Democracy Arsenal

September 09, 2011

The Legacy 9/11: The Militarization of Foreign Policy Version
Posted by Michael Cohen

Soldiers and kids 2 Over at World Politics Review, I have a two-part series on how 9/11 sped up the proces of militarizing US foreign policy:

On Sept. 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 Americans were killed in the single deadliest terrorist attack in American history -- the work, not of a foreign army, but of al-Qaida, a nonstate actor. The U.S. wasted little time in responding. The Taliban government in Afghanistan that had provided safe haven for the terrorist group was quickly deposed by a combination of U.S. special forces and CIA operatives working alongside Afghan anti-government forces. The leadership and core followers of al-Qaida were pushed fleeing in disarray across the Pakistani border. Since 2001, the group has been unable to successfully launch another attack against the continental United States.

This could have been the end of the story: a horrific attack and a lightning U.S. response, followed by a comprehensive national effort to protect the homeland from future terrorist assault. Instead, the so-called War on Terror went on to dominate not just America's collective imagination but also its foreign policy objectives, while transforming the role of its armed forces.
 
Since Sept. 11, the United States has devoted trillions of dollars and thousands of lives to the fight against terrorism, with the Pentagon becoming the sharp end of the American spear.

Read the whole thing here and check out part 2 of the series on some of the steps that can be taken to reverse this trend.

September 08, 2011

Perry Tries to Split the Difference on ‘Military Adventurism’
Posted by Jacob Stokes

Perry Rick Perry’s performance in the debate last night showed he continues to be midway through the transition from Tea Party governor to neoconservative candidate. The tension between those two schools of thought was drawn out by a specific question last night from Politico’s John Harris. Harris asked Perry: “You recently said, quote, ‘I do not believe that America should fall subject to a foreign policy of military adventurism.’ Looking back, do you think President George W. Bush was too quick to launch military intervention without thinking through the risks?”

Perry’s answer was, “I was making a comment about a philosophy; I don't think America needs to be in the business of adventurism.” And then he pivoted to, of all things, congratulating President Obama on nabbing Osama bin Laden. You know the man is flustered when he parries a question by praising Obama.

Harris tried to not let Perry off that easy though, following up with “it's hard to understand philosophy without understanding specifics. Where are some of the places where you think we've seen military adventurism?” In other words, say Iraq, say Afghanistan. Hell, even just say Libya.

But Perry wouldn’t. He responded to Harris’s second question with some boilerplate language about clear exit strategies and American interests. Harris let him slide after that.

Getting out of all our actual – as opposed to theoretical wars -- was the preferred stance last night. Santorum was the lone voice for American primacy. Bachmann gave a slight endorsement of the idea as she argued against defense cuts – “We have, for many years, maintained global order in the world with our United States military.” -- but her stance there was undermined by her lack of support for the Libya action.

Perry knows the wars aren’t selling. He also knows that his advisors were the architects of the sort of “military adventurism” of the last ten years that he was alluding to in his speech to the VFW, where the quote came from. Throwing them under the bus would have provoked a loud outcry—and likely desertion—from neocons in Washington. He tried to thread the needle, but I think it was one of his weakest moments of the night. If these issues have salience with the electorate, which the evidence suggests that they don’t, Perry looked very wishy-washy last night.

One other quick highlight: Jon Huntsman argued for incorporating the costs of military protection of transportation routes for oil into the price of gas: “When you add up the cost of troop deployments, when you add up the cost of keeping the sea lanes open for the importation of imported oil, the bulk and distribution and terminaling costs (ph), it's $13 a gallon, so says the Milken Institute. And I say the American people have had enough.” Savor that, because it’s an argument that’s unlikely to be heard in a presidential debate for a while.

In case you missed the debate, the full transcript of the main foreign policy exchange is below:

Continue reading "Perry Tries to Split the Difference on ‘Military Adventurism’" »

September 06, 2011

The Never Ending COIN Boosterism
Posted by Michael Cohen

Go team So to mark the 10th anniversary of September 11th, RUSI has an interesting compendium of pieces looking back on the significance of 9/11 from a national security perspective. John Nagl not surprisingly argues that as a result of 9/11 has now become the most capable counter-insurgency force in history - and used as his evidence the US military escalation in Afghanistan: 

Barack Obama, who had campaigned on refocusing attention on the war in Afghanistan, found the situation there so dire that he nearly tripled US forces during the first year of his presidency. For the first time, American commanders had sufficient troops to begin to implement classic 'clear, hold, build' counter-insurgency doctrine in southern Afghanistan. They made real progress on the ground, albeit marred by corruption in Afghan governance, and began handing over more secure parts of the country to Afghan security forces this past summer. Many made silent prayers that the Afghans were ready.

This is a bit like saying other than that how was the play Mrs. Lincoln? Missing from Nagl's analysis is that any progress US commanders have made on the ground is not sustainable because of a) the failures in Afghan governance b) the inability of the ANSF to take over security responsibilities c) and the lack of American staying power. Nagl's arguments acts like these are blips in the path to success as opposed to fundamental and unmovable obstructions that were of course evident when the President decided to escalate in December 2009. 

Also prayer is not a strategy.

The very fact that President Obama is basically pulling the plug on the COIN effort in Afghanistan by withdrawing troops is the most obvious example of COIN's larger strategic failure. By failing to take into account the lack of political will in the United States for an extended COIN fight - and the lack of an effective Afghan partner - counter-insurgency advocates have ensured that the tactical gains made on the ground won't be sustained. This has likely left Afghanistan in worse shape than if they had recognized this reality from the get go. The United States would have been far better off putting in place a strategy for Afghanistan that could be sustained for the long-term, both politically and militarily. Instead COIN advocates overreached, believing that they could convince the President to give them more time to implement a well-resourced COIN strategy. It didn't work out that way and the result is that now we are looking at the likelihood of a more precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan with the US having done little to lay the groundwork for our eventual withdrawal (and with even less political will to get things right before we leave). 

So while I suppose one can argue that the Army better understands how to fight COIN (a debatable concept and from a population centric standpoint probably untrue) -- the political myopia of COIN advocates has helped to ensure that it won't succeed in Afghanistan.

Then there is this: "The killing of Osama Bin Laden underlined the success the US had had in dismantling Al-Qa'ida around the globe, largely due to counter-terrorism efforts relying on drones and special operations forces, but aided by broader counter insurgency efforts."

I know that COIN is graduate school war so maybe it's over my head but I'm having a hard time seeing the connection between, say, the Marine offensive in Marjah and the death of Obama bin Laden. Here's a counter-factual: If President Obama had in 2009 decided "I'm going to listen to Joe Biden and put in place a CT strategy" would that have meant that the US would not have been able to get OBL in April 2011? I suppose it's possible, but I don't see it. if anything we might have gotten more security cooperation from Pakistan, which today is basically fighting a proxy war against the United States in Afghanistan. 

But hey far be it from me to get in the middle of a really good story.

Technical Problems Persist Despite Much-Hyped Advancements in Iran's Nuclear Program
Posted by Kelsey Hartigan


Bushehr The power plant at Bushehr was officially connected to the grid this weekend, squeaking out 60 megawatts of electricity during a test run on Sunday at midnight.

Iranian officials hailed this achievement, yet again, but failed to acknowledge the repeated technical setbacks the Bushehr plant has faced since construction first broke ground in the 1970s.

Bushehr is operated by the Russians, who are providing and taking back the fuel. This alleviates the most worrisome proliferation concern - as does the fact that Bushehr is under IAEA safeguards. The plant does not bring Iran closer to a nuclear weapon capability and is distinct from other facilities where activities cannot be verified. Bushehr is, however, indicative of the larger technical problems plaguing Iran’s nuclear program. In an IAEA safeguards report released last week, the Secretary General’s report noted that during a recent visit to Bushehr, “Iran explained that the reactor had been shut down for technical reasons and that it was planning to restart the reactor within the next few days.” This is pretty much par for the course. 

The updated IAEA report was widely circulated as proof that Iran is coming ever closer to achieving a breakout capability, and that may well be, but there’s more good news to this report than the headlines suggested.

While Iran is now operating a new generation of advanced centrifuges, it’s telling that it has taken this long to do so. Iran has installed IR-2m and IR-4 centrifuges at its Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP) at Natanz, but it’s only using a few of them – putting them well behind their intended schedule. What’s more – Iran hasn’t installed any of these advanced centrifuges at its underground facility near the city of Qom, as it announced it would. That Iran installed IR-1 centrifuges at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant is unusual. The Institute for Science and International Security reported that these are new IR-1 centrifuges, but even if that’s the case, it indicates some sort of delay and/or setback. In a recent piece, David Sanger notes how inefficient the IR-1 centrifuges are and points out that Ahmadinejad announced over five years ago that Iran would be pursuing advanced centrifuges:

The cranky IR-1 stands over six feet tall. Inside, a hollow rotor of aluminum spins uranium gas, slowly enriching the material in the rare isotope that can be turned into fuel for reactors and warheads. But the design is so antiquated and inefficient, that even Pakistan stopped using those centrifuges long ago. There are tales of catastrophic failures in the machines, which spin at supersonic speeds. The Stuxnet attack was designed to speed them up, and make them explode.

In an April 2006 speech, Mr. Ahmadinejad boasted that the nation was embarking on a new generation of more advanced centrifuges that would quadruple Iran’s enrichment powers. Those centrifuges were also based on a design obtained from Mr. Khan. Iran failed to obtain a very hard type of steel to make rotors for them. So, in secret, the Iranians developed their own, with the rotor made of carbon fibers.

The Arms Control Association’s Peter Crail further notes:

Iran’s slipping timeframe for the introduction of its more advanced machines is not surprising since its nuclear program deadlines are often fluid. However, it does appear to back official and independent assessments that Iran still faces problems developing these new centrifuges, including getting sufficient materials to build them in large numbers.

None of these setbacks, however, change the fact that Iran simply does not need the amount uranium it is currently enriching – particularly at the 20 percent level. It is getting harder and harder for Iran to justify this and damning conclusions like that which was announced by the IAEA on Friday – that “the Agency is unable to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities” – only leads to an increasingly isolated Iran. And while evidence of a possible military dimension continues to pile up, so too does the string of technical setbacks.

August 31, 2011

They Never Learn
Posted by Michael Cohen

In an ongoing effort to prove that the US foreign policy pundit class is seemingly incapable of engaging in deductive reasoning, check out Roger Cohen's piece on Monday trumpeting US intervention in Libya.

The intervention has been done right — with the legality of strong United Nations backing, full support from America’s European allies, and quiet arming of the rebels. The Libyan people have been freed from a crazed tyranny. Unlike in Iraq, burdens were shared: America flew the intelligence missions and did the refueling while the French, British, Dutch and others did most of the bombing. Iraq was the wrong prism through which to look at Libya. I’m glad I resisted that temptation. Another cycle has begun.

In the end, I think interventionism is inextricable from the American idea. If the United States retreats into isolationism, it ceases to be itself — a nation dedicated, however much it falls short, to a universalist ideal of freedom.

There are no fixed doctrinal answers — a successful Libyan intervention does not mean one in Syria is feasible — but the idea that the West must at times be prepared to fight for its values against barbarism is the best hope for a 21st century less cruel than the 20th.

First things first, it is simply not possible to describe the Libyan intervention as successful . . until the war, you know, actually ends. I mean obviously it is possible; it's just really foolish. We are still a very long way from being able to make the judgment that US intervention in Libya furthered US national security interests.

Second, Cohen is definitely right that interventionism is inextricable from the American idea; but if he wants to know why he might do well to consider the deeper meaning of his argument that "West must at times be prepared to fight for its values against barbarism is the best hope for a 21st century less cruel than the 20th."  It's this sort of exceptionalist mindset; this notion that the US has a responsibility - and the capabilities - to fight for its values; that is precisely the reason why America IS an interventionist nation. Cohen seems to miss completely the connection between American exceptionalist myth-making and failed US military interventions.

Don't believe me? Check out what Cohen says earlier in the piece. In describing Peter Beinart's argument that US military intervention operates in various cycles he makes the following statement:

Beinart describes how . . . he in time became sickened by the Vietnam analogy with its recurring prescription for inaction. Shaped by Bosnia, he backed the Iraq war. The pendulum had swung. Vietnam-induced excess of caution had given way to Bosnian-induced hubris.

I, too, fell under its influence. Mea culpa. Whatever the monstrosity of Saddam, and whatever the great benefit to the world of his disappearance, the war as it was justified and fought — under false pretenses, without many of America’s closest allies, in ignorance and incompetence — was a stain on America’s conscience.

Here's the beauty of this: Cohen recognizes that what led the US into Iraq was a certain "hubris" that came from intervention in the Balkans. (This by the way is almost certainly true and helps explain why so many liberal hawks supported the ill-fated Iraq intervention.) And yet he's completely blind to the fact that he is engaging in the exact same sort of hubris regarding Libya. Cohen seems to understand the connection between humanitarian intervention in the Balkans and Iraq, but is simply incapable of understanding how his own triumphalism on Libya might presage the next US military intervention.

To be sure it's not remarkable when foreign policy pundits fail to recognize or acknowledge the inconsistency in their views re: national security policy or US military interventions. it's rather amazing when they fail to recognize it in one 800 word op-ed.

August 30, 2011

Is it the End of History for Neonservatives?
Posted by James Lamond

As Heather writes below, Peter Beinart has a very interesting piece up at the Daily Beast on the death of neoconservativism. His basic argument is that the Obama administration’s success at decimating al Qaeda leadership through counterterrorism operations rather than democracy promotion and nation building is evidence that the ideology is broken. Combine this with the culture of limits that is dominating Washington and the national debate, the ideology that rejects limits is not likely to survive. While, I wish this were the case, I think Beinart’s focus on post-9/11 neoconservatives ignores the movement’s ability to hype threats and reinvent the boogeyman.

Beinart writes

“Today, by contrast, it is increasingly obvious that the real successor to German fascism and Soviet communism is not Al Qaeda, whose mud-hut totalitarianism repels the vast majority of Muslims. It is China’s authoritarian capitalism, the first nondemocratic ideology since the 1930s to challenge the idea that democracy is the political system best able to promote shared prosperity. And not only is Al Qaeda sliding into irrelevance, its demise is being hastened by exactly the narrowly targeted policies that neoconservatives derided.”

Battling terrorism through nation-building is not the ideological foundation for neocons, just the most recent incarnation. In his history of the neoconservatism Justin Vaisse of Brookings identifies five pillars that transcend the various generations that have worn the neocon label: internationalism, primacy, unilateralism, militarism and democracy. This is what drove the Cold War hawks who criticized Nixon and Kissinger on détente and Team B-ed the intelligence on Soviet military threat and strategic objectives. These pillars can again be easily transferred to a new boogeyman. Including, the most likely candidate Beinart mentions: China. 

Beinart also points to the lack of a connection to the Republican Party as further evidence of the death of the ideology: 

"But to grasp neoconservatism’s demise, you don’t need to look at the Middle East. Just look at the Republican presidential race. None of the major candidates is attacking President Obama along neoconservative lines. None is focusing on his withdrawal from Iraq or his timetable for exiting Afghanistan or his refusal to bomb Iran. The one Republican candidate with a truly coherent foreign policy vision—Ron Paul—is attacking Obama for acting too much like a neoconservative. The other candidates don’t have any coherent critique at all, because while they know they’re supposed to call Obama an appeaser, they also know that even Republican voters have little appetite for the neoconservative agenda of continued war in the Middle East."

But neconservativism never had a wide political base, electoral force or popular movement behind it. As Vaisse writes, “nobody ever got elected on a ‘neoconservative platform.’” George W. Bush famously ran in 2000 pledging a “modest” foreign policy. As Beinart rightly points out, for what they have said about foreign policy thus far, the GOP presidential candidates tend towards the “modest” George Bush of 2000, versus the George Bush of 2003. But this is probably as much attributable the lack of a Tea Party foreign policy and a lack of a coherent world view from the broader GOP as anything else. And as Jake wrote earlier this month, Rick Perry -- a Tea Party candidate --  is being advised by Donald Rumsfeld, Doug Feith and Dan Blumenthal, all either widely considered neocons or longtime allies. 

I think Beinart is correct in many respects, particularly on the fact that the economic-centric national debate does not bode well for the movement without an economic outlook. But ultimately, even if post-9/11 neoconservativism is dead, that doesn’t mean we have heard the last from the group. 

August 29, 2011

"I'm not Dead Yet!"
Posted by Heather Hurlburt

Peter Beinart has a thought-provoking article up this morning proclaiming the death of neo-conservatism.  I think he is at least premature, for several reasons:

Conservatives lack a coherent alternative.  Yes, Ron Paul is polling well and he has a coherent alternative which we wonks refer to as "offshore balancing;" and yes, neocon standard-bearers Sens. McCain and Graham are getting little resonance for their calls for a military response to Syria and more, faster military response to Libya.  But every time a GOP presidential candidate, declared or putative, has started to edge away from neocon orthodoxy on Afghanistan (Romney, Huntsman, Barbour) he has been pushed back to the standard GOP line -- or out of relevance.  The realist conservative foreign policy community is either quietly advising Huntsman, even more quietly trying to advise Romney, or just sitting back and wishing that Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Daniels or Governor Barbour would reconsider.  Recent reports that Governor Perry is reading Henry Kissinger and consulting with Don Rumsfeld; and that he opposes "military adventurism" but also thinks there might be "a military solution to a country like Iran" sum up conservatives' intellectual drift on the central questions of the nature and future of American power.

Tea Party lacks a foreign policy. It's become popular to say that neoconservatism is gone from the GOP because the Tea Party opposes it.  But that's not exactly true.  The Tea Party, being a movement rather than a political party, encompasses a variety of heterodox foreign policy views, from neoconservative to neoisolationist, as Josh Rogin and others have written. 

Bankruptcy is not the same as death.  Democracy Arsenal's own Michael Cohen wrote to me that neoconservatism died when Hamas won the Palestinian elections.  Commenters on Beinart's piece argue that it died a-borning in George W. Bush's first term.  But those were moments in which neoconservatism failed to deliver on its promises.  The gold standard, trickle-down economics, and others one could name are also intellectual approaches which still exert some considerable influence despite having been found wanting in the reality-based environment.   One can also make the argument that Center for American Progress' Peter Juul does, which is to say that the Bush Administration was not truly neoconservative, and that therefore the doctrine is not dead as it has never been tried.  (This last argumentcan also of course be made about Marxism...) 

Most dangerous when cornered.  Our neocon competitors in the intellectual sphere don't think they're defeated.  I don't hear them talking about moving to New Zealand or taking up organic farming as an alternative livelihood.  Indeed, they seem highly-motivated.  And in general it is dangerous to underestimate the staying power of determined, organized, savvy individuals -- or of simple, cheerful explanatory ideas in the US political psyche.  Remember, the neocon moment offered us a way to feel good about ourselves after national lows in the 1970s and on 9-11.  And if you don't think we're heading for a new low in the national psyche, I want some of what you're drinking.

August 26, 2011

Is Assad Next?
Posted by Kelsey Hartigan

As events continue to unfold in Libya, commentary has turned to Syria and whether Assad is “next.” 

In her latest Foreign Affairs piece, Genieve Abdo argues that Assad is likely to stay in power, due in no small part to Iranian involvement. 

Abdo writes:

Assad's chances of staying in power are greater than were those of Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi. He may be forced to make some concessions to the protestors, but he still wields too much power to be removed from office completely. To date, there have been no significant defections within the Alawite-controlled military, which is key to his survival, and the Iranian-trained and supplied security forces have prevented the protests from reaching the levels of those in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. In Iran's view, much like the Tehran spring, the struggle for Syria is one of regime survival. Even if Assad should eventually fall, Iran will not stand idly by; Tehran will surely try to influence any successive government. 

Read the piece in its entirety here.

August 25, 2011

Experts Comment on What's Next for Libya, the Rebels and the Region
Posted by The Editors

As more than 40 years of Muammar Qaddafi's corrupt and tyrannical rule appears to be drawing to a close, the National Security Network held a press call this afternoon with Heather Hurlburt, National Security Network Executive Director; Brian Katulis, Center for American Progress Senior Fellow and expert in U.S.-Middle East policy; and Tom Malinowski, Human Rights Watch Washington Director and recent visitor to Benghazi.

Listen to the call here.

Some highlights include:

Tom Malinowski detailed the spectrum of groups in the anti-Gaddafi movement [starting at minute 3:20] and their “healthy relationship” with the international community [9:55]; outlined revenge killings, prisoner executions and unsecured weapons facilities and government buildings as key operational and human rights concerns [5:42]; and explained that the anti-Gaddafi movement will require money and U.N. involvement but not foreign military peacekeeping forces to facilitate transition [18:27].

Brian Katulis explained the steps being taken to consolidate control of Libyan weapons [11:18]; examined the Arab Spring in light of U.N. General Assembly dynamics [13:02]; outlined pragmatism and judicious use of power as the two pillars of the Obama administration approach to the Arab Spring [14:43]; and insisted on a reassessment of the role of political Islam in the Middle East [16:33].

Heather Hurlburt explained that post-transition leaders’ understanding that the U.S. sides with them has been and will be key for achieving American interests in the long-run (12:10).

Selected transcriptions from the call after the jump:

Continue reading "Experts Comment on What's Next for Libya, the Rebels and the Region" »

Nukes and Dictator Survival
Posted by David Shorr

Gaddafi arab league 2 Last night the guest host of The Last Word Chris Hayes did an excellent segment with Steve Clemons on how the overthrow of Qaddafi will affect other despots' survival strategies with regard to nuclear weapons. Bear in mind that Qaddafi agreed in 2003 to hand over the entire contents of his budding yet substantial nuclear weapons program in exchange for being let out of the rogue state penalty box and bettering relations with the US and others.

Recent events raise some important questions. With the benefit of hindsight, should Qaddafi regret his decision to abandon the pursuit of a nuclear arsenal? If he had continued to develop n-weapons, would other nations have intervened militarily at the risk of nuclear retaliation? And if nukes offer a dictator the most reliable way to shield themselves, does the possibility of intervention create perverse incentives for him to build a nuclear deterrent? In other words, did the US and NATO just undercut their own interests in nuclear nonproliferation? [By the way, that TV screen shot above is from the 2008 broadcast of an eerily prophetic speech to fellow Arab League leaders on the threat of being ousted, a level of candor you just never ever see (h/t The Atlantic Wire).]

Without question, there are clear trade-offs in the choice between seeking the removal of a dictator versus making a deal with him. In the Last Word segment, Steve portrays it as a sharp-edged either/or choice for foreign policy -- and the world -- as a whole. As he sees it, giving dictators perverse incentives to arm themselves runs directly counter to global nuclear nonproliferation, and President Obama has stepped on his own previously wise nonpro policy with this Libya intervention. While I see the problem, I don't see it in such stark terms. 

Confronted with a potential new nuclear-armed nation, it's vital to have your priorities clear. Speaking of incentives, no government in the world would agree to bare all in a nuclear "full monty" if they suspect an ulterior agenda of deposing them from power. For a potential proliferator, the only reasonable basis for an agreement is to bolster the longevity of their own governmental regime by emerging from international isolation and rejoining community of nations. In other words, if the US wants to remove the nuclear threat, it must be willing to tolerate the dictator. 

In the case of Libya in the early 2000s, the Bush Administration rightly pushed Qaddafi for a policy-change of verifiable disarmament -- with no hint that they would continue to treat a disarmed regime as a pariah. It's interesting to read Elliot Abrams last February in the Wall Street Journal, given that he's better known as favoring regime-change in other cases, recount the Bush Administration's rationale for treating nuclear weapons as the greater danger. For Greg Scoblete of RealClearWorld Compass Blog, that begged the question of why Bush didn't apply the same reasoning to Iran? Iranian leaders had little incentive to reach a nuclear deal with Bush when there were so many signs of an underlying objective of regime-change. And thus when the Tehran regime came under severe pressure after the June 2009 elections, the Obama Administration was at pains to cordon off the nuclear talks from the legitimacy question because of how the matter had become blurred under Bush.

With such strong arguments, then, for rewarding good nonproliferation deeds by bad leaders, why is it still okay sometimes to seek their removal. First, because the nuclear-arsenal-as-deterrent-shield isn't the rogue leader's only incentive calculation about nuclear weapons. If a government is clearly a high-value target for regime-change, then a deterrent could be crucial for survival. If an autocrat is relatively unlikely to be overthrown, however, then the international isolation, diplomatic pressure, along with any economic sanctions take their own toll. 

Second, I think we can differentiate between renegging on our end of the bargain as distinct from the other guys nullifying it. It's the same issue as with Egypt last winter: how far do the decades-old Camp David obligations extend, as a sclerotic elite continually resists reform and loses all legitimacy? Returning to the humanitarian premise of the intervention -- Qaddafi's threatened brutality against Benghazi -- we don't need to give dictators carte blanche in order to preserve the right nonproliferation incentives. If a de-nuclearized despot wants to stay in the international community's good graces, and thereby fend off forcible regime change from the outside world, all he has to do is refrain from mass atrocities. The emerging international norm of the Responsibility to Protect says that the very sovereignty of a government is contingent on exercising such self-restraint; so is any nuclear deal.

Guest Contributors
Founder
Subscribe
Sign-up to receive a weekly digest of the latest posts from Democracy Arsenal.
Email: 
Search


www Democracy Arsenal
Google
Powered by TypePad

Disclaimer

The opinions voiced on Democracy Arsenal are those of the individual authors and do not represent the views of any other organization or institution with which any author may be affiliated.
Read Terms of Use