Avuncular American

American Diplomats in Tehran: Don’t Do Anything Stupid

(Photo source: National Security Archive, Iran Documentation Project)

Stupid, like Jimmy Carter’s offer of refuge to a dying Shah in 1979, after the US Embassy in Tehran had already been taken over briefly in February by Iranian militants who knew little and cared less about diplomatic conventions and immunities – a prelude to the infamous hostage drama that began in November of that year.  Stupid, like if the Bush Administration allowed the current covert war in Iran to become overt, with pictures of smoking American guns to wave in front of the American Interests Section of the Swiss Embassy.  Stupid, like leaving your diplomats exposed should Israel decide to pull off a daring air raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, like it did against Saddam Hussein’s reactor in 1981.

Diplomats – especially those representing countries that are, what shall I say, activist (?) like the United States – are always exposed when their country does something against the country that they are ostensibly supposed to conduct relations with.  In the best of times, American diplomats are the face of the US Government in ___ (fill in blank country).  When times are tense, those same diplomats can become the most convenient American target available.  When you have a few people hanging out on a limb in a country like Iran in 1979, it’s not the time to poke the hosts in the eye.  Which is what Jimmy Carter (bless his heart, I truly like him as an elder statesman) did when he opened the door to the Shah.

I remember keeping ears attuned to the news out of Washington, during the years when I exposed my family to life in the Arab world.  Don’t get me wrong: we enjoyed our years in North Africa and the Middle East, and I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything.  But there were times when the administration’s (of either party) attitude toward, say, establishing the American Embassy in Jerusalem vice Tel Aviv could get the “street” riled.  Nice to have a little advance warning, if only to batten down the hatches.

So in the twilight months of the George W. Bush era, it appears that the Administration is giving serious thought to establishing a diplomatic presence in Tehran.  For practical purposes, like treating Iranian visa applications.  Okay, I’m all for it.  Gives us a chance to show the good citizens of Tehran that Americans do not all sprout Great Satan horns, and allows Americans to see life in Iran for themselves.

One proviso, though: keep VP Cheney away from the “ATTACK” button, and make it clear to Israel that they are not to send their bombers east.  Or has that already been done?  Prudent planning would call for that, but since when has the Bush regime shown any prudent forethought?  My advice to the American Foreign Service Officers who might get sent to Tehran: stay tuned to the news and have your “bug out bag” ready (my name for a little pre packed and pre-positioned kit with essentials should shouting people start coming over the wall of the Interests Section).  And watch “Escape from Iran: The Canadian Caper,” the fact-based 1981 TV movie about how a few American diplomats and dependents escaped the hostage drama by averting the takeover and finding refuge with their Canadian counterparts.

Remember: when the US Government does something stupid, it’s handy to have friends locally.

The Sea in Between: Sarkozy’s Mediterranean Project

A Project Dear To The President’s Heart

On Monday’s July 14 Bastille Day in Paris, spectators will be treated to another grand military parade, one of the few such martial national day displays remaining in the democratic West.  The audience will include the leaders of the European Union member states as well as those from the (mostly Arab, but including Israel and Turkey) countries bordering the southern and eastern coasts of the Mediterranean.  They will be gathered in the French capital for one of the most important events in the early days of the French EU Presidency, the launch of the “Union Pour la Mediterranée (UPM)” or the Union for the Mediterranean.

In Arabic, the Mediterranean Sea is poetically called Al-Bahr Al-Abyad Al-Muttawasit, "the middle white sea.”  President Nicolas Sarkozy was a schoolboy when Algeria (where his father had served in the Foreign Legion) became independent, though he may have had occasion to hear the geopolitical adage taught to generations of French schoolchildren: “The Mediterranean separates France, like the Seine separates Paris.”  Algeria was an integral part of France, and then suddenly, it wasn’t.  A million European settlers left independent Algeria, and in the intervening 46 years, millions of Algerians have settled in France.  The Med is definitely a middle passage between North and South.

With his present and former family connections in Ottoman-era Greece (mother's family), Corsica (first wife) Spain (wife No. 2, Cecilia), and Italy (current wife Carla), it is perhaps not surprising that the Mediterranean has had a special place in Sarkozy’s heart, even before his election to the Elysée Palace in spring 2007.  And this has all the hallmarks of a personal project: in June 2007, Quai d’Orsay diplomats responded with quizzical looks when asked about the new president’s Mediterranean ambitions.  Even now, on the eve of the summit, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs website gives much more space to the EU-Mediterranean Dialogue (an ongoing program) than to the Presidential UPM, which still has much to be defined (not the least of which, where will it be headquartered: Tunis on the southern shore, or Barcelona on the Spanish coast?).

Emotion-Laden North-South Relationships

The love/hate relationship between France and its former “colony” (the word was never used by the French, but the Algerians still pride themselves, sometimes even define themselves, by being at the forefront of the anti-colonialist drive from the Fifties through the Seventies) has in some ways been the bellwether of the Sarkozy Mediterranean proposal.  France and its policies are always treated with circumspection in Algeria, and few domestic points are gained in Algeria by seeming to kowtow to the former masters. (Though Algeria's ace political cartoonist Dilem has it right when he shows what Algeria's unemployed "hittistes" want out of the UPM: calm Mediterranean seas for their rafts, or preferably, French visas; emigration is still a big drain/safety valve).  At one point, it seemed that Algeria would scupper the whole deal.

In the end, Algerian President Bouteflika’s foot dragging on the Mediterranean project was overcome by careful French diplomacy, though not in the case of the one remaining holdout, Colonel (do we still call him that?) Kadhafi of Libya.  Despite blandishments (nuclear project, arms deals, wife No. 2 Cecilia as emissary-of-charm, week-long state visit to Paris last year), Kadhafi has condemned the Sarkozy Med Union.  Anyway, his life long ambition has been to unify (often literally, through mergers and sometimes with weapons) the Arab and African worlds that are Libya’s home turf.

Sarkozy’s ambitions for a French-led Mediterranean project were severely modified by Germany, which succeeded in EU-izing (opening up to non-Med EU countries what had previously been seen as a Mediterranean riparian state grouping) Sarkozy’s vision.  As former French foreign minister Hubert Vedrine said today on France-Inter radio, the test of the new Med Union will be whether it can create a co-secretariat to build on the high-level co-presidential (France and Egypt) kickoff summit, and not just become a subcommittee of the EU.  Egypt, with its concentric Arab, African, and Middle East (especially longstanding relations with Israel) circles, and its experienced diplomatic corps, is an inspired choice to help France get the new grouping off the ground.

Another “Machin” or An Essential Tool?

Vedrine, along with a number of right and left of center European and southern Mediterranean luminaries, signed an “open letter” to the leaders gathering in Paris this weekend, published in Thursday’s Le Monde.  Though the letter enthuses about the Med Union’s potential for peacemaking (all eyes will be on the body language between Israeli and Syrian leaders this weekend), Vedrine on the radio spoke to the more nuts-and-bolts projects for the Union.  One not so trivial matter: North-South cooperation on cleaning up what is essentially massive a salty lake, one that gets dumped on, literally, with every effluent man and industry can produce.  If nothing else, Union for the Mediterranean success in this one crisis area could make the nascent organization worth all the hoopla.  As one commentator put it, success in "small" practical matters counts, and cited the EU's beginnings as a post-WW II coal and steel cartel combining the victors and the vanquished.

In his definitive work on the fall of France in 1940 “To Lose a Battle,” British historian (of France and Algeria) Alistair Horne starts off with a vivid portrait of another Bastille Day parade, that of the victorious French Army in July 1919, the first such parade after the end of the carnage of World War One the previous November.  At the time, the consensus was that the French Army was the biggest and best in the world.  True, but we know what the inter war period did to its relative standing against the Wehrmacht.  There was no follow up to the big show.

For the EU and Mediterranean leaders lined up on the Champs Elysées for Monday’s parade, what comes after will be the true test of the fine new Union For The Mediterranean to be unveiled this coming weekend.  Those 40 plus leaders, if not backed up by painstaking staff work, may be present at the creation of another “machin” (probably best translated as “thingy” - Charles De Gaulle’s ironic description of the UN and like multilateral organizations, which have to struggle to avoid being labeled talking shops).

Haraka mush Baraka: The Dangers of Perpetual Movement

Machin vs. functional coalition: does Sarkozy himself have the wherewithal and patience to stick with his bright shiny idea in the long term?  Wherewithal: yes (once the Quai d’Orsay is convinced that this is a going concern, it will apply itself to making it work).  Patience: this is Sarko’s Achilles heel.  The man, once described by an observant Brit as a kind of Tigger, bounces around from idea to proposal to next inspiration, whether domestic or international.  Bitter Lemons also has misgivings about his "frenetic" pace, and has devoted several articles to the Mediterranean Union plan from Arab, Israeli, and Turkish viewpoints.

The Mediterranean is timeless, but action is urgent; Sarkozy is a man in a hurry, but he’ll need to down shift and focus in this forum which will juxtapose cultures with different notions of time.  After all, his Maghrebi counterparts know the meaning behind a traditional expression, "Haraka mush Baraka."  Movement - for movement's sake - does not equate with benediction.

Mountaintop Trenches: The Dolomites and Europe’s Future

You have to do a bit of climbing to get to these trenches.  They happen to be Italian trenches in the photo on the left, but on the other side of the Piave Valley there are similar Austrian ditches, scraped out of the rock and peat on the hillsides of these Dolomite peaks.  This is the setting of Hemingway's  "A Farewell to Arms."

Take your worst mental image of trench warfare – with its mud, cold, vermin, and high explosives – and then transpose it to the top of a 6,000 foot mountain during several winters.  That’s the World War I recollection of people in this Italo-Germanic corner of the Alps.  Check out the official site of what has to be one of the most spectacular open-air museums dedicated to the First World War, that of Lagazuoi and the 5 Torri.

Our hiking group - formed ad-hoc by Charlie Tessari (photo below right, looking at the formerly Austrian-held positions), wintertime ski instructor, spring and summer hill walking guide, and author of a book with some of the most beautiful photos of this region - is mostly Italian, and of all ages.  We and a family of Slovaks form the Anglophone contingent, and we get abridged versions of Charlie's explanations of the flora, fauna, and geology of this unique mountain region.  The Slovaks know of the Piave Valley; their grandfathers fought here when Slovakia was a province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  They grew up hearing songs of the Piave, and of their grandfathers' long-defunct multinational country.

Nowadays they can drive a few hundred kilometers across Austria and visit the battlefields as tourists.  Slovakia, which has gone through several national mutations in the 90 years since the Austro-Hungarian Hapsburgs waved goodbye to the world scene, is now a part of NATO, of the European Union, and will soon spend Euros just like their former Italian enemies.

Paul Hoffman, former New York Times correspondent and author of “The Sunny Side of the Alps” (a gift from an old friend who knew exactly what we’d appreciate on this trip), writes about this former Austrian region from personal experience.  He married a local girl from the Sud Tyrol (the Italian Alto Adige) in the inter war years, and witnessed first hand the excesses of Fascist nationalism, where the Germanic names on gravestones were Italianized – even the dead weren’t allowed to keep their identity.

World War II and the fall of Fascism led to a mellowing of the nationalism up here, and now signs are bilingual, and there’s a relaxed approach to language.  This year, the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War is being marked along the old mountain battlefields by a series of concerts, multinational hikes and climbs, and various other events.  Europe might be confused over which direction it should take after recent reverses, but there is one avenue that is no longer an option: war.  Make tourism, not artillery duels.  That booming across the valleys these days is summertime thunder, not high explosive.

There's probably no better place in Europe than the peacefully spectacular Dolomites to contemplate the ultimate stupidity of war.

Iraq and the "S" Word - Sovereignty

“The Iraqi demands are unacceptable to the Americans, and the American demands are unacceptable to the Iraqis, and the result is that we have reached an impasse,” the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, said during a meeting with journalists in Jordan. “The Iraqis will not consent to an agreement that infringes their sovereignty.”

Alissa J. Rubin, "Talks With U.S. on Security Pact Are at an Impasse, the Iraqi Prime Minister Says," New York Times 14 June 2008

In my experience in matters diplomatic, when the other sides deploys the "S" word, they've reached for their big guns.  Not that Iraq out-guns the United States in any sense of the term - but that is exactly when negotiators reach for the "S" word.  When the imbalance of power is such that the weaker party can only fall back on its cherished sovereignty, in the face of the other side that holds all the cards... except the ultimate one in diplomacy: "Are you messing with my sovereignty?"

This argument, of course, only works when the weaker party is dealing with a country that is sensitive to sovereignty matters.  A dictatorship might not care a hoot about a neighbor's sovereignty, especially if there are already hostile relations prevailing.  Democracies, however, are usually mindful of touching someone's sovereignty buttons.  The US usually cares, for example, when the country that raises the sovereignty defense possesses something that the US wants.

Sometimes nations will deploy the sovereignty defense over the silliest of issues: I recall a matter of a conference in Africa that was sure to founder on the shoals of disrespect for Nigerian sovereignty, were the US co-sponsors to dismiss the requirement for "hostesses in national dress" at the opening ceremony (said hostesses being the girlfriends, mistresses, daughters and nieces of ministers and other Big Men).  The Americans caved, and had to pay for the hostesses' nice outfits.  Sovereignty prevailed.

In the case of the current negotiations in Iraq, however, the stakes are anything but trivial.  And the leverage exerted by the US is considerable.  It's not just the 140,000 or so troops occupying the country; I refer you to veteran Iraq reporter Patrick Cockburn of London's The Independent, who was interviewed on June 12 on Democracy Now!  Said Cockburn:

Iraqi reserves, Iraqi money, is in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.  It dates from 1990, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, and there are still sanctions against Iraq as a danger to the rest of the world. That money, about $50 billion, is in the bank. But there have been many court cases brought against it. It’s protected currently by a Presidential immunity. And what US negotiators in Baghdad have been implying to their Iraqi counterparts is that if they don’t cut a deal on American terms, then that Presidential immunity might lapse at the end of the year, and the Iraqis wouldn’t be able to get their hands on these massive reserves, which they need very badly.

$50 billion is serious leverage.

Cockburn, who has reported on this story extensively, has pointed out how the evolving (or stalled, according to al-Maliki) talks are not classic "Status of Forces Agreement" (SOFA) negotiations, over technical issues (APO postal delivery, PX privileges, duty-free Commissary imports - all those nice things that mark the American presence in places like Germany, Italy, or Japan), but talks whose outcome

... really will determine whether Iraq is an independent country or not. Or will it be a client state of the US?... the US negotiators were demanding initially fifty-eight bases. They’re not calling them permanent bases, though that’s exactly what they are. The bases might have, let’s say, an Iraqi soldier outside and a single strand of barbed wire, in which case the Iraqis will supposedly be in charge of their defense, so it won’t be an American base. But everybody knows that it is. Then there’s the question of immunity for American soldiers and Iraqi contractors, i.e. they won’t come under Iraqi law. And the US will also control airspace and have various other rights. Now, although Ryan Crocker and President Bush are saying Iraq under this new agreement will once again be a sovereign nation, most of the rights we associate with a sovereign nation will be in the possession of the US.

The always vigilant Helena Cobban ("Just World News") has much more detail on what's in the "SOFA" (and when all this got started), in her analysis of just-released National Security Archive documents.

Next time you hear PM al-Maliki use the word "sovereignty," consider the context, the stakes in these negotiations, and the relative leverage of the two parties.  As Cockburn says, Iraq since the early 1990's (no-fly zones, oil-for-food, sanctions) has experienced years of "diminished formal sovereignty."  They went from years of Saddam's sovereignty-within-constraints to - despite purple fingers - CPA "Orders" and now a SOFA-defined future.  No wonder they're a bit touchy about that "S" word.

Ireland, Europe: Why "Not?"

The end of Europe.¹
Clearly demonstrated the deep division that exists between the European elite and the citizens of Europe.²
Underneath all this there is a more profound question, which is about the future of Europe.³
"No" brings Europe to a kind of standstill.⁴
For me, the worst that could happen is if the citizens of the European Union or the leaders of the European Union enter into a zone of paralysis psychologically.⁵

Europe is still dealing with the Irish audacity of No, its unsurprising rejection of the Lisbon Treaty last Thursday.  Search the opinion columns of the European press, and you'll likely come up with sentiment similar to that expressed above.  Only the quotes I've provided date back to May 2005, when French voters rejected the EU constitution, the failed precursor to the Lisbon Treaty.  Providing the wisdom back then were:

¹Romano Prodi, former EU Commission President;
²President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic;
³Tony Blair, then British PM;
⁴Jean-Luc Dehaene, former Belgian PM;
⁵Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief.

Some of these luminaries are still in the same jobs; others (Blair, Prodi, Dehaene) have gone on to other occupations.  The quotes are found in "French No Vote on European Constitution Rattles Continent," by Elaine Sciolino in the 31 May 2005 New York Times.

Perhaps the only unexpected aspect of Thursday's referendum was the relatively high turnout (53.1 %).  As an informed Irish reader of this blog put it, the high turnout revealed "the fallacy of the silent majority's favorable feelings towards the EU."  The same reader pointed me in the direction of pre-vote analysis by Irish writer David McWilliams, who pondered on the eve of the referendum ("Why 'Yes' and 'No' voters are in a class of their own")

Is the debate on the Lisbon Treaty coming down to class? Is the overwhelming bourgeois accent of the ‘Yes’ vote an election issue? In an era when many considered class politics to be more or less over, the social breakdown in the polls is fascinating. The trend that has emerged is that the middle-class is considerably more pro-European than the working class. According to the latest polls, the ‘Yes’ campaign is only ahead among the better off voters. So the posh are pro-Europe while the majority of the working class is planning a ‘No’ vote.

With the benefit of hindsight, now you can look at the Irish Times' great interactive map, showing the map of Ireland divided into No (flaming red) and Yes (bright green) and Undecided (gray for Dublin, which was still counting when the Times went to print).  Beyond the Pale (the way the English described Ireland outside of the Dublin area in the old days), poorer, rural Ireland appears to have given Lisbon a massive Red light.  But why?

Fintan O'Toole, assistant editor of the Irish Times writing in today's Guardian, speaks of the "scattergun negativity" of the naysayers defeating the "miserable" and uninspired Yes campaign ("Good for Ireland, Good for Europe").  His examples of voter sentiment would make you laugh, if you didn't want to cry:

• One anonymous voter was using the opportunity of a vote on the structural reform of the European Union to protest against the withdrawal by the newly privatised state airline Aer Lingus of its regular service between Shannon airport and Heathrow.
• Another voter "got a bit of information that, if I voted yes, my sons would be drafted into the army, so I voted no ... Our sons are too good-looking for the army."

Of course, we know how irrational voters can be once in the booth, and I fear what results such behavior will yield in next November's US presidential elections.  But that's what happens in democracies: people will do the damnedest things.

But once the "end of Europe as we know it" ill-informed reaction to this vote subsides, serious minds will approach the negotiating table with salvage in mind... just like Nicolas Sarkozy did last year when he helped unravel the mess that French voters helped cause when they rejected the EU constitution.  Getting Europe right is messy, time-consuming, frustrating, expensive, and more.  But, as Romano Prodi told Elaine Sciolino three years ago after the French reverse, "This is still better than a war of secession like the United States once had.  We must keep this perspective in mind. We don't have a treaty, but we also don't have wars."

Europe: All Eyes On Ireland

A copy of the Agreement was posted to every household in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic and put to referendums the following May, which gave them substantial support by 74% and 94% respectively.
BBC on the Good Friday Agreement Referendum, 22 May 1998

I remember seeing one of those copies at my cousins' home, on the coffee table and well-thumbed.  They had read it before voting.

I’m voting ‘no,' though I don’t know an awful lot about it.
Brendan Fairbrother, retired Dubliner, quoted in today's New York Times by Sarah Lyall.

It looks like Mr. Fairbrother hasn't studied the 287-page Lisbon Treaty, but I can't be sure.  For those Irish voters (or readers) who want a quick summary, today's Irish Independent provides "The Treaty Made Simple."

If Brendan Fairbrother can't manage 287 pages of, as Sarah Lyall writes, "vintage bureacratese," I can't really blame him.  Nor is it the fault of the Irish that their constitution requiring Yes/No plebiscites puts them in, as today's Guardian cheerfully calls it, Europe's "awkward squad" along with Denmark and other sometime naysayers.  That's the problem with referendums: reducing complex 287-page treaties to a yes or no response can elicit the "wrong" response.  "Wrong" as in "no."  What then?  As the NYT's Lyall reports, "French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, spoke ominously on Tuesday of a “Franco-German” response to a “no” vote."  Sarkozy, who early in his presidency made a big show over his role in "simplifying" the treaty, has a personal investment in its ratification.

A "Franco-German response?"  France tried to help the Irish win their independence in 1798, "The Year of the French" (great historical novel, by the way, by Thomas Flanagan).  That didn't go well, and the Irish had to wait another century-plus to rid themselves of the colonial British.  Germans have been buying up lots of vacation homes in Ireland in recent years, and Germany's designs on a newly-independent neutral Ireland in the '30s and '40s worried the Anglo-American alliance, but things never went too far.  The Irish have to vote - it's not optional.

It's this kind of talk, Monsieur Sarkozy, that gets Ireland's Irish up, so to speak.  As the Irish Independent's cheat sheet puts it on the cherished notion of Irish neutrality:

Q:What does the treaty do on the military front?

A:Over the last five decades Ireland has built an internationally respected reputation for UN peacekeeping, thanks in part to neutrality.
Fears have been expressed over military expansion in Europe and demands on countries to massively increase their defence budgets.
Under the Lisbon Treaty, foreign, security and defence decisions must be made unanimously.
Ireland's neutrality is protected but there is an obligation to aid and assist, in accordance with the UN, a state which is the victim of armed aggression.
The type of aid and assistance that is required is not specified, but it must not affect security and defence policies of states, including Ireland's neutrality.
Also, states are obliged to help each other after a terrorist attack, natural or man-made disaster.

Such step-by-step gingerly handling of the Neutrality Question may strike non-Irish readers as overly cautious in the post Cold War present.  Not so.  Neutrality, and supposed threats to it, is sacred to the Irish.  I recall that when the US Mission to NATO (of which I was then a part) organized a seminar in a Dublin suburb in the late '90s, there was a mini-hullabaloo over this "military alliance" coming to neutral Ireland.  That the conference was on NATO's expansion to the East (and not west to Ireland) mattered little.  It was their very presence on neutral soil that counted.

Referendums, like elections, are sometimes decided on issues that have nothing to do with the question at hand.  Are voters unhappy (or happy?) with the ruling coalition this month?  Has the president (or prime minister, or chancellor) been unpopular of late?  Do people want to get their revenge by opposing whatever the government is proposing?  How's the weather on referendum day?  The Guardian:

Europe's future, being decided today, may hinge on such happenstance as the Irish weather. An unlovely day could keep people at home. A low turnout will hurt the pro-European vote.

Today's weather forecast for Ireland is "intermittent clouds."  Will attitudes toward the European benefactor - the hand that helps feed the Celtic Tiger - be sunny today?

(Image Source: Traditional Lace Makers of Ireland)

War - If You Can Afford It

Aid groups say the crisis in Ethiopia was the worst since 1984, when a famine captured the world's attention and killed around one million people. The current drought, in a country where more than 80 per cent of its 79 million people live off the land, has been compounded by global food price rises. The famine comes as Ethiopian troops fight a bloody battle [in] Somalia, backing the government against Islamic insurgents.

The Telegraph (UK) 9 June 2008

On the face of it, there is absolutely no correlation between the Ethiopian famine and its intervention in neighboring Somalia.

Nor is there a link between the events in the Horn of Africa and the American invasion of Iraq and its aftermath.

Except for this: sustainability, and "affordability."  Just as a thoughtful observer might reflect "What the hell are the Ethiopians doing... occupying a neighboring country when they can't feed their own people?..." so too might that same question be asked of the United States in Iraq.  "What the hell are the Americans still doing in Iraq when _____?"  Here you get to fill in the blank:

• they allow huge swaths of their population to go without health care?
• bridges collapse, cities sink because "it's too expensive" to fix them?
• millions are evicted from their homes, and the financial system teeters?
• they allow the dollar to fall through the floor, and China owns what's left?

War, which leaders assure us they want to avoid at the very time that they are sharpening their swords, is an expensive matter.  In the case of Iraq, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz puts it at 3 trillion dollars.  Ethiopia, which is waging its war in Somalia with the encouragement of the United States, is presumably getting aid from same, but there is an opportunity cost.  Money spent on military hardware is often in place of, not in addition to, spending on helping the Ethiopias of the world grow food.  And where does the money for US military aid really come from?  If the Bush Administration has run budget deficits since it came to office, which it has, then isn't much of government spending like a national credit card?  See reference to China, above.

Which brings me back to Iraq.  This Administration likes to outsource things that used to be the prerogative of governments.  Like the contracting out of security, infrastructure, even intelligence functions, in Iraq.  If you can't win their hearts and minds with your power or principles, you just open up your purse strings.  This is from "Buying Security in Baghdad" by Anna Badhken in last month's Salon.com:

[In a Baghdad neighborhood] ... the U.S. military here pays a monthly salary of approximately $300 to about 300 people, [Sgt. James] Braet says. Some of them work on the neighborhood council, and some of them are members of a pro-government Sunni militia called Sons of Iraq.

"I'd say 80 percent of these people we pay don't do anything," Braet said. "It's just free money"

"So, in other words, you are buying security," I say.  "Pretty much," he responds, and goes back to his steak.

I figure that if the population of Iraq is about 26 million, and if around 7 million of those are adult males (sorry, ladies, but you probably don't have to be paid not to kill), it would cost, at the rate of $300 x 7 million = $2.1 billion a month to buy peace in Iraq.  For some reason, this free-market (of sorts) approach to peace purchasing hasn't gotten sufficient attention.  It might have to do with scruples about noble causes.

$2 billion a month.  The US is currently spending about $12 billion per month in Iraq.  This money is not only "off budget" in the form of funding "supplementals," it's also "off shore."  It's money that the US has to "borrow" from China and Gulf oil investors who currently deign to buy US debt.  So, in one sweeping feat of Bushite outsourcing, I say let's NOT "cut out the middleman" - let's bring him in on the deal: outsource the occupation of Iraq to China.  China has few scruples about dealing with dodgy governments in its quest for raw materials for the Chinese industrial machine.  China might not quibble about human rights, freedom of the press, all those things that the US government spends lots of effort promoting.  China just wants whatever raw materials you possess, thank you.  Maybe they'll even get Iraq's huge oil reserves secured and sell us what they can't use.  With $10 billion saved every month, we might be able to afford some.

Iraq has oil; China needs oil.  The US needs out.  We can't afford Iraq.  They can.

Now, on Ethiopia's famine and Somalia dilemma: do they have anything that China can buy?

What the World Wants: An Obama Administration

Well, at least that's what Brussels' Radio Al Manar wants.  But it's not too much of an exaggeration to say that the American Presidential election - especially the candidacy of Senator Barack Obama - has stirred enormous overseas interest in the United States.  And, for once in the last seven and a half years, interest in a positive sense.  And it's not just the good people at Radio Al Manar.  Over the past several months of the primaries, it has been clear that a potential Obama presidency has caught the imaginations of right and left, in Europe and beyond.

Yesterday yours truly was the guest of Radio Al Manar, a private FM station with studios in the francophone Belgian cities of Brussels, Liege, and Charleroi.  Al Manar ("The Lighthouse," a reference to Alexandria's Pharos, one of the ancient Wonders of the World) broadcasts in French and in Arabic to a largely Moroccan-origin audience (both among the large Moroccan community in Belgium and back home via live audio streaming).  The venue was to have been a "debate" between a representative of Democrats Abroad Belgium (me) and someone from the Republicans; repeated efforts by station director Ahmed Bouda were met by frustration, though they still hope to get a francophone Republican to show up for a future show.  You have to wonder if the Republicans ever got any further than a Google search, where the keyword "al manar" will result in 697,000 hits, Number One of which is Al Manar TV in Lebanon, the Hizbullah station.  Definitely not our hosts of yesterday: Radio Al Manar in Brussels is located in the same building as the offices of Israel's El Al Airlines, and among their guests have been a host of Belgian government officials, an ecumenical group of religious leaders including Belgian rabbis, and a group of Israeli "refusenik" soldiers who object to service in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Anyway, having the mike to myself wasn't all that bad (Al Manar's site should have an MP3 link of the interview up in a few days).  Michel, the Congolese-Belgian interviewer, was extremely well-prepared, with a list of questions for me and the non-existent (but potential show up) Republican.  I took a pass on at least one question: the trial of Tarek Aziz, Saddam's former foreign minister ("an issue for Iraqi justice").  And in retrospect I wish I had been more proactive in delineating the differences between Democratic and Republican approaches to economic and social issues, especially health care.

Michel and the Al Manar audience were particularly interested in the promise shown by the Obama candidacy in the context of American society.  The son of an African immigrant running for President of the United States... very resonant to an audience whose members have also embraced their new Belgian home, and have begun to fill a number of elective offices.  The new openness of the American electorate to candidates like Obama and Clinton speaks volumes to an audience that itself represents the new diversity in European societies.

But the main focus of Al Manar, again reflecting the interests of its audience, was American foreign policy.  Given the spike in attention to Obama's June 4 speech in front of AIPAC (full text here), and especially his statement "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided," I fully expected an onslaught of questions on his intentions vis-a-vis the Israel-Palestine peace process.  No, what was a more burning issue was America's moral standing in the world.  Continuing to preach to others about human rights, when Guantanamo and prison ships dominate the news.  Luckily, I had another Obama quote to deploy: "I will close Guantanamo. I will restore habeas corpus."

Given the timing - the eve of Senator Clinton's much-anticipated Saturday concession/congratulatory speech - my interviewers (technician Karim couldn't help asking questions during commercial or musical breaks; finally Michel let him ask one on-air) tried to draw me into the speculation fun.  Will his VP choice be Hillary Clinton?  How about John Edwards?  How about the significance of Caroline Kennedy helping to head the VP search committee?  My questioners were very well informed, and I mostly just rambled on about party unity.  In truth, I was extremely relieved that the interview had been rescheduled for June 6, since a week earlier I would have been forced to fall back on safe-but-boring talking points like "Democrats Abroad is not positioned to encourage or even discuss one candidate or another dropping out of the race..."

Fast forward to June 6, and I was able to move on, just as Hillary Clinton had done in a letter to her supporters: "On Saturday, I will extend my congratulations to Senator Obama and my support for his candidacy."  The DNC website had also adapted to the new reality.  Big picture of a smiling Obama, caption inviting readers to "Join Us and Help Elect Barack Obama," with a nice "Thank You, Hillary" picture just below.  Yes, Thank You, Hillary, for making my job easier - I was worried about seeming to be the last person on earth who didn't recognize the reality of the Democratic Candidate, Senator Barack Obama.

Ahmed, Michel, and Karim are rooting for him (Ahmed even wanted to send in a contribution, though I gently reminded him of the Obama website donation restrictions: "I am a United States citizen or a lawfully-admitted permanent resident").  They are rooting for him, and so is the rest of the world.  Now we Democrats just have to get our act together and convince Americans of the merits of a President Obama.

Burma's "Deadly Decision" - Aid Ships Steam Away

"Over the past three weeks we have made at least 15 attempts to convince the Burmese  government to allow our ships, helicopters, and landing craft to provide additional disaster relief for the people of Burma, but they have refused us each and every time. It  is time for the USS Essex group to move on to its next mission. However, we will leave several heavy lift aircraft in place in Thailand so as to continue to support international  community efforts to deliver aid," [Commander of U.S. Pacific  Command, Adm. Timothy J.] Keating said.

The Essex ships will now head to the coast of Thailand to backload their remaining  helicopters and personnel on June 11th. "However", said Keating, "should the Burmese  rulers have a change of heart and request our full assistance for their suffering people we are prepared to help."

Press Release, 3 June 2008, US Pacific Command

This has to be one of the most frustrating commands that the good admiral has had to give in his career.   Navy and other US military personnel are used to delivering timely, massive assistance in all corners of the world, whenever natural disasters strike (my first experience in the Foreign Service was helping shepherd Navy and Coast Guard relief to volcano victims on the island of St. Vincent in the Caribbean).  In the response to Cyclone Nargis and the unprecedented devastation it caused the inhabitants of Burma's Iriwaddy delta, US, French, and British naval ships steamed to Burma's coast.  And waited.  Only to be turned away, repeatedly.

There are lingering glimmers of hope, carrots still dangled out there for the jingoistic junta:

• Admiral Keating's order of June 3 is to take effect June 5, giving two days to reconsider;
• The vessels are to head to the Thai coast, to "backload" helicopters and personnel involved in the relief efforts;
• This operation is to take place June 11, giving the Burmese generals another week to reconsider.

But no one should hold their breath.  Any regime that ignores cyclone warnings and fails to alert its own populace, then deliberately abandons the resulting victims to starvation, disease, and the elements, is not going to be shamed by earnest pleas or strong condemnation.

The only question remaining for the United States is whether it should use the opportunity, awaiting off the Thai coast, to offload further relief supplies on board those ships.  France, whose Mistral contained 15 days' worth of aid for 100,000 people and shelter for a further 60,000, decided to hand over its supplies to the UN's World Food Program after a similar rebuff from the Burmese junta.  The Mistral arrives in Phuket, Thailand today.

As frustrating as that decision must have been for France (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the Burmese attitude "particularly shocking"), offloading its aid was the right decision.  What was it going to do - sail off over the horizon with its holds full of tons of supplies for another rainy day?  What will the Essex Group do next week?

"The Irriwaddy" ("Covering Burma and Southeast Asia), that authoritative Burmese exile publication, has an excellent opinion piece by Aung Zaw, "No Warships Please, We're Burmese," which provides some interesting history to clarify the junta's allergy to warships:

It is safer for an impassive Than Shwe [junta leader] to allow hundreds of thousands of villagers in the Irrawaddy delta region to die rather than permitting a US relief mission to save them—a deadly decision indeed. Than Shwe knows full well that millions of Burmese wait in hope for the arrival of US warships, and not only for the relief supplies they would bring.

At the time of the 1988 democracy uprising, Burma’s military leaders lodged a complaint with the US embassy after sighting a US naval fleet of five warships, including the aircraft carrier Coral Sea, within Burmese territorial waters on the morning of 12 September, six days before the army staged a bloody coup.

The sighting caused “major concern” among Burmese leaders including Ne Win, who in the 1970s had secured US military assistance, including helicopters, in fighting communists and drug warlords.  In those years, Burma sent its officers to the US General Staff College for training and study. Burma’s official policy was, and remains: Americans are welcome, except in times of political crisis.

Applying this policy, the military leaders even refused permission for a US C-130 plane to land in Rangoon in 1988 in order to evacuate US embassy staff during the anti-government uprising.

For paranoid dictators, one person's innocent offer of aid is another's Trojan Horse.  They won't change.  So just offload the cargo in Thailand, turn it over to the UN, and chalk it up to another bad experience with ungrateful dictators.

You've Been Volunteered to Iraq

As you may have seen in the Director General’s May 27, 2008 [message] “Announcing the 2009 Iraq/Afghanistan Cycle” and in the Secretary’s personal message to the field, the Department has begun recruiting for summer 2009 openings in Iraq. I am writing to inform you that the Department considers you among those particularly well qualified for the key positions listed below and is asking you to seriously consider volunteering for an opportunity to tackle our nation’s top foreign policy priority.

Excerpt from State Department email of 30 May 2008 to American diplomat "M," cited in the blog Life After Jerusalem

The above is not a draft notice, but these days few people outside the US military receive such explicit hints that it would behoove them to consider spending time in body armor in Baghdad.  In the Army, as my father used to say, it was "We need three volunteers: you, you, and you."  The State Department, diplomatically of course, "considers you particularly well qualified."  The result is the same.  Our diplomat-blogger contents herself with reproducing the Friday morning email.  Like the good career professional that she is, she provides no editorial comment.  But you can bet that there is much soul-searching going on in the "M" household this weekend.

In the fall of 2007, much was made of the State Department's difficulties in filling its personnel slots at the US Embassy in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, though after the initial flurry of publicity, in fact no one was actually "directed" (or, in non-State speak, forced) to go to Iraq.  But "asking you to seriously consider volunteering," while not literally forcing, has a different meaning when you're an individual employee having to deal with the juggernaut of Washington's personnel establishment.  The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA, the professional association which advocates for American diplomats with their employers at the State Department, USAID, as well as the Departments of Commerce and Agriculture) has monitored this issue, and its monthly magazine, the Foreign Service Journal, has documented the nuanced meanings of "volunteering."

Consider the typical case of an officer with school age children, who has to follow increasingly restrictive rules that narrow choices down to places like Iraq (Green Zone or PRT?) and Afghanistan (Kabul or a Provincial Reconstruction Team?).  One such officer outlined his dwindling options, and illustrated how in the end, his "voluntary" assignment to Afghanistan was simply a choice of lesser evils.  And it's not just Iraq and Afghanistan.  According to AFSA, "two thirds of the Foreign Service is deployed overseas at all times and 70 percent of them are at hardship posts (meaning locations with difficult living conditions due to terrorist threats, violent crime, harsh climate, or other factors)."  Like the military, many Foreign Service families are separated during entire tours of duty.

Scott McClellan's current media blitz over his book "What Happened" has been the focus of stinging comment of the sort "If you didn't like the policy, why didn't you just resign from the White House?"  A legitimate question, though last night's "Anderson Cooper 360" on CNN, where he described the former White House Spokesman as a "civil servant," missed the mark.  No, White House Spokesmen are Political Appointees.  Unlike "M" and other career diplomats, who don't have the easy option of a high-level resignation followed by six or seven figure book advances.  Three American diplomats made timely, principled resignations over the Iraq war, and I do not believe any of them became wealthy.

Back to "M'" and her "opportunity to tackle our nation’s top foreign policy priority."  I guess I'm just not convinced of the validity of the Administration's priority list.  Which I liken to a pyromaniac who chooses to set Iraq ablaze while the fire department is busy trying to extinguish the 10-alarm conflagration of al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan: "Okay, maybe it is a bigger fire now, but it was arson, and you're the arsonist."

In the remaining months of the Bush Administration, while it rushes to put a "Status of Forces Agreement" with the Iraqi government in place - one that many Iraqis oppose and about which the US Congress has many questions - American diplomats will continue to get more "volunteer notices" like the one above.  But far-thinking people in the "shadow cabinet" that I hope the Democrats will soon form should consider the changes needed to prevent American diplomacy's core skills from atrophying.  For service in all those countries in the world where, though they may be tough places, you still don't require a flak jacket, and where the host government has a presence outside a Green Zone perimeter.  And where the safety of your embassy does not depend on the indefinite presence of the US Army.