The National Interest

An Ugly Smear of Jeremy Scahill

Robert Golan-Vilella — Fri, 17 May 2013 20:30:00 +0000

In the Weekly Standard, Bruce Bawer reviews Jeremy Scahill’s recent book, Dirty Wars, which is about America’s approach to war, counterterrorism and targeted killings over the past decade. Bawer’s review is an ugly piece of work that is awash in evidence-free assertions and attacks on Scahill’s character. He calls Scahill “a radical ideologue out to discredit America and debilitate its defenses,” and closes with this paragraph:

What Scahill has given us here is, in short, an indictment of the West’s entire post-9/11 struggle against jihad. To offer serious criticism of American strategy is, of course, thoroughly legitimate. But Scahill isn’t a patriot who wants to see America triumph. On the contrary, it seems clear that the only thing he would hate more than a mismanaged war on jihad would be a successful one. Indeed, it’s hard to avoid feeling that this book’s definitive goal, like that of Awlaki’s sermons, is to swell the jihadist ranks—anything to bring down the Evil Empire with which Scahill has been at war all his professional life.

Syria? Turkey? Many Americans Still Unsure

Alexa L. McMahon — Fri, 17 May 2013 17:11:39 +0000

Alexa L. McMahon

Courtesy of Pew Despite the fact that the conflict in Syria has been raging for over two years, many Americans (some of whom undoubtedly want us to intervene there) fail to accurately identify the country when asked.

Today, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press released the results of a January poll indicating that only 50 percent of respondents were able to identify Syria correctly when shaded on a map. Nearly one in five (19 percent) named the country as Turkey (no word on Erdogan's thoughts on this), and 11 percent thought it was Saudi Arabia. Five percent identified it as Egypt, and 15 very, very sad percent found the question too daunting to answer.

For comparison, about 79 percent of people were able to correctly identify the Twitter logo in a recent Pew survey.

Talk to the Gulf About Leadership

Richard LeBaron — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Richard LeBaron

It is likely that every American president since George Washington has joked with his advisers that he would love to have the absolute power wielded by some of his fellow world leaders. With such authority, he could deal decisively with pesky domestic critics, unruly media, or noisy civil-society groups. Occasionally a president has imposed emergency laws (Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt), carried out "dirty tricks" against critics (Richard Nixon), or stretched the rules of domestic surveillance (George W. Bush). But such practices tend to be aberrations and usually evoke a corrective response from the judiciary, Congress or the public.

Such systemic give and take is alien to many regimes in the Middle East, whether they are led by monarchs or by civilians who monopolize power. In the Gulf, royal families view themselves as the ultimate legitimate leaders. They are skeptical of the merits or the effectiveness of systems of shared power. They believe the fact that they have survived and their countries have thrived for the most part indicates their future durability.

Let the Iraq Syndrome Kick In

Leon Hadar — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Leon Hadar

If you decided to take a stroll in Central Park in Manhattan after midnight and ended up being assaulted, there is a good chance that you won't be taking that walk again anytime soon. Are you exhibiting the signs of a Central Park syndrome? Call it what you like, but you would be behaving in a rational way after learning from your experience: Don't walk alone in desolated urban areas late at night.

Similarly, the Munich and Vietnam "Syndromes" that afflicted Western elites and publics in the post-1945 era reflected the way some of the traumatic lessons of the history of the twentieth century provided basic rules for the American people and their leaders. Sometimes you have to stand up to and even use military force in dealing with aggressors, as with Munich. But on the flip side, don't rush into using military force in response to every real and perceived aggression, as learned in Vietnam.

Notwithstanding Munich, the United States didn't go to war against the aggressive Soviet Union and even tried to accommodate its interests, a practice also known as "appeasing." And despite Vietnam, the United States did pursue forceful military strategies in Afghanistan and in the two Iraq wars.

The lessons of Munich and Vietnam have been demagogued occasionally by both hawks and doves alike and used as political ammunition by leaders warning of "another Hitler" or "a new Vietnam." But there is no doubt that these lessons of history have been burnt into the minds of policymakers.

Sochi's Olympic Security Obstacles

Sergey Markedonov — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Sergey Markedonov

On February 7, 2014, the XXII Olympic Winter Games will open in the famous Black Sea resort of Sochi. These games will be the first Russian-hosted Olympics since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Thus, the Sochi games will provide an important symbol greater than mere athletic competition. The Sochi project is particularly important to Russian president Vladimir Putin. He considers the event as to be a demonstration of the Russia’s post-Soviet potential and its growing role on the international stage. It has also been interpreted as an integral part of Putin’s return to the presidency, as a way to secure domestic support and prestige.

Yet the choice of host city for these Olympics creates a number of challenges for Russia. Sochi, a popular summer resort, has long held the informal status of the "summer capital" of Russia, primarily because the country’s political elite often spend their vacations there. Yet, paradoxically, it was chosen as the venue for the premier global winter-sports competition. It will mark the first time in the history of the Olympics that the Winter Games will be held in a subtropical climate.

Climate aside, Sochi faces a number of more difficult challenges, having become the focal point of several thorny issues with geopolitical and security implications.

Security in the North Caucasus

Unlike recent Olympic host cities such as Beijing, London or Vancouver, Sochi finds itself much more vulnerable from a security perspective. It lies approximately one hundred kilometers from Karachay-Cherkessia and less than two hundred kilometers from Kabardino-Balkaria. The latter saw 156 people become victims of political violence last year.

Keep Cyberwar Narrow

Panayotis A. Yannakogeorgos — Fri, 17 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Panayotis A. Yannakogeorgos

For too many Americans, “cyber warfare” is an amorphous concept that conjures everything from Hollywood’s Die Hard 4.0 to the blue screen of death on our personal computers.

The absence of a clear understanding of what cyber warfare is—and more importantly, what it is not—continues to present challenges to even the most experienced technologists and policy makers responsible for the safety of global networks and the laws and policies that govern cyberspace. Even these experienced professionals all too often confuse cybercrime and espionage with cyber attacks and cyber warfare. These are all very different phenomena and call for responses that fall under mutually exclusive sections of U.S. Code, making it increasingly important that discussions of malicious cyber activities are accurately described.

Although I focus on functions and platforms for armed attacks in cyberspace, if there is political will, there is always a risk of escalating a case of espionage or crime to international armed conflict.

Business vs. National Security

A Worthwhile Redirection in Pakistan

Paul R. Pillar — Fri, 17 May 2013 02:18:30 +0000

Paul R. Pillar

The victor in the recent Pakistani elections, Nawaz Sharif, has indicated he places high priority on improving relations between Pakistan and India. Sharif made some significant strides in promoting detente between the two South Asia powers during a previous stint as prime minister, and he wants to recoup ground that was later lost after the terrorist attack in Mumbai in 2008 by a Pakistani-based group. Wasting no time, Sharif has invited Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Pakistan to attend Sharif's swearing-in.

This is all to the good, and has received recognition as such in India (although with caution in the case of the right-wing nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party). Americans, however, need to be prepared for how a successful Sharif may bring about some changes in Pakistani-U.S. relations that may not seem so good in Washington. This is suggested by an editorial earlier this week in a major Indian daily, the Hindustan Times. The editorial said that part of what Indians ought to hope for from a new administration in Islamabad is “a government that will understand that cutting dependence on the United States and China is only possible if Pakistan has a modus vivendi with India.” Note the implication that understandably can raise American eyebrows: a looser Pakistani relationship with the United States may accompany a less hostile Pakistani relationship with India.

What Closing Guantánamo Means

Robert Golan-Vilella — Thu, 16 May 2013 16:20:28 +0000

Robert Golan-Vilella

Daniel Klaidman’s cover story in the current issue of Newsweek is about the Obama administration and its approach to the prison in Guantánamo Bay. He picks up on President Obama’s comments two weeks ago—in which the president said that the prison “needs to be closed” and that he “was going to go back at” the challenge of closing it—and reports on the administration’s thinking and the obstacles to doing so.

Possibly the biggest piece of news in Klaidman’s story is this:

In the coming days, Obama plans to address both Guantánamo and drones—another festering, controversial element of the administration’s national-security agenda—in a broad “framing” speech that will try to knit together an overarching approach to counterterrorism. In the speech, Obama plans to lay out a legal framework for the administration’s evolving strategies on targeting, detention, and prosecution.

Klaidman tells us that the “interagency wrangling” over the contents of the speech “has apparently taken months,” and that the speech “had been scheduled for last month but was then abruptly rescheduled.” One imagines that the Boston Marathon bombing was the reason why. (Klaidman also reports that in the wake of the bombing, Obama “will also address the evolving threat of self-radicalization and lone wolves.”)

The Tensions Beneath the Moscow Spy Scandal

Paul J. Saunders — Thu, 16 May 2013 13:52:03 +0000

Paul J. Saunders

So far, the controversy over the Russia’s detention and expulsion of U.S. diplomat Ryan Christopher Fogle on spying charges seems likely to pass without significant damage to U.S.-Russian relations or to U.S. national interests. While the story has received extensive coverage in Russian media—and some reports in state media appear calculated to portray the United States quite unfavorably—senior officials, including President Vladimir Putin’s top foreign-policy aide and Russia’s foreign minister, have downplayed the case. Their U.S. counterparts have also responded cautiously. Nevertheless, the melodrama provides a useful opportunity to reflect on ties between Washington and Moscow.

First, some important facts. U.S. officials have not denied that Fogle was attempting to recruit Russian security-services personnel. Moreover, following a classified Senate Intelligence Committee hearing with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Committee Chair Senator Dianne Feinstein said that she was “embarrassed” by the affair—which certainly implies that Feinstein thinks Fogle was up to something in Moscow. (Whether the Senator, who also complained about Fogle’s “tradecraft,” should have commented at all is a separate question.)

Bret Stephens Misreads Henry Kissinger

Jacob Heilbrunn — Thu, 16 May 2013 12:19:39 +0000

Jacob Heilbrunn

There is a curious paradox in criticisms of President Obama from the right. On the one hand it complains that he is vastly expanding the range and reach of government domestically. On the other hand it complains that he is not expanding the range and reach of government enough in foreign affairs.

A good case of the latter impulse comes in a lively recent column by Bret Stephens, a leading neoconservative columnist for the Wall Street Journal and winner of a Pulitzer prize. Stephens raises what he calls the "Kissinger question," which, as he defines it, is whether or not America needs a foreign policy at all, the title of a book that Kissinger published a few months before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. In Stephens' view, America, under Obama, does not. It has what amounts to a series of tactical moves designed to obscure the fact that Obama is, at bottom, uninterested in foreign affairs. Stephens goes on to suggest that this presidential disposition is widely shared. Even Council on Foreign Relations president Richard Haass comes in for a drubbing—he, of all people, Stephens warns, has suggested in a pithy new book that foreign policy, given the battered state of the American economy and the dubious outcomes of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, should begin at home.

As Stephens sees it,

Back to the Future in Iran's Election

Sahar Namazikhah, Reza Marashi — Thu, 16 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Sahar Namazikhah

Reza Marashi

As the field of candidates for Iran’s presidential election takes shape, the most intriguing entry into the race is Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. His candidacy is a threat to all other candidates—and more critically, it presents a major challenge to Iran’s most powerful man, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Despite the generational changes that have shaped the Iranian system in recent years, Rafsanjani’s challenge to Khamenei may take this election back to the future.

After Iran’s 1979 revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini faced the herculean task of shaping widespread upheaval into what eventually became the Islamic Republic. Through this deeply violent and non-democratic decision-making process, five men are commonly thought to have been pillars at Khomeini’s side: Mohammad Beheshti, Mohammad Javad Bahonar, Morteza Motahhari, Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Ali Khamenei. Three were killed in terror attacks shortly after the revolution. Two pillars remain—and they are openly challenging one another for the future of the Islamic Republic.

The power struggle is serious and dates back years. Since the contested 2009 presidential election, Rafsanjani has repeatedly—though often indirectly—criticized Khamenei’s policies and governance. In an April 2013 meeting with former governors, Rafsanjani openly stated that distrust exists between him and the Supreme Leader—an unprecedented move in Iranian political culture. He also criticized Khamenei’s governance for allowing the Revolutionary Guard undue influence in Iran’s economic and foreign policy, and enabling the development of a militarized state.

Erdogan's Obama Agenda

Kemal Kirisci — Thu, 16 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Kemal Kirisci

Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is visiting Washington this week and will meet with President Obama today. This is his first visit to the United States since December 2009. But the world and the Middle East have changed dramatically since then. Thus, the agenda for Erdogan’s talks with Obama will be a very crowded one. Four topics in particular are likely to stand out.

1. The Situation in Syria

Erdogan arrives in Washington at a time when there is growing pressure on the Obama administration to change its course on Syria. Secretary of State John Kerry has already taken some steps to increase nonlethal support for the opposition in Syria while putting growing pressure on the moderate opposition to tighten their ranks and distance themselves from radical Islamist groups. These measures are unlikely to satisfy Erdogan. He has long been a vocal critic of the international community, the United Nations Security Council and the United States for idly “watching the tragedy” unfolding in Syria.

Kenneth Waltz's Crucial Logic

James Joyner — Thu, 16 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

James Joyner

Kenneth Waltz, the most important Realist theorist of the last half-century, died Monday, a few weeks before his 89th birthday.

His Columbia University doctoral dissertation was published in 1959 as Man, the State, and War. He followed up with Theory of International Politics in 1979. Georgetown professor of government Daniel Nexon doesn't exaggerate when he says those two books "provided the framework within, and against, international-relations scholars have argued for much of the post-WWII period." Indeed, some concepts Waltz introduced are quite literally part of the Day 1 lecture in any course on world politics.

The Classical Realists, of whom Hans Morgenthau was the most influential modern theorist, argued that the relations between states were an extension of the men who ran them and the fixed laws of human nature, with the pursuit of power and survival the key components.

Obama and Erdogan's Trust Problem

Halil Karaveli — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Halil Karaveli

This week Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet with President Obama in the Oval Office. The meeting takes place a few days after the worst terror attack in Turkey’s history, which on May 11 left at least fifty people dead in a town close to the Syrian border. Turkey is deeply involved in the attempt to bring about regime change in Syria, providing crucial sanctuary for and logistical support to the Sunni rebels, and has exposed itself to threats to its own security.

On the face of it, the relationship between the president and the prime minister is warm. Obama has said that Erdogan is one of five world leaders with whom he enjoys the most effective relations. Obama told Time’s Fareed Zakaria in an interview in 2012 that he has been able to forge “close working relationships” with German chancellor Angela Merkel, Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh, South Korean president Lee Myung-bak, British prime minister David Cameron and Erdogan, and “gotten a whole bunch of stuff done.” Obama has relied heavily on Turkey in seeking to oust Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. American and Turkish officials have been cooperating closely, and Secretary of State John Kerry has traveled to Turkey three times since taking office.

Kenneth Waltz and the Power of Pure Theory

Michael C. Desch — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Michael C. Desch

Kenneth Waltz died this week, just shy of his 89th birthday. I can’t say that I knew the famous Berkeley scholar well, though I did once have lunch with him early in my career. It was a harrowing experience for me as he challenged me about why I thought the Third World mattered. I learned later that my noontime grilling was nothing compared to the tough love he gave his students, who invariably remember him with deep respect and affection but also still present some of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

But what all of us in the field of international relations experienced on a regular basis was the power of Waltz’s intellect, which towered over the discipline and inspired all of us who inclined toward a realist approach with his application of rigorous theory to the most important practical issues statesmen grappled with.

Waltz’s scholarly stature was due entirely to the force of his intellect and his willingness to challenge prevailing orthodoxies. He never served in government. And while his writings touched on many of the major events of the day—Vietnam, nuclear proliferation, the Cold War—he did not aspire to be a public intellectual.

Instead, Waltz made his mark through a handful of books and articles in which he advanced simple, yet counterintuitive, theories about how international politics works. His theories often struck other scholars as implausible at first, but their logic often proved irresistible over time. And when he applied his theoretical insights to the real world, they regularly made sense of some otherwise puzzling things.

Bomb, Coerce or Contain Iran

Gregory D. Koblentz — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Gregory D. Koblentz

Although Syria’s civil war is dominating front pages around the world, a debate is still raging in Washington, Tel Aviv and other capitals about how to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Policy makers and academics are all grappling with the same set of questions about Iran: Is Iran rational? Can Iran be deterred? What are Iran’s nuclear ambitions: Will it be satisfied with having a “break-out” capability or is it determined to build and deploy a nuclear arsenal? How effective are sanctions? What is the feasibility of a military attack to eliminate Iran’s nuclear program? What are the risks of such an attack? What would be the political and strategic consequences of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons?

Three schools of thought have emerged, which have different answers to these questions. I call these schools (for the lack of more elegant terms) the Bombers, the Coercers and the Containers. These labels are not meant to be flip, but to crystalize the core assumptions and policy prescriptions of the most prominent voices in the current debate on Iran.

Sharif Must Square the Circle

C. Uday Bhaskar — Wed, 15 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

C. Uday Bhaskar

Pakistan’s national election that concluded last Saturday is indeed historic for its 180 million citizens. Since its creation in 1947, this is the first time that a civilian government has completed its five-year term and stepped down with no intervention from the army, thereby paving the way for a democratic decision through the ballot box, not the bayonet.

The PML-N (Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz), led by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, has emerged as the single largest party, bagging at least 126 seats out of 272 that were contested. The 342-member National Assembly, Pakistan’s lower house, is made up of 272 elected representatives and seventy who are nominated from among religious minorities and women. The latter seats are allotted to parties based on their electoral performance, and thus the PML-N is thus set to form the next government in Islamabad with the help of a few independents.

Tragically, the run up to the elections was marred by a series of deliberate killings and violence led by the Pakistan Taliban, which targeted parties and political leaders alleged to be too “secular.” Thus the three parties that suffered the most were the PPP (Peoples Party of Pakistan), the MQM (Muttahida Quami Movement) and the ANP (Awami National Party). The PML-N sought a political accommodation with the right wing and hence was not intimidated.

More Costs of a Pseudo-Scandal

Paul R. Pillar — Wed, 15 May 2013 02:25:00 +0000

Paul R. Pillar

If I were a political adviser to those relentlessly pushing recriminations about the attack last year on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, I think my advice would be, “Give it a rest.” This pseudo-scandal has become so forced, so contrived, and so blatantly driven by motives other than safeguarding the security of U.S. interests that the unending push has already passed the point where it serves any identifiable objectives, even partisan political ones. The subject, about which a panel of inquiry has completed its work and issued its report, is already tiresome; imagine how much more tiresome it will be to voters by 2016 after three more years of it.

A poll on Benghazi released this week by Public Policy Polling suggests that the agitation on the subject is keeping a Republican base agitated but not making wider inroads on public opinion. One has to ask what good it does Republicans to dwell on something that keeps one segment of the population angry about Barack Obama (and Hillary Clinton) when that segment was already angry about Obama anyway. When asked whom the respondent trusted more on the issue of Benghazi, 49 percent said Hillary Clinton and 39 percent said Congressional Republicans. On other questions asking for an overall favorable or unfavorable rating, Clinton enjoys an eight-point margin over Congressional Republicans, the same margin as in a similar poll in March.

Nawaz Sharif's Great Challenge

Arif Rafiq — Tue, 14 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Arif Rafiq

Politics is a long game. And in Pakistan, perhaps no politician understands this better than Nawaz Sharif, who will be the country’s prime minister for the third time. Exiled for seven years, he will be sworn into the office of prime minister by Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s president and a man once imprisoned by Sharif. The general who overthrew Sharif in 1999, Pervez Musharraf, now sits in his Islamabad villa under house arrest, awaiting trial. Politics is indeed a long game.

But alongside the games, there is work to do. A massive nation with great potential is in a state of paralysis, veering toward failure as it faces a seemingly insurmountable set of challenges that multiply with each passing day. The government Sharif will run is bankrupt. It is dependent on foreign rent to stay afloat—aid from the United States and other countries, loans from international lending agencies and remittances from overseas Pakistanis.

Europe Renews Austerity Fight

Milton Ezrati — Tue, 14 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Milton Ezrati

Copy-hungry journalists must love Europe. It seems to approach each phase of this ongoing crisis with wholly new solutions. For those who write on it, this evolution demands a series of new explanations and invites renewed speculations at each turn. But for investors and business people, it is less welcome. It makes planning next to impossible. And because planning is essential for financial stability and economic expansion, the continent’s economy and financial markets would benefit from something that is perhaps less exciting to write about—and more definite and predictable.

In this latest turn, eurozone members seem to have developed new doubts about fiscal austerity. A tenuous consensus had formed around the need for budget restraint and deficit reduction, but now some look to moderate the severity of the program, while others would reverse policy altogether. This new turn, disruptive as it is, does have virtues. It would, after all, lift the threat of a vicious downward economic cycle in which austerity depresses economic activity that causes worse deficits that only invite more austerity. But at the same time, the shift in fiscal emphasis carries its own ills. For one, it threatens to bring the continent back to its old profligate ways. Even worse, this new turn from austerity seems to have distracted policy makers from their former embrace of structural reforms and the promise they made to ease the continent’s fundamental fiscal-financial woes.

An Effort Worth Making

Marvin Kalb — Tue, 14 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Marvin Kalb

One day, a decade or so down the line, an American president will call on the Putin of his time and propose an international conference to contain the sectarian and religious warfare then threatening their common interests in south-central Asia, a broad swath of land running from Afghanistan to Kazakhstan. The Russian leader, already absorbed with the festering Islamist challenges in Chechnya, Dagestan and other parts of the northern Caucasus, will reluctantly agree.

A similar scenario is now unfolding, though the immediate crisis centers on the killing fields in Syria, blood splattered for more than two years by Sunni-Shiite-Alawite-Kurdish violence. Two senior American officials recently visited the Kremlin, both appealing for a major, new effort at Russian-American cooperation to stop the spreading violence. National-security adviser Tom Donilon arrived first on April 15, coincidentally the day of the Boston marathon disaster, which for the first time introduced the roiling Islamic radicalism of Chechnya and Dagestan into the springtime pageantry of a New England tradition. Donilon carried a letter from President Obama to President Putin, proposing, among other things, a new international conference on Syria designed to negotiate a political transition from the Assad regime to something better. The “something better” was left vague, and therein lay a subtle but important change in American policy.

The AP Scandal Shows That the Obama Administration Is Going Rogue

Jacob Heilbrunn — Tue, 14 May 2013 00:35:19 +0000

Jacob Heilbrunn

The Obama administration is mired in a fresh scandal of its own making. The revelation that the Justice Department has been snooping into the phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors indicates that the administration's ruthlessness when it comes to trying to protect its reputation and sources knows no bounds. Attorney General Eric Holder, always a poor choice for a cabinet post, should resign. Coupled with the revelation that the IRS has been selectively targeting Tea Party groups and the botched handling of the Benghazi terrorist attack, the administration confronts a second term that appears to be ending even before it has even really begun.

Obama has always prided himself on being squeaky clean when it comes to governing. He campaigned for transparency in government. He said he was against soft money. He said that members of his administration would have to demonstrate the highest ethical standards ever. Well, that was then. He has nominated the tax-dodging billionaire Penny Pritzker, who bankrolled his political ascendancy, to serve as his Commerce secretary. He has hoovered up any and all funds he can attract, infuriating proponents of campaign finance reform. And now his administration, in its mad and obsessive and destructive pursuit to quash any leaks, has besmirched itself by targeting journalists for investigation.

Move Fast on Jerusalem

Ben Lynfield — Mon, 13 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Ben Lynfield

As both secular and religious Israelis know, the book of Psalms enjoins the faithful to cherish the city of Jerusalem: ''If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.''

Yet these days Jerusalem is going unremembered as Secretary of State John Kerry seeks to relaunch Israeli-Palestinian peace talks after four years of stagnation. Israel, content with the status quo through which it tightens its grip on the parts of the city it occupied during the 1967 war, can only be delighted with this omission. Perhaps Mr. Kerry's reasoning is that since it is so difficult to get the sides back to negotiations as it is, the Jerusalem issue, which is (wrongly) perceived as being intractable, should be left for the end.

But Jerusalem needs immediate attention. The status quo here is unjust, and realities on the ground are moving in a direction that dooms prospects for a compromise solution in which the city becomes the capital of two independent states. Israel is taking advantage of American and international inattention to Jerusalem to foreclose the possibility of a viable Palestinian capital emerging there.

Above all else, Israel wants more time for its project of transforming key parts of East Jerusalem from Arab to Israeli areas. One of the reasons it is so wary of the Arab League peace initiative revived in recent weeks is that accepting it would mean compromising on the Israeli settlement enterprise, both in Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied West Bank.

Cold Water for Hot Trade Deals

Uri Dadush — Mon, 13 May 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Uri Dadush

The Obama administration is charting a radically different course in trade policy. The path is now clearly marked by last week’s announcement of the nomination of deputy national-security advisor Mike Froman, the architect of the new policy, as U.S. Trade Representative.

Until quite recently the United States was focused on the quest for a comprehensive multilateral trade round, the Doha Development Agenda, while also pursuing a handful of bilateral trade deals of minor importance. Today, Washington has essentially written Doha off, and is instead pursuing two giant regional deals: one with countries of the Pacific Rim, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), whose importance has been enormously enhanced by the recent addition of Canada, Japan and Mexico to its participants; and the other with Europe, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

Both negotiations are widely supported by business interests and even the trade unions have voiced support for TTIP. The negotiations are intended to achieve “gold standard” deep and comprehensive trade agreements, a familiar objective of recent bilateral negotiations involving the United States. However, since the TPP and TTIP combined would comprise thirty-nine countries that account for over 60 percent of world trade, the new megaregional negotiations resemble in scope and ambition those of a multilateral trade round rather than a traditional regional deal. In fact, taken together, they bring to mind the early GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) Rounds whose negotiations were dominated by the advanced countries, with the United States in the lead.

The Red Line of Non-Aggression

Paul R. Pillar — Mon, 13 May 2013 01:03:52 +0000

Paul R. Pillar

Amid much talk lately about “red lines”—to the point that the term would be a strong candidate for cliché of the year—we should reflect on the relative inattention, as Richard Falk points out in a recent commentary, to what used to be one of the most fundamental and important red lines of all. The line in question, which Falk notes the United States once played a leading role in formulating, is “the prohibition of the use of international force by states other than in cases of self-defense against a prior armed attack.”

Falk has been around long enough to rile adversaries on many issues about which he has been outspoken (and I have disagreed with some of his past positions). It was nearly forty years ago that I took a graduate course in international law from him, and he is now in his eighties. But he does speak some uncomfortable truths. Many he has spoken in connection with his current function as the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories. Most recently he incurred irresponsible vitriol, including some from U.S. officials, when he noted—accurately—that U.S. policies have something to do with stimulating the kind of violent extremism exhibited by the Boston Marathon bombers. His observation about disregard for the once-prominent norm against aggression gets to another set of truths.