Thursday, March 24, 2005
The Latecomers
Fassino Opens to Bush and the Hesitations of a Left More Kissingerian Than Kissinger
By David Frum
Posted: Wednesday, March 23, 2005
ARTICLES
Il Foglio (Italy)
Publication Date: March 22, 2005
Piero Fassino did not quite say that George Bush had been right all along: That would be going too far for the leader of an ex-communist party. But in an interview this week with La Stampa, Mr. Fassino did say that he had come to recognize that President Bush is "fighting for freedom and democracy" in the Middle East. The leader of Italy's Left Democrats added that this fight has set in motion dramatic changes that promise to weaken the forces of religious extremism in the region.
Mr. Fassino remains a fierce opponent of both the Iraq war and the Bush presidency. But he is not blind. Within days of the successful Iraqi elections, a wave of change swept the region: peaceful protests in Lebanon against Syrian occupation, local elections in Saudi Arabia, the amendment of the Egyptian constitution to permit opposition candidates, official support for women's suffrage in Kuwait, and many other examples besides.
Nor is Mr. Fassino blind to his own political advantage. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has stumbled from uncertainty to uncertainty over recent days. First he won a vote in Parliament extending the deployment of the 3,300 Italian troops in Iraq. Then he high-handedly told a television interviewer he would begin withdrawing the troops in September. Then he reconsidered once more and promised to withdraw the troops only after consulting with Italy's coalition partners, the US and the UK.
Mr. Berlusconi's stumble opened a low-cost opportunity for Mr. Fassino to present himself as a moderate, fair-minded, and pro-democratic leader--and to distance himself from the shrill, delusional accusations of Giulana Sgrena and the far left.
So long as Italian troops remain egaged in the war on terror, there will remain a large and substantial difference between Mr. Berlusconi and his left-wing critics. But once the troops come home, the gap shrinks away: If Italy's support for the war is reduced to a matter of words and UN votes, Mr. Berlusconi's opponents will find it far easier to match him.
Still, it is interesting and important that Mr. Berlusconi's opponents should wish to match him. Why are they not content to loiter out there in Michael Moore land, pedaling conspiracy theories and chanting slogans about war and oil?
Mr. Fassino's La Stampa interview offers a clue. At one point he tells the interviewer that it is necessary to acknowledge that President Bush is acting on very different principles from previous Republican presidents, such as Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, or Bush's own father. Those men, acting on the advice of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger or (in the case of the elder Bush) Kissinger's disciple Brent Scowcroft, often found themselves supporting dictators and other unsavory regimes in the name of anti-communism.
The younger Bush, however, is following the tradition of Ronald Reagan. In the 1980s, Reagan faced multiple global crises: not only a Soviet arms buildup in Europe, but also communist insurgencies in Central America and threats to the stability of authoritarian American allies in East Asia: South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines. A small cadre of mid-level aides argued that the surest way to defeat communism and to strengthen America's position in the world was by encouraging democracy in non-democratic allied states.
A young Assistant Secretary of State named Paul Wolfowitz organized the campaign of pressure that forced Ferdinand Marcos out of power in the Philippines and that led to elections in South Korea.
Another assistant secretary, Elliott Abrams, argued that the United States would never be taken seriously as a defender of democracy in Central America until it forced Augusto Pinochet out of power in Cile. Abrams incessantly pressed for elections in El Salvador and Guatemala as essential to the defeat of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
And although apartheid South Africa had its defenders among some conservatives, these same mid-level officials argued that American support for democratization there would constitute a global test of American commitment to the ideals it professes.
Fifteen years later, East Asia is a zone of advancing democracy , every government in the western hemisphere except Cuba's is an elected one, and South Africa has made a peaceful transition to a government representing all its citizens. The mid-level aides I mentioned, plus many others, who witnessed the power of the democratic ideal in the Cold War have now risen to high office--and have committed the United States to a new policy of democratization in the Middle East.
The European left has long given lip service to the international support of democracy. And yet, when George Bush adopted this very policy as his own after 9/11, the leaders of the European left began to fret about stability, sovereignty, and the supreme right of local despots to wield power free from foreign interference. After all those years of fulminating against Henry Kissinger, the European left overnight became more Kissingerian than Kissinger himself had ever been.
Is this outcome not ironic? Is it not embarrassing? And might it not explain Mr. Fassino's sudden, overdue, but still welcome praise for a president who--whatever his faults--has committed the United States more whole-heartedly to the support of democracy worldwide than any of Europe's self-declared leaders of conscience?
David Frum
Fassino Opens to Bush and the Hesitations of a Left More Kissingerian Than Kissinger
By David Frum
Posted: Wednesday, March 23, 2005
ARTICLES
Il Foglio (Italy)
Publication Date: March 22, 2005
Piero Fassino did not quite say that George Bush had been right all along: That would be going too far for the leader of an ex-communist party. But in an interview this week with La Stampa, Mr. Fassino did say that he had come to recognize that President Bush is "fighting for freedom and democracy" in the Middle East. The leader of Italy's Left Democrats added that this fight has set in motion dramatic changes that promise to weaken the forces of religious extremism in the region.
Mr. Fassino remains a fierce opponent of both the Iraq war and the Bush presidency. But he is not blind. Within days of the successful Iraqi elections, a wave of change swept the region: peaceful protests in Lebanon against Syrian occupation, local elections in Saudi Arabia, the amendment of the Egyptian constitution to permit opposition candidates, official support for women's suffrage in Kuwait, and many other examples besides.
Nor is Mr. Fassino blind to his own political advantage. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has stumbled from uncertainty to uncertainty over recent days. First he won a vote in Parliament extending the deployment of the 3,300 Italian troops in Iraq. Then he high-handedly told a television interviewer he would begin withdrawing the troops in September. Then he reconsidered once more and promised to withdraw the troops only after consulting with Italy's coalition partners, the US and the UK.
Mr. Berlusconi's stumble opened a low-cost opportunity for Mr. Fassino to present himself as a moderate, fair-minded, and pro-democratic leader--and to distance himself from the shrill, delusional accusations of Giulana Sgrena and the far left.
So long as Italian troops remain egaged in the war on terror, there will remain a large and substantial difference between Mr. Berlusconi and his left-wing critics. But once the troops come home, the gap shrinks away: If Italy's support for the war is reduced to a matter of words and UN votes, Mr. Berlusconi's opponents will find it far easier to match him.
Still, it is interesting and important that Mr. Berlusconi's opponents should wish to match him. Why are they not content to loiter out there in Michael Moore land, pedaling conspiracy theories and chanting slogans about war and oil?
Mr. Fassino's La Stampa interview offers a clue. At one point he tells the interviewer that it is necessary to acknowledge that President Bush is acting on very different principles from previous Republican presidents, such as Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, or Bush's own father. Those men, acting on the advice of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger or (in the case of the elder Bush) Kissinger's disciple Brent Scowcroft, often found themselves supporting dictators and other unsavory regimes in the name of anti-communism.
The younger Bush, however, is following the tradition of Ronald Reagan. In the 1980s, Reagan faced multiple global crises: not only a Soviet arms buildup in Europe, but also communist insurgencies in Central America and threats to the stability of authoritarian American allies in East Asia: South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines. A small cadre of mid-level aides argued that the surest way to defeat communism and to strengthen America's position in the world was by encouraging democracy in non-democratic allied states.
A young Assistant Secretary of State named Paul Wolfowitz organized the campaign of pressure that forced Ferdinand Marcos out of power in the Philippines and that led to elections in South Korea.
Another assistant secretary, Elliott Abrams, argued that the United States would never be taken seriously as a defender of democracy in Central America until it forced Augusto Pinochet out of power in Cile. Abrams incessantly pressed for elections in El Salvador and Guatemala as essential to the defeat of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.
And although apartheid South Africa had its defenders among some conservatives, these same mid-level officials argued that American support for democratization there would constitute a global test of American commitment to the ideals it professes.
Fifteen years later, East Asia is a zone of advancing democracy , every government in the western hemisphere except Cuba's is an elected one, and South Africa has made a peaceful transition to a government representing all its citizens. The mid-level aides I mentioned, plus many others, who witnessed the power of the democratic ideal in the Cold War have now risen to high office--and have committed the United States to a new policy of democratization in the Middle East.
The European left has long given lip service to the international support of democracy. And yet, when George Bush adopted this very policy as his own after 9/11, the leaders of the European left began to fret about stability, sovereignty, and the supreme right of local despots to wield power free from foreign interference. After all those years of fulminating against Henry Kissinger, the European left overnight became more Kissingerian than Kissinger himself had ever been.
Is this outcome not ironic? Is it not embarrassing? And might it not explain Mr. Fassino's sudden, overdue, but still welcome praise for a president who--whatever his faults--has committed the United States more whole-heartedly to the support of democracy worldwide than any of Europe's self-declared leaders of conscience?
David Frum
In times of war, it is easy to lose one's integrity. The system, our system, must be up to the task of protecting our prisoners and extending the values we ae fighting to defent to our enemies. Anything short of this is treason.
George W. to George W.
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Of all the stories about the abuse of prisoners of war by American soldiers and C.I.A. agents, surely none was more troubling and important than the March 16 report by my Times colleagues Douglas Jehl and Eric Schmitt that at least 26 prisoners have died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002 - in what Army and Navy investigators have concluded or suspect were acts of criminal homicide.
You have to stop and think about this: We killed 26 of our prisoners of war. In 18 cases, people have been recommended for prosecution or action by their supervising agencies, and eight other cases are still under investigation. That is simply appalling. Only one of the deaths occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, reported Jehl and Schmitt - "showing how broadly the most violent abuses extended beyond those prison walls and contradicting early impressions that the wrongdoing was confined to a handful of members of the military police on the prison's night shift."
Yes, I know war is hell and ugliness abounds in every corner. I also understand that in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, we are up against a vicious enemy, which, if it had the power, would do great harm to our country. You do not deal with such people with kid gloves. But killing prisoners of war, presumably in the act of torture, is an inexcusable outrage. The fact that Congress has just shrugged this off, and no senior official or officer has been fired, is a travesty. This administration is for "ownership" of everything except responsibility.
President Bush just appointed Karen Hughes, his former media adviser, to head up yet another U.S. campaign to improve America's image in the Arab world. I have a suggestion: Just find out who were the cabinet, C.I.A. and military officers on whose watch these 26 homicides occurred and fire them. That will do more to improve America's image in the Arab-Muslim world than any ad campaign, which will be useless if this sort of prisoner abuse is shrugged off. Republicans in Congress went into overdrive to protect the sanctity of Terri Schiavo's life. But they were mute when it came to the sanctity of life for prisoners in our custody. Such hypocrisy is not going to win any P.R. battles.
By coincidence, while following this prisoner abuse story, I've been reading "Washington's Crossing," the outstanding book by the Brandeis historian David Hackett Fischer about how George Washington and his troops rescued the American Revolution after British forces and German Hessian mercenaries had routed them in the early battles around New Jersey.
What is particularly moving is one of Mr. Fischer's concluding sections, "An American Way of War," in which he contrasts how Washington dealt with prisoners of war with how the British and Hessian forces did: "According to the 'the laws' of European war, quarter was the privilege of being allowed to surrender and to become a prisoner. By custom and tradition, soldiers in Europe believed that they had a right to extend quarter or deny it. ... In these 'laws of war,' no captive had an inalienable right to be taken prisoner, or even to life itself."
American attitudes were very different. "With some exceptions, American leaders believed that quarter should be extended to all combatants as a matter of right. ... Americans were outraged when quarter was denied to their soldiers." In one egregious incident, at the battle at Drake's Farm, British troops murdered all seven of Washington's soldiers who had surrendered, crushing their brains with muskets.
"The Americans recovered the mutilated corpses and were shocked," wrote Mr. Fischer. The British commander simply denied responsibility. "The words of the British commander, as much as the acts of his men," wrote Mr. Fischer, "reinforced the American resolve to run their own war in a different spirit. ... Washington ordered that Hessian captives would be treated as human beings with the same rights of humanity for which Americans were striving. The Hessians ... were amazed to be treated with decency and even kindness. At first they could not understand it." The same policy was extended to British prisoners.
In concluding his book, Mr. Fischer wrote lines that President Bush would do well to ponder: George Washington and the American soldiers and civilians fighting alongside him in the New Jersey campaign not only reversed the momentum of a bitter war, but they did so by choosing "a policy of humanity that aligned the conduct of the war with the values of the Revolution. They set a high example, and we have much to learn from them."
George W. to George W.
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Of all the stories about the abuse of prisoners of war by American soldiers and C.I.A. agents, surely none was more troubling and important than the March 16 report by my Times colleagues Douglas Jehl and Eric Schmitt that at least 26 prisoners have died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002 - in what Army and Navy investigators have concluded or suspect were acts of criminal homicide.
You have to stop and think about this: We killed 26 of our prisoners of war. In 18 cases, people have been recommended for prosecution or action by their supervising agencies, and eight other cases are still under investigation. That is simply appalling. Only one of the deaths occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, reported Jehl and Schmitt - "showing how broadly the most violent abuses extended beyond those prison walls and contradicting early impressions that the wrongdoing was confined to a handful of members of the military police on the prison's night shift."
Yes, I know war is hell and ugliness abounds in every corner. I also understand that in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, we are up against a vicious enemy, which, if it had the power, would do great harm to our country. You do not deal with such people with kid gloves. But killing prisoners of war, presumably in the act of torture, is an inexcusable outrage. The fact that Congress has just shrugged this off, and no senior official or officer has been fired, is a travesty. This administration is for "ownership" of everything except responsibility.
President Bush just appointed Karen Hughes, his former media adviser, to head up yet another U.S. campaign to improve America's image in the Arab world. I have a suggestion: Just find out who were the cabinet, C.I.A. and military officers on whose watch these 26 homicides occurred and fire them. That will do more to improve America's image in the Arab-Muslim world than any ad campaign, which will be useless if this sort of prisoner abuse is shrugged off. Republicans in Congress went into overdrive to protect the sanctity of Terri Schiavo's life. But they were mute when it came to the sanctity of life for prisoners in our custody. Such hypocrisy is not going to win any P.R. battles.
By coincidence, while following this prisoner abuse story, I've been reading "Washington's Crossing," the outstanding book by the Brandeis historian David Hackett Fischer about how George Washington and his troops rescued the American Revolution after British forces and German Hessian mercenaries had routed them in the early battles around New Jersey.
What is particularly moving is one of Mr. Fischer's concluding sections, "An American Way of War," in which he contrasts how Washington dealt with prisoners of war with how the British and Hessian forces did: "According to the 'the laws' of European war, quarter was the privilege of being allowed to surrender and to become a prisoner. By custom and tradition, soldiers in Europe believed that they had a right to extend quarter or deny it. ... In these 'laws of war,' no captive had an inalienable right to be taken prisoner, or even to life itself."
American attitudes were very different. "With some exceptions, American leaders believed that quarter should be extended to all combatants as a matter of right. ... Americans were outraged when quarter was denied to their soldiers." In one egregious incident, at the battle at Drake's Farm, British troops murdered all seven of Washington's soldiers who had surrendered, crushing their brains with muskets.
"The Americans recovered the mutilated corpses and were shocked," wrote Mr. Fischer. The British commander simply denied responsibility. "The words of the British commander, as much as the acts of his men," wrote Mr. Fischer, "reinforced the American resolve to run their own war in a different spirit. ... Washington ordered that Hessian captives would be treated as human beings with the same rights of humanity for which Americans were striving. The Hessians ... were amazed to be treated with decency and even kindness. At first they could not understand it." The same policy was extended to British prisoners.
In concluding his book, Mr. Fischer wrote lines that President Bush would do well to ponder: George Washington and the American soldiers and civilians fighting alongside him in the New Jersey campaign not only reversed the momentum of a bitter war, but they did so by choosing "a policy of humanity that aligned the conduct of the war with the values of the Revolution. They set a high example, and we have much to learn from them."
Monday, March 21, 2005
A Nobel for Sistani
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
As we approach the season of the Nobel Peace Prize, I would like to nominate the spiritual leader of Iraq's Shiites, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, for this year's medal. I'm serious.
If there is a decent outcome in Iraq, President Bush will deserve, and receive, real credit for creating the conditions for democratization there, by daring to topple Saddam Hussein. But we tend to talk about Iraq as if it is all about us and what we do. If some kind of democracy takes root there, it will also be due in large measure to the instincts and directives of the dominant Iraqi Shiite communal leader, Ayatollah Sistani. It was Mr. Sistani who insisted that there had to be a direct national election in Iraq, rejecting the original goofy U.S. proposal for regional caucuses. It was Mr. Sistani who insisted that the elections not be postponed in the face of the Baathist-fascist insurgency. And it was Mr. Sistani who ordered Shiites not to retaliate for the Sunni Baathist and jihadist attempts to drag them into a civil war by attacking Shiite mosques and massacring Shiite civilians.
In many ways, Mr. Sistani has played the role for President George W. Bush that Nelson Mandela and Mikhail Gorbachev played for his father, President George H. W. Bush. It was Mr. Mandela's instincts and leadership - in keeping the transition to black rule in South Africa nonviolent - that helped the Bush I administration and its allies bring that process in for a soft landing. And it was Mr. Gorbachev's insistence that the dismantling of the Soviet Empire, and particularly East Germany, be nonviolent that brought the Soviet Union in for a soft landing. In international relations, as in sports, it is often better to be lucky than good. And having the luck to have history deal you a Mandela, a Gorbachev or a Sistani as your partner at a key historical juncture - as opposed to a Yasir Arafat or a Robert Mugabe - can make all the difference between U.S. policy looking brilliant and U.S. policy looking futile.
Mr. Sistani has also contributed three critical elements to the democracy movement in the wider Arab world. First, he built his legitimacy around not just his religious-scholarly credentials but around a politics focused on developing Iraq for Iraqis. To put it another way, says the Middle East expert Stephen P. Cohen, "Sistani did not build his politics on negating someone else." Saddam Hussein built his politics around negating America, Iran and Israel. Arafat built his whole life around negating Zionism - rarely, if ever, speaking about Palestinian economic development or education. The politics of negation has a deep and rich history in the Middle East, because so many leaders there are illegitimate and need to negate someone to justify their rule. What Mr. Sistani, the late Lebanese Sunni leader Rafik Hariri and the new Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas all have in common is that they rose to power by focusing on a positive agenda for their own people, not negating another.
The second thing that Mr. Sistani did was put the people and their aspirations at the center of Iraqi politics, not some narrow elite or self-appointed clergy (see: Iran), which is what the Iraqi election was all about. In doing so he has helped to legitimize "people power" in a region where it was unheard of. In Lebanon, Egypt and Palestine - where Hamas recently said it would take part in parliamentary elections - the ballot box and popular support, not just the gun, are showing signs of becoming real sources of legitimacy. Both Hezbollah and Hamas will have to prove - with turnout, not terrorism - that they are entitled to a larger slice of power.
Third, and maybe most important, Mr. Sistani brings to Arab politics a legitimate, pragmatic interpretation of Islam, one that says Islam should inform politics and the constitution, but clerics should not rule.
The process of democratizing the Arab world is going to be long and bumpy. But the chances for success are immeasurably improved when we have partners from within the region who are legitimate, but have progressive instincts. That is Mr. Sistani. Lady Luck has shined on us by keeping alive this 75-year-old ayatollah, who resides in a small house in a narrow alley in Najaf and almost never goes out the door. How someone with his instincts and wisdom could have emerged from the train wreck that was Saddam Hussein's Iraq, I will never know. All I have to say is: May he live to be 120 - and give that man a Nobel Prize.
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
As we approach the season of the Nobel Peace Prize, I would like to nominate the spiritual leader of Iraq's Shiites, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, for this year's medal. I'm serious.
If there is a decent outcome in Iraq, President Bush will deserve, and receive, real credit for creating the conditions for democratization there, by daring to topple Saddam Hussein. But we tend to talk about Iraq as if it is all about us and what we do. If some kind of democracy takes root there, it will also be due in large measure to the instincts and directives of the dominant Iraqi Shiite communal leader, Ayatollah Sistani. It was Mr. Sistani who insisted that there had to be a direct national election in Iraq, rejecting the original goofy U.S. proposal for regional caucuses. It was Mr. Sistani who insisted that the elections not be postponed in the face of the Baathist-fascist insurgency. And it was Mr. Sistani who ordered Shiites not to retaliate for the Sunni Baathist and jihadist attempts to drag them into a civil war by attacking Shiite mosques and massacring Shiite civilians.
In many ways, Mr. Sistani has played the role for President George W. Bush that Nelson Mandela and Mikhail Gorbachev played for his father, President George H. W. Bush. It was Mr. Mandela's instincts and leadership - in keeping the transition to black rule in South Africa nonviolent - that helped the Bush I administration and its allies bring that process in for a soft landing. And it was Mr. Gorbachev's insistence that the dismantling of the Soviet Empire, and particularly East Germany, be nonviolent that brought the Soviet Union in for a soft landing. In international relations, as in sports, it is often better to be lucky than good. And having the luck to have history deal you a Mandela, a Gorbachev or a Sistani as your partner at a key historical juncture - as opposed to a Yasir Arafat or a Robert Mugabe - can make all the difference between U.S. policy looking brilliant and U.S. policy looking futile.
Mr. Sistani has also contributed three critical elements to the democracy movement in the wider Arab world. First, he built his legitimacy around not just his religious-scholarly credentials but around a politics focused on developing Iraq for Iraqis. To put it another way, says the Middle East expert Stephen P. Cohen, "Sistani did not build his politics on negating someone else." Saddam Hussein built his politics around negating America, Iran and Israel. Arafat built his whole life around negating Zionism - rarely, if ever, speaking about Palestinian economic development or education. The politics of negation has a deep and rich history in the Middle East, because so many leaders there are illegitimate and need to negate someone to justify their rule. What Mr. Sistani, the late Lebanese Sunni leader Rafik Hariri and the new Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas all have in common is that they rose to power by focusing on a positive agenda for their own people, not negating another.
The second thing that Mr. Sistani did was put the people and their aspirations at the center of Iraqi politics, not some narrow elite or self-appointed clergy (see: Iran), which is what the Iraqi election was all about. In doing so he has helped to legitimize "people power" in a region where it was unheard of. In Lebanon, Egypt and Palestine - where Hamas recently said it would take part in parliamentary elections - the ballot box and popular support, not just the gun, are showing signs of becoming real sources of legitimacy. Both Hezbollah and Hamas will have to prove - with turnout, not terrorism - that they are entitled to a larger slice of power.
Third, and maybe most important, Mr. Sistani brings to Arab politics a legitimate, pragmatic interpretation of Islam, one that says Islam should inform politics and the constitution, but clerics should not rule.
The process of democratizing the Arab world is going to be long and bumpy. But the chances for success are immeasurably improved when we have partners from within the region who are legitimate, but have progressive instincts. That is Mr. Sistani. Lady Luck has shined on us by keeping alive this 75-year-old ayatollah, who resides in a small house in a narrow alley in Najaf and almost never goes out the door. How someone with his instincts and wisdom could have emerged from the train wreck that was Saddam Hussein's Iraq, I will never know. All I have to say is: May he live to be 120 - and give that man a Nobel Prize.
