Deadline: April 1, 2012

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Last month, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced plans to slash the defense budget by hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade, reducing the size of the army 14% by 2022. Panetta and the Obama administration simultaneously plan to increase Washington’s fleet of armed, unmanned aircraft by almost 300%, ushering in a smaller force that gets more lightly involved, but is able to intervene militarily in more places. Unmanned aircraft already comprise 31% of all military aircraft, up from 5% in 2005.

The unique nature of drones and the liberal way Obama uses them mean the budget cuts actually increase executive power as they shrink portions of the military. Evading congressional oversight of drone use has permitted the executive branch to expand its mandate to commit force abroad by circumventing the mechanisms of executive accountability.

Take Libya, for example. Last year, the Obama administration maintained that its actions did not necessitate invocation of the War Powers Resolution of 1973 because they did not amount to “hostilities.” Congress designed the War Powers Resolution to be a check on the executive’s mandate to commit American force abroad. Two pillars of the administration’s argument in regard to Libya were the limited scope of operations and the small numbers of potential casualties, both of which drones enabled. The administration claimed that the nature of the campaign was not the sort that Congress had in mind when drafting the War Powers Resolution.

Compare this to ongoing operations in and around Pakistan. In 2011, Obama ordered well over twice the drone strikes he did in Libya. Yet in Pakistan Obama maintains we are engaged in a “non-international armed conflict,” a term Congress itself believed to exceed mere hostilities in scope when drafting the War Powers Resolution. “Armed conflict” implies the existence of hostilities, and falls under the purview of Congressional oversight. The fact that US actions in Libya were not deemed hostilities is clearly contradictory to the administration’s approach in Pakistan: more military force was committed in Libya yet considered a lower threshold of conflict by the executive. Even Obama’s top lawyers at the Pentagon and the Justice Department thought Libya was misdefined. He just didn’t listen to them.

This inconsistency compromises public checks on the executive. That no branch of government enjoys excessive power is a hallmark of US democracy and the use of force is the most salient form of that power. Given Obama’s track record and the Pentagon’s vision of an expanded drone program, where are the checks and balances? Drone strikes should not be the exclusive preserve of the executive branch. While Congress probably wouldn’t have shut the door on Obama’s intervention in Libya, he never gave it the choice, and no one made him.

It is not just the War Powers Resolution that the executive branch seems to be maneuvering around. In September 2011, the administration targeted and killed American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen without due process as guaranteed by the 5^th amendment. Regardless of how the White House may justify that strike, it is disturbing that even American citizens can be targeted by drones without any judicial or Congressional oversight.

And the records show there’s more to come. A Department of Defense report from March 2011 indicates that in the coming years, the growth of drones will greatly outstrip that of any other category of aircraft.

New technologies may increase US forces’ tactical accuracy, but they will not eliminate the fog of war, nor answer the question of whether or not to intervene in the first place. Committing force is about more than just spending money and risking domestic discontent. It’s also about taking the lives of other people – some of them civilians – and either respecting or threatening international norms of sovereignty. Intervention with high-tech, pointillist weapons is still intervention.

Drones are undoubtedly useful. If President Clinton had used them instead of Rangers in Somalia, he probably wouldn’t have faced anywhere near the sort of popular backlash he did in 1993. In 2011, the American people found it easier to stomach a third theater of war in Libya in times of economic hardship because they didn’t risk great human or financial costs. Drones were a central part of this story.

Without any mechanisms of accountability, the use of drones gives the president too much power to carry the nation to war without considering the consequences. Isn’t that what Obama ran against in 2008? “Future presidents should think through the implications of a military incursion before they launch one,” he said in 2007. By shutting Congress out of the drone equation, Obama is ensuring that doesn’t happen.

 
Aroop Mukharji is a Marshall Scholar at King’s College London and was previously a Junior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Perhaps the 2012 election that has the greatest potential to change the landscape of United States foreign policy is one that few Americans are paying attention to:  Venezuela’s next presidential election, scheduled for October 7, 2012. Venezuela watchers are waiting to see if Hugo Chavez can once again scheme his way into another term in office or if the opposition, the finally unified Coalition for Democratic Unity (MUD), can defeat the defiantly anti-American president. The latter would not only be significant because of the socialist and anti-American foundation that has paved the way for Chavez to become one of the most influential leaders in Latin America. Considering the fact that many of the actions of the Chavez government conflict with US objectives; whether it be support for democratic institutions, the isolation of Iran, or fighting the drug war; the election of a Venezuelan president who is less preoccupied with opposing “the imperialists” could further American interests, not just in Latin America, but globally.

Since the mid-2000’s, the Chavez regime has used the Bolivarian Alliance; a regional trade bloc intended to be a counter-weight to US trade agreements;  to support other leftist governments throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Slush funds from Venezuela’s vast oil wealth support the Ortega government in Nicaragua, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, the Castro regime in Cuba and others. These governments have been accused of suppressing political opposition through violence and intimidation, unequal wealth redistribution to impoverished supporters, corruption, bribery, and political patronage. If funding from Venezuela dried up, it would be much more difficult for those power brokers to cull support from domestic elites, who will later be rewarded for their loyalty, and their impoverished citizens, whose votes can be bought with government services. As long as Chavez remains in power, those lifelines will not only be available, but they may get stronger as the discovery of the Orinoco Belt of extra-heavy crude promises to inflate Venezuela’s financial strength.

At the same time, the relationship between the Chavez government and Iran has been getting a lot of attention lately. Hugo Chavez’s friendship with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is well chronicled, although fears over Iran reportedly building its largest embassy in Venezuela have been overblown. Still, more than 200 agreements have been signed between the two governments, including Venezuela’s offer to provide Iran with refined gasoline, as well as plans for the Venezuelan state-run oil company, PDVSA, to invest about $800 million in the development of new gas fields in Iran. As long as Chavez holds power, oil revenues from Venezuela will be funneled into social projects of the Iranian regime’s choosing, limiting the effectiveness of western efforts to isolate and punish Iran.

The Venezuelan-Iranian relationship continues to draw the attention of US foreign policy makers. What has captured the attention of most Venezuelans, on the other hand, is corruption, the vast increase in urban violence, and Chavez’s grab for unchecked power. Opposition candidates are discussing all of these issues in order to build popular support for their campaigns ahead of the February 12^th primary. Whoever the candidate is, the opposition to Chavez hopes that the MUD coalition holds together and can carry over its momentum from the 2010 parliamentary elections to the October 2012 vote. At this point, we really don’t know if the upcoming election will be free of government interference because of the wild card that is Hugo Chavez. Known for consolidating power in the executive, stacking the judiciary, and having his party loyalists take to the streets on to intimidate people who might consider voting for the opposition, Chavez has also indicated that his government would respect free elections in October. Indeed, the fact that, Chavez’s own United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) lost its substantial majority in the 2010 parliamentary elections suggests on this last point he may be sincere. Yet Chavez often talks of respecting democratic practices.  A defeat at the polls, though, could spell the end of the one thing Chavez defends perpetually: his leftist social movement that he terms the Bolivarian Revolution. It remains to be seen how much “democracy” Chavez is willing to accept if it threatens those interests.

Any conversation about Chavez and the upcoming election would be incomplete, however, if it failed to entertain the possibility of an election without Chavez. Former Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs during the Bush Administration, Roger Noriega, a noted hawk when it comes to Chavez, is on record saying that sources indicate the health of Hugo Chavez is much worse than the president admits. In fact, Noriega believes that Chavez will not survive to see next fall’s election. If that is the case, all bets are off. Before he reached a point where he would be unable to lead, Hugo Chavez would likely appoint a successor, perhaps turning to his brother, Adan Chavez. In the event of Chavez’s death, a more dire circumstance might involve a military coup. Bruce Bagley, a political scientist at the University of Miami, has suggested this possibility.  Ironically, the best thing for the opposition in Venezuela might be that Chavez survives his fight with cancer. Only then can the opposition legitimately rebuke the Chavez platform and, hopefully, achieve a popular mandate.

US foreign policy has a lot at stake come October. A Venezuela that no longer supports Iranian interests could be of great benefit to the United States if sanctions and increasing pressure from European powers don’t deter the Islamic Republic from continuing its pursuit of nuclear technology. A Venezuela without Chavez would be likely to drastically reduce aid to Bolivarian Alliance states, thereby improving the possibility of regime change in those countries due to public frustration over their governments inability to provide those things they have now become accustomed to. Furthermore, a Venezuela without Chavez would be more interested in oil exports to the United States, which has obvious benefits for the United States, as opposed to the current trend of reducing exports to the US and increasing exports to China and other nations. Venezuela could also be a US ally in its work with the Colombian government against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and other paramilitary narcotics handlers, instead of an enabler of these groups, as the Chavez government seems to be.

The October elections in Venezuela hold the possibility of removing a big thorn in the side of American foreign policy while simultaneously advancing US goals of promoting democracy and ensuring American security regarding drug traffickers and a nuclear Iran. But it’s a long way from here to October.

Michael W Edghill earned a B.A. in History from the University of North Texas and teaches courses about the Caribbean and U.S. Government in Fort Worth, Texas. He can be reached at michaelw.edghill@gmail.com

Reviewed by Marc A. Sorel

The last four months have been a watershed period in US-Burma diplomacy.  It began two years prior, with Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell’s visit to Burma in November 2009 – at that time, the highest-ranking US official in nearly 14 years to visit the country.  Following the first visit to Burma by Obama’s coordinator for Burma policy Ambassador Derek Mitchell in October, and after speaking with Burmese political activist Aung San Suu Kyi, President Obama announced last month that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would visit Burma.  Clinton completed her three-day visit on December 2^nd, the first by a US Secretary of State in 50 years.

In response to these US overtures, the Burmese government established a National Human Rights Commission, embarked on a new round of peace talks with restive ethnic minority groups, eased media censorship laws, legalized labor unions, and reached an agreement with Suu Kyi to re-register her political party on the condition that she run for office in the next round of elections.  Together, these steps constitute the “flickers of progress” after “years of darkness” in Burma that President Obama noted in his announcement of Clinton’s visit.

As UN diplomat Thant Myint-U persuasively explains in Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia with an insightful, if at times excessively anecdotal account, the changes underway in Burma are as complex as the country’s political and economic future is undecided.  The central characters in Thant’s story are not people, but nation-states: China, India, and Burma -- past, present, and future.  Employing a style that weaves shoe leather reporting with travelogue anecdote, rich historical context, and political analysis, Thant recounts his travels in the three countries’ interiors and along their intersecting peripheries to answer a simply worded, yet daunting question: what will be Burma’s fate as India and China grow?

Thant’s book comes at an opportune time: Burma’s key exports -- jade, off-shore oil and gas, and hydroelectric power -- as well as its geopolitical position make the country of increasing importance to India and China.  For China, Burma could solve two strategic problems, Thant argues.  First, it could be China’s “California” -- a western sea coast that attracts tourists and their wallets as they transit Yunnan en route to Burma.  Second, hydroelectric dams, oil pipelines and train tracks laid from Burmese ports to Yunnan would ensure vital shipments of fuel and natural resources, circumventing the Malaccan straits and precluding the possibility that a future Indian or US naval blockade of Chinese maritime traffic would materially affect Chinese interests.  For India, whose “Look East” policy promised new avenues of economic engagement with Asian nations, trade has been largely limited to commodities and raw materials, constrained by the remoteness of the provinces east of Bangladesh and the lack of shipping capacity of Burmese ports.  Thailand is getting in on the action too, with a multi-billion dollar industrial park and tourist destination planned for the sliver of Burma that extends southward along the Andaman coast.  An explicit aim of the Thai government is for the park to house environmentally damaging industries currently situated in and around Bangkok.  The West, whose sanctions regime Thant suggests is becoming increasingly irrelevant, is largely absent from this picture.

Thant does well when describing Burma’s present geopolitical context, but he is at his best while unpacking the layers of historical, economic, political, and ethnographic complexity affecting the country’s future.  Although China leads on commercial diplomacy, India has stronger cultural ties through its dominance of the region for most of the last 2,000 years, epitomized by the fact that nearly 90% of Burma is Buddhist, and the Burmese elites speak English, not Mandarin.  But India’s historic influence is under threat.  Restive Burmese minorities such as the Wa, which control a semi-autonomous region the size of Belgium along the Chinese border with one of the largest private armies in the world, benefit from Chinese commercial influence.  Thant contemplates these contrasts when he vists Wa (sustained by its trade in methamphetamine, and “discreet” support from the Chinese), and recalls the still-struggling portions of Rangoon in the south.

Despite China’s growing presence in the country, Thant is careful to point out that the future trajectory of Chinese influence is anything but guaranteed.  His first example is the Kokang incident, a Burmese military operation against ethnic minorities in Shan state in 2009 that displaced nearly 30,000 refugees to neighboring Yunnan province.  This is precisely the kind of scenario China seeks to prevent along its border with North Korea.  Chinese foreign policy analysts cited the incident as a signal from the junta that it would not be a supplicant to Beijing’s interests.  Add to this the Burmese government’s decision in September, spurred in part by local protests, to suspend construction of a hydroelectric dam that would have carried energy to western China, and the future of Burma-Chinese relations is even less clear.

II.

Part history, political analysis, long-form travel feature, and economic analysis, Thant’s interdisciplinary narrative facilitates a compelling blend of historical, political, and economic perspectives, but it also results in anecdotal overload and conclusions implicitly drawn without factual confirmation.  By recounting what he observes, as he observes it, Thant imbues his text with an urgency that is absorbing when done well.  But when Thant mentions for a fourth time the television programming in his hotel room, the device wears thin.  Juxtaposed with his telling of Burmese, Chinese, and Indian history and his thoughtful political analysis, Thant’s notebook-emptying asides become more distracting than helpful.

Thant also occasionally gets his facts wrong, and goes a bridge too far in the conclusions he draws from anecdotal evidence.  Thant incorrectly translates “Beijing” to mean “Northern Peace” when in fact it means “Northern City” or “Northern Capital,” in contrast with Nanjing or “Southern Capital.” Perhaps Thant was thinking of the Chinese capital’s other name – Beiping – which does mean Northern Peace, but was last used officially from 1928 until 1949, and before that, during the Ming dynasty. Additionally, Thant assumes that a group of Chinese businessmen with whom he shares a plane ride in Burma are members of a senior-ranking delegation; he uses that assumption to buttress his point about China’s growing presence in Burma.  But he is either unable or unwilling to confirm his hunch, which raises doubts about his ability to back up his central conclusions with verified evidence.

III.

Between the lines of Thant’s book is a clear call to Washington to deepen its engagement with Burma.  He characterizes the competition among outside powers for commercial position in Burma as a new “Great Game,” invoking the contest between Russia and Britain for dominance in Central and South Asia during the 19^th and early 20^th centuries.  Thant also poses a persistent question throughout his descriptions of Chinese commercial influence in Burma: will the Burmese people benefit from China’s involvement?

The thrust of Thant’s argument is that Burma, through its commercial ties, political reforms, and geopolitical pressures from its ambitious neighbors, is reintegrating into the international system, and its pace of reintegration is accelerating.  Pick your metaphor --  wave, train, bus -- Thant’s point is that if the US fails to catch this momentous opportunity, it may lose the interest and favor of an emerging key player in the region, and fall behind in its competition for influence throughout Asia.  The appeal, as Thant presents it here, is persuasive from an economic perspective.

But is the opportunity as large, and the moment as significant, as Thant suggests it is?  Thant steers clear of articulating how the US can reconcile its necessary and legitimate calls for political reform in Burma with the urge for expanded commercial engagement and regional influence -- a wise choice for someone removed from the complexities of the policymaking process in Washington and Naypitaw, and presumably interested in maintaining his neutrality as a UN diplomat in New York.  Whether there is room for Burma amidst the panoply of Asian markets is an open question.  Instead of answering it definitively, though, Thant strangely suggests how the US may engage with Burma in part by reminding the reader that the country has been on the mind of past US Presidents: Franklin Delano Roosevelt detested it, Theodore Roosevelt once hunted near China’s border with the country, and Herbert Hoover visited one of its silver mines as a business executive before he became Commander in Chief.

The current US President is unlikely to visit Rangoon any time soon.  But that does not mean engagement is a dead-end.  Driven in part by its competition with China for influence in East Asia, the US under the Obama administration has pursued a dual track of engagement and sanctions with Burma.  During a press briefing at the end of his October trip before departing Rangoon, Burma Coordinator Mitchell enumerated the four focal points of US policy toward Burma: human rights, development, democracy, and national reconciliation.  Secretary Clinton elaborated on Mitchell’s principles during her recent trip, when she urged Burma to cut its ties to North Korea, end ethnic violence and internal conflict, and start talks regarding joint searches with the US for troops killed on Burmese soil in World War II.  The last of these items is key, mostly because it parallels an essential precondition of normalizing US-Vietnam relations in the mid-1990s.  Only after a series of Congressional investigations into POW-MIA status in Vietnam did then-President Bill Clinton normalize relations with the former pariah state.

How the US-Burma relationship evolves will have significant consequences for the US, Burma and the region.  Thant knows this, and his book could not have been better-timed, as western policymakers, diplomats, academics, journalists, and businesspeople try to make sense of a country that has been relatively closed to them for a generation.  As the US deepens its engagement with Burma, as China and India continue to pursue their commercial interests in the country, as the Burmese government undertakes serious political reforms, and as “the rest” continue to rise, Where China Meets India helps us understand a complex regional dynamic at a critical point in its development.  The end game is anything but pre-determined.

Marc A. Sorel is a graduate of Yale University, where he received his B.A. in History, and Georgetown University, where he received his J.D.-M.S.F.S. He has worked for the U.S. Departments of State, Defense, and Homeland Security, and the United Nations.

Photograph by Bruce Briscoe © 1999-2011

Several countries in the world are or soon will be drafting new constitutions.  It is vital that these constitutions protect universal human rights, including the right to freedom of religion or belief.   Based on its experience analyzing constitutions against international standards,[1] the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) offers the following guideposts for the full protection of religious freedom consistent with international human rights law:

Freedom of Religion or Belief is a Universal Right

The 193 member states of the United Nations have agreed, by signing the UN Charter, to “practice tolerance” and to “promot[e] and encourag[e] respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion.”  These rights and freedoms include the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief, which is protected and affirmed in numerous international instruments, including the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and the 1981 Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief.

Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides:

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 18 of the ICCPR similarly provides:

1.  Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.

2.  No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.

3.  Freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.

4.  The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to have respect for the liberty of parents and, when applicable, legal guardians to ensure the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own convictions.

Freedom of Religion or Belief is a Broad Right for Every Individual

Respecting religious freedom consistent with international human rights law is not only a matter of protecting the freedom of religious communities, as groups, to engage in worship and other collective activities.  It also encompasses the freedom of every individual to hold, or not to hold, any religion or belief, as well as the freedom to manifest such a religion or belief, subject only to narrow limitations allowed under international law.

Thus, religious freedom is not only for religious minorities.  It affords members of a country’s religious majority the freedom to debate interpretations of the dominant religion, as well as to dissent or otherwise refuse to follow the favored interpretation.  In addition, religious freedom is not only for religious communities deemed “traditional.”  It also includes the rights of individuals or communities to hold new beliefs, polytheistic beliefs, non-theistic beliefs, or atheistic beliefs.[2]

Religious freedom also encompasses more than just a right to worship or to practice religious rites; its full enjoyment requires that other rights must also be respected.  The full scope of the right to manifest religion or belief includes the rights of worship, observance, practice, expression, and teaching, broadly construed, including property rights regarding meeting places, the freedom to manage religious institutions, and the freedom to possess, publish,  and distribute  liturgical and educational materials.

Finally, religious freedom is not only for a country’s citizens.  International human rights standards require a state to extend rights and equal status to “all individuals within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction.”[3]

Freedom of Religion or Belief Includes Freedom of Religious Choice and Expression

Religious freedom includes the freedom to keep or to change one’s religion or belief without coercion.[4]  It also includes the freedom to manifest one’s religion or belief through public expression, including expression intended to persuade another individual to change his or her religious beliefs or affiliation voluntarily.  Any limitations on these freedoms must be prescribed by a narrowly-construed law, based on a ground specified in ICCPR Article 18, non-discriminatory, not destructive of guaranteed rights, and not based solely on a single tradition.

Permissible Limitations on Freedom of Religion or Belief Are Narrow

Under international law, the broad right to freedom of religion or belief, including the management of religious institutions, may be subject to only such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.  Limitations are not allowed on grounds not specified in ICCPR Article 18, even grounds that may be permitted to restrict other rights protected in the Covenant.  For example, national security is not a permissible limitation, and States cannot derogate from this right during a declared public emergency.  Limitations also must be consistent with the ICCPR’s provisions requiring equality before the law for all and prohibiting any measures that would destroy guaranteed rights.[5]  Finally, limitations on the freedom to manifest a religion or belief that rely on morality must be based on principles not deriving from a single tradition.[6]

Establishing an Official Religion Cannot Justify Rights Violations or Discrimination

Under international standards, a state may declare an official religion, provided that basic rights, including the individual right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief, are respected for all without discrimination.  Thus, the existence of a state religion cannot be a basis for discriminating against or impairing any rights of adherents of other religions or non-believers or their communities.  Providing benefits to official state religions not available to other faiths would constitute discrimination, as would excepting state religions from burdensome processes required for faith communities to establish legal personality. Under the ICCPR,  the fact that “a religion is recognized as a state religion or that it is established as official or traditional or that its followers comprise the majority of the population, shall not result in any impairment of the enjoyment of any of the rights under the Covenant.”[7]

*The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is an independent, bipartisan federal commission created by the U.S. Congress to monitor and report on the status of freedom of religion or belief and give independent policy recommendations to the President, the Secretary of State, and members of Congress.

There’s another one percent coming under attack these days – the US foreign aid budget. Many who are pushing for cuts argue that we do not receive anything in return for our foreign assistance. With one in five Americans believing that foreign aid accounts for as much as 30 percent of the budget, it is not surprising that this argument could score political points.  But it is not good policy because, in many cases, providing foreign aid gets us a big bang for a cheap buck.  The debate has, however, opened the door for a more serious discussion about US foreign assistance.

Already, both the House and the Senate want to cut the President’s $60 billion fiscal year 2012 budget request for foreign aid and State Department Operations – the Senate by $6 billion, the House by $11 billion.  Automatic cuts in 2013 stemming from the failure of the Congressional Supercommittee would further cut foreign aid.  At a recent Republican presidential debate, some candidates went even further and suggested zeroing out foreign aid.  A key part of that argument is that foreign aid should not be given to countries that do not share our interests.  But our foreign aid budget does not consist entirely of bilateral aid.  It also funds programs that not only counter the complex challenges we face today but also have direct and indirect impacts on American interests while offering a high return on investment.

One of these programs is the US Global Health Initiative, which helps combat malaria as part of its mission.  According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the life-threatening infectious disease is most prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa.  But it is also preventable and curable.  Doing so can have a significant humanitarian impact on the African population.

It can also have significant benefits for the United States.  As the WHO points out, “[e]conomists believe that malaria is responsible for a ‘growth penalty’ of up to 1.3% per year in some African countries.” Public health expenditures rise as a result, sometimes by as much as 40 percent.  Without this kind of burden, many of these countries could direct those funds towards needed programs that promote stability.  Moreover, rising health expenditures and weak economic growth could have a negative impact on the burgeoning consumer class in Africa, which could in turn hurt American businesses and entrepreneurs.  Over the last decade, US trade with sub-Saharan African countries has more than doubled.  The consulting firm McKinsey & Co. predicts that consumer spending in Africa will reach $1.4 trillion in 2020.  In helping to combat malaria, we could open new markets in Kenya to goods produced in Kentucky.

With the automatic cuts triggered by the Supercommittee’s failure to reach an agreement, the American Foundation for AIDS research (AmFAR) recently estimated that reduced funding for the US Global Health Initiative would lower the deficit by 0.42 percent.  Yet, that deficit reduction would prevent 4.5 million people from receiving treatment for malaria and would result in an estimated 5,000 more deaths from the disease.  Given the far-ranging impact that this sort of foreign aid can have, is it really worth the human costs to shave 0.42 percent off the budget?

Since this debate over cutting foreign aid began, a diverse array of supporters – from Evangelical leaders to former Secretaries of State – has emerged to urge protection of international development funds. The Truman National Security Project has launched the new “Make Us Strong” campaign which is bringing together a coalition of national security professionals to highlight how international development financing helps mitigate the global challenges we face.   These advocates  show not only how small foreign assistance is as a percentage of the federal budget but also the positive impact that U.S. foreign assistance has both at home and abroad.  By pointing to these types of examples, they can also help counter the perception that our money supports corrupt, unstable governments and garners little results.

In the aftermath of World War II, America realized that its security depended upon Europe and East Asia’s development.  Our subsequent commitment has had long-lasting effects.  Not only have we built strong alliances with those countries, but many are now large importers of American goods.  As we embark on an election year, the debate over foreign aid is taking center stage.  The fight against cuts should be fierce, but it is even more important that foreign aid advocates make a case for the impact of these funds and why they should matter to the American people.  As US soft power becomes increasingly vital to managing our role in the world, foreign aid is the one percent we cannot afford to lose.

Jessie Daniels is a Truman National Security Project fellow based in New York City. She has written case studies on the Northern Ireland Peace Process, pre-9/11 Intelligence and the creation of the Director of National Intelligence for the Project on National Security Reform. She has also conducted research on future security challenges and multilateral responses at the International Peace Institute in New York. From 2003 to 2007, she worked as a national security legislative aide to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Her work has been published in Asia Times Online, The Moderate Voice, The Reaction, and Foreign Policy Digest. Jessie holds a master of international affairs degree from Columbia University's School of International Affairs and bachelor's degree in history from Columbia College.

The first lesson of nuclear diplomacy is that everyone lies.  The proliferating state lies to the world about the extent of its program, and to its people about the return they’ll earn on their sacrifice of blood and treasure.  Client states lie to their patrons about the degree of threat that they feel, and warn ominously of how “a change in the balance of power” might force “a strategic realignment.”  Non-proliferation agencies warn of the dire consequences of widespread proliferation.  American diplomats explain than a nuclear weapon is “unacceptable” because they do not want anyone to wonder whether the consequences of proliferation might be tolerable.  This pattern is repeated over, and over, and over, throughout the history of nuclear proliferation.  The practitioners of nuclear diplomacy ply an honorable trade, but their duty is to lie, and they do so quite well.

Ackerman and Cohen accept many of these lies at face value.  Ackerman apparently believes that the autocrats in Bahrain would not have suppressed demonstrators, but for the specter of Iran.  Dead protestors in dozens of states not threatened by Iran might wonder whether the Bahraini government is telling the truth about its motivations.  He and Cohen believe that the Israelis will act irrationally, mostly because the Israelis insist that they will act irrationally.  To my mind, the Israeli response to the Iranian nuclear program has been quite rational; they have pursued low cost, relatively low impact ways of disrupting the Iranian nuclear program, all while repeatedly insisting to their patron state that they are extremely concerned, and will very soon be launching a disruptive attack that could destabilize the whole region, and wouldn’t it be better if the Americans solved the problem?  There is nothing even mildly irrational about this strategy, and there is no reason whatsoever to suspect that the Israelis will become more irrational, or the Bahrainis less autocratic, after an Iranian nuclear test.

In addition to this basic ontological problem, Cohen’s piece in particular is riddled with errors and unfounded speculation.  Israeli military policy towards its neighbors has not changed notably since developing nuclear weapons (it invaded its neighbors before, it invaded them after), and he gives little in terms of convincing evidence that Israeli behavior will change after an Iranian nuclear test.  He misunderstands the end of the Korean War (nuclear threats played a relatively small role in truce negotiations), misinterprets the Cuban Missile Crisis (the US held overwhelming nuclear superiority at the time), and essentially argues that if nuclear weapons have mattered in any relationship, they must matter in the Israeli-Iranian relationship.  He fails to acknowledge that many states have “gotten off scot-free” after sponsoring terrorist attacks against nuclear powers; the Mumbai attacks are not particularly notable or special in this regard.  It’s also worth noting that the Indian Army has developed a conventional doctrine designed to devastate Pakistan without triggering the use of nuclear weapons.  Cohen falls victim to the extraordinarily common error of assuming that nuclear weapons must have brought about an outcome simply because they are so powerful and so terrifying.  It is fair to say that the tendency of policymakers to lie relentlessly about the relevance of nuclear weapons feeds this misperception.  Nevertheless, it is the responsibility of the analyst to look past what amount to propaganda efforts, and to assess the hard realities of the situation.  I guarantee that policymakers in Jerusalem and Tehran are doing so right now.

Dr. Robert M. Farley is an assistant professor at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky.  He blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money and Information Dissemination, and is available on Twitter.

In Saturday’s Republican national security debate, GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney offered the sort of scare-mongering on Iran’s nuclear program that has become the norm in America’s foreign policy debates. “The gravest threat that America and the world faces,” said Romney, is an Iranian nuclear bomb. This is, to put it mildly, hysterical – a point that Robert Farley takes to its most extreme position in his recent article on the effect of Iran going nuclear.

According to Farley, if Iran is able to get a bomb it will have no demonstrable impact on Middle East politics. While I appreciate his efforts to tone down the panic-stricken pronouncements over an Iranian bomb, his argument relies on dubious historical analogies and ignores the irrationality of various Middle East actors, particularly Israel. The impact of Iran getting a nuclear bomb is almost certainly overstated and defined as much by hysteria as actual real-world effects. But hysteria matters; so, too, does strategic calculus and perceived national security and military flexibility – all elements that Farley ignores or glosses over in his analysis.

First the historical perspective: Farley argues that Iran having a bomb won’t change the power dynamics in the Middle East because “nuclear states cannot use nukes to force non-nuclear states to comply with their demands.”  But during the Korean War, President Dwight Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles used the implicit threat of nuclear attack to push the Chinese government toward an armistice agreement on the Korean War.  He also claims that “nuclear weapons cannot ensure the safety and security of client terrorist groups.”  Yet, terrorists responsible for the Mumbai massacre, who reside in Pakistan, got off scot-free, in part, because India was unwilling to risk a larger war in responding to the attack.  It’s not hard to imagine that the threat of nuclear war between the two countries had something to do with that.

Farley cites examples where nuclear powers were unable to get their way with non-nuclear powers such as the US and Iraq in 1991 and 2003; the Serbs in Kosovo; China in Vietnam; Russia in Georgia, etc.  According to Farley, “The biggest difference between these examples and the Iran one is that the nuclear power, in all of these cases also possessed overwhelming conventional superiority.”

This is a rather huge caveat and gets to the point of why Iran having a bomb is, in fact, a game-changer.  If Iran threatened its neighbors militarily, most of them could laugh off the challenge because, as Farley points out, Iran has a weak conventional capability.  Would that calculus change if Iran had a bomb?  It’s not difficult to imagine that it would shift how countries in the region think about Iranian power and influence.  Precisely because Iran lacks a significant conventional military superiority makes it getting a bomb a potentially big deal.

Moreover, Farley argues that Israeli nuclear weapons did not deter Egyptian and Syrian attacks against the Jewish state in 1973.  He’s right, but of course both attacks were limited in scope and were aimed at reclaiming lost land.  If either country had entered Israel proper or threatened Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, would the threat of a nuclear response stifled their ambitions?  It’s hard to believe that it would not.

The problem here is that Farley is taking a far too constrained view of how nuclear weapons impact national decision-making.  As he said to me in a Twitter conversation, Israel would likely still pound Iranian proxies in Lebanon and Gaza even if Iran had a bomb and on this point he is probably correct.  But if Iran has a bomb, future Israeli military actions would almost certainly be constrained.  If Israel went into Lebanon to respond to a provocation from Hezbollah, would Israel think twice about expanding the scope of operations?  How would Israel respond if Iran threatened the use of nuclear force in support of its proxies?  In Farley’s argument, Israel would pull back or Iran wouldn’t take such a measure because neither country wants to contemplate “national suicide.”  It’s almost as if brinkmanship and miscalculation don’t exist in Farley’s conception of international affairs.

By his argument, the United States never should have quarantined Cuba in 1962 because, after all, neither Havana nor Moscow would contemplate national suicide by using such weapons (the fact that Castro did is an inconvenient point).

As Farley must know, countries don’t respond rationally to what they consider to be provocations or actions that hinder their perceived strategic flexibility.  Quite clearly, the United States was willing to risk national suicide in 1962, as was the Soviet Union – and with a different US president it might very well have done more than risk it.  Why does Farley think that Israel and Iran would be different, and would not stumble their way into a similar episode of nuclear brinkmanship?  Considering the level of animosity between both countries and lack of communication, such an episode could spiral dangerously out of control.

This gets to the final point.  Israel has reason to be concerned about an Iranian nuclear bomb.  The Iranian president has made provocative statements about wiping Israel off the map and Israeli society has a deeply ingrained fear around the issue of national elimination.  Indeed, one of the more obtuse elements of Farley’s argument is that he ignores the role of political culture and domestic politics in foreign policy decision-making.  He says, for example, “Regional leaders would be best advised to explain to their people the actual dangers of an Iranian nuclear weapon, rather than feeding the hysteria.” Considering the legacy and language of national elimination that has long surrounded Israel and the Jewish people, this seems like an academic argument completely divorced from the reality of Israeli politics.

But lastly, and most importantly, Farley ignores the importance that Israel applies to being the only nuclear power in the region.  He says, “Israeli nuclear weapons have not granted it the ability to dominate the Middle East,” but this is simply incorrect.  Israel can act practically in an unfettered manner across the region.  It can bomb nuclear power plants in Iraq and Syria; it can invade its neighbors (most recently Lebanon); and it can maintain the occupation of several million Palestinians.  Israel can do all these things, in part, because of a vast military superiority that includes nuclear weapons.  If Iran suddenly were to have a nuclear bomb, it would not only shift the balance of military power in the region, it would limit Israel’s military flexibility and its own perception as a regional hegemon.  No longer could Israel operate with virtual impunity.

One can argue whether this is a good thing or a bad thing but it most certainly is a thing.  And it’s something that will transform the security calculation of the region’s most important military actor.  Farley’s notion that rational security concerns should make the development of an Iranian bomb a non-event is correct.  But if the last ten years in particular have taught us anything, it is that we do not live in a world of rational actors. The difference between what should happen if Iran gets a bomb and what will likely happen is far wider than his analysis would suggest.

Michael Cohen is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Project. He blogs at democracyarsenal.org and you can follow him on Twitter @speechboy71.

I understand what my friend, Rob Farley, is trying to do in his piece about the non-impact of an Iranian nuke. He’s trying to get everyone to calm down, think clearly and, above all, prevent a war. These are laudable efforts. Yet, he fails to accomplish them.

He fails for two interlocking reasons. First, Farley takes too narrow a view of who in the Middle East will be affected by an Iranian bomb. More fundamentally, his argument about a nuclear Iran being inconsequential only makes sense on the presumption that Arabs and Israelis will act rationally in the face of a viscerally impactful security development nearby.
“Nuclear states cannot use nukes to force non-nuclear states to comply with their demands,” Farley says. I sought clarification from Farley on this via Twitter,  and his position is: Iranian nukes will have a net-zero impact on regional power dynamics.

Farley might try to explain this view to Shiite protesters in Bahrain, a Gulf state and American client that uses fear of an Iranian fifth column to brutally suppress its dissidents. Does anyone think that Bahrain’s leadership will become more rational or less cynical if Iran goes nuclear? Does anyone think that the United States will grow more attentive to human rights abuses in Gulf states when it feels the need to entrench a Gulf coalition to contain a nuclear Iran? For that matter, does anyone think that the United States will be more inclined to restrain Israel, either on challenging Iran unconventionally (as with Stuxnet, considered by many to be a joint US-Israeli cyberweapon; or with its alleged assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists) or on its intransigence with the Palestinians?

Farley seems to think he has an answer:

Concerns about international hysteria are well founded, but separating the hysteria from the effects of the actual weapon -- and noting that the former has little foundation in the latter -- is a worthwhile effort. Regional leaders would be best advised to explain to their people the actual dangers of an Iranian nuclear weapon, rather than feeding the hysteria.

I submit that Farley gives up the game here. Once you concede that hysteria over an Iranian bomb is a “well founded” concern, you’re forced to confront one of two alternatives. You can either believe that regional and international decision-makers (governments, security apparatuses, terrorist groups, dissidents, the media, etc.) will react in unpredictable ways, with geostrategic implications. If you do that, then you refute Farley. Or you can believe that regional and international decision-makers will become more rational then they already are in the face of an Iranian nuke.

That is a debater’s rhetorical tact, not a serious policy option. When Farley hectors regional leaders that they are “best advised to explain to their people the actual dangers of an Iranian nuclear weapon, rather than feeding the hysteria,” it’s hard to imagine which real-world Mideast leaders he actually expects to take his advice. The fact that Farley feels the need to offer it suggests that he doubts actors in the region will be as nonchalant about a nuclear Iran as he is.

Recall the way you felt when you watched two airplanes annihilate the Twin Towers. Imagine if someone said to you, “Remember that America is vastly more powerful than a terrorist group. Don’t feed the hysteria.” It’s good advice. It is also very difficult advice to take, even ten years after 9/11 when the strategic consequences of America’s numerous miscalculations have accumulated. This is because the world is populated with people and not automatons, the international relations constructs necessary for Farley’s scenario to accurately describe the aftermath of a nuclear Iran.

Spencer Ackerman is a national security reporter for WIRED. He blogs at Attackerman.

Seva Canada is a charitable organization providing high-quality, comprehensive eye care services for children and adults in Malawi, as well as 8 other countries in the developing world. For children, congenital and developmental cataracts are the leading causes of blindness. Seva’s Childhood Blindness Program in Malawi is dedicated to reducing childhood blindness through early identification of children with visual impairment, providing appropriate interventions such as cataract surgery, and follow up.

Without urgent care, children face a lifetime of blindness and missed potential. There’s a terrible cycle of blindness and poverty with blindness; having a blind person to care for drives families deeper into poverty.

My photographic work for Seva in Malawi focused on the activities at the Lions Sight First Eye Hospital in Blantyre: the project focuses mainly on children with cataract in order to provide appropriate treatment, including surgery, follow- up and provision of prescription glasses.

http://www.seva.ca/malawi.htm

http://blog.seva.ca/category/malawi

PAOLO PATRUNO is a humanitarian photographer who creates evocative, compelling images which promote action and change for the sake of the most vulnerable people in the world. Paolo’s social documentary work gives a powerful voice to the people that need support by capturing the real need for the work of NGOs, aid and non-profit organizations in pictures.

www.paolopatrunophoto.org

One of the thousands of children who had his eyes examined in Malawi

Eye control visit at the Lions Sight First Eye Hospital

A mother brings her daughter to the hospital with a severe eye infection

The eye children'€™s ward of the Lions Sight First Eye Hospital

A young patient waiting for cataract surgery in the children's ward

Two surgeons operate at the same time in the main theatre at the Lions Sight First Eye Hospital

The surgeon cleaning his hands before starting surgery

Preparations in the main theatre

A young patient is waking up after anesthesia

Going to the theatre for cataract surgery

Cataract surgery at Lions Sight First Eye Hospital, one of Seva Canada partner in Malawi

Two students attend operations to improve their skills, as future surgeons

A small child gets an eye patch after cataract surgery

Children always smile, also in theatre few minutes before cataract surgery

A young patient being prepped for eye cataract surgery

Electricity blackouts daily happen and the generator for the theatre is manually activated; in the meantime, everybody waits in the theatre

Child cataract patient in the children's ward after his cataract surgery

Parents and children in the children's ward of the Sight First Eye Hospital stay before and after their cataract surgery

Child cataract patient sitting on his bed in the children'€™s ward of the Lions Sight First Eye Hospital in Blantyre

Follow-up care and the provision of glasses are important parts of fighting childhood blindness