Today marks the 30th anniversary of the seizing of the U. S. embassy in Tehran by factions of the revolution that overthrew the shah. President Obama has issued a statement on the occasion which I will reproduce in full here:

Thirty years ago today, the American Embassy in Tehran was seized. The 444 days that began on November 4, 1979 deeply affected the lives of courageous Americans who were unjustly held hostage, and we owe these Americans and their families our gratitude for their extraordinary service and sacrifice.

This event helped set the United States and Iran on a path of sustained suspicion, mistrust, and confrontation. I have made it clear that the United States of America wants to move beyond this past, and seeks a relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran based upon mutual interests and mutual respect. We do not interfere in Iran’s internal affairs. We have condemned terrorist attacks against Iran. We have recognized Iran’s international right to peaceful nuclear power. We have demonstrated our willingness to take confidence-building steps along with others in the international community. We have accepted a proposal by the International Atomic Energy Agency to meet Iran’s request for assistance in meeting the medical needs of its people. We have made clear that if Iran lives up to the obligations that every nation has, it will have a path to a more prosperous and productive relationship with the international community.

Iran must choose. We have heard for thirty years what the Iranian government is against; the question, now, is what kind of future it is for. The American people have great respect for the people of Iran and their rich history. The world continues to bear witness to their powerful calls for justice, and their courageous pursuit of universal rights. It is time for the Iranian government to decide whether it wants to focus on the past, or whether it will make the choices that will open the door to greater opportunity, prosperity, and justice for its people.

I find the statement strangely detached. In every action and statement, including its non-responsive retort this very week to the offer to end its nuclear enrichment program made by the governments of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States, the leaders of the Iranian government have demonstrated that they have already made their choice. Ray Tayekh of the Council on Foreign Relations states the situation quite plainly:

Dealing with Iran has always been a complicated enterprise with moral hazards. The persistent mistake that the West has made is to place the nuclear issue above all other concerns. The Iran problem is not limited to illicit nuclear activities, and it is somewhat incomprehensible that the United States and other nations can contemplate nuclear transactions with a regime that maintains links to a range of terrorist organizations and engages in brutal domestic repression. Western officials would be smart to disabuse Iran of the notion that its nuclear infractions are the only source of disagreement. Iran’s hard-liners need to know that should they launch their much-advertised crackdown, the price for such conduct may be termination of any dialogue with the West. Only through such a policy can the United States advance its strategic objectives while standing up for its moral values.

Iran’s support for terrorist organizations and domestic repression are manifest this very day. Its leaders have made their choice and the time for counter-offers is over while the time for consequences has arrived.

We should implement consequences for Iran as stern as we can make them, non-violent in nature but punitive in quality. We should muster all of the permanent members of the Security Council to participate in these measures but be prepared to proceed without them. A peaceful, prosperous, and just Iran is in Russian and Chinese interests as it is in ours and, if they elect to support tyranny in Iran, Russia and China should be made aware that this latest tyranny in Iran will eventually end and the Iranian people will know who supported the tyrants and who opposed them.

My first piece for ForeignPolicy.com, “Europe’s Obama Fatigue,” is online.

Despite George W. Bush’s defiant “you’re with us or you’re against us” public stance, he actively solicited advice and input from his NATO partners. Obama, by contrast, is saying all the right things in public about transatlantic relations and NATO but adopting a high-handed policy and paying little attention to Europe.

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It would be ironic, indeed, if the Europeans started longing for the good old days of the Bush administration. But that nostalgia is closer than you might think.

Supporting arguments at the link.

UPDATE: As one might expect, this piece is generating some strong rebuttals.

Daniel Larison argues:

You cannot gauge the importance or unimportance of Europe to the United States on the largely cosmetic, superficial and procedural clashes Washington has had with various European states in the last nine months. Under the previous administration, Europe continued to be “important” to the U.S. even when major EU powers opposed administration policy in very public, dramatic ways. To the extent that Obama is losing ground with Europeans, he had far more goodwill and support to lose; in almost every European country, he continues to rate higher after the drop-off from unrealistic expectations than Bush did at almost any point. Obviously relations were and remained far more strained under the last administration than they have been so far under this one. We notice the minor clashes that have taken place because there was a widely-shared, unreasonable expectation that amity and concord with Europe would prevail under Obama.

[...]

European and especially German interests were flatly ignored by Bush when it came to handling Russia. Promises to Ukraine and Georgia of eventual membership in NATO were given over strenuous German opposition. Were European interests and opinions being heeded then? No. The missile defense ploy prompted Moscow to threaten abandoning its commitments under the European conventional forces treaty and elicited a great deal of bluster from Medvedev about targeting Russian missiles on European soil. Was European security strengthened by any of this? No. What matter then if Bush went through the motions and observed the right formalities when he was getting the major decisions wrong?

Most western European allies were not seriously consulted, nor were their objections given much weight, when the Bush administration decided to push ahead with the missile defense plan. In all of the new commentary claiming that Europe has soured on Obama, this seems not to count at all.

Judah Grunstein adds:

[I]f George W. Bush learned to listen to Europe, and in particular NATO, it was largely after he’d been chastened by the failure of the Iraq war and the 2006 mid-term elections. Up until his final NATO summit, Bush continued to talk loudly about the largely unpopular measures of NATO expansion and missile defense. He listened in the sense that he allowed the alliance — led by France and Germany — to turn him back, but it was out of weakness, not out of strength. There was no movement at all when it came to climate change, which is a major driver of public opinion here.

As for Obama’s handling of Europe, I’d agree with the characterization of his aloofness, especially with regard to the current Afghanistan strategic review. But while my sympathies would normally be with Europe on this sort of thing, I do think that Obama invited the NATO allies last April to assume greater ownership of the Afghanistan war. Given their refusal to do so, I don’t blame him for the freeze-out now. That said, Obama’s brush-off of the U.S.-EU summit is inexcusable and reflects a myopic view of the EU’s potential, especially with the advent of the Lisbon Treaty.

I actually don’t disagree with either Dan or Judah on most of these points and think some of the disagreement comes from the provocative  title the FP folks chose.  My argument is neither that the Europeans have tired of Obama or even that Bush was particularly adept at transatlantic diplomacy.  Rather, it is that Bush cared more about Europe — and particularly the UK and New Europe — than Obama and therefore invested more of himself in the relationship.

It’s true that Obama’s stance on, for example, missile defense and NATO expansion is more popular in some quarters than Bush’s.  Indeed, I prefer his approach on the latter and quibble with him on the former mostly on how the rollout was done vice the policy itself.  But the policy differences are  a reflection of Obama’s prioritizing Russia’s views over that of Europe, especially East and Central Europe.   I think Bush was ultimately wrong in his zeal to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO but it was a policy preference motivated by the stated ideals of the Alliance of “a Europe whole and free.”

Back in 2003, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously noted that while “Old Europe” (particularly France and Germany) was hard to work with, America could count on “New Europe.”   Fast forward to 2009 and we may have reversed polarity.

My latest New Atlanticist essay, “Losing New Europe, Too?” explores this evolution, including why Western Europe is back in the fold and why Eastern Europe has every reason to be disappointed.

The eagerness of “New Europe” to side with the U.S. came from the combination of the cold shoulder they were receiving from their Western neighbors and the warm rhetoric from across the Atlantic.  But it now seems obvious that the talk will not be backed with action at the cost of risking war with Russia, especially for those states in its “near abroad” that have not yet been admitted into the NATO club.  That realization obviously and reasonably puts a damper on “New Europe’s” enthusiasm.

Relations with “Old Europe,” meanwhile, will return to what they have been for the postwar period: a mature engagement between peers that will ebb and flow as the situation warrants.  Such a relationship can withstand sharp disagreements, angry words, and hurt feelings.  Resentments and rifts will occasionally arise but they will be temporary.  Our shared values and interests, however, are permanent.

Much more at the link.

Graphic via Economist.

Kevin Drum seconds Alex Massie that a British-style nationalized health system is not a politically feasible option in the United States.  Indeed, even Democrats don’t want that:

[W]ith the exception of a few outliers, the liberal community really, truly doesn’t want a fully government owned and operated healthcare system like the NHS.  We want a government-funded healthcare system like Medicare or most of the world outside of Britain.  And unless I’m mistaken, this isn’t a ruse in any way.  That’s really what most of us want: basic care funded by taxes, with additional care available to anyone who wants to pay for more.  France and Holland, not Britain or Canada.

I do think that’s what most want.  HillaryCare was a single-payer system.  That’s what ObamaCare would be, too, if it were politically viable.  Since it’s not, he’s willing to settle for a “public option,” essentially a government-run insurance program that would “compete” against privately run insurance companies.  And he might have to settle for less than that — a system that expands Medicaid and/or Medicare and patches some holes in the existing system.

For a variety of reasons, the public simply doesn’t seem to understand these distinctions.  First, Canada and the UK are the logical comparison points in that they’re fellow Anglosphere countries and the ones with which we’re most familiar.  Second, those who oppose the reform for various reasons have a strong incentive to elide the differences and capitalize on fears people reasonably have about an NHS-style system.  (To say nothing of the silly fears of the “They’d let Stephen Hawking die!” variety.)

Many of the leaders of the pro-reform side are rather dishonest in their presentation, however. They insist that what’s written in the bill should be the limit of legitimate debate when, as Kevin admits and Obama once did, single-payer is the ultimate goal.   The current “as much as we can get” measure is not only a step in that direction but one that will make it inevitable over time as it kills off the existing system of employer-financed insurance.   So, while it’s dishonest to argue against the proposed legislation as if it were NHS-style “socialized medicine,” it’s perfectly legitimate to treat it as HillaryCare Returns.

An honest debate on this is vital. The current system is on a collision course with collapse because the rate of growth in health costs is unsustainable, especially with so many about to hit the retirement rolls.  And there really are significant problems with our hodgepodge public-private system where those of us not on the government dole are reliant on the vagaries of care by whatever provider our current employer offers.

I’m naturally more skeptical than Kevin of government-run anything.  But I’m prepared to be convinced that a French- or Dutch-style system would be an improvement over the status quo.  But pretending that we can simultaneously cover everyone, cut costs, not ration, and retain the current private system for those who want it isn’t a very effective method of persuasion.

Steve Benen heaps praise on ABC News‘ new Fact Check segment for “actually informing the public about a controversy in a fair and accurate way.”

Kate Snow tackled the vile right-wing demagoguery on end-of-life care, and while she refrained from calling Palin and her ilk “liars,” she made it very clear that the accusations about euthanasia are completely wrong. It wasn’t a he-said/she-said report; it was just reality.

But Snow’s “fact check” is idiotic.  She checks an absurd straw man and finds that, sure enough, it’s made of straw.

The business about “death boards” is over-the-top nonsense and is indeed being presented in a dishonest, unhelpful manner.  But nobody* — not even Sarah Palin — is arguing that the Democrats actually put a measure into writing that requires offing granny when she gets too sick to be worth the cost of healing her.  Rather — as Snow finally admits two minutes into the piece — the argument is that a natural consequence of having government involved in these decisions while trying to keep costs low is rationing of care and encouraging people away from expensive, extraordinary measures.  The fact that the law, as written, puts the final decision in the hands of the patient doesn’t dispose of that fear.

A more useful “fact check” would have acknowledged the actual basis of the opposition argument and a look at how systems similar to those proposed, such as those in France and elsewhere, actually operate.  Or even to note that Granny’s healthcare is already provided by the government and has been since the Johnson Administration.

*UPDATE:  John Cole says I should have written “nobody sane.” He points to some lunatic called Mike Sola making this argument on some Fox News show of which I’d never heard.  Fair enough.

In this post of mine on Efficiency and Administrative costs frequent commenter Michael Reynolds wrote,

How about we take the French system plus 20%? Hell, France plus 50% would represent a staggering windfall for us. In fact, we could buy France with the savings.

I don’t think that word (windfall) means what you think it means. That the French and their health care system are heading towards the same cliff we are, just not as fast, is not what I’d call a windfall. It is arguably a reasonable first step in health care reform, but it is not the end solution. And since we’d still have a health care problem even if we implemented the French system plus 0%, no we couldn’t buy France. The problem isn’t so much that we are spending too much right now, but that the rate of growth of health care costs is unsustainable. Switching to the French system might help that problem, it might put off the day at which things get really bad, but it isn’t a permanent fix.

Kevin Drum argues, correctly I think, that British- and Canadian-style socialized medicine is not on the table in the United States and that we should therefore frame the debate in terms of a French- or Dutch-style mixed system.  He further cites Jonathan Cohn’s argument that these systems are quite good.

But in the course of a few dozen lengthy interviews, not once did I encounter an interview subject who wanted to trade places with an American. And it was easy enough to see why. People in these countries were getting precisely what most Americans say they want: Timely, quality care. Physicians felt free to practice medicine the way they wanted; companies got to concentrate on their lines of business, rather than develop expertise in managing health benefits. But, in contrast with the US, everybody had insurance. The papers weren’t filled with stories of people going bankrupt or skipping medical care because they couldn’t afford to pay their bills. And they did all this while paying substantially less, overall, than we do.

Kevin concludes,

Now, the fact that the French spend about half what we do doesn’t mean that we’d cut our costs in half if we adopted a French-style system.  We wouldn’t.  There’s too much path dependence and too many cultural differences for that.  But what it does mean is that if we adopted something close to their system, we could certainly achieve high-quality 100% basic coverage — with the ability to purchase extra coverage for anyone who wants it — for no more than we spend now and possibly a bit less.

We won’t, of course, because too many people are still convinced that healthcare in the United States is better than it is in France — or anywhere else.  It’s not.  It’s worse and more expensive.

While I’m for a variety of reasons skeptical that an American system modeled on the French and Dutch systems would work quite so efficiently, I tend to agree that in the aggregate, such a system would be preferable to the crazy hodgepodge we have now.   The combination of  vast government programs like Medicare and Medicaid and the fact that most of us have private insurance and therefore only care about deductibles and co-pays means we don’t have anything close to a free market in medicine.  And medicine wouldn’t be a truly free market even absent these institutions because being extremely sick rather limits one’s negotiating power.

But here’s the thing: most of us aren’t viewing this debate in the aggregate but rather as individuals.   Most of us have the sense that ourselves and our families would be worse off in a system where the government was even more influential and even more people were free riding. Statistics about national level costs and outcomes don’t address that concern.

UPDATE: Dave Schuler has much more at his place.

Bernard Finel argues, persuasively, that what “most people” think about something is not necessarily something we should base public policy decisions on, citing several good examples.

He’s right, of course, that the majority sentiment on complicated public policy issues can be mistaken.  Many times it is.

Could this be one of them?  Perhaps.

But this is ultimately a problem where most people can in fact reasonably judge because it’s a personal-level decision.  Most of us have insurance and can afford to go to the doctor and get the treatment we want.  Some insured patients have HMOs or PPOs with various restrictions but those, too, are usually judgable by non-experts. (The exception being exclusions that kick in rarely at catastrophic times.)

Speaking for myself, I’m not and never have been ideologically opposed to the concept of a government-administered health system.  Even going back to my days in College Republicans, I believed that medical care shouldn’t be one of the things controlled by how financially successful you are.  Nor do I necessarily believe Americans enjoy “the best health care in all the world” at the aggregate level.

But I’m extremely risk averse a major overhaul of the system because most of us enjoy access to great health care and an extraordinary amount of autonomy in choosing how we want it delivered to us.  We would trade away some of each, especially the latter, under any comprehensive system administered by the state in exchange for a massive gain for those who are now uncovered or undercovered.

I begin my New Atlanticist roundup essay “European Parliament Moves Right” with, “The weekend’s European Parliament produced good news for the center-right parties, bad news for the center-left, and good news for radical parties of all stripes.”

I plan other posts today on the implications for the major governments and smaller states in Europe.  This post, though, focuses on the general picture for the EU, notably the odd fact that the Right won at a time when they seemed ripe for rebuke and the fact that turnout has declined in every successive election for the European Parliament.

My close:

While I agree with Yglesias that the EU’s failure to capture the public imagination by now is problematic, it goes to far to say that they are”the world’s most significant economic actor.”  It’s true that the EU and USA vie for the title of world’s largest economy and that, epending on the day’s euro-dollar exchange rate, the EU is sometimes out in front.  But the fact of the matter is that, while they’ve made a lot of progress, the EU is not a single economy, let alone a unified political entity.  And they’re further away from that goal today than they were a week ago.

It’s also worth noting that, while “the right” were the big winners in these elections, “the right” is even less a coherent entity in EU politics than it is in the United States at the moment.  While Sarzoky is bullish on consolidating gains and making the EU more powerful (naturally, with France/Sarkozy guiding the way) the center-right parties elected in the UK and elsewhere are decidedly not interested in that agenda.

Much more at the link.

Graphic: Euractiv

Presumably invigorated by our resounding successes in nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan, the editors of the Washington Post have come down in favor of U. S.-led nation-building as the solution for piracy in Somalia:

Last week’s crisis offers the Obama administration an opportunity to avoid perpetuating past errors. No, we aren’t advocating another massive U.N. intervention in the country backed by U.S. troops. As the Bush administration discovered late last year, there is no appetite among America’s European or African allies for such an operation. But what would be possible is a concerted push to strengthen the most recent attempt at a Somali government — a not-unpromising coalition between moderate Islamists and various clan-based factions. The government needs massive economic aid, training and equipment for an army and coast guard, and help in brokering political deals.

A coordinated international effort to build up a Somali government and security forces would cost many billions of dollars and take many years to pay off. It would consume U.S. diplomatic capital and be domestically controversial — like the nation-building missions underway, at last, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is also the only way to end the threats of piracy and terrorism from the Horn of Africa.

I don’t believe the American people have any appetite whatever for new foreign adventures whether they come in the form of “massive U.N. intervention in the country backed by U.S. troops” or a “coordinated international effort to build up a Somali government and security forces”. While I agree that the ultimate solution to the problem of piracy off the coast of Somalia is a strong Somali national government, it’s unclear to me under what conditions such a thing might come about and I certainly don’t think that a strong Somali national government is an immediate solution. It will take far too long to bring that about.

The country suffering the most as a consequence of Somali piracy is probably Egypt. Between the global economic slowdown and Somali piracy traffic through the Suez Canal is down 20% from what it was last year at this time. Egypt is highly dependent on the revenues generated by the Canal.

My quick reckoning of sea traffic in the area (and ships that have been harassed by pirates there) suggests that after Egypt the EU would be the primary beneficiary of an end to Somali piracy. So that’s my prescription for nation-building in Somalia: let France do it. Or the EU.

However, I would like to put a question on the floor. What’s the bright line dividing building up a government in a country other than your own and colonialism?

Who would ever have guessed that France’s reentry into the NATO military command would cause headaches for the United States?

French defense minister Herve Morin signaled that his country will attempt to be a counterweight to the United States now that it rejoined the NATO military command.  In addition to reiterating that France will not send more troops to Afghanistan, it will oppose a “global NATO” and insist on a Russian veto over further eastward expansion.  These policies are all directly opposite the preferences of the United States under both the Bush and Obama administrations.

But, as I argue in my New Atlanticist piece, “France in Collision Course on NATO?” it’s more likely than not that France is right on at least the expansion issue.

Regardless, as Ken Weisbrode has pointed out, France never left NATO and has always been a powerful player.  To the extent that having the Alliance’s fourth largest contributor even more integrated into the decision-making makes it harder to achieve consensus, it’s probably a good thing. We celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall this year and will soon do the same for the end of the Cold War.  It’s high time NATO figured out its new mission.

More at the link.

Photo: Reuters Pictures.

The political financial crisis came to a head yesterday in Europe, with Hungary begging for help from its fellow EU members under the peril of a new “iron curtain” dividing the Continent and getting matter-of-factly rejected.  My New Atlanticist piece on the controversy, “Economic ‘Iron Curtain’ Dividing Europe?” concludes:

The present crisis has had the salutory effect of splashing a bit of cold water on the enthusiasm for a united Europe. Considering the state of perpetual war that existed for centuries, that comity that has existed for the last six decades is truly remarkable. Even the EU itself has come a long way from the days when it was a mere energy cooperative. But the fact remains that “Europe” remains a relatively vague construct in comparison to the very real forces which tie the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Hungary together as nation-states.

Much more at the link.

The French Defense Minister has ruled out sending additional French troops to Afghanistan:

PARIS (AP) — France’s defense minister is ruling out for now increasing the country’s military presence in Afghanistan.

Herve Morin told France-Inter radio Sunday that France has “already made a considerable effort” toward stabilizing the troubled country. He said “there’s no question for the moment of sending additional troops.”

U.S. President Barack Obama has urged allies to send reinforcements to Afghanistan. The U.S. is expected to deploy up to 30,000 more American troops there this year.

Recent announcements of reductions of the numbers of French troops in countries like Ivory Coast and Chad had fueled speculation that France intended to redeploy those soldiers to Afghanistan. France currently has 3,300 troops in the Afghan theater.

I’m having a little difficulty reconciling that with this:

MUNICH (AP) — NATO’s top official chastised Germany and France for refusing to commit more troops to Afghanistan, but the two European powers skirted the issue Saturday even while agreeing that Washington should not be left to fight international conflicts alone.

Vice President Joe Biden came to the Munich Security Conference amid expectations he would forcefully repeat President Barack Obama’s calls for greater European troop deployments in Afghanistan, as Washington prepares to double American troops there to roughly 60,000.

and this:

MUNICH: President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and top NATO officials will begin a diplomatic effort this month to persuade lawmakers in Paris to accept Sarkozy’s plans to return France to full membership in NATO military command structures in time for the alliance’s summit meeting in April.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the NATO secretary general, will address the foreign affairs and defense committee of the National Assembly on Thursday, and Sarkozy is due to give a major speech on NATO to legislators on Feb. 20.

In Washington and Brussels, the United States is finalizing details over which command posts France will be offered when and if Sarkozy wins parliamentary approval for a policy shift that has prompted unexpected political opposition.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Sarkozy was uncharacteristically cautious about announcing when and how France would join.

“My conviction is that France should improve its links with NATO, by being an independent ally, a free partner of the United States,” Sarkozy told the 350 delegates. “The alliance with the United States and the alliance with Europe do not call the independence of my country into question, it strengthens its independence. This is something I am going to explain to the French people.”

He might start by explaining it to his ministers.

You’ve probably never heard of Jaap de Hoop Scheffer but he’s my new hero. He’s secretary general of NATO and he’s got a message: Europe Must ‘Share the Heavy Lifting’ in Afghanistan.

He says it’s great that Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy want a greater voice in Alliance decision-making.  But he says that comes with a price:  Taking an equal risk. He is, of course, absolutely right.

Much more at the link, which is to a piece I wrote for New Atlanticist.

They say that “dog bites man” is not news.

Au contraire: “Chirac Mauled by Clinically Depressed Poodle.”

In a New Atlanticist essay, “Sarkozy Delays University Reforms, Feared Greek-Style Riots,” I wonder if France isn’t setting itself up for a vicious cycle by acceding to student protests:

It’s perfectly legitimate for shopkeepers to lobby to be spared reforms that would hurt their business, even if it’s good for France.  Rent seeking is a fact of modern political life.  Not so subtle threats of violence, on the other hand, are beyond the pale.   Giving in to them, while perhaps prudent in the short term, will do nothing to discourage the tactic from becoming routine.

Your thoughts welcome, especially at the original post.