JustinLogan.com

Karen of Arabia

Fred Kaplan has a good, snarky piece up on Karen Hughes' travels through the Arab world.  The odd headline on the Slate front page is "Why Is Karen Hughes Such a Bad Diplomat?"  The answer, of course, is that Karen Hughes is not a diplomat.  (Why am I such a bad baseball player?)  Here's the gist from Kaplan:

The main task of this posting is to improve America's image in the Muslim world. Let us stipulate for a moment that Hughes is ideally suited for the job—that she can figure out how to spin sheiks, imams, and "the Arab street" as agilely as she spun the White House press corps in her days as Bush's communications director.

Even if that were so, why would anybody assume that she is the one to do the face-to-face spinning? Wouldn't it be better to find someone who—oh, I don't know—speaks the language, knows the culture, lived there for a while, was maybe born there?

[...]

Back in the days of the Cold War, the U.S. Information Agency ran a vast, independent public-diplomacy program in embassies all over the world—libraries, speakers' bureaus, concert tours by famous jazz musicians, and broadcasts of news and music on the Voice of America. Together, they conveyed an appealing image of a free, even boisterous, America in the face of an implacable, totalitarian Communist foe.

It's hard to say what kinds of programs—which cultural messengers or emblems of freedom—might effectively counter the hatred and suspicions of today's foes. But Karen Hughes would be spending her time more wisely trying to come up with some.

Then, the bottom line:

To the extent that public diplomacy has worked at all, it has done so as a garnish. The main course—a nation's ultimate image—is fashioned not by how it talks but by what it does.

This is the root problem.  The mantra of "better public diplomacy!" willfully ignores the fact that the people of the Arab world do not misunderstand our policies--they don't like them.  It'd be like trying to argue somebody down on whether or not carrots are, in fact, tasty.

I'm with the Defense Science Board on this one:

Muslims do not “hate our freedom,” but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf states.

The very next line in the DSB report seems to carry a message for Hughes:

Thus when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy. Moreover, saying that “freedom is the future of the Middle East” is seen as patronizing, suggesting that Arabs are like the enslaved peoples of the old Communist World — but Muslims do not feel this way: they feel oppressed, but not enslaved.

It's the policies, stupid.

Flypaper Remixed

Al Kamen points to Richard Falkenrath's enunciation of the theory that dare not speak its name:

Richard A. Falkenrath, former White House deputy homeland security adviser and now a think-tanker, recently had a different take: Everyone should just relax. This Iraq thing will work out fine for the United States even if Iraq implodes into civil war.

Musing about the war on terrorism at a symposium last week at the Brookings Institution, where he's a senior fellow, Falkenrath tossed out another notion, a variant of the "flypaper" theory President Bush has used, that the fighting in Iraq has drawn the terrorists there, "so we don't have to fight them here."

"A lot of Sunni terrorists have gone there," conceded Falkenrath, a former Harvard professor. "They are becoming more formidable . . . [with] real on-the-ground training."

"But they're also starting to engage the Shiites and engage in a sectarian conflict to a larger degree," Falkenrath said. "And it's possible -- this is a hypothesis -- but it's possible that they will be consumed in an Iraqi civil war rather than getting re-exported as more formidable Sunni terrorists in the coming years."

"Now that's a bad circumstance for Iraq, no question," he said. "But it may be that it is something that" reduces the chance of an attack on "the far enemy."

This obviously unveils the inherent immorality behind a flypaper policy (and accepts the assumption that there is a fixed number of terrorists), but it does also point to a strategic reality that we're only beginning to think about.  So you have this increasing number of insurgents from outside Iraq coming into Iraq and training against live targets.  Eventually, they're going to go home.  What do we expect they're going to do when they get back to, say, Amman, Algiers, or Islamabad?  I think what Falkenrath's pointing at here is the possibility that (relatively) low-level violence in Iraq may be a less disastrous alternative to these folks going back and toppling their regimes at home.

A mess, I tell you.

Martin Wolf Gets It

Boy does he (sub req'd):

"I should do what I want and you should also do what I want" is not a morally legitimate basis of action.

Yet precisely such double standards were inherent in the question from Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, last June: "Since no nation threatens China, one must wonder: why this growing investment?  Why these continuing large and expanding arms purchases?"

To this, the Chinese can justifiably react by asking why the US needs to spend as much on its military as the rest of the world put together.  With Canada and Mexico as its neighbours, why does it feel so threatened?  To this the US would respond that it has special responsibilities as guarantor of world peace and, in any case, threatens no other nation.  China, in its turn, could then ask who elected the US global policeman and why, given the public debate in the US about whether and how to curb its rise, it should trust its security to the US.

Damn, that is just money.  Couldn't have said it any better myself.

That Was Fast

Saturday:

Amid new tensions with a key ally in the war on terrorism, the Bush administration is dispatching a high-level team to Uzbekistan tomorrow to lay out concerns on an array of political and regional security issues. The team, which will include senior officials from the State Department, Pentagon and National Security Council, is scheduled to meet President Islam Karimov on Tuesday, U.S. officials said.

One of the officials said the delegation plans to express "grave concern" about human rights violations. "This is a difficult trip, but someone has to talk to the man," the official said.

Today:

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan - A senior State Department official said Tuesday the president of Uzbekistan made it clear that American forces must leave their air base in the Central Asian country, and the U.S. intends to do so "without further discussion."

[...]

"The Uzbek government made it clear that we need to leave the base, and we intend to leave it without further discussion," Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried told reporters after meeting with President Islam Karimov.

Terror and Our Government

Gene has a good, concise piece up on the Padilla case and its implications for civil liberties and the survival of constitutional government in our country.  I'm so caught up in the strategic idiocy with which the war's been conducted so far that sometimes I fail to pay attention to its implications at home.

But honestly, hopefully without being too sycophantic, one of the things that's always made me proud to work at Cato has been my colleagues' work on civil liberties during the war on terror.  I remember in particular reading Bob Levy's stuff right after 9/11, when we were all in shock and uncertain what the hell to think, and being oddly consoled by the "calm down, there, tiger, the Republic's gonna survive, let's not throw the Constitution out the window" message.

Few people were really getting anything right back then, but the prescriptions of Cato's folks (I wasn't working there at the time) were basically spot-on.

Plugs

On the way home from work, I stopped by an extremely generous wine tasting sponsored by the fine folks at Bassins/MacArthur Beverage and the Trimbach winery.  They had some of their nicest wines available for a free tasting, and I think it's the first time I've ever had a wine older than me -- in this case, the 1976 350th Anniversary bottling of their "Cuvee des Seigneurs de Ribeaupierre" Gewurztraminer.  It was very nice, but I fear that it's indicative of my underdeveloped palate that it wasn't the favorite wine I tasted.

Anyway, the whole event was sponsored at the swanky new Acadiana, which is only two blocks away from Cato, at New York and Ninth Streets.  Very nice atmosphere, as could be expected of a place that sponsored such a shi-shi tasting.  Although only light apps were served, they were equally as well done and excellent as the wines.

And all this for free.  Sometimes, Washington is an okay town.  Anyway, don't be a fool: Get on Bassins' email list!

Would Russia Enter a US-Sino War over Taiwan?

Jamestown mentioned the possibility here, and now Ariel Cohen is hinting in the same direction on FoxNews.com.  As one of a list of prescriptions for the US to try to "drive a wedge between Russia and China," Cohen says we should:

—Increase intelligence monitoring of relations between Russia and China, especially in national security areas. Intelligence gathering should focus on the condition of Russian forces in the Far East, including the possibility of the Russian Pacific Fleet’s intercepting the U.S. Seventh Fleet in any confrontation in the East China Sea.

Is anybody actually hearing that this is a possibility?  This just seems insane to me, and I've heard nothing that would lead me to believe we should take this seriously, but I'd sure like to hear if there is an actual discussion of this prospect within Russia.

Time for Taiwan to Get Serious

I'm in the Washington Times today riding one of my favorite hobbyhorses: Taiwan's reckless approach to defense spending.

Update: Clearly I'd like to say these folks read my article, but unless they read it online and then essentially immediately charged into the streets, I'm afraid I can't take credit:

Thousands of protesters hold up and flags and banners and shout slogans as they march in a parade yesterday in Taipei to voice their objection to the opposition parties' boycott of the arms-procurement package and show their resolution to resist an invasion by China. PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUN, TAIPEI TIMES

Appeasement Update

Following on the heels of Matt's query about the response from the hawkosphere regarding the Bush administration's decision to attempt an appeasement strategy with the evil North Korean regime, we get this offering from Powerline's Paul Mirengoff, under the headline "Cleaning up after the Democrats":

No one should be very confident that the agreement reached earlier this week with North Korea will actually result in that country's abandonment of nuclear weapons. On the other hand, the agreement isn't a guaranteed failure like the "Agreed Framework" President Clinton reached with the North Koreans.

[...]

The Bush administration deserves credit for getting a deal that at least has a chance of succeeding. It's a better deal than Clinton got, and Clinton had more leverage than Bush since North Korea had not yet developed nukes at that time.

Bush also deserves credit for rejecting the approach advocated by that wannabe diplomat, John Kerry.  During last year's debates, Kerry argued that the U.S. should hold bilateral talks with North Korea. Bush insisted that China be involved at all times on the theory that, otherwise, the six-party talks would unwind. In short, Bush and his team recognized the centrality of China, while this fairly obvious reality seemed to elude the "sophisticated" Senator Kerry.

A few things come to mind here.  One, it's not clear why there is a better prospect the North will honor this deal, since they've broken every deal they've ever made, and are terrified that some of the uber-hawks in the administration still have a regime change strategy in mind.  (I have a rather strong feeling that the administration absolutely does hold regime change as its policy for North Korea, but no evidence on-the-record.)  Second, one could point out that while the North did cheat on the Agreed Framework, it was rather successful in delaying the North's program for nine or so years.  Much of the advances in its program have taken place under the stewardship of the Bush administration.  I'm reminded of this exchange from The Atlantic's North Korea wargame (sub. req'd.):

"When I came back with the Agreed Framework deal and tried to sell it," [Robert Gallucci] said, "I ran into the same people sitting around that table—the general to my right, Ken [Adelman] across from me. They hated the idea of trying to solve this problem with a negotiation.

"And I said, 'What's your—pardon me—your [expletive]ing plan, then, if you don't like this?'

"'We don't like—'

"I said, 'Don't tell me what you don't like! Tell me how you're going to stop the North Korean nuclear program.'

"'But we wouldn't do it this way—'

"'Stop! What are you going to do?'

"I could never get a [expletive] answer. What I got was 'We wouldn't negotiate.'"

I pointed out that the North Koreans had—as McInerney emphasized—cheated on the 1994 agreement. "Excuse me," Gallucci said, "the Soviets cheated on virtually every deal we ever made with them, but we were still better off with the deal than without it."

To people who say that negotiating with the North Koreans rewards bad behavior, Gallucci says, "Listen, I'm not interested in teaching other people lessons. I'm interested in the national security of the United States. If that's what you're interested in, are you better off with this deal or without it? You tell me what you're going to do without the deal, and I'll compare that with the deal."

He was adamant that we were better off under the Agreed Framework—cheating and all—than we are now. "When the Clinton folks went out of office, the North Koreans only had the plutonium they had separated in the previous Bush administration. Now they've got a whole lot more. What did all this 'tough' [expletive] give us? It gave us a much more capable North Korea. Terrific!"

I like that guy Gallucci's style...

It also bears remembering that the Bush administration did indeed engage in bilateral negotiations, under the Réné Magritte "these are not bilateral talks" principle.  (If you're negotiating about what it's going to take to get the other side to come back to negotiations, aren't those negotiations?)  And it bears remembering, once again, that the substance of the deal involved A) pledging to "respect North Korea's sovereignty," B) promising "peaceful coexistence," C) pledging to work toward recognition, D) promising that the US "has no intention to attack or invade the DPRK with nuclear or conventional weapons."

Can anybody with a shred of intellectual honesty believe that the congenital partisans at Powerline would be heralding this deal under a Kerry administration?

An Iraqi Rorschach Test

What other country does this photo remind you of?