Iraq and Afghanistan

Yesterday brought an Op-Ed detailing one of the darkest pages of our post-9/11 campaign. This is a program labeled "extraordinary rendition". It consists of secretly capturing people thought to be associated with Islamic terrorists, putting them in special executive jets which are in a service labeled the "Special Removal Unit" and transporting them to countries that agree to extract desired information from them. It is assumed that in these countries, such as Syria and Egypt, methods will be used that are forbidden in the United States itself. An example is given of a person returning to Canada who was intercepted in New York and, handcuffed, sent off to Syria, tortured and interrogated, and eventually returned after the Syrian said he had no information to give. The implication is that this is often repeated process. When added to all the other information about Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, it adds up to a terrible indictment of American behavior against persons given no legal chance for review or complaint. I have no idea whether this information is as reliable as newspaper accounts seem to suggest. But for the purposes of this discussion, let us assume that it is true, or true enough.

The difficulty with the case of the accusers is that they argue that this is all madness, occurring because of the pleasure it imparts to our enforcers, or perhaps simply because the agencies involved can get away with it. Morally the issues would be simple and straight-forward were this actually so. However, it may be that out of every ten cases of this sort that yield unimportant information, there is one from which vital information is extracted. Al-Qaida has not been able to mount a major attack in this country since 9/11 in spite of repeated threats. The general public really has no idea why this is so. One reason may reasonably be thought to be the result of the efforts of the FBI, CIA and other secret agencies since 9/11. If they have prevented another 9/11, then the moral case becomes much murkier.

This analysis reminds me of the arguments that we must go through in regard to capital punishment. It is also reminiscent of arguments about the possession of nuclear weapons, combined with threatening to use them under extreme conditions. We might ask, for example, whether the deterrent maintained against the Soviet Union and they against us during the Cold War was the primary reason that a major nuclear war (which would have eclipsed by several degrees of magnitude World War II) never occurred. Most people in the 1950s assumed it was bound to occur. C.P. Snow famously said in 1958 that if nuclear weapons were not abandoned they would be used in ten years. Today many countries, including North Korea, and by indirection several others, maintain that their only defense against aggression is the threat that they will use nuclears against any attack.

It seems to me that the only way to establish a strong moral case against the use or pretended use of nuclear weapons or the use or employment of torture, however this is arranged, is to say that we, that is the United States, will not employ such tools of policy regardless of what advantages we might get from their employment. We must face the fact that adopting such policies can have major costs, that we will be giving up useful tools. Yet in my mind these risks must be taken if we are to build a more humane world.

The Bush administration has outlined a forceful, even aggressive, initiative aimed at democratizing the world. American resources and patience are no doubt insufficient for the task. Yet to state the thesis at all takes the President beyond the idealism of President Wilson when he strove to create a world of free states. Wilson assumed that newly independent states would develop into bastions of free government. President Bush assumes that the adoption of formal democratic processes by the world’s political systems will necessarily bring freedom to the peoples living under these systems. Like Wilson, the ideal world he imagines will be a world that has transcended war. As proof of this proposition, President Bush often quotes from the latest "finding" of political science: no free people fights another free people.

The most questionable aspect of the proposals of both Wilson and Bush is their unwillingness to face the fact that modern democratic processes, encapsulated in the phrase "free and fair elections" do not bring freedom to communities within established political boundaries where the demographics mean that these communities can never win a "free and fair election". As Ambassador Galbraith has repeatedly pointed out, the Kurds of Iraq have campaigned since before World War I for a state of their own in what is now Iraq . Yet the United States has in the end always turned away, letting them slip again under the domination of the more numerous peoples controlling the lowlands. Galbraith fears that we will once again betray the Kurds.

Yet if we do, we will be consistent with our larger understanding of what the Administration includes and excludes from its concept of "freedom". Washington repeatedly makes tepid attempts to improve the human rights situation in China. But what it does not do is make it clear that the Uighurs, Tibetans, Taiwanese and others caught within what the world accepts as China’s borders have as much right to live in freedom as the Han Chinese.

Africa south of the Sahara is a boiling cauldron of nationalisms. Conventionally, if a colonial power established a border to serve its interests in the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries, then the world community feels that it must avert its eyes from the fact that the resultant "state nationalisms" of countries such as both Congos, Sudan, Somalia, Ivory Coast, even Nigeria are meaningless or even hated by many of those forced to live within artificial borders. India has grown into a beacon for democratic aspirations in the developing world. Yet many peoples along the fringes of India have no more feeling that they are Indians than you or I. Indonesia is a creation of nineteenth century colonialism. We hear much of the long struggle of the Acehnese to have an independent state. Less attention is paid to the peoples of West Irian who have at least as much right to a separate existence as the people granted independence across the border in Papua New Guinea. In fact, the ways of life and languages and religions of the Irianese are much further removed from general Indonesian culture than those of the people of Aceh. Yet in our desire to have good relations with what is now a more or less democratizing Indonesia, we are unlikely to hear many rude suggestions from the Bush Administration relating to the freedom of West Irian.

The administration has been much more forthcoming in its advice to the Russians concerning their problems in Chechnya. Apparently, since we frequently fail to view Russia as an ally in our march to a free and peaceful world, we have a freer scope for expressing our deepest ideals.

Hidden within these lines, there is no argument that the United States and its allies, willing and unwilling, should begin stirring the pot of insurrection in the world’s many diverse hot spots. But there is an argument that in advancing the general and noble cause of freedom for all peoples, we should carefully consider the multitude of remaining questions of unresolved ethnic nationalism. We are not going to achieve a world in which freedom equals democracy equals peace until we address more effectively than we have the challenges posed by the continued existence of peoples forced to live within borders not of their making. For better or worse, these peoples will play an important role in the turmoil of the 21st century.

The American campaign against the International Criminal Court (ICC) is back in the news. Samantha Power in today's Op-Ed points out that the decision of the international community to try to bring the crimes against humanity committed in the Darfur region of Sudan to the ICC at the Hague is being blocked by a coalition of Sudanese intransigents and American hardliners. She finds this ironic since the United States has been the major power most willing to condemn what Sudan has been doing. However, when it comes to actually making a case against the criminals, it is the United States that insists that a new court be set up somewhere in Africa to handle the case. This is in spite of previous American criticism of the United Nations war crimes tribunal in Tanzania on which such a court would be modeled. Taking the American suggestion would mean a considerable delay in the trial, be more costly, and set up a court with a less adequate and capable staff.

This campaign is being undertaken by the Administration as part of its more general strategy to undermine the ICC in every way possible. We have of course not joined the Court (standing tall with Sudan on this). We have also been going to all the countries with which we have military assistance arrangements, requesting and sometimes demanding that they agree to Bilateral Immunity Agreements. These agreements, of doubtful validity, mean that we and our partner state agree that we and they will not surrender a long list of people (identified by position) to the ICC for trial. Congress has also passed an American Servicemember's Protection Act according to which American forces will only take part in international peacekeeping if there is a prior agreement granting impunity for American peacekeepers. The act even allows the American government to "take all necessary steps" to enforce this impunity if this becomes necessary.

There is an argument that since the United States is the ideological target of many groups around the world, including some members of the United Nations, there is a danger that charges would be brought for specious reasons against American personnel. This is the reason that the Clinton administration also refused to join the court, although without mounting the determined campaign against it of the Bush people. American fears should be eased by the fact that the ICC would not be able to carry out a death sentence no matter what the crime, suggesting thereby that even great miscarriages of justice could be corrected without a disaster for the Americans concerned. Against the rather theoretical likelihood of this actually occurring in a court based in the Hague (Netherlands has supported the Iraq adventure more than much of Europe, and the judges are mostly educated in Western traditions), is the fact that our refusal to take part in the Court and the subsequent campaign against it is going directly against American policy in other respects, such as achieving a world under law. It also makes us few friends. Recently both Senators Biden and McCain have announced that they support our adhering to the ICC agreements. Both want more safeguards, but believe that we should press forward to achieve these so that we can become a part of the process.

The unfortunate reason that lies behind the Administration's intransigence is its desire to play to the prejudices of its base against the United Nations and the small but influential neocon lobby that identifies the United Nations as the enemy of Israel. Millions of Americans actually believe that the United Nations has an army ready and willing to attack the United States and enforce UN law as a replacement to American law. The investigations being carried on in the Congress to undercut Kofi Annan have the same virulently anti-UN origin. (It is too bad the United Nations bureaucracy actually is open to a great deal of criticism). What the United States must eventually realize that while we might be able to rule the world for now, for the longer term we will have to rule with the assistance of others. Our long-term future as the leader of the world has to be as the leader of the United Nations. After some time this role will subtly change to that of a leader of the United Nations. There is actually no other game in town. We must begin now to reestablish our credibility in the UN, help it in the strengthening of its agencies, and then move forward.

Richard Posner in an impressive Op-Ed today points out the reasons why the Administration has been unable to fill the position of Director of National Intelligence. Robert gates, the most obvious candidate said no thanks. Posner thinks he knows why. He says that the legislation has been carefully worded so that the new Director will have all the responsibility and none of the power. He is sure to be blamed if there is another al-Qaida spectacular. But he would have been unable to do anything effectively to avoid it.

One of the organizational glitches that Posner points to is that sitting on top of all the other intelligence agencies, the new Director is to have a staff of 500. As he notes, this means that any intelligence that is gathered under the new system will have to make its way through yet another level or two in the bureaucracy, making more than ever the unlikelihood that it will reach the President or anybody else that might do something about it.

As has been argued here often, the bureaucratic changes that are needed are to tie the intelligence more closely to those who might act on the intelligence. Useful intelligence is not something that exists in the ether or in written memos. It is something that real people react to, impelling them to ask for more information, to pin down and verify, and tie together bits of information. But above all it must be connected directly to those who are expected to act on the intelligence. This is why I suggested some posts back that the Pentagon taking over some of the gathering of intelligence in the field from the CIA was a good idea. If Special Forces has units in Afghanistan that need more intelligence on who is who or what dangers are developing around them, they want military units to be doing the work, not persons answering to a different command structure.

Instead of complexifying things with Homeland Security and an overarching National Intelligence Directorate, what we need is a handful of trusted advisors working with the President and Homeland Security whose job it is to be on top of, and actively engaged in, the intelligence work of the FBI, CIA, Pentagon etc, and be able to directly interact with any units of these organizations or others whose job it is to act both passively and aggressively on the basis of such intelligence. This trusted group of advisors would have the responsibility of directly contacting agents in the field organizations of the established intelligence agencies here and abroad, finding out what they know, seeing the areas in which they are deficient, and advising at several levels up to and including the President on how to remedy the deficiencies they have discovered.

A new study estimates that there are 480 nuclear weapons in American control on bases in Europe. These are said to be relatively small nuclear bombs meant to be carried on fighter bombers. They are the last holdovers from the thousands that America had in Europe when it was facing off against the Soviets. Apparently, in the nineties we said that we would take them all out. Some of our top generals, including our top NATO commander, really doesn't want them there. I assume this is because he sees them as useless in any role he can imagine and keeping control over them vis-à-vis terrorists is a headache he does not need. Yet others in high positions in Europe and one presumes in the United States are loathe to bring them all home. What they are said to want is an ability to quickly launch nuclear weapons against anyone or any country threatening the use of, or using, weapons of mass destruction against the United States or its allies. Of course, we have plenty of nuclear weapons on submarines and so forth, but they are larger and so perhaps considered "less usable".

Meanwhile, we continue to insist that no state other than the existing nuclear powers be allowed to have, or even threaten to have, nuclear weapons. A few favored states have a right to nuclear deterrence, the rest do not. This argument sells well in Washington, but not everywhere. (The French would agree with us on this. They have always loved nuclear weapons and would be the last to give them up. Nuclear power is another one of their favorite causes.)

The problem with nuclear deterrence, or the use that deterrence imagines, is that it is based on politically unusable weapons. There has been a moratorium on nuclear use since World War II. No one really wants to break that moratorium — certainly not in the short time frame suggested by the need to keep these weapons in Europe. Even though the air carried weapons are relatively small, varying in size from a third of a kiloton to over 100 kilotons (Hiroshima 12.5), any use would be bound to be massively destructive at least in limited areas, with radiation effects over a larger area. The political fallout would be hard to predict but likely to be considerable. If the objective were the destruction of something connected with an organization such as al-Qaida, those associated with our target might actually welcome such a demonstration because of its negative consequences even for the countries they are in. If we used our weapons against a country that had actually used W.M.D., it might make more sense, but not that much.

It has long seemed to me that we should be able to develop and make clear to all interested parties our intention to keep on hand a massive non-WMD destructive capacity that would be used as needed against any country actually using WMD. (It could also be used preemptively, but the example of Iraq makes that strategy look rather poor for the time being.) We can, in fact, be massively destructive when we want to be. We also have conventional weapons that can dig below the surface. This capacity was not well demonstrated in Iraq or Afghanistan, but this had more to do with poor targeting than weapon characteristics — and one would not want to count on a nuclear deterrent similarly afflicted by poor targeting. It may be that nuclear deterrence still has some credibility against a country with the size and armament, nuclear and otherwise, of China. But in bargaining or fighting most of the world, backyard terrorists and other evil guys, it seems past time we stopped making nuclear threats and clearly got out of the business.

An Op-Ed today by Sandra Mackey raises serious issues about the Kurdish intention to incorporate Kirkuk and its extensive oil fields into their new "federal" territory. This is particularly significant in light of a growing Kurdish confidence that they will have a more decisive role in the new Iraq than would have been imagined.

The author points out that in the fifties the Turkmen were the largest ethnic group in Kirkuk while today this position has probably shifted to the Kurds. Their demand that the city and its environs become a part of their sphere is equally resisted by the Turkmen. Behind the demands of the Turkmen is the Turkish state. Turkey has a well-known interest in confining Kurdish territory because of fear that a powerful Kurdistan would re-ignite the demand of the Turkish Kurds, who may make up a fifth of the population of Turkey, for a more independent status. But Mackey also points out that Turkey has never accepted the accession of Kirkuk to the Iraq state, something that was engineered by the British in the 1920s after the Turks felt that their new borders had been established. Thus, they feel they have a right to intervene in Kirkuk that goes beyond the Kurdish issue and their sentimental attachment to folks they feel are like themselves (although whether "Turk" and "Turkmen" are actually the same is unclear to me).

What is particularly problematic for American leaders, military or civilian, is that we have made assurances to the Turks that we will not abandon their interests and allow the Kurds to push forward. Turkey is in NATO and it has stood with us strategically on many issues (although it played hard to get when we wanted to invade Iraq). According to Mackey we have told the Turks we are not going to allow the Kurds to take Kirkuk, and are reinforcing American troops in the area for this very reason. If this is so, then we may find ourselves fighting the only reliable friends we have in Iraq because we have other fish to fry. It will not be a happy ending to our current flirtation with the Kurds and their quite reasonable dreams of at last having a land of their own.

In an Op-Ed entitled "The Human Rights Case Against Attacking Iran" Shirin Ebadi and Hadi Ghaemi, two Iranians much concerned with human rights in Iran argue that attacking Iran would be a major setback for human rights in the country because it would make its human rights campaigners appear to be traitors to the general Iranian public. It is easy to understand their case. One does not know, of course, whether they are writing this because they or their coworkers are still in Iran. The reason for the Op-Ed might then be a form of both personal and movement self-defense. Even if true, this does not make their case illegitimate.

They make the point that there is a lot more human rights activity in Iran even now than Americans suspect. In recent months groups called the Center for the Defense of Human Rights, the Association of Journalists for Freedom of Press, and the Students Association for Human Rights campaigned for the release of journalists and were ultimately successful. Many other indicators of relative freedom in Iran suggest that Ms. Rice's characterization of human rights in Iran as "loathsome", as well as the Freedom House rating of Iran as "6, 6, not free" is simply mistaken. (Freedom House ratings since 1989 have unfortunately reflected the interests of the American government as much as the degrees of freedom being reported.) Iran is clearly not less free than Egypt, Azerbaijan or many other states rated more highly. It is surely not to be compared to Congo (Kinshasa).

I believe that the writers' concerns about an American invasion are not justified at present. Yet the talk and bluster that has been addressed to this issue in the United States in the last year may in itself damage the human rights cause in Iran.

This raises the question of just what the United States can effectively do to change human rights behavior in another country. When that country is as powerful and self-assured as China seems to be today, the answer may be "not very much". When a country is relatively weak, the human rights problems sufficiently egregious, and the rest of the world agrees with us, then quite a lot can be accomplished, as in East Timor, the Balkans, or Afghanistan (let us not judge Iraq yet for just a bit). But in these cases military interference or threat was realistic, effective, and relatively cost-free for those concerned. This is obviously not the case for Iran. The case of the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellite empire brings up another set of issues. This seems to have been an implosion that in my judgment was caused by both economic failure over many years and the rejection of the system by the intellectual classes on which its legitimacy was ultimately based. Outside news sources and contacts played a part, operating on Soviet opinion over a very long period, but evolution within the USSR was probably the most critical factor. It was a cultural shift. It should be noted that in those successor states that were least affected by contact with "the West", such as the Central Asian Republics, human rights is at least as poor today as it was under the Soviets (except perhaps for religious freedom).

The Soviet example is relevant for Iran, but not completely so. Like the western part of the Soviet Empire, the Iranian intelligentsia and the country's middle class are much affected by Western culture. The number of Iranians educated in the West before Khomeini was much higher than that in the old USSR, and to some degree this tradition continues today. However, economically Iran continues to do well because of its oil reserves. It is suffering by comparison perhaps, but not suffering in the same way the Soviet peoples were. Moreover, the support of the present Iranian regime is not based on a secular intelligentsia as in the Soviet world. The basis is rather a religious class able to generate consider grass-roots support among the masses. The young within this religious class are also said to be restless, but to what degree I am not sure. They probably are not the mainstay of the human rights organizations the authors mention.

We need to develop both short and long-term policies for improving human rights in other countries. These need to be tailor made for each situation. They should have both a governmental and a nongovernmental aspect, and by "nongovernmental" I mean a really independent effort such as Amnesty International might be involved in.

Today's paper describes a process of reorientation in Japanese strategic thinking. For many years Japan has seen itself as a junior and most pacific (no pun) partner of the United States in world affairs. Later, with the Japanese "miracle" that made it the second power economically in the world, Japan began to assert itself more. But this assertion took the form of seeing itself as an Asian power that could develop a more many-sided relationship with the world. This meant in the first place better relations with China. However, within a few years the Japanese leaders began to realize that China would soon pass them up, becoming the dominant power in Asia if not the world. Admiration of China began to change to fear of China (except for the business class that often sees things only in terms of a corporate pocketbook). The Japanese have also begun to resent the fact that the Chinese government continues to support, even perhaps instigate, Japan-bashing whenever sports teams or other peaceful missions visit China. The Japanese feel it is past time for the Chinese to still treat them as their WWII enemy.

So Japan has apparently decided to revivify their military and diplomatic relationships with the United States. Coincidentally, there is a strange pro-Korean cultural movement in Japan. Taken together, we may be able to glimpse the outlines of a new set of alliances forged by the rapid rise of China economically. One can hope that in coming out of its isolation Japan will also develop stronger ties with Russia and India ("the enemy of my enemy is my friend").

The problem for the world is a serious one. China represents a fourth of the world. It is growing at a great rate, but growing without the democratic, human rights, or environmental disciplines that have been incorporated into the development process elsewhere (yes, even in the United States). As it stands, China is the one country the United States does not have a clue as to how it will contain in the 21st century. Experts can talk all they want of "deterrence", but I suspect the Chinese have more usable deterrence now than we have — and ABM is not going to change that equation much.

Against the major threat of the USSR, we used NATO, an alliance of advanced states that taken together made our power seem much more credible. If not an explicit alliance, we will need something like NATO, perhaps based on Japan, in the environs of China. In this kind of environment, China can more acceptable grow and meld into an international system of states responding to similar economic and popular trends. Without such an environment, its leaders are likely to become too obsessed with their own power, provoking in turn obsessions in other states with the danger of China, an interplay of reactions that could have disastrous consequences for all.