Not all of Wikileaks is bad news. As Dana Milbank's column in today's Washington Post points out, many of our diplomats are veritable Graham Greenes able to pen poignant cables home. We also learn that Prince Andrews thinks the United States is back in the Great Game, which the American ambassador denied, having not received the talking points from the Bush-Cheney Administration. In my view, it was good news that our foreign service officers are conscious that all our erstwhile allies in the Middle East are corrupt, sleazy and double-dealing. We also learn that the Obama Administration has been adroit in isolating Iran in the world. Details of how the Obama Administration weened China away from Iran by getting the Saudis to guarantee its oil supply showed deft diplomacy.
There are the usual fun vignettes of world leaders like Qaddafhi with his buxom Romanian nurse, Sarkozy reveling in denying Tony Blair the Presidency of the EU, and Berlusconi's pride in setting a good table and his close relationship with Putin's less savory friends.
We can look forward to weeks more of Wikileaks. They promise more upcoming cables having to due with the Vatican, North Korea and Israel. Julian Assange told Forbes he will have a massive document dump on a major American bank, which will expose the international financial community.
But there exists the problem of "bad faith" by Wikileaks. For example, when they dumped over 250,000 cables into the internet, they also asked their supporters to download the "insurance files", which are heavily encoded. These files are supposed to guarantee the United States or other security services would not assassinate Assange or those who work for Wikileaks. But it seems to me that if you profess wanting transparency in "all global issues" then saving the crown jewels just to protect your person is not quite cricket.
The U.S. Government reacted with justified outrage over the latest Wikileaks, even more than the previous dump of Afghanistan and Iraq documents. The problem is that this administration has tried to recover America's fallen prestige in the world and this doesn't help matters. The Italian foreign minister characterized these actions by Wikileaks as the "9-11" of political diplomacy. Former CIA officer Bob Baer claims that the release of the cables will make it more problematic for the United States to launch drones inside Pakistan and to engage in some of its covert anti-terrorism work as in Yemen. Another practical problem is that the leak silences friends inside other countries from providing intelligence to American diplomats.
But one of the issues here is that over 2 million Americans had access to these cables. None of them were highly classified. And where was our vaunted counterintelligence officers? This seems to me to be the result of the Secret America the Washington Post revealed earlier this year. A myriad of new intelligence agencies have grown up since 9/11 and none of them have any adult supervision. If you really believe that the lone American military analyst is the source of these cables I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'll sell you. The Wikileaks phenomenon is just the start of a flood of classified materials washing across the internet. It doesn't have to be Wikileaks but competitors since our intelligence agencies are so porous.
One of the most disturbing aspect of the cables is that they reveal the United States under President Obama has not abandoned the "Long War" concept created by the Bush-Cheney years. Almost every cable is tinged with a fixation on terrorism and war fever. The cable of Bob Gates briefing the Italian foreign minister about how the world will be radically different if Iran obtains a nuclear device is one of hundreds of examples of this mentality. Luckily, our policy makers have refrained from taking the Sunni dictators' advice in bombing Tehran but the theme runs throughout the Middle Eastern cables. It's not clear who is the client state the United States or the small Sunni kleptocracies. The Saudi King waxes hot and cold over whether Iran should be bombed. When Mossad tries to blackmail the U.S. in 2005 to bomb Iran while there is still time, the Saudis weigh in to stop this. This year the Saudi King now wants Iran bombed. Every Middle Eastern state, including Israel, wants a war with Iran and naturally the United States must wage it and pay for it.
Reading these cables you have to conclude that America must rapidly adopt a national energy policy as soon as possible to withdraw from the region and realign our country with the hopes and aspirations with the region's peoples and not their corrupt rulers. While the Sunni potentates urge the United States to bomb Iran, Middle Eastern people in recent polls believe the greatest threat to their security is posed by Israel number one, then the United States second and Iran down in the mix. The cables make you believe we are being manipulated by local political forces rather than following our national interests.
If one recalls the days of anti-Americanism in Latin America, it was because we would install military dictators and did not encourage democracy and freedom after the years of the Alliance for Progress. In the atmosphere of the Cold war, center and center-left forces were considered suspect and our emphasis was on stability, which was temporarily purchased by widespread human rights abuses. Reading these cables, I fear we are descending into that mentality, which will create dangerous blowback. Our intelligence assets are in fact part of the political problem as witnessed by the honest cables from our ambassador to Pakistan.
Leftist critics of Iraq and Afghanistan wars claim we are in quagmires. But it actually becomes true when you consider our role in the whole Middle East. Just review the cables on Hamid Karzai and his brother. We are in bed with so many shady corrupt characters that it's hard to see how we can extract ourselves from them. And the problem is that the average person there will remember. Just as they remember when George H.W. Bush urged the Shi'ites to revolt against Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War and the United States failed to come to their rescue.
The cables about Iran's nuclear program remind me of the E.U. ambassador, who said,"We're all negotiating over a nuclear weapon like an oriental rug. But the difference is that we don't know whether the rug exists or not." The most worrisome cables detail North Korea's shipment to Iran of ballistic missiles, something the Iranian ambassador to Moscow immediately denied the day after the cables appeared. It has been this missile capability, in my opinion, that is the actual security threat posed by Iran. As we have seen, the Iranian nuclear program has been sabotaged by cyber warfare and the assasination of nuclear scientists, which should push the program back years.
Emerging as the elephant in the room is North Korea. The cables are fascinating in that the United States and South Korea have gamed out a unified Korea and cables covering the Chinese indicate Beijing might not object to this. It's clear China is not happy with their clients as North Korea keeps going rogue. One only has to watch the recent events on the Korean peninsula to get some sense of their insanity. How much of this military action is to camouflage an on-going transfer of power?
The Right and the Left in the States have selectively picked cables to reinforce their own ideologies. The Left is making hay out of suggestions that somehow the United States encouraged the right-wing coup in Honduras, while there are counter cables indicating this might not be true. The Right is circulating cables printed in the Guardian that the Obama Administration was hoping that the moderates would triumph in the Iranian election. Not a bad hope. But the point of circulating these memos is to portray the Administration as naive, something the rest of the cables show they are not. In fact, the cables show that Obama's overture to Iran was done precisely to set up the situation for tougher sanctions, something the right didn't understand in the first place.
The American diplomatic corps comes across as professional, honest, educated and savvy to the local conditions. While these cables are not policy papers but just reports from the field, you have to give the men and women who serve our country credit for dealing with a hostile and threatening world. You also have to give them credit for ferreting out information from host countries. Unfortunately, something that might become more difficult with the release of these cables.
One item I found ironic was Harold Koh's statement condemning Wikileaks. Koh is the counselor for the State Department, whose appointment was challenged by conservatives who claimed--quite falsely--was an advocate of Sharia law.
Showing posts with label the Long War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the Long War. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Sunday, February 8, 2009
The Radical Moment
We'll have a stimulus package eventually and it will probably offer a short-term remedy for the economy. The Congressional Budget Office report the Republicans love to misuse says that the package will have an effect by the second half of this year and take hold in 2010. But every other item on Obama's agenda will be thwarted, including health care reform.
You have to like Paul Krugman for soldiering on around the TV shows trying to educate the public. He is right; the compromise package omits some of the most important elements for a true recovery. The one both of us agree on is the $50 billion for state stabilization, which I think is essential for the country to get back to health.
As for TARP II or whatever Monday's offering is going to be called, it does not thrill my jets. The testimony of Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard Professor hired by Congress to oversee the bailout, was depressing. Bush's Treasury Secretary Paulson basically lied to Congress saying he was getting a $1 worth of warrants, assets, etc. for every buck being put into the banks. Actually it's like $.66. The banks have stolen us blind.
The economic crisis provides an opportunity for the United States to correct its fiscal ways and to invest in the development of the nation. But, given the political landscape, it doesn't look possible. The next Republican assault will be on Social Security and Medicare. This is a $53 trillion unfunded entitlement obligation that will explode on us unless dealt with in the next two years. I've already said Social Security is a no-brainer to fix but a solution to Medicare demands a total revamping of the American health system so as to reduce its final price tag for future generations.
Republicans always revert to fiscal conservatives when out of power. The Reagan deficits were strategic for the dual purpose of : bankrupting the Soviet Union; and limiting the growth rate of social spending. The Bush deficits had no such strategic purpose like most of his policies. The Republicans felt that Obama would come in and triangulate like the Clintons. The enormous deficits run up under Bush would normally require the Democrats again postponing their most favored social programs, except this time Bush blew a hole through the hull and the ship is sinking. The tamed policies of the Clinton years simply can't correct the situation.
The situation requires a radical re-thinking of this nation's priorities and large investments in the development of the country. This may still happen as events unfold over the next two years as the real impact of the Bush years is felt on the average citizen. But don't count on it.
One area which will need re-thinking is the immense commitment to maintaining what is now really an empire without benefits. Under both Clinton and Bush, the American military became a type of presidential pretorian guard, which does his bidding and which operates with very few checks on where it operates. The United States has over 700 bases, sometimes only a single radar dish abroad. No one in Washington ,including Barack Obama, is questioning this extraordinary projection of power and the ruinous effect it will have within a few short years on our economy.
After 9/11, the Bush Administration always talked about the "Long War", which we must wage against Islamic fascists, terrorists, choose your term. This we were told would last at least a generation. But at no time did we get the George Kennen memo outlining a containment theory or any other substantial document, which would suggest a strategy about this Long War. Also, there was no information policy about educating the American people about this so-called Long War.
Sadly, this was the product of romantics, who wanted a noble challenge like another Cold War. Without a strategy, the Bush Administration embarked on the largest expansion of the national security state in our history, even overshadowing FDR's effort during WWII. The real kicker here was the awareness there was no point of victory--no collapse of Nazi Germany, no transformation of the Soviet Union. So it became literally a blank check for expenditures on anything remoting related to terrorism.
The intelligence failure over Iraq will hang like a radioactive cloud over foreign policy for years. It becomes difficult to restore any credibility to the United States. Even our closest friends will have to be skittish about any of our assertions in the future. It's fine for Obama in his campaign speech to the Germans to call on more involvement of the Europeans in Afghanistan and for Joe Biden say" We're pushing the reset button on American foreign policy". But the results will be negligible in generating any further European troops for Afghanistan or European involvement in any other American military capers.
The Obama Administration at best is going to fine-tune the foreign policy they inherited. But even that is facing resistance from entrenched interests of the national security state. Look at the clamor over closing Gitmo, the fight over the deadine to withdraw from Iraq and now the problem that there is no existing strategy in Afghanistan.
During the campaign, everyone proudly proclaimed that the new President will be tested by an international crisis. The Obama transition team even tried to game this out, expressing worries that the United States no longer has the resources to bail out a country that suddenly collapses. They were thinking about Pakistan, but it may well be Mexico. While I believe both will happen, the international crisis will be how to manage the collapse of European economies and a set of testing actions by Russia.
Already we had the phoney Georgian issue, made memorable by Senator McCain's address to the nation where he pretended he was the President; and also made memorable that day by cans of peas attacking him in the grocery store. No one has revisited how those events came about where Russia counter-attacked Georgia's forced seizure of South Ossetia. That the United States guaranteed Georgia's protection and that the foreign policy adviser to McCain was the country's lobbyist and verbally assured the Georgia President of America's protection triggered Georgia's actions, which naturally generated Russia's response. It is a great way to trigger a truly global war.
This is really the archetype for the first international crises to face Obama. While the American people are pretty much played out on the Muslim terrorist game, the Great Bear attack is "go" for generating support for the Republicans. And it will be that cynical. And Russia will play it also. We will hear the calls of a new Sudatenland.
Unfortunately, we still have no over-arching geostrategic vision. And we will be compelled to develop one in a crisis. The problem with this is that we are at a time where America must pull back and rethink its global commitments before it literally bankrupts itself.
You have to like Paul Krugman for soldiering on around the TV shows trying to educate the public. He is right; the compromise package omits some of the most important elements for a true recovery. The one both of us agree on is the $50 billion for state stabilization, which I think is essential for the country to get back to health.
As for TARP II or whatever Monday's offering is going to be called, it does not thrill my jets. The testimony of Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard Professor hired by Congress to oversee the bailout, was depressing. Bush's Treasury Secretary Paulson basically lied to Congress saying he was getting a $1 worth of warrants, assets, etc. for every buck being put into the banks. Actually it's like $.66. The banks have stolen us blind.
The economic crisis provides an opportunity for the United States to correct its fiscal ways and to invest in the development of the nation. But, given the political landscape, it doesn't look possible. The next Republican assault will be on Social Security and Medicare. This is a $53 trillion unfunded entitlement obligation that will explode on us unless dealt with in the next two years. I've already said Social Security is a no-brainer to fix but a solution to Medicare demands a total revamping of the American health system so as to reduce its final price tag for future generations.
Republicans always revert to fiscal conservatives when out of power. The Reagan deficits were strategic for the dual purpose of : bankrupting the Soviet Union; and limiting the growth rate of social spending. The Bush deficits had no such strategic purpose like most of his policies. The Republicans felt that Obama would come in and triangulate like the Clintons. The enormous deficits run up under Bush would normally require the Democrats again postponing their most favored social programs, except this time Bush blew a hole through the hull and the ship is sinking. The tamed policies of the Clinton years simply can't correct the situation.
The situation requires a radical re-thinking of this nation's priorities and large investments in the development of the country. This may still happen as events unfold over the next two years as the real impact of the Bush years is felt on the average citizen. But don't count on it.
One area which will need re-thinking is the immense commitment to maintaining what is now really an empire without benefits. Under both Clinton and Bush, the American military became a type of presidential pretorian guard, which does his bidding and which operates with very few checks on where it operates. The United States has over 700 bases, sometimes only a single radar dish abroad. No one in Washington ,including Barack Obama, is questioning this extraordinary projection of power and the ruinous effect it will have within a few short years on our economy.
After 9/11, the Bush Administration always talked about the "Long War", which we must wage against Islamic fascists, terrorists, choose your term. This we were told would last at least a generation. But at no time did we get the George Kennen memo outlining a containment theory or any other substantial document, which would suggest a strategy about this Long War. Also, there was no information policy about educating the American people about this so-called Long War.
Sadly, this was the product of romantics, who wanted a noble challenge like another Cold War. Without a strategy, the Bush Administration embarked on the largest expansion of the national security state in our history, even overshadowing FDR's effort during WWII. The real kicker here was the awareness there was no point of victory--no collapse of Nazi Germany, no transformation of the Soviet Union. So it became literally a blank check for expenditures on anything remoting related to terrorism.
The intelligence failure over Iraq will hang like a radioactive cloud over foreign policy for years. It becomes difficult to restore any credibility to the United States. Even our closest friends will have to be skittish about any of our assertions in the future. It's fine for Obama in his campaign speech to the Germans to call on more involvement of the Europeans in Afghanistan and for Joe Biden say" We're pushing the reset button on American foreign policy". But the results will be negligible in generating any further European troops for Afghanistan or European involvement in any other American military capers.
The Obama Administration at best is going to fine-tune the foreign policy they inherited. But even that is facing resistance from entrenched interests of the national security state. Look at the clamor over closing Gitmo, the fight over the deadine to withdraw from Iraq and now the problem that there is no existing strategy in Afghanistan.
During the campaign, everyone proudly proclaimed that the new President will be tested by an international crisis. The Obama transition team even tried to game this out, expressing worries that the United States no longer has the resources to bail out a country that suddenly collapses. They were thinking about Pakistan, but it may well be Mexico. While I believe both will happen, the international crisis will be how to manage the collapse of European economies and a set of testing actions by Russia.
Already we had the phoney Georgian issue, made memorable by Senator McCain's address to the nation where he pretended he was the President; and also made memorable that day by cans of peas attacking him in the grocery store. No one has revisited how those events came about where Russia counter-attacked Georgia's forced seizure of South Ossetia. That the United States guaranteed Georgia's protection and that the foreign policy adviser to McCain was the country's lobbyist and verbally assured the Georgia President of America's protection triggered Georgia's actions, which naturally generated Russia's response. It is a great way to trigger a truly global war.
This is really the archetype for the first international crises to face Obama. While the American people are pretty much played out on the Muslim terrorist game, the Great Bear attack is "go" for generating support for the Republicans. And it will be that cynical. And Russia will play it also. We will hear the calls of a new Sudatenland.
Unfortunately, we still have no over-arching geostrategic vision. And we will be compelled to develop one in a crisis. The problem with this is that we are at a time where America must pull back and rethink its global commitments before it literally bankrupts itself.
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