In my last post, I wrote about the problems with the all-encompassing war on terror metaphor pushed by the Bush administration. But I’m actually writing this time to defend the use of the term “Muslim world,” even though I acknowledge that it is a great oversimplification that fails to illuminate the diversity within Muslim communities. Our organization has been hosting a series of “Hope not Hate” summits for young leaders around 9-11 on the “future of U.S.-Muslim world relations.” Several students have written to us to say they think it is wrong to group all Muslims into a single world. And, worse yet, they ask what this distinction means for American Muslims. After all, they are fully Americans just like any other citizen of this country regardless of their religion. These students also asked how we could compare a country and a faith, a region and a religion. One student went so far as to boycott our conference “because i didn’t want to sit around and explain to a bunch of orientalist jerks why it’s not ok to generalize.”

I certainly appreciate and respect these concerns, but I actually think the use of the term “U.S.-Muslim world relations” is an apt reflection of where we are today and the challenge we face. Certainly, the Muslim world is a mosaic, not a monolith. But there are certain sentiments that countries with a predominantly Muslim population increasingly agree on. Recent studies suggest that people in countries with a high Muslim population increasingly perceive and define themselves based on their religious (rather than national) identity and they overwhelmingly see the U.S. as the primary threat to their country and their way of life. And in the U.S., surveys show rising prejudice by American non-Muslims toward American Muslims. The term “U.S.-Muslim world relations” recognizes this current divide and the real and unfortunate fact that today we see ourselves as increasingly separable into different camps. It also illuminates the real tensions for many American Muslims today who feel understandably as if they are being treated like second-class citizens in their own country. Of course, our organization wants to overcome these growing divisions and to show that non-Muslims and Muslims have a great deal in common and much at stake in their common future. But I don’t think you overcome the dichotomy by denying the existence of a “U.S.-Muslim world” relationship. After all, international relations is about perceptions and the perception already exists in the minds of the vast majority of the world’s public. I think you need break down this dichotomy by acknowledging two worlds in the eyes of the public and then showcasing how these supposedly separate “worlds” are actually quite interconnected and interdependent. Hopefully, this will help the public realize that even if you perceive two worlds today, we need to find common ground between our worlds for the sake of our shared humanity.

The concept of the “banality of evil” entered public discourse after the publication of Hannah Arendt’s 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, which was based on the trial of Adolph Eichmann in Jerusalem. Arendt’s thesis was that people who carry out unspeakable crimes, like Eichmann, a top administrator in the Nazi death camp bureaucracy, were not crazy and ruthless fanatics, but instead were just ordinary individuals who simply accept the premises of their state and participate in any ongoing enterprise with the energy of good civil servants.

Now speed forward nearly fifty years to last Friday when the Senate Intelligence Committee released two of its long awaited Phase II reports on the handling of Iraq related intelligence prior to the U.S. invasion. The reports are part of a five-report study that the Senate Intelligence Committee has undertaken into the Bush administration’s use of intelligence before the invasion of Iraq.

The long anticipated and greatly overdue reports, Postwar Findings about Iraq’s WMD Programs and Links to Terrorism and How they Compare with Prewar Assessments and The Use by the Intelligence Community of Information Provided by the Iraqi National Congress, confirm what has been obvious for years now; namely that to this administration truth and reality are irrelevancies; if they don’t coincide with the agenda then they are to be, as Jesse Jackson might have put it once upon a time, suppressed, repressed, and depressed. Or to paraphrase the classic line from the Treasure of the Sierra Madre, “Truth? We don’t need no stinking truth!” (more…)

I was at the American Political Science Association panel on foreign policy bipartisanship that Chris Preble organized last weekend (see his descriptions here and here). And I was struck by the consensus on the panel: essentially everyone agreed that the Republicans and the Democrats pretty much agree about foreign policy strategy (they disagree about tactics — more on that in a second). But I thought that Peter Feaver had the most interesting comment. Not the one that Steve Clemons, who was on the panel, blogged about (in which Feaver responded to my question by challenging the world to find instances in which the Bush administration had ever questioned its critics’ patriotism). Peter’s most interesting point was one that I think most people in the room agreed about, rather than the one that shocked the audience.

Peter suggested that even as Democrats and Republicans have come closer together in their substantive beliefs about foreign policy, the level of vitriol has risen substantially. Actually, most people intuitively sense this, although perhaps they just don’t remember the level of partisan hostility over such issues as the Vietnam War, the deployment of intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe, and aid to the Nicaraguan contras. But Feaver had a very interesting way of making the point, in his naturally pro-Bush administration talk (after all, he works in the administration). Feaver quoted the very sharp Democratic response to a series of Bush administration strategy documents on Iraq, and then he described the policy that Democrats offered in place of Bush’s strategy. And, of course, the Democratic “alternative” was almost exactly the same as the Bush policy.

Democrats excoriate Bush for doing the wrong thing, then they say something like “we should train the Iraqi police” or “we should clear and hold certain key cities in Iraq.” While the Bush administration may not have initially emphasized those activities, that’s certainly exactly what the Bush administration is up to now. A real debate over Iraq policy would be broader — questioning the administration’s goals in Iraq, whether training police or holding cities are policies likely to achieve those goals, etc. We actually have almost no debate at all. All smoke, no fire.

I was intrigued by Feaver’s clear formulation. And when the University of Texas hosted Ohio State’s football team this weekend (for a very traumatic Saturday night game), the LBJ School of Public Affairs, where I teach, also had the opportunity to host retired Senator John Glenn. Senator Glenn has been a prominent Democrat for a long time, and he’s a smart guy, so I asked him about Feaver’s comments. I got an interesting response, too. (more…)

In a post yesterday, Jamie Metzl proposed several useful ideas for promoting energy security.  Today I’d like to present an alternative idea that I think can and should gain bipartisan support – a gas tax refund.  Many others have proposed this idea, but I’ve been surprised that it has gained so little attention by our lawmakers.  The basic idea goes something like this.  Right now our country is overreliant on oil.  I say overreliant because our consumption of oil provides revenue to regimes that wish us harm and it forces our military to be involved in highly unstable areas.  Burning oil also releases greenhouse gases that lead to environmental degradation and global warming.  Most of the oil in the US is consumed in the form of vehice fuel.  So, it makes sense that we should figure out ways to decrease our consumption of oil based fuels.  There are plenty of alternatives fuels and technology solutions out there – corn based ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, hybrid vehicles, lightweight materials, etc.  The problem is that these alternatives are relatively expensive compared to oil based fuel or have other downsides which makes them less attractive than cheap gasoline.  Granted, the price of gasoline has risen recently, which has started to encourage the adoption of these alternatives.  However, even these higher prices still fail to reflect the overall cost of our fuel consumption. 

Any economist will tell you that the most efficient way to solve this problem is to tax fuel.  Any politician will tell you that such a solution is political suicide.  In the past politicians have responded to fuel crises with regulation.  They created CAFE standards which forced automakers to produce fuel efficient vehicles that people really didn’t want since gas was still cheap.  Presently politicians have presented a host of new proposals focused on the promotion of new technology.  Politicians love technological solutions to problems because they seem to not cause any pain.  And if they are successful, we all benefit.  The problem is that government is generally pretty bad at picking technology winners.  The market does a much better job. 

So, what I’d like to highlight a proposal that a few others have already made - a gradual decrease in the payroll tax over the next 10 years.  This would be matched by an equivalent gradual increase in the gasoline tax over that same time period.  This would be revenue neutral.  No money from the gasoline tax would go to promote alternative energy programs.  It would go right back into the pockets of Americans.  The average American at the end of the day would have the same money in his/her pocket.  For those Americans who don’t pay payroll taxes, there could be an additional cash transfer in the form of increased social security payments.  Because businesses also consume oil, their business taxes could also be reduced.  The important thing is to ensure that the reduction in taxes is not correllated with individual oil consumption.  (more…)

I have just written a fairly lengthy post at Cato’s blog Cato-at-Liberty picking up on some of the themes from President Bush’s speech before the Military Officers Association of America.

In the days leading up to the fifth anniversary of 9/11, President Bush has focused attention on the war on terrorism, emphasizing, as he has repeatedly over the past few months, that a defeat in Iraq would represent a victory for Al Qaeda. 

His speech yesterday was unique, however, in terms of the number of times — 17 — that the president mentioned Osama Bin Laden by name, and by virtue of the president’s decision to focus on the terrorist leader’s speeches and writings. “We know what the terrorists intend to do because they’ve told us,” Bush explained to the assembled crowd, ”and we need to take their words seriously.”

No one can or should quarrel with the president’s determination to defeat al Qaeda, and Americans almost universally embrace a strategy which, in the president’s words, seeks “to protect America, by defeating the terrorists on the battlefield, and defeating their hateful ideology in the battle of ideas.” But the president is now attempting to lump together two (or more) very different movements into a single frightening enemy.

This conflation of Al Qaeda with other Islamist radical groups is set forth in a single sweeping paragraph:

As we continue to fight al Qaeda and these Sunni extremists inspired by their radical ideology, we also face the threat posed by Shia extremists, who are learning from al Qaeda, increasing their assertiveness, and stepping up their threats. … This Shia strain of Islamic radicalism is just as dangerous, and just as hostile to America, and just as determined to establish its brand of hegemony across the broader Middle East. And the Shia extremists have achieved something that al Qaeda has so far failed to do: In 1979, they took control of a major power, the nation of Iran, subjugating its proud people to a regime of tyranny, and using that nation’s resources to fund the spread of terror and pursue their radical agenda.  

From there, the president proposes to expand the war on terrorism from Al Qaeda, a largely Sunni Arab organization, to also include largely Shiite terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah (which the president pointed out “has killed more Americans than any terrorist organization except al Qaeda”), and to Hezbollah’s principle patron, the leaders of Shiite/Persian Iran, who “have also declared their absolute hostility to America.” Such an expansion of the war on terrorism is badly misguided.

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If there is one issue that cried out for a bipartisan response, it’s energy security. The US is in the absurd position of having our high oil process fund our enemies and those of our allies. What would the situation in Lebanon look like today if oil money had not been used to build separate power in the south? What role has oil money played in the funding of extremist madrassas? For our security, but also for our economy and for the protection of our environment, the US needs a comprehensive, bipartisan approach to energy security. This means a much stronger push towards energy diversification and efficiency, with a particular focus on renewable energy sources. To do this, we need to set ambitious national goals for the percentage of our energy that will be from renewable sources over time, use regulatory tools like CAFÉ standards to conserve energy, strengthen national standards for energy efficiency in homes, workplaces, and in appliances and other equipment. We also must super-charge the development process for new technologies. One approach to doing this might be to establish an Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency, modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, that would provide seed funding and advance research for energy projects. We also need an energy security czar, who can coordinate US energy security and efficiency efforts and be a strong advocate for stronger measures. Do any of the readers of this blog thik there’s any reasons why Democrats and Republicans alike can’t come together to support these proposals or others like them?