Telling Autocrats What To Do

 Posted by  East and S.E. Asia, Foreign Policy, Middle East  1 Response »
Jul 082009
 

Let’s call it the Wilsonian myth. It’s one of the most pervasive myths in American foreign policy circles today. It is the fundamental assumption upon which both liberals and conservatives base their calls for democracy and human rights. And, unfortunately, it is completely wrong. What is it? I think the editorial in today’s New York Times on China’s most recent human rights abuses sums the myth up pretty well:

“China must ensure a transparent investigation of the violence and respect the rights of anyone who has been arrested. It must work toward political solutions that give Uighurs, Tibetans and other minority groups more autonomy over their lives. Beijing’s rulers will never achieve the stability they covet until they deal with the root causes of these problems.”

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On Iran

 Posted by  Middle East, Obama Administration  2 Responses »
Jun 182009
 

I understand the hullabaloo over the recent controversial Iranian election from the Iranians point of view. After all, the President of Iran does have real power to effect domestic and social policy (within the constraints set by the Supreme Leader and the clerics, of course, but some power nonetheless). What I don’t understand is the ruckus people in the United States have been making.
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What A Pentagon Budget Ought To Look Like

 Posted by  Fiscal Issues, Obama Administration, Terrorism, War in Iraq  No Responses »
Apr 092009
 

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates just this past week announced the details of the Obama Administration’s Department of Defense budget. For once, it isn’t the size of the budget that has made a lot of waves, but instead the details of the budget. Gates and Obama want to radically restructure the military. And while I disagree with a few of the details, in general they are right-on. Here’s a breakdown of the winners and losers of the proposed budget.
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While The Cat’s Away…

 Posted by  War in Iraq  1 Response »
Feb 272009
 

Imagine that you’re a sociologist studying childhood conflict, and you want to know what kinds of parenting techniques are most likely to calm fighting children down and get them to play nice. So you set up an experiment. You put pairs of siblings in different rooms, and then when they start to fight you have the parents enter the room and do whatever it was that you want them to do. Then you observe whether or not the parents effectively calmed the children down. But of course, simply the presence of the parent, in most cases, is enough to temporarily stop the fighting. So if you really want to know if the kids are calmed down and willing to play nice, you have to have the parent exit the room first. The presence of the parent changes the dynamic, but in a way that everyone there knows is temporary. The kids know that the parent will leave soon, and even a child who is intent on attacking his brother will usually be perfectly happy to play nice and wait for mom or dad to walk out of the room before resuming the fight.

In a nutshell, that is exactly what’s happening in Iraq right now. Continue reading »

The First Steps To A Better World

 Posted by  Israel and Palestine, Middle East  13 Responses »
Jan 142009
 

It’s past time to forget about the past, at least where the Middle East Conflict is concerned.

Of course, just by saying that, I’ve alienated 1/3 of people, 1/3 of people think I’m hopelessly naive, and 1/3 of people are saying “right on!”. But whichever category you fall in, hear me out.

In any conflict, it’s easy to get bogged down in the religious rhetoric, the historical tragedy, and the blame game. Especially in Palestine, where it’s easy to forget that anything else exists.

But at the heart of this conflict, the issues aren’t nearly so complex as they first seem. Continue reading »

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