reflectivepundit

Dealing with Iran: Military or Diplomatic Approaches?

By Brigitte L. Nacos
When North Korea blew up a cooling tower at its main nuclear power plant the other day, the pictures of the destruction were meant to be viewed and applauded around the world as they indeed were. While experts of North Korea’s nuclear program warned immediately that this tower, unlike other parts of the nuclear complex, was a rather benign structure that could be rebuilt easily, the symbolic and actual meaning of this rather dramatic scene should not be underestimated. While many unanswered questions and unsolved issues remain, the demolition of the cooling tower dramatized that progress has been made in the ongoing process of ridding North Korea of its nuclear weapons program. Soon after the cooling tower went down, President Bush announced North Korea’s removal from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism and the lifting of some sanctions. In short, a great deal of progress was made thanks to diplomacy with multilateral negotiations at its center.   

In his 2002 State of the Union Address, President George W. Bush said of North Korea, Iraq, and Iran,
“States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.  By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States.  In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.”

Well, Washington was not indifferent, when it came to North Korea. Although there was no doubt that the country had the capability to build nuclear weapons, the Bush administration went and stuck to the diplomatic route—even after North Korea detonated a nuclear bomb underground in 2006.

Although there was far less certainty about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and especially an alleged nuclear program, the United States invaded Iraq, removed Saddam Hussein and his ruling clique but did not find WMD. Instead, esteem for the U.S. took a nosedive in the Arab and Muslim world and elsewhere. And five years after the invasion and in spite of the improvements in the wake of the so-called troop surge, the situation in Iraq remains highly problematic. The Bush administration’s plan to build a shining democracy in Iraq and thereby trigger a domino effect of similar reforms in the Middle East has not materialized.

So, what about Iran, the third state of Bush’s axis of evil? Contrary to its North Korea policy, the Bush administration has stuck to its refusal to negotiate with the Iranian government and its threats of military measures if Iran insists on building nuclear arms.

Supreme Court Ruling on Habeas Corpus: Terrorists Do Not Win

By Brigitte L. Nacos
Too weak to fight and defeat the security forces of states, terrorists engage in psychological warfare with two particular goals in mind: first, they aim at frightening, intimidating, and demoralizing the citizenry; second, they hope to push the authorities in democracies to overreact and violate the most esteemed democratic values, in particular the rule of law. There is ample evidence that major terrorist events result in high levels of public fear and anxiety. This was particularly true in the wake of 9/11. And in reaction to serious terrorist strikes and threats, whether domestic or transnational, democratic states tend to curb individual freedoms in the name of preventing further attacks. In this respect, the response of the U.S. government to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by a team of al-Qaeda hijackers was no exception. Several weeks after 9/11 Osama bin Laden told al-Jazeera reporter Taysir Alluni with obvious satisfaction that “freedom and human rights in America have been sent to the guillotine.” From the perspective of terrorists, success and failure of their violence are less measured by the number of people killed and maimed than by the psychological impact on and antiterrorism responses in societies they target. Terrorists win when they persuade citizens and elites of democracies that the most fundamental values of their societies, such as openness and restraints on executive power, are weaknesses.

This week’s 5-4 Supreme Court decision that ruled in favor of Guantanamo Bay detainees’ constitutional habeas corpus right—the right to challenge their detentions in federal court--denied al-Qaeda and terrorists in general a  victory in the on-going “value battle” against the United States. Whereas certain provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act as well as “aggressive interrogation,” “extraordinary rendition,” and outright torture practices provided terrorists with ample arguments to question and ridicule America’s commitment to democratic values, the latest majority ruling was a triumph for the very essence of democracy.

Barack Obama: Neither a Threat Nor the Only Hope

By Brigitte L. Nacos
Under the headline “Foes Use Obama’s Muslim Ties to Fuel Rumors About Him,” the Washington Post’s Perry Bacon Jr. reported this week that posts on the Internet and voices on talk radio “allege that Obama (D-Ill.) is a Muslim, a ‘Muslim plant’ in a conspiracy against America, and that, if elected president, he would take the oath of office using a Koran, rather than a Bible, as did Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the only Muslim in Congress, when he was sworn in earlier this year.” The article also mentions that prominent conservative talk-show stars and alarmist posters on Internet message boards refer implicitly or explicitly to the prospect of a Muslim president with radio talk show host Michael Savage noting Obama's ‘background" in a "Muslim madrassa in Indonesia’ in June, and Rush Limbaugh in September that he occasionally got ‘confused’ between Obama and Osama bin Laden.” It is well known that conservative circles also make a point of using the senator's middle name, Hussein, in obvious efforts to construct a Muslim association. Senator Obama hasn’t made a secret of the fact that his father’s family in Kenya was of Muslim faith; he himself is a Christian and member of a church on Chicago’s South Side.

This is not the first time that the religion of a presidential candidate is questioned.  When Senator John F. Kennedy ran for the highest office nearly half a century ago, the prospect of a Catholic in the White House fueled rumors about the influence of the pope on U.S. decision-making. And the current presidential bid by Mitt Romney, a Mormon, has raised questions about the influence of the Mormon Church on a future Mormon president. As for Senator Obama, it is not his own religious affiliation that is targeted by some conservatives with large audiences but rather his grandfather’s and father’s. One can’t even imagine to what scare tactics the conspiracy crowd would resort, if Obama were indeed a Muslim. Obviously, the same people who love to cite the U.S. Constitution when it supports their extremist positions forget conveniently that the document guarantees religious freedom.

On the other hand, it has been suggested that Senator Obama is the only presidential candidate who, if elected, could solve America’s Middle East problems because of his distinct background. This is what Seymour Hersh argues recently when he spoke to a history class at UC Irvine taught by Jon Wiener. Wiener wrote in the Huffington Post,
“Barack Obama represents ‘the only hope for the US in the Muslim world,’ according to Pulitzer-prize winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. Because Obama's father was a Muslim, he ‘could lead a reconciliation between the Muslim countries and the US.’ With any of the other candidates as president, Hersh said, ‘we're facing two or three decades of problems in the Mideast, with 1.2 billion Muslims.’ “

Marketing the American Brand: The Limits of Public Diplomacy

By Brigitte L. Nacos
When Karen Hughes, President Bush’s long-time confidant, resigned as head of the State Department’s public diplomacy section, America’s image abroad and especially in the Arab and Muslim world was still on the downward slide that she had hoped to halt and even reverse when she took the job two years earlier. Just like advertising executive Charlotte Beers and former ambassador Margaret Tutweiler before her, Hughes failed to replace the image of “the ugly American” with a positive brand. While astute in domestic politics, Hughes lacked knowledge of the Middle East, the particular target region of the administration’s efforts in public diplomacy. This showed during her first “listening tour” during several Arab countries, where she was perceived as clueless and patronizing. But even if the job at the Department of State were to be filled with someone familiar with the premier target region of
Washington’s efforts to market the “good America,” it would be next to impossible to succeed. While attractive branding and packaging matters in the marketing of products, it is the content of the box of cereal or wash detergent or whatever that ultimately determines success and failure. Similarly, while so-called strategic communication initiatives, such as Washington officials granting interviews to al-Jazeera and other Arab media, receive attention in the region, ultimately it is U.S. policy that matters, not the rhetoric of public diplomacy vendors.
In other words, as long as U.S. policy in the region remains the same, any successor of Karen Hughes will face a next to impossible task. This is wonderfully expressed in a Slate V animated editorial cartoon by Mark Fiore that depicts the daunting job description for the position vacated by Hughes. Click the following link to watch the clip:

All of this is not to say that the U.S. should forget about public diplomacy. But the same strategies and tactics that were very successful during the Cold War do no longer suffice in the age of instant global communication and world-wide television networks and other global media.

Iran’s Nuclear Ambition: Dealing with the Threat Against Israel and Others

By Brigitte L. Nacos
Iran is not alone in denying Israel’s right to exist and threatening to wipe the Jewish state off the map of the Middle East. But the determination of Tehran’s decision-makers to establish a nuclear program and most likely the capability of building nuclear weapons differentiates the Persian danger from the perennial threats against Israel issued by her Arab neighbors. It is this clear, albeit not yet present danger that needs to be addressed. On the one hand, there are those who invoke the specter of WW III, as President Bush recently did, and favor military strikes against Iran as leading neo-cons, Vice-President Cheney and most of the Republican presidential contenders do. An editorial in today’s New York Times put is this way, “Four years after his pointless invasion of Iraq, President Bush still confuses bullying with grand strategy. He refuses to do the hard work of diplomacy — or even acknowledge the disastrous costs of his actions. The Republican presidential candidates have apparently decided that the real commander in chief test is to see who can out-trash talk the White House on Iran.”
On the other hand, there are those who minimize or ignore the threat, among them most Democrats in the presidential race. As Sebastian Mallaby writes in today’s Washington Post, “All the Democratic presidential hopefuls know that a nuclear Iran is scary. They know that the Europeans have been patiently negotiating with Iran to secure a freeze of its program and that the Iranians have been stalling. But Clinton is the only Democratic candidate who unequivocally embraces the obvious next step: Push hard for the sanctions that might change Iran's calculations.”   
Although efforts by European governments have failed so far, diplomacy is the way to go now. But Washington’s new unilateral sanctions, or multilateral ones (if they could be achieved) do not assure at all that decision-makers in Tehran change their nuclear plans. The war-mongering rhetoric on both sides is not helpful either.

So, what other options are available if Iran continues with its program?

The Times suggests in its editorial today, “The world should not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon, but there is no easy fix here, no daring surgical strike. Consider Natanz, the underground site where Iran is defying the Security Council by spinning a few thousand centrifuges to produce nuclear fuel. American bombers could take it out, but what about the even more sophisticated centrifuges the administration accuses Iran of hiding? Beyond the disastrous diplomatic and economic costs, a bombing campaign is unlikely to set back Iran’s efforts for more than a few years.”
In other words, surgical strikes are unlikely to do the job. Nor is it likely that such strikes would strengthen the democratic forces in Iran and lead to the demise of the current regime, as the neo-con crowd wants us to believe.
After the Iraq debacle, nobody can seriously think about an invasion of Iran.
So, if air strikes will not prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and an invasion is out of the picture, what can be done to deter a nuclear Iran?

Turkey, the PKK, Iraq, and President Bush’s War on Terrorism

By Brigitte L. Nacos
"The Turkish parliament on Wednesday overwhelmingly authorized cross-border military attacks in northern Iraq against Kurdish separatist rebels, as world leaders pleaded for restraint. As the votes were tallied in Turkey's modernistic legislative chamber here, President Bush told reporters at a White House news conference that 'we are making it very clear to Turkey that we don't think it is in their interest to send troops into Iraq.' "
Washington Post, Oct. 18, 2007 

After 9/11, when President George W. Bush launched the “war on terrorism,” he pledged to fight and eradicate terrorism everywhere. But he obviously meant to go after terrorists and terrorism that affect the United States directly or indirectly. Otherwise, he could not tell the Turkish government to refrain from aggressively fighting an organization that has committed violence against Turks in Turkey and elsewhere for a long time. While the end of brutal oppression of the Kurds in Northern Iraq by Saddam Hussein’s regime is one of the good consequences of the Iraq War, the fact that the PKK has been able to operate freely in the jurisdiction of the Kurdish regional government and launch attacks from there on Turkey, is a very bad result. As the New York Times reports today, “More than two dozen Turks, some of them civilians, have been killed in cross-border rebel [emphasis added] attacks in the past several weeks…” (Note, that the term used in the above quote is “rebel” not “terrorist” with respect to PKK attacks in contrast to the common use of the terms “terrorist” and “terrorism” in the context of such strikes on U.S. and Iraqi targets inside Iraq). In view of the strengthened PKK and its violence, it seems disingenuous for this president to urge the Ankara government to exercise restraint although he and his administration have aggressively fought the war on terrorism abroad and on foreign soil without listening to appeals for moderation and more time for diplomacy to work things out.

Innocent Victims of Wars and Terrorism

In all violent conflicts, there are innocent victims on all sides. When we follow the news media accounts about violence abroad, we only get glimpses of the reality that innocents experience and suffer.    
The friend of a former student sent me the following note to inform me of a recently published book by Dr. Bethe Schoenfeld, The Routine of War: How One Northern Israeli Community Coped During the Second Lebanon War.
The author, Bethe Schoenfeld, lives in the Kibbutz Gesher Haziv community as do the people she interviewed for this book. During the Second Lebanon War, which lasted 34 days, dozens of katyusha rockets rained down on the kibbutz.
The author’s daily diary and her interviews with the stalwarts who stayed in the community during those fearful days give us a rare report of one of these resolute Israelis. The author’s first person account goes beyond the war, into the days after the cease fire when the residents of Kibbutz Gesher Haziv began rebuilding their homes and their lives.
The Routine of War is available at: www.Amazon.com and www.devorapublishing.com

 

Lecturing President Putin on Democracy: How about President Bush?

Br Brigitte L. Nacos
As reported in the New York Times, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice “indirectly chided Mr. Putin for overseeing a steady erosion of the independent media, the courts and the legislative branch” during her visit in Moscow he other day. She criticized the accumulation of power in the Russian presidency explaining that “in any country, if you don’t have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development.” According to the Associated Press, she said furthermore, “I think there is too much concentration of power in the Kremlin. I have told the Russians that. Everybody has doubts about the full independence of the judiciary. There are clearly questions about the independence of the electronic media and there are, I think, questions about the strength of the Duma," said Rice, referring to the Russian parliament.” According to the AP, Rice “encouraged the activists [she met with] to build institutions of democracy. These would help combat arbitrary state power amid increasing pressure from the Kremlin…”

Dr. Rice was certainly right in warning of too much power in the hands of the chief-executive as detrimental to a healthy democracy. But although the developments in Russia justify critical remarks along Dr. Rice’s lines, the problem is that the track record of the Bush administration is not exactly exemplary in this respect. Indeed, since the events of 9/11 President Bush, Vice President Cheney and others in the administration have tried relentlessly and succeeded greatly in amassing power in the hands of the executive and thereby violated the power sharing and checks-and-balances system that the U.S. Constitution prescribes. Thus, Dr. Rice would be well advised to lecture Mr. Bush and, more important, the architect of expanded executive power, Mr. Cheney, on the dangers of presidential abuse of power as well.

Iran: the new Target in the War on Terrorism?

By Brigitte L. Nacos
It seems that John Edwards was right, when he criticized the U.S. Senate for last week’s resolution that urged the Bush administration to add Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps to its list of foreign terrorist organizations. “I have no intention of giving George Bush the authority to take the first step on a road to war with Iran,” Edwards said—no doubt directing his criticism in the direction of Senator Clinton who had voted in favor of the resolution. Now, Seymour Hersh reports in The New Yorker that “there has been a significant increase in the tempo of attack planning” and that during this heightened activity “senior officials told reporters that the Administration intended to declare Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps a foreign terrorist organization.” In other words, the White House did not need to be urged by the Senate to take this step. But even without Karl Rove in the White House, the political operators know the value of congressional backing in advance of a possible or likely military conflict. Hersh’s article explains the administration’s sudden interest in slapping the terrorist label on the Revolutionary Guards who are an important part of the designated state sponsor of terrorism, Iran. As I wrote in my previous post, in this case the terrorist label has not practical meaning at all.

According to Hersh, “The President’s position, and its corollary—that, if many of America’s problems in Iraq are the responsibility of Tehran, then the solution to them is to confront the Iranians—have taken firm hold in the Administration. This summer, the White House, pushed by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney, requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff redraw long-standing plans for a possible attack on Iran, according to former officials and government consultants. The focus of the plans had been a broad bombing attack, with targets including Iran’s known and suspected nuclear facilities and other military and infrastructure sites. Now the emphasis is on 'surgical' strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq (emphasis added). What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism."  

Senate Vote on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard: An Authorization for What?

By Brigitte L. Nacos
During the debate of Democratic presidential contenders the other night, John Edwards said according to the debate transcript the following: “…there was a very important vote cast in the United States Senate today. And it was basically in a resolution calling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. I voted for this war in Iraq and I was wrong to vote for this war and I accept responsibility for that. Senator Clinton also voted for this war. We learned a very different lesson from that.

I have no intention of giving George Bush the authority to take the first step on a road to war with Iran. And I think that vote today, which Senator Biden and Senator Dodd voted against, and they were correct to vote against it, is a clear indication of the approach that all of us would take with the situation in Iran. Because what I learned in my vote on Iraq was, you cannot give this president the authority and you can't even give him the first step in that authority, because he cannot be trusted. And that resolution that was voted on today was a very clear indication …"

A few hours before the debate, the Senate had indeed adopted 76-22 a resolution that urged the Bush administration to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard, an elite special force, as terrorist organization. Although this move was intended by the White House one way or the other, Senators Jon Kyl (R-Arizona) and Joseph Lieberman (I-Connecticut) sponsored a measure that will strengthen the president’s and, more important, the vice-president’s hand in dealing with one part of the axis of evil: Iran.As David Bromwich writes in the Huffington Post,

The original draft of Kyl-Lieberman had asked U.S. forces to "combat, contain, and roll back" the Iranian menace within Iraq. But the words "roll back" were all too plainly a coded endorsement of hot pursuit into Iran; and the senators did not want to go quite so far. To assure a larger majority the language was accordingly trimmed and blurred to say "that it should be the policy of the United States to stop inside Iraq the violent activities and destabilizing influence of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies."