issue: Foreign Policy & Defense

Holding Romney Accountable on Foreign Policy

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

When a presidential hopeful like Mitt Romney signs a Washington Post op-ed attacking the president for an arms agreement with Russia, there’s a tendency among Democrats to shrug and ignore it. Mitt, we all understand, is a former governor with no foreign policy experience who needs to burnish his credentials in this area, even if it’s only by bloviating. And Mitt, we know, is vulnerable on his right flank, partially because the GOP has decisively moved in a more conservative direction since Romney posed as the “true conservative” candidate in 2008, and partially because his sponsorship of a Massachusetts health reform initiative that’s hard to distinguish from the hated ObamaCare is going to be a constant problem for him in 2012.

So you read Mitt’s op-ed and maybe laugh at the extraordinary retro feeling of it all — you know, all the Cold War hostility to the godless Russkies — and note the many right-wing boxes he checked off, from the ancient conservative pet rock of missile defense, to the ill-repressed desire for war with North Korea and Iran, to the ritual denunciations of Obama for his alleged fecklessness in negotiating with bad people. But initially, few if any Democrats had anything to say about it.

That certainly changed Wednesday, when Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) took to the same WaPo pages to pen a devastating riposte to Romney for getting, well, just about all the facts wrong. After tearing Romney apart on missile defense, on MIRVs, on what the treaty would and wouldn’t let the Russians do, and on the bipartisan support for what Obama’s done, Kerry concluded with this well-placed jab:

I have nothing against Massachusetts politicians running for president. But the world’s most important elected office carries responsibilities, including the duty to check your facts even if you’re in a footrace to the right against Sarah Palin. More than that, you need to understand that when it comes to nuclear danger, the nation’s security is more important than scoring cheap political points.

As it turns out, Kerry was nicer to Romney than was foreign policy wonk Fred Kaplan, writing in Slate:

In 35 years of following debates over nuclear arms control, I have never seen anything quite as shabby, misleading and–let’s not mince words–thoroughly ignorant as Mitt Romney’s attack on the New START treaty in the July 6 Washington Post.

Whether or not Romney’s efforts to display conservative ferocity on foreign policy work with the GOP base, he could pay a price down the road in terms of the impact on people who aren’t hard-core conservative ideologues. Talking to progressives, you generally get the sense that while they would fight Mitt Romney like sin itself if he’s the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, they basically think the man’s sane and relatively competent, and wouldn’t threaten the foundations of the Republic like some possibilities they could name. But a few more rabid op-eds on world affairs like Romney’s latest effort will definitely undermine any latent tolerance for Romney in center-left precincts, and will also provide some target practice in case the endlessly flip-flopping former governor’s act gets him to a general election.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

Photo credit: marcn’s Photostream

The Government Takes on Arizona

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

On Tuesday, the federal government fired its first legal shot at Arizona’s controversial immigration law. The law as it stands now is slightly less stringent than it was in its original form.  The original law allowed law enforcement officers to inquire into the immigration of anyone that they contacted. The amended law does not allow officers to stop and look into the immigration of a person if the stop is based solely on the person’s race. However, the law does require authorities to determine the immigration status of every person that breaks a state or local law, no matter how minor. It also attempts to address other immigration-related issues such as alien registration, smuggling, and employment, among others. The state became the target of national and international scorn when its Governor Jan Brewer signed the law on April 30th.

The law is set to take effect on July 29th, but the federal government is seeking an injunction that will stop that. The U.S. is actually seeking two types of injunctions: 1) a permanent injunction that will stop the law from ever being enforced, and 2) a preliminary injunction that will stop enforcement of the law while the case winds its way through the courts. The government is concerned that if the Arizona law is allowed to stand, it will lead other states to pass similar sweeping legislation that will further encroach on the federal government’s regulation of immigration, and drain federal resources that would have to be used for enforcement.

Cutting away all the legalese in the U.S.’s 58-page brief, the government’s argument boils down to this: the Arizona law impermissibly conflicts with federal immigration laws, and it will have adverse effects on federal resources used to regulate immigration and U.S. foreign policy. Part of the argument is that Arizona’s blanket treatment of all unlawful aliens affects the discretion given to the federal government under federal law. That discretion allows the federal government to more effectively target aliens that are a national security risk. Other areas of discretion allow the federal government to allow unlawful aliens to remain in the U.S. for humanitarian reasons. Also, requiring Arizona law enforcement officials to check the status of every person that breaks a law in the state will place too heavy a burden on federal resources that keep track of individuals’ immigration status.

Furthermore, U.S. foreign policy is affected by the Arizona bill because the current immigration framework arose in part from negotiations with other countries on how foreigners in the U.S. could expect to be treated. The Arizona law criminalizes actions by certain aliens that are treated with civil laws under the federal system. The federal government argues that this broad criminalization does not account for potential foreign policy concerns with respect to some aliens, and does not allow the U.S. to “speak with one voice” in the area of immigration.

This is the first step in what is sure to be a contentious legal battle. The federal government makes a convincing constitutional argument that Arizona’s law impermissibly strays into an arena meant to be controlled by federal law. Arizona’s response will most likely be that it was forced to enact the law in an effort to protect the well-being of the state in the face of the federal government’s inability to stem the tide of undocumented immigrants that stream across Arizona’s border every day. I would not be surprised to see the federal court in Arizona grant an injunction that stops the state from enforcing the law during the litigation process in order to allow it time to get to the Supreme Court, which will certainly make the final determination.

Photo credit: Fibonacci Blue’s Photostream

Terrorism, Material Support and the First Amendment

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

There is no freedom more sacrosanct in the U.S. legal system than the First Amendment right to free speech. The First Amendment protects speech that a lot of people may find offensive: pornography, violent movies, even hate speech. The Supreme Court is fiercely protective of the right, and does not hesitate to strike down any law that encroaches on it. However, on June 21, the Supreme Court departed from that stance when it handed down its decision in a case challenging maybe the most important anti-terrorism law in the U.S. arsenal.

The case, Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, concerned a federal law commonly referred to as the “material support” statute. The law criminalizes a range of activities aimed at helping terrorist groups. The plaintiffs in the case are a collection of groups and individuals who sued the federal government to declare the “material support” statute unconstitutional as it applies to their activities with respect to two known terrorist organizations. In this specific instance, the plaintiffs wanted to provide money, legal aid, and political advocacy for two groups that the secretary of state declared to be terrorist organizations. One of their central arguments was that criminalizing its ability to advocate for those organizations was an unconstitutional restriction of their First Amendment rights.

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court sided with the government saying that the statute did not unconstitutionally impinge on the plaintiffs’ right to free speech. The crux of the Court’s 36-page opinion is this: The nature of the acts of terrorist organizations is so nefarious that support in any form, even when the support goes towards legal activities, is an illegal act that Congress can constitutionally regulate. The Court did identify advocacy that is “entirely independent” of a terrorist organization as permissible under the statute, but that any assistance directed at or by a specific terrorist organization or organizations is illegal.

In support of its stance that the statute does not encroach on the right to free speech, the Court paints a convincing picture of how the statute promotes a compelling governmental interest to fight terrorism and how the plaintiffs’ proposed action may help a terrorist organization further its illegal objectives. The opinion points out that supporting legal activities can free up an organization’s resources, allowing it to direct those resources towards planning and carrying out acts of terrorism. Providing legal advice or political advocacy can also help legitimize an organization, making it easier to recruit members and raise funds.

The Court lays out a logical and convincing argument as to why activities like those proposed by the plaintiffs in this case should be restricted; but what are all the different types of activities that could be considered to materially support terrorism? For example, what if Hamas wanted to sue someone or was being sued and they wanted to hire an American law firm? Besides the obvious fact that providing legal assistance to a terrorist organization would be a public relations nightmare for an American law firm, such an act, like the legal assistance that plaintiffs in this case proposed to provide, also appears to be illegal.

The Court’s bottom line here is that terrorist organizations do not segregate their legitimate activities from their criminal ones. Any money that they raise through legitimate channels is likely to go towards supporting violence. The same goes for political or legal aid. While the Court’s rationale is solid, it seems that there will likely be future arguments over what kinds of actions the “material support” statute actually proscribes and what degree of connection someone must have with a terrorist organization for their advocacy actions to be considered illegal.

Photo credit: Jeff Kubina’s Photostream

Good Ol’ Days

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

When House Republican leader (and would-be Speaker) John Boehner claimed the other day that Democrats were “snuffing out the America I grew up in,” it didn’t cause much reaction (or at least far less than his remarks on Social Security and on financial regulation), since it’s the kind of thing conservatives say all the time. But as Mike Tomasky quickly noted, it was a very strange statement if you actually think the problem with Democrats is their addiction to big government and their subservience to unions:

Boehner was born in November 1949. Let’s take a look at the America he grew up in.In the America John Boehner grew up in, the top marginal tax rate on wealthy earners was 90%. It had gone up there during the war, and five, 10, 15 years after armistice, no sizable group, Democrat or Republican, felt any strong urge to lower it.

In the America John Boehner grew up in, private-sector union membership was around or above 30%. Today’s figure is 7%. The right to form a union was broadly accepted. Outside of a few small turbulent pockets, there was no such thing as today’s union-busting law firms hired by management to go into workplaces and intimidate workers.

That’s all very true. But as Matt Yglesias observes, the country was in fact a lot more conservative back then on the cultural front:

[In] many other respects the America of John Boehner’s youth was a much more right-wing country. Gays and lesbians were stuffed deep into the closet, and there was no suggestion that they should be allowed to serve openly in the military or in any other role. African-Americans were subjected to pervasive discrimination in housing and employment, and in the southern states they couldn’t vote or exercise any basic rights–all this backed by the state, and also by collusion between state authorities and ad hoc terrorist groups. It was a whiter country with dramatically fewer residents of Asian or Latin American descent. It was a more religiously observant country, and it was a country in which Jews were far from fully accepted into American life.I’m not nostalgic for that era at all. There are a few areas of policy in which I think we’ve moved backwards since the mid-sixties, but I wouldn’t want to return to an America with almost no immigrants or to an America with a single monopoly provider of telecom services. I’m glad airlines can set their own ticket prices and I’m glad black people can sit in the front of the bus. What is it that Boehner misses?

What indeed? Let’s all remember Boehner’s regret for the passing of the good ol’ days of high taxes, strong unions, Jim Crow and homophobia next time we are told that the GOP wants to declare a truce in the culture wars, or only cares about economic or fiscal issues.

This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.

Time To End Supplemental Budgeting

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The House has taken up a $30 billion supplemental appropriations bill to fund Afghanistan. However, the bill has ballooned to over $70 billon as the Democratic leadership has had to slather on non-defense appropriations to attract the votes of more progressive caucus members frustrated with nine years of slow progress in Afghanistan. There’s a $10 billion education jobs fund, $18 billion in Department of Energy loan guarantees, and $500 million for border patrol. This bill has turned the old guns vs. butter argument into a fight about guns and butter.

The bottom line is Democrats’ left flank is fed up with tough but “must have” votes on issues they view as too centrist (a health care bill minus the public option, multiple war appropriations). But this bill’s incentives are wholly inappropriate: Spending $10 billion on education-related jobs may be a worthy expenditure when considered separately, but it has no business in a defense bill. The Republicans, of course, are having a field day — they’ve exposed the Democratic split by threatening to pull potentially vital support of war-funding unless the bill is stripped “clean” of non-defense expenditures.

The good news is that there is a magic bullet, and it would solve a lot more than political bickering: End the practice of supplemental budgeting. Beyond politics, having just a single, unified defense budget would force trade-offs in a defense spending culture that has run wild in the last 10 years.

Here how supplementals work. Every year since 9/11, we’ve had essentially two or three defense budgets. This year, we’ve had three: a baseline defense budget appropriation of approximately $549 billion, a $159 billion “overseas contingency operations” (i.e., mostly Afghanistan and Iraq) budget and the current supplemental request of $30 billion (which includes several tens of billions for non-defense items discussed above).

The dirty secret is that even many of Pentagon’s “emergency war appropriations” have nothing to do with our current wars. Take the F-22, for example. Before Secretary Gates won last year’s fight to cap production of the F-22, lawmakers inserted $600 million to buy additional planes in the 2009 “emergency supplemental” after the money was shut out of the baseline 2009 budget. This happened even though not one of the 183 F-22s already owned by the U.S. military had flown a single mission over Iraq or Afghanistan. That doesn’t sound like an emergency spending necessity, does it?

Having three budgets is like having three strikes in a baseball at-bat — you have the luxury to swing and miss twice. Projects that don’t make the baseline DoD budget (strike one!) can be considered in either of the additional supplementals (strike two! strike three!) before they’re “out.”

Ending the supplementals would be like giving the batter just one strike. By combining all defense spending into one (larger) appropriation each year, the batter has just one swing — miss the first time, that’s it. The practice would force Congress to make hard choices that prioritize the war-fighter. Who wants to be the representative that adds defense pork to a bill at the expense of our fighting soldiers’ needs? And with no hope of getting additional money later in the year, it would begin to create a culture of efficiency and discipline in spending priorities.

Ultimately, Afghanistan will be funded. Having a single defense budget minimizes divisive political bickering and prioritizes the war-fighter. That’s a real win-win.

In Plain Sight: A Look at the Russian Spy Ring

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

I peered nervously into my colleagues’ offices after reading this morning’s wrap-up of the Russian spy case:

The operation, referred to by U.S. investigators as “the Illegals program,” was aimed at placing spies in nongovernmental jobs, such as at think tanks, where they could glean information from policymakers and Washington-connected insiders without attracting attention.

I realize Steven had studied in Russia, and this afternoon I’m going to fire up the old Blackadder tapes and figure out just how to catch him in the act.

Kidding aside, the story goes that 10 Russian spies were arrested (one remains at-large) as part of the largest espionage takedown I can remember.

Dan Drezner over at Foreign Policy thinks the whole thing is “low-rent” and “bizarre” because the ring is charged only with being “unregistered agents of a foreign government.” Drezner’s opinion is just odd — by definition, the nature of espionage is difficult to detect and harder to prove. To put this in perspective, it’s a huge deal when one intelligence operative gets caught — think Aldrich Ames, Robert Hansen, or most recently, my former professor Kendall Myers. Now we have 10, who worked in a loosely coordinated manner. The fact that we know as much as we do is testament to some pretty solid counterintelligence work.

Perhaps Drezner is unimpressed because of the nature of the suspects’ work: The press has categorized them more as talent-spotters who would recruit Americans in influential positions to provide information, not the actual spies themselves who’d bring documents out of sensitive government buildings. But I think categorization is likely an underestimation of what they actually did. These individuals may have recruited talent, but they also would have probably played a role in transmitting information back to Moscow.

The group was likely composed of Russia’s best. Remember the first (and best) Mission:Impossible with the “NOC” list? NOC stands for Non-Official Cover, and that’s what we’re talking about here — deep cover spies whose true identities are hidden from all but a handful of people. When Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claims to have no idea what this is all about, that’s because he really doesn’t. Anonymity and deniability is by design.

Click over to Jeff Stein’s SpyTalk blog to get a flavor of how seamlessly the ring blended in with their American communities. I always find it hysterical that the neighbors are so shocked when spies in their midst are exposed — if the neighbors aren’t shocked that the normal-looking Canadian next door was leading a massive international Russian spy ring, then that would be news.

The investigation went on for nearly 10 years. Seem excessive? Why, after all, would we let these guys continue to spy on the U.S. if we knew what they were up to? Since this group served as talent spotters and intelligence mules, their operations had to be drawn out and subtle as they slowly became comfortable with, and then pitched, their recruits.

To firm up their cover, they’d spend months and months working their “real jobs” and only dip into the shadowy underworld on occasion and when they felt safe. Furthermore, the FBI needed to catch them absolutely red-handed, which is no easy task. Nothing like starting a potentially massive international scandal without iron-clad proof, huh? The FBI finally got what they needed on Sunday, with a fake dead drop of $5,000. And the decade-long investigation probably means that any intelligence damage has been limited. By keeping tabs on them for so long, we should know their extended network fairly well.

Should we be surprised that Russia is still spying on us? Hell no. We do it to them. And other countries, including our close allies, do it to us (albeit for varying motives). Everyone’s looking for an informational advantage, and that’s what spying can get you.

Finally, there’s been a lot made of the timing of this incident, right on the heels of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to DC. Accordingly, we should expect Russian retaliation just to save face — they’ll probably PNG a handful of low-level diplomats whom they suspect of doubling as spies.

This could become a major international incident akin to Britain’s deteriorating relations with Moscow after the 2006 murder in London of Alexander Litvinenko, likely by Russian intelligence agents. However, I doubt it will. The timing of the arrests was bad, but they send a message of subtle strength to the Kremlin — despite wanting good relations with Moscow, Washington won’t be pushed around.

Photo credit: worldeconomicforum

Why Do We Keep Passing All These Sanctions Anyway?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

A few weeks ago, the United Nations Security Council approved what have widely been hailed as the most wide-ranging and effective sanctions package against Iran ever. Today, word comes that the House and Senate have passed — by massive margins — a reconciled bill of unilateral American sanctions against Iran. The president will likely sign it.

As I’ve written before, it’s an open question how ultimately effective the UN sanctions will be, with massive loopholes for Chinese businesses (a necessary pre-condition for Chinese support in the UN Security Council, and ultimately the lesser of two evils) and a diplomatic split with Brazil and Turkey.

The current package on Obama’s desk looks to penalize companies that do business with Iran’s oil and gas sectors, as well as banks that deal with the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the group of thugs that’s the real power-broker in Tehran. Despite assurances from members of both parties that this bill forces companies into a with-us-or-against-us binary choice, it comes with significant risks: Will a rise in gas prices permit the Iranian regime to rally a divided population against a Western bully? How will the Green Movement, divided itself, react?

(If you want to see an alternate sanctions proposal, click here.)

These questions are particularly pressing amidst reports that Iran has been stockpiling fuel and reducing domestic consumption for six months.

But here’s where we need a lesson in why the international community goes to such lengths to negotiate and then impose sanctions in the first place. Political rhetoric that accompanies sanctions sets unrealistic expectations among Western audiences. Elected officials make it sound like each new round of sanctions will drive Iran to its knees or make them shudder in fear or some other impossible prediction.

The administration has to do a better job explaining why we impose sanctions. When news reports swirl about Iran skirting the sanctions by changing ships’ names, stockpiling fuel, and moving money around, it’s often portrayed in the press as a loss. But that’s actually proof that sanctions are working! The act of forcing Iran’s leadership to spend time and effort trying to evade sanctions is actually a success — it means that Iran’s actions have a cost associated with them.

There’s no guarantee, but the hope is that one day Iran’s rulers will wake up and say, “Gosh, I’m sick of trying to smuggle gas and move money around. It’s really starting to wear me down. It would be a lot easier if we could just do this above-board and have a real place in the international community.” Well, the only way to make that happen is to negotiate in good faith. If we drive Iran back to the negotiating table and force real concessions on their part, sanctions will have been a success.

Photo credit: United Nations Photo

Six Things to Watch with Petraeus in Afghanistan

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Now that Gen. McChrystal is about to add “(ret.)” after his name, let’s examine the implications of the transition to Gen. Petraeus.

The Washington Post story quotes an unnamed White House official saying of the transition: “It’s as seamless as it could be, not only in terms of operations but also because you put someone in who’s widely respected. No one is going to doubt that he’s the right guy for the job.”
A relatively smooth transition, to be sure, but with an emphasis on the relatively. Here’s a look at five areas where the change in command might create a bit of unease.

Political expectations: Petraeus is God, at least if you ask most elected officials on the Hill. Yes, he was the architect of the “surge” in Iraq, and the “surge” was part of the reason that violence decreased in that country. The massive increase in troops helped, but the strategy change, the Sons of Iraq’s change of allegiance and a six-month cease-fire called by Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr were all critical.

If you’re really interested in learning the entire story of how Iraq’s civil war was tamed, read The Gamble by Tom Ricks. In it, Ricks quotes a Petraeus colleague (and I’m paraphrasing from memory) as saying, “David is the best general in the United States military. But he’s not as good as he thinks he is.” It’s like Favre to the Vikings. He’s still really, really good. But he’ll never be as good as in Green Bay.

Keep this in mind because, as Ricks says on his blog this morning, “Afghanistan 2010 may be an even tougher nut than Iraq 2007. … Our biggest problem in Afghanistan is the government we are supporting there, and it isn’t clear to me what Petraeus can do about that.”

Mission: Counterinsurgency theory and practice is Petraeus’ bag, so don’t expect that to change. Bear in mind that COIN is a strategy, not an outcome. It ends with some sort of negotiated peace, and it’s unclear if Petraeus has the same threshold for potential discussions with the Taliban as McChrystal. There has been American resistance to the idea (as there should be) of reconciling with any of the Taliban’s upper eschelon, but would Petraeus draw the line slightly differently than McChrystal?

Relations with Eikenberry: It became clear that the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, was playing second fiddle to McChrystal, who had established a clear working relationship with Karzai. During Petraeus’ time in Iraq, he may have held more sway than then-Ambassador Ryan Crocker, but they were an inseparable team that appeared together constantly. Petraeus, who is as much of a diplomat as a solider, will work to forge a better relationship with Eikenberry and turn this operation into a true civilian-military effort.

Relations with Karzai: Karzai very publicly lobbied for McChrystal to stay, and by many accounts, the two were on the same page (at least professionally). Is it possible that they were too close? Will Petraeus do a better job using America’s isolated points of leverage to extract more from the Afghan government?

Relations with Pakistan: This quote says it all:

McChrystal also played a key role in improving Kabul’s rocky relationship with Islamabad.

Yet Petraeus probably has as much, if not more, clout in Islamabad. He was an early proponent of a regional strategy that prioritized improving relations with Pakistan in hopes of persuading it to target the Afghan Taliban fighters who use Pakistani hideouts to plot attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Petraeus has visited Pakistan numerous times, delivering assurances that the U.S. troop buildup in Afghanistan would not spill over into Pakistan, visiting Pakistani paramilitary forces in the northwestern city of Peshawar and regularly praising Pakistan’s fight against its domestic Taliban.

“There’s a complete understanding of each other’s situation,” a senior Pakistani military official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “He’s not a stranger.”

Troops on the ground: There’s been no shortage of troops in Afghanistan who voiced their displeasure with McChrystal’s restrictions on the use of force. Think of it this way: you’re an 18-year-old Marine, –and you’ve become a trained killer and sent to a war zone. But your commanding general seems like he’s telling you not to do the job you’ve been trained for. Many of the troops’ quotes imply a certain amount of lost respect for McChrystal. Petraeus will have to work to explain the mission and win them over to a “mission first” mentality. Training stateside should also be adjusted accordingly.

Petraeus is the consummate pro, and he’ll no doubt do his best in an incredibly challenging environment with far-from-certain results. My take is that this transition will be as smooth as one could hope.

Photo credit: Jon-Phillip Sheridan’s Photostream

What No One Is Paying Attention to in the “Rolling Stone” Article

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The now-infamous Rolling Stone article that earned Gen. Stanley McChrystal a one-way trip out of Afghanistan has attracted attention for what it says about the White House.

And in a way, that’s a good thing.

Because once you get past the name-calling scandal, the article is really a takedown of counterinsurgency strategy and, by extension, a subtle get-out-of-Afghanistan-now message. In an attempt to categorize the debate about whether to adopt a counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, here’s Hasting’s characterization:

COIN, as the theory is known, is the new gospel of the Pentagon brass, a doctrine that attempts to square the military’s preference for high-tech violence with the demands of fighting protracted wars in failed states. COIN calls for sending huge numbers of ground troops to not only destroy the enemy, but to live among the civilian population and slowly rebuild, or build from scratch, another nation’s government – a process that even its staunchest advocates admit requires years, if not decades, to achieve. The theory essentially rebrands the military, expanding its authority (and its funding) to encompass the diplomatic and political sides of warfare: Think the Green Berets as an armed Peace Corps.

[…]

The entire COIN strategy is a fraud perpetuated on the American people,” says Douglas Macgregor, a retired colonel and leading critic of counterinsurgency who attended West Point with McChrystal. “The idea that we are going to spend a trillion dollars to reshape the culture of the Islamic world is utter nonsense.

Or this:

After several hours of haggling, McChrystal finally enlisted the aid of Afghanistan’s defense minister, who persuaded Karzai’s people to wake the president from his nap. This is one of the central flaws with McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy: The need to build a credible government puts us at the mercy of whatever tin-pot leader we’ve backed – a danger that Eikenberry explicitly warned about in his cable.

To sum up, you have a questionable description of COIN, followed by a single opinion from someone whose stated qualifications are that he went to college with McChrystal (who knows if Macgregor has any COIN expertise) deriding the entire concept.

It’s one thing to report on who McChrystal is, what he’s said, where he comes from, and the difficulty of mission he’s trying to accomplish. But it’s quite another to falsely characterize his mission as a Sisyphean task from the get-go. Clearly, the president, having consulted and deliberated for three months, believes that there’s significant reason to hope counterinsurgency can bring about hard-fought American security.

For a better discussion of COIN, I’d encourage you to read papers like this, by David Kilcullen, author of the Accidental Guerilla and an actual COIN expert. In the paper linked above, Kilcullen properly characterizes COIN as difficult and far from a guaranteed success, but forwards a thoughtful framework for how COIN practitioners might organize their efforts to bring about the best chances of sustainable security.

…you may now return to your regularly scheduled name-calling.

Photo credit: The US Army’s Photostream

That McChrystal Article

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Washington is abuzz this morning with news of an as-yet-unpublished Rolling Stone profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal. You can read the nastier bits here and here, but let’s just say that we learn that the general and his entourage have some not terribly complementary things to say about Obama, Biden, National Security Advisor Jim Jones, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry and U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke.

Though the full article isn’t out, leaks of the article make the attacks seem more personal rather than professional in nature, though I guess it’s likely that personal animosity is probably an extension of professional differences. And for those scoring at home, some of the attacks aren’t even that clever. No, I don’t think “Biden” sounds anywhere close to “Bite Me.”

The moral of this story is simple: Never, ever let your staff get trapped on a 12-hour bus ride between Paris and Berlin during a volcanic ash eruption with an all-access reporter. Duh. Michael Hastings, the freelance journalist who penned the piece, went on Morning Joe today and dropped that a lot of his material came from a European trip with McChrystal and co. that was extended and forced onto a bus thanks to Eyjafjallajokull (or as the military calls it, “E-15”). In such confined spaces and after such a stressful travel experience, people tend to get punchy and let things slip.

You’d expect that after such a flabbergasting news bomb, McChrystal’s staff would offer a “clarification” or denial or retraction or… something. But instead, there was an apology sent from McChrystal to reporters:

I extend my sincerest apology for this profile. It was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened. Throughout my career, I have lived by the principles of personal honor and professional integrity. What is reflected in this article falls far short of that standard. I have enormous respect and admiration for President Obama and his national security team, and for the civilian leaders and troops fighting this war and I remain committed to ensuring its successful outcome.

In other words: it’s all true.

McCrystal and his staff’s comments are certainly beyond the pale, and the profile continues to confirm erstwhile speculation that there are significant fissures within the U.S. team in Afghanistan. First, there was McChrystal’s interview with “60 Minutes” last September, where he dished on the Pentagon’s slow-response and his lack of contact with Obama. Then there was Ambassador Eikenberry’s leak of a strategy memo that resisted McChrystal’s call to increase troop levels. That’s on top of an eyebrow-raising speech in London that got him hauled onto Air Force One for a chat with the president. And now this.

Some are howling that this amounts to insubordination and that McChrystal should be fired. That may be true, and McChrystal is being reeled into D.C. tomorrow to explain himself. At the very least, it’s amazingly dumb public relations. You don’t get to be a flag officer in the U.S. military without being accustomed to the chain of command. And McChrystal and any loose-lipped staff should know that you keep your disagreements private and then execute the orders of the commander in chief. But who knows, maybe that’s not the way McChrystal, an ex-commander of the insular and secretive Special Ops, was used to conducting himself.

So what now? There is, of course, a very good possibility that this will be the end of the road. But that decision isn’t as easy as you might think. For one, Obama is not a knee-jerk politician who reacts instantly to every negative media report. He’s careful, deliberate and won’t be pressured.

Furthermore, this is an issue of national security, not petty politics. The president has to make decisions in the long-term interest of American safety and in consideration of the country’s sons and daughters in harm’s way. So, absent a ridiculous inability to keep things out of the press, changing an otherwise strategically competent theater commander in the midst of a major counterinsurgency campaign may not be the best thing to do at the moment. Obama has to thread the needle between team chemistry in Afghanistan and a PR nightmare to give both Afghanistan and the U.S. the best chances for long-term security.

And it’s with that in mind that any decision to replace McChrystal will be made.

Photo Credit: isafmedia

A Talking Head Dishes on Fox’s Fair and Balanced Farce

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Jim Arkedis on Fox NewsEvery so often, I’ll get a call from someone over at Fox News to appear as a talking head.

Now, before you scream out a collective “EEEEWWW! GROSS!” let me explain. I work at a smallish think tank, and as the old saying goes, any publicity is good publicity. My connection to Fox was established through a good friend (and conscientious journalist) who works on Fox News Sunday. He introduced me to a handful of other bookers, all of whom have been very courteous, friendly and genuinely appreciative of my contributions.

This started just over a year ago, and I’d estimate that Fox offers me a slot as a talking head on national security issues (oh, and on pirates. Fox LOVES pirate stories) perhaps once every two weeks. Due to scheduling conflicts and the last-minute nature of many of the requests (it’s not unusual to get a 9:00 a.m. call for a 10:30 a.m. appearance), I can do only perhaps half of them. (Click here to see a clip of me talking with none other than Geraldo Rivera [best line from Geraldo, “I agree with Jim”], or here to see me drop some knowledge on an “expert” from the Heritage Foundation [whom several of my friends suggested I ask out. I demurred].)

In the beginning, I was just really happy to get on TV. Call it narcissistic, call it what you will, but I was generally under the impression that I was providing Fox’s viewers with an alternate viewpoint. I understood that “Fair and Balanced” was a joke, but I always believed that I might be able to connect with a small percentage of the ardently conservative audience and give them some honest food for thought. When the White House froze out Fox a few months ago, I thought it was a bad move to all but give up on reaching a large percentage of the news-viewing public. (The White House has since backed down from that stance.) It’s from that perspective that I’ve been engaging Fox. But over the last few times I’ve gone on, I’ve come to realize that in some circumstances, it’s a futile effort.

Just yesterday, I received a request to discuss this op-ed from Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT). In the article, Lieberman dings the Obama administration’s recently released National Security Strategy because it uses the term “violent extremism” to define one of America’s enemies, rather than “violent Islamic extremism.” Lieberman took the omission of one word and turned it into an entire opinion piece.

Here’s where we run into problems. I am happy to go on Fox and discuss the big issues of the day when we’re starting from a neutral position. If the topic is “Let’s discuss Obama’s national security strategy,” that’s fine. But this time, the point of departure was, “Joe Lieberman, who’s a credible voice on national security to Fox’s viewership, says Obama’s national security strategy sucks. Jim, it’s your job to explain why it doesn’t suck.”

That’s a fairly clear illustration of Fox’s m.o. Instead of having an honest debate, Fox chooses an angle on a story (i.e., Lieberman’s critique of the National Security Strategy) that establishes a frame for the discussion. Those frames, more often than not, will have the progressive on the defensive from the start. But by having a progressive on TV, Fox can claim to be “fair and balanced.”

When I objected on these grounds, my Fox booker, whom I like a lot, reiterated that going on TV still provided me the opportunity to get my viewpoint out there. I replied that the interview was framed in such a way that did not allow their audience to be persuaded – and yet my appearance would validate their claim to be fair and balanced. I closed by saying,  “[I]f there are big issues framed from a neutral point of view, I love to talk about them. I just don’t want to be the punching bag on pre-determined outcome.”

So how did the slot I refused to go on turn out? Click here and see for yourself — they only had one guest, from the center-right Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

Consider that my little contribution to unfair and unbalanced.

Head Scarves, Minarets and the Arizona Immigration Law

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

I’ve been following the story of a Muslim French woman who was given a ticket in April for driving while wearing her hijab, or veil.  She was issued the ticket for driving with obscured vision. Yesterday, it jumped into mainstream American media over at the Washington Post. The story is the high water mark in a public debate on Islam in France that’s been brewing for over a decade.The incident underscores France’s uneasy relationship with its sizable Muslim minority. Depending on your source, 10 to 12 percent of French citizens are of Arab or Muslim extraction, or nearly six million total (it’s difficult to verify these numbers because the French census, rigidly adhering to the country’s secularism, does not permit racial or religious background information from being collected).

French Muslims’ growing prominence has become particularly notable in the south, for obvious geographic reasons. Jean Marie Le Pen’s racist and xenophobic National Front consistently draws its base of support in this region (it’s no coincidence that Le Pen calls Marseille home). If you’re not terribly familiar with French politics, don’t write them off — they’ve been around a lot longer and are much better organized than America’s far-right Tea Party. In the regional elections this March, the party took home 12 percent of the total vote and over 20 percent in Le Pen’s home base.

The National Front creates problems for center-right French President Nicolas Sarkozy, son of Hungarian parents and a first-generation citizen himself. Essentially, Sarko wants to channel France’s xenophobia through a different mechanism — his. Sarko’s ruling UMP party in January offered a draft law to ban the veil and partial ban on burka (the entire Islamic dress for women), which he champions as defending France’s secularism and women’s rights. Sure, that’s plausible, but the debate is really a sop to racists.

What’s difficult about the issue is that I actually think there is a public safety concern. I can see how wearing a veil while driving might reduce your vision in ways a helmet would not — the hijab is loose cloth and could cover one eye while turning your head. A concerted effort should be made to balance religious freedom and public safety, while being mindful that bans on clothing are distinctly ill-liberal.  Even conservatives should have a problem with the government telling you want to wear.

France is unfortunately not alone — Belgium passed a similar law (25 percent of Brussels follows Islam, five percent countrywide), and Switzerland (five percent) voted last year to ban construction of minarets on mosques. It would seem, therefore, that Europe is developing something of a trend in largely symbolic anti-Islamic legislation.

But what do head scarves and minarets have to do with the recently signed “immigration law” in Arizona? Just substitute “Hispanic” for “Muslim” and “U.S.” for “Europe” and you’d get the picture. With 15 percent of the country now claiming Hispanic origin, the Arizona law is the same type of symbolic legislative effort that channels voters’ racism. The thing is, some 60 percent of Americans support it nationally.

So where do we go from here? If progressives scream “racism” at the top of their lungs, the legislation’s supporters will concoct non-racial justifications. The best answer, in the U.S. at least, is to pass comprehensive immigration reform before we tread too far down Europe’s path.

Photo credit: DVIDSHUB’s Photostream

A Look at the New U.N. Sanctions on Iran

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The new United Nations Security Council has adopted a new round of sanctions against Iran. And they have some bite. But how and if they’ll truly be effective remains an open question.

Let’s start with the nuts and bolts. The sanctions compel Iran to comply with international inspections and to cease uranium enrichment. Failure to do so gets them this:

  • A strengthened arms embargo, prohibiting nations from exporting to Iran battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, large-caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, and missiles or missile systems.
  • The resolution imposes financial and travel sanctions on specific Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) individuals and companies involved in Iran’s nuclear and missile program.
  • Nations are authorized to inspect suspicious Iranian air and sea cargo for illicit items, interdict shipments in port and on the high seas, and confiscate any banned items found.
  • The Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) is sanctioned for its role in transferring nuclear and missile program components. IRISL vessels have also been repeatedly caught exporting weapons to Hamas and Hezbollah.

But it’s never that straightforward. Let’s take a look at what’s going on underneath the surface.

The Security Council resolution was adopted by a 12-2 vote, with an abstention from Lebanon, whose divided government includes members of Iranian-backed Hezbollah. The two “no” votes came from Turkey and Brazil, countries that had negotiated a uranium-exporting deal with Iran. Unfortunately, as you can read here, that deal fell woefully short of what the U.S. and rest of the international community needed to feel comfortable.

Frankly, the Obama administration mishandled Turkey and Brazil’s attempts to mediate. The White House should have cautioned the intermediaries not to go public until the deal was acceptable to the U.S. and Europe (you know, the countries Turkey is in NATO with…). American and European rejection of the deal has caused gnashing of teeth in Ankara and Brasilia (not to mention two “no” votes on the final resolution), splitting the global effort to rein in Iran.

Iran, as you might expect, remains defiant. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad continues on his rhetorical hot streak, calling the sanctions “annoying flies.” And to a certain extent, he’s right. As Thomas Erdbrink and Colum Lynch’s excellent article in yesterday’s Washington Post details, Iran does a pretty darn good job getting around them. And then there’s the possibility that Iran could use the sanctions as a domestic political tool to rally Iranians against the “American oppressors.”

But perhaps atop the list of concerns sits Beijing. Sure, China voted for the sanctions, but at what price? Check out this post to see what sort of sweetheart loopholes China secured for its energy companies in exchange for its support. Phew. It’s a lot. A confusing mess of a lot. On the one hand, it seems like the international community has passed a resolution with some teeth, but could sanctions end up being ineffective or, worse, counterproductive?

In the end, sanctions’ benefits are often indirect, subtle and not guaranteed. To get a sense of why sanctions are passed, bear in mind the Obama administration’s real goal: It’s not to inflict direct economic hardship, but rather, to raise the burden Iran must bear to obtain a nuclear weapon.

Sanctions can help the international community do so in two clear ways:

  1. Diplomatic isolation. Of course, Iran has been fairly isolated for years and years now, but it doesn’t hurt to reinforce that sense of isolation from the international community on a regular basis. That’s why, incidentally, the Turkey/Brazil split and recruitment of China and Russia all matter. Getting the world on the same page against Iran sends a message of strength.
  2. When sanctions force Tehran to rearrange shipping contracts, sell vessels to front companies, move money, set up laundering and smuggling operations, stay at home from travel, etc., etc., those are all “costs.” To maintain a something close to the status quo, Iran has to invest time, money and political capital (both at home and internationally) to work around them.

The idea is that one day, Iran will wake up and say, “Huh. We’re alone in the world and working like hell to beat these things. Maybe we should sit down and talk this whole situation through.”

That day may never come, but it’s the best alternative the international community has.

Photo credit: wallyg

A Progressive Lesson from Reagan (Seriously)

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Peter Beinart has a must-read in the latest Foreign Policy on the mythology of Ronald Reagan — and the conservative movement that keeps perpetuating it.

As someone whose first job in D.C. was interning at a lobby firm that had — no kidding — a framed portrait of St. Ron in every office, I relish lines that tether President Reagan back to his terrestrial home, such as:

During his presidency, Reagan repeatedly invoked the prospect of an alien invasion as a reason for the United States and the Soviet Union to overcome their differences. Whenever he did, [National Security Adviser Colin] Powell would mutter, “Here come the little green men.”

That’s some delicious red meat right there.

But if we focus there — and Reagan haters are apt to do just that — we miss the real lesson. Beinart might douse ice water on the conservative narrative of Reagan, but he makes a strong case for the lesson that Obama can and should learn from The Great Communicator:

Reagan’s political genius lay in recognizing that what Americans wanted was a president who exorcised the ghost of the Vietnam War without fighting another Vietnam.

Americans loved Reagan’s foreign policy for the same reason they loved the 1985 blockbuster Rambo, in which the muscle-bound hero returns to Vietnam, kicks some communist butt, and no Americans die. Reagan’s liberal critics often accused him of reviving the chest-thumping spirit that had led to Vietnam. But they were wrong. For Reagan, chest-thumping was in large measure a substitute for a new Vietnam, a way of accommodating the restraints on U.S. power while still boosting American morale.

[…]

Obama can, and should, be Reaganesque in his effort to project great strength at low risk. That means understanding that America’s foreign-policy debates are often cultural debates in disguise.

Reagan was a master of symbolic acts — like awarding the Medal of Honor to overlooked Vietnam hero Roy Benavidez — that made Americans feel as though they were exorcising Vietnam’s ghost without refighting the war. Obama must be equally shrewd at a time when he has no choice but to retreat from Iraq and eventually Afghanistan. That means more than ritual incantations about flag and country; it means rhetorically challenging those who unfairly attack the United States. From a purely foreign-policy perspective, publicly confronting Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez when they malign the United States, or calling out universities that ban military recruiters from campus, might seem useless. But for U.S. presidents, there is no pure foreign-policy perspective; being effective in the world requires domestic support. [emphases added]

If Democrats are going to close the ever-elusive national security gap and strongly defend what I’ve called a sterling record on national security, they’re going to have to swallow some pride and steal one from the Gipper.

Photo credit: Fresh Conservative’s Photostream

Israel Must Learn to Eat Soup with a Knife

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

I love Israel. From the golden light that falls across the stones of Jerusalem to the banh mi sandwiches made by Vietnamese refugees welcomed by an empathetic Prime Minister Begin, Israel has a beauty and history I hold dear. Keeping this state, and this liberal tradition, safe is why it is so important that Israel understand the depth – and the cause – of its failure last week.

Israel’s leaders lack a fundamental understanding of the threats of the 21st century, or the type of power it takes to quell them. And by misunderstanding, they are endangering their country’s very existence.

Power matters – particularly for a small state like Israel, with an array of real enemies. For many years, Israel has used two primary levers of power. Its immense military might gives it the power to physically destroy its enemies, from bombing Iraq’s nuclear reactor to routing the armies of attacking Arab states. Meanwhile, its friendship with the U.S. augments its armed prowess with the power of an alliance that provides crucial financial support and contains potential threats from countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

But in the 21st century, military power isn’t what it once was. Israel is rarely going to face “clean fights” against armies of clearly identified enemies marching across the desert. Instead, it is going to confront the messy realities of modern, non-state-based warfare. The Turkish organization that sponsored last week’s flotilla had ties to al-Qaeda. A number of individuals aboard were connected to Hamas and other violent organizations. But the boat was also full of peace activists, international diplomats and other well-intentioned individuals who served as (perhaps unwitting) human shields for these more nefarious groups. The smorgasbord of causes on that flotilla was not accidental: it is de rigueur among smart insurgent groups worldwide.

Insurgents know what Israel, apparently, does not. Using military means against unarmed opponents is not only wrong, it also strengthens the insurgents’ cause, inflames their supporters, motivates donors and garners great press.

A flotilla of cell-phone-carrying, Twitter- and Facebook-posting activists can ignite the 24-hour news cycle and get their version of events in front of world public opinion long before any country can muster its sclerotic bureaucratic organs. By the time the state responds, the narrative has already been set. Israel becomes the British fighting Gandhi, or the National Guard turning their hoses on Southern civil rights protesters. We know who won those battles.

Fine, many might snort. Israel may lose the weak-kneed support of the so-called “international community” but it is more important to stop real threats decisively. After all, Israel has had to put up with some international hand-wringing for its military actions in the past. But by bombing Iraq’s Osirik reactor, Syria’s blossoming nuclear reactor or the grounded Egyptian Air Force in 1967, it averted real threats that otherwise could have knocked it out of existence.

Force is still a useful, necessary deterrent against military threats from other countries. Threats from terrorist organizations like Hamas, Hezbollah and others that mix humanitarianism and populist appeals with violence are no less real, but as Israel learned in its ill-conceived 2006 war in Lebanon, force doesn’t work as well against them. As America’s own counterinsurgency manual states, insurgents met with force alone simply melt back into the population, their ranks augmented by new converts and their bank accounts brimming with funds from new supporters. The insurgents then live to fight long wars of attrition that sap their enemies physically, mentally and spiritually.

It is that last category that Israel must pay particular attention to, because it risks losing its other lever of power. As Peter Beinart pointed out in a much-quoted story in the New York Review of Books, young American Jews identify with Israel insofar as it lives up to its founding values. They want to support the state that took in the Vietnamese boat people, not the state that mines Palestinian olive groves. Fighting insurgent wars largely through force necessarily leads Israel to violate the spirit of its own humanitarian founding – and to alienate the supporters in America it needs for its survival.

Victory against insurgents requires a new perspective and new tools. As T.E. Lawrence explained, one must “learn to eat soup with a knife.” George W. Bush didn’t understand counterinsurgency, and his failure allowed the insurgent threat in Iraq and Afghanistan to grow and metastasize. Now, Israel’s leaders must master the signature threat of the 21st century. Its hammer worked well against the state-based threats it faced during the first 50 years of its existence. But Israel had better find other options in its toolkit if it is to quell the threats it faces today.

Photo credit: Lilachd’s Photostream

Cutting the Tether Webcast

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Cutting the Tether: Enhancing the U.S. Military’s Energy Performance

Event Webcast – May 13, 2010

Watch live streaming video from progressivepolicyinstitute at livestream.com

Featured Speakers:

Sen. John Warner (R-VA), Ret.
Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA)

Panelists:

Vice Admiral Dennis McGinn, Ret., CEO, RemoteReality
Colonoel Paul E. Roege, Army Capabilities Integration Center
Richard Goffi, Principal, Booz Allen Hamilton
Chris Myers, Vice President of Government and Energy Programs, Lockheed Martin

Moderator:

James Morin, Esq., author, “Cutting the Tether”