WPR Blog Archive

A report in today’s Independent has now conferred the semi-official status of “backchannel negotiation” to Thomas Pickering’s proposal, published last month in the NY Review of Books, for resolving the international standoff over Iran’s nuclear program. The plan (which was co-authored by William Luers and Jim Walsh, and resulted from five years worth of discussions between Pickering & co. and their Iranian counterparts) called for, among other things, a multi-national uranium enrichment facility placed under IAEA supervision but located within Iran. The plan has the merit of fully satisfying no one, while providing everyone with an opportunity to save face. […]

Yesterday’s post about recent U.S. and Iranian restraint opening the door to possible engagement might have been premature to the extent that it downplayed the rhetoric now coming out of Washington about Iran’s involvement with Iraqi militias. In particular, the events in Basra are now being used to demonstrate the amount of material and training Iran has supplied to the Sadrist militia, both “special” (ie. rogue) factions and those loyal to Moqtada. Future conflicts will certainly bring to light the operational links that Iran has established with other Shiite militias as well, including those that are integrated into Iraq’s national […]

I’ve been meaning to mention Steve Simon’s treatment of tribalism in his Foreign Affairs article on the Surge for the past couple days, but Patrick Barry over at Democracy Arsenal just did it for me. Which means that all I have to do now is contrast Simon’s severe critique of the Sunni Awakening’s re-tribalizating effect on Iraqi civil society with page nine from Carole O’Leary’s Congressional testimony which I flagged last week. O’Leary makes a very strong case in favor of tribal society as a means of strengthening the fabric of Iraqi society, since Iraq’s tribes straddle ethnic, sectarian and […]

M K Bhadrakumar offers a thought-provoking read of the state of play in U.S.-Iranian relations. Based on a series of restrained responses on both sides to events that at other times might have provoked more hostile reactions, he suggests that Washington might be preparing the waters for some sort of engagement. Unlike many American commentators, Bhadrakamur seemed to think that the Petraeus/Crocker hearings “. . .turned out to be a low-key affair that was deliberately, almost ostentatiously, mild in rhetoric against Iran.” The announcement that Tehran planned to install 3,000 centrifuges at Natatnz? Barely a shrug. On the Iranian side, […]

In the midst of a post about the challenges facing Nicolas Sarkozy as he approaches the end of his first year as president, Art Goldhammer of French Politics maintains that: The reconciliation with the United States has yielded a major new obligation (in Afghanistan) without tangible improvement in French influence, stature, or diplomatic reach. I’m not sure I’d agree with that, though. It’s true that, following Sarkozy’s initial dynamism that helped push through the Lisbon Treaty, Germany has become the decisive power in intra-European affairs, as demonstrated by the folding of Sarkozy’s Mediterranean Union into the EU’s Barcelona Process (Union […]

Sam Roggeveen of The Interpreter has a thought-provoking post about whether China represents a special case in the normally direct relationship between economic prosperity and politicial liberalization. This strikes me as spot on: [Chinese leaders] seem to have struck just the opposite bargain with their people: if you accept perpetual rule by us, we will make you rich. That bargain is now the path to continued legitimacy for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), rather than any promise of political liberalisation. It’s impossible to separate China’s prosperity from the globalized market. But the reality is that the West probably has an […]

Foeign Policy’s Blake Hounshell has some thoughts about the Bush administration’s approach to diplomacy, in particular with regard to Russia, that are worth a read. The Bush administration has rejected the traditional give-and-take method of balancing demands on some issues with concessions on others in favor of arguing each case independently on its merits. It’s a classic case of values vs. interests, but the problem is that interests have a way of influencing how values are perceived. That and the fact that Russia is no longer in a position where it can’t really defend its interests.

The Petraeus and Crocker show moved to the House yesterday, where it continued to get the spotlight. But the real action to my mind was the testimony over at the Senate Armed Services committee, where Andrew Bacevich (here in .pdf) and Robert Malley (here in .pdf) really filled in the blanks on the asessment of the Surge, but more importantly on the strategic context that should inform our discussion of where we go from here. Malley’s discussion, in particular, of al-Sadr’s ceasefire adds more depth to the simplistic explanation that his decision was taken solely in response to pressure from […]

It didn’t get much notice, but the first India-Africa Summit just wrapped up in Delhi today with the adoption of the Delhi Declaration and the Africa-India Framework for Cooperation. The biggest news to come out of the summit, which included delegations from 14 African countries, was India PM Manmohan Singh’s announcement of tariff-free market access for products comprising 92.5% of Least Developed Countries’ exports (34 of 50 LCD’s are in Africa), but the Framework is also noteworthy for the ambitious agenda it lays out for Indian economic and political involvement on the continent. Among other things, it includes a Post […]

Since the Senate Foreign Relations committee seems to be giving Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker a pretty tough time regarding Iran’s influence in Iraq and how reasonable it is to believe we can eliminate it, now might be a good time to point out that former Iraqi Prime Minister and head of PM Noori Miliki’s Dawa Party, Ibrahim Jafari, was in Tehran on Sunday, where he met with Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani: Jafari. . .highlighted the Islamic Republic of Iran’s role in solving his country’s problems and said, “Iran seeks to establish peace, security and stability in the region.” Maybe the […]

This CFR interview with Charles Kupchan is about as good a rundown of last week’s NATO summit and the subsequent meeting between Presidents Bush and Putin as any I’ve read. Both the summit and bi-lateral meeting were mixed bags: not enough failure to resemble disaster, but not enough enthusiasm to resemble success. Despite the alliance’s high-profile rebuke of Bush on MAP’s for Ukraine and Georgia, Kupchan observed that Bush has actually done a good job of repairing relations with France and Germany. But in that he’s been helped by a changing of the guard in both countries, as well as […]

I’m not able to watch the hearings here in Paris, so I’ve only been able to read their prepared statements which are up now on the Senate Armed Services Committee website (Amb. Crocker here, Gen. Petraeus here). But based on that, I’ve got to agree with Andrew Sullivan: both Gen. Petraeus’ and Ambassador Crocker’s testimony seem to reflect an effort at intellectual honesty that surpasses that of most of the shrill din surrounding them. There’s still the possibility that a few days of high-pressure questioning might produce the kind of political theater that definitively shifts public opinion, but besides that, […]

The U.S. Institute of Peace report, Iraq After the Surge, that’s been bouncing around the web is notable, as Marc Lynch observes, for putting American strategic interests back where they belong, at the heart of any analysis of policy going forward. A thought that didn’t make the final cut of yesterday’s post on the competing narratives of the Surge is how both advocates and opponents shape its success or failure to defend their policy position. The U.S.I.P. report, on the other hand, identifies five core strategic goals for Iraq outcomes: -Platform for terrorism; -U.S. military capacity and credibility; -Regional stability; […]

According to the Wall Street Journal, Iran will very likely be in the spotlight during today’s Congressional testimony by Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker. Since all three remaining presidential candidates will also be in attendance, that means the hearings are sure to highlight their differences not only on Iraq policy going forward, but also on Iran policy. This Foreign Policy in Focus backgrounder gives a pretty good rundown of where they stand. The editorial slant is definitely towards engagement with Tehran, but it’s important to remember that insofar as we’re already engaged with Iran on Iraq security (the Iranian Foreign […]

When Gen. Petraeus testifies before Congress tomorrow, it will be the latest installment in an ongoing battle between competing narratives of the Surge. On the one hand, that of its supporters who argue that through a combination of brilliantly conceived and skillfully implemented COIN tactics, an increase in troop strength that intimidated Iraqi and Iranian agents provocateurs, and an emphasis on bottom-up reconciliation among Sunni insurgents, Iraq has been brought back from the edge of the abyss. The gains are measurable but fragile, and thus in need of continued consolidation. The major threats to stability are the result of either […]

I’m of two minds after reading Timothy Garton Ash’s brutal takedown of the Bush administration’s Europe and Russia policies (via FPA’s Diplomacy blog). Ash compares President Bush’s divisive insistence on missile defense and opportunistic “Coalitions of the Willing” with George (H.W.) Bush’s skillful navigation of the post-Cold War challenges of integrating “New Europe” into “Old Europe” without alienating Russia. And on the one hand, the Bush administration’s policies seem to reflect an obvious hostility to both the Bush 41 approach and objectives. But on the other, if you take a look at the U.S.-Russia Strategic Framework Declaration signed by Presidents […]

If you’re interested in what a non-alarmist view of American withdrawal from Iraq might look like, click through and read Dr. F. Gregory Gause’s testimony (.pdf) from last Thursday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing titled, “Iraq 2012: What Can It Look Like, How Do We Get There?” Gause, an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Vermont, offered his analysis as part of the committee’s lineup of hearings meant to put next week’s Petraeus/Crocker appearances into a broader strategic context. While he acknowledged that withdrawal would result in Iraqi violence, both sectarian and factional, he argued that even […]