Across the Aisle » Benjamin Rhodes

The Politics of Distraction

Benjamin Rhodes — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 20:10:54 +0000

This may seem a minor point amongst the major points being debated in the country today, but it comes up again, and again, and again, and again: the manufacturing of some completely meaningless personal political squabble to distract from substantive debate (remember John Kerry’s “botched joke?).

Case in point. Yesterday Barbara Boxer said this in a hearing to Condi Rice: “Who pays the price? I’m not going to pay a personal price. My kids are too old and my grandchild is too young. You’re not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family. So who pays the price? The American military and their families.”

That’s a fairly straightforward way of pointing out that for all this talk of changing strategies and tactics, foreign policy has a direct impact on a relatively small number of Americans who are bearing a heavier and heavier load, and who are about to be asked to sacrifice some more. But then we get this on the front page of the NY Post, dutifully followed by this lead story on the Fox News website, followed by outraged bloggers.

No doubt, the noise generated in right wing tabloid-talkradio-FoxNews-blog universe will be loud enough to draw small mainstream news items. Sometimes, it even draws an apology (which, in turn, generates more news stories).

This is a big waste of time. Every inch of space dedicate to these stupid games is an inch not being devoted to debate over the real issue – the Administration’s policy in Iraq. Does the NY Post and Fox News really think that this is the most important story of the day?

Think about what is more important and more likely. That John Kerry hates the troops, Dick Durbin thinks U.S. troops are Nazis, and Barbara Boxer hates childless women? Or that President Bush blundered into Iraq, U.S. personnel are ordered to use deplorable interrogation tecniques, and we should pause to consider the strain of extended rotations to Iraq on our military families?

Among the many disgraces of this era of our politics, I hope these phony, manufactured distractions from substantive debate are left behind. Politics may be theatre, but it need not be theatre that is an insult to our intelligence.

Digging In

Benjamin Rhodes — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 16:43:16 +0000

It’s safe to say that the ISG report did not make a favorable impression on David Isenberg. First, the specific assertions that were “laughable” - The “5,000 civilian contractors” reflect the number directly under the U.S. embassy. That is unclear as stated, though I don’t think it undermines the entire report. The ISG did meet extensively with Kurdish leaders. There are two recommendations that likely bother the Kurds - first, the call to delay the referendum on Kirkuk and have international mediation, and second the call to distribute future oil revenues on the basis of population. On the question of Kirkuk, the ISG heard from many sources and agreed that a referendum in the coming year would likely trigger substantial violence in and around Kirkuk between Sunni Arabs and Kurds, thus deepening and widening the sectarian strife in Iraq. On the question of oil revenues, plans to divide future revenues by region undermine the basis for a central government (since over 90% of government revenue comes from oil), and the economic place of Sunni Arabs within Iraq. In other words, the Kirkuk referendum and regionalized oil revenue distribution could plunge Iraq farther and faster into chaos, and destroy the viability of a unified Iraq. Sadly, that may happen. But the ISG did not think the U.S. should support that outcome.

On Iran and Syria, Isenberg seems to suggest that the difficulty of effectively engaging them means it is a useless recommendation. Well, is our current policy of isolating them proving to be particularly useful? What the ISG said is that all problems in the region are interconnected – you cannot solve them by talking to your friends but not your enemies; and you cannot solve them by talking about what you want to talk about but not what others want to talk about (eg. the Arab-Israeli dispute). And no, the ISG did not think that our friends had “already tried” to bring stability in Iraq. Too many have sat on the sidelines in important ways, particularly on national reconciliation.

On the “false hope” question, the word “victory” does not appear in the report. The ISG recommends a “responsible transition” out of Iraq. Isenberg wants the U.S. to “leave.” But it is not a simple thing to immediately move over 140,000 U.S. troops and an enormous civilian and military infrastructure out of a warzone in the middle of perhaps the most important region of the world to U.S. national security interests (never mind that President Bush would never do that, and he is in charge for two more years). So the ISG recommends a whole range of steps to take to give Iraqis the best possible chance of salvaging order from chaos, chiefly – stepped up training for Iraqi forces as U.S. combat brigades withdraw; pressure on the Iraqi leadership to make political decisions that can salvage their country; a strong and sustained U.S. push for more constructive regional engagement. This won’t guarantee an end to violence in Iraq. But it offers the U.S. a responsible course to protect its interests and give Iraqis a chance at a better future as we reduce our commitment to Iraq.

Finally, the 10 ISG members were not chosen to be the 10 greatest minds on Iraq in the country – they were 10 Americans from across the political spectrum who listened to scores of experts and drew on that expetise to build a consensus. Isenberg chastises James Baker for having experience in the Middle East, and then chastices Jordan, O’Connor, Meese and Panetta for not having experience. That’s beside the point. Ultimately, it is our political leaders who must forge consensus – not our experts (and I think you’d be hard pressed to find 10 experts who could agree on what to do in Iraq – just look at any op-ed page). What the ISG did is listen to every expert they could talk to, convey in clear terms what is going on Iraq, and give American political leaders a choice: come out of your trenches and forge a consensus, or dig in and have two years of more and more polarization and a deteriorating situation in Iraq. The choice is in their hands.

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Some thoughts on the ISG Report

Benjamin Rhodes — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 03:53:10 +0000

I’ve spent the last nine months working for the Iraq Study Group, so I can’t offer neutral commentary on the report. In the midst of this blitz of reaction, commentary, positioning, and quick preparation of alternative reports, let me offer just a few initial thoughts that I hope don’t get lost in the shuffle:

1 – Read the “other” recommendations. The three core recommendations – shifting the primary mission of U.S. forces from combat to training and support; making support for the Iraqi government conditional on its making substantial progress toward milestones; and a new diplomatic offensive in the region – are at the center of the debate. But there are a multitude of other recommendations, many of which drew extremely broad support from people we talked to, and most of which need to be done urgently. Hamilton and Baker published an op-ed highlighting some of these other recommendations today. The New York Times had an editorial picking their favorites. I’ll be blogging about some of these in the weeks to come.

2 – Put aside those silver bullets. Too many prominent commentators have tied themselves to this silver bullet or that over the last few years. But there is no one thing that can be done in Iraq to right the situation. To take just one example, more troops (those that are available) aren’t going to stop Sunnis and Shiites from wanting to kill each other. Those who speak with bombast and clarity – who talk about the situation in Iraq like it was a football game to be won if some audible is called – are imposing a false order on to a situation with endless shades of gray.
3 – Look ahead. The ISG recommendations were not just made to address the current situation – they were made in anticipation of the dire consequences if things continue to deteriorate in Iraq. In other words, successful policy in Iraq may not make the situation “better” in a year or so – successful policy will keep the situation from getting that much worse. This is important – for instance – in looking at the diplomatic recommendations in the report. The problem is national reconciliation in Iraq. But it is also preventing wider suffering, terrorism, war, and sectarian violence across the region.

4 – You make policy in the Washington you live in, not the Washington you might hope to live in. President Bush is going to be President for the next two years. The Democrats will control Congress for the next two years. The American people are sour on the Iraq war, but they do not want to withdraw right away. If the President digs in behind some version of stay the course, he will be governing in extreme isolation. If the Democrats dig in to some version of an immediate withdrawal, they will miss an opportunity to constructively advance policy.

It is no longer contrarian to lambast those who seek bipartisan consensus or serve on commissions – indeed, the snarky takedown of bipartisanship is now even more predictable than the laudatory David Broder column. But the fact is we’re going to get nowhere on Iraq unless we can get behind some kind of consensus in this country. If it does nothing else, I hope the ISG Report provides an opportunity for people – like Gordon Smith – to come out of the trenches, to release their set of talking points on Iraq that they have been repeating like it was some kind of dogma, and to stop treating a rapidly deteriorating situation in Iraq like it is nothing more than an extension of American domestic politics.

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What’s At Stake

Benjamin Rhodes — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 01:54:00 +0000

As has been noted pretty much everywhere (here’s one good summary), the mid-term elections focus unusually on foreign policy, particularly Iraq. The shortfall of this debate is that – no matter who wins control of the Congress – George Bush and his Administration will run American foreign policy. A Speaker Pelosi or Majority Leader Reid (and their Committee Chairmen) will have far greater influence, but they will not set the agenda.
So what is at stake for foreign policy if the Democrats win the House and/or Senate? Well, a whole lot of things (with a sampling of opinion on it here), three of which I’ll focus on.

First, a message will be sent. It’s one thing to have polls that say a majority of Americans don’t approve of current policy in Iraq. It’s another to turn over control of the Congress. The whole post-9/11 political dynamic will be turned on its head. Republicans will know they can no longer simply fall back on tough talk on Iraq. Democrats will have their thirst for accountability satiated. In the spirit of this blog, that will – hopefully – enable a meeting in the middle and the building of a new consensus, at least on Iraq. Or it will prompt a digging in, which will sharpen the choices heading into 2008 (more on that in a bit).
Second, oversight will be back in Washington. And that can only be a good thing. Because while the Congres rarely sets American foreign policy, it can ensure that it is more effectively implemented: by asking hard questions, holding ideas up to careful public scrutiny, and ferreting out waste and poor execution. As more and more Republicans acknowledge mistakes made in Iraq, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find people who would say that the war has benefited from this kind of robust congressional oversight.
Third, it will frame the inevitable foreign policy debate that will drive the 2008 presidential election. Beyond the short-term effects, a repudiation of the Bush foreign policy and a more prominent platform for Democrats will enable the parties to flesh out their post-9/11, post-Iraq War foreign policies. Because if you think the 2006 election is an important foreign policy moment, 2008 will be transformative.

Africa and Our Attention

Benjamin Rhodes — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 14:30:41 +0000

George Packer has a pitch-perfect indictment of the latest round of inaction in Darfur, as a predictable spike in violence is/will be accompanied by a predictable round of condemnations, meetings, and failure to take effective action. His basic point: Africa is where everybody – meaning the U.S., Europe, the U.N., the Islamic world – has their gap between rhetoric and action exposed. We’re summoning greater and more timely outrage than we did with Rwanda, and still it makes little difference.

Africa and its tragedies – Darfur, Uganda, Congo, and on and on – simply cannot get the attention of western governments or the broad majorities of their public who would compel action. It does benefit from the attention of well-meaning celebrities, crusading jouranlists, and student activists, but there is a touch of condescension in this – that there is a status quo emerging where Africa is the domain of an international celebrity culture, and not institutions that could take more effective action (just look at the Clinton Global Initiative, where Bill Clinton is leading laudable efforts to solve problems in Africa after he has left the presidency).

Perhaps Packer’s most chilling statement is this: “But since when does the world listen to Africans? Unless Ivorians and Congolese start blowing themselves up in front of Western embassies and shops, it seems, their grievances won’t be taken seriously.” The implications of that statement are chilling in ways that the mind does not want to tackle.

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Islamofascist

Benjamin Rhodes — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 21:58:45 +0000

9/11 has brought with it some new terminology, most notably “war on terror” which has taken a tendency to make war on nouns (prominently, “poverty” and “drugs”), and shifted it to making war on a tactic. Now we have “Islamofascist” – too young to have a dictionary definition, but prominent enough to merit mention by the President (and a wikipedia definition).

Islamofascism represents a bunch of things, including linking the fight against terrorism to the fight against Hitler. The Hitler thing is a little strange, but pretty clearly represents a desire to recall the victory of WWII and to cast those who disagree with tactics in the war on terror as appeasers. Beyond their both being violent and hating Jews, I’m at a bit of a loss on equating a stateless terrorist network to the Third Reich, particularly since there cannot be any clear “victory” – any occupation of Berlin or Japanese surrender – against people who have no capitol or sign no surrender agreements. But that’s a topic for another day…

The more dangerous part, I think, is conflating groups with different aims. What do the Iranian government, Hizbollah, Hamas, al Qaeda, the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, and Islanmist movements from Indonesia to Kashmir to Chechnya to London have in common? A lot less than we’re making them out to have in common if we slap a big old “Islamofascist” label on them. They may all be bad, but you don’t approach a nationalist or separatist movement in the same way that you approach an apocalyptic jihadist movement (and certainly not a government). And the argument doesn’t even hold that they are all adherents to the same ideology of radical Islam – one need only look at Iraq to know that Iran’s ayatollahs don’t march in lockstep with Sunni terrorists.

Much more could be said about this, but the bottom line is conflation hasn’t served us that well. Whether it was “al Qaeda and Iraq” or the “axis of evil” – what made for simplifying, rousing, and self-congratulatory rhetoric has translated awkwardly into policy. And this is not just a habit of this Administration or this conflict. You could go back a little farther and find that conflating a Vietnamese nationalist movement with Soviet imperialism was a stretch as well.

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Conspiracy Theories

Benjamin Rhodes — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 01:31:35 +0000

A recent poll by Scripps-Howard found that 33% of Americans believe that the U.S. government either perpetrated 9/11, or allowed it to happen to enable the country to go to war.

What is going on? The theories are absurd – the World Trade Center was dynamited, a missile hit the Pentagon, the government trained the hijackers, etc. They are also easily debunked. Not only by the 9/11 Commission, but also by an exhausitve study by the National Institute on Standards and Technology, and any invetsigative report that bothers to look into the claims of conspiracy theorists (for instance, this one).

They are also insulting. Tell someone who was in the Pentagon, who saw a plane, who nearly died because of jet fuel inhilation, that they were actually hit by a missile. Or tell a family member who received a phone call from someone on board American 77 that this plane didn’t exist, or that it was somehow mysteriously landed in a field where the government executed everyone. It is a mark of these conspiracy theorists that they hold the government to a 100% level of truth – a level that is sometimes simply unreachable. Yet they themselves have no evidence for their own alternative theories.

It is one thing for people with some pyschological need – or simply far too much time on their hands – to indulge these fantasies. But clearly reasonable people are taking the bait. In some circles, it appears to be the intellectually trendy, thing to do. Yes, the Bush Administration bears some blame – for not always telling the truth, for its penchant for secrecy, for initially blocking a full inquiry into pre-9/11 failings. But leaping from that to the denegration of 9/11, the victims of 9/11, and the countless dedicated public servants who defend our national security is a bridge too far.

It’s pieces like this one in Vanity Fair that disturb me. This should not be treated as a charming pop culture phenomenon. People with questions about how 9/11 happened, or about what more the government could have done to stop it, should be vigorous participants in the debate – they should question the government, hold it to account, and point out questions that need answers. But people should ask questions that are just as tough to those who leap to wild and utterly unproven conclusions that the U.S. government carried out the 9/11 attacks – because those claims are corrosive, and wrong.

The Rhetoric of World War

Benjamin Rhodes — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 02:38:11 +0000

One of the trendy things on the right these days seems to be the proclamation of World War III, based (most recently) on the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, and before that 9/11. Newt Gingirch seems most determined to trumpet this theory, echoed by astute observers like Bill O’Reilly (and expertly mocked by Stephen Colbert).

This talk of World War III is wrong, and dangerous. First, the nexus of botched terrorist plots, a terrorist attack in India, North Korean missile tests, Iraq, and the conflict between Israel and Hizbollah certainly adds up to a messy and dangerous international environment. But World War? Protracted, fully-mobilized warfare between nation-states and empires claiming the lives of tens of millions of civilians and combatants and remaking the map of the world – that’s a World War. It’s wholly inaccurate – and, frankly, more than a bit disrespectful to those who suffered through those conflicts – to cobble together the worst headlines of the last few months and call it a World War

Second, it plays into the hands of terrorists. The only people alive today who really want a conflict the size of a World War are al Qaeda (even Hezbollah’s aims seem at least regional). By eagerly declaring the commencement of World War III, we’re rhetorically embracing exactly the kind of conflict that the most nihilistic and megalomaniacal terrorists crave. And, consequently, helping them frame their jihad against the U.S. and the West in the grandiose terms that they want to use in appealing to the Islamic world.

One of the strange things about war, terrorism, and terrible news from abroad, is the strange twinge of anticipation that it sparks in the voyeur. To live in interesting times. To be engaged in a heroic endeavor. These are understandable impulses.

No doubt 9/11 was an act of war, and the conflict that the United States is engaged in against jihadists is more than a law enforcement operation. No doubt a country like Iran is a grave threat, the situation in Iraq presents monumental challenges, and the conflict in Lebanon could escalate. But let’s keep matters in perspective. In groping for historical analogies, we can do better than simply wrapping our arms around the worst-case scenarios (artfully debunked by John Keegan). There is such a thing as war – and ideological conflict – that is not World War. We spent the Cold War avoiding World War III. Why are we starting the 21st century by trying to talk ourselves into it?

What ever happened to stateless terrorism?

Benjamin Rhodes — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 04:51:52 +0000

Remember stateless terrorism? Those individual actors and shadowy networks that represented the gravest danger of the 21st century? Those 19 hijackers armed only with knives and boxcutters (and probably mace and pepper spray)?

One of the interesting things about our post-9/11 world is how reflexively states – especially the U.S. – have combatted terrorism by attacking states. Of course, the prime example of this is our attack on Iraq, a state whose only connection to 9/11 was, well, that Saddam Hussein was a really bad guy who (along with a lot of other really bad guys) was “destabilizing” the Middle East.

But what of Israel’s conflict with Hizbollah, and its attacks on Lebanon (a state recently heralded for its supposedly tight embrace of democracy)? I have heard Hizbollah referred to as the terrorism A team, a state within a state, a transnational Shia resistance group, and a pawn of Iran and (Sunni) Syria. I have heard that Hizbollah overreached and invited its own destruction, Hizbollah has rallied the Lebanese people to its side, or that Syria and Iran are skillfully spawning more regional chaos.

Surely there is some overlap between these seemeing contradictions, but they also represent an incomplete understanding – five years after 9/11 – about just what a terrorist group is, who should be held responsible for acts of terrorism, and above all how we should respond. After 9/11, we heard a lot about how we would be facing a new kind of war. Instead, we seem to be slipping into the oldest kinds of war in the Middle East.

Intervention and U.S. politics

Benjamin Rhodes — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 14:50:02 +0000

Much of the discussion of late on this blog has been about when to intervene and under what authority. On that score, I agree with Jordan Tama that legitimacy – as amorphous a concept as that is – makes more sense than legality.

But we must also recognize that the determining factor in many cases is not the efficacy of the UN or the conclusions of international commissions – it is a domestic political decision taken within the United States. President Clinton wanted to intervene in Kosovo and President Bush wanted to intervene in Iraq – so they did, whether those actions were legal or legitimate or not. In other cases – Rwanda and Darfur come to mind – neither President (or Congress), had much stomach to make a case for intervention to the American people. And more often than not, absent U.S. leadership, robust intervention to stop genocide or stem humanitarian disasters does not take place.

The transcript of the first Gore-Bush debate in 2000 crystallizes this problem in an intriguing way. Of course, the now infamous Bush line from the debate is “The vice president and I have a disagreement about the use of our troops. He believes in nation building. I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders.” Bush also defines the circumstances for deploying troops very narrowly – certainly not offering a definition encompassing a principle of a responsibility to protect (or spread democracy). Perhaps more enlightening is this News Hour summary of a later Bush-Gore back and forth on intervention.

The point is that the U.S. has no political consensus – no center – on the question of intervention, so the pendulum swings in strange ways. When then-Governor Bush came out against nation building and humanitarian intervention, I’m sure a huge majority of GoP members of Congress firmly lined up behind him – those same members now make soaring speeches about the need to stand up for our values abroad. Flip that around and you’ll probably find a similar switch on the Democratic side.

But the standard by which to judge whether or not to intervene should not just be: what party is the President who is making the decision? The U.S. does itself, the UN, and the world a huge disservice if there is no predictability, no clear political consensus, about what constitutes a legitimate intervention. Both parties do agree on one thing – they want the U.S. to remain the sole superpower. But for that to work, people in both parties need to come together to figure out what that means with regard to intervention.