Category Archives: Editorials

NEWS & VIEWS ROUNDUP & EDITORIAL: October 31

Moving beyond opposition
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, October 31, 2008

In any presidential contest between two candidates there are essentially six ways in which each ballot can be cast. In the current election, this means you can vote in one of the following ways.

  • Vote for Obama because of who he is and what you hope he will do.
  • Vote for McCain because of who he is and what you hope he will do.
  • Vote for Obama because of who he is and what you hope he will do and because of who McCain is and what you fear he will do.
  • Vote for McCain because of who he is and what you hope he will do and because of who Obama is and what you fear he will do.
  • Vote for Obama for the simple reason that you do not want McCain to become president.
  • Vote for McCain for the simple reason that you do not want Obama to become president.

Just suppose that having received their party’s nomination, each candidate had declared: “If you genuinely want me to become president, I want your vote, but if you have any other reason for voting for me, don’t vote.”

Under such terms, John McCain might as well have withdrawn from the race in early September.

On the other side, the idea that support for Obama has been driven above all by antipathy for George Bush has been greatly overstated. Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul each made as strong a claim as did Obama for having opposed Bush, yet neither won a fraction of the support.

When 100,000 people have showed up for an Obama rally, they have been drawn by attraction, not reaction. This is what distinguishes the strength of Obama’s candidacy in 2008 from the weakness of John Kerry’s in 2004.

Whereas a McCain victory hinges on the McCain-Palin campaign’s ability to fuel and harness fear of and opposition to Obama, an Obama victory will reflect the depth of his support more than the breadth of opposition to John McCain or Sarah Palin.

This then is what will mark the end of the Bush era: the end of the notion that victory depends on destroying ones opponents; that we can move beyond defining who we are in terms of what we oppose.

The next president and the Global War on Terror
By Andrew J. Bacevich, TomDispatch, October 30, 2008

A week ago, I had a long conversation with a four-star U.S. military officer who, until his recent retirement, had played a central role in directing the global war on terror. I asked him: what exactly is the strategy that guides the Bush administration’s conduct of this war? His dismaying, if not exactly surprising, answer: there is none.

President Bush will bequeath to his successor the ultimate self-licking ice cream cone. To defense contractors, lobbyists, think-tankers, ambitious military officers, the hosts of Sunday morning talk shows, and the Douglas Feith-like creatures who maneuver to become players in the ultimate power game, the Global War on Terror is a boon, an enterprise redolent with opportunity and promising to extend decades into the future.

Yet, to a considerable extent, that very enterprise has become a fiction, a gimmicky phrase employed to lend an appearance of cohesion to a panoply of activities that, in reality, are contradictory, counterproductive, or at the very least beside the point. In this sense, the global war on terror relates to terrorism precisely as the war on drugs relates to drug abuse and dependence: declaring a state of permanent “war” sustains the pretense of actually dealing with a serious problem, even as policymakers pay lip-service to the problem’s actual sources. The war on drugs is a very expensive fraud. So, too, is the Global War on Terror. [continued…]

Petraeus wants to go to Syria; Bush administration says no
By Jonathan Karl, ABC News, October 30, 2008

A pparently Gen. David Petraeus does not agree with the Bush administration that the road to Damascus is a dead end.

ABC News has learned, Petraeus proposed visiting Syria shortly after taking over as the top U.S. commander for the Middle East.

The idea was swiftly rejected by Bush administration officials at the White House, State Department and the Pentagon.

Petraeus, who becomes the commander of U.S. Central Command (Centcom) Friday, had hoped to meet in Damascus with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Petraeus proposed the trip, and senior officials objected, before the covert U.S. strike earlier this week on a target inside Syria’s border with Iraq.

Officials familiar with Petraeus’ thinking on the subject say he wants to engage Syria in part because he believes that U.S. diplomacy can be used to drive a wedge between Syria and Iran. He plans to continue pushing the idea. [continued…]

High risk, limited payoff
By Fred Kaplan, Slate, October 30, 2008

The Oct. 26 air raid in which U.S. special-operations pilots flew two dozen Black Hawk helicopters across Iraq’s border and killed eight people on Syrian territory marks a new phase in the Bush administration’s war on terror—a phase rife with limited payoffs and astonishingly high risks.

U.S. officials say the cross-border attack was aimed at, and killed, a high-level al-Qaida agent known as Abu Ghadiyah, who has long been smuggling jihadists and arms into western Iraq.

However, Syrian officials say the strikes killed civilians, including a woman and children. They filed a complaint with the U. N. Security Council, closed down the American School in Damascus, and canceled their participation in the upcoming regional conference on Iraqi security.

Even the Iraqi government has joined the Syrians in condemning the airstrikes and is now insisting that a new Status of Forces Agreement—the treaty that permits U.S. troops to remain in Iraq—must include a clause forbidding those troops from using Iraq as a base for attacking other countries. [continued…]

A last push to deregulate
By R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post, October 31, 2008

The White House is working to enact a wide array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken government rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January.

The new rules would be among the most controversial deregulatory steps of the Bush era and could be difficult for his successor to undo. Some would ease or lift constraints on private industry, including power plants, mines and farms.

Those and other regulations would help clear obstacles to some commercial ocean-fishing activities, ease controls on emissions of pollutants that contribute to global warming, relax drinking-water standards and lift a key restriction on mountaintop coal mining. [continued…]

Scandal of six held in Guantanamo even after Bush plot claim is dropped
By Robert Fisk, The Independent, October 31, 2008

In the dying days of the Bush administration, yet another presidential claim in the “war on terror” has been proved false by the withdrawal of the main charge against six Algerians held without trial for nearly seven years at Guantanamo prison camp.

George Bush’s assertion in his 2002 State of the Union address – the same speech in which he wrongly claimed that Saddam Hussein had tried to import aluminium tubes from Niger – was that “our soldiers, working with the Bosnian government, seized terrorists who were plotting to bomb our embassy [in Sarajevo].” Not only has the US government withdrawn that charge against the six Algerians, all of whom had taken citizenship or residence in Bosnia, but lawyers defending the Arabs – who had already been acquitted of such a plot in a Sarajevo court – have found that the US threatened to pull its troops out of the Nato peacekeeping force in Bosnia if the men were not handed over. According to testimony presented by the Bosnian Prime Minister, Alija Behman, the deputy US ambassador to Bosnia in 2001, Christopher Hoh, told him that if he did not hand the men to the Americans, “then let God protect Bosnia and Herzegovina”.

That such a threat should be made – and the international High Representative to Bosnia at the time, Wolfgang Petritsch, has also told lawyers it was – shows for the first time just how ruthless and unprincipled US foreign policy had become in Mr Bush’s “war on terror”. By withdrawing their military and diplomatic support for the Bosnian peace process, the Americans would have backed out of the Dayton accord which they themselves had negotiated. Then the Bosnian government would have lost its legitimacy and the country might have collapsed back into a civil war which claimed the lives of tens of thousands of civilians and involved mass rape as well as massacre. The people of Bosnia might then have endured “terror” on a scale far greater than the attacks of al-Qa’ida against the United States. [continued…]

The co-president at work
By David Bromwich, New York Review of Books, November 20, 2008

When George W. Bush testified before the 9/11 Commission, Dick Cheney was with him in the Oval Office. What was said there remains a secret, but throughout the double session, it appears, Cheney deferred to Bush. Aides to the President afterward explained that the two men had to sit together for people to see how fully Bush was in control. A likelier motive was the obvious one: they had long exercised joint command but neither knew exactly how much the other knew, or what the other would say in response to particular questions. Bush also brought Cheney for the reason that a witness under oath before a congressional committee may bring along his lawyer. He could not risk an answer that his adviser might prefer to correct. Yet Bush would scarcely have changed the public understanding of their relationship had he sent in Cheney alone. “When you’re talking to Dick Cheney,” the President said in 2003, “you’re talking to me.”

The shallowest charge against Cheney is that he somehow inserted himself into the vice-presidency by heading the team that examined other candidates for the job. He used the position deviously, so the story goes, to sell himself to the susceptible younger Bush. The truth is both simpler and more strange. Since 1999, Cheney had been one of a group of political tutors of Bush, including Condoleezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz; in this company, Bush found Cheney especially congenial—not least his way of asserting his influence without ever stealing a scene. Bush, too, resembled Cheney in preferring to let others speak, but he lacked the mind and patience for discussions: virtues that Cheney possessed in abundance.
New York Review Books Children

As early as March 2000, Bush asked him whether he would consider taking the second slot. Cheney at first said no. Later, he agreed to serve as Bush’s inspector of the qualifications of others; his lieutenants were David Addington and his daughter Liz. Some way into that work, Bush asked Cheney again, and this time he said yes. The understanding was concluded before any of the lesser candidates were interviewed. It was perhaps the first public deception that they worked at together: a lie of omission—and a trespass against probity—to give an air of legitimacy to the search for a nominee. But their concurrence in the stratagem, and the way each saw the other hold to its terms, signaled an equality in manipulation as no formal contract could have done. It is hardly likely that an exchange of words was necessary. [continued…]

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NEWS & VIEWS ROUNDUP & EDITORIAL: October 30

A change of tone
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, October 30, 2008

Barack Obama’s interview with ABC News’ Charlie Gibson last night can be viewed as standard fare in what we’ve come to know of the Obama candidacy. But what might now seem familiar is something that should neither be taken for granted nor simply labeled as the well-polished performance of a seasoned candidate.

Obama is pitch-perfect and knows how to set exactly the right tone. This level of poise is no small feat when for months and months, your opponents have been flinging the wildest accusations in your direction.

More importantly, it sets the Obama presidency on a clear trajectory upon which if we might not now know many of the policy details or the circumstances in which they will get fleshed out, we do at least know the style with which Obama will handle executive power.

His will be measured, respectful, open and pragmatic. That’s an all-important contrast from a presidency that has been forceful, condescending, secretive and ideological.

This is a change in tone that truly matters.

In an era during which style has come to be regarded as a form of deceit — we invariably expect not to get what we see — Obama’s performance is viewed by skeptics as simply that: performance.

Well, if the polls are any indication, the performance worked. The postulation of an Obama presidency is likely to soon become the practice of President Obama.

We all get to find out: Did the majority of voters get hoodwinked by a slick performance? Or, was a secret fear behind the opposition one that none dare speak: that if Obama turned out to be the real deal, then his ability to function as an agent of change might be impossible to thwart?

From Great Game to Grand Bargain
By Barnett R. Rubin and Ahmed Rashid, Foreign Affairs, November/December, 2008

U.S. diplomacy has been paralyzed by the rhetoric of “the war on terror” — a struggle against “evil,” in which other actors are “with us or with the terrorists.” Such rhetoric thwarts sound strategic thinking by assimilating opponents into a homogenous “terrorist” enemy. Only a political and diplomatic initiative that distinguishes political opponents of the United States — including violent ones — from global terrorists such as al Qaeda can reduce the threat faced by the Afghan and Pakistani states and secure the rest of the international community from the international terrorist groups based there. Such an initiative would have two elements. It would seek a political solution with as much of the Afghan and Pakistani insurgencies as possible, offering political inclusion, the integration of Pakistan’s indirectly ruled Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) into the mainstream political and administrative institutions of Pakistan, and an end to hostile action by international troops in return for cooperation against al Qaeda. And it would include a major diplomatic and development initiative addressing the vast array of regional and global issues that have become intertwined with the crisis — and that serve to stimulate, intensify, and prolong conflict in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Afghanistan has been at war for three decades — a period longer than the one that started with World War I and ended with the Normandy landings on D-day in World War II — and now that war is spreading to Pakistan and beyond. This war and the attendant terrorism could well continue and spread, even to other continents — as on 9/11 — or lead to the collapse of a nuclear-armed state. The regional crisis is of that magnitude, and yet so far there is no international framework to address it other than the underresourced and poorly coordinated operations in Afghanistan and some attacks in the FATA. The next U.S. administration should launch an effort, initially based on a contact group authorized by the UN Security Council, to put an end to the increasingly destructive dynamics of the Great Game in the region. The game has become too deadly and has attracted too many players; it now resembles less a chess match than the Afghan game of buzkashi, with Afghanistan playing the role of the goat carcass fought over by innumerable teams. Washington must seize the opportunity now to replace this Great Game with a new grand bargain for the region. [continued…]

World is facing a natural resources crisis worse than financial crunch
By Juliette Jowit, The Guardian, October 29, 2008

The world is heading for an “ecological credit crunch” far worse than the current financial crisis because humans are over-using the natural resources of the planet, an international study warns today.

The Living Planet report calculates that humans are using 30% more resources than the Earth can replenish each year, which is leading to deforestation, degraded soils, polluted air and water, and dramatic declines in numbers of fish and other species. As a result, we are running up an ecological debt of $4tr (£2.5tr) to $4.5tr every year – double the estimated losses made by the world’s financial institutions as a result of the credit crisis – say the report’s authors, led by the conservation group WWF, formerly the World Wildlife Fund. The figure is based on a UN report which calculated the economic value of services provided by ecosystems destroyed annually, such as diminished rainfall for crops or reduced flood protection.

The problem is also getting worse as populations and consumption keep growing faster than technology finds new ways of expanding what can be produced from the natural world. This had led the report to predict that by 2030, if nothing changes, mankind would need two planets to sustain its lifestyle. “The recent downturn in the global economy is a stark reminder of the consequences of living beyond our means,” says James Leape, WWF International’s director general. “But the possibility of financial recession pales in comparison to the looming ecological credit crunch.” [continued…]

Get ready for ‘stag-deflation’
By Nouriel Roubini, Forbes, October 30, 2008

Back in January, I argued that four major forces would lead to a risk of deflation– or “stag-deflation,” where a recession would be associated with deflationary forces–rather than the inflation that mainstream analysts have worried about.

They were: (1) a slack in goods markets, (2) a re-coupling of the rest of the world with the U.S. recession, (3) a slack in labor markets, and (4) a sharp fall in commodity prices following such U.S. and global contraction, which would reduce inflationary forces and lead to deflationary forces in the global economy.

How has such argument fared over time? And will the U.S. and global economies soon face sharp deflationary pressures? The answer: Deflation and stag-deflation will, in six months, become the main concern of policy authorities. [continued…]

America must lead a rescue of emerging economies
By George Soros, Financial Times, October 28, 2008

The global financial system as it is currently constituted is characterised by a pernicious asymmetry. The financial authorities of the developed countries are in charge and they will do whatever it takes to prevent the system from collapsing. They are, however, less concerned with the fate of countries at the periphery. As a result, the system provides less stability and protection for those countries than for the countries at the centre. This asymmetry – which is enshrined in the veto rights the US enjoys in the International Monetary Fund, explains why the US has been able to run up an ever-increasing current account deficit over the past quarter of a century. The so-called Washington consensus imposed strict market discipline on other countries but the US was exempt from it. [continued…]

Preventing a global slump must be the priority
By Martin Wolf, Financial Times, October 28, 2008

The view is widely held, particularly in the US, that the world needs a big purge of past excesses. Recessions, on this line of argument, are good. People who hold this view also argue that governments caused all the mistakes. The market would, they insist, be incapable of the errors we have seen. To them, Alan Greenspan’s confession last week that “I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interest of organisations, specifically banks and others, was such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders” was about as welcome as Brutus’s knife was to Caesar.

Intriguingly, the Bank’s Financial Stability Report provides some support for this view: back in 1900, US banks had four times as much capital, relative to assets, as they do today. Similarly, the liquidity of the assets held by UK banks has collapsed over the past half-century. Implicit and explicit guarantees from governments have indeed made the financial system more dangerous than before. The combination of such guarantees with deregulation has proved lethal. Moral hazard is far from meaningless.

Yet the idea that a quick recession would purge the world of past excesses is ludicrous. The danger is, instead, of a slump, as a mountain of private debt – in the US, equal to three times GDP – topples over into mass bankruptcy. The downward spiral would begin with further decay of financial systems and proceed via pervasive mistrust, the vanishing of credit, closure of vast numbers of businesses, soaring unemployment, tumbling commodity prices, cascading declines in asset prices and soaring repossessions. Globalisation would spread the catastrophe everywhere.

Many of the victims would be innocent of past excesses, while many of the most guilty would retain their ill-gotten gains. This would be a recipe not for a revival of 19th-century laisser faire, but for xenophobia, nationalism and revolution. As it is, such outcomes are conceivable. Choosing to risk such an outcome would be like deciding to let a city burn in order to punish someone who smoked in bed. Risking huge damage now in the hope of lowering moral hazard later is mad. [continued…]

McCain camp trying to scapegoat Palin
By Roger Simon, Politico, October 30, 2008

John McCain’s campaign is looking for a scapegoat. It is looking for someone to blame if McCain loses on Tuesday.

And it has decided on Sarah Palin.

In recent days, a McCain “adviser” told Dana Bash of CNN: “She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone.”

Imagine not taking advice from the geniuses at the McCain campaign. What could Palin be thinking?

Also, a “top McCain adviser” told Mike Allen of Politico that Palin is “a whack job.”

Maybe she is. But who chose to put this “whack job” on the ticket? Wasn’t it John McCain? And wasn’t it his first presidential-level decision? [continued…]

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NEWS & VIEWS ROUNDUP & EDITORIAL: October 23

How John McCain brought down terrorism
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, October 23, 2008

Barack Obama’s election will confirm in a multitude of ways that we have entered a new Zeitgeist. But even though the passage of an era can most clearly be discerned with historical perspective, in this case as soon as the election returns are in we should be able to deduce something right away. We will know whether America has learned how to view terrorism with a critical eye instead of a fearful heart.

For the last eight years, Bush-Cheney and the GOP have played the terrorism card in a very conventional way. They have presented terrorism as a national security issue and then presented voters with a choice between Republican strength and Democratic weakness.

The McCain campaign, in an act of sheer desperation, has done something different. Instead of presenting their opponent as weak on terrorism they have insinuated that he is in league with terrorists. By making a ludicrous claim, they have exposed their political charade to all but the most gullible of voters.

The game is up. Instead of being led like suckers down an associative path that turns Obama into a dark and sinister force, Americans are now getting wise to the fact that “terrorist” is a political word. It manipulates more than it describes.

The McCain campaign shouts: “Watch out for the terrorist!” And the indignant response is: “Say what? Don’t treat me like I’m an idiot.”

There remains no shortage of idiots, but more and more people are inclined to look askance when the t-word gets tossed around. They see that instead of signaling a danger it just as likely signals an agenda.

Might Palin or McCain risk inciting a rightwing lunatic to commit some hideous act of violence? Will someone view the Palin doctrine — we make no distinction between the terrorists and those who pal around with them — as a command?

Possibly, but major risks are inherent to this job. Obama like any president or presidential candidate can become a magnet for hatred. That’s why there’s a Secret Service.

Timothy Garton Ash frets and writes:

Where were you when Obama was shot? The line we pray we will never have to say. A line that I have hesitated even to write, as if the mere inscribing of the words could invite calamity. Yet the fear preys on the back of our minds, as we see Barack Obama plunging into those crowds. I have now watched weeks of election coverage on the 24/7 television news channels in the United States, in the course of which every tiniest feature of the campaign has been examined to exhaustion, but not once have I heard this mentioned. Yet almost every day I have a private conversation in which the subject comes up, especially when talking to journalists.

The fear is real, yet its basis at this juncture has I suspect less to do with the risks inherent in Palin and McCain’s reckless rhetoric than it has to do with the fact that we are tantalizingly close to the reality of an Obama presidency.

By the end of the primaries the inspirational candidate had lost much of his glow. Then Palin came along and knocked the campaign further off balance. And then miraculously it got rescued by an economic catastrophe.

Now as the final day approaches all of that is behind us and we see the makings of breathtaking transition.

An intellectually impoverished president, reviled by much of the nation, prepares to leave office, while one of extraordinary talent and in whom a mountain of expectations has been invested gets ready to take his place. Hope and dread interfuse as we ask ourselves, is this really about to happen? Simultaneously we hold our breath, fearing that some calamity might intervene. 12 days left!

Why Barack Obama is winning
By Joe Klein, Time, October 22, 2008

General David Petraeus deployed overwhelming force when he briefed Barack Obama and two other Senators in Baghdad last July. He knew Obama favored a 16-month timetable for the withdrawal of most U.S. troops from Iraq, and he wanted to make the strongest possible case against it. And so, after he had presented an array of maps and charts and PowerPoint slides describing the current situation on the ground in great detail, Petraeus closed with a vigorous plea for “maximum flexibility” going forward.

Obama had a choice at that moment. He could thank Petraeus for the briefing and promise to take his views “under advisement.” Or he could tell Petraeus what he really thought, a potentially contentious course of action — especially with a general not used to being confronted. Obama chose to speak his mind. “You know, if I were in your shoes, I would be making the exact same argument,” he began. “Your job is to succeed in Iraq on as favorable terms as we can get. But my job as a potential Commander in Chief is to view your counsel and interests through the prism of our overall national security.” Obama talked about the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, the financial costs of the occupation of Iraq, the stress it was putting on the military.

A “spirited” conversation ensued, one person who was in the room told me. “It wasn’t a perfunctory recitation of talking points. They were arguing their respective positions, in a respectful way.” The other two Senators — Chuck Hagel and Jack Reed — told Petraeus they agreed with Obama. According to both Obama and Petraeus, the meeting — which lasted twice as long as the usual congressional briefing — ended agreeably. Petraeus said he understood that Obama’s perspective was, necessarily, going to be more strategic. Obama said that the timetable obviously would have to be flexible. But the Senator from Illinois had laid down his marker: if elected President, he would be in charge. Unlike George W. Bush, who had given Petraeus complete authority over the war — an unprecedented abdication of presidential responsibility (and unlike John McCain, whose hero worship of Petraeus bordered on the unseemly) — Obama would insist on a rigorous chain of command. [continued…]

October rural poll shows break for Obama
By Julie Ardery, Daily Yonder, October 23, 2008

A new survey, taken over three tumultuous weeks in October, shows Barack Obama catching up with John McCain among rural voters in battleground states.

Rural voters put George W. Bush over the top and into the White House in 2000 and 2004, but according to a new survey, they may not confer the presidency on this year’s Republican candidate, Sen. John McCain.

An October poll in thirteen battleground states shows Democrat Barack Obama slightly ahead of McCain among likely rural voters. Obama led McCain 46% to 45% in the survey, commissioned by the Center for Rural Strategies and the National Rural Assembly. In September, a poll of likely rural voters in these same competitive states showed McCain leading by 10%. [continued…]

Rebranding the U.S. with Obama
By Nicholas D Kristof, New York Times, October 23, 2008

We’re beginning to get a sense of how Barack Obama’s political success could change global perceptions of the United States, redefining the American “brand” to be less about Guantánamo and more about equality. This change in perceptions would help rebuild American political capital in the way that the Marshall Plan did in the 1950s or that John Kennedy’s presidency did in the early 1960s.

In his endorsement of Mr. Obama, Colin Powell noted that “the new president is going to have to fix the reputation that we’ve left with the rest of the world.” That’s not because we crave admiration, but because cooperation is essential to address 21st-century challenges; you can’t fire cruise missiles at the global financial crisis.

In his endorsement, Mr. Powell added that an Obama election “will also not only electrify our country, I think it’ll electrify the world.” You can already see that. A 22-nation survey by the BBC found that voters abroad preferred Mr. Obama to Mr. McCain in every single country — by four to one over all. Nearly half of those in the BBC poll said that the election of Mr. Obama, an African-American, would “fundamentally change” their perceptions of the United States.

Europe is particularly intoxicated by the possibility of restoring amity with America in an Obama presidency. As The Economist put it: “Across the Continent, Bush hatred has been replaced by Obama-mania.” [continued…]

In Sadr City, a repressed but growing rage
By Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post, October 23, 2008

Outside the tan, high-walled house, Shiite militiamen stood guard. Inside, men sat on a red carpet, their backs against a wall adorned with images of Shiite saints, their anger rising with each sentence. Hashim Naseer, a tribal leader, remembered how Iraqi soldiers arrested his brother early this month at a nearby park along with other Shiite fighters of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army.

“We thought this government was for Shiites, but now they have become worse than Saddam Hussein’s regime,” said Naseer, 40. “We placed much faith in the Iraqi security forces, but they are taking advantage of us.”

Seven months after intense clashes with U.S. and Iraqi government forces rocked Baghdad’s Sadr City enclave, a sense of betrayal and frustration flows through its sprawling expanse. Iraqi army units, backed by U.S. forces, are launching pre-dawn raids and arresting dozens of suspected militiamen, despite a deal between Sadr and Iraq’s government. Residents, once fearful of the Mahdi Army militia, have become informants, and senior Sadrist leaders have been assassinated.

Yet the enclave, Sadr’s largest popular base in the capital, has remained relatively calm. In interviews, Mahdi Army fighters insist they are shackling their rage and complying with Sadr’s cease-fire, issued last year.

“Sayyid Moqtada al-Sadr told us: ‘If they arrest you, do not do anything. If someone does bad things to you, don’t retaliate,’ ” said Ahmed Abu Zahara, 37, a Mahdi Army commander, using an honorific for Sadr. “We are still obeying the Sayyid.”

American and Iraqi officials have described Sadr’s cease-fire as a key reason for Iraq’s sharp drop in violence. They also cite the “surge” of 30,000 U.S. troops and the rise of the Awakening forces, made up mostly of Sunni former insurgents, who allied with U.S. forces for money and position.

Now, the surge troops have left. And concerns are growing that many Awakening fighters could rejoin the insurgency, as the Shiite-led government, long suspicious of the former fighters, takes control of the movement.

In places like Sadr City, Sadr’s cease-fire is the main difference between war and peace, reflecting the tenuousness of the decrease in violence. [continued…]

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CAMPAIGN 08 EDITORIAL: The McCain-Qaeda connection

The McCain-Qaeda connection
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, October 22, 2008

With less than two weeks until election day, if you still haven’t decided how to vote, the McCain campaign has some advice: base your choice on al Qaeda’s choice.

If you’re convinced al Qa’eda wants McCain to win, vote Obama. If you think they want Obama, vote McCain.

That, it would seem, is the thinking that forced Randy Scheunemann, McCain’s top foreign-policy adviser, and James Woolsey to push back so vigorously against a Washington Post report that al Qaeda supports McCain.

No, no, no! Scheunemann and Woolsey protest. Muhammad Haafid (who the Post quoted) is a jihadist maverick who should not be regarded as a spokesman for al Qaeda. Indeed, if al Qaeda really wanted to see McCain elected, they would surely have the good sense to keep quiet about it. Clearly, this faux declaration of support is an attempt to undermine McCain and if al Qaeda wants to undermine McCain, it must favor Obama — except of course, as the McCain campaign points out, there’s no reason to think that Haafid speaks for al Qaeda. Is that clear? Maybe not.

The question Scheunemann and Woolsey failed to address is this: Is there any reason why American voters should be influenced by al Qaeda’s presidential preferences?

We already know that al Qaeda sees elections as opportunities for grabbing headlines, but whether we let al Qaeda steer our political judgments is up to us — unless we prefer to surrender to terrorism.

Who cares who bin Laden is rooting for? Apparently the McCain campaign cares. Otherwise they would not protest too much.

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NEWS & VIEWS ROUNDUP & EDITORIAL: October 20

Deafening silence on Islamophobia
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, October 20, 2008

Predictably, Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama has received a massive amount of media coverage. What is striking though is that the single issue that Powell chose to highlight above all others has been received so little comment. Out of a 1250-word endorsement, Powell devoted 325 words to his revulsion for the vilification of Muslims that has been fueled, sustained and tolerated by the McCain campaign and the GOP.

Here’s a typical response to what Powell identified as the particular point about which he feels so strongly. Josh Marshall writes:

…[Powell] said he was “disappointed” in McCain’s sleazy campaign tactics. Yes, ‘sleazy’ is my word. But Powell’s own words were pretty clear — he was talking about McCain’s campaign of distortion and innuendo aimed at painting Obama as a crypto-Muslim and terrorist. It “goes too far”, said Powell, in something of an understatement.

No comment on Powell’s central point that no one should be insinuating that there’s something wrong with being a Muslim in America.

Or this from Matthew Yglesias:

We can’t allow ourselves to become a society where “Muslim” or “Arab” is a dirty word.

But the blatantly obvious truth is that we do live in a society where “Muslim” and “Arab” are dirty words.

The near universal response to claims that Obama is a Muslim has been to vigorously deny it and point out that he is a Christian. Peripheral to those denials have been the occasional and rather tepid denunciations of the use of this term as a slur.

If Obama was “accused” of being a Jew, his accusers would without hesitation be denounced as anti-Semites — no need to identify Obama’s actual religious affiliations. The issue that would be confronted unequivocally would be the use of the label “Jew” as a slur.

When a highly respected public figure highlights a social issue and fails to provoke debate, it is clear that what he has touched upon something that is insidious and crosses political and demographic lines.

The war on terrorism is widely perceived in the Middle East as a war on Islam. But that should hardly be surprising since in the minds of most Americans, the words “terrorism” and “Islam” have become deeply intertwined.

In this country, for every foul-mouthed Islamophobe there are a thousand others who might not share his or her hatred, do not see themselves nor are seen by others as bigots, but who nevertheless facilitate the expression of that hatred by failing to stand up for Muslims.

We have become to Muslims what so many million Germans were to the Jews.

The Obama campaign, unwilling to risk sacrificing itself on this point of principle, has sadly been among the passive facilitators of Islamophobia.

How John McCain came to pick Sarah Palin
By Jane Mayer, The New Yorker, October 27, 2008

Palin’s sudden rise to prominence, however, owes more to members of the Washington élite than her rhetoric has suggested. Paulette Simpson, the head of the Alaska Federation of Republican Women, who has known Palin since 2002, said, “From the beginning, she’s been underestimated. She’s very smart. She’s ambitious.” John Bitney, a top policy adviser on Palin’s 2006 gubernatorial campaign, said, “Sarah’s very conscientious about crafting the story of Sarah. She’s all about the hockey mom and Mrs. Palin Goes to Washington—the anti-politician politician.” Bitney is from Wasilla, Palin’s home town, and has known her since junior high school, where they both played in the band. He considers Palin a friend, even though after becoming governor, in December, 2006, she dismissed him. He is now the chief of staff to the speaker of the Alaska House.

Upon being elected governor, Palin began developing relationships with Washington insiders, who later championed the idea of putting her on the 2008 ticket. “There’s some political opportunism on her part,” Bitney said. For years, “she’s had D.C. in mind.” He added, “She’s not interested in being on the junior-varsity team.”

During her gubernatorial campaign, Bitney said, he began predicting to Palin that she would make the short list of Republican Vice-Presidential prospects. “She had the biography, I told her, to be a contender,” he recalled. At first, Palin only laughed. But within a few months of being sworn in she and others in her circle noticed that a blogger named Adam Brickley had started a movement to draft her as Vice-President. Palin also learned that a number of prominent conservative pundits would soon be passing through Juneau, on cruises sponsored by right-leaning political magazines. She invited these insiders to the governor’s mansion, and even led some of them on a helicopter tour. [continued…]

Power’s shifting, but not in the way you expect
By Bill Emmott, Washington Post, October 19, 2008

Historians identify changes in eras in terms of decades, even centuries. Commentators are a much more impatient bunch: A few weeks of turmoil on Wall Street, a year of the credit crunch, and they’ve formed an instant consensus that a new era has begun, that points have turned or tipped or gushed over a watershed.

This consensus, on both sides of the Atlantic, has formed around four themes. One is the idea that the dividing line between the market and the state, between conservative economic thinking and progressive intervention, will now shift decisively away from the market. A second is that America’s status as a free-market beacon and provider of the dollar standard will decline sharply. A third idea is that this Western economic crisis is going to confirm, and probably accelerate, the shift in economic power to Asia, and in particular to China. And when you put those three themes together, you get a fourth: that authoritarian nations, where the state runs the economy and where the political leaders are instinctively hostile to America, are going to become stronger, both internally and as role models.

The haste with which this agreement has been reached should make us suspicious. It’s time to wonder whether all four of these themes may be wrong. In fact, it’s time to wonder whether the ultimate consequence of this economic turmoil could be the precise opposite of what’s expected. [continued…]

Barak: Israel considering Saudi peace plan
AP, October 19, 2008

Israeli leaders are seriously considering a dormant Saudi plan offering a comprehensive peace between Israel and the Arab world in exchange for lands captured during the 1967 war, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Sunday.

Barak said it may be time to pursue an overall peace deal for the region since individual negotiations with Syria and the Palestinians have made little progress.

Barak said he has discussed the Saudi plan with Prime Minister-designate Tzipi Livni, who is in the process of forming a new Israeli government, and that Israel is considering a response.

Saudi Arabia first proposed the peace initiative in 2002, offering pan-Arab recognition of Israel in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal from Arab lands captured in 1967 — the West Bank, Gaza Strip, east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. [continued…]

Five million people face starvation in troubled Zimbabwe
By Raymond Whitaker, The Independent, October 19, 2008

Aid experts are warning that millions of Zimbabwe’s people face starvation as the country’s political leaders remain deadlocked over a power-sharing deal and the economy heads for total collapse.

While officials of the Southern African Development Community prepare for a meeting tomorrow in Swaziland, where they will try to persuade President Robert Mugabe and opposition leaders to resume negotiations, the United Nations World Food Programme has warned that the number of Zimbabweans needing food aid is expected to double by early next year, to just over five million. The UN has appealed for an extra $140m (£81m) to deal with the crisis.

Richard Lee, a WFP spokesman in Johannesburg, said the organisation was already giving emergency food aid to 2.5 million people in Zimbabwe after the failure of this year’s maize harvest. On top of erratic weather, which resulted in droughts in some areas and flooding in others, there were shortages of seed and fertilisers. The government, which buys all grain production, had also failed to set a price that would encourage farmers to grow more than they needed for their own families. [continued…]

Shiite bloc’s demands stall U.S.-Iraq pact
By Mary Beth Sheridan and Ernesto Londono, Washington Post, October 20, 2008

Key members of the Iraqi parliament’s largest political bloc have called for all American troops to leave this country in 2011 as a condition for allowing the U.S. military to stay here beyond year’s end, officials said Sunday.

The change sought by the influential United Iraqi Alliance would harden the withdrawal date for U.S. troops. A draft bilateral agreement completed this week would require American forces to leave by December 2011 but would allow for an extension by mutual agreement.

The Shiite bloc, which includes Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Dawa party, also insists that Iraqi officials have a bigger role in determining whether U.S. soldiers accused of wrongdoing are subject to prosecution in Iraqi courts, said Sami al-Askeri, a political adviser to Maliki. That proposal has been resisted by the Pentagon.

If the Iraqi alliance’s conditions are not met, “I cannot see that this agreement will see the light,” said Askeri, who is also a lawmaker from Maliki’s party. [continued…]

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Updated — EDITORIAL: Does the United States have a free press and a healthy democracy?

Does the United States have a free press and a healthy democracy?
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, July 1, 2008

Here’s the big news – expect to see it on CNN, ABC News, MSNBC, Fox and in banner headlines across all the major newspapers tomorrow – as well as hearing all about it as the hot topic on the campaign trails as Obama and McCain share their thoughts on the issue – or not…

71% of Americans polled oppose the United States taking sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Let’s phrase that another way: the overwhelming majority of Americans favor an even-handed approach to the Mideast conflict.

If Barak Obama and John McCain are more interested in the views of the American people than they are in pleasing AIPAC, then they will duly take note: they are currently both seriously out of line with the common sense of ordinary Americans.

If the press has any interest in speaking truth to power, then they will be drawing attention to the significant results of the new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 18 countries that found that in 14 of them people mostly say their government should not take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Journalists of conscience and responsible news organizations will give this issue the serious attention it deserves.

But if, in the coming days, you hear little to nothing about this poll — either on TV, in the press, or on the blogosphere — then it’s time to reflect on whether you’re living in a free society.

* * *

On the other hand, setting aside the idea that the Fourth Estate has a vital role to play in protecting our political freedom, there is a fascinating wrinkle to this poll’s findings on American public opinion: If most Americans think that the US should adopt an even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they sure as hell didn’t pick up that idea from watching TV!

So much for the idea that this uniformed citizenry is made up of empty vessels ready to be filled with whatever ideas Rupert Murdoch might wish them to hold.

Update: Wondering how wide the coverage on this poll finding has been? So far, not one US newspaper has bothered covering it.

Al-Arabiya noted:

Even Americans overwhelmingly said their government should not take sides.

In a finding that goes against the common assumption that Americans overwhelmingly support Israel, seven out of ten Americans said they thought their country should not take sides in the conflict.

In other words, the public in the Middle East just learnt — much to their surprise — that most Americans are not as rabidly pro-Israeli as Arabs have been led to assume we are. But apparently that’s something that’s of no interest to the US media.

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EDITORIAL: The question of Zionism

The question of Zionism
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, May 23, 2008

John McCain is a practical man. When he realized he’d have to dump one problematic pastor – John Hagee – he didn’t hesitate to dump the other one too – that being Rod Parsley. It’s beyond dispute that rejecting these powerful evangelical endorsements was for McCain a political necessity. At the same time, McCain’s grounds for repudiating them are far from transparent.

Both Hagee and Parsley have made well-publicized Islamophobic declarations. That hasn’t seemed to trouble the McCain campaign. Hagee was already giving McCain trouble for defaming Catholics, but while the presidential candidate appeared willing to accommodate these extremes in that they did not force him to reject these endorsements, the final straw came with Hagee’s interpretation of chapter 16 of The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah.

McCain repudiated what Hagee had said by referring to it as “crazy,” but what neither McCain nor the press have any apparent interest in is wherein lay the craziness. Does McCain believe Hagee was giving a crazy interpretation to a passage in the Bible, or was he merely drawing attention to a crazy passage in the Bible? In other words, was McCain repudiating an aberration conceived by Pastor Hagee, or was he rejecting part of the Bible?

I make no claim to be a Biblical scholar and will be upfront in saying that I believe that God was created by human beings, but simply going on what the Jeremiah text says, Hagee’s interpretation does not seem particularly strange.

Even without the Christian Zionist Biblical gloss, the idea that Zionism and Nazism could operate in a complimentary fashion is not new. Indeed, it was the father of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, who wrote, “The anti-Semites shall be our best friends.”

During World War Two in 1941 the Zionist terrorist organization, the Stern Gang, wrote to the German government and offered to “actively take part in the war on Germany’s side” in return for German support for “the establishment of the historic Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, bound by a treaty with the German Reich.” The Germans didn’t respond to the offer.

The irony in the current situation is that Hagee’s reference to Hitler carries with it an implicitly anti-Semitic undertone, whereas his vigorous support of Israel is being cited as evidence that he is not anti-Semitic. A bridge that is way too long to cross in the simplistic discourse of presidential politics is the idea that Zionism and Christian Zionism, in as much as they posit a necessity for Jews to live in Israel, are by that virtue, anti-Semitic. They suggest that being Jewish and choosing to live outside Israel is either bad for Judaism or bad for the fulfillment of Biblical prophesy.

Is there any possibility that there might be a serious debate about Zionism any time soon? Not a chance.

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EDITORIAL: Talking to Hamas

Talking to Hamas
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, May 16, 2008

Exchange from a Sky News interview, Davos, Switzerland, January 2006, soon after Hamas had won free and fair democratic elections in the West Bank and Gaza:

James Rubin: Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?

Sen. John McCain: They’re the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it’s a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that.

As Winston Churchill famously said, “To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.”

Churchill, unlike George Bush, was eminently well equipped to employ the power of language. Churchill understood that negotiation is not the same as appeasement.

If we were able to drill down into the psychological roots of the pathology of the Bush presidency, is it possible that the core fear embedded in so many of Bush’s postures is his awareness that whenever he opens his mouth he risks looking like a fool?

It would hardly be surprising that a president who is so intimidated by words would have a strong preference for violence.

But that’s his failing – it doesn’t have to be everyone else’s.

In 2006 John McCain — perhaps slightly intoxicated by the rarefied atmosphere of Davos — uttered a heretical yet utterly common sense view. In free and fair elections, the Palestinian people had expressed their democratic will. They had chosen Hamas. “Sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them,” McCain said.

The proponents of democracy – and this of course included the Bush administration which in the face of Fatah’s objections had called for Hamas’ inclusion in the election – faced a challenge: they could honor the democratic process and find out whether Hamas was ready to live up to the challenge of governing, or, they could perpetuate a political narrative that precluded the very possibility of a Hamas government.

By choosing to do the latter, Bush sent a clear message across the Middle East: In the eyes of America, terrorism matters more than democracy.

Naturally, under George Bush’s watch, terrorism has flourished much more than democracy.

If an American president isn’t willing and capable of negotiating with adversaries, he or she isn’t fit for office. Bush would have us believe that he has taken a bold stand on principle. In truth he has merely tried to conceal his incompetence.

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EDITORIAL: Bush’s bullshit

Bush’s bullshit
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, May 15, 2008

In his eighth year as president, George Bush still lacks the courage to address anyone but an overly sympathetic audience. Indicative of his plummeting approval rating, he now has to travel six thousand miles to find such company. Should we be surprised that in front of the Knesset he would come out with a crowd pleaser like this?

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

That so many would be now be trotting out a prissy line like, “…beneath the dignity of the office of the president…,” is probably comforting to both Bush and McCain. It shows the GOP how easily Democrats will rise to the bait. That said, at least Joe Biden gave a straight response: “This is bullshit.”

Meanwhile, Bush said something else that is sure to be ignored: his prediction about when a Palestinian state will come into existence.

In 2002, Bush supposedly boldly crossed a political frontier by becoming the first president to express his commitment to seeing the creation of a Palestinian state. Bush was so full of it at that time that he suggested it could come into being by 2005.

By 2004 he started hedging, saying 2005 was unlikely. He pushed back, but still said, “I’d like to see it done in four years. I think it’s possible.”

So now it’s 2008 and what does Bush see in his crystal ball? A Palestinian state some time in the next sixty years! This is Bush’s bold vision: By the time Israel celebrates it 120th anniversary there will be a Palestinian state.

Were it not for global warming, I’d say that the pace Bush has set for advancing the peace process is glacial in its speed. Unfortunately in this era, glaciers actually move faster – but like the peace process, they move in the wrong direction.

*

Going back to Bush’s appeasement line, it does articulate something worth noting. That is, the Bush communications model.

Here’s how Bush defines “negotiate”:
1. Use words to force the other party to think the way you do, or if that doesn’t work,
2. Use the threat of violence to bend your opponent’s will, or if that doesn’t work,
3. Use violence to force your opponent into submission, or if that doesn’t work,
4. Use violence to annihilate your opponent.

What the Bush communications model precludes is the possibility that Bush can or ever will change the way he thinks. What this suggests is that the Bush brain is impervious to any influence whatsoever from experience. In other words, the Bush brain is a closed circuit that can neither process nor be modified by new information.

Essentially, the president is brain dead.

Let’s not get too agitated about what comes out of his mouth.

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EDITORIAL: A new cold war or a new Middle East

A new cold war or a new Middle East
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, May 14, 2008

Mindful of that old adage – “If you think you understand Lebanon, you haven’t been properly briefed” – on top of which I’m six thousand miles away, I’ll venture a few thoughts.

Political analysis, in as much as it is historically based, sees the present through the past. As applied to Lebanon this means that whenever there is violence, the specter of civil war immediately looms over the horizon. For that reason, Hezbollah’s show of force over the last week has been described as pushing Lebanon to the brink of war. But bloody as it was, it might more accurately have been described as bringing to an end political gridlock.

As always, Rami G. Khouri’s reflections on unfolding events have been particularly enlightening. On Monday he wrote:

Events in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon continue to move erratically, with simultaneous gestures of political compromise and armed clashes that have left 46 dead in the past week. The consequences of what has happened in the past week may portend an extraordinary but constructive new development: the possible emergence of the first American-Iranian joint political governance system in the Arab world. Maybe.

If Lebanon shifts from street clashes to the hoped-for political compromise through a renewed national dialogue process, it will have a national unity government whose two factions receive arms, training, funds and political support from both the United States and Iran. Should this happen, an unspoken American-Iranian political condominium in Lebanon could prove to be key to power-sharing and stability in other parts of the region, such as Palestine, Iraq and other hot spots. This would also mark a huge defeat for the United States and its failed diplomatic approach that seeks to confront, battle and crush the Islamist-nationalists throughout the region.

After the Cedar Revolution in 2005, the face of Bush-inspired democracy was Saad Hariri, leader of the Future Movement and current parliamentary majority leader. (Hariri, man of the people, also happens to be a Saudi citizen whose current net worth of $3.3 billion puts him on the Forbes list of richest people in the world.) On Tuesday, Hariri pledged he would not “surrender” to Hezbollah. Today the Lebanese cabinet reversed the two decisions to which Hezbollah had objected: the firing of the chief of security at Beirut’s airport and the order that Hezbollah’s telecommunications system come under state control.

Hezbollah might not have the power of a sovereign government – a so-called monopoly on violence – but it seems to have unambiguously demonstrated it possesses a controlling share.

Now there are those who choose to view what’s happening in Lebanon purely in terms of a contest of power between Washington and Tehran. That perspective seems popular in both capitals. In an op-ed in the New York Times, Tom Friedman said: “As the May 11 editorial in the Iranian daily Kayhan put it, ‘In the power struggle in the Middle East, there are only two sides: Iran and the U.S.'”

According to that view one would have to conclude that Washington goaded the Lebanese government into taking an action that turned out to be a gross miscalculation. Maybe so, but I’m more inclined to think that this was a homegrown mistake. Likewise, to say that Hezbollah is backed by Iran is not to say that it acts under Iranian direction.

In an interesting editorial, the Jerusalem Post says: “Of all the US presidents over the past 60 years, it is hard to think of a better friend to Israel than George W. Bush.” Even so, it goes on to say: “Though his policies in Iraq were paved with good intentions and Israelis are grateful that Saddam Hussein is dead and buried, we are left with the lingering sense, albeit informed by hindsight, that the Iraqi campaign was a strategic blunder of historic proportions.”

Still, while Bush may have been wrong on Iraq, he is dead right about Iran – though an ungrateful, sometimes spiteful world appears in denial. Iran is blatantly pursuing destabilizing nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them beyond the Middle East, even as key international players stoke its economy.

Teheran exploits America’s dilemma in Iraq by encouraging chaos in a manner beyond the ability of most Westerners to fathom. On the Palestinian front, the mullahs are championing Hamas with financing, weapons and training. Mahmoud Abbas can strike no workable deal with the Islamists looking over his shoulder. Hizbullah-occupied Lebanon is looking increasingly like an Iranian satellite.

The president told The Jerusalem Post yesterday that before leaving office he wants a structure in place for dealing with Iran. Washington already has a strong security commitment to Jerusalem. Now we would urge the president to work for an upgrade in Israel’s relationship with NATO. Europe must understand that Iran is pivotal; that there will be no stability, no progress – not in Iraq, not in Lebanon and not on the Palestinian front – until Teheran’s advances are first contained, and eventually rolled back.

Bearing in mind that Bush was talking to such loyal supporters, his promise sounds quite modest. To have a “structure in place for dealing with Iran” sounds much more conceptual than anything vaguely resembling ‘shock and awe.’

And this brings me back to Friedman and the legacy that he envisages:

The next American president will inherit many foreign policy challenges, but surely one of the biggest will be the cold war. Yes, the next president is going to be a cold-war president — but this cold war is with Iran.

That is the real umbrella story in the Middle East today — the struggle for influence across the region, with America and its Sunni Arab allies (and Israel) versus Iran, Syria and their non-state allies, Hamas and Hezbollah.

Is this what Bush wants to think of as his legacy? That he can be seen as the father of the new cold war? Maybe so. After all, he does apparently like to think of himself as something of a strategic thinker.

But the problem with this kind of “big view” is that it sees all the local actors as pawns – as though they have not arisen out of and continue to represent any kind of local constituency.

Let’s turn back then to Rami Khouri. He concludes on a positive note and dares to revive Condoleezza Rice’s birth metaphor (though not of course in a sense that she would have envisaged it):

The new domestic political balance of power in Lebanon will reflect millennia-old indigenous Middle Eastern traditions of different and often quarreling parties that live together peacefully after negotiating power relationships, rather than one party totally defeating and humiliating the other. Lebanon can only exist as a single country if its multi-ethnic and multi-religious population shares power. As the political leaders now seek to do this, they operate in a new context where the strongest group comprises Iranian- and Syrian-backed Islamist Shiites and their junior partners, Christian and Sunni Lebanese allies. They will share power in a national unity government with fellow Lebanese who are friends, allies, dependents and proxies of the United States and Saudi Arabia.

If a new Middle East truly is being born, this may well prove to be its nursery.

So what’s it going to be for the next president? Back to an old mindset with a new cold war? Or is it possible that we and the next president are ready for something new?

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CAMPAIGN 08 EDITORIAL: New York Times joins the gutter press

New York Times tries to out-Murdoch Murdoch
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, May 13, 2008

Does Rupert Murdoch have a mole among the editors of the New York Times? Or is the Times merely adopting the reflex that a Murdoch threat often seems to inspire: mimicry. (That’s how CNN fought back against Fox – it simply became more like Fox.)

Gracing Monday’s op-ed page is a contribution as deserving of space as would be a diatribe from David Duke: “President Apostate?” by Edward N. Luttwak.

Is the New York Times trying to steal readers from the New York Post?

After the Jeremiah Wright furor had the unintended consequence of nixing the “Obama’s a Muslim” rumor, the New York Times — with the implausible deniability of using the voice of an op-ed contributor — revives the so-called Muslim slur in its alternate form: Obama was a Muslim.

Daniel Pipes and other Islamophobes have been pushing this around for a while, but now it gets dignified by appearing on the pages of the “paper of record.”

Rather than struggling to express how infuriating I find it that the New York Times would publish a piece like this, I’m happy to say that I stumbled on someone else’s response – a response wonderfully prescient because it was written almost six months before Luttwak’s recycled bilge spilled out.

It came in a comment by Al-Hayat‘s Washington Bureau Chief, Salameh Nematt. He was responding to the same apostate argument, at that time being pushed by Nibras Kazimi of Talisman’s Gate:

Interesting point, but I believe the fact that Obama’s father abandoned him as a kid, and his mother raised him as a Christian absolves him of responsibility. That’s my fatwa for whatever it is worth. However, I believe an Islamic fatwa declaring him an apostate and calling for Muslims to spill his blood would probably guarantee him his party’s nomination for president.

Touché!

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EDITORIAL: Dealing with the Wright issue

How should Obama respond to the Wright issue?
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, April 28, 2008

Clarity should always come first.

What is “the Wright issue”?

As defined by the media, it is a question about whether Barak Obama’s association with Rev Jeremiah Wright undermines his credibility and viability as the would-be Democratic nominee.

This would be a serious question were it not for the fact that this issue has been raised, shaped, amplified and given all its gravity by the media itself. The media is by no stretch of the imagination a neutral party here.

Obama needs to distance himself from Wright simply by stating the obvious:

Rev Wright is a free agent who does not and never has represented my campaign. He has neither offered nor been asked to endorse me.

To the extent that he has become an issue in the campaign, this reflects choices made inside editorial meetings in newsrooms across America where every day important decisions are made about what is relevant or irrelevant to the news coverage of a presidential campaign.

If Americans want to better understand why so much attention is now being given to Wright, the clearest explanation will come from within the newsrooms that are now covering the story. If the media would like to bring more transparency to the way it operates, I would welcome this as I am sure would the American people.

Can we expect the media to now turn around and examine and expose itself? It’s hardly likely. On the contrary, what seems to be at work now is a kind of mob frenzy. Jeremiah Wright did the unforgivable yesterday when he mocked the press at the National Press Club.

Wright protests that he has been lynched by the media and an indignant, overwhelmingly white press corp, stung by the insult wants to see Obama show due deference to the tribe whose favor he cannot dismiss by now dipping his hands in Wright’s blood. The media wants Obama, in the most graceful of terms, to say that Wright has in full measure received the opprobrium he deserves. The media wants to be flattered by being able to sustain the illusion that it is and always has been an innocent witness to this spectacle.

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EDITORIAL: The Wright prism

The Wright prism
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, April 28, 2008

Isn’t it curious that so much attention can focus on one man and the manner in which he expresses himself, yet at the same time so little attention is paid to what he says.

Anyone who is not already aware of the depth and subtlety of Rev Jeremiah’s thought should take the time to listen to him being interviewed by Bill Moyers. As for today, all the hubbub is around Wright’s performance at the National Press Club where he committed a cardinal sin: he mocked the media.

The media itself is now implicitly laying down a challenge to the American people: Will you pick your next president on the basis of how you feel about his pastor?

The separation between Church and State has apparently utterly dissolved. Then again, the candidate did say on Sunday that questions about Wright were “a legitimate political issue.”

In that case, maybe it’s worth reading a central passage from his speech this morning. From what I can tell, most of the press were apparently half asleep during this part of the event since from the reports I’ve seen, no one found anything here that merited repetition:

Reconciliation, the years have taught me, is where the hardest work is found for those of us in the Christian faith, however, because it means some critical thinking and some re-examination of faulty assumptions when using the paradigm of Dr. William Augustus Jones.

Dr. Jones, in his book, God in the Ghetto, argues quite accurately that one’s theology, how I see God, determines one’s anthropology, how I see humans, and one’s anthropology then determines one’s sociology, how I order my society.

Now, the implications from the outside are obvious. If I see God as male, if I see God as white male, if I see God as superior, as God over us and not Immanuel, which means “God with us,” if I see God as mean, vengeful, authoritarian, sexist, or misogynist, then I see humans through that lens.

My theological lens shapes my anthropological lens. And as a result, white males are superior; all others are inferior.

And I order my society where I can worship God on Sunday morning wearing a black clergy robe and kill others on Sunday evening wearing a white Klan robe. I can have laws which favor whites over blacks in America or South Africa. I can construct a theology of apartheid in the Africana church (ph) and a theology of white supremacy in the North American or Germanic church.

The implications from the outset are obvious, but then the complicated work is left to be done, as you dig deeper into the constructs, which tradition, habit, and hermeneutics put on your plate.

To say “I am a Christian” is not enough. Why? Because the Christianity of the slaveholder is not the Christianity of the slave. The God to whom the slaveholders pray as they ride on the decks of the slave ship is not the God to whom the enslaved are praying as they ride beneath the decks on that slave ship.

How we are seeing God, our theology, is not the same. And what we both mean when we say “I am a Christian” is not the same thing. The prophetic theology of the black church has always seen and still sees all of God’s children as sisters and brothers, equals who need reconciliation, who need to be reconciled as equals in order for us to walk together into the future which God has prepared for us.

Reconciliation does not mean that blacks become whites or whites become blacks and Hispanics become Asian or that Asians become Europeans.

Reconciliation means we embrace our individual rich histories, all of them. We retain who we are as persons of different cultures, while acknowledging that those of other cultures are not superior or inferior to us. They are just different from us.

We root out any teaching of superiority, inferiority, hatred, or prejudice.

And we recognize for the first time in modern history in the West that the other who stands before us with a different color of skin, a different texture of hair, different music, different preaching styles, and different dance moves, that other is one of God’s children just as we are, no better, no worse, prone to error and in need of forgiveness, just as we are.

Only then will liberation, transformation, and reconciliation become realities and cease being ever elusive ideals.

So, let’s see if I can encapsulate Wright’s message in a pithy little statement – the kind that any journalist could use if they wanted to accurately characterize this controversial minister’s preaching:

The task of reconciliation hinges on our ability to see each other as equals even while we recognize our differences.

Hmmm…. What a radical statement! What a hateful ministry! Who on earth would dream of choosing as their president someone whose pastor would preach such a thing?

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EDITORIAL: Rev Jeremiah Wright interview

Bill Moyers interviews Rev Jeremiah Wright
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, April 26, 2008

In light of Hillary Clinton’s rebound in Pennsylvania and the flak Barak Obama took in reaction to his injudicious use of the words “bitter” and “cling”, there were surely many of us who felt like this might be the wrong time for Bill Moyers to be giving a platform to Pastor Wright.

But having heard him now it seems to me a crying shame that we could not have heard this interview broadcast on cable and network news the day after ABC News knowingly poisoned the Democratic campaign.

Who in the mainstream media now has the guts and integrity to challenge the Clintons and anyone else who saw political and commercial opportunities in fueling the Wright controversy? Who dares to ask: Having listened to what Jeremiah Wright had to say for himself on Bill Moyers Journal, do you not now regret the part you played in this vilification of this man?

The question won’t be asked because the ignorance of America requires careful and constant lubrication by a press that knows better, yet profits from how little its audience understands. Who wants to present the truth in all its subtlety when debasing the truth is such an easy way to make money?

Don’t just watch this YouTube clip – watch the whole interview (parts one and two) at Bill Moyers Journal.

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EDITORIAL: Syria’s nuclear reactor

The Al Kibar nuclear reactor in Syria
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, April 25, 2008

As someone who voiced great skepticism about the initial claims that Israel destroyed a nuclear facility in the Syrian desert on September 6, 2007, I’ll be the first to admit that the evidence provided in the DNI background briefing presents proof that Syria was in fact close to completing the construction of a Calder-Hall type of nuclear reactor producing plutonium. The evidence of North Korean involvement is not quite as compelling but there doesn’t seem much reason to doubt it. (Nearly all the information that follows comes courtesy of Arms Control Wonk.)

Here’s the video:

All in all, in terms of intelligence, this looks like an open and shut case — with one noteworthy exception: In the intelligence briefing a senior intelligence officer when asked about evidence of a Syrian nuclear weapons development program said this:

To go with the question you’re asking – weapons – we said, we believe it. There’s no other reason for it. But our confidence level that it’s weapons is low at this point. We believe it, but it’s low based on the physical evidence.

In other words, the physical evidence gathered indicated that Syria had built a nuclear reactor that, once operational, would have been capable of producing plutonium. There was no evidence that the reactor had been built to produce electricity and neither was it deemed suitable to be a research facility. The production of plutonium for use in nuclear weapons was thus inferred in the absence of any other plausible explanation.

The next point worth noting is that the decision to bomb the facility was Israel’s:

Q: Would the U.S. have considered any kind of activity had the Israelis not?

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: We obviously were looking very closely at options, and we had looked at some approaches that involved a mix of diplomacy and the threat of military force with the goal of trying to ensure that the reactor was either dismantled or permanently disabled, and therefore never became operational.

We looked at those options. There were, as I mentioned to you, conversations with the Israelis. Israel felt that this reactor posed such an existential threat that a different approach was required. And as a sovereign country, Israel had to make its own evaluation of the threat and the immediacy of the threat, and what actions it should take. And it did so.

The unanswered questions at this point nearly all seem to be political. Such as:

1. Why did the US government back Israel in a military action that totally undermines the authority and value of the IAEA?

2. Why has the intelligence been released now?

3. What impact should this have on any agreement reached with North Korea?

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EDITORIAL: Talking to the enemy

Choosing the right battles
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, April 11, 2008

In the world we’ve been forced to inhabit for the last eight years, international relations has become the arena in which buddies congregate to engage in grooming behavior based on fawning, flattery and patronization. Participants then, like dogs pissing against a lamppost, gather for the all-important photo opportunity that says: “We were here. We left our mark.”

In this context, the idea of talking to the enemy has become tantamount to an act of treason. Even so, to his credit, Barak Obama has put this out on the table. Given that he was merely echoing some of the recommendations of the hallowed Iraq Study Group, he might have thought he was already on fairly safe ground. It turns out he put himself out on a limb.

There are those who now argue that since he’s already out there, for the sake of consistency, he should continue moving in the same direction. The logic that someone willing to talk to Iran should also be willing to talk to Hamas, is irrefutable.

That said, there’s a difference between trying to win an election and trying to win an argument. It won’t benefit Obama to come down on the right side on this issue if by doing so he undermines his ability to get elected.

In large measure, the foreign policy community has already accepted the idea that Hamas represents a political trend that cannot be wished away and that must be engaged. But is this an idea that can filter through into the presidential debate. No way! It’s taken a significant number of Americans several years to grasp the idea that Saddam Hussein was not the mastermind for 9/11 — and of course many more have yet to be disabused of the notion.

Supporting Obama’s campaign for change requires a realistic sense of timing about when is the optimum moment to try and drive each specific shift. I do not see an iota of evidence that America at large is ready to work through the laborious process of deconstructing most of the assumptions upon which its view of the Israeli-Palestinian issue is based — least of all during a presidential campaign. What might come after the election is another matter. At that time, the viability of the debate will hinge on the credibility of an administration, not the electability of a candidate. Will President Obama be bolder in taking on the issue then than he is now? I don’t know, but I’d like to find out.

Meanwhile, there’s reason to wonder whether Jimmy Carter is being politically tone deaf right now. If he goes to meet Khalid Meshaal, I think this would be a courageous act, but as I suggested earlier, it’s all important that this event be framed in the right way: it needs to act as a nudge towards a genuine political engagement between Israel and the Palestinian people — not just as campaign fodder for the Israel lobby.

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EDITORIAL: Who’s really special?

Who’s really special?
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, April 8, 2008

Is George Bush, ever so slowly, inching towards détente with Iran?

If so, it’s probably something he won’t brag about. But what on earth could hint at such a possibility?

Consider these few things:

First, an interesting piece of speculation recounted by Sami Moubayed a few days ago in Asia Times:

One theory says that Imad Mughniya, the Hezbollah commander who was assassinated in Damascus in February, had been charged by Iran to restructure the Mahdi Army. He had been one of the architects of Hezbollah in 1982 and was asked to do the same to professionalize the Sadrists. While all of this was being done, Muqtada was asked to return to his religious studies so he could rise to the rank of ayatollah and therefore gain a much stronger role in Shi’ite domestics. He would then be authorized to issue religious decrees and answer religious questions related to politics – just like Hakim.

Then suddenly something went wrong, and last week Maliki (who is now equally close to the Iranians) went to war against the Sadrists. Some claim that an under-the-table deal was hammered out in Baghdad in March between the Americans, Maliki and Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

The Iranian leader would let the Americans have their way – and crush the Sadrists – in exchange for softening pressure on the Iranian regime. In return, Ahmadinejad would help them bring better security to Iraq through a variety of methods stemming from Iranian cooperation.

This would please the Americans, Maliki and the Iranians, who in exchange for Muqtada’s head would enter a new relationship with the Americans. This might explain why the only people who have been lobbying heavily with Maliki – to stop the war on Muqtada – have been those opposed to Iranian meddling in Iraqi affairs, mainly Sunni tribes, ex-prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari (who refused sanctuary in Tehran during the Iran-Iraq war) and the Sunni speaker of parliament, Mahmud Mashadani.

On Sunday, in an interview with CNN, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki when questioned about Iran’s role in violence in Iraq said, “we understand this comes because of the background of the deep differences between Iran and the US and we are encouraging them to go back to the negotiating table with Iraqi mediation. We reject Iran using Iraq to attack the US and at the same time we reject the idea of the US using Iraq to attack Iran. We want to have peaceful positive relations with all sides.”

Maliki’s offer of mediation could be dismissed as political posturing, but it’s not hard to imagine that a prime minister who is not popular would be attracted by the idea of making himself indispensable. The role of mediation has never been dependent on strength, though if Iraq was to serve as a mediator between Iran and the US this would clearly benefit Iraq and especially the leader who had placed himself in such a pivotal position.

On Monday, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told reporters, “We have received a new request from US officials through a formal note for holding talks on Iraq and we are looking into the issue.”

Then on Tuesday, after the main food market in Sadr City had burnt down and residents of the Shia district were fleeing American Hellfire missiles, Iran again issued another statement. Naturally it condemned US forces for indiscriminate bombardment of residential areas in Sadr City and Basra – but it didn’t stop there. It condemned attacks on the Green Zone and it praised “rightful measures taken by the Iraqi government to counter illegal armed groups.”

Could those illegal armed groups be the very same entities that have curiously been dubbed “special groups”?

What Maliki, Sadr and anyone else who might want a special relationship with Iran seems to discover sooner or later is that “special” does not mean “indispensable.” Iran, just like the United States, thinks first and foremost in terms of its national interest.

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EDITORIAL: Taking the blood out of killing

Taking the blood out of killing
By Paul Woodward, War in Context, March 27, 2008

“If America wants to see itself clean of terrorists we also want that our villages and towns should not be bombed.”

This was the modest request issued by Nawaz Sharif after Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and Assistant Secretary Richard Boucher went to Pakistan this week to secure the new government’s commitment on fighting terrorism. Negroponte and the rest of his State Department contingent might have received a slightly warmer response if they had not barged in on Pakistan’s celebrations at the restoration of democracy.

The New York Times reported:

The timing of the American visit was harshly criticized by the news media for creating the appearance that the United States was trying to dictate policy to a government that was not even hours old. The two American diplomats met Mr. Sharif as President Musharraf was administering the oath of office to Mr. Gillani.

“I don’t think it is a good idea for them to be here on this particular day,” said Zaffar Abbas, the editor of the respected English language newspaper Dawn, in Islamabad. “Here are the Americans, right here in Islamabad, meeting with senior politicians in the new government, trying to dictate terms.”

And the article continued:

An independent analyst on the Pakistani military, Shuja Nawaz, who lives in Washington, said he had been told by Pakistani officials that they discouraged the American diplomats from coming this week.

But the Pakistanis had been informed that Mr. Negroponte was on a trip that included other already arranged stops and Tuesday was the only possible day for him. Mr. Nawaz called the visit “ham-handed,” and said it could be interpreted as Washington wanting to continue to act as the “political godfather behind Musharraf.”

Ironically, it was the Pakistanis who needed to give the Americans a little instruction on the meaning of democracy: “We told them that since 9/11 until now the decisions were made by an individual and therefore these did not reflect the aspiration of the people. The situation has been changed now because an independent parliament has come into being and all the decisions will be made by it.”

That was how Sharif explained to Negroponte and Boucher that the US government needs to get used to dealing with a government instead of a dictator. Unfortunately, this administration like so many others before it still finds dictators easier to work with as a matter of convenience. It’s the boneheaded mafia approach to international relations: make a deal with “the man” and then let his and your minions take care of the details.

The false premise upon which Negroponte and Boucher’s unannounced visit was based was that Pakistan is not as serious as the United States when it comes to dealing with terrorism. But they would do well to consider the following remarks from an editorial in today’s edition of Pakistan’s leading English-language daily, The News:

What Washington still does not seem to have grasped is that almost everyone in Pakistan, including its political leaders, is at least as keen as they are to see an end to terror. It is, after all, Pakistani men, women and children who die when bombs explode; it is their blood that stains roadsides; their screams that fill hospital emergency rooms. The US-directed policies of the past seven years have led only to an expansion in militancy, to more violence and to more hatred. It is indeed a mystery why, in the face of these facts, Washington considers Musharraf to have been a success in battling terror. The White House and its team must now restrain themselves in further meddling in Pakistan’s affairs. Its new leaders must be allowed to devise their own strategies without attempts at long-distance dictation or remote-controlled operations. Such dictation has brought disaster in the past and is likely to do so in future as well. The people of Pakistan and their elected representatives must now be left alone to chalk out a brighter future for everyone in the country.

Unfortunately for the people of Pakistan, when it comes to confronting terrorism in the tribal areas, Democrats and Republicans are largely in agreement that the US needs to pursue a “tough” approach. Very few Americans are willing to question the idea that if an opportunity arises, then “high value targets” should be “taken out.”

But consider for a moment this frequently used phrase: take out.

Whenever a command is issued that someone or some people should be “taken out,” the words connote executive power, wielded by unbloodied hands. All the way down from the command to the deed, taking out requires a sense of detachment and a comfortable distance from the fatal event. Absent that distance, the nature of the act becomes inescapable.

When Brutus stabbed Julius Caesar, he didn’t take him out. Brutus and his fellow assassins killed Caesar. They had blood on their hands. Brutus says, “let no man abide this deed, but we the doers.” He knew what he had done and he accepted full responsibility.

When we talk about taking out terrorists, we prefer not to know what has been done and we try to disperse responsibility. We imagine that if a greater good (“defeating terrorism”) is being served, then the loss of innocent life, though regrettable will also most likely be unavoidable. What we can and do avoid considering is the carnage. We mask it with a casual phrase.

The message from the new government of Pakistan to America is quite simple: our people are worth as much as yours. Should that not be seen as an indisputable truism?

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