Get 'em out after two terms

EDITORIAL: A president's duty, Washington Post, December 15, 2009

The clear pattern of the Chavez clones:

THE SAME night that he won election to a second term as Bolivia's president earlier this month, Evo Morales began hinting about plans to stand for a third. That was no surprise: The elimination of presidential term limits has been a common feature of the new authoritarian populism in Latin America. After two tries, Venezuela's Hugo Ch√°vez managed to remove the limit on his tenure through a referendum; Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega relied on a decision by the country's Supreme Court, which he had previously stacked with his followers. Suspicions that Honduran President Manuel Zelaya wanted to lift a presidential term limit prompted the prolonged political crisis in that country.

This systematic erosion of political institutions and the rule of law is one of the ways in which Mr. Chávez and his followers threaten to drag Latin America back to its bad old days of caudillos and coups. Nations that have tried to leave that history behind have an obligation to establish a clear alternative model based on rule by the people, not a series of strongmen. That is why it is so important that the man who in many ways embodies the alternative to Chavismo, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, firmly commit himself against seeking a third term in next year's presidential election.

We can only hope Uribe is smart enough to rest on his well-deserved laurels.

That's where I don't think the Chinese get enough credit. Yes, the competition is limited within the Party, but the system is smart enough to know that two terms at the top is enough and that anything more is decidedly unhealthy.

Friction on conflict cell phones

ARTICLE: Rape and murder, funded by cell phones, By Sasha Lezhnev and John Prendergast, CNN, December 8, 2009

The beginnings of the concept of "conflict minerals" akin to "conflict diamonds":

Armed groups in eastern Congo that control minerals, mines and trading routes generate an estimated $180 million each year by trading four main minerals: tin, tantalum, tungsten, and gold.

This money enables the armed groups to purchase large numbers of weapons and continue their campaign of brutal violence against civilians. Conflict minerals are key components in the manufacture of cell phones, laptops, digital cameras, video games and portable music players.

Because of increasing awareness of the links between electronics products and the worst sexual violence in the world, change is afoot.

Already on Hillary's radar. More and more talk of replicating the Kimberly Process on conflict diamonds.

Inevitable and good.

(Thanks: Jacob)

More on the reality of Iranian foreign policy

ARTICLE: Iran's Foreign Policy Strategy after Saddam, by Kayhan Barzegar, The Washington Quarterly, 33:1, 2010

This piece, by an Iranian academic with ties to Harvard, is worth reading.

It presents a rather dispassionate elucidation of Iran's enduring national security interests, the theme being that Iran views its national security as part of a regional security scheme, so when it feels scared, it acts up by increasing regional insecurity.

This is, of course, the most benign presentation of Iran's interests you will find, but it tracks very nicely in terms of their behavior--once you get past Ahmadinejad's rhetorical pokes and the emotionalism that so many bring to the table on the nuke issue.

A key point made repeatedly: trying to isolate the nuke issue will not work, because the pursuit of an independent capacity is desired across the elite. While everybody on both sides likes to harp on about the CIA coup back in the early 1950s as the big sore point, or the hostage thing with Carter, most Iranians I interact with will tell you that you need only look back to the Iran-Iraq war and our support to Saddam and the heavy losses suffered by Iran to understand why a lot of the elite see the bomb as a very good insurance policy (as in, if we had had the bomb, we never would have gone through such agony). Fast forward to 2001, Iran's immediate help on both Afghanistan and then Iraq, and then realize their sense of betrayal once Bush slaps the "axis of evil" label on them. And then you're into the logic I have long cited: you took down my neighbor on the left and then on the right and told me I was on the list, so yeah, meanwhile I reached for the one thing I knew would prevent your fulfilling of that prophesy--and THAT'S ENTIRELY RATIONAL. Of course, at that point, our side of the dialogue consists of repeating the "irrationality" argument over and over again in our minds, citing every little stupid poke that Ahmadinejad offers.

And what does this policy get us? Obstructionism in Iraq and Afghanistan (not foolhardly, but awfully clever and calculated) and no opportunities for exploitation of common interests.

Will we now press Iran harder via sanctions? Yes. Will those specifically targeting the Revolutionary Guard have some real impact? You bet, and I support those.

But no, they will not stop Iran's reach for the bomb. Nothing will. Israel can degrade through Mossad's continued sabotage and assassination campaign, but, in the end, we're talking only delay and not actually preventing the capability from eventually coming online.

Is this the worst path? If it were only about Iran, then I'd say no. Why not just drag it out as long as possible, giving both sides the maximum amount of time to get more sensible on the subject?

The trouble is, of course, our desires to keep Iraq on path (probably not too subject to Iranian pressure, although their "meddling," as we naturally define it, will continue) and our desire to stabilize Af-Pak (where Iran can mess us up some, but not that much). So yeah, I don't agree with this path, but I think it's inevitable, given the lack of any strategic imagination or boldness among the Obama team, and not all that bad over the medium term.

Why? You almost always need Rightists on both sides of the ledger to make a detente work, and that won't happen again until Obama leaves office and we get used to the reality of Iranian nukes.

So I basically agree with this guy: I don't see rapprochement working any time soon. We don't have the nerves for it, and Iran's leadership is in power-consolidation mode at home.

As always, if I had my druthers, I'd backburner the nuke issue and focus heavily on human rights and the Green Movement, giving them all the support I could. I'd suffer whatever retaliation Iran might mount (minimal, in my mind) and I wouldn't lose any sleep over a single-digit collection of weapons in the making. Why? As I have long argued, I just don't see any magical quality to a Shiia bomb compared to anything else we're encountered in history. We know how to play this game and only we have displayed the nerve to actually use nukes. And Israel is both well-stocked and well-defended strategically.

SysAdmin means more contractors than troops

ARTICLE: Up to 56,000 more contractors likely for Afghanistan, congressional agency says, By Walter Pincus, Washington Post, December 16, 2009

Keeping to the reality of SysAdmin ops: we surge 37,000 troops (30 US and 7 NATO) and yet up to 56,000 more contractors expected!

We saw this with Iraq at the height of the surge (180k contractors compared to peak 170k U.S. troops) and we've already noted the dynamic in Afghanistan.

So back to my old bit: the SysAdmin is more civilian than uniform, more USG (not yet, but ultimately) than DoD, more Rest-of-the-World (only ideally for now, and yet track the investment like with China) than USA, and more FDI-driven than ODA-enhanced (Foreign Direct Investment v Official Developmental Aid; a tipping point already looming in Iraq as the oil industry kicks into serious gear).

Brisk evening in DC

Another job for the SysAdmin

ARTICLE: Thousands feared dead in Haiti quake; global rescue and relief efforts underway, By William Branigin, Debbi Wilgoren and Michael D. Shear, Washington Post, January 13, 2010

As always, Haiti's latest woes remind us that we don't sked the SysAdmin's workload. The world does.

Rise of the Revolutionary Guards

ARTICLE: Elite Revolutionary Guard's expanding role in Iran may limit U.S. options, Washington Post, By Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post, January 10, 2010

Decent-to-okay overview of the Revolutionary Guard's increasing domination of Iran's economy.

Tit for tat

ARTICLE: Iran blames U.S., Israel in bombing death of physicist Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, By Thomas Erdbrink and William Branigin, Washington Post, January 13, 2010

Israel, while eschewing the major bombing route for now, is clearly working the discrete sabotaging/assassination route -- to no surprise.

I don't have any problems with this whatsoever, as I consider this proper symmetricizing to Iran's standard-issue mischief in the neighborhood. It's also Israel's logical contribution to a targeted sanctioning (call it sanctioned targeting) of the Revolutionary Guard at this, their current moment of vulnerability.

So I say we quietly approve.

Follow the (NY) Times on China test

ARTICLE: With Defense Test, China Shows Displeasure of U.S., By ANDREW JACOBS and JONATHAN ANSFIELD, New York Times, January 12, 2010

Contrasting the NYT coverage with Gertz's usual breathlessness at the Wash Times: I have to--surprise!--go with the Times' analysis on this one.

Another passing columnist fear

OP-ED: The Kremlin Two-Step, By Dmitry Trenin, Moscow Times, 11 January 2010

As always, Trenin fascinates with his sophisticated analysis. Nobody in the West can touch him.

Read this and contemplate.

I especially liked the comparison to Stolypin.

So now it looks like the great age of petrocracies was just a passing phase for columnists to hype while they could.

Be very scared of defensive systems!

ARTICLE: Beijing reports successful 'defensive' missile test, By Bill Gertz, Washington Times, January 12, 2010

Gertz's reporting has always had a wonderfully un-self-conscious feel to it: Oooh! China's testing missile defense! And it claims it's just "defensive"! And China still bitches about our similar efforts!

This is what passes for scary developments in today's world. The battle of missile defense systems among nuclear powers!

All Al Qaeda's haven under scrutiny

ARTICLE: Somalis fleeing to Yemen prompt new worries in fight against al-Qaeda, By Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post, January 12, 2010

On the Somalia-to-Yemen flow, it's been going on for a while. I guess what this piece shows is that whenever one of AQ's havens stirs the pot a bit, all come under new scrutiny--as they should.

Iran's government losing support

ARTICLE: Iran Faces Down Its Grand Ayatollahs, By Masoud Shafaee, World Politics Review, 12 Jan 2010

Great piece by Shafaee.

Solid opening:

For the past seven months, countless parallels have been drawn between the current uprising gripping Iran and the events that ultimately led to the demise of the Pahlavi monarchy some 30 years ago. Whether or not the comparisons are accurate, one irony that cannot be escaped is that the regime is facing increasingly vocal dissent from the very clerical class that brought it to power. In fact, as the Islamic Republic deviates more and more from its theocratic roots and transforms into a military dictatorship, it risks alienating the very marjas who have given it legitimacy since its inception.

And here's where it gets truly interesting.

Yet ironically, the regime may face its greatest threat not from within, but from outside the country. Ever since June's contested election, observers have been keeping a close watch on Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani (who hails from Iran but resides in the holy city of Najaf, Iraq), considered the highest living authority in all of Shiite Islam. Sistani comes from the "quietist" tradition of Shiite theology, one that, unlike the Islamic Republic's ruling doctrine of velayat-eh faqih, holds that clerics should abstain from becoming directly involved in politics. So far, he has refrained from condemning the regime's actions. But his clout is so strong in the Shiite world that, were this to change, the Islamic Republic would arguably no longer face just a political crisis within Iran, but also a crisis of religious confidence among all Shiites.

For now, the influential cleric has shown no signs of weighing in on the unrest. As Ashura came and went, Sistani issued a statement only inviting followers to attend memorial services for the "martyrs" who died in recent terrorist attacks in Karbala and Kazemein, Iraq. Yet there is little doubt that Sistani is watching events unfold in his native land. In November, he met with Ali Larijani, the speaker of Iran's Parliament, and more recently, he defended Sanei in the aftermath of Yazdi's attack.

While numerous protesters had been killed in previous demonstrations, the deaths on Ashura may prove to be particularly harmful to the regime. Violence is strictly prohibited on the holy day, and as Karoubi bluntly pointed out, "Even the Shah respected Ashura."

If the bloodshed continues -- and in Islam's name, for that matter -- Sistani may feel compelled to finally speak out against the regime. For that would ultimately not constitute his abandonment of a "quiet" philosophy, but rather, a response to an Islamic government that has itself abandoned the very Islamic principles on which it was founded.

This is why I don't get the Leveretts' argument that the opposition movement is limited to secularists. I think the key dynamic here is the government is losing the support of many of the faithful--as well as the clerical leadership.

I first raised the Sistani-effect scenario in 2005 (Blueprint for Action), citing it as an important Big Bang enabled.

The world's bigger than the odd Al Qaeda attempt

NEWS ANALYSIS: A Year of Terror Plots, Through a Second Prism, By SCOTT SHANE, New York Times, January 12, 2010

Guts of logic:

WASHINGTON -- As terrorist plots against the United States have piled up in recent months, politicians and the news media have sounded the alarm with a riveting message for Americans: Be afraid. Al Qaeda is on the march again, targeting the country from within and without, and your hapless government cannot protect you.

But the politically charged clamor has lumped together disparate cases and obscured the fact that the enemies on American soil in 2009, rather than a single powerful and sophisticated juggernaut, were a scattered, uncoordinated group of amateurs who displayed more fervor than skill. The weapons were old-fashioned guns and explosives -- in several cases, duds supplied by F.B.I. informants -- with no trace of the biological or radiological poisons, let alone the nuclear bombs, that have long been the ultimate fear.

And though 2009 brought more domestic plots, and more serious plots, than any recent year, their lethality was relatively modest. Exactly 14 of the approximately 14,000 murders in the United States last year resulted from allegedly jihadist attacks: 13 people shot at Fort Hood in Texas in November and one at a military recruiting station in Little Rock, Ark., in June.

Such statistics would be no comfort, of course, if an attack with mass casualties succeeded some day.

Nor do they excuse the acknowledged missteps at the United States' bulked-up security agencies that helped allow a makeshift bomb to be carried onto a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines plane on Christmas Day -- the attempted attack that set off the flood of news coverage.

This is followed up by a great bit of analysis from an intell vet who notes that the underwear bomber is, effort-wise, a huge comedown from the 9/11 scheme.

Point being, until proven otherwise, the 9/11 plot suggests al-Qaeda's upper limit, given our security upgrades at home (far from perfect as we all acknowledge) and our persistent pressure abroad.

In sum, an objective security analyst is hard-pressed to make the case that AQ is ascendant or even holding serve.

And, on that basis, it gets really hard to sustain the "most dangerous era ever" hype.

Unless you have some compelling career/biz need to do so.

I am admittedly a bad self-promoting entrepreneur in this regard, but that's why I think it's crucial, in a professional sense, to lead a diverse life/career that does not see you having to constantly require disaster to succeed. That's why my role at Enterra is so important to me.

It keeps me honest and more realistic than I was while completely trapped within a national security perspective. That view commands such a narrow slice of reality re: what we call globalization.

You're gonna have to serve somebody

POST: A new approach to China, by David Drummond, Official Google Blog, 1/12/2010

Google has gone out of its way to be sensitive to Chinese government concerns. So if they think they've had enough (or are close), then I would support their decision to press the matter.

In general, I don't see all this backpressure on China as bad. I don't want it all being spearheaded by the USG, but generalized pressure is more than fine.

China cannot connect only on its desired terms, and the country's vast liabilities must and will be addressed as part of this integration process.

Everybody's gotta serve somebody. The Chinese Communist Party will be made to learn that, one way or the other.

(Thanks: Terry Collier)

Sure we're miffed at China, but we still want to be friends

ARTICLE: On Asia-Pacific trip, Hillary Clinton downplays U.S.-China friction, By John Pomfret, Washington Post, January 12, 2010

As much as I don't mind seeing the systemic friction build against China right now, this is a perfectly fine tack for Secretary Clinton to take--as in, it's her job to think past the day-to-day gripes.

Always liked the old Pan Am

Wright on Iran's counterrevolution

OP-ED: An opposition manifesto in Iran, By Robin Wright, Los Angeles Times, January 6, 2010

Usual great stuff from Robin Wright.

Gist captured in opening paras:

Iran's so-called green movement is not yet a counterrevolution, but recent developments make clear it is heading in that direction. Seven months after the uprising began, an opposition manifesto is finally taking shape, and its sweeping demands would change the face of Iran.

Three bold statements calling for reform have been issued since Friday, one by opposition presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi, one by a group of exiled religious intellectuals and the third by university professors. Taken together, they suggest that the movement will not settle for anything short of radical change.

The statements set tough preconditions for a political truce: resignation of the current leadership, introduction of broad democratic freedoms, prosecution of security forces engaged in violence against the opposition and an end to politics in the military, universities and the clergy.

The proposed reforms would amount to a total overhaul of the system. But they also reflect a common desire to prevent an all-out confrontation by engaging the regime in compromise and ending the escalating violence. The three sets of demands all accept that Iran will remain an Islamic republic, if largely in name only.

Two other crucial public calls for change are also detailed.

(Via WPR's Media Roundup)

Approaching the Packer-less playoffs

Packer loss was tough. I knew after the Steelers that every playoff team would try to pass us to death, so shootout was no surprise, nor early nerves, mistakes and hole we found ourselves in. The question was all about resilience, which we answered affirmatively.

But here's my what if?

What if, when we score last TD at 2 mins left, we have Rodgers pass for 2? He's THE best red zone QB and was red hot. If he fails, we onside and probably lose, but the Belichick-ish call there is to put game in YOUR QB's hand and not settle for tie on road when their HOF QB is likewise on fire.

As soon as we scored, I said to Vonne, "We should try for 2!". But Mason immediately trotted out and even the excellent announcers eschewed the notion, never even considering it.

Packer coverage at home has since likewise ignored the subject.

Rodgers probably would have made the pass. Then we lead 46-45 and when Cards miss FG at end of regulation, we go to Superdome for another historic shootout!

Alas ...

Naturally, I am the biggest Cowboy/Romo fan on the planet Sunday, although I will be on the Strip in Vegas with my teenagers that afternoon, looking for fun before I keynote a convention the next morn.

Beyond that, I'll be wearing my Harrison blue 88 jersey Sat night when my daughter (Peyton's white 18) and I paint faces at parish fund-raiser.

Already have my refundable tix for AFC championship game (Xmas present to Vonne). Will be our first time at Lucas, second AFC title game, and 3rd Manning/Colts.

Integrating Muslim immigrants in Europe

ARTICLE: European Muslims prefer mixed areas - survey, By Rob Broomby, BBC News, 15 December 2009

Pretty unsurprising and basic immigrant stuff: the new arrivals feel more attachment to their chosen home than the long-time residents feel toward them.

So sayeth those Muslims polled across 11 major European cities.

The thing that caught my eye in the recommendations coming out of the polling analysis:

Cities should foster an inclusive city identity - Amsterdam, Antwerp and Copenhagen have run such campaigns successfully.

Dutch and the Danish, to no great surprise, go the additional mile and succeed. Doesn't mean all tension evaporates magically, just that they're trying harder and it shows.

(Thanks: Michael Griffin)