The Nuclear Security Summit currently underway in Washington represents more than just a chance for world leaders and their delegations to address pressing issues and concerns surrounding nuclear armaments. As with other high-level international conferences, it offers an opportunity for heads of state to schedule short, private meetings with each other, where they can discuss other, tangential political matters.
I ask because on his blog, the UK Ambassador to the United States Nigel Sheinwald identifies a sinister trend of bloodsucking Brits on American television screens:
Senator Edward Kennedy, who President Obama called “the greatest United States Senator of our time,” died today at age 77 after a protracted battle with brain cancer.
Though best known for his expansive body of work on U.S. domestic issues, he also lead Congressional efforts to right wrongs abroad by applying pressure to repressive regimes like the apartheid government in South Africa and the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, denouncing war (in Vietnam and Iraq), and promoting peace. He was granted an honorary Knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II for his role in the Northern Ireland peace process, which was “tremendous” according to Tony Blair on MSNBC this morning.
But, more importantly, he serves as the model for public service and diplomacy. Despite being a frequent target of partisan attacks, Kennedy’s legacy in the Senate is one of pragmatism, compromise, and, as countless colleagues and analysts have repeated today, unparalleled effectiveness. He stood above personal concerns despite suffering great personal tragedy, and, as an emotional Vice President Biden said today, “made his enemies bigger, made them more graceful, by the way he conducted himself.”
His eulogy for his brother Bobby echoes today: “[he] need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.” It is a simple, definitive, and profound paradigm for effective public service and statesmanship and is the most fundamental lens through which we should judge all world leaders and their representatives. Blair also said today that Kennedy is “a great icon not only in America but around the world.” I sure hope so.
Rest in peace Senator.
UPDATE: The S-G pays his genuinely heartfelt respects.
The Security Council is meeting to discuss how to respond to the conviction of Aung San Suu Kyi to 18 months of house arrest, effectively preventing her from running in forthcoming elections in Myanmar/Burma. The ever valuable Security Council Report succinctly analyzed the political dynamics surrounding today’s meeting.
There are basically two groups within the Council with quite different views on how to deal with Myanmar. The Western permanent members, together with countries like Costa Rica and Mexico, are likely to favour strong public collective action denouncing Aung San Suu Kyi’s continued detention. The other group, including China and Viet Nam is more likely to be influenced by the analysis that this is an internal matter and the Council should not react, at least not immediately and not vigorously.
The issue, then is that the Security Council will only take as hard a line as China will let it. So, what can make China nudge from its position that this is an internal matter not rising to the level of “international peace and security?” The answer may not necessarily be diplomacy at the Security Council. Rather, what has pushed China in the past to either thwart or join the western alliance on issues like this is the position taken by the relevant regional organization.
China effectively supported intervention in Sudan, international efforts in Somalia, and sanctions for Sierra Leone only after the African Union endorsed these efforts. On the flip side, Beijing refused to go along with sanctions on Zimbabwe that were opposed by the AU.
That pattern has been repeated on Burma. As a report from the International Crisis Group notes:
A key reason for the Chinese veto of a 2007 Security Council draft resolution on Myanmar was ASEAN’s lack of support for the resolution and its conviction that Myanmar was not a threat to international peace and security. In vetoing the draft resolution, Ambassador Wang Guangya noted, “None of Myanmar’s immediate neighbours, ASEAN members or most Asia-Pacific coun- tries believed that the current situation in Myanmar posed a threat to regional peace and security”. After the shooting of monks in Rangoon in September 2008, China’s critical statements on Myanmar in the Security Council and UN Human Rights Council mirrored ASEAN’s growing exasperation over the situation.236currently underway by the Africans.
This suggests that the real action this week may not be at the Security Council, but at ASEAN. To that end, Malaysia is pushing for an emergency meeting. Indonesian officials are also expressing frustration with the Junta.
My prediction: As ASEAN goes, so goes China–and the Security Council.
Conservative British journalist and historian Paul Johnson has a rambling op-ed in Forbes, supposedly on the possibility of an Israeli “surgical strike” on Iranian nuclear facilities. What’s worth pointing out is this error in logic that Johnson makes, which is similar to a flawed assumption made by many Iran commenters:
Knocking out Iran’s nuclear capability would be much more difficult because of the distance to be covered by Israeli aircraft and because the plants are underground. These difficulties must be weighed against the fact that the Iranian regime is unpopular everywhere because of its recent crooked election and the savagery with which protests against the results were put down.
The implication here is that, while the “con” to launching an attack on Iran is that it would be logistically difficult for Israel to do, the “pro” to this debate is that the Iranian government is unpopular and not very legitimate. Wait a minute. Wouldn’t bombing Iran be very unpopular with Iranians? Couldn’t this, just maybe, undo the very unpopularity and illegitimacy with which the Iranian regime is now saddled? Further on in the piece Johnson admits as much:
What we don’t know is if a successful Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would discredit the regime to the point that it would be forced out of power or if such an attack would be used to discredit the opposition, causing Iranians to close ranks behind their extremist leaders. [emphasis mine]
Generally, when bombs fall on people, they get mad at the people doing the bombing. It’s a simple enough lesson, but one that many, in their unconsidered haste to bring about the regime’s downfall, miss quite entirely. The second of Johnson’s possibilities, or a version of it at least, seems much more likely to result from a missile attack; this would only enhance the government’s hardline posture, and give needless credibility to its attempts to focus attention on outside “enemies.”
Plus, who in their right mind would suggest a bombing campaign if we don’t even know what the results of a successful attack would be? Missiles fired by armchair hawks tend to do a lot less damage than those that actually create the messy carnage of reality.
On Bill Clinton’s successful diplomatic trip morally repugnant capitulation to North Korea, Spencer Ackerman’s satirical take is all you really need to consult:
In an unforeseen turn of events, Bill Clinton strapped himself with nuclear weapons and detonated during a meeting with Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang. The former president’s inability to free imprisoned American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling ended in carnage, the only diplomatic language the North Koreans understand. Clinton, recognizing that diplomacy was useless, bit his lip sorrowfully and expressed regret that so many had to die in the name of American prestige, according to a suicide note obtained by this blog.
Back in the United States, conservatives expressed relief that Clinton chose an honorable end to his life. “Diplomacy with the North would be the worst of all possible options,” said Rep. Guy “Whitey” Corngood (R-Ark.), a longtime Clinton critic. “Bringing those two Americans back without incident would have represented an unacceptable humiliation for this country.” Attempts to reach John Bolton, a former undersecretary of state and U.N. ambassador in the Bush administration, were unsuccessful, but associates said Bolton credited Clinton for posthumously vindicating his worldview and that the former diplomat was considering a courtesy call to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to express condolences.
What makes this morbid telling (Bill Clinton did not actually blow himself up, and did successfully negotiate the release of the American journalists) even funnier is that John Bolton could be reached, and, predictably enough, still thought that Clinton’s visit did nothing but “reward bad behavior” and “legitimize the [North Korean] regime.” That, and, well, accomplish the only goal that he had in going over there.
I’m consistently struck by how ironically similar the likes of John Bolton are to Kim Jong Il and North Korea’s power-obsessed cadre of leaders. The only ones who think that an insignificant sop to the latter’s silly sense of pride amounts to a serious concession by the United States are the North Korean leaders themselves and, well, Boltonites. Only these two groups of dolts take what Bolton calls “gesture politics” as a matter more serious than actual politics and policy — which, once again, resulted in North Korea releasing two wrongly imprisoned journalists and the United States giving up nothing more than a day of face time with Bubba.
(image from flickr user Creative+ Timothy K Hamilton under a Creative Commons license)
The SG: In Ethiopia over the weekend, the SG is now in the United Arab Emirates. Today he met with Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, where the two discussed developments in the region, including Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan, and in the Middle East Peace Process.