The National Interest

U.S. Debt Culture and the Dollar's Fate

Christopher Whalen — Fri, 25 May 2012 09:00:00 +0000

IN OUR common narrative, the modern era of global finance—what we call the Old Order—begins with the Great Depression and New Deal of the 1930s. The economic model put in place by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and others at the end of World War II is seen as a political as well as economic break point. But arbitrarily selected demarcation points in any human timeline can be misleading. The purpose of narrative, after all, is to simplify the complex and, over time, to remake the past in today’s terms. As we approach any discussion of the Old Order, we must acknowledge that the image of intelligent design in public policy is largely an illusion.

There is no question that the world after 1950 was a reflection of the wants and needs of the United States, the victor in war and thus the designer of the peacetime system of commerce and finance that followed. Just as the Roman, Mongol and British empires did centuries earlier, America made the post–World War II peace in its own image. The U.S.-centric model enjoyed enormous success due to factors such as relatively low inflation, financial transactions that respect anonymity, an open court system and a relatively enlightened foreign policy—all unique attributes of the American system.

But the framework of the global financial system in the twentieth century and its U.S.-centric design were the end results of a series of terrible wars—starting, in the case of America, with the Civil War. The roots of the U.S.-centric financial order that arose at the end of World War II extend back into the nineteenth century and reflect the political response of a very young nation to acute problems of employment and economic growth—problems that remain unresolved today.

Specters at the NATO Summit

Dov S. Zakheim — Wed, 16 May 2012 09:00:00 +0000

Dov S. Zakheim

Afghanistan is certain to top NATO’s agenda when it meets in Chicago this weekend.

NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former Danish prime minister and staunch supporter of the United States, has stated that the summit will look ahead—beyond the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and U.S. withdrawal of combat forces in 2014—to the task of enabling Afghanistan to “achieve a stable future.”

Rasmussen’s goal is a worthy one, and echoes that of the Obama administration, for whom the summit is meant to be yet another example of competent security-policy management. Some sixty countries (though not Israel, which was vetoed by Turkey) will head to the president’s hometown for the largest NATO confab ever held. President-elect Vladimir Putin chose not to attend but is sending his predecessor, once-again prime minister Dmitri Medvedev, to Chicago in his place.

No doubt the hoopla around the Loop will provide much grist for the president’s campaign mill. Nevertheless, all is not sweetness and light; the specter of Europe’s ongoing troubles, including a possible return to the drachma by NATO member Greece, will cast a pall over the festivities. Some analysts are arguing, as no doubt the administration wishes, that the fate of the euro zone not be an issue at the summit. But surely it will haunt the proceedings, and it is likely to undermine whatever promises NATO makes to itself about providing training and funding for Afghan forces and the Afghan economy beyond 2014.

Peaceful Protest and Palestinian Rights

Paul R. Pillar — Tue, 15 May 2012 21:05:40 +0000

Paul R. Pillar

The agreement that ended a hunger strike by as many as two thousand of the Palestinians held prisoner by Israel is modest, uncertain and shaky. Negotiated with the involvement of Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, the deal calls for Israel to ease the conditions of detention in several respects. About twenty prisoners will be taken out of solitary confinement. Family members from the Gaza Strip will be permitted prison visits, which have been denied them in recent years. Prisoners under “administrative detention”—incarceration in which neither they, their families, nor anyone else in the outside world are told anything about why they are imprisoned—are supposed to be detained beyond six months only if evidence about them is brought before a military court. The prisoners reportedly made some vaguely defined commitment about not engaging in any activity that would support terrorism. It is unclear whether a couple of the prisoners who have been engaging in hunger strikes longer than the rest will end their fasts.

Israel has not conceded much. It is not ending administrative detention—a legal netherworld in which those incarcerated are treated neither as criminal suspects nor as prisoners of war and which makes the U.S. concept of “illegal combatant” look like a paragon of due process. We don't know anything about the sorts of procedures that would lead a current detainee to be kept imprisoned beyond six months. In any case, there seems to be no impediment to Israel continuing to catch and release and catch again, resulting in serial detentions of the same individuals without anything ever being said about why they are imprisoned. It also is easy to envision the whole arrangement breaking down, with Israel declaring the deal to be void at the first sign of anything that can be labeled terrorist activity and can be connected in any way to anyone imprisoned.

A New Energy Era

Jay Zawatsky — Tue, 15 May 2012 19:00:42 +0000

Jay Zawatsky

This article is the third in a three-part series on America’s energy crisis. See part one: How Energy Made the Modern World; part two: Energy and the Debt Conundrum.

The United States sits on top of the world’s largest supply of natural gas. In the last half-dozen years, the often-demonized oil companies have perfected two technologies that can deliver that clean-burning resource in quantities sufficient to replace imported oil as a transportation fuel. Significantly, natural gas can increase fuel economy, reduce greenhouse gases and do it all for a substantially lower cost per gallon than a gasoline (or diesel) equivalent.

How does this natural-gas revolution work? Since the early 1950s, geologists have known there are massive deposits of natural gas within nearly impenetrable shale formations in several areas of the country, including the Barnett Shale in Texas, the Haynesville Shale in northwestern Louisiana and eastern Texas, the Marcellus Shale along the Appalachian chain in West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and the Fayetteville Shale in Arkansas.

Despite their continued demonization by politicians and the press (including conservative Bill O’Reilly on the Fox cable channel), oil companies have been innovating—inventing technologies and techniques to bring that otherwise unrecoverable shale gas to the market.

Obama’s Hubby State

Robert W. Merry — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:53:34 +0000

Robert W. Merry

Of all the commentary unleashed by "The Life of Julia," the Barack Obama campaign’s interactive web ad that follows a faceless cartoon "everywoman" through life, probably the most perceptive is Jessica Gavora’s analysis in the Washington Post Outlook section. Gavora notes that the ads touch on such life milestones as education, work, motherhood, retirement. But one is missing: marriage.

There is a reason for this: Democratic operatives increasingly see unmarried women as a crucial voting bloc. Indeed, she says, these women represent "the most reliably Democratic voting group outside African Americans" –manifest in Obama’s 71-to-29 percent majority among such voters in 2008.

But there is a problem. These women don’t vote in the same numbers as married women. So "Julia" really is a clever get-out-the-vote effort aimed at luring to the polls a much higher proportion of these reliable Democratic voters. And the way to do that is to tout government programs designed to assist and benefit women—educational assistance at early stages of life, equal-pay requirements for later life stages, set-asides for entrepreneurial women seeking Small Business Administration loans, free health screenings, insurance for contraceptives, retirement benefits. In other words, just about cradle to grave.

Jessica Gavora

The Washington Post

Energy and the Debt Conundrum

Jay Zawatsky — Tue, 15 May 2012 17:24:55 +0000

Jay Zawatsky

This article is the second in a three-part series on America’s energy crisis. See part one: How Energy Made the Modern World.

Massive, unprecedented debt burdens have been building up in America since the middle of the 1960s to facilitate ever-increasing social and military spending. The U.S. debt clock shows that the country has $117 trillion in unfunded liabilities. That total is in addition to the $20 trillion official debt when the liabilities of the nationalized Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are included.

Indeed, similar debts exist for most Western economies, which did not distinguish between self-liquidating debt, incurred to fund projects that pay back the debt out of net revenues generated by the project, and debt incurred to facilitate consumption.

The only way to repay all of the debt incurred is to expand the economy. But the rate of economic growth required to pay the debt, even to pay all of the interest incurred on the debt, would be substantially higher than we ever have reached before for any extended period.

Why Americans Are Less Hawkish than Their Leaders

Benjamin H. Friedman — Tue, 15 May 2012 17:14:39 +0000

Benjamin H. Friedman

American leaders are reliably more hawkish than Americans. That gap marks a failure in democratic decision making. Under some circumstances, the free marketplace of ideas not only fails to produce good policy but actually thwarts it.

That problem underlies a new joint study published by the Stimson Center. Based on a survey of 665 Americans, the study shows that when presented with arguments for and against cutting the defense budget, Americans want to cut it—a lot. Respondents rated general arguments for and against cutting total defense spending, finding most arguments convincing but dovish arguments generally more so. They preferred cutting defense spending to raising taxes or cutting other spending (though Republicans somewhat preferred cutting other spending). Asked to set a defense-spending level for next year, nine-tenths of Democrats and two-thirds of Republicans cut it. The survey then listed defense-spending categories, gave standard pro and con arguments for each, and asked respondents for their recommendation on each. Their biggest cuts, by percentage, came from the war in Afghanistan and nuclear weapons. The average total cut amounted to about 18 percent of the nonwar defense budget.

New Paper Argues for Immediate, Practical Cuts in Military Spending

Christopher A. Preble — Tue, 15 May 2012 14:35:10 +0000

Christopher A. Preble

A new report published today by the Project on Defense Alternatives argues for $17–$20 billion in immediate savings to the fiscal-year 2013 defense budget. I coauthored the report along with Benjamin Friedman of Cato and PDA’s Carl Conetta, Charles Knight and Ethan Rosenkranz. Those savings come from eighteen line items—personnel, weapons systems and programs—that could be implemented quickly. Adjustments to U.S. national-security strategy are not a prerequisite for these options, which are relatively low-hanging fruit.

The 2013 defense-authorization bill will move to the House floor this week. Many members are expected to offer amendments, some allowing savings in the defense budget. During the debates that are about to ensue,, it is important to keep in mind just how large the defense budget has become. As our paper notes, the national defense base budget constitutes 52 percent of discretionary spending, separate from the war account. Since 2000, it has risen by 90 percent in nominal terms and 42 percent in real terms. If Washington is serious about addressing the nation’s massive fiscal challenge, many programs will have to be cut or reformed. The Pentagon should not be expected to bear all of the costs; other departments and agencies will also have to contribute. But there has not yet been a significant decline in the Pentagon’s base budget, contrary to what some have claimed.

How Energy Made the Modern World

Jay Zawatsky — Tue, 15 May 2012 09:00:00 +0000

Jay Zawatsky

This article is the first in a three-part series on America’s energy crisis.

Most people (at least outside Washington and academia) understand there is an unbreakable relationship between supply and demand. If demand increases more than supply, prices rise. Through the 1970s, demand increases over time were met with supply increases. But that era of elastic supply to meet demand has been coming to an end for commodity after commodity, particularly oil, over the last four decades. Governments have papered over this reality by increasing the supply of the only commodities at their command—fiat money and the debt that emerges from the wicked womb of fiat money.

Now these two realities—debt increase and commodity-supply decrease—are colliding. Southern European countries, including Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal, are the first nations in the “developed world” to be squeezed by the pincers of debt increase and commodity-supply decline. Soon, the “developing world” will be caught too.

But America appears to have the resources that might help it avoid the coming economic reckoning. Note the word “might.” While the resources exist, their advantageous exploitation will require enormous political resolve. But if America can summon that resolve, the United States once again can become the powerhouse of the world, both literally and figuratively.

Behind Putin's G-8 Decision

Ariel Cohen — Tue, 15 May 2012 09:00:00 +0000

Ariel Cohen

During a telephone conversation with Barack Obama last week, Russian president Vladimir Putin cited the need to complete formation of a new cabinet of ministers to excuse himself from attending the Group of Eight summit at Camp David. It’s hard to see his refusal to participate in the world’s most prestigious meeting as anything but a rolling back of the "reset." Putin’s gesture exposes not only his deep dislike of fancy conferences lacking substance but also his uneasiness about relations with the United States.

The White House repeatedly invited Putin for a visit during his prime ministership. Last summer, a high-ranking official told me that after an invitation by the president and vice president, the Obama administration was working out the details of Putin’s visit to America. But he did not come.

Some expected to see Putin at the NATO Chicago summit, scheduled for May 20–21, but he has refused, to the consternation of the NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen. President Obama even moved the location of the G-8 summit to Camp David (from Chicago, where it had been planned alongside the NATO summit) to avoid putting the Russian President in an awkward situation. But Putin still is not coming.

When Obama called to congratulate his Russian counterpart on his new post, Putin regretfully informed the American president that he would be unable to attend the G-8 meeting in Camp David but that Dmitri Medvedev, his sidekick, would replace him. The explanation was that the urgent pressure to form a new cabinet makes it impossible for him to leave Russia.

The Future of Middle Eastern Christians

Yoel Guzansky, Benedetta Berti — Tue, 15 May 2012 09:00:00 +0000

Yoel Guzansky

Benedetta Berti

The Middle East is known to be the both the birthplace of Christianity and the current home to some of the world's most ancient Christian communities. But Christianity’s rich history in this region is not enough to secure its future. In the past decades, a combination of low birth rates, extensive emigration and growing persecution has contributed to the decline in both the size and visibility of Middle Eastern Christian communities.

In this context, the arrival of the Arab Spring and the subsequent rise of Islamist movements in the region may threaten the already precarious equilibrium between Christian minorities and their host nations. Some worried observers have noted that the political ascent of more radical streams of Islamism—like the Salafist movement—might have a negative impact on the region's capacity to deal with its own sectarian and religious minorities. What's more, with the post–regime-change phase being a time of internal instability and volatility, preexisting cleavages within society are likely to be heightened, increasing the potential for internal violence against minorities.

Setbacks in Iraq, Syria and Egypt

Sergeant Bergdahl, War and Terrorism

Paul R. Pillar — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:01:35 +0000

Paul R. Pillar

The only current American prisoner of war, Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, remains in captivity largely because of the mistaken equating of war fighting with counterterrorism. That false equation has contributed to the suffering of many other Americans in uniform and their loved ones. It lent believability to the Bush administration's rationale to launch the Iraq War, and it has underlain continuation of the Afghanistan War for a decade after Operation Enduring Freedom achieved its immediate counterterrorist objectives. The hardship of Sergeant Bergdahl and his family simply adds to that toll.

The exact circumstances of Bergdahl's capture in Paktika Province in Afghanistan in June 2009 are somewhat in doubt, but not in doubt is that he was a combat soldier in a military unit conducting counterinsurgency operations. His capture was not some block-the-street-with-a-car terrorist kidnapping in a city. His captors were insurgents against whom NATO is waging its counterinsurgency campaign.

No Magical Solution for Syria

Robert Golan-Vilella — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:10:24 +0000

Robert Golan-Vilella

A recent lead editorial in the Washington Post is one of those pieces of writing where every sentence may well be true, but the overall result is dangerously misleading. The subject is Syria, where the Post blasts the Obama administration for its handling of the ongoing crisis.

The Post contends that Washington’s approach, working through the UN and the “Annan plan,” has been a failure. It argues that continued inaction “will allow Mr. Assad to go on killing indefinitely.” It also notes that the longer the conflict goes on unresolved, the greater the risk will be of other developments more directly threatening to U.S. interests. These include extremist groups such as al-Qaeda taking advantage of the chaos and sectarian war spreading across Syria’s borders to countries like Iraq and Turkey.

These critiques are all fair. But the editorial does not advance a single policy prescription for what the United States ought to do instead. Of course, as many have noted before, there are no good options for what to do about Syria now. Should Washington arm the Syrian rebels? What if that only leads to a prolonged and intensified civil war? Should the United States then send in troops to remove Assad? The Post doesn’t openly suggest any of these steps, but it nonetheless bashes President Obama as if there is some magical solution out there that he’s simply too afraid to advocate for.

Editorial Board

The Washington Post

The U.S. Drug War Comes to Honduras

Ted Galen Carpenter — Mon, 14 May 2012 13:23:33 +0000

Ted Galen Carpenter

New York Times correspondent Thom Shanker broke the story on May 5 that the U.S. military had established three base camps in Honduras to help that country combat the increasingly powerful Mexican drug cartels. The Obama administration authorized this new, and potentially quite dangerous, military operation without congressional approval or the slightest public debate by the American people. That aspect is merely the latest evidence that Obama is as much a devotee of the imperial presidency as any of his predecessors.

But this move should not have come as a great surprise. The Mexican cartels have become a major force in nearly all of the Central American countries, especially Honduras and Guatemala, over the past four years. Political leaders in Central America, as well as their U.S. counterparts, have grown increasingly worried that one or more of those countries could become de facto narcostates.

The increased cartel activity in Central America is a direct result of the vigorous, military-led offensive against those organizations in Mexico during President Felipe Calderón’s presidency. That offensive has been a fiasco for Mexico, resulting in the deaths of more than fifty thousand people in the past five and a half years and turning portions of the country into full-fledged war zones.

Set South Korea Free

Doug Bandow — Mon, 14 May 2012 09:00:00 +0000

Doug Bandow

For more than six decades, North Korea has threatened the Republic of Korea. In response, the United States fought one full-scale war and even today maintains soldiers on station. Yet Washington restricts Seoul’s right to construct missiles for its own defense. The United States should set South Korea free.

America divided the Korean peninsula, then occupied by Japan with the Soviets at the end of World War II. After the so-called Democratic People’s Republic of Korea invaded the South, Washington intervened to save its client state. Since then, the United States has maintained a one-sided “mutual-defense treaty,” backed by a military tripwire, currently consisting of twenty-seven thousand personnel.

Yet Washington long has kept the ROK dependent. The Truman administration refused to arm the South with heavy weapons. It feared that irascible authoritarian President Syngman Rhee would act on his promise to march north in an attempt to reunify the country.

Rhee was eventually replaced by General Park Chung-hee, who still was not trusted with advanced technology. In the 1960s, Washington suppressed South Korean efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Although military rule formally ended in 1987, three years later ROK missiles were restricted to a range of 180 kilometers; the “agreement” was amended in 2001 to 300 kilometers and a payload of 500 kilograms. Seoul joined the Missile Technology Control Regime in return for American technical support.

The Dilemma of American Terrorists

Amitai Etzioni — Mon, 14 May 2012 09:00:00 +0000

Amitai Etzioni

Anwar al-AwlakiShould terrorists with American citizenship, preparing to strike in places such as Yemen or Somalia, be treated differently than other terrorists? Should security considerations allow the government to violate their constitutional right to be tried in an American civilian court? If they cannot be captured and brought before an American judge and jury, should our courts at least be involved in reviewing their case before they are taken out by a drone or a special-forces team? Or, at the very least, should the courts review the criteria according to which American terrorists are targeted?

Concerns with the “extra” rights Americans have, above and beyond those all people have under the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are fully legitimate. But consider the issue from a communitarian viewpoint: We correctly sense that Americans (or other citizens attacking their own homeland) who raise arms against us have betrayed us, wounding us beyond whatever casualties and damage they cause. Such Americans violate our trust, our sense of loyalty and community. When we fight non-Americans, we regret the killing involved and seek to avoid it, but we do not view them as having committed treason. Only members of our own community so offend us. Hence, they are hardly entitled to special privileges.

Treason in an Asymmetric Age

Dismissing the Facts on Afghanistan

Robert W. Merry — Fri, 11 May 2012 17:51:45 +0000

Robert W. Merry

Sam Schulman, writing in The Weekly Standard, exposes what he calls "the liberal habit of sanctimonious betrayal" of beleaguered peoples around the world whose plight these liberals previously had embraced as solemn causes. Fair enough. But in the process he takes a few digs at foreign policy "realists," such as Harvard’s Stephen Walt—who, concedes Shulman, was right in saying the Obama administration is preparing to "bug out" (Schulman’s words) on Afghanistan.

"But," he adds, "only true realists can forget that the Taliban have been beaten again and again on the battlefield by the Northern Alliance, NATO, and our own military forces….Only card-carrying realists can explain (though they never bother to do so) how it might be in our national interest to hand over a country in the neighborhood of several troublesome and often hostile powers—Iran, Russia, China, Pakistan—to a groupuscule of racial and sectarian supremacists…."

On the first point, Schulman seems to think that his pronouncements must be correct because they are his pronouncements. Consider what Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairman of Senate Intelligence, said on CNN recently (with her Republican House counterpart sitting next to her) following a trip to Afghanistan: "I think we’d both say that what we found is that the Taliban is stronger." Schulman might want to read (but he will never bother to do so) TNI’s March/April cover story by Michael Hart, a British military officer whose very different assessment of the situation in Afghanistan emanates from his own military experience there. He makes Schulman’s pronouncement about the Taliban having been "beaten again and again" look ridiculous.

Sam Schulman

The Weekly Standard

New Tactics, Same Netanyahu

Akiva Eldar — Fri, 11 May 2012 09:00:00 +0000

Akiva Eldar

Earlier this week, I sought to explain to National Interest readers why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to call for early elections, before November 2012, rather than seek to stay in office until the official date in November 2013. I mentioned that, according to the polls, Likud now is by far Israel’s most popular party and has a strong chance of expanding the prime minister’s coalition and extending his political and economic maneuverability. I suggested this would reduce the leverage of the smaller parties in his government as the debate over the 2013 federal budget unfolds. I wrote that early elections also would allow Netanyahu to reach the ballots after initiating several bills that were blocked by his Orthodox partners, who threatened to bring down the government on this account . The most popular of these bills would amend the law exempting tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox young men from any military or civil service.

In that column, I made clear that an instant-elections campaign would limit the period for one of Netanyahu's strongest opponents, Shaul Mofaz (who recently won the primaries in Israel's largest party, Kadima, against its former chairwoman, Tzipi Livni), to establish himself as a national leader. It could also have undermined the efforts of Yesh Atid, former journalist Yair Lapid's new secular–central party, to reach out to the Likud's constituency. But, I stressed, Netanyahu’s primary motive for ending his second term fourteen months ahead of schedule was the timeline of the American presidential elections. He had a clear interest, and still does, in having the next U.S. president find him armed with wide and fresh public support and strong parliamentary backing, diversified by central parties.

European Elections and the Debt Debacle

John Quiggin — Fri, 11 May 2012 09:00:00 +0000

John Quiggin

The victory of socialist François Hollande in the French presidential election has been interpreted, correctly, as a repudiation of the austerity policies imposed on the euro zone by his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, in collaboration with German chancellor Angela Merkel, who endorsed Sarkozy in the election.

Hollande’s win was part of a backlash across Europe, with pro-austerity parties from Britain to Greece taking electoral drubbings. Even in Germany, Merkel’s coalition parties were crushed in a state election in Schleswig-Holstein.

It’s safe to predict that Hollande and Merkel will soon come into conflict over austerity. But Hollande’s real opponents in the struggle over European economic policy are not Merkel and the German government but the European Central Bank and its chairman Mario Draghi.

If Merkel’s intervention in the French election was unusual, Draghi’s was extraordinary. Only a few days before the final vote, he opined that increased taxes were not the right way to solve Europe’s budgetary problems. Draghi did not name any names, but he did not have to. Everyone in his audience knew that Hollande was proposing to raise taxes on the rich while Sarkozy has cut them.

Such a political statement from a central banker in the lead-up to an election is almost unheard of. Draghi’s abandonment of the pretence of neutrality reflects what is at stake in the current struggle over Europe’s response to the global financial crisis. It is not just austerity but the entire system of monetary policy and economic management exemplified by the European Central Bank.

War Powers Reconsidered

Paul R. Pillar — Fri, 11 May 2012 01:56:54 +0000

Paul R. Pillar

Jim Webb, the one-term (by choice) senior U.S. senator for Virginia, has been able to observe from several vantage points the multiple issues involved in going to war. He is a Marine veteran of the Vietnam War, father of a Marine who served in the Iraq War, observer as an embedded journalist of the Afghanistan War, a former assistant secretary of defense and secretary of the navy, and currently a member of the Senate committees on armed services and foreign relations. This week he spoke on the floor of the Senate about the executive branch's appropriation for itself of decisions to go to war, notwithstanding the U.S. Constitution's assignment to Congress of the power to declare war. “What has happened,” asked Webb,

to reduce the role of the Congress from the body which once clearly decided whether or not the nation would go to war, to the point that we are viewed as little more than a rather mindless conduit that collects taxpayer dollars and dispenses them to the President for whatever military functions he decides to undertake?

Webb acknowledged that the military's role in national security since World War II has been more continuous, with more need to operate on short notice, than warfare as the Founding Fathers knew it. But “the fact that some military situations have required our Presidents to act immediately before then reporting to the Congress,” Webb said,

Goldberg Routine Falls Flat

Abby Arganese — Thu, 10 May 2012 21:12:25 +0000

Abby Arganese

Jeffrey Goldberg is exasperated. With adverbs.

His latest piece in Bloomberg caustically criticizes Obama’s approach to the Syrian crisis, calling out the president for condemning Assad but refusing to take action. Goldberg snarkily congratulates Obama for “[helping] Syrians understand, among other things, that the English language contains many synonyms for ‘repulsive’” and “[carpetbombing] Damascus with powerful sentences and, at times, whole paragraphs.” He then warns of an approaching crisis in which “America’s stockpile of vivid adjectives is being depleted rapidly” and calls for more action—“a ‘surge’ of new adjectives and adverbs in their campaign” to ensure “even Assad must understand that his time is nearly up.”

The piece is subtle as jackhammer. Goldberg, appalled at the administration’s refusal to arm rebels, create safe havens or otherwise intervene in Syria, sees the increasingly strident rebukes of Assad as laughable—and makes this view abundantly clear. That his flippant tone is inappropriate for the subject matter almost goes without saying. He speaks, by his own admission, about “one of the most blood-soaked acts of political repression” in decades, yet he does so with tongue firmly in cheek.

Perhaps Goldberg believed sarcasm and open hostility would somehow enliven a debate weighed down by heavy questions of ethics, human rights, national interest and humanitarian intervention. Perhaps he sought to interject some levity and humor to an overwhelmingly sad subject—without doubt, there are chuckle-worthy lines. But the overall result is disconcerting.

Jeffrey Goldberg

Bloomberg

Dual Loyalty: Michele Bachmann Is/Was A Swiss Citizen

Jacob Heilbrunn — Thu, 10 May 2012 20:07:00 +0000

Jacob Heilbrunn

Mitt Romney got into hot water over his Swiss bank account. But he never tried to take out Swiss citizenship, at least as far as anyone knows. But Michele Bachmann? She now says that she has been a Swiss citizen since 1978, which has the Los Angeles Times calling her a "Swiss miss." Now she's reversing her decision to apply for official citizenship: "I took this action because I want to make it perfectly clear: I was born in America and I am a proud American citizen. I am, and always have been, 100% committed to our United States Constitution and the United States of America."

Hip hip hooray! Bachmann is not famed for her neutrality, but she seemed quite attracted to neutral Switzerland. It was starting to look as though visitors to her congressional office in Washington, DC, might hear strains of the William Tell Overture emanating from her inner sanctum. Perhaps she also had begun to fly a Swiss flag in it. Might we also have seen photos of Bachmann donning a Swiss dirndl and pretending to be "Heidi"?

According to Bachmann,

I automatically became a dual citizen of the United States and Switzerland in 1978 when I married my husband, Marcus. Marcus is a dual American and Swiss citizen because he is the son of Swiss immigrants. As a family, we just recently updated our documents. This is a non-story.”

Washington Post Defines Worst Fears Down

Benjamin H. Friedman — Thu, 10 May 2012 15:38:18 +0000

Benjamin H. Friedman

“Al-Qaeda bombmaker represents CIA’s worst fears.”

That’s the headline of a Washington Post story on Yemeni terrorists’ attempt to down a U.S.-bound flight by placing a bomb on the body of an operative who turned out to be a CIA and Saudi agent. By straining to alarm readers about the bomb maker, Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, the story makes three errors.

Learning from Bin Laden's Strategy

Jonathan E. Hillman — Thu, 10 May 2012 09:00:00 +0000

Jonathan E. Hillman

As Americans debate the future of the war on terror, they might consider learning from the man who was its focus for over a decade. A chilling letter from Osama bin Laden to al-Qaeda’s top operational planner, recovered during the U.S. Special Forces raid on his Abbottabad hideout, shows that Bin Laden had an overall strategy, a clear sense of priorities and an appreciation for restraint—in other words, a discipline and coherence that America’s “long war” has lacked.

The overall strategy Bin Laden mapped out in his May 2010 letter was simple and straightforward. “The focus must be on actions that contribute to the intent of bleeding the American enemy,” he wrote. “As for actions that do not contribute to the intent of bleeding the great enemy, many of them dilute our efforts and take from our energy.”

In contrast, the most recent National Defense Strategy asserts that the winning the long war will be the “central objective of the U.S.” but says nothing about subverting other priorities to achieve this goal. Indeed, “Win the Long War” is one of five “key objectives,” the others being “Defend the Homeland,” “Promote Security,” “Deter Conflict” and “Win Our Nation’s Wars.” The Defense Department has multiple missions, of course. But when everything is a top priority, there are no priorities.

Bin Laden as Strategist

Hard Times for Loyal Opposition

Paul R. Pillar — Thu, 10 May 2012 01:39:40 +0000

Paul R. Pillar

Notwithstanding the attention we understandably give to whoever is in power or on the way to attaining it, the health of a democracy depends just as much on a strong and credible loyal opposition. A loyal opposition should demonstrate in the fullest sense the meaning of both the words in that term. It is an opposition in that it feels entirely free to speak, vigorously and openly, against the policy of the day. It is loyal not just in the sense that members of the opposition are patriots but also in the sense that they recognize members of the government are as well. It is an arrangement in which everyone understands that sharp and even intensely expressed differences can exist within a political framework to which everyone is loyal.

The advantages of such a political structure parallel the economic advantages of a free market. Spirited competition in which competitors accept each other as legitimate assures that consumers (i.e., voters) will have a credible choice. That in turn strengthens the incentive of rulers to govern in the interest of the ruled. Even without an actual change in power, the possibility of one keeps those in power on their toes.

From this perspective, some of the most conspicuous political events since the beginning of this week are not good news.