EU Constitution - Que Sera Sera Posted by Suzanne Nossel

There will be weeks and months of analysis over what's happening in Europe and why. 

By and large the progressive and modernizing forces in Europe were behind integration and the Constitution, and for good reason:  the Union has helped bring struggling European economies to prosperity and has proven a powerful liberalizing force throughout Eastern Europe and now approaching the borders of the Soviet Union and the Arab world.  It has strengthened Europe's role as a player on the world stage which, by and large, has meant another loud voice in support of values similar to our own.

The opposition movement ginned up the likes of Jean-Marie Le Pen and was in some ways frightening.  I know less about this than Heather and Derek, but would love thoughts from them and others on a few issues:

Will this amplify pro-U.S. voices in the EU? One of Chirac's major fears with a no vote was lessening French influence in the EU.  This presumably means a larger role for Britain and the new members, all of which tend to be more in sync with U.S. policies.  Although the French no was a victory for the forces of insularity, these countries tend to be more outward looking. 

Though we've long sought it, are we really better off with a "single number to call" in Europe - I believe Kissinger coined the demand for a single number to dial for a coherent European foreign policy.  But solidly unified European positions are great only insofar as we agree with them.  When we disagree, or when a position is still under formation, it may be easier for the U.S. to have influence when its acknowledged that the Union's position is the sum of its parts.  That way, by lobbying individual countries, we can influence the whole.  It's a slow and painful process, but easier than bumping our head up against a wall.  A rock-solid, totally cohesive European policy-making regime would presumably be more resistant to U.S. influence.  A looser regime may be easier to work with.

China card - My guess is that in the coming months China tries to take advantage of confusion in the EU to extend and solidify their trade relationships and influence in their own region and in Latin America.   My guess is Beijing views this as a clear win.

Thud. Posted by Heather Hurlburt

A resounding "non" from the French for the EU Constitution today.  We will have days of commentary about how much this was "an opportunity to say up yours to the government" (as a European diplomat said to me), "about the economy" (a German scholar of organizational behavior), about immigration and Turkey, the EU's democratic deficit, and so on.

I'll say "all of the above" and stay out of that discussion, because I think there's a larger lesson here for progressives.  In a democracy, when governing elites let themselves get too separated from the people they represent -- or allow the perception of separation to go unrepaired -- the people will eventually figure out a way to bite back in a tender place.

In a funny way, the EU Constitution seems to have become for the French and the Dutch (and the Brits and perhaps some others as well) the same bogeyman that the Republicans have managed to make the dread multilateralism here at home -- representative of all that larger forces are trying to cram down your throat in the name of modernity, globalization, the 21st century.

Why do the French think that the Constitution would threaten their social policy with dread Anglo-Saxon liberalism while the British think it would bring on too much Continental socialism? (This wonderful insight came from the Brookings discussion that Derek referenced a few days ago.)  Because those are the external bogeys each fears.  If the EU Constitution didn't exist, it would have had to be invented to express the angst of the moment.

What are we afraid of here?  Globalized terrorism, a changing economy where whole categories of job and the secure lives that went with them are vanishing, a future which is fast-moving and cosmopolitan, where jobs and diseases and the new neighbors next door come from places you can hardly spell.

All reasonable fears.  But progressives are stuck in the "there's no easy answers" stage, ceding the field to conservatives who have easy answers, if not good ones:  close the borders, cut off debate,  subpoena your library books and test our kids silly on a few skills while choking off funding for the rest.

Question is, will the Europeans figure out a better response?  The early indications don't look good -- all the considerable creative energy is likely to go toward figuring out clever treaty fixes.

So whatever this vote ends up meaning for the European project, and US-EU relations, and big issues we care about, etc. etc. -- and even if you think, as I do, that few tears need be shed over the constitution itself -- it should serve as another wakeup call, as if more were needed, that this new century is unsettling to people everywhere, and people are responding by refusing to buy in to new constructs policymakers come up with, however manifestly sensible they may seem to their creators.  Think about it as a disconnect between technology and end-user.

More on GWOE Posted by Derek Chollet

The Washington Post leads this morning with more detail on the Administration’s slow shift from the GWOT to GWOE (global war on terrorism to a global war on extremism, for those who need a refresher).  There’s not much new scoop from what we already knew about this policy review, other than – surprise! – officials recognize the weakness of their public diplomacy and see that their efforts are being hampered by vacancies in key jobs (calling Karen Hughes!).  As one anonymous source admits:

"They recognize there's been a vacuum of leadership," said a former top counterterrorism official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. "There has been a dearth of senior leadership directing this day to day. No one knows who's running this on a day-to-day basis."

Part of the problem is bureaucratic inertia; another is a loss of direction at the highest levels.  As we approach 4 years after 9-11, we lack any measure (or, as Rumsfeld might put it, metrics) on how we are doing in the fight against extremism.  We also lack any sense of direction if, god forbid, we get hit again.  As Jim Hoagland explains in his column today:

“Confusion and drift mark public understanding of how individuals, communities and the nation as a whole should respond to terrorist strikes on U.S. soil. Citizens can learn more about how cities would be evacuated or other responses to a future Sept. 11-type event from watching doomsday television dramas such as "24" than from the administration.

A refocusing of the war against terrorism needs to come in several forms, from high-profile presidential speeches to secret strategy documents that will shape campaign orders to troops in the fields.

The effort should start with Bush's public declarations during this year's commemoration of American valor on the battlefield. His visionary rhetoric about freedom and American values helped rally the nation during the shocks of the past four years. The reassuring approach, he can argue, has kept public anxiety to a minimum.

But the time for reassurance alone is over. It is time for details, for a sense of a blueprint, for a progress report that goes beyond listing what has happened to the top nine or 15 or 25 al Qaeda leaders targeted for capture or elimination. That simple, clear report should trace as well where the United States stands in fighting the Salafi extremist networks that intend to rule or destroy Muslim lands.”

Progressives should be demanding such a blueprint – and just as important, offering one of our own.

An Exit Strategy is Not a Timeline Posted by Lorelei Kelly

Last week, California Democratic Representative Lynn Woolsey offered an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill that asked President Bush to develop a plan as soon as practicable to withdraw American troops from Iraq. Though the amendment was defeated 128 - 300, it drew majority support from Democrats. Here is the text of the amendment.

SEC. 1223. WITHDRAWAL OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES FROM IRAQ.

It is the sense of Congress that the President should -

(1) develop a plan as soon as practicable after the date of the enactment of this Act to provide for the withdrawal of United States Armed Forces from Iraq; and

(2) transmit to the congressional defense committees a report that contains the plan described in paragraph (1).

While the amendment was only a sense of Congress asking for the President to provide a plan, it an excellent start. The Woolsey amendment drew majority support from Democrats, 122 - 79. In contrast, it was many years into the Vietnam quagmire before a majority of Democrats could be rallied to call for withdrawal.

Five Republicans bucked the President and joined the ranks of other critical Republican voices. The Kool Aid refuseniks who voted for the amendment included conservative Southerners Harold Coble (NC), Walter Jones (NC) and John Duncan (TN), plus moderate Jim Leach (IA) and libertarian Ron Paul (TX). Jones is the Member who, in 2003, renamed "French Fries" "Freedom Fries" in the House cafeteria. 

See the entire vote here.

The challenge now is to not let this vote get turned into a talking point by the Right--who will claim that the affirmative votes hurt our military because the intend to impose a "timeline" and therefore aid and abet the enemy.  This is a false claim.  The amendment does not require anything so specific, but does require some sort of acknowledged plan or conceptual exit strategy.  Even something as simple as a set of "freedom benchmarks" would be nice and whether or not a permanent American military presence is part of that scenario.

Oh Non! Posted by Derek Chollet

Just to echo what Heather wrote yesterday regarding tomorrow’s vote in France on the EU constitution, to be followed by the vote in the Netherlands: for those who believe in a strong EU, it will not be a good week.  Having spent the past week in the Persian Gulf and UK (hence my extended absence), all anyone is talking about is how the French will vote “no” and expect the Netherlands to follow suit.  France’s leaders pretty much gave up hope a few days ago. 

It’s anyone’s guess what will happen after these votes derail the EU constitution, other than that this will set off a bonanza of business for European wonks and think tankers – for a good start, see this recent discussion among some American European specialists.  Another certainty is that we will be entering a phase of internal Euro-hand-wringing and navel-gazing that will make strong U.S.-European cooperation on a variety of important issues a lot more difficult.

Oddly enough, one person who is secretly happy about all of this is British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has committed to holding a British referendum on the constitution sometime in the next few years.  The EU constitution is even more unpopular in Britain, and most consider a British “yes” even more improbable.  One of Blair’s fears was that all other countries would have approved the constitution and that the fate of the treaty would hinge entirely on Britain.  With a French no, he’s off the hook.  And in July, Britain takes over its six-month presidency of the EU (a rotation that the EU constitution would end), which gives Blair a chance to lead the effort to pick up the pieces from this mess – which is one way to work his way back from the Continental beating he has taken over Iraq. 

Bolton - the Evidence on Effectiveness Posted by Suzanne Nossel

There's been an awful lot of speculative talk this week in the well of the Senate about just how effective John Bolton is going to be in representing the U.S. at the UN. 

But here's one piece of recent hard evidence.

Bolton is still Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control.  The UN's month-long conference on Non-Proliferation, an event that takes place only once every five years, just ended in unequivocal failure.  It's no wonder John Bolton did not achieve more.  He did not prepare and, from what I can tell, he didn't even show up, leaving the job of chief negotiator to someone else.  Bolton and his backers might argue that accomplish anything at the NPT is tough, but that's true of the UN as a whole.  If Bolton didn't make it happen now -- with the eyes of the Senate on him -- what basis is there to conclude that he will later.

Here's how excerpts from the New York Times article describe the debacle. 

A monthlong conference at the United Nations to strengthen the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty ended Friday in failure, with its chairman declaring that the disagreements between nuclear-armed and non-nuclear states ran so deep that "very little has been accomplished."

But in the months leading up to the meeting, it became clear that little progress was likely, and in the end the bickering between the United States, which wanted to focus on North Korea and Iran, and countries demanding that Washington shrink its own arsenals, ran so deep that no real negotiations over how to stem proliferation ever took place.

In the end, conference participants criticized, without naming them, both the United States for ignoring its commitments, and other nations for failing to grapple with the Iranian and North Korean problems.

Administration officials said in interviews that they had given up hope several weeks ago that the meeting would accomplish anything, and they defended their decision not to send Secretary Rice to press Mr. Bush's agenda. Instead, the American representative, Jackie W. Sanders, said the United States wanted to continue the discussion "in other fora," without describing when or where.

"The N.P.T. Conference was a missed opportunity to strengthen the foundation for global cooperation to reduce nuclear threats," said Sam Nunn, the former senator, who has championed efforts to secure nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union. "We can't accept this as the last word. The U.S. must take a post-conference leadership role in bringing the international community together on this critical agenda."

American officials spent much of their time arguing that reductions in the United States nuclear stockpile, under an agreement struck in 2002 with Russia, proved its compliance with the treaty's requirement that nuclear states move toward disarmament.

That argument convinced few, and the Canadian representative, Mr. Meyer, appeared to be speaking when he said, "If government simply ignore or discard commitments whenever they prove inconvenient, we will never be able to build an edifice of international cooperation."

Before the meeting, administration officials said President Bush wanted to move the discussion to smaller groups where nations like Iran could not block a consensus. The officials, who did not want to be named because the negotiating stance was in flux, named the Group of 8 industrial nations and the obscure Nuclear Suppliers Group.

So the Administration's solution to how to resolve problems of consensus-building at the UN is to try to take problems out of the UN and into other fora.  One wonders how that would work on UN reform, purportedly to be Bolton's highest priority?

Newsweek published a thorough piece some weeks ago predicting precisely the failure that would occur, and pinning the blame on Bolton's lack of preparations: 

In a landmark speech at the National Defense University in February 2004, the president called for a toughened Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and other new initiatives. “There is a consensus among nations that proliferation cannot be tolerated,” Bush said. “Yet this consensus means little unless it is translated into action.”

By action Bush meant the hard work of diplomacy, John Bolton, the president’s point man on nuclear arms control, told Congress a month later. For one thing, America needed to lead an effort at “closing a loophole” in the 35-year-old NPT, Bolton testified back then . . .

But if the NPT needed so much fixing under U.S. leadership, why was the United States so shockingly unprepared when the treaty came up for its five-year review at a major conference in New York this month . . .

Part of the answer, several sources close to the negotiations tell NEWSWEEK, lies with Bolton, the undersecretary of State for arms control. Since last fall Bolton, Bush’s embattled nominee to be America’s ambassador to the United Nations, has aggressively lobbied for a senior job in the second Bush administration. During that time, Bolton did almost no diplomatic groundwork for the NPT conference, these officials say.

“John was absent without leave” when it came to implementing the agenda that the president laid out in his February 2004 speech, a former senior Bush official declares flatly. Another former government official with experience in nonproliferation agrees. “Everyone knew the conference was coming and that it would be contentious. But Bolton stopped all diplomacy on this six months ago,” this official said . . .

Diplomacy is just a fancy word for salesmanship—making phone calls, working the corridors, listening to and poking holes in opposing arguments, lobbying others to back one’s position. But “delegates didn’t hear a peep from the U.S. until a week before the conference,” says Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Bolton's supporters have said repeatedly that he deserves confirmation because his style and beliefs will render him an effective diplomat. 

But if he was this indifferent and ineffective in handling the UN in his current post, how can they be so convinced it will be otherwise when his entire portfolio consists of building support and making progress at the UN?   

Should Bolton's success in overturning the UN's symbolic (though by no means insignificant) Zionism is Racism resolution 14 years ago trump his failure on an issue of life-and-death importance to U.S. national security, and why?

What Brussels Has Joined: European Disunion II Posted by Heather Hurlburt

Just a quick Friday afternoon note, to get my points for prescience or look bad Monday morning:  things are not looking good for the EU Constitution referendum in France this weekend, and even worse for the follow-on in the Netherlands next week.

Folks I talk to confirm what we're seeing in commentary; this represents less a specific rejection of the frankenstein-of-a-constitution than a general sense of unease with the EU's "democratic deficit" overlaid by a very specific sense of anger at incumbent governments, the problems associated with immigration, and --dare I say it? -- a soupcon of malaise with the 21st century in general.

Saw a marvelous quote involving the Dutch foreign minister stumping for the treaty (amusing to imagine Secretary Rice pressing the flesh for a treaty, no?).  A citizen informed him that he couldn't possibly change her "no" vote, and he politely asked why.  "I just want to say 'no' to something," the woman replied. 

Meanwhile, the same day the German parliament approved the Constitution, having declined to submit it to popular vote, the German public showed its disaffection another way -- opinion polls showed Angela Merkel, leader of the conservative opposition CDU, overtaking incumbent chancellor SDU Gerhard Schroeder for the first time.  Polls said 60 percent of Germans want a new government -- at the same level they showed just before Germans dumped longtime chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1998.

All this suggests several things.  If France and the Netherlands both vote no, the EU will be consumed with containing the damage, and probably negotiating several less all-encompassing treaties to put some of the Constitution's practical provisions (the arduously-reached new rules on who gets how many votes, Commissioners, etc.) into practice.  Even if one or both squeak it out, which is looking unlikely, this heralds a period of turbulence and inward-focus for Europe.  Bad news, I think, for big issues like UNSC reform (Suzanne will correct me if not), final status for Kosovo, new approaches on development assistance, and other areas where Europe either does or should take the lead.  It shouldn't, one hopes, affect the highest-profile issues like Iran... but one wonders.  The more unsettled things are, as well, the more incentive for politicians on all sides to take shots at the US, disturbing those relationships just as they seemed to be calming down a bit.

Bad news for US exporters, good news for US tourists and foreign-affairs boondogglers:  BBC had someone on this morning confidently predicting that the euro would fall a bit if France votes "non."  Buy those plane tickets now!

Bolton to June Posted by Suzanne Nossel

With the Senate turning down a vote on cloture, the Bolton nomination gets kicked to June.  Others like Steve Clemons and Stygius are offering incredible play-by-play coverage.  On the merits of the nomination and the larger questions of UN reform, we've more or less said our piece here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

But here's the thing.  In its eleventh hour, the Bolton deliberation has morphed into something quite apart from a debate on the candidate's merits - its now a discussion about the scope of the Senate's obligation to advise and consent on the President's nominations.   It's the same issue that came to the fore earlier this week on the judicial filibusters.   This is the closing para of a letter Biden and Dodd sent to colleagues yesterday:

"The refusal of the Executive Branch to provide information relevant to the nomination is a threat to the Senate's constitutional power to advise and consent. The only way to protect that power is to continue to demand that the information be provided to the Senate. The only means of forcing the administration to cooperate is to prevent a final vote on the nomination today. We urge to you vote no on cloture,"

The Democrats, reluctant to call a filibuster on the merits, are now hanging their refusal to bring Bolton to a vote on the State Department and National Surveillance Agency's refusal to provide information requested by both Democrats and Republicans on the SFRC regarding Bolton's efforts to unmask nineteen Americans named in intelligence intercepts and on other missing information.  Details on the intercepts appear in this story. 

This comes down to a question of whether the White House can simply refuse to provide information that a Senate Committee legitimately requests in order to discharge its oversight duties.  In the foreign policy arena in particular, while I won't claim to understand exactly what the Democrats think they may find in the missing disclosures (or whether the fact that Sen. Jay Rockefeller on the Intelligence Committee has seen the information is decisive or not), the principle at stake is an important one. 

This Administration has a history of operating in secrecy and of providing partial information that can be misleading.  Many Senate Democrats felt they were duped by the White House en route to the Iraq invasion, and they are right not to let this happen again.

The Republicans have repeatedly analogized Bolton's personality and style to that of UN Ambassador and later Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (a comparison Moynihan's daughter Maura vigorously rejects).   

But Moynihan was a champion of transparency in government and a staunch critic of over-classification of documents and the restriction of information flow.  He ended a book entitled The Torment of Secrecy: The Background and Consequences of American Security Policy" with these words:

A case can be made that secrecy is for losers, for people who don't know how important information really is. The Soviet Union realized this too late. Openness is now a singular and singularly American advantage. We put it in peril by poking long in the mode of an age now past. It is time to dismantle government secrecy, this most pervasive of cold war era regulations. It is time to begin building the supports for the era of openness, which is already upon us.

Moynihan's words were invoked in debates around secrecy over U.S. policy in Iraq and the war on terror.

If Bolton's supporters truly want to uphold the tradition of Moynihan, they would give Senate Democrats the information that they and their Republican counterparts asked for and deserve. 

Unknown Soldier Posted by Michael Signer

I'm up at my 10th college reunion right now -- boy, is this going to be weird -- so can't post as elaborately as I'd like.  So I'd like just to write about an extraordinary documentary I just saw. 

The film is titled Unknown Soldier, and it was directed by John Hulme, who's the step-brother of my friend Sarah, who invited me and a lot of our other law school friends to the screening last night.  The film will be showing on HBO.  You can find the showtimes and a preview here.  And the film's own website is here.

John Hulme's father, Jack, died in Vietnam when he was 24 years old -- while Hulme's mother was pregnant with John.  The documentary follows John's search to discover his father and, we find, to discover a little about himself as well. 

At face value, I thought this plot sounded like it could be overly sentimental.  But what was particularly affecting for me about Hulme's film was his starting point.  He had turned off his emotions for his father, who he never knew.  He and his mother had rarely discussed him.  His beginning attitude, captured on film, is all Gen-X'y, very pre-Jed Purdy ironic, very mocking of the notion of anything smacking of tragedy.

As he hunts down his father's buddies from the war (Jack was a Marine, and a died-in-the-wool one, at that, who was playing the Marine Corps Hymn while he was in college) and gets to know his mother a little better (her kind, humorous, soft reminiscences of Jack become wrenching when she breaks into tears on camera remembering when the black sedan showed up to tell her he had died), and interviews Jack's conservative Catholic, deeply patriotic parents (his grandmother says to him, kindly and with a touch of reprimand, "Now you understand us") we watch as John's fleeting appointment with history turns into a marriage.

Watching John get to know his father -- a thirtysomething film director meeting, through a tissue of interviews, ancient memories, and a mother's transparently powerful love for a lost husband, his 24-year-old father -- was almost unbearably moving.

More than that, it all made me wonder how we'll consider Iraq in the future.  Some of the dynamics are similar, even parallel.  But domestic resentment about Iraq hasn't even gotten close to the rebellious surge triggered by Vietnam.  (Jack Hulme wore his Marine whites to his college graduation -- the only one who did -- and a group of professors and students walked out). 

I can't say I have any answers, only questions.  In 30 years, will the sons and daughters of our American casualties in Iraq have to wade through a marsh of pain and regret, to find their parents?  Or will they say, "My dad was in Iraq" with the same pride my father did of my grandfather's service as a jeep mechanic in Europe, "My dad was in World War II"?

The film closes with John and his mother visiting the exact site in Vietnam where Jack was killed.  The episode is much less about the visit itself, though, than about the Vietnamese the pair befriend during their visit.  As they observe, with wonderment, the Vietnamese are a joyful people, easy to laugh, and eager to know.  The pain lingers, underneath, but relationships are built quickly.

The film also made me think about the whole definition-of-the-left question that's preoccupied us here at Democracy Arsenal.  The eagerness to establish a connection, to link hands with other humans while traversing the wreckage of the past -- I identify this as the deepest impulse characterizing "the left," if that makes any sense at all.  This is why the communitarian movement, quirky as it was, got so well at the ultimate aims of liberalism, while libertarianism, with Ayn Rand and all the rest, builds on selfishness, hostility, and suspicion -- not hope and progress.  There's nothing weak or limp-wristed in the fusion of a broader, more serious, more compassionate comprehension of conflict and post-conflict history, and the left. 

And a final thought the film provoked:  I think that in our echo-chamber-media-celebrity-struck life, we too often fail to realize that we are, after all, not only living in history, but creating it.  And our children will live in the world we create.  To me, this should elicit a little more concentration and repose, and a little less ideology and frenzy.

A Vietnam vet was in the audience last night and, teary-eyed, thanked John Hulme (who answered questions after the screening).  John thanked him, in turn, in what was a quiet moment for all of us, ripe with focus and concentration.  There were a lot of "liberals" in the audience, but this was a serious, contemplative moment for a serious, contemplative film. 

The film premieres on HBO this Monday.  I strongly encourage you to see it, and to come to your own conclusions -- or questions.

Color on Koran Riots Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Great piece today by Sarah Chayes, who lives in Kandahar, about the role that Pakistani and Iranian operatives may have played in ginning up the riots in Afghanistan over the alleged Koran flushing incident.

Her analysis underscores a point we've been making here about anti-Americanism.   She blames the Pakistanis and Iranians, but also says they found fertile ground for rabble-rousing among an Afghan population that's fed up with U.S. soldiers who do business with corrupt local politicians, who turnover so fast that they've gained little insight into local mores, and who abuse detainees.

Yes, there are those who are against us for policy reasons, such as our growing and lasting military presence near their borders and/or their view that Westernization is a threat to their religious beliefs.  And noone is suggesting that their views should dictate how we set policy in service of U.S. national interests.  But those opponents' (many of whom are truly dangerous) will find their work made much easier when ordinary people have reason to distrust and dislike us.   So the abuses at Bagram and the reports on Koran flushing play right into their hands.