Is America Ungovernable? Posted by Michael Cohen

Over at Newsweek I cheerily argue that American government has become so dysfunctional that we are approaching banana republic status:

In the week since the special Senate election in Massachusetts, the political conversation has been focused on what it all means: Will the Democrats pass health care? Will the Senate torpedo the renomination of Ben Bernanke for Fed chairman? What should be next on the president's legislative agenda?

But another, more disturbing, conclusion can be drawn from the Democrats' sudden reversal of fortune in Massachusetts—a mere year after Obama's historic victory. Is America simply ungovernable? Are the impediments to governance so great—obstructionist Republicans, spineless Democrats, and an increasingly incoherent electorate—that no one can run the country effectively?

Read the whole thing here

What Should We Do While Bob Kagan Waits for Democratic Transformation? Posted by David Shorr

The recent first-year assessment of Obama foreign policy by Robert Kagan in World Affairs Journal has prompted a meaty discussion of how (and whether) US foreign policy has been reoriented by the new administration. The heart of Kagan's argument is that Washington is now reaching out too much to powers outside the United States' circle of democratic friends and not enough to our allies. Nina Hachigian's rejoinder is that if the United States stubbornly denies our inability call the shots in today's world, we'll be hamstrung in promoting our interests.

Readers who want to dig deeper can see how Greg Scoblete and Daniel Larison continue the discussion of Pax Americana, but I want to focus on Bob's insistence that we work only with democratic regimes. Haven't we had enough focus on righteousness and purity, rather than trying to solve real-world problems? As Nina points out, you can pursue engagement and cooperation while simultaneously being forthright about values and standing up for principles of democracy and human rights. On the other hand, if we stick to a Cold War-division of the world into two camps and only work with democratic nations, we'll get nowhere in dealing with climate change, the global economy, or nuclear proliferation. The spread democracy will be driven by people in their own countries -- who should and do have our moral support -- and won't conform to American wishes or timelines.

I thought we learned this lesson during the last administration, most of us any way.

The Shadow Government's (Mostly) Constructive Advice for Obama Posted by David Shorr

In the patriotic spirit of wishing President Obama a successful foreign policy year in 2010, our conservative friends at Shadow Government offer a set of nine suggestions advertised as constructive. I'm pleased to report that the product largely lives up to the advertising -- one of the pieces impressively so. I heartily recommend Kori Schake's argument for cutting the defense budget. Kori's call for congressional conservatives to provide political cover for Obama is strikingly bipartisan, but her deeper point is an important one:

We must stop equating inputs such as "amount spent" to outputs. Americans rightly expect to have the world's finest military. We should reinforce our comparative advantages and develop new ones to expand our supremacy. But equating that to an industrial age metric like "coal burned" makes us less creative, less responsive to changing circumstances. We must be more cost effective in our defense spending as in all other government spending. 

This critique of the way national security is talked about (and consequently thought about) is an invitation to a healthier, depoliticized, and reality-based debate. To the extent we can recast the discourse and figure out less crude, more thoughtful ideas about what will defend the United States and our interests, yay. Kori may have a suitable partner in the Project on Defense Alternatives. With merely a cursory glance, I can't assess PDA's recommendations, but they are certainly in the spirit of Kori's idea of subjecting the defense budget to greater rigor.

Other's may want to weigh in on the merits or demerits of other offerings from the Shadow Government, but I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't respond to two of the pieces that aren't even close to being constructive, both relating to Iran. From John Hannah, we have essentially a rehash of neocon ideological fervor over regime change. No doubt there's a delicate balance to be struck between solidarity with Iranians demanding reform and ongoing diplomatic engagement with the current regime. But Hannah's advice is indistinguishable from the failed and discredited Bush-Cheney policy.

At least Hannah's advice wasn't a self-serving mischaracterization of President Obama's 2009 efforts. That task fell to Jamie Fly:

Obama has bolstered his disarmament agenda by arguing that U.S. nuclear reductions and ratification of treaties like the CTBT will somehow convince Iran and North Korea to forgo their nuclear ambitions. In reality, Iran may go nuclear in the near future, setting off a wave of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. North Korea has rebuffed all Obama administration attempts to lure it back to the negotiating table and may be proliferating its nuclear wares to other rogue regimes. 

President Obama spent 2009 talking about disarmament and pursuing engagement with rogue regimes. If he wants to rescue his disarmament agenda in 2010, he should focus less on the supposed threat posed by the U.S. nuclear deterrent and more on the real problem -- the regimes in Tehran and Pyongyang.

Okay I gotta ask, is there some kind of purchase-a-term-paper web site out there where they download this stuff? I mean, how many times have we heard this superficial BS? If Jamie really believes Obama pushed Iran and North Korea to the back burner and doesn't see the dangers posed by their nuclear programs, he was asleep all last year. Now it's time for me to repeat something I've explained umpteen times. No one in the administration believes that virtuous behavior by the United States will spur a revelation in Pyongyang or Tehran about the error of their ways. The point is that the pressure on them will be augmented when the US boosts its moral authority.

Fly doesn't believe in moral authority, that's fine. But we tried the "example of force" approach for eight years, and the neocon diehards are the only ones who don't recognize what an utter failure that was.

The State of Play in Baghdad and Biden's Bad Idea Posted by Michael Wahid Hanna

Iraq has receded from our headlines and our thoughts, largely due to the vastly improved security situation and the lack of U.S. combat deaths. So when it does make the headlines and op-ed pages, it means that something bad has happened: spectacular, synchronized bombings of high-profile government targets and, most recently, the extended political struggles surrounding the upcoming national parliamentary elections. The latest development to generate concern is the potential exclusion of 511 parliamentary candidates due to their alleged connections to the constitutionally-outlawed  Ba’ath party. The process of de-Ba'athification, which had largely come to a standstill in recent years, has been divisive and marked by a lack of transparency. Historically, there have also been objections to the manner in which rank and position were used as prima facie evidence for vetting, as opposed to the actions, misdeeds, and crimes conducted by the Ba’athist regime and its members. In an authoritarian, police state that dominated all facets of life, many people within the formal party structure did not engage in wrongdoing.

The latest episode is marked by a similar lack of transparency, unclear standards for vetting, and dubious timing, which would indicate that political motivations are the driving factor in the current de-Ba’athification efforts. This could result in the disqualification of a major Sunni political figure, Saleh al-Mutlak, and other political figures from the more secular and nationalist parties. While the list of excluded candidates includes Kurds and Shia and cannot be said to be purely sectarian, the high-profile targeting of al-Mutlak and other prominent Sunnis such as the current minister of defense, ‘Abd al-Qadir Muhammad Jasim, along with the virulent anti-Ba’athist rhetoric that has characterized the recent controversy have given an impression that these actions are intended to curb the nature of Sunni and nationalist engagement in the political process.

In a hasty and ill-conceived response to all this, Vice President Biden has scheduled a visit to Baghdad in an attempt to display the level of U.S. concern about current trends and to mediate some sort of compromise solution.

It goes without saying that those accused of active participation in the repression and political violence of the previous regime should not be allowed an active role in Iraq’s political life, but these over-broad efforts will have an impact in terms of polarizing the political climate and radicalizing electoral rhetoric. It will also have a chilling effect on the emergence of viable cross-sectarian politics, which to this point have only emerged on matters of tactical convergence focused largely on opposition to Kurdish goals. Despite the institutional interests of the major political players in a legitimate and untainted election, the current climate has taken on a life of its own and made it very difficult for prominent Shia politicians to forcefully object to the exclusions due to fears that they will be tarred by rival Shia as weak on revanchists intent on reconstituting Ba’athist power in Baghdad. It should not be forgotten that the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki made political overtures to al-Mutlak following the January 2009 provincial elections and appeared to outpace the appetite of his core Shia constituency.

While these developments are certainly troubling, Iraq is not on the cusp of a new broad-based insurgency−the localized nature of much of the Sunni insurgency and the lack of top-down command structures made the insurgency difficult to combat, but also creates serious collective action problems for reconstitution of a broad-based insurgency. Not to be underestimated is the fact that the Iraqi security forces are a much more credible presence at this juncture, and the Sunni turn to politics is deep and has incorporated many previous actors directly engaged in the insurgency or one step removed. A Sunni boycott is also not in the cards; in fact, some of al-Mutlak’s rival Sunni leaders are likely secretly pleased that he might be sidelined.

But such developments cannot be understood solely as the expected ramifications of political campaigning in a society that only recently underwent a brutal sectarian bloodletting. Because these actions narrow the spectrum of acceptable political participation, they run the risk of hardening attitudes and limiting the possibilities for reaching some sort of widely-agreed upon social compact, something that has eluded the Iraqi political class and imperils the long-term sustainability of the improved security situation. Remarking on this state of affairs, I recently wrote that “the foundations of the state remain incomplete, fragile and weak. Iraq may not have the luxury of decades to produce a workable settlement, and the continuing inability to resolve the core disputes over power, resources and territory may in fact be a harbinger of impending disaster.” 

For these reasons, the disqualification of candidates by the Supreme National Committee for Accountability and Justice (AJC), the successor to the highly controversial Higher National De-Ba’athification Commission, is deeply problematic. I will comment more fully on the legal questions raised by the current controversy in a separate post, but there are serious issues as to the legal status of this particular vetting body. Iraq’s Sunni vice president, Tarek al-Hashemi has declared it “legally unqualified to debaathificate,” and Iraqi president Jalal Talabani has asked for an advisory opinion on the legal status of the AJC, indicating one possible route to defuse the situation.

While I have previously expressed some concern about the lack of clear direction in U.S. Iraq policy, Biden’s scheduled visit to Baghdad is heavy-handed and intrusive. By traveling to Baghdad and interceding in what is now a legal matter, Biden will further politicize the issue and make U.S. involvement a key component of the current dispute. This is unfortunate because the SOFA and the clear commitment on the part of the United States to withdraw from Iraq have largely de-politicized the continuing American presence and created space for Iraqi politics. While the United States should certainly work quietly along with the United Nations in trying to broker a compromise, by interceding in this manner the issue will now become a question of Iraqi sovereignty and render compromise difficult, particularly during this period prior to national elections. By publicly involving the United States at this juncture Biden also runs the risk of appearing to interfere in judicial matters that should be beyond the reach of political pressure. Again, this will complicate the decision-making process for the Iraqi appellate body charged with reviewing the de-Ba’athification decisions. Finally, this public posture runs the risk of creating an impression of ineffectiveness if Biden’s mission is unable to change the course of current events.

Foust Is Back! Posted by Michael Cohen

An odd thing has happened on the blogosphere over the past few months - it's been a bit less snarky than usual. Granted I've tried to do my part, but ever since Josh Foust of registan.net took a forced hiatus from the world of blogging . . . everyone has just been a bit too nice. 

People with no business writing about Afghanistan (present company included) are getting off scot free; bogus arguments are going uncontested and fewer analysts than usual are being labeled idiots.

Well that's all coming to an end; because Foust is back!! Besides having an acid writing implement, Josh is one of the smarter people writing about Afghanistan on the intrawebs and his public image, notwithstanding, he's a pretty good egg.

Welcome back Josh . . . and please be gentle!

Arabs Turning Against Obama? Posted by Shadi Hamid

There's no doubt that there's been growing Arab disappointment with Obama, but I'm beginning to sense the disappointment - both understandable and expected - turning into something altogether more worrying. Part of the problem is that many Arabs, including even some Islamists, believed in Obama almost as much as Americans did.

I had lunch the other day with three Western-educated Arab liberals, the kind of people who were optimistic, if cautiously so, not too long ago. The conversation turned to U.S. policy and I felt like I was back in the Bush era, having to muster some kind of defense for my country's actions. Before, under Bush, I could always say: "wait, the Bush administration doesn't represent what America and Americans stand for. Don't worry, we'll vote him out of office and elect a Democrat..." Now, I'm not exactly sure what, if anything, I should say. I'm not in any mood right now to put positive spin on Obama's first 12 months or on what Democrats can offer America and the world. The gap between expectation and reality has been so great so as to almost defy characterization. 

Arab critics of U.S. policy are likely to draw several conclusions from Obama's first year in office (whether or not any of this is accurate is irrelevant; perceptions are accurate to the people who perceive them):

1. That it doesn't quite matter who the American President is. Obama might be great. He might care about Arabs and their grievances. But political structures matter more than individuals - and the American system seems wedded to a fundamentally misguided approach toward the Middle East.

2. The election of Obama - with his evident desire to build bridges with the Arab world, not to mention his Muslim family and middle name - was the best possible outcome that Arabs could have hoped for. But, even with the best possible outcome, U.S. policy is still pretty bad.

3. America has a congenital problem with advancing wonderful soaring rhetoric while, at best, featuring some roundly unimaginative policymaking and, at worst, furthering policies in the region that are downright destructive.

4. America's Middle East policy is irredeemable. It is time to stop hoping that America will change.

People hated Bush but, at least their hatred seemed to imply a recognition of America's centrality in the Middle East and that America, due to its overwhelming influence and power, would have to change in order for the Middle East to change. The anger toward Obama is different in that it is accompanied by a sort of resignation and a coming to terms with an America that appears increasingly beside the point. The United States is in steep decline, so some are saying, and instead of hoping it will change, it might be better (and more realistic) to hope that it falls.

We're Still Getting Basic Facts Wrong about the Middle East, 8 Years Later Posted by Shadi Hamid

I give up. I don't mean to be overly dramatic about this, but when I read sentences like the following, I get  frightened for the future of our country. It's been, what, 8 years since the 'war on terror' began, but we still get basic facts about Islamist groups really, really wrong:

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has also started providing some basic services to locals in the country's rugged hinterlands, long neglected by the government, according to residents of the areas... It's unclear how organized and widespread the social-welfare efforts are. But similar efforts have been important to the success of other Islamic militant groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in the Palestinian territories.

Keep in mind this is a news article (not an opinion piece). Yes, you read it right, the authors proceeded to lump al Qaeda with not only Hezbollah and Hamas, but with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Ok, I think we need some Islamism 101:

1. The Muslim Brotherhood is not a militant organization. It hasn't engaged in violent activity for more than four decades (it renounced violence in the 1970s).

2. Over the last 15 years, the organization has publicly committed itself - in Arabic - to many of the foundational components of democratic life, including alternation of power, popular sovereignty, protection of minority rights, and so on. 

3. The Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda really, really dislike each other. It's pretty self-evident why. The Brotherhood calls its followers to the ballot box; Al Qaeda calls its followers to take up arms and blow things up. Don't take my word for it. Ayman al-Zawahiri, AQ's no. 2 - in his suggestively titled book The Muslim Brotherhood's Bitter Harvest in 60 Years - accuses the Brotherhood of "lur[ing] thousands of young Muslim men into lines for elections...instead of into the lines of jihad."

Defining What We Can Achieve in Afghanistan Posted by Michael Cohen

Patrick smells the odor of pessimism on me because I've noted below that the Pakistan Army seems to have a "preference for mopping up groups that actually threaten its country" as opposed to the Afghan Taliban. He's right; it makes me pessimistic . . . about US policy in Afghanistan! 

Of course, Patrick is correct that Pakistani efforts to go after Pakistan Taliban militants is a good thing. I would hardly argue otherwise. But the issue I'm talking about is US policy in Afghanistan; and if the Pakistanis aren't going to dismantle Afghan Taliban safe havens - or even stanch the flow of arms and supplies going across the border - then a full-fledged counter-insurgency effort in Afghanistan is doomed to fail. 

For example, if the Quetta Shura will remain basically unmolested does it really make sense to send the lion's share of the US surge to Helmand and Kandahar? Not really - because you're unlikely to maximize any gains you make; especially when the Taliban can simply bide their time across the border or use the free flow of arms, men and weapon across the Durand line to disrupt US and Afghan hold and build efforts (not there is any Afghan support for hold and build . . . but that is another issue).

From every indication the US military continues to don their rose-colored COIN glasses and operate under the assumption that counter-insurgency can succeed even though a growing amount of evidence suggests otherwise - Pakistani reluctance is yet another example.

And right on cue, more evidence in today's Washington Post - with the news that we're pulling back on the idea of reaching out to local militias . . . because we don't understand local militias:

Afghan officials and Eikenberry have expressed concern that unless there is a detailed plan to connect these village security forces to Ministry of Interior oversight, they could fuel the rise of warlords and undermine the already fragile government in Kabul. Another worry is that the local tribal leaders could manipulate U.S. officers who do not understand politics and tribal grievances in a particular area, U.S. officials said.

"Our level of intelligence is so lacking," said an adviser to the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan. "We could be supporting people whose interests are not what we think they are." Eikenberry has argued that without Afghan government support, the program could be quickly disbanded if one of the village security forces is turned by the Taliban or gets into a dispute with government security forces.

And we also read that there is a "difference of opinion at the highest levels of the U.S. military and diplomatic headquarters in Kabul about new approaches to combating the Taliban insurgency." Well that makes me feel much better. Military tactics and political strategy should be based, at least in some measure, on what you can actually achieve - not merely what you want to achieve.  U.S. policy in Afghanistan today sure feels like more of the latter than the former; and that's not a good thing.

Defining What We Want in Pakistan Posted by Patrick Barry

I have to say I agree with Gregg Carlstrom – it shouldn't surprise anyone that the Pakistanis have balked at Secretary Gates' call for the Army to extend its campaign against militant groups to include the Quetta Shura and the Haqqani network.  For that to happen, there would have to be a profound change in the way Pakistan calculates its national interests.  With that such an unlikely possibility, Gates is probably better off doing what Carlstrom recommends and shifting attention to the need for Pakistan to consolidate recent gains in Swat and South Waziristan.

Michael takes the Army's preference for mopping up groups that actually threaten its country as cause for pessimism, but I disagree.  He may have a point insofar as Afghanistan is concerned.  But when it comes to Pakistan, why should this be such a bad thing?  Shouldn’t we want Pakistan to solidify its hold over territories once controlled by militants? Just because the U.S. and Pakistan don’t “share interests,” on the question of militants primarily interested in destabilizing Afghanistan, doesn’t mean they can’t see eye-to-eye on the militant problem that threatens to unravel Pakistan. 

More broadly, it strikes me that the tendency of U.S. policy makers to leap over Pakistan’s problems to get to Afghanistan is based off an incorrect read of the balance of U.S. interests on either side of the Durand line.  Looking at Gates' comments, it's fair to infer that the Administration views stability in Pakistan as instrumental to success in Afghanistan.  But it’s actually the other way around.  The main reason stability in Afghanistan is so important, is because right next door there’s a country with a population of 160 million people, severe economic woes, an arsenal of nuclear weapons, a violent insurgency bent on toppling the state, AND to top things off, an international terrorist group responsible for 9/11. 

With Allies Like These . . . pt. 5 Posted by Michael Cohen

Today in the New York Times, yet more information that the Pakistanis have zero interest in cracking down on Afghan Taliban safe havens in their midst:

The Pakistani Army indicated Thursday that it would not launch any new offensives against extremists in the mountainous region of North Waziristan for at least six months, pushing back against calls by the United States to root out militants staging attacks along the Afghan border.

An Army spokesman described Pakistan’s position as the United States secretary of defense, Robert M. Gates, arrived here for an unannounced two-day visit. Mr. Gates said that he planned to urge top Pakistani military officials to pursue extremist groups along their border, and that ignoring “one part of this cancer” would threaten the entire country’s stability.

. . . Implicitly he pressed Pakistan to root out the Afghan Taliban leadership, the Quetta Shura, which has found refuge in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province outside the tribal areas. American officials are increasingly frustrated that while the Pakistanis have launched offensives against the Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda, they have so far not pursued the Afghan Taliban and another extremist group on their border, the Haqqani network, whose fighters pose a threat to American forces.

Good luck with that Bob! Is this perhaps the least surprising news story ever.  Why the US thinks that the Pakistanis will simply disregard their own national interest because we gave them a few billion dollars in aid or we asked them really nicely is beyond me. The Pakistanis have been supporting the Taliban since the mid-1990s; they are the only reason why the Taliban is able to maintain its position as a serious insurgent force - a fact that American officials seem to recognize:

American officials privately say that the Pakistanis are reluctant to go after the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network because they see them as a future proxy against Indian interests in Afghanistan when the Americans leave. India is Pakistan’s archrival in the region; under President Obama’s Afghan strategy, announced last month, the United States is to begin withdrawing its forces from Afghanistan by July 2011.

You think? Here's what I don't understand: if American officials realize the inherent difficulty in getting the Pakistanis to go after these safe havens how did that not factor into the policy review for Afghanistan, which from all appearances continues to embrace a counter-insurgency model? Why would you announce a timeline for withdrawal if you have no legitimate plan to take out these safe havens? And if the military supposedly "gets" COIN how did this inconvenient fact not find its way into General McChrystal's strategic review, which says that ONLY population centric COIN can work in Afghanistan?

Perhaps all the counter-insurgent 'experts' out there could name for me the many successful counter-insurgencies fought against insurgent forces that have unmolested safe havens? 

Crikey, even in Vietnam - with tons and tons of bombs dropped by American planes - we couldn't stop the steady flow of supplies that came along the Ho Chi Minh Trail to the Vietcong. And in Afghanistan/Pakistan we're doing literally nothing to stanch that flow - except giving more money to the country that is supporting the effort.

And people wonder why I'm pessimistic about Afghanistan.