The Latest on Libya

[beachmom]

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/05/10/senate_has_no_plans_to_invoke_war_powers_act_over_libya

The hearing with James Steinberg, Deputy Secretary of State was today:

http://foreign.senate.gov/hearings/hearing/?id=c4b14236-5056-a032-5240-75ad2f6a8d64

I don't have time to watch it, but Dave Weigel liveblogged some of it:

http://twitter.com/#!/daveweigel/status/68667497129324544

Only senators at Libya hearing w/ Steinberg: Kerry, Lugar. General agreement among hacks that this is about covering Lugar's flank

Code Pink in the House for Senate Foreign Relations update on Libya

Steinberg says 3/4 quarters of sorties in Libya flown by coalition partners, not US

Mike Lee arrives at Libya hearing; wild guess, will ask about constitutional authority for action

Steinberg: No future that imagines Gaddafi in power #nofutureforyou

Steinberg says WH does want congressional authorization for plan to seize Libyan assets

Corker to Steinberg, on admin/Congress on Libya: "This use of the word 'consultation' is bogus."

Lugar says he wasn't satisfied by Steinberg; tells NatJournal that he does want congressional authorization

In other Middle Eastern news the Right have had a successful hit on Kerry:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/kerry-discovers-assad-is-no-reformer/2011/03/29/AFFswnyG_blog.html

Warning: above piece written by Jennifer Rubin. It is a right wing hit job to make Kerry look as bad as possible. But the basic premise that Assad duped Kerry, well, is pretty much true. I think it was worth it to try diplomacy, but where I am irked is this "let's start a war in Libya on humanitarian grounds" while allowing Assad to slaughter his own people while over and over again saying he is a political reformer until facts on the ground are so bad that Kerry had to say, okay, whoops, maybe he's not a reformer. The hypocrisy there is what gets me mad. Funniest part of the hit piece: Rubin saying Marc Rubio is the foreign policy genius. Huh??? Has she seen him perform in SFRC hearings??? That guy is a hack and a joke. He is unserious on foreign policy. Bob Corker is the smart one, but of course, the Right are turned off by intelligent people . . . .

Finally, can anyone fact check the part about THK cozying up to Mrs. Assad? No links were provided for that; seeing how unflattering that narrative was, I think it should be fact checked, and if wrong, should be corrected.

[beachmom]

1. More on the fact check:

Actually, there is a link to a Jewish newspaper that makes that claim:

http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/31466/shadow-play/

... —that the political official representing Washington’s views to Damascus is Kerry. Some of those in favor of engaging Syria—a group that might include Kerry himself—would argue that having a senator rather than a diplomat running interference proves that the U.S. needs an ambassador in Damascus who can deliver tough messages to a recalcitrant regime. However, it is not clear that the White House really wants to send tough messages or it would not be using Kerry, as it is an open secret around town that the Massachusetts senator and his wife, Teresa, are enamored of Bashar al-Assad and his stylish first lady, Asma.

One American official who is less smitten with the Assad regime is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who, like others in Foggy Bottom, has a history with the Syrians. Her sentiment is at least partly due to her husband having sent his secretaries of state, Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright, to Damascus almost 50 times during the 1990s in a series of unsuccessful attempts to broker a deal between Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez, and successive Israeli prime ministers. Maybe Clinton is not handling Syria policy because she does not want a Syrian president keeping her waiting on the tarmac at Damascus Airport for hours, as Hafez al-Assad did to Christopher, or perhaps it is because Obama trusts Kerry more. In any case, the fact that Kerry is on point and Clinton has been silent on the Scud story is a sign of how high up the split over Syria policy goes.

I would like to hear this from more than one source. "Open secret".

[beachmom]

2. This Boston Globe article touches on it:

http://articles.boston.com/2011-04-28/news/29483723_1_assad-senator-john-kerry-damascus/3

The whole article is worth reading, but here is the passage:

Obama agreed to test the waters, giving Kerry the green light to travel four times to see Assad. During one visit, in 2009, Kerry and his wife, Teresa Heinz, dined with Assad and his wife in Damascus.

“Kerry tried to use personal persuasion,’’ said Thomas Dine, a former executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who is spearheading a program to improve US-Syria relations under the auspices of Search for Common Ground, a conflict-resolution organization. “He has taken on a friendship with Bashar Assad himself, and the wife. That is classic mediation. You try to build to trust.’’

That is not the same as being "enamored", though. That is called diplomacy. I mean, I am fine with calling Kerry out as being wrong on Assad. Fine, that's politics. But they seem to be taking the attack further by acting like they were in the cocktail party circuit together and were seduced by the Assads. I am unsure if that is true.

[Mass]

3. Here is Kerry's answer to the Globe's article.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2011/05/04/senator_engaged_in_dialogue_with_eyes_wide_open/


Now, all the people you are quoting here have an agenda. There people were going to disagree with any attempt to try to find a solution with Syria.

I have absolutely no love for Assad and the stories that were circulating in Europe 10 to 15 years ago concerning him were terrible (including stories where he molested young women). But my problems with all these articles are the following: if they dont address the dictators in various countries in an effort to find a peaceful resolution to conflict, what do these people offer as a solution? Bomb Syria? As the AIPAC guy says: you try to establish trust to get somewhere. This is basic diplomacy. I am not surprised that some people dont want to see any negotiation, but this should not be taken at a personal level. These people have an agenda, and this agenda does not include peace, or at least not a just peace in Israel.

There are other issues with the Globe article, including who one of the people interviewed is: Elliott Abrams, involved in Iran Contra, something the Globe avoids to mention.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=273x169611#169617

Also note that Kerry was not among the 27 Democrats asking Obama to stop aide to the Palestinian Authority because of Hamas, which probably does not make him well liked in some places, just as he is not liked in Cuban-American quarters for his latest proporsals concerning Cuba and USAID. Here is the latest installment of anti-Kerry rethoric on these issues.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mauricio-clavercarone/john-kerry-should-support_b_861124.html

Let's just say that this is also the reasons why I like him and Obama when it comes to foreign policy.

[beachmom]

4. Good letter. Thanks.

[wisteria]

5. I don't fault Senator Kerry for reaching out to Assad in an effort to better our relations.

I think he always understood it might be a waste of time, but could possibly benefit the US at some point. He never made promises or portrayed his relationship with Assad as overtly friendly, and I think he realized he had only limited influence over the actions of Assad. On the other hand, the Republicans who have criticized Senator Kerry's efforts really don't care about foreign policy, and they display only mistrust and dislike-while never offering up any fresh ideas. I do think however, that the US needs to condemn what Assad is doing to his own people.

[karynnj]

6. In addition to all the links that you have, there is Wikileaks that backs

Kerry's self defense letter.

I used search here to find a Boston Globe and a Time link that referred to what Kerry was doing. Here is the Time link - http://swampland.time.com/2010/12/07/one-wiki-winner-john-kerry/ , which contains the BG link, which unfortunately is now behind a wall where you have to pay.

Here is a link to another BG article on this - that appears NOT to hit the firewall - http://articles.boston.com/2010-11-30/news/29282335_1_wikileaks-release-cables-massachusetts-democrat Here is a Guardian link to one cable, where Kerry is speaking to the Amir of Quatar. In it, Kerry pushes back on Syria, when the Amir is advocating for them. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/250177

There have been many articles over time from the far right here (or in Israel) that have attacked Kerry for trying diplomacy. I don't think Kerry looks duped or naive here. He has never said that Assad was a good guy - he has always spoken of how there MIGHT be a way to get Syria to see that its self interest lies with not allying itself to Iran.

Diplomacy there has failed, but it didn't preclude any other approach. What it replaced was not talking to them - which also did not work. To me, this would say that even if the probability of Kerry's diplomacy working would have been 1%, it was worth taking for the good of the region and the world. 99% of the time, Kerry would look wrong, but the situation would be the same as if he did not try. But, 1% of the time, this could have been one of the many pieces needed to actually improve the middle east. (Here, I am suggesting a mathematical model where the parameters are not really knowable, but they can be "estimated". The equation could be:

Value of diplomacy = (probability of success)(heuristic value of success) + (probability of failure) (heuristic value of trying and failing)

This could be complicated further by breaking success into multiple categories of "success". Knowing that the value of success is very high and that the value of trying and failing is either a very low negative value (equal to wasting Kerry's time and any anger from Israel or more likely a very small positive as other Arabs countries may see it as a good faith effort.

The attack from the right comes from people who basically reject the idea of diplomacy with our enemies. However, limiting diplomacy to our friends means we are not involved with solving any of the key disputes or crises in the world. Even more than wanting to diminish Kerry, this is a philosophical divide. During the Bush years, we were criticized their policy of NOT talking to Syria and other countries. I think Kerry's defense is exactly right.

[Luftmensch067]

7. Fascinating and thorough analysis

Your mathematical model made me think about JK's argument about combating climate change (to paraphrase, mightily! -- if believers in climate change who want to do something about it are right, we have to do something and soon, for the good of the planet. If we're wrong, what do we get -- less dependence on fossil fuels, less oil-fueled political turmoil, etc.) And then it struck me that this kind of describes how I see JK's life and career in general. He often dares to take the step that others deem has an impossible chance of success and it is his very willingness to try when no one else will that can lead to unexpected benefits. I would point to everything from turning his boat into the shore to protect his crew from further attack in Vietnam to taking the antiwar protest direct to DC (I was just watching his interview about this from 1982, here: http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/org.wgbh.mla:3600c0d4e6a21ed941bf504c8b3b64d74c306cf2) to taking on EVERYONE with the BCCI investigation to going all out to challenge an incumbent president during wartime to his diplomatic approach around the world, the Middle East and other regions involved in climate change talks. It seems to be an approach one might identify as "pragmatic optimism." Assessing a situation thoroughly and with clear eyes and then deciding that trying to make it better is better than not trying after making sure that trying is not likely to do more harm than good. The line is a fine one and it requires judgment and determination. Not everyone could practice this with as much skill as JK does -- I think he's gotten better and better at it over the decades, but the ethical compass and ability to assess all the information about a situation before making a decision seem always to have been there.

[karynnj]

9. I love your analysis and love the phrase "pragmatic optimism"

which describes Kerry to a T. That would have been a fantastic way to describe his NYT article on dealing with terrorism - proven right in 2006 and recently. It was pragmatic and grounded in his real knowledge of fighting non-state crime, but a ray of sunshine in a truly black time.

What he did in Syria and what he continues to do in Pakistan are exactly the type of thing that he and others spoke of at the December event. I would bet that this is why people who spent their lives working for peace - like Peter, Paul and Mary - supported him in the 2004 primary.

[beachmom]

8. Yup, and it's another example of the continuing evil influence of Adolf Hitler

because of bloody Munich. The Right trots that crap out every time someone dares negotiate with an enemy. How Chamberlain got duped. But there was no agreement between Kerry and Assad or Obama and Assad. All it was was talk that might lead to something. Well, it didn't, but thinking about it, what harm has the diplomacy done to the U.S.? None. We gave up nothing, we didn't hold back some kind of military operation, we gave no concessions, and so on. Yet if you think about it, diplomacy is only a downside when it comes to American domestic politics. As long as the CIA and military is doing its thing while talks are going on, what is the harm in trying? I did feel like the Right had some ammunition with the details, but then with a simple rebuttal their entire attack falls apart and they are exposed as a group with NO foreign policy ideas except endless war . . .

[karynnj]

10. With theh Chamberlain example, it may not be limited to "American" politics

The real question is how can people ever be brought to see that the alternative to endless war is diplomacy - as imperfect as it is. It almost seems that one problem with diplomacy is that the only way it can work is for the "enemy" to see that it is in his best interest to not do the things we are trying to stop. Even if a good case could be made for it, that assumes rational behavior on their part (or that the goal they have is the same as ours. The real question is what about cases, like Pakistan, where some see their goals are NOT helped by what we are doing? (ie they don't want a powerful, large Afghan army on their border - something we need for our goals in Afghanistan.)