Can They Revoke A Peace Prize?

Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the winner of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize, announced today that sanctions placed last month on Iran for its continued violations of UN and IAEA rules are a bad idea. The sanctions, imposed by the UN Security Council banned transfers of sensitive nuclear materials and know-how to Iran and established a 60-day deadline for Iran to halt nuclear fuel work or else face the possibility of increased punishment. However, according to ElBaradei "I don't think sanctions will resolve the issue. I think sanctions, in my view, could lead to escalation on both sides."

This is an absolute disgrace and amounts to little more than appeasement. Iran's violations of its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations are numerous and well-documented. All five members of the UN Security Council supported the sanctions, which is as rare as a political event can be. The five UNSC members along with Germany have long been offering a generous incentive package to Iran on the condition that it suspends its uranium enrichment program. And yet ElBaradei sees fit to undermine the UN by drawing some kind of moral equivalency in the two positions: "My worry right now is that each side is sticking to their gun if you like. The international community is sticking to their gun, saying 'sanctions or bust'. Iran is saying 'nuclear enrichment capability or bust'." Meanwhile, ElBaradei has openly agreed with John Negroponte, the former head of US National Intelligence and currently awaiting confirmation as Deputy Secretary of State, that Iran will likely be capable of producing a nuclear weapon in 4-7 years.

Peace is not about giving in. As Europe learned in the 1930s, it's not about appeasing rogue states (and no, I'm not comparing Iran to Nazi Germany). Sometimes the cause of peace requires making judgments about good and bad, right and wrong. Sometimes it even requires going to war. ElBaradei's comments and subversion of the UN do not contribute to peace. Rather, they create incentives for Iran to continue to ignore the unanimous will of the international community. I don't believe that the UN will necessarily be able to solve this crisis. In fact, it may not be possible to prevent Iran from proliferating. But when the UN can unite behind something it should be given a chance to work. If the UN is to have any meaning in maintaining international peace and security, it must become tougher and more willing and capable of implementing sanctions on those that violate the will of the international community. ElBaradei is simply ensuring the UN continues to be a weak institution doomed to be ignored by those it seeks to restrain. One can only wish that his Nobel Peace Prize could be revoked.

Promising Developments in Iraq

In what must be seen as a tiny sliver of a ray of light, the Iraqi government has moved to arrest several dozen senior leaders of the Mahdi Army of Moktada al-Sadr, as well as hundreds of Shiite fighters from that milita. As the New York Times notes:

It was the first time the Shiite government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki had claimed significant action against the militia, the Mahdi Army, one of the most intractable problems facing his administration. The militia’s leader, the cleric Moktada al-Sadr, helped put Mr. Maliki in power, but pressure to crack down on the group has mounted as its killings in the capital have driven a wedge into efforts to keep the country together.

Although the announcement seemed timed to deflect growing scrutiny by an American administration that has grown increasingly frustrated with Mr. Maliki, American officers here offered some support for the government’s claims, saying that at least half a dozen senior militia leaders had been taken into custody in recent weeks.

In perhaps the most surprising development, the Americans said, none of the members had been prematurely released, a chronic problem as this government has frequently shielded Shiite fighters.

If the commanders and fighters are not released, and if the Iraqi government can sustain this kind of pressure on the Mahdi Army and the other non-governmental militias, there is hope that Iraq can still be stabilized and salvaged. For now, at least, there is a little shred of hope.

UPDATE: More signs that Iraq is getting serious about challenging the militias from this AP report:

Mahdi Army fighters said Thursday they were under siege in their Sadr City stronghold as U.S. and Iraqi troops killed or seized key commanders in pinpoint nighttime raids. Two commanders of the Shiite militia said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has stopped protecting the group under pressure from Washington and threats from Sunni Muslim Arab governments.

The two commanders' account of a growing siege mentality inside the organization could represent a tactical and propaganda feint, but there was mounting evidence the militia was increasingly off balance and had ordered its gunmen to melt back into the population. To avoid capture, commanders report no longer using cell phones and fighters are removing their black uniforms and hiding their weapons during the day.

We'll wait and see if this trend continues....

A Discussion On The Laws of War

Over at Opinio Juris is a fascinating on-going discussion about the laws of war. The discussion is being led by guest-blogger John Bellinger, the Legal Advisor to the US Department of State (yes, it is highly unusual and an fantastic opportunity that such an important member of government would enter into such a free-wheeling debate). Bellinger has posted on the impact of the legal status of the US fight against al Qaeda, the meaning of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, and the legal reasoning behind the "enemy combatant" designation. There are fascinating discussions in the comments as well. There are also responses and commentaries on Bellinger's posts from the Opinio Juris regulars, as well as law professor guest-bloggers such as Eric Posner from the University of Chicago, Ken Anderson from American University, and Michael Ramsey from the University of San Diego.

If you are at all interested in the legal issues surrounding the laws of war and the war on terror, go check out the posts.

(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and US Foreign Policy?

[with all apologies to Elvis Costello...]

This past weekend, Nicholas Kristof had an op-ed piece in the New York Times asking a simple question: "Why [is the US] so awful at foreign policy?" [rr]

Kristof's question is a good one. The US has notoriously had a difficult time crafting an effective foreign policy (although I don't know of any country that is necessarily good at it). Here's Kristof:

It’s not just right-wing Republicans who are the problem. President Bush has been particularly myopic, but Democrats mired us in Vietnam: shortsightedness is a bipartisan tradition in foreign policy. Historically, we are often our own worst enemy.

Why is this the case? Kristof offers two explanations:

The first is that great powers always lumber about, stepping on toes, provoking resentments, and solving problems militarily simply because they have that capability....

The second reason is particular to the U.S.: We don’t understand the world.

I tend to agree with the first, but Kristof's second explanation is far too simplistic. Kristof claims that the US fails to grasp the appeal of simple nationalistic politics, in part because few Americas have lived abroad. Why should Americans be any less understanding of the world than other countries? If anything, the opposite should be true. The US is the most integrated, most diverse country in the world. According to the US Census Bureau, as of 1997 10% of the US population was born abroad.

The flaw that I think Kristof is hinting at but ultimately misses is that, historically, the US has failed to understand and embrace cold-blooded realist foreign policies. The two biggest US foreign policy disasters have been the result of attempts at crusading and moralizing: Vietnam and Iraq. Realist politics would have kept the US out of both. Indeed, many realists, so often mischaracterized as hawks, argued against invading Iraq long before the invasion took place. See "An Unnecessary War," by John Mearsheimer and Steven Walt (Foreign Policy, Jan/Feb. 2003) for an excellent example.

Of course, a more realist foreign policy is not necessarily a pacific or mistake-free foreign policy. US backing for dictators such as Pinochet during the Cold War or American support for the coup that brought down the Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 would both likely be justified in a realist calculus. But, realism would caution against moral endeavors like Iraq; look at the pining for Bush 41 style foreign policy.

But can the US have a more realist foreign policy? Should it? The answer to both questions is, most likely, no. The US has, since its beginnings, seen itself in the "city on the hill" mode. Whether that's the quasi-religious vision of some conservatives or the human rights-based arguments of more liberal types, American foreign policy has always understood itself to be advancing universal truths and improving the lots of others. Furthermore, look what happens when the US ignores moral imperatives in favor of realist calculations: Rwanda. Sudan. The "realist" policies of Nixon and detente likely extended the shelf-life of the Soviet Union; the neo-conservative policies of Reagan forced the issue and led to the end of the Cold War.

For all of its problems, the US will most likely continue to eschew cold, hard realism for a more amalgamated mix of realism and idealism. And yes, that will lead to crusading, moralizing, and misadventures. But it also keeps this country grounded in the ideals that make it great.

The Lessons of MLK for IR

As I enjoy one last day of winter break before the Spring semester begins tomorrow, I thought it appropriate to think a bit on this day in honor of Martin Luther King about the lessons from MLK that can be applied to international relations. Focusing on the outstanding "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," written in response to a critique of non-violent confrontation instead of continued negotiation published by eight clergy, we find the essence of MLK's strategy of non-violence:

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action. We have gone through an these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good-faith negotiation.

Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of Birmingham's economic community. In the course of the negotiations, certain promises were made by the merchants --- for example, to remove the stores humiliating racial signs. On the basis of these promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations. As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained.

As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self-purification. We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves : "Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?" "Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?" We decided to schedule our direct-action program for the Easter season, realizing that except for Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic with withdrawal program would be the by-product of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time to bring pressure to bear on the merchants for the needed change.

...

You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling, for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.

...

One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked: "Why didn't you give the new city administration time to act?" The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant 'Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

...

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may won ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there fire two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the Brat to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all"

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distort the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I-it" relationship for an "I-thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and awful. Paul Tillich said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression 'of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.

Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state's segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?....

When reading King's forceful defense of the need for non-violent confrontation, I cannot but help think of the Palestinians. It is not difficult to imagine that an approach that relied less on rockets, kidnappings, and suicide bombs would have already resulted in an independent Palestinian state. For all its brutality and unjustness in the treatment of the Palestinians, Israel is a liberal democracy that realizes the contradictions and problems that result from the occupation. Oppressing the Palestinians rips at the moral soul of the country and its people every day. But, when people feel threatened, when their children are kidnapped or murdered, when missiles slam in to their homes, when sitting in a coffee shop becomes an adventure in risk taking, injustice can be explained away as necessary self-defense.

If Palestinians were lying down in front of Israeli bulldozers, chaining themselves to their olive trees, conducting sit-ins in Jewish settlements in the territories, would Israel react differently than did the US during the civil rights era? It seems unlikely. Instead, however, Palestinians turned to violence almost from the beginning of Israel's history, even before the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in the 1967 war.

It will be interesting to see what difference the security fence being built in the West Bank will have. By most accounts, suicide bombings in Israel have nearly stopped and 2006 saw the fewest Israeli deaths in six years. The withdrawal from Gaza, which was already fenced off from Israel, and the construction of the fence have made it exceedingly difficult for Palestinians to infiltrate themselves into Israel. As Israeli casualties drop and Israelis begin to feel more secure in their everyday lives, they very well be more willing to consider the plight of the Palestinians. As Palestinians find that violence is a less effective strategy, perhaps they might turn to a MLK-like program of non-violent confrontation to force the issue.

As King noted, "freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." Hopefully, the Palestinians can learn, or be taught, that violence is not an effective demand.

The Surge

President Bush has formally announced what has been known for quite some time: 21,500 more US troops will be deployed to Iraq. 16,000 will go to Baghdad, and the rest will be deployed into the Anbar province (this graphic from the New York Times nicely outlines the president's plan, along with opposing views). This is, in essence, the last attempt to salvage something approximating a winning strategy. This surge in US force levels will, as I have written about before and as the Washington Post article linked above agrees, result in increased levels of violence, as US troops take on the militias and death squads that have riven the country. The surge will be accompanied by increases in reconstruction efforts and the creation of a jobs program to deal with some of the economic issues that have also contributed to the problems.

Will the surge work? Much of its potential rests on the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who, to date, hasn't shown much interest in doing the heavy lifting required for stabilizing the country. Yesterday, al-Maliki called out the rebel militias, agreeing to directly challenge the Mahdi Army of Moktada al-Sadr (something to which al-Maliki had previously not been willing to do), and to allow US forces to engage both Shiite and Sunnis militias. President Bush has increased the pressure on al-Maliki, calling for the creation of benchmarks to gauge Iraqi progress and stating that "America's commitment is not open-ended....If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people."

If the surge is to work, then political fortitude will be needed from many different actors. The Iraqi government must be willing to destroy the rival militias in the face of public outrage, and President Bush, the US Congress, and the American people must be willing to sustain higher casualties when US soldiers engage the militias. This is no easy task. One need to look no further than the Palestinian territories and the on-going war between Hamas and Fatah, or the problems between Lebanon and Hezbollah, to see how hard it is for political leaders to challenge rival military groups. Iraqi nerve will likely depend on the incentives provided by the US. If the US is willing to do much of the fighting and if the jobs and reconstruction programs work, al-Maliki and the rest of the Iraqi government may be willing to see this through. Conversely, President Bush needs to firm up the benchmarks by threatening to pull out rapidly if the Iraqi government loses its nerve. Al-Maliki must understand that the consequences of failing to challenge the militias will outweigh the benefits of appeasement and cowardice.

Here in the US, there seems to be no doubt that Bush and his administration has the will to do what they deem necessary. So the question becomes whether Congress and the American public will support the president's plan. It is time for Congress to decide where it stands. If it opposes the surge, it must not simply pass symbolic votes against it, but must use all of its political tools to prevent the president from acting on his plan, including cutting off the funds being used to prosecute the war. Congress can not try to have its cake and eat it to, as I described earlier today. Allowing Bush to send the soldiers and then failing to do what is required to carry out the plan, as in Somalia, would be criminal.

The same is true of the American public. To date, there has been lots of grumbling against the war but little serious protest. In the face of the rise in casualties likely to come, that grumbling will get a lot worse unless the American public believes that the strategy is politically supported and winnable. President Bush must work with the newly-Democratic Congress to get its support, and if Congress is not willing to give that support it must openly and actively oppose and further troop increases in Iraq.

If all of these things come together -- the nerve of al-Maliki and the Iraqi government, the strength of Bush to punish Iraq if it loses that nerve, the political will of Congress, and the understanding and patience of the American people -- the surge has a chance of succeeding in its mission. But if any one of these parts is missing, many more US soldiers will die for a lost cause.

US Out Of Iraq! Sometime...If the Conditions Are Right...

If last November's elections were a referendum on, among other things, President Bush's and the Republican congressmen's handling of the Iraq War, then why do the newly politically dominant Democratic Party have more to say on bringing the troops home and ending the war? With the possible exception of Sen. Biden, who has recommended decentralizing the various ethnic regions and increasing the autonomy of the Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds alike, no Democratic senator or congressman has proposed any kind of reasonable plan to deal with the situation. When faced with President Bush's surge (which I'll write more about later today), the Democrats respond with a vote "urging the president not to send more troops" that does not carry the force of law.

Why not? Why aren't those opposed to the war in Iraq, those who want to bring the troops home immediately, those who won last November's referendum on Iraq, why aren't they pushing through laws to force the president's hand? Unfortunately, most in Congress are much more interested in ensuring their own reelection than they are about actually changing things on the ground. It took more than 10 years and 57,000 casualties for Congress to muster the nerve to cut off funding for the Vietnam War, and it only did so after the troops had already come home. Our elected officials are terrified that if they go on record with a vote to bring US soldiers home they'll be branded as not supporting the troops which will hurt them in the next election. Furthermore, going on the non-binding record makes it possible to play both sides of the coin: If the surge works, they can't be blamed for opposing it; if it fails, they can point to the vote and say "see, I was against it all along." This all too common a pattern when Congress becomes involved in foreign policy, and goes a long way to explaining why the presidency has become so dominant in foreign affairs. Congress simply lacks the guts and spine to do what has to be done.

Where is the courage of their convictions?

UPDATE: Terry Michael, a former press secretary for the Democratic National Committee, wonders the same thing:

Take Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware. "There's not much I can do about it," responded the Democratic "leader" on foreign policy, when asked on one of the Sunday venues for pompous pontificators how he would respond to any attempt by President Bush to escalate the war in Iraq (or "surge," if you prefer it in Orwellian newspeak).
This is a man who sees a future president during his morning look in the mirror. Sadly, the glass reflects an empty suit who embodies the congressional Democrats' decision to reduce action on Iraq to a political calculus appropriate for the highway appropriations bill, rather than as a moral imperative to challenge a policy that has sent thousands of twenty-somethings to their deaths in the desert.
You certainly can do something about it, Senator. It's called leadership. You rise on the Senate floor. You say you were out of your mind to write a blank check for this hideous misprojection of American military power. And then you propose immediate withdrawal, just slow enough to maximize the safety of the 135,000 mostly young men and women you helped put in harm's way by your collusion with this elective war. You do what Republican Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon had the guts to do last month, stopping just short of accurately labeling this public policy obscenity a criminal enterprise.

A(nother) Cease-Fire in Darfur? Don't Get Too Excited...

For the second time, a cease-fire has been reached between the Sudanese government and the major rebel militia groups in Darfur. The cease-fire involves a 60-day cessation of hostilities, leading up to a peace summit with the African Union, the UN, the Sudan, and rebel groups. However, no one should be holding his breath in anticipation that this cease-fire will work.

First of all, negotiations like this always create a collective action problem wherein any group not party to the deal has a strong incentive to defect from the deal. [Sometimes this even applies to a group party to a deal but with multiple decentralized factions, such as the ETA, which announced that despite conducting a bombing in Spain over the New Year weekend, its cease-fire deal with the Spanish government is still in effect. In essence, because Spain has more to lose by scuttling the cease-fire, the ETA has a "get out of jail free" card.] This is what brought down the first cease-fire deal, and unless each and every Darfuri rebel group is included and has an incentive to adhere to the deal, it will, very shortly, be violated.

Second, the Sudanese government has, shortly after annoucing the cease-fire, reconfirmed that it will not allow UN troops to join or replace the too-small and too-weak AU peacekeeping force already on the ground in Darfur.

Nex Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, currently in Darfur and involved in the cease-fire negotiations, stated that "we've achieved something significant. It needs to be followed up. But unless there is proper implementation and follow through, this agreement is still up in the air. But I believe we've made an important breakthrough."

Unfortunately, Governor Richardson's comments are very likely premature. Neither the US nor the UN has demonstrated sufficient spine to enforce any deals or agreements, and has hardly mustered the energy to put any real pressure on Sudan or its protector, China. Until that happens, the situation is unlikely to improve.

The Invisible Genocide

Back in May, I blogged about the "death of Zimbabwe," pointing out that Robert Mugabe was responsible for the destruction of his country's economy along with the destruction of entire villages. Unfortunately, the problems in Zimbabwe haven't died out, although the country itself may be about to do just that.

In an article in The Times, RW Johnson paints an absolutely bone-chilling portrait of what's going on in Zimbabwe as what can only be described as an invisible genocide, given how little public attention it has been given. [Hat tip to Peggy McGuinness over at Opinio Juris for the article] Some excerpts:

Under the weight of the general economic meltdown — the economy has shrunk by 40% since 2000 and is still contracting — the health system has collapsed and a populace now weakened by five consecutive years of near-starvation dies of things which would never have been fatal before. A staggering 42,000 women died in childbirth last year, for example, compared with fewer than 1,000 a decade ago.

A vast human cull is under way in Zimbabwe and the great majority of deaths are a direct result of deliberate government policies. Ignored by the United Nations, it is a genocide perhaps 10 times greater than Darfur’s and more than twice as large as Rwanda’s.

Reckoning the death toll is difficult. Had demographic growth continued normally, Zimbabwe’s population would have passed 15m by 2000 and 18m by the end of 2006. But people have fled the country in enormous numbers, with 3m heading for South Africa and an estimated further 1m scattered around the world. This would suggest a current population of 14m. But even the government, which tries to make light of the issue, says that there are only 12m left in Zimbabwe.

Social scientists say that the government’s figures are clearly rigged and too high. Their own population estimates vary between 8m and 11m. But even if one accepted the government figure, 2m people are “missing”, and the real number is probably 3m or more. And all this is happening in what was, until recently, one of Africa’s most prosperous states and a member of the Commonwealth.

...

Bulawayo, capital of Matabeleland, is a virtual ghost town, its wide and gracious streets sparsely peopled even at midday, for emigration and starvation have drained its lifeblood.

Matabeleland, always the centre of opposition to Mugabe, was the first to experience his iron fist in the mid-1980s and has taken more terrible punishment in recent years. Last year, in common with the rest of the country, it was the target of Operation Murambatsvina (Shona for “drive out the filth”) in which the police and army destroyed shanty towns and cracked down on informal traders after Mugabe decreed that they needed to be forcibly “re-ruralised” to regain their peasant roots. All told, some 2m people were affected.

Just what that meant becomes clear from the study carried out by the Reverend Albert Chatindo, whose parish, Killarney, lies on Bulawayo’s northern side. Here 217 families (1,300 people) whose houses had been demolished crowded into his church hall — only for the army to descend upon them again, load them into trucks and dump them in the middle of the bush without food or shelter.

...

This is not a genocide like that in Rwanda, where some 900,000 people were butchered in an orgy of tribal hatred. Instead, the regime’s key motive at every stage has simply been its own maintenance of power.

From 2000 on, it destroyed commercial agriculture because it saw the white farmers and their workers as opposition to Mugabe. This led to the first wave of killing, as some 2.25m farm-workers and their families were thrown off the farms, many after being beaten and tortured. An unknown number died. The eviction had the effect of collapsing the economy and cutting the food supply far below subsistence in every subsequent year.

What scarce food there was left, along with seeds, fertiliser, agricultural implements and every other means to life, was made dependent on possession of a Zanu-PF party card. Campaigns of terror followed in 2000 and 2002-03. The population has since been kept in a continuous state of anxiety by a series of military-style “operations”, of which Murambatsvina and Maguta are merely two particularly murderous examples.

...

Some 29% of sexually active Zimbabweans are reckoned to be HIV-positive and the economic collapse has devastated the health system and stopped the distribution of anti-Aids drugs. Studies show that HIV-sufferers with severe malnutrition are six times more likely to die than those who are properly fed and have access to proper medication.

World Health Organisation figures show that life expectancy in Zimbabwe, which was 62 in 1990, had by 2004 plummeted to 37 for men and 34 for women. These are by far the worst such figures in the world. Yet Zimbabwe does not even get onto the UN agenda: South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki, who has covered for Mugabe from the beginning, uses his leverage to prevent discussion. How long this can go on is anyone’s guess.

After Rwanda, the UN vowed “never again” but Mugabe — and, to a considerable extent, Mbeki — have already been responsible for far more deaths than Rwanda suffered and the number is fast heading into realms previously explored only by Stalin, Mao and Adolf Eichmann.

2 -3 million people are missing, likely dead. An entire country, once wealthy and fertile, has been reduced to poverty, begging, and is crippled by hyperinflation spawned directly, if not intentionally, by its leader's policies. And yet there is little public outcry. Why? Perhaps because Mugabe was once seen as a nationalist hero, leading his country out from under the oppression of white minority rule and colonization. Perhaps because the world is distracted by Darfur, by Iraq, by North Korea. Perhaps because the genocide occurring in Zimbabwe is slow, methodical, and incidental to policy, rather than the product of massacres, bureaucratic murder, or gang rape.

Whatever the reason, the situation in Zimbabwe is beyond unacceptable. First, the African Union must abandon its spineless and feckless attempt at pan-African union and must immediately censure and sanction Mugabe and Zimbabwe. As recently as June 2005, the AU was evading its responsibility in protecting the continent, defending Mugabe's "urbanization" programs and stating that it would not be proper for the AU to intervene in the internal affairs of its members.

The new United Nations' Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, faces many challenges, not the least of which are the on-going genocides in Africa. If the UN is to have any relevancy in the modern world, it must abandon its blind adherence to state sovereignty and take action. States like Sudan or Zimbabwe that preside over the deaths of hundreds of thousands of their own citizens have no moral or legal claim to sovereignty. They must be treated as international pariahs; all voting rights and privileges in the UN should be suspended, and international sanctions should be imposed immediately. If the concept of an "international community" is to have any meaning, political or legal, it must be capable of taking action in cases where the most extreme limits of its norms are violated.

What I'm Reading

I've decided to add a new feature to Security Dilemmas: What I'm Reading. Starting today, I'll be posting about the books I'm reading that may be of interest to readers of this blog. When I've finished the books, I'll post reviews. Links to the books will be included down below the "Recommended Reading" blog roll.

First up, Max Boot's War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History 1500 to Today. From Amazon's web page:

From Publishers Weekly
From bronze cannons to smart bombs, this engaging study examines the impact of new weaponry on war by spotlighting exemplary battles, including famous epics like the defeat of the Spanish Armada and the attack on Pearl Harbor along with obscure clashes like the 1898 Battle of Omdurman, in which a British colonial force mowed down Sudanese tribesmen with machine guns. Boot (The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power) gives due weight to social context: advanced weapons don't spell victory unless accompanied by good training and leadership; innovative doctrine; an efficient, well-funded bureaucracy; and a "battle culture of forbearance" that eschews warrior ferocity in favor of a soldierly ethos of disciplined stoicism under fire. These factors flourish, he contends, under a rationalist, progressive Western mindset. The author, a journalist and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, enlivens his war stories with profiles of generals from Gustavus Adolphus to Norman Schwarzkopf and splashes of blood and guts. Boot distills 500 years of military history into a well-paced, insightful narrative. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Lt. Gen. Bernard E. Trainor, USMC (ret.), coauthor of Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq
War Made New is impressive in scope. What is equally impressive is its unique interpretation of the causal relationship between technology, warfare and the contemporary social milieu. This is a superb thinking-person's book, which scrutinizes conventional historical wisdom through a new lens.

The Right Moves In Iraq?

President Bush is apparently preparing a fairly major policy proposal concerning Iraq. According to this AP report, Bush intends to announce that troop levels will be increased, as well as programs to improve the unemployment situation, such as direct loans to Iraqi businesses.

As many congressmen are already noting, a troop increase will not work unless it is directly tied to specific policy goals and benchmarks for gauging progress. What goals and benchmarks? As I have written about many times before, the single most important move will be challenging the various militias that are undermining the authority of the government and doing so much damage. One only need to look at the fallout from the chaotic execution of Saddam Hussein for an example of how badly sectarian division is stressing the country.

I believe a winning strategy is still possible. So long as the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds still seem to have some possibility of cooperating and participating in the central government, it is still possible to forge a successful country. This is why I've been so resistant to calling the situation a "civil war." The government still exists and, as of yet, the mainstream Sunnis and Shiites are still attempting to make it work. If Bush is willing to risk the political fallout from increased fighting and casualties, and if he wants to give winning its best chance, he must increase the troops for the purpose of destroying the militias and strengthening the Iraqi government. If, however, he increases the boots on the ground without changing their mission, all hope is lost.

So You've Won...Now What?

Ethiopian troops, in support of Somalian government forces, seem to have routed the rebel fighters of the Council of Islamic Courts, a fairly important victory against radical Islam. Despite their claims to the contrary, the Islamic Courts have been accused of harboring several members of al-Qaeda suspected of involvement in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Africa, foreign jihadists have been found dead on the battlefield, and bin Laden and Zawahiri have proclaimed Somalia to be an important front in their war against the West.

One must be careful of drawing too optimistic a lesson from the Ethiopian victory as does Ralph Peters in today's New York Post. For Peters, Somalia represents the wisdom of standing up to radical Islam, rather than running:

Unconvinced by Western myths that military force is useless against terrorists, Addis Ababa's troops intervened to support Somalia's internationally recognized government against the jihadis. The no-nonsense use of force worked.

An Islamist regime that supposedly had broad support collapsed so quickly the international media couldn't keep up: On New Year's morning, newspapers warned that the Islamists, who'd fled Mogadishu, were digging in to defend their "stronghold," the vital port city of Kismayo. By the time those sanctimonious papers hit the streets, the hardcore extremists had high-tailed it, their mass of recruits had deserted and the Ethiopian military had gained control of Kismayo without a battle.

...The ideal of a perfect, eternal victory - to which the media hold those who battle terrorism - is an unfair standard. A win that overthrows a terrorist regime, whether in Afghanistan or Somalia, is worth the fight, even if the enemy can't be completely eradicated. Desperate terrorists struggling for survival are always preferable to a terrorist regime in the capital city.

Peters does note that the troubles are far from over. Indeed. There has never been any question that a rag-tag bunch of jihadists are no match for a well-equipped and well-trained military. The question is: Will the Islamic Courts turn to terror tactics to try to retake power?


The answer is not yet clear. The ability of jihadists and/or terrorists to succeed in menacing an entire country depends to a large part on the willingness of the local populace to tolerate their presence. In Iraq, while the foreign backed insurgency has weakened due to discontent within the Iraqi people, the Sunni insurgency has grown as Sunnis feel threatened and insecure in the face of a Shia-led government and Shiite militias. In Somalia, the future largely depends on two things: The speed with which Ethiopia withdraws its forces (Ethiopia is a traditional competitor, if not enemy, of Somalia) and the capacity of the government to form a stable ruling coalition. The US and the West must be willing to help with both tasks. African peacekeepers are preparing to deploy, and they must be given the funds and means to succeed in establishing control over the country. Already, there seems to be some resistance to disarming from Somalis, but as Palestine, Iraq, and Lebanon have learned lately, there can be no peace where there is no government monopoly on force.

The US and its allies should begin supporting the new Somali government and the African peacekeepers immediately, and Ethiopian forces should be urged to pull out as soon as possible. Poor planning and policy could allow defeat to be snatched from the jaws of victory; in this case the stakes -- a terrorist state -- are simply too high.

A Nice Little War For Christmas

So, as Christmas Eve begins here in the Pacific Northwest, a new war is erupting in Africa. Ethiopia has begun attacking Islamic rebels inside Somalia to prevent them from completely destroying the secular Somali government. The secular government had been pummeled by the Islamists lately, losing control of most of the country and has been pushed out of the former capital city of Mogadishu and into the isolated, inland city of Baidoa. However, Ethiopian armed forces are much better armed, trained, and equipped, and seem to be enjoying initial successes against the Islamic rebels. From the Times:

Witnesses in frontline areas have said that waves of young, poorly trained Islamist fighters have been mowed down by Ethiopian troops. Ethiopia’s military is trained by American advisers and is supplied with millions of dollars of American aid.

On Sunday, Abdulrahim Ali Modei, the Islamists’ information minister, conceded at a news conference that many of the Islamist troops had been killed, but he did not sound discouraged.

“These are victories,” he said. “Our soldiers are in paradise now.”

Of course, initial successes in a conventional-style war do not necessarily lead to long-term strategic successes in wars against radical Islamists. In a scenario similar to Afghanistan after the withdrawal of Soviet troops, Somalia has been torn by fighting between rival militias and warlords, but as with the Taliban, the Islamic rebels had recently been gaining the upper hand. Somalia has already begun attracting international al-Qaeda linked fighters:

According to United Nations officials, at least 2,000 soldiers from Eritrea, which recently waged war with Ethiopia, are fighting for the Islamists. They have been joined by a growing number of Muslim mercenaries from Yemen, Egypt, Syria and Libya who want to turn Somalia into the third front of holy war, after Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ethiopia seems to be poised to deliver the rebels a killing blow by driving to Mogadishu and crushing the ill-equipped rebel force. But, will Ethiopia maintain such willingness when the IEDs and suicide bombs begin sending its boys home in bags, or when those bombs begin exploding in Addis Ababa?

During the Rwandan genocide, President Clinton and Kofi Annan made the mistake of believing that Africa has no strategic importance to the world. The world is currently all but ignoring on-going atrocities in Sudan and Zimbabwe, among other places. But an Islamist victory in Somalia would allow groups like al Qaeda a new haven to replace the one they lost in Afghanistan. And that must not be allowed to happen. If only for that reason, the US and the West must support Ethiopia, the secular Somali government, and any willing parties in this fight against radical Islam. But in this case, the strategic imperatives are aligned with the moral ones. Only if Africa is able to resist the rule of tyrants, be they religious or nationalist, can its people begin to rise above the misery and poverty that has dominated the continent. The US must not allow Iraq, Afghanistan, domestic politics, or anything else to blind it to the importance of Ethiopia's war against radical Islam.

Positive News on Iraq

[First, let me apologize for the lack of posting recently. The semester here at UPS ended last week, and I've been buried administering finals and then grading those exams. Of course, with the holidays, posts are likely to be sparse for the next two weeks anyway.]

Three pieces of positive news about Iraq today (I hesitate to say "good"...but at least they indicate movement in the right direction) all of which may indicate an impeding and much-needed change of strategy. First, President Bush has announced that the size of the US military needs to be increased. While little details or specifics were discussed, as I wrote about several months ago, the military desperately needs to be increased, even if that increase comes at the expense of several big-ticket toys currently being developed. Furthermore, the US military should work to developing a branch (probably not an entirely new service arm, although given the entrenchment and inertia in the services that may be necessary) devoted to policing and nation building. The deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan are stretching this country's military to the point where the American capability to project power and protect its allies must be questioned. That cannot happen. US military hegemony is vital to the stability of the international system and the benefits reaped by the US far outweigh the costs of expanding the military.

More importantly are two stories that indicate that the US may be moving towards a strategy along the lines of that which I suggested a few weeks ago: focusing on domestic security and challenging the sectarian militias. In a news analysis, the New York Times indicates that the discussion of a short-term troop surge is more a strategic than a tactical move; one that indicates a intention to take on the militias, especially that of Moktada al-Sadr. Furthermore, the Times reports that, on the diplomatic front, Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani is moving towards accepting a coalition of Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds to govern Iraq. According to the article:

Ayatollah Sistani has grown increasingly distressed as the Shiite-led government has proved incapable of taming the violence and improving public services, Shiite officials say. He now appears to be backing away from his demand that the Shiite bloc play the dominant political role and that it hold together at all costs, Iraqi and Western officials say.

As the effective arbiter of a Shiite role in the planned coalition, the ayatollah is considered critical to the Iraqi and American effort.

American officials have been told by intermediaries that Ayatollah Sistani “has blessed the idea of forming a moderate front,” according to a senior American official. “We wouldn’t have gotten this far without his support.”

These are, at a minimum, steps in the right direction. However, care must be taken. Any short-term surge in troops must be exactly that: short-term. While I am often hesitant to employ analogies, one aspect of Vietnam seems clearly relevant here is that the expectation of a long-term US troop presence removed any incentive for the South Vietnamese government to assume responsibility for security on its own (or to deal with its own corruption). Clear and unmistakable goals must be established that will result in the troops coming home in a reasonable (2 years or so, I would think) time frame.

Second, the US leadership must prepare itself and the American public for the inevitable results of this new strategy: increased violence. Splitting the Shiite ruling bloc and challenging the militias will lead to much higher and more intense levels of fighting, especially when the US troops take on al-Sadr's Mahdi Brigade directly. Openness and real leadership will be needed from President Bush and newly-installed SecDef Gates to explain the benchmarks for success and the need for this new strategy. Absent that, more aspects of the Vietnam Analogy will no doubt become relevant.

I am not completely pessimistic about the outcome in Iraq. But any lingering hope depends on the brave soldiers of the US armed forces being freed to do their jobs. Only if the rival militias can be tamed and only if all portions of the Iraqi people believe that their futures will be better protected through politics than violence can this project succeed.

Why Are Left-Wing Dictators More Popular Than Right-Wing Ones?

The recent death of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet has prompted a fascinating article by John O'Sullivan in the Chicago Sun-Times about the differences between the public reaction to and opinion of right-wing and left-wing dictators. As O'Sullivan notes:

General Augusto Pinochet, who died on Sunday, was the most successful dictator of the 20th century -- and also one of the most vilified. How do we explain the discrepancy?

Dictators are supposedly judged by two tests. How many people did they kill? And did they bring prosperity to their people? These two tests hang together because Marxists believed that their various ideological despotisms (in Cuba, in China, in the USSR) would eventually midwife a new utopia. Such a triumph would justify their mass murders retroactively.

So how did individual dictators fare? Stalin, Hitler and Mao each murdered tens of millions in labor camps, purges, forced famines and war. But they were less successful at improving their societies. The USSR could not feed itself, depended for survival upon external subsidies and eventually collapsed in economic ruins. Hitler committed suicide in the literal ruins of Berlin with the German people digging for scraps in the rubble of the Third Reich. And Mao killed as many millions unintentionally through his industrial "Great Leap Forward" as he did in his purges and "cultural revolution." With the understandable exception of Hitler, these mass murderers received respectful obituaries in the Western media.

Franco and Castro cannot quite match such achievements. Each of them murdered no more than tens of thousands of people after their victories in civil war and rebellion. On economic policy, moreover, their paths diverged. Castro squandered billions in Russian subsidies in the course of ruining the Cuban economy. Deprived of Soviet subsidies, Cuba is a tragedy: a naturally prosperous island reduced to beggary and prostitution by personal vanity and economic illiteracy. Franco transformed Spain into a dynamic market economy, built its middle class and created a stable society that was modern in every respect except its political system. Within five years of his death, Spain was a democracy.

Franco received contemptuously hostile obituaries; Castro's are currently being revised by editors in the hope that rumors of his death have not been greatly exaggerated.

That brings us to Pinochet. His victims are estimated at 3,200. One innocent murdered is one too many. But if we are talking comparisons, Pinochet's total of innocents murdered is about one-20th of Castro's.

As for Pinochet's economic legacy, it outstrips that of most advanced democracies, let alone the economic rubble of all the communist dictators. Within a decade of the 1973 coup, Chile was a stable growing economy transformed by monetary, supply-side, trade and labor market reforms introduced by Pinochet. When Chile returned to democracy in the late 1980s, the Christian Democrat government of Patricio Aylwin continued his free-market approach. The whole world noticed this.

If successful economic transformation could justify political mass murder -- the Marxist test, remember -- Pinochet would be celebrated without reserve as the savior of his country. Contra the Marxists, however, murder is not an economic policy, and the soundest economic policy cannot justify murder. If Pinochet authorized murders, he should have been tried for them -- provided that the same rule applies to Castro, other surviving dictators, and those supporters of President Salvador Allende who killed opponents in the Chilean civil war.

O'Sullivan never really answers his own question: What explains this difference? Students will walk around wearing t-shirts or sporting buttons bearing the likeness of Che or Mao; people will proudly display posters of Soviet or Chinese propaganda with pictures of Mao, Lenin, or even Stalin. And yet, as O'Sullivan notes, right-wing dictators like Franco or Pinochet do not get the same treatment, and are much more, and much more vehemently, vilified. Why?

The answer is, I suspect, because murder in the name of equality -- the left-wing project -- is some how more excusable than is murder in the name of economic reform -- the goal of right-wing dictators. I hear this all the time when I teach Marx in my Introduction to Political Philosophy course: communism is such a noble ideal; it just goes wrong in the application. The idea of equality is good, but it gets corrupted by evil people who lead the glorious revolution astray. However, the historical record is clear. The left-wing dictators -- Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, Castro -- in the name of equality, have killed hundreds of millions of people and only produced economic misery, political backwardness and oppression, and their societies are still struggling to emerge from under the wreckage. The right-wing dictators like Franco and Pinochet (true, Hitler was a right-winger, but he's the exception) killed far FAR fewer people and the societies they left behind are now vibrant successful liberal market democracies.

As O'Sullivan puts it, one murder for political change is too many. But let's call a spade a spade.

The Manama Dialogue: Security Challenges in the Persian Gulf

Addressing the issue of security challenges in the Gulf region, Mohammed Al Abdallah Al Sabah, the Director of Citizen Services and Government Bodies Assessment Agency of Kuwait, spoke to the Manama Dialogue. The full text of his remarks can be read here. Mr. Al Sabah identified two major challenges to regional security:

The situation in Iraq, as known by all, is getting worse. Violence and terrorists’ acts are increasing. They are turning to be of sectarian nature and that would lead to a civil war affecting the other countries in the region. On the other hand, the debate among the US political officials concerning reviewing the US policy in Iraq, and the attempts made to find solutions and alternatives to leave Iraq in the current circumstances before it is time for such leaving is against the interest of the Iraqi people; there will be more violence and instability. Furthermore, militias and terrorists groups will seek for filling the security vacancy when the allied forces depart from Iraq before security is established there.

Therefore, as the United States is reviewing their policy in Iraq and thinking of finding solutions, the choice of the withdrawal from Iraq should not be one of the suggested choices. We would rather prefer to see more support for the national interests and the Iraqi government to accelerate efforts of development and reform. Such efforts will, as we in the whole region hope, result in the stability of Iraq.

...

Under the recent attempts of imposing sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran if they continue in their incomplete and non-transparent cooperation with the international community, matters are likely to worsen. As we emphasize that Iran has all the right to use nuclear technology for civilian peaceful purposes, we also emphasize that Iran has to deal with the International Atomic Energy Agency with transparency in order that the regional and international countries trust the Iranian nuclear intentions.

Therefore, we ask the Iranians to take actual steps for building confidence with the regional and the international countries through dealing transparently with the international community concerning their nuclear file.

Al Sabah also mentioned the Israel-Palestinian crisis and the situation in Lebanon, but the most attention was paid to the questions of Iraq and Iran.

It should certainly be unsurprising that Kuwait does not wish to see the US leave Iraq. Having suffered invasion at the hands of Saddam Hussein, Kuwait is very likely to be greatly affected by instability in Iraq, especially as sectarian violence poses the possibility of spilling out over Iraq's borders. The US shouldn't base its future plans of action in Iraq on the opinions of Iraq's neighbors, but at the same time, the US cannot implement a solution that ignores the larger regional dynamic and security situation. Troop withdrawal may be best for the US, but if it undermines the stability of the Gulf, it may not be possible. Countries such as Kuwait must be considered and consulted as the US develops a credible and functional exit strategy from Iraq.

However, most interesting is the plea for Iran to cooperate with international institutions to make its nuclear program more transparent. Again, being relatively weak, it is not surprising that Kuwait would balance regional powers such as Iran by siding with external actors. But again, the willingness of Persian Gulf countries to side with the international community can be sed to build credibility for the IAEA, the UN, and the possibility of sanctions. The EU and US should work with the other states in the Gulf to open a serious dialogue with Iran. Gulf states like Kuwait should, hopefully, have a better sense of what carrots and sticks might be capable of altering Iranian behavior.

The Manama Dialogue: The Situation in Iraq

Continuing Security Dilemma's coverage of the Manama Dialogue Persian Gulf Security Summit, we have H.E. MR VECDİ GÖNÜL, the Minister of Defense of Turkey, speaking on the situation in Iraq (unfortunately, Mr. Gonil's address in the Iraq plenary session is the only that has, as of yet, been released). Turkey's position on Iraq is colored by its own issues with the Kurds; perhaps Turkey's most important interest is in preventing any kind of autonomous or independent Kurdish state from emerging from Iraq. Thus, much of Mr. Gonul's speech revolves around urging against partition of the country:

Indeed, the key issue to be addressed at this stage in Iraq, is to put an end, to the fragmentation of the country along ethnic and sectarian lines. Due to understandable reasons that have origins in the past, Iraq’s political parties have been pursuing policies that appeal only to their ethnic or sectarian electorates. However, if this trend were to continue, what we have come to regard the future with less hope, as opportunities will turn into irreparable fault lines. Every Iraqi should bear in mind that the idea of splitting the country into sectarian parts is not a viable option. It will be the beginning of a disaster, which will engulf the whole region.

While partition may or may not be a possible answer to the ongoing collapse of Iraq, it's hard to see this argument as anything more than serving Turkey's own narrow self-interest. An independent, or even autonomous, Kurdish region on Turkey's southeastern border would be a beacon to Turkey's own Kurdish population that seeks some form of separation from Turkish control (for background on the Turkish-Kurdish issue, please see this or this).

There are largely two schools of thought as to the best solutions to ethnic conflict. If the conflict is largely rooted in historical and immutable ethnicities, then separation or partition may be the best response. This was the impetus behind the creation of Pakistan and the transfer of Muslim populations out of predominately Hindu India. However, if the conflict is more a product of short-term insecurity, then power-sharing or negotiations are a more attractive solution (I'm grossly simplifying here...).

My sense has been and is that the current problems are more the latter than the former. That is, the Sunni insurgency is made up of those who fear that a Shiite-led Iraq will not be able to protect their interests and futures. Witness Roger Cohen's argument in today's New York Times that there is no Iraq, and that the real problem is in building the lines of trust and identity required of any political entity. Also, reports today accuse the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, of attacking a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad. Clearly, under conditions such as these, no Sunni would trust the government to provide a secure future.

If partition is to be avoided, these militias must be confronted and disarmed or destroyed, a point I made recently and one that was largely ignored by the Iraq Study Group. But, this is, I believe, the only path towards avoiding the fragmentation of the Iraqi state. And whether or not Turkey's warning against partition is self-serving, Turkey's security and stability is of great importance to the region, as well as European and American interests as well.

The Manama Dialogue: Asia's Role in the Persian Gulf

Sorry for the delays in blogging the Manama Dialogue...there seems to be some problems in getting governments to approve the release of the transcripts of their officials. But, I now have a few more addresses....

Speaking on Asia's role in the Persian Gulf was H.E. Mr. M.K. Narayanan, National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of India and H.E. Mr. Sun Bigan, China's Special Envoy to the Middle East. The full texts of their speeches can be found here and here respectively. Unfortunately, the speeches seem to be plagued by what I have previously identified as the Immutable Law of Speeches by Public Officials: the fact that the more important and higher up in government the speaker, the less meaningful the speech. Both of these speeches are long in vague generalizations, but short in concrete suggestions for solving the serious security problems. My guess is that the most interesting work at the Manama Dialogue is happening off-the-record at dinners, over drinks, and between plenary sessions. Note that there are also break-out groups, which are not being made part of the public record.

Mr. Narayanan makes a few interesting points, perhaps the most interesting of which is:

There are other issues as well which demand close attention. Any calibration of effort to create stable conditions cannot, for instance, ignore the role of Iran. India has long-standing ties with Iran. It is an important trade partner, apart from providing for India’s access to Central Asia. Like any other nation, Iran has its security concerns and perceptions; these need to be suitably addressed. Regional security quite clearly requires that there is a dialogue between the concerned parties in this regard. Non-engagement cannot be the basis of a long-term strategy.

India and Iran have long shared dissatisfaction at the exclusion from the parents' table, each feeling itself to be ignored and underappreciated by the most powerful players on the international stage. This has contributed to a synchronization of many mutual interests, including nuclear proliferation. The US and the West has long tried to get India to participate in ramping up pressure on Iran, which India has refused to do. The comments by Narayanan indicate that India will continue to press for direct negotiation, as well as an acknowledgement of Iran's legitimate security concerns. India's own proliferation makes it unlikely that India would support sanctions or punishments on Iran. Here, India's interests diverge from those of most of the relevant actors in the Gulf.

Narayanan does express very strong support for the stabilization efforts in Afghanistan, which is not surprising a stable and secure Afghanistan provides a check on India's major concern, Pakistan. Narayanan stated that:

Taliban’s incursions into Southern Afghanistan have been made possible by the existence of support structures across the border from Afghanistan. Any destabilization of the moderate and democratic Afghan Government would have incalculable long-term consequences, not only for Afghanistan but for almost all countries in the region, including India, and also Central Asia. It could, in turn, also have a domino effect with extremist and fundamentalist elements gaining the upper hand, endangering peace and stability along a very wide arc. This could have incalculable global consequences. Thus, the international community has a vital stake in ensuring that Afghanistan never again becomes a safe haven for extremist and fundamentalist forces.

Note the not-so-subtle accusation of Pakistani support for the Taliban. This is an issue of vital importance for India, and an area where pressure can be placed on India to, perhaps, join international efforts to deal with Iran. It does point out why Afghanistan is so critical for global security, and why NATO's effort there must not fail.

Mr. Bigan's speech was even less substantive than was Mr. Narayanan's. However, given China's recent forays into Africa, the Persian Gulf represents an excellent opportunity for China to continue to extend its influence and balance the US and the West. Thus, perhaps the most important part of Bigan's address was:

In order to build a harmonious Gulf, we must be committed to promoting economic and social development of the region. Development is a precondition to eradicate the destabilizing factors of regional security, and an important basis and the guarantee of peace and stability. Sustained peace is impossible without sustained development. We support the Gulf countries to strengthen regional economic cooperation, and to endeavor to set up an open, fair and regulated multilateral trading system, so as to realize mutual benefit and win-win results with other economies. We also support the Gulf countries to choose a model of development that adapts their own historical traditions, cultural characters and development levels. We believe that sustained and sound economic and social development will provide a solid basis for the regional security.

Again, we see a strong argument for globalization. China has learned, perhaps more than any other country, of the power of economic reform and openness. This may herald a drive for China to increase its presence in and connections to the Persian Gulf. But more importantly, it entrenches the need for economic liberalization, which cannot help but produce, albeit slowly, political liberalization.

Manama Dialogue: Keynote Address

The Manama Dialogue opened last night in Bahrain, with a keynote address from HRH Prince Muqrin Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Chief of General Intelligence, Saudi Arabia. The full text of his remarks can be found here.

The Prince made several points worthy of comment. First:

The fact that Israel is having nuclear weapons is the most dangerous threat against the Gulf security for both the near and the middle future. Consequently, some countries in the region took part in the competition for having nuclear weapons, as this is currently witnessed. It may be unanimously agreed that the spread of mass destruction weapons in the region will make the security issues more complicated in the whole region. It will rather give the right for the countries in the region to adopt policies and to make alliances with the countries of nuclear technology. It will also stimulate moderate countries in the region which adopts policies for eliminating mass destruction weapons, to make nuclear programs (whether concealed or declared) aiming at creating military balance in the region in order to defend their interests, gains and beliefs.

We believe that most of the problems in the region, their consequences of political attitudes and the increase of the terrorists’ acts, are closely related to the Middle East’s first issue, the Palestinian issue which will have a constant impact in the whole region since it has serious effects upon the international security and stability. This is in case this issue remains unsolved.

In view of the aforesaid, the international powers, that are concerned in this issue, are asked to perform there role impartially so as to find suitable solutions that would create peaceful coexistence among the countries in the region including Israel. Such coexistence should be based upon justice and equality in accordance with the Arabian Peace Initiative adopted in Beirut Summit in 2002. This will guarantee a fair solution for the Arab – Israeli conflict.

Two things are wrapped up here: First, the issue of the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East/Persian Gulf; and second, the Israel-Palestine conflict. Of course, if these are the two most pressing issues of Persian Gulf security, and if NW proliferation is "the most dangerous threat against the Gulf security for both the near and the middle future" then why is Israel not attending this summit? It is absurd to not invite the country that is believed to be the primary security concern, particularly when the likely solutions to those concerns are going to be negotations, not confrontation. This points out the gap between the rhetoric coming out of these countries with the political realities.

Israel has long been an attractive and useful whipping point for the authoritarian regimes of the Middle East and Persian Gulf. This is not to deny that there are serious political concerns or that Israel is never at fault or to blame. But Israel is most definitely not, on either dimension identified by Prince Muqrin (I apologize if I am violating some protocol with such a reference...I've never had to refer to royalty before), the primary threat to the region.

Israel developed nuclear weapons sometime in the late 1960s and there has been little to no proliferation pressure on its neighbors since. In fact, it was Israel's acquisition of nuclear weapons that finally convinced Egyptian President Anwar Sadat that a military victory by Arab armies was impossible, which directly led to the Camp David Peace Accords.

Prince Muqrin insinuates that the current proliferation crisis in Iran is a response by Iran to Israel's nuclear capability. But this makes no sense. Israel has never, except in the context of the current crisis, threatened Iran. In fact, quite the contrary, with Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeatedly threatening to destroy Israel. Rather, Iran's desire for nuclear weapons is much more a response to US hegemony. The international community has, in the wake of two US-Iraq wars, learned that no state can become a regional power unless it can challenge the US, and no state can stand up to the US without a nuclear weapon.

Furthermore, while many countries repeatedly point to the Palestinian problem as the key to resolving larger regional issues, I'm very skeptical of such a claim. I am on the record stating that Israel needs to do more enable a negotiated settlement. However, while it may be true that the "Arab street" (which includes Iran, a non-Arab country...maybe it should the "Muslim Street?") cares deeply about the Palestinians, there is little evidence that the regimes are willing to pay anything more than lip service to the cause. Historically, Arab solidarity has been little more than a strategically-driven pipe dream, and there has been little effort to advance the process or ease the misery of the Palestinians. Concern for the Palestinian cause is a useful way for the region's leaders to deflect public attention and anger from their own shortcomings, and provides a important outlet for the frustrations of their peoples. But there has been very little political pressure or incentive coming from these regimes for any kind of serious settlement. For example, where is the pressure on Hamas to recognize Israel?
Such a step could be vitally important in transforming the political dynamic.

Again, if Israel is so vitally important and threatening to the region, then at the very least, Israel should be invited to such an event as this. Its absence indicates the supremacy of politics over policy.

The second noteworthy comment by Prince Muqrin is:

Other factors of threat against security in our region are the issue of non-employment, and the foreign labours. Non-employment in the Gulf countries is in constant increase. It is a factor of instability that affects the security of the region’s countries. As the number of the untrained foreign labours who enter legally to our countries is getting more and more, in addition to such labours who enter illegally, then there will be serious economic, political, security and social effects. Illegal labours make labour camps in the gulf countries with the purpose of getting illegal profits. So, if this problem is not solved by the cooperation of the countries of origin of those labours, this will aggravate the security and social problems and the damages are to be incurred by the countries of the region, especially, the Gulf countries.

Now here the Prince is, I believe, right on. Globalization is the key to the economic development and success of these countries. Most of the countries have little economic productivity outside of oil, with Jordan being a notable exception. A state's economy needs to be broad-based, resting on many different sectors. For too long, the oil-based regimes of the Middle East and Persian Gulf have counted on oil revenues to buoy their economies and countries as a whole, but that will no longer suffice. These countries must be, and are, as evidenced by the large numbers of Middle East and Gulf countries in the WTO, willing to open their economies to international trade in order to develop their own domestic production.

However, such openness will not be easy. Free trade always produces short-term dislocations, as capital moves to its most efficient uses. Furthermore, increased openness to trade also producues increased openness to outside cultural influences, which could exacerbate some of problems that currently exist between Islam and the Western countries. Finally, economic reform demands and produces political reform. How far will these non-democratic regimes be willing to go and how much power will they be willing to give up to improve economic and living conditions for their people?

This may, in fact, be the most important question for Gulf security. Economic and political opportunity are some of the strongest predictors of peace and stability in international politics. As more countries move to improve the domestic conditions within and the political structures that control, the more likely it will be that security concerns can be resolved through negotiation and cooperation, rather than competition.

A Test For Trade

As the 109th Congress prepares to close this afternoon, both the House and Senate are racing to finish up some critical business, including a bill that will serve as an excellent bellwether of the new Democratic Congress' commitment to free trade (true, the newly-elected members aren't voting on this bill, but the Democrats already in Congress may feel empowered to vote the bill down, as has already happened with free-trade agreements with Peru and Colombia).

The bill, in addition to including numerous domestic tax breaks [full disclosure: As a resident of Washington state, which has no state income tax, I stand to benefit from this bill which will allow residents of states without income taxes to deduct state and local sales taxes from their federal income], contains several vitally important trade elements, including the granting of permanent normal trade relations (what used to be known as Most-Favored Nation status) to Vietnam, an essential criteria for Vietnam's entry into the World Trade Organization. The bill will also extend existing agreements with Haiti and sub-Saharan African states to allow those countries to export textiles and apparel to the US at lowered tariff rates, and extends a program to provide low tariffs for the products of more the 140 developing countries.

It cannot be stressed enough how important free trade is to the economic health of not only this country but of the entire international community. I have blogged in an earlier post about how restricting free trade and increasing either protectionist tariff rates or subsidies produces massive harms for the poor in this country and in the developing world. But free trade is also a critical component of the democratic peace. By trading and interacting with other countries, mutual expectations of gain are formed, patterns of behavior are established, and economic interdependence is created to connect the future well-being of states to one another.

The US has spent much of the latter half of the 20th century building a liberal economic trade regime that has resulted in massive improvements in the living conditions and well-being of peoples all over the world. The creation and maintenance of this order is one of the most important components of US global leadership. This regime must not only be sustained, it must be broadened by dropping the remaining impediments to free trade so that all states might benefit.

If this bill is defeated, I fear for the future, as should you.