International Politics, Chicago Style

The now admittedly doomed (and therefore sometimes desperate) John McCain for President 2008 campaign did its very best to paint Obama as a doe-eyed idealist, prepared neither to lead the free world nor to face down the world's fiercest dictators. Obama's interactions with Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega at the Summit of the Americas last week seemed to confirm some of those fears. Pat Buchanan recently wrote a scathing article in which he called Obama an "apologist," unwilling to defend his country. Obama's inaction even caught the attention of some on the left, such as Eugene Robinson, who urged Obama to "slap back." But there are signs that Obama's Chicago past have produced a hardened politician, albeit one that doesn't fit the inside-the-beltway profile one would expect in a President.

First, there is a thoughtful post by the ever-impressive Daniel Larison at The Week, which interprets Obama's behavior at the Summit as calculating and wise. Second, there is speculation that Obama is playing hardball with the new Israeli government, something virtually no US President has had the courage to do since Eisenhower. Allow me to explain.

For those of you who missed it (and missing it was simple, because the US media completely ignored it), Jeff Stein of CQ Politics broke a story alleging that Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) had been overheard (via NSA wiretap) promising an Israeli agent that she would "waddle into" into an ongoing case, in which two AIPAC lobbyists have been accused of spying on the US government. In return, the Israeli agent promised to lobby Nancy Pelosi to make Harman the chairwoman of the House Intelligence Committee. Quite the quid pro quo, especially considering it would essentially mean that a foreign government had played a major role in installing the leader of a vital intelligence oversight body. But what does all this have to do with Obama?

The story goes on to say that then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales aborted an FBI investigation into Harman, because "he needed Harman’s help defending the administration’s warrantless wiretap program." So the case was dead. How are we coming to know about it now?

Enter Philip Giraldi's post on the American Conservative Blog:

"My spook friends are speculating wildly but the theory that seems to make the most sense is that the White House is extremely angry about the Netanyahu government’s trashing of the peace process and also by his appointing of former Mossad spies Naor Gilon and Uzi Arad to senior positions, as both were involved in the Larry Franklin/AIPAC case. The Administration is apparently seeking to demonstrate that it will not be pushed around by Bibi and is showing that it has teeth by taking aim at a prominent Dem politician who stepped over the line in demonstrating her enthusiasm to play ball with AIPAC. This is pretty much speculation at this point, but I have heard from several independent sources that the White House is extremely vexed with Netanyahu and is going to tell him that his delaying tactics on substantive negotiations with the Palestinians will not be acceptable, so it might seem likely that a little pushback is taking place. Whether the Obamas will allow Harman to walk the plank remains to be seen."

Though this is entirely speculative, it seems plausible. The Obama team has shown that it's willing to let other Democrats take the fall in order to strengthen their position (read: Chris Dodd and the AIG bonuses). And the Israeli government seems to be responding in kind, with the new Foreign Minister saying that "the US will accept any Israeli policy decision." We may never know if this is what's really going on, but it's worth considering.

-MATT TUCKER

Read more...

Obama's War

Sad as it is, one of the most profound observations so far about Obama’s short tenure as President came from a Tweet by Iowa's 75-year old senior Senator, Chuck Grassley. While Obama was announcing a new ‘surge’ of 21,000 troops into Afghanistan, Grassley tweeted:

Now it bcomes Obama War Not Bush war any longer

To be sure, Obama’s move wasn’t exactly a surprise. He made a significant speech during the general election outlining his vision for a more vigorous war in Afghanistan, and he suggested the possibility of attacking Pakistan during a primary debate (he's continued and intensified controversial strikes by Predator drones in the border regions, and his focus on the internal affairs of Pakistan suggests further involvement is possible). Despite the fact that he campaigned on the issue, Sen. Grassley is right: these actions have transferred ownership of the Afghan war from Bush to Obama.

So what are we to make of this "comprehensive, new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan"? Let's take a look at the speech Obama made, where he announced the "surge":

1. One of the most significant parts of the plan was an appeal to our European allies, NATO members in particular, to contribute, saying that it was not only an "American problem." However, NATO committed nearly no new troops after Obama's trip to Europe earlier this month.
2. Obama, in what is arguably a vast improvement over Bush's execution of military expeditions, defined an explicit goal: "to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan , and to prevent their return to either country in the future."
3. Obama repeatedly emphasized that Afghanistan and Pakistan are inextricably linked in this conflict, though I'm afraid that conflicts with the historical reality of their relationship. According to Dr. Amin Tarzi, who spoke at UNC earlier this month, the Afghani and Pakistani governments do not recognize each other. This complex reality is just one crippling legacy of British colonialism in the region (more on that in a later post).
4. Obama takes a page from the liberal book of international politics in emphasizing the need for economic security and education. Dr. Tarzi said this will only work if the people of the region don't know the US is backing these efforts. As former CIA officer Michael Scheuer said in his piece, "Afghanistan: Where Empires Go to Die," "absence makes the Afghan heart grow stronger," implying that the US's footprint should be as light as possible when possible.

Given these objectives, what are the facts on the ground that we can anticipate?

First, McClatchy Newspapers reported last month that multiple Islamic militant groups reached a unity agreement in which they agreed to put aside their differences and focus on repelling the new troop surge.

Second, the President Zardari just signed a peace deal with the Pakistani Taliban, committing the Pakistani government to enforcing shari'a in the Swat region. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that this is already emboldening the militias and giving them new ground on which to train.

These two events are particularly frightening, especially in light of this video, which shows how hostile and heavily armed people in the Northwestern region of Pakistan are.

There are certainly more things to consider about "AfPak," and I intend to write a fairly regular post about the developments in the region, in addition to presenting some of the religious, social, and geopolitical history so that we can better understand what is actually going on there.

-MATT TUCKER

Read more...

Environmentalism

Environmentalism doesn’t have to mean cold showers and warm beer: sometimes it can be just a matter of getting our heads out of our… and doing the little things we should be doing anyways.

I had a friend in college who would leave the fan on in his dorm room while he was at class and such. I asked him why he was wasting the energy – a fan doesn’t even keep things any cooler, it just moves the air around and feels good when you’re in the room – and he replied that it wasn’t his electricity. Maybe he was just being sarcastic, but I don’t recall him then turning off the fan. I do remember that he’s a wonderful, swell, smart guy who’s probably reading this.

On a related note, these days I’m doing a little research into mercury advisories for fish. Apparently, wild catfish in NC, including in the municipal pond I fish out of at Anderson Park in Carrboro, have so much mercury in them that there’s an advisory against me eating more than one serving a week. That’s just six ounces. And for “women of childbearing age, pregnant women, nursing mothers, and children under age 15” the advisory says “Do not eat” (that was boldface in the original, http://www.epi.state.nc.us/epi/fish/safefish.html).

How is this related to my friend with the fan? Well, coal power plants, like the ones that produce the hunk of our electricity, also produce mercury that billows up into the air, drops down into our ponds, gets ingested by fish and then eaten by us.

I’m pretty sure that my friend isn’t responsible for the exact molecules of mercury in the last catfish I caught, but I think if enough people were willing to take the extra second and a half a darn worth of caring to turn off their fans, lights, TVs… when not needed, then I might be able to maybe eat two servings a week of catfish.

Whether we like it or not, we’re all connected and each of us affects everyone else on Earth.
Darn, that’s deep.
So please stop being such …holes.
Darn, that’s honest.

I’m not saying (as I type this on a laptop in a well-lit, climate-controlled office) that we don’t need electricity. I’m not advocating people make major, martyr-ific sacrifices in their lives – going to bed at sundown, bumping into things in the dark, reverting back to some sort of 15th century, pre-industrial level of suckiness.

But is it all that hard to turn off the freakin’ fan?
Instead of a cold shower, how about taking a minute to install one of the low-flow shower heads some folks are giving away these days. Instead of drinking warm beer, how about folks saving electricity, and money, by not heating their places to 80 degrees in the winter and cooling to 60 in the summer?

If you’re going to drive ten miles to the gym to hop on the treadmill then swing by the tanning salon on the way home, griping about gas prices the whole way, couldn’t you just go for a walk on a sunny day?

These are some lessons I learned from my friend with the fan. Failing them, if you want to get folks’ attention on energy issues, you’ve got to make them pay out the….

Like at the gas pump.

-JOHN DERRICK

Read more...

The Hill 101

Aloha, hello and welcome! Today marks the official start of The Hill's blog. As you might know--probably from reading the previous post--The Hill is UNC's non-partisan political review.

This blog will further The Hill's mission to cover politics both at home and abroad. Our blog will offer a mix of commentary, reporting and interesting links, all courtesy of some of our best writers.

I need to explain one more thing. Because of the way this blog has been set up, all posts will be attributed to "WS." Well, this isn't quite true. Our writers will be creating the posts; I'm just the guy posting them. I'll make sure to note the ACTUAL author of each and every post.

For your reading pleasure, I'd like to offer a couple sites worth checking out. This will have to do until we set up a blogroll:

RealClearPolitics: A terrific website that collects and collates the day's best commentary.

Political Wire: A must-read for any political junkie.

TAPPED: Political blog published by the liberal journal The American Prospect; if that's not your taste, try The Corner, from the conservative magazine National Review.

Andrew Sullivan: One of the first major bloggers, and still one of the best.

Instapundit: The godfather of conservative blogs.

Stay tuned for most posts in the future! This blog has just begun to fight!

Read more...