Month: February 2014

Originally published at LobeLog, reprinted with permission.

In my 30 years as the Washington DC bureau chief for Inter Press Service, only one institution has denied me admission to their press or public events. That was the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) shortly after the broadcast in 2003 of a BBC Panorama program (its equivalent, more or less, of our “60 Minutes”) on neoconservatives and their promotion of the Iraq war. The segment was entitled “The War Party” and I was interviewed at several intervals during the program. In that case, I was told forthrightly (and somewhat apologetically) by the think tank’s then-communications chief, Veronique Rodman, that “someone from above” had objected strongly to the show (I had my own reservations about it) and my role in it and had demanded that I be banned from attending future AEI events. My status as persona non grata there was reaffirmed about five years later when LobeLog alumnus Eli Clifton went there for an event and was taken aside by an unidentified staffer and told that he could attend, but that he should remind me that I was still unwelcome.

Now it seems I’ve been blackballed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, although, unlike AEI, AIPAC has so far declined to give me a reason for denying me accreditation for its annual policy conference, which runs Sunday through Tuesday. All I’ve received thus far is this email that arrived in my inbox Thursday morning from someone named Emily Helpern from Scott Circle, a public relations firm here in DC.

Thank you for your interest in attending this year’s AIPAC Policy Conference as a member of the press. However, press credentials for the conference will not be issued to you. We regret any inconvenience this may have caused.

I emailed Emily back as soon as I received it to ask for an explanation and pointed out that this is the first time in a decade that I’ve been denied credentials to cover the AIPAC conference. When no reply was forthcoming, I sent a second email to her and to Marshall Wittmann, AIPAC’s communications director, seeking an explanation, but, alas, it seems I’ve become a non-person.

Continue reading “Jim Lobe: Blackballed by AIPAC?”

The Bibi who cried wolf:

Report from Thursday, February 26, 2014 (today):

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry decried what he called a “new isolationism” in the United States on Wednesday and suggested that the country was beginning to behave like a poor nation.

Speaking to reporters, Kerry inveighed against what he sees as a tendency within the United States to retreat from the world even as he defended the Obama administration’s diplomatic efforts from Syria to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Report from Saturday, February 1, 2014:

[Secretary of State John Kerry]…presented an emotional defense of the Obama administration’s engagement in international crises in the face of widespread European and Middle Eastern criticism that the United States was retreating from a leadership role.

Speaking here at the Munich Security Conference, the most important trans-Atlantic security gathering, Secretary of State John Kerry expressed some exasperation with the criticism, rejecting “this narrative which frankly has been pushed by some people who have an interest in trying to suggest that the U.S. is somehow on a different track.” He went through a litany of American involvement in places like Afghanistan, Libya and the Middle East, saying, “I can’t think of a place in the world where we’re retreating.”

At the beginning of this month, John Kerry vehemently dismissed the criticism that America is “retreating” from the world. Not even four weeks later, he is making that very criticism. He was right the first time. Like the John Kerry of February 1st, I can’t think of one single place in the world where the United States is withdrawing.

• Continue reading “Kerry Was Right the First Time: America Is Not ‘Retreating’ Into ‘Isolationism’”

In response to the revolution in Ukraine, Moscow has ordered a 150,000-troop Russian military exercise in the semi-autonomous region of Crimea, right on Ukraine’s border. Amid the commotion, pro and anti- Russian residents residents of Crimea have protested.

Dmitri Trenin and Andrew S. Weiss at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace give a brief primer on the Crimea situation:

Crimea is a very special—and delicate—case. It is Ukraine’s only autonomous republic, though its autonomy was sharply curtailed in the mid-1990s. Its population of nearly 2 million is about 60 percent Russian, many of whom are retired Russian military personnel. Russia’s naval base in Sevastopol is home to some 15,000 active-duty servicemen, and much of the city essentially lives off of the base. About 12 percent of Crimeans are Tatars, who are generally loyal to Kyiv due to their tragic history. (They were persecuted and repatriated by Stalin for alleged disloyalty at the end of World War II and were only able to return to Crimea at the very end of the Soviet period.) Throughout independent Ukraine’s twenty-plus-year history, Crimea’s residents, only 24 percent of whom are ethnic Ukrainians, have seen themselves as a breed apart from the Ukrainian mainstream.

They explain that Russia’s military exercise could be a dangerous move:

It would be a surprise if Russia moved to annex the region outright. Although Putin has maintained his silence on the situation in Ukraine since this past weekend, events on the ground are challenging Ukraine’s territorial integrity and raising the possibility that Russian troops will become directly involved in pulling the country apart.

Putin’s hand could be forced (and conflict could come to the region inadvertently) depending on how the new authorities in Kyiv respond to recent moves by the local population. One can easily imagine a harsh Russian response if Kyiv takes rash steps to reassert its authority in Crimea either by sending in troops or by allowing revolutionary paramilitaries to launch a “people’s march” on Crimea.

Today, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel warned Russia not to intervene, failing to mention that (1) Washington has been intervening in Ukraine from the start, and (2) it’s really none of our business what Russia does.

“We expect other nations to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and avoid provocative action,” Mr. Hagel said. “That’s why I’m closely watching Russia’s military exercises along the Ukrainian border…”

In any case, telling Russia to behave itself has about zero chance of helping the situation. “Russian leaders believe, rightly or wrongly, that the West drove events in Ukraine to the brink of collapse to secure geopolitical advantage over Moscow,” Trenin and Weiss say. “Thus, Western appeals for Russian restraint in the event of a crisis over Crimea are unlikely to resonate.”

But the eagerness in Washington to steer events in Ukraine and beat out Russia in some pointless geopolitical game has not yielded. In this Daily Beast report, Republican leaders Buck McKeon and James Inhofe berate Obama for being too soft on Russia; they both express a deep longing for the Cold War era when it was easier to justify any reckless military action abroad on the grounds of opposing Soviet designs.

David Rhodes, a Reuters columnist, quoted former Romney adviser Nile Gardiner as reiterating Romney’s 2012 line that Russia is America’s greatest geo-political foe and arguing that “an ‘ideological war’ was underway and Putin is winning.”

Gardiner then worries that Washington’s inability to force Russia to lay prostrate at the feet of American power is encouraging other countries to defy their American master: “Putin is viewed by American adversaries and competitors as someone who has stood up to American influence and gotten away with outflanking the United States. Adversaries take note of this and they sense weakness and that’s dangerous. Dissidents also take note.”

Obama’s State Department, which as we know has quietly tried to pull off regime change in Ukraine (only to be outed by a leaked phone conversation), prefers to apply the Republican bellicosity, just to do it quietly:

“What we’re trying to do is work through diplomatic channels with the Russians,” a senior State Department official told Rhodes. “That doesn’t mean going public with some tough rhetoric that might please some domestic constituencies. This is not an era where tough talk gets the job done.”

Tough talk is so 1980. Secrecy is now the American way.

Writing at The National Interest, Robert Haddick, an independent contractor with U.S. Special Operations Command, welcomes “getting tough” on China. He argues that Washington has been too accommodating to China’s regional ambitions and has thus failed to provide a military deterrent to China’s rise.

“Heretofore, the U.S. has pursued a policy of forbearance with China,” Haddick claims, “with the hope that by going out its way to show respect for China’s emerging great power status, Washington would avoid a ruinous security competition.” However, he notes, there is some evidence that the Obama administration has begun to take a “stiffer tone” and a “tougher line” on China with regard to its maritime and territorial disputes with its neighboring rivals (most of whom happen to be U.S. allies).

Obama’s Asia Pivot, announced about two years ago, involves boosting support for all of China’s neighboring rivals, increasing the presence of U.S. military bases surrounding China’s coastline, and stationing sixty percent of U.S. naval and air power in the Asia Pacific theater. This sure doesn’t sound accommodative, but where Haddick gets the “forbearance” argument is from the official U.S. line on China’s territorial disputes, which is as follows, according to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel: “we do not take a position on the question of sovereignty in these cases” but “the United States stands firmly against any coercive attempts to alter the status quo.” (Leave aside for a moment the fact that, as a matter of routine policy, the U.S. employs coercion in an attempt to alter the status quo.)

A question China hawks might want to consider is, how should a “tougher line” on China’s rise manifest in terms of policy? If boosting military assets to encircle China isn’t enough to deter Beijing, what is the next step? Are we supposed to respond militarily and face China, a nuclear-armed state, in a war?

“As the Obama administration was reminded in Syria,” Haddick notes, “policymakers should not draw red lines unless they can convince the adversary that he has no chance to successfully challenge them.” In other words, we need to demonstrate that we will go to war against China if it continues to expand its regional influence.

What do we suspect China’s reaction will be if we act militarily? The same power that is building up its military assets and defense spending and provocatively establishing ADIZ’s and occupying disputed island chains is suddenly going to sit back and become a picture of docility just as soon as Washington takes a “tougher line”? Two scenarios are more likely: (1) a shooting war in the Asia Pacific that includes the China against the U.S. and all its allies, or (2) a reversion to Cold War politics in which Beijing and Washington retreat into the destructive policies of espionage and prolonged proxy wars.

When it comes down to it, the only pretext for a conflict with China – and a pretext is needed because Washington is too embarrassed to simply call for war because China has a bigger economy and military – are these territorial and maritime disputes. Notice, though, that China hawks are not suggesting that the United States take the position of an impartial arbiter of these disputes, which are complicated and ambiguous to say the least. Rather, they argue that we better ignore the legitimacy of the opposing claims in each dispute and simply take the anti-China position.

Is there anyone prepared to argue such an approach will yield peaceful conclusions?

The U.S. State Department announced yesterday that it was expelling three Venezuelan diplomats after “similar action against three U.S. consular officials in Caracas.” When nations expel diplomats from their respective countries, it is an indication tensions are somewhat serious.

The media here in the U.S. has covered the protests in Venezuela predictably by portraying the post-Chavez Maduro government as brutal and unpopular and the protest movement as hungry for freedom. Contrast this depiction with, say, the protest movement and harsh regime crackdown in Bahrain where the U.S. strongly supports the dictatorial monarchy and thus does its best to ignore the long-repressed Shiite minority protesters.

In any case, it’s worth looking into why the Venezuelan government expelled U.S. diplomats this week. Some context for that question and for the American depiction of what’s going on is provided by Lauren Carasik at Al Jazeera America:

Venezuela is facing a protracted political crisis. Images depicting its streets tell the tale: Student unrest coalesced into massive demonstrations around the country, triggering a violent crackdown on opposition leaders and protesters. The ensuing violence and destructive confrontations over the last several weeks have left at least 13 people dead and scores wounded, with casualties on both sides. Tensions remain high.

Headlines in the United States broadcast unchallenged narratives of widespread discontent with mounting economic woes and denounce the ensuing repression by an unpopular and discredited administration barely clinging to power. But the reality in Venezuela is far more complicated and nuanced than what the media and the U.S. government spin suggests.

For instance, it is difficult to say who is responsible for provoking the conflict. Despite the uncertainty over who is inciting the violence, the U.S. government and press largely condemn President Nicolas Maduro’s administration while framing the protests as popular revolution, in some cases tacitly or even overtly rooting for regime change.

The United States’ disenchantment with Venezuelan politics in the last 15 years is no secret. The U.S. has a sordid history of exerting unfettered influence in Latin America. It has supported the ouster of democratically elected governments and backed strongmen whose policies advance U.S. economic and political interests, inflicting incalculable suffering on the most vulnerable citizens of those countries.

After being sworn into office in 1999, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who died in office last year, instituted policies that have been a thorn in the side of successive U.S. administrations and posed a lasting challenge to Washington’s hegemony in the region. The U.S. has not taken kindly to that, providing funding for “democracy promotion” initiatives in the country through organizations that have historically destabilized left-leaning governments. The 2014 U.S. foreign operations budgetincludes at least $5 million for supporting opposition activities in Venezuela. Despite their lofty labels, these projects did little to enhance the popular political participation of Venezuela’s people. While the U.S. casts its condemnation of the government’s response as unswerving support for principles of democracy and freedom, its position runs contrary to the democratically expressed will of the Venezuelan people.

It’s hard to blame Caracas for being suspicious of the presence of U.S. officials as all this is going on. Successive attempts at regime change and continual efforts to undermine a democratically elected government would make most people paranoid.

The point is not that the Maduro government is wonderful. If I were Venezuelan, I’d probably be protesting too. The point is that Washington has no business meddling in internal Venezuelan affairs. From Bahrain to Venezuela, taking sides as a matter of U.S. policy is illegitimate.