Shadi Hamid has written a thoughtful response to my post on weak and reckless democracies:

It is hard to imagine a powerful IRGC – being the apparently maximalist actor it is – ever allowing the Greens to take power, unseating its pro-Ahmedinijad allies in the process. A democratic Iran, if it comes to be, will be an Iran where the IRGC is neutralized or forced to become something it currently isn’t.

That’s possible, but then I have a hard time imagining the Greens taking power without having to make significant compromises with the IRGC, such as accepting their role in the economy and tolerating at least some political influence. There would probably be red lines that the new civilian government would not be allowed to cross, and if those lines were crossed it might mean the establishment of a military government. This might resemble the interventions of the Turkish military whenever a civilian government was perceived to be threatening the Kemalist system. Democratic transitions from authoritarian governments with powerful military institutions do not have to leave powerful military institutions intact, but these transitions have occurred when military leaders have accepted their reduced role. Then there are states where the military tolerates the return of civilian rule, but not at the expense of its own economic and political interests. It seems more likely that Iran will be one of these. All of this is probably moot anyway, since I doubt very much that the Greens will take power in the foreseeable future, but it is useful for thinking about what it is that we mean when we speak about democratization and its effects on international relations.

Hamid and I are in agreement that “democracies, particularly young ones, can and do take needlessly aggressive action in their foreign policy.” I think we can also agree that overreaching by Georgia and Israel is a function of Bush-era aggressiveness and the foreign policy moral hazard effect of unconditional U.S. support that Leon Hadar defined and I cited in my last column. I suppose there is some “cherry-picking” in that I am selecting the most prominent examples of reckless military action by democracies, but part of the selection also involved choosing governments that most observers would agree are democratic.

There are others that could be added to the list that would not be widely recognized as democracies. Venezuela has acted provocatively and dangerously towards Colombia with its support for FARC rebels and its occasional sabre-rattling, but usually the harshest critics of Chavez’s actions deny the democratic origins and nature of his government. At this point, I think everyone would agree that Ethiopia is effectively an authoritarian state, but it retains the trappings of a democracy. We can all probably agree that Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia had far more to do with the ambitions of Zenawi and U.S. support for an “anti-terrorist” military campaign than it does with whatever form of government it has. Similarly, I think that an unelected authoritarian Georgian leader with the same anti-Russian nationalist concerns might have tried the same thing as Saakashvili. A more interesting question is whether any Georgian government dominated by a nationalist desire to reclaim the separatist republics would have acted more prudently. It could be that a hugely distorting factor in all of this is the expectation of U.S. backing, but that backing was another kind of recklessness endorsed by both parties here at home.

As long as the Megali Idea dominated Greek foreign policy for most of the first century of independence, democratic Greek governments actively pursued irredentism and national unification, and eventually plunged Greece into a series of ultimately disastrous wars. Indeed, as Greece became more of a mass democratic state Greece became more assertive in its ambitions to capture historic Greek territory from the Ottomans. It was Greek liberal democrats who were pushing for entry into WWI to secure more territory, while it was the monarch who wished to keep Greece neutral. Greece embarked on its most ambitious and disastrous campaign when it had formally been a parliamentary democracy for almost ninety years and had at least fifty years of experience as a mass democracy. Of course, Greece was encouraged in this foolish course by all the great democratic Allied powers, and Greece landed troops in Smyrna under the guise of enforcing an international treaty, but that does not make Venizelos and the voters who supported him less responsible. It was not for lack of well-established institutions and experience with democratic politics that Greece blundered into Anatolia. I mention the Greek example to make the point that the incentives for democracies with territorial claims against their neighbors are very different from democracies without them, and nationalist territorial and security objectives will have a destabilizing effect regardless of regime type.

The first is that acknowledging Russia and China’s unwillingness to help would strike the most powerful blow yet to Obama’s central foreign-policy message: that his personality and eagerness for engagement would open up doors for America that were slammed shut by the Bush administration’s alleged arrogance and quickness to go to war. Acknowledging that the Security Council will never allow strong sanctions would be tantamount to admitting that the very logic and premises of Obama’s foreign policy is flawed. Thus, this isn’t really about Iran. It’s about the politics of failure and Obama’s increasingly desperate attempt to shield his presidency from the hard realities of the world. ~Noah Pollak

Via Scoblete

It’s true that Russia and China have no intention of supporting new sanctions on Iran. I have been saying this for well over a year. This is one reason why “crippling” sanctions will never be effective. The Chinese will work to fill the void that other states leave behind, and the pressure the sanctions are meant to impose will never come about. The “crippling” sanctions favored by many Iran hawks are an unworkable option. Notice that Pollak fails to say anything about this.

What I have also said is that trying to build a coalition to support sanctions will not work because too many other states don’t share U.S. objectives and most simply don’t care about Iran’s nuclear program. Many are like Brazil, which is building an economic relationship with Iran and officially accepts Iran’s claim that its nuclear program is peaceful. Another reason these other states don’t share U.S. objectives is that those objectives are unrealistic and unreachable. This has always been the problem behind Obama’s “engagement” policy, which has had precious little to do with actually engaging Iran in a sustained way. Obama wanted to change the means the U.S. used to pursue the same unreachable end, namely the elimination or severe limitation of Iran’s nuclear program. What the administration and its hawkish critics have been unable to see is that it is the end, not the means, that needs to be changed. Acknowledging this would force Iran hawks to admit that pretty much everything they have said about Iran policy has been wrong.

Five months ago I wrote a column for The Week in which I argued that the GOP needed to stop reflexively rejecting every foreign policy decision Obama made. As I said at the time:

In the short term, the Republican credibility gap means that Obama will have little effective domestic opposition to his foreign policy. The GOP’s recent hysteria over Obama’s decision to cancel the Central European missile defense system confirms this. Unfortunately, an administration that lacks credible critics is far less likely to be held accountable for its misjudgments. By failing to make credible, accurate arguments against Obama’s decisions, Republicans will make it far more difficult to resist the administration when it does err—as it inevitably will.

Occasionally, when the administration has genuinely been doing the wrong things, his Republican critics have landed some solid blows, but this has been entirely by accident. Mishandling the deposition of Zelaya was one time when Obama’s habitual attackers stumbled upon the right critique, because they are always aiming to find fault with every move and to misrepresent his foreign policy at pretty much every turn. The botched handling of a Falklands issue that shouldn’t even be on Washington’s agenda is another.

Despite its impeccable Reaganite pedigree, neutrality over the Falklands already seemed like a betrayal of a Britain his permanent critics were convinced Obama disliked. After all, they would say in all seriousness, he sent back the bust of Churchill! This was insipid criticism that could be easily overcome. Now Clinton’s ill-considered remarks provide them with some real ammunition. For the last year the GOP has been muttering darkly about Obama’s desire to undermine U.S. allies. On the whole, this has been utter nonsense, much like the “apology tour” lie that accompanied it, but every once in a while the administration blunders and provides some small confirmation of this otherwise fantastical claim. As bad as it is to harm relations with Britain over something that is none of our business, it might be even worse if it helps to revive an unrepentant, unreformed, incompetent nationalist opposition.

My new column for The Week on the Dubai assassination and its aftermath is now online.

Romney then added, however, that his gripe with Obama is that he “actually said on Arabic TV that America has dictated to other nations.”

“Look, America has not dictated to other nations,” said Romney. “We have freed other nations from dictators. We have nothing to apologize for in terms of America’s great contribution to the world. . . .” ~The Note

This is unusually ignorant even by the standards of Romney’s remarks on foreign policy. First, we need to go back to the Al Arabiya interview and find exactly what Obama said. It’s quite easy, as it is one of the first things he said in the interview. Obama made his remarks in the context of discussing his dispatch of George Mitchell as his special envoy on Israel and Palestine:

And so what I told him [Mitchell] is start by listening, because all too often the United States starts by dictating — in the past on some of these issues — and we don’t always know all the factors that are involved. So let’s listen. He’s going to be speaking to all the major parties involved. And he will then report back to me. From there we will formulate a specific response.

Remember that Obama said this back in January 2009 before there was any discussion of settlements. At that time, Obama was saying that he did not want to dictate terms or dictate a settlement to Israelis and Palestinians. This is a pretty conventional position, and it is an argument that Republicans used against Obama later when he did start trying to pressure Israel on settlements. Viewing the remarks in the context of the interview, we see that Obama was effectively endorsing a continuation of the status quo, which works to perpetuate current Israeli policy. Romney wants the audience to believe that Obama went on an Arabic-language channel and bad-mouthed the United States, when in reality what Obama did was reiterate a standard position that says America should not dictate terms to Israel. This is a position that Romney himself would presumably endorse. It is things like this that confirm my deep dislike for Romney and his habitual dishonesty.

Added to his dishonest recounting of what Obama said is the self-righteous nationalist nonsense that is at the heart of his critique of Obama’s foreign policy. America has never dictated to other nations? We dictate to other nations all the time. As far as nationalists are concerned, we only do it for the most noble ideals and with the purest of intentions, but I simply don’t understand why a nationalist would deny that America dictates to other nations. That is an integral part of being a superpower and would-be enforcer of Pax Americana. Of course, this dictating is often done in the guise of speaking on behalf of “the international community” when most of the “community” wants nothing to do with Washington’s objectives. At other times, we dictate to other nations on our own with a “coalition of the willing” in tow. I would have thought that this dictating to other nations was what made hegemonists and nationalists happy. Isn’t it the supposed unwillingness of Obama to take a sufficiently hard line against rival and authoritarian states that irritates his hawkish critics so much?

When the title and subject of Romney’s new book were first announced, I have to admit that I was a bit confused. As David Bernstein wrote last month in his review of the book, Romney has no national security or foreign policy experience to speak of, but for some reason he has chosen to make a significant part of his critique of the current administration in his book center on these issues. This was something that didn’t make sense when I first read about the book, and it makes even less sense now.

Despite the endless inane attacks from the GOP, most of the public approves of Obama’s handling of foreign policy and a plurality approves of his handling of various national security issues. This is the wrong place for Republicans attack him. It is clearly on fiscal and economic policy where they may be able to gain a significant advantage, and this is the kind of policy argument for which Romney is well-suited. Instead he wastes his time and makes a fool of himself discussing a subject he doesn’t seem to understand very well.

Jonathan Bernstein refers us to 2012 GOP presidential nominee rankings by David Bernstein. The latter ranks Pawlenty as #1, and he explains why:

East Coast urban sophisticates saw Pawlenty’s CPAC speech as uninspiring. I saw it as perfect for Iowa. Hey, you know who else was no good at delivering a slick, rousing, barn-burner of a stump speech? Every Republican Presidential nominee of the last quarter-century, that’s who.

I will grant Bernstein the second point, but who said that Pawlenty’s CPAC speech was either slick or rousing? These are two things that Pawlenty is not. The key problem is that the reception to Pawlenty’s speech was not particularly strong. He was in a room filled with conservative activists assembled to listen to red-meat stump speeches, and he did not generate the kind of excitement that Rubio or even Romney managed to inspire. Pawlenty’s routine may satisfy some voters, but my guess is that for a lot of activists and future Iowa caucus-goers it comes off sounding either overly rehearsed or stale and unconvincing.

The rest of the list is worth looking at, too, but I find about half of his top ten to be very implausible nominees. It seems to me that DeMint is an obvious non-starter. Many activists may love him, but his appeal to larger state electorates during the primary contest will be distinctly limited. Mike Pence is coming from the House, which is one thing that makes him much less likely to succeed. As far as getting through early primary states is concerned, he is just moderate enough on immigration to anger restrictionists but not enough to satisfy moderates, and he suffers from the same problem that Ross has identified with Mitch Daniels: he has no power base, no constituency within the party that he can rely on. Rick Perry is the governor of Texas, and I feel fairly safe saying that no Texas Republican governor will be entrusted with his party’s presidential nomination for decades to come. Jeb Bush is a remote possibility, but his name makes it impossible.

Thune has the unfortunate distinction of being a pro-bailout Senator who has since tried to become a leading anti-bailout Senator. He will have some of the credibility problems that plagued Romney last time around. Gingrich is unlikely to run, and if he does run I am fairly confident that he will not win a single caucus or primary. Whatever other problems or virtues he has, he is just not a likeable person. Barbour is more plausible, though he faces the same problem that Pence and Daniels face.

Sadly, Romney has to be considered the most plausible of the first ten listed here. He has been cultivating activists, supporting candidates around the country, and doing all the right things to prepare for a presidential run. His support for the bailout is a liability, as is his corporate background, but if anyone can campaign as a phony populist it would have to be the candidate who excels at being phony. Even though he is the most plausible, he does have a great electoral weakness. His religion remains an enormous hindrance, as Bernstein’s article on Romney mentions. This is true not only among evangelicals, but with the general electorate as well. I don’t see anything changing here in the next few years. A Barbour or a Daniels stands to benefit from Romney running into a wall of opposition in the primaries.

P.S. For the record, I have an absolutely awful history of predicting future nominees, so bear that in mind when reading all of this.

Generally speaking, I am a restrictionist on immigration and I am sympathetic to our Euroskeptic friends in Britain, so I understand why some Tories might think that immigration and Europe are winning issues that need to be emphasized more. Nonetheless, Massie’s analysis seems correct when he writes this:

There is a grave risk that tacking to the right and endorsing a populist, “robust” approach to immigration could have similar consequences again. And for all that it might help secure what Americans might call “Beer Track” votes it risks alienating “Wine Track” voters. Not necessarily because they disagree with the idea of more strictly controlling immigration but because they dislike being associated with the kind of party that harps on about immigration all the time.

Similarly, the Tories will not want to make Europe too great an issue. Yes, there’s probably a euro-sceptic majority in the country, but many voters are turned off by the stridency of anti-Brussels rhetoric. They don’t much care for Brussels themselves, but they’re not keen on voting for a party that seems obsessed by the subject.

When I read that there is pressure for the Tories to make immigration into a major issue of this general election, I find that it has the same irritating, agitating effect that Republican anti-spending rhetoric has. Whereas the GOP has concocted a very pleasing, completely unfounded story that spending lost them their majorities and a strong anti-spending line will win them back, the Tories seem in danger of revisiting the obsessions that have helped to keep them out of power for over a decade. I call them obsessions not because the positions are irrational or wrong, but because many Tories seem to see them as quick fixes for Conservative electoral difficulties and they keep returning to them every few years to test the same failed proposition all over again. Just as harping about earmarks is the GOP’s way of avoiding any discussion of their failed foreign policy record and the real reasons why they were thrown out (as well as not having to take any risky stands on entitlements), there is an impulse among Tories to talk about asylum-seekers and the European superstate to change the subject from domestic spending. They correctly fear this to be an issue that they will keep on losing even when Britain’s deficits are huge and growing.

The problem is not that a more restrictionist line on immigration or a more skeptical line on Europe would not be appealing, but that these issues cannot be dominant, central planks in any major party’s agenda if it hopes to win a majority. Restrictionism in itself is absolutely not a net vote-loser, and arguments to this effect are always completely unpersuasive, but when it becomes a major or overriding part of a campaign it cannot win a big enough coalition on its own. It is my impression that Euroskepticism is even weaker when it is on its own or when it is promoted in tandem with law and order and national identity questions. This is common sense. The Republian coalition would hardly ever win if it abandoned social issues entirely, but it will rarely win if these issues displace or compete too much with the rest. These issues can increase the size of a coalition built around an appealing message on fiscal and economic policy, but they cannot take the place of that message.

What Labour has failed to do more than anything is to be competent managers of fiscal and economic policy. The Tories can either attempt to make the argument that they can and will be competent managers, and make clear that they are willing to make unpopular choices to bring the deficit under control, or they can retreat to their comfort zones, rehearse all their old arguments that were already losing them elections when William Hague was making them ten years ago, and go down to another defeat. In the aftermath, the modernizers and Europhiles will get a lot of mileage out of this and will make it that much harder to advance these issues later on.

One thing that is becoming increasingly clear is that Hillary Clinton should not speak on contentious issues, as she seems to have no knack for handling them without creating a larger problem than the one she found. We saw this with her clumsy handling of administration policy on Israeli settlements. Granted, she had to balance a half-hearted policy the administration never really believed in with the need not to offend her Israeli hosts, but that’s why it is important to have a Secretary of State capable of striking the right balance. We don’t have one.

We saw another mistake in her handling of Honduras’ provisional government and the desperate, failed bid to restore Zelaya, and we saw it yet again in her ridiculous threat that China would face “diplomatic isolation” if it did not get on board with Iran sanctions. One or two blunders might be overlooked and forgiven, but we are seeing a pattern of mistakes, the latest of which is this Falklands gaffe. Instead of simply remaining non-commital and restating U.S. neutrality, which is a perfectly legitimate and defensible position to take, Clinton felt the need to say this:

We would like to see Argentina and the United Kingdom sit down and resolve the issues between them across the table in a peaceful, productive way.

This might be a way to settle the dispute, but if it is none of our business whose islands they are it is also none of our business how they handle their dispute over the islands. Non-interference and neutrality mean that the U.S. does not involve itself in the issue. Unless both parties specifically asked for U.S. mediation, we should say nothing. Some people in Britain were already angry about U.S. neutrality, and that’s their prerogative, but until now the administration could defend its position and point out that U.S. neutrality works in favor of the status quo power. Once Clinton starts urging both parties to negotiate over something one party regards as non-negotiable, that defense is no longer credible. At that point Washington has begun to align itself with Argentinian objectives and against British claims.

In my earlier post I compared the handling of the dispute to Obama’s earlier mishandling of Kashmir, which he later corrected. In that case, Obama started at a position of proposing U.S. mediation in a dispute that India wanted to keep as a bilateral issue. The backlash from India made Obama realize that this was futile, and he gave up on this idea. In the case of the Falklands, the administration began with a position of neutrality and has started moving towards a position that the British can reasonably interpret as a pro-Argentinian one. This has needlessly antagonized our British allies, it will change nothing in the dispute of the Falklands in any case, and it has reinforced the perfectly justified impression in Britain that it receives absolutely nothing for its reliable support for U.S. initiatives around the world.

Dan McCarthy picks up on an odd passage from Game Change:

They sat Palin down at a table in the suite, spread out a map of the world, and proceeded to give her a potted history of foreign policy. They started with the Spanish civil war, then moved on to world war one, world war two, the cold war…

Assuming that Heilemann and Halperin have this right, this might fit in with the weird strain of conservative admiration for the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War that occasionally re-emerges, but it is almost too much to believe that Palin’s handlers were this ideologically obsessed that they would waste time with a foreign policy novice discussing a conflict in which the U.S. took no part. No, Palin’s tutors must have been covering the Spanish-American War. Given McCain’s love of all things T.R., it seems difficult to imagine that this would be neglected in Palin’s lessons. This actually fits the scene much better and makes sense. The authors must have mistakenly described what was covered.