Obsidian Wings

Is Afghanistan Worth It?

by publius

I shudder to write this -- but put me in the George Will camp (cough, ack, glurrp) on Afghanistan.  (Sorry, that's a tough phrase to get out).  I have two basic reasons:  (1) The goal of preventing Taliban control isn't a sufficient reason to stay; and (2) Even if it is, our tactics are accomplishing exactly the reverse -- that is, we're empowering the Taliban by staying.

First, the goal.  Joe Klein writes:

[T]he U.S. has a real national security interest in Afghanistan. We don't want to see it revert to its former status--run by Taliban extremists who provide a safe haven for Al Qaeda[.]

But there are two analytically distinct points embedded in there.  Even assuming the Taliban regains control (which I would abhor), it doesn't necessarily follow that they would turn around and provide a safe haven.

To me, that's the million dollar question.  What exactly is the evidence that the Taliban would provide a safe haven?  Unless such evidence exists, I don't see any national security interest whatsoever in Afghanistan, with or without the Taliban.

Via our own Eric Martin, Stephen Biddle is skeptical that al Qaeda would be welcomed back.  But even if they were, he thinks we could disrupt them in ways short of massive occupation.  Stephen Walt has also been skeptical, but Peter Bergen disagrees.  In any event, this is the key debate.  Advocates of staying need to demonstrate why these safe havens would re-emerge, especially in light of the enormous costs that the Taliban has incurred in the past for housing al Qaeda.

But even assuming that preventing Taliban re-rule is a legitimate national security interest, there's still the question of tactics.  To be blunt, we seem to be helping the Taliban more than hurting them.

Via CFR, I just read this white paper from Thomas Ruttig (pdf), and it makes several important points.  First, and most importantly, there's really no such thing as "the insurgency" or "the Taliban."  In reality, the "insurgency" is an extremely diverse band of various groups and tribes with wildly varying agendas.  In fact, many have exclusively local agendas, and could care less about the West.

In addition, Ruttig makes the point that the insurgency is growing because (1) the national and local governments are corrupt and are excluding these groups; and (2) resentment is growing from Western "occupation" and civilian casualties.  Al Qaeda-style ideology has very little to do with it.

The upshot, then, is we seem to be pursuing a course that's exacerbating both of these causes.  Our escalation will inevitably lead to more civilian casualties (and will stir anti-occupation resentment).  And our support for Kabul and its local affiliates will drive more and more disaffected people into the broader insurgency.

The whole thing just seems completely misguided to me, on almost every conceivable level.  Which, I suppose, is what makes it so attractive to Bill Kristol.

[UPDATE:  Malou Innocent at Cato adds more on these points.  Worth checking out.]

Dangerous Misunderstandings

by publius

Daniel Larison has an excellent post on the Russian submarines that appeared within a few hundreds miles of our coast.  You should read the whole thing.

To me, his post illustrates one of the most dangerous, recurring problem in international relations -- interpreting defensive maneuvers as offensive ones.  This misinterpretation occurs when we focus on the actions of only one country, and ignore the actions of the other one.

Think about Russia.  As a friend of mine once explained, the guiding principle of postwar Russian/Soviet strategy was to never again be invaded.  Having been scarred by the Germans, the country (understandably) wanted a buffer zone around its borders.  This was a big motivation behind its Cold War tactics -- and that thinking lingers on today.   

With that in mind, look at recent events through Russian eyes (and I'm borrowing heavily from Larison here).  We've invaded two countries around Russia, and bombed an ally.  We've buddied up with their former satellites, and incorporated some of them into NATO (which is a military alliance).  We trained Georgia, which then got trigger-happy.

I'm not saying that justifies the subs.  I'm just saying that we shouldn't lose our cool.  After, through Russian eyes, we can quite plausibly be seen as a threat.  And it's important to remember this context in other debates such as the proposed missile shield.

This same dynamic exists, I would argue, with both the United States and Iran, and Israel and Iran.  Iran has watched two bordering regimes fall; it has massive hostile armies on its borders; it sees prominent US voices calling for regime change; it gets called Axis of Evil; it reads about potential Israeli strikes; etc., etc. 

Again, I'm not defending Iran.  I'm just saying that we should keep some perspective.  Iran likely views its nuclear program as defensive action against perceived aggressors.  Too many people in the United States and Israel see it as a quest for offensive aggression. 

If I'm right, the best hope for stopping Iran from going nuclear is to stop threatening it.  That also opens up space for reformers.  None of it may not be enough, but threats of force will only accelerate the process.

For this reason, it's good that Obama won.  Even though the Iranian regime is completely despicable, he's taking the right approach.  God only knows what McCain would be saying right now.

What's Driving Unrest In Iran?

by publius

One last observation about Iran...  A couple of weeks ago, we had a good thread on Marx.  One point I made was that the most persuasive part of Marx (to me) was his argument that economic interests generally drive events.  That doesn't justify his normative proposals (which are wrong, and require humans to be something other than humans).  But his descriptive observations seem more persuasive to me.

Iran is a good example.  The post-election controversies seem to fit pretty well within Marx's historical framework.  The basic argument would be that Iran's unrest stems from economic problems.  The Iranian economy is in very poor shape, and the regime is considered to be a contributing factor to the poor economy.  In this respect, the regime is not useful in an economic sense.

Thus, when the sham election happened, it gave people an outlet to protest.  The election was the spark.  But the ultimate cause (the dry forest that was susceptible to fire, if you will) was Iran's economic problems.  It's more romantic, of course, to see the struggle in ideological terms as a fight for freedom and reform, etc.  But it seems more like an economic fight to me.

It's a key difference between the Chinese and Iranian regimes.  The Chinese regime also suppresses personal liberty.  But, it is seen as useful to prosperity.  China's economy has generally done pretty well lately.  Iran's regime is not perceived that way.

New Sanctions for Iran?

by publius

Momentum in Congress seems to be gaining for new sanctions against Iran that would cut off its imports of refined gasoline. As the NYT explains, Iran has lots of oil, but not enough refining capacity to meet its domestic needs. Anyway, I’m hoping someone can convince me that new sanctions are a good idea. Because they sure seem like a bad one.

To start, even if we agree that sanctions are great in theory, this type of ban would be difficult to enforce. So to the extent that causing pain is the goal, enforcement capability is a huge deal.

But problems remain, even if we assume that sanctions could be perfectly enforced. The biggie is that these sanctions seem custom tailored to strengthen the people we don’t like. Ironically enough, if you really want to undermine the hardliners, Brookings’ Suzanne Maloney suggests you should kill them with kindness. Here’s her testimony:

[C]onducting the business of diplomacy does not confer an official American seal of approval on [the regime]. . . . To the contrary, the Iranian regime in fact derives its scant remaining legitimacy from its revolutionary ideology that remains steeped in anti-Americanism.

If we can successfully draw Iran’s current leadership into serious discussion..., negotiations with Washington would only undercut Tehran’s attempts to stoke revolutionary passions at home[.] Negotiations could also play a powerful role in exacerbating the divisions within the regime and clarifying the prospective path forward available to Iranian leaders who are capable of compromise.

I mean, if I were the regime, I would be praying for new American sanctions. It’s not only distracting from the “election,” sanctions would actually reinforce the regime’s legitimacy. Sanctions would also put reformers in a very difficult internal position. I mean, how many successful politicians do you know who adopted the “we should give in to the hated foreigners’ threats and attacks” platform?

In short, I’m not sure sanctions accomplish anything other than helping the people we would be trying to hurt.

But… maybe that’s a feature, not a bug. After all, if you’re convinced that negotiations with Iran are hopeless – if you’re convinced that military action is required – then the Iranian reformers are not your friend. You need hostility between the countries to escalate until there’s an acceptable pretext for more punitive measures.

In this way, the Iranian hardliners and the more extreme neocon Iran hawks have a symbiotic relationship. The regime needs belligerent foreign threats to maintain their own legitimacy. And the hawks need a hardliner regime that will justify their policy preferences, and that will reinforce their own ideological position towards Iran.

They make a really cute couple.

The Revolutionary Non-Revolution

by publius

Man oh man, this is a good point.  Citing Ali Gharib, Spencer Ackerman writes:

Ali Gharib makes the stellar point that what’s going on in Iran is reaffirmation of the Islamic Revolution, not a repudiation of it.  . . .  If Gharib is right, then what’s unfolding is a measure of reconciling the revolution with greater openness.  . . . If they can harmonize the Islamic Revolution with those concepts, they’ll have done themselves and the world a great service.

The protests are seeking change from “within the narrative” so to speak.  And reconciling the Islamic Revolution to more openness would indeed be a great example to the world.  One recurring problem in recent years – both here and abroad – is the equation of a particular interpretation of Islam with Islam itself.  But other, less hardline, interpretations are possible – ones that more open, more fair to women, etc. 

Think about it – we don’t equate Christianity with James Dobson’s specific version of it.  Just like Christianity, Islam can be interpreted in different ways.  And these alternative interpretations – ones that fully accept, and work within, the tenets of Islam – present far more dangerous challenges to militant fundamentalist movements than Western happy-talk about democracy does.

And this rhetorical strategy – working “within the narrative” – extends far beyond the streets of Tehran.  For instance, I’ve always thought the best way to bring conservative Christians around to gay marriage (or young ones, anyway) is to ground the argument within Christianity – to work within the religious narrative.

Attacking the religion broadly isn’t going to accomplish anything other than to harden opposition.  But, if you can convince evangelicals, etc. that supporting gay marriage is fully consistent with the Christian message of love, tolerance, empathy, etc., then it’s no longer such a threatening boogeyman to them.  I mean, think about it.  Jesus didn’t spend his time hanging out with the people enforcing rigid rules of morality.  He hung out with people who had faced discrimination by the larger public.  He embraced them, healed them, etc.

That’s not exactly how the old-guard evangelical leaders roll though.  My hunch is that James Dobson, if faced with a thirsty Samaritan woman at a well, would have chased her off screaming “we don’t associate with you people – everyone, please send me money so I can help drive these wretched Samaritans away from our water.”

Cyberwar for Beginners

by publius

Via Wired and Dear Mister Lewis, I saw this interesting "guide" that provides tips on how to help Iranian bloggers and twitterers.  Kind of puts recent events on our own blog into perspective.  Here's a sample:

Do NOT publicise proxy IP’s over twitter, and especially not using the #iranelection hashtag. Security forces are monitoring this hashtag, and the moment they identify a proxy IP they will block it in Iran....

Help cover the bloggers: change your twitter settings so that your location is TEHRAN and your time zone is GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location and timezone searches. If we all become ‘Iranians’ it becomes much harder to find them.

Don’t blow their cover! If you discover a genuine source, please don’t publicise their name or location on a website. These bloggers are in REAL danger. Spread the word discretely through your own networks but don’t signpost them to the security forces. People are dying there, for real, please keep that in mind.

Denial of Service attacks. If you don’t know what you are doing, stay out of this game.  . . . Be aware that these attacks can have detrimental effects to the network the protesters are relying on.

Do spread the (legitimate) word, it works! When the bloggers asked for twitter maintenance to be postponed using the #nomaintenance tag, it had the desired effect. As long as we spread good information, provide moral support to the protesters, and take our lead from the legitimate bloggers, we can make a constructive contribution.

(Original source of the guide has apparently been suspended).

Pictures

by publius

The Boston Globe's "Big Picture" has a photo gallery of the latest from Iran that's worth checking out (via the Lede).  Some of them are rather disturbing though.  This one, however, stood out (click for larger image):

 

The Limits of Twitter

by publius

Twitter is obviously one of the big stories to come out of the Iranian election.  And it's been a remarkable development -- no argument there.  The tweets have been inspiring and courageous.  And there's an aesthetic dimension to them that's hard to resist.

But understand... the tweets could be stopped (more on that below).  In fact, I worry that Twitter's success in Iran will create a false confidence that the Internet can't be stopped, and that people's digital voices can't be silenced.  They can -- and we should understand that keeping an open global Internet requires aggressive effort and activism.

I'm not a network guy, so techies please jump in and help me out.  But here's my understanding of why Iran could stop the tweets if they really wanted to.  In short, they could just turn off the Internet, much like Myanmar did.

From my tentative understanding, Iran's network is a lot like China's in that it's very centralized.  This post explains (and illustrates) that the Iranian Internet traffic passes through a centralized bottleneck.  (Imagine if the Holland Tunnel were the only way into Manhattan). 

With this bottleneck in place, it's easy to filter traffic.  Just like the post office could theoretically block every envelope going to San Francisco, Iran can block packets going to the IP address for "Facebook" or "Twitter."  (Great NYT article on these basics here).

So here's where "proxies" come in (and techies, please help me out here if my understanding is off).  Let's say you want to send a letter to San Francisco, but the post office doesn't allow it.  Well, if you know that some dude in Kansas would forward your letter on to San Francisco, then you could go ahead and mail your SF-bound letter, but it would appear to the post office like it's going to Kansas.

So that's how tweets are getting through.  They're essentially being sent to "middlemen" proxy servers -- which, in turn, allows the information to pass "in disguise" through the filter.  It's like a digital Underground Railroad.  (Great overview of proxies and services like Tor here).

But here's the thing -- they're only getting through because Iran has (for now) left its networks open, even though the government has apparently tried to limit bandwidth to prevent videos and pictures from getting out.

So assuming my descriptions are accurate, the point is that the Iranian government could in fact shut down the Internet, which would essentially strangle the tweets.  I'm not sure why they haven't -- maybe the PR would just be too terrible.

So, yes, so long as the Internet remains open, it will be hard to limit people's voices.  But that shouldn't disguise the depressing fact that governments exert enormous control over Internet access -- and could shut the whole thing down.  For those interested in this very theme, I'd recommend the Wu/Goldsmith book Who Controls the Internet:  Illusions of a Borderless World.

(Obviously, none of this is intended to downplay the extraordinary role Twitter and its users have played under truly frightening circumstances.  It's inspiring.  My only point is that it shouldn't give way to an excessive Internet triumphalism.  An open Internet depends on policy choices -- it's not a independently-living organism that can overcome repressive policies.)

The Tragedy in Iran

by publius

Like hilzoy, I wish I had something more profound to add to the Iran coverage.  At the moment, I'm just trying to digest everything from those with a better sense of what's happening and what it all means.

But personally speaking, the overwhelming emotion I've had is simply sadness.  It's just an incredibly sad and tragic thing to see.  It's impossible to read Andrew Sullivan's posting of images and tweets and not be both saddened and incredibly moved.  And I would love to say that this sort of brutal repression is always counterproductive.  But that's not always true.

In any event, these stories make me grateful for the stability of our own government.  In America, our political fights -- which can get quite nasty -- take place upon an invisible foundation of legitimacy and stability.  We have the luxury of ignoring this foundation and pretending it doesn't exist.  Politics is a fight for power, always -- but we are fortunate enough to fight things out within an underlying structural framework that enjoys widespread acceptance.  

It's only when you see the alternative -- when you see the cruel and brutal repression in Iran -- that our own underlying framework becomes visible.  In Iran, the fight has now spilled out beyond its predefined channels.  It now threatens to become that most fundamental of political fights -- a fight over the very foundation of government.  And historically, these fights tend to be bloody.

Anyway, I wish I could do something more -- it's hard to look on from afar and be so completely helpless.  But my thoughts obviously go out to the brave souls who are fighting -- and dying -- for a chance at a better and freer society.

The Speech - Open Thread

by publius

I'm too busy at the moment to address the speech, but that shouldn't stop you.  What'd you think?