Our moment in history

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown: we can use today’s interconnectedness to develop our shared global ethic — and work together to confront the challenges of poverty, security, climate change and the economy.

Past the point of no return?

This is probably accurate:

In fact, there is a perfectly good reason developing countries are unwilling to act on climate change: What they are being asked to do is more awful than climate change’s implications–even if one accepts all the alarmist predictions.

Consider what would be necessary to slash global greenhouse-gas emissions just 50% below 2000 levels by 2050–a far less aggressive goal than what the enviros say is necessary to avert climate catastrophe. According to U.S. Chamber of Commerce calculations, even if the West reduced its emissions by 80% below 2000 levels, developing countries would still have to return their emissions to 2000 levels to meet the 50% target. However, Indians currently consume roughly 15 times less energy per capita than Americans–and Chinese consume seven times less. Asking them, along with the rest of the developing world, to go back to 2000 emission levels with a 2050 population would mean putting them on a very drastic energy diet.

The human toll of this is unfathomable: It would require these countries to abandon plans to ever conquer poverty, of course. But beyond that it would require a major scaling back of living standards under which their middle classes–for whom three square meals, cars and air-conditioning are only now beginning to come within reach–would have to go back to subsistence living, and the hundreds of millions who are at subsistence would have to accept starvation.

I think I may agree with this point: we are too far down the slippery-slope of climate-change for curbing consumption to be enough to effectively combat the changes. We might be past the point of no-return here.

To avoid calamity, I believe we will need a technological revolution (coming in the form of a multi-front effort to increase carbon-free energy production, geo-engineering global cooling efforts, &c.).

But what we can do with consumption-curbing efforts is buy ourselves more time. If we can slow the pace of warming, we increase the chances of finding technological resources to help our efforts.

Her conclusion, which essentially amounts to sitting on our hands, is utterly backwards and false:

So what should climate warriors do? Right now the only certain way to save lives is by calling off this misguided war on climate change. If and when climate change promises to claim more casualties than poverty and starvation, the world will begin heeding their calls. If, however, these climate-change casualties don’t materialize, there would have been no need to act in the first place. Either way, the world has far more immediate and scarier problems than climate change to address right now.

We cannot abandon pushes to slow/stop climate change. That is suicide. To say we have to stop all efforts on this huge issue because there are other huge issues going on in the world simultaneously, is both misguided and cowardly. We can rub our stomach and pat our head at the same time–and in this case, we need to.

The real issue here is a failure to acknowledge that, going forward, our economy and our environmental policies and outlook are going to be intertwined. For example, examining the real cost of burning carbon on society as a whole. One of the ways to address this problem is to tie the real cost of carbon to the way it is priced in the market place.

The issues of poverty, food production/dispersion, and the environment are more intertwined than Dalmia acknowledges. And a failure to acknowledge this, and to address it as a three-headed but singular problem (there are actually more heads on this hydra than that–foreign policy, for example), is to failure to form the comprehensive, cohesive strategy necessary to take a crack at these globally-scaled issues.

(Danke: Patrick Appel)

Gradually getting rid of the bomb

Obama’s done some good this weekend. Yglesias:

The numbers announced Monday, Mr. Cirincione notes, amount to a 30 percent reduction in the nuclear arsenals of the two countries that possess 95 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons.”

In other words, that’s a roughly 28 percent reduction in the total number of nuclear weapons in the world. It’s also a powerful signal to the French, British, and especially Chinese that the United States and Russia are serious about reducing arsenals and that the Obama administration really wants to pursue a nuclear-free world. The fact that the US and Russia contain such a large proportion of global nukes is, after all, a bit of an anachronism as in pretty much all other respects China has clearly replaced Russia as the number two geopolitical player and in some domains the European Union has set itself up as a more-or-less independent great power. It would be very plausible for the Chinese (and much less plausible, though still possible, for the Europeans) to decide they need to react to this situation by “leveling up” and building their own arsenal of thousands of nuclear weapons.

Steps that give the Chinese confidence that they don’t need to do that, that the US and Russia are prepared to level down, will do an enormous amount to help build a more peaceful, more secure world. Not only in terms of the US-China relationship, but also in terms of India’s thinking about its nuclear needs and therefore Pakistan’s thinking and therefore the general problem of proliferation around the world. These reductions, if they come to pass, will be a huge deal.

A new low… even for them

So let me get this straight… the only way to save America, the only way for America to protect itself well enough “again”, is for Osama bin Laden to successfully execute an attack on American soil.

They are hoping we get attacked!?! W. T. Fuck?!?

I’m absolutely stunned. This makes me sick to my stomach:

(Danke: Sullivan)

The power of empowering

Sullivan points to a thoughtful piece by Aziz Poonawalla:

The point here is that saber-rattling and stern lectures about freedom and democracy are one approach, which give the appearance of “support” for reformists’ cause but in fact make things much worse. What does work is direct engagement of the people, giving them resources they can use as they take their own destiny in hand. This is a simple lesson that the ODS-afflicted Republiican warriors would do well to understand, if they truly value the welfare of the people of Iran, not to mention of the United States, over their short-term political fortunes.

This is not about us. It’s about them.

The whole thing’s worth a read (it’s a quick read, too… so no excuses).

Follow up

Packer follows up his previous post and Obama’s statement:

Just when Obama seemed to have fallen a step behind events, he emerged from his silence to do what no politician in our time could have managed: emphasize American respect for Iranian sovereignty and yet, in measured terms, make it clear that the U.S. cannot be indifferent to the tragedy unfolding in Iran. He spoke with calm eloquence to the millions of people who have filled the streets at great risk—spoke to their hopes and their courage. He proved that an American President can lend his voice to “universal values” without sounding like a self-righteous fool. And he showed the emptiness of the eternal argument between realism and idealism. When foreign policy is articulated by a thoughtful politician in the middle of an intense and unfolding drama, the abstractions melt away. It’s actually possible to be pragmatic without being indecent. Why shouldn’t it be?

Obama on Iran

On point

UPDATE (1:48 CST): The post is back up and can be read here. It has been modified. At first glance the first sentence has been changed to include the softer “apparent fraud” instead of just “fraud”. I am removing the original post (since it is not what the author intends to be seen publicly) unless I find any more changes that are significant.

UPDATE (1:44 CST): Still not sure what’s going on… friend had the post pulled up and copied it into an email for me. I’ll repost it in it’s entirety below the jump. If it gets reposted by The New Yorker, I’ll take it back down. It seems to me to be too important a piece to just let it fade into oblivion though, if that was to be its fate.

UPDATE (1:31 CST): As far as I can tell, the Packer post I’m pointing to has been taken down from Interesting Times. I’m not sure of the reason. I’ll let you know if I can find out either the reason for its removal, or if it gets put back up.

George Packer has an excellent piece. I’d ReTweet the whole thing, but it’s a bit long. But you should read the whole thing.

Obama inherited this self-defeating mess and has quickly moved to clean it up: the Cairo speech, the balancing rhetoric on Israel and Palestine, and the initiative toward Iran. His secretary of state downplayed human rights in Burma, pointing out that a more strident approach had failed utterly to change the regime’s behavior. The new President understood that the U.S. could no longer take a high-handed approach: the world had long since stopped listening, and the language of freedom and democracy had been so deeply tainted that the cleansing will take years. That’s why the passages in the Cairo speech on human rights and women’s rights came after extremism, after Israel and Palestine, after nuclear weapons, and had a careful tone. There’s too much wreckage to sort through before an American President can tell other countries to live up to a standard set by us.

The key phrase in Obama’s remarks on the world stage is “mutual respect and mutual interests.” National interest is the north star of foreign-policy realists, and the turn in rhetoric has aligned Obama far more with George Bush the father than the son. Again, this was a necessary correction. It was folly to refuse to talk to enemies in Tehran and Damascus when doing so would have at least put our interests on the table, and failing to allowed Iran to move full-speed ahead with its nuclear program. The new Administration is grown-up enough to grasp that interests and values are often at odds, and it made sense to say, in effect: interests now, human rights later. Until this past weekend. [...]

I understand that the Administration wants to let the chaos in Iran play itself out without committing to a position that might be rendered hollow by events. I understand and agree with its continued insistence on pursuing a policy of negotiation that’s in America’s interest. I understand that this head-on collision between interests and values is not at all easy to navigate. But “realism” should no more be an ideological fetish under Obama than “freedom” was under Bush. [...]

With riot police and armed militiamen beating and, in a few reported cases, killing unarmed demonstrators in the streets of Iran’s cities, for the Obama Administration to continue parsing equivocal phrases serves no purpose other than to make it look feckless. Part of realism is showing that you have a clear grasp of reality—that you know the difference between decency and barbarism when both are on display for the whole world to see. A stronger American stand—taken, as much as possible, in concert with European countries and through multilateral organizations—would do more to improve America’s negotiating position than weaken it. Acknowledging the compelling voices of the desperate young Iranians who, after all, only want their votes counted, would not deep-six the possibility of American-Iranian talks. Ahmadinejad and his partners in the clerical-military establishment will talk to us exactly when and if they think it’s in their interest. Right now, they don’t appear to. And the tens of millions of Iranians who voted for change and are the long-term future of that country will always remember what America said and did when they put their lives on the line for their values.

The implications of an Iranian revolution

Thoughts by Ezra Klein:

There are a couple things to say about this, all of them depressing. First, those of us who have long argued for the fundamental rationality of the Iranian regime have seen our case fundamentally weakened. A rational regime might have stolen the election. But they would not have stolen it like this, where there is no doubt of the theft. This is like robbers leaving muddy footprints and a home address. Tehran’s evident vote-tampering is tempting both domestic revolution and international isolation. That they appear to fear neither says something very unsettling about the mental state of the regime.

The second is that it is likely to disrupt what was, to my mind, a very positive trend in the United States: the long-overdue effort to pressure Israel on the settlements. Among America’s points of leverage was that Israel desperately needed our help to handle Iran. Among the trends freeing our hand was the apparent quieting of Iran’s drumbeat of provocations. Now that Iran appears to be more of an independent problem and less likely to fall into a period of relative quiet, it’s hard to imagine either Israel or America spending too much time worrying about their relationship with each other.

The third is that energy prices tend to dislike turmoil in the Middle East. The economist James Hamilton has previously argued that rocketing oil prices were the key driver behind the recession of 2008 and 2009. Conversely, some of the recent pick-up in the economy is presumably related to the fact that energy costs had fallen pretty sharply (due, in part, to the slackening demand brought about by the recession). In recent weeks, however, oil had been trending back upward, and if things devolve in Tehran, we can expect it to spike. And a spike in oil prices is exactly the sort of things that could choke off an emergent recovery.

Unpacking Cairo

George Packer:

The other evening, three Iranians came over for dinner—women activists, journalists, the sort of people who would be quick to pick up on and criticize any lessening of American commitment to human rights in their country and across the Muslim world. I wondered what they thought of that part of Obama’s Cairo speech—should it have been stronger, more forceful, as some critics (including the Egyptian politician and democracy advocate Ayman Nour) have said? No, on the contrary, the Iranians told me. This is not the moment to lecture and scold, or else the speech wouldn’t be heard. Obama’s first job was to begin to clear the poisonous air that’s filled the space between America and the Muslim world since 9/11. Soaring public perorations to freedom and democracy without a clear, concrete reckoning with the state of things today would have produced a backlash and achieved nothing. Obama needed to earn the authority to tell hard truths, and that could only be done by first acknowledging the various grievances and perceived wrongs that have accumulated over the years, on all sides (in this way, the Cairo speech was the foreign equivalent to the speech on race that he gave in Philadelphia during the campaign, with many of the same rhetorical moves).

The Iranians added that, later, in private, they want Obama to press governments like their own (if negotations with Iran ever start) on human rights. At that point, we’ll know more about the degree of realpolitik in Obama’s foreign-policy views. For now, though, he’s doing the essential work of making it possible for America to be heard by Muslims. And that’s a strategic necessity all by itself.

Quote of the day

From Cairo:

All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart, or whether we commit ourselves to an effort – a sustained effort – to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children, and to respect the dignity of all human beings.

It is easier to start wars than to end them. It is easier to blame others than to look inward; to see what is different about someone than to find the things we share. But we should choose the right path, not just the easy path. There is also one rule that lies at the heart of every religion – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. This truth transcends nations and peoples – a belief that isn’t new; that isn’t black or white or brown; that isn’t Christian, or Muslim or Jew. It’s a belief that pulsed in the cradle of civilization, and that still beats in the heart of billions. It’s a faith in other people, and it’s what brought me here today.

We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning, keeping in mind what has been written.

The Holy Koran tells us, “O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another.”

The Talmud tells us: “The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace.”

The Holy Bible tells us, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God’s vision. Now, that must be our work here on Earth. Thank you. And may God’s peace be upon you.

Why he is the right man for the job

Transcript here.

I’m blown away. This was an incredibly important speech. And it was impeccably executed.

Democracy is stirring…

In Iran!

ReTweet: “Smooth Operator”

"Perriello_Petraeus_010809 001211" by Jon-Phillip Sheridan

By publius:

I’ll be honest — I’m a bit frightened of David Petraeus’s political and media savvy.  This guy is good.  I just watched him on Fox News and was very impressed with his answers on everything from Gitmo to torture to the ability of our legal system to try detainees.  The video is here, but I’ve posted some excerpts from the rough transcript:

On closing Gitmo:

What I do support is what has been termed I think a responsible closure of Gitmo.  Gitmo has caused us problems — there’s no question about it. I oversee a region in which the existence of Gitmo has indeed been used by the enemy against us.  We have not been without missteps or mistakes in our activities since 9/11.

On trying detainees in the US:

I don’t think we should be afraid to live our values.  That’s what we’re fighting for. It’s what we stand for and so indeed we need to embrace them and we need to operationalize them in how we carry out what it is we’re doing on the battlefield and everywhere else. So one has to have some faith I think in the legal system.  One has to have a degree of confidence that individuals that have conducted such extremist activity would indeed be found guilty in our courts of law.

On opposing torture:

PETRAEUS:  [F]or the vast majority of the cases our experience . . .is that the techniques that are in the army field manual that lays out how we treat detainees, how we interrogate them — those techniques work. That’s our experience in this business.

FOX NEWS:  So is sending this signal that we’re not going to use these kind of techniques anymore . . . What kind of impact does that have on people who do us harm in the in the field that you operate in?

PETRAEUS:  Well actually what I would ask is — does that not take away from our enemies a tool which again they’ve beaten us around the head and shoulders in the court of public opinion. When we have taken steps that have violated the Geneva convention, we rightly have been criticized.  And so as we move forward I think it’s important to . . . live our values, to live the agreements that we have made in the international justice arena into practice.

Very smooth.  Obviously, that’s all good stuff.  But I’m a little wary of relying too much on any argument that begins, “Well, I’m right because General Petraeus says X.”  Most obviously, he is a direct subordinate of Obama — just like he used to be a direct subordinate of Bush back when he was saying arguably unhelpful things about the surge.  And more generally, I don’t like the idea of relying heavily on the public statements of active military officials in political policy debates.

But I do think this passage shows Petraeus’s political dexterity.  He’s someone who can go on Fox News and articulate Obama’s political message, while simultaneously retaining the sympathies of all parties.

If he ever runs for anything, I hope it’s not as a Republican.

Great excerpts. Great points. Great caution against over emphasizing arguments just because “Petraeus said so”. Great post.

ReTweet: “The Most Pernicious Phrase in Washington”

By Ezra Klein:

Over dinner last night, my friend Chris Hayes, who’s also the Washington editor of The Nation magazine (his blog is here), made a very nice point on one of the more villainous turns of phrase in Washington’s ongoing budget conversation. I e-mailed to ask him if he could repeat the point for you fine folks. He was kind enough to comply:

Sure. Basically I said one of the most pernicious phrases in Washington, one you hear all the time in any discussion of the budget is: “non-defense discretionary spending.” Of course, that’s less than quarter of the federal budget. Half of the budget is non-discretionary spending in Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, both of which are administered with a remarkably small amount of staff and quite efficiently. (Also: both are very popular, so it doesn’t behoove politicians to take the axe to them).But the majority of discretionary spending is, of course, defense. It’s always struck me that if you’re a libertarian, the national security state is/should be enemy number one. It features all of the worst aspects of Big Government: a bureaucracy that metastasizes, one which is constantly sprouting new arms and offices to solve the problems it itself creates. It is connected to a massively cartelized, cronyfied network of defense contractors, the most rent-seeking sort of Big Business there is. It sucks up tremendous resources, it can constrain freedom (as in: go kill and die) in a way that no other aspect of the state (save, arguably the criminal justice system) can. And, worst, there simply is no mobilized constituency to stop its spread except for the Quakers, Code Pink and lefties.

The implication of “non-defense discretionary spending” is simple enough. That’s the stuff you can cut. Stuff like, say, education, or roads, or home heating assistance. Defense spending, however, is too politically dangerous for Congress to muck with. It’s not like education, or roads, or home heating assistance. It gets it’s own category. The conversation, in other words, begins from the premise that you can’t question defense spending. That’s a crazy premise.

(Graph credit: Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.)