Foreign Policy

Back in 1994, during the Rwandan Genocide, the Security Council embarrassed itself and made a mockery of international law when it decided to pass Resolution 918 on May 17, which stated, “Recalling in this context that the killing of members of an ethnic group with the intention of destroying such a group, in whole or in part, constitutes a crime punishable under international law.” 

WASHINGTON -- This week, Elmar Mammadyarov became the first Azerbaijani Foreign Minister to visit Israel and Palestine. This trip, described as “historic” by the Israeli President Shimon Peres, underscored our many shared experiences and concern. My nation also suffered from war just as we were restoring our independence in 1991. Close to a million Azerbaijani civilians lost their homes and became refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) during the war with Armenia, centered on the Nagorno—Karabakh region in Azerbaijan.

When policy makers in Washington consider U.S.-Bangladesh relations, they may find it easiest to focus on business opportunities or trade issues. After all, the United States is the largest export destination for ready-made garments from Bangladesh, and as the 7th most populous nation on earth, Bangladesh represents a huge potential market for U.S. companies looking abroad.

From my vantage point, however, as someone who has worked on issues ranging from shipping to human rights in Bangladesh, it seems that Washington, the international community and media are, to the degree they think about it at all, too easily accepting of the version of events put forth by the current Awami League government in this still emerging democracy.

Remember last year, when Congress passed a law that the Pentagon must cut ties with Rososboronexport, the Russian state-owned arms exporter at the heart of Bashar al Assad’s atrocities in Syria?  The Department of Defense was supposed to spend the last twelve months identifying alternatives to its contract with Rosoboronexport, so that the United States wouldn’t be dependent on an enabler of mass atrocities. Well, apparently the Pentagon forgot too, because so far they haven’t done anything to prepare the United States to cut off its ties.
 
As a refresher, Congress passed a provision, authored by Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas), in  the FY2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that prohibited the use of DOD funds for any contract, memorandum of understanding, cooperative agreement, grant, loan or loan guarantee to Rosoboronexport.

For many years, a persistent theme in House and Senate Agricultural Committee debates over farm policy has been “Give the farm lobbies the subsidy programs they want and the heck with the consequences for U.S. trade relations.”  Nothing reflects that attitude better than the recent history of the cotton subsidy program. Like other developed countries, the United States agreed to end explicit export subsidies for all agricultural commodities by the early 2000’s under the terms of the 1994 Marrakesh Treaty that established the World Trade Organization (WTO).

There has been a quiet revolution going around the world, as communities and nations retake control of their food systems. In the U.S., more people are taking a look at processed foods at the supermarket and opting instead for healthier choices, grown locally with fewer pesticides. People in Cambodia have taken a hard look at what’s happening to their climate, soil and seeds, and figured out a new, low-cost way to produce rice, increasing production and putting farmers in charge. Brazilians are favoring local farmers growing sustainable foods for school lunch programs, lowering hunger rates dramatically as a result.

The Obama administration’s budget included a promissory note. It will take them a few more weeks to tell us what they plan to spend next year on the Afghan War. Their intention to bring that war to an end, though, is clear.



Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and his Harvard colleague Linda Bilmes are predicting that this will produce “little in the way of a peace dividend for the U.S. economy once the fighting stops.” They base this bleak assessment on the kinds of meticulous calculations that anchored their 2008 book The Three Trillion Dollar War: on the huge sums we will and must be spending to care for wounded veterans, for example, and the money squandered when war support functions were massively and unnecessarily shifted to private contractors.



President Obama came, saw, and commented. Any conquering was done by Israel. Notwithstanding President Obama’s visit, Israel’s illegal settlement activity will continue. The president lost that battle in his first term and nothing has changed in his second.

We are far beyond the point of words, even sweet ones from President Obama about justice for the Palestinians. Thousands of words filled the Oslo Accords, but they did not head off Israeli intransigence, endless delay, and absurd protestations that the Palestinian leadership did not accept the feeble peace offers extended. Soaring rhetoric from President Obama asking Israelis to put themselves in our shoes is no substitute for the urgent need to press Israel to stop expansion of illegal settlements, abide by international law, end the occupation, and respect equal rights.

As General Joseph Dunford, commander of all international and U.S. troops in Afghanistan, prepares to appear before the Senate and House Armed Service Committees this week to discuss his plans to wind down the war, just under a week after Army General Martin Dempsey recommended that NATO retain between 8,000 and 12,000 troops in Afghanistan after 2014, you might reasonably believe that Afghanistan only exists insofar as there are U.S. military personnel fighting there. Such a view ignores the ongoing challenges that Afghanistan will face after international forces leave – problems that not only affect the people of Afghanistan but the region and the world. Refusing to acknowledge and confront the political and economic issues posed by the transition threatens to undermine those who wish to overcome them.

America and our coalition allies are winning the war in Afghanistan. This garners little attention in the media as many are focused on the impacts of sequestration and events in other parts of the world. Even Afghans seem too busy managing their own lives to notice this gradual transition. Although there will be bumps along the way, the days of this country being dominated by the Taliban and other extremists are over. As we enter this new chapter in Afghanistan, we must responsibly retrograde and deconstruct hundreds of bases that housed thousands of coalition troops. Our failure to act could very well reverse the momentum we've gained through years of hard work and sacrifice.