The New York Times clarifies the legal issues involved:

If Mr. Davis was listed as a technical staff member for the embassy’s diplomatic mission, then he would be covered by a 1961 treaty that gives diplomats total immunity to criminal prosecution. In that case, Pakistan should be allowed only to expel him. Victims’ families, however, might still be able to sue him for civil damages.

But if Mr. Davis were instead listed as a staff member for the consulate in Lahore, then he would be covered by a 1963 treaty that governs the rights of consular officials and that allows host countries to prosecute them if they commit a “grave crime.”

The longer this drags on, the more difficult it becomes for Zardari's government to extricate itself from the domestic firestorm this case has created.

Bill Kristol wants President Obama to take action in the Middle East:

What exactly to do in each case is complicated; it depends on difficult judgments of facts on the ground. It might be that if more analysts and commentators spent more time trying to figure out what could be done, and less time thinking up clever analogies that allegedly show how things are destined to turn out, or finding ever more reasons any effort on our part is doomed to fail, we might learn that we have more ways to affect events than we now think.

But at such moments we can't depend on analysts and commentators. This is a time when one looks, necessarily, to the president. So far, one looks in vain. What has been strikingly lacking in the Obama administration's response is a sense of the possibility of the moment, a commitment to doing our best to bring that possibility to fruition, a realization that this may be an important inflection point in world history that should shake us out of business as usual.

It seems to me that if you're going to demand action but casually glide over the specifics of what you want done - it's complicated, you see - than you don't have much grounds to criticize. That's not to say there aren't grounds to criticize the administration's handling of the situation, but vague calls to "do something" aren't very convincing.

(AP Photo)

Last week, I offered a critique of an Washington Post op-ed by Dan Senor and Roman Martinez in response to Donald Rumsfeld's book Known and Unknown. Senor and Martinez were kind enough to reach out on Friday to share their views, which are included in the following email. I encourage you to read their message in full, and then I'll share a few thoughts in response:

Continue reading "Senor and Martinez Respond" »

Gallup's latest World Poll figures show some decline in support for an active U.S. role in the world:

By a 2-to-1 margin, 66% to 32%, Americans would prefer that the United States be a major rather than a minor player on the world stage in trying to solve international problems. Support for the United States' having a leading or major role in this has diminished over the past two years, falling from 75% in 2009, while the percentage favoring a more isolationist stance has increased from 23%.

Abe Greenwald gives the Bush administration credit for disarming Gaddafi:

In other words, he saw that WMD, radical Islam, and Middle East autocracy were on a collision course, and that the American promotion of democracy abroad was the best chance at averting disaster. With new reports that Qaddafi has fled the capital, while his military jets fire on Libyan protestors, and that extremists from all over the region are looking to exploit new power vacuums, it’s worth considering what role Libyan WMD might have played in these events. Thankfully, that is now a question of speculation rather than observation.

And he's right, kind of. While there is some debate about how much weight should be accorded the Iraq war in spurring Gaddafi to dump his WMD (and whether that remotely justifies the war), getting him to do so was a clear policy success of the Bush administration. But it's worth thinking this through because President Bush's success with Libya had nothing to do with democracy promotion. Just the opposite: the bargain the Bush administration made to get Gaddafi to drop his nukes was to solidify his grip on the country, ease international sanctions and legitimize his regime. In other words, Bush pursued a "realist" course with Libya.

While in the Middle East, British Prime Minister David Cameron said the West shared the blame for the Middle East's oppressive political environment:

"For decades, some have argued that stability required highly controlling regimes, and that reform and openness would put that stability at risk. So, the argument went, countries like Britain faced a choice between our interests and our values.

"And to be honest, we should acknowledge that sometimes we have made such calculations in the past. But I say that is a false choice.

"As recent events have confirmed, denying people their basic rights does not preserve stability, rather the reverse."

He said that Britain's economic and security interests would ultimately be advanced by a more democratic Middle East.

And just who did the prime minister bring with him on his trip through the Middle East to signify the harmony between Britain's values and interests? Representative from Britain's arms industry.

(AP Photo)

Muammer Gaddafi is not leaving the scene gracefully, using shocking violence against his own people. Naturally, the question in the U.S. is what role, if any, we should play in stopping the crackdown. The Wall Street Journal urges the U.S. to go all in:

We'd go further and tell the Libyan armed forces that the West will bomb their airfields if they continue to slaughter their people. Arming the demonstrators also cannot be ruled out. The Libyan government is already blaming the protests on foreign help, and the protesters are facing a life or death struggle. The worst policy would be to encourage the demonstrators without giving them the tools to prevail….

Is this before or after we help overthrow the Mullahs in Iran?

The Obama administration urged Mubarak to the door, so it seems at a minimum it should be calling for the same in Libya. Sanctions, too, make sense. But the idea that we should arm demonstrators and bomb airfields seems rather reckless. The question, as always, is: and then what? Help Libyans rebuild their country? Sit on the sidelines as chaos engulfs the country? Elliott Abrams, no fan of Gaddafi, describes Libya as a "shattered land with no alternative government, no real political parties, and no experience with free elections, a free press, independent courts, or any of the building blocks of democracy."

The last thing a broke United States needs is another Middle Eastern basket case as its ward.

(AP Photo)

Not likely, according to David Gordon and Cliff Kupchan:

References to Iran as an existential threat or to the country's nuclear program as raising the specter of another Holocaust have been typical among Israeli officials. But on a recent research trip to Israel, we heard surprisingly little anxiety. No official spoke about a threshold beyond which Iran's program would be unstoppable -- a deadline that in the past was always one year off. And elites across the political spectrum for now favor sanctions and covert action, rather than military force, to deter Iran. As a result, the chance of Israeli strikes in the next eighteen months is very low.

This makes sense - given all the regional unrest, why would Israel want to change the story? And while Iran's regime may not fall in the short term, it's definitely on shaky ground.

(AP Photo)

According to Gallup, there has been a slow but steady uptick in the number of Afghans who say they are "thriving." Those thriving are still a minority, however:

The diplomatic standoff between Pakistan and the U.S. over the American Raymond Davis has taken a fairly odd turn. Reports Rediff:

Double murder-accused US official Raymond Davis has been found in possession of top-secret Central Intelligence Agency documents, which point to him or the feared American Task Force 373 (TF373) operating in the region, providing Al Qaeda terrorists with "nuclear fissile material" and "biological agents," according to a report.

Pakistan's ISI stat[ed] that top-secret CIA documents found in Davis's possession point to his, and/or TF373, providing to al Qaeda terrorists "nuclear fissile material" and "biological agents", which they claim are to be used against the United States itself in order to ignite an all-out war in order to re-establish the West's hegemony over a global economy that is warned is just months away from collapse.

How nuking the U.S. would enable it to re-establish hegemony over the global economy is beyond me...

(AP Photo)

While the U.S. goes broke and the Middle East bursts in riots, students have gone on hunger strike in Venezuela protesting human rights conditions in the country.

Noticias 24 reports that the students are dehydrated but in stable condition. The strike started on Jan. 31 at the OAS office with a dozen students but by now a total of 67 people are on hunger strike in several locations in 10 states across the country, including the Brazilian embassy in Caracas. The protesters are requesting that all political prisoners named in a list of 27 people be freed and given medical attention:

The protestors, mostly university students and youth activists, have been calling for the OAS to investigate allegations of human rights abuses in Venezuela as well as for the release of jailed opposition figures they believe are political prisoners. OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza has said that he could not meet with the protesters in Caracas without an invitation from the Venezuelan government.

Maduro said the protest should be handled internally, without the intervention of the U.S. or international organizations. He also alleged that right-wing opponents of Venezuela's socialist government were operating from Miami and playing a part in orchestrating the hunger strike.

About a dozen students and activists began a fast Jan. 31 outside the local Caracas office of the OAS. Some news reports have stated that the protest has grown to include as many as 65 protesters.

The protesters have called for the release of several jailed opposition figures, including two jailed members of the national parliament. One of the officials faces corruption charges while the other has been found guilty of being complicit in a homicide.

Continue reading "The Hunger Strike in Venezuela" »

For your weekend wonkery, an interesting discussion with Joseph Nye and Gideon Rachman on American power in the 21st century.

The Wall Street Journal reports that ties between the CIA and Pakistan's ISI are at a striking low point:

The state of relations, while never perfect, is now alarming counter-terrorism and military officials, who say close cooperation between the Central Intelligence Agency and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence is essential to the campaign against al Qaeda and the war against the Taliban and its allies in Afghanistan.

Behind the falling out is a series of controversial incidents starting late last year, which prompted tit-for-tat accusations that burst into the open with the December outing of the CIA's station chief in Islamabad.

More recently, tensions have risen to new highs over Pakistan's detention of former Special Forces soldier Raymond Davis, a U.S. government contractor in the city of Lahore, for killing two Pakistanis in disputed circumstances. A Pakistani court Thursday ruled to delay by three weeks a hearing on whether Mr. Davis is covered by diplomatic immunity.

Michael Cohen argues that Pakistan isn't really an ally:

Pakistan is one of America's largest foreign aid recipients and one of our supposedly most important allies in the region; just this week the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee John Kerry traveled to Islamabad to try and resolve the issue - and was rebuffed; and the Obama Administration has steadily escalated the issue even threatening a downgrade in US-Pakistan relations in order to resolve the dispute.

Yet, Pakistan still refuses to release Davis. Indeed the announcement, even after Kerry's visit, that the matter will need another three weeks of consideration is a huge diplomatic slap in the face to the United States and especially this Administration.

Now I understand that the Pakistan government has some issues with anti-US attitudes in the country (clearly through some fault of their own) . . . and I know that Pakistan allows NATO supply trucks to transit the country and it allows US military drones to attack suspected al Qaeda terrorists (as well as those Pakistan Taliban groups that threaten the Pakistani state). But shall we catalog for a moment all the ways in which Pakistan is not just a lousy ally, but is actually undermining US interests.

And the indictment Cohen rolls out is indeed serious, but step back and ask yourself what other country on the planet would consent to having its territory bombed with something approaching impunity by another country?

The question is whether Pakistan would be just as uncooperative if the U.S. wasn't raining down Hellfire missiles in the tribal area - and I'd have to think they would be. Pakistan's stance toward the U.S. in Afghanistan is fundamentally driven by its concerns with India - concerns we obviously can't mollify.

(AP Photo)

The risk consultancy Maplecroft has updated their Middle East and North Africa (MENA) risk analysis, and, not surprisingly, it seems that massive upheavel and government suppression efforts make for a less-than-ideal business climate. They also single out food prices as a key cause of ongoing instability:

The susceptibility of MENA countries to food price hikes will continue to act as a trigger for social unrest and pose risks to businesses. Countries in the MENA region are particularly at risk from high global food prices and this has been the cause of much social unrest since prices began to climb at the end of 2010. Countries such as Algeria, Jordan and Egypt have been acutely affected by the sharp rise in food prices and this in turn causes disruptions which can affect the operational running of businesses. The need for the government to placate protesters through increasing subsidies for foodstuffs and oil based products such as petrol means that there is less money to spend on other areas of pressing need such as infrastructure. The importance of food subsidies can be seen in how the ruler of Kuwait, Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, has promised the distribution of US$4bn and free food for 14 months to all citizens despite not facing any direct threats to his rule.

(AP Photo)

Josh Rogin reports:

"The old days of ‘as long as we can make a positive relationship with the autocrat who's running the place, then we are friends with the country' are dead and gone," Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) told a group of reporters over breakfast on Wednesday.

"We have to be much more interested in trying to get the actual populations in those countries to be supportive of us," Smith said. "What we have to start thinking about in the foreign policy establishment is what shifts in our foreign policy do we need to make to target the populations."

This sounds like a great headline, but is it going to happen? Color me skeptical. The U.S. didn't undertake a comprehensive rethink of its Middle East policy following 9/11, why would it do so now? Consider just how serious the changes would be if the U.S. dumped its favored autocrats in favor of newly empowered democratic governments. It would be far more difficult to keep a "cold peace" between Israel and her neighbors, something American foreign policy is currently heavily invested in. Then there's basing rights. It will be difficult to sustain a forward operating presence in a region that manifestly rejects it if that region suddenly gets a say.

As we have seen following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, American foreign policy is very, very slow to react to these kinds of seismic shifts (and let's not put the cart before the horse here, no autocracy has actually been replaced with a democracy yet). And Washington has shown zero willingness to dismantle or reject a hegemonic position in any region of the world once it's established itself, as it has in the Middle East.

Right now, we have a rather odd dynamic in the U.S. where many of the champions of American hegemony in the Middle East are urging on the very steps that would make the Middle East far more hostile to that hegemony. This is an incoherent position and if the Middle East does truly move toward democracy, and if countries like Egypt start behaving like Turkey, this incoherence will only become more obvious.