking about that may get you killed, literally.
December 19, 2006 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
GHaines thanks for correcting the record. You are undoubtedly referring to the US removing the (democratically) elected Mossadegh who wanted to use oil revenues to improve general standards of living (he was exhibiting aggressive behavior, damn him); and then Iran defended itself (aggressive again) against the US aided Iraq invasion. Let's see one quarter of the world's prison population is in which country again? oh the US. You mean more than in China with its vastly larger population? oh much larger... a full third larger. And which country is the predominant user of illegal torture. What, the US? Lets get the Concert of Democracies on this forthwith to deal with Iran and its iron-fisted regime.
December 19, 2006 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
His Israel gained its current borders in a defensive war until the combattants one the other side are ready to negotiate the borders Israel cant' do so. Although Sharon and the Kadima party were ready to establish its borders when Hamas and Hezbollah kidnapped its soldiers.
If borders are the standard then Israel should annex the West Bank? I do not think being left out of the COD would be a big loss for Israel. In anything it would give them a free hand. They are too significant an economic factor to be ignored by the democracies and the U.S. will continue to guarantee Israel's ulitmate existence, the meaning of the U.S. unblanced policy.
This is just another effort to hold Israel to a standard that ignores the role of the Arabs in their own disaster and how other countries act. For example Taiwan, is it a Democracy by your territorial definition?
Daniel A. Greenbaum
December 19, 2006 1:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I knew you wouldn't have a response to my post.
America certainly did support Iraq versus Iran (then flip-flopped a bit)
Ask yourself this question- why would a liberal democracy support Iraq versus Iran?
Maybe, just maybe, it is because Iran + power = terrifying to the sane.
Maybe the thought of Islamic Fundamentalists in power is seen as a huge step back for civilization. Just maybe.
December 19, 2006 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
maybe.
maybe OIL.
maybe the US motives are not as pure as the driven snow.
talking about responding to posts, it does cut two ways.
I am not particularly sensitive about these points. But I can always tell someone who has trouble reasoning by how quickly he reduces to "sane" or "insane" or how quickly he becomes patronizing. maybe.
December 19, 2006 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
You don't find a powerful Iran a terrifying proposition?
How do you feel about the Caliphate? Pro or Con?
Do you doubt that they will use Nuclear weapons on Israel as soon as they get some?
Is that a good thing in your opinion? Let me see if I can guess. Israel is the bad guy, they don't deserve to exist in the first place, so Iran is actually doing good by nuking them. Someone else had that same strategy in the 1930s. Roosevelt? No... Truman? No...Hitler! That’s right-- Adolf Hitler.
The Caliphate is the Nazi party with new uniforms and less forgiving attitudes about freedom and women's rights. That terrifies me. I guess you're ok with it.
Is that patronizing enough? How can someone not be condescending to the pro-Islamic Fundamentalist Theocracy faction?
December 19, 2006 2:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are right. I did not see it before. But you have explained it with great clarity.
December 19, 2006 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
December 19, 2006 4:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now that is patronizing...but funny.
You got me to laugh, you win.
December 19, 2006 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is a valid point.
However, I think many other demons are demonized. We demonize North Korea, for example, we demonized Saddam's Iraq, we demonized the Taliban's Afghanistan, and others.
Why does Robert Mugabe get a pass? Why does Islam Karimov get a pass? Why does Saudi Arabia get a pass (if not from the media, but from our government)?
I think that goes to the core of the Concert of Democracies idea. We need to get in bed with some of these filthy regimes because we do not have enough strong, like minded allies cooperating with each other.
Having said that, we still would let Mugabe fly under the radar, just like we are letting the Islamic Courts in Somalia and the LRA in Uganda. If we don't see a strategic reason to get involved we don't.
As powerful as America is, we do not have control of the world. I realize that makes some people on this site very happy, but it is no less true.
We can't solve every problem in every country, we have to prioritize them based on how they affect us.
December 19, 2006 6:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
As you and others have ably pointed out "democracy" is the fig leaf that covers up the true purpose of the new "club"; just as Darfur is a stalking-horse to engage liberal/progressive interest in this reactionary project. But then what should we expect from Kleinfeld who memorializes Truman and Scoop Jackson (oh, what's that? so do the neocons, you say. what a surprise)and Beinart and Wil Marshall and the rest of the Democratic neo-cons. Of course, for progressives in the "FDR wing", for whom strengthening the UN and true multilateralism is important, the fault lines are very clear. So we are fed an almost daily diet of DLC-style, right wing support for new security projects; if you eat from their plate you turn into a Lieberman. If these security people are serious, let them show us how the new institution can be used to rein in and contain the American imperial adventure in Iraq; how does the CoD punish the US and protect the world? Are there sanctions? Does the US lose voting rights in the CoD? How does the CoD ensure that the intentional destabilizing of a region and of the world, in reckless disregard for the world's considered opinion, is clearly designated as unacceptable? Or is the CoD just another name for the Coaliton of the Willing? You know the great failure of the UN is not its inability to act when the US deems it necessary(witness Iraq); as great a failing as that is at times, it is almost dwarfed by its inability to punish the wrongdoer; of course the CoD, is designed to further insulate American actions from the world's considerations.
December 20, 2006 7:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's maybe more so that America hasn't been able to convince other democracies? Maybe a Concert of Democracies would make that "easier"?
...as in unnecessary?
/Tuomas
December 20, 2006 8:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's indeed creative. Shi'a Iran and the Caliphate. Have the imams heard about this?
Do I doubt they will use nuclear weapons on Israel, assuming they get them? Yes, for cold strategic reasons -- but, I must ask forgiveness, since I actually know something about the engineering, delivery systems, and capabilities of nuclear weapons. Just how were you going to have Iran deliver them through Israeli defenses? Fajr-3? Shahab-3?
Now, as an exercise, consider the typical weight of a [modern] first-production-generation fission weapon. Match that against the throw-weight of the aforementioned missiles. A little heavy? Back to the drawing board and test lab.
OK. Let's say they mate a 50 kiloton or so weapon to an IRBM. How many are they going to have? Israel's Jericho IRBMs are surprisingly little hardened, but what counterforce preemptive capability will Iran have if Israel deploys some Jerichos to hard silos? Oh, and how do the Iranians deal with the sea-launched second-strike weapons? Remember, there is reasonable data that Israel has somewhere on the order of low hundreds of nuclear weapons. When is Iran going to have strategic equivalence?
Repeat after me: "the Caliphate is a fundamental Sunni, not Shi'a, concept." Or were you going to have the Muslim Brotherhood get the Twelfth Imam? If you're going to demonize Muslims, at least get the denominations straight. It won't do to get your assorted religious demons in the wrong church.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
December 21, 2006 12:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Of course there was flip-flopping in the Iran-Iraq war. I am not demonizing Henry Kissinger to observe that balances of power have been at the core of his thinking since his doctoral dissertation, "A World Restored, Metternich, Castlereagh and the conservative politics in a revolutionary world".
When two regional powers threaten the balance desired by an external one, in Kissinger's logic, how can it not be to the US advantage to play one against the other? I remember, at the time, the Washington saying about that war as the one where we wanted to see both sides lose.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
December 21, 2006 12:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Dignity; it is more important to us than your freedom." Bui Diem, South Vietnamese Ambassador to the US.
Newsflash: not all cultures choose the same set of freedoms, as their chief priority, as liberal (excuse the term) Western democracies.
But yes, you may be wasting your time. It is unclear how factual proof gets into your determination, given that you can't seem to get Sunni versus Shi'a belief straight. Oh, they're just heathens, I guess, all the same.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
December 21, 2006 12:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
"given that you can't seem to get Sunni versus Shi'a belief straight."
Huh? I think you hit reply to my post on accident. No hard feelings.
"Oh, they're just heathens, I guess, all the same."
That's a great argument for pulling out. Who cares about brown people anyway? Lets stop trying to protect them. They are too brown.
Brown people don't bother me as much as they bother some on the left though. I say we are all humans, so lets help them.
December 21, 2006 10:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Correct me if I was wrong, but were you not speaking of Iranian theocracy, and, a sentence away, speaking of the Caliphate? The authority of the Caliphate is the most basic difference between the Sunni, who believe in the historical tradition of the Caliphate, and the Shi'a, who believe in the authority deriving from the family of Mohammed.
Restoration of the Caliphate is indeed central to al-Qaeda ideology and theology, but is quite opposed to radical Shi'a elements in Iran.
My comments about "heathens" were meant in irony. Forgive me if I don't tend to take seriously the dire warnings about Muslims about someone that seems a bit confused about even radical Muslim beliefs.
I wasn't aware we were "protecting" anyone of any color by our invasion of, or remaining in, Iraq. There is no substantial evidence that a continued American presence is stabilizing to Iraq--GEN Abizaid's recent comments about the "surge" don't exactly reek of confidence from the man at the pointy end of the spear.
We can't help all humans in all situations. I have extended family in Sierra Leone, and I'd much rather do more for that potentially fixable country. In point of fact, the West African alliance, with British help, is doing a fair job. The United States doesn't have the resources or the authority to be the protector of all humans everywhere. How many American lives and how much treasure needs to be spent in dubious foreign adventures when there are real needs, and even real vulnerabilities, here? You won't hear me criticizing the invasion of Afghanistan as a necessary strategic measure; you will hear me criticizing the diversion of attention from Afghanistan to Iraq.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
December 21, 2006 10:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
I see what you're saying- but I don't think democracy/not a democracy is a perfect binary state. To build on your example of the Confederate States seceding as having been a case where "everything was different" because a "choice" had been made prior- well, actually neither combatant was a democracy at the time of reckoning because both governed huge disenfranchised non-voting populations composed of people called "slaves".
Yet I don't think it would be accurate to say the U.S. was not a democracy until after the Civil War because well, women still couldn't vote until the 20th century. Likewise, if they lowered the voting age to 16 all of U.S. history would then reflexively have to be redescribed as "not a democracy" by this logic.
And of course, nothing changes the fact that the currently recognized borders of the US circumscribe what was somebody else's land to begin with, until they were disposed of and the new borders became internationally recognized.
Actually, I'd be curious to know what country *is* a democracy. Would anyone be eligible for such a club?
December 21, 2006 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
I see your point about Sunni/Shia, but I disagree.
Read a little Ahmad Sadri and tell me you still think there is a huge difference.
Also, I could be wrong, but didn't the Ottman Empire cover half of Iran? if it has been done before why can't it be done again?
December 21, 2006 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, based on extensive sources, I do not see radical Shi'a and radical Sunni cooperating. Coexisting in less radical environments, or under a Saddam- or Assad-level security state, yes.
Why couldn't there be another Ottoman Empire? Umm...technology as a start? Logistics? Conquering empires is a bit difficult when the other side has modern sensors and air attack. Guerillas don't hold empires.
Further, the Ottoman Empire was relatively tolerant of Christians and Jews, although they were clearly second-class citizens.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
December 21, 2006 12:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think there was a lot of support for Hizballah in the Sunni community, though.
Galvanizers like bin Laden don't preach about a Sunni Caliphate, they preach about a pan-Islamic world. I am not sure we should write the possibility off because Sunni and Shia populations have intra-Islamic disputes.
A common enemy, America, and the other western nations can help them get over their differences, and I don't mean that in a positive way.
They seem too at odds internally now, I agree, but they were all happy to see the towers crumble.
If bin Laden, Aweys and Sadr continue to gain influence, it seems plausible to me that we could see an E.U. of Islamic Fundamentalist nations emerge in the next few decades.
December 21, 2006 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now, what wasn't bin Laden preaching about, again? Hizballah has very carefully been positioning itself as an alternative government, providing social services to Lebanese, not just Shi'a. Do not assume this is equivalent to a Shi'a-Sunni axis. An EU? A bloodless theocratic takeover of Europe? Really! I don't, in the slightest, doubt the danger of Islamic fundamentalism. Neither do I buy into the danger of seeing them under my bed. At some point, sacrificing Western liberties for security starts being reminiscent of the results of the ubiquitous enemy justified not just by George Orwell, but by a certain fellow dictating text in Landsberg Prison. With only minor changes, I offer it below, with an uncanny resemblance to certain contemporary speeches--try Boykin.
"If, with the help of his ... creed, the [Islamic Fundamentalist]is victorious over the other peoples of the world, his crown will be the funeral wreath of humanity and this planet will, as it did thousands of years ago, move through the ether devoid of men.
"Eternal Nature inexorably avenges the infringement of her commands.
"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the [Islamic Fundamentalist], I am fighting for the work of the Lord."
"Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia." -- Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
December 21, 2006 4:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
"An EU? A bloodless theocratic takeover of Europe?"
An E.U.-like cooperative structure in the MIDDLE EAST. Not in Europe. Picture a Taliban like group in Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan. Picture them joining together the way Ivo Daalder has suggested we join. Picture a Concert of Jihad or some catchy name. That sounds like a bogey man story to you? It is happening in Somalia, southern Iraq and the tribal agencies of Pakistan as you read this.
"Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia"
Oceania didn't fly two planes into the towers. Oceania didn't post its ideas about the future-- yours and mine--on the internet. Oceania doesn't smuggle tapes to al Jazeera telling us exactly what the plan is.
You think what is happening now in Somalia is a fabrication made up by evil Dick Cheney or something? Do you think the Fergana Valley is a make-believe land? Do you think Hizb ut Tahrir isn't infesting Europe? This is all a conspiracy drummed up by who... a guy everyone thinks is too stupid to tie his own shoes?
Point taken about the divisions between Sunni and Shia, but it doesn't matter to my larger point. I don't want Sharia law to spread. I want the 1st Amendment to spread. I want life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to spread. It doesn't matter to me if it is a Shia Caliphate, or a Sunni Caliphate. I like my Caliphates in the history books, not the nightly news (not that the nightly news pays any attention to Uzbekistan or Somalia anyway).
December 21, 2006 10:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I believe there has been a pattern, not all due to White House influences, of cherry-picking intelligence in support of ideological goals and political opportunity. The 9/11 Commission report gave a flavor of the mutual seduction between the White House and the intelligence community, and, not necessarily for evil reasons, how it can lead to bad analysis. I don't know how to respond to a slogan like that. The Fergana Valley is split by cultural and political schisms, as an area shared between Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. There are worthwhile parallels to Greater Kurdistan.
The fUSSR Central Asian Republics have indeed gotten minimal attention in national policy. Indeed, I held, well before the invasion of Iraq, that a difficult engagement of nations on an arc from Turkey to Afghanistan was a far stronger strategic priority than Saddam. That being said, the areas have poor communications, sometimes corrupt but brutal governments, and enough local orientation that I don't see an expansionist radical Islam to be a major threat from those areas. Those areas need to be monitored and engaged.
I'd worry far more, in the strategic interests of the United States, of the inroads of the Shanghai Cooperative Organization than any immediate pan-Jihadi threat. As terrible as that was, a wise strategist looks at the damage in perspective. That dramatic act killed perhaps a twentieth of the annual toll from motor vehicle accidents.
If you want to talk about that sort of security threat, then put it in a full context to cover the literal homeland security. Terrorism isn't the only threat there, as witness Katrina and the Ohio Valley Blackout: natural disasters, and natural phenomena interacting with obsolescent national technical infrastructure. The US chemical industry, especially the transportation sector, is incredibly vulnerable to terrorism and accidents (can we say Bhopal, admittedly in a poor area but with a casualty toll far exceeding 9/11?).
It is unrealistic to say all terrorism can be prevented, any more than epidemics and hurricanes can be prevented. The risk from all can be managed and minimized, and yes, terrorist capabilities preempted -- but based on hard analysis, not boogeymen. Forgive me for doubting how much you are willing to do this, given your intolerance for "mocking" western values and political leaders. Again my apologies, but until you demonstrate you understand the theological and theocratic contradictions in the sentence above, it is very difficult for me to take your warnings about detailed Islamic threats with any real seriousness -- and I don't disagree there are real threats. I suppose the significance of that depends on how much one depends on the nightly news, where it's dubious if the average newscaster can pronounce or find Nagorno-Karabakh. My view is more of the breathless "anchor", on a local station, who gasped "the former Yugoslavia is becoming Balkanized!" Well, true. Oceania is a fictional reference that still is a useful metaphor. PNAC, however, published far more on the Internet than did al-Qaeda. You would deprive us of knowing their claims, some of which, such as their scare video of chemical weapons on dogs, are not consistent, to anyone with a technical knowledge of chemical weapons, with the claims of what the images showed?
Incidentally, al-Jazeera chose not to air the first tapes it received from al-Qaeda. Under existing contracts, however, al-Jazeera provided copies to CNN, which broke the story -- and al-Jazeera wasn't going to be scooped again.
During Vietnam, one of my boring but necessary jobs involved reading the North Vietnamese party journal, Nhan Dan, sorting through the jargon, and extracting intelligence information from the trends and changes over multiple issues. Reading "enemy propaganda" is a valuable analysis technique, as demonstrated by the successes of the Foreign Broadcast Information Service. I'd much rather have al-Qaeda's claims available than not.
As an aside, Nhan Dan has transformed itself from dense Communist jargon to a vivid website, inviting commercial cooperation with Vietnam. -- Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
December 22, 2006 4:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
"The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, perhaps better known to some by their 19th Century name of the Northwest Frontier, have centuries of tradition of avoiding alliances and central government -- they are just that, tribal."
Unfortunately, that is no longer true. Over 100 tribal leaders have been killed by the Islamic Fundamentalists that have taken over the region. Call them Neo-Taliban, call them al Qaeda, call them what you want, but they have intimidated or killed the leaders who ruled the area in the past.
Don't take my word for it:
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0910F83F550C728DDDAB0994DE404482
"The Fergana Valley is split by cultural and political schisms, as an area shared between Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan."
Correct. The one unifying force in the area is the IMU, which I'm sure you know already, is an Islamic Fundamentalist organization. Do you really think that the IMU (or some other group with a different name but the same vision for the world) is incapable of spreading their ideology to all three countries that meet in the valley? If the Taliban could rise to power in Afghanistan, why would the Uzbeks, Tajiks and Kyrgyz be immune to the same type of rise in their countries? If we don't do something to prevent the ongoing spread of their ideology, all three countries could be replicas of Taliban controlled Afghanistan in 10-15 years.
"Those areas need to be monitored and engaged."
If you really believe this, I assume you are in favor of continued engagement in Iraq?
"As terrible as that was, a wise strategist looks at the damage in perspective"
As unpopular as it is to go down that road, I agree with you. However, I think it is dangerous to think of 9/11 in a vacuum. If you think of 9/11 as the first strike (not counting the Cole, embassy bombings, etc). in a larger war, a Huntingtonesque Clash of Civilizations, that gives a new perspective.
"given your intolerance for "mocking" western values and political leaders."
I have addressed this too many times already. Attack as many straw men as you want, Howard.
"you demonstrate you understand the theological and theocratic contradictions in the sentence above"
Fundamentalists believe in the spread of Sharia, regardless of their internal disputes about the 12th Imam. We are a common enemy. They both consider your freedoms to be a disease. Whether they can unite under the umbrella of Fundamentalist Islam, or one can dominate the other and spread across the Middle East is not relevant to the larger issue. Everyone knows there are differences between the two, but I think everyone also knows that the differences between Sunni and Shia are nothing compared to the differences between Fundamentalist Islam and the "west."
"Oceania is a fictional reference that still is a useful metaphor"
I disagree that it is useful. We just have a difference of opinion on that one. You believe the threat of Islamic Fundamentalism is over-hyped, and I think it is under-hyped. At least we both agree that it is a threat. Is it a bigger threat than China? I don't know.
"You would deprive us of knowing their claims"
No. My point was that Oceania is a make-believe enemy from a book. Fundamentalist Islam is real. They are broadcasting propaganda daily. They are waging an information campaign. Oceania is not because they are not real. That was my point, not that we should pretend they don't exist by limiting our exposure to their information.
"I'd much rather have al-Qaeda's claims available than not."
So would I. We have found more common ground!
December 22, 2006 6:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
As far as FATA, it's been a year or so since I did detailed professional studies on that region. Still, a quick look indicates there are five or so radical organizations there plus the local leadership:
Yes, there is an al-Qaeda pact among international jihadist organizations. There is a huge difference, however, between the ability of these organizations to stage attacks, and to hold terrain and create an empire.
Ideology, yes, to factions. Control, no.
Oh, some of the factors that helped the rise of the Taliban include the reason I winced when my date ordered a Black Russian in an Afghan restaurant. The Taliban grew out of partially Western-supported anti-Soviet operations, and had external support that I do not see for the Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Kyrgyz.
I hope I do not wander too far into the crass when I reflect on the old Marine saying, "If my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle." There has to be prioritization of any defenses against reasonable threats, and I simply do not see a Taliban equivalent as a threat in 10-15 years. Of course, unwise US policies could encourage such development.
I see China as an economic but not terror threat. With all sincerity, however, I see the contempt for the Constitution and civil liberties, evidenced by the Bush Administration invoking fear, to be as great a threat to American values as is Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East, Central Asia, or Southwest Asia.
Continued engagement with Iraq? When did we start? Engagement implies cultural and political relations, information operations, and building alliances. Occupation is not engagement.
--
Howard
*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*
December 22, 2006 7:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
However, I think it is dangerous to think of 9/11 in a vacuum. If you think of 9/11 as the first strike (not counting the Cole, embassy bombings, etc). in a larger war, a Huntingtonesque Clash of Civilizations, that gives a new perspective.
This is a curious statement, since it offers an empirically ungrounded interpretation of an event based on an imagined history that has not happened. Of course of you could make a similar statement about any attack or disaster. One could view the Tomthy McVeigh attack as merely the first strike is a century-long war of the right wing militia movement against the US government. There is no dearth of angry websites and literature from these people, and a few of them are actually dangerous. But how plausible does the "first strike" interpretation seem?
One might have regarded the Wall Street bombing of 1920 as the first strike in a long war between Anarchism and Western Society. A number of people actually believed this at the time. I would observe that that anticipated long war never actually happened, and militant anarchism burned out and petered out as a threatening political movement.
You seem to infer quite a lot about the gravity of threats from the mere prevalence of propaganda. But not every angry young Islamist with a jihadist website, detailing his wet dreams about the Islamic revolution, constitutes a dire threat or represents the vanguard of a terrifying movement. There are a limited number of individuals who actually manage to get up from their computers, get organized and perpetrate violence. Our governments appear to track these folks pretty well, and when they decide one of them is in earnest they move against him. There has been no major terrorist attack on American soil since September 2001, so I suspect they are doing a fairly good job at containing the violent streams of the jihadist movement. They have dispersed the training camps, and assassinated or captured a number of the truly bad actors. It seems to me that this combination of low-profile law enforcement, intelligence and covert action continues to be the way to go, and is holding the movement in check. If only we could now avoid breeding more serious terrorists with idiotic interventions in places like Iraq.
There will no doubt continue to be terrorist attacks from time to time. People will fall through the cracks. But we can avoid the "clash of civilizations" catastrophe if we keep our heads and resist the seductive power of apocalyptic mythologies.
December 22, 2006 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink