Foreign Policy

U.S. relations with Egypt have sunk to a new low in a row between the Egyptian military rulers and foreign pro-democracy NGOs accused of fomenting instability in the country. Unfortunately, both sides have mishandled things and the crisis is escalating.

I’m in Cairo, where Egyptian activists say that the military authorities should have acted earlier to enforce a 2002 law providing for the registration of NGOs. But while Egyptian authorities contend that the NGOs failed to register, the NGOs say they had taken steps to do so and fear that the registration is just a pretext for the crackdown.

The United States has advocated democratic and liberal reforms in the Middle East for over half a century. Sometimes it has worked behind the scenes. Other times, it has been out in front, trying to catalyze change.

Whatever the strategy, U.S. policymakers have repeatedly found their efforts stymied by the grip of longstanding authoritarian regimes, the persistence of deeply rooted cultures and social norms, and hostility to Western “meddling.” How ironic, then, that, when change finally arrived in the Middle East, the United States was taken by surprise — just like everyone else watching from the outside — and left scrambling to keep up as the situation on the ground changed on almost a daily basis. Even more ironic, now that the historic transition that the United States has long supported is finally under way, American policymakers — like their counterparts in Europe — are hardly in a position to lend the Arab world much support.

Listening to Texas Rep. Ron Paul talk to his supporters last night in New Hampshire brought back powerful memories of an earlier New Hampshire primary. In 1968, Lyndon Baines Johnson, running as a sitting president, won that primary, but Eugene McCarthy, a political outsider and intellectual provocateur, came in second. He was viewed widely as a winner, as have subsequent candidates who came in second in New Hampshire primaries. His doing so pushed LBJ to decide NOT to run and Robert F. Kennedy TO run, and the world changed. The Vietnam War was the overriding issue.

The most important political effect of Iowa is that the day before the vote, Romney was not supported by 75 percent of Republicans, and the day after the vote, Romney was not supported by 75 percent of Republicans. Now watch the Romney negative-attack armada focus on slaughtering Santorum while a very different and important debate begins between Santorum and Ron Paul about security.

Listening to Rick Santorum, one imagines he would lead America to more war, very quickly. Santorum speaks loudly, carries a big stick and speaks with a trigger-happy enthusiasm common to neoconservatives. The winds of war blow from Santorum's lips with an almost casual air of breathless excitement that virtually guarantees more war if Santorum is elected president.

Ron Paul surging in Iowa, just as we learn Kim Jong Il is dead and his 20-something-year-old son is taking over as the heir to the crazy dictator, is unnerving. The first thing the son, Kim Jong Un, does on Monday morning to make his mark and give us a clue who he is and what he's about, is to test-fire a short-range missile. North Korea then, with a straight face, claims it was routine and completely unrelated to the death of their dictator and the need to flex a military muscle or two. This, just weeks after we learn North Korea is now in possession of mobile Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) that can constantly be on the move so that they aren't easily detected or tracked. North Korea has nukes and can strike before Ron Paul even has the chance to take his head out of the sand.

Everyone remembers former President Bush’s famous "axis" jab with a conciliatory gesture toward North Korea, calling for North Korea to open its borders and pursue normal relations with its neighbors. To this day the radical communist state remains bordered by barbed wire, landmines and a standing army of 1 million, an enduring hangover from the Cold War. Now that its leader Kim Jong-il has passed away, from exhaustion no less, can the United States finally work with North Korea as “a friend and partner” in the rebuilding of their country?

History was made at the White House on Monday, Dec. 12.

Standing side by side in the South Court Auditorium of the Old Executive Office Building, President Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki proclaimed the end of the war in Iraq.

Only 6,000 American combat troops remain in Iraq, down from a peak of 170,000. Those remaining 6,000 will be out before Dec. 31. And the long, bloody, unnecessary war will be over at last.

Hope everyone caught Justin Sink's story in The Hill about Newt Gingrich saying he would name George W. Bush's United Nations ambassador, John Bolton, as his secretary of State. This is not surprising, but is deeply worrisome. Gingrich would bring the neocon war faction to his presidency. This will guarantee a clash with Ron Paul in upcoming debates, and it dramatizes why President Obama has a commanding position on national-security issues compared to Republicans.

Iran’s ransacking of the British embassy in Tehran, which prompted the recall of all British embassy staff and the expulsion of Iranian diplomats from London, means that the chances of miscalculation by both sides in this spiraling crisis have suddenly intensified.

Iran has deliberately set itself on a path of isolation, even though Britain, long considered the “little Satan” in Iran alongside the American “Great Satan,” says that it is not severing diplomatic ties. But cutting channels of communication with Tehran, where radicals were already in the ascendant, contains other dangers at a time when Iran’s nuclear program is back in the diplomatic foreground.

The Pakistanis continue to spit in our eyes despite all of our overtures and attempts to gain their friendship. They know we are over a barrel and we don't have the controls. Why have we given them so much autonomy? We have convinced ourselves that we need them so that we can pursue our goals in Afghanistan, but in order to find a solution to the Pakistani problem we must first re-examine our goals in Afghanistan. What are the realistic chances that we are going to convert them to a democratic society like ours? I suspect the chances are negative, it just won't happen.