Failure to Prosecute Deaths in Detention Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Many liberals like blogger Steve Clemons are up in arms about the Pentagon's decision not to prosecute the 17 soldiers investigated in connection with three separate deaths of prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Army investigators had recommended that all 17 be charged, and human rights groups are said to be outraged by the decision not to act against them.

One side-effect of the decision is yet another potent illustration of the utter baselessness of conservatives' supposed fear of the consequences of joining the International Criminal Court.  Conservatives have long argued that by joining the Court we would subject our own servicemembers to prosecution for actions undertaken in as part of U.S. military interventions around the world.  The Court's proponents have long countered that the ICC's jurisdiction is limited to cases where the country in question is unable or unwilling to investigate or prosecute the wrongdoing - mainly situations where the country lacks a functioning legal system.  Court proponents maintain that such a finding would never be made in regard to a judicial system as developed as that of the U.S.

Those opposed to the U.S. joining the Court worry that in a case like that of these 17, where U.S. authorities declined to prosecute, the ICC could somehow step in.  Yet the Court's rules are clear that once an investigation has taken place, the ICC cannot second-guess the decision not to prosecute.  So, no matter how outraged human rights advocates may be, even if the U.S. were to join the Court the military will dispense its own justice, free from review or intervention by the ICC.

Although conservatives have yet to identify a plausible scenario of ICC meddling in U.S. military justice, their opposition to the ICC is untrammeled and is having a destructive affect on U.S. policy toward Darfur in particular.  While the Administration claims to want forceful action to counter what it has dubbed genocide, it has allowed anti-Sudan measures to languish for months in the UN Security Council for fear that a proposed referral of Darfur war crimes to the ICC will further legitimize that court (this snippet from a State Department press conference lays out the Administration's convoluted position). 

Darfur still offers the Administration a chance to begin to gracefully back down from a position that looks increasingly untenable as the ICC continues to build credibility.  By simply abstaining from a Security Council resolution putting Darfur at the ICC, the Administration would avoid outright reversing itself, but at the same time prevent its anti-ICC policy from shooting its Darfur policy in the foot.

Looks Like John Kerry Was Right on Tora Bora Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Conservatives went after John Kerry during the campaign for suggesting that the Administration let Osama Bin Laden get away during the late 2001 battle at Tora Bora. 

Yet the latest Pentagon information, released pursuant to a FOIA request by AP, suggests that - contrary to what the military had said earlier - Bin Laden did indeed escape from Tora Bora.  The document pertains to a Guantanamo detainee who helped the terrorist mastermind get away.  Its too late for John Kerry, but the Administration should not be allowed off the hook for this one.

Cleaning House on UN Sex Scandals Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Really interesting piece this morning about a new report from the UN on what to do about the problem of sexual abuse by peacekeepers.  Recommendations are hard-hitting and right on target:  they require tough punishments by home countries, digorgements of payments for the offenders' peacekeeping services, support for babies born to peacekeepers, assistance for victims of abuse and incentives for compliance with the system. 

Most of the credit for this goes to the Jordanian Ambassador to the UN, Prince Zeid Raad al Hussein, long one of the most assertive, open-minded and effective diplomats in the UN system.  He totally "gets it" and the report is a powerful illustration of what can be accomplished at the UN by working with enlightened representatives from the developing world.  Since it is overwhelmingly poorer nations that contribute troops to UN peacekeeping operations, it was essential that this issue not be tasked to a group of Western experts to handle.  Annan put it in the right hands, and Zeid has delivered. 

Zeid is also politically savvy.  While the article does not say this, he spent time several weeks ago on Capital Hill making the rounds to build support for his report and instill confidence that the UN is doing what's needed to address this scandal.  Those efforts will prepare the ground for a positive response, helping to rebuild trust between Washington and Turtle Bay.  Now it is up to the UN membership to adopt and police his recommendations.  If that works, this process could be an excellent blueprint for tackling other problems at the organization.

It's Not Either-Or Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Derek - I completely agree on the need to bolster support for our military - spanning across more training, better equipment, veterans health care and benefits, and predictable and less burdensome tours of duty for reservists.  I also agree that the military has performed admirably under difficult circumstances in an infinite array of roles in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

As for them doing it best, your logic is circular:  they do it best because there's no one else who does it at all. During the early days in Iraq there was a lot of carping about the military being pressed into jobs they were ill-suited for or did not want to do.  That they've risen to the occasion does not mean that shoe-horning a military organization into such a wide array of demanding civilian functions is the best long-term solution.

Having one organization responsible for everything from rewiring schools to guarding prisons to launching bunker busters almost guarantees that some things will be done badly.   In an organization with a military culture, civilian roles are always going to play second-fiddle.   There may also be aspects of military culture (the training, the hierarchies, the codes of loyalty and silence) that don't translate optimally into civilian functions.  There are also problems of perception that arise from bundling all these functions into one:  some occupation soldiers in Iraq were responsible for conciliating disputes by day, and storming safe houses in the same town by night.   It's impossible for one person to be both a trusted political interlocutor and a violent enforcer at the same time.

A dedicated stabilization force would also be a way of drawing in elites, helping to bridge the socio-economic and political divide between our existing military and those that set and influence the policies they implement.  Surely this is better than preying on ever more vulnerable and less suitable populations as military recruits.

Upshot is I don't think the very real and pressing stresses on our military ought to stand in the way of long-term thinking about how to approach stabilization operations.  What I am proposing is not a short-term fix, and doesn't allay the need to address the imminent problems you cite.   But one shouldn't stand in the way of the other.

First support the citizen-soldiers we've got! Posted by Derek Chollet

Suzanne, I'm all for creating more avenues for public service, but I don't agree with the premise that the mission you mention -- stability operations -- is one that the military has proven "ill suited" to do or hasn't done well.  Ask the military men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan what they think.  I bet they'd say that they know how to do this kind of mission, that they have done it well, and that they can do it best, thank you very much.  They are overburdened, to be sure, but this is because of failures made by elected officials and civilian policymakers.  I think they're right.  Moreover, many of the skill sets that we want to attract (engineers, cops, health care specialists, educators, etc) we already have -- in the National Guard and Reserves, over 80,000 from the Army alone are in Iraq today.  Some argue that because of the skills they have developed in civilian life, the Guard and Reserve soldiers are better suited for many aspects of stability ops than their active duty counterparts.

Yet the question is how, given the stress on the force, we continue to recruit and retain these citizen-soldiers.  Just this week the Army Guard raised its enlistment age eligibility to 40 (from 34).   It is playing with different incentives to keep soldiers in the force.  This is one of the biggest issues we will confront in the coming years.  The modern military is being reshaped as we speak, and if progressives want to have any relevance to our future national security, they have to be a part of it.  Before we start to build new structures, let's fix the ones we've got.

Stabilization Corps Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Lorelei, I have thought for some time that there ought to be a civilian version stabilization corps - sort of a hybrid between the military and the peace corps.  (Mostly) young people would sign up for a two year stint, receive 4-6 months training and then be deployed to do things like rebuild schools and clinics and help administer municipalities.  Once deployed, these people could take some of the burden off the military in post-conflict situations, allowing our soldiers to concentrate on what they do best. 

Provided there was some opportunity to choose the kind of work you'd do, a program like this could potentially attract Ivy League grads and others who are highly unlikely to enlist in the military.  It could also utilize more experienced mid-career professionals with relevant skills sets (contractors, electricians, public health experts) like the Peace Corps does. 

When not fully utilized in post-conflict reconstruction missions the likes of Iraq and Afghanistan, members could be deployed as part of the missions of the UN (all of which depend on contributions of personnel from member states) or other multinational organizations like NATO or the OSCE. 

The goal would be to bring up the capacity in the area of post-conflict reconstruction to the standards we hold for military interventions.  While lots of ideas have been tossed around, it seems as though there's been minimal concrete progress in figuring out how to avoid the debacle of an overloaded, ill-suited military trying to handle the Iraqi occupation.

Progressive and Pro-military Posted by Lorelei Kelly

I had lunch with an Army friend earlier this week and, after conversing like normal people for a bit (family, pets, vacations, work) we delved into the current state of civil-military relations --this is DC after all.  Like many uniformed professionals, he's fairly agnostic politically and he patiently listened to my theorizing about how defense could become a progressive issue.

One way to do this is to revitalize and re-frame civil-military relations for a post 9/11 American society. Despite the drastic changes in government and in US relationships with the rest of the globe, much of this vital public conversation languishes in a malaise of post-Vietnam hangover.  It is up to progressives to create a sort of 12 step program for this dated framework. Be aware of rhetoric like "hawks and doves" or "strong or weak"  and budget prescriptions of "guns versus butter". None of this shorthand is adequate in today's world and to carry forth with this language is a fast ticket to the margin of policy debate.

Conversations with military professionals who have been deployed on a post Cold War mission, Haiti through Afghanistan and Iraq--yield all kinds of insight about the fundamental policy questions dominating current discussions about US strategy:  what should be the division of labor in US foreign and security policy? More specifically, what are the roles and missions of military professionals, of civilians? What models does the military provide (like the Marines expeditionary capacity, what would the civilian equivalent look like, a Peace Corps packing side arms? civ-mil teams?)  All of these ideas are currently on the table in one form or another. A recent Defense Science Board report called "Transition to and From Hostilities" provides numerous ideas. Similar think tank reports and studies over the past few years have created an impressive pile of recommendations.  What we need now is political will. 

A retired General once said to me, the reason the military has been over-deployed as our policy tool of choice for so many years is not because its willing, its because its able.  The civilians might be willing, but they are not able.  This dilemma has more to it than the funding priorities of Congress. The military model, with its emphasis on manpower, planning and long-term thinking, has many characteristics that would benefit civilian agencies.   Many military professionals are uncomfortable with the over-militarization of US policy of recent years and--given the appropriate opportunity--can be progressive allies simply by telling their "ground truth" story.  It is a story of change for sure and, if framed carefully puts progressives squarely on the side of our citizens in uniform.

When a Kennan Falls in the Forest Posted by Heather Hurlburt

I have been waiting in vain since the weekend for someone to explain why folks who are neither Sovietologists nor Cold War historians nor American diplomats should care about the passing of George Kennan. Looks like I’m going to have to do it myself.

Kennan represents two vanishing strands in US public service: a class of people who believed in, or aspired to, the noblesse oblige, allegedly disinterested service of the upper classes; and a political culture where individuals with ideas could – and did -- change the substance of US policy and the frame in which it was presented to the country.

Go back and look at Kennan’s "Long Telegram" and "X article"; they are profoundly intellectual documents, spelling out his assessment of a foreign culture, its abilities and aspirations, and how the US might respond. They are devoid of domestic political calculation; they are not written to appeal to this wing or that of an Administration. Kennan was to be greatly frustrated later, when he became head of the Policy Planning staff, that he could not cut through the politics that surrounded the Secretary and dominated his calculations.

‘Twas ever thus.

Yet Kennan’s observations were hugely influential not just at the moment they were made, but later, when the framework he put forward ultimately withstood the assaults of John Foster Dulles and his proposals to replace Kennan’s “containment” with “rollback.” One article published in Foreign Affairs actually set both the framing and content of US policy toward our primary adversary for decades to come. No polling, no message-testing, no national listening tours to build support.

Much as we all pant to publish in Foreign Affairs, when’s the last time something published there enjoyed this kind of influence? Remember when Francis Fukuyama tried to pull something like it off at the Cold War’s end?

It’s not merely that Kennan was both brilliant in his thinking and lucky in his timing. Any one person’s ability to bestride the foreign affairs establishment is gone because that tiny, narrow elite establishment has been replaced, for better and worse, by … well, by us.

The old-style culture of public service, particularly in foreign policy, as the proper preserve of the wealthy and educated, filtered through just a few universities, banks and law firms, did spit up some tremendous minds, Kennan among them. But it disdained the minds of women, ethnic and religious minorities, state university graduates, and those of limited means. It encouraged America’s diplomats to think that their calling was higher than mere politics, though it involved understanding and manipulating the politics of others. And it encouraged American citizens to pay only the broadest attention to what their leaders did abroad in their name.

In the years after Vietnam, the diversification of elite education, the women's movement, and ethnic consciousness-raising caught up with those assumptions and the foreign policy elite that had encouraged them.

But the collapse of trust in public service, heightened partisanship over foreign policy, and the overwhelming flow of data we live with now also conspire to drown out a single voice speaking truth. If there is a George Kennan for militant Islam, say, could we remember the broader national interest long enough to listen?

How much has our culture, and the kinds of messages we expect from our leaders, changed since 1947? Look at the conclusion of the “X article.” Would any Secretary of State, or even any political figure, dare tell us this now?

The issue of Soviet-American relations is in essence a test of the overall worth of the United States as a nation among nations. To avoid destruction the United States need only measure up to its own best traditions and prove itself worthy of preservation as a great nation.

Surely, there was never a fairer test of national quality than this. In the light of these circumstances, the thoughtful observer of Russian-American relations will find no cause for complaint in the Kremlin's challenge to American society. He will rather experience a certain gratitude to a Providence which, by providing the American people with this implacable challenge, has made their entire security as a nation dependent on their pulling themselves together and accepting the responsibilities of moral and political leadership that history plainly intended them to bear.

Deja vu, or Vuja De? Posted by Derek Chollet

A good reminder, Heather.  We agree that a key question is how Rice will handle the inevitable end of the romance and that rather than Deja Vu we experience -- to borrow a line from the profound movie "Top Secret!"-- Vuja De, the sense that this has never happened before.  You are also right that she has to stand for something -- which is what many both inside and outside the State Department believed that, for all his talents, Powell never did.   

I guess what makes her so interesting to me is that unlike most other Secretaries of State (including one you mention), she starts out not just with hoopla about who she is and what she symbolizes but with a very close relationship with the President, and she has many people around her (namely Karen Hughes, but there are others) who have same sort of credibility and influence over at the White House and even across the river.  This is an obvious point to make (but often easy to forget), and it does not help to answer the most important question: how she will use her unique position to shape policy.      

Honeymoon Rice: Deja vu all over again Posted by Heather Hurlburt

Derek, re your Rice post, I know you remember 1997 at the State Department.  As I watch Rice, though, I keep wondering whether she and her handlers remember not just 1997, but 1998, 1999 and 2000.

In 1997, of course, Madeleine Albright became Secretary of State.  The first woman secretary... the American dream come true for a little immigrant girl, whose own story exemplified the triumph of freedom over tyranny... who worked the media, wooed the Europeans and wowed the Washington political dinner-theater circuit.

Bumperstickers proclaiming "Albright for President" -- even circulated, though not specifying whether of the US or the Czech Republic.  (She's ineligible here until the Arnold Schwarzenegger Amendment passes.  When it does, Albright-Granholm would be a heckuva primary... but I digress.)

Fan mail, adoring crowds, Annie Liebowitz photoshoots in Vogue...

Sound familiar?  Hey, whaddya know, you can be a diplomat and have a personality.  Interesting how this sort of trajectory never seems to happen to, say, the Secretary of Agriculture.

It couldn't last, of course.  The staff thought we knew that.  But when you get to thinking that your boss deserves the good press, before you know it, you're unprepared for the bad.  And Albright took a drubbing that was as unreasonable as her initial honeymoon was idealized. 

It will be interesting to see whether Rice's people are better prepared for this, and whether she herself is thick-skinned enough to handle the idols-with-feet-of-clay stories that are inevitable.  I have my doubts, but hey, prove me wrong.

Derek, your larger question can be boiled down to, does she have an agenda and if so, what is it?  It seems a safe bet to say that she is where she is because of her fealty to Bush's second-term agenda.  Jim Hoagland laid this out last weekend about as well as anything I have seen.  Can she turn the corners of this unilateralist-in-all-but-name agenda into a circle that maintains America's strongest asset, its leadership of great alliances and institutions for great purposes?  Can she, working with Karen Hughes but starting from what she herself says and does, use not just image but also policy to arrest the slide of America's standing in the world?  And, by the way, can she reassert State's policy prerogatives to complement the work Albright and Powell did resuscitating its funding?

I suppose we had better wish her luck.

Will it be more than a honeymoon? Posted by Derek Chollet

By many measures, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is off to a strong start.  She has received a warm welcome from the State Department professionals.  Both Republicans and Democrats have praised her choices for key diplomatic positions, many of whom—Chris Hill, David Welch, Nick Burns—would have been up for senior jobs if John Kerry had won in November.  And on her recent trips throughout Europe and Asia, she got solid reviews from some very tough audiences.

But her success so far should not mask the tremendous challenges she faces—and the questions that remain about how she plans to meet them. 

Apart from Kissinger, Rice is the only person to have been both NSC Advisor and Secretary of State.  But her situation is most reminiscent of another Secretary of State to another President Bush, James A. Baker III. 

As a longtime friend of the 41st President, Baker’s authority was beyond question.  No one doubted that Baker spoke for the President.  The same goes for Secretary Rice today.

This much we know: like Baker, Rice will have exceptional influence, and therefore the State Department will have a more central role in foreign policy.  Yet this fact begs a far more important question: what will she use her influence for?

What we need from Secretary Rice is not more soaring rhetoric—we need action to meet immediate challenges, especially in Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.

During her recent trips to Europe and Asia, these issues turned out to be the skunks at the party.  In each of these cases American policy seems to be on autopilot—but it is hard to tell where they are heading.

It is truly distressing when one can say that of the three, our policy toward Iraq is clearest.  The recent elections gave reason for hope, but right now, there is no road map for the way forward, no sense of how the burden can be taken off American troops to provide for Iraq’s security.

Add to this the nuclear dangers from North Korea (which claims to have nuclear weapons) and Iran (who wants them), which aren’t getting any easier.  While Iran inches forward with its nuclear program, evidence mounts that North Korea has sold its nuclear materials to Libya, and possibly others.  For the past few years, the Bush Administration has not had an effective policy to handle these threats.  Part of the problem has been the Administration’s preoccupation with Iraq; another is that it has been too internally divided to reach consensus on way forward.  Instead, it has outsourced the problem to others.  This is yet another example of the Administration’s unilateralism: but rather than doing something alone, it is doing nothing alone. 

When it comes to handling these threats, Secretary Rice is right: it’s time for diplomacy.  It’s also time to have a policy.  How she meets these challenges will define how she is judged as Secretary of State.  One hopes that Rice will use her unique influence with the President—and the positive momentum she has created during her first weeks in office—to get the United States engaged.  Not just for her sake, but for ours.

Reich's Four Stories Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Robert Reich has an interesting piece in this week's New Republic where he talks about the need for progressives to reclaim the four basic narratives that have defined American politics:  The two hopeful variants are the Triumphant Individual (a la Horatio Alger and Erin Brockovich) and the Benevolent Community (barn raisers and It's a Wonderful Life).  The flip-side are two fearsome parables:  The Mob at the Gates (everything from Nazi Germany to Invasion of the Body Snatchers) and the Rot at the Top (from the robber barons to the latest accounting scandals).

Reich uses some foreign policy examples to explain how conservatives have managed to capture these mythologies to advance their policy objectives, but overlooks others.  In fact, the Bush Administration's foreign policy relies heavily on all four classic tales.  Writ international, the Triumphant Individuals are not individuals but nations - namely Afghanistan and Iraq, both beating the odds to become fledgling democracies.  The Benevolent Community is the U.S.'s fearless coalition of the dwindling, most famous for its role in the reconstruction of Iraq (proud members include Micronesia and the Solomon Islands).  The Mob at the Gates, as Reich notes, is Osama Bin Laden and the Axis of Evil.  And the Rot at the Top, of course, is the UN, arrogant, wasteful and corrupt.

So how do progressives invoke these narratives to reclaim the upper hand?  The story of the Triumphant Individual should include not just countries where the U.S. has intervened (Horatio Alger's wasn't the tale of a winning contestant on Donald Trump's Apprentice), but nations who have pulled themselves out of despair - like Uganda by attacking AIDS or Malawi which has invested heavily in health and education.  The Bush Administration promised these countries a helping hand through the Millennium Challenge Account, a program that has yet to disburse a dime.  The Benevolent Community should be a community of democracies - countries that share enough common ground to be willing to attempt to plow through their differences and truly collaborate on quarantining dictators and dangerous weapons, and trying to expand the sphere of freedom.  Progressives recognize that the Mob at the Gates is broader than just terrorism, and includes disease, environmental degradation, and the chaos wrought by poverty.  The Rot at the Top is the hypocrisy of an Administration that points a finger at the UN for the oil for food scandal, while covering up its very own audit of Halliburton's excesses and overcharges for - guess what - oil for Iraq.

Reich argues that progressive political strategists ought to think in terms of reviving these narratives.  It might not hurt for foreign policy wonks to do the same.

Playing Iran Posted by Michael Signer

It’s a mild day in Washington, after a cold, harsh winter, and the always-serious streets below my office window are a little less gray than they’ve been for weeks, months... so the crocus I saw on the way to the Metro this morning clearly becomes a metaphor for a blog post.

The Bush Administration's foreign policy is like a lion in winter--shoulders back and roaring, amid an icy, cold, bleak landscape.  It’s sometimes effective.  But winter always ends, unless you’re stuck somewhere permafrost and vulnerable, like ANWAR, or the movie set of "The Day After Tomorrow" (which, okay, I just saw--NetFlix can make even the proudest movie fan do strange things).

All of which leads me to the current situation with Iran.  We started off so icy, harsh, and unyielding, so trash-talking and blustery--we were all Canseco, so little DiMaggio.

But then things started to warm up.  We started working with the EU, and Secretary Rice began focusing on multilateral sanctions (she explained on Face the Nation that we were winning against Iran because they were “uncomfortable with the notion that they have failed to split the United States and Europe on this matter.”) Who could have imagined such an approach in Iraq?

As things seem certainly to be in flux, it's worth asking whether or not we’ll try to know our enemy this time around -- or just go in arrogantly, guns blazing, like in Iraq.  With neocons preening about Iraq, and Iran the next member of the Axis of Evil in our sights, it's incredibly important that we remember the virtues of good, old-fashioned, flexible diplomacy.  We might draw some encouragement from the recent apparent hidden-hand approach of Secretary Rice, focused on the EU, the UN's Security Council, and constantly switching carrots and sticks, rather than the bludgeon of a Rumsfeld, or the airy abstractions of a Perle. 

But the Secretary's approach won't necessarily take once the honeymoon is over.  To the neocon lion, getting to know your enemy is a dewy-eyed, chirping, springlike notion deserving only a dismissive sniff, a toss of the mane, and a calm padding away toward some red meat.  (Though even a sometime warrior like Ollie North admits Sun Tzu -- every hawk's hero -- embraced the notion).

But even if Iran is a member of the Axis of Evil, the idea that their heads are filled with pure evil, an opaque, incomprehensible substance, like some medieval humor -- well, surely this isn't tactically useful.  If we're to do this right, we need to know what Iran thinks like, what motivates them, and where they're coming from.  Most importantly, we need to know what can we expect from our pressure.

I begin with a principle that would make any pomo undergrad aghast -- the meaning of most societies can be unlocked with simple concepts.  A long time ago, I remember reading that some scholar had figured out that America’s entire national identity lies in the word “hi”--our cheery informality, our sociability, our openness to strangers (well, before the Bush Administration).

Along these lines, in September 2003, Philip Gourevitch published an article called "Alone in the Dark" about North Korea.  Gourevitch focused on the Korean concept of han -- a word which“is an anger and resentment that build up, and at the same time a feeling of frustration or a feeling of desires that are unfulfilled. So resentment, frustration, bitter longing are lumped together.”

The point isn't that you can understand the entire psycho-pathology of the North Koreans with a single word.   History and personalities and current events and our own leadership are all ingredients in this causal stew.

But there’s something to be said for an economical approach to understanding your enemy.

So, turn to Iran’s own words.  If you go to the Government of Iran’s web site, you find a fascinating speech titled "Letter to Tomorrow" by President Khatami.  Khatami’s point in the speech -- rhetorical or not -- seems to be to inspire young Iranians to pursue a narrow, Islamic-Iranian quasi-democracy, while rebutting American charges that Iran hates freedom.  He seems to want to claim ground for Iran to go about its own democratic experiment its own way.

In the spirit of Gourevitch’s analysis, let's at least start with what Khatami says.  Look at this passage:

Advancing toward a democratic system demands that a democratic culture be nourished. In our country, this culture can thrive and flourish by relying on Islamic justice and modesty, which have brought justice to the humanity, and have also been the factors contributing to the establishment and consolidation of democratic social relations, norms and practices and democratic political processes as well. It is left to our young generation to contemplate on the exiting historical situation and follow up its brave demand for establishment of a democracy compatible with its religion and culture; recognize both its resources and impediments and deal with them prudently. Democracy is a concept, a path and a process.

And this one on Iran’s resentment of outside influence.

A generation, which is agonized by dependence, which rightfully considers itself deserving freedom, without breaking away from its own national culture and religion and which is fearful and resentful of extremist and the narrow-minded moves that try to impose their violent and biased guardianship and volition on societies should be made to take charge of its own destiny lest deviated thoughts, narrow-mindedness and illusions hijack the great opportunity afforded to us, our Revolution and our noble people in this era.

These are challenging, messy democratic propositions, smacking less of soaring Jeffersonian vision than cantilevered Madisonian compromise.  In other words, there may be no simple answer to what Iran wants.  Also, unlike our President, I cannot pretend to know the souls of others -- it's certainly possible that Khatami is trying a diplomatic bait-and-switch, a feint toward puppet elections and democratic posturing. 

Setting aside the problems, however, the han equivalent for Iran might well be this:  the political classes are interested in freedom -- but in a distinctly Iranian Islamic form that would avoid what they see as Western decadence, and that would emerge at a slower, more organic, pace. 

The problem is how to combine what they are with what we want.  How do we coax Iran away from nuclear ambitions and toward the democratization agenda?  Will the Iranian national personality run in the direction of lying down before the lion (like the new Libya) or will aggression beget more aggression (as with the Iraqi insurgents)?

The answer will lie in aggressive yet flexible deal-making premised on Iran's own history, culture, and the internal divisions between their democratic visionaries and Islamic hardliners.  We need to understand and embrace the complex internal conflicts of Iran in a modulated, organic diplomacy of pressure and persuasion.  Consider who they are.  Iran still thinks of itself as a revolutionary country; the main bragging right of Khatami’s cabinet ministers seems to be whether they were revolutionaries or not -- indeed, being a guerrilla fighter is a badge of honor.  The country has a lot of young people, and much of Khatami's energy goes toward reconciling their desire for freedom with the conservatives' desire for theocracy.  It’s educated yet paranoid, and riven by tensions between powerful religious conservatives and younger classes yearning to breathe free.  And it desperately wants to retain its own culture; rebuking the perceived decadence of the West was one of the most powerful impulses of the White Revolution, after all. 

It is this country we must play, rather than be played by. 

If we go the other way, we risk backlash rather than democracy.  Three years ago, when the Bush Administration began appealing to the Iranian people to overthrow the Khatami government, Iran's conservatives used the  invasive approach as an excuse to build up their own power. 

This April -- which can be a cruel month -- unintended consequences are the last thing we need in a country already painfully balanced on the knife-edge of tyranny and freedom.  Dealing with this complex society will require a nuanced, flexible approach, rather than a heavy-handed one -- not because we’re wimps, but because we want an easy victory, not a hard one.

UN Reforms are Pro-U.S. Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Today Kofi Annan will recommend a series of major reforms to the UN, based on the work of a High Level Panel he put to work last year.  What's startling about Annan's agenda is just how pro-U.S. it is.  In a sense this is no surprise.  The U.S. has been attacking the UN (and even calling for Annan's ouster) for years.  Given its dependence on US financial and political support, its natural for Annan to pander.

Yet the US seems blind to the attempted courtship.  In considering the reform proposals, according to a U.S. Ambassador American officials are focusing on blocking what they don't like, for example criticizing the addition of a new Under-Secretary post in an organization they view as bloated.  But if the U.S. fails to get behind at least some of what Annan has put forward, it will be a colossal missed opportunity.  This is true not only for the favored rationale of UN proponents - that what is good for the UN is good for the U.S. since the organization is indispensable to the advancement of U.S. policy goals.  It's also true because the proposed reforms will enhance U.S. influence within the UN - a fact not lost on developing countries, several of which are criticizing the reforms as too pro-U.S. But with the imprimatur of Annan and his panel, these ideas stand a real chance of getting passed.  The question is whether the Administration can put aside its disdain for the UN long enough to take a hard look at what Annan is proposing and recognize just how beneficial much of it would be for the U.S.

One of Annan's key proposals is to  replace the UN's corrupt Commission on Human Rights (made up of countries like Cuba, Libya and Sudan) with a smaller Human Rights Council directly elected by the General Assembly based on human rights related criteria.  Here Annan is looking to break the strict country-by-country rotation scheme that some of the UN's regional groups use to designate representatives to UN bodies.  Under that system, egregious human rights and security violations are no bar to membership in the Human Rights Commission or Security Council. 

Reform of the Human Rights Commission would be a major victory for the U.S.  With the regional groups out of the way, the Council would be a great place for the Community of Democracies (COD), a group formed for the express purpose of strengthening the hand of the world's democracies within international bodies, to field a slate of candidates.  This could turn the UN's Human Rights apparatus into a real force for civil liberties and political rights around the world, something its never been.  This move could also be the beginning of the end for the UN's existing regional group structure, and a blow to the anti-Western, anti-U.S., anti-Israel forces that it favors.

Annan has also proposed doing away with another longstanding outrage within the UN system, its failure to agree on a definition of terrorism.  The problem has been the Islamic Conference’s longstanding insistence that terrorism in the name of national liberation is not terrorism at all.  Annan has flatly rejected this limitation and is calling on the UN to quickly draw up an anti-terror convention that would cover violent acts by an occupied people against civilians.  This would be a major step for Israel which has long protested the UN's failure to recognize Palestinian acts of terror. 

The Bush Administration has de-emphasized the UN's role in the fight against terror on the basis that the organization cannot be trusted.  But the UN has certain unmatchable assets when it comes to combating terror, including the universality of its membership and the credibility it holds in parts of the Asia, Africa and the Mideast where the U.S. is deeply unpopular.  The proposed UN Terrorism Convention would help target countries that are outside the reach of voluntary treaties and draw in nations that would not volunteer to cooperate with the U.S.

Annan also proposes a host of other measures, some concrete and others that are more conceptual.  His early-retirement plan for staff is a no-brainer to help clear the place of dead wood.  Adoption of a "responsibility to protect" innocent civilians from genocide and humanitarian crisis might be of marginal value in the debate now raging over Darfur, Sudan.  Sad to say, while Annan has been fine-tuning his reform recommendations, the UN is failing yet another major moral test by failing to act in Darfur.  This, much more so than oil-for-food or sex scandals involving peacekeepers, is what makes it hard for even the UN's staunchest defenders to maintain that the UN is more than a feckless talkshop.

It will be interesting to watch how the Administration approaches the run-up to the September Summit.  Will John Bolton call the shots and, true to his reputation, make it his business to define the U.S. agenda in terms that virtually no other country will join?  Or will Condi Rice and her newly appointed special adviser on reform, Shirin Tahir-Kheli, try to work with others to get something done?  There's a lot for the US to gain from Annan's proposals, provided the Bush Administration can hold its nose long enough to examine them.