A Celebration of Tyranny

Russia and China's Red Letter Day

Today is a red letter day for authoritarianism. Today the cold warriors have officially been outflanked.

In China the Olympics begin, with great pomp and meticulously timed circumstance. Despite the protests of a few displaced citizens, decrying the bulldozing of their homes to make room for the international celebration of athletic prowess, the show is going on in style. Leaders from around the world have gathered to tip their hats to the political, economic and military might of China. The huddled masses of humanity surrounding Beijing gasp in a lungful of polluted air and dream of a place where once they might have breathed more freely. President Bush applauds while the same tanks that symbolized authoritarianism in Tiananmen Square guard the athletes and the Olympic Village.

Meanwhile, not so very far away, the reempowered Russia invades Georgia. Tanks and planes smash through civilian targets in a move that is long past a cliché to Axis & Allies players. The timing is no accident. With world leaders busy saluting China, response will be slow. The move will be completed before any official protests can be raised. A few token wagging fingers, and a brief blip in the price of oil will likely be the only international response.

This is no accident. No surprise. The massing of tanks along the borders, the fueling of planes doesn’t happen without notice. On some level, the hawkish move of Putin’s protégée has already been given tacit approval from the CIA.

Witness today as a turning point. Witness the fully empowered ascendency of the former communist countries, China and Russia. Empowered with a new, leaner authoritarianism of economics, flush with the wealth of oil, financial maneuvering and population, they flex their muscles as the world applauds.

In which we discuss the role of non-state-actors and the death of sovereignty.

Much lip service has been recently paid to roles of ‘non-state actors’ in Middle Eastern politics. From Hezbollah, to the assorted violent ethnic minority factions which breach the fragile peace with an explosion, then sink back into the general populace before most Westerners can even learn their names, it seems clear to most who are paying attention that the role of the Iraqi government is marginalized before the power of terrorist organizations and other ‘non-state-actors’. But little of the analysis goes far enough. The levers of power being moved by groups of non-state or sub-state elites extends well beyond the borders of Iraq, and could be considered a defining characteristic of the age in which we live. State sovereignty as a concept seems to now exist only as a UN talking point. We have moved into an era in which sovereign rule of law is no longer a viable mechanic either in the Middle East, or anywhere else.

Sovereignty died in Iraq in 2003 when Saddam Hussein was ousted from power by US led coalition forces. While he was a despot and a fascist in the vein of Mussolini, Hussein was the sovereign leader of the country and was unseated not by rebellion or a coup from within, but through the agency of external force, in clear violation of international law. Since then, a bewildering parade of power parties has operated in the population centers of Iraq, mostly organized around ethnic or religious heritage. After a failed attempt at establishing a legitimate government through elections in late 2005, these factions have continued to further splinter, until what remains can only be described as a civil war. The rest of the Middle East is little better. Firebrand clerics run Tehran, fueled by a massive stream of petro-income. Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine are each only nominally controlled by legitimate national agencies. Their inability to stem the tide of terrorist insurgents flowing from their borders suggests that their control, and the degree to which they are serving the interests of their populations could be questioned.

But the traditional institution of the state fares little better elsewhere. In Russia, Vladimir Putin may act as a sovereign modern czar, but it seems clear that the cabal of former KGB hardliners and Gazprom execs who are currently running the show in Moscow are acting more as an international energy syndicate than out of any desire to steer the ship of state. Gazprom is the world’s third largest corporation, with a $270 billion market capitalization. Behind Saudi Arabia and Iran, they are the world’s third largest energy supplier. And like Enron or Bechtel, Gazprom, and Putin as its hired gun in the Kremlin, can only be considered non-state actors. Now Putin is ostensibly the sovereign leader of Russia, but as can be seen from his recent withdrawal of Dutch-Shell’s permit to extract liquefied natural gas at Sakhalin, it is Gazprom’s interests in which he is operating. Sending a message to international corporations that Russia is an unsafe place to make massive investments is not a wise long term plan for the state, it is strategically foolish, unless Gazprom’s interests, not Russia’s are his true concern.

As we can see from this example, it is not just Hezbollah or other Islamic radical groups which comprise the non-state actors which are subverting the notion of sovereignty internationally. The global mega-corporations whom the anti-globalization so rails against are quite often the real power behind the hollow throne. This is not a particularly new phenomenon. The East India Trading Company, generally regarded as the first global corporation, wielded enormous power in British Parliament as much as a century ago. But there are some not-so-subtle differences. For while the EITC was a mighty economic force for England, and used their considerable influence to help shape colonial conquest, much as Enron used it’s influence to encourage the invasion of Iraq, there has been a more stark dividing line between corporations and sovereign governments in the past. Now, Putin is in the pocket of Gazprom, and Dick Cheney and the Halliburton team enjoy an unprecedented degree of power in the United States. The line between corporations and state leaders has dissolved.

Now add to this climate the death of two other hallmarks of traditional operations of sovereign states:

Consider first the presence in the supposedly democratic United States of a leader who clearly lost the popular election, and who even more clearly does not have any mandate to rule based on the will of the people of his country. This lack of a legitimate US leader, in a country which is supposed to be the world’s best at democracy, suggests that even the pretence of rule “by the people” has been retired.

Second, the failure of the US to abide by international treaties (like the Geneva Conventions), signifies a quiet sea change in our definition of self. We are no longer acting like a country which is a part of the international community. The leaders of countries which have a functional, sovereign government respect the international agreements signed by their predecessors, or negotiate new treaties. This mutual agreement is what forms the basis which allows countries to deal with one another as discreet entities, not simply as ever shifting collections of individuals.

The internal consistency by which rule of law is maintained and the parliamentary procedures by which the mechanics of government are held in accordance with their charters are the inner hallmarks of a sovereign country. The adherence to international treaties, and the willingness to respect the sovereignty of other countries is the outer hallmarks of a sovereign country. It seems clear that the United States is now failing to maintain both inwardly and outwardly.

Ruling cabals of the elite are not new. C. Wright Mills warns of them in the United States in the late nineteen fifties, and the concept is central to Mosca’s understanding of state dynamics. (“The few will always rule the many. Democracy and popular sovereignty are unmasked as mere myths. Contests for control are not between the many and the few but between one elite group and another. At best, the advances of freedom will be a mere byproduct of the recurring quarrels between dominant minorities.”) Written in the nineteen twenties, Mosca’s dire phrasing seems to near perfectly describe the situation in Iraq today. If we agree with Mosca and Mills, the elite non-state actors have been in control for more than a century; all that has changed is that the pretense of state sovereignty and legitimacy has been dropped.

But there is a glimmer of hope here, and it is fairly new. There is a much reviled type of non-state-actor which also wields enormous power, which it has only recently learned how to flex. This upstart player is the fifth estate: the popular press and the blogsphere. Consider the influence wielded by Al Jazeera, the Arabic television station, whose popularity quite dwarfs any power which can be wielded by, say, anyone in the Iraqi government. Beginning with President Nixon’s Watergate scandal in the United States, the press has developed as powerful, non-state actor. While the egalitarian nature of this many faceted beast is frequently deplorable (consider lurid attention focused on the Monica Lewenski affair), this is also its power. The internet, blogging, and self-publishing have significantly magnified this leverage, as has the adoption of slicker, mainstream expressions of influence, like the popular Jon Stewart show in North America. This explosion of expressed perspectives, though frequently sounding like a bewildering multitude of voices in the wilderness, can help overcome what has traditionally been one of the great tools of those elites in power: control of information. The era of dominance by the likes of Pravda and Rupert Murdoch, which have traditionally served only as tools of the ruling cabals, is nearing an end.

The problem of how to control and understand non-state actors in the Middle East is not new, as the New York Times has suggested, and it is not just in the Middle East.

From Baghdad to Moscow to Washington, elite ruling syndicates have ceased to recognize the rules which have served to guide the positions of sovereign states for centuries. Soverignty as a concept is nearing it’s functional end.

But for all the talk in the mainstream press about the power of non-state actors, few have recognized that for the first time, this power is now beginning to trickle into the hands of the many, if only they could shake off the shroud of apathy and ignorance and make use of it.

In which we discuss why we need to fix our economy, and a few ways to begin.

It’s time for the United States of America to change our fiscal policies to prepare for a coming storm. Over the last sixteen years we’ve allowed a collection of unwise decisions to put us in a position where we are ill prepared for a major impending shift in demographics which threatens to bankrupt the country and force a significant decrease in our effective standard of living. The United States needs to enact a sea change in the way we manage our money, and soon, before the baby boomer generation ages further.

The youngest members of that generation born in the years of relative prosperity between the Second World War and the Vietnam War are now entering their late fifties or early sixties. They represent the bulk of the US population currently, and as a group, reproduced less prodigiously than did the generation that came before them. Unfortunately, this is a good time for makers of dark suits and funeral homes. Because this generation is approaching their statistical vanishing point; within another ten to twelve years, more of the baby boomers will be dead than still living. Moreover, those who are still alive are approaching retirement, and beginning to show the unfortunate effects of age. The strains on our social health programs are already apparent.

At a time when the savings accounts of the average American are smaller than they’ve been in almost a century, we are within a few years of receiving the biggest bill we’ve ever seen to keep our parents, grandparents, and ourselves healthy and living with dignity as long as possible. The additional emotional gravity these responsibilities carry with them will complicate the problem for many people and make clear-headed decision making more difficult once we are in the midst of this problem. The time to address this problem is now, when a relatively gradual course correction will still have time to bear fruit. If we wait until the bulk of the boomers are no longer economically productive members of society, it will be too late to avoid substantial social upheaval.

The other pincer is closing as well. As our schools continue to fail to generate workers who can compete in a global economy, we are entering a time in which top and midrange jobs are migrating elsewhere. We cannot count on the current crop of high school and undergraduates to help to narrow, or even hold the line in our current financial cold-war with the developing second world.

In short, without significant change, there are likely to be dark days ahead for the US middle and lower classes. If you are between twenty and sixty, this problem is about to land squarely in your lap, and the choices you may be forced to make are likely to be difficult ones. Unless you relish the thought of having to decide between keeping your mother alive in comfort and providing an education for your children, you’d better quickly get onboard with the desire to find some policy solutions to our economic woes. Here are a few suggestions:

First, we need to end the foolish pork-barreling that is squandering billions of tax dollars every year. From bridges to Alaska, to more insidious propping up of the sugar industries, its well beyond time that as voters we began to seriously punish those members of congress who abuse our trust and practice such poor fiscal stewardship. Congress should be held every bit as accountable as the President (another matter entirely), for strengthening, not squandering, America’s financial power. Every senator and representative should be required to furnish transparent accounting of their fiscal voting record. This would help expose some corruption, by shining a light into the holes where some lobbyists live, but more importantly, it would help people understand the gross imbalances in some of ways congress is spending their tax money.

Second, we need to begin to push seriously to increase the real value of many of our critical exports. I’m not talking about the protectionist tariffs on exported goods favored by many Democrats. There is much valid concern that these would serve only to deeper our trade imbalance. Instead, we need to focus on making sure that we are being paid for those goods we develop which are being used in other countries. In particular, one area which is worthy of attention is the real enforcement of intellectual property laws. It is estimated that in China, more than ninety percent of all movies, software, and music sold are pirated. Rather than focusing on adding tariffs to the less than ten percent which are being purchased legitimately, which would serve only to provide increased incentives for piracy, we should focus on trying to ensure that a significant percentage of the content and technology created in the US is paid for. There has been much lip service paid to this notion by Beijing of late, but it has been only that. The recent case in which the Chinese government fined the Beijing Century Hai Hong Trading Company USD $20,100 for selling pirated movies is a fine example. The fine is a pittance, the company allowed to continue operating with little more than a slap on the wrist. Had Beijing been serious in any way, they could have levied serious fines, or imprisoned the financiers behind the operation. If the US were serious about protecting our economy, this is one place we should start. Without the Windows operating system, China’s economy shuts down. It’s that simple. The same is true of US exported media in the entertainment sector, and US brand goods in the mercantile sector. We have leverage here, because we produce products and brands people want. And they are willing to pay for them, but not unless we enforce the need for payment and legitimacy among our export brands.

Third, and most importantly, we cannot continue to throw away money chasing unachievable foreign policy goals or ideals. “Spreading Democracy in Iraq” is simply not worth the hundreds of billions of dollars it has already cost us, even if it were possible, which seems to be doubtful. The same is true for the so called War on Terror. We must become brutally realistic about the true effects of our blundering military actions around the world. The trillions of dollars we are hemorrhaging under the guise of fighting a nameless enemy, an unkillable tactic, “terror”, must be rerouted to improving domestic programs. Terrorists are not killing your father, disease is. It’s under-funded school systems, not Bin Laden who are making your children unable to compete against their pirated-movie-watching peers in Beijing.

If the goal of this war without end is to prop up a defense industry because we need a strong military industry in order to maintain our military hegemony, fine. Let us openly acknowledge this as the case, and add a degree of transparency to the way in which we spend this money. There is nothing wrong with keeping a strong war machine, or at least not from a pragmatic standpoint. But it is foolish to inflame public opinion by cynically manipulating events like the terrorist attacks of 9/11 to serve a doctrine of global aggression unless it be profitable to our citizenry. If perpetual war is the best course for our country, let us acknowledge it. We can accomplish this goal without then having to waste billions pretending to “spread democracy” or accomplish other soft goals in those parts of the world we use as testing grounds for our military.

There is a choice here to be made, between external military spend and internal spend on health care. There are pragmatist arguments for both positions, but it does not seem that we have yet had an honest national discourse about the choice.

Fourthly, let us investigate the true costs of our penchant for incarceration of our citizenry. The early nineties saw a pendulum swing too far in favor of using prisons as a solution to sweeping social ills under the proverbial rug. The War on Drugs, coupled with the appalling popularity of “mandatory minimum” sentencing, which strips from the judicial branch the ability to apply exactly that judgment and wisdom for which is was created, has resulted in a situation in which a huge portion of our society (as much as three percent at any given time) has been moved from the asset column to the liability column. It’s time we take a close look at the real costs of some of our knee-jerk beliefs on what constitutes a criminal offence. Because, again, despite the fear mongering that has worked so well to get politicians elected, it most likely isn’t a drug addict who is going to take your mother’s life. Its sickness. And the real threat to your children is the minimum wage job without health care that currently awaits them when they graduate.

The United States is on the cusp of a demographic shift and an education chasm which threaten to force us into very uncomfortable choices. We must re-evaluate some of our beliefs on how we spend our tax money before the hard decisions are forced upon us.

-tf

In which we discuss a diplomatic and military plan to start serving US interests in the Middle East.

The United States of America has been involved for too long in a war in Iraq which has failed to serve her interests. It has become clear from all accounts that there is no current strategy or goal, and that the present deployment of US and allied troops in the urban centers of Iraq is failing to serve any purpose. It is time for a strategic partial withdrawl from Iraq, and an accompanying shift in our foreign policy agenda. The United States should invoke a new agenda of diplomatic hardball with Iraq’s neighbors, and execute a phased and strategic withdrawal focused on securing her own interests.

Diplomatically, we must engage both Syria and Iran. The petulance with which they arrive at the negotiations must be converted to the absolute certainty that they must take a mature role in shaping the Middle East. The nature of the demographics of the region features built in incentives for each country to work to use the considerable social pressure they can wield to act as a stabilizing force in Iraq and the region as a whole.

First Syria. Syria's Ba’athist government embodies many of the worst traits of the region. Freedom Watch, and other human rights monitoring organizations have consistently given Syria the lowest possible rating for human rights. They imprison and torture their citizens, allow no free speech, and have a virtually totalitarian parliamentary process. Unemployment in Syria is above twenty five percent. It has been estimated that as many as ninety percent of the suicide bombers who given their lives in attacks in Iraq in the last year have been from Syria, through the porous border they share in the northwest portion of Iraq. The Muslim population of the country is more than seventy five percent Sunni.

A threatened US withdrawal from the cities of Iraq would force the Sunni population of Syria to sit up and take notice of the religious civil war underway in the streets of Baghdad currently. The Sunni in Iraq represent a minority of the country (around thirty five percent) -- the particular minority who most resisted the formation of a diplomatic Iraqi constitution in 2005. Without support of a peacekeeping force, like the US is currently attempting to provide, these Sunni will be forced to either agree to play politics, or be destroyed by the Shiite majority. Syria cannot accept a Sunni massacre, but lacks the military might to directly prevent it. So they would have no choice but to either provide safe haven for the overwhelming number of Sunni refugees who would flood their southeastern border, or, better still, use the vast social pressure they are currently applying to creating terrorists to push for a political solution which would serve to protect minority interests in Iraq.

Iran, with its firebrand religious leaders, have derived immense political capital out of the US occupation of Iraq. Overwhelmingly Shiite, Iran has no love for Iraq, but cannot afford to suffer so massive a border becoming any more unstable than it currently is. Moreover, virtually all of Iran’s wealth is derived from their state owned oil exports. Sitting atop a mountain of petrodollars, the president of Iran has risen to great popularity by race baiting (he recently held a conference to “determine” if the Nazi holocaust was a sham), and fanning the flames of anti-American sentiment. So long as the US remains a dominant and visible presence in Iraq Ahmadinejad can avoid contributing any solutions, and simply bask in the glow of the ill will the US engenders among the Shiites of Iraq.

Making both of these countries face up to the grim reality of a widespread Sunni v. Shiite conflict in the region, as well as the economic and military catastrophe presented by a massive exodus of refugees may serve to force them into directing their attention towards soothing, not fanning, the fires of sectarian conflict. Without the US military presence keeping a lid on the boiling pot, both countries face the very real risk of internal civil wars of their own and economic collapse brought about by millions of incoming refugees.

It has long been a knee-jerk leftist response to US involvement in Iraq that the war has been simply fought over oil. While this is a gross oversimplification, energy realists will be quick to oppose a US withdrawal from Iraq, claiming that we simply need the petroleum the region can produce regardless of the price. In great measure, they are right. Iraq is believed to possess the second largest reserves of petroleum of any country in the world, just behind Saudi Arabia. (Iran is third.) In a time when increasing concern about US energy shortages, and the pressure which can be applied by OPEC is mounting, simply ceding the oil reserves of Iraq to the howling medieval barbarians who currently dominate the country is not a practical solution. We need the oil.

This is where it’s time for a shift in US foreign policy which stops trying to inveigle the energy realist position under the guide of spreading democracy. This is a transparent sham, and indeed, the very word “democracy” from the mouth of the current president sounds a bit like the word “love” from the mouth of a street-walker. Democracy is only barely alive in the United States currently, between Patriot Acts and elections by decree. Let us stop pretending that we care about spreading it in Iraq. We do not, and even if we did, there is little evidence the Iraqis are interested. Let us instead forthrightly admit that what we need from the region is its oil. Oil is the reason we line the coffers of some of the worst regimes on the planet (Saudi Arabia for one), and happily fund terrorists every time we fill up at the pump. We cannot continue to allow Saudi Arabia and Iran to dictate our fuel supplies, and therefore, we cannot completely withdraw from Iraq.

But what we can do is extricate US (and the token “Coalition” troops) from the cities of Iraq where the murderous sectarian civil war is being fought. Six of Iraq’s eight major oilfields are not located near any major cities. Establish new “Black Gold Zones” around them. Ring the fields and refineries with troops, and import only foreign workers who were guaranteed to be loyal. Get the oil flowing out of Iraq and to the US and Coalition countries where it is needed.

Make an agreement with the Iraqi government, such as it is at any given time, that control of the oilfields, and the new infrastructure we’ve built around it will be returned to Iraw when the following conditions are met. First, the US and its allies must have recouped the cost of the occupation, and the costs of the money that has been squandered and stolen by greedy Iraqi officials during reconstruction. Second, that there must be a sufficiently stable government to whom control can be handed.

There are those who would quickly invoke the notion of sovereignty to protest coalition seizure of Iraq’s oilfields, but their arguments can be brushed aside. First, Iraq is no longer a sovereign nation by almost any standards. There is no one to negotiate with and no one who speaks for the people of Iraq. Thus, the region is owed no rights beyond the basic human rights we have been trying in vain to protect. This plan does not in any way infringe upon those rights. Second, in times of war, it is standard procedure to make use of the resources of captured territories in order to further the war effort and advance the interests of the occupiers. This is no different than US use of India’s rubber factories in World War Two, and no more morally questionable than continuing to fund states (like Saudi Arabia and Iran) which sponsor terrorists.

Finally, to those who would argue that the US has a moral responsibility to prevent the widespread sectarian slaughter in the streets of Baghdad should occur this salve: currently, US armed forces are spread too thin by trying to patrol and maintain order in the streets of Baghdad and elsewhere in the world. Remove our young men and women from the deadly and pointless urban conflict they are currently mired in, and redeploy those who are willing to other areas in which humanitarian efforts are desired, like Darfur, Myanmar, or elsewhere. If humanitarian interests are to be a motivating factor, then let us focus resources where they are wanted and can go the most good.

It is time for a political shift by which the self interests of the United States are put first.

It is time for a military shift by which the lives of our troops are spent wisely.

It is time for harball diplomacy that forces the Middle East to grow up and face the reality that their firebrand policies and immature forms of governance are self-defeating.