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This is a message to the few of you who have subscribed to my blog, only to read very little in terms of new content.  I used to find blogging a useful aide in developing my writing style.  However, I’ve since published in other forums and publications, and so I find the use of this blog must change.  I’d like to keep it as a personal educational resource, basically to catalogue and categorize the various publications I read.

I’m not sure what exactly will come of this blog, however my current intention is to use it to track my political leanings and disposition of world view.  Readers will still be able to comment, however registration will be required.  The blog doesn’t receive too many commenters, being filled instead with spam, but if you are interested in leaving me a note or commenting on an issue in one of my posts, feel free to register and we can have a conversation.  You can also email me at karimassir@gmail.com.

The U.S President needs to make clear where he stands on promoting democracy.

President Barack Obama’s decision to address the ‘Muslim world’ from Egypt has provoked a great deal of head-scratching from observers, myself included. I had hoped that the President would pick a location outside of the ‘Arab world’, to emphasize the diversity existent amongst Muslim nations (and perhaps to show that the notion of a ‘Muslim world’ is of our own making). The decision comes as part of a prominent public relations campaign to better ties with Muslims the world over. An interview with the satellite news station Al-Arabiya, and a speech to Turkey’s parliament, both emphasized the value of respect and the willingness on behalf of the United States to listen to the grievances of these nations. While this has been an effective start, the President would do well to make his speech in Cairo a compelling advocacy for the ills of autocratic political culture.

The likelihood that Obama ‘the pragmatist’ will make any room in his speech, however, for effective criticism of the Egyptian regime is quite low. Early signs from his administration indicate that the United States is willing to shelve its push for political reform in Egypt in order to gain that government’s cooperation on other regional issues. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, speaking after having met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, claimed that while the U.S would always support democratic reform, the $1.3 billion that Egypt receives in military aid would not be subject to any conditions of such reform. Obama, though, would be wise to follow his own wisdom, as expressed in an interview with the Washington Post during his campaign for the presidency in which he stated that despite the occasional necessity of working with repressive governments, “those interests need not and must not prevent us from lending our consistent support to those who are committed to democracy and respect for human rights.”

The President’s speech will be sure to draw much comparison to that of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, delivered in 2005 amidst the Bush administration’s forceful push for political reform in the Middle East (transcript). That speech upset the Egyptian President, who refused to visit Washington during President Bush’s second term. And while much of the political repression imposed by the Mubarak regime in the aftermath of that speech was also a response to it, it would be incorrect to assume that it wasn’t worth the trouble or that such efforts shouldn’t be repeated. Learning the right lessons from the past eight years of democracy promotion will be crucial to ensuring that Obama’s upcoming speech does not play directly into the hands of an authoritarian government.

What follows are five suggestions for what the President should say in Cairo:

Stress the importance of democracy and human rights

The Bush administration’s push for democratic reform in Egypt produced a limited opening of political space for dissidents and opponents of the regime. Many candidates openly campaigned for both the presidency and seats in parliament, and a tangible democratic yearning filtered throughout Cairo’s streets. To be sure, the reform was not perfect and quite short-lived. The elections were predictably marred by fraud and vote-rigging, unconstructive political campaigns and corruption. Nevertheless, a democratic political culture cannot be cultivated overnight, and the gains made during this period were certainly to Egypt’s benefit. Ignoring democracy promotion would risk completely rolling back any of the limited advances made since 2003. And as far as human rights go, an emphasis should be placed on minorities and the protection a democratic political system affords them. Even if all of this is delivered in abstract fashion, the point will be well felt by the local regime.

Speak out against torture

Police brutality has been a well documented, frequent occurrence in Egypt. A quick YouTube search reveals dozens of videos depicting a complete disrespect for human dignity on behalf of Egyptian officers. Egypt is also a prime destination for suspects in the C.I.A rendition program. As a former CIA agent has remarked, “If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear — never to see them again - you send them to Egypt.” Given the U.S experience with torture, and the positions that Obama has taken throughout his campaign and presidency, it would be morally negligent for this issue not to be brought up. As much as it is a domestic U.S debate, Obama should introduce the discussion on an international level.

Speak out against discrimination

This point, as with the last, is related to addressing the necessity of human rights, and can be applicable to much of the ‘Muslim world’. In Egypt, Christians, Baha’is, and Bedouins (among others, certainly) are often treated poorly by the state. The President should make an effort to highlight the diversity within Muslim nations, so as to acknowledge the minorities as he addresses the majority. He would serve his cause well to relate the experience of black Americans, of his own story, to those of the repressed minorities in these nations. And if he’s feeling extremely brave, Obama could make a plea for anti-Semitic state-funded propaganda to cease. It’s high time that a head of state call the autocrats of the ‘Muslim world’ out on their complicity in the dissemination of that junk.

Tell the Egyptian regime to ‘build, not destroy’

President Obama should repeat the line from his inaugural address in which he addressed leaders of the ‘Muslim world’, advising them to “know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.” Economic and human development is signal to the betterment of the Middle East and Muslim nations. Obama should tell the autocracies of the region that stifling the growth of human development will continue to engender antagonism to their rule. He should speak definitively about the inevitability of democracy, and make clear that when the day comes that all Egyptians are represented by their governments, an educated and skilled population will be to their collective advantage.

Don’t be afraid of the regime

There will inevitably be a response by the Egyptian government to any principled advocacy of these issues. These campaigns tend to involve wide-scale political repression, imprisonment of oppositionists, and bravado about the interference in internal affairs of Egypt. Unfortunately the domestic population will likely suffer from this in the short term. But President Obama must not allow himself, his administration, or his principles to be intimated by such thuggery; a clear message must be sent that these values are not subject to concessions. The U.S administration must call the Egyptian government out on any future “I’ll show you” backlash that is to follow.

While the speech is likely to be littered with references to Iranian cooperation and Isreali-Palestinian peace, failing or refusing to mention these issues compellingly would only serve to embolden an aid-fueled autocracy that adheres little to international norms of behavior. It would also make this administration culpable in the stifling of political reform in Egypt and the ‘Muslim world.’

I’ve wanted to write about this topic for quite a while.  The primary factor hindering my will to write up a post on the issue is the humbling amount of academic material on the issue, and the developing consensus that humanitarian intervention is both a morally and politically sound form of military action.  Given the recent appointments to the next U.S administration, one gets the impression that military intervention in Darfur and other areas of the world home to genocidal activity will receive increased attention and prescription by the world’s leading military power.  Susan Rice, a veteran of the National Security Council under the Clinton administration and the newly appointed Ambassador to the United Nation under the upcoming Obama administration, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2007 that the failure of the international community to act in light of the occuring genocide in Darfur was a “collective shame.” She then proposed the invocation of Chapter VII of the U.N Charter, which authorizes the security council to take military and non-military action (read: military) in order to secure and maintain international peace.

The developing consensus I referred to earlier is both evident in the amount of material available on the subject of humanitarian intervention today (I just read two reviews of books on the subject in this weekend’s edition of the Herald Tribune), but also the increasing amount of U.N resolutions that have tied gross human rights violations specifically to the threat of international peace, allowing for the invocation of Chapter VII.  From the conclusion of a paper by a professor of mine, Fred Grunfeld:

My point may seem rather academic, since all of today’s conflicts are caused by gross violations of human rights; in the words of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights: “today’s human rights violations are the causes of tomorrow’s conflicts.” Conversely, all conflicts have produced gross and mass violations of human rights.  This is correct and in that sense, the two principal objectives are inextricably linked.  This does not detract from the fact that development described in this contribution reveals an upgrading of the protection of human rights by the international community.  The upgrading is expressed by the use of enforcement measures under Chapter VII.

Grünfeld, F. (1998). Human rights violations : a threat to international peace and security. In: M. Castermans, F.v. Hoof, J. Smith (Eds.), The role of the nation-state in the 21 century, Kluwer Law International, The Hague, pp. 427-441.

Rather than repeating the well-reported pros and cons of humanitarian intervention, I’d rather discuss the importance of the will to intervene.  There is a renewed sense of hope that under an Obama administration, the cause of humanitarian intervention will finally receive a U.S administration willing to assert its power, in concert with the international community, to intervene in occurring genocides and perhaps even to prevent those for which the early warning signals are strong. From a recent article in Newsweek by Jonathen Tepperman:

Meanwhile, much of the international opposition to U.S. military action is specific to George W. Bush and will dissolve come January. That’s especially true for interventions to stop mass killings, which have grown much more palatable to the international community since Kosovo, Rwanda and Darfur. The United Nations recently unanimously approved the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine that gives such missions international imprimatur. And as Ivo Daalder, another prominent Obama adviser, and Robert Kagan have pointed out, between 1989 and 2001 America dispatched significant military force to foreign hot spots so often—once every 18 months—that intervention became something of a standard weapon of U.S. foreign policy, and one with bipartisan support. Kagan argues that this new tradition has been reinforced by 9/11, which showed both policymakers and the public that troubles abroad can come back to hurt the United States. Today’s public is thus “remarkably willing to support overseas action” for the right cause, Kagan says.

Still, only one thing will ultimately determine whether the United States intervenes when crisis strikes: “political will,” as Albright puts it. Kagan is more specific: “At the end of the day, the only person who will be able to answer these difficult questions is the president. It’s all about what this guy wants to do.” Where exactly Obama stands on humanitarian intervention remains something of a mystery. Though he made supportive comments in the campaign—”when genocide is happening … that diminishes us” he said during the second presidential debate—no one seems to know what Obama will do when faced with a real live crisis. The answer may depend on whether he’s an idealist who favors do-gooder missions, as some experts argue, or a hardheaded realist who’d avoid them.

My suspicion is that Obama will fall somewhere in between these two personality types.  John Stoessinger wrote in his book “Why Nations Go To War” about two personality types of American presidents: the crusader and the pragmatist.  The chapter is titled ‘New Wars for a New Century’, and predictably analyzes the personality of George W. Bush (you can guess which end of the spectrum Stoessinger saw W. leaning toward).  The crusader tends to make decisions based on a preconceived idea rather than on the basis of experience, yet also exhibits a “missionary zeal to make the world better.” The pragmatist, by contrast, is “guided by the facts and his experience in a given situation.”  While its certainly too early to tell which end of the spectrum Obama will fall toward, based on his presidential campaign and his appointees to top foreign policy positions I would project that the next president will adopt the role of the pragmatist, keeping more idealist influences around him to inject a humanitarian tinge to his policies.

Needless to say, it will be both interesting and exciting to see how the next administration reacts to the crises in the Congo and Darfur and others exhibiting the gross violations of human rights, and whether the responsibility to act will be met with a will equally as strong.

One of the most compelling contrasts offered to us throughout this past election cycle has been the manner in which an exuberant optimism has been met with cautious skepticism. In a debate held in Maastricht’s ravishing Selexyz bookshop on the night of the election, Danny Merideth, a political advisor to the U.S ambassador to the Netherlands, suggested the tempering of expectations held of an Obama administration. Similarly, other members of the debate panel were quick to point to the difficulties that an Obama administration would face in pursuing its ambitious agenda. The restrictions Barack Obama will face are certainly true of any incoming president; a newly-elected chief executive must deal with their predecessors’ budget, is likely to honor the military and trade agreements already established, and must deal with the challenges posed by the international system, in this case two wars and a commitment to fighting terrorism. Add to that the mounting financial crisis, and it may be easy to understand why reality could weaken the winds powering the sails of an incoming administration that has charted a path paved with hope and headed toward significant change.

It would be prudent of us, however, to step back and cautiously monitor the doubts we express of next four years, in lieu of the history that was made on November the 4th; a history that is likely to litter the pages of history books written for generations to come. Watching the reaction to Barack Obama’s victory that night, both here in Maastricht and around the globe, I was reminded of another culturally significant movement that reshaped the image of the United States both within and outside the nation. In 1969, a concert featuring the days’ most prominent rock and roll artists took place in a small suburb of New York. Woodstock, as the event would come to be known, was as significant for the unification of a generation as the peace and love which it exuded. In the only documentary produced on the event, its director Michael Wadleigh managed to capture images of a youth compelled to unity, inspired by potential and motivated by the questionable actions of its government. One can only imagine the narrative with which history will portray Obama’s victory, as well as the screaming crowds that followed his march to the White House and celebrated his arrival.

The projection of unity in this election, spanning a globe that has grown weary of the exploits of the world’s unipolar, may have far superseded that of the Woodstock generation. This unity is likely to stand distinct in its historicity, and may well prove to be a potent currency with which an Obama administration will act to meet the global challenges of the next four years. What follows are four reasons why this election is probable to affect significant change on the world’s future, and why in addition to tempering our expectations and hopes, we may want to constrain our skepticism.

The Significance of Ethnicity/Race

The shade of Barack Obama’s skin, while tempting to write-off as insignificant to the way he will run the United States in his upcoming term, is significant, and not only because of the racial progress it is symbolic of. While writings in the vein of Christopher Hitchens’ and William Kristol’s have emerged throughout the election cycle suggesting the lack of importance a candidate’s black skin will have toward his administration’s policies and programs, I’d like to suggest otherwise. It was not Obama’s proposals on pursuing militants in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, nor his suggestion that an increased effort was required of the U.S’ allies in Europe to stabilize Afghanistan that prompted the support of millions from Gaza to Nairobi.

And while his international support cannot be solely explained away as stemming from his racial and ethnic identity, it has certainly proved a forceful magnet in attracting positive views of the United States. At a time when the favorability of the U.S, according to several Pew poll results, rarely exceeds the mark of 50% among developing nations, the election of an African American has reframed the narrative of the American dream. Obama’s election has strengthened the image of U.S democracy around the world, and has conjured up the imaginations of those people who live with an unfortunate reality of the lack of opportunity for success of this magnitude in their own countries. This has manifested itself into statements by heads of state praising the triumph of ethnic and racial tolerance; Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai suggested Obama’s election ushered in a “new era” in which politics would transcend race, color and ethnicity.

Although this mode of thinking may demonstrate the failure “to emancipate (ourselves) from the original categories of identity that acted as a fetter upon clear thought,” as Hitchens has noted, it is equally representative of the emotive response much of the world still holds toward racial and ethnic identity, and the important role it has and will play in changing the perceptions of the United States for the better.

The World Was Watching, and Obama Spoke To Them

Every election in modern history has been watched by the world, with differing degrees of interest. With the advent satellite television networks, the internet, and other tools of global communication, billions of people have been able to garner a nuanced appreciation of the U.S election process. While this writer may be too young to appreciate the attention paid to elections past, it should be safe to say that the support Obama has received overseas has been both impressive and unprecedented.

For almost two full years, the international community has been privy to an election held on the grandest and arguably most important stage of them all. Foreign newspapers, television newscasts, and websites were filled with coverage and opinion on the election from the moment Obama announced his run to his last speech declaring his victory. People outside the U.S expressed their views, hopes, and criticisms of the candidates; what’s significant is that a candidate spoke back to them.

Several of Obama’s speeches were sprinkled with messages to the world. After losing three of the first four primaries to Senator Hillary Clinton, Obama alluded to both the tone of his opponent’s campaign and the international attention surrounding it when he said “The world is paying attention to how we conduct ourselves. What will we they see? What will we tell them? What will we show them?” Similarly, on the night of his victory in the general election, in a speech given to over 125,000 people in attendance, Obama addressed his audience overseas:

“And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores… our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand. To those who would tear this world down — we will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security — we support you.”

An International America?

Not to exaggerate the influence he will have or the transformative effect he’ll wield on the way U.S power is used, but the possibility for a more international America is at hand. That is not to suggest that the preeminence of American national security will fade, or that strategic interests will suddenly cease to be the primary motivator for U.S action around the globe. For all the talk of the Bush military doctrine and the wisdom of nation-building, much of what we’re likely to see in the next four years will be a continuation of the past eight. To his credit, Obama’s campaign for the presidency has managed to ooze exceptionalism without making his foreign spectators queasy.

However, amidst all that will stay the same, Obama is very likely to leave an indelible mark on American foreign policy. Of all the candidacies we’ve been exposed to throughout this election, his has been by far the most forward-thinking. Of particular interest to this writer is his counter-terrorism plan, audaciously named his “Plan to Defeat Terrorism”. And while that won’t happen, Obama’s plan stands out for the manner in which it details the role that communication will play in this endeavor. In an effort to shore up support for extremists, the plan mentions the importance of speaking directly to Muslim audiences, and training diplomats in media skills and foreign languages in order to provide an American presence on foreign satellite networks. As part of a large scale public diplomacy effort, Obama’s plan aims to build new “America Houses” that would serve as cultural centers in regions of the world where anti-Americanism is so fervent it may play a role in driving people toward extremist groups. The plan also makes mention of providing alternative options for education in countries where Islamic schooling, prone to the absorption of extremist thought, tends to dominate. Finally, he plans to double spending on U.S foreign aid by the end of his first term, setting a goal of $50 billion dollars.

Obama is Symbolic of a New Generation

‘The torch has been passed’ may have earned its official status as a cliché following election night, however it speaks to a large measure of truth. Barack Obama is very much a child of a ‘flattened globe’, to borrow a phrase from Thomas Friedman. Born to a mother from Kansas and a father from Kenya, having lived in Indonesia for four years as a child, and mingling almost exclusively with foreign students throughout his undergraduate years, Obama’s upbringing is one that forms a holistic, inclusive perspective on the world. Refreshing as that sounds, that perspective will serve not only as a pallet-cleanser to the last eight years; it has and will continue to draw more international attention to what he says and does.

It is conceivable that an international lobby may prove more capable of exerting some measure of influence on the presidency in the coming 4 years than it has been able to in the past eight. If that is the case, it will in large part be due to Obama’s time spent overseas. Why this is not a perennial requirement for the self-proclaimed leaders of the free world is beyond my understanding. I must say, however, I will be looking forward to an American president who can both relate and speak effectively to his generation and the generation to follow, as evidenced by a campaign that seemed to possess more awareness of the world around it than that of his opponent.

While the prospects for an Obama presidency may arguably be overrated, the next four years are likely to effect significant change on American leadership for reasons other than the departure of President Bush. We are likely to see America’s image reframed to appeal to the world, with a leader at its helm more willing to consider our appeals toward him. And although the chants of “yes we can”, the multi-colored Obama t-shirts adulating the man, and the prospects for disappointment may give cause to those cautioning the lowering of expectations, we should temper our skepticism to appreciate the change that has already come, and the promise it holds for our futures.

(to be updated soon)