As we move toward the general election in November, both parties are increasingly on the lookout for messages that appeal to the broad center of the American electorate. Enhancing America’s international image is clearly one such message: according to bi-partisan polling conducted late last year, which was commissioned by the Better World Campaign, American voters of both political parties share an overwhelming desire for a president who will help improve America’s standing in the world. Moreover, 87 percent of swing voters prefer a candidate who will work with allies and through international organizations, rather than go it alone.

One relatively easy and visible way to signal that the U.S. intends to reengage the international community is to catch up on our dues at the UN. The U.S. currently has $1.2 billion in permanent debt to the UN, which includes both our peacekeeping and regular budget contributions. This is money that we either unilaterally decided not to pay or didn’t adequately budget for in previous years. This debt is a blight on our reputation and a burden to the next Administration. It does not serve American interests and drags down our already diminished reputation in the world. (more…)

As I follow the news on Burma and the cyclone that created such devastation there, I feel tremendous sadness.  However, this sadness quickly turns to disgust as I have read about the military junta’s reaction to this disaster.  I am appalled by the complete disregard that it has shown for its own citizens.  It reminds me of the Soviet Union’s reaction to the Chernobyl disaster.  It took the Soviet Union three days to even report that a nuclear disaster had occurred - a disaster that had the potential to affect both those in the Soviet Union and those living in neighboring countries.  The reluctance of the Burma regime to admit that it needs help seems eerily reminiscent of that era. 

Unfortunately, it’s not just about refusing aid - or accepting it only under the most restrictive conditions.  What is even more appalling is that one week after this disaster which is reported to have resulted in 1.5 million victims, the Burmese government has the audacity to go ahead with a sham constitutional referendum intended to cement its hold on power.  There are reports that the Burmese government has been diverting some resources from the relief effort to hold the referendum.  This complete disregard for its own citizens should be evidence enough that it is time for these leaders to go.  Of course, they intend no such actions. 

Simon Jenkins, a UK columnist, described the callousness of this regime:  When the cyclone tore off the roof of Rangoon’s Insein jail and part of it caught fire, the guards opened fire and killed 36. An aid worker told the BBC: “They are murdering their own people.” (more…)

The New America Foundation hosted a seminar last Friday on US counterterrorism policy. The seminar was jointly sponsored by the Better World Campaign, an advocacy branch of the United Nations Foundation, and the Center for Global Counterterrorism Cooperation, a nonpartisan research group working to improve internationally coordinated responses to evolving terrorist threats. Experts contracted by the two groups unveiled a paper they had produced, offering strategies for improving international cooperation on counterterrorism policy, which could enhance perceptions of the US abroad while promoting America’s own national security agenda.

In terms of proscriptive policy, the paper did not break new ground. Much of the advice echoes that of prominent US homeland security figures such as Michael Chertoff, as well as the leading presidential candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain. The authors offered suggestions for ways in which the US could re-engage the UN and other multilateral bodies in creating and implementing counterterrorist policies, while providing sound justification for such re-engagement strategies. As a thesis, they offered the following:

“A robust military and effective covert intelligence gathering capabilities must remain at the cutting edge of our efforts to capture and defeat terrorists. Focusing on these measures alone, however, is not sufficient to address a multifaceted and adapting global threat. International cooperation on a broader range of approaches using a wide array of tools deserves greater attention and resources to improve collective efforts to address emerging threats. To protect America against another major terrorist attack, the new Administration will have to make strengthening international cooperation, including reasserting American leadership in the UN… a top priority.”

The suggestions offered by the group focused on creating human levers, strategically placed in the US government, to implement this ambitious campaign of international cooperation. Authors mentioned creating a white house “czar” for international counterterrorism policy, appointing a diplomat as the State Department’s Counterterrorism Coordinator, enduring ambassadorial level leadership on counterterrorism at the UN, and calling for the establishment of a global anti-terrorism organization.

These people, the authors argued, would be more effective, expedient instruments of change than using a resource-shifting strategy. Their reasoning is pragmatic, if pessimistic, given the difficulty (as 9/11 continues to recede in our minds) of convincing Congress to shift federal appropriations from well funded agencies with have neither the time nor manpower for such projects (such as DOD), towards more relevant would-be actors, such as the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau.

One cannot logically argue against the justification the authors provided. Multilateral bodies such as the UN could accomplish many things the US cannot, working unilaterally or bilaterally. For instance, the UN can implement legal frameworks for cooperative counterterrorism policy. It can enable technical cooperation between countries, working as both informational and operational hub. It can assist states in capacity building, and reduces the burden or onus for any one country in fighting the war on terror. Perhaps most importantly, it can transcend the political realities that ground the US time and again in multinational enterprises, by engaging with non-traditional allies.

All of the experts were well aware a new President will not necessarily find this proposal any more palatable than the current Administration. However, their point is that pessimism cannot keep us from lobbying for what we believe is the best course of US action. Their paper concludes: “While no American President should ever put alliances and international cooperation before the security of the American people, failure to provide the leadership needed today to strengthen counterterrorism alliances around the world…undermines the security of the United States.”

This is an important development. According to the BBC shooting has been heard in two separate parts of Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, following a raid by Darfur rebels.

A senior JEM official told the BBC that JEM rebels would continue to attack Khartoum and oil installations in South Kordofan. Their goal is to cut off the Sudanese government’s main source of income.

The BBC reported over the weekend that the JEM rebels claimed to have taken control of Omdurman and the Wadi Saidna air force base. They also entered the capital itself.

I’ll blog more when things become a bit clearer.

As Dmitry Medvedev was inaugurated as Russia’s third president this week, he repeated his commitment to human rights and the rule of law, as noted by Karinna Moskalenko, the renowned Russian human rights attorney who visited PSA’s offices last month.

The new turnover brings more questions, such as how much power Medvedev will actually wield, considering that former President Vladimir Putin is now the new Prime Minister, or if it even matters as long as the country remains stable. (more…)

I’m going to do something not a lot of people outside the Clinton campaign have been willing to do: I’m going to defend Hillary Clinton’s threat to “obliterate” Iran if it should attack Israel. I’d take issue with Senator Obama’s dismissive response, too: Hillary’s clear, tough message is exactly the language that’s needed right now, and as for sounding like George W. Bush, who cares? The Bush Iran policy is defunct and dysfunctional, and what matters now is what the next President is going to do about it.

Here’s what Hillary actually said:

“Well, the question was, if Iran were to launch a nuclear attack on Israel, what would our response be. And I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran. And I want them to understand that, because it does mean that they have to look very carefully at their society, because at whatever stage of development they might be in their nuclear weapons program, in the next 10 years during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel we would be able to totally obliterate them. That’s a terrible thing to say, but those people who run Iran need to understand that, because that perhaps will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish and tragic.” (more…)

Kudos to Barak Obama for standing up for principle on the gas tax issue. If there ever was an issue that Democrats and Republicans alike should support, it is breaking our reliance on oil and imported oil. As awful as current oil process are, they are at very least strengthening the market for exploring alternatives. Many have credibly argues that an even higher gas tax, or carbon tax, would create even greater certainty in the markets that investments made today in alternative energy will not be wiped out in the future if gas prices fall, as happened after that 1970s oil crisis. The gas tax is one minimal way of ensuring even a minimal basic floor for pricing. Additionally, almost all major newspapers have recognized that eliminating the gas tax, even temporarily, will proportionately increase demand. Instead of temporarily eliminating the gas tax (making the re-imposition of it politically very tough), wouldn’t it be better for political leaders to be promoting energy efficiency and conservation? The easiest things that any politician can do to gain popularity is to give away money, but this is not leadership. Bipartisan leadership requires making the tough decisions that are in the common good, which is what Obama is demonstrating in this situation.

In my last post I wrote about the New York Times investigation into the Pentagon’s use of retired military officers to act as mouthpieces, oops, I mean respected dispassionate, objective analysts, on U.S. military activities. But for all the hue and cry very little has happened. See this Huffington Post for detail. Yes, the Pentagon suspended the program to investigate whether it complies with the letter of the law but does anyone serious expect it will be terminated? Let’s just say I’m not holding my breath. 

Of course, it is hardly the sole fault of the Pentagon. Has anyone noted any of the networks in question saying, for example, they won’t employ retired officers who are also working for companies that are seeking Pentagon business and might gain an inside edge due to the connections such officers maintain by virtue of regurgitating Pentagon talking points? I haven’t. 

Remember that any halfway decent paper worth its name would never allow its own reporters to do such a thing. This is what they like to call a conflict of interest. But such ethical considerations, evidently like old soldiers, just fade away when it comes to dealing with an executive branch behemoth like the Department of Defense. Probably editors feel that maintaining ethics is just not worth the pain in terms of lack of access to the Defense Department. Can you say corporate media? 

Still, we need to put this in context. Egregious as it might appear it is just another day at the office for what the Pentagon likes to euphemistically call “information operations.” And really, who can blame them?  After all, they get legal sanction to do it every day when it comes to manipulating public opinion in other countries. (more…)

President Bush has finally acknowledged that the U.S. is facing “tough times” economically but unfortunately he has the wrong medicine to heal our ailing economy. According to Bush, the rising cost of oil reflects that “demand is rising faster than supply.” His solution is to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration and to “take a look” at suspending the federal gas tax. As Brian writes below, John McCain and Hillary Clinton have joined in the call to suspend the gas tax.

Boy, have we moved a long way from the JFK days! Back then, leaders responded to challenges by challenging the American people to rise above. Facing a threat from the Communist exploration of space, Kennedy promised to put a man on the moon. One imagines that today Kennedy would turn our oil problems into an inspired call to reduce our energy dependence. Yet, somehow, Bush’s response is not to try to curtail our demand on foreign oil but to supply more oil. Yet, drilling in the Arctic would hardly impact oil prices. And cutting the gas tax would only spur more U.S. demand, which would further drive up prices, likely reducing the impact of the tax cut in the first place and leading us to send more of our money to Saudi Arabia instead of to the U.S. government.

The best way in the long-term to drive down oil prices is to make major investments in green technology that reduce our demand for oil and increase the supply of affordable substitutes. Even just announcing such a program could impact futures markets today. In the shorter-term, one way to drive down the price of oil is to strengthen our currency. According to a recent piece in the Wall Street Journal, “If the dollar had merely retained its value against the euro, oil would be in the neighborhood of $70 a barrel. Dollar weakness explains a large part of the oil price surge.”

Gas prices in the 1990s hovered around $20 a barrel; today, they’re closer to $120. President Bush has been a miserable failure in understanding and guarding against this rise, which has been tragic for many American workers. Unfortunately, he still has not learned the economic lessons of how to get us out of the mess he has led us into. Destroying our natural environment through drilling and reducing our gas tax so we send more money to the Saudis is not the answer. It will only lead us further down the path of oil insecurity.

Anyone who drives these days gets sticker shock upon arriving into the gas station.  In recent days in the DC area the average price I’ve seen is well over $3.50.  Many analysts predict that when the summer driving season hits in full force we’re likely to see an average price of at least $4 a gallon.  These prices are a dramatic increase from the 1999 price which, in today’s dollars, averaged around $1.25 - the lowest point of the past 30 or so years.  The truth is that the price of gasoline has fluctuated greatly over the years and if measured in inflation adjusted dollars, we are now reaching the high point of the early 80s right after the start of the Iran-Iraq war. 

So, what is the government to do?  Well, considering that we’re in full flung political campaign mode these days, our presidential candidates certainly have something to say about this infringement on the American way of life!  John McCain jumped out front and center and proclaimed his support of a gas tax holiday to provide relief to American car drivers during the summer driving season.  Hillary Clinton jumped on board and expressed her support.  Obama called this for what it is - a scheme.  Clinton then criticized Obama for being for a gas tax holiday when he was a state senator and being against it as a presidential candidate.  Even the White House has been skeptical of such quick fixes.  The NY Times reported that President Bush’s spokeswoman essentially sided with Mr. Obama in saying that tax holidays and new levies on oil companies would not address the long-term problems of dependence on foreign oil.  This is certainly an interesing bipartisan debate:  Clinton and McCain v Obama and Bush. 

The truth of the matter is that a gas tax holiday will offer little relief to consumers and actually serves to perpetuate the very problem we’re seeking to solve.  Clinton and McCain both got this one wrong.  A gas tax holiday would lower the cost of gasoline, thereby encouraging consumer to buy more of it.  A recent analysis by the Washington Post predicted that consumers would actually see little benefit from a gas tax holiday and oil companies would be the real winners.  Right now the true cost of gasoline that takes into account national security and environmental costs is much higher than the price actually reflected at the pump.  The 18.4 cent/gallon gasoline tax is an effort towards correcting for this externality, but it is really just a drop in the bucket.   Most experts admit that this idea really is a loser, but it doesn’t stop politicians from trying to win easy political points.  (more…)