Google Analytics

Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts

Thursday, June 1, 2023

The New World (Dis)order: PART II: The Misunderstanding of Vladimir Putin


(Image: Wallpaperflare dotcom)

NOTE: This is the second in a five part series.

PART I: American Adventurism, Non-Interventionism, Trumpism and Afghan Chaos
PART II: The Misunderstanding of Vladimir Putin
PART III: China Awakens Under Xi Jinping
PART IV: Crony Capitalism and the West’s Achilles Heel
PART V (
November): The New World (Dis)order


PART II: The Misunderstanding of Vladimir Putin


To anyone who would consider interfering from the outside: If you do, you will face consequences greater than any you have faced in history. All relevant decisions have been taken. I hope you hear me.”

-Vladimir Putin, 24th February 2022


In February, 2014 after three months of violent and sustained demonstrations in Ukraine, their Russian-leaning President Victor Yanukovych fled Kyiv. The Ukrainian parliament appointed an acting president and prime minister who immediately announced they wanted to bring the country closer to Europe and further away from Russia.


Fearing the Arab Spring could arrive at Moscow’s doorstep and banking on Mr. Obama’s non-interventionism, Mr. Putin invaded Crimea, days after Mr. Yanukovych fled. There is an argument to be made that his decision to annex Crimea was driven less by a desire to rewrite history and more as a strategic maneuver to ensure Russia’s Black Sea Fleet would not get evicted from its base in Sevastopol, as Ukraine drew closer to Europe.


However, regardless of his motivations, what is laughable is Mr. Putin’s claims that Crimea has always been a part of Russia, and that he was liberating its ethnic Russian population. Records in Russian government archives show that Crimea was transferred to Ukraine in 1954, under Stalin, and in 1991 Ukrainians voted overwhelmingly in favour of independence from the Soviet Union.


At the time Mr. Obama condemned the Russian aggression in Crimea but insisted that the country was a "regional power” and said that Mr. Putin’s actions were a sign of weakness, not strength. He said the US remained committed to defending NATO allies but non-members, like Ukraine, could only count on non-military pressure and sanctions to dissuade Russia from making further territorial encroachments.


Again, Obama rejected the recommendations of his national security advisors and overruled Congress when they tried to send lethal military aid to Ukraine. A senior Obama administration official said that they did not want to “provoke Russia”. 


Unlike after Putin’s invasion of Georgia, this time the international community did impose economic sanctions and target members of Putin’s inner circle. Vice-president Biden vowed the sanctions would leave Russia standing "naked before the world”.


There is no question that the sanctions that were imposed after Putin’s invasion of Crimea hurt Russia’s economy. However, it is hard to pinpoint the direct impact they had because Russia retaliated by issuing a ban on food imports from Western nations, which contributed to rising food prices and inflation at home. Also, a drop in oil prices that occurred around the same time, put downward pressure on the Rouble. The combined effect of sanctions and these events helped exacerbate underlying weaknesses in the Russian economy.


The more important thing that happened is that Mr. Putin took on the post-Crimea sanctions as a challenge and decided to enact measures that would make the Russian economy less reliant on the West and sanction-proof in the future. 


Russia grew its foreign currency reserves to $631 billion, the fourth largest in the world. They adopted a new fiscal policy, cutting expenses to enable greater financial stability and withstand future volatility. They created their own payment system, in the event the West blocked them from SWIFT. They invested in homegrown food production to become self-reliant and far less dependent on imports from the West. 


All these measures should have been a clear indication to the West that Mr. Putin’s territorial ambitions were far from satiated. Also, Mr. Putin believed he held the ultimate trump card - he supplied 40% of Europe’s energy and the Georgian and Crimean invasions had not deterred Europe’s thirst for Russian oil.


From Putin’s perspective, it was a victory. The post-Crimea sanctions caused pain, but they did not cripple Russia or leave her standing "naked before the world”. If we reviewed his tally sheet, we would see that he achieved his goals in Georgia, annexed Crimea without a shot being fired and occupied the Donbas with scant resistance and with no consequences from NATO or the US. In addition, his popularity soared back home with the majority of Russians supporting the annexation of Crimea.


On the heels of his annexation and illegal occupation of Crimea, confident the U.S. would again not intervene militarily, an emboldened Putin sent Russian troops to Syria in 2015. It was Russia's intervention that made the difference and helped turned the tide in favour of Assad’s regime. 


Obama’s non-intervention in Syria had given Mr. Putin an opportunity to get a foothold in the Middle East. This was something Russia had wanted since the end of the Cold War, and now they were able to do it while sidelining America.


The fact is that every post-Cold War US President has underestimated Mr. Putin and failed to understand his motivations. A fundamental miscalculation of successive administrations is that unlike in democracies, where we think in four or five year terms, autocrats play the long game and plan their moves over decades, not over election cycles.

 

In 2001, Bush famously said that he had looked in Putin’s eyes and had,“seen his soul” and found him to be “very straightforward and trustworthy”. Bush was partly right because in 2008, Putin told Bush in a straightforward way during a one-on-one meeting that Ukraine was not a real country, a comment the US President laughed off.


President Obama, like his predecessor, believed he could tame Mr. Putin and declared the infamous Russia ‘reset,’ after taking office in 2009. This foreign policy reboot was launched with much fanfare when Hillary Clinton presented Sergei Lavrov with a cartoonish “reset” button which misspelled the word in Russian. 


Mr. Obama scrapped plans to deploy a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. The administration claimed it was due to a reduced threat from Iran and technological challenges, but it was widely seen as a move to appease Mr. Putin in order to win Russian support for a vote in the UN Security Council. The vote would support tougher sanctions on Iran and bring them to the negotiating table for the deal Mr Obama sought.


Obama’s most memorable quip, reinforcing his naivety about Russia, came in the form of his response to Mitt Romney during the 2012 Presidential debate. After candidate Romney stated that Russia remained one of America’s greatest national security threats, Obama retorted, “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War's been over for 20 years”.


To understand Mr. Putin, we have to go back to the days before the fall of the Soviet Union. His worldview was formed during this time, while he was in the KGB. In 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down, he was stationed in Dresden, Germany. He witnessed first-hand how leaders and systems could be toppled when citizens grew too powerful. While Putin acknowledged that the Soviet Union had been in decline, he believed it was ailing due to paralysis of power and the frailty of political elites.


He wrote in his autobiography that after his office was surrounded by protestors threatening to storm the building, he called the Red Army’s German tank unit, stationed nearby, and asked them for protection. They said they could not do anything without orders from Moscow. They had reached out but no orders came. The words “Moscow is silent” are said to have haunted Putin his whole life, and shaped his worldview. 


Putin watched helplessly as everything he spent years building collapsed in the blink of an eye. First, East Germany disappeared when it was reintegrated into the West, and then the mighty Soviet Union disintegrated. In his mind, this was a direct result of the weakness of its current leadership.

 

Mr. Putin’s ambition has always been to rebuild the Russian Empire and unite all the people displaced after its collapse. He has publicly stated these aims many times. In a 2005 address to the Russian Duma, he said ”…the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century. Tens of millions of our co-citizens and compatriots found themselves outside Russian territory.”


In a 2007 speech at the Munich Security Conference he started by asking the audience not to get angry, or turn on the red light because his remarks might seem “polemical, pointed or inexact”. Then he launched into a tirade about United States “unipolar” global domination after the Cold War and how America’s “Unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems” but created more conflict and human tragedy. 


Alluding to the US invasion of Iraq he said “We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law” and added that  “… the United States has overstepped its national borders in every way.” “This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this?”


He expressed concerns about NATO’s expansion, saying it had less to do with “modernization” or “ensuring security” and was a “serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust.” He spoke of a new world order that would upend the current one. 


He pointed to the fact that the combined GDP of India and China was greater than the U.S. and that the BRICs - Brazil, Russia, India and China - cumulative GDP surpassed that of the EU. He warned that the “economic potential” of these new centers of power would soon translate into political influence”.


Mr. Putin is convinced that the West actively works to undermine Russia, inflicting their woke, weak and morally bankrupt ideology to foment and finance colour revolutions across former Soviet republics. We saw this paranoia on display when Mr. Putin rapidly deployed “peacekeeping” troops as part of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) to quell growing unrest in Kazakhstan last year.


In March 2014, Mr. Putin made a speech to both houses of parliament about the annexation of Crimea. He claimed, after holding an illegal referendum, that 96% of people had voted in favour of reuniting with Russia. In the same speech, he put the West on notice that Russia would be staking further territorial claims. 


Then in July, 2021 he laid out his mission in a 5,000 word essay entitled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” in which he argued that Belarusians, Russians, and Ukrainians are all descendants from Ancient Rus. That they are still bound by a common language and faith. According to his version of history, Ukraine has never been a sovereign nation, except for a few times when it tried and failed to become an independent state.


He accused the West of using Ukraine to undermine Russia and made false claims about Zelensky’s government actively supporting “Neo-Nazi’s” and burning people alive in Odessa. He concluded that the sovereignty of Ukraine was only possible in partnership with Russia and declared “we are one people.”


Mr. Putin has never hidden his ambitions to restore Russian greatness which he is convinced was robbed by the West, making it hard to believe that he will stop at Ukraine, even though his invasion had not gone according to plan. 


He has made it amply clear that until every former Soviet republic is fully subservient or part of Russia, Russia's very existence is threatened. Along the way he seeks to diminish US influence in Europe, degrade NATO and form a new anti-US global alliance.


There is no question that Mr. Putin’s and his generals badly miscalculated the Ukrainian invasion on every front. They underestimated the level of resistance from a disciplined and well-trained Ukrainian army, while overestimating the capability of their own forces. The biggest surprise , which nobody saw coming, was President Zelensky’s Churchillian rise and his ability to rally not just his fellow countrywomen, but the U.S. and Europe. 


With Putin’s invasion of Ukraine not going according to plan, some observers believe it might dissuade him from achieving his goals and lead him to look for an off-ramp. I disagree. 


Despite the Russian army’s battlefield humiliation, Mr. Putin remains in a strong position to finance his war because the Russian economy, while it did wobble, is far from hobbled. In fact, it weathered the sanction storm better than anyone predicted. 


Russian economic output contracted a mere 2.1% in 2022, surprising some economists who had expected a catastrophic meltdown. Meanwhile, the war has damaged billions of dollars of infrastructure and caused the Ukrainian economy to shrink by more than 30% in 2022.


An independent poll taken immediately after the invasion found that 58% of Russians approved of Putin’s military action, while 23% opposed it. Most people expected support to drop as the average Russian began to feel the day-to-day pain of Western sanctions and losses on the battlefield mounted, but the opposite has transpired with support for the war hardening and less than one fifth of Russians now opposing it. 


But Russian support must be taken with a bag of salt because Mr. Putin has unleashed a wave of repression with new laws that punish people who spread misinformation. Sharing “false information" includes using the word ‘war’, for which people can face up to 15 years in prison. 


Public works deemed critical of the war have resulted in exhibits being torn down and replaced with state propaganda. Actors, writers and artists have been hounded and forced out of jobs. Curricula in schools and universities have been changed, and students are being taught to report teachers who talk of peace, and Russians are encouraged to snitch on anyone who opposes the war.


A single father was recently sentenced to three years in prison for social media posts that came to light after his daughter made a drawing for a school project with the words “No to War” under the picture. The thirteen year old girl has been placed in a state orphanage, after her father fled arrest.


In addition, the Russian government is doling out cash payments in the country’s most impoverished regions to buy public support, and brainwashing the population. Every media outlet that countered the false state narrative has been shut down and replaced by propaganda that paints the war as “far away,” while highlighting Mr. Putin’s “economic successes, new welfare benefits and renovated clinics”.


It is true that Mr. Putin believed that European support for Ukraine would crumble fast because of their reliance on Russian energy. However, while Europe has managed to miraculously cut their reliance on Russian gas by almost half, India and China have massively increased their oil purchases, which has eased part of the hole it might have caused in Mr. Putin’s coffers, and thus his ability to continue financing his war.


To further hurt Mr. Putin’s ability to finance his war, last December the EU added a ban on sea borne Russian oil into the Europe, and prohibited European insurance and shipping services from transporting it anywhere in the world. At the same time G7 nations put a price cap on Russian oil of $60 per barrel, hoping it would deliver the fatal blow to Russia’s war chest.

 

Earlier this year, research by Columbia University found that the ban and price cap have not had the intended effect on the flow of Russian oil, and that Russia has been commanding prices ranging from $74 - $82 per barrel from China, India and other countries. A New York Times investigation used publicly available shipping data to track the movement of some of these shadow oil tankers. However, more recently there is new evidence that the price cap is starting to work and oil revenues have declined substantially, but it is still not to anywhere near a level that would bankrupt Russia, or prevent Mr. Putin from continuing to fund his war.


So, Mr. Putin has no reason either to acquiesce to peace talks or to agree to terms that would amount to a humiliating loss of pride and his political clout. For Mr. Putin to admit he wants an off-ramp, one that would result in a territorial retreat, would be a fate worse than death. For the time being we are at an impasse, with neither side willing to negotiate anything short of complete victory.


Prior to the war the NATO alliance looked fragile and fractured, with President Macron publicly declaring it “brain-dead”. NATO’s weakness is something Mr. Putin likely factored into his calculations, but unfortunately for him Russia’s invasion had the opposite effect, not only jolting NATO back to life but also bolstering European unity. 


Mr. Putin has claimed that his invasion of Ukraine was partly intended to stop NATO expansion by sending a message to other countries that border Russia not to join NATO. This too has not worked out for Mr. Putin, as the previously neutral nordic countries of Sweden and Finland overwhelmingly voted in favor of joining NATO.


Europe also got lucky with an unusually warm winter, which helped avert an energy crisis. Also, they were helped with the US boosting natural gas deliveries and brokering deals with countries like Qatar to fill the gaps. However, these are not long-term solutions and the jury is still out on whether Europe can survive a harsh winter next year.


So, where do we go from here?


Mr. Putin has made it clear that he is digging in for a long, drawn out war of attrition. This is a man who has no respect for life, so he will keep throwing ill-equipped, poorly trained Russian troops as cannon fodder onto the battlefield. While the Ukrainians have shown tremendous courage, resolve and tactical military superiority, they are reliant on the US and NATO for aid, equipment, munitions and weapons. 


To break the stalemate on the battlefield, President Zelensky is pushing for delivery of heavy weaponry like armored vehicles, tanks and fighter jets, and has grown increasingly frustrated at the pace at which they are being supplied. It was this request for heavy weapons which showed the first cracks in the Western alliance. 


Germany pushed back on sending tanks and only reluctantly agreed to send them after US prodding. Germany is also dragging its feet on doubling its defense budget, something Chancellor Schultz had publicly announced he would do three days after Russia invaded.


There are other cracks within the NATO alliance too. Hungary continues to play both sides because it is reliant on Russia for its energy needs. They even secured an exemption on the EU oil ban, along with the Czech Republic and Slovakia. 


Turkey has refused to impose sanctions while significantly increasing trade with Russia, and continues to buy lots of oil. Both President Erdogan and Hungary spent months dragging their feet on approving Finland’s accession to NATO and continue to block approval for Sweden’s. 


While the US remains a staunch ally, President Biden now has to contend with a less Ukraine-friendly Republican Congress. If a Republican were to win the White House in the next election, Ukraine would most likely lose their blank cheque and without US support, they would not be able to stand up to Russia for long.


So it is in Mr. Putin’s interest to drag out this war. The longer it goes, the better the cards he will hold and President Zelensky knows that time is not on his side. He is acutely aware that only a decisive Ukrainian victory on the battlefield, sooner rather than later, will shift the calculus decisively in their favour, and force Russia to the negotiating table.


Read next installment in series:

PART III: China Awakens Under Xi Jinping

Monday, April 13, 2015

America Should Not Settle for Hillary Clinton

(Image credit: Bloomberg) 

"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Lord Acton 

Before people start jumping to conclusions that this article is driven by the fact that Hillary Clinton is a woman, let me be very clear; her gender has nothing to do with it. I do not consider ethnicity or gender a factor when evaluating people for office; I prefer to judge them on the merits of their record, on their integrity and most importantly their character. That said, I would love nothing more than for America to follow in the footsteps of India, Great Britain, Germany, Brazil and Liberia, and elect a woman to the highest office in the land. But it should be based on the best possible candidate for the job, rather than an attempt to make history, as tempting at that may be.

There is no question that Ms. Clinton has both the experience and the smarts to be President. She has served as first lady, been a senator from New York, and a well-respected Secretary of State. Her professional pedigree is not in question. In fact, on this front she is probably better qualified than most of the Republican field put together. However, arrogance from having been in the public eye and on a pedestal for so long should be a question. This is where we should have our first concern with Ms. Clinton. It has to do with a sense of entitlement and a complete disregard for the rules applying to her. The recent email hoopla is the most recent case in point. In what world does a government servant have the gumption to decide, unilaterally, to not only use personal email while in office but also set-up a private server in their home, a server that nobody in government can access? 

I understand that we must respect the privacy of public officials, but we are talking about a government work email account that is meant to be preserved for the public record. Ms. Clinton had no business making this decision. Even more frightening to us should be the sheer arrogance with which she dismissed the issue; it smacked of the old adage of ‘absolute power.’ She had the audacity to suggest that we should all be grateful because she “took the unprecedented step of asking that the State Department make all my work-related emails public for everyone to see.”(Source: Time article). Forgive me if I am not feeling thankful.

Even if she was within the rules, the email example and her handling of it pose fundamental and intractable questions about her clear lack of judgement. More worryingly, it begs the question of what she is hiding. She said at the same press conference that she “turned over some 30,490 emails to the State Department in December”, nearly two years after leaving office. But she also said she “deleted nearly 32,000 others.” (New York Times article).  As a NARA (National Archives and Records Administration) employee told the New Yorker “Anytime a government official takes it upon themselves to edit their own communications, good government ceases to exist.” Any public servant who is deluded enough to believe that they are responsible enough to ‘police’ themselves surely cannot be trusted with the highest office in the land.

The second concern we should have with Ms. Clinton’s candidacy is her age (same goes for male candidates). She will be in her seventieth year when assumes office, not exactly in the prime of her life. Age is part of a bigger issue we should consider in politics. Why is this, the only profession where we routinely elect people who would otherwise be retired? Would you trust a surgeon or hire a defence lawyer in their seventies? The point is that no matter how fit or healthy a person might be, we all slow down physically and mentally as we get older. These days the only way many senators and congressmen vacate their offices is when they die. Strom Thurmond was eighty-four years old when he was briefly and absurdly second in line for the Presidency in the nineteen-eighties. He went on to serve in the senate until the age of 100, still firmly holding onto his pro-segregation views when he died in 2003. Senator Robert Byrd continued to serve despite years of declining health and routine hospital visits, and finally died in office at the age of ninety-two. It is one thing to serve as a congressman or senator, but the US President’s job is without doubt the toughest in America.

We all saw how quickly and visibly both George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama aged, after taking the oath of office. Based on his behaviour and actions I always suspected Mr. Reagan was senile during most of his second term; we now know that his Alzheimer’s started three years into his first term (Source: The Guardian article). Frankly, the world is a far more complex and fragile place today than it ever was during the cold war. We need fresh thinking, new solutions and bold ideas. We need someone who is hungry and daring, not tired and expecting a coronation. Ask yourself if you really want to put a person who in every other profession would be retiring to take on the most mentally gruelling, emotionally draining and physically challenging job in the world?

Then there are the ethics violations and open hypocrisy that should concern us. When Ms. Clinton accepted the position of Secretary of State, the White House was rightly concerned about the millions foreign governments had donated to the Clinton Foundation, and how they might try to use it as leverage to curry favour with the Secretary of State. For this reason Ms. Clinton agreed to sign an ethics agreement which we now know she violated at least one time during her tenure (Source: WashingtonPost article).

There is good reason why it is illegal for a foreign government to give money to a US political candidate (but Ms. Clinton’s candidacy is unprecedented in this respect, since her husband was President and after leaving office they started a foundation). I have no doubt the Clintons will stop accepting money now that she has decided to run, but it does not change the fact that nations who donated generously over the years will still want collect their dues. It would be naĂŻve to think otherwise. 

The Wall Street Journal found in its investigation that “At least 60 companies that lobbied the State Department during her tenure donated a total of more than $26 million to the Clinton Foundation…” (Source: New Yorker article). The Clinton Foundation does an amazing amount of good in the world, and I support and laud their initiatives. But this is not about the foundation's efforts, but rather about the undue influence and sway donors have over recipients of their largesse and about the dangers of these recipients now occupying the White House; burdened with these obligations. 

There is also a great hypocrisy with regards to an issue Ms. Clinton claims to champion: empowering women. It is a great cause and while it is fair to say she has been a great champion, it is equally fair to question her acceptance of money from countries like Saudi Arabia and Brunei that openly abuse and deny women the most basic freedom and rights. I would have greater respect for Ms. Clinton if, on principle, she had refused to accept donations from this small handful of countries where women are less than second class citizens. One other point to consider is that she has also stood by a serial cheater and alleged abuser of women. While her marriage is her personal business, by calling herself a champion for women, it begs the question of whether she is more preach than practice.

We are at a critical and complex time in history. America has never been more divided, and the world is a far more complex place, one where it is hard to distinguish friend from foe. We need someone hungry and energetic enough to grab these challenges by the collar and take them on, not someone who feels the job is their due, and looks more tired than hungry; as Peggy Noonan recently wrote in a Wall Street Journal article. The world needs new ideas and fresh perspectives, not the same old same old.

My first great disappointment with Obama (among a long series that have followed) was that the moment he was elected, on the promise of “change,” he went and appointed a group of washed out Clinton-era advisers and Bush One and Two bureaucrats. This has shown in his administration’s lack of imagination and inability to change the status quo. While Jeb Bush is much younger than Ms. Clinton, there are many of the same issues with him pertaining to dynastic politics (incidentally, he also used private email as Governor of Florida, but did not set up his own server).

We know that Hollywood with its deep pool of talent, resources and money has never managed to deliver a sequel that lives up to the original; so rather than settling for a Clinton or Bush sequel that will never change the narrative, let’s use the vote to script a bold and original story in 2016.

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Obama’s Global War on Terror

“Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it.” 
Rabindranath Tagore 

There is much about Obama’s leadership or lack thereof that I remain critical of; by no means am I a fan. In fact, in my eyes he has thus far failed the test of leadership, feeling more like an erudite college professor and less like leader of the Western world. Given his predecessor's shoot from the hip mentality and the unmitigated disasters that followed, it was clear when Obama took office that America’s moral high ground, diplomatic clout and financial muscle were all in shreds. It was not so much that America was no longer a global superpower, but that the world had changed dramatically while America seemed to have moved backwards. America seemed to have lost its way with two messy long wars and the deepest financial crisis since the Great Depression. She felt rudderless, leaderless and isolated on the world stage. By this time it was also clear that the overthrow of Saddam had no relevance in fighting the war on terrorism and had made the world a less safe place. However, one thing Bush was right about is that there was a global war on terrorism; and every nation needed to get involved. But Bush was incapable of leading the world and bringing them on board to fight this common threat, instead choosing to distract and further divide the world with an unnecessary war and with his 'my way or the highway' attitude.

Obama has been called an apologist because after he was elected he chose to show a softer and more cerebral side of American foreign policy. Being the only President who has actually lived abroad, perhaps he uniquely understood that the need of the hour was to apologize for America’s many misguided foreign policy endeavors, especially in the Muslim world. However, what he did not seem to grasp is that apologies alone would not rid us of the real evil we are facing. In trying to contrast his legacy from his war-mongering predecessor, he also went too far in the other direction, choosing to lead from the back. He failed to understand that America still needs to lead, and that pushing allies to take the lead is not the same thing. It has taken him a while to understand that you cannot right the wrongs of the past; you can only chart a course for the future that avoids the same failed policies and pitfalls. So instead of a wiser, nobler and morally stronger America he has until now offered an awkward, embarrassed and trepidatious America. Syria is a case in point where, while right to not intervene at the outset and not unilaterally, he should have acted once Assad crossed his own “red line.” America setting an ultimatum and then failing to act sets a very dangerous precedent.

It is the rapid rise of ISIL that has finally woken Obama up to the fact that war, while still a last resort, is going to be necessary. I believe he will not make the same mistakes that Bush did in America’s last global war on terror. Obama understands two things that his predecessor was unable to grasp. First, in the 21st century America is no longer the unequivocal superpower with the economic might it once had, to go it alone, and expect the rest of the world to fall in line based on diplomatic pressure or threats to cut US aid. Today there are many nations who can play benefactor and use their own cheque books to help countries resist US will. Second, he understands that no country can bestow democracy upon another, and especially not through a military invasion. The people of that country must be willing to fight and die for their freedom, much like they did in India, South Africa and will in Tunisia and Egypt in the years to come. All American military intervention can achieve, like it did in Iraq, is to put a temporary Band-Aid on a dangerous power vacuum that it leaves behind. To this end, he is aware that almost all the countries in the Middle East are run by dictators (many supported, armed and propped up by America). These countries have no civil institutions, public infrastructure or independent judiciaries that are the necessary bedrocks of democracy and take generations to build.

Even today Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are the largest financiers (some state funded but mostly by private individuals and religious institutions) and potent breeding ground for terrorists. The fact is that all these countries have brutal and oppressive regimes with no press, religious or personal freedoms. In all three countries, successive US administrations have supported dictators, giving them carte blanche and billions in military aid. So it is not hard to imagine why the average person on the street does not feel thankful to the American people for their generosity – and is it any wonder that they produce the largest number of terrorist recruits? Obama is acutely aware that this type of US intervention, particularly in the Arab and Muslim world, has failed miserably. So instead of choosing to apply the definition of insanity, he decided to stay on the sidelines in Egypt, Syria and most of the other North African internal conflicts. If Obama attacked Syria with the aim of removing Assad (not the same as punishing him for crossing the red line) we would likely have ended up with a messier Iraq, with the same sectarian strife, or at best an American puppet administration which would have been more hated than Assad.

Obama’s strategy to use US military support as a bargaining tool to get rid of Nouri Al-Maliki, and replace him with a unity government in Iraq, was absolutely correct. Whether this new government will succeed or not is hard to say, but it certainly has a much greater chance based purely on the proportional representation it now has from all three sects. More importantly, by doing this Obama took away the most potent recruiting tool ISIS had - discontent Iraqi Sunnis.  Al-Maliki had been systematically removing Sunni’s and replacing them with incompetent cronies in an effort to create a Shiite dominated Iraq. Now, with US air and military support, the new unity government has actually re-enlisted the same disillusioned army men who ran at the first sign of trouble from Sunni dominated Mosul, and a strong Kurd army is fighting to save a unified Iraq and not just defending Kurdish territory.

So while there is no doubt Obama badly fumbled and delayed in leading this fight, now that he is in it, he has also shown a shrewd understanding of the region by getting support of the most important allies he needs to fight this war. The US-led coalition launched with active participation from the militaries of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UAE and Bahrain, as well as publicly stated support from the governments in Oman, Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon and Qatar. So far the United Kingdom, France, Netherlands and Belgium have also contributed fighter jets and other allies are lining up to offer everything from training to equipment. In contrast, when Bush and Cheney rushed into Iraq there was a sum total of four countries in their collation that had active military involvement. The US with 148,000 and the UK with 45,000 troops provided the lion’s share. Australia contributed 2,000 and Poland 194 soldiers (Source: Wikipedia). Not a single Arab nation sent troops and no other major European or Asian power was involved. In fact, America's oldest allies like France, Germany, and New Zealand were strongly opposed to the Iraq invasion.

This is the fundamental difference in Obama’s global war on terror. Obama understands not only that America must lead this fight, but also that unless America can get the Arab and Muslim world to recognise the threat posed by this cancer and actively participate in it we cannot win this war. The only question that remains is whether Obama will have the resolve to send in US and Arab ground troops that will no doubt be needed to finally defeat this enemy and finish the military aspect of this war.

NOTE:  This article was updated on 9th October, 2014.

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Snowden and The American Tragedy


“The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.” 
Patrick Henry 

Snowden has become a big embarrassment for America. It is not so much his information leaks about America’s post 9/11 spying mechanisms that have been awkward, but the US’s increasingly humiliating global chase to capture this one man. 

There was a time when the world and almost every country within it shook with trepidation or at the very least publicly showed a great deal of respect, when America roared about anything at all. Today, the picture we are seeing is vastly different. Forget respect. Country after country is also showing no fear, even when being threatened. And we are not talking about Iran or Venezuela here, but places like Hong Kong, with whom the US has great relations, strong diplomatic ties and even an extradition treaty. Russia, with whom the US shares a love-hate relationship, usually ends up co-operating in such matters, but not today. Even tiny countries like Ecuador and Iceland are showing the US the middle finger by entertaining Snowden’s asylum request and refusing to kow tow to US demands and threats of withdrawing trade benefits.

Seeing the world react this way, most Americans will be quick to blame Obama for being a weak leader who has been soft on Iran, Syria and on terror. They will claim that he has made America look feeble. Perhaps it is true that he has tried to show a softer side of America in order to counteract the shoot from the hip years of Bush-Cheney. His words might have done this, but if you look purely at his actions around his national security decisions, they tell a different story. Consider his vastly expanded use of drones, a unilateral raid on the soil of a sovereign democratic nation (to kill Bin Laden) and his expansion of the NSA domestic spying program; all show him to be as hawkish as his predecessors. But it is too easy to put the blame squarely on Obama’s shoulders, even though he does share part of the blame for America’s growing impotence in the world today.

The reality is that America’s response and particularly her actions in the years following the attacks on 9/11 are entirely responsible for her lack of standing and respect today. On the 11th of September 2001, the majority of the world shared in America’s pain and stood shoulder to shoulder with her. There was unanimous global support for American retaliation in going after the Taliban regime in Afghanistan for providing safe haven to Al Qaeda. Nobody questioned the justification for this war; in fact most nations supported it, and it was sanctioned by the UN barely a few months after the first American and British boots were on the ground. But it was Cheney and Bush’s obsession with Saddam and their subsequent unilateral actions for their War on Terror, many in violation of International Law and the Geneva Convention, that led to America losing the moral high ground and respect it had earned for more than a century. Under Bush’s leadership the world witnessed a great superpower turn into a powerful bully that turned a deaf ear to everyone, including steadfast and lifelong allies. Now, a little over a decade later, America is witnessing the realities and outcomes that have resulted from Cheney’s knee-jerk reactions and secret government decisions made in those fear filled months and fear-mongering years after 9/11.

If I were to describe a country that operated a detention center that is located on foreign soil, simply to allow it to be outside the jurisdiction of their courts and legal processes. A place where anyone can be held indefinitely and without charges filed against them. A country that allowed warrantless wiretapping on its own citizens. One that set up detention centers across the globe for the purposes of using torture and other interrogation techniques, like water boarding. A country that believes it can use drones to hunt down and kill anyone, on any sovereign soil, without burden of proof. A country that passed opaque and far reaching laws that allow secret courts to make secret decisions that will never see light of democratic process. A country that was willing to allow its domestic surveillance programs to collect unlimited amounts of communication data on its own people, without any probable cause; and one that claimed to do all this in the name of protecting its citizens - what country would come to your mind? Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Syria, Burma, China, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen…

Only through a combination of press leaks, public outrage, some congressional oversight and whistleblowers have we been able to piece together the extent of the secret decisions and frightening overreach made by our government in the name of security, in the years after 9/11. Snowden’s disclosures about the NSA’s massive domestic spying program are just the latest revelation to come to light. It is now abundantly clear that the vast majority of the decisions our government has made do not uphold America’s ideals, beliefs and democratic principles. The most distressing part is that each new disclosure serves to further weaken and erode America’s already diminished moral standing in the world, because her actions continue to be consistently incongruous with her stated character and ideals. I think someone once said that we see a person’s true character in times of adversity. This is not cause for celebration or an opportunity to point fingers; in fact quite the opposite. America for all her bad has been a responsible global citizen, and the most compassionate superpower in history, doing more to help the world than any other nation. Nobody is perfect but in the grand scheme of things America has always overwhelmingly stood for good, for democracy, for transparency and for rule of law and helped promote this cause across the globe. Today, it is hard for America to claim that China and Russia are thwarting the rule of law when lawyers in the White House have spent years writing-up legal arguments to defend US invasions of foreign lands, without any threat or provocation or UN backing. Creating new legal frameworks to justify drone strikes in any country, against anyone that the US deems a terrorist and without the burden of proof. Even justifying the murder of their citizens without any due process.

The America that Bush and Cheney created and Obama has failed to dismantle has clearly lost its way. Bush and Cheney’s America trembled and succumbed to fear in the face of great adversity; taking the easier and more slippery path to safeguarding national interests. They chose the path travelled by nations that feign democracy and do undemocratic things to protect their people and beliefs, justifying it in the name of greater good. The America I knew and have respected was made of sterner stuff. She would have resolved to defeat terrorism by further upholding liberty and justice, while protecting her fierce democratic ideals and freedoms, above all else. By choosing this path Bush, Cheney and Obama have achieved the opposite. They have weakened America and thereby made an already dangerous world a far less safe place.