Yes, Virginia, There Is A Foreign Policy Debate Friday

by dday

The first Presidential debate is scheduled to focus on foreign policy, and I imagine those tuning in, whose knowledge of the subject is limited, would rather hear the candidates talk about the current economic mess. But the past week or so has also revealed a series of crises in global hotspots around the world. This includes but is not limited to Iraq, and I would hope that Jim Lehrer understands the full spectrum of global decisions that the next President will have to make, and really make a sustained effort to force the candidates past simplistic slogans and into the heart of what they would do in foreign policy.

• First we have the Marriott bombing in Islamabad, Pakistan, the second big suicide attack in the Muslim world in the space of the week (along with the bombing of the US embassy in Sanaa, Yemen). Given that the Marriott is typically home to international businessmen and Western dignitaries, so those similarities exist as well. This was a signal from the Taliban in response to the recent spate of US forays into the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) region. Given that the Pakistani Prime Minister was due at the Marriott, it could have been worse.

Clearly there’s a real problem with Pakistan. At least 300 have died in suicide attacks just this year. We’ve launched something approaching a shadow war in the FATA region, without any partnership and in fact increasing resistance from elements in the Pakistani government and the military, which is actively repelling raids. It threatens a split between the Army and the leadership of Prime Minister Zardari, and that has potentially disastrous results. In short, the country is on the brink.

More than any other terrorist attack in this volatile country, the devastating truck bombing of the Marriott Hotel over the weekend has presented government and military leaders here with a stark choice: Go all out against extremists or risk the nation’s collapse into chaos.

That is the growing consensus among many Pakistani analysts and commentators, who fear that without rapid, determined and ironfisted action by officials and security forces, this nuclear-armed land is in danger of becoming a failed state, with Islamic radicals in control.

Brandon Friedman has more on this, and he believes that John McCain will end up altering his position on Pakistan with one more broadly in line with Barack Obama. But the question is how to best articulate that policy – maintaining a stance that respects Pakistan’s national sovereignty, but one which understands that a safe harbor for those who wish to do Americans harm is not advisable. This is best accomplished by the locals, not yet another occupying force. But the locals may have competing interests. It’s a complex, dangerous situation that represents the most dangerous trouble spot on the globe, and it demands attention.

• Across the border, Afghanistan is falling apart because the central government is weak and the Taliban has figured out how to fill in the cracks.

The new Taliban movement has created a parallel government structure that includes defense and finance councils and appoints judges and officials in some areas. It offers cash to recruits and presents letters of introduction to local leaders. It operates Web sites and a 24-hour propaganda apparatus that spins every military incident faster than Afghan and Western officials can manage.

“This is not the Taliban of Emirate times. It is a new, updated generation,” said Waheed Mojda, a former foreign ministry aide under the Taliban Islamic Emirate, which ruled most of the country from 1996 to 2001. “They are more educated, and they don’t punish people for having CDs or cassettes,” he said. “The old Taliban wanted to bring sharia, security and unity to Afghanistan. The new Taliban has much broader goals — to drive foreign forces out of the country and the Muslim world.”

That’s just distressing. From a humanitarian standpoint alone we have a responsibility to keep the Taliban on the run. But if they’ve become the de facto government in much of the country, military force against them will take on the look of an invasion, and it will have trouble succeeding. In fact, the US considers that violence will worsen in the country over the next year, due to a winter offensive, and the troops simply aren’t going to be available to stop that. In fact, the latest report on Afghanistan is so bad that the Administration won’t release it:

U.S. intelligence analysts are putting the final touches on a secret National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Afghanistan that reportedly describes the situation as “grim”, but there are “no plans to declassify” any of it before the election, according to one US official familiar with the process. […]

According to people who have been briefed, the NIE will paint a “grim” picture of the situation in Afghanistan, seven years after the US invaded in an effort to dismantle the al Qaeda network and its Taliban protectors.

There’s talk of a joint security force between the Afghans, the US and the Pakistanis to police the border, but it’s unclear why the Pakistanis, who are resisting foreign actions in their territory, would agree to that.

• Ehud Olmert has been forced to resign as Israeli Prime Minister resulting from a bribery scandal, and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is set to take over as head of Kadima and the favorite to be the next leader. Needless to say, any turmoil in Israel impacts the greater Middle East. Livni has been the chief negotiator with the Palestinians, but if she can’t form a government, there will be early elections, and a return to Likudnik power would be a disaster for any hopes for peace. Yet polls are showing that Bibi Netanyahu would be the victor if elections were held today. That’s genuinely scary. And what’s worse is that John McCain considers Middle East peace a low priority and would discourage Israeli-Syrian peace talks. This is the same neocon boorishness that has decreased our standing in the world and made us less safe, and it should absolutely be a part of any debate where Americans are trying to assess the candidates on foreign policy.

• Africa is at a crossroads. Much of East Africa is susceptible to extremism and has been ignored by the Bush Administration for years. Somalia, where a proxy force from Ethiopia raided a couple years ago and took down the Islamic Courts Union, is becoming increasingly unstable as the insurgents regroup, and if a harbor is established it could be another opportunity for attacks to be launched. The southern region, where a modicum of stability appeared to exist, has been rocked by the resignation of Thabo Mbeki in South Africa amid allegations of corruption, as well as eleven members of the cabinet (UPDATE: That was a false alarm). Mbeki has spent lots of time and political capital trying to put together a unity government in troubled Zimbabwe, which is incredibly tenuous. A forgotten Africa is both vulnerable to extremism and Chinese influence.

• The headline here is that North Korea is backing away from the nuclear deal with the United States, but the reality is more complex. The US was dragging their feet in removing North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terrorism, and with the instability surrounding the possible illness of Kim Jong Il, there could also be a jockeying for power among competing forces in Pyongyang. We have bought ourselves a little time, but it seems like both sides are stalling. With Pyongyang asking the IAEA to remove seals at their largest reprocessing facility, the gains of the past couple years are almost entirely lost, and this is a failure of the Bush Administration to live up to their commitments. Will that get mentioned?

• Meanwhile, the lax standards in Chinese manufacturing are still killing people, and the chemicals that are put into our foods, our supplies and most everything we buy (at a cheap price) are toxic. Can we have a serious argument about trade and relations with China without recognizing this?

• And then there’s Iraq, of course. We now have a fair bit of proof that the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad is what led to the drop in violence, not the surge. There’s more to Iraq than Baghdad, of course, but there are also more explanations for the security gains in those outlying areas (the Sunni Awakening in Anbar, for example). Meanwhile the political situation remains stalemated, as legislation for the provincial elections has failed for the fifth time. And the Awakening forces are growing more violent, which will get worse if the Maliki government follows through on locking them out of the security forces. As long as the debate here is played out over whether the surge was a success, we won’t be having a real argument about the future of Iraq. It’s dishonest.

It’s time to get serious. The belligerent Bush foreign policy is making a dangerous world more dangerous. Our shrinking moral authority and lack of cooperation with allies has enhanced this. I don’t know if we’re losing the war on terrorism because I have no idea what a war on terrorism is, but the public thinks we are. And the choice in this Presidential election is between the same old neocon know-nothingism or a measured approach that recognizes both the challenges we face and the best way to combat them. That is more than important enough to fill 90 minutes on Friday night. I just hope (against hope) that the debate is about the real issues.

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