fear and folly

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen obviously wants the United States to intervene in Syria. He also seems to believe that President Obama is naive and cowardly to resist such action. In a column today, he quotes from a forthcoming book by an official who worked with Richard Holbrooke on Afghanistan and Pakistan, Vali Nasr:

But the thrust of what he says supports the view that Obama shied from intervening in Syria out of domestic political considerations. A president who was campaigning as the peace candidate — out of Iraq and, soon, Afghanistan, too — could not risk anything bold in Syria. The country fell into the margin of error. “It is not going too far to say that American foreign policy has become completely subservient to tactical domestic political considerations,” Nasr writes.

I'm certainly willing to suppose that political considerations governed U.S. foreign policy in 2012, when Obama rejected the advice of several top officials to give arms to the Syrian opposition. The relentless Republican search for some foreign policy issue to use against the President -- Benghazi? -- would have subjected Syrian action to nitpicking and micromanaging in ways that could have undermined the policy. That policy may be changing, not because of politics but because the Syrian opposition seems to be getting its act together.

But what's wrong with letting public opinion influence foreign policy? Influence, not necessarily determine. The American people want U.S. involvement in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to diminish. Obama is accomplishing that. The American people are also dubious of getting involved in another war in a Muslim country, given recent experience.  That's not fear, but wisdom and caution.

Hollywood decoded

This has nothing to do with foreign policy, except perhaps as an illustration of negotiations even more complex than the Congress of Vienna or the Paris Peace Conference after World War I.  The New York Times has an explanation of all that stuff that is put in movie credits, why it's there and in such a particular order and with precise phrasing. I guess I knew some of that, but this puts it all together.

public preferences for budget cuts

Once again, pollsters have discovered that foreign aid is the only federal program that a large number of Americans want to cut. The latest confirmation of this fact is in a new Pew poll.  I think these results explain why most members of Congress don't really want to propose substantial cuts. They would rather let an across the board cut -- same for everybody -- be done by a sequester, or let the opposition party take the blame for a list.

By suggesting that the March 1 cuts would lead to draconian results like fewer flights and food safety inspection,the Obama administration is trying to get the public outcry against the sequester that is almost equal to what may well come on March 27 when the government runs out of money pending a new law from Congress. That's a deadline with immediate consequences, unlike the sequester which can be applied over the next seven months.

rumor-mongering

When I first learned of the Internet in the 1990s, I concluded that it would mark the end of both secrecy and certainty. Errors would circulate as fast as truth, and the desire to share inside information would be more powerful than most secrecy rules.

Now we have a telling example of how this works, and how journalism works in Washington. Those stories that Chuck Hagel might have given a speech to a "Friends of Hamas" group? Bogus. The source of the rumor tells all.  A New York Daily News reporter called a Republican congressional source and asked whether he knew of questionable Hagel speeches-for-hire. As an indication of the sort of thing he considered newsworthy, he suggested speaking to "Friends of Hamas," a non-existent group.  The Hill source shared the idea as speculation, and the rumor took off. The partisan echo chamber, eager to find dirt on the former Republican Senator, repeated the rumor as if it were true.  Sad, sad.

trade tangle ahead

The United States and European Union have announced plans for talks on a giant trade agreement. Some preliminary talks have already been held, raising optimism that agreements can be reached on tough issues like trade in genetically modified agricultural products and intellectual property. Since the two economies are quite advanced and remaining tariffs are low, the disputes won't be about tariffs but about non tariff barriers like environmental and food safety regulations. Labor groups are less likely to oppose an agreement because both economies have high wages and strong environmental laws, unlike low-wage countries in Asia.

As usual, the Financial Times, now celebrating its 125th anniversary, has the best story on the proposed talks. What the story doesn't mention, however, is that no deal can be concluded, or even discussed very long, unless and until Congress passes a law granting Trade Promotion Authority, also called "fast-track," that guarantees a single up-or-down vote on the final agreement, with no amendments allowed. President Clinton asked for such authority but never got it; George W. Bush got it for four years, but it has since expired.

Nor does the story mention that the Obama administration still hasn't sorted out its organizational arrangement to do trade. The President proposed reorganization authority -- which Congress is usually reluctant to grant -- and said he would use it to create a Department of Trade, combining the Commerce Department, the office of the U.S. Trade Representative in the White House, and several export-promotion agencies. I don't think that's likely to be approved, but there's no clue how the administration will handle things otherwise.

The negotiators have a clear goal, but the American side lacks a clear institutional process to get the job done well.

the once-respected Senate Armed Services Committee

I despair. I worked on the Senate Armed Services Committee for ten years and have followed it closely ever since. We had big fights – over Vietnam, ending the draft, the B-1 bomber and MX missile – but members always recognized that they needed to compromise in order to pass a defense authorization bill, which the committee has now done for an amazing 51 years in a row. My boss sometimes put holds on nominations in order to get more information from the executive branch, and we even threatened filibusters a couple of times. But nobody abused those tactics. Sometimes the committee even voted against a presidential nominee, but still reported the nomination to let the full Senate decide – by simple majority vote. SASC members always put the institution ahead of party or politics.

The one glaring exception to that committee comity was over John Tower’s nomination to be secretary of defense. But the opposition to the former SASC chairman was bipartisan, over moral and character issues, and not to embarrass the president or fight administration policy.

The behavior of some of the new members on the Hagel nomination is way over the line – disgraceful! They show no respect for the institution and are likely to poison its ability to work in a collaborative way. They are also hurting the institution of the office of Secretary of Defense and thus undermining our system of civilian control. 

I still want to reserve the filibuster for rare and special cases, but the Hagel opponents are making it harder for us defenders of the Senate’s unique character to support our own case.

the medium and the message

Every now and then I remember the young reporter who tried to demonstrate her knowledge of Latin singular and plural nouns by writing, "When the candidate landed at the airport, there was only one medium at his news conference."  For my part, I still correct student papers that treat the media as singular.

Nevertheless, the singular noun still has meaning and significance beyond fortune-telling. Nations often conduct their diplomacy through special people, especially when the normal channels like ambassadors are unavailable. The United States uses special "U.S. interests" sections of friendly embassies to maintain low level contacts with the Cuban and Iranian governments, for example.

Now we learn, via Foreign Policy's well-connected Josh Rogin, that a North Korean diplomat at the UN in New York alerted U.S. officials in advance of the DPRK's latest nuclear test. Reportedly this official has been a regular source of contact and information sharing that otherwise could not take place. It's even encouraging that North Korea would notify the American government, although the detonation itself is a worrisome sign that international sanctions are failing.  Encouraging because nations need channels of communication to limit errors and miscalculations that can lead to avoidable military responses. That's why one of the first US-Soviet agreements after the terrifying Cuban missile crisis was to establish a hotline between the leaders. Short of that, it's good when there are cold lines like the one from NYC.