President Obama has announced that American troops will pull out of Iraq by the year’s end. Why?
The United States had earlier agreed to exit Iraq by the end of the year and leave 3,000 to 5,000 troops in Iraq as trainers, with some members of Congress advocating the retention of a reduced fighting force as well. But Pentagon lawyers insisted that the Iraqi Parliament grant immunity from legal prosecution to the troops if they were to remain. In recent weeks American negotiators in Baghdad concluded that it would be impossible to obtain that immunity, essentially scuttling any chance of a substantial troop presence here next year.
I can understand the Pentagon’s position. But what if a country’s troops enjoyed immunity from prosecution while operating on domestic soil? That, as Sushant K. Singh points out in a WSJ op-ed today, is the case for Indian forces who operate in Kashmir under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).
Enacted by India’s parliament in 1958 to facilitate a counterinsurgency in northeastern India, the law allows the army greater scope to operate in those areas state governments declare to be “disturbed.” It gives armed forces the power to shoot to kill in law-enforcement situations, to arrest without warrant and to detain people without time limits. The act also forbids prosecution of soldiers without approval from the central government, which in practice is rarely granted. It was extended to Kashmir in 1990, after the Pakistan-backed insurgency overwhelmed local police.
Every national government needs legal cover to fight insurgencies, but the devil in AFSPA lies in its particular draconian details. Not surprisingly, the continued application of this law to Kashmir has been a massive political problem.
Meant to protect soldiers who may kill a civilian by mistake during an operation, the act has ended up blocking all state-level attempts to prosecute soldiers for alleged charges of rape and murder. Separatists point to the law as an example of Delhi’s “imperialist designs” to occupy Kashmir. India’s reputation abroad suffers for its use of a law which arguably violates its international human rights obligations. But for the army’s insistence that it can’t do counterinsurgency without AFSPA, the law would have certainly been repealed by now.
But now, as Sushant has emphasized before, things are looking up in Indian-controlled Kashmir. The number of militants on the loose has dropped, and terrorist incidents have declined. The protests that shook the region last year have not been repeated. Now Omar Abdullah, Kashmir’s admired Chief Minister, wants to end the application of AFSPA in the most stable districts of Kashmir. There’s a good case for this:
Scaling back AFSPA’s application would bolster the standing of pro-India leaders in the state, allowing them to seize the political space in separatist strongholds. By taking away their strongest rallying cry, more separatists will be forced to seek negotiations with New Delhi, so that they can join the political mainstream.
This political change could have security implications. Many Kashmiris, egged on by separatists, resent the army and New Delhi as “occupying” forces. In the long term, insurgents can keep surviving in Kashmir only as long as some locals assist them. Here, a normal political situation can reassure locals and help the security forces. Encouraged by the security turnaround, New Delhi is already considering withdrawing 10,000 central security forces this year—that will reduce the sense of “siege” some Kashmiris feel.
President Obama has said that he wants “normal” relations with Iraq after U.S. forces depart. It’s good to see that India is in a position to establish normal relations with some long-troubled parts of itself.
October 21, 2011 at 10:26 pm | More on Conflict and security, Middle East and North Africa, South Asia | 5 Comments
What has he done to deserve this?
October 12, 2011 at 4:44 pm | More on Global system, Off topic | 1 Comment
At a meeting on Global Green Growth in Denmark yesterday, Ban Ki-moon went on an alphabetical rampage:
The three Gs of Global Green Growth must respond to social, economic and environmental challenges equally. Because we live in an era of three Fs: crises on Food, Fuel and Finance. So we need to enhance the three Es: the Economy, the Environment and global Equity.
It’s a pity that, having turned to the economy, he didn’t talk about major powers losing their AAA ratings. Although I’m afraid this rhetoric will have elicited a few Zzz’s…
October 12, 2011 at 4:36 pm | More on Climate and resource scarcity, Cooperation and coherence, Economics and development, Global system, Off topic | Comments Off
A year ago, I was worrying about the implications of the Euro crisis for UN operations:
Despite the financial crisis, the UN’s peacekeeping budget — running at between $7 billion and $8 billion a year — has not yet faced drastic cuts. The Obama Administration has made a point of paying its dues (now 27% of the total) on time, compensating for Bush-era arrears.
However, other big financial contributors — especially members of the European Union, who cover 40% of the costs combined — are looking for cuts as part of broader spending reductions.
In June [2010], Gérard Araud, France’s ambassador to the UN, told the Security Council that “in the context of budgetary austerity, the cost of peacekeeping was increasingly difficult to manage.”
You can find a longer version of this argument in a paper I wrote for ZIF, the German peacekeeping center, in August 2010. Fourteen months later, my gloomy predictions are being vindicated. Colum Lynch published a lengthy piece yesterday on the FP website headlined “U.S. and Europe fight over cuts in peacekeeping”:
Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, fended off a push last month by European governments to press to consider cuts next year in U.N.-backed peacekeeping mission in Liberia, which costs upwards of $525 million a year, more than Liberia’s $459 million annual national budget. Rice has also resisted calls from other European governments, like Britain and France, to consider deeper cuts in U.N. peacekeeping missions in Haiti and in Sudan.
France and Britain are required to pay, respectively, 7.5 percent and 8.16 percent of all U.N. peacekeeping costs.
U.S. officials say that peacekeeping missions must be adequately funded to ensure their success, and that European governments, who each pay a far smaller share of the U.N. peacekeeping budget, are in some instances motivated by a desire to shift funding to their own “pet” missions, not the commitment to fiscal discipline that they claim.
“There is no country that has a greater interest in the economies, effectiveness, and efficiencies of U.N. peacekeeping missions [than the United States]. We pay 27 percent of the bill while the Europeans pay a smaller percentage,” Rice said in an interview with Turtle Bay. “For them to be holier than thou is a bit rich, to say the least.”
I’d like to say “I told you so”, though that’s not super-helpful…
October 11, 2011 at 9:52 pm | More on Africa, Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, Europe and Central Asia, North America | Comments Off
He’s back!
How does the world look to New Delhi’s top policy-makers? Hobbesian, according to a speech this week by Indian National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon:
In other words, while domestic societies have evolved or are evolving towards rule of law, international society is still much closer to primeval anarchy, where to a very great extent “the strong do as they will and the weak do as they must.”
OK, that’s from Thucydides, but you get my point. Menon pulls no punches:
We live in a time where international law remains underdeveloped, international governance is non-existent or weak, and international society is fundamentally anarchic. As a result the role of force in international relations has been magnified. But the age of weapons of mass destruction and newer technologies make it essential that we consider new ways of regulating the use of force in international relations.
Now that technology has made the spectrum of conflict wider than ever before, it is more than ever a political call whether and how to use force. Societies that have not followed this simple rule have suffered as a consequence. Militaries will have to strive to close the gap between their military capabilities and desired political outcomes. This will require flexibility and agility.
India as a society and nation has by and large made wise choices in the past on matters relating to the use of force, showing strategic restraint and realism. We have contributed force to internationally legitimate uses such as UN peacekeeping, while limiting its domestic deployment. Today we are in a position to make a greater contribution to global public goods in areas such as maritime security. At the same time we are moving towards an Indian doctrine for the use of force, though this is a work in progress.
If the ultimate doctrine is anything like the NSA’s speech, it will be a bracing read.
October 7, 2011 at 4:51 pm | More on Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, Global system, South Asia | 2 Comments
It turns out that my last post on the Security Council and Syria was wrong.
Exceptionally wrong, in fact.
Rather than acquiesce to a resolution condemning the Syrian government for repressing its people, China and Russia used their vetoes. And rather than support the EU-drafted resolution (as had seemed increasingly likely) Brazil, India and South Africa abstained.
This is a big set-back for the EU and the Americans, who were firmly behind the European initiative. It’s a big win for Russia, which would have been embarrassed if China had even abstained. And it’s a grim moment for Brasilia, Delhi and Pretoria, who have missed the chance to carve out a distinctive position in the Council on Syria, and opted to avoid a confrontation. This was a moment the “IBSA” countries could have seized to show why they deserved more respect at the UN. They missed it.
More analysis tomorrow. For now, congratulations to Gabon and Nigeria for voting for the resolution, refuting the claim that all developing countries are anti-interventionist.
October 5, 2011 at 4:04 am | More on Africa, Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, East Asia and Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Global system, Middle East and North Africa, North America | Comments Off
It now looks like the Security Council will vote on a (still too weak) resolution demanding the end of the Syrian crackdown today or tomorrow. Russia is still bad-mouthing the proposal, drafted by the Council’s European members, but other powers are lining up to back it. Brazil – previously numbered among opponents of a resolution along with China, India and South Africa – looks like it’s on board:
In a joint statement issued the same day European nations were to seek a vote on a UN Security Council resolution condemning Syria’s crackdown on protests, EU leaders and visiting Brazilian President Dilma Roussef said the two sides “expressed grave concern” at the current situation in Syria.
“They agreed on the need to continue urging the Syrian authorities to put an end to the violence and to initiate a peaceful transition to democracy.”
The well-informed David Bosco predicts that India and South Africa will also vote for the resolution, although the Indians were fighting a rearguard action against it last week. He thinks that China and, in the end, Russia will abstain. Meanwhile, Turkey is giving the resolution full support from outside the Council:
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan voiced support for the proposed UN resolution and said he would soon announce sanctions on the neighbouring country.
“The draft resolution before the council today is in the nature of sending a warning. We hope there will a positive outcome of this vote and that there will then be further discussions about whatever further steps need to be taken,” Erdogan told a news conference during a visit to South Africa.
The political picture could change again before the vote, and it can’t be repeated too often that the EU’s resolution has been watered down a lot , with a threat of sanctions reduced to near-invisibility. But I think that this episode underlines the point Franziska Brantner and I made in our recent update on human rights and the UN for ECFR: many non-Western powers, especially rising powers like Brazil, want to distance themselves from Russia’s obstructionism in UN debates. Even China is ready to step away from the Russians, as it did over Côte d’Ivoire. As we noted in our paper, and I repeated here last week, this opens up the EU’s options for coalition-building in New York. It looks like the EU is finally finding ways to use those options…
October 4, 2011 at 6:40 pm | More on Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, East Asia and Pacific, Global system, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, South Asia | 1 Comment
It’s obvious that the Asia-Pacific will dominate American strategic thought for the foreseeable future. Today an Obama administration official confirmed just that:
The Obama administration is “rebalancing” U.S. foreign policy by enacting a “turn to Asia,” a senior State Department official said Tuesday. “As the long shadow of 9/11 recedes, we are witnessing the re-emergence of the Asia-Pacific as a key theater of global politics and economics,” Kurt Campbell, assistant secretary of State, told a House panel.
What does this mean for America’s NATO allies? This is a topic I addressed briefly in an op-ed for the EU Institute for Security Studies (EUISS), which has launched an enjoyable online debate about transatlantic cooperation:
Since the Iraq war peaked, US strategic debate has increasingly shifted away from counter-insurgency and stabilisation operations to securing the Asia-Pacific. This has involved diplomatic outreach to India and South-East Asia and a military focus on China’s growing capabilities and its threat to US vessels in the western Pacific.
The European security debate is also evolving, but it is driven by financial concerns. While China’s rise will frame American security policy for years ahead – even in the event of a major terrorist attack – no comparable challenge shapes European worldviews. Russia’s uneven resurgence worries many EU and NATO members, but Moscow’s ambitions centre on energy deals and it does not present a true strategic game-changer. Instead, the need for austerity dominates European thinking.
Do European military forces have any role to play in Asian-Pacific affairs? In another contribution to the EUISS debate, Daniel Keohane argues that Europe won’t look far beyond its periphery, and he doesn’t find this surprising:
Put simply, the US is an Asian power, but the Europeans are not. This is not new. During the Cold war, France and Britain carried out a military operation in the Suez Canal, but they did not join the Americans in Vietnam.
Indeed, future historians may conclude that Afghanistan was the exception that proved this post-World War II rule. Most Europeans went to Afghanistan for the sake of their close relationship with the United States, not because it was an existential threat to their security. That unhappy experience makes it very unlikely that Europeans would follow Americans on future military operations beyond Europe’s neighbourhood.
Richard Gowan, therefore, is right about the emerging strategic divergence between Europeans and Americans. But for Europeans the issue is not so much that the Pentagon cares more about Asia; it is that Washington cares much less about Europe.
There are lots of other contributions to the EUISS debate, and they’re all worth a look. But most of them don’t really address the problem of Europe’s (ir)relevance in the Pacific theater. Quite a few contributors are still focused on the need for better Euro-American cooperation in the European theater instead, and all (including Daniel and me) recognize that financial concerns will affect both European and American security policy very deeply. Nonetheless, I wonder whether the European Security community – and U.S. commentators focused on Europe – have really grappled with the implications of a shift from an Atlantic-centered to a post-Atlantic security order…
October 4, 2011 at 5:35 pm | More on Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, East Asia and Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Global system, North America | 9 Comments
Trying to navigate around the special security cordon for the UN General Assembly last week, I got stuck behind a fellow with closely-cropped hair, a massive American flag and a tee-shirt with “THE UN SUCKS” written on it by hand. That got me thinking, and I have summarized my thoughts in a new op-ed for E!Sharp:
Quite a few U.S. and European officials might have liked to march with the “UN SUCKS” guy. The Palestine debate appeared to confirm that UN diplomacy is weighted against Western interests.
Developing countries backed the Palestinians. The Obama administration stuck with Israel, but was vilified at home for not heading off the issue altogether. The Europeans, failing to declare a single position in advance, looked conciliatory but rather confused.
So is it finally time to give up on the UN? I don’t think so…
China and Russia – the West’s usual foes in the Security Council – have looked uneasy. Although the two powers have a reputation for defending sovereignty and opposing Western interventionism, both proved ready to compromise on these principles in 2011.
China approved tough measures to deal with the crisis in Côte d’Ivoire and let the U.S., France and Britain have their way over Libya. In the Libyan case in particular, Beijing calculated that grand-standing against the West would do its economic interests harm.
Russia, generally more pugilistic, seemed weak. It tried to defend the defeated Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo from Western pressure, but eventually backed down. It failed to follow through on threats to block any UN action over Libya. When they lack China’s support, the Russians appear to be an increasingly hollow power in the Security Council.
China and Russia have united in defence of the Syrian regime, heading off even the mildest Western resolutions condemning Assad’s crackdown on protestors. Brazil, India and South Africa – all holding temporary seats on the Security Council – followed along.
Yet in August, increasingly concerned for their international image, the Brazilians and Indians fixed a compromise deal to condemn Syria’s behavior. The agreed text was still extraordinarily mild. Yet the appearance of cracks among the non-Western powers holds out the possibility, however uncertain, that the Europeans and U.S. may be able to pull together unexpected coalitions of allies to push for action through the UN in future crises.
The problem, as the op-ed goes on to say, is that both the U.S. and EU have internal problems (looming elections in one case, a lack of political cohesion and the Euro crisis in the other) that may well prevent them from seizing this moment.
Nonetheless, a lot of recent coverage of UN affairs has been simplistic, with pundits applying a simple “with us or against us” test to countries like India, and concluding that they will be in the “against” column forever. The art of diplomacy is a bit more complicated that, and there are potential openings to reshape the UN (if gradually).
For a more detailed mapping of those openings, check out my latest report with Franziska Brantner on the UN and human rights for ECFR, published last week.
September 27, 2011 at 9:55 pm | More on Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, Europe and Central Asia, Global system, Middle East and North Africa, North America | 1 Comment
When the current British government took office, it decreed a limit on the number of special advisers that each minister was allowed to appoint. Recent figures show that David Cameron has sixteen “spads”, Nick Clegg has eleven, and most other ministers have just one or two. Overall, there are still fewer than eighty advisers wandering around Whitehall today. Some civil servants probably think that’s still many too many.
Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State, Nigeria, would beg to differ. Today he announced the appointment of a modest 924 special aides…
Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State, on Monday, approved the appointment of 94 Senior Special Assistants (SSAs), 20 Special Advisers (SAs) and 810 Special Assistants.
A statement signed by the Secretary to the State Government, Ahmed Dandija, also announced the appointment of 24 Directors-General in charge of various sectors of the state.
Yuguda also approved the appointment of 20 Deputy Chairmen and 82 members for the Local Councils in the state.
The statement added that all the appointments were with immediate effect.
One can only imagine that the administration of Bauchi State is about to make a great leap forward. [H/T Teju Cole.]
September 27, 2011 at 7:05 pm | More on Africa, Influence and networks, Off topic, UK | Comments Off
Yesterday, I posted a preview of Thursday’s Security Council debate on preventive diplomacy, and predicted that it would be boring. The meeting certainly generated a fair bit of blather, but it wasn’t all diplomatic consensus-building:
“When conflict looms, the world looks to the U.N. for a decisive response,” said British Foreign Minister William Hague. “In Libya… our swift action prevented a human catastrophe and saved the lives of thousands of civilians.”
Hague went on to say that the British government viewed U.N. Security Council action as “long overdue” on Syria. “The consequences of inaction would weigh heavily upon us if we turn a blind eye to murder and oppression,” he said.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle called on the Security Council to “send a strong message to the government in Damascus to stop the killing of its people.”
Not all Security Council members were on the same page when it came to international intervention, however. The representatives from India, Brazil, and South Africa criticized what they saw as overreaching by the United Nations in Libya. South African President Jacob Zuma was particularly critical of the United Nations for ignoring the peacemaking efforts of the African Union.
“Such blatant acts of disregard of regional initiatives have the potential to undermine the confidence regional organizations have in the U.N. as an impartial and respected mediator in conflicts,” he said.
Indian Minister for External Affairs S.M. Krishna said that the international community needs to let peaceful processes play out longer before resorting to the use of force.
“The use of force also leads to collateral damage,” he said. “In many places, the use of force has prolonged conflicts and the cure has turned out to be worse that the disease itself.”
Ouch. It’s a sign of the ill-temper engendered Libya and Palestine at the UN that a debate on the motherhood-and-apple-pie issue of prevention got so tetchy…
September 23, 2011 at 8:35 pm | More on Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, Global system, Middle East and North Africa, UK | Comments Off
EU President Herman Van Rompuy has managed to pull off a nice little joke by giving Henry Kissinger his phone number. Get it?
September 23, 2011 at 8:22 pm | More on Europe and Central Asia, Off topic | 4 Comments
This afternoon, taking the briefest of breaks from arguing over Palestine, leaders are gathering in the Security Council to talk about preventive diplomacy. Josh Rogin of FP’s Cable blog will be there. He’s excited by the turnout:
The meeting will be chaired by the President of Lebanon Michel Sleiman. Other heads of state in attendance will be Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Colombia, Gabon, Nigeria and South Africa. Portugal will be represented by its prime minister, while the remaining council members will be represented at the level of foreign minister.
Oddly enough, I haven’t been invited. But my colleague Emily O’Brien and I have published a brief preview of the event over at World Politics Review. We’re not convinced it’s going to be a thriller:
The Security Council session is unlikely to generate anything more than well-aged truisms: Prevention is better than reaction; diplomacy is better than force, and so on.
That may sound cynical, but last month I somehow guessed that a similar (if lower-level) Security Council debate on peacekeeping would be stunningly dull, and I was right. But, just like peacekeeping, preventive diplomacy matters:
Officials at the U.N. have been working hard to frame a clearer picture of how and why preventive diplomacy succeeds and fails. The current thinking on the issue is summarized in a report from U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon with the pithy title, “Preventive Diplomacy: Delivering Results,” which will serve as the backgrounder for Thursday’s debate.
As the report states at the outset, Ban has been interested in boosting the U.N.’s role in preventive diplomacy ever since he took office in 2007 following a long career in South Korea’s foreign service. Ban felt that the U.N. was too heavily invested in large-scale, high-cost military peace operations and had given too little attention to diplomacy.
This was a huge oversimplification, one that failed to capture the stabilizing if imperfect role of hefty U.N. peace operations in places like Haiti and Liberia. But it contained a kernel of truth. So it is welcome that Ban and his undersecretary-general for political affairs, American diplomat B. Lynn Pascoe, set about retooling the U.N. secretariat’s preventive capacities.
Over the past four years, U.N. officials have scored some noteworthy successes, as the new report describes. These include helping resolve the crisis in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in 2008 that forced more than 200,000 civilians into flight; assisting Guinea emerge from a long political crisis in 2009-2010 to hold credible elections; and working with European diplomats to contain the horrific violence in Kyrgyzstan.
These successes have underlined the value of the U.N. Secretariat’s roster of experienced mediators, facilitators and diplomats. Still, Ban’s report emphasizes the need to boost the caliber of U.N. officials further and make their work easier by overcoming the phalanx of budgetary and staffing rules that can delay the U.N.’s efforts interminably.
These budgetary constraints and unwieldy hiring processes might seem irrelevant to anyone not immersed in the minutiae of the U.N.’s bureaucracy. But they matter. The organization’s attempts to engage meaningfully with the Arab Spring were held up by a lack of financial resources and a lack of experts in the region. The new report outlines options for increasing the U.N.’s readiness for future crises, like expanding its small network of regional political offices.
To be honest, I think that the UN report could have been a bit bolder in its proposals for boosting conflict prevention, but at least it will get some high-level attention this afternoon. Hopefully some UN members will be motivated to follow up with related policy initiatives. Nonetheless, Emily and I aren’t convinced that all the big powers on the Security Council are 100% committed to preventive diplomacy…
The actors most likely to stop an escalating crisis in its tracks remain the world’s great powers. But after the crises of the past year, it is hard to argue that these powers have a coherent grasp of this responsibility. Take the example of Syria. China and Russia have opposed even mild condemnations of the Syrian regime, while other emerging powers on the Security Council — notably Brazil, India and South Africa — have only been marginally more flexible. The U.S. and its European partners have also struggled to find a mix of economic, diplomatic and moral pressure to affect decisions in Damascus. The confusion reflects the many political, security and economic interests all the powers have in Syria.
So it’s nice that the Council’s talking about the importance of prevention. But treat its pronouncements on the topic with caution. I look forward to Josh Rogin’s take.
September 22, 2011 at 5:48 pm | More on Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, Global system, Middle East and North Africa | 1 Comment
Last Thursday, I published a grumpy post over on the blog of the Takshashila Institution, an excellent Indian think-tank. Why was I in a bad mood?
On Friday, India will use its month-long presidency of the United Nations Security Council to convene a discussion on the state of peacekeeping. This is timely, as UN operations have been through a turbulent year, navigating crises in Côte d’Ivoire and Sudan. There is talk of a new mission in Libya. But this meeting is likely to be a bore.
And why did I think that the debate would be a snooze-fest? Demonstrating a remarkable degree of foresight, I guessed that “Security Council diplomats will be thinking of how to beat the traffic from New York to Long Island’s beach resorts once the debate is finished.” Er, no. With Hurricane Irene almost literally on the horizon, everyone was probably wondering when they could go and stock up on bottled water and black truffles, or whatever ambassadors consume during hurricanes.
The debate was also overshadowed by the tragic attack on the UN offices in Nigeria. Nonetheless, a quick read of the summary of the discussions suggests that they were every bit as tedious as I had predicted. Let’s get a quick taster:
Most speakers in the ensuing discussion stressed the continuing importance of United Nations peacekeeping and the need for increased engagement by the partners involved. In that context, many welcomed more regularized consultations with troop- and police-contributing countries and urged continuous improvement in cooperation among all stakeholders. Many also called for innovative thinking in closing resource gaps, particularly in supplying such enablers as helicopters, and in implementing the recommendations of previous peacekeeping reviews.
Enough already! When multiple speakers are highlighting the importance of “implementing the recommendations of previous peacekeeping reviews”, you know that “innovative thinking” is probably in short supply. I’m afraid that I fault the Indian conveners for not shaking up the discussions:
A background paper prepared for the Security Council’s meeting contains a solid but all-too-familiar litany of diplomatic statements about how peace operations are resourced and managed. It fails to grapple seriously with the hardest cases facing the UN or offer a serious framework for resolving them.
As I’ve argued before, peacekeeping is an issue on which New Delhi can show global leadership, but holding debates in New York in which everyone says more or less exactly what they’ve always said isn’t the way to achieve that.
August 29, 2011 at 1:13 am | More on Africa, Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, Global system, South Asia | Comments Off
I am an exceptionally excited man. Next week brings the publishing event of 2011: the appearance of Dick Cheney’s memoirs. The NYT has seen an advance copy, and highlights the former Veep’s claim that he advised President Bush to bomb Syria in 2007. Prescient, huh? But it looks like In My Time: a Personal and Political Memoir is going to be utterly jam-packed with enjoyable nuggets:
He [writes] that George J. Tenet, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, resigned in 2004 just “when the going got tough,” a decision he calls “unfair to the president.” He wrote that he believes that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell tried to undermine President Bush by privately expressing doubts about the Iraq war, and he confirms that he pushed to have Mr. Powell removed from the cabinet after the 2004 election. “It was as though he thought the proper way to express his views was by criticizing administration policy to people outside the government,” Mr. Cheney writes. His resignation “was for the best.”
I literally don’t know what I’m going to do with myself until I get my hands on a copy of this tome. Cheney has predicted that there “will be heads exploding all over Washington” when it comes out. The book is #3 on the Amazon best-sellers list. I only wish that the publishers had picked a more suitable cover design, like this:
August 25, 2011 at 4:54 pm | More on Conflict and security, Influence and networks, North America, Off topic | 1 Comment
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