John McCain's Thoughtless Militarism

I was reading about John McCain's views on whether or not we should intervene in Syria and couldn't help but note that he simultaneously wants to launch a massive military assault on Syria to remove the Assad regime, but without putting boots on the ground. Never mind that the Assad regime has distributed caches of chemical weapons throughout the nation, and to bomb them (assuming we can even locate them) would almost certainly involve the release of chemical clouds, causing deaths on top of those of the civilians who would be killed in the bombing raids themselves. I have no doubt that Assad has placed weapons caches in locations that all-but-ensure that a bombing raid would cause civilian deaths. I also suspect that Assad might take the opportunity to set off some explosions and chemical releases of his own, and blame them on a U.S. raid. And if we topple Assad, all those caches are up for grabs - and some very nasty weapons could end up in the hands of factions allied with Hezbollah or Al Qaeda in Iraq, among other anti-U.S. groups.

McCain's recent grandstanding, through his surprise trip to Syria, also highlights both his ignorance of the region and its actors - he wants the Obama Administration to arm "good" Syrian rebels, but didn't know the history of the factions he met with, and doesn't seem to understand that the majority of rebels want to create an Islamist state. He also doesn't seem to be aware, or perhaps doesn't care, that a rebel victory is almost certain to be followed by atrocities or (at best) ethnic cleansing of Alawites. It's also worth noting that the groups he wants to support are not uniformed forces - they're the type of forces he would eagerly label "unlawful combatants" if they were fighting the U.S. or its allies. I'm reminded of this:

I think McCain's heart is in the right place, which is to say that he's in the "peance freeance" faction of the Republican Party - those who think that the U.S. military takes the form of the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and, once they defeat the evil overlords and their minions, peace and democracy will break out all over. The problem is, he has no apparent interest in non-military solutions, or at least doesn't seem to deem them worthy of consideration or discussion, nor does he have any particular interest in the region or its actors. Why does he confuse Sunni and Shia, why doesn't his staff ensure that he doesn't meet with factions that are opposed to U.S. goals and interests when he grandstands, why does he seem to think that if you decapitate a despotic regime the people will immediately clamor for Western-style democracy? Because, to the extent that the subject matter doesn't make things go "boom", he appears to have given very little thought to pretty much any significant foreign policy issue. His mistakes suggest that he's not even interested, even as he plays the elder statesman and lobbies for war. He shows no sign that he's willing or able to learn from our nation's history, no matter how recent and no matter what role he played in that history.

When I look back at the Bush Administration, and its colossal incompetence on foreign policy issues, I'm reminded of the opportunities George W. Bush squandered in the early months of his regime. That would have been a time to reach out to nations like Egypt (with its aging leader) and to Syria (with its new leader), to try to move the region toward democracy, encourage economic development, and push for the development of institutions and policies that would make those states less oppressive and better able to eventually transition to democracy (e.g., driving corruption out of the civil service, ensuring independent courts, pushing for better respect for human rights). But for all of the talk of Bush's "Freedom Agenda", his actions suggested something else. The "Freedom Agenda" was a cloak for realpolitik - leaders that the Bush Administration wanted to keep in place knew that they were safe, and Bush had no apparent interest in pushing for changes that might upset those leaders or in trying to create bridges to leaders of traditionally hostile nations. That is, when it involves serious diplomatic effort, developing an understanding of the region or its players, or getting up to your elbows in difficult, long-standing factional conflicts, neither Bush nor McCain have much visible interest in advancing democracy. But if you can drop some bombs and call it a "Freedom Agenda", the're all in.

Grandstanding over Syria isn't helpful, because there's no good path forward. If the U.S. intervenes and things don't improve - or worsen - it will be deemed necessary to escalate our involvement. Once we're in, we'll yet again be in a situation where our departure is all but certain to be followed by a civil war or atrocities, but those issues will likely be even harder to resolve than they were in Iraq. So we pour hundreds of billions of dollars, perhaps a trillion or more, into yet another war in the Middle East followed by another indefinite occupation. It's not enough to say "Let's do something, but not put boots on the ground", even if it plays well on Fox News. And it's never enough to view the entire world as a military target, because the only tool in your toolbox is the military. But it seems, that's about all McCain has to offer.

The Price of the Iraq War

I don't know whether to praise Anne Applebaum for acknowledging the huge price that the U.S. has paid (and continues to pay) for the Iraq War, or chide her for continuing to insist that it could turn out to be sunshine and lollipops. I do think it's fair to observe that nowhere among the prices she has listed will you actually find a dollar figure. The war has drained trillions from the treasury, and the bills keep coming. To quickly hit Applebaum's points, she believes that among the casualties of the war are,

1. America's reputation for effectiveness;
2. America's ability to organize a coalition;
3. America's ability to influence the Middle East;
4. America's ability to think like a global power; and
5. America's ability to care for its wounded veterans.

As with the dollar cost of the war, the impact of the war on Iraqis goes unmentioned.

I find many of Applebaum's points to be unpersuasive. In terms of America's reputation for military effectiveness, the initial war was a success. The mistake was embracing the notion that it would be quick and easy (not to mention free) to occupy Iraq and reinvent it as a right-wing utopia and corporate grab-bag. Tyrants may not be trembling that the U.S. will attempt such a project in their nations after they are deposed, but they know that we can depose them.

In terms of the impact on coalition-building, the war can't be said to have had any appreciable effect. The war was unpopular with most of our allies, and coalition-building was difficult even before the war began. To the extent that the war "", that's his own fault, he managed to serve as Prime Minister for another four years (considerably beyond the term he negotiated with Gordon Brown when he became party leader), and if he's crying on the way to the bank his tears are so small as to be invisible to the naked eye.

In terms of Georgia, if the lesson to a nominal coalition member (and by that I mean no offense to Georgia, a nation that lacked the capacity to contribute more substantially to the war effort) is that their participation won't inspire the U.S. to militarily back them if they provoke a war with Russia, I would have to call that a good thing. Truly, if building a coalition is nothing more than promising a return greater than the investment - in Applebaum's words, "economic or diplomatic benefits" and "special American favors" in exchange for a small commitment of troops - we are going about it the wrong way. When Applebaum complains, "'Iraq' is part of the reason there is so little enthusiasm for Afghanistan", she displays amnesia - the Afghanistan war started first. To the extent that the effort to maintain a coalition in Afghanistan has suffered due to Iraq, it is much more because of the Bush Administration's change of priorities and diversion of resources from the Afghan war.

As for "why it is so difficult to put organized pressure on Iran", sure, having launched a war in Iraq on the basis of its possession of WMD's and coming up empty, it's harder to convince other nations to follow us into a potential war with Iran over WMD's we concede that it does not possess. At best that has to do with having demonstrated the limits of our nation's intelligence on the state of other countries' weapons programs, and at worst it's because the exaggeration of the threat of Iraq has damaged our credibility - but either way, the outcome was avoidable. If Applebaum is speaking not just of an initial war but of a prolonged occupation, even as the effort to democratize Iraq continues to wobble, few are eager at repeating the experiment in a nation with about twice the population and four times the land mass.

In terms of influencing the Middle East, the Bush Administration made no serious effort to end the Israel-Palestine conflict. It instead tightened the U.S. embrace of Israel. I'm not sure if Applebaum believes that to be good or bad, but it was foreseeable. She claims that the war increased the price of oil, and snipes at war opponents, "this was supposed to be a 'war for oil,' remember", but she misses the boat there as well. Even if we assume that she has never heard of the Carter Doctrine, and even if we view the war proponents who believed that the war would significantly reduce the price of oil and undermine the finances of the Arab oil states, she surely can't have missed that the war in Iraq did remove a potential threat to the world's oil supply. (Memories of the first Iraq war.) It would be naive to have imagined that launching a war in Iraq would flood the world with cheap oil, but it's no less naive to pretend that oil played no role in the decision to invade and occupy Iraq.

Applebaum refuses to reconsider her support of the war and, although she concedes a high price with no basis to yet declare victory, she offers a defense of her stance by way of anecdote,

Before speaking on Tuesday, Obama might ponder the words of former Chinese leader Zhou Enlai - who, when asked to assess the long-term impact of the French Revolution, allegedly told Richard Nixon that "it's too soon to tell."

If we were to assume that the anecdote occurred, our interpretation of the comment perhaps tells us more about us than about the speaker. Had, for example, G.W. made that comment during a debate, it would have been framed as a gaffe, a mistake, a reflection of ignorance. Had Al Gore done the same, it would have been equivocation, pointy-headedness, waffling. But when framed through the idea of a Chinese leader who is presumed to take an exceptionally long view of history, the statement is viewed as deep and meaningful.

Odds are if it actually occurred it was because of a translation error, Zhou Enlai's misunderstanding the question, or his providing a murky answer because he didn't know enough French history to know that the revolution had occurred almost two centuries before. But under any interpretation, it won't take two centuries for us to learn the impact of the Iraq war or, as Applebaum's own column reflects, its impact on the United States.

Diplomacy as Speed Chess?

Roger Cohen's impatience is bringing out his inner (and outer) Kissinger:

I found myself seated next to Henry Kissinger at a New York dinner and asked him how he thought President Barack Obama was doing.

"He reminds me of a chess grandmaster who has played his opening in six simultaneous games," Kissinger said. "But he hasn’t completed a single game and I’d like to see him finish one."

Cohen bought into Kissinger's analogy without asking the appropriate follow-up questions, "How many chess games did you finish during your first ten months, whether as National Security Advisor or Secretary of State? And how many key matches did you and Nixon win?" In one particularly memorable multi-year game, the Vietnam War, the Kissinger team pulled an "illegal war in Cambodia and Laos" gambit, attempted an end-game that revolved around the Paris Peace Accords and "peace with honor", and shortly thereafter was checkmated. Maybe Kissinger there's a reason Kissinger chose the word "finish" instead of "win".

Kissinger could respond that these issues are hard, many will take years to wrap up, and it may take many more years before it's clear who won or lost a particular match. And that would be a fair response, but for the fact that it undermines his analogy. It's fun to drop bon mots, but it's hard to imagine that Kissinger didn't know he was pushing for an impatient response to problems that can only be resolved through care and patience - and perhaps not even then. (How well did Kissinger's policies work to unify Cyprus? Does he still want Cyprus under Turkish control?)

Cohen eagerly accepts the role of the impatient American:

I thought that wasn’t a bad image for Obama’s international gambits, and then here, at the first Halifax International Security Forum, I heard a similar observation from one participant: "We’ve had the set-up, but is there a middle game?" Or, put another way, can this probing, intelligent president close anything?

Cohen should know better, and probably does. Most likely, though, he doesn't care about the half-dozen high stakes games President Obama is working through. Most likely he cares about one, maybe two, and he's less concerned that Obama can't "close" than he is that Obama will choose to close in a manner inconsistent with his own preconceptions of how the matter should be handled.

Cohen also misses the boat with his comment on Obama's talk of a world without nuclear weapons,

It’s an idea with resonance, and may provide some moral suasion over countries contemplating pursuit of a bomb, but I can’t help recalling that the worlds of 1914 and 1939 were worlds without nukes. No thanks to that.

To bring up the subject is something of a red herring, given that even if Obama makes progress toward reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world, I know of nobody with the slightest sense that he will eliminate nuclear weapons during his Presidency - at best it would take decades. But he should consider also that the present world is nothing like 1914 or 1939. Now granted, should Russia or China start acting in a militarily threatening manner to the United States or each other, possession of nuclear weapons by all parties does deter transforming a cold war into a hot war. But the U.S. can presently militarily crush any nation it chooses... except for those with nuclear weapons.

Does Cohen believes that détente can be achieved between any two nuclear-armed nations? Clearly not. The present danger is that an otherwise militarily weak nuclear-armed state might use its weapons in a war with a neighbor, might lose control of its nuclear arsenal in a coup, or might sell or trade its knowledge, components, or even a nuclear device in exchange for cash or weapons. That's the danger Obama is attempting to address.

On Russia, Cohen offers a conclusion that sounds like it was lifted from a corporation's annual report: "I don’t believe Obama has yet shifted the basic confrontational optic of a resurgent Russia emerging from the humiliation of imperial collapse." Cohen sees Russia as having two conflicting approaches to the world: one comes from Dmitri Medvedev, and "The other perspective is called Vladimir Putin." (Ah, memories.) Is Cohen arguing that Obama needs to take a hard line with Russia and somehow force it to act against its perceived best interest on foreign national policies, such as its relations with Iran - with the probability that Russia will respond by saying no? Is he arguing that the U.S. should give up on diplomacy with Russia, and just let Russia do what it wants? Seriously, what's his point? As Cohen knows, we have no military option against Russia.

On Afghanistan, Cohen is critical that while Obama showed "clarity" in March by sending a lot more troops, he is presently showing "uncertainty" because he didn't immediately agree to send tens of thousands of troops to Afghanistan seven months later. I'm not going to dig through Cohen's past writings to try to determine if he wrote something similar about Bush during the former administration's seven years of malign neglect of the Afghan war, but it's worth noting that by way of comparison Obama is running laps around the mediocre record of his predecessor. No, the real fear isn't that Obama's indecisive - it's that he won't commit to endless war:

I worry now that Obama’s quest for perfect calibration will yield a less than resounding fudge where the tenacious message of a troop increase is undermined by talk of exit timing. That’s not how you break the will of an enemy.

How many times in its history has Afghanistan been the subject of an invasion attempt, invasion, or occupation? How many times in its history has it been successfully pacified, even when occupied by a superpower? Cohen truly believes that if Obama doesn't remind the Afghan people that we'll eventually pack up and go home, they somehow won't remember centuries of history - that the foreign occupier always packs up and goes home? Or that they have failed to notice that the same holds true in regard to any modern military engagement involving a long-term occupation in which the occupying power didn't engage in a massive population transfer into the occupied territory? Come on.

Cohen also seems to believe that every leader in the world wants to be Obama's best friend, and that they're all stinging at perceived slights:

In Europe, a more modest reset attempt has been compromised with political leaders (if not the public) by a perception of cool distance, underscored when Obama did not show at 20th-anniversary celebrations of the Berlin Wall’s fall. Feelings are particularly strong in Paris, where mutterings about Obama’s “Carterization” are heard. President Nicolas Sarkozy, who ushered France back to NATO’s integrated military command structure, and shattered political taboos dictating coolness toward America, has seen his hopes for a special relationship evaporate.

(Ah, memories.) It sounds like he's describing junior high school. "Angela threw a big party but Barack said he was too busy to come. All of Angela's friends are mad at him. Nicolas offered Barack a BFF bracelet, and Barack told him 'I don't want to be your best friend,' and now Nicolas doesn't like him any more and called him a loser." Again, come on.

Anne Applebaum has a better take on what's involved in Europe, noting that there's nothing close to a European consensus or European decision-maker with whom Obama can work on the key issues of the day, and she correctly notes that nations like China are going to pursue their own foreign policy interests, although her conclusion (while suitable for an editorial) seems overblown:

Europe might have a new phone number, but when Obama calls, the person on the other end of the line will still be unable to act. "Europe" will not be a unified entity capable of coordinating a unified policy in Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan, the Middle East or anywhere else anytime soon. Europe cannot, in short, become America's full partner in foreign policy....

This does mean that the Obama administration has a problem, however: Having come to office promising to work with allies, it may soon discover that there are no allies with which to work. Europe is still our best hope, because Europeans share most of our values. But organizing sanctions with a divided Europe - never mind a military operation - will continue to be a major chore. China, meanwhile, is acquiring vast foreign interests, trading in Africa and South America as well as Asia, along with a vast army to match. But China appears uninterested in joining an international campaign against terrorism, nuclear proliferation or anything else.

Global military and security thus look set to remain in the hands of the United States, whether the United States wants it or not. Halfway through his presidency, George W. Bush found he had to drop unilateralism in favor of diplomacy. Now one wonders: At some point in his presidency, will Obama find he has to drop diplomacy in favor of unilateralism, too?

Cohen seems to be operating under the conceit that U.S. foreign policy interests are everybody's interests, and thus that it's absurd that Obama can't handshake his way to consensus - that it's somehow Obama's failure. He underestimates the effect of Bush's unilateralism, which if anything caused our traditional allies to become quite accustomed to saying "no". He disregards the fact that foreign nations have their own issues to worry about, and their most pressing issues may not be the same as ours. He also overlooks the fact that there can sometimes be a political gain to a politician, even in an allied nation, for standing up to U.S. pressure.

I also like this one:

In Israel-Palestine, Obama underestimated the damage of the past decade and has been outmaneuvered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

No, what happened was that Obama overestimated the resiliency of the U.S. economy, and severely underestimated his own party's willingness to address serious domestic issues such as stimulating economic recovery or passing a healthcare reform bill, and has had to expend significant political capital on those issues. Netanyahu, ever an opportunist, recognized that he could say "no" to the Obama Administration without consequence, as the Obama Administration is not presently positioned to impose a consequence. Is it a great shame that a Democratically controlled Congress doesn't have the President's back on key domestic and foreign policy issues? Absolutely. But what does Cohen expect President Obama to do about that?

Cohen has a sense of how skewed perspectives are in Israel, but compare and contrast Benny Morris who describes Obama as "a man who has, in the international arena, shown a proclivity for indecision (except when it comes to Israeli settlements in the West Bank)." Even with the retreat from his earlier demands for a mere freeze on new construction within those settlements, developed in knowing violation of international law, Morris sees Obama as having taken a hard line against Israel. (Meanwhile, Morris argues that an Israeli attack on Iran could bring chaos to the region, then turns around and suggests that it's the responsibility of the U.S. to bomb Iran so Israel doesn't have to, or at least to give it a green light and a massive infusion of high tech weaponry. Morris is definitely a person who brings to mind the phrase, "With friends like these....") It's also worth observing that Cohen sounds an awful lot like Pat Buchanan.¹

It's worth remembering that Cohen very recently argued that the time for achieving a bona fide peace, with a two state solution, started to vanish under President Clinton and was squandered under Bush.²

Obama, who has his Nobel already, should ratchet expectations downward. Stop talking about peace. Banish the word. Start talking about détente. That’s what Lieberman wants; that’s what Hamas says it wants; that’s the end point of Netanyahu’s evasions.

Peace is unattainable, Netanyahu's evasive, and all of this arose before Obama took office, yet it's somehow Obama's fault that his proposal for peace talks isn't working out. Or perhaps Cohen is now of the position that U.S. Presidents should pretend that the Israel-Palestine conflict is irrelevant to U.S. foreign policy interests, and give neither time nor effort to resolving it. Even a grandmaster will have difficulty ending a match, at least in a positive way, if Cohen is correct that he inherited a board where his only pieces are a king and a pawn while his opponent has retained most of his pieces.

The only thing Cohen offers that could approximate as a proposed solution is that Obama spend more time talking about "human rights and freedom". Does Cohen believe that in the prism of junior high school through which he views Europe, that will dissuade Nicolas Sarcozy from comparing Obama to Carter?

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1. Dan Larison offers a response to Pat Buchanan's arguments here.

2. You want to talk ineffectual? Or "dithering"? How about G.W. and his "road map" to nowhere?

But What Does The Poll Result Mean?

Michael Gerson whines that Europeans aren't sufficiently war-like:

A recent transatlantic poll asked whether the use of force can ever be "necessary to obtain justice." Seventy-one percent of Europeans said "no," while 71 percent of American said "yes." In general, Europeans believe that nothing -- not peace, or freedom, or security, or the rights of the weak -- is worth fighting for.

The poll says "inch", and Gerson extrapolates to "mile".

One of the funny things about polls like that is how, when you start describing specific circumstances, the result can change dramatically. "You oppose the death penalty?" "Oh yes, 100%, absolutely." "What about Ted Bundy and Jeff Dahmer." "Well, except for them." The same sort of thing goes on with nebulous questions about war. While 71% of Europeans may well have disagreed with the abstract statement, "Is war sometimes necessary to obtain justice", that does not mean that the same 71% wouldn't endorse a specific war (e.g., WWII) as having done so. Further, there's a matter of interpretation. Europeans from non-English speaking countries (the U.K.'s figures being much closer to those of the U.S.) may have been interpreting that question as "Are there always steps that you can take to achieve justice without going to war?" It's an answer that sees war as one tool in the box, but that recognizes that other tools are available that may be able to achieve the same end, perhaps even with a better outcome.

By way of example, Gerson whinges about Obama's wise decision to abandon an expensive, provocative plan G.W. had to install missile defense technology in Poland and the Czech Republic. Does Gerson think those nations are particularly wise in the necessity of war? If so, then why did 75% of Poles reject the concept of war as necessary to obtain justice, making them significantly more "pacifistic" than "Old Europe"? Also, what happened to Gerson's brand of "compassionate Christianity"? Where in the teachings of his faith can I find similar scorn for pacifism?

Meanwhile, you gotta love Gerson's new anti-popularity test:

It is the combination of American power and credibility that causes other nations to change their behavior in ways favorable to our interests. But power and credibility often attract resentment, not love. President Ronald Reagan was unpopular in Europe while pursuing policies, such as the deployment of medium-range nuclear missiles, that weakened the Soviet Union.

And G.W. was unpopular in Europe while getting the U.S. bogged down in two wars, still no end in sight, and undermining our ability to militarily or diplomatically pressure nations such as Iran and North Korea. Funny, how quickly Gerson forgets the legacy of his lord and master.¹
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1. Gerson does try to slip in a plug for G.W.,

Over the past several decades, certain images of America - the Marshall Plan, the Peace Corps, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief - have demonstrated that America's conception of its global interests is neither narrow nor selfish.

And the Nobel committee, as much as Gerson tries to pretend otherwise, has recognized American contributions to world peace. In case he missed it, in 1953 they awarded the price to George Cartlett Marshall. Leaving aside his poor diplomatic and military record for the moment, G.W. might have made himself a better candidate had he not coupled U.S. AIDS relief programs with "abstinence only" programs and fought against contraception and family planning.

Kathleen Parker Called President Obama a... What?

Kathleen Parker's not a stupid woman, and she knows the meaning (and double-meaning) of words, so let's not make any mistakes about what she means when she writes,

One may view these episodes as diminishing America's status or as a tolerable annoyance - sort of the way Dobermans view toy poodles. At some point, the big dog reminds the little yapper of his place. Unfortunately, the American commander in chief is a cat in a dog-eat-dog world.

No, she's not referring to Obama in the sense of "cool cat" - it's more of a Tom Jones thing. She's careful enough not to mix her metaphors:

In the midst of such charades, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emerging Dirty Harry persona is oddly reassuring. Often speaking through nearly clenched teeth, she has become Obama's bad cop.

Is Parker acknowledging Hillary Clinton as one of the "dogs"? No allusion to her "claws coming out"? Clenched teeth, not "bared fangs"? She's not "hissing" at people?

Parker suggests that the world would be better served by the macho bravado of a George W. Bush - one of the worst Presidents in our nation's history, already being relegated to the memory hole by his own party, and whose disastrous policies seem likely to haunt us for at least a generation. Let's review some highlights of how Bush's bravado carried the day:

• In 2001, Bush declares that he wanted to capture Osama Bin Laden, "dead or alive" - and for eight years we've been rewarded with periodic recordings of Bin Laden taunting Bush and our country.

• In 2002, Bush declared Iran, North Korea and iraq to be part of an "Axis of Evil" - and both Iran and North Korea responded by continuing their nuclear weapons programs, to the point that North Korea may have successfully tested a nuclear weapon, with Bush ultimately folding on his diplomatic stonewall of both nations.

• In 2002, Bush backed (and perhaps supported) a coup in Venezuela to topple Hugo Chavez - Chavez remains in power, and thumbed his nose at Bush for the remainder of Bush's presidency.

• In 2003, Bush launched a war of choice in Iraq, reportedly declaring in relation to Saddam Hussein, "that motherf---er tried to take out my dad" - and, just as he was warned by cooler heads, we're still stuck in Iraq.

• In 2007, Bush was out of patience with Burma, imposing sanctions - that accomplished nothing.

Oh, but Bush did have his great, glorious moment - when he declared how he had cowed Muammar Gaddafi:

Before September 11th, Libya was spending millions to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Today, because America and our allies sent a clear and easy-to-understand message, the leader of Libya has abandoned his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and America and the world are safer.

He and Tony Blair rewarded Gaddafi with big, wet sloppy kisses (the figurative kind, not that a bit of kissing or hand-holding between a couple of guys can't be macho).

So Obama gives a speech at the UN, and Parker wants to make it Obama's fault that the next speaker up, Muammar Gaddafi, "looks like a renegade from Ringling Bros.", made a ridiculous speech, and has done some outrageous things since Bush decided he was reformed? Did Obama select the speaker line-up, or something? No, wait, "Obama shook hands [with Gaddafi] at a dinner in July". It must have been some sort of weak, cat-like handshake, not the strong "shake, boy" handshake you get from a dog. Shaking hands with a guy Bush claims as a reformed ally in the making? In Parker's eyes, does that make Tony Blair a cat or a poodle?

Meanwhile, Parker tells us that Obama "plans to turn his charms on Burma's military junta" while quoting Obama's head diplomat as stating that the Administration plans to "remain tough and continue sanctions pending credible democratic reforms"... so how is this a "change of policy"? Parker complains of the fact that the Obama Administration recognizes that sanctions have failed, but... you know, that's reality, even if she liked Bush's bravado in imposing sanctions that proved impotent.

The barking of a neutered, toothless dog, straining at the end of its leash? Much more impressive to Parker than anyone who considers facts or tries find rational solutions to problems. Thinking... how cat-like. So what would be a better approach to somebody like Hugo Chavez? What's the big-dawg, manly approach you should adopt toward a pissant who keeps insulting you? According to Parker, it's ignoring him - after all, what better represents the unbridled manliness of passive aggression better than the silent treatment?

And Obama's also to blame for the belligerence of Ahmadinejad (following Bush's aforementioned "successes" in dealing with Iran). It's awful that Ahmadinejad gives nutty, anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying speeches - something he would never have done were big-dawg Bush still in office. And, oh my, he's testing long-range missiles - something he surely would have been afraid to do (well, if we accept Parker's ignorance or prevarication, and pretend that he and not the Supreme Leader controls the military) if Bush were in office.

But we don't need to imagine how Bush would react. Iran did test missiles, so can simply turn to the headlines to find out how a big-dawg deals with such insolence: Bush Turns to Diplomacy to Deter Iran.

Down boy! Down!
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Update: Had this occurred when GW was President, would Parker be praising it as the success of his "big-dawg" tactics or calling him a "cat"?

Iran agreed in principle Thursday to ship most of its enriched uranium to Russia, where it would be refined for exclusively peaceful uses, in what Western diplomats called a significant, but interim, measure to ease concerns over its nuclear program.

It's Brinksmanship

When heads of state clash over big issues, the question usually becomes "who blinks first?" Jackson Diehl whines that the Obama Administration took a maximalist position when negotiating with Israel over its expansion of settlements in the Palestinian territories:

Pressuring Israel made sense, at first. The administration correctly understood that Netanyahu, a right-winger who took office with the clear intention of indefinitely postponing any Israeli-Palestinian settlement, needed to feel some public heat from Washington to change his position -- and that the show of muscle would add credibility to the administration's demands that Arab leaders offer their own gestures. But, starting with a statement by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in May, the administration made the mistake of insisting that an Israeli settlement "freeze" -- a term the past three administrations agreed to define loosely -- must mean a total stop to all construction in the West Bank and even East Jerusalem.

Diehl complains that expecting Israel to freeze its settlements doesn't demand enough of the Palestinians (er... demands on the Palestinians are a separate issue), that it's unobtainable due to Israel's internal political issues, and that he believes it to be unnecessary. Yet (although I grant, a temporary freeze is pretty meaningless) look who's blinking first:

Israel would be open to a complete freeze of settlement building in the West Bank for three to six months as part of a broad Middle East peace endeavor that included a Palestinian agreement to negotiate an end to the conflict and confidence-building steps by major Arab nations, senior Israeli officials said Sunday.

Odds are Obama will work with that short-term freeze (or perhaps even one that's broader), and use the six months to try to build a larger deal.

Persistent criticisms of Obama from the left are that he's often reluctant to draw a line in the sand, and that he appears too eager for bipartisan solutions and is willing to negotiate pretty much anything. But as far as I can see, since he took office, there's not yet been a time when Obama drew a solid line where he turned out to be the guy who blinked. Obama doesn't pick fights unless he expects to win.

Making Loud Noises....

Whatever you think of the Georgia conflict, who started it, the proportionality of the response, the excessive claims by both sides... we've now settled into a new status quo. Russia has recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and has made clear that it will militarily defend them from any effort by Georgia to reassert its authority over those territories. It wasn't difficult to see this coming - it was one of the things Russia warned the west about when it opposed the independence of Kosovo.

And now Russia has made its position clear. The Russian people support its actions, and it has no shortage of support within the territories themselves. The West is making angry noises, but Russia's not going to back down. Why not? It doesn't want to, it doesn't need to, it does not expect any serious consequence from its actions, and it fears looking weak-kneed if it backs down in the face of angry western chest-pounding. The Washington Post lectures,

Those in the West who persist in blaming Georgia or the Bush administration for the present crisis ought to carefully consider those words -- and remember the history in Europe of regimes that have made similar claims. This is the rhetoric of an isolated, authoritarian government drunk with the euphoria of a perceived victory and nursing the delusion of a restored empire. It is convinced that the West is too weak and divided to respond with more than words.

Perhaps the Post should take note, a "perceived" victory is one that doesn't exist in reality. Russia scored a bona fide military victory in Georgia. As far as the suggestion that Russia is wrong to believe that the West will not respond with anything more than words... why should it believe otherwise? More to the point, I think Russia is prepared for the possible imposition of some feeble economic sanctions, and doesn't much care. Who believes that the West is going to take action that might increase the price of oil and gas? (Strangely, I don't see any hands raised.)

The Post's ominous conclusion,

If nothing is done to restrain it, it will never release Georgia - and it will not stop there.

Ah, the glorious slippery slope. As it implied back when it opposed Kosovo's independence, its primary interest was in the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and so far there's no reason to believe that they have greater designs on Georgian territory. Nor does there appear to be any sign that Russia's about to invade any other nation. I realize that closing with ominous statements can seem compelling, but to transform the slippery slope from illogic the claim should be grounded in some sort of reality. What nation does the Post see as under imminent threat from Russia?

More to the point, what does the Post propose to do about it? Send in the Marines? Here's what their news department suggests is in the works:

"Sanctions are being considered and many other means as well," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said in response to a question at a news conference.

"We are trying to elaborate a strong text that will show our determination not to accept (what is happening in Georgia)," he said. "Of course, there are also sanctions."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed such talk, noting that Kouchner had also suggested recently that Russia might soon attack Moldova, Ukraine and the Crimea.

"But that is a sick imagination, and probably that applies to sanctions as well. I think it is a demonstration of complete confusion," Lavrov told reporters in Tajikistan.

So the west is "considering" sanctions and mulling over what sort of condemnatory text will be strong enough. They sure know how to hit Russia where it hurts.... What about U.S. and U.K. diplomats?

"There is a Russia narrative that 'we were weak in the '90s, but now we are back and we are not going to take it anymore.' But being angry and seeking revanchist victory is not the sign of a strong nation. It is the sign of a weak one," said Daniel Fried, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.

"Russia is going to have to come to terms with the reality it can either integrate with the world or it can be a self-isolated bully. But it can't be both. And that's a choice Russia has to have," Fried said.

* * *

"They are kind of giddy. They will need to sober up," said a senior U.S. official, insisting on anonymity because his remarks were diplomatically impolite. "When they sober up, they will see that it is not the U.S. that has done things to them; it's that they have done things to themselves."

Similarly, in a speech yesterday in Kiev, Ukraine, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said: "Today Russia is more isolated, less trusted and less respected than two weeks ago. It has made military gains in the short term. But over time, it will feel economic and political losses."

It actually seems like Russia, buoyed by high prices on oil and gas, is prepared to assert itself as a regional power, and fully expects to be able to act as such while continuing to engage and trade with the west. And when it comes to maintaining the flow of Russian gas into Europe, who do you think is going to blink first?

As you might expect, there's another way of looking at things. When I first read this editorial, my reaction was that it didn't really say anything that wasn't self-evident, and that the author was far too self-satisfied with the outcome. But I guess I was wrong.

For nearly two decades, while Russia sunk into "catastroika" and China built an economic powerhouse, the US has exercised unprecedented and unaccountable global power, arrogating to itself and its allies the right to invade and occupy other countries, untroubled by international law or institutions, sucking ever more states into the orbit of its voracious military alliance.

Now, pumped up with petrodollars, Russia has called a halt to this relentless expansion and demonstrated that the US writ doesn't run in every backyard. And although it has been a regional, not a global, challenge, this object lesson in the new limits of American power has already been absorbed from central Asia to Latin America.

But what of diplomatic isolation?

There has been much talk among western politicians in recent days about Russia isolating itself from the international community. But unless that simply means North America and Europe, nothing could be further from the truth. While the US and British media have swung into full cold-war mode over the Georgia crisis, the rest of the world has seen it in a very different light. As Kishore Mahbubani, Singapore's former UN ambassador, observed in the Financial Times a few days ago, "most of the world is bemused by western moralising on Georgia". While the western view is that the world "should support the underdog, Georgia, against Russia ... most support Russia against the bullying west. The gap between the western narrative and the rest of the world could not be clearer."

The conclusion is pie-in-the-sky, but consistent with the overall tone of the piece:

For the rest of us, a new assertiveness by Russia and other rising powers doesn't just offer some restraint on the unbridled exercise of global imperial power, it should also increase the pressure for a revival of a rules-based system of international relations. In the circumstances, that might come to seem quite appealing to whoever is elected US president.

Does he really believe that?

Fear Of Paper Tigers

What does it take to get an opportunity to run an editorial in the Times these days? The standards seem pretty low.

IN his inaugural address, President John F. Kennedy expressed in two eloquent sentences, often invoked by Barack Obama, a policy that turned out to be one of his presidency’s — indeed one of the cold war’s — most consequential: “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.” Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Kennedy’s special assistant, called those sentences “the distinctive note” of the inaugural.

They have also been a distinctive note in Senator Obama’s campaign, and were made even more prominent last week when President Bush, in a speech to Israel’s Parliament, disparaged a willingness to negotiate with America’s adversaries as appeasement.

Now here, one would think a responsible analysis would point out that it is not appeasement to talk to your enemies, or even to negotiate with your enemies. But Bush gets a free pass for his prevarication. Call it foreshadowing if you will, as you know the quality of analysis is going to get worse from this point forward.

Senior American statesmen like George Kennan advised Kennedy not to rush into a high-level meeting, arguing that Khrushchev had engaged in anti-American propaganda and that the issues at hand could as well be addressed by lower-level diplomats. Kennedy’s own secretary of state, Dean Rusk, had argued much the same in a Foreign Affairs article the previous year....

But Kennedy went ahead, and for two days he was pummeled by the Soviet leader. Despite his eloquence, Kennedy was no match as a sparring partner, and offered only token resistance as Khrushchev lectured him on the hypocrisy of American foreign policy, cautioned America against supporting “old, moribund, reactionary regimes” and asserted that the United States, which had valiantly risen against the British, now stood “against other peoples following its suit.” Khrushchev used the opportunity of a face-to-face meeting to warn Kennedy that his country could not be intimidated and that it was “very unwise” for the United States to surround the Soviet Union with military bases.

Kennedy’s aides convinced the press at the time that behind closed doors the president was performing well, but American diplomats in attendance, including the ambassador to the Soviet Union, later said they were shocked that Kennedy had taken so much abuse. Paul Nitze, the assistant secretary of defense, said the meeting was “just a disaster.” Khrushchev’s aide, after the first day, said the American president seemed “very inexperienced, even immature.” Khrushchev agreed, noting that the youthful Kennedy was “too intelligent and too weak.” The Soviet leader left Vienna elated — and with a very low opinion of the leader of the free world.

Okay... So we have the typical exaggerated representation of Obama's willingness to meet with "enemies" of the United States, representing the naivete of... a John McCain or Defense Secretary Gates. Should we expect a lecture about how weak Israel is for seeing to reopen peace negotiations with Syria?

But why not be more concrete? What world leader has, through Bush's tenure, been the closest analog to Kruschev? Could it be... Vladimir Putin? What happens when a President who will not at any time during his lifetime be described as "too intelligent" meets with Kruschev's modern counterpart?

Mr Bush described their meeting as straightforward and effective.

He said it was time to move beyond Cold War attitudes, away from mutually assured destruction towards mutually earned respect.

"I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue.

"I was able to get a sense of his soul.

I know we're supposed to buy into the author's right-wing talking point that the penny ante dictators Obama will supposedly make his first term priority are the equivalent of Kruschev, but... if you're not a heavy crack smoker that one's probably not very convincing. You want to talk failures of perception? Incompetence at a first meeting resulting in incredible loss of leverage with a dictatorial nuclear power? Do you think Putin walked away from that meeting awed by G.W.'s "strength and somewhat ordinary level of intelligence," or that he was quietly chuckling to himself. And let's not forget the Bush Administration's on-again, off-again love affair with Ahmed Chalabi.

And yes, I love the way the authors glom onto this notion that Kennedy was "too intelligent", as if we're better served by having Presidents of more modest intelligence - G.W. or, the apparent preference of the authors of the editorial, John McCain. I'm not sure that McCain would be flattered, but at least the authors make up for insulting his intelligence by implying that he would be "strong". But what good does that do us if his self-lauded years of experience leave him unable to distinguish Shia from Sunni, believing that Iran is backing Al Qaeda, or proudly clueless about the power hierarchy in Iran? If his childish rhetoric against diplomacy leaves him afraid to approach or be approached by leaders of "our enemies", "rogue states", whatever you want to call them, under circumstances that could aid us or our allies? Using examples cited earlier, the type of negotiations with Syria that could lead to a severe diminishment of tensions between Israel and Syria, weaken Hezbollah in Lebanon, and may even result in Syria's formal recognition of Israel? You know, the sort of negotiation Israel deems to be in its own self-interest, even if our "strong leaders of somewhat ordinary intelligence" don't see the wisdom.

Of course I'm giving the editorial far more credit than it is due. It's an amateurish argument from anecdote. You find one example of the point you want to make, depict it in the least flattering light to your target, then suggest that there could be no other outcome at any time in future history. Perhaps the Ph.D. student who contributed is so focused on this one incident (for his thesis?) that he isn't aware that history can offer counter-examples. I'm not sure what the other guy's excuse might be, other than preventing Middle East diplomacy of any sort. If you read his other work (here attacking Reagan's record), he seems to fall into the category of people who think that Arab and Muslim nations are incapable of responding to anything but fear of annihilation. Perhaps right now he's furiously scribbling out a screed against Israel's attempts to finally achieve peace with Syria, lamenting how its past leaders were duped and outsmarted in their peace negotiations with Jordan and Egypt.

I am not surprised when right-wingers of various sorts try to depict nations like Iran or Syria as the modern equivalents of Kruschev's Russia. Some don't know better, and the others who favor the argument will say whatever it takes to defeat the Democratic nominee. But is it not reasonable to be surprised when the New York Times agrees to print it? Is honoring this type of straw man argument somehow justified by the fact that it is embraced by McCain? Oh, it's so nice to see McCain threaten to stonewall the al-Qaeda supporting insurgent-supporting, Sunni Shiite nation of Iran, a nation that we are not presently prepared to occupy but could otherwise crush under the heel of our boot at any time. Or how tough he's going to be on Cuba, as if Kruschev is still alive and trying to put nuclear missiles on Cuban soil. But is it unreasonable to expect a major national newspaper to devote a few column inches to tearing down McCain's paper tigers, or burning through these straw men, rather than turning over the editorial page to people who want to advance these essentially dishonest arguments?

Cloning Diplomatic Failure

1. The Bush Administration severely limits embryonic stem cell research in the United States, permitting research only under sixty 'existing' stem cell lines.

2. While acknowledging ethical issues, scientists and pharmaceutical giants complain that the limits will impede their research and may impede the future competitiveness of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, and lobbying efforts were stepped up.

3. The Bush Administration commences a quiet battle, not to respond to those complaints, but to impose U.S.-style restrictions (or restrictions that are perhaps even broader) on the rest of the world.

4. After initial efforst to force the desired language into a treaty failed, U.S. Deputy Ambassador James Cunningham announced that a partial ban "has never been a principle that we've been prepared to accept."

What a remarkable diplomatic team the Bush Administration has assembled. One diplomatic victory after another.

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