The coming debate over American ‘strength’ abroad

By David Ignatius, Wednesday, January 25, 7:36 PM
The Washington Post

The foreign-policy theme that should dominate this year’s presidential campaign is “American renewal.” Each candidate claims to have a strategy for halting the nation’s decline, but their versions often amount to “more of the same” — which ain’t gonna work.

For a bracing discussion of what a revival of U.S. power would actually require over the next few decades, I recommend a new book, “Strategic Vision” by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter. Though he worked for a president who came to symbolize U.S. “malaise” in the late 1970s, Brzezinski has always been on the hawkish, “realist” side of his party, and in this book, he is especially critical of status-quo policies.

A wake-up line in Brzezinski’s book is that there are “alarming similarities” between America today and the Soviet Union just prior to its fall, including a “gridlocked governmental system incapable of enacting serious policy revisions,” a back-breaking military budget and a failing “decade-long attempt to conquer Afghanistan.”

The gist of Brzezinski’s strategy is that America must become strong enough to act as “a responsible partner to the rising and increasingly assertive East.” He sees a future U.S. role as a “balancer” and “conciliator” among Asian nations that, left to themselves, will get into messy fights.

To achieve this revival, Brzezinski argues that the United States needs to work closely with a democratizing Russia and Turkey (assuming they continue on that path) to build what he calls a “larger West.” If the United States tries too boldly to go it alone or too meekly to accommodate the rising powers, it’s headed for trouble.

Here we come to the heart of the political debate in this presidential campaign: What does American “strength” mean in the 21st century? Is it a recovery of the kind of power and prerogative the United States had, say, in the Ronald Reagan years? Or is it something more aligned with changes in the global balance? Brzezinski would favor the latter, but let’s look at what the candidates are saying.

In every GOP debate, you hear insistent calls for a restoration of U.S. power from the front-runners, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. They evoke a lost Arcadia and suggest that the United States can reclaim its exceptional status as a “city on a hill,” towering above other nations.

The specific GOP prescriptions mostly involve muscle-flexing: more military pressure on Iran; more CIA covert action against Iran, Syria and other rivals; tougher trade policies toward China. The implicit theme is that President Obama’s efforts to mend fences with allies and work through the United Nations are signs of weakness — and that a strong America must lead from the front.

The problem with the GOP version is that America is already muscle-bound to a fault. To exercise power effectively, it needs good allies. If Brzezinski is right and a “larger West” requires cooperation with Russia and Turkey, then some of the GOP rhetoric about exceptionalism is counterproductive — little more than vain boasting. Obama has actually begun the job of cultivating these new partners, with his 2009 “Russia reset” and his patient diplomacy with Turkey.

The GOP candidates sometimes seem disdainful of global realpolitik, and they voice the romantic, go-it-alone ethos of the neoconservative wing of the party. Romney, for example, dismissed the idea of negotiating peace with the Taliban — a position even some of his own advisers reject. On the Middle East, Gingrich disdains the two-state solution that every other major nation (including Israel) favors — calling the Palestinians an “invented” people who, presumably, don’t deserve a state. That kind of rhetoric is so far outside the mainstream that it’s the strategic equivalent of walking off the plank.

As for Obama’s strategic vision, he talks a better game than he plays. He understands that the U.S. economy needs rebuilding, but despite the ringing agenda he laid out once more in Tuesday’s State of the Union address, he hasn’t enacted the strong policies that would deal with debt, decaying infrastructure and bad public education.

Blaming congressional deadlock isn’t a strategy, it’s an excuse. Obama was elected to make government work again. If he can’t do it, someone else should try.

A similar criticism applies to Obama’s foreign policy. He raised hopes at home and abroad because he proposed to resolve festering problems, such as the Palestinian issue. In reality, he flopped. His Afghanistan policy is a muddle, and that’s being charitable. In this campaign, Obama needs to explain how he will lead America past the old slogans and status-quo policies into an era of genuine national revival.

davidignatius@washpost.com

Economic Potholes Add Dangers on Egypt’s New Political Path

January 24, 2012
NYT
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and MAYY EL SHEIKH

CAIRO — After a year of unending turmoil and military rule, Egypt faces an acute financial crisis that could undermine its political transition and pose a defining challenge to Islamists now coming to power.

With mounting debts, negligible economic growth and dwindling foreign reserves, the military rulers and the new Islamist-led Parliament now confront some difficult choices, beginning with an all but inevitable further devaluation of Egypt’s currency that could send the prices of food and other goods soaring.

The government may also soon be forced to overhaul the vast system of energy subsidies that now account for a fifth of government spending. Increases in food prices and reductions of subsidies have provoked riots here in the past.

“The situation is dire,” said Magda Kandil, executive director of the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies, who called some of the recent indicators “alarming.”

In a sign of the situation’s severity, the ruling military council last week reversed itself and reopened talks with the International Monetary Fund over the terms of a $3.2 billion loan. The generals previously rejected the same deal as an affront to national sovereignty, but officials of the military-led government now say they may seek an even larger loan.

Moreover, the Muslim Brotherhood, the long-outlawed Islamist group that controls half the seats in the new Parliament, also indicated its openness to the financial lifeline in its separate meeting with the I.M.F. representatives — an even more stunning reversal after eight decades of denouncing Western colonialism and Arab dependency.

Leaders of the Brotherhood readily acknowledge that steering Egypt through the crisis will be a formative test of their ability to govern. Activists focused on forcing Egypt’s military rulers to give up power, meanwhile, say the economic malaise has become a major obstacle to their cause because so many Egyptians have come to crave a return to stability.

Others note with dismay that the bread-and-butter frustrations that helped fuel the protests that ousted President Hosni Mubarak one year ago have grown only more acute since then, especially for the legions of jobless or underemployed young people.

Nowhere is the economic distress more evident than in the business of Egyptian weddings, which are a costly rite of passage here that marks the graduation into adult life and which generate revenue that rivals the annual American aid budget for Egypt.

In one hard-pressed Cairo neighborhood, wedding planners say couples have cut back on events that may have cost $300 before the revolution because they can now pay only about $100. Jewelry stores say the average amount that grooms spend on the traditional gifts of gold for their brides has fallen sharply, and disc jockeys say they now perform at just 2 or 3 weddings a month, down from an average of 10 before the revolution.

“Nobody is getting married after the revolution,” said Amr el-Khodary, 37, who was forced to close his shop that rents cars for wedding parades.

Ibrahim Mohamed, a 26-year-old cab driver with a college degree, is a case in point. A steep decline in fares, he said, has prevented him from saving up the roughly $7,000 for an apartment, furniture, a small wedding and the customary gift of jewelry that he says he needs to marry.

“If it weren’t for the revolution,” he said, “I would have been able to get married.”

The reasons for his plight have been piling up all year: a virtual cutoff of foreign investment, a 30 percent decline in tourist visits and the stagnation of economic growth. The official unemployment rate is 12 percent, but among young people the real rate of unemployment is at least double that figure.

The military rulers have also presided over a period of financial turmoil. Inflation has surged into double digits, and the exchange rate for the currency, the Egyptian pound, is under heavy pressure. Foreign exchange reserves have plunged, as the government is spending about $2 billion a month in a losing battle to prop up the pound. Foreign currency reserves have fallen to about $10 billion, after certain obligations, from about $36 billion before the revolt.

Economists say Egypt’s military rulers contributed to the strain by shunning the planned loan from the I.M.F. last June, when it could have provided badly needed hard currency and a financial seal of approval that might have helped reassure foreign investors and aid donors.

Instead, the ruling military council has tried to sustain the government’s growing deficits by borrowing internally, while businesses struggle to get the loans they need to expand and revive the economy.

Now the military government appears to have used up its domestic sources as well. On Monday, the government managed to sell Egyptian banks only about a third of a planned bond offering valued at $580 million, even at yields that reached a new peak of nearly 16 percent.

“Continued borrowing from the domestic markets is a bankrupt policy, literally,” said Ragui Assaad, an Egyptian economist at the University of Minnesota who is now in Cairo.

Even with new sources of foreign currency from the I.M.F., he said, Egypt would soon be forced to capitulate to a further decline in the exchange rate — gradually, if the government is lucky.

“Of course it is going to hurt,” Mr. Assaad said. “But there is going to be no choice but to devalue the currency.”

Fears of runaway inflation are already acute. “Nobody puts their money in the bank because they are afraid it won’t be worth anything later,” said Hamdy Shaaban, 40, a mechanic. “Why would I put money in a bank? I don’t know what is going to happen next.”

But the other solution that many economists favor — overhauling the policies that have Egypt spending more than $15 billion a year on energy subsidies — appears for now to be politically impossible. It is a regressive system that most benefits those who drive sport utility vehicles and live in air-conditioned villas, and other countries with similar systems have successfully replaced them with more targeted subsidies for the needy.

But most Egyptians cherish the subsidy as a birthright, and few believe that the transitional government has the credibility or legitimacy to push through a major change. “Someone has to be able to convince people that they are going to get compensated,” Mr. Assaad said.

Still, many economists contend that Egypt can navigate around a potential collapse. They note that the military-led government has recently announced plans to trim nearly $4 billion from the yawning deficit of over $30 billion, or more than 10 percent of gross domestic product. Among other things, it has begun to trim the energy subsidies to heavy industry, perhaps in preparation for changes the monetary fund might require.

In addition, Ahmed Galal, managing director of the Economic Research Forum, based in Cairo, said economists were increasingly optimistic about the policies of the Muslim Brotherhood. The group has made it clear that it supports free markets, and it has already begun talking about the urgency of subsidy reform. Its lawmakers began drawing up proposals to tackle the issue when they were members of the opposition minority under Mr. Mubarak.

“These guys want to succeed,” Mr. Galal said of the Brotherhood’s lawmakers. “They are really singing songs that are quite moderate, quite civic, quite inclusive, and they are looking at countries like Turkey rather than Iran or Afghanistan.”

Five myths about the Arab Spring

By Fouad Ajami, Published: January 12 2012

1. Obama’s 2009 Cairo speech helped inspire the Arab Spring.

Nothing could be further from the truth. By the time of these rebellions, the Arab and Muslim romance with President Obama had long vanished. He had gone to Cairo in June 2009 promising a new American approach to the Arab-Muslim world. But embattled liberals in the Arab world (and in Iran) had already begun to see through him. While Obama pledged “a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect,” Arabs saw the new American leader’s ease with the status quo.

Obama set out to repair America’s relations with Syria and Iran, and gave George W. Bush’s “diplomacy of freedom” a quick burial. “Ideology . . . is so yesterday,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton bluntly proclaimed in April 2009, identifying Bush’s assertive foreign policy as a thing of the past. But as upheaval swept through Iran in the first summer of the Obama presidency, the self-styled bearer of a new American diplomacy ducked for cover.

The Arabs nearby were quick to see that Obama’s cosmopolitanism — the Kenyan father, the years in Indonesia — masked a political man focused on problems at home. The rebels in Tunisia and Egypt did not expect the U.S. cavalry to ride to the rescue. Even when the rescue mission for the Libyans came, it was late, and the push was from Paris and London, not Washington.

2. These are Facebook and Twitter revolutions.

Facebook and Twitter enabled young dissidents to get around entrenched autocracies and communicate with one another. When CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Wael Ghonim, the young Google executive who was the face of the revolt in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, what was next after Hosni Mubarak fell, Ghonim replied: “Ask Facebook.” But it was ordinary men and women who sacked the pharaoh.

These rebellions have been fueled by traditional sparks: crowds coming out of mosques after Friday prayers in the embattled cities of Syria; the test of wills between brutal regimes and those brave enough to challenge them; and young people in Daraa, Homs and Hama conquering the culture of fear and taking on despotism.

Mohammed Bouazizi, the young Tunisian street vendorwho set himself ablaze in December 2010, didn’t have a Facebook page. He had a sense of righteous anger and despair. We should rein in the technophilia: Internet penetration in the Arab world is still modest.

3. The Obama administration threw Hosni Mubarak under the bus.

The Egyptian president was the author of his own demise. Washington had assumed that Mubarak would ride out the storm. As Egyptians came together to topple the dictatorship, the Obama administration was hobbled by confusion, expressing a presumptuous intimacy with the man while most Egyptians had nothing but contempt for him. Mubarak had long been the pillar of America’s relations with the Arab world. Remember that just a few weeks before he fell, Clinton said that the Egyptian regime was “stable.”

America should not write itself into every story: There are forces in distant nations that we can neither ride nor extinguish. Egypt, a patient land, had given Mubarak three decades. In return, the ruler toyed with his people and belittled them. He sat at the apex of a lawless regime and never designated a legitimate successor. (Even the most obtuse could see that he intended to bequeath power to his pampered son.) He had risen out of the armed forces, and the officer corps came to see that dynastic ambition as a brazen affront. In this Egyptian drama, those at the White House and in Foggy Bottom were mere spectators.

4. Saddam Hussein’s fall in Iraq inspired the Arab Spring.

Having supported the Iraq war, I would love to make this connection. But Iraq, contrary to the hopes and assertions of conservative proponents of the war, is not relevant to the Arab Spring.

When the protests began in late 2010, Iraq no longer held the Arab world’s attention. There was bloodshed in Iraq’s streets, there was sectarianism, and few Arabs could consider Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki a standard-bearer of a new political culture. The Iraqi story was burdened with two handicaps: The despotism had been decapitated by American power, so it was not a homegrown liberation. And the new Iraqi order had empowered the Shiite majority. The Sunni “Arab street” was not enamored of the political change in Iraq; it had passionately opposed the American war and had no use for Baghdad’s new Shiite leaders.

Tahrir Square inspired other uprisings because Egypt is the trendsetter in Arab political and cultural life. Iraq is a place all its own; very few, if any, Arabs elsewhere can relate to the upheaval in that country.

5. The rebellions will further damage prospects for the Arab-Israeli peace process.

It’s true that hooligans overran the Israeli Embassy in Cairo after Mubarak’s fall. But Arab-Israeli accommodation hardly flourished in the time of the dictators. Despite a peace treaty that was the precondition of American patronage of his regime, Mubarak kept Israel at arm’s length. During his three decades in power, he went to Israel once — to attend the funeral of the slain prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. Mubarak’s reign was an incendiary mix of anti-modernism, anti-Americanism and anti-Zionism. The 1979 Camp David peace treaty between Israel and Egypt was kept, but it was a cold peace with no intimacy between the two countries.

And no praise ought to be showered on the kind of “peace” that Damascus has observed with Israel since the 1973 October War. The Syrian-Israeli border has been quiet, but Syria has had the Lebanon-Israel border from which to harass the Jewish state. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s recent statement that the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime would be “a blessing for the Middle East” is on the mark.

The leaders of the Arab rebellions may not be fervent, public advocates of peace with Israel, but they have emerged out of the recognition that the dictatorships used the conflict with Israel as a convenient alibi for their own political and economic failures. Does anyone truly believe that the people of Homs dread Israel more than Assad’s tyranny?

outlook@washpost.com

Fouad Ajami is a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and co-chair of Hoover’s Working Group on Islamism and the International Order.

10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free

By Jonathan Turley, Published: January 13 2012
The Washington Post

Every year, the State Department issues reports on individual rights in other countries, monitoring the passage of restrictive laws and regulations around the world. Iran, for example, has been criticized for denying fair public trials and limiting privacy, while Russia has been taken to task for undermining due process. Other countries have been condemned for the use of secret evidence and torture.

Even as we pass judgment on countries we consider unfree, Americans remain confident that any definition of a free nation must include their own — the land of free. Yet, the laws and practices of the land should shake that confidence. In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. The most recent example of this was the National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31, which allows for the indefinite detention of citizens. At what point does the reduction of individual rights in our country change how we define ourselves?

While each new national security power Washington has embraced was controversial when enacted, they are often discussed in isolation. But they don’t operate in isolation. They form a mosaic of powers under which our country could be considered, at least in part, authoritarian. Americans often proclaim our nation as a symbol of freedom to the world while dismissing nations such as Cuba and China as categorically unfree. Yet, objectively, we may be only half right. Those countries do lack basic individual rights such as due process, placing them outside any reasonable definition of “free,” but the United States now has much more in common with such regimes than anyone may like to admit.

These countries also have constitutions that purport to guarantee freedoms and rights. But their governments have broad discretion in denying those rights and few real avenues for challenges by citizens — precisely the problem with the new laws in this country.

The list of powers acquired by the U.S. government since 9/11 puts us in rather troubling company.

Assassination of U.S. citizens

President Obama has claimed, as President George W. Bush did before him, the right to order the killing of any citizen considered a terrorist or an abettor of terrorism. Last year, he approved the killing of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaqi and another citizen under this claimed inherent authority. Last month, administration officials affirmed that power, stating that the president can order the assassination of any citizen whom he considers allied with terrorists. (Nations such as Nigeria, Iran and Syria have been routinely criticized for extrajudicial killings of enemies of the state.)

Indefinite detention

Under the law signed last month, terrorism suspects are to be held by the military; the president also has the authority to indefinitely detain citizens accused of terrorism. While the administration claims that this provision only codified existing law, experts widely contest this view, and the administration has opposed efforts to challenge such authority in federal courts. The government continues to claim the right to strip citizens of legal protections based on its sole discretion. (China recently codified a more limited detention law for its citizens, while countries such as Cambodia have been singled out by the United States for “prolonged detention.”)

Arbitrary justice

The president now decides whether a person will receive a trial in the federal courts or in a military tribunal, a system that has been ridiculed around the world for lacking basic due process protections. Bush claimed this authority in 2001, and Obama has continued the practice. (Egypt and China have been denounced for maintaining separate military justice systems for selected defendants, including civilians.)

Warrantless searches

The president may now order warrantless surveillance, including a new capability to force companies and organizations to turn over information on citizens’ finances, communications and associations. Bush acquired this sweeping power under the Patriot Act in 2001, and in 2011, Obama extended the power, including searches of everything from business documents to library records. The government can use “national security letters” to demand, without probable cause, that organizations turn over information on citizens — and order them not to reveal the disclosure to the affected party. (Saudi Arabia and Pakistan operate under laws that allow the government to engage in widespread discretionary surveillance.)

Secret evidence

The government now routinely uses secret evidence to detain individuals and employs secret evidence in federal and military courts. It also forces the dismissal of cases against the United States by simply filing declarations that the cases would make the government reveal classified information that would harm national security — a claim made in a variety of privacy lawsuits and largely accepted by federal judges without question. Even legal opinions, cited as the basis for the government’s actions under the Bush and Obama administrations, have been classified. This allows the government to claim secret legal arguments to support secret proceedings using secret evidence. In addition, some cases never make it to court at all. The federal courts routinely deny constitutional challenges to policies and programs under a narrow definition of standing to bring a case.

War crimes

The world clamored for prosecutions of those responsible for waterboarding terrorism suspects during the Bush administration, but the Obama administration said in 2009 that it would not allow CIA employees to be investigated or prosecuted for such actions. This gutted not just treaty obligations but the Nuremberg principles of international law. When courts in countries such as Spain moved to investigate Bush officials for war crimes, the Obama administration reportedly urged foreign officials not to allow such cases to proceed, despite the fact that the United States has long claimed the same authority with regard to alleged war criminals in other countries. (Various nations have resisted investigations of officials accused of war crimes and torture. Some, such as Serbia and Chile, eventually relented to comply with international law; countries that have denied independent investigations include Iran, Syria and China.)

Secret court

The government has increased its use of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has expanded its secret warrants to include individuals deemed to be aiding or abetting hostile foreign governments or organizations. In 2011, Obama renewed these powers, including allowing secret searches of individuals who are not part of an identifiable terrorist group. The administration has asserted the right to ignore congressional limits on such surveillance. (Pakistan places national security surveillance under the unchecked powers of the military or intelligence services.)

Immunity from judicial review

Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration has successfully pushed for immunity for companies that assist in warrantless surveillance of citizens, blocking the ability of citizens to challenge the violation of privacy. (Similarly, China has maintained sweeping immunity claims both inside and outside the country and routinely blocks lawsuits against private companies.)

Continual monitoring of citizens

The Obama administration has successfully defended its claim that it can use GPS devices to monitor every move of targeted citizens without securing any court order or review. (Saudi Arabia has installed massive public surveillance systems, while Cuba is notorious for active monitoring of selected citizens.)

Extraordinary renditions

The government now has the ability to transfer both citizens and noncitizens to another country under a system known as extraordinary rendition, which has been denounced as using other countries, such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan, to torture suspects. The Obama administration says it is not continuing the abuses of this practice under Bush, but it insists on the unfettered right to order such transfers — including the possible transfer of U.S. citizens.

These new laws have come with an infusion of money into an expanded security system on the state and federal levels, including more public surveillance cameras, tens of thousands of security personnel and a massive expansion of a terrorist-chasing bureaucracy.

Some politicians shrug and say these increased powers are merely a response to the times we live in. Thus, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) could declare in an interview last spring without objection that “free speech is a great idea, but we’re in a war.” Of course, terrorism will never “surrender” and end this particular “war.”

Other politicians rationalize that, while such powers may exist, it really comes down to how they are used. This is a common response by liberals who cannot bring themselves to denounce Obama as they did Bush. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), for instance, has insisted that Congress is not making any decision on indefinite detention: “That is a decision which we leave where it belongs — in the executive branch.”

And in a signing statement with the defense authorization bill, Obama said he does not intend to use the latest power to indefinitely imprison citizens. Yet, he still accepted the power as a sort of regretful autocrat.

An authoritarian nation is defined not just by the use of authoritarian powers, but by the ability to use them. If a president can take away your freedom or your life on his own authority, all rights become little more than a discretionary grant subject to executive will.

The framers lived under autocratic rule and understood this danger better than we do. James Madison famously warned that we needed a system that did not depend on the good intentions or motivations of our rulers: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

Benjamin Franklin was more direct. In 1787, a Mrs. Powel confronted Franklin after the signing of the Constitution and asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got — a republic or a monarchy?” His response was a bit chilling: “A republic, Madam, if you can keep it.”

Since 9/11, we have created the very government the framers feared: a government with sweeping and largely unchecked powers resting on the hope that they will be used wisely.

The indefinite-detention provision in the defense authorization bill seemed to many civil libertarians like a betrayal by Obama. While the president had promised to veto the law over that provision, Levin, a sponsor of the bill, disclosed on the Senate floor that it was in fact the White House that approved the removal of any exception for citizens from indefinite detention.

Dishonesty from politicians is nothing new for Americans. The real question is whether we are lying to ourselves when we call this country the land of the free.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University.

Muslim Brotherhood offered assurances on treaty, State Dept. says

January 6, 2012

(JTA) -- The Muslim Brotherhood assured the United States it would not break Egypt's peace treaty with Israel, according to the U.S. State Department.

A State Department spokesperson said Thursday that the Islamist political party had offered assurances it would not break Egypt's 1979 accord with Israel, despite statements to the contrary by a party leader.

"We have had other assurances from the party with regard to their commitment not only to universal human rights, but to the international obligations that the government of Egypt has understaken," Victoria Nuland told reporters in Washington.

The rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the wake of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's departure from power has raised concerns that political reform in the Arab world's most populous country could lead to the emergence of a hostile regime that would depart from its historic peace accord with the Jewish state.

In an interview published Sunday, Rashad Bayoumi, the party's deputy leader, said the group will not recognize Israel "under any circumstance."

Asked about Bayoumi's comment, Nuland said he was but one member of the Muslim Brotherhood and that the party would be judged by what it does.

When China will overtake America

Dec 27th 2011, 14:00 by The Economist online

‘US violating human rights at home and abroad’ – Russian report

Robert Bridge, RT
Published: 28 December, 2011, 19:21
Edited: 28 December, 2011, 19:45

In a report released by the Foreign Ministry detailing human rights abuses around the world, the United States comes up short, cited for violations on both the domestic and foreign fronts.

The report says that the United States, on the pretext of fighting terrorism, is actually crushing the liberties and freedoms of the very individuals the security measures were intended to protect – the American people.

"The situation in the United States…is far from the ideals proclaimed in Washington," the report says. “The incumbent administration continues to apply most of the methods of controlling society and interfering in the private lives of the American people that were adopted by the special services under George Bush on the pretext of combating terror.”

On October 26, 2001, a little over one month after the terror attacks of 9/11, the Bush administration rammed through the so-called Patriot Act, which many Congressmen admitted they did not have the time to read. Since the ratification of this draconian piece of legislation, the US government has been empowered to sift through emails, telephone calls – even the library books an individual may check out – all in the name of fighting against terrorism.

The Foreign Ministry also noted that the White House and the Department of Justice "shelter from liability CIS operatives and high-ranking officials" connected with serious violations of human rights.

In 2007, the International Red Cross released a shocking report, based on numerous interviews with detainees of Guantanamo Bay detention center, which revealed the existence of “black site” prisons at various locations in Eastern Europe.

In December 2005, Dick Marty, the Swiss politician responsible for investigating the allegations on behalf of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, reported evidence that "individuals had been abducted and transferred to other countries without respect for any legal standards." Marty’s investigation has found no concrete evidence establishing the existence of secret prisons in Europe, but added that it was "highly unlikely" that European governments were unaware of the American program of renditions.

In June 2007, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe supported the conclusions of the report by Dick Marty (Resolution 1562 and Recommendation 1801).

The Russian Foreign Ministry report went on to condemn “the exterritorial application of US legislation by the US administration,” which “seriously harms Russian-US relations,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in its report.

"It leads to violations of the basic rights and freedoms of Russians, including arbitrary arrests and abductions from third countries, cruel treatment, criminal prosecution on the basis of evidence given by false agents and doubtful evidence," the document reads, citing as examples the cases involving Russian citizens Viktor Bout and Konstantin Yaroshenko.

Viktor Bout was arrested in Thailand in 2008 by US and Thai police and extradited in 2010 to the United States to stand trial on charges of arms smuggling. Bout, who is currently incarcerated in the Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York City, says he has no hope for receiving a fair trial in the United States.

In 2005, Hollywood released the film Lord of War starring Nicolas Cage, which portrays a character based on the 'life' of Viktor Bout.

Bout continues to maintain his innocence.
­NATO – force for good?

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, of which the United States is the primary sponsor, also fared poorly in the Foreign Ministry report.

According to the document, NATO forces repeatedly violated humanitarian law in Libya by killing civilians and failing to prevent numerous crimes by the Libyan opposition. The statistics presented on civilian casualties provide a portrait of a military operation that was reckless at best.

"According to various information, intensive bombardment in the first days of the campaign (and even before the operation was headed by NATO) led to the deaths of civilians: from 64 to 90 civilians, including up to 40 people in Tripoli, and 150 were wounded. On May 13, 13 imams were killed and 50 imams were wounded during a collective prayer in the city of Brega. Nine people were killed during the bombing of Tripoli on June 19. Fifteen people, including three children, were killed as a result of NATO bombing on June 20," the report says.

Meanwhile, NATO officials ignored crimes committed by the Libyan opposition, the report says.

"NATO did not take any effective measures on the numerous crimes committed by the former Libyan armed opposition registered by international human rights NGOs, including killings, violence, ethnic crimes, etc., which essentially promoted such actions taken by the rebels," the report by the Russian Foreign Ministry says.

The document emphasizes that NATO denies that the death of civilians was a result of the bombing carried out by the coalition forces at the official level.

"They are saying that the targets for the bombing were thoroughly selected to rule out civilian casualties. They said, referring to NATO’s support of the Interim National Council, that there would have been much more casualties if it had not been for NATO," the report says.

NATO defended reports on civilian casualties due to NATO actions solely as propaganda put out by the Gaddafi regime, the report adds. Eyewitness testimony, however, as well as media reports, contradicts these statements.

"Various evidence provided by eyewitnesses and media (and in some cases even pro-NATO media publications) indicates that a considerable part of this information is true," the report says.

The report also states that members of the previous Libyan government and its supporters were killed without due process of a court hearing; all the opposition required was the tacit consent of NATO.

Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was captured alive on October 20, 2011 in his hometown of Sirte by members of the Libyan National Liberation Army after his convoy was attacked by NATO warplanes. Despite being taken alive, Gaddafi was beaten and killed by his captors.
­US democracy – not so perfect

The report went on to criticize the United States for what it sees as a faulty democratic system of elections, which increasingly lacks representation from third party candidates.

"Human rights activists are concerned by the fact that independent candidates are barred from elections and electoral offices,” the report said, while going on to mention the “practice of appointing senators by governors in case of offices becoming vacant early,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in its first annual report on human rights.

The report mentioned the case of Rod Blagojevich, the former Governor of Illinois, who was found guilty of trying to sell the vacated senatorial seat of Barack Obama.

"Curious in this context is the case of former Governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich, who in fact attempted to sell the seat of a senator from that state, which became vacant after Barack Obama was elected president of the US," the report says.

The ministry document also aired concerns about the condition of freedom of speech in the United States.

"The US Congress has been unable…to pass legislation entitling journalists to keep their sources secret (except for certain situations when a court acknowledges disclosure of information necessary).”

The Russian report on human rights also mentioned the increasing frequency of US journalists losing their jobs due to uttering what is determined to be “politically incorrect” remarks, which the authors of the report suggest is just another form of media censorship.

Recently, two American journalists – 44-year-old senior CNN Middle East editor Octavia Nasr and 89-year-old White House correspondent Helen Thomas – lost their jobs due to “slips of the tongue,” which seems to be a one-way ticket to an early retirement in the world of US journalism these days.

Thomas, who had been part of the White House Press Corps since the Eisenhower administration, was forced to retire for telling a rabbi in May 2010 that Israelis should "get the hell out of Palestine."

Octavia, who had worked at CNN for 20 years, was fired immediately after she posted a Twitter message expressing admiration for Lebanon's Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Faldlallah, who passed away last July.

A Reform Agenda for Arab Economies

Interviewee:
Manuela V. Ferro, Director, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management for the Middle East and North Africa, World Bank
Interviewer:
Jonathan Masters, Associate Staff Writer, CFR.org

December 22, 2011

ManuelaEconomic challenges are central to the political transformations sweeping the Middle East and North Africa. Arab governments--some of them fragile democracies--need to tackle corruption, slow growth, inequity, and unemployment that helped arouse protest movements. Manuela V. Ferro, a World Bank expert on Arab economies, says the region faces significant difficulties in the near term, including reductions in trade, tourism, and foreign investment. Governments intent on reform, she adds, must strive for an economic recovery with "visible benefits to all citizens," and focus on fiscal sustainability, job creation, and protecting the poor.

We're just over a year out from the start of the Arab Spring. What are the economic prospects for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)?

Political events in 2011--revolutions and evolutions--in several countries have created opportunities for more open societies and inclusive growth. However, there are also short-term consequences on economic performance; we saw tourism, trade, investment, and in some countries, remittances have also slowed down. Tourism, which comprises 4 and 6 percent of Egypt and Tunisia's GDP, respectively, contracted significantly following revolutions. Yet this labor-intensive sector is a major source of foreign exchange for several countries; in Egypt tourism revenues were the second-largest source of foreign exchange earnings in FY2010. The region has witnessed foreign direct investment (FDI) declines in a number of countries.

In several countries (in particular non-oil exporters - Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco, Syria, and Yemen), while the medium-term economic and social outlook remains promising, near-term growth prospects are weaker than a year ago. This is especially the case in countries where there is significant uncertainty about the length, nature, and direction of transition.

It is against this backdrop of economic vulnerability in several MENA countries that the eurozone crisis is hitting. So far, domestic and regional events are still dominating the economic outlook for most countries in the MENA region. Economic and social challenges in MENA are unrelated to the Eurozone crisis, but could be exacerbated by it.

What are the biggest challenges these countries face, from an economic standpoint, during these transitions? And what are some of the basic reforms that are necessary?

Governments need to ensure that economic and social policies support a strong economic recovery with visible benefits to all citizens, not just those politically connected. This means that economic governance policies that ensure a level-playing field will need to play a much greater role than they have in the past.

Many (non-oil exporting) countries in the region had an acceptable--though not stellar--economic performance during the last decade: about 3-4 percent growth per year. Creating the fifty to seventy million jobs needed to reduce unemployment will require three things:

First, ensuring economic stability and fiscal sustainability in the context of increased social pressures and rising borrowing costs.

Second, supporting job creation through a more vibrant private sector, in particular by integrating MENA countries more fully in the world economy. Until now, MENA has been one of the least integrated regions in the world. Looking forward, economic integration through greater trade and investment is an overarching development strategy that can do for the MENA region what it did before for Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, and other emerging trading partners that are now sustainable growth paths.

Governments need to ensure that economic and social policies support a strong economic recovery with visible benefits to all citizens, not just those politically connected.

Third, protect the poor through more effective, much better targeted social protection. MENA countries have long had redistributive policies through subsidies and public employment programs. MENA countries have operated extensive subsidy systems--for energy, water and food--for the past forty years, which have totaled more than $50 billion for the region as a whole. These systems are inefficient and do not provide an effective mechanism to help households cope with temporary shocks or move out of poverty.

The concerns are very different as you move from the short term, to medium term, and then to the long-term structural problems. Could you talk a bit about the various challenges along this timeline?

Policies that make sense in the short run should also make sense in the long run. There is a question of sequencing, yes, but thinking exclusively of the short run is likely to be detrimental.

For instance, the Tunisian transition government introduced a set of measures to signal a clear break from the past and set the country on a new path. This included enhancing access to information to promote transparency; opening up access to the Internet; improving public procurement procedures; streamlining the regulatory burden faced by firms; introducing new rules for good governance in the banking sector; reforming the National Employment Fund and introducing new programs to better assist the unemployed. Because these reforms helped lay the foundations of a stronger, more open Tunisia, and set the country on a faster, more inclusive, development path, (the World Bank) supported the reforms introduced by the government with a development policy Loan, alongside other development partners.

Are there success stories from other parts of the world that can serve as a model for some of these transitioning Arab countries?

Eastern Europe benefited from a popular rejection of an economic model driven by central planning, by a supportive global economic environment, and by openings towards EU membership. In many Eastern European countries, there was an organized political leadership that adopted market-friendly policies. In Latin America there were many fits and starts, as might be the case in the Middle East and North Africa.

In East Asia, Indonesia offers an interesting example, as governance and economic reforms led to a vibrant, dynamic economy. Each of these experiences offers lessons for MENA. But there is no clear-cut model that applies directly. Each transition happens in a particular context, with particular initial conditions. The path is rarely straight, and we must be prepared for potentially long transitions.

What is the best policy for these countries as they navigate the financial straits of transition?

Different countries in transition face different economic stresses, and will find their own way to address financing needs. Egypt, like other countries in the region undergoing a political transition, is managing a fast-evolving situation, now made more difficult by a global economy that is itself in a dangerous phase. Egyptian authorities have taken some steps recently to address foreign exchange needs. For instance, they auctioned dollar-denominated treasury bills, perhaps part of a strategy to diversify funding away from local sources.

[E]conomic integration through greater trade and investment is an overarching development strategy that can do for the region what it did before for Central and Eastern Europe, and East Asia.

Perhaps for historical reasons, there is a perception in some quarters in Egypt that external debt is at dangerously high levels. In fact, much of Egypt's debt is domestic; the composition and small size of Egypt's external debt makes it relatively resilient to external shocks.

Given that domestic borrowing costs are running at double digits and that public sector borrowing needs are high and could be crowding out the Egyptian private sector, the authorities have remained engaged with potential sources of external finance.

High unemployment, particularly among the youth, is a persistent problem in the region. What steps need to be taken to address this?

What we have heard from young people is that they want jobs, social justice, and dignity. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the social contract--and the economic model that underpinned it--became increasingly strained, in particular in non-oil producing countries. Governments became gradually unable to continue employing people.

The private sector was unable to absorb labor because of the rapidly growing youth population and government policies that limited entry of new firms but protected those that were politically connected. In some countries, education was increasingly unable to provide the skills for a modern private sector, and labor productivity was low. For non-oil producers, the subsidy bill became difficult to uphold because of unprecedented high prices of fuel and food.

With relatively high rates of unemployment around 10 percent and youth unemployment at 24 percent for the MENA region, approximately forty-eight million jobs will have to be created in the coming decade. Women face even higher rates of unemployment.

Only a dynamic and growing private sector can create jobs at a rate that keeps pace with this growing and increasingly young population. The public sector can help in the short run, but short-term jobs programs cannot solve a structural unemployment challenge. Managing expectations of how fast the deficit of jobs can be addressed is critical.

*Editor's Note: This interview was conducted in writing.