Month: January 2014

As Jason Ditz highlights in the news section today, congressional support for heaping additional sanctions on Iran, even as the interim deal plays out ahead of further negotiations on a final deal, is picking up in the Senate. Up to 58 senators have committed to voting yes on new sanctions, an action the Obama administration and Iranian negotiators have said would kill good faith negotiations.

But the Obama White House seems to be stepping up the rhetoric in opposition to the new sanctions bill. The Huffington Post: White House Dares Democratic Senators Pushing Iran Sanctions To Admit They Want War…

“If certain members of Congress want the United States to take military action, they should be up front with the American public and say so,” Bernadette Meehan, National Security Council spokeswoman, said in a statement. “Otherwise, it’s not clear why any member of Congress would support a bill that possibly closes the door on diplomacy and makes it more likely that the United States will have to choose between military options or allowing Iran’s nuclear program to proceed.”

The “certain members” the White House is referring to are led by Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who is pushing legislation, backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, that would tighten sanctions on the Iranian regime despite the ongoing negotiations.

Let’s remember that Iran and the P5+1 came to an historic deal in November which freezes or rolls back the entirety of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for meager sanctions relief and unfrozen assets. That deal lasts for 6-months while negotiators work to hammer out a more comprehensive and permanent agreement. This interim period is critical and new sanctions on Iran could destroy any chance for success, giving credibility to hardliners in Iran pushing to terminate talks.

“The threat of additional sanctions, at this critical juncture, could derail negotiations toward a peaceful solution,” writes Colin Kahl, associate professor in Georgetown University and former Obama administration official, in a recent piece for The National Interest.

In the piece, Kahl also mentions the underreported fact that this sanctions legislation “also defines congressionally acceptable parameters for a final deal that Iran experts almost universally believe are unachievable, namely the requirement that Iran completely dismantle its uranium enrichment program.”

Rouhani’s ability to forge elite consensus for the additional concessions required for a final nuclear deal hinges on his ability to deliver meaningful sanctions relief, not just avoid an increase in sanctions. Yet by imposing demands that Iran completely dismantle its enrichment program—which Khamenei, hardliners and the majority of the Iranian public view as unacceptable capitulation—prior to lifting U.S. sanctions, the proposed Senate legislation will make it extremely difficult for Rouhani to build a coalition in favor of further compromise.

The Obama White House, it pains me to say it, is exactly right on this one. Those members of Congress pushing for additional sanctions at this particularly sensitive time are rather transparently trying to sabotage the negotiations and set the U.S. back on the war path with Iran.

The verdict is in. All civilized people must hate Dennis Rodman. Politicians from John McCain to John Kerry, and pundits from Bill O’Reilly to Chris Matthews are outraged that any American, let alone the eccentric Rodman, would travel to the land of the third member of the Axis of Evil. Earlier this week, Rodman, along with six fellow former NBA players, left for North Korea where they played an exhibition basketball game against a team of North Koreans. The game took place in front of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, as part of Kim’s birthday celebration. American politicians and pundits across the board are aghast, and most Americans are not far behind them in their hysteria. The atmosphere evokes George Orwell’s "Two Minutes Hate" sessions from 1984, where citizens of Oceania are forced to watch daily video shorts depicting scenes of Oceania’s enemies in order to keep the Oceanic people frenzied with war fever. Similarly, any deviation from McCain’s or Clinton’s hardline hatred of our mortal enemy North Korea borders on treason. The nightly headlines detailing Rodman’s idiocy are constant.

Is Rodman’s trip really that bad? I don’t think so. In fact, I think it’s an extremely positive step in the right direction if one is truly concerned with the freedom of North Koreans. For one thing, can anyone name a single thing that the State Department has done to normalize relations between our feuding governments? Have Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, or any other so-called diplomats spoken with their North Korean counterparts, let alone traveled there to show solidarity with North Korean citizens? Not that I know of. I don’t care if the North Korean government is "unreasonable" or "insane". That’s a state diplomat’s sole job, to forge peaceful and harmonious relationships with other state actors, no matter how difficult they may be.

How any government official could call herself a diplomat when her first instinct in statecraft is to issue harsh condemnations, threats and ignite cold wars is beyond me. Diplomats are supposed to be peacemakers, not antagonists. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the State Department & Co. are more interested in maintaining preselected foreign enemies than they are in peacemaking. But the State Department’s propensity for feuding is part of a larger problem — government’s utter inability to give repressed foreigners their freedom. Governments have only one arrow in their quiver: Force. When there is a problem, foreign or domestic, force is the government’s only answer.

For what tools does a state actually have in foreign policy? Sanctions. Threats of war. Actual war. Foreign aid. That’s it. All involve violence, real or threatened, and in the case of foreign aid, theft and grotesque cronyism. Of course, a Secretary of State could travel to a foreign country just as Rodman has done, but what good would such a visit do? At the end of the day, a politician’s visit would be nothing more than one master telling another master how to treat his subjects. North Koreans, and all other unfree persons, need less masters and more experience. The experience that comes from seeing other cultures and from learning that there is an entire world outside their own small country. No, Rodman and six old NBA players may not be the major dose of culture that’s going to set the North Koreans free. But it’s a start. A start at opening up North Korea to outsiders who bring with them a diversity of appearance, lifestyle and opinion, all things that are celebrated here in the United States.

Continue reading “Privatizing Diplomacy – Dennis Rodman Style”

Most people are still reeling from the personal jabs former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates takes at President Obama and his closest advisers in his forthcoming memoir. But beyond the political barbs is actual news. Like, for example, the fact that the U.S. tried to manipulate Afghanistan’s 2009 elections in order to unseat Hamid Karzai.

For several reasons, this shouldn’t be surprising. First of all, manipulating elections and plotting to oust foreign leaders has been an integral part of U.S. foreign policy for at least a century. It’s as American as apple pie. Secondly, Karzai has publicly accused the U.S. of interfering in the 2009 elections to get him out of power. Most observers dismissed the allegations because of Karzai’s famous paranoia. But it turns out he was right.

Foreign Policy:

Lost in the political controversy surrounding former Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ new memoir is a fascinating account of a failed administration attempt to ensure that Karzai was defeated in the 2009 Afghan elections. Gates is harshly critical of the move, which he derides as a “clumsy and failed putsch” that did significant damage to the U.S.-Afghan relationship.

…The central players in the backchannel effort to unseat Karzai, according to Gates, were Richard Holbrooke, then the administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Karl Eikenberry, then the U.S. ambassador to Kabul.

Gates writes that Holbrooke regularly spoke about the need to create “a level playing field” that would ensure all presidential candidates were given protective details, transportation to campaign events throughout the country, and the ability to convey their messages to independent Afghan newspapers, radio stations and TV outlets. In reality, Gates writes, Holbrooke didn’t just want a level playing field. He wanted one tilted against Karzai.

“Holbrooke was doing his best to bring about the defeat of Karzai,” Gates writes. “What he really wanted was to have enough credible candidates running to deny Karzai a majority in the election, thus forcing a runoff in which he could be defeated.”

The two men, according to the former Defense chief, held highly publicized meetings with Karzai’s opponents, attended their rallies, made a point of being photographed with them, and even offered them unspecified advice. Gates writes that Karzai quickly became aware of the U.S. efforts to unseat him and ultimately cut deals with the country’s warlords to win their support in the vote.

“It was all ugly: our partner, the president of Afghanistan, was tainted, and our hands were dirty as well,” Gates writes.

Gates has publicly confirmed this for the first time. I’m sure this information is classified. Should we expect all of Washington’s hawks to come out and criticize Gates for endangering U.S. national security? Will Rep. Peter King call him a traitor who has aligned himself with America’s enemies? Will the Obama administration charge Gates with violating the Espionage Act? Do we think Gates is going to be forced to hop on a plane and seek asylum in a far off country? Of course not. That kind of blitz is reserved for people who are not in the elite, as Gates is. Snowden and the rest of the weak, powerless schmucks continue to live by that double standard.

Additionally, we should not expect any retribution or accountability before the law for the Obama administration in this case. That’s what being in America’s executive branch means: total impunity. Commit any crime, set havoc upon the world via any number of nefarious means, and get away with it.

The overly simplistic narrative the media has decided upon to describe the recent instability in Iraq is that al-Qaeda-linked terrorists took over Fallujah, and the question now is how does the U.S. and Iraqi government remedy the situation and stave of a potential outbreak of civil war.

That is about as deep as I’ve seen any news source go into what has happened. While it’s not untrue, it is just too superficial and dangerously excludes crucial details that are indispensable to an accurate understanding of what is going on.

One of the things it ignores is something I’ve repeatedly referenced on this blog, which is that thousands of Sunni Iraqis (not armed al-Qaeda militias) have been peacefully protesting and demonstrating against the Maliki government since the U.S. withdrawal only to be met with utter repression by Baghdad.

Juan Cole fills us in:

The recent issue with Anbar province (and the other 5 provinces) is a result of ignoring the year-long demonstrations/protests and sit-ins in Anbar, Salahadeen, Diyala, Mosul, Kirkuk, and Samarra. Tens of thousands of people have been demonstrating in these provinces for over a year to free thousands of political prisoners, stop the mass expulsions of families from their homes, and other similar demands.

Thousands of Sunni families have been expelled from their homes in Diyala province by government-sanctioned militias this past year (in Miqdadiya, Baquba, other towns) with complete silence from most of the media outlets.

Additionally tens of thousands of Sunni young men have been rotting in jail for years or are being tortured and executed under provision 4 of the Terror Law. Army units like the infamous Muthana brigade march into predominantly Sunni towns and neighborhoods swearing and cursing anti-Sunni insults (using expletives against Sunni religious symbols like Aisha, the wife of the Prophet Mohammed, or Omar, the Prophet’s brother-in-law).

About two weeks ago, the Iraqi government decided to move against the peaceful protestors using military force, claiming there were “terrorists” protesting with the demonstrators.

In fact, the people of Anbar and other provinces have had enough of the sectarian repression, mass expulsion of families, mass arrests, hit squads, torture, and executions. The people of Anbar and the other provinces reacted to the attempt of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria to take over cities like Ramadi and Fallujah by rebelling and establishing the Tribal forces.

Theses tribal forces are the same groups (Awakening councils) which fought the extremists back in 2007 and expelled them from the cities. But they don’t want the sectarian government forces either.

The problem is not just Iraq’s “al-Qaeda problem.” Rather, Maliki’s authoritarian proclivities and his vicious treatment of Sunnis has exacerbated the country’s sectarian tensions. The Sunni-Shia violence in Iraq, as the International Crisis Group (ICG) explained months ago, is “as acute and explosive as ever” primarily because “Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has implemented a divide-and-conquer strategy that has neutered any credible Sunni Arab leadership.”

Maliki’s security forces have detained and brutally tortured thousands of political opponents in secret prisons and denied them access to legal counsel. Amnesty International reported in September that Iraq executed 13 men following unfair trials plagued by allegations of torture. “Iraq is one of the world’s most prolific executioners,” the report stated.

Given these critical, revealing details that are being completely ignored by the media, the argument that Washington should be increasing its military support to Baghdad in order to crush the revolt in Fallujah becomes even more absurd.

The California state senate is considering what is perhaps the coolest piece of legislation in modern America. The bill, introduced by Democrat Ted Lieu and Republican Joel Anderson, would ban all of California from providing “material support” — access to water and electricity — to any NSA facilities inside or outside the state. This could be a huge problem considering that the NSA’s new data center in Utah, for example, requires 1.7 million gallons of water every single day just to stay up and running.

PolicyMic’s Victoria Kim:

“State-funded public resources should not be going toward aiding the NSA or any other federal agency from indiscriminate spying on its own citizens and gathering electronic or metadata that violates the Fourth Amendment,” the bill’s co-author California state Sen. Ted Lieu, said in a statement.

If the bill becomes law, private companies will be sanctioned to provide the NSA with these essential utility services.

Lieu added that the NSA’s surveillance programs pose “a clear and present danger to our liberties.” He said, “The last time the federal government massively violated the U.S. Constitution, over 100,000 innocent Americans were rounded up and interned,” referring to the sordid history of Japanese internment in the U.S.

Republican state Sen. Joel Anderson co-wrote the bill with Lieu. “I support this bill because I support the Constitution, our Fourth Amendment rights, and our freedoms to live in the United States of America,” he said.

News of the bill is refreshing for two reasons. First of all, if state legislatures can summon the will to brazenly defy the NSA like this, than much of my political cynicism is misplaced. Secondly, this is yet another illustration of the bipartisan skepticism of what DC District Court Judge Richard Leon called the NSA’s “Orwellian” programs of constitutional transgression. At the federal level, too, there continues to be cooperation among Republicans like Rand Paul and Justin Amash as well as Democrats like Ron Wyden and Mark Udall to at least truncate the current spying power of the NSA.

With some luck, this bill will pass. And then, I wonder, what will the NSA do with their facilities?