Nuclear Posture Review: Oops! We Missed One!

In one of the more remarkable public course changes Washington has yet seen, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has added Israel’s name to the previously released short list of exceptions to the general policies articulated in the Pentagon’s new Nuclear Posture Review. Originally released on April 6, the Review, which stands as the highest expression of the nation’s nuclear strategy, stated that nonnuclear nations abiding by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty would generally not be threatened with nuclear retaliation for non-nuclear attacks.

The policy did note the exception of “outliers” which were identical to the “rogue states” referred to by the Bush administration. At the time of the document’s release, Gates told a press conference, “There is a message for Iran and North Korea here…if you’re not going to play by the rules, if you’re going to be a proliferator, then all options are on the table in terms of how we deal with you.” North Korea is known to have nuclear weapons and Iran is widely thought to be in active pursuit of a nuclear capability.

Now Gates has amended that list, noting that “upon careful consideration we have decided that a realistic appraisal of the situation requires that we acknowledge the existence of another nation widely believed not to be in compliance with the Nonproliferation Treaty – Israel.” President Obama himself immediately asserted that what he called a “simple policy clarification” implied no change in United States policy toward its closest Middle East ally, saying this “in no way alters America’s commitment to the existence and security of Israel.” The addition, he said, “should not lead anyone to believe that hostilities with our great friend are even remotely anticipated.” He described it rather as a “signal” that his Administration considered it “important to convey to all parties in the region that we see the situation as it really is, not as we might wish to see it.”

Although the President steered clear of further detail, this first American acknowledgment that Israel, a non-signer of the Nonproliferation Treaty, has amassed a nuclear weapons arsenal is seen by many Middle East analysts as representing a potentially tectonic shift in world politics. Israel’s nuclear arsenal has been an open secret for decades. Former Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu served 18 years in prison for telling the British press details of the nuclear weapons program in 1986. At the time, London’s Sunday Times estimated its production to be in excess of 100 weapons.

Israel’s first warhead is thought to have been produced in the late 1960’s. The country is also believed by many to have collaborated with South Africa in that country’s development of nuclear arms, before its force was dismantled in 1989 on the eve of the nation’s transition to majority rule. Current estimates put Israel’s warhead numbers at anywhere from 75 to 400; the high figure would likely make the country the world’s third largest nuclear power – after the United States and Russia. Israel’s official policy is to offer no comment on the matter.

Observers attributed this astounding “policy clarification” to delayed effects of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee’s surprising decision to name the President as the award’s recipient during his first year in office. One White House insider, speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “As you know, the President in no way sought the Prize. In fact, a lot of people around him urged him to decline, thinking that it would place too high a burden of expectation around his future policies. But you see, the thing is the award seems to have gotten under his skin – to the point where he appears to have decided that if he’s ever going to play any kind of role in bringing peace to the Middle East, both sides have got to see him as being reality-based.”

Other sources noted that Gates was considered the right choice to be the messenger of such a bold policy alteration since he has altered it in the past – it is less than two years since the Defense Secretary declared that the U.S. would not forswear first use of nuclear weapons in retaliation for chemical or biological attacks upon the US or its allies, a policy that the new Review repudiates. At the time of his earlier statement, Gates was serving in his current position in George W. Bush’s Cabinet. One CIA source thought it would take several days for world opinion “to sort itself out over this shocking outbreak of candor.”

Okay, so Gates and Obama didn’t actually say anything about Israel’s nuclear arsenal and the way it might make the highly touted new Nuclear Posture Review seem hypocritical. But since the new policy was unveiled in early April, we could hardly wait until next April Fool’s Day to satirize it, now could we? The point of this little thought experiment in candor is not to suggest that any of the actual nuclear policy changes Obama is currently making or proposing are in any way wrong or useless. It is rather to illustrate just how much further the U.S. would need to go in order to actually be seen as “reality-based” in many parts of the world.
Domestically, the current administration is widely viewed as relatively “dovish” on matters relating to nuclear weaponry – at least in comparison to its predecessor. Likewise, the idea of dissuading Iran from joining the world’s nuclear powers is hardly a controversial one here at home. But the presumption that our government therefore enjoys worldwide credibility in these matters runs up against some harsh perceptions: For much of the world, the global campaign to prevent Iran from getting what Israel already has seems to indicate only that the one nation to have ever used nuclear weapons has no immediate plans to change its policies in any serious way.

Why Another Karzai Government May be Bad for Afghanistan

If you read the news (in the US anyway) it is common knowledge that what is most important in the current Afghan elections is not necessarily who wins, but that the elections be seen as legitimate and transparent by the Afghan public as well as the international community. Now, almost three weeks after election day, it is highly questionable whether the election process this time around will be, in the end, seen as legitimate by Afghans or the international community. There have been widespread allegations of voter fraud, including among supporters of sitting President Hamid Karzai. The sheer volume of complaints has pushed back the announcement of the election’s official results by at least two weeks.

With 90% of the vote counted, Karzai appears to have won 54% of the vote, with runner-up Dr. Abdullah Abdullah with 28%, and the remainder of the vote being split among 36 other presidential candidates. However, these results are not official, hundreds of thousands of votes have been thrown out, and there have been persistent allegations of massive voter fraud. It appears that there is substance to many of the allegations, raising the possibility that enough votes could be disqualified to drop Karzai’s tally to under the 50% that he needs to avoid a runoff with Abdullah. Investigations into voter fraud could last months, delaying any eventual runoff and threatening to plunge Afghanistan into more violence and perhaps a constitutional crisis as competing groups and candidates jockey for a position in whatever government eventually comes to power (or alternatively, strive to discredit and destabilize the government elect).

The reason for the strong opposition against Karzai has been his government’s extreme corruption and his political amorality in being willing to team up with unsavory former warlords like Abdul Rashid Dostum, accused of human right atrocities against Taliban captives under his control. The Afghan people also have seen Karzai largely as the candidate of the US and the international community which has generated distrust concerning the outcome of the vote, believing that his victory has been preordained without concern for Afghan opinion. If Karzai wins a majority in a flawed election process, his adminstration is sure to be dogged by accusations that it came to power illegitimately. Should he fail to win over 50%, his position would be confirmed as relatively weak while he would be subject to repeated opposition attacks (during and between election campaign) highlighting his corruption and poor administration. If Karzai were to win the runoff election, he would be returning to office with a poor record, a weak administration, and no mandate from Afghans. If on the other hand, Abdullah were to win the run off, there may be a public sense of hope for a new direction in Afghan politics, and a belief in the legitimacy of the electoral system. Nor would Abdullah have the amount of negative baggage that is holding Karzai back. While Abdullah’s backers are also likely to have engaged in vote fraud, the most serious allegations appear to be against the Karzai campaign. An Abdullah win would more likely be perceived as representative of a fair and legitimate electoral process.

The biggest difference between Karzai and Abdullah is that Karzai supports a government with power concentrated in the office of president, while Abdullah sees a parliamentary system as a more appropriate system for representing the diversity of Afghan beliefs and communities. An Abdullah win would mean a fundamental restructuring of the Afghan government with unpredictable results. In governing, Abdullah would probably need to rely on supporters as shady as Karzai’s, and his government would face the same difficult challenges to improving life in Afghanistan that Karzai’s would.

But it may just be time for a change. Karzai may have been the man for the job when the Taliban fell. He had an admirable history of brave opposition to the Taliban and al Qaeda. He challenged Presidents Bush and Musharraf on many aspects of his country’s rebuilding and advocated strongly for the Afghan people. He may have been the best chance to hold Afghanistan together after 2001, but now, his rule has become a liability for the Afghan state. A new leader is needed to bring legitimacy to the election process and to restore faith in the Afghan government itself. Bringing progress in Afghanistan will be a difficult task for anyone, but should Karzai win, it will be harder than need be.

This article is the third in a series about major elections taking place in Asia this year.  Part one and two covered the recent elections in India.

President Obama Stumps in New Jersey for Governor Corzine

Thursday, July 18, 2009

PNC Arts Center

3:15 pm– Members of the press passing out in a massive, seemingly endless line into the center, and its not on the account of President Obama but the scorching heat. Audacity of Hope? More like the Audacity of Heat Stroke

3:20 pm– I just made it through the security check and I didn’t even have to take off my shoes…Yes we can!

3:24 pm– Finally made my way down to the press pool seating area. In retrospect, I probably would’ve have sat in the blogger section, but then I’d be on the side of the Garden State Parkway.

3:30 pm– Some state senator approaches the podium and addresses the throngs of exuberant Obamaniacs and their one Corzine fan. She touts and panegyrizes the achievements and accomplishments of Governor Corzine. Yeah, how’s about addressing the fact that New Jersey received more than 17 billion dollars in Federal Stimulus money and yet no free bottled water in sub-Saharan heat.

3:32 pm– Much to the pleasure of the ultra-partisan crowd, State Senator begins to equate Chris Christie, the Republican candidate for governor, to president Bush. Not surprisingly, the crowd erupted in a raucous of boos. I think Bush is about as popular with the general electorate as flesh eating bacteria.

3:36 pm– Oh my, there appears to be a full-scale chorus singing. The chorus sang mellifluously and were very impassioned, but I fear I was much too much to distracted by the plethora of awkward white guy dancing. Clearly the black part of Obama would be put to shame.

3:45 pm– Whose Congressman’s leg do you have to hump to get a martini around here!

3:46 pm– Still no Obama or that other guy whom one person came to see.

4:00 pm– NJ Governor Corzine just made his way up the stage and to the podium and announces that he’s a Gay American. But seriously, Governor Corzine begins to address the enthusiastic crowd. What, too hot for sweater vests?

4:02 pm– Oh my, this man really needs to touch Obama because he has the charisma of a week’s old meatloaf. If he isn’t the Art Garfunkel to Obama’s Paul Simon…

4:05 pm– The topic of health care–the wheezing 800 pound gorilla in the emergency room–was broached.

4:08 pm– Governor Corzine panders to his most ardent supporters by playing up his support for unions and working class New Jerseyians.

4:12 pm– Governor Corzine announces the arrival of his good friend, Hillary Clinton. But seriously, President Obama has arrived!

4:13 pm– I think I just lost 80 percent of my hearing.

4:14 pm– President Obama begins to address the sweltering but ebullient crowd of thousands.

4:15 pm– I don’t care one iota if President Obama has back peddled on some of his campaign promises, belied some of his most vehement campaign rhetoric, and sheepishly kowtowed to the banks because he is adorable! He’s like puppy’s breath and new car scent all put in one! But seriously, President Obama exudes confidence and is highly commanding.

4:16 pm– Oh no he didn’t! I believe President Obama just handed Corzine his coat jacket. I guess Corzine is doing his laundry now.

4:18 pm– President Obama wastes no time in emphatically declaring Governor Corzine a crucial ally who had helped develop the national economic recovery plan, saving countless jobs, while working wonders on education and health insurance and still cutting the size of state government.

4:20 pm– President Obama seems very ensnared in his presidential campaign rhetoric and almost forgets that he got the job back in November. His tone is just as fiery and forceful as it was on the stump. Clearly Obama feels more comfortable in this arena than he does in the oval office.

4:25 pm– Health Care reform is explained not just in terms of the nation as a whole but to the great many small business owners suffering from soaring costs here in New Jersey.

4:30pm– Enough with all of this trivial health care reform! I want to know why the president hates flies and yellow mustard!

4:36– After lauding Governor Corzine for his own efforts in fixing health care, President Obama took this golden opportunity to highlight his own prescription for a workable and affordable health plan. In fact, President Obama took off the gloves and confronted the most vociferous republican and conservative Democrat opponents of his health plan by loudly declaring “What’s your Plan?!” Kudos!

“What’s your Plan?!” ~ President Obama

4:40 PM– President Obama concludes his 25 minute speech by reaffirming his support for Governor Corzine and thanks the crowd.

San Francisco Gets an Antiwar Congresswoman

The recent 226-202 House of Representatives approval of the supplemental budget was a particular disappointment to antiwar activists.  At one point they’d thought it might be possible to block the bill and its $79.9 billion Department of Defense appropriation earmarked largely for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, – at least temporarily.   Nonetheless, San Francisco antiwar voters might take some consolation in one thing anyhow – it appears that the city now has an antiwar Congresswoman.  And no, it’s not House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but Jackie Speier, elected just last year to represent the less liberal western part of the city and several towns on the Peninsula to the south.

Not only was Speier one of but sixty votes (fifty-one of them Democrat) against the budget in its first trip through the House, but she also made a second, tougher vote against it.  When House Republicans took umbrage at the addition of a $5 billion International Monetary Fund loan guarantee, they announced they would switch sides and vote against the bill upon its return from the Senate, raising the possibility of its defeat should the antiwar Democrat votes hold firm.

Predictably, they did not.  This time even Pelosi herself – who did not vote the first time as is common practice for a Speaker – was recorded in favor, presumably to demonstrate how much the House leadership really wanted the votes.  And yet, despite a San Francisco Chronicle report that “the White House has threatened to pull support from Democratic freshmen who vote no,” Speier did just that, one of only six freshmen – among thirty-two total Democrats – to do so.  Arguably, Speier was doing nothing but what San Francisco voters had directed her to do last November when 59 percent of them supported Proposition U which stated that the city’s Congressional representatives “should vote against any further funding for the deployment of United States Armed Forces in Iraq.”

But realistically speaking, although the ballot question’s only exception concerned “funds specifically earmarked to provide for their [American troops in Iraq] safe and orderly withdrawal” and did not exempt funding requests from Democratic Presidents, the fact that George Bush had negotiated a troop withdrawal agreement before leaving office seems to have made most House Democrats feel they have a pass to fund that war right through 2011. And certainly Pelosi has never given any indication of paying the proposition any heed despite the fact that 61 percent of her district backed it.

On the contrary, she’s made it clear that she views it as a Democratic Speaker’s duty to ensure the funding of what a Democratic President has now taken on as his wars.  Her spokesman, Brendan Daly, told the Chronicle that Pelosi was telling members “we need to do this, this is President Obama’s plan for both Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s got a plan to end the war in Iraq.  He’s got a plan to refocus our efforts in Afghanistan, and we need to support the president in that, and this is the right way to go.”

And yet when Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA) proposed adding language calling for the Secretary of Defense to “submit to Congress a report outlining the United States exit strategy for United States military forces in Afghanistan” by December 31, 2009, it was no dice.  Pelosi’s view is apparently that the President shall give us his plan in his own good time. (McGovern has since filed his amendment as a free-standing bill with 84 co-sponsors.)

Her San Francisco colleague Speier, on the other hand, said she had “serious problems with the current wars” and didn’t believe that “escalating the conflicts make America or the world safer.”  Speier’s viewpoint is particularly welcome in that it differs so markedly from that of her predecessor, the late Tom Lantos, who voted for the first House resolution for the Iraq War (which Pelosi did not.)

Moreover, in her ascent to her new position, Speier had betrayed no particular maverick tendencies.  She gained it not through any kind of insurgent antiwar campaign but more of a vetting process of the area’s political establishment.  A former state legislator forced to leave office due to term limits, she had failed in a prior bid for the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor. But when she announced her interest in the Lantos seat, it soon became clear that she would have the endorsements deemed to matter – and presumably the attendant campaign financing.  At this point, other potential candidates backed off and the insider consensus choice was presented to the voters for their ratification.  Speier then won 90 percent of the Democratic vote in a special primary after a campaign that seemed to involve less of telling people what she stood for than reminding them that they already knew her – and that her ultimate victory was inevitable.

So, at a point when the country’s antiwar movements are largely stalled, Bay Area antiwar voters can at least cheer the pleasant surprise of having a new Congresswoman willing to buck both the White House and the House leadership.

Same-Sex Marriage: Obama’s Lincoln Moment

On Wednesday night, Governor John Baldacci of Maine signed legislation that he struggled to support. While governors are often pressed by their legislatures and constituents to support laws that they do not necessarily agree with, this bill—one that legalizes same-sex marriages—was a personal dilemma for the first-term governor. After weeks of agonizing over the decision, the Governor released a statement to the press that outlined the reasoning behind his eventual approval:

In the past, I opposed gay marriage while supporting the idea of civil unions. I have come to believe that this is a question of fairness and of equal protection under the law, and that a civil union is not equal to civil marriage.

The first governor to sign a same-sex marriage bill, Baldacci touches on the heart of the same-sex marriage debate: The arguments for or against same-sex unions based on morality, religion, tradition, or any other logic is irrelevant. What matters is the law. And the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution that he refers to clearly states “[no] State [shall] deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” Which means that, like it or not, from Baldacci’s perspective, gays and lesbians should be entitled to the right to marry if straight people are allowed to marry.

Over the course of the past several months, four states have legalized same-sex marriage in their states: Connecticut, Vermont, Iowa, and New Hampshire (Massachusetts legalized gay marriage back in 2004). Recently, both New York and Washington D.C. have decided to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. And now there is talk that New Jersey may become the sixth state to legalize same-sex marriage in the coming months.

Throughout this civil rights upheaval,  President Obama and his administration have remained conspicuously mum. According to the New York Times, Obama has said that as a Christian he opposes gay marriage but remains a “fierce advocate of equality” for gay men and lesbians. And so far, he has remained true to that statement by pledging to sign a U.N. declaration, which Bush refused to sign before he left office, that calls for a worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality (the United States was the only western nation not to support the measure). Moreover, Obama has continually recognized qualified persons with same-sex sexual orientations for top level jobs: In his short time in office, he has appointed numerous openly gay officials for executive administrative positions and may be considering two prominent lesbian lawyers to replace Justice Souter on the Supreme Court.

Although the saying goes that “actions speak louder than words,” his silence is an action that may indicate his political discomfort with gay rights advocacy. During the election, he reiterated that same-sex marriage is an issue that should be decided by the states. And, to a certain extent, he’s constitutionally correct: There is currently no federal marriage license that any straight couple can apply for but, then again, opposite-sex couples who marry in their home state trust that their marriage will be honored no matter which state they travel to or live in. And while there is no federal law regulating straight marriages, the 1996 Federal Defense of Marriage Act passed by Congress regulates same-sex unions. The Act explicitly outlines that states do not have to recognize same-sex marriages or civil unions performed in other states. That is a gross discrepancy.

While Obama has said that he supports a repeal of that legislation and of the military’s “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” policy, he has remained virtually silent on the gay marriage issue since he took office and has chosen to not comment on the landslide of same-sex marriage laws in recent months. Although this issue may not seem like a priority for the administration when they have an economic crisis and two wars to contend with, it should be a priority for the president since Obama has repeatedly stated that he wants America to rebuild and renew its reputation in the world. In a 2007 article he wrote for Foreign Affairs, he stated:

At moments of great peril in the last century, American leaders such as Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy managed both to protect the American people and to expand opportunity for the next generation. What is more, they ensured that America, by deed and example, led and lifted the world — that we stood for and fought for the freedoms sought by billions of people beyond our borders. […] They used our strengths to show people everywhere America at its best.

Yet, how can those freedoms be realized if America does not follow its own laws and ensure that all of its own citizens receive the same “protection” under the law? If President Obama is going to continue to reiterate that marriage laws should be left to the states, then he should actively pursue a repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act since it is a federal measure. So too, if he wants America to “lead by deed and example” then he must show support for states that have passed inclusive marriage legislation and encourage others to do the same. It sets a very bad “example” to have some areas of the country have more “freedoms” for its citizens than others.

Or, Obama could take a cue from his favorite president, Abraham Lincoln. When Lincoln took office in 1861, he viewed slavery as a states’ issue and expressly stated that he had “no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with slavery in the States where it exists.” However, two years later, he delivered his Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves because it was “an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution.” Certainly, it is thorny comparison between slavery and gay rights and America is not in a civil war where gay marriage is, like slavery was, the catalyst for domestic combat; nevertheless the United States is at a civil rights crossroads that needs to be addressed by the President. Had Lincoln chosen to never take that stand on slavery, decided to put it off until later, or thought he could leave the responsibility on to the next administration, Obama may have never even had a chance to be our president. Obama should take a page from the book of his presidential idol and realize that, regardless of the political risk, he is obligated as America’s national leader to stand up for the rights of all Americans.

Obama has continually said that he wants his presidency to speak to and for all Americans. In his famous Democratic nomination acceptance speech, Obama evoked Martin Luther King and reiterated that “now is the time” for the United States to rebuild and renew:

[I]n America, our destiny is inextricably linked, that together our dreams can be one. “We cannot walk alone,” the preacher cried. “And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.”

Indeed, we cannot turn back and now is certainly the time.

Sex Scandals and Politics: A New Norm?

In light of David Vitter’s political survival and the apparent political comeback of Eliot Spitzer written on the wall, I began to think back to a simpler time, a time when sex was taboo and charlatans claimed a 100,000 Dow was possible.

When thinking about such a time, I also remembered chuckling a few years back when I saw a particularly astute bumper sticker that read:

When Clinton Lied, Nobody Died

In the midst of the many abuses of power by the Bush administration, not seen since Watergate (and probably Teapot Dome before that), it seemed funny in retrospect how obsessed many had been in the late 1990s, just a few years before, about President Clinton’s zipper problem with the infamous Ms. Lewinsky.

Many of the popular defenses of Bill Clinton’s behaviors during the aftermath of the Lewinsky affair seemed to be based on two lines of thought:

1. This sort of behavior was nothing new among American Presidents.

Popular icons such as FDR and JFK were anything but faithful during their days in the White House. While no evidence exists about oral favors in the Oval Office per se, speculation about JFK makes Clinton’s behavior look like an ABC Family Special. Granted the press also conveniently never mentioned that FDR was in a wheel chair or that Kennedy was in ill health. In addition, for anyone who has watched the television series Mad Men knows, it was a different time. It was before the sexual revolution, it was before Watergate and the loss of trust between the public and its politicians, and most importantly, it was before the rise of the popular press and cable news (not to mention the internet). There wasn’t the competition we see today, and those in power were good friends with those in the media. For good or bad, it was a good old boys club with respected boundaries.

2 . This sort of thing was not a big deal elsewhere in the world.

This line of thought was especially interesting to me as at the time when I was studying European politics. It seemed that all of the institutional factors that had arisen in the US, such as the popular press, the internet, and the devolution of the good old boys club, had all occurred in Europe as well. However, unlike the US, despite the fact that the public now knew about the personal faults of their leaders, it seemed that the public didn’t give a damn. The easy explanation for this at the time was that Europe didn’t have the same evangelical and fundamentalist tradition as the US and was far more secular. As such, they didn’t see their politicians as moral role models and therefore could properly separate their actions as individuals from their policies which actually affected their pocketbooks.

As I read a Newsweek snippet that claimed that Bill Clinton’s survival was the exception to the rule of death by sex scandal, I began to wonder whether or not Bill Clinton’s scandal was not an exception, but rather an inflection point in the ethos of the politics of sex scandals. The more I thought about this hypothesis, the more it seemed to make sense. If this were true, what then could be the reasons for this new dynamic?

The Moral Crusaders Went Too Far

This argument goes on the assumption that politics works like a pendulum in the sense that one side often goes too far, which then causes a big backlash that moves the pendulum swinging back in the other direction. From a cultural perspective, this argument would start somewhere back in the middle of the 20th century. Out of the economic and war torn family unit of the Great Depression and World War II emerged a period from the late 1940s to the early 1960s that is sometimes referred to as the neo-Victorian era. This period of unprecedented economic prosperity enabled a return the one worker per family norm that hadn’t been seen in several generations. However, “hi honey, I’m home” had run its course by the mid-1960s, and the pendulum swung far back to the cultural left with the rise of the sexual revolution, the flower children, and a general destruction, for good or bad, of the morals and cultural norms of the previous period. This period in turn ran its course with the excesses of the 1970s, and by the early 1980s the new “moral majority” had risen to power and catapulted conservative California governor Ronald Reagan (who was once deemed far too conservative to ever be elected president) to power. This backlash/pendulum argument would then speculate that this moral majority movement had gone too far, starting with the Lewinsky affair and ending with the assault on homosexuals and immigrants in the years to follow.

Generational Changes

Tied to this previous explanation is the fact that just as the moral majority was stepping too far, new generations began to come of age who cared little for the wedge politics that defined their parents and grandparents generations. Many in these new generations X and Y had grown up in broken families, had a parent who had strayed, and had had friends of different races and sexual orientations. To many in these new generations, things weren’t as black and white or as us versus them. Simply put, most young people don’t care about consensual adult sex.

Context is Everything

Finally, as hinted at before, in the light of Bush’s abuse of powers and the overall failure of a presidency, all of 1990s’ political scandals seemed so feeble in comparison. Dear God, how naïve were we back in those roaring 90s? This argument is not only the easiest to explain, but is also needed by default to even begin to explain and/or justify the previous arguments. This would also seem to imply that any movement of the past decade in cultural norms is anything but nonreversible. If history is any guide, there is likely to be at least one step backward before we can necessarily begin to move forward. Conservative cultural forces in the United States are too strong and too entrenched to simply fade away.

What’s Next?

Granted, it will be years before we will know for sure whether the recent cases of David Vitter or Eliot Spitzer are evidence of a new dynamic or confirmation that our cultural pendulum has not swung much after all. Perhaps in the context of American evangelical traditions, American politicians with loose zippers can now finally be born again.

Obama, Mexico, and the Drug War

Remember the War on Drugs? Sure you do. It was after the Cold War and before the War on Terror. It continues to be an attempt to crack down on the illegal drug trade into the U.S. It turned out to be little more than an excuse to continue the Cold War in places like Colombia. It also resulted in new domestic judicial rules such as three-strikes-and-you’re-out, and draconian mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders, over-crowding prisons with disproportionately minority, nonviolent, first-time offenders in possession of small amounts of drugs.

Since September 11, 2001, we haven’t heard much about the War on Drugs. With the attacks of that day, the threat of religiously and ideologically motivated radical Muslim terrorists immediately became more grave than the crime and violence connected to Latin American (mostly) drug cartels. Our collective focus has been on the threat posed by Islamic terrorism since 2001 and we have largely ignored the growing threat posed by increasingly powerful drug cartels on our southern border.

Last year, drug violence and corruption in Mexico surged, especially in towns and cities along the U.S.-Mexico border. In 2008 over 6,000 people were probably killed – that adds up to over 16 people every day – twice as many as in 2007. Many of these killings were particularly gruesome – beheadings and execution style killings. Drug cartels are suspected of downing a plane, killing Mexico’s Interior Minister, and corruption related to drug trafficking has reached the highest levels. The Sinaloa, Gulf, and Tijuana cartels have infiltrated the judiciary, the police, and political parties. The director of Mexico’s Interpol Office and an employee of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency were both arrested for collaborating with cartels. Last spring, the Justice Department declared that Mexican drug cartels pose the “largest threat to both citizens and law enforcement agencies in this country and now have gang members in nearly 200 U.S. cities.” And the U.S. Army High Command has determined that due to the violence, corruption and instability caused by drug trafficking in Mexico, its government, along with Pakistan’s, should “bear consideration for rapid and sudden collapse.” Former Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey recently stated that thanks to drug cartels “Mexico is on the edge of the abyss – it could become a narco-state in the coming decade.” Mexico’s foreign minister has had to defend her government against accusations of its being a failed state.

These are damning statements that President Obama’s incoming administration should not take lightly. While I hope the situation in Mexico and U.S.-Mexican relations will be treated with the seriousness they deserve, Obama has not shared his plans concerning Mexico or the Drug War very openly with the American public. Indeed, he appears to have followed Bush’s lead and has focused his foreign policy sights on – you guessed it – Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and other problems in the Middle East. Given our country’s complex and numerous entanglements in the region, this is understandable. But with the drug trade destabilizing our southern neighbor and threatening to cross the border and sow violence, corruption, and instability on U.S. soil it is surely necessary to give our attention to all of these situations, however difficult it may be.

The U.S.-led Drug War has always been deeply flawed and arguably ineffective. The U.S. has always been eager to solve the problem by force – instigating violence in other countries (massive military funding to Colombia, Mexico, etc.) and treating the drug trade in the U.S. as essentially a moral and policing problem that can be solved with a zero tolerance approach and enough cops, guns, and jails. The U.S. has been reluctant to pursue cheaper and more effective ways of battling the drug trade – drug treatment for addicts in the U.S., and development aid for farmers in other countries for example. The War on Terror has pushed the War on Drugs to the back burner, and it has pushed ‘soft’ strategies even further back. It seems we have given up trying to reduce the demand or the supply of illegal drugs in the U.S.

So what exactly does Obama plan to do about the threat posed by illegal drug trafficking? He did not mention Mexico or drugs in his inaugural address, and his public statements since being elected haven’t given many clues. The new whitehouse.gov foreign policy agenda page says nothing about Latin America, preoccupied as it is with Middle East concerns. And as a candidate, Obama said little specific about Latin America or drug trafficking, though at least he mentioned Latin America on his campaign website.

It appears President Obama will not be as hands-off as President Bush when it comes to problems in Latin America. He has indicated a desire for closer and improved relations with Mexico. President-elect Obama was visited by President Felipe Calderon in Washington where they discussed economic issues (including Obama’s campaign pledge to renegotiate NAFTA, something Calderon is opposed to), the environment, immigration, and drug trafficking. Neither man gave many details about their discussion, but Obama has indicated support for the Merida Initiative, passed last June, which commits the U.S. to increasing aid to Mexico for equipment and training to combat organized crime. It does nothing to reduce the U.S. demand for drugs, however.

President Obama also envisions an ambitious new Partnership for the Americas”. In a Miami speech during the campaign he declared:

We need an agenda that advances democracy, security, and opportunity from the bottom up. So my policy will be guided by the simple principle that what’s good for the people of the Americas is good for the United States. That means measuring success not just through agreements among governments, but also through the hopes of the child in the favelas of Rio, the security for the policeman in Mexico City, and the shrinking of the distance between Miami and Havana.

This soaring rhetoric is unfortunately not, as far as I can tell, matched by detailed or original strategies for combating the drug trade along the U.S.-Mexico border. Increased cooperation between the U.S. and other Latin American countries will surely be helpful and appreciated, but in the midst of so many other problems, the U.S. may not have the resources or the political will to see these changes through. Yet there are glimmers of hope – commitments to improve cross border partnerships between U.S. and Mexican states and pledges to increase drug treatment programs in the U.S.

It is also instructive to examine the recent decisions Obama and his inner circle have made regarding the Drug War. As a candidate, Obama promised to end DEA raids on medical marijuana dispensaries in California, but since his assuming office raids have continued. Obama’s staff has said that as soon as new Department of Justice officials are appointed the raids will end, heartening news for those who support medical marijuana laws – and a difficult promise to avoid making good on. Obama does not support legalizing drugs – not surprising for a U.S. president – while at the same time advocating more treatment than incarceration for users, a significant shift from previous presidents. He has suggested ending mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent first-time offenders, and ending a federal ban on funding needle exchange programs reversing years of federal drug policy.

This appears promising, yet Obama’s coterie does not have a history of breaking ranks with the War on Drugs consensus. Joe Biden has been a strong supporter of law enforcement solutions, toughening sentencing rules for drug users, and criminalizing drug use. He played a significant part in creating the position of Drug Czar. He has made more moderate decisions in recent years, but many Drug War opponents remain skeptical of him. Rahm Emanuel has been a vocal supporter of the Drug War, at least when it fits his political agenda, and has a mixed record on issues like medical marijuana. Incoming Attorney General Eric Holder also vigorously supported harsher Drug War policies during his years under President Clinton and as U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. Obama’s interim Drug Czar – Ed Jurith, a longtime lawyer for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, and former Clinton Drug Czar – has been described as “civil and thoughtful” in the ongoing debate over drug policy though he has by-and-large supported the Drug War. It is rumored that Obama’s permanent Drug Czar pick is Republican Jim Ramstad, who has opposed needle exchange programs, a crucial tool in decreasing the spread of HIV and other fatal diseases amongst addicts. While Drug War opponents may not be thrilled with these selections by Obama, many are taking a wait-and-see approach and acknowledging that these individuals are at least politically open to making policy changes.

And in Mexico? Will Obama put forward drug policies innovative and intelligent enough to effectively curb the violence and corruption flourishing along the U.S.-Mexico border? Will he be able to create a new, smarter mix of drug fighting strategies that reduces the violence and corruption that has accompanied drug trafficking in the U.S. and Mexico? While Mexico and the U.S. border states (dealing with the threat of the same drug-related problems) are committed to effectively managing and limiting, if not stopping, the drug trade, it remains to be seen how committed the Obama administration in far-off Washington will be. Inspirational rhetoric is one thing, but confronting difficult societal problems and defeating organized gangs of unrepentant killers is another – just ask former President Bush.

The Hidden Sides of the Israel-Gaza Conflict

Since December 27, the Israeli military has been attacking the Gaza Strip in a large scale fashion, determined to break Hamas and end the showering of rockets into southern Israel. Thirteen Israelis have died and over 1,300 Palestinians have been killed. Observers have accused Israel of creating a humanitarian crisis out of the already precarious living environment in Gaza. Hopefully,the recent cease-fires will bring the violence to an end.

While the narrative may have some basic facts right, the mainstream media in the US has largely reduced the conflict to too simple a narrative – “Israel’s attack into Gaza is one of self-defense against a Hamas government bent on its destruction. Regrettably, many civilians have died.” Even conceding the excessive scale of its attack on Gaza, Israel is ultimately presented as a victim of terrorism with a right to self-defense. Hamas is presented as an illegitimate government (though democratically elected, “who still refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist’ we are always reminded) and an irrationally violent terrorist organization.

While there may be some elements of truth in this narrative, it is far from the complete picture.  Some observers have noted that not much attention has been paid to anything besides this simplistic narrative. But the simple Israel-victim-Hamas-terrorist narrative ultimately fails to answer many broader political questions about the conflict in a satisfying way. Why would Hamas been firing rockets at Israel now? Why would Israel respond with the large-scale force that it did? Why would the US step back and allow the violence to proceed? Why would other actors – Egypt, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon – behave the way they have?

While there are clearly legitimate and clear-cut concerns over sovereignty and security on both sides of this conflict, the motivations and actions of all actors are muddied by the conflict’s political context. The political motivations and factors that may be playing a significant part in driving the conflict have been largely overlooked. Here I begin to explore how certain political concerns may be influencing what has been happening in Gaza.

Israel–Yes, Israel– justifiably wanted to defend itself by stopping Hamas rocket fire. But, with Israel’s apparent victory in this conflict, it has become clear that a significant reason for its excessive assault was to exorcize the failure of 2006’s war with Hezbollah. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert – stepping down as PM this year – may have wanted to depart with a success under his belt after 2006’s debacle. His Kadima Party, facing a February election, had to show its toughness against attacks on Israel and its ability to protect Israel and take the battle to its enemies. It was also Kadima’s Ariel Sharon that unilaterally withdrew Israeli forces from Gaza in 2005. Perhaps Kadima felt responsible for curbing Hamas’ current aggression. It remains to be seen if the Israeli public’s overwhelming support for Olmert’s attack on Hamas will translate into success at the polls for Kadima’s Tzipi Livni. During the conflict, there was considerable debate within the Israeli government about how to pursue the war on Hamas, and Kadima would not be the only party to gain by pushing the war. Labor Party head and Defense Minister Ehud Barack is a contender for PM in the upcoming election as is Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu. The main political debate in Israel surrounding the conflict has been how hawkish is hawkish enough. The effect of the war on the election looms large.

Hamas – One part of the reason for Hamas’ improper rocket attacks that we hear little about is the Israeli blockade of Gaza. The blockade has effectively amounted to a siege, intended to make life for residents in Gaza extremely hard. By all accounts, this crowded sliver of land has been on the verge of a humanitarian crisis for some time. With the end of a six-month ceasefire in November, Israel began attacks on tunnels in Gaza and denied Hamas’ demand that the blockade be lifted.  While none of this justifies rocket attacks, this series of events helps to explain what led Hamas to begin sending rockets into Israel again. In addition, the on-going fight for Palestine between Hamas and Fatah offers a possible political motivation for Hamas’ attacks. Palestinians have rallied behind Hamas during the conflict, threatening Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah government in the West Bank. This was likely an intentional move by Hamas, to undermine Fatah, often seen as too accommodating to Israel and the US. During the conflict, Fatah has not allowed open protests against Israel for example. The sympathy and pride Palestinians have felt for Hamas during this conflict could tip the scales in Hamas’ favor in the next West Bank election. One also wonders if the timing of the conflict might be an early test of President Obama by both Israel and Hamas. With hostilities barely over when Obama takes office, his pushing a lasting US-sponsored peace deal is highly unlikely. Perhaps this was a calculation by Hamas – who appears unwilling to agree to any two-state solution – and Israel too – who may see current circumstances unfavorable to its interests.

United States – George W. Bush’s lame-duck administration has had little reason to stick its neck out for either side in Gaza. Its support for Israel has been implicit, though not unconditional while it has also, surprisingly, supported UN demands for a ceasefire. What concerns me more is the silence from president-elect Obama. He has shied away from making statements about the situation in Gaza, arguing that there is only one President at a time. But, that same argument has not stopped him from speaking at length about the country’s economic woes. If Obama is avoiding making statements about Gaza, it suggests two things to me. First, he probably does not see a US role in solving the problem in Gaza as a priority for his administration at this time. This is understandable – there are numerous, bigger problems facing the US, and the UN and countries like Egypt have been ably handling the negotiating of the recent ceasefire. I sense that Obama has made the political calculation that the US need not be heavily invested in the Gaza solution for now. The more troubling implication of his silence is that he would not act much differently than Bush has. By his silence, Obama seems to be painting himself into a corner and agreeing with Bush’s policy – essentially ratifying what will be all but a done deal by the time he takes office. As a candidate, Obama courted AIPAC and returned from a trip to Israel with a great deal of sympathy for its situation. He has vowed to continue the “special relationship” between the two countries and probably doesn’t want to make Israel – or the rest of the world – nervous about his intentions toward the region during his administration.

And this is just the beginning. There are undoubtedly other political calculations that have been influencing the conflict, and other players are significant here too – the EU, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and especially Iran and Egypt. They will be crucial to securing any lasting peace and resolution to this specific conflict and to the Israel-Palestine conflict in general. Yet, all parties bring their own agendas and complexities to the table. We can all hope that peace will one day reign in Israel and Palestine, but it will not be simple, and it will not be possible by looking at the situation simplistically. We will need to see and understand the hidden facets to the region’s challenges and act accordingly.

Sometimes, Terrorism Doesn’t Happen to the United States

Joshua Micah Marshall made a good point yesterday: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that there may be some intelligence indicating that the Mumbai terrorists were plotting to kill “Americans and Britons.” But all the evidence points to the contrary. Mumbai was attacked due to its prominence, not the amount of westerners there. According to accounts of the violence, the terrorists appeared to be firing indiscriminately, not targeting particular people. Their purpose was to incite general terror with a “no one is safe” tone.

Is it American arrogance that makes Secretary Gates think that the purpose of the attack was to target Americans? Partially; American ubiquity demands it. Just like American clothing and pop culture is everywhere in the world, so too must American tragedies be recognized and venerated, and whenever a roughly analogous local tragedy happens, that tragedy must be understood through the lens of the American tragedy. In this case, since the local tragedy was terrorism, the American analogue is September 11.

President Bush (and now the rest of the country) seems to think that the Sept. 11 attacks were the first time any country has ever dealt with terrorist attacks on its own soil, and furthermore, that the United States, as a result of those attacks, is the only country that has experience dealing with terrorists. Prior to Bush’s tenure in office, the United States was not so cocky: of course we knew that Ireland has been dealing with terrorism since the 1920s, that Israel and Spain have been dealing with it since the 1960s, that India itself has been dealing with it from the Tamil Tigers, Kashmir separatists, and both Hindu and Muslim nationalists. Everyone seems to have forgotten, though, that the United States is not the world’s expert on dealing with terrorism.

So, no, it’s not likely that the attacks in Mumbai were designed to target Americans. But in order for the United States to lay claim to a War on Terrorism, it must lay claim to every instance of terrorism that occurs in the world in order to assert a leadership role in that war. The Bush administration has used the September 11 attacks as a throughway by which the United States may assert a “Me, too!” role in worldwide terrorism, even if the terrorism didn’t directly impact the United States.

It could be called the Cheney Doctrine after Vice President Cheney’s pronouncement earlier this year that the United States has a right to invade any country in the world, even if that country didn’t directly harm the United States, if the United States thinks that country has the capability or intent of harming the United States. Of course, the doctrine is nothing more than a unilateral pronouncement by Cheney and does not have the effect of law, but at least it shows us what he’s thinking. It’s the foreign policy equivalent of the “interstate commerce” clause, the section of the Constitution that has been interpreted so broadly as to allow Congress to control any aspect of business that could conceivably or theoretically impact interstate commerce (protecting endangered species in waterways that, through a series of even small creeks, eventually drain into interstate rivers, for example).

Diplomatic Implications

The United States would especially like to stick its nose into relations between Pakistan and India. Al-Qaeda is or was hiding in Pakistan on the Afghanistan border. Former president Pervez Musharraf didn’t send the military up there to investigate for fear of alienating those populations. The new Pakistani government will not be as America-friendly as the last one, since the United States supported the unpopular Musharraf. Without Musharraf, the United States has no reason or authority to be involved in India/Pakistan relations. Using the terrorism angle allows the United States to remain involved in that relationship.

We still think we are the gatekeepers to all the world’s diplomacy: no one anywhere in the world can have any bilateral talks without inviting the United States, as well. Every talk is necessarily multilateral because every relationship between any people anywhere in the world is relevant to the United States. It’s time for us to get over this attitude. When James Monroe asserted U.S. diplomatic hegemony in the Western hemisphere — essentially telling the rest of the world that, if you wanted to deal with Latin America, you had to go through the U.S. first — the arrogance was apparent, but at least it was confined to America’s sphere of influence in the world.

As the United States’ diplomatic clout has waned — particularly under the watchful eye of the Bush administration — its ability to assert leadership roles in negotiations in which it has no stake has similarly waned. Thankfully, there will always be the War on Terrorism there to insist that, by virtue of the United States being attacked on September 11, and its self-proclaimed doctrine of warfare against terrorism, the United States automatically has a stake in any negotiation that may even be tangentially related to terrorism.

It is a gross disservice to the people in Mumbai who were killed, wounded, and terrorized to narcissistically focus their tragedy in terms of our tragedy. Perhaps going through the same kind of event allows Americans to better understand what Indians are feeling right now, but we should no more shift the focus to our own attack any more than we would eulogize our own losses at someone else’s funeral.

A Different Take on the Expectations for Palin

Many of the most seasoned pundits are of the opinion that each time Sarah Palin commits another gaffe, she makes her job easier in the Vice Presidential Debate by lowering the public expectations. Certainly there are many examples in history of a less-than-stellar orator winning a debate by split-decision, for no better reason than because he or she exceeded the lower threshold that had been set for him or her. And anyone who hesitates to agree need look no further than the 2000 debate performance of the White House’s current occupant. When the public expects one candidate to dominate the other, so sayeth the conventional wisdom, these expectations leave that apparently superior candidate with the narrower window in which to perform well without dog-piling on his hapless opponent across the stage.

All of this worked in 2000 precisely because the general public had little basis for doubting Mr. Bush’s core competency to hold down the job. True, he had performed dreadfully in a series of now infamous Sunday-morning news interviews. (”I know how hard it is to put food on your family.” “Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning?” “I understand the challenges of small business: I was one.”) But the general public–or at the very least, that segment of the general public that is still undecided at the end of Setpember–doesn’t watch Sunday-morning news interviews. To them Mr. Bush was a self-confident, likable guy who was true to his word, essentially untarnished by scandal (as far as they knew), and ready to take the Lewinsky-weary country in a new direction that included big, ripe checks in the mail for everybody. Indeed in hindsight it is a small miracle that Mr. Gore fared as well as he did under the circumstances.

Governor Palin, by contrast, has burned her honeymoon capital with the media and the larger body politic–first by repeatedly lying with respect to the “Bridge to Nowhere,” even after the lie was documented, then by stonewalling an investigation started by state legislators of her own party, and finally by spectacularly and very visibly mangling her should-have-been-rehearsed answers to the interview questions being posed by the unimpeachably non-partisan Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric. By the time of the second installment of her Couric interview she was already the least-favorably viewed of the four major candidates, and shortly thereafter she was called upon to remove herself from the ticket, both by CNN’s self-appointed national conscience, Jack Cafferty, and by National Review columnist Kathleen Parker. The latter is the far more devastating blow, since Ms. Parker may not be summarily dismissed as either an Obama supporter or as a sexist in the McCain campaign’s now daily conference calls to blast the treatment they’re getting.

In the meantime Palin has continued to dig herself an even deeper hole, first by refusing to directly answer questions about her acceptance of over $25,000 in gifts, and then by seeming to contradict her boss on the subject of surgical strikes on terrorist bases in Pakistan. She’s been mocked by Tina Fey and David Letterman, and her very image alone is generally enough to start Jon Stewart’s audiences at the Daily Show into a fit of merciless cackling. If nothing else, it sure does seem like a long time ago that anyone was worried too much about what might tumble unexpectedly from the lips of Joe Biden!

To put it bluntly, the public has seen what it needs to see in order to have grave doubts about Governor Palin’s basic intellectual competency to stand a heartbeat away from the Oval Office. And those are not the sorts of low expectations upon which a candidate may capitalize. Indeed the true state of the situation is probably closer to the opposite. Barring a major surprise victory against Joe Biden, one which shows her both thoroughly in command of the the discussion and thoroughly proficient on issues that she has not thus far demonstrated any aptitude whatsoever, the persuadable voters watching the contest will undoubtedly resolve that the Alaska Governor has just officially run herself out of chances.

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