Tag Archives: foreign policy

Sanctions and Trust

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Does his own party trust him anymore on sanctions against Iran—or anything else?

In a letter to President Obama (formally to his Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner), two Senators, Robert Menendez (D, NJ), Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Peace Corps, and Global Narcotics Affairs, and Mark Kirk (R, IL), Member of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, felt constrained to remind Obama and his administration of Congress’ intent when it passed (and Obama signed into law) the recent Menendez-Kirk Amendment to the Comprehensive Iran Sanction, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010 (CISAD).  This amendment authorized oil and financial sanctions against Iran should Iran insist on continuing on their course to obtaining nuclear weapons.

We understand that the administration is drafting rules to guide the implementation of the law and we hereby seek to convey the legislative intent underlying certain terms and phrases in the amendment and to ensure that the positive developments that have occurred as a result of the amendment are buttressed  by the administrative rules[.]

The Senators opened their letter with the above.  Their concern arises from Obama’s attempt to eviscerate the amendment to CISAD while it was being developed, even though it was an amendment that Obama had urged and to which Menendez and Kirk had agreed, and then after that agreement, Obama’s repudiation of it (interestingly, following that repudiation the amendment passed the Senate by a 100-0 vote).  Menendez has separately advised Obama that, as a result of Obama’s…behavior, “This certainly undermines your relationship with me for the future.”

The Senators, via their letter, laid out the specifics of some of their concerns.  These included the administration’s definition of the “significant reductions” other nations might claim as a means of continuing to do business with Iran’s Central Bank and to trade for Iranian oil while avoiding the US response mandated by CISAD—the cutting off of those nations’ banks from the US economy.  The strict definition was laid out in that underlying law; the Senators do not trust the administration to hew to that definition in its new implementing rules.  The Senators spelled it out in their letter:

To ascribe more variable terminology to the definition of “significantly reduced” would diminish the ability of countries to understand and comply with the amendment.  An unevenly applied interpretation would also call into question the seriousness of the sanctions policy and send mixed signals to both Iran and our allies.

Menendez and Kirk also are concerned that Obama will use the “national security” waiver in the sanctions law to completely weasel out of applying the sanctions: they fear he won’t apply any waiver on a case-by-case basis, as the amendment requires, attempting instead a blanket waiver that prevents any sanctions anywhere.

It was not our intent that the term “waive the imposition of sanctions under paragraph (1)” as meaning only one waiver is needed to waive the imposition of all sanctions.  In other words, with one report to Congress, the President could decide that not institution will be subject to sanctions….

They concluded,

We would welcome an opportunity to discuss these points with you prior to the publication of the final rule for the Menendez-Kirk amendment.

The Senate no longer trusts this President; his own party no longer trusts him.  Where is the basis for trust on the part of anyone else?  In any event, Obama’s rules are due out this week.  Maybe we’ll see the effect of the Senators’ letter.

The Caliphate

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Is it being established after all, and with the present administration’s acquiescence through ignorance?

There’s this from the Pittsburgh post-gazette (h/t to BLACKFIVE):

The war in Afghanistan may end this year in thinly disguised surrender.

“The Taliban per se is not our enemy,” Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview with Newsweek magazine Dec. 15.

We went to war in Afghanistan to oust the Taliban regime because it had sheltered al-Qaida. Perhaps Mr. Biden forgot.

and [link added]

A story in an Indian newspaper Dec. 29 suggests the reason for the vice president’s memory lapse.  The Obama administration apparently is conducting secret negotiations with the Taliban and has recruited Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s leading jurist, to mediate them.  “Earlier this month, Mr. al-Qaradawi helped draw a road map for a deal between the Taliban and the United States aimed at giving the superpower a face-saving political settlement ahead of its planned withdrawal from Afghanistan, which is due to begin in 2014,” wrote reporter Praveen Swami, citing “Indian diplomatic sources.”

Mr. al-Qaradawi seeks the establishment of a worldwide caliphate ruled by Islamic law.

(Mr Swami also goes on at some length about al-Qaradawi and the threat he poses to India as well as to the West.)

BLACKFIVE points out this:

The bottom line is we have been severely weakened by Obama….  We can start w/ losing one war and one peace [respectively, Afghanistan and Iraq],…the Arab Spring installing Islamists in Egypt, Libya and much of the rest of the Middle East….

Spain surrendered to the Islamists some years ago when it was driven from Afghanistan with its tail between its legs after a series of train bombings followed by instructions from the bombers’ handlers to depart forthwith.

Withal, we have the Umayyad Caliphate being rebuilt from the Middle East west across north Africa and back onto the Iberian Peninsula to the Pyrenees, and east through Pakistan and back into Afghanistan.  The lone holdouts seem to be Portugal and the Sarkozy French in and above Iberia, and a seemingly abandoned Israel in the heart of the redeveloping Caliphate.  It’s true enough that the present reconstruction is no more monolithic than were the Umayyads, but that doesn’t reduce the present threat any more than it did with the Umayyads.  Especially given the current Islamist goals.

Misunderstanding the Threat

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Former CIA Director Michael Hayden (USAF Gen, ret) is reported by FoxNews as saying,

But externally it [closing the Straits of Hormuz] just doesn’t make any sense.

Number one, they [Iran] need the straits as much, perhaps more, than anyone else, the free flow of oil, otherwise their economy is more in the tank than it is today.  Number two, does closing the straits make Iran more or less isolated? … Does closing the straits make it more or less likely that someone will think it’s a legitimate step to attack the nuclear facility at Natanz?  I think it makes it more likely.  So why would the Iranians do that?

Our government’s blinders here (yes, Hayden isn’t any longer in the government, but those who are think similarly) is the utter misunderstanding of Iran and its goals.  As Hayden also says, “This government and its decision-making processes are incredibly opaque.”

I offer some clarification, from my lofty perch on my navel.

“Number one, they need the straits as much, perhaps more, than anyone else, the free flow of oil, otherwise their economy is more in the tank than it is today.”  Number one, the sanctions going into place have the potential to seriously threaten their ability to export oil due to a lack of buyers.  In that scenario, no, they won’t “need the straits…”.

“Number two, does closing the straits make Iran more or less isolated?”  Does Iran care about its isolation?  Certainly the lack of international intercourse can hurt, but is the Iranian government’s pain tolerance the same as ours?  Plainly not.  Nor does the Iranian government care about its isolation as isolation.  Finally, do the Iranian people have any capacity to act, should they disagree with their government?  Those people watched while a previous American administration seemed to incite Iraqis to rebellion against Saddam after our first Iraq war and then stood by while Saddam butchered the Shiites and Kurds.  Lately, they did try to act against their government and experienced the present administration standing by and watching the present Iranian government butcher them.

“Does closing the straits make it more or less likely that someone will think it’s a legitimate step to attack the nuclear facility at Natanz?”  The Iranian government, after years of loud and vociferous chit-chat and firm finger-shaking by the rest of the world, and after years of active support by Russia and the PRC for the Iranian nuclear program, has no reason seriously to think anyone will do anything at all along these lines.  Oh, and not being complete fools, they have been dispersing and bunkering their nuclear weapons facilities.  They think the Israelis might have the stones to act, even though an Israeli mission is fraught with difficulties and has an uncertain outcome.  The Iranian government isn’t too worried about strikes; a greater or lesser likelihood of one is irrelevant to them.

Understanding the threat from a nation begins with understanding that government’s goals.  Let’s broaden Hayden’s question of “why would the Iranians do that?”  One overriding goal of Iran’s is the utter destruction of Israel.  To that end, a successful nuclear weapons program gives them the tools with which to achieve that.  They don’t care the cost to themselves of achieving that destruction; indeed, Iran (at least those who populate the government; the only ones whose goals matter) will simply view their own fate as honored martyrdom.

Another overriding goal of theirs is the destruction of the United States.  To that end, a successful nuclear weapons program also is useful for arming terrorist groups who then will attack the United States (and Europe, and the hands that feed their armorer, Russia and the PRC).  Again, both the terrorists and the Iranian government will simply view their own destruction as a  martyrdom to be sought after.

This threat doesn’t think like we do.  Basing our assessments on the premise that they do is fatally flawed.

America’s Future—Foreign Policy Principles, Part V

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I have posted here (which has links to my other posts on this subject) on other aspects of our necessary future foreign policy.  In this post, and as a segue to an upcoming series on defense policy and force structure, I want to talk about the meaning of “war” and “state of war”  from a diplomatic perspective and then suggest some things that such an understanding might imply for foreign policy.  There is far more to war than shooting and exchanging missile fire; although overtly military actions are certainly central aspects of war, especially in the end game.  A clear understanding also is necessary if State and Defense are to work together as the unified whole they must in order for the United States to effectively defend itself in wars of any type.

“War” or “state of war” are more than just formalistic, legalistic conditions involving Congress announcing that we’re at war.  A “declaration of War” by Congress under Article I, Section 8 is in the end only an acknowledgment that we’re already in a war.  For instance, FDR’s 8 December 1941 request for Congress’ declaration of war against Japan closed with this acknowledgment:

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire.

Congress’ subsequent declaration also acknowledged that it was simply codifying with its declaration that war was already in progress:

Whereas the Imperial Government of Japan has committed unprovoked acts of war against the Government and the people of the United States of America….

and

That the state of war between the United States and the Imperial Government of Japan which has thus been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared….

Thus, with the legalism of a declaration, we merely acknowledge that a state of war has existed and that we’ve been in a war for some time.  A formal declaration finds use only insofar as it triggers certain legal conditions and parameters that exist in a formal state of war that do not exist in an on-going war that has not been officially announced.

It’s necessary, at this point, to understand what an “act of war” is.  An act of war has meaning on three levels: one is a precipitating action that triggers a formal acknowledgement that a war is in progress: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, for instance.  A second meaning includes an action conducted within the confines of an ongoing, declared war and in prosecution of it: shooting down enemy aircraft, or foot soldiers fighting a battle against each other, for instance.  A third meaning is an action conducted within the confines of an ongoing war that is as real as the formally declared war but which has not been formalized by the participants’ public declarations of war.  A terrorist attack by a non-national organization on buildings and the occupants of them (the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, various centers in Mumbai, India) and the killing of terrorists for these and in preempting other attacks are examples of this third meaning.

It’s this third meaning that is of interest in this series of foreign policy principles, and it is the non-national organizations, the terrorist organizations, with which this post is primarily concerned.

Being at war, from a diplomatic perspective, is more than just the tautology of Carl von Clausewitz’ remark about war being an extension of diplomacy.  There are diplomatic considerations applicable during war, including the not-formally-declared war, as well.  These begin with understanding the goals of the nation or non-national organization that is attacking us, a critical matter of catch-up if the strike was unpredicted, and an equally critical matter of anticipation when the enmity has been well-known for some time, and the tensions observed to have been building through that time.  But the diplomatic considerations also apply to hidden wars, especially when we finally realize that we are under attack (vis., cyber war.  This and other forms of “hidden” war are described briefly below).

For instance, the goals Islamic terrorists have for their war on us are not well understood, not least by our politicians.  The present administration, and its predecessors, have long shown little interest in understanding their goals, satisfying themselves with bringing the perpetrators to “justice.”  The Clinton administration considered terrorist acts simply to be crimes.  The succeeding Bush administration understood that we were at war, in some sense, but did not look into the terrorists’ purposes, satisfying itself solely with making war on Al Qaeda and “every terrorist group of global reach;”  although President Bush did understand one goal of Al Qaeda, in particular: “Its goal is remaking the world and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere.”   The Obama administration has been even less investigative of terrorist goals, satisfying itself with killing Al Qaeda leaders and “bringing the troops home.”

Yet buried in the incuriosity is a statement by a terrorist leader, Hussein Massawi, a former leader of Hezbollah:

We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you.

And there’s this from Sayyed Hassan Nasralleh, Hezbollah’s Secretary General:

“Death to America!” was, is, and will stay our slogan.

Within this clear, but not yet internalized by our government, statement of the purpose of a terrorist war, for instance, we can gain a clearer understanding of what’s included in “acts of war.”

Beyond the overt actions of forces invading another nation, or bombing its harbors and ports, or the like, acts of war also include, within this third meaning, such things as the following, which is an illustrative list, only (other examples are described here):

  • attacking another nation’s embassy and imprisoning the diplomats, staff, and families within it
  • sending personnel—terrorists—into another nation to murder citizens of a third nation
  • sending personnel—terrorists—into another nation to murder diplomats of a third nation
  • actively supporting piracy

In addition to these plain acts of terrorism, which are a subset of acts of war, are these additional acts of war—acts that often begin as part of a hidden war:

  • shipping, as part of ordinary trade, poisoned products: formaldehyde-laced gypsum board, or toxic baby food, for instance.
  • manipulating currency values so as to damage our economy.
  • attacking our computing and/or communications networks, or our computer-controlled infrastructure, with cyberware capable of damaging/destroying those targets, or planting malware that will be used “later” for that purpose.
  • actively supporting nations and non-national organizations that do the above

With this understanding, from a diplomatic perspective, of the nature of war, what can foreign policy do to support the successful prosecution of such a war thrust upon us?  It’s important to understand that these are actions that occur in parallel, and in coordination, with military actions; they are not limited to being prior to military action, nor are they conducted instead of military action.  They are not merely a point of departure from which military action extends.

The first thing foreign policy can do is to guide our efforts to help our enemies find a way to stop being our enemies.  They do not need to become friends or allies, although this certainly would be desirable, but by no longer being our enemies, they will no longer be getting killed by us, and more importantly, they will no longer be killing us (or trying to).  In practice, this will most likely apply to our enemies’ allies, but it does not automatically exclude the enemies themselves.  Plainly, this must begin with an understanding of our enemies’ motive in attacking us.  In the case of Islamic terrorists, it would seem that convincing our enemies will not occur; we can, though continue to work on their allies and supporters.

Along with this, foreign policy can guide our efforts to convince other nations to allow us entry into their jurisdiction so as to bring down enemy individuals—terrorists—or gain other nations’ cooperation in their bringing to justice those individuals.  Additionally this can facilitate our efforts to engage foreign intelligence and law enforcement organizations to share information and to obtain assistance in identifying, tracking down, and capturing active terrorists before they can strike.

Finally, foreign policy can guide our efforts to understand the needs and imperatives of relevant nations and non-national organizations (both outright enemies and those who, by supporting our enemies have demonstrated their own enmity and complicity), the better to target such other actions as embargos of critical resources and isolation from the global network (or outright disruption) of their financial systems, including the central banks of relevant nations.

Update: Corrected some (egregious) formatting problems.

Deterrence

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Deterrence is one means of influencing another nation’s behavior.  It is, by its nature a passive activity, relying as it does on persuading another nation not to do something by threatening a response so powerful that any gain from the undesired behavior is overwhelmed by the loss from the threatened response.  One nation might deter another from initiating a nuclear attack, for instance, by threatening a nuclear response of devastating effect.

But deterrence, to be successful, relies on a number of factors, only some of which are under the control of the deterring nation.  One of those factors is actually having the ability to deliver the threatened response and the ability to defeat the other nation’s initiating action.  This is generally within the control of the deterring nation.  Either the United States, for instance, has the ability to deliver a devastating response and to defeat sufficiently the initial action, or we do not, and within limits, only we make the determination acquire/maintain those abilities.  Another factor in deterrence is the will to use that strength, should the nation we’re trying to deter act anyway.  This is a shared factor, though, depending not just on our actual will, but on the other nation’s perception of our will.  We can manage that perception only by acting meaningfully and decisively with lesser consequences in response to lesser actions.  If we do not deliver those lesser consequences, the nation we wish to deter will have no reason to believe we’ll respond with our described deterrence actions.  A third factor on which deterrence depends is the clarity of our position.  The consequences of the other nation’s action must be well understood by that nation.  This also is a shared factor: communication is a two-way street, and we must ensure that the other nation does get the message.  A fourth factor in deterrence is the other nation’s tolerance for the damage we’ll inflict should they strike and we respond as our deterrence position says we will.  The moment the other nation decides the cost is worth the gain, our deterrence ceases to exist, and we must adjust our deterrence—and defensive—posture.  And we must recognize the other nation’s tolerance for pain in order to make the adjustments.  This factor, other than our understanding, is entirely under the control of that other nation.

With these thoughts in mind, let’s look at our ability to deter today.

We say we do not want Iran to obtain nuclear weapons, going so far as insisting that such a thing is unacceptable.  How have we gone about pursuing that goal?  This administration began by extending an open hand to Iran, if only they would unclench their fist: we would negotiate with them, offer them incentives, including help with enriching uranium to the level that an Iranian nuclear power plant needs in order to function effectively.  In truth, the negotiation attempts did not originate with the Obama administration; prior administrations had been pursuing this path all along.  When it became clear that the open hand, the negotiations, were failing, then this administration began a parallel course of threatening ever stronger sanctions, and repeated attempts to apply them.

Indeed, President Obama insists that “this administration has systemically imposed the toughest sanctions on…Iran ever.  When we came into office, the world was divided.  Iran was unified and moving aggressively on its own agenda. Today, Iran is isolated and the world is unified in applying the toughest sanctions that Iran has ever experienced and it’s having an impact inside Iran.”

The Iranian response, though, has been continued effort, and progress, toward nuclear weapons acquisition.  The “toughest sanctions” were ineffective, and part of their ineffectiveness was the active interference with global sanctions by Russia and the People’s Republic of China.  Indeed, Iran has taken to openly attacking diplomatic missions in Teheran, and they’re dispersing their medium range missile systems, making them harder to target should Iran take overt military action.

Our deterrence effort vis-à-vis Iran has failed on a number of fronts.  We did not demonstrate any particular will to apply serious consequences at any stage of our interactions with Iran.  We have not demonstrated even the capability to apply serious consequences.  Even our message is muddled: we’ve never really spelled out the consequences of their continued efforts or of their actually getting nuclear weapons: we’ve only made fatuous remarks about sanctions and vague threats of “no option is off the table.”  Finally, Iran has determined that it’s willing to bear the costs we might inflict.

With Russia, it’s a slightly different story.  The question here is who is actually deterring whom.  The Russians object to our having a missile shield to protect against Iranian missiles (against northern Korea’s missiles, too, but Russia’s public objections have centered on a defensive deployment in Europe).  Shortly after President Obama took office, Russian objections became quite vociferous as we concluded agreements with Poland and the Czech Republic to install components of the shield in each nation.  The Russians said that if we persisted, they would move nuclear weapons into western Russia from where they could strike Europe.  They also made direct threats to destroy Poland with nuclear strikes.  We canceled those agreements and agreed not to deploy a missile shield there.  (As an aside, keep in mind that this missile shield would have been part of that larger deterrence against Iranian use of their nuclear weapons—an ability to defeat a strike by them.

Now The Weekly Standard reports that

The Obama administration is…undertak[ing] what amounts to an off-schedule Nuclear Posture Review—one that ices out Defense and State Department experts usually consulted on nuclear issues.  It is also beginning a new round of talks with Moscow here in Washington next week that many observers believe will result in the United States offering to trade U.S. strategic weapons in exchange for reductions in Russian tactical weapons.

Further,

[T]he Obama administration is looking to make unilateral cuts….  Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has suggested that to save money the administration might have to eliminate America’s land-based 450 single-warhead Minuteman III ICBMs (though ICBM sustainment is but a rounding error in the DoD budget)….”

It may be that Panetta’s threats are mere polemics in an attempt to protect the Defense budget from the cuts mandated by the Super Committee’s failure.  However, against the backdrop of Russia’s just concluded success at deterring us from deploying a defensive system—the flip side of which is our appeasement of them (which itself comes against the backdrop of our acquiescence in the Russian partition of an American ally, Georgia), it’s reasonable to ask whether we’re being further deterred, this time from having sufficient offensive weapons with which to respond to an attack against which we no longer can defend ourselves.  Understand: whether we’re conning the Russians (or conning ourselves) into accepting the decommissioning of supposedly obsolete ICBMs in return for their decommissioning of (obsolete) tactical missile systems or we’re being deterred from maintaining an offensive leg of our triad makes no difference.  We’ll lose a major fraction of our offensive capability.  Further, the tactical systems will be faster and cheaper to replace in the event of a breakout and arms race than will be the strategic systems.  And they will be more immediately decisive in a fight, especially one in which we have no defenses.

With no missile defense capability and with such reductions in our offensive capability, where is our ability to satisfy either the first factor in deterrence: the capability to respond?  And with the reduced capability to respond at all, the pain threshold is much harder to cross, also, giving Russia much less pause as they consider an offensive move.  Russia seems to be moving our behavior in directions satisfactory to it, however.

It’s different yet with the PRC, but not optimistically so.  We have a legal obligation to keep the Republic of China well enough armed with modern weapons that they can defeat an attack by the PRC.  Yet when we began the latest round of talks with Taiwan, the PRC objected so vociferously that we walked away from an initial sale of 66 modern F-16s, and agreed only to sell our ally a couple dozen of outmoded F-16s.

Further, the PRC is increasingly aggressive in the South China Sea, threatening American allies (vis., the Philippines) and potential allies (vis., Vietnam) and seizing key islands—including those that belong to the Philippines and Vietnam—and claiming them for itself.  The American response to this has been…silence.

Finally, DoD is on record as saying that the PRC is developing their own road-mobile ICBM (a capability which the Soviet Union had developed in the early days of mobile ICBMs), and they’ve dug a 3,000 mile tunnel system in which to hide their ICBM force.  They’ve also dismissed out of hand an offer of a joint weapons verification facility proposed by then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Here, it’s clear that the PRC does not consider that we have the will to act, and so any ability to act does not concern them.  Nor have we said anything at all about consequences for their continued aggressiveness.  Finally, as they demonstrated with their human wave attacks in the Korean War, they’re perfectly willing, literally, simply to throw bodies into a fight until we run out of ammunition.  The degree of damage they’re willing to absorb is quite high.

So here we are with our deterrent capability.  Iran is about to acquire nuclear bombs, and it already has the missile systems with which to deliver them.

Russia has convinced us not to deploy a missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.  Russia threatens our allies and any new, potential defensive systems we might deploy with nuclear attack, and it does so with impunity.  Indeed, the imbalance has reached the point where we can’t even determine for ourselves whether we will acquire/maintain the strength necessary for us to deter Russia.  We’re negotiating our arms levels with them.

The PRC threatens our allies and potential allies over sea resources and key islands in South China Sea and over our erstwhile willingness to provide the Republic of China the resources with which to resist a PRC invasion.

Given all of this, what happens when Iran gets its nuclear weapons?  Which of us will be deterred then?  From what else will we be deterred by Russia and the PRC?  What will we deter these three from doing?

Finally, a closely related aside on the question of appeasement: President Obama insists “Ask Osama bin Laden and the 22 out of 30 top al-Qaida leaders who have been taken off the field whether I engage in appeasement.  Or whoever is left out there, ask them about that.”

Let’s also ask Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Vladimir Putin, Hu Jintao, and Kim Jong-il, how American strength and steadfastness is working out.  Oh, and congratulations to President Obama on his success in carrying out President Bush the Younger’s drone and bin Laden policies.