“The French intelligence services know full well that all countries, whether or not they are allies in the fight against terrorism, spy on each other all the time,” he said. “The Americans spy on French commercial and industrial interests, and we do the same to them because it’s in the national interest to protect our companies.”That's why the latest kerfluffle over how America (allegedly) tapped German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone is a bit curious. If the French openly confess to spying on America, then Germany is spying on us, too -- whether or not they're willing to admit it. So why the hypocrisy? Why are Germans so critical of America when their intelligence agency is doing the same thing? In Germany's case, the answer may have to do with their recent past. The Germans have nasty memories of the "Stasi," the secret police of former East Germany, who extensively spied on its own citizens. But Germans aren't the only ones who are angry. Other Europeans, including the French, expressed outrage. Why? The answer appears to be one of scale: America's surveillance program is larger and better than everybody else's. The BBC reports:
"Every country has weapons for spying, but most have the equivalent of a howitzer," says James Bamford, who has written extensively on the National Security Agency. "In terms of eavesdropping, the US has a nuclear weapon."Perhaps tapping Ms. Merkel's phone -- if the U.S. actually did that -- was a step too far in Europeans' eyes. Maybe they are correct. Americans would probably be upset if they knew President Obama's cell phone was being tapped by German intelligence. At the same time, however, Europe's complaints ring hollow. If they admit to spying, then the disagreement isn't over diplomatic protocol, but technological ability. Europeans are simply upset that the U.S. is far better at spying than they are. That's like complaining about "bullying" after your high school football team gets beat 91-0. The only countries that agreed not to spy on each other are part of the "Five Eyes" alliance -- U.S., UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. But, we're probably spying on each other, anyway. (Photo: Reuters via Der Spiegel)]]>
Matthew Levitt recounts Iran's history of terror sponsorship:
Thirty years ago today, on Oct. 23, 1983, a delivery van filled with 18,000 pounds of explosives slammed into the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut. Seconds later, another car bomb hit a French military building four miles away. A total of 241 American and 58 French soldiers lost their lives, all members of the Multi-National Forces in Lebanon.
The attack on the Marine barracks was not only the single-largest nonnuclear explosion since World War II, it was also the deadliest terrorist attack against Americans up to that time. [Emphasis mine.]
Was the Marine barracks attack, heinous as it unquestionably was, really "terrorism"? By definition, the barracks housed military service members, not civilians.
If attacks on military targets stationed overseas in a war zone constitute terrorism, then the word essentially has no meaning. Worse, America would then be guilty of terrorism on a scale that is orders of magnitude more severe than anything Iran has done, given the number of military targets the U.S. has blown up since 1983.
(AP Photo)]]>And so the bottom line in any negotiations should be clear: the only way sanctions on Iran will be lifted or suspended is if they agree to completely abandon any capability for enrichment or reprocessing. Iran has a right to a peaceful civilian nuclear energy program, but it does not have the right to enrich or reprocess. Holding this line is especially important in light of Iran's repeated and blatant disregard of its international obligations. Even a limited enrichment program and possession of sensitive reprocessing technologies is unacceptable because it would keep the path to nuclear weapons open. In fact, until Iran agrees to abandon enrichment and reprocessing, Congress should move to implement a new round of additional sanctions without delay.As Daniel Larison notes, the Iranians have repeatedly insisted that forsaking domestic enrichment is a non-starter. So what Rubio is actually insisting on is not a negotiated settlement, but Iranian capitulation. How likely is it that Iran will knuckle under to Rubio's demands? According to Gallup, a majority of Iranians (56 percent) approve of a nuclear program for non-military use while only 34 percent support a militarized nuclear program (41 percent oppose). Gallup did not wade into the specifics of whether Iranians would be willing to forgo domestic enrichment for a non-military nuclear program, so it's possible there is some wiggle room on this question. Still, some form of indigenous nuclear program is popular in Iran even after the costs of that program to Iranian standards of living has risen. There's another questionable assertion in Rubio's op-ed:
The main reason why Iran's leaders are making noises about negotiating with the world now is because, over the last few years, the United States and the European Union have imposed significant sanctions on Iran. Those sanctions are starting to hurt the regime. It has made it more difficult for them to export terrorism around the world. [Emphasis added.]It's unquestionably true that sanctions have put the hurt on Iran, but it is absolutely not true that sanctions have thwarted Iran's ability to "export terrorism." In fact, we have rather clear evidence from the Washington Institute's Matthew Levitt that sanctions and the covert campaign of sabotage and assassination that the U.S. and Israel have unleashed on Iran have fueled the Islamic Republic's recent acts of international terrorism. From the attempt on the Saudi ambassador's life in the U.S. to attacks in Bulgaria and thwarted attacks elsewhere, there is a fairly strong correlation between the increase in "pressure" on Iran and the increase in Iranian retaliation around the world. (AP Photo)]]>
[Iran's] basic goal was and is to be as powerful a regional hegemon as possible - including control over Syria and Lebanon. It would like to take leadership of all Muslims in the area... Nuclear weapons are thus for Iran primarily a defensive shield enabling it to carry out conventional aggression with impunity.This is also why "Rouhanimania," overly optimistic enthusiasm about Iran's new president, is also misplaced. Like former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mr. Rouhani also wants Iran to be a powerful country, and he very likely believes that nuclear weapons are an appropriate avenue to achieve that end. Therefore, the only real difference between Mr. Rouhani and Mr. Ahmadinejad is that the former has a thicker beard and friendlier rhetoric. Iran's regional ambitions, however, haven't changed much. Besides, even if Mr. Rouhani sincerely doesn't want nuclear weapons, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei (despite his alleged fatwa) probably does. And, as we learned recently, Mr. Rouhani appears not to even have the authority to shake President Obama's hand. One is left to wonder how much power, if any, Mr. Rouhani actually possesses. Regardless of the answer to that question, one thing is definitely clear: Mr. Rouhani will be taken far more seriously if his words are backed with nuclear weapons. (Image: TVTropes.org)]]>
...[A]ny deal that Tehran will accept is still going to leave it with the ability to produce a bomb if it ever decides it needs to; we are mostly going to be negotiating over the length of time it would take them to do so and thus how much warning we are likely to get.It's not clear yet whether the U.S. is willing to live with such a deal. Obama's national security adviser Susan Rice said late last month that any Iran deal would not include domestic uranium enrichment (though Iran would be allowed to import enriched uranium for electrical generation). Still, it's conceivable that if a deal were in sight, the Obama administration and its European partners would relent and agree to Iranian enrichment under international inspections. (Lithuania's foreign minister has said as much.) What's less clear is how Israel would respond to any deal that allows Iran to retain domestic uranium enrichment. Prime Minister Netanyahu's government has repeatedly insisted that Iran can have no such capability but would Netanyahu be willing to rupture a U.S. deal with a military strike? It's one thing to complain publicly about an American policy, quite another to literally blow it up. (AP Photo)]]>
When Congress proves incapable of even its most basic functions — keeping the government running and paying its bills — it undermines the American brand abroad, and with it the nation's ability to be the shining beacon to which others look.Correct. Indeed, publications all over the world are expressing similar sentiments. The British weekly magazine, The Economist, wrote:
AS MIDNIGHT on September 30th approached, everybody on Capitol Hill blamed everybody else for the imminent shutdown of America’s government. To a wondering world, the recriminations missed the point. When you are brawling on the edge of a cliff, the big question is not “Who is right?”, but “What the hell are you doing on the edge of a cliff?”Similarly, the German publication Der Spiegel opined:
Many Germans have found it hard to understand American lawmakers' inability to resolve their budget disagreements in time to prevent a shutdown of all nonessential government services, which went into effect at midnight on Monday night. "What Washington currently offers up is a spectacle, but one in which the spectators feel more like crying," writes the conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.Our friendly neighbors to the north echoed some of the more practical concerns that many people all over the world are having. According to Maclean's:
Every single time the American economy faces some kind of crisis, people in Canada get nervous. Any risk south of the border threatens our own economic good fortune.Most interesting -- and unexpected -- is China's reaction. Although Chinese media is expressing concern over America's ability to repay its debts, the tone has not been one of mockery, as we might expect. Instead, as Foreign Policy explains:
Americans would be forgiven for assuming that observers in China, whose government is not averse to showcasing U.S. government failures to burnish the ruling Communist Party's image, are watching all this and indulging in schadenfreude. Instead, both China's state-run and private-but-state-supervised mainstream media outlets have thus far reacted with restraint.The article goes on to detail the reactions of various Chinese citizens. Many of them do not think a government shutdown reflects poorly on democracy. Some even believe that the fact mass chaos didn't follow the government shutdown speaks to the strength of the United States as a nation. One thing is clear: Any Americans planning to do some international travel in the near future should be prepared to answer some questions. (AP Photo)]]>
From Somalia to Syria, al-Qaeda franchises and jihadist fellow travellers now control more territory, and can call on more fighters, than at any time since Osama bin Laden created the organisation 25 years ago.They also have a map of Al-Qaeda & Friends. Do yourself a favor and read the entire piece. (Image: The Economist)]]>
Obama's decision to back off Syria strikes, and I'm bolding this part because it's important, boosts the credibility of his stated position that he isn't seeking Iran's destruction and that he will seek peace with Iran if they first meet his long-held demands on nuclear enrichment. That's exactly the message Tehran needs to hear right now.I think we need be careful not to get too carried away. The Russian plan has barely been put to the test. We don't know if the Assad regime is genuinely willing to hand over its chemical arsenal or whether they're simply going to stall for time and hope that the political will to launch punitive strikes further erodes in Washington. If Assad is simply stalling and manages to avoid military strikes without surrendering his arsenal, Tehran will likely draw a very different lesson than the one Drezner and Fisher think they're currently receiving. Moreover, it's going to be very difficult for Iran to accept the idea that the Syrian deal shows the Obama administration isn't seeking Iran's destruction when the Pentagon talks openly about arming Syria's opposition even with a chemical weapons deal in place. That sends exactly the opposite message to Iran, who need only look to Libya to understand the consequences of accepting a Western disarmament deal. Finally, it's also worth considering what lesson Washington will take away from this: namely, that threats of military force are vital to forging a diplomatic breakthrough (something many Iran analysts have been arguing for a long time). If this becomes the conventional wisdom, it could provoke the administration into another high-wire act, threatening military strikes against Iran and then banking on a last minute diplomatic breakthrough to peaceably bring about a deal. (AP Photo)]]>
The guiding principle of Russian foreign policy is twofold: annoy, humiliate, and defeat the United States every chance they get and thereby help rebuild the lost Soviet empire whose fall Putin still mourns. Russian adventurism in Syria won’t stop there. It will extend into Asia and cause havoc and diminish American influence there and everywhere else.I think Tobin is utterly wrong in his premise that a loss of influence in one area of the world will lead to a loss everywhere (an argument that should have been put to bed after it was thoroughly discredited during the Cold War), but just for the sake of argument, let's accept that his framing is correct. Does it therefore make sense to overthrow Assad? Not even close. First, let's look at the lay of the land. Russia has one client -- a regime that is battered by a civil war and that looks to be battling a fierce insurgency for years. It has a second, tepid ally in Iran. The U.S., on the other hand, can count on all the other major countries in the region. It's a chessboard that looks distinctly favorable to the U.S. even if Assad stays in power. Second, for all of Tobin's breathless talk about "Brezhnev-era" diplomacy and Putin's scheme to reconstitute the Soviet empire (!), there is no chance whatsoever that Russia can re-assemble anything remotely like the Soviet Union again. It will never reclaim Central or Eastern Europe. Central Asia is independent and is as likely to tilt toward China as it is toward Russia. Ukraine, Russia's best hope for a pliable neighboring client, is also balking at Russian overtures, despite the election of Viktor Yanukovych, who was widely seen as in Putin's pocket. As Anton Barbashin and Hannah Thoburn noted recently, Russia's entire geopolitcal strategy for its near abroad is collapsing. The idea that saving Assad's bacon is an important building block in restoring Russian power makes sense only if you ignore almost every other development in Russia's Putin-era foreign policy. (It also ignores the strong evidence that Russia is in pretty bad shape domestically, too.) Then there's the history. The last time the U.S. aided rebel groups to blunt the advance of Russian power, in Afghanistan, it ended in a transnational jihadist movement that killed thousands of Americans. Back then, the U.S. had the benefit of not knowing the danger of Islamic radicalism. Back then, Russia was a legitimate national security threat that warranted such risk taking. Today, there is no such excuse. Russia is hardly a large enough "threat" to the U.S. to warrant stoking a jihadist whirlwind in Syria just to give them a black eye. (AP Photo)]]>
But the upshot right now – so far as I can see – is that Russia and not America now owns this conflict. It is Putin who is on the hook now – and the more Putin brags about his diplomatic achievement the more entrenched his responsibility for its success will become. And that is perfectly in line with Russia’s core interests: Putin is much closer to Syria than we are; he must be scared shitless of Sunni Jihadists who now loathe him and Russia more than even the Great Satan getting control of WMDs. Those chemical weapons could show up in Dagestan or Chechnya or the Moscow subway. It is Putin – and not Obama – who is therefore much more firmly stuck between the Sunnis and the Shia in Syria – not to speak of the Christians.I'm not sure. It's true the ball is Putin's court, but the only way the Obama administration can keep it there is to keep threatening to do something reckless. Why else does Secretary Kerry continue to threaten military strikes against Syria? Because the administration thinks this is the only way to get Putin's attention and cooperation. Obama, in other words, is in more-or-less the same spot he was in since the crisis began: making threats that he will have to follow through on for the sake of his "credibility" if he doesn't get the results he wants. A wise administration would have used the Russia offer as cover to extricate itself from the quicksand of Syria's internal strife (quicksand the administration walked into with open eyes and careless lips), but instead they're doubling down on the same foolhardy gamble that landed them in this mess in the first place. (AP Photo)]]>