Hillary Clinton chewed out a Congolese student for asking what “Mr. Clinton” thought about a public policy issue:

ABC’s Kirit Radia:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lost her cool Monday after a Congolese student, speaking through a translator, asked her what “Mr. Clinton” thought about a Chinese trade deal with the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“You want me to tell you what my husband thinks?” Clinton replied, clearly irked by the thought of being her husband Bill’s spokeswoman. “My husband is not secretary of state, I am,” she replied. “If you want my opinion I will tell you my opinion. I am not going to be channeling my husband.”

The only problem? Apparently the translator made a mistake and the student had wanted to know what President Obama thought of the deal. A State Department official tells ABC News the student went up to Clinton after the event and told her he was misquoted. No immediate word yet how Clinton responded.

Regardless of the error, the notion of Secretary Clinton’s deference to her husband clearly touched a nerve with America’s top diplomat. Just a week ago the former President stole his wife’s thunder when he appeared in North Korea to rescue two American journalists detained there. His trip came just as Secretary Clinton embarked on a swing through Africa she hoped would shine light on the plight of the continent.

What’s odd, unless there are two translators involved somehow, the video clearly shows the questioner speaking in English and saying “Mr. Clinton” and then the lady at the podium repeating the question — again in English — to Mrs. Clinton.

Regardless, her indignant response seems rather over-the-top for America’s chief diplomat. She could have asked for clarification before going off. (My guess would have been that the student meant “Mrs. Clinton” and it got garbled in translation to English.) Or she could have joked, “Well, you’ll have to ask him next time he’s in Kinshasha” and added “but here’s what I think.”

“Diplomacy in action,” indeed.

Jules Crittenden, Doug Mataconis and John Hinderaker all share my take, more or less, of the reaction.

All of the women commenting on this one thus far, however, stick up for Hil.

Pamela Leavey:  “As a woman who blazes her own path, I think Hillary’s response was natural.”

myiq2xu (Not a common name, so hard to guess gender other than that it’s on a blog with riverdaughter as the username A man, but one writing on a group blog with “riverdaughter” as its domain name):

This appears to be the new CDS meme – “Hillary is a mad b**ch.” They used to say she was “cold and calculating” but now she’s out of control. Exactly how do they think she should have responded to the “What does your husband thnk?” question coming from the translator?

Taylor Marsh:

As you can see in the video, Clinton was ticked off at being asked what a male leader thought, especially when her purpose in this region is to draw a bull’s eye on the rape and torture of women in the Congo.

The United States Secretary of State obviously didn’t appreciate the misogyny, which is rampant in the Congo and other African nations, born out by the questioner expecting her to “channel” a male. Assistant Secretary P.J. Crowley responded.

“The Secretary of State is going to Goma Tuesday, to draw attention to the plight of women who are victims of rape as a weapon of war” in Congo, he said. “She did react to what she heard,” Crowley explained. Even if the interpreter mixed up the translation, he said, “you can’t separate the question from the setting.”

As the Washington Post story quoted at the top reports, Congolese President Joseph Kabila has declared “zero tolerance” regarding sexual assaults and violence against women, but so far it’s just words.

There can be no doubt that Clinton came off harsh in this setting. A little righteous indignation from the most powerful female persona on the planet was in order, especially considering women in the Congo are in danger most of the hours of their waking and sleeping lives.

CNN reports that after the event Clinton and the questioner “seemed to have reached an understanding,” according to Crowley.

But seriously, you cannot bring basic human rights to women in places like the Congo if the men there don’t wake up to the respect women deserve, highlighting how far we have to go if not even the U.S. secretary of state is treated with respect.

But she was treated respectfully. A packed house had come to hear her and some nervous student whose native language isn’t English said “Clinton” when he meant “Obama.”

That said, Crowley’s point is a fair one:  “you can’t separate the question from the setting.”  It’s hardly inconceivable that she had gotten the impression during her visit thus far that she was not being treated seriously because of her sex and reacted to the question with that in mind.

When you have any number of alternatives to choose from and your opponent believes that you might actually exercise any of them, deliberate ambiguity can be a valuable negotiating tool. It preserves your options and may cause your opponent to expend resources he otherwise might not feel the need to. When you don’t have an array of alternatives or your alternatives are not credible, it’s just bluster. Which is this?

Shortly after coming to office in January, Mr Obama made an overture to Iran, saying that if it and countries like it were “willing to unclench their fists, they will find an extended hand from us”.

But Israel says Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions remain its number-one concern and in recent weeks the US has expressed dismay about Iran’s suppression of protests over disputed presidential elections.

On Monday, Mr Gates said the US offer to Iran was “not open-ended”, and added that President Obama was hoping for a response, “perhaps by the time of the UN General Assembly” in September.

Mr Barak cautioned that “no option” had been removed in its handling of Iran – suggesting military force remained a possibility – though “priority should be given still to diplomacy and sanctions”.

What are the practical alternatives? We suspended substantial trade with Iran 30 years ago. Appeals to the United Nations Security Council for additional sanctions against Iran are likely to be blocked by Russia or China. Our European allies have substantial trade with Iran which they’re unlikely to curtail as their own economies languish.

Are we going to bomb Iran? Or invade? Either course of action is likely to cause Iran’s people to rally around their government even as that government has shown signs of weakness due to internal conflict.

Coming to the negotiating table is not a dentist’s appointment. The Iranian government doesn’t need reminders. If there’s some concrete actions we’re planning to take against the Iranians, we should take them. We shouldn’t bluster.

This morning there’s an interesting op-ed in the Washington Post by three leading Russian intellectuals, urging the Obama Administration not to allow a return to realism in foreign policy between the United States and Russia to become a rubric under which “American experts serve as the “conservators” of Russian authoritarian traditionalism”:

MOSCOW — As intellectuals and liberal Russians, we have read with great interest many recommendations American experts have compiled for President Obama regarding the U.S.-Russian relationship. While there are several constructive ideas, many of these reports reflect a serious misunderstanding of the situation in Russia and the course it is following.

We object, for example, to the basic proposition of calling for a return to realpolitik because some believe that the worsening of Russian-American relations was mainly caused by Washington’s insistence on “tying policies to values.” The result, some American “realists” argue, is that the United States needs to build a new relationship with Russia based on “common interests and common threats.” Yet in blaming the Bush administration for trying to “teach” Russia about democracy, these realists appear to accept the official Russian position. In our view, America has ignored the problems of democracy and civil society in Russia, but even turning a blind eye did not prevent the breakdown in the U.S.-Russian relationship — and now Obama is essentially being asked to treat Russia as though it is incapable of democratic transformation.

While there is anti-democratic sentiment here, such feelings are not ubiquitous. In fact, nearly two-thirds of Russians would like to see the establishment of democracy and the rule of law, according to a 2008 Levada Center poll. The ruling elite oppose the development of democratic institutions, but the key is that members of the elite are more than ready to integrate into the Western world on an individually beneficial basis; they will do everything in their power to “protect” the rest of Russian society from the perils of such integration.

There is a two hundred year tradition of Russian liberals and intellectuals being out of touch with what the Russian people want. If Russians want democracy so badly, why do they elect autocrats and why are the autocrats so popular? The issue is less what Russians’ priorities are and more what their subpriorities are. I’m sure that the Russian people do want the establishment of democracy and the rule of law but I suspect they also want to put food on the table, peace and security, and even a return to some aspects of the old days when the Soviet Union was a world power. Nationalism is not a dirty word in Russia today.

It’s how they establish the relative priorities among democracy, the rule of law, economic well-being, and so on that will determine Russia’s future course.

The course of action that the authors are urging on us seems to be something along the following lines:

Brookings Institution President Strobe Talbott helpfully proposed in February that the West “should create conditions that will, over time, convince the Russians that their post-Marxist, post-Soviet, Hobbesian experiment is, in fact, unrealistic. It simply won’t work.”

I can’t help but recall that during the period in which Strobe Talbott was Ambassador-at-Large and Special Adviser to the Secretary of State on the New Independent States that the foundations of the current Russian system were laid with the assistance of a flood of Western experts. At the time I was concerned that Russian institutions had to be grown on Russian roots and that foreign grafts were unlikely to flourish. This has proven to be the case and I suspect it will remain to be true.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that we have the patience or, honestly, the interest to follow the course of action prescribed by the authors that will allow native Russian institutions to create the conditions that will lead to a more benign Russia.

Stephen Walt repeats the popular lament (and specifically Gareth Porter’s) that the United States Government employs a ridiculously small number of Pashto speakers and that this negatively impacts us in Afghanstan.   Pat Porter agrees but issues some important caveats:

1) Languages are extremely hard to develop at a sufficient level. Except for the most outrageously talented, most folk can study intensively for years and develop the language skills equivalent to a reasonably intelligent ten year old. Brokering deals amongst local leaders and conducting skilled diplomacy presumably demands skills far beyond this;

2) Prime Minister Anthony Eden was one of those outrageously talented people,  who spoke Farsi and Arabic, had a First Class Honours degree from Oxford in Oriental Languages (which was probably even harder than Cinema Appreciation). None of this was enough to prevent his blunder in the Suez invasion of 1956. In other words, there is no substitute for good strategic judgement;

3) Other than foreign mercenaries, most British troops were pretty fluent in the local language against certain mutinous subjects between 1775 and 1783;

4) How do you say ‘we are destroying your opium crop’ in Pashto? If policies are misguided, all the vocabulary and nuanced knowledge in the world may not win over the population.

Quite.

Beyond that, by the time we get people sufficiently trained in Pashto to be useful, they’ll be able to command far more money outside government — or as government contractors.  Not to mention that, unless we plan to remain for decades, it’s a skill set that with an expiration date in terms of the utility of having legions of them.

The BBC is reporting that Iran will attend the international conference on Afghanistan to be held next week:

Iran has agreed to attend a US-backed international conference on Afghanistan next week, but Washington played down the prospect of a high-profile meeting.

While US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is also due to attend, the state department said she had no plans for a “substantive” meeting with Iran.

Iran’s foreign ministry said it had not yet decided whom it would send to the one-day conference at The Hague.

Both countries have an interest in a stable Afghanistan.

“We will participate in the Afghanistan meeting,” said Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi Ghashghavi.

“At what level, I don’t know yet, but we will participate.”

Iran has a number of different interests in Afghanistan. The country has a serious problem with drug addiction, fueled at least in part by cheap opium coming across the border with Afghanistan.

Starting with an area on which there’s likely to be agreement is good. One step at a time.

Anne Applebaum makes a solid point in the Washington Post this morning:

Any president can legitimately call for a fresh start in his relations with the world, and none more so than this president, who replaces an unpopular predecessor. Sooner or later, however, Barack Obama will also have to make hard decisions about regimes that oppose U.S. policy for reasons deeper than dislike of George W. Bush. If Russia persists in its occupation of Georgia, do we accept it? If Russia uses its energy policy to blackmail Europe, do we go along with that, too?

The rest of the world is no different. It’s a fine thing to open diplomatic relations with Iran or Syria — I’ve always thought it extremely stupid that we have no embassy, and thus no resident intelligence officer, in Tehran — as long as we remember that talking itself is not a solution: Sometimes more “dialogue” reveals deeper differences. It’s also a fine thing for the president to issue greetings on the occasion of the Persian new year, but that might not dampen the popularity of Iran’s nuclear program among both adherents and opponents of its current government. What then?

I’ve been critical of the notion of a “reset” in U. S.-Russian relations, largely because I think the metaphor is extraordinarily inapt. We have no default position with respect to Russia. You can’t return to a nonexistent initial state.

I’m not antithetical to the Obama Administration. However, I would like to know the answers to some of Anne Applebaum’s questions. I know what “peregruzka” means. It isn’t “reset”. What does “reset” mean?

Yesterday was Nowrūz, the Iranian New Year’s, a spring holiday whose celebration by Iranian peoples goes back more than 2,500 years. President Obama sent a televised message to the Iranians in recognition of the day:

There’s nothing particularly revolutionary or even novel about that. President Bush made a couple of Nowrūz messages. Certainly, the tone of President Obama’s message was somewhat different than those of President Bush, whose messages were either intended for an Iranian-American audience or a stab at dividing the people of Iran from the Iranian government.

I didn’t mention President Obama’s message yesterday because I wanted to wait for the other shoe to drop. Now it has and so I will. Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran and the most powerful individual in the country, has responded to the message:

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s supreme leader rebuffed President Barack Obama’s latest outreach on Saturday, saying Tehran was still waiting to see concrete changes in U.S. policy.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was responding to a video message Obama released Friday in which he reached out to Iran on the occasion of Nowruz, the Persian new year, and expressed hopes for an improvement in nearly 30 years of strained relations.

Khamenei holds the last word on major policy decisions, and how Iran ultimately responds to any concrete U.S. effort to engage the country will depend largely on his say.

In his most direct assessment of Obama and prospects for better ties, Khamenei said there will be no change between the two countries unless the American president puts an end to U.S. hostility toward Iran and brings ”real changes” in foreign policy.

”They chant the slogan of change but no change is seen in practice. We haven’t seen any change,” Khamenei said in a speech before a crowd of tens of thousands in the northeastern holy city of Mashhad.

In his video message, Obama said the United States wants to engage Iran, but he also warned that a right place for Iran in the international community ”cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization.”

Khamenei asked how Obama could congratulate Iranians on the new year and accuse the country of supporting terrorism and seeking nuclear weapons in the same message.

The full text of President Obama’s speech is here. He doesn’t mention nuclear weapons; The Supreme Leader’s remarks are a non sequitur as far as President Obama’s message is concerned.

I’m in favor of negotiating with Iran but if the Obama Administration is under the misapprehension that we don’t have active ongoing formal negotiations with the Iranian government because of the recalcitrance of the Bush Administration they are seriously mistaken. Every American administration since the revolution that overthrew the Shah in 1979 has done or attempted some back channel negotiations with Iran. That includes the George W. Bush Administration. Occasionally, the Iranians have opened some back channel negotiations with us. Occasionally, our overtures have been rebuffed by the Iranians.

The reason that we don’t have ongoing formal negotiations with the Iranian government is that it’s difficult. As an illustration of how difficult it is, when President Obama announced his willingness to begin negotiating with the Iranian government without preconditions, they responded with a list of their preconditions.

This latest incident in which President Obama extends an olive branch which the Iranian leader shoves back is yet another instance. And that he would bring up a list of old scores as preconditions for talks is shrewd bargaining. Why negotiate when you can get what you want as a condition for coming to the negotiating table?

Iran continues to play a weak hand well while we play a strong hand badly. If we’re going to achieve results that are mutually acceptable through negotiations with Iran, we’re going to need to be much cannier negotiators with Iran than we have been.

Yesterday there was a development on the foreign policy front that I found interesting and I thought I might throw it open for discussion here. During a gathering of NATO foreign ministers Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested that Iran be invited to a high-level conference on Afghanistan to be held later this month:

BRUSSELS, March 5 — In the Obama administration’s first specific overture to Iran, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that the Islamic republic should be invited to a high-level conference on Afghanistan later this month being organized under U.S. auspices.

The meeting would offer Clinton her first face-to-face encounter with her Iranian counterpart, even as the administration confronts Iran over its links to terrorist groups and its nuclear program. Throughout her tour of the Middle East and Europe this week, Clinton has mixed tough talk about Iranian behavior with expressions of hope that areas of cooperation can be found, frequently citing Afghanistan.

I see this as a wholly advantageous move but I’d be happy to hear counter-arguments.

I don’t believe that war with Iran is in U. S. interests: unless you advocate a war with, essentially, exterminatory levels of force, we can’t achieve the objectives we’d like to see and are more than likely to bolster the domestic support for the current regime. We’ve put in place about as much in the way of a sanctions regime against Iran as we’re likely to get without a lot more cooperation from Russia than we’ve seen recently on the subject.

That means that diplomacy is one of the very few remaining tools at hand for resolving any of the many concerns we have about Iran.

The U. S. and Iranian interests in Afghanistan are largely congruent: neither one of us want to see the Taliban return to power there. There’s been quiet cooperation between the United States and Iran with respect to Afghanistan in the recent past:

In the lead-up to the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the United States and Iran were involved in back-channel discussions over ways in which the Iranians could use their influence to facilitate the invasion and help topple the Taliban. After all, Iran — a Persian and Shiite power — is enormously threatened by the empowerment of hard-line Sunni extremists across its eastern frontier, and has actively supported the Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance in Afghanistan to counter the Taliban’s rise. Similarly, the Iranians were enormously threatened by Saddam Hussein’s hostile Sunni regime to Iran’s west. So after 9/11, Iran had an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone: It could act as enabler for a U.S. invasion in Afghanistan to remove the Taliban regime, and could use its Shiite allies in Iraq to facilitate the U.S. invasion of Iraq to topple Hussein. Though these U.S.-Iranian back-channel communications over Afghanistan and Iraq were kept quiet, they did end up setting a precedent for cooperation between Washington and Tehran.

Afghanistan expert Elizabeth Rubin has pointed out that, despite Iran’s more recent cooperation with the Taliban, “in the big picture the Iranians do not want the Taliban back.” Former Afghan diplomat Mazood Aziz has commented:

“Iran is going to be one of the key pillars of our strategy which is going to help resolve this issue. Iran has the potential to be extremely helpful.” But he adds: “Discussions and talks are one thing; how to go about implementing cooperation [with Iran] is another.”

I’ve been skeptical about the Obama Administration’s willingness to pre-concede things that I think would better serve as bargaining chips merely to get parties to come to the bargaining table as I was critical of the Bush Administration on the same grounds. So, for example, I share my friend Mark Safranski’s concern about the speed with which the Obama Administration has offered reconstruction aid to the Palestinians and their willingness to scrap missile defense plans in Eastern Europe.

An invitation to Tehran to participate in a high-level meeting on Afghanistan constitutes an extremely minor concession if any at all and in my view it’s best to begin negotiations with matters on which both parties have substantial agreement.

Andrew Sullivan is bemused to find himself on Forbes‘ list of “The 25 Most Influential Liberals In The U.S. Media” since he considers himself a conservative.  He posts a reader email that muses on this fact:

Did you notice how many people on the list were seemingly chosen not for their writing or their politics, but rather their identity? Oprah is a liberal because she is black, Hitch is a liberal because he is atheist, and you are a liberal because you are gay. These are not just things that are mentioned in the list — they are the primary reasons given which, coupled with any support at all for Obama in the past election, set your name in stone as a liberal one. I suspect that a few of the choices for that list say much more about the Forbes writers’ politics than it does about yours.

Andrew agrees, observing, “What it mainly tells you is that conservatism is degenerate. But we knew that already.”  (Unsolicited tip: If one’s goal is to defend the notion that you’re a conservative, frequently writing things like “conservatism is degenerate” might be a tad counterproductive. )

Regardless, here’s the rationale Forbes gives for rating Sully as a liberal:

A granddaddy of Washington blogging and a former editor of The New Republic, he clings unconvincingly to the “conservative” label even after his fervent endorsement of Obama. His advocacy for gay marriage rights and his tendency to view virtually everything through a “gay” prism puts him at odds with many on the right.

Fervent endorsement of a liberal for the presidency and staunch support for a public policy position that’s not only hated by most conservatives but that even liberal Democrats running for office — including Obama! — won’t endorse strikes me as a reasonable enough justification.

How about the other two questionable liberals identified by Sully’s reader?

Vociferously atheistic, Hitchens, who styles himself a “radical,” will likely be aghast to find himself on this list. This prolific, but never less than eye-catching, author has supported the war on terror as enthusiastically as he has excoriated Sarah Palin.

[...]

Oprah makes this list because her status as an American cultural and racial icon gives her a uniquely influential position to mold political debate in the Obama era.

Again, both supported Obama’s candidacy for president, one enthusiastically so.  Hitch is a self-described Leftist who’s so far to the left on most issues that he’s off the radar screen of American politics.   Oprah’s politics are largely opaque but she hosts a touchy-feely television show and hosts Obama rallies. That’s probably close enough to earn her a “liberal” tag.

The labels “liberal” and “conservative” are not particularly useful these days, if they ever have been.  Sullivan and Hitchens are conservative on some issues, liberal on others.   Sullivan thinks of himself as a conservative, while Hitchens thinks of himself is a Radical or a Leftist or something else.  I don’t know how Oprah thinks of herself and don’t much care.

But it’s reasonable enough, given a bimodal choice, for Forbes to stick these three people on the “Liberal” side for the purposes of a linkbait feature.   Here, by the way, is their own definition:

Broadly, a “liberal’ subscribes to some or all of the following: progressive income taxation; universal health care of some kind; opposition to the war in Iraq, and a certain queasiness about the war on terror; an instinctive preference for international diplomacy; the right to gay marriage; a woman’s right to an abortion; environmentalism in some Kyoto Protocol-friendly form; and a rejection of the McCain-Palin ticket.

In this post, Andrew does a good job of responding to these points one-by-one, showing that his views are rather complicated and, moreover, the list is rather bizarre.   Indeed, while I consider myself, broadly speaking, conservative, Forbes could well cast me as a liberal on several of those fronts.  Alas, I’m not influential enough to merit categorization either way.

Barack Obama has been president for more than 24 hours now.  America is once again beloved by one and all.  Hubris and overreach are things of the past, as the inmates of Gitmo have been freed and the troops are all home from Iraq, participating in rebuilding the infrastructure at home.   Or, certainly, change is in the air.

As we wait for the Obama administration to settle in and finish whatever remains of the above tasks, we continue our look at the post-Bush era and Thomas Barnett’s forthcoming Great Powers: America and the World After Bush.  Rather than continuing a chapter-by-chapter treatment, today’s installment will look at Chapter 5: “The Diplomatic Realignment: Rebranding the Team of Rivals” and Chapter 6, “The Security Realignment: Rediscovering Diplomacy, Defense, and Development.”

We need a rethink our grand strategy, which Barnett defines as a “diplomatic approach to shaping this age.”  Because of our rule as the global Leviathan, it should be “mostly about trying to shape every other state’s grand strategy.”   Our main problem at the moment is “unreasonable expectations for immediate success.”

Continued at New Atlanticist:  America and the World After Bush: Diplomacy and Security

I missed President Bush’s farewell address last evening, as I was otherwise detained at the British ambassador’s residence listening to Dr. Henry Kissinger deliver the Atlantic Council’s annual Makins lecture.  It was, I suspect, a good trade.

I’ve been blogging up a storm about the speech this morning at New Atlanticist.

In “Kissinger: Iran Diplomacy More Than Just Talk,” I bring the sad news that, while sitting down and chatting with our adversaries is a good idea, it’s a bit more difficult than it sounds.

In response to a question from Boston Globe foreign policy reporter Farah Stockman, who asked him for creative solutions to our nuclear standoff with Iran along the lines of the Nixon administration’s opening to China, Kissinger quipped that they didn’t simply hop on an airplane one day and begin talks.   Instead, it was “a three year project” that was “developed slowly and carefully.”   The real breakthrough “did not come at the negotiating table” as a result of his considerable charm and diplomatic brilliance but rather in seeing the strategic opportunity three years earlier presented by the massing of 42 Soviet divisions on the Manchurian border.

In “Kissinger’s Formula: Goal + Capability + Staying Power,” I observe,

If brevity is the soul of wit, perhaps simplicity is the soul of strategy.  A theme that Kissinger returned to over and again during his talk is simultaneously obvious and overlooked.   For every policy issue, the great statesman told us, we must consider three aspects:  Our goal, our capabilities toward acheiving that goal, and our staying power.

This is, of course, International Relations 101.  Yet, if we look at how foreign policy is actually practiced, we will generally see that at least one of these facets is ignored.

Finally (for now, at least), in “Henry Kissinger: Optimist!” we get a surprisingly rosy view of the future to compensate for decidedly dark view of the present,

If we play our cards right, we are about to “enter an extraordinarily creative period.”

For the first time in living memory, we have an international great power consensus on the major goals, albeit with differences in how to go about achieving them.  With respect to the global financial crisis, “no major country believes they benefit from the crisis or deliberately undermining the international system.”   Further, the crisis is in at least one way a blessing: with resources shrinking, “no country believes it can solve its own problems” without international cooperation.   This will force states to align their priorities with others, ultimately leading to necessary restructuring of the global system.

More to follow later in the day.

AP Photo by Charles Dharapak.

Dave Schuler’s arguments and his responses to my cross-examination questions highlight three critical failings in his argument. These flaws are his preference for inertia over strategic assessment, overweighing ambiguous evidence that marginally supports his case while ignoring compelling evidence that refutes it, and a failure to account for what might be called “conditions on the ground.” I will address each in turn.

First, Dave’s insistence that the burden of proof ought to rest on me may be good debate technique, but it is poor policy analysis. As I argued in an earlier post, the burden of proof for making policy changes should not be determined by arcane rules of procedure, but rather by a fair-minded assessment of the current status of the policy. For instance, though I support gay marriage personally, I am cognizant of the fact that traditional marriage is a pretty successful policy, and that as a result gay marriage proponents bear some burden of proof to show that it will not damage the institution. In the Middle East, the reverse case obtains. America’s Middle East policy is a disaster. It cries out for change, and the burden of proof for the status quo rests firmly in those proponents of the status quo. But instead of debating the rules of the game, why not deal with reality? An argument is only as powerful as its ability to persuade.

Dave: Instead of appealing to imaginary judges applying obscure scoring rules, let’s let the readers decide. At the end of this debate, let’s poll the readers of OTB, who are, on the whole part of the best informed and most thoughtful blog community out there. Let’s ask them who they think won the debate.

Second, my claim about the burden of proof relies upon more than just positioning. Ultimately, I think this procedural debate reflects an underlying dispute about what the evidence of the case is. Dave argues the following:

I won’t deny that my motives are partly altruistic but that’s not the only reason we should want stability in the Middle East. Avoidance of oil price shocks doesn’t just benefit the United States but every country that buys oil whether they’re in South America, Africa, or Asia.

He also says,

From World War II to the promulgation of the Carter Doctrine and increased U. S. engagement with the Middle East, the countries of the region went to war with each other and European countries more than 15 times. The U. S. wasn’t a party to any of these conflicts. When the Carter Doctrine was promulgated Lebanon was engaged in a lengthy civil war, the Soviet were engaged in a war in Afghanistan, Iran had overthrown the Shah, invaded our embassy, and was holding our diplomats hostage, and relations between Iran and Iraq had already deteriorated. This deterioration culminated in the war between the two countries that took more than 800,000 lives. The entire region threatened to descend into chaos. That’s when we became involved.

Since our increased involvement there have been additional wars in the Middle East but their tempo and severity have decreased. Nothing has approached the level of tension evident in 1980 at least until the deterioration of the situation in Iraq in 2005 and 2006 following the U. S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 (don’t look to me to defend the invasion of Iraq—I opposed it).

I believe the evidence speaks clearly: the increased U. S. engagement in the region has overall been a stabilizing force.

In short, Dave believes that the Middle East is more stable now that the U.S. is more involved. He’s wrong. It isn’t. The price of oil is not more stable. And conflict has not particularly diminished.

Let’s talk about oil first. One measure of the volatility of the price of oil is to the take the standard deviation of the monthly price and divide it by the current price. There are other ways to measure how stable prices are, but they will show similar results. Between 1946 and 1972, the average monthly standard deviation in the price of oil as a percentage of the price of oil was 1.69%, demonstrating tremendous price stability. From 1973 to 1989, it was 9.41%. From 1990 to the present it is 11.07%. (spreadsheet available here)

As American involvement in the region has deepened, the price of oil has become progressively more volatile. Since the 1990-91 Gulf War prices are more volatile even than the period that cover the “oil shocks” of the 1970s. The consequences have been smaller because we are better now at hedging against volatility with reserves and future contracts, not because the price has stabilized. More American involvement correlates with increased volatility, not stability.

The same is mirrored in the security realm. Yes, there were over a dozen “wars” in the Middle East between World War II and 1980. Dave’s list includes:

1. 1948 Arab-Israeli War
2. 1956 Suez War
3. 1961-1991 Eritrean War of Independence
4. 1962-1970 North Yemen Civil War (Saudi, Egyptian regulars participated)
5. 1967 Six Day War
6. 1967 Iraq-Kuwait conflict
7. 1970 War of Attrition
8. 1970 PLO-Jordanian War (Syrian regulars participated)
9. 1973 Yom Kippur War
10. 1973 Iraq-Kuwait conflict
11. 1975-1990 Lebanon Civil War (Syrian regulars participated)
12. 1976 Iraq-Kuwait conflict
13. 1977 Libya-Egypt War
14. 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War

Several of those were pretty minor. The 1970 War of Attrition including involved no significant conventional ground forces but were instead extended artillery duels and quick, vicious air-combat operations. Three more of these “conflicts” were border spats between Iraq and Kuwait in 1967, 1973, and 1976. The 1970 PLO-Jordan War was not a sign of instability, but rather a counter-terrorism operation by the Jordanians. And in the case of the Iran-Iraq War, we quietly supported Iraq. I had never even heard of the 1977 Libya-Egypt War.

There have also been plenty of conflicts since 1980 – multiple Israeli interventions in Lebanon, insurgencies in Algeria, Egypt, and Yemen. Two Intifadas. The difference is not in the overall level of political violence, but rather in the number of large-scale, organized conflicts between Israel and its Arab neighbors. That’s where the perception comes from that the Middle East is now more peaceful.

But let’s be honest here, war has never been quite as endemic as Israeli apologists have tried to make it seem. Yes, there was conflict after decolonization in 1948. But the 1956 “war” was just a British-French-Israeli plot to seize the Suez Canal. True, from 1967 to 1973 was a period of essentially open warfare between Israel and a combination of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. But after 1973, three dynamics operated to quell that conflict. First, Israel essentially made clear its nuclear status. Second, politics in Syria and Egypt gradually transitioned from a post-colonization period of rule by populist demagogues into rule by entrenched elites with dynastic ambitions (and hence low risk tolerance). Third, the United States helped sponsor a peace agreement between Egypt and Israel and solidified it with a multi-billion dollar annual aid package. From my perspective, that makes the lack of interstate wars between Israel and its neighbors over-determined. And at this juncture, peace between Israel, Egypt, and Syria is sustained by dynamics that operate independent of American actions.

So, the price of oil is more volatile, not less, and the reduction is warfare is mostly an illusion and can be ascribed to broader trends and developments moreso than to active American diplomacy.

One last point about ambiguous evidence: Sayyid Qutb. Without getting down in the weeds, Qutb was an Egyptian intellectual who helped develop the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Egypt. He did influence al Qaeda in some ways, though the differences are more significant than the similarities from an American perspective. Qutb felt that the Muslim world was mired in poverty, weakness, and humiliation because Muslims had turned their backs on Islam. He further made a revolutionary argument that since Muslim leaders were complicit in this rejection of Islam and mainstream clerics were in the employ of these apostate leaders, it was up to righteous Muslims individually to fight for the creation of a new, pure Islamic state. Qutbism is a problem for Muslim rulers. What al Qaeda did was externalize the argument, saying that while local rulers were indeed a problem, no progress could be achieved without first defeating foreign countries that were supporting those apostate rulers – the “far enemy.”

Dave’s argument, which conflates Qutbism with bin Ladenism is at the root of the misguided nature of American foreign policy. The United States simply cannot be against Islamism as a general principle. If people want to be governed by religious law, it is none of our business. It becomes our business when their quest encourages them to attack American interest. Dave’s claims about Qutb and the Muslim Brotherhood make my case, not his. There is a powerful populist movement in the Muslim world that ought to be primarily focused on domestic reform and is instead increasingly focused on anti-American violence because of our meddling. We have essentially transformed local grievances into international terrorism.

Finally, a few words about conditions on the ground. Dave would like more contact between Americans and Middle Easterners, rather than less. Let’s discuss the face of American power. The American presence in the Middle East is ominous and provocative. It is missile strikes and renditions. Our embassies are massive concrete structures, set back from the road, with triple rings of security barriers. Our businesses operate behind barbed wire and are protected by private security. Americans travel in armed convoys and stay in secluded hotels that also feature fortress-like precautions. The Lebanon hostage crises of the 1980s, attacks on tourists since 1992 in Egypt, and the 1998 Embassy bombings have combined to create a distance between Americans and ordinary citizens in many Arab countries. We simply cannot turn the clock back to an idealized day when broad-based, informal contact was the norm. Beyond that, there are just not that many great business opportunities. Throughout the region, corruption is rife, security a challenge, language barriers remain significant. The Middle East is just not going to be a particularly promising area for American involvement in the near future.

Engagement and disengagement are not binary values. My call is not for zero presence, but rather for a diminished visibility of our role in the region. I will provide some additional thoughts in final post, but at this juncture I think it should be clearly that the case for continued involvement – as ably laid out by Dave Schuler – is ultimately seriously flawed on procedural, logical, and empirical grounds.

Pat Lang isn’t happy with the signals coming from the nascent Obama Administration about the new administration’s prospective policies with respect to the Middle East:

Words can not express my disappointment if this is the foreign policy that the Obama Administration will follow in the Middle East.

The “Abdullah Plan” is not a plan. It was a public relations stunt in its beginnings when it was exaggerated in meaning by the American media, and it remains that. Crown Prince Abdullah used to have the habit of telling visitors that if the Israelis would do this or that, and withdraw from this or that, then he would appeal to the Arab League for recognition of the State of Israel. In the atmosphere that prevailed following the failure at Camp David II, this was taken as good news by Tom Friedman who visited Abdullah then and who made this Rotary Club “pitch” into a column. Rejoicing took place in the media and at a previously scheduled meeting of the Arab League in Beirut a cornered Prince Abdullah proclaimed his “plan.” The League produced a document. Problem: The text says that when the Israelis and ALL the disputants to various issues with the Israelis resolve their differences, then the members of the League will CONSIDER recognition of Israel.

[…]

And then there is what is reported in the Times on Line piece of the supposed Dennis Ross plan for dealing with the Iranian missile and nuclear programs. He is reported to think that Russia can be persuaded to “muscle” the Iranians into giving up these programs. What would be the Russian motivation? An American cancellation of anti-Iranian missile emplacements in eastern Europe? Do we want to “outsource” our diplomacy to Russia? One must ask why the Iranians would yield to Russian pressure. They have not yielded to any other pressure.

Realism in international relations means the belief that nations have economic and security interests and act to further them. Consequently, a realistic foreign policy must recognize nations’ economic and security interests, at least as the principals see them, and negotiate agreements in which those interests are furthered.

What are the Israelis’ interests? The Saudis’? The Iranians’?

If resolving the problems in the Middle East were easy it would have been accomplished decades ago. My own opinion is that the situation in the Middle East is a wicked problem. No mutually agreeable solution is possible at all. The most that can be hoped for is arriving at a mechanism by which the principals can discuss their differences without coming to blows.

Politicians tend not to like wicked problems. They rarely prompt good campaign slogans.

In my latest for New Atlanticist, “Preconditions, Preparations, and Posturing,” I argue that Matt Yglesias, Kevin Drum, and perhaps even Nicholas Burns are misreading the now 16-month-old debate over Barack Obama’s pledge to meet “without precondition, during the first year of [his] administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea.”

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has rejected claims that talks with North Korea about dismantling its nuclear program are in trouble, saying that they are “by no means dead”:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday that North Korea’s actions to reactivate its nuclear plant did not mean an end to six-party nuclear talks but deepened Pyongyang’s isolation.

“By no means,” said Rice when asked whether North Korea’s latest actions to reactivate its plutonium-producing Yongbyon plant spelled an end to six-nation disablement negotiations.

“We have been through ups and downs in this process before,” she added.

The U.N.’s atomic agency said on Wednesday that North Korea had expelled U.N. monitors from Yongbyon and planned to start reactivating it next week, reversing a 2007 deal to scrap its atomic bomb program.

“We believe that for the North Koreans to do so, it will only deepen its isolation,” Rice told reporters on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.

Perhaps the talks are merely pining for the fjords.