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By Nick, March 26, 2013 5:40 am

In part, the Vietnam War was perceived as a message that the U.S. would not be intimidated by a Chinese nuclear-weapons program.

You’ve probably heard that, as Jeremi Suri reported in Wired five years ago, after the Paris Vietnam peace talks broke down in 1969…

Frustrated, Nixon decided to try something new: threaten the Soviet Union with a massive nuclear strike and make its leaders think he was crazy enough to go through with it. His hope was that the Soviets would be so frightened of events spinning out of control that they would strong-arm Hanoi, telling the North Vietnamese to start making concessions at the negotiating table or risk losing Soviet military support.

Codenamed Giant Lance, Nixon’s plan was the culmination of a strategy of premeditated madness he had developed with national security adviser Henry Kissinger. … Giant Lance was the leading example of what historians came to call the “madman theory”: Nixon’s notion that faked, finger-on-the-button rage could bring the Soviets to heel.

Nixon and Kissinger put the plan in motion on October 10 … They wanted the most powerful thermonuclear weapons in the US arsenal readied for immediate use against the Soviet Union. … After their launch, [B-52s armed with nuclear weapons] pressed against Soviet airspace for three days. They skirted enemy territory, challenging defenses and taunting Soviet aircraft. [The strategy] appeared to be a direct application of … game theory. H. R. Haldeman, Nixon’s chief of staff, wrote in his diary that Kissinger believed evidence of US irrationality would “jar the Soviets and North Vietnam.” Nixon encouraged Kissinger to expand this approach. “If the Vietnam thing is raised” in conversations with Moscow, Nixon advised, Kissinger should “shake his head and say, ‘I am sorry, Mr. Ambassador, but [the president] is out of control.” Nixon told Haldeman: “I want the North Vietnamese to believe that I’ve reached the point that I might do anything to stop the war. We’ll just slip the word to them that for God’s sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about Communism. We can’t restrain him when he is angry — and he has his hand on the nuclear button’ — and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace.”

Whether it helped end the war, but the U.S.S.R. bought Nixon’s act. Suri again:

Brezhnev’s ambassador to the US, Anatoly Dobrynin, urgently set up a meeting with Nixon and Kissinger. … Dobrynin warned Soviet leaders that “Nixon is unable to control himself even in a conversation with a foreign ambassador.” He also commented on the president’s “growing emotionalism” and “lack of balance.”… On October 30, Nixon and Kissinger ordered an end to Giant Lance, and the B-52s turned and headed back home. The sudden conclusion reinforced the madman pose. 

Hmm, one would have thought the Soviets already knew Nixon was crazy. Anyway, the Vietnam War was a test case for yet another element of U.S. nuclear-weapons policy. I’m currently reading Francis J. Gavin’s illuminating Nuclear Statecraft: History and Strategy in America’s Atomic Age by (Cornell University Press, 1912). He writes (emphasis added):

The dilemmas associated with nuclear proliferation influenced US military strategy throughout the world, most obviously in Europe. But a linkage also existed between a more active nonproliferation policy and the US military presence in Southeast Asia. The Gilpatric committee discussions [which led to the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty] took place when the Johnson administration was debating whether to escalate US military involvement in Vietnam. China’s atomic test was bound to influence these discussions. President Kennedy had considered a nuclear-armed China a grave threat that would “so upset the world political scene [that] it would be intolerable.” Convinced that China was “bound to get nuclear weapons, in time, and from that moment they will dominate South East Asia,” Kennedy feared that even a minimal Chinese nuclear force could prevent US military intervention. As Kennedy had once noted, just a few missiles in Cuba had “had a deterrent effect on us.”

President Kennedy’s analysis implied that once China acquired a nuclear capability, the United States would likely withdraw from Vietnam.… But government officials, as well as members of the committee, wanted to make clear that the United States would not break its commitments in the face of a nuclear threat. If the United States acquiesced to a nuclear-armed adversary, the incentives for small powers to develop nuclear weapons would increase exponentially. Vietnam would be the test case of this new commitment. In a paper for the Gilpatric committee, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs Henry Rowen wrote, “A U.S. defeat in Southeast Asia may come to be attributed in part to the unwillingness of the U.S. to take on North Vietnam supported by a China that now has the bomb. Such a defeat is now much more significant to countries near China than it was before October 16.”

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By Nick, February 4, 2013 8:34 am

For a country that is often portrayed in Western media as unpredictable, the North Korean regime has actually proven to operate on a quite limited, if rather provocative, cycle. On the heels of December’s successful missile test, the recalcitrant nation is now preparing for a third test of its nuclear weapons program. If this script seems familiar, that’s because each of the North’s previous nuclear tests, in 2006 and 2009, were directly preceded by ballistic missile launches. With the next test expected to be imminent, the main difference this time is that the international community will not have had to wait as long for the other shoe to drop. 

For their part, the United States and its allies have shown themselves to be following an equally unimaginative playbook, predictably responding to the latest missile test with a push for increased sanctions in the United Nations Security Council. The “successful” result of this diplomatic initiative was announced in late January, with American UN ambassador Susan Rice claiming that “the new sanctions and tightening of existing measures concretely help to reduce the growth of North Korea’s weapons programs.”

With the United States threatening even further sanctions in the event of a nuclear test, one has to wonder how effective these exercises really are. Given that similar pronouncements were made after previous sanctions were imposed on North Korea, it is easy to be skeptical as to whether the new measures, which expanded restrictions on North Korean companies and added four more of its leaders to a travel blacklist, will have much of an impact. As long as China continues to prop up its erstwhile dependent, all this latest round of politicking may have done is ensure that the test-sanction-test cycle remains unchanged.

As unsurprising as this latest turn of events is, it is also disappointing. The recent leadership changes in both Korean capitals offered some hope that inter-Korean relations might be set on a more positive path after the five years of tension and hostility that marked the Lee Myung-bak presidency in the South. Recognizing Lee’s hardline policy as a failure, incoming South Korean president-elect Park Geun-hye has advocated for renewed engagement with Pyongyang, going so far as to call for the implementation of previous Korean summit agreements. In contrast, one of President Lee’s first actions upon taking office in early 2008 was to cancel the previous year’s summit accords made between the late Kim Jong-il and former South Korean leader Roh Moo-hyun, sending relations into a tailspin from which they have yet to recover. Hopes were further stoked when North Korean leader Kim Jong-un marked the start of 2013 by calling for an end to confrontation and reconciliation between the two sides.

Unfortunately, any cause for optimism was quickly snuffed out after North Korea responded angrily to the latest round of sanctions, lashing out at the UN, threatening further nuclear and missile tests directly targeting the United States, and ruling out any talk of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. If the same story continues to unfold, we are going to be in for another four years of the “strategic patience” approach that marked the first Obama term, a policy which essentially translates to “sit back and watch while North Korea improves on its existing missile and nuclear weapons programs.”

Necessity of a new approach

At this point, the Obama administration needs to realize that it is holding a weak hand and fundamentally change its strategy for the Korean Peninsula.

As the supplier of roughly 90 percent of North Korea’s fuel and energy imports, China is the sole player with any leverage at all over the regime’s behavior. However, because Beijing’s biggest fear is the collapse of the Kim regime and the ensuing fallout —ranging from a massive influx of refugees to the possibility of a unified Korea with an American military presence on its northeast border—the Chinese government has been unwilling to take the kind of measures that would lead North Korea to consider altering its course of action. Despite showing support for a tougher line against the North at the UN, the situation will likely persist as long as the political calculus for Chinese leaders remains the same.

Meanwhile, the United States’ main source of leverage against the North is the military option, which both sides are fully aware is off the table except as a defense mechanism in the case of an attack on the South. Because of this, the 28,500 American troops stationed in Korea are in the unique position of causing friction by their mere presence, even as the probability of them being deployed is quite low. The U.S.-South Korea Status of Forces agreement, whereby the United States commands both the American and ROK military forces, was helpful in preserving the status quo on the Korean Peninsula in the decades following the Korean War, but more recently has become an impediment to any progress for peace. Apart from discouraging more proactive involvement on the part of the Chinese government, it also allows the North to blame the United States for all of the problems of the peninsula and absolves South Korean leaders from having to make tough choices about their security situation. This creates a kind of inertia where all sides are discouraged from taking any real action that could alter the security dynamic of the region.

Given these factors, it is time for the Obama administration to start withdrawing the American military from Korean soil. Not only would such a move save billions of dollars annually ($ 15 billion, according to a 2006 article by the Cato Institute’s Doug Bandow) at a time when the cost of maintaining America’s global garrison is coming under increasing scrutiny, but it would shift the impetus for negotiating solutions to the long-running dispute squarely onto the shoulders of the key players in the region. It would allow the United States to free itself from the burden of being South Korea’s protector and become a more even-handed partner for peace.

Raising the status of South Korea

Lim Dong-won, who served as Unification Minister under Kim Dae-jung, succinctly described the fundamental problem in inter-Korean relations. “South Korea,” he said, “must recover its independent identity as the main player in negotiations with North Korea.”

This is particularly important with regards to the nuclear issue. The Basic Agreement signed between the two sides in 1992 calls for a complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. However, one of the reasons that Seoul has been unsuccessful in pressing the matter is because of the current security dynamic, as well as its subservient military agreement with the United States. As North Korea repeatedly makes clear, its nuclear missile programs are primarily aimed at the United States, not South Korea. What incentive, then, does the North have to take seriously South Korean demands for denuclearization when Washington is its stationing troops and controlling all military forces south of the DMZ?

Withdrawing its forces and handing over operational control of the ROK military to South Korea—currently scheduled to take place in 2015—must be part of any American strategy. The Obama administration cannot allow this to be deferred again, as was the case in 2010, when the sinking of the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan led to President Lee requesting that the transfer date be pushed back until 2015.

While assuming control of its military would force the South to confront difficult choices regarding its security, it would also make any strategy of economic engagement far more effective. As pointed out by Bruce Cumings, one of the major factors undermining the Sunshine Policy in the early 2000s was the abrupt policy pivot by the incoming Bush administration, which scrapped the Perry Process of engagement with North Korea and instead placed strict conditions on further negotiations. After the policy shift in Washington, the North remained willing to accept South Korean aid, but became far less amenable to making concessions over its weapons programs. By allowing South Korea to assume control over its security functions, such coordination problems would be eliminated.

North Korea: A willing partner?

Despite the North’s recent military bluster, there are signs that Kim Jong-un has been cautiously embarking on economic reforms during his first year in power. These include a new agricultural policy allowing farmers to keep 30 percent of their crop rather than having to turn it completely over to the government, and a plan to legalize private investment through the auspices of state-owned enterprises. Noted North Korean expert Andrei Lankov also suggested that the full-scale overhaul of top leaders in the military would allow the regime to shift its focus away from its long standing songun (military-first) policy. While the significance of these moves is yet unclear, taken together they would seem to merit some optimism that the nature of the regime may be changing ever so slightly.

Attempting to interpret North Korea’s intentions is never straightforward, however. Indeed, many analysts have taken the missile tests and bellicose statements to mean that the regime is the same as it ever was, and that renewed attempts at engagement are likely to fail as long as this remains the case. However, given Kim’s youth and inexperience, it is possible that the new leader feels that such measures are necessary in order to bolster his credibility and gain enough leeway with conservative forces in the North to begin implementing economic reforms. There was also speculation that the timely reporting of Park’s victory in North Korean media, in contrast to previous elections when such announcements were either delayed or simply non-existent, mean that Pyongyang is seriously hoping to improve ties with the South after five years of strained relations with the Lee administration.

As close as “lips and teeth”?

Though it may seem counterintuitive, a further factor working in favor of engagement is the North’s increasing dependency on China. Over the past five years, trade between the two countries has tripled, with China now accounting for roughly 70 percent of the North Korea’s $ 8 billion in annual trade. This recent surge in economic interaction has taking on many forms, including increased resource extraction by Chinese firms operating in the North, development of a special economic zone at the port city of Rason, and a guest-worker program begun earlier this year allowing thousands of North Koreans legal status to work in the border regions of northeastern China.

Much of this increased economic activity with China has occurred at the same time as inter-Korean trade dropped significantly during the hardline Lee administration. A trend that was already on the decline further accelerated in 2010 with the May 24 sanctions imposed unilaterally by the South in response to the Cheonan sinking. These sanctions alone were estimated to have put economic losses to North Korea at roughly $ 2 billion, according to a report from the Hyundai Research Institute. During that time, China has stepped in to fill the void.

On the surface, then, it would appear that the two long-time allies have become closer than ever. However, the statistics mask a much more complicated picture. The leaders in Pyongyang have long been wary of dependence on China, with veteran North Korea analyst Selig Harrison observing that, “for North Korea, the need to make ever more political and economic concessions to China is abhorrent.” As FPIF’s John Feffer notes, the Korean word summing up this state of submission is sadaejuui, which loosely translates to “toadyism,” and has its roots in the historical relationship between the Joseon Dynasty and the Chinese empire. For a regime which prides itself on a doctrine of juche self-reliance, the near-total dependency on its powerful neighbor has to be incredibly distressing. Some of this frustration was on display in October, when the government heavily criticized a Chinese company, Xiyang, over a failed mining deal, and Kim Jong-un voiced a rare complaint that his country’s mineral resources were being sold off too cheaply. Indeed, awareness of this over-dependency may have been one of the motivators behind new leader’s somewhat surprising call for inter-Korean reconciliation during his 2013 New Year’s Day address.

Testing the waters in the West Sea

If North Korea is truly serious about a change in its antagonistic relationship with the South, there are few better places to test this proposition than in the disputed West Sea area. Since 1999, this volatile area has witnessed no less than five deadly incidents, including two in 2010 that were among the worst military engagements between the two sides since the end of the Korean War: the Cheonan sinking and the artillery shelling of Yeonpyeong Island. The source of this dispute is the so-called Northern Limit Line (NLL), which has emerged as the thorniest issue between North and South in recent years. While historians can argue about the origins and validity of the line (those wishing for a more detailed discussion would do well to read Terence Roehrig’s excellent background paper), in the practical sense, this is one area that will test the resolve of both North and South to make the kinds of concessions needed for peace.

The inter-Korean summit of 2007 attempted to address this problem with the creation of a joint fishing and maritime peace area in the West Sea, a multi-billion dollar port expansion in the northern city of Haeju, and joint development of the Han River estuary. Unfortunately, this summit took place with just a few months left in President Roh’s term, and these projects were never implemented under the Lee administration. As noted previously, this decision poisoned inter-Korean relations almost from the day that Lee came into office.

With President-elect Park’s stance backing implementation of previous inter-Korean agreements, the pieces of a deal are still there if she decides to pick them up. Given the North’s chronic need for injections of foreign capital, she would likely encounter a receptive audience, especially if she sweetened the pot by offering additional economic incentives, such as increased humanitarian aid or the lifting of the May 24 sanctions. Despite her campaign rhetoric vowing not to give ground on the NLL issue, she might find herself more willing to make concessions if shifting security conditions made the South Korean president solely responsible for ROK military policy. In return, the North would have to apologize for the Yeonpyeong Island attack and renounce further aggression in the area. From there, the two sides could work toward creating the kind of cooperatively administered area envisioned in the previous summit accord. Another idea would be to create a mechanism for joint patrols in the West Sea in order to prevent the illegal intrusion of Chinese fishermen into the area, which have been on the rise in recent years.

Forging a comprehensive solution to the West Sea dispute would be a major accomplishment, turning a flashpoint of conflict into the foundation for a new era of peaceful coexistence. The sight of naval vessels from North and South patrolling side by side as Korean fishermen hauled their catch out of calm, tranquil waters would be a tremendous boost for mutual trust. It would also provide the momentum needed to address larger concerns, such as the nuclear issue and an eventual peace treaty to replace the armistice ending the Korean War. By demonstrating its intention to peacefully resolve what has been such a difficult issue, the North would send an important signal that it is ready for serious negotiations regarding other major sources of dispute. 

Making diplomatic overtures

Disengaging militarily from the Korean Peninsula does not mean that the United States should sit passively on the sidelines. Especially if progress on the West Sea issue and enhanced economic cooperation were made between North and South, it would be important for the Obama administration to follow up with its own diplomatic efforts. Rather than premise this discussion on the demand for complete denuclearization, however, it would be better to adhere to what Selig Harrison has referred to as the “three nos”: no new weapons, no further tests, and no sales of weapons or military technologies to other nations.

The United States should approach these negotiations with an eye toward improving both the political climate between the two countries and the North’s economic situation. The former would lessen the need for further nuclear tests and missile development, while an improving North Korean economy would mean that the regime would have less incentive to sell its weapons and technology to other countries or to terrorist groups, especially if doing so jeopardized the economic gains that would result from upholding their agreements. The long-term objective is the creation an environment where the losses to North Korea if it chooses to revert back to weapons development outweigh the gains they get from playing by the rules. This environment has yet to be established, which is a primary reason that talks with Pyongyang continually lead nowhere. To get there, both political and economic concerns have to be addressed.

On the political side, diplomatic normalization with the United States has long been a goal of the North Korean regime. As a first step, Washington could take a page out of France’s playbook and offer to establish a cultural office in Pyongyang as a precursor to eventual full diplomatic recognition. France is one of only two European Nations that does not have diplomatic relations with the DPRK – the other being Estonia – but opened a cultural office in 2011 as a kind of intermediary measure to improve relations. Such a step would go beyond anything that the United States has offered before, signaling that it is in fact a serious about making progress in this area, while also allowing an out to hedge against North Korea failing to honor its side of the deal.

Transforming the role of the Six-Party talks

In order to improve the North’s economic situation there should be a two-track effort consisting of both bilateral North-South engagement and a resumption of the Six-Party Talks. While the goal of the Six-Party forum should remain denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, it should also not let this long-run goal preclude progress from being made in the short term. One way to do this is by establishing funding mechanisms in order to show North Korea the benefits that can be gained through cooperation with the international community. 

An interesting idea proposed by Suk Hee Kim and Bernhard Seliger would be the creation of a Bank of North Korean Development, funded by the Six-Party members and administered by a China, the United States, and a third party, possibly Switzerland. This idea has several merits, not least of which is institutionalizing a mechanism for economic assistance and dividing the burden of financing projects among all six member states. Institutionalizing funding is particularly important in order to avoid a repeat of the problems that plagued implementation of the 1994 Agreed Framework, which was the first attempt by the United States to address the problem posed by North Korea’s nuclear program. In the words of Kenneth Quinones, a State Department official who helped verify the removal of spent plutonium rods at Yongbyon in the 1990s, “North Korea did in fact comply with all their stipulations under the Agreed Framework,” while the American record of compliance was “quite spotty.” 

The mistrust generated by Washington’s inability to live up to its end of the deal—largely a result of congressional foot-dragging in allocating funding to construct two light water reactors as a condition for the North ending its nuclear program—was undoubtedly one of the biggest motivators in North Korea’s decision to undertake a clandestine uranium enrichment program, the discovery of which would spell the end of the accord in 2002. By collectivizing the financing mechanism among countries which all have a stake in a peaceful Korean Peninsula, such a breakdown would be much easier to avoid in any future agreements.

The most important role for the Bank would be to fund projects within North Korea that would allow it to improve its economy without having to resort to its old habits of selling weapons, narcotics smuggling, or counterfeiting American currency. Given the dilapidated state of North Korean transport and energy infrastructure, there are no shortage of proposals that could serve as pilot projects for this endeavor. If successful, this could lead to the type of conditional exchange envisioned under earlier agreements, whereby the North would agree to comply with certain demands, such as inspection of nuclear facilities and ending its missile program, in return for project funding. Verification measures could then be coordinated by the Six Party members in conjunction with international organizations, such as the IAEA.

A pragmatic approach in an age of limits

With its much publicized foreign policy “pivot,” the Obama administration has rightly identified Northeast Asia as the new center of economic power in a rapidly changing world. The danger is that the president and his team will continue to cling to the 20^th-century notion that American military might is the basis by which it can manage that change. As seen in the case of North Korea, this worldview can be quite problematic when practical considerations—in this case, the devastation that would result in the event of a new Korean War—force that card to remain in the deck. 

To its credit, the Obama administration has recognized the need for cooperative action in dealing with the problems posed by North Korea. However, it hasn’t yet been able to reach the conclusion that this help would be much more forthcoming if the American military were removed from the equation on the Korean Peninsula. Doing so would give China an incentive to take a firm stance when North Korea refuses to honor its commitments, and provide South Korea with the opportunity to better influence a change in the North’s course of action.

The hope, of course, is that as they begin to see the benefits of cooperation with the international community, the North Korean government would become amenable to discussing giving up its nuclear weapons. As both the United States and South Korea have made repeatedly clear, denuclearization is a prerequisite to any peace treaty that can replace the now 60-year-old armistice that ended the Korean War. An improved security situation on the peninsula through the withdrawal of American military forces, a normalizing of its dysfunctional relationship with the United States, and coordinated economic assistance from its neighbors might finally convince the North to take this step.

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By Nick, January 3, 2013 12:41 pm

President Obama’s selection of John Kerry as the next secretary of state sends the wrong signal to America’s allies and adversaries alike. Kerry’s record in the United States Senate, where he currently chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, has included spurious attacks on the International Court of Justice, unqualified defense of Israeli occupation policies and human rights violations, and support for the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, thereby raising serious questions about his commitment to international law and treaty obligations. Furthermore, his false claims about Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” and his repeated denials of well-documented human rights abuses by allied governments raise serious questions about his credibility.

In the 1980s, during the early part of his Senate career, Kerry was considered one of the more progressive members of the U.S. Senate on foreign policy. His record included challenging the Reagan administration’s policies on Central America, providing strong leadership during the Iran-Contra investigation, opposing U.S. support for the Marcos regime in the Philippines and other allied dictatorships, and supporting the nuclear freeze, among other positions supporting peace and human rights.

More recently, however, Kerry became a prominent supporter of various neoconservative initiatives, including the invasion and occupation of Iraq, undermining the authority of the United Nations, and supporting Israeli militarism and expansionism.

Opposition to International Law – Iraq War

Kerry was an outspoken supporter of the Bush Doctrine, which declares that the United States has the right to unilaterally invade foreign countries, topple their governments, and occupy them indefinitely if they are deemed to pose even a hypothetical threat against the United States. In 2002, he voted against an unsuccessful resolution authorizing the president to use force against Iraq only if the United Nations Security Council permitted such force under the UN Charter and instead voted for an alternative Republican resolution, which authorized President Bush to invade that oil-rich country unilaterally in violation of the UN Charter.

The October 2002 war resolution backed by Kerry was not like the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution regarding Vietnam, where there was no time for reflection and debate. Kerry had been briefed by the chief UN weapons inspector and by prominent scholars of the region, who informed him of the likely absence of any of the alleged “weapons of mass destruction” and the likely consequences of a U.S. invasion, but he voted to authorize the invasion anyway. It was not a “mistake” or a momentary lapse of judgment. It demonstrated Kerry’s dismissive attitude toward fundamental principles of international law and international treaties that prohibit aggressive war.

Kerry and his supporters claim he does not really reject international law. They note that, in voting to authorize the invasion of Iraq, Kerry stated at that time that he expected President Bush “to work with the United Nations Security Council and our allies . . . if we have to disarm Saddam Hussein by force.” He then promised that if President Bush failed to do so, “I will be the first to speak out.”

However, Senator Kerry broke that promise. When President Bush abandoned his efforts to gain United Nations Security Council authorization for the war in late February 2003 and pressed forward with plans for the invasion without a credible international coalition, Kerry remained silent. Indeed, when President Bush actually launched the invasion soon afterwards, Senator Kerry praised him, co-sponsoring a Senate resolution declaring that the invasion was “lawful and fully authorized by the Congress” and that he “commends and supports the efforts and leadership of the President . . . in the conflict with Iraq.”

Unlike the hawkish senator from Massachusetts, most Democrats in Congress voted against authorizing the invasion. For example, Senator Robert Byrd introduced a resolution in the fall of 2002 clarifying that authorizing an invasion of Iraq would not diminish Congress’ Constitutional authority to declare war and that no additional authority not directly related to a clear threat of imminent, sudden, and direct attack on the United States could be granted to the president unless Congress authorized it. Senator Kerry voted against it, saying “Every nation has the right to act preemptively if it faces an imminent and grave threat.”

Senator Kerry’s embrace of unilateralism and his rejection of the United Nations system was further illustrated in his attacks on former Vermont governor Howard Dean—who had been a rival for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination—for arguing that a genuine international coalition should have been established before the United States invaded Iraq. Kerry claimed that such multilateralism “cedes our security and presidential responsibility to defend America to someone else” since it would “permit a veto over when American can or cannot act.” Dean’s call for the United States to work in broad coalitions, insisted Kerry, is “little more than a pretext for doing nothing.”

Even after the Bush administration acknowledged that there were no “weapons of mass destruction” or WMD programs, Kerry said he would have voted for the war anyway because of the oppressive nature of Saddam Hussein’s regime and the fact that Iraq could potentially make WMDs in the future. What is disturbing about this is that there are scores of oppressive governments around the world that could conceivably pose some kind of threat at some time in the future. Kerry apparently believes that the president should have the power to go after any of them right now.

Even conservative analysts like Mickey Edwards, a former Republican congressman from Oklahoma and later a lecturer at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, criticized what he called Kerry’s “recklessly prowar positions,” arguing that Kerry’s criteria for going to war were “wildly aggressive.” Correctly referring to Kerry as an “uber-militarist”, Edwards observed, “I know of no leading American ‘hawk,’ not even among the most militant of the neocons, who has said he or she would have supported going to war if it were absolutely known that the perceived ‘imminent threat’ did not exist.”

It appears that Kerry has not changed his hawkish view.  As recently as November 2011, Kerry voted against a resolution which would have repealed the 2002 authorization for the use of force in Iraq.

Kerry basically rejects the UN Charter and the whole basis of the post-World War II international legal system, which is based on the notion of collective security and the illegality of any nation launching an aggressive war. In Kerry’s view, powerful nations like the United States can invade any country they want if they determine that it might hypothetically pose some kind of threat someday in the future. To have someone with this extremist position as secretary of state sends a message to the international community that little has changed since the Bush administration.

Opposition to International Law – Israel

Iraq is not the only example of Kerry’s hostility toward international law, however. An outspoken supporter of the policies of a series of right-wing Israeli governments in the occupied territories, Kerry has defended the Israeli re-occupation of sections of the West Bank; Israel’s ongoing violation of a series of UN Security Council resolutions; Israel’s policy of assassinating suspected militants and other Palestinian leaders; former rightist Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s proposed annexation of vast stretches of occupied Palestinian territory in order to incorporate illegal Jewish settlements into Israel; moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; opposing Palestinian self-determination or UN recognition of statehood outside of parameters agreed to by Israel’s right wing government; and the Israeli government’s construction of an illegal separation wall deep inside occupied territory (in defiance of a recent near-unanimous ruling by the International Court of Justice, which led Kerry to strongly criticize the UN’s judicial body).

Kerry defended Israel’s 2010 attack on an unarmed humanitarian flotilla in international waters, during which they killed nine crewmen—including a 19-year-old American citizen—despite the attack’s violation of international maritime law.  Despite the ships being inspected prior to leaving the port of a NATO ally, Kerry justified the fatal raid on the unarmed ships on the grounds that Israel had every right “to make sure weapons are not being smuggled in.”

In the face of international outcry at Israeli’s 2006 war on Lebanon and 2008-2009 war on the Gaza Strip, Kerry joined Republican Senate colleagues in co-sponsoring resolutions unconditionally supporting the attacks. Reports from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the United Nations, and others condemned both Israel and the Arab militias for apparent war crimes, but Kerry insisted that Israel’s actions constituted legitimate self-defense and were perfectly legal. Kerry also attacked a well-documented 575-page report by the UNHRC, led by a team of reputable international jurists, which presented evidence of war crimes by both Hamas and Israel during the 2008-2009 fighting. Kerry insisted that attacks by Israel (which were responsible for over 800 civilian deaths) were perfectly legal, attributing the entire fault to Hamas (which was responsible for three civilian deaths). Despite longstanding international legal conventions against bombing civilian-populated areas, Kerry insisted that Israel’s entire military operation constituted legitimate self-defense.

Kerry’s hostility toward international humanitarian law came into particular focus in 2004, when he launched a series of attacks against the International Court of Justice. That summer, the World Court issued a unanimous (save for the U.S. judge) advisory opinion that Israel—like all countries—is bound by international humanitarian law and that the separation barrier being built inside the occupied West Bank was illegal.

In response, Kerry cosponsored a Senate resolution “supporting the construction by Israel of a security fence to prevent Palestinian terrorist attacks, condemning the decision of the International Court of Justice on the legality of the security fence, and urging no further action by the United Nations to delay or prevent the construction of the security fence.” Kerry’s resolution claimed that “the International Court of Justice is politicized and critical of Israel” since “The United States, Korea, and India have constructed security fences to separate such countries from territories or other countries for the security of their citizens.” Kerry’s comparison, however, fails to note that the other barriers, unlike Israel’s, were placed along internationally recognized borders and were therefore not the subject of legal challenge. The Court explicitly affirmed Israel’s right to construct the barrier on their border, just not in foreign territory under Israeli occupation. Rather than displaying a bias against Israel, the World Court has actually been quite consistent: In the only other two advisory opinions issued by the ICJ involving occupied territories (South African-occupied Namibia in 1972 and Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara in 1975), they also ruled against the occupying power.

In the case of the occupied West Bank, however, Kerry insisted, that the World Court “do[es] not have jurisdiction” and that any legal challenges to the route of the wall should go through the Israeli judiciary “and we should respect that process.” In other words, Kerry takes an extreme position, effectively saying that legal matters involving international humanitarian law in territories under foreign belligerent occupation should be addressed solely by the courts of the occupying power. Part of this may be that he doesn’t even recognized territory invaded by U.S. allies as occupied. Kerry’s Senate resolution against the World Court decision, had it passed, would have marked the first time either house of Congress has passed a resolution that refers to the West Bank not as an “occupied” territory but as “disputed.” This distinction is important for two reasons: the word “disputed” implies that the claims of the West Bank’s Israeli conquerors are as legitimate as the claims of Palestinians who have lived on the land for centuries, and disputed territories—unlike occupied territories—are not covered by the Fourth Geneva Convention and many other international legal statutes.

Despite rationalizing for his support for the invasion of Iraq on the grounds that Iraq was violating a series of UN Security Council resolutions, when U.S. allies have defied UN Security Council resolutions, Kerry has defended them. For example, he has supported Israel’s annexation of occupied East Jerusalem, which Israeli forces seized in June 1967, despite a series of UN Security Council resolutions demanding that Israel rescind its annexation (such as resolutions 262 and 267). He has also opposed efforts to block Israeli efforts to colonize large sections of the West Bank, despite a series of resolutions calling on Israel to withdraw from these illegal settlements (such as resolutions 446, 452, 465, and 471).

Thus, in John Kerry’s world, the United States alone can decide which United Nations Security Council resolutions to enforce and how they are enforced. No less than President Bush, Kerry seeks to effectively overturn the post-World War II international system based upon the rule of law and collective security in order to forcibly impose a Pax Americana.

Credibility Problems

A U.S. secretary of state, even one as far to the right as John Kerry, must not be perceived as dishonest. Repeatedly being caught making blatant falsehoods in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary does not give America’s chief diplomat the kind of credibility our country needs to conduct relations with foreign nations.

Unfortunately, Kerry’s credibility has repeatedly been put into question by his willingness to either fabricate non-existent threats or naively believe transparently false and manipulated intelligence claiming such threats exist—such as when he chose to ignore a plethora of evidence from weapons inspectors and independent arms control analysts who said that, prior to his vote authorizing the invasion of Iraq in October 2002, Iraq had already achieved at least qualitative disarmament.

In a speech on the Senate floor immediately prior to the vote, Senator Kerry categorically stated that Saddam Hussein was “attempting to develop nuclear weapons.” However, there appears to be no evidence to suggest that Iraq had had an active nuclear program for at least eight to ten years prior to the U.S. invasion. Indeed, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported in 1998 and subsequently that Iraq’s nuclear program appeared to have been completely dismantled. To justify his claims of an Iraqi nuclear threat, Senator Kerry claimed that “all U.S. intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons.” The reality, of course, was that much of the U.S. intelligence community was highly skeptical of claims that Iraq was attempting to acquire nuclear materials, and this fact was widely circulated in academic journals, the mainstream media, and in intelligence reports.

In addition, despite being briefed to the contrary by former chief UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter and other arms control experts, Senator Kerry stated unequivocally that “Iraq has chemical and biological weapons.” He even claimed that most elements of Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons programs “are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf War.” He did not try to explain how this could be possible, given the limited shelf life of such chemical and biological agents and the strict embargo against imports of any additional banned materials that had been in place since 1990. The Massachusetts senator also asserted that authorizing a U.S. invasion of that oil-rich country was necessary since “these weapons represent an unacceptable threat.”

However, despite inspections by the United Nations Monitoring and Verification Commission (UNMOVIC) and subsequent searches by U.S. forces, no chemical or biological weapons have been found.

Senator Kerry’s fabrications about Iraq did not stop there. He made similarly ludicrous claims that “Iraq is developing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) capable of delivering chemical and biological warfare agents, which could threaten Iraq’s neighbors as well as American forces in the Persian Gulf.” In a cynical effort to take advantage of Americans’ post-9/11 fears, Kerry went on to claim that “Iraq has some lethal and incapacitating agents and is capable of quickly producing and weaponizing a variety of such agents, including anthrax, for delivery on a range of vehicles such as bombs, missiles, aerial sprayers, and covert operatives which could bring them to the United States homeland.”

Again, no such Iraqi UAVs or other systems capable of delivering chemical and biological weapons have been found.

To this day, Kerry’s Senate office has refused to provide me or any other independent analysts access to the supposed intelligence that supposedly said Iraq had these supposed WMDs and delivery systems that were supposedly such a threat that we supposedly had to invade. He did, however, presumably see the polls that showed that the only way the American people would support a war on Iraq would be if Iraq was a threat to the United States, which may have influenced his decision to make that claim.

Kerry claims that under the circumstances present in October 2002, when he and his congressional colleagues made the fateful decision to grant President Bush unprecedented war-making authority, “any president would have needed the threat of force to act effectively.” Kerry went on to say, “The idea was simple: We would get the weapons inspectors back in to verify whether or not Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.” This is an extraordinarily misleading statement, however. Saddam Hussein had finally agreed to unconditional unfettered United Nations inspections as demanded by the UN Security Council on September 16, nearly four weeks prior to Kerry’s vote authorizing the U.S. invasion.

Kerry has also demonstrated a tendency to make things up to rationalize war crimes by U.S. allies. For example, to explain civilian deaths caused by Israeli air strikes and other military operations in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, he co-sponsored resolutions accusing Hamas and Hezbollah of deliberately using civilians as “human shields.” Subsequent human rights reports noted that Hamas and Hezbollah were guilty of other violations of international humanitarian law, but found no cases of either group deliberately holding civilians against their will as a deterrent from enemy attacks. Kerry’s office has refused to reply to a series of inquiries asking the senator to provide examples of where and when Hamas or Hezbollah ever used human shields.

Kerry insisted that a United Nations report ignored how the Israelis supposedly went to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties by dropping leaflets and sending robo-calls to Palestinian homes warning them of impending attacks. In reality, the report examined these claims in detail, but concluded that many of the calls and leaflets were sent out too late or were too vague to enable civilians to reach safety. Furthermore, Israeli calls for civilians to flee to downtown Gaza City led those who heeded such advice right into the line of Israeli fire, as when the Israelis attacked the UN compound and school with mortars and phosphorous bombs where hundreds of fleeing residents had sought refuge. The UNHRC report confirmed the conclusions of previous investigations that there were no legitimate military targets in the area.

There are quite a few other examples of Kerry’s willingness to make things up to support controversial actions by the Israeli government. For example, back in 2004, when Palestinian president Yasir Arafat was repeatedly calling for a resumption of peace negotiations but was being rejected by Israel’s right-wing prime minister Ariel Sharon, Kerry insisted that it was Arafat who was refusing to “take part in a peaceful process.”

Similarly, during an interview on Meet the Press, Kerry justified Israel’s assassination policy by saying that “The moment Hamas says, ‘We’ve given up violence. We are prepared to negotiate,’ I am absolutely confident they will find an Israel that is thirsty to have that negotiation.” In reality, the Israeli government has repeatedly stated that, even if Hamas made such a statement, they would not negotiate with the Islamic group. Furthermore, Israel’s assassination policy has included more than just terrorists: it has included community leaders such as Isaac Saada, a teacher at a Catholic high school in Bethlehem who was working with Israeli colleagues in developing a joint curriculum in conflict resolution, and Shaden Abu Hijleh, a Palestinian social worker and nonviolent activist in Nablus. A special UN investigation, headed by a prominent Jewish American professor of international law, concluded that Israel has utilized “a seemingly random hit list” in its assassinations.

Imperial Hubris

Kerry has repeatedly demonstrated an incredible level of hubris and arrogance regarding American military power. Indeed, in supporting the invasion and occupation of Iraq, Kerry apparently worked on the assumption that the United States could get away with an indefinite occupation of a heavily populated Arab country with a strong history of nationalism and resistance to foreign domination.

Similarly, his attacks on those with more moderate views raise questions as to whether he has the temperament to be secretary of state. For example, in 2003, when Governor Dean proposed that the United States take a more “even-handed role” as the chief mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, “bring the sides together” in a “constructive way,” and “not point fingers” at who is to blame, Kerry not only insisted Dean was wrong for suggesting it, but made the bizarre assertion that such an approach “would throw this volatile region into even more turmoil.”

Kerry has also made a habit of accusing those who do not support his right-wing agenda as somehow being soft on terrorism. In 2004, Kerry attacked UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for backing the UN General Assembly’s decision to ask the ICJ to consider the legal questions involved in Israel’s separation barrier, claiming that doing so casts doubt on the chief UN official’s opposition to terrorism.

Kerry was particularly hostile towards those who refused to support Bush’s war in Iraq and those who believed the United Nations should take the lead in the post-war effort of stabilization and reconstruction. In 2004, when the newly elected government of Spain announced that it would fulfill its longstanding promise to withdraw its forces from Iraq unless the mission was placed under the United Nations, Kerry responded by saying, “I call on Prime Minister Zapatero to reconsider his decision and to send a message that terrorists cannot win by their act of terror.” Not only did Kerry believe that the Bush/Cheney administration was somehow more trustworthy than the international community in resolving the serious problems besetting post-war Iraq, Kerry was arguing that if a government disagreed with him and insisted that there be a UN mandate in place before participating in the occupation of a foreign country, they were somehow appeasing terrorists.

When Barack Obama was running for president in 2008, he promised to not just end the war in Iraq, but to end the “mindset” that led to the war. However, in nominating John Kerry to be his next secretary of state, it appears that mindset is alive and well.

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By Nick, December 14, 2012 7:32 pm

During the past year, one of the Obama administration’s biggest moves at the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) received relatively little attention inside the Beltway. In March 2012, the United States led a resolution calling on the government of Sri Lanka to implement the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), which examined the breakdown of the truce between the country’s warring factions, and “to take all necessary additional steps” to “ensure justice, equity, accountability and reconciliation for all Sri Lankans.”

It remains unclear what exactly drove the U.S. resolution, but the Sri Lankan government does not appear to have complied with it. The country continues to receive criticism for its human rights record, as disappearances and extrajudicial killings, among other issues, remain problems. Recent developments like a prison riot in Colombo that left 27 inmates dead and the arrest of several University of Jaffna students are also worrisome.

Politically, developments on the island nation seem to be going in the wrong direction as well. The government’s recent move to impeach its chief Supreme Court justice is a particularly discouraging sign, since the judiciary is widely regarding as Sri Lanka’s only branch of government with some semblance of independence. Critics have called the move an “unconstitutional witchhunt,” a retaliation for the court’s ruling that the central government could not unilaterally seize powers from the country’s provisional councils. Moreover, talks between the government and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) have gone nowhere, and there is little hope for meaningful progress in the short term.

Yet since the passage of the HRC resolution last March, the government of Sri Lanka has adopted a far less bellicose tone when it comes to international diplomacy. The Rajapaksa administration has realized that, in order to be let off the hook for its dreadful human rights record and noncompliance with the HRC resolution, it will need to take a more tactful approach when dealing with the international community.

It appears that the administration is also trying to balance this clear effort to deflect international pressure by leveraging its domestic political support; the reality is that President Mahinda Rajapaksa remains quite popular. But even as the regime in Colombo gives the impression that it has complied with the HRC resolution, little could be further from the truth.

Crocodile Tears?

At Sri Lanka’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in Geneva, international delegations led by the United States voiced justified criticisms of the Sri Lankan regime, but that is to be expected at a forum like the UPR. Such proclamations don’t necessarily mean that the United States or anyone else will continue to pressure Sri Lanka to improve its human rights record.

As Sri Lanka is a middle-income country enjoying a period of relative peace, with no simmering conflict on the order of Syria, Washington may well have decided to carry on. After all, the U.S. “pivot” to Asia is much more about security than human rights.

The reality is that U.S.-Sri Lankan relations are in decent shape. It’s true that Washington keeps talking about the importance of reconciliation and accountability for wartime atrocities, but those exhortations do not appear to have interfered with economic relations or military cooperation. Indeed, with India wary of being drawn into a U.S. Cold War with China—and with U.S-Pakistani relations as choppy as ever—the Obama administration may well be looking for other partners in South Asia.

The United States will invariably look to strengthen military ties with Sri Lanka. Strategically speaking, it would be unwise for Washington to further antagonize Colombo and lose an ally in a region where it intends to maintain a significant presence in the coming decades. Sri Lanka is not a top tier foreign policy priority for the United States, but the Obama administration will be reluctant to cede all influence there–especially as China’s foreign policy agenda continues to expand.

In a recent article for Foreign Policy, the U.S. ambassador to the HRC defended the U.S. human rights record and its actions at the HRC during Obama’s first term. The ambassador explicitly mentioned Syria and Libya, and inveighed against the HRC’s purported bias against Israel. Not surprisingly, Sri Lanka was not mentioned. There was only a fleeting indirect reference to the fact that the United States has “helped restore confidence in the council’s ability to address politically difficult thematic and country-specific situations.”

In late September, a group of U.S. lawmakers criticized the Sri Lankan government’s LLRC Action Plan and advocated for continued engagement with the country to improve it, but it’s likely that the Obama administration hasn’t made up its mind about Sri Lanka one way or the other. With Obama currently looking at major shifts within his foreign policy and national security team, few decisions about Sri Lanka are likely to be made until 2013.

Beyond Washington

Continued U.S. engagement on this issue could compel change, but pressure on the Rajapaksa regime should not start and stop with Washington alone. Human rights activists and civil society leaders in Sri Lanka, in conjunction with likeminded members of the international community, must come up with a thoughtful, coherent advocacy strategy to be implemented in the next six months.

But critics of the regime need to set realistic goals. The words “international investigation” are toxic in Geneva right now. A good advocacy plan should highlight some of the positive LLRC recommendations, explain how they should be acted upon, and demand that the government take meaningful steps in the short-term to implement them. In addition, the impartial, timely, and precise monitoring of the LLRC recommendations will be of utmost importance.

The recent publication of shadow action plan to implement the LLRC recommendations is a significant step in the right direction, but planning and policy coherence must not end there.

In the long run, it’s likely that international forums are not the best way to pressure the regime. Effective diplomatic pressure on Sri Lanka will probably happen bilaterally. The regime probably recognizes this, which would explain why it has disregarded the HRC resolution. Yet here again, U.S.-Sri Lankan relations will be brought to the fore.

Outside of Washington, the wild card is India.

Like other rising powers, it seems clear that India would like to play a larger role on the global stage. If that is indeed the case, there is no better place to start than in neighboring Sri Lanka. In the past, Indian foreign policy vis-à-vis Sri Lanka has been rife with mistakes. Nonetheless, a couple things are clear: First, if India makes a more determined effort to push for meaningful change in Sri Lanka over the next several months, it would reassure Colombo that its poor human rights record and refusal to devolve power and genuinely address the calls for a political solution will not be tolerated. Second (and perhaps more importantly), pressure from India also has the potential to convince other members of the international community, including those in the Global South, that when it comes to human rights and national reconciliation, the current situation in Sri Lanka is simply unacceptable. 

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By Nick, November 20, 2012 2:01 pm

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By Nick, October 8, 2012 7:55 pm

(CNN) — Turkish President Abdullah Gul said Monday that “worst case scenarios” are becoming a reality in neighboring Syria over its 19-month civil war — which has spilled over into border clashes between the two nations — and that it “absolutely cannot” continue.

“The Syrian people are suffering and as you can see it is having an effect on us, too, from time to time,” he told reporters.

After days of Syrian shells flying across the border into Turkey, tensions — and carnage — are mounting on both sides of the border.

The stray shelling has prompted Turkey to respond with threats and weapons fire, fueling concerns that the Syrian civil war will bleed into a greater regional battle.

Early Monday morning, Turkish authorities reported exchanges of fire in a southern central region of Turkey that borders Syria.

A mortar shell launched from the Syrian side landed in Turkey’s Altinozu District, though no casualties were reported, authorities said in a written statement.

Turkish forces fired “retaliatory shots” into Syria, saying they believed the initial strike was launched by Syrian Security forces, the statement said.

Here are additional developments in the crisis:

Deaths add up amid continuing violence

A large explosion rocked Damascus on Monday, followed by heavy gunfire near a government checkpoint, though it is not clear if there are casualties resulting from the detonation and ensuing exchange.

“This is the largest blast I have ever felt since the uprising began,” said Omar al Khani, an opposition activist. “One of my windows is blown out and neighbors’ plates were knocked down from the table to the ground.”

Less than half an hour, al Khani said another smaller explosion could be heard followed by intermittent gunfire as a thick plume of smoke unfurled across the Syrian capital.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition group, said the initial blast occurred in the Damascus suburb of Harasta, which is also home to an Air Force security building

The opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria said 170 people were killed across Syria. They included 40 in Aleppo, 35 in Idlib, 35 killed in Daraa, 30 in Damascus and its suburbs, 20 in Homs, five in Deir Ezzor, and one in Hama, the LCC said.

The deaths in Daraa came as Al-Kark Al-Sharqi was pummeled by Syrian government shelling, it said.

CNN is unable to independently confirm reports of casualties or violence because the Syrian government has restricted access by international journalists

Turkish foreign minister: Syria’s vice president could lead a transitional government

Syrian rebels are open to the idea of the country’s vice president leading an interim government, as proposed by Turkey’s foreign minister, Turkish media reported Monday.

But Bessam Dade, political adviser to the rebel Free Syrian Army, said the dissidents would approve of such a plan only if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is not granted immunity from prosecution, Turkey’s TRT news agency said.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu pitched the idea, saying the Syrian vice president is not to blame for the mass bloodshed in the country.

“Farouq al-Sharaa, with a reasonable and conscientious approach, was not a part of recent events and did not partake in the massacres. And perhaps there is no one that knows the system better than Farouq al-Sharaa,” Davutoglu told TRT, according to the Turkish Anadolu Agency.

George Sabra, a spokesman for the Syrian National Council, said members of the opposition group will meet in Qatar later this month and will discuss whether the Syrian opposition would accept the proposal.

“But first we need to know what will be the road map that such a transition will be based on,” Sabra told CNN. “Whether it is al-Sharaa or anyone else, we need to know first what will this person do, and how he or she will push to get Syria out of this quagmire.”

In August, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army said that al-Sharaa had defected from the government and that rebels were trying to help him flee to Jordan. But al-Sharaa later resurfaced at an official meeting in Damascus.

He has not been seen publicly since, not even when al-Assad made a rare public appearance Saturday and was greeted by other Syrian officials.

On the ground: Rebels say they’re close to seizing a military camp

In their quest to wrest control of land near the Turkish border, Syrian rebels stationed outside a military camp in Tal Abyad said they had destroyed three tanks by Monday morning.

“We feel very strongly we will take (the camp) over in the next few hours,” rebel fighter Abu Abdallah told CNN.

Government forces have been shelling the surrounding area — and firing mortar rounds that fell into Turkey — from the Tal Abyad camp, said Abdallah and Ayham Khalaf, a witness and activist.

But Syrian state media reported that security forces had destroyed two vehicles and eliminated a number of terrorists during their attack.

If opposition fighters take over the military camp, Abdallah said, rebels will control an area that extends 45 kilometers (28 miles) south of the border of Turkey — a country that has been sympathetic to Syria’s opposition movement.

Also Monday, Abdel Basset Sayda, the head of the Syrian National Council, entered Syria and met with leaders of the rebel fighting force in Idlib province.

They talked about how the occupation of Homs could be broken and civilian issues, a spokesman for the council said.

World reaction: U.S. presidential candidate supports arming rebels

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is expected to announce his support of Syrian opposition members in a foreign policy speech Monday.

“In Syria, I will work with our partners to identify and organize those members of the opposition who share our values and ensure they obtain the arms they need to defeat Assad’s tanks, helicopters and fighter jets,” according to excerpts from Romney’s prepared speech. The remarks did not say whether the United States itself should arm the rebels.

“Iran is sending arms to Assad because they know his downfall would be a strategic defeat for them. We should be working no less vigorously with our international partners to support the many Syrians who would deliver that defeat to Iran — rather than sitting on the sidelines.”

Romney is running against President Barack Obama, who has not explicitly called for providing arms to Syrian rebels. The United States is helping Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are arming the opposition, decide which rebels should receive weapons.

Obama’s administration has limited aid to nonlethal materials, like communication equipment, and officials have expressed concern about giving weapons to a disparate group of rebels of different levels of trustworthiness, saying they’re concerned that some weapons would fall into the hands of terrorists.

In a speech last month at the U.N. General Assembly, Obama pledged American support for those working for a “common good” for Syria — and sanctions against those causing harm.

“In Syria, the future must not belong to a dictator who massacres his people,” he said.

“If there is a cause that cries out for protest in the world today, it is a regime that tortures children and shoots rockets at apartment buildings. And we must remain engaged to assure that what began with citizens demanding their rights does not end in a cycle of sectarian violence.”

Presidential spokesman Jay Carney said Monday the White House is continuing the work to bring about leadership change in Syria.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said while in France that the crisis poses a danger to Syria’s neighbors, but he also urged other nations to stop providing weapons to the Syrian military or to the rebels. He expressed concern for the many refugees of the war, especially with winter approaching.

CNN’s Saad Abedine, Gul Tuysuz, Holly Yan, Amir Ahmed and Ivan Watson and contributed to this report.

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By Nick, October 8, 2012 3:25 pm

Turkish president says “worst case” unfolding in Syria
By: reuters on: 08.10.2012 [16:54 ] (142 reads)

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By Nick, September 29, 2012 8:17 am

US will have hell to pay in case of war against Iran: Top Senator
By: Press TV on: 29.09.2012 [13:09 ] (66 reads)

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By Nick, September 11, 2012 12:24 pm

Ten years ago, I wrote a series of articles for the Foreign Policy in Focus website in which I put forth a series of arguments against the Bush administration’s push for a U.S. invasion of Iraq prior to the fateful congressional vote authorizing the illegal, unnecessary, and ultimately disastrous war. At the request of the editors of The Nation – the oldest continually published weekly magazine in the United States – I wrote a version entitled “The Case Against War,” which appeared on their website September 12, 2002 and as the cover story of the September 30 issue. It became one of the most widely circulated articles in the magazine’s 147-year old history. Every congressional office received multiple copies.

In the articles, I correctly predicted that an invasion would result in sectarian violence, terrorism, Islamist extremism, and a bloody counterinsurgency war that would be the most elaborate and expensive deployment of U.S. forces since the Second World War.

Specifically, I noted that, “Although most Iraqis would presumably be relieved in the event of Saddam Hussein’s ouster, this does not mean that a regime installed by a Western army would be welcomed.” I expressed concern about U.S. occupation forces becoming bogged down in “a bloody counter-insurgency war” with “bitter, house-to-house fighting” and challenged by competing armed Sunni and Shiite factions.

The article also stressed the illegality of the invasion and the problems that would result from the lack of international support. I challenged the administration’s false claims of Iraqi ties to Al-Qaeda and its exaggerated reports of Iraq’s role in international terrorism. I noted how containment had been successful, explaining that Iraq’s economy had collapsed from sanctions and Iraq’s military capabilities were only a fraction of what they had once been. I argued that an invasion would result in a dramatic increase in anti-Americanism and extremism throughout the region and damage the struggle against Al-Qaeda.

(Ironically, editors at both FPIF and The Nation insisted that I omit, tone down, or qualify sections in which I questioned the Bush administration’s insistence that the Iraqi regime had somehow reconstituted its WMD programs, and instead focus on how there was an adequate deterrent against any possible Iraq threat.)

Just three weeks after the article’s publication in The Nation, the resolution authorizing the war passed by overwhelming bipartisan majorities (297-133 in the House and 77-23 in the Senate). The resolution falsely claimed that Iraq “poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States by…continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations.”

A number of congressional staffers for leading Senate Democrats who supported the war resolution acknowledged that they read the article and passed it on to their bosses, but that the senators found the Bush administration’s arguments to have somehow been more credible. Despite efforts by some of the more liberal members of Congress, I have never been called to testify at any congressional hearings dealing with Iraq or other Middle Eastern issues. Indeed, despite being correct in my assessments in the article and despite having a respectable academic record on Middle Eastern affairs, there is little interest on Capitol Hill in my input; to this day, when I contact congressional offices, I can rarely get beyond the twenty-somethings who answer the phone.

One Democratic politician who apparently did take the article seriously was a then little-known Illinois state senator named Barack Obama, who appears to have borrowed a number of the key talking points for a speech he gave at an anti-war rally in Chicago a couple weeks after it was published. Obama noted that “Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military is a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained,” adding that an invasion of Iraq “will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.” He went on to note that “an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East” and strengthen al-Qaeda.

During his 2008 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama’s campaign highlighted that speech in an effort to set him apart from Hillary Clinton’s whole-hearted embrace of the Bush administration’s rationales for the war during that period. Given the overwhelming opposition to the Iraq War by Democratic voters, this dramatic contrast between the two rivals in the close and hard-fought campaign was likely decisive in making possible Obama’s victory.

This is certainly not the first time a major story in Foreign Policy in Focus or The Nation was on target yet still ignored by policy makers, but few decisions by Congress have had such disastrous results. Also troubling is the refusal by members of Congress who voted to authorize the war to acknowledge that they had ample opportunity to recognize the lies used to justify the war and the likely consequences of the invasion.

And, despite Obama’s apparent acceptance of the article’s main points and his 2008 campaign promise to “end the mindset that led to the war in Iraq,” he ended up appointing supporters of the Iraq War to the key national security positions in his administration, including his vice president and chief of staff, as well as his secretaries of defense, state, and homeland security.

With such lack of accountability, the threat of future foreign policy disasters remains.

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By Nick, September 6, 2012 1:18 pm

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/-the-economy-stole-my-retirement–.html