Foreign Policy

As President Obama prepares for a Middle East trip that will take him to Israel, Jordan and the West Bank later this month, much of his attention is focused on neighboring Syria, where rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar Assad are pressuring him to provide them with arms. Rebel supporters around the world are joining in the call.
 
The pressure is understandable. Assad is a brutal dictator waging war on his own people, with devastating consequences. According to the United Nations, fighting in Syria has claimed more than 70,000 lives and forced more than 4 million people from their homes – including 1 million who have fled the country.
 
But U.S. military aid to insurgent forces could have harmful and unintended consequences.



At the President’s Export Council meeting on Tuesday, President Barack Obama reiterated the importance of achieving a U.S.–EU free trade agreement. He said, “Europe is our largest trading partner – the EU as a whole – and we think that we can expand that even further.”



The need to expand the economic partnership was conveyed to Secretary of State John Kerry during his trip to Turkey two weeks ago. Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership “is of crucial significance for Turkey,” and that he and Secretary Kerry spoke about the free trade agreement that was announced by President Obama in his State of the Union address in February. “We believe that Turkey needs to play a significant role in that structure,” Foreign Minister Davutoglu said. Secretary Kerry confirmed that they had reached an understanding on this issue: “The Foreign Minister and I talked about ways in which we can grow our significant economic partnership. He mentioned… the Transatlantic Investment Trade Partnership. This is a huge opportunity for all of Europe, for all of us... And I know the Foreign Minister looks forward to working with me, and we actually arrived at an understanding of a couple of ways in which we intend to continue to do that.”



Analysts conjectured years ago that a commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army named Caesar Acellam wanted to defect – and that he might be key to dismantling the group.
 
Last May, he came out of the bush. Within a few months, the U.S. military advisors who were deployed in late 2011 to help end the LRA conflict in Central and East Africa innovated a new technique for securing defections: using speakers mounted on helicopters to broadcast ‘come home’ messages. Acellam was one of the first people to fly over the Central African Republic to do a ‘live’ broadcast.

As the North Koreans carried out their threat today to scrap the 1953 Armistice agreement that effectively ended combat in the Korean War, words have been flying describing the North Korean regime as crazy and irrational.

But are they actually crazy and irrational? We don’t actually know.

What we do know is that the primary goal of the North Korean government is regime preservation — something that is completely rational and not crazy, despite the scary cult of personality that exists in that country. What we do not know is the thought process by which the Kim regime operates to achieve this strategic goal.

After continued historical American foreign policy follies one must ask, “What is it about the passage of time that causes apparent amnesia?" Not long ago, the institution of American foreign policy made the decision to aid, train, and implicitly arm rebels in Syria who are fighting against the Assad regime. Yes the Assad regime is committing atrocities. Yes the Assad regime is illegitimate. But American policy on Syria is so similar to policy choices of the past that have ended poorly for the institution of American foreign policy and those individuals we are trying to help. Sadder still is how often foreign policy decisions pay lip service to international law and human rights but are made on the basis of structural and geopolitical premises. The situation in Syria today like those it parallels is no different. 

Last week, in a 53-44 bipartisan vote, the Senate defeated Sen. Rand Paul’s attempt to eliminate the National Security Working Group (NSWG). Passage of this amendment would have been a signal that the Senate was abdicating responsibility to remain informed on international negotiations about critical national security issues.
 
The NSWG is a bipartisan mechanism intended to create an official role for senators to serve as observers to official U.S. delegations negotiating on issues relating to nuclear security, missile defense cooperation, and controls on the spread of technologies for weapons of mass destruction. When Sen. Bob Dole and Sen. Robert Byrd created this mechanism in 1985 with the endorsement of President Reagan under the name the Arms Control Observer Group, the senators involved understood their important role in advising the executive branch on national security matters. Members had two important missions: to consult with and advise U.S. negotiating teams and “to monitor and report to the Senate on the progress and development of negotiations.”

The political and economic forces at work both in China and Iran help explain their motives for conducting offensive [and effective] hacking raids on public and private assets in the U.S.

Iran, despite sitting atop the 4th largest proven oil and 2nd largest proven natural gas reserves in the world, has devolved into a pariah nation with a cash-starved population and flailing political economy. According to January’s CRS Report for Congress, that nation saw its crude exports – which supply 70 percent of Iran’s shrinking government revenues - halve from 2011 to 2012.

President Obama has made good progress in putting together a new team to lead his second-term foreign policy.

At State and Defense, the president has appointed men who bring long years of public service and widely respected expertise to American foreign policy. Notably, both men also served U.S. foreign policy interests with honor while in uniform — as some say, on “the pointy end of the stick” — Secretary Kerry as a naval officer and Secretary Hagel as an enlisted soldier, both in Vietnam. This undoubtedly gives both men a valuable perspective on what the American military can and cannot achieve, and therefore on how essential effective diplomacy is today, as we face problematic new challenges around the globe at a time of fiscal austerity and economic hardship, both at home and among our most capable allies.

On his first international tour as secretary of State, John Kerry started in London — a decision that highlights America’s essential relationship with the United Kingdom. And while I am pleased that Secretary Kerry chose to visit the U.K., I am disappointed that he failed to offer support for the Falkland Islands. By failing to acknowledge the right of self-determination for free people, Secretary Kerry undermined what makes our country great — our unqualified support for freedom from tyranny and oppression. He also missed an opportunity to strengthen the bond between the United States and the U.K.

This week, some 13,000 pro-Israel advocates in town to attend the annual AIPAC policy conference fanned out across Capitol Hill to lobby their congressional representatives to tighten sanctions against Iran and designate Israel as a “major strategic partner” of the United States.

Curiously missing from the list was any mention of Israeli-Palestinian peace, which is a vital interest for the United States, but more importantly the single most important guarantor of Israel’s future as a democratic Jewish state.