While Hezbollah’s nascent government in Lebanon puts forward Sunni billionaire Najib Miqati as its Prime Minister Designate, Iran is continuing to strengthen its influence in Lebanon both by means of influencing Hezbollah and maintaining a united front with Syria. However, Iran’s ascendancy in Lebanon is making it an ever-larger target for both the rage of Lebanese opposed to Iran’s agenda, and Lebanon’s neighbor, Israel.

While political wrangling and backdoor agreements continued at a furious pace in Beirut January 24, Iran’s Acting Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi met with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, as well as representatives of Palestinian groups, such as Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. According to Iranian and Syrian state news agencies, Assad and Salehi discussed the expansion of Syrian and Iranian ties, as well as developments in Lebanon and Iraq.  [Continue reading]

Pascal Lamy, part of the dynamic duo of French Socialists charges with overseeing the global economic system, has a good op-ed on the problems with existing “country of origin” designations in trade statistics.

The way the current system works, if an iPad shows up on a dock in the United States of America we ask where the ship left from. The answer is China, so then we say an iPad costing such-and-such amount was imported to the US from China. The reality is that the iPad is itself made up of a bunch of different stuff, including physical components from all over Asia. But it’s mostly made up of intellectual property and brand value that are made in California.   [Continue reading]

I am in full agreement with Susan Rice:

Statement by Ambassador Susan E. Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, January 25, 2011

I am appalled by the recent personal blog written by Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on "the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967."

In this blog post, dated January 11, 2011, Mr. Falk endorses the slurs of conspiracy theorists who allege that the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were perpetrated and then covered up by the U.S. government and media.

Mr. Falk's comments are despicable and deeply offensive, and I condemn them in the strongest terms. I have registered a strong protest with the UN on behalf of the United States. The United States has in the past been critical of Mr. Falk's one-sided and politicized approach to his work for the UN, including his failure to condemn deliberate human rights abuses by Hamas, but these blog comments are in another category altogether.

In my view, Mr. Falk's latest commentary is so noxious that it should finally be plain to all that he should no longer continue in his position on behalf of the UN. I would note that U.S. and many other diplomats walked out in protest in September 2010 when Iranian President Ahmadinejad made similarly slanderous remarks before the UN General Assembly.   [Continue reading]

Protestors have now come out in thousands in the Egyptian capitol, Cairo, inspired by protestors’ apparent recent success in bringing an end to the nearby regime of Tunisian President Ben Ali. In Egypt, protestors are calling for a similar, peaceful end to the reign of Western-ally President Hosni Mubarak.

Protestors rarely rise in these numbers against the Mubarak administration which has been known in the past for crackdowns, particularly on supporters of Islamic radicals as well as on blogger personalities known for scathing critiques of government policies. Although current reports describe a largely peaceful protest, there has been some push back from Egyptian security including tear gas. Many protestors got their cue from a protest planner’s Facebook page.

The situation is very much fluid at the moment. The Guardian is providing excellent updates on its blog.   Videos abound.

More updates soon.

The Tea Party has come to town and is excitedly proposing to cut everything under the sun – from Social Security to Medicare – and of course the item that always blows a huge hole in the budget: foreign aid. And by huge hole, I mean the one that accounts for just 0.015 percent of the total federal budget — an amount so small it makes the United States the most miserly aid provider of any developed country per capita. 165 House Republicans have now endorsed defunding USAID. Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy reports that the Republican Study Committee, which is made up of 165 conservative Republicans, unveiled a plan that:

calls for $1.39 billion in annual savings from USAID. The USAID operating budget for fiscal 2010 was approximately $1.65 billion.   [Continue reading]

Rep. Allen West (R-FL) recently attacked Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) as someone who represents "the antithesis of the principles upon which this country was established," in response to a question from a conservative radio host about Ellison as someone who "supports Islam." Ellison is the first Muslim elected to Congress. George Zornick has Ellison's response:

I was surprised to hear of Congressman West’s comments because he has never expressed these sentiments to me directly.

Contrary to the views expressed by Congressman West, I work to represent the highest ideals of our great nation – ideals like freedom of worship and respect for all faiths, equal protection under the law as well as a civil and open public discourse.

I call on Americans of all colors, cultures and faiths to turn to each other, not on each other, especially in the renewed spirit of finding a more respectful and productive public dialogue.

Americans across the country want their public servants to reject the toxic and corrosive chatter that yields more heat than light. I hope to have a productive and respectful dialogue with all of my colleagues, including Allen West.   [Continue reading]

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso was in Turkmenistan last week negotiating ways the Caspian country's vast natural gas reserves might ameliorate European dependence on Russian resources through the so-called Southern Energy Corridor. Coming on the heels of a successful agreement inked in Baku to bring Azerbaijani gas to the European Union, Barroso's meeting in Ashgabat instead indicated the need for more talks in the coming months.

It has long been conventional thinking in the West to see Turkmenistan as ‘a bridge too far.’ Though European leaders have longed for access to Turkmenistan’s 8.1 trillion cubic meters of proven gas stores, substantial impediments to any southern corridor project have prevented the opportunity to connect European consumers with Turkmen producers. However, Ashgabat’s decision to diversify away from Russia and China by shaking hands on the TAPI pipeline to Pakistan and India, and the expression late last year of their willingness to construct a trans-Caspian pipeline that could connect to a project supplying Europe, have put the concept of a southern corridor firmly back on the table. European decision makers must react quickly to this opportunity, but must also press for the adoption of the most logical project.  [Continue reading]

“Iran did not make any concessions; Negotiations without results” was the January 23 headline of Kayhan, the largest state-run newspaper in Iran with close ties to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Kayhan blasted the P5+1 for “asking for too much” and blamed the West for refusing to accept Iran’s “innovative offer.” According to Kayhan, Iran made “concrete” and “practical” offers to the West but the state-run newspaper did not elaborate on what these offers contained.

Mehr, a semi-official news agency, announced that the Iranian delegation refused to go beyond the established limits of the talks and declined to engage the US in one-on-one talks. According to Mehr, Abolfazl Zohrehvand, an Iranian diplomat present in Istanbul, said that Catherine Ashton, EU’s foreign policy chief, approached the Iranian delegation and asked them, on behalf of the American delegation, to participate in one-on-one talks with their American counterparts.

In addition to refusing to take part in face to face talks with the American negotiating team, Mehr reported that Iran is also against the involvement of the US and France in any sort of future nuclear fuel deal to be reached between Iran and other countries. Ali-Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, was quoted by Mehr as saying that it was not necessary for the US or France to be part of fuel talks and asserted, “You [people in the West] ought to ask your officials why they refuse to sit down and negotiate directly about nuclear fuel.”  [Continue reading]

As a fundamental part of what I consider to be my parental duties, I've been broadening my son's already healthy exposure to kung fu movies over the past few months. And I'm repeatedly struck by how many insights they offer into the formative folklore that animates modern-day China. Like Westerns for America, they are heavy in caricatures and historic inaccuracies. But they also reflect, at times crudely and at others quite elegantly, Chinese culture's self-image and its view of the "other."

So as much as I found last week's bilateral summit between Presidents Barack Obama and Hu Jintao dramatically overblown -- both are coming off lousy years, and neither exercises as much influence over policy outcomes as the media coverage suggests -- I thought the calm after the storm would be a good time to offer up what I think of as the Kung Fu Film Version of China's Rise.
  [Continue reading]

A New York Times report on Pakistani sanctuaries last Monday suggested that the presence of safe-havens has made it easier to target terrorists with drone attacks.

Pakistani Army operations in the other six of seven tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan have helped drive fighters from Al Qaeda, the Pakistani Taliban, the Haqqani network and other militant groups into North Waziristan, the one tribal area that Pakistan has not yet assaulted. With several hundred insurgents largely bottled up there, and with few worries about accidentally hitting Pakistani soldiers battling militants or civilians fleeing a combat zone, the Central Intelligence Agency’s drones have attacked targets in North Waziristan with increasing effectiveness…

It’s an interesting theory, but divorced from reality.  The insurgency’s presence in North Waziristan is an indication that our counter-terrorism/counter-insurgency efforts have failed.  Far from being bottled up in the Federal Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the Haqqani Network and Quetta Shura (who are actually in Baluchistan) have successfully escalated the war in Southern Afghanistan and expanded the conflict to the North.  Meanwhile Al Qaeda’s offshoots have gained strength in countries such as Yemen, Somalia and even the former Soviet Republics, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.  [Continue reading]

As long as we're talking about which government spending Republicans are and aren't willing to cut, it's worth remembering that today is the 50th anniversary of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell address, in which he warned about the dangers of the "military-industrial complex." An excerpt from James Ledbetter's book on the subject, posted by Reuters, provides some of the historical context of the speech. The story is worth reading, but not because it's unfamiliar: America gets caught off-guard by a new threat -- in this case, the Soviet Union's launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957 -- and panics. Congress becomes susceptible to shoddy intelligence that overestimates threats -- in this case, the Gaither Report, which claimed that the Soviet stockpile of intercontinental ballistic missiles had "probably surpassed" the U.S.' -- and responds by allocating serious money to military contractors. As Ledbetter writes:   [Continue reading]

The Central African Republic is a culturally and environmentally-diverse country with incredible natural resources holding new presidential and general elections this week. But hope is cautious amid widespread poverty and three distinct violent conflicts, including an armed intervention by neighboring Chad. What is at stake in the election? And what are these three conflicts undermining national unity?

First of all, the election, despite its fears of corruption, is somewhat good news. Two of the three rivals for the presidency are former enemies. President Francois Bozize came to power after a 2003 coup against former President Ange Felix Patasse. Now they are on the ballot together. Former Prime Minister Martin Ziguele competes for the Presidency as well. Many news analysts believe Bozize will be re-elected despite his failure to save the country from war and poverty and his decree to extend his term by delaying elections. But the fact that he is at least transforming symbolically from rebel to democrat while in office sets a positive precedent.  [Continue reading]

When Hu Jintao came to the United States in 2006, his visit was seen in China as less-than-perfect. Hu did not receive a State Dinner or the formality and ceremony that accompany it. His speech was allowed to be interrupted by a member of the Falun Gong--a religious sect that is banned in China. The most telling American blunder, however, was the smallest one. When introducing the Chinese national anthem, the American announcer referred to it as the "the national anthem of the Republic of China." The Republic of China is, of course, Taiwan. This musical mistake touched on one of China's most sensitive and contentious foreign policy issues with the United States--the fate of Taiwan.

President Hu recently wrapped up a four day visit to the United States that was widely seen as a success in China. This time, the national anthem was announced correctly and Hu was given a State Dinner in his honor--the first for a Chinese leader in 13 years. However, music again played an interesting role in the Sino-American relationship.

At Hu's State Dinner, following a performance with jazz legend Herbie Hancock, Chinese pianist Lang Lang moved on to a solo piece which he introduced as "a Chinese song called 'My Motherland.'" The song is a patriotic tribute to China and its beauty.  [Continue reading]

The new chair of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs is convening a big hearing tomorrow on the U.S. contributions to the United Nations. The hearing is titled United Nations: Urgent Problems that Require Congressional Action.

This article from The Hill suggests that chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s first target among these so-called “urgent problems” is the UN Human Rights Council. She wants the Obama administration to pull out of the Council and to de-fund it.

Here is why that is a bad idea:

1) The HRC is a reality. It is not going away and the United States does not have much to gain from pretending it does not exist.  On the other hand, American engagement at the Council gives the United States a great deal of influence over how votes break down and who gets elected to the Council. In just one example, US diplomacy helped to prevent Iran from securing a seat on the Council.  The US was also able to stave off a harmful vote on the “defamation of religions.”

2)  If your main concern about the Council is that it unfairly and unduly focuses on Israel, why would you want Israel’s main defender to walk out?  The United States has helped to put a check on the anti-Israel stuff in the years since it joined.  Israel will be worse off without the USA on the Council.  [Continue reading]

It’s a sign of where things have gotten to in Ireland that the country has a number of options for producing a constitutional crisis.  In no particular order there are –

1.  The Cabinet could fall below its constitutionally required minimum of 7 ministers.  There are only 7 now, and 3 of them are running to succeed the Prime Minister in his just-resigned position as Fianna Fail party leader, of which they all are members.

2.  The Cabinet could fail in its requirement to act as a collective.  It was very close to this point when it went from 15 ministers to 9, with the Green Party refusing to approve replacements of the 6 and with Cabinet members talking openly about what were (or should have been) Cabinet discussions.  The Greens eased this problem by resigning from Cabinet, but that accentuated problem 1.

3.  The Prime Minister is almost certainly operating without the confidence of a majority in parliament, but there are negotiations to avoid testing this with a vote.

4. The Minister for Finance could be perceived as delaying important financial legislation to advance his personal party leadership ambitions, because he wants an election date as far way as possible.   His negotiation strategy on this problem appears to rely partially on calling everyone’s bluff on problem 3.

5.  The government is frequently invoking “rules” about political party prerogatives, even though the Constitution does not mention political parties at all.   There is some aspect of this issue in all of problems 1-4 above.  [Continue reading]

Robert Samuelson offers a familiar and largely accurate litany of grievances against Chinese economic policy and then concludes with a bold call for . . . something to be done!

The U.S. response has been mostly carrots – to pretend that sweet reason will persuade China to alter its policies. Last week, President Obama and Hu exchanged largely meaningless pledges of “cooperation.” Alan Tonelson of the U.S. Business and Industry Council, a group of manufacturers, says U.S. policy verges on “appeasement.” We need sticks. The practical difficulty is being tougher without triggering a trade war that weakens the global recovery. Still, it’s possible to do something. The Treasury could brand China a currency manipulator, which it clearly is. The administration could move more forcefully against Chinese subsidies. America’s present passivity encourages China’s new world order, with fateful consequences for the United States and everyone else.  [Continue reading]

While the release by Al Jazeera on Sunday of over 16,000 documents relating to a decades’ worth of U.S.-managed Palestinian-Israeli negotiations is certain to impact both the negotiations themselves and perceptions of those negotiations, because there’s so many of them, and because their veracity remains in question, it’s probably best for the moment to hold off on grand pronouncements about What They Mean. But here are a few impressions.

First, the documents seriously challenge the theory that unquestioning U.S. support for Israel is necessary to give Israel the confidence to make concessions for peace. From what I’ve seen so far, mostly from the George W. Bush era, the documents show that unquestioning U.S. support for Israel mainly gave the Israelis the confidence to continue to expect and receive ever more concessions from the Palestinians, while absolving them of any real pressure to actually make a deal.  [Continue reading]

As many as 35 are dead and 130 wounded after an explosion at Moscow's  Domodedovo airport.  Terrorism is the working assumption.

Spiegel ("Presumed Terror Attack Kills Dozens at Moscow Airport"):

According to a report by the RIA Novosti news agency, the blast is thought to have been the work of a suicide bomber. Other Russian media have reported that it was planted in a piece of luggage and detonated remotely by a mobile phone.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev confirmed soon after the attack that officials believe it was a terrorist attack. No group has yet claimed responsibility.

"Security will be strengthened at large transport hubs," Medvedev wrote in a Twitter posting. "We mourn the victims of the terrorist attack at Domodedovo Airport. The organizers will be tracked down and punished." In a television address, Medvedev said that lax security had made the attack possible. The Russian president has delayed his departure for the World Economic Forum in Davos, scheduled for Tuesday.

Domodedovo is the largest of three airports serving the Russian capital. A video distributed by Twitter shows the chaotic scene inside the airport with several small fires barely visible through the thick smoke.

[...]  [Continue reading]

Walking in to a meeting of Middle East civil society activists in London last week, I expected the usual somber, intellectual examination of how the increase in recent political upheavals was negatively affecting respect for human rights and civil liberties. Renewed violence in Iraq; another delay in installing winners of the faulty elections in Afghanistan; Egyptians lighting themselves on fire; Hezbollah bringing down the Lebanese government; a reconstituted Israeli government reflecting the disintegration of the peace movement; more violence in Gaza; and the overthrow of the chronic Ben Ali regime in Tunisia.

Instead of the usual angst and anguish, these usually serious scholars exhibited a child-like, back-slapping giddiness. The primary instigator was no less than the Brother Leader and “Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.”

In a televised address this week, Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi railed against the online world of Facebook, YouTube, and the blogosphere – citing the internet as helping to bring down Ben Ali’s two decade rule in Tunisia, saying that he thought the dictator would continue to run Tunisia “for life.”  [Continue reading]

Predictably, the Istanbul talks have ended without positive results.  And, it seems clear that the discussion came to a dead end over two issues:

–the Islamic Republic wanted explicit recognition of its right to enrich uranium which the United States (at least) was not prepared to do; and

–the United States proposed a plan for refueling the Tehran Research Reactor that was more demanding on and less rewarding for Iran than the plan advanced last fall.    

As it is not clear when the P-5+1 might meet again with the Iranians and the Obama Administration’s efforts to “engage” Tehran are increasingly being written off as a failure, public discourse in the United States is already turning to a consideration of non-diplomatic “next steps”.  The Obama Administration will almost certainly push to expand U.S. and international sanctions against the Islamic Republic.  Beyond that, we also anticipate that there will be increasing calls for the Administration to embrace “regime change” as the declared goal of America’s Iran policy.    [Continue reading]