In the wake of the recent surge in piracy, it would be hard to argue that there is not a silver lining fastened to this unique international crisis – the tragedy of Somalia has finally been pushed onto the world stage. Somalia has long been a political catastrophe, having hit rock bottom after claiming the #1 ranking in The Fund for Peace’s most recent Failed States Index. In the last 18 years, Mogadishu has watched 14 failed attempts at establishing a functioning central government, and the current transitional government’s sphere of control has been reduced to just a few city blocks of the war-torn capital. The rest of the country is governed by unbridled anarchy in a violent free-for-all between rival clans, powerful warlords, and radical Islamists. To call Somalia a classic embodiment of Hobbesian state of nature would be a monumental understatement because Thomas Hobbes never fashioned his model of anarchy to include a seemingly infinite supply of automatic weapons. The timeline of the past two decades is dotted with covert military forays and half-hearted state-building efforts, but only as the crisis begins to spill over into the Gulf of Aden and aboard the decks of merchant vessels has the world finally truly taken notice. At a recent conference in Brussels attended by leadership from the UN, the EU, the African Union (AU), the Arab League, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the international community pledged $213 million (far exceeding the requested aid) toward strengthening Somali security forces. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN special envoy for Somalia, said recently that “the problem of piracy has opened the eyes of those who have forgotten Somalia.”

However, many have been quick to note that international intrigue and foreign aid do not necessarily equate to results especially since, at first glance, stability in Somalia appears all but hopeless. After all, 2 million displaced refugees and a $600 per capita GDP in a country defined by drought, famine, and incessant war does not paint a promising picture. But Somalia is an anomaly among the rest of the world’s failed states, which are almost invariably defined by deep-seated religious or ethnic sectarian conflict. Somalia, on the other hand, is strikingly homogeneous. Nearly the entire population of almost 10 million shares the same ethnicity, religion, language, and culture. But the prolonged absence of the rule of law has given rise to violent clan loyalties that have shattered the Somali nation into countless unidentifiable pieces. Nevertheless, the pieces of unity exist. They just need a foundation on which to take shape. (more…)

Friends, as you know I have raised the issue of strike drone use by the U.S. in Pakistan on a few occasions. I am currently working on this issue, and a few others, with Avaaz. Please find below a joint entry with my new Avaaz colleague and friend Brett Solomon. Cheers, Raj

On a daily basis news reports suggest that the democratically elected government of Pakistan is struggling to contain militancy within its borders. The Taliban’s recent march into the Buneer district 60 miles from the capital Islamabad fed these fears and led Secretary of State Clinton to note:

“I think we cannot underscore [enough the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan by the continuing advances…”

As tensions rise in the region, Americans and Pakistanis alike are waiting to see how the new U.S. policy, outlined in late March by President Obama, impacts the crisis.

There is a feeling within the administration that sustained U.S. and international focus is needed because the militant groups that grew so rapidly under the military government of General Musharraf are threatening the internal security of nuclear-armed Pakistan. This instability is also harming efforts to bring peace and security to bordering Afghanistan.

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Earlier this month, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the release of four Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinions, detailing the legal justifications for the Bush administration’s use of torture between 2002 and 2005.  Although the DOJ was careful to emphasise that the OLC torture memos (as they are now widely known) “no longer represent the views of the Office of Legal Counsel”, the release of the memos was accompanied by one enormous caveat: the DOJ would under no circumstances prosecute any intelligence official who acted reasonably and relied in good faith on the memos.

The question then arises: if we can’t go after the CIA, can we go after the legal advisers who crafted the memos in the first place?  Precedents certainly exist for the prosecution of lawyers who negligently or purposefully authorise serious violations of international law.  As Kevin Jon Heller points out, these include the successful prosecution of the Nazi government’s key legal advisers, for failing to alert the government to the illegality of forced deportations of Jewish people to concentration camps during the Second World War.  (If Nazi Germany seems inappropriate as a point of reference, just keep in mind that the issue is not whether the U.S. Government in the wake of September 11th is to be viewed as morally equivalent of the Nazi regime.  Of course it isn’t.  The issue is whether legal advisers can be prosecuted for knowingly and deliberately violating international law.)  And there is certainty no lack of public sentiment baying for the blood of the relevant Bush-era lawyers, including Steven Bradbury, Jay Bybee and John Yoo.  Indeed, both Bybee and Yoo (along with David Addington and others) are currently the subject of a criminal prosecution in Spain for authorizing torture and other war crimes carried out at Guantanamo Bay.

Assuming that we can prosecute the lawyers, the question remains whether, as a matter of policy, we should.  There are, of course, convincing moral arguments in favour of punishing those who came up with the shifty legal apparatus and euphemisms that allowed such “interrogation techniques” to be seen as permissible.  However, our main concern here is whether prosecuting the OLC would serve a meaningful regulatory purpose, even where convictions are unlikely.

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As the Presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Hamid Karzai and Asif Ali Zardari, prepare to meet with President Obama this week there are concerning messages coming from General David Petraeus, the commander of US Central Command (Centcom).  Here’s an excerpt from a recent Fox News story on his thoughts on the situation in Pakistan:

They said Petraeus and senior administration officials believe the Pakistani army, led by Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, is “superior” to the civilian government, led by President Ali Zardari, and could conceivably survive even if Zardari’s government falls to the Taliban.

In general, I believe that Petraeus has done an incredible job in Iraq and his approach to counterinsurgency is probably one of the most important elements of the turnaround that occurred there.  He has been an admirable public servant and I generally respect his judgment.  On this issue, however, if the above excerpt is accurate, there is much reason for concern – the insinuation that perhaps there is a better alternative to the civilian-led government in Pakistan that the US government might consider supporting.

It all comes down to exactly how one interprets the term “superior”.  It is true that a military government in place in Pakistan might be more quick to do the bidding of the US government (though the experience with Musharraf leaves even that to question).  The fact is that democratic governments are slow and cumbersome.  They must answer to the broad population rather than the will of a few appointed leaders.  So, yes, in terms of getting action quickly, a military-led government could, theoretically, be “superior”.  Similarly, a police state is pretty good at preventing crime.  That doesn’t mean that it’s the model that should be sought. (more…)

Today, PSA is releasing a statement signed by 30 top Republicans and Democrats that encourages the Obama Administration to fully support the NPT and IAEA.  We believe that success on our nonproliferation and disarmament goals can only be achieved if we approach them through the context of our NPT commitments.

But some argue that the NPT is not successful.  How else can you explain the fact that North Korea was able to withdraw after testing nuclear weapons without consequences?  Or the likelihood that Iran is developing a nuclear capability in violation of the treaty?  And what about the countries with nuclear weapons who never signed up in the first place?  To critics, all of those questions add up to a simple answer that the treaty is a failure.

On the contrary, we feel that these questions all point to the key reasons why the NPT and IAEA are critical to controlling the spread of nuclear weapons.  They are our best weapons in this war.

North Korea is ruled by an irrational regime that is a questionable partner on any agreement.  Its withdrawal from the NPT is a major failure of the system to control a rogue nuclear program.  However, there are many other countries that have considered a nuclear weapons program but decided against it due to international pressure.  The NPT is the only mechanism that can reliably provide that today, preventing a cascade of new nuclear weapons states.

That is why PSA encourages the strengthening of enforcement mechanisms for use against countries found in violation of their NPT obligations.  Without a strong NPT, there is little preventing state proliferation.

Iran is an apparent example of why the international pressure of the NPT may not be enough.  It is easy to cheat the system.  But again, we need to ask where we would be without the NPT and its watchdog arm, the IAEA.  Without the multilateral system in place, we may not even know what Iran was up to.  Only the IAEA has the credibility and the mandate to go into any NPT signatory country and check for violations.  The problem is that the IAEA needs more support, not sniping about its shortcomings.

That is why the PSA statement pushes strongly for more authority and resources for the IAEA.  If the battle is against proliferation, the IAEA inspectors are our foot soliders.

And what of the countries who never signed the Treaty.  First of all, they are severely outnumbered.  189 countries signaled their opposition to proliferation by signing this Treaty; only a handful did not.  And it is a safer world because of it.  Imagine if every border dispute had a nuclear component as is the case with India and Pakistan.  It is the NPT that has prevented that from becoming a reality.

That is why the PSA statement, and the top diplomats and foreign policy experts who signed their names to it, urge the U.S. and other countries to reaffirm the importance of the NPT by reducing nuclear arsenals worldwide, by helping ensure access to peaceful uses of nuclear energy through fuel bank mechanisms and other means, and by giving the multilateral system the tools necessary to do the job.

We don’t need a new grand bargain; we need to strengthen the one we have.

Just when the heat on the Obama presidency seemed to be peaking, Pennsylvania’s senior senator suddenly became a Democrat. It hasn’t been since Sen. Jim Jeffords’ switch gave Senate Democrats a majority in 2001 that a major defection has happened, and Republican soul searching has dominated the news cycle ever since.

Former Bush speechwriter David Frum argues for a bigger GOP tent. Referring to the two Republican senators from Maine, Frum argues, “It ought to be obvious to any Republican why we need to make room for politicians like Snowe and Collins in our party. It’s not like we have so many votes that we can afford to throw them away.” Frum worries that while some Republicans are more concerned about the “quality” of Republican elected officials, “quantity” is required to govern. Meanwhile, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor has started a new group, the National Council for a New America, to lead the GOP to a new understanding with the American voter, and perhaps to electoral success.

It is certainly amusing to many Democrats to watch the Republican hand wringing. “I wonder if this is how Republicans felt all those years,” some must wonder, recalling the Democratic Party’s own recent periods of strategic chaos, when Karl Rove’s claims of an enduring Republican majority seemed just a little too plausible. David Brooks calls the jubilation among Democrats “the joy of pulverization,” of scoring another touchdown when you’re already up by four. For Republicans, he calls it “demoralization piled on top of demoralization.”

Christine Todd Whitman, the former Republican governor of New Jersey who had a famously unhappy tenure as President Bush’s EPA Administrator, penned a New York Times column lamenting one-party control of Washington.

To the extent we lose more members of the Republican Party, we lose what ability we have left to affect policy, and that is going to be devastating to our nation. Our democracy desperately needs two vibrant parties.

This is about much more than the switch of one senator or even than the potential 60-vote supermajority Democrats may now soon achieve. After all, power is fleeting and the political winds fickle; laws enacted by one Congress can be overturned by the next. As Whitman wondered in her column, what will happen when one party holds such sway over the two political branches of our federal government? While it is easy to see why this is a bad development for Republicans, Democrats may find that Specter’s switch raises as many questions for them as it answers.

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