issue: Foreign Policy & Defense

TODAY: Defusing Tensions on the Korean Peninsula: What America-and China-Should Do

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Defusing Tensions on the Korean Peninsula:
What America—and China—Should Do.

Keynote Address:
The Honorable Kurt Campbell
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs

Featured Panelists:
Scott Snyder, Director, Center for U.S.-Korea Policy at the Asia Foundation
Karin Lee, Executive Director, The National Committee on North Korea
Gordon Flake, Executive Director, The Mansfield Foundation

Date:
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
2 p.m.

 

Location:
University of California Washington Center
First Floor Auditorium
1608 Rhode Island Ave. NW
Washington, DC

Register for this event.

If you have any questions, please contact 202-525-3926.

Space is limited. RSVP required.

MEDIA COVERAGE:
The event is open to the press. Media in attendance are required to register in advance of the event to Steven Chlapecka at 202.525.3931 or schlapecka@ppionline.org.

Hosted in collaboration with the University of California Washington Center.

Kerry Challenges Obama on North Korea

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

A rift seems to have opened between the Obama administration and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on the ever-sensitive topic of North Korea. Sen. Kerry convened a hearing today on the subject, and previewed his own views in a press statement released this morning:

[T]he best option is to consult closely with South Korea and launch bilateral talks with North Korea when we decide the time is appropriate. Fruitful talks between the U.S. and North Korea can lay the groundwork for resumption of the Six Party Talks. Right now, we simply cannot afford to cede the initiative to North Korea and China because neither country’s interests fully coincide with ours.

Let me be clear: We must get beyond the political talking point that engaging North Korea is somehow “rewarding bad behavior.” It is not. [bold mine]

This differs from what Kurt Campbell, President Obama’s Assistant Secretary of State for Asia, had to say on the issue as he spoke during Sen. Kerry’s hearing:

The United States remains committed to meaningful dialogue, but we will not reward North Korea for shattering the peace or defying the international community. If North Korea improves relations with South Korea and demonstrates a change in behavior … the United States will stand ready to move toward normalization of our relationship. However, if it maintains its path of defiance and provocative behavior and fails to comply with its obligations and commitments, it stands no chance of becoming a strong and prosperous nation. [again, bold is mine]

Kerry seems ready to tango, Obama isn’t. Which is it? I could write a diatribe with my own analysis and recommendations, or I could take the easy way out and suggest you attend PPI’s event on North Korea tomorrow. We’ll have Assistant Secretary Campbell and a panel of experts there to answer your questions and see just where the US — and China — should do to defuse tensions on the peninsula. Click here to register. Details below.

Defusing Tensions on the Korean Peninsula:

What America—and China—Should Do

Keynote Address:

The Honorable Kurt Campbell

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs

Featured Panelists:

Scott Snyder, Director, Center for U.S.-Korea Policy at the Asia Foundation

Karin Lee, Executive Director, The National Committee on North Korea

Gordon Flake, Executive Director, The Mansfield Foundation

Date:

Wednesday, March 2, 2011, 2 p.m.

Location:

University of California Washington Center

First Floor Auditorium

1608 Rhode Island Ave. NW

Washington, DC

Click here to register

Obama Gets His Comeuppance For Failing the Lobbying Purity Test

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

If you search through the White House visitor logs, you can find me. In fact, I’ve been to the Obama White House twice (though I seem to have two records for the same visit). Let me explain: A good friend of mine worked at CEQ for a while. Once, she took some friends on a tour of the White House. Once, we went to see the Christmastime decorations at the East Wing. However, if I had visited this friend at her office, which was not the White House but instead at Jackson Place, there’d be no trace of me in the White House visitor logs.

Yesterday, Politico ran a story noting this fact and insinuating that lobbying meetings were intentionally being moved to Jackson Place, or to the nearby Caribou Coffee on 17th Street, just so that they wouldn’t show up in the visitor logs. Many bloggers, especially those on the right have jumped all over Obama for this supposed hypocrisy. The ever-clever Michelle Malkin triumphantly rhymed: “Obama lied, transparency died.” Common Cause asked Obama to disclose every meeting regardless of where it occurs.

Now, I really don’t know if the Administration moved meetings off-campus so that they didn’t show up in the visitor logs. It seems to me like a silly thing to do. I’m trying to imagine what visitor would be so terrible that his or her presence in the visitor logs would be an instant scandal. I can’t. Based on what I know about the scarcity of space in the White House, I’m willing to buy the rationale that meetings were held elsewhere just because that’s where space could be found.

But I can see why people in the White House might be unnecessarily sensitive about who they are meeting with. The problem is that from Day One, when the Administration placed a ban on registered lobbyists serving in the White House, it tried to place itself somehow above and beyond the influence of lobbyists.

But as anybody who has spent any time in Washington knows, lobbyists are part of the policymaking fabric in this town, like it or not. To try to govern without at least getting their input and occasional buy-in is simply impossible. There are reasons to be concerned about their influence and power, but simply demonizing them as to-be-avoided-at-all-costs is not helpful, and almost certainly counter-productive.

In many ways, Obama has held himself to a standard that was far beyond reach. Of course he wasn’t going to rid Washington of special interests. But that’s politics. Everybody comes to Washington to change the way business is done. Nobody is ever powerful/foolhardy enough to do so.

One of the reasons that Obama was able to make White House visitor logs public is because the Secret Service keeps close track of everyone going in and out of the White House. When I’ve visited, somebody had to see my ID and check me in. What I can glean from yesterday’s press conference transcript is that this puts me into something called the “the WAVES system.” And when you’ve got an electronic database, it’s easy to make it public. And there’s no reason not to do so.

Maybe meeting disclosure should extend to Jackson Place. Maybe it should extend to Caribou Coffee. Should it extend to every phone call? Every kid’s soccer game an administration staffer attends where lobbyists might have kids playing as well? Where do you draw the line?  Washington is in many respects one big social network. And lobbyists, the majority of whom once worked in government, are part of that network.

I suppose what Obama should have said from the beginning was that he was doing the best he can. He was going to make White House visitor logs public because the White House belongs to everyone, and everyone should know who is visiting. But that he also recognized that the White House is not a compound on a hill, and that disclosing visitor logs is not going to capture all the conversations he or anyone on his staff ever has with an interested party. Moreover, he could have also said that he valued the inputs of everyone, be they lobbyists or not. And that he and his staff had enough integrity, thank you very much, to cut through the self-serving BS of lobbyists.

But instead, Obama succumbed to the familiar politics of purity and moralizing when it came to lobbyists. This moment of gotcha journalism, I suppose is his comeuppance. When you hold yourself to unrealistic standards, it’s bound to come sooner or later.

Six Months Is Too Short For Egypt’s Elections

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Arab revolutions have overthrown one dictator after another in strikingly orderly fashion. There’s an almost biblical quality to it: Tunisia begat Egypt, and Egypt begat Libya and Bahrain. One of the problems of such a linear evolution of revolutions is that we tend to focus on only one at a time. Remember Egypt? Barely – it’s yesterday’s news. And Tunisia feels like it happened in the Bush administration (note: it didn’t).

As our gaze floats from one country to the next, it’s worth remembering that now—when the hard work of democracy begins—is just as crucial a time across the Arab world. Political parties, civil society organizations and democratic institutions are just beginning to form. As in any power vacuum, Egypt’s infant governing class is scrambling first to organize the pillars of democracy, and then to contest power.

In the United States, we have become conditioned to expect things immediately – I’ve taken time to respond to no less than three emails as I’ve written the paragraphs above – rather than applying a good dose of patience as I crank this piece out. To us, the six months set between a revolution and Egyptian elections seems like more than enough time to hold a democratic vote. But when you’re starting from nothing, six months just isn’t enough time.

From WSJ:

As hopes rise for Egypt’s first elections, political parties are sprouting like weeds. Activists, businessmen and community leaders are all forming new parties they hope will widen Egypt’s limited menu of political options.

The nascent parties are both secular and Islamist, but for the most part they agree on one thing: more time than the target for elections—in less than six months—may be needed for these groups to have a real impact. Some also worry that elections too soon would greatly favor the Muslim Brotherhood, which already has a large-scale social organization in place.

And the Washington Post:

Al-Wasat waited 15 years, one month and nine days for official permission to operate, which a court granted Saturday. The party, started by a group that split away from the Muslim Brotherhood to promote a more tolerant form of Islam, has little more behind it than a Web site, the bonds formed during years of suppression and a shared desire for democracy.

An organization so recently banned has no sign announcing its presence, and reporters traveled around the block a few times searching for the office… “We could never meet people here in Egypt,” said Tareq El Malt, an architect and member of the executive committee whose own neighbors don’t know the party exists. Elections are expected in six months, but El Malt said that before the party thinks about winning seats in parliament, it has to figure out how to organize and operate.

Six months is too short for a truly organized, healthy political class to mature into a set of diverse but not scattered parties that can form a stable governing coalition. Is a year? Most probably not, but it would be better.

If the time comes when Egypt’s temporary ruling council delays the vote beyond August, it’s not necessarily because the council is attempting to thwart democracy. It may be just the opposite – a delay, even a relatively short one, would likely significantly benefit the long-term prospects for a stable Egyptian governing coalition.

Have We Finally Reached the ‘End of History’?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Are the current pro-democracy uprisings in the Middle East a vindication of Francis Fukuyama’s theory about the ‘End of History’? Max Borders ponders the question over at the Daily Caller, arguing that the demonstrations in Libya, Tunisia, Bahrain, Egypt, and elsewhere are at least partial proof of Fukuyama’s ideas.

For those uninitiated in Fukuyamaism, the now-Stanford Hoover Institute political philosopher argued in The National Interest in 1989 that “What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.” In a matter of time, all countries in the world would inevitably evolve in one way or another towards capitalist liberal democracy, because only it can satisfy mankind’s universal yearnings for freedom and dignity.

Looking at the current upheaval in the Middle East, there is some evidence supporting Fukuyama’s argument. The crowds are overwhelmingly calling for democracy. From the Islamists to the Communists, anti-regime protestors seem genuinely eager to put their ideas to the electoral test. For all the talk about Chinese-style market authoritarianism being a sexy ideological competitor to liberal democracy, few of the millions of individuals braving oppression on the streets are demanding local versions of the Chinese Communist Party. The accountability and equality that democracy ideally provides appears to be the most appealing form of government to most of the world. Score one for Fukuyama.

It is equally true, however, that there seems unanswered questions regarding whether the Middle East would embrace either American-style capitalism or social liberalization. For all Borders’ (and Fukuyama’s) entreaties, there is no indication of popular petitions in these protests for free markets or libertarianism. The majority of those in the streets of Egypt and Libya are practicing Muslims and may prefer some form of Islamic democracy. Polls show that the biggest values gaps between the Islamic world and the West occur over the issues of gay rights, women’s rights, and other matters of social freedom. “Muslim publics overwhelmingly welcome Islamic influence over their countries’ politics,” as a December 2010 survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found.

Surveys show that what (most) Americans see as freedom in the realms of sexual preference, marriage, and families looks to many of the world’s Muslim-majority countries as moral decay and decadence. The full separation of religion and state is also less appealing to the world outside the West, where secularism (let alone atheism) is much more frowned upon. None of this is to imply that Islam is incompatible with free markets or liberalism—only that there is no inevitability that they will all necessarily combine.

Rather than The End of History, I would suggest a variation of Fareed Zakaria’s notion of ‘Illiberal Democracy’ is a more accurate indicator of where the world seems to be heading. Writing in Foreign Affairs in 1997, Zakaria presciently saw that while many countries were embracing the ballot box in the post-Cold War world, the rule of law and human rights norms were far less popular. “Since the fall of communism, countries around the world are being governed by regimes…that mix elections and authoritarianism—illiberal democracy,” Zakaria wrote in the book he based on his Foreign Affairs essay. A different form of illiberal democracy might be erupting in the Middle East, one where the full trappings of democracy are united with a deep social conservatism that cannot be considered ‘liberal’ in any sense of the word. These regimes might be more democratic than the ones Zakaria described, but they could be equally illiberal, albeit in a different manner.

Fukuyamians would likely respond, like good Hegelians, that illiberal democracy is just a bump on the inevitable path to liberal democracy. It is a phase that will be experienced but eventually jettisoned as it is realized that the universal yearning for individuals’ self-determination is stronger than any other desires. Perhaps. But history is known to thwart all predictions. But what seems clear for now is that the crowds in the Middle East like the ‘democracy’ part of Fukuyama’s cherished ideology. The liberal part? Remains to be seen.

Small Spending Cuts’ Big Impact on America in the Middle East

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Now is the winter of discontent for Middle East dictators. A great political awakening is roiling the region – which makes this exactly the wrong moment to weaken America’s ability to help people struggling to free themselves.

House Republicans, however, are determined to do just that. Oblivious to the growing democratic ferment in the Muslim world, they voted last week to cut funding for U.S. diplomacy and assistance by some $4.4 billion, along with a haircut for the National Endowment for Democracy (or NED, and full disclosure: Will Marshall is a member of NED’s board). Although it usually flies under policy-makers’ radar, the NED is America’s premier instrument for assisting democratic transitions in long-closed societies.

To be fair, President Obama’s new budget proposes an even deeper cut (12 percent versus the GOP’s six percent) in the NED’s already miniscule $118 million budget, though it wouldn’t take effect until next year.

These changes were tucked deep in the giant, $61 billion package of 2011 spending reductions the House approved last week in a frenzy of misplaced fiscal probity. We hope the Senate doesn’t overlook them as it tries to salvage something sensible from the House package and continue funding the federal government. If you want to establish your bona fides as a resolute budget cutter and enemy of big deficits, domestic spending isn’t the place to look for serious savings. The real money is in the big middle class entitlement programs and in tax expenditures, backdoor spending programs that cost the federal government over $1 trillion a year.

We are fiscal hawks, but these untimely cuts in democracy assistance illustrate the perfect folly of trying to balance the budget on the back of domestic discretionary spending, which accounts for only 13 percent of total federal outlays. They are too small to make an appreciable dent in America’s $1.6 trillion deficit, but they would curtail our ability to support the spread of America’s democratic ideals in the Middle East and elsewhere.

The NED was established in 1983 under the bipartisan auspices of Ronald Reagan and Democratic Rep. Dante Fascell of Florida. They believed the United States needed a non-official way to lend a helping hand to homegrown reformers. Funneling support through a non-government entity like the NED rather than the State Department or USAID makes it hard for autocrats to tar recipients as tools of American policy.

Since its inception, NED has backed virtually every significant struggle for freedom in the world. It helped ease democratic political transitions in Poland, Chile, South Africa, Nigeria and Russia. Crucially, it nurtures political dissidents from Burma to Cuba, including Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo in China, as well as countless lesser-known but equally courageous champions of human rights and democracy.

The NED and its core institutes are active in the Middle East and North Africa, although its nearly $22 million in annual grants to the region now seems wholly inadequate. In Egypt, for example, its micro-grants support youth participation in government, workers’ rights and – presciently, in light of the crucial role Twitter and Facebook played in drawing crowds to Cairo’s Tahrir square – digital media workshops for young people. In Yemen, another flash point, the NED supports young entrepreneurs and helps human rights and women’s empowerment groups build capacity.

Facing a snap vote in just six months, Egypt is ill-prepared for a democratic transition. It has no organized opposition parties and its civic groups, non-governmental organizations, and democratic institutions are—to be generous—underdeveloped. This is no time to be denying U.S. policy-makers the tools they need to help. But seeding the ground for democracy in the Middle East is a long game. Whatever the outcome in Egypt, we need a sustained and strengthened effort to help local reformers throughout the region put in place the building blocks of an independent civil society and functioning democracy.

That is the NED’s mission, and it needs more resources, not fewer. If our political leaders really want to show they are serious about whittling down America’s monstrous debts, they ought to follow Willie Sutton’s advice and go where the money is.

Defusing Tensions on the Korean Peninsula: What America-and China-Should Do

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Defusing Tensions on the Korean Peninsula:
What America—and China—Should Do.

Keynote Address:
The Honorable Kurt Campbell
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs

Featured Panelists:
Scott Snyder, Director, Center for U.S.-Korea Policy at the Asia Foundation
Karin Lee, Executive Director, The National Committee on North Korea
Gordon Flake, Executive Director, The Mansfield Foundation

Date:
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
2 p.m.

 

Location:
University of California Washington Center
First Floor Auditorium
1608 Rhode Island Ave. NW
Washington, DC

Register for this event.

If you have any questions, please contact 202-525-3926.

Space is limited. RSVP required.

MEDIA COVERAGE:
The event is open to the press. Media in attendance are required to register in advance of the event to Steven Chlapecka at 202.525.3931 or schlapecka@ppionline.org.

Hosted in collaboration with the University of California Washington Center.

The Strange Republican Cuts to National Security

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

As a progressive who strongly believes in a “whole of government” approach to ensuring the nation’s security, I cheered when the Obama administration’s 2010 National Security Strategy included this paragraph:

To succeed, we must update, balance, and integrate all of the tools of American power and work with our allies and partners to do the same. Our military must maintain its conventional superiority … We must invest in diplomacy and development capabilities and institutions in a way that complements and reinforces our global partners. Our intelligence capabilities must continuously evolve to identify and characterize conventional and asymmetric threats and provide timely insight. And we must integrate our approach to homeland security with our broader national security approach.

That attitude goes a long way to rectifying the wrongs of the Bush administration’s philosophy, one that saw too many problems as nails, and too many solutions as a hammer. The results were obvious: squandered resources, an exhausted military, lost international credibility, and, ultimately, less security.

It’s clear that Republicans still haven’t gotten this message. In this year’s continuing resolution, they’ve voted to cut some of those whole-of-government resources that are vital to strengthening our security. Here’s a list of cuts, taken from the just-passed continuing resolution, and compiled by my friends at the Truman National Security Project that fundamentally weakens our crucial non-military national security tools:

House Republican Cuts to National Security Priorities

in 2/19 Continuing Resolution for FY2011

Compiled from: Program cuts in the FY2011 Continuing Resolution, 2/14/2011, House Appropriations Committee. Analysis of HR1. 2/15/2011, Senate Appropriations Committee. Checked against Statement by Congressman Rogers on HR1, 2/19/2011, House Appropriations Committee for amendments which passed. Cuts are to FY2010 Enacted.

Contact: David Solimini, Communications Director. dave@trumanproject.org or 757-876-0295.

National Security & Ongoing Wars

·         National Security Council. Cut the President’s principle advisors on national security issues by $600,000. [Program cuts in the FY2011 Continuing Resolution]

·         Counterinsurgency funding. Cut USAID by $121m (9% cut), which will halt new civilian programs in Afghanistan and Pakistan that are necessary for the counterinsurgency strategy to work. These programs were called for by US military commanders. [Analysis of HR1].

·         Iraq transition, Afghanistan/Pakistan operations. Cut State Department operations by $1.2b (12%), meaning the transition from military to civilian responsibility in Iraq, and State operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, will be put in jeopardy. [Analysis of HR1].

·         Border Security. Cut funding for border fencing and border protection technology, as well as its related infrastructure, by $350m. [Program cuts in the FY2011 Continuing Resolution]

·         Democracy promotion. Cut the Millennium Challenge Corporation, which provides assistance to countries which meet government improvement goals, by $315m. Cut Development Assistance by $746m. [Program cuts in the FY2011 Continuing Resolution]

·         International First Responders. Cut, by $103m, the Civilian Stabilization Initiative, which trains civilians to reconstruct and stabilize war torn, disaster ridden, and unstable countries, to prevent future conflict. Cut International Disaster Assistance by $415m, and the Complex Crisis Fund by $50. [Program cuts in the FY2011 Continuing Resolution]

·         Starvation Prevention/Weak State Stabilization. Cut Food For Peace, which delivers bags of food stamped “USA” to the people of weak and failing states, by $687. Program details. [Program cuts in the FY2011 Continuing Resolution].

Terrorism Prevention

·         Transportation security. Cut transit security grants by more than 66 percent. In the last 7 years, there were over 1,300 terrorist attacks on trains, subways, and busses, killing or injuring over 18,000 people. [Analysis of HR1.] Also cut: Transportation Security Administration Threat Assessment funding by $9m. [Program cuts in the FY2011 Continuing Resolution]

·         Port security & Container Screening. Cut port security grants by 66 percent. [Analysis of HR1.] Also cut $61m in international container inspections. Container shipping is the most likely way a weapon of mass destruction could be brought into the country. [Program cuts in the FY2011 Continuing Resolution]

Nuclear Terrorism

·         Domestic Nuclear Attack Prevention. Cut, by $31m, the office which detects attempts to import, possess, store, develop, or transport nuclear or radiological material for use against the Nation. [Analysis of HR1] [Program cuts in the FY2011 Continuing Resolution] [Program details]

·         Nuclear materials security. Cut nuclear non-proliferation funding by $97m. This will prevent the US from removing hundreds of pounds of highly enriched uranium, which terrorists could use to build nuclear devices, from unsecure facilities in several countries around the world. [Analysis of HR1]

·         Weapons of Mass Destruction Training. Cut, by 51 percent, funding for first responder weapons of mass destruction training, which means that more than 46,000 first responders will not being trained in FY 2011. [Analysis of HR1]

Veterans Benefits

·         Homeless veterans. Terminated the Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing Program, the aim of which is to end veteran homelessness in 5 years. There were more than 130,000 homeless veterans in 2009. The VASH program provided housing vouchers for them. [Analysis of HR1] [Local Story, CT]

·         Veterans long term care. Cut Long Term Care facilities at the Department of Veterans Affairs by $15m. [Program info.] [Program cuts in the FY2011 Continuing Resolution]

The Coming Fight Over Foreign Assistance

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Above is my quick and dirty comparison of the coming fight over foreign assistance. In green is the amount already spent in 2010 on each of the discreet line items (I’ve chosen these four areas because they were directly comparable between the various proposed appropriations).

Here’s how to read the graph: The actual amount spent in 2010 by the USG on each line item is in green. In red is the amount Republicans want to cut back to for the remainder of FY2011, expiring on 30 September. And in blue is what the White House would like to spend in FY2012’s budget proposal.

Now, I understand that there’s a conversation to be had about fixing how we spend foreign assistance and what we should receive back from it. But this is a more basic philosophical disagreement about whether or not America should be a world leader, or whether we should disengage from the rest of the world. After all, at its best, foreign assistance buys soft power, something that has been in relatively short supply of late.

In light of that, it’s worth keeping in mind this quote from Joe Nye’s new book, The Future Power:

In general, the United States has not worked out an integrated plan for combining hard and soft power….Many official instruments of soft power – public diplomacy, broadcasting, exchange programs, development assistance, disaster relief, military-to-military contracts – are scattered around the government, and there is no overarching strategy or budget that even tries to integrate them with hard power into an overarching smart power strategy. The United States spends about five hundred times more on the military than it does on broadcasting and exchanges.

Photo Credit: Marines Haiti Relief

Egypt’s Lessons For Iran

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Democrats and Republicans showed admirable bipartisanship as President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton led the nation through the crisis in Egypt. It wasn’t exactly a return to an era when politics stopped at the water’s edge, but it was a fair-minded recognition that the administration had no great choices and limited control over the direction of the Cairo protests. Stuck between a multi-decade autocracy on one side and potentially pushing a country of 75 million Muslims to the Muslim Brotherhood’s virulent political Islam through our lack of support for the protestors on the other, the President and our political establishment steered a steady course.

I only bring up the thorny issue of Egypt to point out that, in comparison, the policies we should be pursuing on Iran this morning are no-brainers. As of yesterday there’s a very real possibility that the example of Egypt has reignited the Green Movement, and that the IRGC-dominated oligarchy is again in some peril. Riots have again broken out throughout the country. Tear gas and truncheon and electric batons are again being used openly against the protesters. Videos are again being uploaded to YouTube showing that the Basij have resorted to batons and bullets.

And now there are even rumors that the protesters in Tehran are trying to set up tents in the center of the city, modeled after the Egyptians in Tahrir Square, to establish a long-term protest bent on establishing a free society. The spectacle of Ahmadinejad cheering on the anti-Mubarak protesters while denying Iranian dissenters the right to march may have finally become too much for the average Iranian to stomach.

Here there are no hard choices about whether to pursue stability or change. All of our efforts should be exerted on the side of the protesters demanding a free Iran.  The risk that the regime will exploit western support for the protestors is a stale excuse for silence.  The brave young men and women risking their lives for change deserve better than caution or indifference.

Secretary Clinton and the administration have responded admirably thus far. Yesterday the Secretary personally expressed support for the protesters, insisting that they have a right to demand freedom “as part of their own birthright” and highlighting the Iranian regime’s hypocrisy. She committed the administration to “”very clearly and directly support[ing] the aspirations of the people who are in the streets.”

The current tone, which is exactly right, is a welcome contrast to the unseemly vacillation that marked the first days of the Green Revolution, when White House and State Department spokespeople refused to throw their weightbehind the protesters. That won us no good will from the Iranian regime and it risked alienating many of the freedom-loving Iranians with whom we should have been standing in solidarity.

The truth is that we have nothing to lose and much to gain by supporting the protesters. The conspiracy-wallowing regime in Tehran reflexively blames the United States, Israel, and Britain for domestic unrest. They’ve already tagged this round of protests as a foreign plot.

The administration deserves only praise for having figured out as much the first time around, and for immediately lending the protesters our full-throated support this time. The day after the mullahcracy falls will truly be a new day in the Middle East.

Like Secretary Clinton’s comments yesterday, President Obama’s remarks today are a good start.

Now is not the time to go silent or hedge our bets in support of those seeking freedom in Iran.

End Separate War Spending

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

It’s federal budget season. Before you doze off, stick with me: there’s a deceptive budgetary maneuver that is costing you billions in defense dollars, forcing progressive members of Congress into uncomfortable votes on Iraq and Afghanistan, and defying every historical precedent in Pentagon budgeting.

This maneuver is the supplemental appropriation for war funding. Every year since the United States launched military operations in Afghanistan in response to the September 11th attacks, Congress has appropriated separate funds for unanticipated wartime costs in addition to the Pentagon’s baseline budget. In some years, only one extra war spending bill is approved; in 2010, two supplemental appropriations were passed.

Supplemental war funding appropriations are hardly new, beginning in World War II. When used correctly, the process serves as a vital tool that delivers timely funding to America’s fighting men and women. In the initial stages of combat, supplemental appropriations are extraordinarily useful in the face of the lengthy Congressional budget process, which does not allow for unanticipated military spending. Typically, the supplemental funds pay for pre-deployment costs, servicemembers’ transportation to the warzone, combat operations, equipment needs, and military construction. Without this tool, the Pentagon would essentially be forced to sacrifice long-term projects to meet immediate wartime needs.

Here’s the rub: Under the Bush administration, allegedly “emergency” supplemental appropriations for war costs became routine avenues for backdoor spending. Their opaque nature and lack of oversight have created a propensity to fund low-priority programs that has effectively eroded any sense of fiscal discipline at the Pentagon, bloating military spending. We must put an end to the practice

The Department of Defense (DoD) is the unquestioned champion of discretionary spending—money the government chooses to spend, rather than is obliged to pay for entitlements like Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security. With more than $700 billion in discretionary funds available, the Pentagon far outpaces its nearest competition, the Department of Health and Human Services, at $80 billion.

Since 2001, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) estimates that Congress has approved $1.12 trillion in supplemental appropriations, 90 percent of which—$1.01 trillion—has been destined for the Department of Defense. One estimate is that Congress has no control over one-fifth of supplemental war spending; therefore, a rough calculation suggests that some $200 billion has been wasted in 10 years.

While those on the extreme left and in the Tea Party would like to see slashes in the Pentagon’s spending, what DoD’s budget really needs is not gutting, but a solid dose of discipline.

Read the policy memo

Can the Republicans Really Pull Off $100 Billion in Cuts?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Well, that was quick. Rather than risk a mutiny, House Republican leaders have agreed to now cut $100 billion from the $1.1 trillion federal budget, rather than their original plan of a mere $40 billion. The question is: Can they pull it off? And if they do, will they come to regret it?

Yesterday, I predicted a coming Republican crack-up based on the premise that the Young Turks of the Tea Party are out to take a stand (gosh darnit!) against big government, but it’s a stand that’s not compatible with the continued electoral success of the Republican Party. And the spending cuts are a perfect example.

Say Republican leaders are indeed serious about  cutting $100 billion. Where will they cut? A new Pew poll found only two federal programs in which more respondents favored a decrease in spending than an increase: Global poverty assistance (45 percent for a decrease, 21 percent for an increase) and Unemployment assistance (28 percent for a decrease, 27 percent for an increase). Neither of these are big ticket items.

The only other area that is close to even is Defense (30 percent for a decrease, 31 percent for an increase). Defense accounts for about half of discretionary spending. But I’m guessing a good percentage of those 31 percent who want to increase the military are solid Republican base voters.

So here’s the hard reality: There is some serious bloodlust going around Washington about cutting the budget, in part because there is some serious bloodlust about cutting the budget in the Tea Party base. But when it comes down to the actual programs that will get cut, the picture changes.

You see, many voters are symbolic conservatives in that they like to say they are for things like small government and fiscal discipline. But when it comes to specific government programs, well, why would you go and cut my well-deserved Medicare benefits when you could be cutting federal salaries or aid to the poor? In fact, with the exception of federal pay and foreign aid or aid to the poor, it’s hard to find a single government program or funding source that any majority would support cutting.

Democrats, of course, know this, and are just waiting for Republicans to go wild with their proposed cuts – especially Senate Democrats, who will play the role of putting the pieces back together.

In the end, there are two likely scenarios. In one, Republican leaders hold to the Tea Party line, but play right into Democrats’ hands, demanding harsh cuts — and in the process they awaken all kinds of anxious voters who are now suddenly worried about protecting the programs that benefit them. In the other, Republicans compromise, but alienate the Tea Party contingent, leading to an internecine battle. Either way, it’s not gonna be a pretty scene for the GOP.

What Happens Next in Egypt?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

It’s hardly insightful to call the events unfolding in Cairo “astounding,” though of course they are. The people of Egypt have patiently waited until their sole unifying demand was met: that Hosni Mubarak be gone. Egyptians have won a great victory, and their dedication to that objective is a remarkable testament to their resolve in the face of a regime bent on winning the day with attempts to frustrate and provoke the masses. They didn’t take that bait, and a peaceful, truly popular revolution is set to reap tangible improvements in their daily lives.

Or are they?

The hard work now begins. A transition to democracy has begun, but who remains as Egypt’s temporary steward of power and the speed with which elections are held remain critical issues.

Now that the protesters’ main demand has been met, everything else is negotiable. Surely the masses will reject any attempt by Mubarak confidant and newly-installed Vice President Omar Suleiman to remain as the heir-apparent to his erstwhile mentor’s thrown.

Will Suleiman cede his powers to a transitional council of opposition leaders, current government officials, and military representatives? How would it be composed? What role would the Muslim Brotherhood – commanding some 25 percent public support and having kept their powder dry thus far – play?

Just as critically, when would elections be held? A snap vote would probably be too risky and would prevent a truly representative government from taking hold: Lacking a unifying candidate, chances are that Mohammed ElBaradei may very well win a presidential contest but with possibly well less than 50 percent of the vote.

On the parliamentary side, nothing speaks to the bankruptcy of American policy over the last 30 years than successive presidential administrations’ failures to establish working  relationships with civil society groups, opposition parties, and democratic institutions. Or to advocate for the creation of a healthy Egyptian middle class, one from which reasonable political parties could form. As it stands, a near-term vote would be a scramble of thousands of poorly-organized, patronage-based parties that results in an incoherent, ad hoc governing coalition (see: Iraq, minus the sectarianism).

A near-term vote would also be one in which the Muslim Brotherhood, as one of the few well-organized groups, is over represented. And though the Brotherhood is not the overt Iran-styled threat that the likes of John Bolton and Fox News would like to believe, there are serious, serious questions outstanding about its governing platforms, as my colleague Josh Block has highlighted.

Where does this leave the Obama administration? It must be said that the White House has publicly waffled too much as Mubarak’s stock rose and fell, though perhaps it was much more effective that we know in its private communications with the Egyptian military and Mubarak’s inner circle. President Obama has been on the right side of history, if a disturbing half-step behind it.

Now that Mubarak is gone, the White House can double-down and strongly advocate for the expansion of representative democracy and American interests, which need not come in conflict. The president should push for a temporary, representative transitional council to establish a process to lift the emergency law and rewrite the constitution; it’s clear that those in Tahrir Square didn’t remain outdoors for weeks to see Omar Suleiman or the Brotherhood execute a back-door power grab.

As for elections, the White House could back a delay. Perhaps a year would be appropriate under a representative transitional authority, giving political parties at least some reasonable time to organize.

And as for the wider region? President Obama should start today the process of enshrining American links with civil society groups, local NGOs, and opposition parties of all stripes. This means that groups like the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Democratic Institute, and International Republican Institute (to name but a few) absolutely must be fully funded in this year’s budget.

If Tea Partiers believe Glenn Beck’s mind-blowingly ill-informed doomsday scenario, funding NED would be a good place to start preventing it.

The Defense Budget Sleight of Hand That’s Costing You Billions

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Look, I get it. If you’re not a budget wonk, I can understand how you might not care about this stuff. But if you’re a progressive and you’re concerned about the Tea Party destroying the EPA for no good reason, then that’s reason to pay attention.

I’ve written a policy memo about something else that is crucial to understand if we want to even the discussion of getting Defense spending under control: it’s simply vital that we end the practice of supplemental war funding bills.

Wait! Wait! Don’t fall asleep. Seriously. We’ve wasted $200 billion over the last ten years through a little-discussed system of back-door Pentagon budgeting, which essentially funds the stuff on DoD’s wish list by falsely calling them “emergency war necessities.” Why, for example, did Congress give Don Rumsfeld an $11 billion slush fund to spend as he pleases without any Congressional oversight?

We have to end this systematic abuse of your taxpayer dollars — start reading here to find out how.

Read the policy memo

A Serious Man

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

As political handicappers weigh the impact on next year’s elections of Senator Jim Webb’s decision not to seek a second term, this much is certain: His departure will leave the Senate a less interesting place.

Webb is an original: Annapolis graduate, decorated Marine veteran of Vietnam, acclaimed novelist, Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan and, following his improbable 2006 victory, Democratic Senator from Virginia.

Improbable not just because he started way behind, but also because he had previously been a Republican; because this erstwhile warrior rode a tide of anti-war sentiment to victory; and, because he is anything but a natural politician.  A private, self-contained man, Webb does not lust for the limelight or feed on public adoration.  He doesn’t like to press the flesh or ask fat cats for money. He is essentially a writer whose political model was the late intellectual-turned-legislator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

While marching to his own beat, Webb has quietly made his mark in the Senate over the past four years. He successfully pushed an expansion of G.I. Bill-style benefits for veterans, and drawn attention to an issue that isn’t on the nation’s political radar but should be: America’s overstuffed prisons and indiscriminate sentencing policies that lock up too many non-violent offenders. Following his own passions, Webb has specialized in foreign affairs, focusing especially on East Asia.

Also like Moynihan, Webb’s outlook has been shaped by a strong ethnic consciousness. Just as Moynihan drew on his Irish background in his studies of the ethnic melting pot, Webb, in Born Fighting and other books, has chronicled the Scots-Irish experience in America. Settled on the America frontier, Scots-Irish Protestants pushed relentlessly westward, battling Indians (and Mexicans) along the way. They form the core of a genuine warrior culture that, argues German writer Josef Joffe in Uberpower: the Imperial Temptation of America, has mostly disappeared from Europe but remains a key element of American exceptionalism.

Webb’s departure will be a significant political loss for Democrats, but not because it may put his Senate seat in jeopardy. More fundamentally, Webb is a rarity in today’s contemporary Democratic Party: a leader with an intuitive feel for the interests and values of white working class voters. Once the mainstay of the progressive New Deal coalition, their defection to the Republicans led to a generation of GOP ascendancy in national politics.

More than most Democrats, Webb has thought hard how about to win them back. He has chided his party for exhibiting anti-military attitudes, and for pushing economic policies that favor elites who profit from globalization to the detriment of working families, whose incomes have stagnated as good jobs have vanished over the last two decades. Bravely, he has taken on the “diversity” industry that promotes group preferences in hiring, government contracting and college admissions, even for recent female and minority immigrants who can by no stretch of the imagination be classified as victims of U.S. racism.

As it happens, the modern Democratic Party emerged under Andrew Jackson, America’s first Scots-Irish President. The “democracy” as it was often called was the party of ordinary people, while the Whigs represented economic and social elites. Much of middle America now feels estranged from the party of the people.

That’s an existential dilemma for progressives, not just a political problem. Jim Webb understands that, which is why I’m sorry to see him go.

Why The Middle East Needs Economic Opportunity

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Uprisings across the Middle East have exposed the futility of America’s Faustian bargain with “moderate” Arab despots. Whatever happens in Egypt, it’s time for the United States to switch course and throw its weight unequivocally behind popular aspirations throughout the region for political freedom and economic opportunity.

No doubt this will be risky: If friendly autocrats go down, who knows what will take their place? Already there’s chortling in Tehran, because the fall of pro-western rulers could tilt the regional balance of power toward Iran and its satraps, weakening U.S. influence and further isolating Israel. For American strategists, however, such risks must be measured against the enormous costs of perpetuating a rotten status quo in the Middle East.

U.S.-backed regimes are far from the region’s worst, but they have contributed to the dismal conditions – stunted political and economic development, systematic abuse of human rights, endemic nepotism and corruption – that breed popular discontent and, at the extreme, the violent ideology of radical Islam. Washington’s support for authoritarian rulers has yielded neither lasting stability nor moderation, though it has compromised our own liberal values and engendered anti-American sentiment on the street.

Now, amid rising popular demands for change, America should aim not at stability, but at transformation in the Middle East. We should side with the young, civic activists and political reformers who want to throw off strongman rule; knock corrupt elites from their privileged perch; bypass central bureaucracies that stifle enterprise and dole out economic favors as a means of social control; empower civil society and women; and, in general, open Arab and Muslim societies to the modern, interconnected world.

Given our embrace of realpolitik in the Middle East, America doesn’t have a lot of credibility in the eyes of people now protesting in the streets of Cairo and other Arab capitals. But while our influence on political developments may be limited, there’s nothing to prevent the United States from addressing the economic frustrations that feed today’s revolts.

As PPI has documented in a series of policy reports (see here and here), the Middle East is the great outlier in today’s system of economic globalization. If you take out oil, the region’s share of world trade has remained strikingly small (about two percent of farm and manufacturing products), even as its population has nearly doubled over the past three decades. Exports are up in some countries, including Egypt and Pakistan, but the region as a whole attracts very little foreign investment. Poverty rates remain high – in Egypt, just under half the population is poor – and, according to the International Labor Organization, the Middle East has world’s highest unemployment rate: 10.3 percent compared to a global average of 6.2 percent.

This picture of economic stagnation is particularly grim for the young. Fully a quarter of them can’t find work. Little wonder that, as young men pour out of schools and universities into barren job markets each year, some are susceptible to Islamist extremists who offer them not only pay and adventure, but also a compellingly simple account of who is to blame for their misery – corrupt rulers in cahoots with the infidel West.

One practical way the United States can counter the radical narrative is to champion economic freedom and prosperity in the Middle East. The principle instrument here is trade and investment, rather than development aid. What these countries need is economic reforms that facilitate their integration into global markets, not wealth transfers from rich countries that end up lining the pockets of corrupt elites. To spur reform and growth, President Obama should ask Congress to pass a massive tariff-reduction bill based on the successful precedent of the Africa and Caribbean free trade agreement. A Greater Middle East Trade Initiative would provide the levers for lowering barriers to trade and investment in the region, promoting financial transparency, encouraging all countries to join the World Trade Organization, and removing obstacles to individual enterprise.

The nexus between trade and investment and economic reform is critical. As Peruvian economist Hernando De Soto has shown, massive state bureaucracies and bad laws smother entrepreneurship and drive a lot of economic activity underground. In Egypt, more people work in the underground economy than in either the private or public sectors. His studies also show that a low-income entrepreneur has to negotiate with scores of government agencies to start a business, and it years to get clear title to land.

Of course, Washington should press harder for political reforms and fair elections in the Middle East as well. But many in the region simply don’t trust Washington to embrace democracy if it produces outcomes we don’t like. By focusing on poverty, unemployment and jobs, the United States can work around such suspicions. Making life better for ordinary people is the best way to advance U.S. interests in the Middle East.