I was, indeed, talking about the SOFA Obama "attempted" to negotiate with Malaki, as the deadline for the Bush-negotiated SOFA approached - that is, his response to Malaki's request to extend the troops presence, which amounted to "give American troops immunity, and then we can work on negotiating an extension."
It's odd to talk about "standard procedure" when comparing things as different as basing rights in Belgium vs. keeping American troops in a country like Iraq or Afghanistan, in which a war was being fought and those fighting that government need to be worked into a political process.
It may be quite standard and uncontroversial for extraterritoriality to be included in standard SOFAs, but as the Iraq example just demonstrated beyond any doubt, it is rather a big deal to try to include that condition under these circumstances.
Were you chastising the scare-quote liberals for joining with the military in the coup against Mubarak when the MB government was cracking down on protesters?
None of these excuses you offer support the assertion "the MB's proposed law is not really comparable." None of them have anything to do with the law, actually. You're just taking a side.
The American government is elected, hasn't massacred people in the streets, and hasn't banned opposition parties - so, therefore, you'd be ok with such a law here?
What does the typical Egyptian citizen think when they see a dozen women chained up in a cage in a courtroom for their trial, as if they're a collective Hannibal Lecter that needs to be surrounded by a security perimeter because they might rip someone's face off at any moment?
Does that look as bad on Egyptian TV as it would look on American TV?
I feel bad for President Gul. Turkey spent years carefully working for good relations with Israel, with Iran, with Syria, and one by one they all turned around and slapped Turkey.
Or maybe, JT, when you find that you have to invoke "luck" over and over and over again to explain why things don't work out as you expected, there's actually something going on you aren't getting.
Wow, it's going to take an Israeli leader with exceptional judgement, a sterling reputation among his international peers, excellent diplomatic skills, and a flexible and pragmatic ability to face changing circumstances to navigate this unusual isolation.
I just remembered: didn't you just write a blog post taking angry exception to the White House spokesman claim that failure to reach a deal would lead to war?
And now you write a post about how a deal averted a war that would have otherwise happened.
Oh, Ken, Putin's cave was certainly a setback for Russian imperialist interests in Syria, it goes a bit far so say the Russian drive for Empire has been "checkmated."
They're still treating the war criminal as a client state, still sending heavy weaponry, still using the naval base. They suffered a little setback in having to disarm their client of his illegal weaponry, but as far as Russian imperial interests go, Assad's chemical warfare capabilities were a pawn, not a king.
"No where is evidence presented to support the title, namely that the idea was always to invade Iran then get it to stop its nuclear program with tough sanctions, which now have been seen to work."
I think Professor Cole's description of the hawks in Congress opposing these talks makes that case pretty effectively. These people, who purport to be motivated by the same desire to curtain nuclear proliferation to Iran that motivated the administration, are doing everything they can to try to squash a deal that would address that concern.
When have any of those pushes to gin up war happened against the wishes of the President? In every case I can think of, the President was either the prime mover, or one of the prime movers, behind setting off the march to war.
Over the longer term, locking in this policy of warming relations depends upon there being a loud and committed constituency supporting it. If the hawks make the destruction of Obama's Iran thaw their #1 priority, and the doves don't rally to it, then the hawks will win that fight.
The goal of the Nobel Peace Prize is to award people who "have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses." Oftentimes, the winners are people who have not completed their work toward peace, but who are at a critical juncture in their work and who need the support that winning the Nobel Peace Prize brings.
As with Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigon's prize in 1976, awarded for organizing protests against violence in Northern Ireland, awarding the prize to Obama while his efforts were yet incomplete was the point.
Here, Bill, something you never read before: the Nobel Peace Prize Committee's statement upon Obama's designation as the Nobel Peace Prize laureate of 2009:
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.
Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations.
The Nobel committee takes international arms reduction negotiations very seriously. YMMV.
President Obama strikes me as fundamentally different from Netanyahu, in that he wouldn't allow personal pique over being insulted determine his actions.
Perhaps we can say that Netanyahu's longstanding disrespect towards Obama didn't leave Israel with much leverage in attempting to change his mind.
In addition, a bad economy harms incumbents, as we saw in 2008 and then 2010, if it lasts long enough, it can cause the voters to throw out the incumbents, and then turn around and throw out the people they just elected.
The effects of the sanctions no doubt played a role in Ahmedinejad's demise. Loosening them in a way that produced clear improvement in Iran's economy can only serve to help Rouhani.
The idea has often been expressed that American opposition to Iran nuclear proliferation was purely a pretext for a war the US wanted for other reasons, like the Bush administration's concern about alleged Iraqi WMDs. The people who have argued this made a similar argument about the Obama administration's response to the Syrian government's chemical warfare attack.
Hopefully, this deal to address the concern about unconventional weapons by means short of war, coming on top of the deal struck to eliminate Syria's chemical arsenal, will open some eyes. We can see the difference today (just as we did when the administration made the Syria deal) between the war-mongers like Lyndsey Graham, who are complaining about the deal, and the administration.
Bill, if the U.S. and Iran forge a partnership, Iran's regional interest (being the greatest regional power) ceases to be contrary to American interests, and becomes a means of promoting them.
"But even if one accepted the notion of ‘stalemate’ – believe it is the rebels who gain in that they continue to be outweaponed & outmanned; survival is an achievement & along with it popular support which Assad appears unable to defeat."
Great comment.
The leftists who are...let's call them "anti-anti-Assad" understand how insurgents and guerrillas win by not losing when it is a western-backed government facing them. They understand this point when we're talking about the Taliban, or the insurgents in Iraq.
Yet in Syria, when the government forces that are backed by the major global power and the big regional power are brought to a stalemate by an insurgency, that's presented as close to a win by the government forces. Odd.
John Kerry has a long history of gaffes, and they are all of the same character: he says things that are true when it might be wiser for him to say nothing. That is exactly what his premature statement looks like, in light of the Pakistani official's statement. It becomes increasingly clear, when you discuss Kerry, that you have a great deal of ginned-up hostility left over from the 2004 campaign.
I think the strikes will continue as long as anti-US militants in the region continue to justify them.
I think there is a point of diminishing returns in this campaign - when targets being struck are becoming less and less significant, while the diplomatic damage (which can served to undermine local efforts against these militants) outweighs them.
Because of Kerry's comment, the statement of the Pakistani official about a cessation, and the significance of the strike. The targets that were hit are a very big deal indeed, perhaps the most important in years. They decapitated the operational command of the Haqqanni network. If this was anything less, it would be easy to view as just a continuation of business as usual.
Khan added: ‘This can be classed as one of the most significant drone attacks this year. Ahmad Jan was in the shadow government of Paktika province – he headed the shadow finance ministry. These are big names in Afghanistan; his killing will have impact.’
Jan was said to have been in his 60s. He was said to be a senior Haqqani commander, its second-in-command according to one report, and its spiritual leader. He was not the only alleged militant killed – as many as five others, all reportedly senior Haqqani commanders, died in the attack.
Good news.
Looks to me like they snuck in one last, really important strike before a cessation. John Kerry made a cryptic comment a couple of weeks ago about strikes in Pakistan coming to and end very soon.
Status of Forces Agreement - an agreement between the United States and another national government about the conditions of stationing American forces in that country.
President Hamid Karzai and the scheduled Loya Jirga are in the driver’s seat here. If they are convinced that the security situation in Afghanistan requires the continued presence of troops, they can approve the agreement.
Yes, I wonder what the threat by which the US is attempting to "force through" the SOFA is.
It seems to me that the "...or else..." clause here is "...or we won't keep troops in the country past 2014," which throws a bit of a wrench into "imperialist occupation" narrative. If that really is a threat that could make Karzai and the LG cave, then we're not talking about a hostile foreign presence imposed against the national will. If it's not, then what kind of imperialist occupier packs up and goes home because the occupied won't sign a piece of paper?
The al Qaeda factions in Syria are clearly not "our terrorists."
Just like the Taliban were not "our terrorists" when they massacred the staff of the Iranian embassy in Kabul back in the 1990s, yet that was not widely called terrorism in our media, either. Or even reported.
I don't think the linguistic tick you're noticing is a reflection of the attackers, but the victims: the Iranians. When was the last time you saw the mainstream media call any attack on Iran "terrorist?"
What do Israel, Mohommed Mossedegh, the USA, or Iranian oil concessions have to do with this story?
Is there some law requiring us to find someone else who's done something wrong whenever Iran is criticized?
Imagine the opposite - someone writes, in a thread about an American action, a complaint about that American action. Would you feel the need to respond with a brief history of the 1979 hostage taking?
On the other hand, Sunni leader Saad al-Hariri expressed outrage at the attack and condemned it roundly. Of course, his brand of Sunnism has nothing in common with the al-Qaeda affiliates.
Thank you, professor, for reminding us that there is a third side, both in Lebanon and in Syria. There are so many people working so hard to write the moderates and liberals out of the story, because it is in their interests to cast everyone who isn't on the side of Assad as al Qaeda.
That's because, Matt, we had a Congress and a judiciary of sufficient strength and independence, backed by an established constitution and hundreds of years of percent, that it would be possible for Richard Nixon to be impeached.
Whereas in Egypt, they had no constitution, Morsi had seized control of the process of writing it to make sure that no such independent powers would arise, and he was gutting the judiciary to bring it under his control.
I gave them the benefit of the doubt in 2012 and they behaved badly.
The day after Morsi and Obama successfully negotiated a cease-fire in Gaza, I was writing comments on this site about how impressively Morsi had stepped up as a statesman. That was more or less the line of the left throughout the West: satisfaction at how the MB was operating as a responsible democratic actor.
Morsi took advantage of that opportunity to start cracking down on his enemies and making himself dictator.
It isn’t your, or my, choice. It’s the Egyptians’.
And the Egyptians themselves poured into the streets to demand Morsi's ouster, in even larger numbers than the protests against Mubarak. They then roundly supported Morsi's removal by the military.
Now, to make an actually legitimate analogy: you must have been calling for the restoration of Mubarak in 2011, since he was remove from office by military coup.
But it wasn't merely Morsi's "politics" that they opposed. After winning office, he set about dismantling the very democracy these protesters hope to see. He meddled in elections so badly the monitors quit, seized control the constitutional assembly so his party could put its policies beyond democratic reach, made his pronouncements outside of judicial review, and otherwise set about to create a one-party state.
Democracy has to be about more than someone who wins one election seizing dictatorial power.
The empire is currently using al Qaida strategically in certain places (Syria),
Actually, "the empire" is a backing a force that regularly gets into firefights with al Qaeda in Syria, but don't let me weld up that crack in your pot.
I remember when people in the left frowned on using the term "terrorist" to describe any undesirable political or fighting force.
Anyway, your insider view, based on your years in Misrata, that allows to know who is from the city and who was 'imported,' is most welcome, Mr. Gadhaffi Apologist.
Israel, Pakistan and India all refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and went for broke to construct nuclear warheads. The US backs Israel’s bomb-making to the hilt. It never sanctioned India. And it has long since made peace with Pakistan’s, recently renewing billions in foreign aid to that country. So why is Iran different?
First of all, those other countries developed their nuclear programs in secret - Mark Koroi posted a fascinating history of Israel's in the comments yesterday - and presented the US with a fait accompli. Iran hasn't - which is highly unusual, and raises the possibility that bargaining their program away was the plan all along.
Second, this President takes non-proliferation a great deal more seriously than his predecessors.
Third, there is a significant segment of American politics for whom the Iranian nuclear program is, like the alleged Iraqi WMD programs and the Syrian chemical war crime, merely a pretext for a confrontation they want for other reasons. They are the same people who treated the deal to eliminate Syria's chemical arsenal a defeat for the US, and who didn't change their minds about the Iraq War in the slightest once the WMDs failed to turn up.
There should be no mistake. There are hawks in the US Congress like John McCain and Lindsay Graham (Linjohn) who would gladly just fall on Iran with US military might the way they fell on Iraq. But the sanctions hard liners, such as Bob Menendez (D-NJ), backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its hundreds of Israel lobbies, are no less de facto set on a course toward war with Iran.
Yes, they are - and they make up perhaps a majority of the United States Congress.
Which is precisely why the White House has to package its efforts to advance the talks, and forestall the threat of increased sanctions, in a manner designed to appeal to them.
It's weird that you denounce Carney's comments, and then agree with them.
Carney was accurately describing the political reality that you, over the next couple of paragraphs, explain quite well.
The Obama administration and Rouhani administration are pursuing an agreement through a narrow window, trying to seize the moment and create some progress to celebrate before their respective hardliners have the chance to declare the effort a failure and pursue confrontation, a confrontation that could very well lead to actual (not "virtual") hostilities. The passage of additional sanctions through Congress would, as Carney said, give Rouhani's domestic opponents their excuse to declare his effort a failure and demand a change of course.
Working alongside gay people and women isn't "utopian" or "social engineering."
It's long-established, mainstream reality. The military isn't being used as a guinea pig for some experiment in an effort to change society; it's being asked to catch up with the rest of the world.
I can't help but notice that none of the substantive examples you provide of Israel advancing US interests take place in the Middle East, despite your assertions of such in the preceding paragraph.
The American voters picked the candidate who promised Iraq withdrawal over the one who promised to continue the fight.
The hawks your talking about are a minority. What does it say about the American people than such hawks represent a minority faction? It says that we are a house divided.
The people, left and right, who view Israel as an important ally that advances American policy in the region have it exactly backwards. Israel is nothing but a drag on American foreign policy. They don't advance our interests in any manner, and our support for them imposes all sorts of costs.
"Ok, so let’s say Iran has breakout capacity and then Israel invades S. Lebanon. What will Iran do that they can’t do now? Build a bomb"
No. They can provide much greater and more open conventional support to Hezbollah, with the knowledge that Israel's capability to retaliate against Iran has been weakened by Iran's deterrent capability.
Realignment away from the Sunni states is happening anyway, Bill. Look at the divisions over Syria. Look at the mess in Egypt.
And finally, look at that massive terrorist attack we endured on 9/11 from opponents of those Sunni Arab states (all 19 of the hijackers came from KSA, Egypt, and the UAE.)
I'm not saying we should be hostile towards the Kingdom or to Egypt, but they are not longer operating as an ally. I say we make Turkey, Iran, and the new democratic states of North Africa (Libya and Tunisia) the foundation of our foreign policy.
The key to understanding the Israeli reaction lies in unpacking that term, "threat to them."
I don't think it's Iranian military assault they consider a threat, but Iranian influence - influence with the US, influence with Europe, influence in the region.
I think the Obama administration gets this point, and is actively working to reach a deal not only for reasons of non-proliferation, but also as an opening for a general rapprochement with Iran, as part of the realignment away from the Sunni Arab states.
The future belongs to brains and culture, not crude oil.
This is an excellent piece, Professor, and a useful corrective to the one-dimensional pablum (in two distinct flavors!) that characterizes most commentary on Egypt. It's clear you "know enough to know what you don't know."
As a result, millions of Egyptians came into the streets on June 30 in the largest demonstrations in the country’s history, leading to Morsi’s overthrow in an odd combination of mass youth street movement (aided by labor unions, city quarters, workers in declining industries like tourism, and even nationalist peasants) and military coup.
Not so very odd, if you consider that exactly the same thing happened in January/February 2011. Trivia question: who succeeded Hosni Mubarak as the Egyptian head of state?
She was responding to being told that it would take months to get Abrams tanks from Germany into Bosnia in order to provide the protection necessary to set up bases for helicopters there.
She was complaining about how slow and cumbersome the American military was.
To what extent is this a repeat of 2004-2005, when foreign jihadis carried out a campaign of anti-Shiite terror for the purpose of provoking a civil war?
The United States – or rather the Bush Administration – was certainly the cause of the civil war, but after all the sacrifices in lives and treasure, the United States should make sure that Iraq does not become another failed state like Somalia or increasingly Syria.
A lot of people made this argument back in 2006-2009, about the possibility of American withdrawal: that Iraq would become a failed state, and al Qaeda would be able to establish a safe haven there.
If you look back over history, though, Iraq (and its predecessor states) were never weak or failed states that were unable to exert sovereign power of their territory. Quite the opposite, they problem there has been very strong, even totalitarian, states. The only exceptions to this tendency have come when a foreign occupier attempted to govern.
I don't think American boots or operations would make the county any safer.
Not only was the Saudi government not sheltering and supporting al Qaeda in 2001, but they were in a shooting war with them.
As opposed to the Afghan government, which was providing them with safe haven, allowing them to train their military, and otherwise working closely with them. Did you know that Mullah Omar married off one of his daughters to Osama bin Laden? That's something medieval types do to seal a political alliance.
All of which seems at least as relevant as the Taliban government's prior knowledge of a specific operation.
Let's keep some history in mind: when the Northern Alliance took Kabul, there were something like 1000 American troops in the entire country. The initial conception of the Afghan War was to support the local anti-Taliban forces so the could topple the Taliban and rout al Qaeda out of its headquarters. We provided air support and limited ground assistance to that effort, and it was on the verge of wiping out the leadership of both entities at Tora Bora.
It is very likely that Al Gore would have followed a similar policy.
Where the big break would have come, I think, it with Iraq. Gore wouldn't have invaded Iraq, and he wouldn't have allowed the upcoming invasion of Iraq to distract his administration from finishing the job in Afghanistan. It was the escape from Tora Bora and the policy of we'll-get-back-to-it-after-Iraq that turned the initial, limited action into a decade-long occupation.
Most of the dead in Iraq were killed in the civil war between Iraqi Shiites and Iraqi Sunnis/foreign jihadis. A genuine civil war, not just between armed forces but between (and targeting) actual communities broke out in Iraq.
Whereas that is not what's happening in Afghanistan. The fight between the Taliban/Haqqani Network on one side and the ANA/NATO on the other has taken on the characteristics of a group-vs-group civil war to a much lesser degree than in Iraq.
Excellent piece. I'll add that those articles about the coal mix in the electricity that recharges cars miss an important point: electric cars are recharged mainly at night, when the fuel mix in the grid is particularly clean, because the stations brought online for peak demand, so-called peakers, are shut down. These are the dirtiest stations in the fleet.
When it comes to getting off foreign oil, switching to electric cars is important, but just as important is driving down vehicle miles traveled by car. Living close to work, living in a walkable, mixed-use neighborhood, and living and working near public transit (in short, living in an urban environment) can do even more to reduce petroleum usage. Even the biggest SUV doesn't burn any oil if it's parked in the driveway.
An "understanding" of the law that manages not to include the existence of war as a legal reality, the distinction between deliberately targeting people vs. accidental deaths, or the comprehension that neither of these doctrines have the slightest relationship to "American exceptionalism," but are recognized as applying to all countries involved in armed conflict, is an understanding that you are better off without.
Diplomatic recognition is one thing, Bill. An alliance and a close military relationship are quite another.
There are many good reasons to ramp up renewable energy infrastructure. Being able to have relations with the House of Saud that resemble our relations with Turkmenistan is certainly one of them.
Perhaps it's time to set aside the assumption that whatever the House of Saud does is part of a strategy being coordinated with the United States, and acknowledge that the two countries have been pursuing increasingly disparate foreign policies since the end of the Bush administration.
Bin Laden was never a CIA asset. He set up his organization, first as a fundraising effort, and later as a fighting force, for the specific purpose of providing an alternative route for fighting the anti-Soviet jihad without working with the Americans.
You're right about there being numerous Taliban figures who had long relationships with the CIA, but the myth that bin Laden did so is a story that news men describe as "too good to check."
There is nothing in the genocide definition that excludes targeting a racial/ethnic/national group in order to eliminate potential resistance in a war. Indeed, that is a very common motivation for genocide, such as the Turks targeting Armenians during World War One.
I believe, invasion by itself is not genocide, but the awe and shock of baghdad, the carpet bombing of faluja, the blockade of food to children etc constitute very heinous crimes!
This is what is so irritating: there are all sorts of "very heinous crimes" that the people who prosecuted the Iraq War could accurately be accused of.
But Professor Cole just has to insist on the shiniest, most media-genic word he can think of.
Good point. It's also important to note that the demand for the removal of the bases from the KSA was coming not just from al Qaeda, but from the Saudi monarchy as well - and remember, the Bushes are very close to the House of Saud.
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Brian,
I was, indeed, talking about the SOFA Obama "attempted" to negotiate with Malaki, as the deadline for the Bush-negotiated SOFA approached - that is, his response to Malaki's request to extend the troops presence, which amounted to "give American troops immunity, and then we can work on negotiating an extension."
It's odd to talk about "standard procedure" when comparing things as different as basing rights in Belgium vs. keeping American troops in a country like Iraq or Afghanistan, in which a war was being fought and those fighting that government need to be worked into a political process.
It may be quite standard and uncontroversial for extraterritoriality to be included in standard SOFAs, but as the Iraq example just demonstrated beyond any doubt, it is rather a big deal to try to include that condition under these circumstances.
Obama's insistence on extraterritoriality is what killed the proposed Iraq SOFA, resulting in the complete withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.
And now he's insisting on that same poison pill in the Afghanistan negotiations.
I think we know how this ends.
Were you chastising the scare-quote liberals for joining with the military in the coup against Mubarak when the MB government was cracking down on protesters?
And what's with the scare quotes around "secularists?" They're not secularists?
None of these excuses you offer support the assertion "the MB's proposed law is not really comparable." None of them have anything to do with the law, actually. You're just taking a side.
The American government is elected, hasn't massacred people in the streets, and hasn't banned opposition parties - so, therefore, you'd be ok with such a law here?
What does the typical Egyptian citizen think when they see a dozen women chained up in a cage in a courtroom for their trial, as if they're a collective Hannibal Lecter that needs to be surrounded by a security perimeter because they might rip someone's face off at any moment?
Does that look as bad on Egyptian TV as it would look on American TV?
How do you say, "No thanks, I brought my own bottle" in Latin?
That does not sound like the "conservative populist" described in by the thinly-sourced gentleman in the Democracy Now link.
I feel bad for President Gul. Turkey spent years carefully working for good relations with Israel, with Iran, with Syria, and one by one they all turned around and slapped Turkey.
Or maybe, JT, when you find that you have to invoke "luck" over and over and over again to explain why things don't work out as you expected, there's actually something going on you aren't getting.
Chinia's GNP in 2012 was $12.44 trillion.
America's was $15.89 trillion.
But the point remains! Their economy is huge, and growing, and could very well surpass ours in the near future.
Wow, it's going to take an Israeli leader with exceptional judgement, a sterling reputation among his international peers, excellent diplomatic skills, and a flexible and pragmatic ability to face changing circumstances to navigate this unusual isolation.
(Looks at Netanyahu)
Um...good luck with that.
"US support for Israel and the Gulf monarchy despots will probably increase"
In case you haven't noticed, US relations with Israel and, especially, Gulf monarchs has been deteriorating throughout Obama's presidency.
Why would the warming of relations with a nation that gives the US an alternative to the Gulf monarchies make cause Obama to move closer to them?
I just remembered: didn't you just write a blog post taking angry exception to the White House spokesman claim that failure to reach a deal would lead to war?
And now you write a post about how a deal averted a war that would have otherwise happened.
Oh, Ken, Putin's cave was certainly a setback for Russian imperialist interests in Syria, it goes a bit far so say the Russian drive for Empire has been "checkmated."
They're still treating the war criminal as a client state, still sending heavy weaponry, still using the naval base. They suffered a little setback in having to disarm their client of his illegal weaponry, but as far as Russian imperial interests go, Assad's chemical warfare capabilities were a pawn, not a king.
There is no daylight between the US and Israel, and Brutus is an honorable man.
There are certain rhetorical customs that one is well-served to nod towards.
"No where is evidence presented to support the title, namely that the idea was always to invade Iran then get it to stop its nuclear program with tough sanctions, which now have been seen to work."
I think Professor Cole's description of the hawks in Congress opposing these talks makes that case pretty effectively. These people, who purport to be motivated by the same desire to curtain nuclear proliferation to Iran that motivated the administration, are doing everything they can to try to squash a deal that would address that concern.
When have any of those pushes to gin up war happened against the wishes of the President? In every case I can think of, the President was either the prime mover, or one of the prime movers, behind setting off the march to war.
Over the longer term, locking in this policy of warming relations depends upon there being a loud and committed constituency supporting it. If the hawks make the destruction of Obama's Iran thaw their #1 priority, and the doves don't rally to it, then the hawks will win that fight.
A little more information about the Nobel Peace Prize:
link to contests.about.com
How Are Nobel Peace Prize Winners Chosen?
The goal of the Nobel Peace Prize is to award people who "have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."
Oftentimes, the winners are people who have not completed their work toward peace, but who are at a critical juncture in their work and who need the support that winning the Nobel Peace Prize brings.
As with Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigon's prize in 1976, awarded for organizing protests against violence in Northern Ireland, awarding the prize to Obama while his efforts were yet incomplete was the point.
Here, Bill, something you never read before: the Nobel Peace Prize Committee's statement upon Obama's designation as the Nobel Peace Prize laureate of 2009:
link to nobelprize.org
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.
Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations.
The Nobel committee takes international arms reduction negotiations very seriously. YMMV.
President Obama strikes me as fundamentally different from Netanyahu, in that he wouldn't allow personal pique over being insulted determine his actions.
Perhaps we can say that Netanyahu's longstanding disrespect towards Obama didn't leave Israel with much leverage in attempting to change his mind.
Good answer.
In addition, a bad economy harms incumbents, as we saw in 2008 and then 2010, if it lasts long enough, it can cause the voters to throw out the incumbents, and then turn around and throw out the people they just elected.
The effects of the sanctions no doubt played a role in Ahmedinejad's demise. Loosening them in a way that produced clear improvement in Iran's economy can only serve to help Rouhani.
The idea has often been expressed that American opposition to Iran nuclear proliferation was purely a pretext for a war the US wanted for other reasons, like the Bush administration's concern about alleged Iraqi WMDs. The people who have argued this made a similar argument about the Obama administration's response to the Syrian government's chemical warfare attack.
Hopefully, this deal to address the concern about unconventional weapons by means short of war, coming on top of the deal struck to eliminate Syria's chemical arsenal, will open some eyes. We can see the difference today (just as we did when the administration made the Syria deal) between the war-mongers like Lyndsey Graham, who are complaining about the deal, and the administration.
Bill, if the U.S. and Iran forge a partnership, Iran's regional interest (being the greatest regional power) ceases to be contrary to American interests, and becomes a means of promoting them.
I agree completely, Ted. Iran is America's most natural ally in the region.
Here's hoping this leads to even greater things!
You're far too optimistic, Professor. Yes, this is very good news for Iran doves, but the fight is far from over.
To use the metaphor of the war against Nazi Germany (because that's such an awesome idea that never goes wrong):
The preliminary deal John Kerry just struck is the Normandy landings. They're still consolidating it, and crossing the Rhine is a long ways off.
"But even if one accepted the notion of ‘stalemate’ – believe it is the rebels who gain in that they continue to be outweaponed & outmanned; survival is an achievement & along with it popular support which Assad appears unable to defeat."
Great comment.
The leftists who are...let's call them "anti-anti-Assad" understand how insurgents and guerrillas win by not losing when it is a western-backed government facing them. They understand this point when we're talking about the Taliban, or the insurgents in Iraq.
Yet in Syria, when the government forces that are backed by the major global power and the big regional power are brought to a stalemate by an insurgency, that's presented as close to a win by the government forces. Odd.
John Kerry has a long history of gaffes, and they are all of the same character: he says things that are true when it might be wiser for him to say nothing. That is exactly what his premature statement looks like, in light of the Pakistani official's statement. It becomes increasingly clear, when you discuss Kerry, that you have a great deal of ginned-up hostility left over from the 2004 campaign.
I think the strikes will continue as long as anti-US militants in the region continue to justify them.
I think there is a point of diminishing returns in this campaign - when targets being struck are becoming less and less significant, while the diplomatic damage (which can served to undermine local efforts against these militants) outweighs them.
Because of Kerry's comment, the statement of the Pakistani official about a cessation, and the significance of the strike. The targets that were hit are a very big deal indeed, perhaps the most important in years. They decapitated the operational command of the Haqqanni network. If this was anything less, it would be easy to view as just a continuation of business as usual.
Khan added: ‘This can be classed as one of the most significant drone attacks this year. Ahmad Jan was in the shadow government of Paktika province – he headed the shadow finance ministry. These are big names in Afghanistan; his killing will have impact.’
Jan was said to have been in his 60s. He was said to be a senior Haqqani commander, its second-in-command according to one report, and its spiritual leader. He was not the only alleged militant killed – as many as five others, all reportedly senior Haqqani commanders, died in the attack.
Good news.
Looks to me like they snuck in one last, really important strike before a cessation. John Kerry made a cryptic comment a couple of weeks ago about strikes in Pakistan coming to and end very soon.
But these LJ members are not exactly being nominated by Barack Obama. (You can tell, because the Senate Republicans aren't filibustering them).
Lubricating decisions with dollars isn't quite the same thing as forcing a decision through; it's the stuff of ordinary negotiations.
Yes, I agreeing and amplifying.
If Barack Obama is an imperialist occupier, he is a shockingly incompetent one.
Status of Forces Agreement - an agreement between the United States and another national government about the conditions of stationing American forces in that country.
President Hamid Karzai and the scheduled Loya Jirga are in the driver’s seat here. If they are convinced that the security situation in Afghanistan requires the continued presence of troops, they can approve the agreement.
Yes, I wonder what the threat by which the US is attempting to "force through" the SOFA is.
It seems to me that the "...or else..." clause here is "...or we won't keep troops in the country past 2014," which throws a bit of a wrench into "imperialist occupation" narrative. If that really is a threat that could make Karzai and the LG cave, then we're not talking about a hostile foreign presence imposed against the national will. If it's not, then what kind of imperialist occupier packs up and goes home because the occupied won't sign a piece of paper?
"Ram through!" "Force through!" You mean, "propose and try to convince the other side to agree to?"
How does the US "force" something through a Loya Jirga?
You sound like the Congressional GOP.
The al Qaeda factions in Syria are clearly not "our terrorists."
Just like the Taliban were not "our terrorists" when they massacred the staff of the Iranian embassy in Kabul back in the 1990s, yet that was not widely called terrorism in our media, either. Or even reported.
I don't think the linguistic tick you're noticing is a reflection of the attackers, but the victims: the Iranians. When was the last time you saw the mainstream media call any attack on Iran "terrorist?"
What do Israel, Mohommed Mossedegh, the USA, or Iranian oil concessions have to do with this story?
Is there some law requiring us to find someone else who's done something wrong whenever Iran is criticized?
Imagine the opposite - someone writes, in a thread about an American action, a complaint about that American action. Would you feel the need to respond with a brief history of the 1979 hostage taking?
On the other hand, Sunni leader Saad al-Hariri expressed outrage at the attack and condemned it roundly. Of course, his brand of Sunnism has nothing in common with the al-Qaeda affiliates.
Thank you, professor, for reminding us that there is a third side, both in Lebanon and in Syria. There are so many people working so hard to write the moderates and liberals out of the story, because it is in their interests to cast everyone who isn't on the side of Assad as al Qaeda.
That's because, Matt, we had a Congress and a judiciary of sufficient strength and independence, backed by an established constitution and hundreds of years of percent, that it would be possible for Richard Nixon to be impeached.
Whereas in Egypt, they had no constitution, Morsi had seized control of the process of writing it to make sure that no such independent powers would arise, and he was gutting the judiciary to bring it under his control.
I gave them the benefit of the doubt in 2012 and they behaved badly.
The day after Morsi and Obama successfully negotiated a cease-fire in Gaza, I was writing comments on this site about how impressively Morsi had stepped up as a statesman. That was more or less the line of the left throughout the West: satisfaction at how the MB was operating as a responsible democratic actor.
Morsi took advantage of that opportunity to start cracking down on his enemies and making himself dictator.
Yes, but that hardly demonstrates that he left willingly and the military merely cleaned up afterwards.
It isn’t your, or my, choice. It’s the Egyptians’.
And the Egyptians themselves poured into the streets to demand Morsi's ouster, in even larger numbers than the protests against Mubarak. They then roundly supported Morsi's removal by the military.
Now, to make an actually legitimate analogy: you must have been calling for the restoration of Mubarak in 2011, since he was remove from office by military coup.
I don't recall Bush doing any of the things I listed.
Once again, you demonstrate the very error I called out at the beginning: the inability to distinguish between "politics" and democracy itself.
the army, which had made a coup after the fall of Hosni Mubarak.
After?
Wasn't it the army that removed Mubarak from power in the first place?
But it wasn't merely Morsi's "politics" that they opposed. After winning office, he set about dismantling the very democracy these protesters hope to see. He meddled in elections so badly the monitors quit, seized control the constitutional assembly so his party could put its policies beyond democratic reach, made his pronouncements outside of judicial review, and otherwise set about to create a one-party state.
Democracy has to be about more than someone who wins one election seizing dictatorial power.
The empire is currently using al Qaida strategically in certain places (Syria),
Actually, "the empire" is a backing a force that regularly gets into firefights with al Qaeda in Syria, but don't let me weld up that crack in your pot.
Remember that faked missile picture?
link to scientificamerican.com
UAV technology is not really all that advanced. We're talking about remote-controlled planes and streaming video. This isn't like the hydrogen bomb.
while Libya could crash and burn masquerading as a “democracy,”
The Libyan government isn't an electoral democracy? You sure about that?
You seem to have confused the strength of a government with its ideological and organizational basis. If a government is weak it can't be a democracy?
True dat.
This never would have happened in George Marshall was governing Libya.
I remember when people in the left frowned on using the term "terrorist" to describe any undesirable political or fighting force.
Anyway, your insider view, based on your years in Misrata, that allows to know who is from the city and who was 'imported,' is most welcome, Mr. Gadhaffi Apologist.
Reading the actual story, it seems that the objection is to releasing the actual transcripts/minutes of conversations, not the report itself.
Israel, Pakistan and India all refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and went for broke to construct nuclear warheads. The US backs Israel’s bomb-making to the hilt. It never sanctioned India. And it has long since made peace with Pakistan’s, recently renewing billions in foreign aid to that country. So why is Iran different?
First of all, those other countries developed their nuclear programs in secret - Mark Koroi posted a fascinating history of Israel's in the comments yesterday - and presented the US with a fait accompli. Iran hasn't - which is highly unusual, and raises the possibility that bargaining their program away was the plan all along.
Second, this President takes non-proliferation a great deal more seriously than his predecessors.
Third, there is a significant segment of American politics for whom the Iranian nuclear program is, like the alleged Iraqi WMD programs and the Syrian chemical war crime, merely a pretext for a confrontation they want for other reasons. They are the same people who treated the deal to eliminate Syria's chemical arsenal a defeat for the US, and who didn't change their minds about the Iraq War in the slightest once the WMDs failed to turn up.
I really see no reason for Iran to make major compromise to their nuclear program.
President Rouhani does.
Perhaps that's because he prioritized the Iranian people's well-being more highly than making a point about Israel.
This President's term ends in three years.
So Barack Obama chose to keep oil prices high enough to damage the recovery, and thereby damage himself politically.
There should be no mistake. There are hawks in the US Congress like John McCain and Lindsay Graham (Linjohn) who would gladly just fall on Iran with US military might the way they fell on Iraq. But the sanctions hard liners, such as Bob Menendez (D-NJ), backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its hundreds of Israel lobbies, are no less de facto set on a course toward war with Iran.
Yes, they are - and they make up perhaps a majority of the United States Congress.
Which is precisely why the White House has to package its efforts to advance the talks, and forestall the threat of increased sanctions, in a manner designed to appeal to them.
It's weird that you denounce Carney's comments, and then agree with them.
Carney was accurately describing the political reality that you, over the next couple of paragraphs, explain quite well.
The Obama administration and Rouhani administration are pursuing an agreement through a narrow window, trying to seize the moment and create some progress to celebrate before their respective hardliners have the chance to declare the effort a failure and pursue confrontation, a confrontation that could very well lead to actual (not "virtual") hostilities. The passage of additional sanctions through Congress would, as Carney said, give Rouhani's domestic opponents their excuse to declare his effort a failure and demand a change of course.
Netanyahu had his own corruption case, as I recall.
Are Israel's right-wing politicians especially corrupt, or is this ordinary in Israeli politics?
It's 2013.
Working alongside gay people and women isn't "utopian" or "social engineering."
It's long-established, mainstream reality. The military isn't being used as a guinea pig for some experiment in an effort to change society; it's being asked to catch up with the rest of the world.
Perhaps the historical lesson we need to look to is not Sykes-Picot, but France's standoffish relationship with NATO.
"I won't be ignored, Dan."
I can't help but notice that none of the substantive examples you provide of Israel advancing US interests take place in the Middle East, despite your assertions of such in the preceding paragraph.
The American voters picked the candidate who promised Iraq withdrawal over the one who promised to continue the fight.
The hawks your talking about are a minority. What does it say about the American people than such hawks represent a minority faction? It says that we are a house divided.
The people, left and right, who view Israel as an important ally that advances American policy in the region have it exactly backwards. Israel is nothing but a drag on American foreign policy. They don't advance our interests in any manner, and our support for them imposes all sorts of costs.
"Ok, so let’s say Iran has breakout capacity and then Israel invades S. Lebanon. What will Iran do that they can’t do now? Build a bomb"
No. They can provide much greater and more open conventional support to Hezbollah, with the knowledge that Israel's capability to retaliate against Iran has been weakened by Iran's deterrent capability.
The government, of course. You know, the subject of the post?
Realignment away from the Sunni states is happening anyway, Bill. Look at the divisions over Syria. Look at the mess in Egypt.
And finally, look at that massive terrorist attack we endured on 9/11 from opponents of those Sunni Arab states (all 19 of the hijackers came from KSA, Egypt, and the UAE.)
I'm not saying we should be hostile towards the Kingdom or to Egypt, but they are not longer operating as an ally. I say we make Turkey, Iran, and the new democratic states of North Africa (Libya and Tunisia) the foundation of our foreign policy.
The key to understanding the Israeli reaction lies in unpacking that term, "threat to them."
I don't think it's Iranian military assault they consider a threat, but Iranian influence - influence with the US, influence with Europe, influence in the region.
I think the Obama administration gets this point, and is actively working to reach a deal not only for reasons of non-proliferation, but also as an opening for a general rapprochement with Iran, as part of the realignment away from the Sunni Arab states.
The future belongs to brains and culture, not crude oil.
This is an excellent piece, Professor, and a useful corrective to the one-dimensional pablum (in two distinct flavors!) that characterizes most commentary on Egypt. It's clear you "know enough to know what you don't know."
As a result, millions of Egyptians came into the streets on June 30 in the largest demonstrations in the country’s history, leading to Morsi’s overthrow in an odd combination of mass youth street movement (aided by labor unions, city quarters, workers in declining industries like tourism, and even nationalist peasants) and military coup.
Not so very odd, if you consider that exactly the same thing happened in January/February 2011. Trivia question: who succeeded Hosni Mubarak as the Egyptian head of state?
Answer: link to en.wikipedia.org
Misquote: what she said was "Can't use it."
She was responding to being told that it would take months to get Abrams tanks from Germany into Bosnia in order to provide the protection necessary to set up bases for helicopters there.
She was complaining about how slow and cumbersome the American military was.
I second these questions.
To what extent is this a repeat of 2004-2005, when foreign jihadis carried out a campaign of anti-Shiite terror for the purpose of provoking a civil war?
The United States – or rather the Bush Administration – was certainly the cause of the civil war, but after all the sacrifices in lives and treasure, the United States should make sure that Iraq does not become another failed state like Somalia or increasingly Syria.
A lot of people made this argument back in 2006-2009, about the possibility of American withdrawal: that Iraq would become a failed state, and al Qaeda would be able to establish a safe haven there.
If you look back over history, though, Iraq (and its predecessor states) were never weak or failed states that were unable to exert sovereign power of their territory. Quite the opposite, they problem there has been very strong, even totalitarian, states. The only exceptions to this tendency have come when a foreign occupier attempted to govern.
I don't think American boots or operations would make the county any safer.
So your theory is that it is in the realm of fantasy to believe that the intelligence agencies keep the White House in the dark?
OK.
Not only was the Saudi government not sheltering and supporting al Qaeda in 2001, but they were in a shooting war with them.
As opposed to the Afghan government, which was providing them with safe haven, allowing them to train their military, and otherwise working closely with them. Did you know that Mullah Omar married off one of his daughters to Osama bin Laden? That's something medieval types do to seal a political alliance.
All of which seems at least as relevant as the Taliban government's prior knowledge of a specific operation.
"getting their asses kicked" in that passage is the equivalent of "Yay, we held them to a field goal."
There is no standard by which the Taliban were ever winning in Afghanistan. Bizarre cheer-leading aside.
Let's keep some history in mind: when the Northern Alliance took Kabul, there were something like 1000 American troops in the entire country. The initial conception of the Afghan War was to support the local anti-Taliban forces so the could topple the Taliban and rout al Qaeda out of its headquarters. We provided air support and limited ground assistance to that effort, and it was on the verge of wiping out the leadership of both entities at Tora Bora.
It is very likely that Al Gore would have followed a similar policy.
Where the big break would have come, I think, it with Iraq. Gore wouldn't have invaded Iraq, and he wouldn't have allowed the upcoming invasion of Iraq to distract his administration from finishing the job in Afghanistan. It was the escape from Tora Bora and the policy of we'll-get-back-to-it-after-Iraq that turned the initial, limited action into a decade-long occupation.
Most of the dead in Iraq were killed in the civil war between Iraqi Shiites and Iraqi Sunnis/foreign jihadis. A genuine civil war, not just between armed forces but between (and targeting) actual communities broke out in Iraq.
Whereas that is not what's happening in Afghanistan. The fight between the Taliban/Haqqani Network on one side and the ANA/NATO on the other has taken on the characteristics of a group-vs-group civil war to a much lesser degree than in Iraq.
Weak-kneed appeaser John Kerry just stripped Syria of its chemical weapons.
I wouldn't underestimate the man.
Exactly how many of the vehicle miles driven in this country do you think consist of "a trip by car say, across America?"
Excellent piece. I'll add that those articles about the coal mix in the electricity that recharges cars miss an important point: electric cars are recharged mainly at night, when the fuel mix in the grid is particularly clean, because the stations brought online for peak demand, so-called peakers, are shut down. These are the dirtiest stations in the fleet.
When it comes to getting off foreign oil, switching to electric cars is important, but just as important is driving down vehicle miles traveled by car. Living close to work, living in a walkable, mixed-use neighborhood, and living and working near public transit (in short, living in an urban environment) can do even more to reduce petroleum usage. Even the biggest SUV doesn't burn any oil if it's parked in the driveway.
Arn, could this ignorant idiot kindly beg you to cite the international law that defines the used of unmanned aircraft to be war crime?
Thanks.
An "understanding" of the law that manages not to include the existence of war as a legal reality, the distinction between deliberately targeting people vs. accidental deaths, or the comprehension that neither of these doctrines have the slightest relationship to "American exceptionalism," but are recognized as applying to all countries involved in armed conflict, is an understanding that you are better off without.
Diplomatic recognition is one thing, Bill. An alliance and a close military relationship are quite another.
There are many good reasons to ramp up renewable energy infrastructure. Being able to have relations with the House of Saud that resemble our relations with Turkmenistan is certainly one of them.
Perhaps it's time to set aside the assumption that whatever the House of Saud does is part of a strategy being coordinated with the United States, and acknowledge that the two countries have been pursuing increasingly disparate foreign policies since the end of the Bush administration.
I've never understood the "take my ball and go home" theory of politics.
Step 1: Sideline yourself.
Step 2: ???
Step3: Major policy accomplishments.
Bin Laden was never a CIA asset. He set up his organization, first as a fundraising effort, and later as a fighting force, for the specific purpose of providing an alternative route for fighting the anti-Soviet jihad without working with the Americans.
You're right about there being numerous Taliban figures who had long relationships with the CIA, but the myth that bin Laden did so is a story that news men describe as "too good to check."
So were the Southern politicians who voted for secession.
Doesn't make it right.
"How does one even begin to disect the insanity that is the T-Party?"
Right-anarchists on Medicare scooters.
There is nothing in the genocide definition that excludes targeting a racial/ethnic/national group in order to eliminate potential resistance in a war. Indeed, that is a very common motivation for genocide, such as the Turks targeting Armenians during World War One.
If you don't like semantic discussions of the term "genocide," take it up with the person who insisted on injecting it into the conversation.
And no, the statements "This is not a case of genocide" and "The Iraq War was right and good" are not, in fact, the same thing.
I guess this is another of those fine distinctions you object to people drawing.
What then would have been the cost of replacing the regime through a civil war without foreign intervention?
False dichotomy. The choices were not "foreign invasion with no involvement of local forces or parties" vs. "civil war with no outside involvement."
I'll take option C: lend support to indigenous democratic forces.
Oh, is that what "genocide" means?
Gruesome?
I believe, invasion by itself is not genocide, but the awe and shock of baghdad, the carpet bombing of faluja, the blockade of food to children etc constitute very heinous crimes!
This is what is so irritating: there are all sorts of "very heinous crimes" that the people who prosecuted the Iraq War could accurately be accused of.
But Professor Cole just has to insist on the shiniest, most media-genic word he can think of.
Internet one-upmanship.
"if you launched an illegal war of aggression on Iraq, what could a prudent person expect to happen to *Iraqis*?"
So now we're pretending that the word "genocide" means "any deaths in wartime?"
Words have meaning, Professor. They're not just there to provide emotional oomph.
LOL.
JT and Brian have become like the Iraq War hawks who were still insisting they found the WMDs in 2006.
Israel is tha main reason the Arab street hates the US
and the repositioning certainly had something to do with this hate.
This is just sloppy reasoning.
Was moving American bases from Saudi Arabia to Iraq supposed to make Arabs hate Israel less? Make the US seem less tied to Israel?
There are more factors at work in global affairs, even in MENA affairs, than Israel.
Adam K,
Good point. It's also important to note that the demand for the removal of the bases from the KSA was coming not just from al Qaeda, but from the Saudi monarchy as well - and remember, the Bushes are very close to the House of Saud.