Was Iraq Worth It?

As Operation New Dawn unfolds in Iraq, Anne Applebaum asks the pivotal question. Like Applebaum, I supported the Iraq war, the surge, and believe it became an integral part to the war on terror.  However, she rightfully captures our actions came at some high costs to include:

America's reputation for effectiveness. The victory was swift, but the occupation was chaotic. The insurgency appeared to take Washington by surprise, and no wonder: The Pentagon was squabbling with the State Department, the soldiers had no instructions and didn't speak the language. The overall impression, in Iraq and everywhere else, was of American incompetence—and, after Abu Ghraib, of stupidity and cruelty as well. Two years ago, a poll showed that vast numbers of our closest friends felt that the "mismanagement" of Iraq—not the "invasion" of Iraq—was the biggest stumbling block for allies of the United States.

No wonder, then, that America's ability to organize a coalition has also suffered. Participation in the Iraq war cost Tony Blair his reputation and the Spanish government an election. After an initial surge of support, the Iraqi occupation proved unpopular even in countries where America is popular, such as Italy and Poland. Almost no country that participated in the conflict derived any economic or diplomatic benefits from doing so. None received special U.S. favors—not even Georgia, which sent 2,000 soldiers and received precisely zero U.S. support during its military conflict with Russia.
It will be a lot harder to get any of the "coalition of the willing" to fight with us again. Indeed, "Iraq" is part of the reason why there is so little enthusiasm for Afghanistan and why it is so difficult to put organized pressure on Iran.

Another victim of the conflict was America's ability to influence the Middle East. Admittedly, we were never as good at this as we would like to be, but the chaos in Iraq has clearly strengthened Iran. It has had no positive impact on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By helping raise the price of oil for a few years—this was supposed to be a "war for oil"; remember that?—it has also strengthened Saudi Arabia, the regime that produced 15 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers.

Of course, the high oil price also strengthened Russia and Venezuela—not that anyone has much noticed—because another casualty of the Iraq war has been America's ability to think like a global power. Even if we eventually pull out of Iraq altogether, we will have been bogged down in that country for the decade that also saw China's rise to real world-power status, Latin America's drift to the far left, and Russia's successful use of pipeline politics to divide Europe—all trends that commanded hardly any attention from the Bush administration and so far even less from Obama.

In the end, the jury is still out on this.  We cannot leave Iraq anytime soon if we have any hopes of containing Iran. Already, the Iraqi Defense Minister is making statements that the US needs to maintain a presence in Iraq until at least 2016. It's still unclear whether Turkey, the one regional power that can counter Iran, would be willing to do so, with the Islamists gaining political power. Despite the grand bargain wishful thinking of the Obama administration, the Iranians have little reason to enter into comprehensive diplomatic negotiation with us, that is, unless they truly believe we will strike them. And not just their nuclear facilities--but take away their ability to project offensive power in the region, and cripple their hegemonic ambitions. But I simply don't believe it's in the President's DNA to launch a new war.  An if they assess that as well, they just have to wait for our withdrawal out of both Iraq and Afghanistan.

If our diplomacy is adept enough though, a stable Iraq that is not betrothed to Iran, or permanently Lebanon-ized in sectarian factions, will be a remarkable force for political and cultural reform in the Middle East for decades. If the earlier outcomes prevail though, the whole project will have to be deemed a failure. Time will only tell.

Ratify the New START Treaty

I have to agree with Robert Kagan's take on GOP opposition to the new START treaty we negotiated with Russia. In his article, he points out while the GOP has some reasonable concerns over how the administration's "reset" has been conducted at the expense of our European allies, he also notes the proposed cuts are modest, and Republican Presidents in the past have always embraced sweeping cuts in nuclear arms. He additionally points out:

As to the treaty's virtues, there is little doubt that its negotiations improved the mood of relations between Moscow and Washington. This has had some payoff, both in Moscow's behavior and in the administration's. One suspects the administration has moved in a tougher direction on other issues partly because it has the treaty in hand. Successful cooperation with Russia on one front has allowed it to press Russia harder on others. The administration already seems to be trying to reset the "reset," paying greater attention to worried Europeans and protesting Russia's continued occupation of Georgia. Would defeat of the treaty help Russia's neighbors? I doubt it. Those who want to fix problems with the reset should focus more intently on those problems. New START is not one of them.

Senators have an obligation to block a treaty that they believe may damage the national interest. And Democrats certainly have no right to lecture Republicans about supporting the president, since many of them just voted against his funding request for Afghanistan.

But on this issue, Republicans can and should take the high ground and set a better standard. The treaty has its problems -- in verification, where the Russians seem never to be entirely trustworthy, as well as in counting mechanisms -- and so did the treaties negotiated by the two Bush administrations. But New START is not so badly flawed as to warrant rejection.

The Russians have been more cooperative with Iranian sanctions lately most likely because our relations have improved.  Pres Medvedev also wants more western investment to help modernize the Russian economy and is being somewhat pragmatic here in relations with the US.  There's a reason why this week after visiting the White House that he proceeded to Silicon Valley. There are plenty of policy issues for the GOP to oppose the Obama administration on; this isn't one of them.

The Aftermath of McChrystal

Obama hasn't done a clean sweep on the civilian side of the house, despite some astute foreign policy pundits calling for it.  Who in the administration is in charge of Afghanistan political policy? Is it Clinton? Holbrooke? Eikenberry? Jones?  Hard to say.  McClatchy just noted last week we have no long term political strategy in Afghanistan which in turn is hurting the military effort:

The failure to articulate what a post-American Afghanistan should look like and devise a political path for achieving it is a major obstacle to success for the U.S. military-led counter-insurgency campaign that's underway, these officials and experts said.

The result is "strategic confusion," said Ronald E. Neumann, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2005-07.

 
Peter Feaver at Shadow Gov't has some perceptive observations on the implications of the replacing McChrystal with Petraus:

If President Obama's only problem was how to deal with a great fighter who cultivated a poor command climate and was careless in his media relations, then the problem is solved - and deftly so.

But operationally, I fear Obama's problems are greater and that the Petraeus-for-McChrystal swap is an insufficient step. Operationally, the problem is that McChrystal's intemperate statements about his colleagues were impolitic but accurate. [emphasis added.]  The occasion called for a more extensive housecleaning than Obama performed.  Obama punished the one guy caught on tape, not the others on the team that were underperforming.

Yes, Obama in his statement reaffirmed the importance of unity of effort.  Yes, Obama said he "won't tolerate division."  But so far as we know, nothing else was done to fix the other problems.  Petraeus may well prove a more deft and diplomatic bureaucratic operator than McChrystal, but Obama did not set him up for success with the clean sweep that was warranted.

And strategically, I worry that Obama has robbed Peter to pay Paul -- increased the risks in Iraq and Iran in order to reduce the risks in Afghanistan. As CENTCOM Commander, Petraeus was the senior military officer watching Iraq. Given the administration's rush to declare mission accomplished there, one might say that Petraeus was the only senior member of the Obama national security team who seemed to understand just how fragile was the hard-won progress in that critical country. Likewise, Petraeus' reputation probably bought us a non-trivial margin of credibility on the pressure track with Iran. Weakening the pressure track weakens our diplomatic leverage and hastens the day we will confront an Iranian nuclear weapon. Viewed this way, the appointment of Petraeus may be less important than the appointment of Petraeus' successor.

When Obama replaced McChrystal with Petraus, he announced his Afghan strategy would not change. His SecDef keeps saying the timetable is not a timetable, we delayed the Kandahar offensive, the Taliban are still refusing to negotiate, and Obama doesn't think his strategy needs adjustment, or that maybe he's not receiving the best advice from the civilians?  What a way to stay the course--until 2011.

Obama is more interested in transforming America domestically than in dealing with foreign policy.  He's perceives he's got plenty of "brights" on the civilian side of the house to handle that portfolio. He views Afghanistan as a problem to solve. One senses little moral imperative or conviction in why we should stay in Afghanistan. He seems to have no guiding principles on foreign policy, except that it shouldn't detract from his transformation projection. So it's not too much of a surprise our policy in Afghanistan is in trouble, particularly when one's adversaries senses the US President does not really feel invested in it.

Yes General McChrystal, It's Insubordination

Hotair has links to the latest scoop.  The entire article on Gen McChrystal's comments was published online in the Rolling Stone this morning.  Let me preface this with some thoughts:  I did not feel McChrystal's earlier comments in London were insubordination since he was frankly discussing his views on policy, although he pushed the limit somewhat in those remarks.  I'm tremendously sympathetic to the frustration that he must feel regarding whether the President is really engaged or focused on victory in Afghanistan.  The "deadline" announced with the troop surge undercuts its very rationale.  It's no surprise the Taliban aren't coming to the table if they assess they can wait us out and win it all back.   In a WaPo op-ed today, Richard Cohen defines quite clearly the lack of any moral component of Obama's foreign policy: 

It can seem that at the heart of Barack Obama's foreign policy is no heart at all. It consists instead of a series of challenges -- of problems that need fixing, not wrongs that need to be righted. As Winston Churchill once said of a certain pudding, Obama's approach to foreign affairs lacks theme. So, it seems, does the man himself.

For instance, it's not clear that Obama is appalled by China's appalling human rights record. He seems hardly stirred about continued repression in Russia. He treats the Israelis and their various enemies as pests of equal moral standing. The president seems to stand foursquare for nothing much...

Foreign policy is the realm where a president comes closest to ruling by diktat. By command decision, the war in Afghanistan has been escalated, yet it seems to lack an urgent moral component. It has an apparent end date even though girls may not yet be able to attend school and the Taliban may rule again. In some respects, I agree -- the earlier out of Afghanistan, the better -- but if we are to stay even for a while, it has to be for reasons that have to do with principle...

Problems with Obama's foreign policy aside, a few observations on griping about the higher ups:  I'm just a mid-level field grader, but I'm not surprised by some of the comments that McChrystal and his aides would make privately to each other.  Some griping about someone higher up in the chain of command is a given in the military, especially in wartime.  Fielded units will often complain about the lack of understanding and insight from higher headquarters on issues of tactical necessity, just as the Rolling Stone article describes the soldiers' discussion with McChrystal on what they perceive as too restrictive rules of engagement.  In this sense, higher ranking officers are not immune to temptations to mutter something about the chain of command or civilian leadership occasionally.  People in the all volunteer force serve as a calling, and as such, they tend to be passionate in their views about what's best for the mission.  When general officers make eyebrow raising comments, it's usually off the cuff at informal settings, or behind closed doors.  Whatever one's private feelings, most officers avoid publicly airing these comments. 

Having said all that, when those type of comments spill out so publicly as they did in this article, it's a red alarm that frustration has reached critical mass, often due to serious deficiencies in leadership. I read the entire Rolling Stone article with incredulity; it read like a big middle finger to the administration.  And as empathetic as I am to McChrystal and his aides' frustrations, this sort of situation is never good for morale and never reflects well on the one who made the comments--no matter how justified you think they are in their statements.  When a situation like this occurs, everyone in the lower ranks tends just to watch stunned as Officer X makes disloyal comment about Higher Officer Y, and we just look at each other in disbelief asking, did he just say that publicly?  We start wondering about our own efforts in following Higher Officer Y.  What's worse is these comments weren't just about other military officers--they were about the President and Vice President, and the national security staff.

The article starts off right away with back-biting rhetoric.  This bit about McChrystal having to meet a French minister for dinner:

"The dinner comes with the position, sir," says his chief of staff, Col. Charlie Flynn. 

McChrystal turns sharply in his chair.

"Hey, Charlie," he asks, "does this come with the position?"

McChrystal gives him the middle finger.

The French are an easy target, but despite our complaints, they are our allies.  We should not publicly denigrate our allies' contributions.  From there, the article gets worse.  Some of the choicest quotes:

Now, flipping through printout cards of his speech in Paris, McChrystal wonders aloud what Biden question he might get today, and how he should respond. "I never know what's going to pop out until I'm up there, that's the problem," he says. Then, unable to help themselves, he and his staff imagine the general dismissing the vice president with a good one-liner. 

"Are you asking about Vice President Biden?" McChrystal says with a laugh. "Who's that?"

"Biden?" suggests a top adviser. "Did you say: Bite Me?"

Or this one:

In private, Team McChrystal likes to talk shit about many of Obama's top people on the diplomatic side. One aide calls Jim Jones, a retired four-star general and veteran of the Cold War, a "clown" who remains "stuck in 1985."

And it continues:

McChrystal reserves special skepticism for Holbrooke, the official in charge of reintegrating the Taliban. "The Boss says he's like a wounded animal," says a member of the general's team. "Holbrooke keeps hearing rumors that he's going to get fired, so that makes him dangerous. He's a brilliant guy, but he just comes in, pulls on a lever, whatever he can grasp onto. But this is COIN, and you can't just have someone yanking on shit."

At one point on his trip to Paris, McChrystal checks his BlackBerry. "Oh, not another e-mail from Holbrooke," he groans. "I don't even want to open it." He clicks on the message and reads the salutation out loud, then stuffs the BlackBerry back in his pocket, not bothering to conceal his annoyance.

And about the President:

Even though he had voted for Obama, McChrystal and his new commander in chief failed from the outset to connect. The general first encountered Obama a week after he took office, when the president met with a dozen senior military officials in a room at the Pentagon known as the Tank. According to sources familiar with the meeting, McChrystal thought Obama looked "uncomfortable and intimidated" by the roomful of military brass. Their first one-on-one meeting took place in the Oval Office four months later, after McChrystal got the Afghanistan job, and it didn't go much better. "It was a 10-minute photo op," says an adviser to McChrystal. "Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was. Here's the guy who's going to run his fucking war, but he didn't seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed."

When comments do not reflect well on the President or Vice-President, there's no other way to describe it except as downright disloyal.  When you swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, it means being loyal to its civilian leadership--no matter what you think of them.  As difficult as Afghanistan is right now, the President would be justified in cashiering McChrystal.  The fact many of the comments are from his aides is not an excuse--he clearly allowed this sort of atmosphere if they're speaking so brazenly to reporters.  Politico is reporting he saw the Rolling Stone article before it was published.  I have a hard time believing he's surprised over the stir this is causing, and am left half wondering if he wanted this to get out deliberately. Even if he gets fired, he will at least have achieved a debate over the larger Afghan strategy.  If it was never his intention to offend anyone, he sorely misjudged how its content would be perceived, and that doesn't reflect well on him, either. I think for the sake of the Afghanistan war, it's best he offer his resignation, and for the President to accept it.

North Korea Turns Towards Private Markets

The WaPo is reporting that North Korea is turning towards private markets to stave off a food crisis, and has lifted all restrictions on them.  I blogged earlier on indicators that the regime's grip on its citizenry may be slipping, as large riots and civil disturbances ensued when they reversed market reforms last year.  So its seems the regime is indeed backing down:

In recent weeks, according to North Korea observers and defector groups with sources in the country, Kim Jong Il's government admitted its inability to solve the current food shortage and encouraged its people to rely on private markets for the purchase of goods. Though the policy reversal will not alter daily patterns -- North Koreans have depended on such markets for more than 15 years -- the latest order from Pyongyang abandons a key pillar of a central, planned economy.

With November's currency revaluation, Kim wiped out his citizens' personal savings and struck a blow against the private food distribution system sustaining his country. The latest policy switch, though, stands as an acknowledgment that the currency move was a failure and that only capitalist-style trading can prevent widespread famine.

"The North Korean government has tried all possible ways [for a planned economy] and failed, and it now has to resort to the last option," said Koh Yu-hwan, professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul. "There's been lots of back and forth in what the government has been willing to tolerate, and I cannot rule out the possibility of them trying to bring back restrictions on the markets. But it is hard for the government to reverse it now."

Because North Korea operates in secrecy and isolation, outside observers rely on informants and accounts from defectors. In this case, experts agree that the food shortage is dire. Several analysts who monitor and travel to North Korea said that in recent weeks, Pyongyang has abandoned almost all its rules about who can spend money and when. That would seem to indicate that Kim -- who once equated free-market trading with "egotism" and a collapse of social order -- now wants to rehabilitate the markets damaged in November.

There's evidence in scholarly research that shows authoritarian governments who open up too quickly to democratic reforms become destabilized.  North Korea may be trying to imitate the Chinese model of gradual economic reforms to harness some support and legitimacy of the regime while still keeping a clamp on any political reforms. The hermit kingdom can't stay isolated forever in the same manner of other small nations.  Korea is a divided country on a peninsula, and standing in stark contrast to North Korea's poverty is it's rich sibling of South Korea. Just as East and West Germany eventually reunited, I feel that history will eventually lead to reunification of the peninsula. Unless the North Korea regime, desperate to retain vestiges of legitimacy, provokes a war with South Korea.

Turkey: Our New Frenemy

Finally.  The DC establishment is waking up to the implications of a Turkey who sidelines its secular traditions in favor of an Islamist one.  In an editorial, the WaPo writes:

WESTERN GOVERNMENTS have been right to be concerned about Israel's poor judgment and botched execution in the raid against the Free Gaza flotilla. But they ought to be at least as worried about the Turkish government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which since Monday has shown a sympathy toward Islamic militants and a penchant for grotesque demagoguery toward Israel that ought to be unacceptable for a member of NATO...

Mr. Erdogan's crude attempt to exploit the incident comes only a couple of weeks after he joined Brazil's president in linking arms with Mr. Ahmadinejad, whom he is assisting in an effort to block new U.N. sanctions. What's remarkable about his turn toward extremism is that it comes after more than a year of assiduous courting by the Obama administration, which, among other things, has overlooked his antidemocratic behavior at home, helped him combat the Kurdish PKK and catered to Turkish sensitivities about the Armenian genocide. Israel is suffering the consequences of its misjudgments and disregard of U.S. interests. Will Mr. Erdogan's behavior be without cost?

In Foreign Policy mag post titled, "How Do You Say "Frenemy" in Turkish?" Steve Cook writes:

For the first time in its history, Ankara has chosen sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, demanding that Israel take steps to ease the blockade of Gaza or risk unspecified "consequences." Well before the recent crisis, the Turks had positioned themselves as thinly veiled advocates for Hamas, which has long been on the U.S. State Department's list of terrorist organizations. In public statements, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has compared Turkey's Islamists and Hamas. Implicit in these declarations is a parallel to Erdogan's own Justice and Development Party, whose predecessors were repeatedly banned from politics.

This parallel is rather odd. Turkey's Islamists always sought to process their grievances peacefully, while the Islamic Resistance Movement -- Hamas's actual name -- has a history of violence. Ankara's warm embrace of Hamas has not only angered the Israelis, but other U.S. regional allies including Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, and Saudi Arabia.

Cook plays down the Islamist resurgence in Turkey by pointing out Turkey's foreign minister is not an Islamist, but there's no denying these changes surrounding Turkey's foreign policy came about after Erdogran's solidification of control over the government after he purged dissent from the secular Turkish military. Greg Sheridan notes the changes in Turkish society since the AKP has gained power:

But Turkish society was not immune to the currents of Islamisation and extremism running through the Muslim world. In 2002 it elected a seemingly moderate Islamist government, led by Recep Erdogan.

A few years ago I spent some time in Turkey and, like most new visitors, was entranced by the beauty of Istanbul, the vigorous diversity of Turkish society and its robust democratic debate.

But many of the secular Turks I met in Istanbul were deeply worried about the long-term intentions of their government, which they believed wanted to Islamise Turkish society but was moving cautiously and slowly because of the power of the military.

In the past year or so more than 200 Turkish military officers have been jailed on the most preposterous conspiracy charges, allegedly for plotting a coup. Like many Muslim societies, Turkey is always rife with conspiracy theories. When I was in Turkey the bestselling novel there was called Metal Firtina and concerned a US military invasion of Turkey. Many of the secular Turks who denounced their own government to me also told me they thought the Firtina scenario quite plausible, even realistic.

Similarly, I visited several city campuses in Istanbul, where smart young people, the sons and daughters of affluence and secularism, formed the student body. But the virulence of the anti-Israel propaganda was astonishing. On one campus there was a display explaining how Israeli tanks, when they entered Palestinian towns, strapped Palestinian children on to the front of the tanks so Palestinian fighters would not fire on them. Needless to say, this is completely nuts.

Robert Pollock has also relayed this exchange with the Turkish PM, who refused to condemn the popular movies in Turkey showing Americans killing Iraqis for organ harvesting.  The rise in anti-Americanism and anti-semitism in Turkish society is very worrying. Also noteworthy, is the reports that the Turkish government backed the NGO known as Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (it's Turkish acronym is IHH), whose ties to terrorist groups are currently under scrutiny.


Turkey is a NATO ally to the US and increasingly assertive power in the region.  It provides a natural check to Iranian hegemonic ambitions, has good relations with other Arab nations, and can be an important facilitator in MidEast peace talks.  We need to maintain good relations with Turkey, but we must also to the extent possible, conduct relations in a way that does not empower Islamic extremism. We can start by no longer remaining silent on Turkey's human rights hypocrisy. 

North Korea: Nothing to Lose

Kim Jong-un, the youngest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, reported to be his heir.

I've been waiting for events to develop in NK before blogging about it. It seems North Korea has upped the ante by cutting off all ties with Seoul. This came on the heels of the administration announcing joint US-S. Korean military exercises to be held on the peninsula, and telling the NYT that Kim Jong-il ordered the attack on S. Korean ship.  There's a bit of diplomatic wiggle room in NYT piece if needed, as administration officials are quoted as saying:

We can’t say it is established fact,” said one senior American official who was involved in the highly classified assessment, based on information collected by many of the country’s 16 intelligence agencies. “But there is very little doubt, based on what we know about the current state of the North Korean leadership and the military.”

Nonetheless, both the conclusion and the timing of the assessment could be useful to the United States as it seeks to rally support against North Korea. [emphasis added]

Another NTY op-ed today from Ian Bremer, president of the Eurasia group, points out that not only may North Korea be facing a leadership succession issue, but it's iron clad grip on society may be slipping. When the regime allowed some small scale capitalist experiments to begin in 2002, a black market for cell phones, radios, and other communication devices quickly burgeoned.  When North Korea tried to clamp down on these reforms last year, here's what happened:

South Koreans with connections inside North Korea reported black market hyperinflation, severe food shortages and pockets of serious civil unrest. The government quickly suppressed the protests and tried to appease public anger with emergency supplies of rice in the hardest-hit areas.

Then something extraordinary happened: The North Korean government backed down. It reopened private markets and again allowed transactions in foreign currencies. The prime minister issued a stunning and nearly unprecedented public apology. State planners were publicly humiliated. A few weeks ago, North Korea’s finance minister was executed by firing squad.

In other words, succession is only one of the problems facing the North Korean elite. The larger fear is that the state can’t isolate North Korea’s people forever, that only access to products from outside the country can ease chronic shortages, and that all this new market activity is raising public expectations the North Korean leadership can’t meet.

In April, the regime reportedly provided senior military officials with foreign cars to ensure their loyalty. That sounds a lot like the late East German leader Erich Honecker’s bid to reward his generals with weekend shopping trips to the West — a move that only whetted their appetite for more and hastened the country’s demise.

Did North Korean torpedo the Cheonan to manufacture a military crisis that might rally angry North Koreans to their government? Maybe. Would the attack create unity within the military ranks that might help smooth the succession process when Kim Jong-il finally dies? Perhaps. China and South Korea are right to worry that a North Korean collapse would flood both countries with sick and starving refugees.

But beyond the speculation, it’s starting to look like North Korea’s insecurity might be approaching a tipping point — raising the risk of another hostile act that might send North and South Koreans forces stumbling toward a shooting war that can only end in disaster for both.

There are few good options for the administration in this situation.  North Korea is already heavily sanctioned, has nuclear weapons, and its artillery ranged on Seoul, a city with a population over 10 million. Still, it looks like with this info deliberately given to the Times, the announcement of war games, and Hillary Clinton putting the yuan issue on the backburner in her meeting with China, the administration feels compelled to act since what North Korea did constitutes an act of war.   When the Bush administration hit the regime financially where it really hurt, North Korea came to the table and specifically tied its nuclear deal to the release of its funds held at Banco Delta in Macau.  I expect that if there is any new information on regime financial sources, the administration will try to find a way to sanction it.

China is key to this issue since they have direct ties to the regime. But it's unlikely they want to disturb the status quo since they share a border with North Korea. They don't want their refugees should North Korean society collapse, nor are they keen on seeing the peninsula unified under a capitalist-led South Korea. Plus, it's an issue where they are the primary facilitators that Washington has to go through. As such, they've been playing the issue down.  The Obama administration's bandwidth on foreign policy is full; human rights haven't been a pressing concern for it. After some angry exchanges and obligatory UNSC denouncement of North Korea, with such little information we have on North Korea, the administration may very well desire a return to the status quo as well.

In a Bloomberg interview with Henry Kissinger yesterday, the interviewer switches from the topic of the yuan over to North Korea about half way thru the interview. Here Kissinger remarks that North Korea "is one of the weirdest little regimes." He points out they do not produce anything, nor do they have an real trade.  The North Korean government cares only for regime preservation; everything it does should be viewed through this prism. It other words, if it helps strengthen the regime, North Korea has nothing to lose in stirring up another crisis short of war.

The Obama Doctrine: Wishful Jeffersonian Minus the Exceptionalism

I watched Obama's West Point speech which was a little over 1/2 hr long.  The first half was boilerplate in lauding the institution of West Point, and sacrifices of the US military. The latter half was where Obama defined his foreign policy vision. The speech struck me heavily as Jeffersonian, with a focus on rebuilding ourselves internally, urging the utmost restraint on the use of force, and promoting our values through leading by example.  However, his foreign policy words and actions to date have revealed a progressive adaption of this traditionally Jeffersonian view.  It's the view that America is not exceptional, and is badly flawed. Only through the progressive project can America be truly great. Until then, she has no business imparting any wisdom of democracy onto other nations. And this, in the progressive mind, provides the rationale for American restraint.

When reminding the cadets of why our domestic challenges were directly correlated with our ability to project power overseas, here I thought Obama was as his best even as I dissent from his domestic policies.  His words accurately reflect the current national mood, are traditional themes in American foreign policy, and are mindful of the realities on the limits of force:

Simply put, American innovation must be the foundation of American power -- because at no time in human history has a nation of diminished economic vitality maintained its military and political primacy [emphasis added].  And so that means that the civilians among us, as parents and community leaders, elected officials, business leaders, we have a role to play. We cannot leave it to those in uniform to defend this country -- we have to make sure that America is building on its strengths. (Applause.)

As we build these economic sources of our strength, the second thing we must do is build and integrate the capabilities that can advance our interests, and the common interests of human beings around the world. America's armed forces are adapting to changing times, but your efforts have to be complemented. We will need the renewed engagement of our diplomats, from grand capitals to dangerous outposts. We need development experts who can support Afghan agriculture and help Africans build the capacity to feed themselves. We need intelligence agencies that work seamlessly with their counterparts to unravel plots that run from the mountains of Pakistan to the streets of our cities. We need law enforcement that can strengthen judicial systems abroad, and protect us here at home. And we need first responders who can act swiftly in the event of earthquakes and storms and disease.

The burdens of this century cannot fall on our soldiers alone. It also cannot fall on American shoulders alone. Our adversaries would like to see America sap its strength by overextending our power. And in the past, we've always had the foresight to avoid acting alone. We were part of the most powerful wartime coalition in human history through World War II. We stitched together a community of free nations and institutions to endure and ultimately prevail during a Cold War.

This latter paragraph is a direct repudiation of what many critics viewed as Bush's unilateralism.  From here, the speech takes a twist in how Obama views Islamic terrorism:

So the threat will not go away soon, but let's be clear: Al Qaeda and its affiliates are small men on the wrong side of history. They lead no nation. They lead no religion. We need not give in to fear every time a terrorist tries to scare us. We should not discard our freedoms because extremists try to exploit them. We cannot succumb to division because others try to drive us apart. We are the United States of America. (Applause.) We are the United States of America, and we have repaired our union, and faced down fascism, and outlasted communism. We've gone through turmoil, we've gone through Civil War, and we have come out stronger -- and we will do so once more. (Applause.)

And I know this to be true because I see the strength and resilience of the American people. Terrorists want to scare us. New Yorkers just go about their lives unafraid. (Applause.) [emphasis added]. Extremists want a war between America and Islam, but Muslims are part of our national life, including those who serve in our United States Army. (Applause.) Adversaries want to divide us, but we are united by our support for you -- soldiers who send a clear message that this country is both the land of the free and the home of the brave. (Applause.)

Here, in the bold portion, the applause was at its most tepid, because Obama attempts to impart his our version of reality that is at odds with most Americans.  First, he tries to disassociate Al Qaeda from Islam as a way to curry favor with the Muslim world, instead of starting a dialogue with them to speak honestly of these challenges within their culture. Second, New Yorkers DO care about and are quite sensitive to to terrorist attacks.  Playing down Al Qaeda or Taliban attacks will not sap them of their zeal to attack Americans, as shown in numerous Al Qaeda attacks in the lead-up to 9-11. This is where I think Obama fundamentally gets America wrong, and ignores the historical impact of Pearl Harbor and the Cold War on the American psyche. While most Americans do not want the US engaged in perpetual or long-term wars, they expect justice when Americans are killed by terrorists, and not the kind of justice Obama and Holder would bring in a NYC trial of KSM.  They view these attacks as acts of war, and want a strong display of American power in response.

The other problems with the Jeffersonian view as discussed by Walter Russell Mead, is that America during that time, was a free rider in a somewhat stable order due to Great Britain's hegemony. Additionally, Jeffersonians are often criticized as being too passive in the face of gathering threats.  Moreover, the desire to recede and instead rely on continual cooperation can backfire:

A Jeffersonian policy of restraint and withdrawal requires cooperation from many other countries, but the prospect of a lower American profile may make others less, rather than more, willing to help the United States.

We see precisely this phenomenon happening now. Nations like Iran are exploiting this opportunity by becoming bolder in their defiance of the international community. In Obama's shoddy treatment of our allies and willingness to repeatedly extend open hands to our adversaries, many countries are concluding US leadership is weak, and are acting accordingly in their own interests without the US, as shown in the recent example of Brazil and Turkey overseeing a nuclear deal with Iran.  While Obama acknowledges the shortcomings of the international community, nowhere in his speech does he state when it may be appropriate to unilaterally defend America's interests with force (Jefferson did act unilaterally in US interests, particularly during the Barbary raids).  North Korea has calculated the US will probably do nothing, as it sank a South Korean ship. Although the options on the Korean peninsula are not particularly good for any US president, one wonders if they would have escalated their modus operandi of fomenting crises with a deliberate act of war during the Bush presidency.

Where Obama parts from Jefferson is what I've described in past blogs as the moral equivalence with which Obama treats America compared to other nations, or his belief in America's unexceptional nature.  This reveling in our flaws undercuts our own rationale for international leadership. This was not evident in his speech; after all, he's addressing West Point cadets.  But we see this again and again in his actions, as in his embrace of the Mexican President when he remarkably ignored the reality of the situation on our borders, pretending they did not exist, in a cheap political rebuke to the Arizona immigration enforcement law.  Amazingly, his own State Department discussed the Arizona immigration law in the context of human right violations with China of all nations.  While Obama's policy is realistic in its assessment of the need to rebuild the American economy, regular weaknesses of a Jeffersonian foreign policy are accentuated by his beliefs in moral equivalence and naturally, multiculturalism. This undermines traditional Jeffersonian views further by leading to unrealistic assessments on the nature of threats that surround us, as evidenced by Holder's refusal to answer whether Islamic fundamentalism is even a factor in any recent terrorist attacks.  This denial of cultural greatness is the biggest weakness in Obama's foreign policy.  Other nations get a vote--sooner or later, a nation or terrorist group, sensing this weakness in his continued narrative of America's flaws, is going to throw down the gauntlet, and it remains to be seen what Obama will do when that moment arrives. North Korean, Iranian, and Pakistani Taliban actions to date are just a start--the challenges will grow bolder.  One wonders if stronger action beforehand, or a policy predicated on preserving and promoting America's greatness, could have prevented those challenges from arising in the first place.

American Un-Exceptionalism, and the Limits of Soft Power

The WaPo reports that at Iran's nuclear summit, Pres Ahmadinejad called on the US to disarm first, and to end its "blind support" of Israel which has over 200 nuclear weapons but has not yet signed the NPT.  Criticizing the administration's nuclear strategy that does not rule out the use of nuclear weapons against North Korea and Iran, Ahmadinejad states "Threatening with nuclear weapons only dishonored the American government officials and more fully exposed their inhumane and aggressive policies." Meanwhile, Charles Krauthammer criticizes Obama's recent nuclear summit pointing out that the most urgent threats to nuclear terrorism and proliferation, Pakistani plutonium and Iran's uranium enrichment, were not on the table for discussion. In a similar vein, Shadow Government points out in a post titled "Did We Come Away from the Nuclear Summit Empty-Handed?", that in regards to Iran, China and Russia both said diplomacy instead of sanctions should be pursued, and that Turkey stated prior to the summit that Israel was a greater threat to peace in the mideast region, and that sanctions would be ineffective. Shadow Gov't concludes:

The danger is that the blizzard of documents and words will be mistaken for action by those who fear nuclear terrorism but seek to avoid the costs of doing something about it. The greater danger is that others will conclude that they face only such words if they continue to develop or acquire nuclear weapons.

In short, while the nuclear summit produced some marginally useful steps towards nuclear non-proliferation, it nibbled around the edges avoiding the tough problems of Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, and to some extent, Syria, whose facility was bombed by Israel last year.

Critics of Bush's foreign policy would often point out the limits of hard power, which is getting other countries to do what you want them to do. Iraq was their vindication on the limits of military force enabling one country to impose its will on another.  They mourned for the loss of US moral authority and with it, soft power.  Soft power is based on cooperation and moral suasion, as its architect Joseph Nye puts it, on getting countries to want what you want.  The foreign policy establishment like all other elite academic institutions, was enthralled when Pres Obama took office based on the premise he would resuscitate America's moral standing in the world. Soft power was back and in vogue again. Ushered in with this new era of soft power came realpolitik--as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pointed out, ideology is so yesterday.

Yet Nye also says that soft power is rooted in a country's values, institutions, and policies. These values, combined with overlapping nat'l interests that realists key on, should attract other countries in the international arena for cooperation. But what moral authority has Pres Obama restored?  To some degree, his administration has offered a more consultative tone to other countries.  But in other areas, the administration does little to showcase American values. The persecution of the CIA and upholding of the torture narrative have only confirmed and given fodder to what our adversaries already think of us. Only through mirror imaging can one naively believe that other cultures will somehow seek to emulate or appreciate the US style of openness, making them magically more prone to cooperate with us.

Democracy and human rights, the latter a potentially effective tool against the Iranian regime in wake of the protests, are not a priority for this administration. Longtime allies such as Great Britain, have had their special relationship with us donwgraded. Obama abrogated the BMD agreement with Poland and the Czech Republic, and has ignored the President of Georgia, a country who dedicated 5000 troops to Iraq, a large sacrifice for so small a country. Instead, he chases after Putin and Medveded on START treaties. They gladly accept the great power stage Obama hands to him, while clearly refusing to play along on Iranian sanctions, stating instead they will complete Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor this year. And Israel--well, in the administration's mind, they are part of the problem. So there seems to be very little effort on the administration's part to work with allies already predisposed to cooperate with America on the problem of nuclear proliferation, or even to defend fellow democracies rhetorically. 

Some foreign policy wonks like Walter Russell Mead believe Obama's view is more along the lines of the Jeffersonian tradition, mixed with Wilsonian idealism. The former seeks to minimize American commitments and to dismantle the national security state as much as possible, seeking instead to be the best example of democracy for others by living up to it at home. The latter seeks a moral authority through international cooperation thru multi-lateral institutions like the UN.

However, I believe Obama's worldview goes beyond the traditional academic circles of theory.   There is a difference in approaching others with humility, or to "talk softly and carry a big stick," and constantly apologizing, bowing to monarchs and autocrats, and refusing to acknowledge American exceptionalism.  It's symptomatic of a perspective that views the world through moral relativism and equivalence.  As Melanie Phillips points out, "Obama believes America has to expiate its sins: both its original, Founding sins of slavery and racism, and its latter-day sins against the world of Islam."  This moral equivalence is used against us by our rivals--because if America is badly flawed and has committed atrocities to the same extent as others, than there's no point really, in following our lead. We see this reasoning in Pres Ahmadinejad's words. To be sure, he would have probably used this same sort of rhetoric against any US administration, but what's interesting is that others like Turkey, are agreeing with Iran that the bigger problem for proliferation is Israel.  Iran's own nuclear summit attracted 60 countries while the US included 47 countries, showing Iran is not alone in its thinking.  Why not pound away at America's moral standing when the President himself will not speak convincingly of America's values overseas, and instead seems to be embarrassed of his country when he speaks about its past? Why give up your nuclear potential and instead demand that America disarm itself and Israel, since the American President himself clearly devalued the possession and use of nuclear weapons?

As Rich Lowry notes:

Obama hopes that throwing America's past under the bus will win him diplomatic chits abroad, as we "break free" from "stale debates and old ideologies." What he doesn't realize is that for enemies like Iran and Venezuela, the debates aren't stale and the ideologies aren't old. For these players, Obama's rhetorical concessions aren't ways to move beyond the debates but to make advances within them.

Nye acknowledges that soft power must be combined with hard power--he argues that it makes hard power more effective. But with nuclear terrorism, an issue the administration rightfully presented as being one of the biggest challenges to our national security in our lifetime, there is very little hard power to accompany it. And as such, Iran, North Korea, and others continue defiantly to undermine the administration's non-nuclear proliferation push.  If you view it thru the lens of moral equivalence--that after all, Israel has nukes, we've used nukes as Pres Obama has reminded the world, and America really isn't exceptional, it makes sense to resign yourself to a nuclear-capable Iran.

No First Use of Nukes?

The big hub-bub over Obama's nuclear posture review is explained by the WaPo:

Under the new policy, the administration will foreswear the use of the deadly weapons against nonnuclear countries, officials said, in contrast to previous administrations, which indicated they might use nuclear arms against nonnuclear states in retaliation for a biological or chemical attack.

But Obama included a major caveat: The countries must be in compliance with their nonproliferation obligations under international treaties. That loophole would mean Iran would remain on the potential target list.

The new policy will also describe the purpose of U.S. weapons as being fundamentally for deterrence. Some Democratic legislators had urged Obama to go further and declare that the United States would not use nuclear weapons first in a conflict. But officials in the Defense and State departments worried that such a change could unnerve allies protected by the U.S. nuclear "umbrella."

Peter Feaver points out the loopholes in the new declaration. We can still reserve the right to use nukes against nuclear states that do meet the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (e.g. China and Russia), and against terrorist groups who chose to use weapons of mass destruction. There's even a loophole on the threat of a catastrophic bio or chem attack where the White House reserves the right to make adjustments in policy.

Obama's goal of a world without nuclear weapons is utopian. But he's not the first to articulate it--Ronald Reagan also wanted the abolishment of nuclear weapons.  Distinguished statesmen like former Secretary of States Shultz, Kissinger, former Secretary of Defense Schlesinger, and Sam Nunn also endorse this goal. So why do these elder statesmen endorse a policy that amounts to closing the barn door after the horse has already bolted?

The recent push to abolish nuclear weapons is an effort to limit the value of their possession in an attempt to solve the proliferation issue for rogue states like North Korea and Iran, and perhaps even more importantly, keep them out of the hands of terrorist groups. While it's in our own national interests to cut stockpiles, ensure tight security of these weapons, and take other measures to combat proliferation, it can only mitigate the issue and never really solve it.  Nuclear weapons are a symptom of the greater cause of conflict (Hobbesian world). We must make it a national security priority to combat proliferation and in particular, avoid the possession of nuclear weapons in a region as volatile as the Middle East. But we cannot turn back the tide on the knowledge that already exists to make these weapons. I believe all these statesmen know this, but feel the steps that accompany such a policy would help make us more secure, even if the goal is never fully realized, which means in the end, we'll always retain some nuclear weapons for deterrence.  In the op-ed from these statesmen, there is no mention of a change to our strategic ambiguity policy. So while they endorse the administration's treaty proposals with the Russian in reducing our stockpiles, it'll be interesting in the days ahead to see if the pundits ask these men their thoughts on changes to strategic ambiguity. On the administration's policy, Feaver notes:

The administration clearly believes that announcing new limits on our nuclear posture will be a strong reason for rogue states to become compliant. This seems hopelessly idealistic: we’ve given Iran and North Korea plenty of stronger incentives, with no progress.

So it seems we've tabled some options for the security of our country, and traded some of our deterrence in hopes of achieving an unrealistic goal.  My own judgement is we should never take any option off the table when it comes to the security of the US. Obama hasn't declared a policy of no-first use yet, but this is designed to edge closer to that path. A policy of no-first use would be morally disastrous and irresponsible in that it erode our deterrent value greatly, and would theoretically, for example, allow a nuclear attack on NYC before even considering any type of nuclear response. Our allies would lose faith in the US security umbrella and would pursue more independent policies, weakening our most potent incentives.  Some may rearm, neutralizing the very effect we would hope such a policy would bring.

  Fred Kaplan usefully sums this up: 

At the same time, though, it's equally hard to see what we'd get from a policy of no-first-use, even if other countries' leaders believed the promise. 

The idea behind no-first-use is to "delegitimize" nuclear weapons—to announce to the world that the foremost nuclear power, the only nation that has ever dropped A-bombs in anger, has concluded that these things have no military utility, no place in wars of the present or the future. 

The problem is that history reveals they do have value, whatever we might belatedly say—not necessarily in their actual use but merely in their possession. They elevate one's standing in a region (see Pakistan); they deter others from attacking (see China in the mid-1960s or North Korea now); they can be brandished as a way of keeping others from responding to lower level forms of aggression. (If Saddam Hussein had built some nukesbefore invading Kuwait in 1990, it's doubtful that George H.W. Bush and James Baker could have amassed a large coalition to push him back.) 

Which leads to the fourth point: No matter what Washington says, or how deeply the United States or Russia or the other established nuclear powers cut their own nuclear arsenals, it will probably have minimal impact on other countries' decisions to go, or not to go, nuclear themselves. Their own interests will determine those decisions. In fact, one could argue that a U.S. pullback of this sort may make some technologically advanced countries—which have relied on America's "nuclear umbrella" for their security—to take the leap and build their own bombs. 

The true value of this Nuclear Posture Review depends, in part, on how President Obama views—and presents—its purpose. If he sees it as a way to build institutional support for drastic arms cuts, it could be very valuable indeed. If he sees it as a first step toward his grander goal of wiping nuclear weapons off the face of the earth, he's going to be sorely disappointed.