Centrist Pundits

I like to think I am a fairly bright guy, and I can usually see both sides of an issue. But there’s something I can’t quite understand.

Yesterday, someone was arrested overseas for a 32-year old outstanding warrant after he’d confessed and plead guilty to raping a thirteen year old girl.

However, there are many people who think he shouldn’t have to serve time for his crime — maybe because he’s a celebrity. Can someone explain it to me?

Greg Crime and Punishment, Foreign Relations crime, diplomacy, Media

How many of my readers have seen the movie “Blazing Saddles”?  Remember when Mongo shows up in town, and they get the sheriff to deal with him?  Gene Wilder advises Clevon Little not to shoot Mongo, it will only make him mad.

I think about that scene with regards to foreign relations, sometimes.  There are just times that I don’t know why one country would do something, when it is guaranteed to infuriate a more powerful nation.  Iran arrested nine British Embassy staff on suspicion that they were helping fuel the unrest in Iran.  They released 5 of them but continue to hold 4 others.

Never mind diplomatic immunity nor the fact that such things “just aren’t done”.  Why in the world would you antagonize Britain?  In and of themselves they may not be the greatest military power in the world, but they have the biggest, baddest little brother on the planet, the USA.  Now I’m not saying this will boil down to a military engagement, but that’s often how these situations go.

Using the military in Iran would be a huge mistake in many ways, we all know this.  But counting on that seems a risky proposition on their part.  Nothing raises the ire of a nation like holding diplomats hostage.  It may not reach a point of violence.  But if it does, Iran has no capacity to resist, long term. 

Maybe the fact I can’t fathom the reasoning here is why I’m not ambassador to someplace.

JC iran diplomacy, iran

The good people over at The Moderate Voice have posted about an article in the Christian Science Monitor that quotes a researcher from the University of Hawaii who has data from previous elections that shows that these election results was almost certainly fraudulent.

In the article, Farideh Farhi states that she is “convinced that they just pulled it out of their hats.” She goes on to speculate that the miscalculation this time was how severe the protests would be. Her thinking was that there was an expectation of some street protests after the election was stolen, but that it would die down quickly.

This would seem to jive with what we’ve seen. The religious authority must feel that they’re on the verge of losing their country, because, otherwise, they’d just stand by the results. I think there is a real fear that this could be 1979 all over again — only they would be on the receiving end of the wrath this time.

Let’s hope so.

Greg Foreign Relations diplomacy, iran

I beg your pardon for the terrible headline.

In a few hours, Iranians will go the polls to elect a new President.  Ahmadinejad, the current President, is in a tight race against Mousavi, who has held the post of Prime Minister before that position was eliminated.  Ahmadinejad is noted as the more conservative of the two candidates, while Mousavi considered more liberal.  It is important to note, however, that no matter who is elected, the ultimate political authority in Iran will remain with the “Supreme Leader” of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei.  (On the other hand, a religious council has to approve all candidates, so its not like Khamenei has any big problems with Mousavi).  Still, this is a notable election in some ways.

It has been noted in the past that despite what we see from the religious leaders of Islamic nations, America… or more precisely, American cultural items, are popular in these nations.  Iranians like wearing blue jeans, they like drinking Coca-cola.  It is therefore entirely possible that given the right leaders, relations between America and Iran don’t have to be frosty.  America – like him or loathe him – has elected a leader that understands more of the Islamic world than our previous Presidents by electing Barack Obama.  Iran could do its part by electing Mousavi; Ahmadinejad continues to make things more difficult then they need to be – his stance on the Holocaust being only one of the problems he has dealing with foreign leaders.

Ahmadinejad has a lot of support from the religious and those he’s funneled oil money to, and, perhaps surprisingly, the poor.  Mousavi has support from an energized youth vote.  I would never count on a youth vote in America, but maybe it will accomplish something in Iran.  Interestingly, this election has already been markedly different from previous Iranian elections, normally quiet affairs, with Mousavi and Ahmadinejad’s supporters being vocal and public (there are two other candidates that no one is paying attention to), and even nationwide protests and gatherings of Mousavi’s supporters in the last few days.

The Middle-East is a complex place and no one event will bring about positive change in the area, and I think he’s the longer shot to win, but I would be very interested to see how Mousavi would lead Iran, and how he and Obama would interact.  Will it happen?  Time will tell.  Not much time now.

Photo of Ahmadinejad by Daniella Zalcman, photo of Mousavi by Mardetanha (wikipedia username) – both photos were allowed to be used with proper attribution.  If our attribution is insufficient contact us and we will correct it.

JC Foreign Relations diplomacy, elections, iran

I know we don’t have that many readers, but this is an open question to everyone:

Does anyone, anywhere, other than conservative pundits, really actually care that Obama bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia?

JC Foreign Relations diplomacy, obama

As a follow up to my post yesterday on the China problem, we have to acknowledge that perhaps Hillary Clinton gets it.  Maybe, maybe not.  But she did do something important: she’s going to Asia.  It is her first trip overseas as Secretary of State and it has raised a few eyebrows because it breaks off the tradition of the SecState going first to Europe.

It is a welcome change.  I have no problem with our strong European ties, but they are, in this tradition’s sense, a victim of their own success.  We are not going to have any significant falling out with Europe.  We may disagree on some things like Iraq or the Death Penalty, but overall, we’re rooted in European roots and we’re tied very strongly to Europe.  While we always need diplomacy, Europe doesn’t need to be our diplomatic focus.  We aren’t going to undermine them, and they aren’t going to undermine us.

Asia is where it is at.  I wrote yesterday about how China has significant influence over the future of the United States.  Japan is one of our biggest trade partners, even if that trade could be a bit more equitable.  India now supports many of our major companies.  Afghanistan and Pakistan are where the Taliban and any major terrorist organizations are likely to resurge.  North Korea is lead by a crazy person who wants missiles and nuclear weapons and is willing to have a global hissy-fit to get America to pay attention to him.  And so on.

Clinton’s first stop may be in Japan, our staunch ally in this day and age, but the money talks are in China.  Clinton has already said she wants the China talks to discuss the environment, the economy, nuclear proliferation, and human rights.  Those are all huge topics, and the Chinese government’s thoughts on all of them except perhaps nukes are vastly different from our own.  (China has no interest more interest in the spread of nuclear weapons than we do.)  Clinton has her work cut out for her.

Obama may go to Europe more often than Asia and bring his star power to bear there, and repair America’s reputation with our allies on that small, increasingly less relevant continent.  But Clinton will probably visit Asia more often than Europe, because that’s where the real diplomatic thorns are.

I really hope she’s ready for it.

JC Foreign Relations China, Clinton, diplomacy

The G7 met over the weekend and the supposedly richest economies in the world agreed to do what it takes to help the global economy recover.  They were specifically against protectionism.  The G7 nations consist of the US, Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, and Japan.  We can all sincerely hope these 7 nations mean it.

Even though at least one of those nations is notorious for protectionism.

And even though all 7 of those nations would most likely sell out the other 6 for their own recovery.  Pretty words don’t always make actual policy.

But the G7 is inherently missing some things.  Like countries.  What about emerging economies, most notably India?  America talks a lot about creating jobs but not very much about how many jobs have left our shores, especially to those countries where English is prevalent.  I’m not sure what, if anything, America can do about that but such job shifting surely affects our economy, and when Obama or anyone else says that higher technology jobs can’t leave our shores, I’d say that 100 years ago manufacturers probably couldn’t conceive of a time when those jobs would leave.

Worse, there’s at least one country that’s not an emerging economy but isn’t part of the G7.  China is a force to be reckoned with in every possible way.  It has a labor force the size of which the world has never seen, and that costs very little.  It either has no respect for or no desire to enforce international copyright laws.  It has no real problem sending America goods laden with lead or with outright poison (although America also needs to clean up its own act on not shipping food with poison, like peanuts and salmonella).  The country has been buying up American dollars and can help hurt our economy as they desire by dumping them back on to the market.

None of this is about the people of China, but the government of China has a definite low-level hostility toward America, and their policies definitely reflect that.  Even their better policies reflect indifference.  And America seems to abide it because Americans want 25 dollar sneakers at Walmart.  

Its also possible that China has its own problems.  They are having to carefully manage the emergence and growth of the middle class in China and the introduction of more capitalism because to little and those not enriched will revolt, and to much and the new middle will seek to become the new ruling class.  But China has existed as a powerful nation for millennia, and even the switch to “communism” didn’t change as much as one might think.  I don’t think we can hope that our example will change things.  If indeed America or any of the other G7 nations can be considered examples.

Until something is done about the China problem, China will remain a problem.

JC Economy, Foreign Relations China, diplomacy, finance, G7

So I read that Iran wants to talk with us. And, despite the screams we’re likely to get from the far-right, I think that it’s a good idea.

History has shown us that little good can ever come from not having diplomatic relations with a country. I mean, look how well it worked for places like Afghanistan.

Obama got a lot of grief during the campaign for saying that he’d meet with Iranian leaders without preconditions. That was a faux-pas because heads of state never meed without preconditions; it’s simply the nature of international diplomacy.

But I think that the US has a much better chance of being a long-term friend of Iran than we do of being continually adversarial with no ill effects. If President Obama can get  US Embassy open in Tehran, then that will impress me. I think the more contact we have with the Iranians, the less likely that we’ll have terrorists coming out of the country headed our way.

Well, maybe just outside Tehran. Heavily fortified. While I am an optimist in regards to our future with Iran, I do remember November 4, 1979.

Greg Foreign Relations, Terrorism diplomacy, iran