Carne Ross describes the failure of international policy in Somalia:

International policy to stabilise Somalia has been a total failure. Yet, the same policies persist. In 2000, the “international community” set up what it thought was a legitimate government in Somalia, in an attempt to create a political consensus where none existed. Today, the so-called Transitional Federal Government (TFG) is neither transitional nor federal, nor even really a government, in that it offers no prospect of a transition to a more durable alternative, does not represent the rest of Somalia in a meaningful way, and, as a government, provides no services to its people, who did not elect it, in any case. The TFG is, in the words of a recent International Crisis Group report, “incompetent, corrupt and hobbled by weak leadership” and should be given a deadline to shape up, or be removed. Very few observers expect it to shape up: the current system pays the cabal who control it far too well.

Somalia’s most alarming and pressing problem is the current famine, but among its many other problems is the internationally-backed “government” whose legitimacy derives entirely from the support of international institutions and foreign governments. The TFG in Somalia is a propped-up governing authority without legitimacy or much of a claim to represent the people it theoretically governs. It was installed in Mogadishu after the Ethiopian invasion, and it has been fighting a desultory war simply to take control of the capital ever since. Ross cites this Congressional testimony (.PDF) by Dr. J. Peter Pham of the Atlantic Council to argue that U.S. policy has contributed to Somalia’s political dysfunction. Pham refers to “America’s hitherto policy of virtually unconditional—and, quite frankly, at times poorly-informed—support for the TFG” that the current administration is finally beginning to correct. Pham’s concluding remarks are worth quoting:

It is high time that the United States and Somalia’s other international partners look after their own legitimate interests and refocus their energies on minimizing and containing the harm caused by the TFG’s incompetence and corruption, while strengthening those functional parts of the former Somali state and integrating them into the framework for regional security and stability. To put it in terms that would resonate with the traditional pastoral Somali, the stakes are simply too high for us to continue betting on a camel that, if not quite dead, is certainly crippled.

Given the disintegration of Somalia and the failed backing of the TFG by foreign governments, one would think that U.S. and European governments would be wary of throwing support behind another weak, fledgling government that represents just a fraction of the country that it nominally rules and does not have effective control over most of the country’s territory or population. As we have seen in the last few months, they are not.

Prof. Bacevich discusses the “cheap grace” and “false freedom” involved in public expressions of support for the military:

To stand in solidarity with those on whom the burden of service and sacrifice falls is about as far as they will go. Expressions of solidarity affirm that the existing relationship between soldiers and society is consistent with democratic practice. By extension, so, too, is the distribution of prerogatives and responsibilities entailed by that relationship: a few fight, the rest applaud. Put simply, the message that citizens wish to convey to their soldiers is this: although choosing not to be with you, we are still for you (so long as being for you entails nothing on our part). Cheering for the troops, in effect, provides a convenient mechanism for voiding obligation and easing guilty consciences.

Tony Karon reviews the causes of the recent outbreak of violence in northern Kosovo, and considers the official reactions:

The battle for the border posts occurred amid a politically inspired trade dispute between Kosovo and Serbia. Kosovar police tried on Monday to take over the crossings, which have been run since 2008 by an EU mission, in order to enforce a ban on imports from Serbia. That measure had been enacted last week in retaliation for Serbia’s refusal to accept imports from Kosovo on the grounds that it can’t accept customs paperwork from the “Republic of Kosovo”, an entity it doesn’t recognize. While the Kosovar authorities say they’re exercising a sovereign right to control the territory’s border crossings, the local Serb community vows to stop what they see as an effort to cut their links to Serbia. And U.S. and European officials condemned the Kosovar side for a provocative action undertaken without consultation, but called on all sides to restore calm and negotiate a compromise.

While the Serbs and the rest of NATO’s rivals never really accepted the breakaway of Kosovo from Serbia, the Kosovar Albanians chafed at the persistence of a Serb enclave denying Kosovo’s independence within what it claimed as sovereign borders. But NATO’s dominance has enabled it, until now, to enforce its writ on both sides. Serbia’s moderate President Boris Tadic, who knows his goal of joining the EU depends on solving the Kosovo issue, condemned the violence, making clear that Serbia has no appetite for war — but he also warned that any encouragement of Kosovar authorities to take control of the Serb enclave put peace at risk. Kosovo President Hashem Thaci seemed more inclined to talk tough, warning that the Serb enclave would never be allowed to return to Belgrade’s control.

It is more than a little comical that the thuggish government in Pristina insists on their sovereign rights in this part of Kosovo. Their hold on power and the recognition of their state’s independence both depended entirely on disregarding the sovereignty of Serbia and benefiting from an illegal partition. As Belgrade sees it, the Kosovo government does not have sovereign rights there or anywhere else. That said, the Serb minority will gain nothing by acts violence, and more attacks of this kind are simply going to give Thaci the excuse to engage in a brutal crackdown or perhaps even a campaign of expulsion.

P.S. American and French troops are now in the control of the border crossings.

Third, the US cannot abdicate NATO leadership. This does not mean acting unilaterally, but neither can the US take a back seat. It is understandable that Americans would be frustrated that Europe does not pull more of the load. But an America that “leads from behind” is not leading at all.
We must lead, and bring others with us. By rejecting this role in Libya, the US is allowing NATO to appear a paper tiger. That serves no one’s interests. ~Kurt Volker

This is becoming the standard critique of the limited U.S. involvement in Libya, but there a few things wrong with it. The fundamental American mistake regarding Libya was when it joined Britain and France in making the intervention possible at the U.N. and leading the alliance into an unnecessary war. From that point on, the administration had decided to wager NATO’s reputation for the sake of an ill-defined mission for which none of the allies was prepared to take major risks. If the U.S. were not “leading from behind,” the intervening governments would still be in more or less the same predicament, except that the U.S. would be seen as waging an unsuccessful rather than merely half-hearted war.

Had the U.S. been intensely engaged in the bombing campaign all along, everyone seems to assume that NATO would not appear to be a “paper tiger,” but would instead vindicate its reputation as the greatest alliance in history. No doubt this is what many hawks would like to believe, but I’m not sure that it is true. Once the U.S. and its allies ruled out an invasion, they outsourced the success or failure of the mission to the weaker side in Libya’s civil war. It is this that has left the U.S. and NATO in a “slog.” Something was wrong with this intervention as soon as the leading governments adopted the tiresome mantra that the future of Libya is in the hands of Libyans, as if NATO were not daily affecting the shape of that future and attempting to guarantee a particular political outcome.

One of the main lessons from Libya should be that the U.S. and NATO should not set ambitious goals when they are unwilling to commit the resources and take the risks required to reach them. If a successful intervention requires the use of ground forces, and if no allied government considers the intervention worth risking their soldiers on the ground, then that ought to put a stop to all talk of intervention then and there. If such a step cannot even be contemplated because the conflict is so tangential and irrelevant to national interests, we should stay out. If minimizing risk is more important than success, the intervention must not be all that important to the security of the allied governments.

This relates to Volker’s fourth lesson, which is that there must be no more “caveats” from allies when it comes to conducting military expeditions. The caveats exist to maintain the illusion of consensus. NATO cannot launch military expeditions outside Europe and not expect some of its members to condition or rule out their involvement. If caveats will not be permitted, there will be no consensus in support of taking military action in the name of the alliance. NATO members do not have formal obligations to support “out-of-area” operations. The thing that jeopardizes real allied solidarity is the use of a defensive alliance as an umbrella organization to wage wars that are unrelated to the defense of alliance members.

Volker concludes:

A “back to basics” NATO that focuses on the collective defense of the allies may be the most that publics and finance ministries will sustainably support. Which means that for complex, expeditionary, and combat missions, whether on Europe’s periphery or beyond, the old “coalition of the willing” concept is looking better and better.

This is where NATO’s role in the Libyan intervention creates misunderstanding. The Libyan war is an example of the “coalition of the willing” concept in action, and I don’t think anyone would say that it is looking so good. The coalition in question was responsible for starting the war, and it is this coalition that is waging the war. For various reasons, some in that coalition wanted to drag NATO as a whole into their mess, and incredibly the rest of the alliance’s members let them. Instead of complaining about a lack of solidarity, we should marvel at the display of misguided solidarity with Britain, France, and the U.S. that committed the alliance to a war that most of its members will not or cannot fight.

Citing the latest Gallup numbers, Christian Heinze concludes that Pawlenty has disappeared:

It’s time to stop calling T-Paw a first tier candidate.

We should have stopped calling him that several weeks ago. The more interesting question is whether Pawlenty is still a second-tier candidate. Alexis Levinson investigates what it was that led people to mistake Pawlenty for a first-tier candidate in the beginning:

Pawlenty’s standing as a first-tier candidate has as much, if not more, to do with the campaign he has set up and the people with whom he has surrounded himself than it does with what he himself brings as a candidate.

“I think the reason why they continue to be seen by the establishment media as a tier-one candidate is because the perception is that he has high national electability,” said a GOP strategist who has been involved with several presidential campaigns.

“He has convinced the insiders, or the establishment media, that, you know, ‘I’ve got the really smart talent, and I’ve got experienced people, and, at the end of the day, they can make the difference to me.’ And those people work assiduously at having good relations with the press.”

Levinson continues:

“The people that he’s hired and surrounded himself with, like Terry Nelson … Phil Musser … Nick Ayers — they’ve created this massive operation of always being in the news … of always being in the Washington press circle,” said Bob Kish, an Ohio-based Republican consultant who is working for Bachmann. They’re “hiring a lot of big names, spending a lot of money and creating this perception.”

But Kish said that a good campaign team is not enough.

“This political operation they set up might be a first-tier operation, but the fact is they have a second-tier candidate,” he said.

Chris Cillizza’s rankings aren’t quite so generous to Pawlenty. As Cillizza sees it, there are three tiers: Romney is in the first, Bachmann is in the second, and everyone else is in the third. Cillizza assesses Pawlenty’s predicament:

While the Pawlenty campaign is doing everything it can to downplay expectations in advance of the straw vote, it’s hard to see how anything other than a first or a close second place finish keeps him in the race. (Anything below that will make fundraising a near impossibility.) With so much riding on Ames, Pawlenty needs to have the best 22 days of his campaign between now and Aug. 13.

It is understandable that the Israeli government wants to make its occupation and settlement policies seem reasonable and justified when they aren’t, but even by the standards of clumsy hasbara this video (via Joe Carter) is exceptional:

The bit around the 3:00 minute 2:45 mark when Ayalon claims that the Balfour Declaration somehow entitles Israel to the West Bank is probably the most outstanding falsehood. As I’m sure almost everyone knows, the Balfour Declaration was a “declaration of sympathy” that said the following:

His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

Jeffrey Goldberg describes the video as “cheesy and disturbing,” which it is, and challenges the main argument Ayalon makes:

Ayalon argues, among other things, “The West Bank should not be considered ‘occupied’ because there was no previous legal sovereign in the area and therefore the real definition should be ‘disputed territory.’ Ayalon neglects to mention that the salient point about the West Bank might not be who the “legal sovereign” was 44 years ago, but that actual people of another ethnic group live on the West Bank and don’t want to be ruled — “occupied” would be another word for “ruled” — by a foreign power. To most of the world, at least (and to many, many Israelis and a clear majority of American Jews) this is what matters.

The purpose of the video is to maintain support for the continuation of the occupation of the West Bank, so it’s a bit rich for Ayalon to claim that it is mainly concerned with accurate terminology.

This venture was a typically botched Wilsonian war from the start but to launch a gratuitous war and then lose it is about as pure a show of fecklessness as can be imagined. President Obama needs to finish the job. Fast. ~Walter Russell Mead

The rebels now say that the offer for Gaddafi to remain in Libya after stepping down has “expired,” which raises the question why it was ever made at all. It’s an odd bit of timing for them to extend the offer, wait until both Britain and France have endorsed the idea, and then withdraw it after Britain and France exposed themselves to no end of ridicule for having entertained the idea. It’s also a bit late to start worrying about losing the Libyan war. As a matter of protecting the civilian population, the Libyan war was already lost shortly after it went from being a defensive operation to protect rebel-held areas to a campaign to topple Gaddafi, so it’s not clear what “finishing the job” could mean under the circumstances. Obviously, driving out Gaddafi has always been the real goal, but there has been no plan for how this would happen except to keep bombing and hope for luck. Saying “finish the job” is as vague and unhelpful as repeating the mantra that “Gaddafi must go.” We are no closer to finding a means by which Gaddafi would be forced to “go” than we were four months ago.

The administration has put itself in a bit of a bind. It claims to respect the constitutionality of the War Powers Act, and it claims that it does not believe that the executive can launch wars without Congressional approval, and so it has attempted to define its involvement in the Libyan war as something else. This is ridiculous and insults the intelligence of everyone who hears it, but it may be politically tenable so long as the Senate majority leadership remains supportive. If the U.S. were to “finish the job” by escalating U.S. involvement in the war back to what it was in March, the administration would be under significant pressure to get Congressional approval. Based on what we have seen so far this year, there is not much support for the war in Congress, and there is even less public support. There is virtually no support for escalating U.S. involvement beyond what it is now.

As the stalemate continues, the fears of a partition discussed by Karim Mezran last week are growing. The Daily Telegrapheditorialized on Britain’s decision to recognize the TNC:

William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said it would also enable the UK and its allies to offer greater practical assistance to the NTC on the ground. But it is the underlying symbolism of the measure that matters most.

This looks like the start of a process that the Nato alliance has been desperate to avoid – the effective partition of the country.

As Mezran explained, U.S. recognition of the TNC had the effect of making a negotiated settlement less likely:

Recognizing the rebel’s government has outraged Qaddafi and his supporters, while at the same time depriving the United States of a powerful tool to pressure the TNC into accepting a possibly unpopular negotiated solution.

The Wall Street Journalreports on the Iranian government’s response to sanctions:

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s reforms amount to a bold attempt to turn adversity to Iran’s economic, and his own political, advantage. The plunge in domestic energy demand brought about by the price increases has helped Mr. Ahmadinejad soften the impact of international sanctions that specifically targeted Iran’s gasoline imports, economists say. While Iran is OPEC’s third-largest oil exporter, it is forced to import around 40% of its gasoline because of limited refining capabilities. Today, Iran’s leadership can blame the West for any gasoline shortages while saving billions of dollars on import costs to help the government manage the economic sanctions [bold mine-DL].

Still, after seven months, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s reform plan is starting to show signs of cracking. Economists inside Iran say it’s unclear how long the government can sustain the current plan. Iranian businessmen and politicians interviewed in recent weeks stressed that the costs born from the international sanctions and Mr. Ahmadinejad’s reforms are mounting at an alarming rate.

Even poor Iranians say Mr. Ahmadinejad effectively botched the wealth redistribution, since the lump monthly payments haven’t offset higher energy and food prices consumers pay due to the subsidy cuts.

Hossein Askari singled out the focus on gasoline sanctions as one of the main mistakes he believes the U.S. made:

As well, it was a horrible mistake for some prominent U.S. experts to call gasoline sanctions on Iran “the mother of all sanctions.” This pronouncement was just plain silly and counterproductive. The gasoline sanctions allowed Ahmadinejad to do what two of his predecessors were afraid to, namely, dramatically reduce Iran’s gasoline consumption and thus increase the availability of foreign exchange to the regime (in the process receiving accolades from the IMF).

Even though Ahmadinejad’s reforms are taking their toll on the entire population, their impact has been relatively greater on the Iranian middle class:

More than economics, though, factored into Mr. Ahmadinejad’s calculations, Iranian analysts say. Much of the opposition to the president’s 2009 re-election came from Iran’s middle class and merchants, many of whom criticized the president’s populist economic policies and believed his religious views bordered on heretical. It is this segment of the population—which owns the factories and the cars—that is feeling the most pain from the subsidy cuts, argue these analysts, while Mr. Ahmadinejad’s power base, the poor, is in the position to gain [bold mine-DL].

The net effect of sanctions on Iran so far seems to be that Ahmadinejad’s opponents suffer more than his supporters, and the Iranian government is in a position to pin some of the population’s hardships on the governments imposing the sanctions.

The Economistreported on Iran’s “economic jihad” (the name given to the policy by Khamenei) last month:

Not only has it relieved the government of a huge financial burden. It has slashed local energy demand, reducing chronic pollution and leaving more oil for export. It has dramatically raised disposable incomes for the poorest without placing extra burdens on the rich, spreading social equity while boosting consumption and bolstering the banking system. In future, Iran’s subsidy reform may even be seen as a model for top-down social change, not unlike successful schemes pioneered by Mexico and Brazil. But so far Iran’s scheme carries no conditions.

There’s a more immediate political logic to the position too. In 2008, Perry backed a nemesis of religious conservatives. “For all his new found commitment to hyper-conservatism,” Mike Huckabee recently wrote of Perry in an email to supporters, “he’ll get to explain why he supported pro-abortion, pro-same sex marriage Rudy Giuliani last time.” It appears that Perry has settled on this explanation: Those are state matters. Pragmatic social conservatives should be satisfied by his stance. Returning abortion to the states, via federalist Supreme Court justices, is the best they can do. ~Conor Friedersdorf

Via Andrew

Conor is right that Perry is using federalist arguments partly to explain his previous endorsement of Giuliani, and maybe social conservatives should be satisfied by this stance, but we need only look back to the ill-fated Fred Thompson campaign in 2007-08 to remember that most social conservatives are not satisfied by it. Thompson’s campaign was plagued by many problems, chief among them the candidate’s lack of interest in campaigning, but Huckabee attacked Thompson’s federalism as a sign of weakness on social issues. Huckabee was and is something of a pro-life absolutist. This was one reason why he became a competitive candidate as the standard-bearer of evangelicals and social conservatives.

Returning these matters to the states may be the best social conservatives can do (I think it is), but it is not what they want to do. Conor underestimates the extent to which pro-life and traditional marriage activists see these issues in terms of stark moral struggle. Pro-life activists don’t liken themselves to abolitionists and civil rights activists just to be cute. To a large degree, many of them see themselves as advocates for a righteous cause that cannot be impeded or limited by questions of jurisdiction, and they see pro-life federalist arguments as unacceptable compromises on a moral issue where there ultimately should not be any meaningful compromise. I made an argument similar to Conor’s about Ron Paul’s federalist views a few months ago in response to Joe Carter’s criticism of Paul and federalism. While I don’t share Carter’s view of Paul or federalism, I don’t doubt that he is far more representative of social conservatives around the country.

Theoretically, Perry’s federalism should be satisfactory, but then so should Gary Johnson’s or Ron Paul’s, and it is no secret that most social conservatives don’t see it that way. As they see it, and as most activists of all stripes usually see it, an appeal to federalism is a signal that a given issue isn’t important enough to be addressed at the national level. This reflects the bias that all Americans share to one degree or another that “we” are not taking a particular issue seriously enough unless the central government is involved. This confuses the question of which authority has jurisdiction with whether or not something ought to be a priority, but it is a fairly common assumption. An important reason why federalist appeals tend to fall flat with most activists is that they recognize that power has been greatly centralized, and candidates that show no interest in deploying centralized power for their agenda are not going to capture their attention and support. That doesn’t mean that centralists ever deliver for social conservatives. For the most part, they don’t and they never will. Social conservatives would be better-served supporting a federalist approach to their issues, and many of the real successes of the pro-life movement have been at the state level, but that isn’t going to help Perry once he gets in the race. When it comes to presidential politics, social conservatives want to find a candidate who sees these causes in uncompromising, absolute terms, and Perry has just announced that he doesn’t see them this way.

P.S. The vaccine controversy may also jeopardize Perry’s standing with some social conservatives, but that is a distinct issue of something that Perry did while governor. It may not become much of an issue, because in the end the Texas legislature effectively undid his order, but it is something that other candidates can use to create doubt in the minds of voters.