The Palestinian push for United Nations recognition of statehood comes amid signs that Palestinians are discarding the notion of living in peace with Israel, which will require the United States to veto any proposal that reaches the U.N. Security Council in order to protect its key Middle East ally. U.N. ratification of a statehood declaration would give Palestinians a global go-ahead to carve out a state along Israel’s 1967 borders — even though all sides know a viable solution would require border adjustments that allow Israel to incorporate major West Bank settlements and compensate the Palestinians with other land. U.N. ratification also would leave Israel isolated, paving the way for international criticism every time Jerusalem took legitimate steps to defend itself and its people, especially those who reside outside the 1967 borders. — Lawrence J. Haas, American Foreign Policy Council
The Obama administration should not veto expected resolutions in the U.N. Security Council on Palestine. Palestine may seek confirmation of its claim to the territory that Israel occupied in 1967. Israel took that territory — the West Bank and Gaza Strip — by force of arms in 1967 and has no legal claim to it. There is no reason in principle to oppose such a resolution. Palestine may also seek confirmation of its statehood and admission to the United Nations. Under the U.N. Charter, the Security Council plays a preliminary role in the admission of new members, the final decision resting with the General Assembly. U.N. membership would put Palestine on a par — at least formally — with Israel. There is no reason of principle to deny membership to Palestine. If the United States vetoes a pro-Palestine resolution in the U.N. Security Council, the only reason will be domestic politics. Support for Israel is rewarded by votes and contributions in presidential and congressional elections. — John B. Quigley, Ohio State University
“Important as the death of Osama bin Laden may be, disposing of al-Qaida’s murderous leader wasn’t the most important goal for U.S. foreign policy. Actually, it hasn’t been for some time,” wrote the Wall Street Journal’s Gerald F. Seib. In reality, he argued, Obama has “three more pressing problems: getting Pakistan right, getting the ‘Arab spring’ right and containing Iran.” On the last problem, Seib wrote, “the danger is that Iran’s leaders are concluding that the lesson to be learned from Syria and Libya is that the way to deal with dissidents is to crush them ruthlessly, and that the way to prevent the Western military intervention now plaguing Libya is to finish developing a nuclear weapon to deter it.”
“For those with eyes to see, the daylight between the foreign policies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama has been shrinking ever since the current president took the oath of office,” wrote columnist Ross Douthat. “But last week made it official: When the story of America’s post-9/11 wars is written, historians will be obliged to assess the two administrations together, and pass judgment on the Bush-Obama era.”
During the past few decades, there has been a bias among U.S. presidents for dramatic physical action on foreign conflicts, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan wrote. “But carefulness in a leader is a beautiful thing,” Noonan said, citing the new book by David A. Nichols of Winfield. “Eisenhower 1956” recounts how President Eisenhower resisted pressure to commit U.S. forces to the Suez Crisis and Hungary. “In America, applause for the moderate will be moderate, approval for the restrained will be restrained,” Noonan wrote. “But Ike was at his greatest when he wasn’t waging war.”
Terry Jones, the nut job Florida pastor who burned the Quran, isn’t having any second thoughts, even though his action triggered protests in Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of U.N. workers. He said that burning the Quran was part of defending the Gospel and that it’s something the church should be proud of, the Washington Post reported.
As expressed in a speech Monday night, President Obama’s high-minded and nuanced reasons for involving the United States in Libya invited criticism from left as well as right. He also established what’s inevitably going to be thought of as the Obama doctrine, whether or not it’s sustainable — that even when U.S. security isn’t directly threatened, the United States will step in to defend its “interests and values” and prevent a slaughter and humanitarian nightmare. “In such cases, we should not be afraid to act — but the burden of action should not be America’s alone,” Obama said. So now what? The Wall Street Journal’s Gerald Seib suggested four likely scenarios, noting the first two are much preferred: “The Libyan army turns or collapses, and the rebels prevail.” All the outside pressures force Moammar Gadhafi out. “Libya effectively separates into two, setting up a stalemate.” Or Gadhafi and his sons just sit tight, “then destroy their opponents when the world loses interest.”
“Anyone looking for principle and logic in the attack on Moammar Gaddafi’s tyrannical regime will be disappointed,” columnist Eugene Robinson wrote. “President Obama and his advisers should acknowledge the obvious truth: They are reacting to the revolutionary fervor in the Arab world with the arbitrary ‘realism’ that is a superpower’s prerogative.” Robinson noted that dictators in other countries have murdered protesters. “Why is Libya so different?” Robinson asked. “Basically, because the dictators of Yemen, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia — also Jordan and the Persian Gulf sheikdoms, for that matter — are friendly, cooperative and useful. Gaddafi is not.”
“When one looks across the Arab world today at the stunning spontaneous democracy uprisings, it is impossible to not ask: What are we doing spending $110 billion this year supporting corrupt and unpopular regimes in Afghanistan and Pakistan that are almost identical to the governments we’re applauding the Arab people for overthrowing?” wrote columnist Thomas Friedman. He acknowledged that the United States “can’t just walk out of Afghanistan and Pakistan,” but Friedman argued that “our involvement in these two countries — 150,000 troops to confront al-Qaida — is totally out of proportion today with our interests and out of all sync with our values.”
“Washington has reacted timidly to the extraordinary events convulsing the Middle East,” columnist Frida Ghitis wrote. “The United States has behaved as a nervous bystander, afraid to make the wrong move, not as a self-assured country with much at stake — morally, strategically and economically — in the outcome of the pro-democracy uprisings.” Ghitis isn’t calling for military engagement, the way that Sen. John McCain did, but she argues that “Washington must speak strongly and lead, not follow, the international response.”
Good for conservative pundit William Kristol and others for challenging Fox News host Glenn Beck’s “hysteria” and wild speculation about the uprising in Egypt. “When Glenn Beck rants about the caliphate taking over the Middle East from Morocco to the Philippines, and lists (invents?) the connections between caliphate-promoters and the American left, he brings to mind no one so much as Robert Welch and the John Birch Society,” Kristol wrote in Weekly Standard. Siding with a dictator instead of the people, Kristol wrote, is “a sign of fearfulness unworthy of Americans, of shortsightedness uncharacteristic of conservatives, of excuse-making for thuggery unworthy of the American conservative tradition.” Beck’s response: “I don’t even know if you understand what conservatives are anymore, Billy.”
Egyptians are celebrating President Hosni Mubarak’s decision today to resign and hand over power to the military. But columnist Nicholas Kristof has been disappointed in the Obama administration’s indecisive response to the people’s rebellion in Egypt and apparent preference for “stability, order and gradualism.” Kristof asked: “Why does our national policy seem to be that democracy is good for Americans and Israelis, yet dangerous for Egyptians?”
Not only did Army commanders ignore advice and send Pfc. Bradley Manning to Iraq, they then completely dropped the ball by not monitoring him. While in Iraq, Manning allegedly downloaded thousands of classified reports that ended up on the WikiLeaks website, the largest security breach in U.S. history. Manning’s direct supervisor warned that Manning had thrown chairs at colleagues and shouted at higher-ranking soldiers in the year he was stationed at Fort Drum, N.Y. But the commanders sent Manning to Iraq anyway because the unit was short on intelligence analysts.
Good for President Obama for easing some travel restrictions with Cuba. But as Sen. Jerry Moran (in photo), R-Kan., argued in a letter he sent to Obama last week, Obama now needs to lift some trade restrictions that limit the sale of Kansas wheat. “While I support the recent announcement of changes to U.S.-Cuba travel policy, I am disappointed President Obama did not make executive changes to existing U.S. regulations that restrict the cash sale of agriculture products to Cuba,” Moran said in a statement. Moran contends that such policy changes “would result in an estimated $270 million in new exports.”
From the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the United Auto Workers, President Obama’s announcement that he’ll send the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) to Congress early this year has been applauded. Trade leaders from both parties have pledged support, and the new Congress should act swiftly to ratify this pact. We must seize this opportunity. Now is the time to advance an aggressive trade and global engagement agenda that will create jobs, revitalize the economy and reassert America’s leadership. Such an agenda offers an excellent opportunity to advance the goal of doubling U.S. exports in five years and putting Americans back to work. KORUS will boost GDP by at least $12 billion through expanded exports and create more than 70,000 American jobs. Failure to enact KORUS would cost more than 340,000 American jobs and cut $35 billion in exports. Those jobs would be lost because the European Union and others would gain a competitive advantage over America in Korea as their free-trade agreements go into effect soon. — Thomas J. Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
This latest attempt to promote American growth and employment by opening long-closed foreign markets to U.S. goods and services is even less excusable than pacts such as NAFTA or the numerous trade expansion deals with China. Although the pact eliminates or slashes most Korean tariffs, Seoul can still use its value-added tax system to rig markets. Korea’s 10 percent VAT will still impose a hidden tariff on all American products bound for Korea, and its VAT rebate for exports will still provide a hidden subsidy for Korean goods bound for the United States. Longtime Korea deal opponents Ford Motor Co. and the United Auto Workers union praised the final agreement and its automotive provisions. But these are worse than the auto-related terms won by Europe in its own recent Korea trade pact. And although in certain cases Washington can retaliate if Seoul breaks its word on dismantling auto trade barriers, retaliation is not mandatory. It’s left to the discretion of American officials still generally obsessed with currying favor even from allies like Korea that desperately need U.S. military protection. — Alan Tonelson, U.S. Business and Industry Council
Good for 13 GOP senators — though, regrettably, not including Kansas Sens. Pat Roberts or Sam Brownback — for breaking ranks with petulant GOP leaders and ratifying the new nuclear arms-control treaty with Russia. New START is crucial to maintaining stability and restoring inspections of Russia’s nuclear arsenals. That’s why it was backed by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other top military leaders, as well as all six living secretaries of state who served in Republican administrations.
“Having accommodated their interests, they now come back and turn around and say: ‘Oh, you guys are terrible. You’re bringing this treaty up at the last minute.’ I mean, is there no shame, ever, with respect to the arguments that are made sometimes on the floor of the United States Senate?” — Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., on how the new arms-control treaty, which survived a GOP filibuster Tuesday, was delayed 13 times at the request of Republicans
“When Britain went into decline as the globe’s stabilizing power, America was right there, ready to pick up the role,” columnist Thomas Friedman wrote. “Even with all our imperfections and mistakes, the world has been a better place for it. If America goes weak, though, and cannot project power the way it has, your kids won’t just grow up in a different America. They will grow up in a different world. You will not like who picks up the pieces.” So who is that? “A rising superpower, called China, and a rising collection of superempowered individuals, as represented by the WikiLeakers, among others,” Friedman wrote.
Once the Senate Republicans carry out their threat to block and kill the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the United States’ ability to conduct foreign policy effectively throughout the world will be significantly weakened. The treaty’s failure will harm relations with Russia and undermine cooperation on Iran, Afghanistan and securing nuclear materials, and it will make it harder for all foreign governments to take political risks in negotiating future agreements with the United States. In addition to raising doubts about President Obama’s ability to win support for accords he has signed, the treaty’s fate will show the world that every administration initiative, no matter what it is, will be subjected to constant opposition for narrow political ends. — Daniel Larison, TheWeek.com
The first thing we must all understand about this treaty is that it forces the United States to reduce unilaterally our forces, such as missiles, bombers and warheads, in order to meet treaty limits. On the other hand, the Russians will actually be allowed to increase their deployed forces because they currently fall below the treaty’s limits. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has been looking at this issue closely. As the vice chairman, I have reviewed the key intelligence on our ability to monitor this treaty and heard from our intelligence professionals. There is no doubt in my mind that the United States cannot reliably verify the treaty’s 1,550 limit on deployed warheads. The administration claims that New START is indispensable to reap the “reset” benefits with Russia. If a fatally flawed arms control agreement is the price of admission to the reset game, our nation is better off if we sit this one out. — Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo.
Gov.-elect Sam Brownback has a long to-do list for his new job. But there is something he should undo before his leaves the Senate: his four-month hold on the nomination of Francis Ricciardone Jr. (in photo) to be U.S. ambassador to Turkey. Ricciardone was ambassador to Egypt during the Bush administration, but Brownback has questioned whether he’s the “right ambassador for Turkey at this time.” Meanwhile, U.S.-Turkish relations are straining over Iran, Israel and more. Whatever Brownback’s motivations, wrote Foreign Policy in Focus blogger Michael Busch, “the failure to situate an ambassador in Ankara — stupid even during moments of political calm — will surely produce negative dividends for both sides as WikiLeaks revelations continue surfacing over the coming weeks.”
Though U.S. officials hailed Pakistan’s role in capturing a top Taliban leader last January, some analysts questioned at the time whether Pakistan’s real motive was to insert itself in peace negotiations between the Taliban and Afghanistan. That suspicion appears to be on target. Pakistani officials are now saying that they set out to capture the Taliban leader, and used the CIA to help them do it, because they wanted to shut down secret peace talks that the leader had been conducting with the Afghan government that excluded Pakistan, the New York Times reported.
It took 33 years and lots of international legal wrangling, but the end of the child-rape case against Roman Polanski proved again that laws need not apply to the rich and powerful. “What the Swiss have decided is that despite admitting his crimes and fleeing from U.S. justice, Polanski will never have to be punished,” wrote Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson. “It’s relevant that Polanski has never shown remorse. He claimed in a 1979 interview that he was being hounded because ‘everyone wants to (have sex with) young girls.’ It’s irrelevant that the victim, now a middle-aged woman, has no interest in pursuing the case and reliving a traumatic episode. What matters is what Polanski admitted doing to her 33 years ago — and the fact that Polanski decided to run away rather than face the music.”
But Robinson’s colleague Richard Cohen thinks the Swiss got it right in refusing to extradite the film director. “The only argument in favor of Polanski’s continued freedom is that he is the victim of judicial misconduct,” Cohen wrote. “He had good reason to believe that the trial judge in his case was going to break the plea agreement and throw the book at him. . . . He ran from the prospect of a judge who was going to make his reputation at Polanski’s expense and send him to jail for a very long time. I would have done the same.”
Good for the House Agriculture Committee for voting last week to ease trade and travel restrictions with Cuba. Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Hays, who was one of the sponsors of the legislation, said that the vote was “a victory for America’s farmers and ranchers.” Jerry McReynolds, a Kansas farmer who is president of the National Association of Wheat Growers, said that the United States is “long overdue to make commonsense changes to our policy concerning Cuba, which has done nothing but hamstring agriculture’s competitiveness in this neighboring market and hurt our agricultural economy.”
From today’s Opinion Line: “That cute brunette Russian spy can have all my secrets.”
There are still major discrepancies about the Israeli raid of a flotilla of ships bound for Gaza. The flotilla organizers say that 16 unarmed civilians were killed; Israel’s military says that nine died and that passengers shot at and attacked Israeli soldiers. It likely will take some time to determine exactly what happened, but much of the world already has condemned the raid.
Though only 22 percent of Americans trust the U.S. government, according to Pew Research Center surveys, the United States’ image in the rest of the world has increased sharply, buoyed by positive opinions about President Obama. For the first time since the BBC World Service’s annual poll began in 2005, America’s influence in the world is now seen as more positive than negative. In the 27 countries surveyed, 46 percent of people said that the United States has a mostly positive influence on the world, while 34 percent said its influence was mostly negative. Only in Turkey and Pakistan did more than 50 percent of citizens surveyed have a negative view of the United States. (Aren’t we glad we’re giving all that foreign aid to Pakistan?) Germany was the most-favorably viewed nation in the survey (an average of 59 percent positive). The least-favorably viewed nation was Iran (15 percent positive), followed by Pakistan (16 percent), North Korea (17 percent), Israel (19 percent) and Russia (30 percent).
The Palestinian push for United Nations recognition of statehood comes amid signs that Palestinians are discarding the notion of living in peace with Israel, which will require the United States to veto any proposal that reaches the U.N. Security Council in order to protect its key Middle East ally. U.N. ratification of a statehood declaration would give Palestinians a global go-ahead to carve out a state along Israel’s 1967 borders — even though all sides know a viable solution would require border adjustments that allow Israel to incorporate major West Bank settlements and compensate the Palestinians with other land. U.N. ratification also would leave Israel isolated, paving the way for international criticism every time Jerusalem took legitimate steps to defend itself and its people, especially those who reside outside the 1967 borders. — Lawrence J. Haas, American Foreign Policy Council
