Avuncular American

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.

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.

Memorial Day Where It Counts

Ninety years ago, 368 Americans were buried in what was named Flanders Field Cemetery, one of the smallest of the overseas cemeteries run by the American Battle Monuments Commission.  We went there yesterday to help represent Democrats Abroad Belgium, whose wreath was placed at the foot of the white stone chapel in the center of the headstones.

We have been attending Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and other commemorations at ABMC cemeteries for years (I encourage you to visit their website and take a virtual tour).  Americans who have not had the honor of seeing these hallowed sites in person should be proud that their nation continues to take such good care of American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines (and merchant marines) buried abroad.

My father survived World War II with only a couple of tiny shrapnel wounds, but his memories of harrowing battles in places like Guam, the Philippines, and Okinawa stayed with him until he passed away.  The soldiers buried in places like Flanders Field have only one surviving comrade, Frank Woodruff Buckles, the last American "doughboy."

Look at the picture.  American and Belgian flags at the foot of each cross or Star of David.  Every World War I and II American cemetery in the European Theater, whether in Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, England, Italy... or in Tunisia, for the dead of the 1942-43 North African campaign... have the same array of flags, usually placed by local people or overseas Americans who keep the memory alive.  Further afield, in Latin America and in the Pacific, other cemeteries unvisited by me continue the same tradition.

Private Harry Volz of Wisconsin, whose Flanders Field grave is pictured here, died on November 10, 1918.  Students of history will know that 24 hours later, on the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month," Armistice was declared and the guns fell silent.  A day too late for Pvt. Volz...

Edward G. Lengel, Associate Professor at UVA and author of "To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918," knows something about remembrance, and wrote this in yesterday's Washington Post:

The Civil War and World War II seem to lend themselves to good storytelling, as long as one avoids the ugly, depressing bits. They appear to have clear beginnings and endings, with dramatic heroes and villains. They move. World War I, by contrast, with its images of trench warfare and mustard gas, is not so easy to manipulate in a marketable manner. Popular historians consequently avoid it. As one trade publisher recently told me, World War I has "poor entertainment value." Attempts to discuss it, even with avid students of military history, often end with the same comments that veterans heard back in 1919: "It's all too dreadful," and so on. So powerful is this perception that even genuinely exciting stories -- those of Medal of Honor winners Charles W. Whittlesey, Alvin C. York, John L. Barkley and Freddie Stowers -- are ignored.

We should step back and think for a moment about what this says about Americans as people. Do we honor our veterans for all their sacrifices, or do we care only if they can tell us a good story? And who, then, is guilty of ingratitude?

World War II marked the end of this noble tradition of interring American war dead where they fell.  No Korean War, Vietnam War, Iraq War gravestones for Americans on those Mekong or Mesopotamian battlefields.  Maybe, to borrow Dr. Lengel's phrase, those conflicts lacked "clear beginnings and endings, with dramatic heroes and villains."  I have no doubt that there are heroes, and we've been told plenty about the "villains," but those "clear beginnings and endings?"  It's all so murky, so wrapped up in controversy over contrived incidents and confused war aims.  The Iraq War's "poor entertainment value" has been reflected in box office flops - it's pretty "dreadful" too.

Listening to yesterday's speeches (Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme, himself from the World War I-ravaged town of Ypres-Ieper), gave a thoughtful speech in flawless English referring to the WW I foundations of transatlantic cooperation), I had the impression that there was a mite less triumphalism in the speeches by the official American representatives.  As if five years into another murky war without "clear beginnings and endings" have induced a certain realization that the endgame is unknown, and that the ending, while it certainly may not be clear, will be accomplished by a President other than the one who started it.

John Kerry asked, as a young Vietnam combat veteran who had turned against that divisive war: "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"  Private Volz from Wisconsin, who 90 years ago in Flanders Field died a day before peace was declared, can rest in peace, as should the dead from Vietnam and Iraq, whatever we think of the merits of the wars in which they fell.  But before we ask a soldier to be the last one to die in Iraq, we had better clarify why we are still there, fighting for whom?

Prioritization at the Pentagon: A Green Zone Golf Resort?

"Vision without resources is hallucination"

The above-mentioned piece of military wisdom is worth remembering as you ponder what hallucinogenic substance the Pentagon planners were ingesting when they came up with the "Tigris Woods Golf and Country Club" for Baghdad’s Green Zone.  And this one looks like a joint (inter service) plan – so no more jokes please about Air Force blueprints for a typical new air base showing “Phase One: golf greens; Phase Two: runway.”

These hallucinatory visions of Iraq in some future era of golf vacations are outlined in today’s Guardian by Michael Howard in “Luxury Hotels and Golf: Welcome to the Green Zone.  Pentagon airs plan to turn Baghdad military redoubt into a chic urban oasis.”

A $5bn tourism and development scheme for the Green Zone being hatched by the Pentagon and an international investment consortium would give the heavily fortified area on the banks of the Tigris a "dream" makeover that will become a magnet for Iraqis, tourists, business people and investors.  About half of the area is now occupied by coalition forces, the US State Department or private foreign companies.

... according to Navy Captain Thomas Karnowski, the chief US liaison, "When you have $1bn hanging out there and 1,000 employees lying around [ed. note: a reference to the new US embassy compound, under construction], you kind of want to know who your neighbors are. You want to influence what happens in your neighborhood over time."

This is May 6, not April 1, so it can't be an April Fool's prank.  Someone has been given money to play with.

Pots of Money

Resources – without which vision is hallucination – are usually not a problem in the Pentagon.  Except when it comes to prioritizing them, which then becomes intensely political.  Just look at the current flap over a rejuvenated “GI Bill,” which has a bipartisan group of war veteran Senators (joined by Democratic presidential candidates Obama and Clinton) ranged against – you guessed it – President Bush and Senator John McCain, who suddenly want to hoard money.  As if the Defense budget wasn’t already in hock to Chinese purchasers of American debt instruments.

And if $5 billion isn’t excessive for a little R&R on the Tigris, why is it so difficult to provide decent (i.e., without sewage backups) housing for soldiers returning to their barracks Stateside?  It took an outraged father of a soldier back from a combat zone, armed with a digital camera and a YouTube account, to shame the Army into action.

But we’re mixing up different pots of money.  “What color is your money?” an experienced bureaucrat would ask.  Not a reference to the monotone greenback, but to the coloration of the particular agency or appropriation that controls the money.  For the "Tigris Woods Golf and Country Club" we’re obviously talking about an overflowing pot full of the right color of money.  There’s a hint in yesterday’s unveiling of the drawings: “an international investment consortium” smells opportunity in what looks like another “public-private” venture.

I have no crystal ball, and certainly wouldn’t wish a helicopters-off-the-roof outcome for Embassy Baghdad, but if I were a private investor, I would think more than twice about sinking my money into the “Tigris Woods.”  Maybe they’ll pick up some “political violence” risk coverage from the US government’s insurer of last resort, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC, not to be confused with OPEC, the people who are bringing you $4.00 per gallon gasoline.  But I digress.)  Though I’m not an investor, I am a taxpayer, and I would prefer that my tax dollars not be spent on such utterly outrageous frivolities as skateboard parks and country clubs while the country is on fire and sewage flows in the streets.

Meanwhile, in that trailer park on the Tigris

Last year in Vanity Fair, investigative reporter William Langewiesche called it “The Mega-Bunker of Baghdad.”  We’re talking, of course, about the new American Embassy due for completion later this year.  Langewiesche, writing late last year, speculated that

It is reasonable to assume that insurgents will soon sit in the privacy of rooms overlooking the site, and use cell phones or radios to adjust the rocket and mortar fire of their companions. Meanwhile, however, they seem to have held off, lobbing most of their ordnance elsewhere into the Green Zone, as if reluctant to slow the completion of such an enticing target.

Lately, Langewiesche’s prediction has come to pass: here’s Lennox Samuels, writing last week in Newsweek (“Unsafe Haven”)

...rockets and mortars started slamming into the Green Zone on Sunday afternoon and kept coming well into the night, as if the Shiite fighters in Sadr City were making up for the respite.  A heavy dust storm choked Baghdad, adding a sense of claustrophobia while providing the insurgents cover. "They're getting closer and closer," noted veteran security expert Mike Arrighi.  Arrighi, who works and lives in the tightly defended Zone, says that this week's barrage shows the same "consistency, intensity and ferocity" of the initial attacks that began almost a month ago.

Meanwhile, a State Department insider (“The Skeptical Bureaucrat,” a blogger who has worked in the Overseas Building Operations office – OBO, which builds US embassies) notes the policy conundrum:

... the only way left to lower our risk is to reduce the number of people on the site. Any other embassy receiving rocket and mortar fire would be evacuated or put on ordered departure, as U.S. Embassy Sanaa [Yemen] was recently after it was attacked to no effect with only four measly 51mm mortar rounds, but, again, that's not an option in the case of Baghdad.

“Not an option.”  As in “Failure Is Not An Option.”  But since the goalposts for “Success” keep shifting, how will we know when we have failed?  And as Langewiesche notes, “For the most part, however, the new embassy is not about leaving Iraq, but about staying on—for whatever reason, under whatever circumstances, at whatever cost.”

“For whatever reason..."  How about this reason, from the original AP story, for the Disneyfication of the Green Zone:

For Washington, the driving motivation is to create a "zone of influence" around the new $700 million U.S. Embassy to serve as a kind of high-end buffer for the compound, whose total price tag will reach about $1 billion after all the workers and offices are relocated over the next year.

So, there we have it: you plan to spend $5 billion on a “zone of influence” to protect a $1 billion investment.  But then again, what is $5 billion for a country club when you’re spending more than twice that amount every month (sorry, when the Chinese are lending us that amount to spend) on ordnance and PX supplies to keep US troops in Iraq?

The Syrian “Peace” and the Uses of Old News

Reams have already been written about the strange “Senior Administration Official” briefing last week on the alleged Syrian nuclear reactor apparently bombed by Israel in September 2007.  Much of what has been written in the intervening week has been speculation on the motivation to dredge up old news: this is aimed at recalcitrant North Koreans... it’s really to send a message to Iran...  Now, thanks to President Bush, we don’t have to wonder anymore: “Bush Says Syria Nuclear Disclosure Intended to Prod North Korea and Iran.” (NYT, April 30, 2008)

Since the SAO briefing was itself about old news, I feel completely justified in only getting around to blog about it a week later.  Some analysts have looked at the Syrian-Israeli angle, which really should be the place to start.  I do not want to (nor am able to) analyze the orientation of the photos or their pixel (re)arrangement, nor do I want to parse the lengthy transcript of the SAO’s briefing for telltale hints of the motivation.

I will simply look at the timing, via my admittedly selective timeline:

•    September 6, 2007: Israel hits a target in Syria but maintains media silence, ostensibly to allow Syria to save face (if nothing happened, you don’t have to retaliate)
•    November 27, 2007: Annapolis Conference, which Syrian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Fayssal Mekdad attends, and where enthusiasm runs high in certain Israeli circles (especially the army) that peace over the Golan Heights is at hand
•    January 10, 2008: President Bush's Jerusalem speech on the peace process,where he says of Syrian-Israeli peace overtures: precisely nothing
•    March 12, 2008: In The Guardian of London, Jonathan Freedland (see more below) says that Israeli PM Olmert is given intelligence briefing on Syrian rapprochement
•    April 24, 2008: As the sun rises over the Middle East, a flurry of articles appears in the world press over Turkish mediation and possibly imminent Israel-Syria deal on the Golan Heights (statements by President Bashar al-Assad and Israeli MFA confirm; Israeli rejectionists object)
•    April 24, 2008: Same day, a few hours later, Washington time, the SAO briefs a closed Congressional session, then tells the press the same thing an hour later – breathless revelations on the September 2007 incident - seven months after it occurred.

Media manipulation mission accomplished?  Now, if you Google Syria + Israel, you’ll get zillions of articles on “nuclear” “bombing” “intelligence” – while those hopeful articles about the imminent Israeli-Syrian peace deal are submerged.  Don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout no pixels, but I throw in my lot with those probing to find a peace deal saboteur somewhere in the bowels of Washington’s and/or Jerusalem’s anti-Syria camp.

Oh yes, back to that prescient March 12 Jonathan Freedland article in the Guardian, “To Rescue the Two-State Solution, Israel Must Make Peace With Syria.”  After outlining the peace overtures, and the logic that from peace with Syria flows the de-fanging of Lebanon’s Hizbullah and Palestinian Hamas, Freedland warned:

There is one last obstacle in the way of a Syrian-Israel peace. Those in the know say flatly that the Bush administration will not allow Jerusalem to talk to Damascus, which it deems an associate member of the "axis of evil".  Put it down as one more reason why the world waits, ever more impatiently, for January 20 2009 - the day George W Bush will at last be gone.

Rami Khouri in yesterday’s Daily Star (Beirut) notes the American absence from the Middle East peace scene:

The most important diplomatic process these days is the Syrian-Israeli one. Israelis and Syrians alike have made it clear that something serious is taking place behind the scenes.  It is telling of the damage that the US has done to its own role and impact in the Middle East that the potentially most important diplomatic development in the past generation seems to be taking place without any significant American role.

Was the SAO “Syria briefing” (though we are told that its target was North Korea, etc.) a not-so-back door way of killing (for reasons best known to the people who brought you “the way to Jerusalem is via Baghdad” and other wonderful hallucinations about the Middle East) the Syrian Peace?  As Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery says in Counterpunch: “War with Syria? Peace with Syria?...

... A big military operation against Hamas in the Gaza strip? A cease-fire with Hamas?  Our media discuss these questions dispassionately, as if they were equivalent options. Like a person in a showroom making a choice between two cars. This one is good, and so is the other one. So which should one buy?

Beware of the used car salesman who, five years ago today, tried to sell us “Mission Accomplished.”

When the Emerald City Ruled the Tigris

The University of Southern California (USC) Center on Public Diplomacy has just published my review of Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s modern classic on the folly of Iraq, “Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Baghdad’s Green Zone.”  The book has garnered several awards; you can read an excerpt from the first chapter “Versailles on the Tigris” here, on the author’s website.

The timing is appropriate: almost five years ago to the day, then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tapped L. Paul “Jerry” Bremer to head what was to become the Coalition Provisional Authority – the CPA, which is the centerpiece of “Imperial Life.”  The CPA existed for little more than a year, then handed over “sovereignty” to the “government” of "Iraq."  But not before publishing, as the Americans were packing their bags, a compendium still available on its archived website, “AN HISTORIC REVIEW OF CPA ACCOMPLISHMENTS,” which ends with this wonderful table of “comparative reconstruction milestones for post-Saddam Iraq and post-WWII Germany.”
                                                                   IRAQ                    GERMANY

Local Governments Installed                2 Months                8 Months
Independent Central Bank                    2 Months                3 Years
Police Established                               2 Months               14 Months
New Currency                                      2 ½ Months            3 Years
Training a new Military                          3 Months               10 Years
Major reconstruction plan                      4 Months               3 Years
Cabinet Seated                                    4 Months               14 Months
Full Sovereignty                                   1 Year                   10 Years
New Constitution                                  2 ½ Years              4 Years
National Elections                                3 Years                  4 Years
War Trials                                            Pending                 6 Months

And you thought Germany was a success story!  Readers who appreciate Chandrasekaran’s tragicomic realism will also appreciate the CPA’s magic surrealism; the 72 page CPA list of accomplishments is a ministry by ministry checklist of “progress” that might have escaped your attention in the ensuing five years.

Matt Armstrong of MountainRunner deemed Chandrasekaran's depiction of the first year of the American occupation of Iraq "instructive on how to create an insurgency through occupation."  Whether it's the Occupation that created the Insurgency, or simply the Invasion that inevitably led to Resistance, “Imperial Life in the Emerald City” is a timeless work on this crucial period.  Its portrait of hubris in the early days of the American “Iraq era” has already come to serve as a reference, much as “The Ugly American” and the “Quiet American” are synonymous with the American misadventure in Vietnam.

The Military GRIP on US Foreign Policy

Europe’s fixation on the American presidential race continues.  Yesterday’s conference on “US Foreign Policy After Bush” sponsored by the respected Brussels think tank GRIP (“Groupe de recherche et d’information sur la paix et la securite”) focused primarily on American security policy.  The panel was composed of academics and journalists from francophone Belgium’s left-leaning firmament, though the message was not terribly different from that heard in previous (conservative) European fora: though there are differences between the remaining candidates, in certain key areas, don’t expect the heavens to open even if Barack Obama is elected President.

In a series of slides, GRIP researchers presented graphs showing the ahistoric (when compared to the country’s first century and a half) levels of American military spending since the end of World War II.  In previous major US wars (the Civil War, First World War), US military spending spiked, and then resumed (low) pre-war levels.  As late as the 1920s, US defense budgets sunk as low as 0.7% of GDP.  World War II, morphing into the Cold War, which morphed into the Global War on Terror (GWOT), set a new paradigm, where official defense budgets have built a graphical mountain on the historical timeline.  Accounting for off-budget spending (the “supplemental” spending on Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as projected costs for war veteran medical care, etc.) would require an Al Gore-like “Inconvenient Truth” ladder, where spending would literally go off the charts.

My favorite slide summarizes how profitable defense spending has been – hence how difficult it will be for even a reform-minded president to change the course of the military juggernaut.  It’s a GRIP depiction of the AMEX Defense Index (DFI) over the period September 1996 to present.   It's worth noting that the good times really started rolling after the Clinton Administration's "Last Supper" at the Pentagon with defense industry chiefs in January 1993, when the military industrial complex was "right sized." With profitability like this, and with a defense industry spread over every Congressional District, it will indeed be difficult to steer the ship of state in a direction different to that of George W. Bush.

Today’s Guardian carries a excellent Simon Jenkins piece on a similar theme, “Despite Iraq, America's Love Affair With War Runs Deep.”

The one thing known by all three candidates for the presidency is that whoever wins must do something painful. He or she must negotiate the terms of an eventual retreat from Iraq, not with the Iraqi but with the American people. Even John McCain, who watched the retreat from Vietnam and swears he will "stay a hundred years in Iraq until peace, stability and democracy" are achieved, will eventually leave, if only under the lash of Congress.

Yet now is not the time to admit it. A war that is unpopular with 60-70% of Americans (depending on the question) is not politically sustainable, however stupefying the cost. But the modalities of its ending are unpredictable and possibly humiliating.  Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama may call for early withdrawal, at least of "combat troops". But the real paradox of Iraq is that McCain knows he must find a way of leaving, and Clinton and Obama know they must find a way of staying, if only for the time being. For all of them, getting from here to there crosses uncharted territory and none wants to glimpse the map.

But “getting from here to there,” as Jenkins notes, includes obligatory war rhetoric to show that no candidate is “soft on defense.”  This is mainly a challenge for the Democrats, since no one assumes that McCain is a softie.  So Hillary Clinton delivers a pre-Pennsylvania blast at Iran, saying that she would “totally obliterate” the country if it attacked Israel.  Even Barack Obama has to rattle the sabers, in what amounts to unilateralism aimed at Pakistan.

Despite warnings from past soldier-presidents (George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower) on the dangers of large standing armies and the “Military Industrial Complex,” changing the mindset that puts military might above all other indices of national health, wealth, and yes – power - is more than a daunting task.  GRIP’s presentation yesterday on American military spending in the Middle East from 1950 through 2006 is enough to cause despair - especially when you realize that most of the US money in military assistance programs is out of the same budget that funds American diplomacy, the State Department.  From whatever angle (percentage of overall US aid, percentage of US aid to the Middle East, etc.), the countless billions spent, given, or sold in terms of weapons in the most flammable part of the world is astounding.  Oh yes: Iran is number four on the list of US military assistance recipients.  Iran?  The HQ of the “Axis of Evil?”  The place where they call America “The Great Satan?”  Remember, the graph also includes the period before 1979, when the Shah's Iran was the Number One US arms recipient.

So what has more than a half century of arms-trading-in-the-tinderbox procured for the US?  Several wars, whether direct or proxy (see Osama bin Laden, the fallen angel of the anti-Soviet crusade in Afghanistan); several regime changes, whether pro or anti-American (see Mossadegh>Shah>Ayatollah for the progression in Iran; for Iraq, Saddam>Bremer>Allawi>Jaafari>Maliki>TBD?); and several million permanently displaced people (Palestinians and now Iraqis scattered over the Middle East, miserable and a source of instability for their reluctant hosts).

GRIP provided the graphs.  But will Americans elect someone who can read them?

Honorable Dissent: The Resignation of Ann Wright

There will be a flood of "commemorations" tomorrow, the eve of the fifth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, and we will be on the road (and will miss Brussels' "Literary Wake").

So this would have been my March 19 entry, marking the fifth anniversary of the resignation of American diplomat Mary Ann Wright.  Her resignation letter is on the web in its entirety on "Government Executive.com," but here are key excerpts:

I strongly believe the probable response of many Arabs of the region and Moslems of the world if the US enters Iraq without UNSC agreement will result in actions extraordinarily dangerous to America and Americans. Military action now without UNSC agreement is much more dangerous for America and the world than allowing the UN weapons inspections to proceed and subsequently taking UNSC authorized action if warranted.

I strongly disagree with the use of a "preemptive attack" against Iraq and believe that this preemptive attack policy will be used against us and provide justification for individuals and groups to "preemptively attack" America and American citizens.

We should give the weapons inspectors time to do their job. We should not give extremist Moslems/Arabs a further cause to hate America, or give moderate Moslems a reason to join the extremists. Additionally, we must reevaluate keeping our military forces in the Middle East, particularly in Saudi Arabia. Their presence on the Islamic "holy soil" of Saudi Arabia will be an anti-American rally cry for Moslems as long as the US military remains and a strong reason, in their opinion, for actions against the US government and American citizens.

Reading this five years on, I think you might agree that Ann Wright knew her stuff: after all, she had served in Sierra Leone (where she was decorated for heroism), Micronesia, Afghanistan, Mongolia, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Grenada, Panama, and Nicaragua.  Not exactly a list of soft assignments.

I have written about the other two Foreign Service Officers who resigned over the US invasion of Iraq, Brady Kiesling and John Brown.  Ann (as she is known) Wright's case is different, in that she resigned on the very eve of the invasion, while serving as the Deputy Chief of Mission (no. 2 person after the ambassador) at the US Embassy in Mongolia.  Ann Wright was also a Colonel in the US Army Reserve, and had spent a combined total of almost thirty years in active duty and the reserves.  When she wrote her letter, she was leaving a lot.

Ann Wright has become well known in activist circles, and has penned a book "Dissent: Voices of Conscience: Government Insiders Speak Out Against the War in Iraq" with co-author Susan Dixon.  Folksy, articulate, and extremely well-informed, Ann Wright can be seen discussing the book here on "Fora.tv" with fellow dissenter Daniel Ellsberg (of "Pentagon Papers" fame during the Vietnam War), who has written the foreword to her book.  The Ellsberg/Wright duo speak of those American (and British) civil servants and soldiers who risked their careers (and risked imprisonment) to challenge their government's actions in bringing the US and UK to war.

Ann Wright is obviously an authoritative source when it comes to dissenting government insiders.  For those who wish to register their principled opposition but yet not go as far as she, Brown, and Kiesling did, the State Department does have the "Dissent Channel," one of the Secretary's "Open Forum" means of presenting alternate policy views.  It was instituted in the wake of Foreign Service resignations over the bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War.  Now that the US is again mired in a seemingly interminable foreign war, the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) is trying to get the State Department to breathe life into these internal dissent mechanisms.

Mideast Medical Tourism Guide

From "Welcoming The World's Ills" by Ronny Linder-Ganz, Haaretz, 14 February 2008:

Israel is emerging as a popular destination for medical tourists. In recent years, many thousands of visitors have come to Israel to undergo medical procedures.  "It's a branch of tourism in its own right, and a trigger for bringing many more tourists, because a person who travels to Israel for surgery and is treated warmly and meets nice, helpful Israelis goes back home and becomes an ambassador for Israel," says Nir Crystal, head of marketing at the Herzliya Medical Center.

Meanwhile, today's BBC on the latest ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) report on Iraq:

Millions of Iraqis have little or no access to clean water, sanitation and healthcare, five years after the US-led invasion, according to the Red Cross.  The Swiss-based agency says Iraq's humanitarian situation is "among the most critical in the world".  Some families spend a third of their average monthly wage of $150 just buying clean water. (italics added)

The entire 15-page report is available here.

Finally, from Saturday's BBC World Service radio program "From Our Own Correspondent," where reporter Aleem Maqbool visits 21 year old Nael al Kurdi, terminally ill cancer patient, a week before he died:

I went to talk about his case with a spokesman for the Israeli government who pointed out that the border closures were for security reasons.

And when we got on to the subject of seriously ill patients being allowed out of Gaza for treatment, he told me that, while some patients had been let out, it was his view that terminally ill ones posed a potential danger to Israel.

They had nothing to live for, he suggested, so they might blow themselves up and become suicide bombers.

No medical "tourism" for dying Gazans.

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I don't begrudge Israel's desire to show off its shining hospitals and earn hard currency from wealthy foreigners.  The Haaretz article speaks of the Indian example, which has set a national target of $1.2 billion annually by 2012.  I do think that Israel - ever concerned about its image and desire for medical "goodwill ambassadors" - might consider the PR value of treating (or at least allowing to escape the "open air prison" of Gaza) some sick Palestinians.  And the propaganda cost of denying treatment.

But my outraged citizen ire is more directed at the situation in my native country - perhaps no surprise to regular readers.  Ever alert to irony, here's one from the Haaretz article:

"Then there are the Americans [says Amitai Rotem, director of marketing at Hadassah], who come here because they can get first-rate health care for a fraction of what it would cost them in the U.S. For example, an American with no health insurance would pay $120,000 for bypass surgery in the U.S. At Hadassah the procedure costs $35,000, and that includes all the necessary arrangements, such as airfare, accommodations and food for both patient and family. This means that ultimately, even with all the added expenses, the patient pays less than one-third of what the same operation would cost in the U.S."

"An American with no health insurance... ."  Presumably this means wealthy Americans without health insurance, probably an oxymoron and certainly a tiny minority.  Okay, let me get this right: the United States, which has no national health insurance program and which allows millions of Americans to languish without health coverage, become paupers, and die -  subsidizes Israel to the tune of $100 billion over the last 40 years and permits Israel to develop its own world-class health system - which in turn allows "Americans with no health insurance..."  I give up.

The National Health Insurance Law (in effect since January 1995) provides a standardized basket of medical services, including hospitalization, for all residents of Israel.

Of course, "all residents of Israel" gets into that thorny question of definitions: who is a resident? what is "Israel?" where are the boundaries?  It's all so complicated - but very simple when it comes to Nael al Kurdi.

And then there's Iraq.  I guess some of the two million Iraqis who have fled their country after the US invasion might be considered "medical tourists," in the sense that their country's medical infrastructure has largely vanished.  Says Pascal Olle, the ICRC's health coordinator for Iraq: "In the 70's, the country offered one of the best health services in the region."

Medical "tourism."  What a concept.  Great - if you can afford it.  Or if your country doesn't offer it at home.

(Images: Emblems of Magen David Adom, Red Cross, and Red Crescent)

Message Control: The Admiral Will Now Take Questions

Civilian Control of the Military

As much as I might sympathize with soon-to-be-retired Admiral William "Fox" Fallon's view that "this constant drumbeat of conflict... is not helpful and not useful" (apropos of Administration war drums on Iran), it is not surprising that his record of brutally frank talk in the presence of journalists caused his departure from the top slot at Central Command.  For the most concise summary of the likely "insubordination" verdict, here's an excerpt from "The Nelson Report" (subscription only), thanks to The Washington Note's Steve Clemons:

... Fallon was fired for hubris which amounted to insubordination, Congressional and other sources feel.  It is both understandable and justifiable, given the chain of command and civilian control ethos of the US military.  Any administration, and not just Bush and Gates, would rapidly conclude that they could not tolerate having their hand-picked commander for Iraq and Afghanistan seeming to take on responsibility for deciding whether to go to war with Iran (or any other country)...

What Chris Nelson is talking about is a basic democratic fact: elected civilians decide matters of war and peace, and uniformed military execute orders.  Of course, you'd like it if the "elected civilians" include, in the American example, the Senate, as in "advice and consent."

It's worth reading the article in Esquire Magazine by Thomas P. M. Barnett, "The Man Between War and Peace," which was the proximate cause of Fallon's dismissal.  You get a feel for a man who had nothing to prove: at close to four decades in the Navy, he could have retired long ago, especially after successfully heading one of the US Navy's prime posts, the four-star billet at Pearl Harbor, Pacific Command or PACOM, which covers a sizable chunk of the globe.

Masters of (Their) Universe

Apart from Fallon's well-publicized objections to the war talk coming from the White House, it is worth reading all of Barnett's piece to appreciate other ingredients in the Fallon story.  Describing a quiet moment in Egypt, accompanying the Admiral on a annual CENTCOM exercise, Barnett recounts this exchange with Fallon:

I can tell that the cover story in this morning's Egyptian Gazette landed hard on somebody's desk at the White House. U.S. RULES OUT STRIKE AGAINST IRAN, read the banner headline, and the accompanying photo showed Fallon in deep consultation with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

Fallon sidles up to me during a morning coffee break. "I'm in hot water again," he says.

"The White House?"

The admiral slowly nods his head.

"They say, 'Why are you even meeting with Mubarak?' " This seems to utterly mystify Fallon.

"Why?" he says, shrugging with palms extending outward. "Because it's my job to deal with this region, and it's all anyone wants to talk about right now. People here hear what I'm saying and understand. I don't want to get them too spun up. Washington interprets this as all aimed at them. Instead, it's aimed at governments and media in this region. I'm not talking about the White House." He points to the ground, getting exercised. "This is my center of gravity. This is my job."

It is not unheard of for four star American commanders of the "Combatant Commands" (CENTCOM, PACOM, AFRICOM, etc.) to meet with foreign heads of state and government in their respective "areas of responsibility" (AORs).  This "military diplomacy" is an increasingly common facet of American engagement with the world.  So if the White House was peeved at Fallon's meeting with Mubarak, it probably wasn't because he was playing diplomat.  Rather, it may be a reflection of pique with the Egyptian leader, who may not be sufficiently "with the program" - the Bush program for the Middle East.

The President's Representative... Is Where?

We're not told, in the above instance, who else was huddling with Mubarak.  The American Ambassador to Egypt - was he there?  Elsewhere in the Barnett article, we learn about Fallon's meeting with the Pakistani President:

"I didn't do any preaching," Fallon says about his talks with Musharraf. "In a previous life here [reference to his PACOM days], I had two extra constitutional events: a coup in Thailand, and a head of the military took over in Fiji. So I talked to the president for quite a while yesterday, both with the ambassador and then alone.

"Both with the ambassador and then alone..."  Now, US ambassadors are expected to be the President's personal representative in the countries to which they are assigned.  One of the fears of ambassadors, in big countries or small, is that American generals will be popping into those same countries and hobnobbing with the government.  Or giving orders to the Ambassador's staff, this time touring outlying provinces in Afghanistan:

... the governor piles on with a new complaint: Every winter, a local river becomes impassable for a local migratory tribe that is then stranded outside the valley.

Fallon asks the deputy chief of mission, "Are you aware of this?"

The DCM ["deputy ambassador"] replies, "No, I wasn't, and I promise to look into that."

None of this, individually, amounts to much, but taken as a whole, it underlines several sore points in the military-diplomatic relationship: who's in charge here?

Fallon appears to be brilliant, projects a can-do attitude, and has served his country honorably.  His departure after speaking his mind shows the limits of "freedom of speech" in a chain of command that ends at the Oval Office.  It is unfortunate, I think, that Admiral Fallon did not leave on his own time, and that if he truly feels that the War Party is in the ascendancy, he did not make an impassioned resignation statement and go his own way.  This way, it leaves a feeling of irresolution, a hint of "insubordination" followed by an "acceptance" of retirement.

There is a way to clear away the lingering doubt.  Hold a press conference.  And join the growing club of generals critical of the Bush Administration's way in the world.