Kenn Starr Backs Harold Koh For State Gig

That makes two. Ken Starr and Ted Olson, former Solicitor General under Bush the younger, have both endorsed President Obama’s nominee for State Department Legal Advisor Harold Koh. As some of you may know, Koh has come under attack from the likes of Glenn Beck and Jay Sekulow and their foot soldiers on the far right who have tried to portray Obama’s nominee as a nutty liberal looking to supplant American law with Sharia law and a threat to the “fundamental American principles of representative government.”

The baseless accusations have already been debunked by Dahilia Lithwick and others but now right wingers will now have to shout down their own. In a letter dated yesterday, Dean of Pepperdine Law School Ken Star said, “I am firmly convinced that Harold is extraordinarily well qualified to serve with great distinction in the post of Legal Advisor,” and Ted Olson who said he had “ the greatest respect for Harold Koh,” and added, “He’s a brilliant scholar and a man of great integrity.”

Part of the reason that conservatives have gone after Harold Koh, Dawn Johnsen, and other executive nominees is to set the stage for the larger battle over a Supreme Court nominee which may come as soon as this summer. Conservatives hope to target and tarnish as many people with SCOTUS nom resumes, like Koh, in an effort to eliminate them from contention but also to keep throwing red meat to their base to keep them engaged on issues that even vaguely have culture warrior significance.

U.S. Runs for Human Rts Council Seat But Durban II Still a No Go

Last week, the  Obama administration announced it would run for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council in the next round of elections, a body that President Bush avoided and ignored.

In a press statement, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice referred to a need “for the Council to be balanced and credible” an explained that the U.S. is running for a the open seat because “we believe that working from within, we can make the council a more effective forum to promote and protect human rights. We hope to work in partnership with many countries to achieve a more effective Council.”

Throughout the Bush years, U.N.-U.S. relations were always frosty to put it mildly.  Bush hardly felt comfortable around liberal internationalists of the American variety much less those from other countries steeped in global affairs. But his hostility toward the U.N. only hardened in the run up to the Iraq war where he failed to amass support for the March 2003 invasion. As early as the August 2003, President Bush alienated potential U.N. involvement in the creation of an Iraqi central government.

Of course, Dubya and company soon changed their minds once the Iraqi insurgency got going and the U.S. military found itself lacking the knowledge and skills for diffusing a post-conflict situation already cultivated by the U.N. peacekeeping and diplomatic corp.

But such a change of heart even if it was for out of desperation never extended to the Council, given how it was populated by some of the worse human rights abusers such as Sudan, Libya, and Cuba, who were eager to pass resolutions condemning Israel while also blocking scrutiny of treatment of their own citizens. To be fair, this is a problem that has vexed some of the most clear-eyed supporters of the U.N.

The legacy of that sort of politicization of the Council’s mission remains a huge problem even after the round of reforms in 2006, which dissolved the Human Rights Commission that was established in 1946.  The 06 reforms also nearly assured representation from some of the most repressive governments by allotting seats seats to countries based on regional blocs as opposed to a record of improvement.

That’s enough for critics of the Council, particularly Rice’s neoconservative predecessor John Bolton, believe the rights body is too fatally flawed and ineffective to warrant participation from the U.S. Never one to mince words former Ambassador Bolton reportedly told the New York Times, “You don’t show up at every ragtag little organization that comes into existence”.

Sigh.

Though its easy to dismiss Bolton’s criticism as shortsighted and irascible, it does evince a certain view of American power that still persists today in some quarters. The prestige of American power should not be diminished by engaging flawed institutions that provide cover to our adversaries. The world is against the U.S. and we must assert our influence whenever possible to ensure its power is preserved at worst and extended at best.

But hasn’t Bolton been paying attention? Our standing in the world has diminished as a result of human rights abuses during the Bush era. Torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib and at Gitmo has done more to aid America’s detractors looking to deflect attention from their own human rights record as their criticize the U.S. and do so effectively.  One of the ways to counter these charges is to join the Human Rights Council and make sure that a proper comparison is made between the U.S and other countries on the Council, including the Sudans, Cubas, and Libyas of the world.

That said, the Obama administration is not going to participate in any U.N. forum even if it is human rights related. Consider U.N.’s upcoming conference on racism otherwise known as Durban II. The administration still won’t participate in it even though the latest agenda, or the outcome document, has been purged of nearly all of the things that it said it could not accept namely, references to reparations, strong criticisms of Israel, and severe limitations on freedom of expression.

Perhaps some may think that the U.S. sought to run for the Council seat as a way to placate critics for not participating in Durban II, but that’s a cynical misreading of the situation. As early as late January the administration was pondering joining the Human Rights Council.

The administration really fears that the whole affair will deteriorate into an anti-Israeli and anti-Western hate fest led by certain countries within the Organization of Islamic Conference. Its not an altogether irrational fear, but a very compelling one nonetheless.

Joining the Human Rights Council is a step in the right direction in overcoming that fear.

U.S. Considers Participating in Durban II

Talk about trying to fly under the radar. Less than 24 hours after Congress passed the biggest spending bill in U.S. history, the State Department issues a press release announcing its considering participating in the controversial Durban II conference in April 2009.

The State Department will send a delegation to the February 16-19 consultations for the World Conference Against Racism as a means of evaluating the current direction of Conference preparations and whether U.S. participation in the Conference itself is warranted.

This will be the first opportunity the Administration has had to engage in the negotiations for the Durban Review, and – in line with our commitment to diplomacy – the U.S. has decided to send a delegation to engage in the negotiations on the text of the conference document.

The intent of our participation is to work to try to change the direction in which the Review Conference is heading. We hope to work with other countries that want the Conference to responsibly and productively address racism around the world.

Our participation in these informal negotiations does not indicate – and should not be misconstrued to indicate – that the United States will participate in April in the World Conference Against Racism itself. Nor does it indicate that we will necessarily participate in future preparations for the Conference. These decisions will be taken at a later date, depending on the results that we see from the negotiating process.

Perhaps, emphasizing the fact that “informal negotiations” are not meant to be “construed” as a final decision concerning participation sounds way too noncommital for most people. But that should  come as no surprise to those who follow State Department pronouncements. Additionally, this is indeed a step up in clarity from just a few weeks ago. “I’ll have to take a look and see. I don’t think the new Administration has spoken to that issue yet, but I’ll take a look and see if we have any more we want to say on that,” said State Department spokesman Robert Wood when asked about pariticipating in Durban II.

Obama and the War on Terror

Check out my post on Obama and his rejection of the Bush era war on terror frame at Deft Mag. Here’s an excerpt:

Many have welcomed Obama’s sharp break from the Bush administration as a significant shift in the posture of American foreign policy, but it should also be viewed as Obama’s desire for the rule of law, whether at home or abroad, even in the face of formidable and elusive threats.

Much of this was also affirmed in President Obama’s inaugural speech. “They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint,” he said.

This kind of specificity of purpose and principled understanding was utterly absent from George W. Bush’s definition of the war on terror and manner in which he exercised executive power.

Consider the history. George W. Bush first used the phrase “war on terror” to a joint session of Congress in the wake of the 9/11 attacks On September 20, 2001, Bush declared, “Our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”

Amb Susan Rice Wants to Engage

At her first presser yesterday as the newly minted United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice raised eyebrows when she said she looked forward to “engaging in vigorous diplomacy, that includes direct diplomacy with Iran.” To many, this sounded as if President Obama was willing to sit down and have tea with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions. But this is very unlikely to be the case.

Ambassador Rice was probably referring to the need to engage Iran on a number of fronts including their support for Hamas in the Palestinian Territories, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Shiite factions in Iraq. Who knows maybe how they might be helpful in eliminating a resurgent Taliban, in Afghanistan, a persistent irritant to the government in Tehran well before the American invasion.

For his part, President Obama himself in an interview with Arab television network Al Arabiya noted that while Iran has not always behave in ways “conducive to peace and prosperity in the region” it is still important “for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to express very clearly where our differences are.” He also went on to say, “And as I said during my inauguration speech, if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us. So, it seems for now the president is content with simply keeping the lines of communication open in laying the ground work for more robust diplomacy.

Ambassador Rice also took time to remark on the on the war in the Gaza strip. Ambassador Rice prefaced her remarks regarding the ceasefire with expressing concern for the humanitarian situation in Gaza. “…with respect to Gaza, let me say that you have heard the President speak very forthrightly about his grave concern about the current humanitarian crisis,” she told the UN press corp.

Perhaps this seems small but its important to note that her comment did not begin with reiterating the already broadly accepted and frequently invoked claim that Israel has a right to self-defense. Instead she began discussing the humanitarian situation and calling for a “durable cease fire” that would ultimately lead to “border crossings to open and be available for humanitarian as well as day-to-day economic development imperatives.”

This is a striking different tune that what Bush administration has and have said. Amb. Rice’s predecessor, Bush appointee John Bolton, recently argued out-going Secretary of State Condi Rice at the UN Security Council should have vetoed instead of abstaining from voting on the cease fire measure, which would have killed its passage. Anything short of a veto would have been an abdication of our “international leadership role.”

Interestingly enough, Ambassador Rice was not asked whether or not the U.S. will participate in the World Conference on Racism, also known as Durban II or about the U.S. joining the U.N.  Human Rights Council. She was, however, asked about it at her Congressional confirmation hearing earlier this month.

According to the transcript, Senator Bill Nelson expressed his disappointment with how the Durban Conference “got sidetracked on attacking Israel rather than dealing with human rights” only to further complicate Mid-East politics in general. He also commented on how the U.S. should be prepared to reassess its participation in the Human Rights Council if certain countries are going to use that body, along with Durban itself, as “a tool to beat up on one of our allies or if it becomes an objective to undermine U.S. policy.”

In her reply, Dr. Rice astutely sidestepped making any specific remarks about Durban and simply sought to reassure Nelson that she and everyone else in the incoming administration took Israel’s security seriously. She then quickly pivoted to strongly criticizing a resolution on a Gaza cease fire that originated in the Human Rights Council, which enjoyed the support of many African and Arab countries, but not much from Western nations.

News reports say that the Human Rights Council resolution mainly focused on human rights violations in Gaza by Israel and encouraged the UN to do fact finding regarding those abuses. Rice said the resolution was “a classic example of the utterly imbalanced and reprehensible kinds of resolutions that have, too often, emerged from the Human Rights Council.”

(Note: the Human Rights resolution that passed on Jan 12th is different from the UN Security Council resolution that passed on Jan 8th almost unanimously save the lone abstention by the U.S.)

By the same token, it was clear that Rice errs on the side of engaging in the UN process even if the problems seem intractable. Referring to the outcome of the resolution, Rice said at the hearing it “just begs the question of what might have been different with U.S. participation and leadership. It seems to me hard to imagine that we would not have sought to work with, and indeed prevail upon, many of our allies to stand with Canada and with us in opposition to such a resolution.”

Obviously, engagement does not mean going along with anything member states favor at the U.N., but being apart of the process and taking it seriously.

Clearly, Ambassador Rice is optimistic about the future of U.S.-U.N. relations.  Perhaps this is the dawning of a new era of American liberal internationalist foreign policy.

Undoing Gitmo

In just days after the nation welcomed him as its newly inaugurated president, Barack Obama swiftly moved to undo some his predecessor’s legacy in shutting down the prison at Guantanamo Bay and the network of secret prisons run by the Central Intelligence Agency.

President Barack Obama began by signing an executive order instructing military prosecutors to seek a 4 month delay of the military commissions process in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the site of a U.S. naval base and prison camp.  The Obama administration will use the 120-day period to “undertake a thorough review of both the pending cases and the military commissions process” to further the “interests of justice.”

A military judge granted the request for the delay on Wednesday.

In choosing to halt the trials of Gitmo detainees, experts believe President Obama wants to either try detainees in federal courts as criminal defendants or in a courts martial or even create a specialized system where the accused are accorded a a greater measure of due process rights and end the use of abusive interrogation practices.

During Bush’s tenure, many prisoners at Gitmo were held indefinitely without charge, tortured by CIA officials, had secret evidence used against them to justify their detention, and in the vast majority of cases could not challenge the legality of the very incarceration.

A key Bush administration official, Judge Susan J. Crawford, recently told the Washington Post she did not refer certain cases at Gitmo for prosecution because she believes the U.S. tortured certain detainees while interrogating them, rendering their confessions inadmissible. Also, a recent bipartisan Congressional report, found that former Secretary of Defense “Donald Rumsfeld’s authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques for use at Guantanamo Bay was a direct cause of detainee abuse there.”

Even Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a Bush appointee who currently serves in the same post, urged the outgoing president to shut down the prison this summer because it also diminished U.S. standing in world. “I think that despite the fact that in many respects Guantanamo has become a state-of-the-art prison now, early reports of abuses and so on unquestionably were a black eye for the United States,” Gates said this summer.

On November 13, 2001, President Bush signed a military order to create the military commissions. The commissions were designed to try, treat and detain non-U.S. citizens in an effort to prosecute and interrogate so-called war on terror suspects and enemy-combatants, a class of fighters that are not quite conventional soldiers, but were captured on the battlefield by American troops.

In 2006, a Republican controlled Congress passed the Military Commissions Act. The law gave Bush with the authority that the Supreme Court said he could not usurp with an executive order alone to set up his own court system that escaped scrutiny from other branches of government and suspended a prisoner’s right to contest his own imprisonment.

But Barack Obama is now moving with all deliberate haste to change course.

As the 44th president noted in his inaugural address on Tuesday, the framers of our constitution “understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please.  Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.”

So, in many ways these initial steps signify a break with the old regime and yet an embrace of America’s oldest traditions that happens to “reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.”

“Dealing With Hamas”

During Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton’s confirmation hearings before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator John Kerry not only underscored the need for greater engagement in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but also the counterproductive consequences of bombing campaign in Gaza.

Kerry noted:

I had the privilege of being in the West Bank the day — the morning after President Abbas was elected in 2005 and I met with him in Ramallah in that old headquarters and we spent some time together and he looked at me and he said, “You know, Senator, I know exactly what you expect of me. I have to disarm Hamas. Now, you tell me how I’m supposed to do that. I have no radios, I have no cars, I have no police, and Hamas has the ability to walk up to a door and deliver $20,000 value to somebody who’s blown up, widows or orphans of a family of a suicide bomber.”

They deliver the services and we, for years, have talked about the creation of a legitimate partner for peace and yet we’ve done almost nothing to fundamentally help them deliver that capacity.

So my hope is — I mean, I fear — I mean, Israel has all the right in the world and we are totally supportive of the patience they’ve shown, the forbearance, over 10,500 rockets, the fact that Hamas broke the ceasefire. We understand the need to deal with Hamas, but we also have to recognize the threat here that Hamas may, in fact, wind up being more powerful than FATA as a consequence.

If Hamas becomes more powerful as a result of Israel’s war in the Gaza strip, it only stands to reason it will be difficult to work around them politically. With thousands of Hamas rockets finding their way into southern Israel thus far, one can only dare to imagine how many they would fire if peace talks were conducted and they were not at the table.

Of course, this is further complicated by the fact that Hamas actually controls the government in the Gaza strip thanks to the Bush administration insistence that elections be held there despite warnings that the Western backed Fatah party would lose.

For her part, Clinton maintained that Hamas must yield to a variety of demands before Israel and the U.S. engage them in peace talks. “When it comes to non-state actors like Hamas, as I said at the very end of the morning session, there are conditions. Hamas must renounce violence. They must recognize Israel, and they must agree to abide by all previous agreements,” she told the committee,” she told the Committee yesterday.

I am not sure this is realistic these preconditions are  no matter how much the U.S. and Israel are committed to them. In my mind, the U.S. would have to redirect its energies toward weakening Hamas by persuading those in its political arm to side with other moderates living in the occupied territories and create another rival party or remake Fatah into a independent party that with real support.

Both of which would be difficult to do considering how Hamas has all the real fighters, which is all the more important in a time of war. Plus, with other countries in the region such as Iran in supporting Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian fighter group, the influence of Saudi cash, and possibility of rocket fire coming from Hezbollah forces in Lebanon all could make things instantly more volatile with or without new elections and with or without peace talks.

So the fact that we need “to deal with Hamas” becomes painfully clear with each passing year, and that may include doing so diplomatically. We may not need to widely advertise that fact, but we also should not completely ignore it either.

The Durban Review Conference and its Critics

This week Secretary of State designate Hillary Clinton and US Ambassador to the UN designate Dr. Susan Rice will have their confirmation hearings this week before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Tuesday and Thursday.

To be sure, their respective views on humanitarian intervention to nuclear non-proliferation, from devising an exit strategy for Iraq and how to appropriately engage Iran or addressing energy security problems and climate change, among other issues will be thoroughly probed and debated.

Another serious issue that has not received national attention thus far, but merits serious consideration,  is whether or not the United States should participate in the next World Conference Against Racism, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance (WCAR), otherwise known as Durban II, scheduled to take place April 20-24, 2009.

The chief aim of the last WCAR conference in 2001 was to provide a global framework that national governments could build upon to enact or improve racial anti-discrimination laws and initiatives.

Yet unlike many other United Nations member states, the U.S. has not been involved in the Durban process since 2001 when then-Secretary of State Colin Powell withdrew the U.S. delegation from the conference in Durban, South Africa. Powell said the U.S. could not support the the conference’s collective statement by governments, the Durban Declaration of Programme of Action (DDPA), because it contained language that singled out Israel for criticism.  A handful of countries within the 57 member Organization of Islamic Conference – Iran, Syria, Egypt, Libya, and Pakistan – led the effort to insert language about foreign occupation and other statements designed to inject the visceral politics of the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. Ethnic and racial strife in Darfur, Kashmir, Tibet or elsewhere in the world were conspicuously ignored.

Things were worse in the non-governmental forum where a small yet vocal minority of organizations high-jacked the gathering by not only disseminated anti-Semitic and anti-Israel literature and cartoons, but also drafted a document that neither reflected the true the spirit of the conference nor the views of the majority of the forum’s participants.

In the end, the Israel obsession only served to diminish the legitimacy of the conference and subvert its central mission of combating racism and overshadowed some of its more enduring achievements. Instead many choose to focus on it’s failures.

“I know that you do not combat racism by conferences that produce declarations containing hateful language, some of which is a throwback to the days of ‘Zionism equals racism,” Powell said in frustration on September 4th as he stormed out of the conference before a final draft was of the document produced.

Five days later, the 9/11 attacks occurred and in the remaining years of the Bush presidency U.N.- U.S. relations soured along with American standing in Muslim majority countries.

Wrestling with the Legacy of Durban I

Fearing a repeat of the 2001 conference, Israel and Canada have already said they will boycott Durban II. The respective U.S. out-going and in-coming presidential administrations have remained silent on whether or not the America will participate in April. Most UN member states, however, are not so quick to abandon the process.

Despite the efforts of certain OIC governments seeking to undermine the process in the 2001, the document, which was endorsed by a majority of a 134 countries in the UN General Assembly, managed to have a positive impact on other UN member nations striving to achieve some measure of racial justice. For  example, the DDPA recognized the Dalits, or the 160 million “untouchables” in India as victims of caste based discrimination elsewhere and that they should be treated as  a protected class in international human rights law.

In 2003, the Brazilian government created the Secretariat for the Promotion of Racial Equality to implement affirmative action programs for people of African and indigenous descent in entering universities and in finding government jobs. This was done in response to the DDPA’s recommendation governments used equal opportunity programs be used to deter racial discrimination and promote integration.

The 2001 document also recognized slavery, including the transatlantic slave trade, as a crime against humanity. Nearly seven years later, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelming passed a resolution apologizing for slavery and Jim Crow segregation. Thus, while its difficult to draw a cause and effect relationship here, its clear that some of the recommendations coming out of the Durban process helped set standards or even nudge governments in the right direction on racial justice issues.

But many UN observers also see a revival of the same campaign OIC countries to not only derail the process by making Israel a central focus, but also introducing anti-blasphemy measures to limit free expression. This has as much to do with the neglect of the so-called Middle-East process as it does with the controversy spawned by the Danish cartoons.

This has lead some critics of Durban II to believe the U.S. should boycott the conference. “Durban II, planned for April in Geneva, promises to be an encore of the same old Israel-bashing” argues a Wall Street Journal Editorial. “If the Durban II drafters have their way, any challenge of Islamic teachings, including teachings used to justify violence, would be taboo.”

Of course, the document is called a draft for a reason, and an active effort by the U.S. in negotiating the final text of the Durban II document could change things significantly.

Changing the Face of U.S. and U.N. Relations

Not everyone thinks the U.S. should be content to it on the sidelines. In 2008, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution sponsored (H.R.1361) by Rep. Howard Berman, urging the Secretary of State to “lead a high-level diplomatic effort” in order “to defeat any effort by states to use the forum to promote anti-Semitism or hatred against members of any group or to call into question the legitimacy of any state.”

Other UN observers have been more direct. “Unfortunately, plugging our ears to this kind of dreck neither makes it any less likely to occur, nor deprives it of a forum. The only way to counter speech we don’t like, as the constitutional adage goes, is with more speech” argued John Boonstra at UN Dispatch, a blog that covers UN issues.

Even the America Israel Public Affairs Committee, a staunchly pro-Israel group, urged the United States “to use the preparatory process to halt the further demonization of Israel, ” as opposed to prematurely abandoning the process entirely.

But even if Israel was not central obsession of a few yet influential countries at the U.N., the U.S.  should at least strongly consider participating in the process if it wants to improve its image in the world, which is something Obama aims to do. Choosing to boycott Durban II, the first UN human rights gathering the in-coming Obama administration would have a chance to attend, may after all send the wrong message to the world -  something that the first black president could ill afford to do given the nature of the conference.

The question of race in 21st will only get more complicated with increased immigration from the global south to the global north, and as various countries including the U.S. try to grapple with rapidly changing demographics. Also, Barack Obama needs to demonstrate that he wants to move beyond the excesses of the Bush’s war on terror policies, which has been seen by many as an excuse to target Arabs and Muslims. In other words, the civil strife associated with racism could present diplomatic obstacles and create more instability in the world.

At the same time, however, he should impress on certain countries that terrorism is as real threat to U.S. as it is to countries anywhere else in the world and satirical depictions of religious figures, while offensive, should not be used as an excuse to place limits on freedom of expression, as some OIC countries want to do.

Additionally, Durban II could serve as a stepping stone for an Obama administration looking to reedefine the U.N.-U.S. relations in the post-Bush era. Making sure the conference maintains its central focus on the combating racial discrimination, instead of a proxy battle over Arab-Israeli relations will be a difficult task. But it is still achievable with an energetic and committed team of diplomats. UN Ambassador Dr. Susan Rice is certain capable of leading such an effort on her own and is familiar with the sort of entanglements awaiting her in Geneva.

In a November 2002 speech before a an audience at the University of Delaware, she made the following remarks:

Against this dismal back-drop, we also encounter an international community increasingly skeptical of U.S. intentions and resentful of our power. How did we get here? In large part, we did so by almost reflexively spurning collective instruments – from international treaties such as the ABM treaty, the Bioweapons Convention and the International Criminal Court to multilateral gatherings such as the UN Conference on Racism.

Of course, that was more than six years ago. Dr. Rice may have a different opinion today. But note Dr. Rice’s insistence on the connection between the exercise of American power and blacklash toward retreating from organizations within the U.N. system.

But Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton’s is less likely to support U.S. participation, assuming her statements on the campaign trail are any indication.  “I will never forget how the world’s first conference against racism became a mockery of itself when it descended into anti-Semitism and hatred,” she said in a June 2008 speech at an AIPAC conference.  “The debacle at Durban must never be repeated. We should take very strong action to ensure anti-Semitism is kept off the agenda at Durban II and if those efforts fail, I believe that the United States should boycott that conference.

With Obama’s decision to elevate the U.S. Ambassadorship to the UN to a cabinet level post, Dr. Rice will report directly to the president without the filter of the State Department, though the Secretary of State will likely to be consulted as well. But even in that scenario its difficult to say whose opinion will be given more weight. After all, Dr. Susan Rice is more of the UN expert than Clinton is even if the Secretary of State is regarded as the nation’s top diplomat.

Their statements on Durban II will surely be scrutinized during their respective confirmation hearings, particularly by Senators seeking to pin the in-coming administration down on a definitive ye or nay position on the issue.

Further complicating this issue is Israel’s war in Gaza and the U.S. kneejerk response to support it. Now while Israel’s current bombardment campaign is a separate matter, it will undoubtedly influence what Obama decides.  In his letter, to the outgoing Ambassador to the UN, Obama affirmed his support for Israel in its war in Gaza even as its unpopularity grows exponentially with each passing day and the Palestianian death toll rises.

Hopefully, President-elect Obama will not allow accusations that he is not a “friend” to Israel affect how he determines how to recast U.S.-U.N. relations. Whatever course he decides on this issue should be consistent with his promise to “to renew the trust and faith of our people — and all people — in an America that battles immediate evils, promotes an ultimate good, and leads the world once more” as he said in his Foreign Affairs essay.

That kind of bold leadership requires a break from the past and the political will to create your own opportunities even if they initially present themselves as crises.

Note:  I have changed the title of this post from “The World Conference on Racism and its Critics”  to the “Durban Review Conference and its Critics.” since the former refers to the gathering in that took place in 2001 in Durban, South Africa, and the latter actually refers to the upcoming meeting in April 2009, which is a follow up to the first one.

Rummy’s Wisdom

In an October 16, 2003 memo to certain Pentagon officials, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously asked, “Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?”  Rumsfeld was not just referring to the actual wars waged by U.S. soliders in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also the deeply flawed and much too abstract notion of the Global War on Terror (GWOT).

Though Rumsfeld tenure as head of DoD was less than inspiring, the question needs to be continuously revisited if the U.S. and others are going to have some way of evaluaging its progress in capturing or eliminating networks of individuals that constitute genunine national security threats.

But its not just the U.S. who should think hard about such questions. Its allies should do the same too, namely Israel.

Earlier this week, Ehud Barak boldly declared that Israel was in “an all out war with Hamas and its proxies.” Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon noted, the cheif aim of the bombing campaign was too “topple Hamas.“

But this is hardly possible. Hamas has at least 15,000 fighters located in one of the densest areas of the world, the Gaza Strip. True, Isreal has reportedly killed a certain high level figure since the beginning of this weeks assault, but as of this positing it had to kill 400 and injure 1,700, since the bombing began on Saturday to do so – the vast majority of whom are civilians.  But even the actual fighters could easily be replaced from a largely poor, deeply frustrated, and frequently ignored Palestinian population.

Israeli forces are also reportedly contemplating following up on their current bombardment with ground incursions into Gaza, presumably to ferret out top Hamas fighters from their outposts or destroy tunnels along the Gaza and Egyptian border smuggling arms to Hamas fighters. But its doubtful that going into the lions den would end up being that fruitful. In fact, unless guided by excellent intelligence as to where the actual targets are, it would only serve to reinforce the notion of Israel the bully and occupier.

A perception that probablly found new life in the court of international public opinion after it already ignored U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon plea to end the bombing and summarily dismissed negotiating a cease fire as suggested by the French.

Granted its true that Hamas could simply use that oppunity to rededicate their efforts or countinue bombing southern Israel, but the option should be explored at some level before publicly stating and consideration of sending group troops.

We would all do well to remember why Hamas won local elections in 2005 and the Western-back Fatah. Hamas was better organized, provided social services to those in te occupied terrorities that the Fatah did not, and a good number of those who were once with Fatah joined Hamas instead. This war in its own perverse way may only help serve to strengthen Hamas even if it did instigate this recent round of combat.

So at the end of this campaign we are still left with the question of whether or not Israel abated the threat of future attacks or increased its likelihood.

Humming Coming at Ya

From Haaretz:

Shoes hold a special place in the Arab lexicon of insults as a show of contempt – effectively saying, you’re lower than the dirt on my shoes. Even sitting with the sole of a shoe pointed at another person is seen as disrespectful.

The hurling of shoes at Bush on his last visit to Iraq as president made an ironic bookend to one of the first images after the 2003 U.S. invasion, when Iraqi opponents of deposed leader Saddam Hussein toppled one of his statues in Baghdad and hit it with their shoes.

Al-Zaidi attained instant hero status around the Arab world. At one Baghdad elementary school, a geography teacher asked her students if they had seen the footage of the shoe-throwing, then told them, All Iraqis should be proud of this Iraqi brave man, Muntadhar. History will remember him forever.

In Baghdad’s Shiite slum of Sadr City, thousands of supporters of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr burned American flags to protest against Bush and called for the release of al-Zaidi, a 28-year-old Shiite who works for the private Iraqi TV station Al-Baghdadia

[Snip]

“I’ve watched the video over a dozen times on You Tube and was excited very time I see him [al-Zaidi] standing up and calling Bush a dog,” said Tamer Ismail, 23-year-old art student in Cairo. “But I felt so bitter when he missed.”

Among other things, al Zaidi will be charged with “insulting the Iraqi state” even as he is celebrated as a hero in Iraq and throughout the region. But another irony here involves the fact that such laws continues to exits in what Bush insists on calling a democratic and free Iraq.

On a slightly related note, a friend of mine noted in an email recently that al Zaidi “has excellent aim.  I can’t imagine that this was a spontaneous because he was throwing the shoe from 15 feet away with many heads obstructing his view, and got so close to Bush’s head both times.  He must have practiced with various size shoes for years on end for this one moment with various distractions in the background. “

Its all worth another look.

Dr. Susan Rice Tapped for US Ambassadorship to the UN

News is circulating fast of Dr. Susan Rice becoming emerging as the leading candidate for the next U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Like others, I think this is a good thing. Dr. Rice – not to be confused with current the Secretary of State Dr. Condi Rice – is a rising star in the foreign policy world with expert knowledge on such issues as the challenges posed by weak and failed states, transnational threats from criminal and terrorist networks, the destabilizing effects of climate change and the importance of multilateral institutions.

Dr. Rice deep knowledge on African affairs will also be an indispensable asset to any ambassador to the UN in light of the fact that, according to UN Dispatch, “about 2/3rds of all discussions at the Security Council are about situations in Africa.”

For some, it might seem a  bit odd for the candidate of change to install another veteran of the Clinton administration – she served at the State Department and as a deputy at the National Security Council – at such a high level post. But such criticism is short-sighted. Like many other Clintonites on team Obama such as former National Security Advisor Tony Lake, Dr. Rice joined  the Obama campaign early on and quickly emerged as one of its most effective advocates while also playing a key role in crafting the campaign’s foreign policy.

As some have already noted, if Obama goes ahead with this appointment, its a sign that he is taking U.S.-U.N. relations very seriously, given how Dr. Rice has been within his inner circle of advisors since day one.

By the same token, however, observers such as Steven Benen pointed out that Dr. Rice could be even more effective in the White House as deputy national security adviser creating policy under retired Marine General James L. Jones who reportedly already has the national security adviser gig all locked up.

But Obama could still opt convert the UN ambassadorship to a cabinet level post while empowering her to take the diplomatic lead on the U.S. response to genocide in the Sudan, the failed state in Somalia, and other regional problems in Africa, along with leading U.S. efforts for reforming the UN system. In time, the former Rhodes Scholar could then assume another high profile role with even more responsibility and greater access to the president, such as becoming Secretary of State.

Check out Dr. Susan Rice get her wonk on while on MSNBC.

Sorting Out Preconditions

With President-elect Barack Obama’s plan to announce Senator Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State this week, like many people I am wondering how their approaches will mesh. As former Secretary of State James Backer said on Meet the Press today there has to be a seamless relationship between Obama and Clinton on message, approach, and execution if its going to work.

Or as Thomas Friedman of the NYT recently noted, “Foreign leaders can spot daylight between a president and a secretary of state from 1,000 miles away. They know when they’re talking to the secretary of state alone and when they are talking through the secretary of state to the president. And when they think they are talking to the president, they sit up straight; and when they think they are talking only to the secretary of state, they slouch in their chairs.”

That said, few issues stand out more than whether or not the President of the United States should be willing to meet with dictators or authoritarian leaders without preconditions – a point of genuine disagreement between Obama and Clinton during the campaign. In the November 17th issue of the New Yorker, Ryan Lizza describes Obama’s reaction to the barrage of criticism from the Clinton camp and political pundits to his response to a provocative question in a July 2007 Democratic Presidential YouTube and CNN debate.

Several Obama aides believe that a crucial moment came after a debate sponsored by YouTube and CNN in July of 2007. During the debate, Obama was asked, “Would you be willing to meet separately, without preconditions, during the first year of your Administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?” Obama answered simply, “I would.” Hillary Clinton pounced on the remark as hopelessly naïve, and her aides prepared to emphasize what appeared to be a winning argument. Obama’s aides had much the same reaction. “We know this is going to be the issue of the day,” Dan Pfeiffer, recalling a conference call the following morning, said. “We have the sense they’re going to come after us on it. And we’re all on the bus trying to figure out how to get out of it, how not to talk about it.” Obama, who was listening to part of the conversation, took the telephone from an aide and instructed his staff not to back down. According to an aide, Obama said something to the effect of “This is ridiculous. We met with Stalin. We met with Mao. The idea that we can’t meet with Ahmadinejad is ridiculous. This is a bunch of Washington-insider conventional wisdom that makes no sense. We should not run from this debate. We should have it.”

Now of course saying that you are willing to meet with certain heads of state does not mean you in fact will choose to do so. But Obama’s response to it does reveal a real difference in opinion. I wonder how this will be massaged. That is to say, if Clinton is instructed to meet with Hugo Chavez or Raul Castro or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by Obama will her private disagreements, assuming she has any, become public? Or if they are never leaked to press will those leaders suspect that they can exploit whatever daylight may exist between the President-elect Obama and in-coming Secretary of State Clinton?

Perhaps, those questions will remain moot because it may be an option that Obama never truly chooses to exercise, whether Clinton objects to it or not.  For the most part, Obama and Clinton will most likely seek to exert pressure on certain leaders to at least give the appearance that they are negotiating from a position of strength rather than one of weakness or desperation, which is how some will try to portray it.

At any rate, I bet before taking the gig for top diplomat, Clinton had all sorts of preconditions for Obama and vice versa.

Its More than Just the Economy

Andrea Batista Schlesinger at DMI blog has grown weary and skeptical of the attention paid on the foreign policy portion of Senator Joe Biden’s resume in assessing whether or not the Delaware lawmaker is a well matched running mate for Senator Barack Obama.

Enough with the talk about filling in the foreign affairs gap. This just accepts that we are going to live out yet ANOTHER campaign the way the right wants us to — on their turf. The most pressing issues to America’s middle class are economic, economic, and ECONOMIC, so let’s learn a little bit more about where Senator Joseph Biden stood when it came to voting for legislation that matter to the pocketbooks of middle-class Americans.

http://themiddleclass.org/legislator/joseph-biden-412

Aside from the fact, that as Samantha Power has noted, the Democrats should use this election year as in part an opportunity to define themselves the better party on national security, its also clear that ceding ground to the Republicans on security issues by not discussing them they also hamstring their efforts to get their message out on the economy and other issues.

Each time the Obama does not answer forcefully or not all to some absurd charge about some fabricated ties to Hamas or imagined sympathies for the Iranians or is naive about the gravity of certain authoritarian rouge regimes because he says he is open to negotiation under certain circumstances, those stories linger in the press for days or even weeks. One asset Senator Biden does bring to the campaign is his ability to aggressively push back on those issues to make sure those charges don’t go unchallenged and get them off the front pages as Obama pitches his plan to modernize our economy and make it greener, generate job growth, and create a more sensible and equitable tax system.

Stressing Joe Biden’s foreign policy resume is like letting the opposition know you have a good deterrent that you plan to use regularly once campaigning turns into much more of a contact sport.

Its rarely just the economy stupid.

Samantha Power Makes Her Case to the Dems

In a piece that read more like a campaign memo crammed into a book review, Samantha Power made an impassioned plea for Democrats in the New York Review of Books to “seize the advantage the polls show they could have on security issues” by “talking early and often about national security and going on the offensive by strongly presenting the foreign policy plans already devised, whether by members of Congress or by the Obama campaign.”

To Power, the Bush administration’s bungling of foreign policy and its support among Republicans in Congress has contributed to such profound public dissatisfaction with the GOP on security issues that the once unassailable advantage the GOP held over Democrats has virtually been erased, going from double digit leads, including among independents, to single digits.

But the Harvard professor and Pulitzer-prizing winning beauty says this does not mean that Democrats have more or less successfully neutralized that once edge the GOP had over them, and therefore should avoid discussing security issues because Americans have routinely said the war on terror consistently ranks low on their list of priorities. (Also see Pew poll)

To the contrary, Power argues, it presents a once in a generation opportunity to gain a better foothold in the voting public’s imagination about who is better equipped to deal with the worlds increasingly complex security and policy challenges. Power tells us:

Democrats can break with their reputation for squeamishness about national security issues by showing their ease and confidence in dealing with these topics. Instead of changing the subject when national security issues arise, they should look forward to taking part in detailed foreign policy discussions that allow them to show their new strength.

To be sure, Samantha Power does make a compelling argument in her piece. This election does present Democrats a unique opportunity to redefine themselves as the party of responsible and sober thinking on security matters and foreign affairs generally. But it should also be noted that Senator John McCain, despite wishing to be portrayed otherwise, is widely identified as a strong supporter of the more President Bush’s foreign policy, particularly the misadventure in Iraq, and still holds a substantial lead in the polls over Obama on terrorism and who would make a better commander-in-chief. In fact, according to an ABC News poll, only 48 percent of Americans said Obama would make a good C-in-C, whereas a whopping 72 percent said the same of McCain. And even most Democrats polled concede this point.

By the same token, the public seems split on Obama’s versus McCain’s approach to the war in Iraq, 43 percent each according to one Gallup poll. This suggests that the better political strategy here is to focus on how the war in Iraq is emblematic of the larger failures of Bush’s foreign policy, though not necessarily a reason to make national security one of the signature issues of the Obama campaign. Just because it jibes well with the McSame as Bush theme, does not mean Obama should talk about security issues at the expense of kitchen table issues. With 6.5 mortgages projected to fail during the next 3 years and gas at more than $4.00 a gallon, and a spike in unemployment numbers, this election will largely be decided by economic insecurity issues, and deservedly so. Of course, this does not preclude Members of Congress and other surrogates from stumping on security issues for Obama.

Curiously enough, despite Samantha Power’s impassioned appeal for Democrats to take the “offensive” and project “strength” on national security, her recommendations for achieving exactly that are almost entirely made up of soft power concerns. With the two notable exceptions of advocating for a reduction in nuclear weapons and championing long overdue benefits for service men and women, Power rattled off a list that included tackling global warming, promoting cooperation among nations, shutting down Gitmo, investing in the development of rule of international law especially in underdeveloped states. All of which are worthy goals worth promoting, but don’t necessarily project “strength.”

In fact, I was a bit surprised that Power did not emphasize the reduction of the proliferation nuclear arms, or growing the size the army or squelching conflict in failing and collapsing states before they sow the seeds of regional conflagration. All of which are issues she has discussed in detail while evangelizing for Obama before abruptly having to quit the campaign for an inartful comment about Senator Hillary Clinton in the wake of the Ohio and Texas primaries.

Oh how I miss seeing Samantha out there mixing it up with critics.

Mandela Celebrates 90th Birthday

I could not imagine spending 27 years in prison by a racist regime, living to see my 90th birthday, and still have a smile on my face. It takes a lot to overcome the kind of anger that such an experience would no doubt inspire.