November 18, 2014--Minding Our Business

Briefly--

Why is it that every president since at least Harry Truman, when abroad, feels the need to lecture other leaders about human rights?

Most recently Barack Obama in China where he chided his host, President Xi Jinping, about stifling political dissent in Hong Kong, then during a quick visit to Myanmar he gently prodded fellow Nobel Prize winner Daw Aung San Suu Kyi about her country's resistance to power sharing with the opposition, and then a day or two later at the G-20 summit in Australia where he again took Vladimir Putin to task for Russia's incursions in Ukraine.

Without doubt, China, Russia, Myanmar, and a host of other countries could do a lot better. A lot. But is it our place to criticize them about their human rights crimes and misdemeanors?

Back in the old Cold War days in response to our constant hammering on abuses in the repressive Soviet Union, though God knows there was much to point out, Soviet leaders such as Nikita Khrushchev were equally quick to retort that we were hypocritical, that we had human rights problems of our own, most notable that there was still government sanctioned and imposed segregation that kept Negroes "in their place" and Native Americans mainly confined to arid reservations.

And today, if they were inclined (and Putin certainly has been--severely criticizing us as the cause of most of the problems in today's Middle East) they could point out that after six years of the Obama presidency Guantanamo is still operating, U.S. citizens are routinely spied on by many government agencies, and poverty and inequality are worsening.

I know that one reason American leaders feel it necessary to criticize the records of others--even when being hosted by them--is to demonstrate to the rightwing back home that they are tough enough to stand up to our adversaries while trumpeting our alleged "exceptionalism."

My question to traveling presidents--In a dangerously fractured world, where we should be seeking to reduce tensions even with leaders we despise (Putin comes to mind), do we need another Cold War, do we want to chill further relations with our major trading partner and debt holder (China), do we want more Westerners to be beheaded in Iraq, do we want to find peaceful ways to keep Iran from getting The Bomb?

I am more and more attracted to Henry-Kissinger-style realpolitik--diplomacy based primarily on power and practical and material considerations rather than on ideological notions or ethical premises.

Just as we hate it when others point fingers at us, it's time for us get off our proverbial high horse.

August 25, 2014--Rona al-Assad

Just between us do we think Egypt is a better place since Hosni Mubarak was ousted? What about Libya? Muammar Gadaffi is gone but what has taken his place? Chaos and civil war.

And would Jordan be an open society if King Abdullah were overthrown, or would Saudi Arabia suddenly become democratic with women allowed to drive without the Saud-family absolute monarchy in iron-fisted control? And we know what would result if and when Bashar al-Assad is killed or chased into luxurious exile.
       

Then, there is Rona's favorite example--Iraq.

For a moment it felt good to see Saddam Hussein captured and even executed, but what is his legacy? More civil war and unrelenting brutality and killings. She quipped some time ago, even before ISIS invaded and took control of a central swarth of Iraq, declaring a caliphate, that it's too bad Saddam is dead because in order to keep Iraq from splintering we need a tyrant to keep a lid on things. Sure Iraqi Shiites not a part of the Sunni ruling elite would again be discriminated against, and often worse, but compared to the number of killings and executions and beheadings currently going on, Saddam's rule seems benevolent.

So it is not entirely surprising that officials from governments in one way or another involved with Iraq and Syria would be wondering out loud if it might be a good idea to encourage and enable Bashar al-Assad to defeat the militants operating from within Syria, jihadists who are leading the effort to overthrow him as well as crossing back and forth across the Syria-Iraq border in order, day-by-day, to take control of much of Iraq and Syria, the heart of their new caliphate.

Rather than calling for his ouster, perhaps, based on the Libya-Egypt-Iraq experience, it may be in the best interest of Western parties to see al-Assad triumph and in control again of all of his country. Most of the killings would then stop, perhaps some rebuilding would occur, and minimally our interests would, in their own hypocritical and tortured way, be protected.

In that region the old status quo had many advantages.

Speaking the unspeakable, in Britain, a former foreign secretary and defense secretary suggested that though Bashar al-Assad is "unsavory," he should be used against the even greater evil, ISIS.

As reported in the New York Times, former secretary Malcom Rifkind said the beheading of journalist James Foley (by a Brit) required a forceful response from the West. The militants "need to be eliminated and we should not be squeamish about how we do it."

Speaking the language of realpolitik, he went on, "Sometimes you have to develop relationships with people who are extremely nasty in order to get rid of people who are even nastier."

Rona couldn't have said it better.

Understandably, the current foreign secretary rejected the idea out of hand. In polite society one does not speak so frankly. Especially not in public.