After Guantanamo

In Guantanamo Bay, there are now roughly half of the 700something detainees that once served time in the facility. Most have been released, with many of those that remain being termed the ‘worst of the worst’ – hardened terrorists who would allegedly, if let go, help to organize or participate in acts of terrorism. The central debate now raging in policy circles is what is to be done with the remaining few.

Needless to say, the Bush administration has pushed for an approach that relies on the existing military commissions. But such a strategy has numerous problems. Evidence obtained by coercion is considered permissible, and questionable hearsay rules mean that suspects can be tried, and executed, on extremely shaky grounds. Internationally, military commissions are widely viewed as “kangaroo courts” and have led to increased outrage at the United States, even spurring on the recruitment efforts of terrorist groups. Moreover, by trying detainees through a system of military commissions, rather than treating them as criminals under the American criminal justice system, the Bush administration has inadvertantly made martyrs out of the terrorist suspects. As Khalid Sheikh Mohammed indicated (in broken English) before the Combatant Status Review Tribunal, the label of “enemy combatant” is coveted because it can equate a terrorist’s inhumanity with a warrior’s dignity: “We consider we and George Washington doing the same thing…So when we say we are enemy combatant, that right. We are.”

The alternative to military commissions – and an answer to the question of how to best handle the remaining detainees – is eloquently outlined by Kenneth Roth, the director of Human Rights Watch, in an article for Foreign Affairs this month. His argument is a strong one, and should be required reading for policymakers. In just eight pages, Roth makes the case that the US court system can and should handle the cases of terrorism suspects. This would not be without precedent; most recently, the cases of Jose Padilla, Zacarias Moussaoui, and Richard Reed (the “shoe bomber) have all been conducted under regular criminal proceedings.

The Bush administration has based its opposition to such an approach on several grounds. First, administration officials claim that criminal cases generally deal with crimes that have already been committed – not those, as is frequent with terrorist defendants, that have not yet happened. But there is, according to Roth, a way around this. Under US law, the crime of “conspiracy” can apply to both prior and upcoming crimes and has thus far proven “sufficient to address today’s terrorist threat.” Second, concerns are often raised about the many rules and regulations that govern criminal justice. Should American soldiers actually have to read out the Miranda rights in the midst of a battle? Not exactly. According to Roth, the criminal justice system has found a workable middle ground. “Only criminal investigators or their surrogates, not soldiers in combat, are required to give a Miranda warning, and the courts have allowed a ‘public safety’ exception, when questioning is urgently needed to secure timely intelligence.”

Additionally, it has often been said that intelligence secrets could be revealed under a regular criminal court system. But Roth argues that this challenge

is not insurmountable. It often arises when sensitive investigations involving national security, drug trafficking, or organized crime lead to prosecution. In such circumstances, defense lawyers typically try to force the government to either reveal sensitive secrets or drop the case. To address these situations, Congress enacted the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) in 1980. The law empowers federal judges to review defense counsel’s requests for classified information with the aim of sanitizing that information as much as possible or restricting its disclosure to only those defense lawyers with security clearance. The purpose of the act is to protect a defendant’s right to confront all the evidence against him or her while safeguarding legitimate intelligence secrets…Judges who have tried cases under CIPA speak of it as a reasonable compromise between fairness and security. CIPA rules have not forced the government to abandon even one of the dozens of international terrorism cases it has prosecuted since 9/11.

When considering how to deal with the remaining Guantanamo detainees, Kenneth Roth draws the right conclusions. America's criminal courts have dealt with terrorist cases effectively before and, as the old saying goes, "If it ain't broken, don't fix it." It may well be better to work through our existing criminal justice system (while making any necessary tweaks to ensure its feasability), than to continue to rely on the legally-controversial and morally-dubious system of military commissions.

The Long, Unfortunate Shadow of Munich

The New York Times reports today that President Bush issued a "veiled attack" on Senator Obama during his address to the Israeli Knesset. From the article:

“Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” Mr. Bush said. “We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

First off, that's not much of a veil. That's a pretty direct attack on Obama's foreign policy proposals, and his campaign responded quickly and angrily, calling the President's remarks an "extraordinary politicization of foreign policy." I've repeatedly avoided getting into the tit-for-tat of the American election, so I won't belabor the specifics. Suffice to say that my view of the situation is closer to that of Mr. Obama than to that of Mr. Bush. The President's address, though, brings up a larger issue that has nagged me for some time, to which I would like to take an opportunity to speak.

I would like to respectfully request that statesmen, political scientists, pundits and analysts the world over stop making historical analogies to the Munich conference, and to the supposed universal folly of "appeasement." Any benefits of Munich as an instructive historical precedent are now far outweighed by the analogy's power as an intellectually lazy rhetorical cudgel that is too often used to bludgeon any diplomatic initiatives that are, well, diplomatic. Not every autocratic country is Nazi Germany. Not every foreign dictator we don't like is Hitler. Not every threatening situation is most appropriately handled by eschewing diplomacy in favor of a "firm stance."

Please understand, I am not suggesting that thinkers and decision-makers stop allowing history to inform their judgement. Such a course would be asinie in the extreme. I would submit, though, that an oversimplified and overgeneralized reading of the events that immediately preceded the Second World War has haunted Western political elites for more than half a century. Aversion to "appeasement" among the post-war generation played a role in escalating the Cold War beyond any sane level, it played a role in America's tragic inability to rationally assess the situation in Vietnam, and in a more contemporary context, it played a central role in the thinking that led to the Iraq war, and is now informing those who would advocate the same in Iran. The "lessons of Munich" - that dictators must always be strongly opposed, that firey rhetoric must always be taken at face value, that diplomatic give-and-take is a fatal sign of weakness, that we must always be ready to fight to defend our perceived interests - obscure the reality of an international problem far more frequently than they illuminate it. Invoking such "lessons" unfairly paints those with different views as modern-day Chamberlains, unable to perceive the intractible perfidity of a determined enemy, and thus frames the debate in narrow and destructive terms wherein the only appropriate response to a problem is sanction and force, and all who think otherwise are weak, or cowardly, or both.

To bring things back to specifics, Iran is not Nazi Germany. Though the Iranian regime is anti-democratic, and espouses values that are indeed antithetical to those of the liberal West, the notion that Iranian armies and proxies are poised to make a genocidal sweep across the Middle East is absurd. Even the Iranian nuclear threat, though serious, shows every sign of being able to be contained with an intelligent deterrence policy (should things come to that). Iran does not have a particularly impressive industrial base. Its infrastructure is mediocre, its economy is sclerotic (propped up only by high oil prices), and its regime is unpopular. Even the outrageous statements about Israel made by President Ahmadinejad should be taken with a grain of salt, remembering that the Iranian President is not the head of state, and that he is acutally at odds with much of Iran's clerical leaders.

Obama's willingness to talk with the Iranian leadership is not a sign of weakness or delusion. It is a sign that he understands that there are things we want from Iran (cooperation in Iraq, nuclear disarmament, reduced political and material support for Hamas and Hezbollah) and things Iran wants from us (a security guarantee, diplomatic relations, a lifting of sanctions, membership in the WTO), and that a deal might be possible that is more amenable to American interests than the current situation. Clear-headed strategic thinking is sorely needed among American leaders today. It is time to stop letting ideological blinders, reinforced by poor analysis and bad history, get in the way.

News From the Front: May 15th

A biweekly feature of news and opinion pieces from the Israeli and Palestinian press.

1.) Israel is planning on building a new housing complex and a synagogue in East Jerusalem. As was reported yesterday, "the area slated for the new project is located 200 meters from the Old City walls, in an area considered one of the most sensitive in the present negotiations with the Palestinians over the final-status agreement." An editorial in Haaretz today expresses unease with the plan: "The creeping annexation of parts of the Arab neighborhoods will turn a political conflict into a religious struggle, which will prevent any diplomatic solution. It will also arouse the entire Arab and Muslim world against Israel."

2.) A new poll has confirmed that President Mahmoud Abbas is suffering politically because of his inability to achieve concessions from Israel. In a head-to-head presidential race with Hamas's Ismail Haniyeh, Abbas would lose by a margin of 34%-32%. In prior surveys, Abbas has edged Haniyeh by substantial margins. Salam Fayyad, Fatah's prime minister, has also seen his popular support decline. The poll notes that his popularity rating is at 20%, down from 31% in January. Nader Said, who directed the study, suggests that the results indicate that "Palestinians will always come back to the core issues. Not to make progress on these issues will harm the stakeholders trying to achieve a solution."

3.) Shas, a crucial party in Olmert's governing coalition, has announced that building beyond the Green Line will continue apace. According to The Jerusalem Post: "During an interview on Israel Radio, [Shas Chairman Eli] Yishai said Construction and Housing Minister Ze'ev Boim would announce several new building projects, including continued building in the haredi town of Betar Illit, located in the southwestern hills of Jerusalem with a population of about 36,000." Not surprisingly, the response from the Palestinian side was one of frustration. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that "it's Israeli settlements or peace. They can't have both."

4.) Writing in The Los Angeles Times, Saree Makdisi suggests that a two-state solution is no longer viable; only a secular, democratic, bi-national state can end the conflict and achieve peace in the region.

After years of pursuing a two-state solution, and feeling perhaps that the conflict had nearly been solved, it's hard to give up the idea as unworkable. But unworkable it is. A report published last summer by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs found that almost 40% of the West Bank is now taken up by Israeli infrastructure -- roads, settlements, military bases and so on -- largely off-limits to Palestinians. Israel has methodically broken the remainder of the territory into dozens of enclaves separated from each other and the outside world by zones that it alone controls (including, at last count, 612 checkpoints and roadblocks).

Moreover, according to the report, the Jewish settler population in the occupied territories, already approaching half a million, not only continues to grow but is growing at a rate three times greater than the rate of Israel's population increase. If the current rate continues, the settler population will double to almost 1 million people in just 12 years. Many are heavily armed and ideologically driven, unlikely to walk away voluntarily from the land they have declared to be their God-given home. These facts alone render the status of the peace process academic.

...To resolve the conflict with the Palestinians, Israeli Jews will have to relinquish their exclusive privileges and acknowledge the right of return of Palestinians expelled from their homes. What they would get in return is the ability to live securely and to prosper with -- rather than continuing to battle against -- the Palestinians. They may not have a choice. As Olmert himself warned recently, more Palestinians are shifting their struggle from one for an independent state to a South African-style struggle that demands equal rights for all citizens, irrespective of religion, in a single state.

5.) On the eve of Bush's visit to Israel this week, Prime Minister Olmert said that there has been "significant progress" in discussions with the Palestinian negotiators. Palestinian officials have flatly rejected that claim: "I don't know what kind of progress he's talking about," responded negotiator Saeb Erekat.

Our Newest War

Congrats, Tom, you've found us another Soviet Union.

Military Procurement

Today, we find a member of the Bush Administration who is, at least at first blush, making some pretty good sense. The New York Times reports that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates

...issued a clear warning to the military and its industrial partners on Tuesday that expensive, new conventional weapons must prove their value to current conflicts, marked by insurgency and terrorism, if they hope for a place in future budgets.

You probably can't hear it, but that's the hallelujah chorus singing in the background. The article goes on to say that Gates's pronouncements

...are certain to alarm advocates of the newest generations of high-tech and high-cost weapons programs, in particular the Army’s Future Combat Systems and the Air Force’s F-22 advanced warplane. Both have come under the scrutiny of Pentagon budget officers questioning whether either would be required for missions similar to the current operations in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Alarmed, and rightfully so. If I were C.E.O. of a high-end defense contractor (or a congressman with one in my district), I'd certainly be making a few phone calls right now. Still, this is a welcome injection of sanity into the perennial debate over the United States' bloated defense budget.

Actually, to be honest, I'm a little bit conflicted about all of this. On the one hand, given the gargantuan government budget deficits that are driving down the American dollar and generally contributing to the erosion of America's global economic good standing, I'm glad to hear that the defense department is beginning to reorient its priorities away from half-trillion dollar boondoggles whose value has yet to be proven in the real world. On the other hand, while Iraq and Afghanistan will almost certainly remain the central focus of the American military over the next three to five years, I'd actually be in favor of reorienting American defense policy (and, concurrently, its global posture) away from such conflicts in the medium-to-long term. Invading countries, conducting large-scale occupation and counterinsurgency operations, and generally continuing to act like we've acted over the last decade is not in the best interest of the United States. Such heavy handed tactics are reminiscent of the nineteenth century, are seldom worth their material and political cost, and given the increasing multipolarity of the international system, will likely be strategically un-feasible before too long anyhow.

I would generally be in favor of tailoring American military capabilities to operate best at the very highest and very lowest levels of power projection (and please understand that I am speaking as a layman, not as a soldier or highly-trained strategic analyst). In other words, I would be in favor of increasing the role of special forces, intelligence, and other flexible mechanisms to quickly and effectively strike at small terrorist groups that operate in numerous corners of the globe (without the burden of changing regimes and building countries from the ground up), as well as maintaining America's technological advantage to ensure our ability to fight major conventional conflicts on the sea and in the air. Large scale, long-term ground operations like we now see in Iraq and Afghanistan should be avoided.

In some senses, this vision would mean that high-end aircraft, new ships, and other expensive military hardware would remain important. I refer back, though, to my earlier praise of Richard Betts's Foreign Affairs piece on American defense expenditures, in which it is argued that we ought to continue aggressively funding research and development of cutting edge defense technologies, without taking on the burden of broadly equipping our military with such hardware until such time as the international situation truly demands it (disconcerting as China's recent military expansion is, we're a long ways away from a showdown with Beijing). As such, we don't need to order hundreds of the latest F-22 fighters. We do want to start designing the plane to replace them.

I suppose I should also mention, cliche though it is at this point, that the pushback from Congress against cuts in many current defense projects will likely be fierce. Here's hoping that Secretary Gates's pragmatism carries through to the next administration, and that enlightened leadership can slowly begin to steer the American military-industrial complex towards a defense posture that is better tailored to the World of the twenty-first century.

From The Man Who Brought You "Give War A Chance"...

I'm a little surprised at those who took at face value Edward Luttwak's piece in yesterday's New York Times. In an astonishing article, Luttwak makes the case that a President Obama is likely to find his relationship with the Islamic world to be tense and volatile. The reason? As an "apostate" (his words, not mine), the Senator from Illinois would be subject to the death penalty under classical Shari'a law.

His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is “irtidad” or “ridda,” usually translated from the Arabic as “apostasy,” but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim’s family may choose to forgive).

With few exceptions, the jurists of all Sunni and Shiite schools prescribe execution for all adults who leave the faith not under duress; the recommended punishment is beheading at the hands of a cleric, although in recent years there have been both stonings and hangings.

A brief note about the author before I get into the meat of his argument. Luttwak, a Senior Associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is infamous for his article in Foreign Affairs, back in 1999, entitled "Give War A Chance." It's a fascinating read in which Mr. Luttwak makes the case that the best approach to warfare is essentially to 'let it rage' until one side defeats the other. Genocide in Darfur? Let 'em fight it out. Warfare in Bosnia, Sri Lanka, the Congo? Better not get involved. Indeed, Luttwak wrote an op-ed in the NYT about Iraq not too long ago making basically the same argument: only by killing each other will the various parties find peace. Coming from a man who has suggested that the United Nations would be most useful if it just "helped the strong defeat the weak faster," it was with curious revulsion that I read yesterday's op-ed.

And, indeed, Luttwak did not disappoint. His basic premise – that Obama, the former Muslim, will be treated as an apostate in the Islamic world – is left unsubstantiated. The fact is, Obama has never been a Muslim and is not recognized internationally as such. As Islamic legal expert Ali Eteraz points out:

Religion is not hereditary as it is in Judaism. Islam is not a race. Just because a child has a Muslim father -- which, again, Obama didn't -- doesn't mean anything unless the child is being raised as a Muslim. At the time of birth, Muslims engage in a symbolic act -- of saying the Call to Prayer in the child's ear -- that renders a child Muslim. If Obama's father was agnostic/atheist, then he wouldn't have done such a thing.

No call to prayer in the ear, not raised as a Muslim, born to an atheist father, and then abandoned to a Christian mother both by father and his family, equals not Muslim. Obama is right to say he had no religion until he became a Christian. Those who actually study Muslims see that there are millions of inter-religious marriages -- between Muslim men and Hindu women for example -- in which the children are being raised as pantheists, or even, Hindu. When these children grow up, they aren't killed for being apostates (though some Muslims do thumb their noses at the father for "allowing" his children to be raised non-Muslim).

It is difficult to read, say, the Middle Eastern press and then draw the conclusion that Muslims are just waiting to bear their teeth at a President Obama. In fact, many Middle Easterners seem positively excited about an Obama presidency. In Iran, not exactly the bastion of liberal thought, people are fascinated by the American presidential campaign and most Iranians appear to want Obama to win — including, perhaps, the Iranian regime itself. Similar reports, suggesting widespread interest in an Obama presidency, have appeared throughout the Middle Eastern press. While it would be impossible to draw any conclusions about what relations would be like with the Islamic world under an Obama administration, there are certainly no indications that such ties would be strained due to allegations of apostasy.

A New Face...And A Great Hat

I am excited to introduce Matt Eckel as a resident blogger at FPW. A graduate of McGill University with a degree in political science, he now works at a non-profit in Washington DC. Matt is one of the most thoughtful, non-ideological, and pragmatic political thinkers on the web. He will be an extremely welcome addition. I'm just glad I got to him before someone else did...

UPDATE:
Oh, and do check out his swank profile photo.

Ehud Olmert and Israel's Political Future

Anyone who pays attention to Israeli politics (which perennially vie with those of Italy for the title of 'most apathy-inducing labyrinthine') knows that Ehud Olmert is in some trouble. In some ways this isn't a new situation. He's been in trouble at least since the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006, and in my opinion has been overmatched by events around him since Ariel Sharon's stroke earlier that year. Still, even by the standards of his rather dubious tenure as Israeli PM, Olmert is having some pretty serious problems these days. He's being investigated for corruption related to some putative campaign contributions.

The charges may or may not have any merit. Corruption seems to go hand in hand with modern Israeli politics (even more so than with those of other countries), and frivolous charges trumped up for political advantage certainly aren't unknown. Still, I have a difficult time seeing how Mr. Olmert is going to survive this affair while maintaining any ability to effectively govern. Already hobbled by the remaining political aftertaste of his government's abysmal performance in Lebanon, leader of a shaky centrist coalition that, in its desire not to antagonize either side of the Israeli political spectrum simply fiddles while Jerusalem burns, Olmert confers no possible benefit - either to Israel or to his own legacy - by stubbornly clinging to his post. A recent scathing editorial in Haaretz makes the case for Olmert's removal better than I ever could:

...the prime minister must realize he has lost his ability to continue leading the state. After the disclosure of the investigation's details, few people believe him, believe in him, lend credence to his statements and accept his claims that he is capable in his situation of focusing on affairs of state. His position has been undermined, even if he continues to bear the title of prime minister. He is incapable of leading the state into battle, if such were to become necessary, just as he is incapable of reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinians or Syrians. If he tries to initiate anything out of the ordinary, the criminal investigations against him will be exploited to undermine his authority to make or implement decisions.

The day-to-day running of the state is also vulnerable to the continuing erosion of his position resulting from the suspicions swirling around him. What then is the logic behind perpetuating the government in the conditions in which Olmert has trapped himself?

My thoughts exactly. Olmert's troubles mirror those of the Israeli polity more generally. Even as an American (and thus no stranger to intractable political deadlock), I must marvel at the inability of one of the most representative governments in the world to implement crucial state policy that is supported by the great balance of its constituents. Part of this obviously has to do with the chaos on the Palestinian side and the "facts on the ground" created by the Israeli settler movement that immensely complicate any effort to solve the current political crisis (either through a deal or through unilateral disengagement), part of it has to do with the extreme political fragmentation that has arisen in Israel over the last two decades (Kadima, the largest party and anchor of the current Israeli government, has only 29 seats in the Knesset for a whopping 24% of the total - in some ways it's a wonder that the government has lasted as long as it has) and part of it has to do with the fact that the Israeli populace has completely lost confidence in its own political class. This last problem is perhaps the most troubling, because people will not sacrifice for leaders who they do not trust, and now more than ever a permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will take sacrifice. Israel needs a leader, and it cannot afford to wait.

In his handicapping of the current situation, Israeli analyst Attila Somfalvi envisions two possible scenarios following an Olmert resignation (which, despite my previous premature predictions, might actually happen this time). First, he envisions Ehud Barak pulling Labor out of the Kadima-led coalition, forcing elections. Somfalvi notes that Barak would have a difficult time justifying propping the government up any longer, and would have to trigger elections if only to prove he still has a spine.

The problem, of course, is that vagaries of political polling in Israel aside, many people think that Likud would win, presumably forging a government with the National Religious Party, Yisrael Beiteinu and a smattering of other conservative groups to prop up a right wing coalition. Some people may not think that this would be the end of the World. Sometimes, after all, the political pendulum must be allowed to swing fully in one direction in order to be able to swing back the other way. My problem with this scenario though, even if it provided moral vindication to the Israeli center-left and positioned it for future victories, is that Likud's conception of Israeli foreign relations has now become so divorced from strategic reality as to be almost farcical (a farce in which many, many people end up dead). The pursuit, in this day and age, of "Greater Israel" as a practical matter of state policy ignores every lesson learned since 1967, and unlike the 1990s, peace negotiations will not survive another hiatus while the Israeli right wing indulges its expansionist fantasies. Israel needs a government with the will and muscle to make peace. That won't come from Likud, and it won't come from Ehud Barak gloriously jumping on a political grenade.

It might come from a revitalized Kadima, and a revitalized Kadima might come from current Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. My limited understanding is that Livni remains one of the few political figures in Israel who can command a certain amount of respect from the Israeli populace. Somfalvi seems to think that she can hold Kadima's coalition together, even though Shas may have some slight problems with her gender as well as her previous statements about the relationship between religion and the state. If she can be viewed as sufficiently separate from the many failures of Kadima's tenure at the head of the Israeli state, she may be able to muscle the Knesset into doing what is necessary to advance the cause of peace. Thus far she hasn't played her hand particularly aggressively, but she may want to before too long. Too much is at stake to continue the current deadlock.

Public Relations Problems

News came on Friday that the Pentagon will rescind the assignment of Maj. General Jay W. Hood, who had been slated to be posted as America's top commander based in Pakistan. The turnaround comes after vociferous protests in Pakistan, given one of General Hood's previous posts as commander of the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay.

I'm going to ask the reader to pause for a moment to let that sink in.

The Pentagon took a previous commander of the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, the symbol of American perfidity and hypocrisy worldwide, the place where prisoners have been tortured, Islam defamed, and America's global standing reduced to a pile of radioactive sludge, and they sent him to Pakistan. Deep breath.

Please understand that this is not necessarily an indictment of General Hood himself. I don't know what role he did or didn't play in everything that went on (and still goes on) at Guantanamo. I have absolutely no idea how much influence he had over the mission he was given, so I won't criticize him for it. I won't excuse him, but I won't criticize him because I simply don't know the facts.

One doesn't have to be clairvoyant, however, to recognize that sending a man rightly or wrongly tainted by his association with one of the great geopolitical scandals of the early twenty-first century - a man under whose tenure, by the way, Korans were allegedly flushed down toilets, sparking protests and riots across the Muslim world - to a country like Pakistan is a terrible, terrible idea. At least the Pentagon has been sensitive enough to the protests to cancel the assignment, but the fact that nobody picked up on the problems it would cause worries me. It worries me, because it sends the signal that at least some high up in our military and civilian establishment still have not gotten through their heads the catastrophic extent of the damage that Guantanamo Bay has done to American credibility around the world, and until they figure it out they cannot hope to remedy the problem.

My Idiot Brother

In the previous post, I referenced an op-ed in the Israeli press by Ynet News columnist Gilad Sharon arguing that the IDF should respond to ongoing rocket attacks by "erasing" entire Palestinian neighborhoods. An astute commentator, lifelvnfool, writes in with some wise words:

The Israelis have seen fit to punish those not involved in the crime which only adds to the hatred and resolve of the Palestinians. Can you imagine having your home leveled because your brother in law was acting like an idiot?

News From the Front: May 10th

A biweekly feature of news and opinion pieces from the Israeli and Palestinian press.

1.) Reuters has an excellent write-up on the issues that are currently in dispute between the Palestinian and Israeli negotiators. - SECURITY. Israel has insisted that a peace agreement is impossible until all Palestinian militant groups are disarmed. The Palestinian Authority, in an effort to clamp down on militants, has recently deployed additional policemen to Jenin and Nablus but argues that Israeli raids and restrictions have undermined effective Palestinian control. - BORDERS. Olmert has stated privately his willingness to return 92% of the West Bank to the Palestinians, while offering a land swap equivalent to an additional 4-6%. He has also agreed to give back all of Gaza. Mahmoud Abbas, however, has said that he will only settle with 100% of the West Bank, although there are indications that he might be open to a very limited land swap (equaling about 1-2%). - JERUSALEM. There has been no progress on Jerusalem, with the Shas Party threatening to block any concessions that the Olmert government might decide to make. - REFUGEES. Abbas insists on a "right of return" for Palestinian refugees; Olmert denies it, but suggests that a few Palestinians might be allowed to resettle in Israel.

2.) Israeli analyst Daniel Levy writes that Condoleezza Rice may be finally coming to her senses about how difficult it is to end the Israeli occupation. On her recent visit to Israel, she met with Prime Minister Olmert three times during a two-day visit to discuss the issue of roadblocks. But Rice has gotten virtually nowhere. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in late 2005 there were 376 roadblocks; in November, 2007, at the time of the Annapolis Conference, there were 561; in March of this year, 580 existed; and the current count is 610. As Levy argues, Rice is starting to realize that putting a stop to the occupation is an extremely formidable challenge:

Secretary Rice, to be fair, seems not particularly amused and is beginning to suggest that she is aware that not only is she being given the run around, but that ‘improving’ the occupation is something of a thankless task; while ending it—well that’s also not so easy. It appears that Rice now realizes that the latter may actually be more doable than the former.

3.) An Israeli tech company has reportedly developed a way of using behavioral science to identify terrorists before they attack. An article in Haaretz has the scoop:

Quietly, even stealthily, this unknown company has been working for five years now on one of the more interesting technological innovations to be created in these parts. WeCU ("We see you," in case you are unaccustomed to SMS-speak) promises an automated system to detect people with mayhem on their minds. The system integrates methods and doctrines from the behavioral sciences with biometric sensors.

According to the company's founders, in under a minute it can screen an individual, withou his or her knowledge or cooperation and without interfering with routine activities, and disclose intentions to carry out criminal or terror activity. It can identify subjects who are not carrying any suspicious objects, do not demonstrate any suspicious behavior, do not fit into a predefined social or other profile and do not arouse any suspicion.

Unlike systems currently in use, such as polygraphs or biometric systems based on identifying an individual under emotional pressure, WeCU does not attempt to determine whether the subject is lying, concealing information, under stress or feeling guilty. Instead, it seeks to identify concealed intentions by uncovering an associative connection between the subjects and defined threats.

4.) It is often surprising to me what hard-line opinions can be found in the mainstream Israeli press. An op-ed by Ynet News columnist Gilad Sharon provides a good example. Reacting to ongoing Hamas attacks against the Israeli town of Sderot, Sharon makes the case for leveling entire Palestinian neighborhoods.

Start with targeting senior leaders, supplies, and infrastructure, and if this is not enough, we should escalate our response to the end of the scale: Evacuating civilians in Gaza and erasing neighborhoods used to fire at us. Any normal country would act that way. Imagine fire from Mexico directed at Texas; imagine fire from Ireland directed at England; an attack on France by Andorra; rockets launched by Finland at Russia. Not only would we not see supplies being provided to the attackers, not one house would remain standing there.

5.) If Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is forced out of office by an ongoing corruption scandal, some Israeli analysts think that Kadima and Shas will back Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni as his replacement.

Up Close

Writing at Land and People, Lebanese blogger Rami Zurayk chronicles events in Beirut as they unfold. His accounts are fascinating in their clarity.

Friday, May 8th, 8:26AM:

I live in Ras Beirut, between Hamra and Manara. We woke up this morning to the sound of machine gun shooting. I looked from the window and there was a few young armed civilians running in all directions. The kids were startled and we did what everybody does at times like these: seek the news. I sat at my computer and logged into the usual websites, then left the laptop to go to the tv, in the same room. The kids came in the room. Suddenly there was a small explosion, like a firecracker, with a cloud of dust and smoke. My 10 years old was the nearest to the source and we all looked towards him. There was a little hole in the glass door of the balcony, and another one in the wall a meter or so away from him. A bullet had come through the balcony, passed between the children and removed a small chunk of the wall, a meter or so away from my kid. We are now all huddled in a small room with no windows, waiting for the storm to pass. As I write, the fighting and shooting is still going on.

Friday, May 8th, 7:29PM:

I just came back from the funeral wake of my neighbor's son. He was 16 and he and his friend were shot this morning in my street. His family owns a bakery and a cafe in my neighborhood. They are also very involved in the local mosque. He and a bunch of other kids always hang out between the bakery and the cafe. They are Hariri supporters by default, like many other Beirut Sunnis. At around 10:30, when the fighting intensity was beginning to decrease, they went out to have a look. The sniper caught them both.

Saturday, May 9th, 12:56PM:

I walked up towards Zarif from the intersection near the old Al-Nahar building. I passed Zarif, and then got to Aisha Bakkar. This is an old, middle class, traditionally Sunni neighborhood, one of the oldest in the city. Most shops were open and trading. There were some signs of fighting, mostly bullet riddled cars. Further down, in Zaydaniyyed is where I started to see more damage: a couple of burnt cars, and a lot of bullet holes in walls and shop windows. At the intersection with Mar Elias street, a couple of unarmed men clad in Amal flags superman-style were closing the road with the (multi-purpose) rubbish disposal containers. I asked one of them why he was closing the road and he said, slightly startled, that there were skirmishes in Zarif...

In The Sights of Russia

Last month, at their summit in Bucharest, NATO bowed to pressure from Moscow and failed to offer paths to membership for Georgia [left] and Ukraine. Instead, they decided to endorse the deployment of an Eastern European-based missile defense system, a longstanding goal of the Bush administration. But, as political analyst Seth Weinberger argued shortly after the summit's conclusion, NATO got its priorities backwards.

Both programs are likely to antagonize Russia, but if NATO was only to get one of the two (missile defense or NATO expansion) it should have gone with NATO expansion. I've written several times about the folly of deploying missile defense systems (quick summary of my view: it's technically possible, but the threat of ballistic missile attack by a rogue state does not justify the massive amounts of money).

But NATO expansion is one of the most powerful pacific forces of the post-Cold War era. The transformation of NATO from a security organization to a democratization organization has resulted in democracy becoming entrenched in most of Central and Eastern Europe. Spreading NATO up to Russia's borders will all but ensure that war in Europe is a thing of the past. Both Ukraine and Georgia have shown themselves to be willing and able allies of the US and the West, and Russia has demonstrated a disturbing willingness to involve itself in the affairs of its former partners.

It certainly has. Not surprisingly, the failure to extend Membership Action Plans to Ukraine and Georgia is a decision that is only encouraging such meddling. Towards Georgia, Russia has adopted a highly provocative approach in the past few weeks. Much to the ire of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Moscow last month extended diplomatic relations to the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Additionally, it has upped its troop levels in Abkhazia, a region where Russian "peacekeepers" have been stationed since 1992; a Russian plane also recently shot down a Georgian surveillance aircraft over Abkhazian territory. To the authorities in Tbilisi, such actions are a clear provocation.

Yet, without NATO's clear backing, Georgia doesn't have many cards to play. It can't adequately threaten military action to remove Russian troops without NATO support, since there is no way its forces could compete against those of its neighbor. Russia, moreover, isn't likely to back down unless international heavy-hitters line up in defense of Georgian sovereignty. This is not likely to happen, of course, as NATO so explicitly announced at its Bucharest summit. Moscow, not surprisingly, has taken advantage of the blood in the water. As the Wall Street Journal notes:

The spark for the latest Russian aggression... [was] Bucharest. Last month, at the NATO summit in the Romanian capital, Germany blocked plans to offer Ukraine and Georgia "membership action plans." Rather than put these democratic countries on the long road to NATO, Berlin preferred to bend to Moscow. Georgia and Ukraine got a vague promise to join NATO one day and to review their "action plan" applications in December. In other words, their fate is up for grabs. The Kremlin can smell Western wobbliness better than most. Within days of Bucharest it pounced on Georgia.

No doubt Ukraine is already in Moscow's sights.

Symbolism Is Overrated

Kick Burma out of the United Nations? That's what The Wall Street Journal is suggesting is an appropriate punishment for the country's miserable response to Cyclone Nargis:

The United Nations this week said the refusal of Burma's government to allow workers into the country's devastated agricultural region was unprecedented in the history of humanitarian relief. The human catastrophe produced by Burma's refusal to permit aid in the wake of Cyclone Nargis has stunned the senses of a world that has watched this spectacle for a week.

...It's time to kick Burma out of the United Nations. If the U.N. does not put in motion a process to suspend Burma from its U.N. membership, then, clearly, nothing is forbidden....Booting Burma out of the U.N. would be symbolic.

"Symbolic" indeed. Since it's not a serious punishment, the only thing that such an action is likely to accomplish is the elimination of a much-needed avenue for dialogue and conflict-resolution. Perhaps it's better for the United States to focus on leveling some real punishments, as part of a comprehensive carrots-and-sticks approach, than just resorting to feel-good gestures.

Somehow, This Is Going To Take Some Getting Used To

This lead from a Reuters article caught my eye this morning:

New Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin promised on Thursday to pay higher wages to members of the nuclear and air defense forces -- the pillars of national security -- and to create a special fund to finance it.

Plenty of analysts and bureaucrats in capitals other than Moscow (well OK, probably there too...) are busy scratching their heads over precisely how the whole Medvedev/Putin thing is going to work itself out. Questions have ranged from who will really be in charge, how much continuity there will be in Moscow's policies through the transition, and whether the near-duel leadership will produce strains in the relationship between teacher and student now that their roles have seemingly reversed.

Meanwhile, I'm just trying to wrap my mind around how someone can go from president to prime minister in 24 hours.

More Burmese Woes

There was a moment in the wake of Cyclone Nargis where I hoped that, for once, the Burmese junta was lying: estimates of death tolls ranging from 10,000-25,000 were unimaginable. Now it appears the storm's chaos and wreckage has created a situation that could produce many more large-scale casualties.

While even the developed world can be threatened by storms and the like, underdeveloped states are particularly vulnerable to the devastation posed by natural disasters. Their infrastructure is often much weaker and thus prone to swift and easy destruction. Furthermore, limited transportation networks can compound relief efforts by limiting the mobility of aid teams operating in the inflicted areas. And in Burma's case, the country's political system and its relationship to the outside world isn't helping.

These troubles Burma is struggling to overcome are caused in part by a ruling regime that cares more about its grip on power than it does about the well-being of its people and the future of its country. One hopes (though I'm not optimistic) that they walk away from this realizing how much better off their country would be were it to abandon its insularity and connect Burma to the outside world.

In-House Note

Exams, papers, and other end-of-year chaos until Thursday...look for more content from me later in the week.

Of Materialism and the National Interest: The Case for Economic Reform in North Korea

When presenting the intelligence community's case that North Korea covertly assisted Syria in building a nuclear reactor in the desert, one officer was asked precisely why Pyongyang was involved in the project. His answer? "Cash."

North Korea's interest in hard currency is the same as nearly any dictatorship: placate the military constituency (which is even more important to Pyongyang given Kim Jong-Il's military-first policy), provide a minimal level of services to the public in order to maintain the pretense of legitimacy, and keep the state itself afloat. But North Korea does not command a resource-rich, export-driven economy. In fact, its exports are of little use to the average consumer. Sheena Chestnut had an excellent article in International Security [Vol. 32, No. 1 (Summer 2007)] detailing North Korea's dabbling in illicit trade. Drug trafficking and currency counterfeiting are just two realms of the black market that North Korea has experience in.

If the stories of cooperation with Syria in building a nuclear reactor are proved true, this would represent yet another covert means of currency for Pyongyang and one with even greater consequences for security than all of the regime's other lines of trade. Expecting North Korea to abandon these sources of income, however illicit and destabilizing, will not occur unless Pyongyang knows it will be compensated by other means, which will not come without true economic reform of the North Korean state. Realizing this, the US, South Korea, and Japan should urge the one state with true leverage of Pyongyang - China - to press its own model of economic reform on the North's leadership.

Two complimentary reasons stand out for this long-term policy course. The first is that, as hinted above, without doing so, there will be little incentive for Pyongyang to cease its involvement in the trade of illicit goods. There is a much greater chance of reigning this activities in if sustainable revenue - with positive consequences for the state that do not threaten its neighbors, international security, or international markets - is a tangible reality for North Korea.

The second is that there is no alternative. A maintenance of the status quo does little to rescue North Korea's incentives to remain mired in the black market. Seeking to choke the regime, as Washington was doing until recently, can only force it into a desperate corner. Moreover, forcing a state collapse in Pyongyang is not, and probably never will be, an attractive or feasible option for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it assumes that Washington is capable of doing so, which in turn assumes that the US has any real leverage over North Korea. This is not the case so long as Beijing remains the regime's true financier and largest external source of goods. Furthermore, North Korea's neighbors have no desire to see the regime collapse anytime soon primarily because they will be the ones tasked with picking up the pieces. China, for instance, already struggles with the flow of refugees from North Korea and knows very well that in the event of a North Korean collapse, those problems will worsen exponentially and might even materialize a host of unknown (and perhaps worse) scenarios. South Korea, for its part, fears a North Korean collapse that would force it to absorb the poverty-stricken Northern state into its territorial protection - an immediate reunification that no one would have anticipated or truly planned for. The result would be a premature merging of the world's twelfth largest economy with one of the world's weakest states. Seoul is not opposed to Korean reunification in principle, but it is not willing to do so at the expense of its own economic growth, hence its emphasis on raising the standard of living in North Korea (something designed to soften the eventual blow, apart from the obvious humanitarian reasons).

This case stands on its own even if North Korea had not provided extensive technical assistance to Syria in constructing a reactor; its other black market activities are cause enough. The destabilizing consequences of the most recent behavior, however, highlights the seriousness with which these events should be viewed. And one hopes that Washington, with the help of Beijing, is able to convey that impression unambiguously to Pyongyang.

Ultimately there can be no excuses for North Korea's behavior. As many have repeatedly noted, it is the author of most if not all of its own troubles. But this behavior can and should be corrected (sooner rather than later) with the help of the country's neighbors and other members of the international community. One logical starting point would be to press Beijing to encourage Pyongyang to chart a path of economic reform that helps modernize its infrastructure, improves the lot of its people, and to nudge the regime's leadership to accept that its illicit activities are counter-productive.

Some have poured cold water on this idea by arguing that North Korea is skeptical of all-out reform for fear of losing control of the process. The Chinese are well-positioned to argue quite the contrary: that economic modernization in the 21st century hardly means weakening the state's grip on power. But if North Korea is truly desperate for cash, a vigorous attempt should be made to convince the regime that such funds are available - for a price. As with all other diplomatic efforts, the worst we could do is fail. And considering the stakes involved, it's well worth a shot.

News From the Front: May 3rd

A biweekly feature of news and opinion pieces from the Israeli and Palestinian press.

1.) In an encouraging sign, the Palestinian Authority deployed several hundred policemen to Jenin this weekend as part of an effort to "restore law and order," reports The Jerusalem Post. This action follows similar moves in Nablus and Tulkarm that have occurred over the past few months. The police force has promised to crack down not just on criminals, but on armed groups like the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah's military wing. According to the terms of the agreement, Israel will give the Palestinian police full reign during the daytime; at night, the IDF would be allowed to carry out operations. As the article reports, the invigorated Palestinian security presence is widely viewed in Jenin as a positive step towards self-governance and the rule of law.

2.) Jordan's King Abdullah has suggested that even minimal progress on Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations would be enough to begin implementing the 2002 Arab peace initiative. Under the original offer, Arab states would agree to a normalization of relations in exchange for a comprehensive Israeli agreement with the Palestinians that involved a withdrawal to pre-1967 borders. Speaking to visiting Israeli MK Yossi Beilin today, Abdullah mentioned that "a significant number of Arab and Muslim states would move to establish diplomatic relations with Israel as a result of positive movement on the Palestinian front." (Haaretz)

3.) An article in Haaretz paints a sobering assessment of the state of the peace process.

Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel now at the Brookings Institution think tank, was skeptical that the Bush administration was on the verge of offering its own ideas on how to craft a peace agreement to end the six-decade conflict. "I see no indication of that. I think that their very clear attitude to this - at least the president's view of it - is that it's up to the parties to make the deal," Indyk said.

He said bilateral talks about borders, settlements, the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees could be making headway but that Abbas' dissatisfied air after meeting Bush in Washington last week suggested otherwise. "Abu Mazen [Abbas] left here in a very sour mood - and I think that is an indicator that things aren't going great," he said.

Indyk also said he found it "much more disturbing" that there has been little movement on the ground, saying Israel has repeatedly moved to expand settlements since the Annapolis, Maryland, peace talks and done little to remove significant roadblocks on the West Bank. On the Palestinian side, it is unclear how much security forces under Abbas have been built up to take on militants.

4.) Former Defense Minister Amir Peretz suggested today that he would strongly back direct discussions with Hamas; he also argued for freeing the jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti.

5.) In an interesting op-ed in Ynet News, columnist Haim Misgav makes the case against "land-for-peace" deals. He writes that the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 and the evacuation of settlers from Gaza in 2005 have done little to increase the country's security. As Misgav argues, additional land-for-peace agreements would be a grave mistake. "Any kind of withdrawal, in Samaria, or Judea, or the Golan Heights would only reinforce the Arab sense that the Jews don't really believe in their right for the country and boost the Arab appetite," he writes. "The knowledge that each additional territorial concession weakens Israel and makes it more vulnerable will certainly also make the Arabs more demanding."

Where's the Love?

Shibley Telhami and Zogby International have some not-so-surprising new poll numbers out of the Middle East on views of the US, threat perceptions, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and most interesting to me, Iran's nuclear program. The 2008 Annual Arab Public Opinion Poll finds that:

• 81% of people surveyed in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE feel that "most of the Iraqi people" are "worse off" than before the war
  
  
• 81% of people surveyed in Lebanon chose "Iraq will remain unstable and spread instability in the region" as their "biggest concern about the consequences of the war in Iraq"
  
  
• 36% surveyed did not "believe the reports of a significant reduction in violence" in Iraq
  
  
• 64% surveyed had a "very unfavorable" attitude toward the US, up from 57% two years ago
  
  
• 65% surveyed "don't believe that democracy is a real American objective"
  
  
• 24% surveyed would prefer France to be the sole superpower, leading Germany, China, the US, Russia, Britain, Pakistan
  
  
• When asked to name two countries respondents thought posed the biggest threat, Israel garnered 95% while the US competed for a close second at 88%

Gee, five years into the war in Iraq and that's the best we can do to transform the region? (Sarcasm implied...) How about this: if the next year brings a new White House occupant willing to embark on a listening tour in the region, he or she should bring along a translator and walk a few blocks away from the hosting presidential palaces to absorb what the people of the region actually have to say. Who knows, we might learn something.

Elsewhere, most interesting to me was the following finding: 73% surveyed in Saudi Arabia felt that "if Iran acquires nuclear weapons," "the outcome would be more positive" for the Middle East. I say interesting because Saudi is usually posited as being (wrongly, in my opinion) a country in the region that would be a likely candidate for seeking its own nuclear arsenal to balance or a deter a would-be nuclear-armed Iran.

That, of course, is the routine perspective of outsiders analyzing the Saudi government's likely response. What I don't know, however, is how much of a constraint public opinion is on Riyadh's policies, foreign or domestic. Can anyone help me out?