David Rothkopf's Blog, page 99

The State of the Union…and the state of this blog

For those of you who missed the president's State of the
Union message, let me sum it up for you: Our enemies in the Middle East are
dead or on the run. Our new enemies are Wall Street, big oil, and Congressional
obstructionism. We can be the America of 1945 again if we restore fairness to
our society.

Ok, that's a little cynical. But in short strokes, that's
it. We want to be good old America, the place where the little guy has a chance
and no one wants to mess with Uncle Sam. Oh and we love the military. Oh and
Osama bin Laden is still dead.

That said, it was a pretty good speech as these things go,
had a few interesting ideas in it, a few sound if retread notions masquerading
as interesting ideas, and it was well delivered.

Grading it, we'd have to conclude the following:

Compared to the paintball game that the GOP
primary debates have become, this was Churchillian in its oratory and
Jeffersonian in its vision. If we were grading on the curve therefore, against
the body politic as a whole intellectual wasteland that it is, the speech gets
10 out of 10, an A.

Compared to the usual State of the Union
address, speeches that drone on, offer little in the way of new ideas, sometimes
stirred up by a line or a notion or a moving moment or a controversy, this was
not bad. The speech was pretty good, the delivery was pretty good, the core
idea of asserting that government has a role to play in supporting America's
recovery and ensuring our strength was sound, and there was a lovely moment of
the president hugging Gabby Giffords that was the highlight of the evening. By
this metric, the speech gets an 88, a solid B.

Compared to the Obama addresses of the past, his
campaign triumphs and the hopes many had for the president, this was still a
bit of a let-down. The idea that it included a hard look at the root causes of
the mortgage crisis four years after that crisis began sure felt like closing
the barn door after the horse got out. It's notable that the president began
and ending with national security success stories as few would have predicted
that three years ago. It's good he took credit for his export successes, silly
that he re-announced a trade enforcement operation that has been announced and formed
periodically in the past, and kind of poignant that he adopted the
"indispensable nation" language of the Clinton years. Indeed, as Obama speeches
go, this was a pretty good homage to Clinton, or as they say in hip-hop, it
include a lot of "sampling" of Bubba's Greatest Hits. For reasons like this, you
could easily give the speech a 75 or a C.

In terms of what is going to actually happen
based on this speech -- even in terms of the perfectly good ideas it contained
like more equitable taxation, government streamlining, focusing on harnessing
American energy in a responsible, efficiency-focused way, making American more
attractive to investors, focusing on creating jobs at home -- we are,
unfortunately, going to have to give it a D. Because this hopeless Congress,
frozen in the dark amber of its own bile, will do precious little and no one expects
any more, including the president which makes the whole thing a painful
charade.

So, there you go. Pick the grade you like the most, ignore
the others, and move on. Because these things matter little, except in political
terms and even then not much because no one is going to remember January come
November.

Having said all that, let me add one more thing. You may have
heard that I am graduating from blogging to being the CEO and Editor-at-Large
of Foreign Policy. What this means among other things is that I will no longer
be blogging daily. (Pause to allow you all to get a hanky and daub your eyes.) Instead,
I'll be writing a Monday web-column (like a blog, only crunchy) and a regular
back-page column in FP, the magazine. Oh sure, I'll also tweet…and I suppose
when I can't help myself I'll throw in a blog every so often. So, I'll still be
around, still spouting off -- but doing so slightly less frequently -- allowing you
all the more time to read better writers and me a little more time to think
about what I write (which wouldn't hurt.) Thanks for following the blog and
please look out for the column, beginning week after next.

How do you do nuanced foreign policy in the 3D, big screen TV era?

Newt Gingrich called the U.S.-Israeli decision to put off
joint military exercises scheduled for the Negev Desert "the greatest act of
presidential weakness he has seen in his lifetime." He was implying that it was
done to appease Iran. As it happens, according to the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, the exercises were put off not by the
U.S. but at the request of the Israelis. Facts aside, as they often are, the
only true weakness revealed by the statement is Gingrich's own. He's desperate.
If current polls are to be believed, the remaining shelf-life of his campaign
can be measured in hours. And that's a charitable assessment. More gimlet-eyed
observers might conclude the campaign hasn't been viable since it collapsed
from front runner status to also-ran in Iowa under the weight of the
candidate's blustering intemperance.

Gingrich, despite his declining political relevance, does
trigger a couple useful thoughts with this latest crudely inflammatory comment.
The first is that he reminds us what old-fashioned war mongering is really
like. War mongering, like cheese mongering and fish mongering, has a good
old-fashioned sound to it. It makes one think of the tub-thumping pols of old,
back in the days when war was glorious and generals watched battles from
astride white steeds high atop a hillside far from the action. Of course, like
all forms of mongering, it's a dirty business and even when it doesn't produce
mayhem and tragedy it leaves behind a dirty, smelly residue.

Ron Paul calls Gingrich and the others seeking to tough-talk
our way toward confrontation with Iran "chicken hawks." Not only does this have
a satisfyingly sleazy allusion to a sexual subculture within it, it also correctly
observes that it's no skin off Gingrich's expansive backside to urge America
into war with Iran.  

The problem is that while Paul's war-avoiding impulse is
nobler than Gingrich's posturing, his approach to Iran suffers from a similar flaw.
Both are the classic product of political campaigns: they are not so much
policies as they are provocations, conceived as much to produce a reaction in
the lizard brains of potential followers as they are to actually suggest a way
to advance U.S. national interests. All the candidates are guilty of such
statements. Romney and Perry have also made over-the-top statements about what
they would do if they got their hands on Iran (not to mention over-the-top
statements about their devotion to Israel, their anger with the Chinese, their
contempt for Eurosocialism, and so on.)

The reason they overdo it is that nuance doesn't show up
well even on large-screen HD TVs. In fact, people viewing the world 55 diagonal
inches at a time want bright colors, action, drama, 3D foreign policy where all
the bits and pieces seem to fly right off the screen and straight into your
living room. It's one of the reasons
that foreign policy often plays a secondary role in campaigns.

That said, 3D full-color, high-impact nuance is not
impossible. And the irony is that nothing illustrates this as well as the Obama
administration's smart, multi-layered, tough and often courageous Iran policy. You
can tell it's nuanced because so few people are happy with it. Today, for
example, on "Morning Joe," Zbigniew Brzezinski asserted that the covert attacks
on Iranian nuclear scientists presumably undertaken by the Israelis perhaps
with the tacit endorsement of the U.S. "debased" foreign policy. Now, there are
few people in the U.S. foreign policy community for whom I have greater regard
than Brzezinski. But this remark bemused and troubled me. On the one hand I
find the notion that foreign policy can be debased laughable when it so often
deals in death, lying, bribery, and other such practices. More importantly, I
can't help but think that Brzezinski wouldn't have minded such actions against
Soviet enemies during the Cold War. He just doesn't think the threat posed by
Iran is comparable (it's not) nor does he, I believe, much like the U.S. working
so closely with Israel (a more complicated issue than we can deal with here
effectively.) But the boldness of these attacks -- like the Stuxnet cyberattack
and the drone activity in that country -- has sent a message that has clearly
been received by the Iranians as well as the critics. This president and his
allies are not simply going to rely on "soft power" to contain the Iranian
nuclear threat, especially when it seems clear that Tehran has such disregard
for diplomacy and prescribed international processes. This makes threats to do
more credible and the ability to achieve goals while doing less likely.

At the same time, the administration's "soft power"
tourniquet has also been applied effectively. Not only are have they maintained
for many months tireless multichannel diplomatic efforts to nudge the Iranians
to an agreement to stop its progress toward the development of nuclear weapons,
they have engineered one of the most effective economic sanctions programs
undertaken by the international community against any nation in the recent
history of the world. "Soft" though this power may be, it is causing real pain
and discomfort for Iran's leadership. In a region that has seen plenty of
governments totter under economic stresses, the ayatollahs increasingly are
seen as wanting a way out from the pressure. (The situation in Iran has
reportedly gotten so bad that periodically Mahmoud Ahmadinejad bolts from
Tehran to go to his home town far from his enemies in the high ranks of the
government...and then must be escorted back to the capital at the emphatic
insistence of his bosses in the top tiers of that country's religious
hierarchy.)

The point is that the president takes the threat seriously
and has for now at least, found a way to very forcefully deliver a message that
Iran must cease and desist without actually going to war. Should he have to take that next step, he will
be able to honestly say that thing every president should be able to assert
prior to putting troops in harms way, that he has tried every other available
option. He has also approached this problem in conjunction with the
international community thus adding both legitimacy and effectiveness to the
undertaking.

The GOP candidates will wave their arms and talk tougher
than teen-aged boys in a locker room. Or, in the case of Paul, he will talk
tough and wave off serious threats as someone else's problems. But they will
all overstate because they think they must...even as the President admirably
illustrates that there is another course, one that involves such a complete and
energetic use of almost every tool short of open warfare in the national
security tool box that I suspect someday if things turn out right (and no
foreign policy initiative can guarantee an outcome because, of course, other
players and many variables are involved) it will be studied as an example of how
to do foreign policy right-big, bold, 3D and nuanced.

Goodbye Commerce Department, you won’t be missed

Fifteen years ago, Susan Levine, then Senior Vice President
of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and I, recently having departed
my not entirely un-senior post at the Commerce Department, circulated a memo to
those who would read it that suggested the elimination of the Commerce
Department and the consolidation of many of the important trade negotiating and
financing agencies into a single department focused on trade issues. Today,
President Barack Obama asked Congress for the authority to make this
long-sought, common sense streamlining of the U.S. government a reality.

Obama has had a team, led by Jeffrey Zients, an extremely
effective official who before he came to government was an innovative and
successful business leader, working on this idea for a very long time now. Zients
was methodical, reaching out to literally hundreds of current and former
officials, business people, experts and others to understand what works, what
doesn't and how things could be organized to better and more efficiently serve
the American people. His proposals have been batted around at a senior level in
the government, faced natural pressure from those whose turf was being
threatened, faced equivalent pressure from those who just don't like change,
and throughout it Zients & Co. have persevered. Several times they nearly
made an announcement like that was made today. Several times the project
seemed dead.

But in the end, the effort advanced to the point of the
President's request today because its principle advocate and the one who
understood its merits most intuitively from the get-go was not Zients but his
boss' boss, President Barack Obama.

The request, which would undo the years of bureaucratic
confusion that turned Commerce and much of the economic side of the U.S.
government into the hodgepodge it is today, is first and foremost an effort to
win from the Congress the power to do what Republicans on the Hill have long
called for -- to start to reduce waste and inefficiency in the executive branch of
the U.S. government. The broad re-organizational fast-track power sought by
Obama is of a type no U.S. president has had since Ronald Reagan. But the
request is balanced, allowing Obama to make broad proposals for change but
requiring swift Congressional approval for those changes. In short, therefore, it is an area of potential bi-partisan agreement
and effective collaboration, a fact that has already been noted in early press
coverage of the announcement.

Commerce and the Small Business Administration would be
merged into a new entity that would also incorporate the Office of the U.S.
Trade Representative, Eximbank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and
the Trade Development Agency. Parts of Commerce that never belonged there in
the first place, like NOAA, would move elsewhere -- with NOAA heading over to
Interior where it has always belonged.

Not only does the move make logical sense -- bringing together
all those agencies of the government that support the development of U.S. trade
and the job creation associated with it -- but it also would save, according to
initial White House estimates, over 1000 jobs and $3 billion over the next
ten years.  

I note that in one of the early stories on the announcement,
former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, was quoted as saying
that the plan will support U.S. competitiveness. This resonates with me both
because he is right and because when we wrote that memo 15 years ago, it was
Podesta who, despite the hue and cry from self-interested senior officials who
wanted to preserve their fiefdoms, took it seriously and considered it. He, Jim
Harmon, the then head of Eximbank, and just a couple of others were open to
really considering the long-term benefits such a reorganization would bring.

Periodically during the intervening decade and a half, I
would talk to a reporter who was doing a story on the bowl-of-spaghetti like
organizational chart of the international economic side of the U.S. government
and would hear of another cluster of folks who were supporting some similarly
sensible slimming down of a confusing, bloated, bureaucracy. But those
groundswells would recede and the issue would go back into hibernation.

Of course, things are very different now and the time is
suddenly right to make such a move. The U.S. needs to tighten its belt. This
kind of modest reform is, as some Republicans have already noted, just a first
step. Much more can and should be done. But this is a logical, painless first
step that is highly unlikely to be objected to by any major constituency being
served by the agencies in questions -- because in all likelihood, even with the
cuts, the efficiency and enhanced coordination that would result from the
consolidation would likely actually lead to much better service for U.S.
companies, consumers and others with a stake in our ability to tap into the
global economy.

As the President accurately said referring to the multiple
agencies he intended to fold together, "In this case, six isn't better than
one."

Another reason the timing works for this is that substantial
constituencies in both parties should and will actively support the move. Finally,
the President has gained special credibility in this area due to the
remarkable, if under-appreciated, success of his export initiative. Once
dismissed as mere window dressing, the President's push to double exports over
five years has seen a string of big successes: two years of export growth
averaging over 16 percent thus keeping the U.S. on track for his goal, record
lending by a much more aggressive and creative team at the U.S. Eximbank led by
Fred Hochberg, the approval of three long-delayed trade deals, enhanced trade
enforcement, and most importantly, exports contributing in a major way to
wealth and job creation nationwide.

From its absurdly muddled mission statement to the sad
little aquarium in its basement (which resembles nothing so much as a slightly
expanded version of the kind of fish tank you would find in a downscale Italian
restaurant in Plainfield, New Jersey), the Commerce Department is the Frankenstein monster of the federal bureaucracy. It's all bits and pieces
that belong in other places that have been sewed together by seemingly
distracted or perhaps slightly inebriated Congressional committees. Meanwhile,
U.S. trade is increasingly vital to our future and U.S. workers, consumers and
exporters all deserve better support -- and we could all do with eliminating
wasteful spending. As a consequence, the President's move is welcome on its
merits and as an excellent initial step toward more
sweeping reforms.

Goodbye Commerce Department, you won't be missed

Fifteen years ago, Susan Levine, then Senior Vice President
of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and I, recently having departed
my not entirely un-senior post at the Commerce Department, circulated a memo to
those who would read it that suggested the elimination of the Commerce
Department and the consolidation of many of the important trade negotiating and
financing agencies into a single department focused on trade issues. Today,
President Barack Obama asked Congress for the authority to make this
long-sought, common sense streamlining of the U.S. government a reality.

Obama has had a team, led by Jeffrey Zients, an extremely
effective official who before he came to government was an innovative and
successful business leader, working on this idea for a very long time now. Zients
was methodical, reaching out to literally hundreds of current and former
officials, business people, experts and others to understand what works, what
doesn't and how things could be organized to better and more efficiently serve
the American people. His proposals have been batted around at a senior level in
the government, faced natural pressure from those whose turf was being
threatened, faced equivalent pressure from those who just don't like change,
and throughout it Zients & Co. have persevered. Several times they nearly
made an announcement like that was made today. Several times the project
seemed dead.

But in the end, the effort advanced to the point of the
President's request today because its principle advocate and the one who
understood its merits most intuitively from the get-go was not Zients but his
boss' boss, President Barack Obama.

The request, which would undo the years of bureaucratic
confusion that turned Commerce and much of the economic side of the U.S.
government into the hodgepodge it is today, is first and foremost an effort to
win from the Congress the power to do what Republicans on the Hill have long
called for -- to start to reduce waste and inefficiency in the executive branch of
the U.S. government. The broad re-organizational fast-track power sought by
Obama is of a type no U.S. president has had since Ronald Reagan. But the
request is balanced, allowing Obama to make broad proposals for change but
requiring swift Congressional approval for those changes. In short, therefore, it is an area of potential bi-partisan agreement
and effective collaboration, a fact that has already been noted in early press
coverage of the announcement.

Commerce and the Small Business Administration would be
merged into a new entity that would also incorporate the Office of the U.S.
Trade Representative, Eximbank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and
the Trade Development Agency. Parts of Commerce that never belonged there in
the first place, like NOAA, would move elsewhere -- with NOAA heading over to
Interior where it has always belonged.

Not only does the move make logical sense -- bringing together
all those agencies of the government that support the development of U.S. trade
and the job creation associated with it -- but it also would save, according to
initial White House estimates, over 1000 jobs and $3 billion over the next
ten years.  

I note that in one of the early stories on the announcement,
former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, was quoted as saying
that the plan will support U.S. competitiveness. This resonates with me both
because he is right and because when we wrote that memo 15 years ago, it was
Podesta who, despite the hue and cry from self-interested senior officials who
wanted to preserve their fiefdoms, took it seriously and considered it. He, Jim
Harmon, the then head of Eximbank, and just a couple of others were open to
really considering the long-term benefits such a reorganization would bring.

Periodically during the intervening decade and a half, I
would talk to a reporter who was doing a story on the bowl-of-spaghetti like
organizational chart of the international economic side of the U.S. government
and would hear of another cluster of folks who were supporting some similarly
sensible slimming down of a confusing, bloated, bureaucracy. But those
groundswells would recede and the issue would go back into hibernation.

Of course, things are very different now and the time is
suddenly right to make such a move. The U.S. needs to tighten its belt. This
kind of modest reform is, as some Republicans have already noted, just a first
step. Much more can and should be done. But this is a logical, painless first
step that is highly unlikely to be objected to by any major constituency being
served by the agencies in questions -- because in all likelihood, even with the
cuts, the efficiency and enhanced coordination that would result from the
consolidation would likely actually lead to much better service for U.S.
companies, consumers and others with a stake in our ability to tap into the
global economy.

As the President accurately said referring to the multiple
agencies he intended to fold together, "In this case, six isn't better than
one."

Another reason the timing works for this is that substantial
constituencies in both parties should and will actively support the move. Finally,
the President has gained special credibility in this area due to the
remarkable, if under-appreciated, success of his export initiative. Once
dismissed as mere window dressing, the President's push to double exports over
five years has seen a string of big successes: two years of export growth
averaging over 16 percent thus keeping the U.S. on track for his goal, record
lending by a much more aggressive and creative team at the U.S. Eximbank led by
Fred Hochberg, the approval of three long-delayed trade deals, enhanced trade
enforcement, and most importantly, exports contributing in a major way to
wealth and job creation nationwide.

From its absurdly muddled mission statement to the sad
little aquarium in its basement (which resembles nothing so much as a slightly
expanded version of the kind of fish tank you would find in a downscale Italian
restaurant in Plainfield, New Jersey), the Commerce Department is the Frankenstein monster of the federal bureaucracy. It's all bits and pieces
that belong in other places that have been sewed together by seemingly
distracted or perhaps slightly inebriated Congressional committees. Meanwhile,
U.S. trade is increasingly vital to our future and U.S. workers, consumers and
exporters all deserve better support -- and we could all do with eliminating
wasteful spending. As a consequence, the President's move is welcome on its
merits and as an excellent initial step toward more
sweeping reforms.

There's no such thing as free enterprise

My younger daughter was in Edinburgh earlier this week and
visited the grave of Adam Smith. That's a little weird, right? For a 20-year-old?

Anyway, I learned more from this experience than just that
my daughter is a little weird, which, to be honest, I already knew. I also
learned that Adam Smith is still dead -- which wouldn't be noteworthy except that
here in the United States we seem to be on the verge of having a national
referendum on the future of capitalism.

The Republican's presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney, last
night offered a victory speech following the New Hampshire primary in which he
essentially made the differences in his views on capitalism and those of the president the dividing-line issue in the upcoming presidential campaign. Romney
asserted that President Obama seeks "to put free enterprise on trial."

On Sunday, President Obama's chief campaign guru, David
Axelrod, said that Mitt Romney was a "corporate raider, not a job creator." In so
doing, he helped sketch out the different approaches to this central issue. Romney
will try to position himself as a "turnaround artist" who understands what
makes American business great and can restore vitality. Obama will try to
position the former Bain Capital boss as representative of the greedy,
indulgent 1 percent who blew up the economy in 2008 and will do so again if
unchecked by wise government.

The intensity of this debate has been heightened recently by
the attacks of some of Romney's Republican competitors like Newt Gingrich and
Rick Perry who, reeking of sour grapes, are going after Romney as being a
representative of "bad" capitalism, the rapacious kind practiced by private-equity bandits, or "vultures" as Perry characterized them. There are manifold
ironies and hypocrisies here, given that both are members of the U.S. political
party most closely associated with big business views and that, for example,
Gingrich's anti-Romney onslaught is being funded by a fat cat named Sheldon
Adelson who made his millions in the gaming business. So Gingrich is attacking
Romney for playing in the Wall Street casino with dollars made from actual
casinos and attacking Romney for hurting workers by seeking profits that were too
big (that actually often went to fund the pensions of average Americans),
with dollars that came from praying on those poor suckers whose understanding
of arithmetic was so lousy that they actually thought they could profit from
gambling.

Debating the future of American capitalism is a good idea. The
past several years have clearly shown the system is broken. Inequality is
skyrocketing. Social mobility is plummeting. Median incomes have been hammered.
Too-big-to-fail financial institutions have gotten a free ride while Main
Street Americans continue to drown in underwater mortgages. Whether or not we
should have bailed those banks out or whether we should have helped the auto
industry or how much regulation is the right amount or whether we should have
an active industrial policy to support key U.S. industries are all legitimate
questions to debate. The fact is that
while we once were the example for capitalists the world over to follow, there
are now a variety of brands of capitalism emerging that use different formulas
and are gaining legitimacy due to their own successes and/or the obvious
defects in the "leave it to the markets" approach of Anglo-U.S. capitalism. There
is the more state-centric "capitalism with Chinese characteristics" being
practiced in the world's fastest-growing major economy. There is the
"democratic development capitalism" of Brazil or India. There is the "small-state entrepreneurial capitalism" of countries like Singapore, the UAE, Israel,
or Chile. And there is Eurocapitalism which, despite the problems in Europe
that are so frequently (far too frequently) cited by Romney, has
produced some of the nations (mostly in Northern Europe) that have the best
balance between fiscal responsibility, growth, and quality-of-life measures
anywhere in the world.

We've gone from celebrating the end of history in which
America's free market theology triumphed over godless communism to realizing
that our victory dance was premature and that we've entered a new world of
competing capitalisms. Further, given our problems, others are gaining sway as
the world votes for alternative models with the policies they adopt. It's also
worth noting that all the other alternatives gaining traction worldwide have a
much bigger role for government in their public-private sector mix than does
the U.S. model -- Republican attacks on "big government" aside. [[BREAK]]

This being a U.S. election cycle, however, rest assured both
sides will overstate their cases. Romney will offer a message about free
enterprise that will resonate with many and win him the broad support of the
business community. But he will make the usual case that government ought to
roll back regulations and taxes to the point that those left behind by markets
are uncared for, costs associated with abuses pile up, and the biggest and most
powerful gain influence at the expense of everyone else. (Citizens United -- the
Supreme Court case that equated spending money on campaigns with protected free
speech -- is perhaps the greatest domestic threat to democracy since the Civil War. It says those with the most money have the most say in American democracy.
It reveals the essential flaw with the "less government is more" argument -- the
absence of government creates a void that is seldom filled by the liberty of
average Americans but is rather occupied, if you will, by Wall Street and those
able to write the biggest checks.) There's no such thing as truly "free"
enterprise -- never has been, never should be. There have always been regulations
and laws that ensure that businesses serve society and not the other way around
-- as it sometimes has felt here in the United States during the past several years.

Meanwhile, Obama & Co. will likely go after business too
hard, forgetting the axiom of my former boss, the best Commerce Secretary
America ever had -- indeed, one of the few relevant ones -- Ron Brown. Ron
regularly observed, "You can't be for jobs and against the people who create
them." The American people believe in the fundamental merits of our system. What
they want is fairness and balance and genuine opportunity, all things that
overpandering to moneyed interests in Washington have undercut in recent
years.

Nonetheless, inevitable overstatements aside, it's a good
debate to have at this point in U.S. history -- an essential one. I don't just
say this because I have a book coming out on the subject in a month (Power,
Inc. from Farrar, Straus & Giroux; order your advance copy now online), though
that's a good capitalist reason to think so. Rather I say it because how our
views on capitalism evolve and how our system is adapted to evolve along with
them will determine not just whether the United States succeeds in the decades ahead but
who in the United States succeeds and how. It will also go a long way in determining how
influential we are in a world of alternative models that are gaining adherents
all the time, often for very good reasons.

Announcing the 2012 summit of the nonaligned and vaguely unhinged

In an event that will undoubtedly be as interesting to
mental health professionals as it is to foreign policy wonks, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad has flown directly from his Tehran cuckoo's nest to the padded cell
of his partner in derangement, Hugo Chavez, for the 2012 Summit of the
Nonaligned and Vaguely Unhinged. Despite Chavez' increasing irrelevance this
was an act of considerable courage on Mahmoud's part both because you never
know what's going to happen when you're dealing with El Loco but also because
whenever a despot leaves a country as screwed up as Iran is at the moment, he
can't be sure he's going to have a job when he gets back.

At the moment, given the parlous state of the Iranian economy,
the likelihood of its further decline later this year, the upcoming
parliamentary elections in March that could be another trigger for restiveness
in that country, the increasing global pressure of every type regarding Iran's
rogue nuclear program, and Ahmadinejad's profusion of enemies among Tehran's
empowered classes, he can't be too comfortable, even when he is at home. The
statement over the weekend by U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta that America
simply will not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons and our tough response to
Iran's saber rattling in the Gulf of Hormuz can't make things any easier.

So, what's a would-be world leader -- who is increasingly
isolated -- to do? Well, turn to someone who understands his problems. Other
than Kim Jong-un and Ron Paul, there are few people on the world stage who
understand better than Chavez the plight of being seen as a member of the
lunatic fringe of the global elite. (Sorry, Ron, you're a member of the global
elite whether your tin-foil hat wearing contingent of conspiracy theorist
supporters are willing to accept it or not.) Indeed, like Chavez and Kim,
Ahmadinejad's claim on world attention is based as much or more on his
potential for irrationality as it is on any particular resource or capability of
the country he represents. Oh sure, Iran and Venezuela have oil, and North
Korea and perhaps soon Iran may have nukes. But the point is these are
otherwise marginal countries with the capability of being little more than
regional trouble makers, who have tried like recalcitrant sixth graders to get more
attention than they deserve through acting up.

The only difference between Ahmadinejad -- whose Venezuela
stop is the first on a trip through Latin America in search of Sofia Vergara,
er, that famous Latin warmth and hospitality -- and Chavez and Kim is that if
anything, his grip on power is more tenuous. Which is saying something, given
that Chavez is battling cancer and faces what may be his first real electoral
challenge in years, and Kim is an untested newcomer, the neophyte Pillsbury
doughboy of rogue nations. Come to think of it, the one thing that all three of
these guys have in common is that all three must worry that the day may soon
come when their grip on power is actually weaker than their grasp of reality.

For the rest of us, we can only hope that day comes soon.

Dictionary of American Politics, Part Two -- Demspeak

As was explained in part one of this post, following what is
said or written about American politics is often difficult for Americans who
are actually used to all the dissembling, spinning, deliberate misconstruing,
hyperbole and other nonsense that is to spin facts and lies into glittering
campaign finery.

But if you are not from the U.S., it's next two impossible
to know what's important or what's not. 
Given the central role America still plays in the world -- G-zeroists
notwithstanding -- cutting through the headlines and the soundbites to get to the
core truths about what's happening in the world's highest-priced democracy is
essential.

That's why I've tried to pick out a few terms and explain
what each party means by them.  Earlier
this week, I visited the Republican lexicon. 
Today, we'll take a look at a handful of key illustrations of the quirks
and curiosities that comprise the Dem dialect, with a special focus on a few
that pertain to foreign policy.

The 1 Percent -- This is a perjorative term of art for every
rich, spoiled, corrupt, indolent, exploitative millionaire in America who is
not a donor to the Obama reelection effort or the Democratic National
Committee.  Donors are referred to as
hard-working, job-creating illustrations of the enduring power of the American
dream.  (Also understood to refer to
those who should be shouldering burden for balancing U.S. budget by paying "their
fair share" of taxes.)

The 99 Percent -- This refers to the disenfranchised,
struggling victims of Wall Street and corporatist exploitation.  All these people deserve tax cuts, to be
funded by the 1 percent.  The fact that
there is no way to address the deficit without a bigger burden falling on most
of the members of the 99 percent, too, is just not something that should be
discussed in public until we are in the midst of robust recovery lest the truth
and arithmetic derail everything.

Bush Tax Cuts -- Source of all problems in the U.S.
economy, even though President Obama celebrated extending them as a canny
political victory in the middle of his first term.  (Also known as the biggest political issue of
December 2012.)

Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security -- The Holy Trinity of
American politics.  They are sacrosanct
and must never be touched -- even if major surgery is the only way to actually
save their lives.

Financial Services Reform -- A political mirage allowing the president to seemingly take a tough stand against the 1 percent while not
alienating too much the fat cats who are needed to pump money into Dem coffers.  Advocate it, sign it, but don't really overdo
the enforcement side of it.

Campaign Finance Reform -- Something that is absolutely
essential for restoring democracy in America, and which should be implemented
just as soon as every currently serving Dem leaves office.

The President's Healthcare Victory -- Shhhh.  Please don't mention this.  Despite the fact that it actually benefitted
millions, it is the Voldemort of Dem politics, "the policy whose name must not
be spoken."

Romneycare -- Shhh. 
Please don't mention this either. 
Because as Dems, we'll be forced to admit we kinda like it.

The Unemployment Rate -- The president's true running mate
(sorry, Joe.)  If it dips to around 8
percent or below, the president wins re-election.  Interesting fact: the president has almost no
ability to impact this outcome and bares only a very limited responsibility for
fluctuations in U.S. employment one way or another.

Europe -- Dem heaven.  An
ability to balance the love of good cuisine with the love for a
well-constructed government bureaucracy. Topless beaches. The fact that
the eurocrisis probably will have more to do with whether Obama wins
reelection than anything he or anyone in the U.S. might do compromises this
love affair somewhat.

China -- Growing up, most Dem policy wonks wanted to be
European, today they want to be Chinese.
And we hate them for that. 

India -- China with democracy … really fractious democracy at
that, and crazy, over-the-top, outspoken media chaos.   A fast growing developing country with an
important strategic role and a historical past that gave us Ben Kingsley.  In other words, for visionary Dem foreign
policy types, even better than Europe or China. 
The ultimate destination/partner for the Dem wonkocracy.

The Middle East -- Er, nice to know ya, time to go, "yay,
democracy," "boo, Iran," "love ya, Israel" ... we're out of here.

"Barack Obama has a good working relationship with Bibi
Netanyahu" -- Ha.  

"It would be wrong to politicize the successful results of
the Bin Laden raid" -- Let's play up this big success at every opportunity that
arises.  Wanna bet the story of the Navy SEAL who
pulled the trigger leaks closer to election day?  Best illustration of Dem cojones since
Madeleine Albright first raised the possibility they might exist.

The president's underappreciated, undersold success stories

Perhaps the greatest weakness of the Obama administration is
its inability to own its successes. While this is hardly a weakness that will be cited by the president's
opponents in the upcoming campaign, or even one that they will acknowledge,
perhaps, it will impact the outcome next November. Because the Obama track record on many fronts
is much better than the administration gives itself credit for.

They could be doing much, much more to tout what is an
impressive litany of successes. 

While the list of those successes is long and
compelling-defeating Bin Laden, getting out of Iraq, helping to oust Qaddafi,
restoring our reputation internationally, resetting our international
priorities to better coincide with our long term interests (the "pivot" to a
focus on Asia), producing meaningful healthcare reform, producing significant
financial services reforms, stopping the downward spiral in the economy and
laying the foundations of recovery, etc. -- let me focus on three areas that
deserve much more attention and appreciation.

The first of these is our international economic policy. I worked for President Clinton on these
issues and during our tenure there was always a sense they were front and
center among the administration's priorities. But during the first year's of the Obama administration, the domestic
economic crisis dominated and beyond the international repercussions of the
market meltdown other econ issues couldn't seem to wedge their way up to being
front of mind for the president or his top advisors.

That has changed. A
couple years ago the president made a bold-seemingly out of the blue-call for
the U.S. to double it's exports over the next five years. With growth averaging over 16 percent a year
since then, they are on the path to do so. The U.S. Export-Import Bank has broken all records in terms of financing
of U.S. exports. Three trade deals got
through a divided Congress-against substantial opposition from within the president's own party. The TPP process is moving forward. Trade laws are being enforced more
aggressively. U.S. pressure on China
regarding its currency is beginning to have an effect. U.S. active involvement in European debt
discussions has been forceful and played a meaningful role in moving them
forward (admittedly working against strong internal EU headwinds). The U.S. has actively begun a program to
attract foreign investment in the U.S., a long-overlooked area of great
importance. Exports are contributing
heavily to recent growth. The president's Export Initiative is working beyond what anyone had any reason to
hope was possible.

So where's the party? Why isn't the president celebrating each of these landmarks and sending
his surrogates across America with this message of success? He can prove he is creating jobs and growth
and making material progress at getting globalization to work for the U.S. He should be shouting it from the rooftops. (I know we would have been during the Clinton
years. Indeed, we celebrated much
smaller accomplishments much more aggressively.)

The next of these is our policy with regard to Iran. In recent days it has become clear that the
sanctions against Iran are working vastly better than anyone should have
expected. The Europeans are now
tightening them further with a planned oil embargo against the Iranians -- a
display of unity and shared purpose within the Atlantic Alliance that might at
one time have seemed as far-fetched as the idea that sanctions could work in
the first place.  I know I was betting
against them having real traction. Perhaps more surprisingly, the Chinese have joined in
constructively. Admittedly, they're
doing it to finagle lower oil prices. But whatever their motivation, this is the first major Mideast issue that
has required their involvement and they have played a useful role. Further, this is no accident. All of these moves have come thanks to
purposeful, tireless behind the scenes diplomacy by the United States.[[BREAK]]

Further, the pressure brought on the Iranians has not just
been economic. From Stuxnet to covert
attacks on their nuclear facilities and personnel, the U.S. and our allies have
demonstrated that there are useful forms of pressure that fall between
toothless soft power and over-the-top applications of "shock and awe" type
force. 

Will the efforts work? To some degree they already have. The Iranians are feeling serious economic pressure and certainly their
nuclear efforts have been setback some. Further, it is now completely accurate for the U.S. and its allies to
say that they have tried every avenue other than force to get the Iranians to
comply with the demands of the international community. Whether in the future, these efforts are
proven not to have stopped the Iranian nuclear program or whether they trigger  meaningful political changes, they have been
well-conceived, tirelessly pursued, comprehensive and smart. It is really difficult to imagine, in fact,
any other president or Secretary of State doing better so far with a harder
problem. That's a big "so far," but it
nonetheless is also another area for which the president deserves vastly more
credit than he has gotten.

The third of these is the president's new policy with regard
to resetting defense priorities. 
Admittedly, the Panetta plan for cutting spending was just unveiled
today during the president's trip to the Pentagon. But it has been percolating for weeks.  More importantly, it should be seen in the context
of the current political environment. Imagine, a president running for re-election is willing to argue for
substantial defense spending cuts ($450 billion over a decade) even though he
knows it will bring him an onslaught of criticism and constant attacks from his
opponents that he is "soft" on defense.
There is nothing soft about being willing to take such heat in order to
do what is right for the country. 

Frankly, I think the cuts are far too small and the U.S. can
go much further without materially impacting our status as the world's sole and
uncontested superpower. As the president
notes, even with these cuts we will still be spending vastly more than every
major military power in the world combined. 

But when people suggest the president is weak or not a
leader -- and there have been episodes during the budget and tax and healthcare
battles where he has been fairly open to such criticism -- they need also to think
of what he is doing in this case. It is
very strong and a genuine service to the American people.

Mitt Romney, the almost certain Republican nominee, will run
on reputation and track record as a turn-around artist and will be a much more
credible and effective candidate than many Democrats currently understand. But the president -- if he and his team simply
make their case more effectively, systematically and energetically -- can offer a
story that's even better. He's actually
doing remarkably well in the world's toughest job right now, and he is and has
been doing so under truly extraordinarily adverse circumstances. This is one of those circumstances in which
the substance is better than the PR -- and it's time for the White House's
political and communications brain trust to get out a clean sheet of paper and
begin to make new and better plans for claiming the credit the Obama team
deserves.

A dictionary of American politics -- Part I (GOP Speak)

George Bernard Shaw once observed that England and America
are two countries separated by a common language. But now we live in the Internet Age and
English has, in way that still galls the Gaullists, become the lingua franca of e-cosmopolitans. The result is that now our language can separate
Americans not just from the English but from all the world.

This is especially true when customs and culture and quirks
of local context enter into matters. For
example, someone outside the United States might pick up a newspaper or log on
to a website to read about this week's Iowa caucuses and conclude that they
were an important political event in the U.S., that the winners won or that the
losers lost. After all, that's what the
words on the page or on the screen seemed to say. But the reality is that to understand what's
going on in U.S. politics, the international observer really needs some kind of
translation device, a U.S. politics to English dictionary, that will help
reveal the real meaning obscured by the words.

So let me try to help. Here are a few key translations that may be of use during the current
Republican campaign. Note, there are
similarly twisted definitions used by Democrats which I will get to later:

Ron Paul:  This is
electoral English for "none of the above." 
When voters cast a vote for Paul, it is less for the man (there really
is a Ron Paul) or his policies (a strange brew of Austrian economics,
isolationism, and a late night television ad for solid gold medallions
commemorating the historic events at Area 51) than it is a protest vote against
the system. 

Ron Paul Supporters: These are young white guys who have
never had a date who need something to occupy them until the movie of "The
Hobbit" is released...or they are older libertarians who believe that the Fed is
where Bilderbergers meet to devalue the dollars they need in order to buy the
guns with which they intend to protect their homes from space aliens or people
from New York.

Ronald Reagan: This is not a reference to the real Ronald
Reagan -- an American president from a while back. Instead it refers to an imaginary, idealized vision of a conservative
president developed by the right wing of the Republican Party. Reagan was hardly a true conservative,
growing government enormously, creating burgeoning deficits, actively working
with Democrats, depending heavily on compromises that drew him closer to a
Democratic sub-group that supported him, and hardly living by anything that might
be considered the "family values" touted by the religious right. 

Conservative Base of the Republican Party: This is a term for
the small minority of right wing Republicans who have been successful at
conveying the idea that they control the Republican Party even though they have
not be able to select a single genuine member of their faction as the party's
candidate since 1964.

Attack Ads: These are what candidates call ads that (often
accurately) recount weak parts of their records. Oddly, these are often acts of compromise
that actually should be seen as the high points of their public service
careers. The synonym for "attack ad"
when it refers to an ad you would run against an opponent is "the truth."

Winning: This is not to be confused with the term "winning"
made popular by deranged, drug-addled actor Charlie Sheen to refer to the
disasters that made his career a shambles. 
But it does share some similarities in that it seldom actually refers to
winning. Candidates who finish second or
third or even fourth or fifth in primaries might be said to have "won"
because...well, because they don't want to admit they have lost. Which they did. A recent great example of this kind of spin
is when after the Iowa caucuses, Ron Paul observed that if you counted the two
guys who finished ahead of him as one
guy then he would have finished second. 

Getting Tough with Iran: On a variety of policy issues what
candidates say is very different from what they actually mean or intend to
do. Therefore it is very important for
non-native electoral English speakers to understand the real meaning of key
foreign policy assertions lest they fear some of what is promised actually
might happen. For example, GOP
candidates, in an effort to show they are strong on defense will bend over
backwards to say they will/would attack Iran to stop them from getting nuclear
weapons. They are no more likely to than
any American president -- which is to say, they are probably likely to support an
attack on Iran by the Israelis if it needed to be made (as would the Saudis and
a number of other of Iran's uncomfortable neighbors.)

Punishing China: This is another promise to be taken with a grain
of salt. Mitt Romney, the almost certain
GOP presidential candidate, has said he will be tough on the Chinese on
trade. He won't be. His friends in business lean heavily against
alienating the Chinese whose market is so attractive to them. So he'll rattle the economic saber but should
he win election he will pull his punches.

Socialism: This is not a reference to the political theories
of Karl Marx nor any descended from them. Rather it is a term used by Republicans to describe any government
program that benefits parts of the population other than the rich or big
business. It is designed to make the
President of the United States seem more godless and "other" like. It implies he speaks Russian or Chinese to
his children while burning American flags in secret possibly satanic rituals.

Europe: Hotbed of "socialism."  A synonym for failure...despite the fact that
much of northern Europe outperforms the U.S. by almost every economic and
quality of life measure.[[BREAK]]

Israel: A country Republicans profess to love...primarily
because so many of them believe that someday God will need it to progress with
his plans to consign all the current residents of the country to Hell. 

Big Government: This is a reference to all government
programs that do not actually provide benefits to rich people or big
business. 

Defense Spending: This is the spending that Jesus Christ
himself requested in the Bible.  It is
the foundation of America, our economy, our goodness and our only line of defense
against godless heathens -- especially ones that don't look like us.

The Constitution: This is a document that most candidates are
so confident no one has read that they feel free to use it to justify any
position they might hold...provided they can't actually find a better reference
to it in the Bible. In fact, many
Republican voters believe that the constitution is actually a part of the
Bible, kind of along the lines of those "extras" that come with a DVD. All of it, that is except the "separation
of Church and State," a thing which they view as a figment of socialist
imaginations probably created by the same Europeans who made up that absurd
idea of global warming.

Democracy: The system of government in which rich people and
select corporations express their choice for candidates by voting with their
money which, as the Supreme Court has upheld, is actually "speech" and
protected, of course, by the Constitution.  

Money: Speech

Speech: Money

How do you say I told you so in Mayan?

First day back at work in the New Year. Blearily open eyes on computer screen.  First story I see: Muslim Brotherhood says
they won't recognize Israel. Second
story: Muslim Brotherhood closer to running lower house in Egyptian
parliament. Third story: Islamists form
government in Morocco. Next story:
Israelis, prepare for peace talks by announcing new construction beyond Green
Line in Jerusalem. Next story: Iranian
rattling sabers in the Gulf. Next story:
Taliban setting up shop in Qatar thanks to rapprochement with government. Next story: Arab League sham intervention in
Syria going nowhere fast. 

Seriously. That's how
2012 started for me. So, the question
is: what's a guy supposed to think? Is
it that 2011 was the year of giddy -- and utterly unfounded -- optimism about the
Middle East? 

The only person who could possibly read all those stories
and be happy is Bibi Netanyahu.  With
elections expected in Israel this year, nothing could do more for his election
chances than to have all his worst predictions about the aftermath of Arab
Spring and the increasing Iranian threat appear to be coming true. All the intolerance, abuse, violence, and
exacerbation of the country's problems associated with the Israeli far right
and all the missteps of the Israeli Prime Minister
himself may seem small price to pay if the country feels a vice grip of
insecurity tightening around it throughout the year. 

That's not to say I actually think that Netanyahu's combativeness
and pedantry actually helps anything. I
don't. It's actually more a way of
saying that as bad as I think this morning's first news dump was for me, I can't
help but feel worse is in store.

Beyond the problems that seem certain to deepen between Israel
and the Palestinians, within Syria, with the rise of intransigent Islamic
political parties, and with Iran, we also have Iraq seemingly heading straight
back to the emergency room of geopolitics and, if anything, the deal the U.S.
seems likely to cut with the devils we know in Afghanistan promises even less
satisfactory outcomes. 

Furthermore, none of these pessimistic analyzes actually have
to pan out in the long run to actually have really negative consequences. For example, one of the more positive stories
of the morning was the announcement that U.S. Defense Secretary Panetta was
preparing a plan to cut $450 billion in U.S. defense spending over the next
decade. This is in line with the very
modest 8 percent cuts the administration had planned. And it's an important step in the right
direction.

Almost certainly the greatest, most damaging strategic error
the U.S. has made during the past couple decades is continuing our over-the-top
defense spending. We have spent at many
times the level we need to protect ourselves -- indeed, we have spent at a
level at which the economic damage we have done the country (both in terms of
deficits created and in terms of the opportunity cost of investing in our
military rather than in more productive segments of the economy) vastly
outstrips any potential security benefits that may have been derived.  Certainly, that's been true since the fall of
the USSR. In all likelihood it was true
long before that.

We could cut the budget five times the level proposed and
still be outspending our nearest rival many times over. But, if the Middle East -- which I would argue
is not and should not be our primary security focus -- festers and boils this year
as today's headlines suggest it might, then it is easy to imagine a central
debate of this year's elections in the U.S. being about whether or not we
should cut defense spending at all. A
President with an exemplary record in terms of combating terror and getting
the U.S. out of costly conflicts will suddenly find that Republicans will be
able to open a different front on the national security debate where he may
appear vulnerable. They will say the
world is more dangerous and this is no time to be cutting defense. 

And my guess is that means that when the time comes to really
cut the budget nothing like these cuts will be made...and the U.S. will continue
to pose the greatest danger to itself by over-spending on wasteful, bloated,
duplicative defense systems it can't and shouldn't attempt to afford. The Panetta $450 billion plan will be seen as
the high bid in terms of cuts and we will negotiate downward from there. The changes will be incremental and we will
continue down the path to great power decline long ago limned by Paul Kennedy.

Take that and the real threats posed by the ever changing
landscape in the Middle East -- uncertainty in North Korea, the rise of ever more
important security challenges in Asia, the problems in the Eurozone, and bird flu
(I saw "Contagion"...I know what we're up against!  I saw Gwyneth Paltrow's brain!) -- and my newest
New Year's resolution is to go back to bed, pull the covers over my head and
wait for 2013.