Posts Tagged Under ‘International Affairs’

Partition

I agreed with this sentiment from the war’s beginning:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/opinion/23galbraith.html

If people fear the bloodshed that will occur in federalizing the country, well hey, it’s been underway for quite some time now.

Very Moving

I just read this piece by Christopher Hitchens from Vanity Fair and thought I should post it:

A Death in the Family

It hit a little close to home, I think. I come from a liberal Irish family too and have a brother in the military, and as a result I really got the part about the existence of pure motives in a world of cynical sloganeering.

It’s a very serious responsibility to have to put guys like that in the midst of mayhem, and it’s a leader’s role to make sure that attitude is honored and used wisely. But lost amidst the yelling and screaming on both sides of the aisle, there are still people who take a position because of reason and good intentions. The hope that people like Mark Daily will get to positions of power is the only thing that keeps me believing in politics.

Evo Morales: Not Cool

Apparently Bolivia’s president gave the Iranian president a reception with military honors:

Ahmadinejad shores up support in Bolivia, Venezuela

If you don’t like the U.S., well OK, but the last time I was in Bolivia (last August, actually) I don’t remember any Bolivians expressing support for the imposition of a Shi’ite Muslim theocracy in the Andes.

I never got the sweater thing, but that was pretty harmless. But linking up with Iran? No sir, I don’t like it.

Also, the Bolivians might want to consider a new military uniform to replace those 1847 models they’re still wearing. I guess they’re just really into the look of British dudes from the Crimean War.

Realism

Abizaid: World Could Abide Nuclear Iran

Assuming Iran actually is trying to get nuclear weapons, which is still an assumption, I agree particularly with his note about Iran not being suicidal. The Iranians also know that slipping a weapon to Hizballah would be so easily traced that they might as well just openly launch a missile, so the terrorist route is equally unlikely. (Al-Qaeda would do better to approach North Korea than Iran about such a deal. On the whole, I think mullah-run Iran has behaved a lot more rationally than the Kims.) Mostly, I agree that the cost of another war is higher than the alternative, so it’s ultimately a cost-benefit analysis.

I think that if every Army general retired and went into politics at the same time, the U.S. would certainly have a more calculated approach to world affairs. I know soldiers can’t speak their mind publicly about policy while in uniform, but I desperately hope they voice the same reasoned opinions to their civilian commanders that they do in public after retirement.

It’s also interesting that only a military guy could make such a calculation without being excoriated as a coward with his head in the sand.

More here.

“Moral Vacuum”

This column was deeply unsettling and thought-provoking:

The Age of Irresponsibility

For a President who believes so deeply in good, evil and the need for justice, why does he think a situation with no consequences isn’t going to bring out the worst in people? And for those who argue that counterinsurgencies—from the American West to Ireland to Malaysia to Kenya—have always involved (or even “require”) violent excesses by the occupiers, I think it’s obvious who deserves the blame for failing to learn that and promising the opposite in Iraq.

Iraq

Understanding the logistical impossibility of maintaining the troop surge, and disregarding whether or not you really believe that the past few months’ effort has worked, I can’t quite wrap my head around this one.

When you say spend months arguing that a certain strategy will work, then you believe that the strategy does indeed work, why then do you abandon the strategy for the very reason that, well, it worked? Apparently the President is assuming the troops’ presence allowed some other societal facet to bloom that will provide ongoing stability. But it seems to me that other than the troop level, there aren’t other variables that have changed from spring 2007 to now: even if violence is down, we haven’t seen a big Iraqi government breakthrough (ask the White House), nor is there any kind of factional reconciliation to speak of.

This is like when a patient takes medication for a chronic condition, then after realizing he feels better, says, “Man, I feel great–looks like I no longer need to take my medication.”

I Got One For Ya

This morning I was on the subway thinking about the Korean War, just on the DL as usual, when it occurred to me that President Bush could learn a lesson from his professed exemplar, Harry S Truman. (No period after the S.)

People in the Administration and the military have regularly accused Iran of aiding Iraqi Shi’ite militias in their attacks on Americans. I don’t know if Iran is actually building the IEDs, but they certainly have a sympathetic Shi’ite proxy in Iraq, and it’s unlikely that they aren’t somehow involved. Whatever the nature of Iran’s help in the mayhem, this assistance is one of the leading casus belli (plural of that?) for a potential strike on Iran. (For a level-headed assessment of what would likely happen in that event, you can read this.) Here’s where history offers some perspective.

In October 1950 the U.S. and its United Nations allies were, by all measures, winning the Korean War, having pushed to the Yalu River and taken the majority of what is now North Korea. It was then that Mao Tse-Tung sent an army of Chinese regulars into Korea and pushed the United Nations halfway back into South Korea. Eventually the front lines stabilized around the 38th Parallel and stayed roughly there until the ceasefire in 1953, which obviously is still the border today.

What does this have to do with Iran today? Well, General MacArthur was loudly calling for a nuclear attack on China to punish them for getting involved in Korea, and with an entire Chinese army fighting directly against the Americans, China’s involvement was far more overt and deadly than anything Iran has done in Iraq. It also had a more direct cost, as North Korea would likely have gone down in utter defeat without Chinese help.

Truman, however, knew that the U.S. public–not to mention the military and America’s allies fighting in Korea–would not support a widened conflict that could easily turn into World War III only five years after the end of the biggest war yet, and an attack on China would likely have widened things a great deal. So rather than attack China directly, Truman fired MacArthur (hugely unpopular at the time) and kept the conflict limited to Korea, which eventually led to his leaving office at record low approval ratings. Was his decision unfair to American forces fighting in Korea? I don’t know, but I do know that he was smart to avoid a broader war that would have turned nuclear. (MacArthur could have even volunteered an attack on the USSR: Soviet pilots were flying North Korea’s jet fighters against the U.S. and UN. Imagine how an American attack on Vladivostok would have played out for the world.)

The Korean War was a mixed bag: the U.S. avoided a wider conflict and halted communism’s advance on the peninsula, but we’ve been stuck with Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il for 50+ years, and there was the fact that South Korea only became a real democracy in the 1980s after several awful dictators. The lesson here for President Bush is that his predecessor knew that he was playing with fire if he widened the war, fire that could quickly burn out of control and sweep the war-exhausted U.S. into a tremendous fight it didn’t want. Attacking Iran would be a similar regional tinderbox, no matter how grumbly Dick Cheney states otherwise.

I hope this is all overblown and the President’s team is just doing a “Look how crazy we are that we’d make it look like we want another war; you better not mess with us because woo! Crazy!” act to scare potential critics and enemies into keeping their mouths shut. (Kind of a stretch if true.) But, either way, the President can learn from all those historical biographies he’s supposedly reading and gain some valuable insight.

History Lesson

This piece by Juan Cole ends on a perfect note: it’s one thing to make a disastrous mistake for the first time, but when the opportunity to predict the mistake’s consequences exists and one still undertakes the same disaster, then it goes beyond tragedy and into something worse.

The Ireland / Middle East Parallel

Back from the Slate retreat at Mohonk House, readaz. It was a good time: lots of smart-writer conversation, lake swimming and board games. Why is it that every time someone proposes board or parlor games, I think, “This is mad lame,” only to end up having mad fun instead?

At least this stereotype is
enjoyable

Anyway, my friend Steve and I were getting our IM on today and talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as we seem to often do. A number of people see things over there and compare them to what’s happened in Northern Ireland. (In fact, there’s allegorical evidence that the PLO and the IRA have worked together in the past.) I think people who make that analogy aren’t going far enough back in their comparison, because the Palestinian situation today is a lot more relatable to that of the Irish directly after World War I.

Back then, you had a similar situation to what’s going on in the occupied territories today: there was a general consensus among rational people on both sides that the British shouldn’t be occupying land where they were a tiny minority, and that required a system which discriminated against the ethnically-different majority. Despite this, the charged atmosphere and radicals on both sides made a negotiated settlement essentially impossible. There was a serious attempt by the British to give Home Rule to the Irish in 1913-14, but the Protestant British settlers in Ulster were so fanatical that they were openly threatening violence against their countrymen if forced to relinquish control over the land they had “settled”. (Hmm.) If not for WWI, this could very well have happened: The population back home in Britain was split on whether to give a state to the Irish and undercut their more violent countrymen, or to crack down harder on those savage and stupid Irish, who only understood force and demagoguery. (Hmm II: The Return)

After WWI, the negotiations were essentially dead. The IRA, knowing it couldn’t stand up directly to Britain’s military, started a guerrilla war against the established order. The British sent in tough veterans (the Black and Tans) to put down the guerrillas, but the Tans’ constant interference in the community and their discriminatory tactics only succeeded in turning more and more of the population against the British and in favor of the IRA. After a few years of this, the British finally reached for an end to the long headache of occupying Ireland and offered the Irish a deal: a Free State for the 26 counties of the south, but six Protestant-dominated counties of Ulster would remain part of the UK.

He does kinda look like Liam Neeson

Many Irish were furious that the British would carve up their ancestral homeland to protect the interests of a fanatical, religiously paranoid settler minority, and these Irish demanded the continuation of anti-British violence: all 32 counties or none at all. (Hmm 3: Son of Hmm.) Clearly this ignored the mighty British military reality, and more practical elements of the Irish nation thought differently: taking the deal would be a path to full independence and a potential chance to gain the other six counties through later diplomacy and governmental negotiation, instead of violence. Leading the Free Staters was Michael Collins, an IRA commander from extra-rebellious western Ireland who led the guerrilla campaign. Ultimately the conflict led to a civil war between the Republicans and the Free Staters, with the Free Staters eventually victorious. Michael Collins, however, was assassinated by Republican snipers, perhaps the war’s most prominent victim. (For a good movie, check out the obviously named Michael Collins sometime, even if Julia Roberts’ Irish accent is worse than that of the Lucky Charms spokesprechaun.)

The Collins dude is where the parallel has its biggest hole: who’s the Palestinian equivalent? I guess the closest they’ve had is Arafat, but dude was more than willing to keep up the violence to score political points, rather than making the tough choices to give his people a shot at their own rule. With him gone, though, forget it. In the past few days we’ve seen 1922 Irish-style civil-war action between the Palestinian Free-Staters (Fatah) and Republicans (Hamas), but this time the “keep up the struggle” Republicans are winning and are in control of the government, while the Free Stater not-equivalents in Gaza and the West Bank are corrupt, weak and hardly viewed by their people as a worthy leadership. Also, you can’t ignore the fact that it took another 75 years and many deaths before the North of Ireland calmed down. Not encouraging for the Israeli settlement areas, even in the nigh-impossible scenario that everything else does play out similar to Ireland.

Still, while it likely will never happen, at least the Irish experience offers the Palestinians a model with some hope for the future. It may have taken 800 years for the Irish to reach a settlement, and the Palestinians have been in their predicament since 1948, but if recent history repeats itself, maybe we’ll be lucky enough to see a sensible reduction of violence sometime soon.

Probably not, though.

Ireland in 2007 : America in 1996-1998

Hey readaship.

We’re all down for analogies. Sometimes they make you feel like some illness is on the horizon, like how G-Unit Dubs Bizzle is sadly similar to Alcibiades back in the Athens day, goading mugs into a poorly-planned military venture that then spins out of control. Other times though you watch some stuff and just can’t help but note the inherent similarity to other stuff.

That’s how it is with this Fianna Fáil re-election victory in Ireland, because the voters in Ireland essentially re-elected a guy surrounded by scandal because he was doing a good job of keeping their wallets fat. (See also Chicago, Illinois.)

Bertie (there’s a name that would never fly in American politics) Ahern took some heat recently over questionable financial decisions that included accepting gifts and cash from different developers and businessmen during and after his time as Finance Minister, even though he insists it was all legit. Plus, he took a lot of heat for letting the American military land and refuel at Shannon Airport in 2003 on their way to Iraq. While all this stuff hurt him in the public eye (my cousin never tired of IMing me from County Kerry to tell me how much he hated Ahern), housing prices in Ireland recently have been off the chizain—the average new Irish house costs 304,000 euros, which is nearly $409,000. These are smaller Euro houses too, not the crazy McPalaces we got here in the American exurbs. And Ireland, notorious for sending people like Grandma and Grandpa Stack abroad in search of employment, is actually importing hella workers from Europe and elsewhere.

So, the people overlooked that non-economic drama and the fears of rising crime and declining education to re-elect Ahern and keep the economy humming. Sometimes you gotta just ride the wave, I guess, and make sure to look like you’re the bomb at surfing even while the ocean could take its toll in pwnage at any moment.

• Also, Sinn Fein rolls pretty strangely. They won all of four seats in the Irish Dáil assembly out of 166, hardly a big showing. I don’t really know why they think Southern Irish republicanism is going to make some sort of comeback when it hasn’t been fashionable since the 1960s or so, not to mention they’re still quasi-Marxist and, as I just mentioned, mugs voted with their pocketbooks. But more than that, like my cousins say, most of the people in the Republic still just wish they could “be rid of that crazy lot up there.” So, SF: get your gear in order in the Northern Assembly before you try to roll out on some Dublin dudes.

The Thanks America Gets

It seems the FBI foiled an Islamist plot to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey when the potential terrorist masterminds took a tape of themselves firing assault weapons and yelling “Allahu Akbar” to the local video store for dubbing onto DVD format. The quick-thinking clerk called the cops, who called the FBI, who arrested the men and averted the attack.

The really interesting thing to me here is that, according to the story, four of the perpetrators were born in the former Yugoslavia. Being Muslims, that most likely means they’re either Bosnian or Kosovar Albanians, both of which were populations that the United States protected from Serbian violence through direct military action. Even today, the U.S. maintains a military presence in the area to keep ethnic conflict from flaring up again.

The Muslim world today is awash in anti-American sentiment. Yet if there’s any group of people that the West could expect to offer a counterweight to the jihadist hate, it would seem to be the two Muslim populations that NATO intervened militarily to protect less than ten years ago. Yet even after the U.S. and European militaries essentially act as the Bosnian Muslim / Kosovar air force and save scores of lives, Muslims from this community are still pissed enough to attempt a direct attack on the United States. We’re hardly talking about a parallel to the Iraq War in those conflicts; the impacted populations actually did “greet us as liberators”, or at least as forceful protectors.

I doubt that I’m alone in this sentiment, but after this, what more can the U.S. even hope to do to convince the Muslim world that we aren’t out to get them?

Fighting the Last War

I just got done reading this excellent piece by Lt. Col. Paul Yingling in Armed Forces Journal. If you’re at all interested in the Iraq war, civilian-military confluence in political society, or even just want to read a well-thought-out article, read it with the quickness.

The great lesson of the article isn’t one that’s only for the military, either: if you’re not in charge, have the balls to speak up when your leaders are going the wrong direction. And if you are in charge, then have the balls to listen. Ignoring other perspectives while you bull ahead isn’t a sign of toughness; it’s a sign that you’re a damned idiot who doesn’t know how to accomplish even your own goals.

Politics Bullet Pointz

• I’m not sure why it is that Nicolas Sarkozy seems to have been anointed as the front-runner by all the commentary I’ve read, but they were right about dude, as he won a pretty commanding victory, 53% to 47%. I think a lot of the positive coverage has to do with commentary peeps simply being tired of Chirac and his administration’s predictably boring obstinacy. Still, for all the press, I think the following are true:

  1. You might see France stop automatically siding vocally with Russia and China at the Security Council like they have in the past few years, but that’s about it for change. Sarko is an admirer of the U.S., but what really is going to be different for French action on the world stage? He’s hardly going to jump into the Iraq debacle now, much less even express support for it. And nobody’s going to risk Bush contamination: hell, America is 68% against the man at this point, much less the French public.

  2. Still, Franco-American relations will likely improve, and it’s about time. We need the two nations to come together for the sake of the global Spaghetti-Os community.

  I’m also annoyed with everyone tip-toeing around the identity of the rioters. Were they angry Muslim banlieu residents, or were they disaffected left-wing students? Maybe a blend? With French rioting, you really never know, so let’s quit the vagaries and get some 5Ws up in this piece.

• Tony Blair = Lyndon Johnson. Think about it: both rode large waves of popular support for a domestic agenda that had so much promise to shift the political culture of the nation, only to be dragged down by what they saw as strategically and politically necessary involvement in a misguided foreign war when, in reality, a strong stand by either one could have averted the ensuing chaos. Both watched as their efforts slowly crumbled, but each was forced to wear a positive face, even as it was obvious that underneath, each knew just how badly things were going. (This is where the Bush / LBJ parallel ends.) Both left before their time, and ultimately endured a downtrodden exit from the world stage.

  Who says history doesn’t mean anything?

• If he cares at all about the developmental mission of the World Bank—that may be debatable—Paul Wolfowitz should step down. What he did wasn’t illegal, but it was certainly in poor judgment for the head of the organization, and it’s causing fallout.

  That said, I don’t think Wolfowitz will resign. The Bush people are in full turtling-up mode—see Gonzales taking a beating lately to understand this—, and I think that extends to Wolfowitz as well. Euros, you can offer all the tasty deals you want, but you’re just setting yourself up for yet another public snub, because the real issue here is admission of failure. The last six years have proven that that is just not going to happen with any facet of our executive branch. They’re weathering the storm, but as a result, so is the rest of the world.

Which Britain?

Hey readaz.

I went through a series of feelings on Iran’s catch and release of the British sailors in the Persian Gulf in the past month. At first, I wondered how Iran, which has displayed no shortage of savvy in taking advantage of its shifting regional reality, could be so unaware as to play directly into the plans of Cheney and other American planners looking for a pretext for war with Iran. Had the sailors been American, the Tomahawks would be flying within about three days. But, being sailors from America’s closest ally, it was still a possibility that the U.S. would take action on Britain’s behalf. So at first, the atmosphere was one of dread that another war was about to begin, and disbelief that Iran would be equal parts defiant and self-immolating.

But then as time went by, and the Iranians paraded their apologetic captives while the British government kept nearly silent in terms of displeasure at the situation, I worried less about war and more about how great of a propaganda victory this was going to be for the Iranians. And sure enough, Iran released the hostages with perfect timing, allowing Ahmadinejad to come out looking benevolent (even though it was likely Khamenei and Ali Larjani who pushed him into the release) and–even though they got what they wanted and avoided a broader conflict–Britain looking supplicant. With the sailors selling their stories to the Daily Mirror, there’s no shortage of criticism of their behavior. I can’t speak to that, mainly because I don’t know the full circumstances of their capture and that makes me hesitate to join in the chorus of boos. But seeing things go down as they have is still surprising in contrast to the behavior of British civilians in the July 2005 London bombings.

After that terrorist attack, British stiff-upper-lipism was in full swing. Workers and residents wasted no time going back to their daily routine, very publicly demonstrating their resolve not to bow to those who would call for Britain’s destruction. One of TIME’s cover subjects from that attack stopped by the office in New York, and he was the most chilled-out guy, both in general and about what had happened and how he had helped the injured woman through the whole ordeal.

It’s some weird stuff here to see expected societal roles turned on end, in this case the civilians playing stoic in contrast to the anxiety-ridden military. I give credit to Britain for avoiding a wider war, but I don’t think this is the public image they wanted to present, nor does it fit in with how they’ve reacted recently on the world stage.