It isn’t called a “terror list” for nothing

Do you get the impression that U.S. lawmakers regularly branded as “Cuban-American” just loathe their hyphenations? If you don’t, you may after you read this: All seven Cuban-Americans in Congress insist that Cuba remain on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism. The department’s annual re-assessment of said list is on this week; while they “vehemently” deny that Cuba has been considered for removal, the “Cuban Caucus” (not an actual caucus, but there’s something similar) isn’t taking chances.

Here’s a sampling of their reasons for keeping Cuba on the terror list:

. . . the Justice Department has indicted a former U.S. Agency for International Development employee, Marta Rita Velazquez, for allegedly helping a convicted former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst spy for Cuba.

. . . U.S. lawmakers say the country is still running afoul of the law by serving as a safe haven for fugitives from U.S. law and keeping USAID contractor Alan Gross in prison on charges he sought to undermine the Cuban state by distributing communications equipment.

. . . recent incidents such as the death of Cuban activist Oswaldo Payá in a car crash. His driver has said he was driven off the road by a car with government license plates.

So we have espionage, fugitive protection and political imprisonment and murder. You know what we don’t have? Evidence of terrorism or material support for it. And the State Department requires a period of six months of terrorism-free activity, with assurances that it will continue, before they consider a delisting. It’s not just me pointing this out; it’s people such as Brig. Gen. (Ret.) John Adams, who was writing about this last March, and pointed out that even North Korea, Pakistan and Yemen haven’t made it onto the list yet. Ah, D.C. inefficiency.

Adams contends that removing Cuba from the terror list could open up the U.S. to more opportunities to engage with President Raúl Castro. That’s no guarantee, although given modest reforms on his watch, I dare say it’s more likely to happen with him than with other heads of state. But the Cuban Caucus hasn’t provided us with evidence that Cuba should still be considered a terrorism sponsor, when they haven’t done anything lately that China hasn’t. (Yeah, I went there.)

So why the desperation within the Cuban Caucus to be as unbending on the issue as possible? Bad memories of the homeland? Trying to avoid even the appearance of supporting the Castros? Whatever it is, it’s not helping. Put them on a “haters of democracy” list if necessary. But don’t tell me they need to be on the worst list of all without bringing up events of decades ago.

Oppan Kaesong style!

OK, so North Korea isn’t completely isolated from other countries; for that to happen, one thing they’d have to do is lose the Kaesong industrial facility. They’re ready to do exactly that, at least until they get an apology from South Korea for accusing the North of needing the park. U.S. lawmakers are equally ready to lose it, and Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is prepared to introduce legislation to that effect. The only country that isn’t ready to give up is South Korea.

Kaesong is located within the demilitarized zone (DMZ) between the North and South, and is where 123 South Korean companies employ 53,000 North Korean workers to make household products. $90 million in annual wages, a considerable number, go directly to the North Korean regime. As retaliation, the North ordered the workers not to show up for work last week; a report that turned out to be false (but sent South Korean stocks downward) suggested they’d gone further and expelled the South Korean companies from the facility.

Royce says his legislation will take the form of “targeted, aggressive sanctions,” although I wonder if paying for new factories within the South wouldn’t be faster. Either way, the South Korean government doesn’t seem concerned about it, economically speaking, nor do the companies in operation at Kaesong. They have insurance in case of political tensions leading to work stoppages. (Only in South Korea, right?) Besides, any suggestion that the North depends on the revenue is completely true, no matter who says it. The “dignity” the North says was “hurt” by the South’s comments is illusory.

But, diplomatically speaking, the South thinks it has a reason to keep Kaesong running. It opened in 2004 as a continuation of then-President Kim Dae-jung’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning “Sunshine Policy,” encouraging normalization of relations with the North. Unfortunately, that policy has been characterized by direct payments to the North’s regime, Kaesong being an example. In short, despite this Kim’s intentions, it’s largely a system of entrenched bribery, with few, if any, positive effects for the South.

Current President Park Geun-hye ought to give up hope on this and shut Kaesong down herself. Even if North Korea stopped threatening the South, Japan and the U.S. tomorrow, it won’t mean they’re ready for normalization, and it never will until the North gets a leader who isn’t crazy. For them, Kaesong is a cash cow and a bargaining chip, neither of which the South should let it have. Kaesong’s workers will lose their (pathetically small) wages, but they’re not the South’s responsibility, however much the North has shirked it.

If Park really wanted to get ballsy, she’d also set up new factories in the South (with or without U.S. aid) and offer the Kaesong employees jobs, housing and cross-border transport. I’d do it just to see Kim Jong-un’s fat little face turn pink and twitchy.

And you thought Iran needed preconditions

I was baffled upon learning that the U.S. and Japan did not have a formal free trade agreement with each other, considering how many Japanese goods flow into the U.S. But both countries are partly to blame for this. After all, as of last month, the U.S. was still unwilling to drop tariffs on Japanese vehicles, and Japanese farmers won’t let tariffs on foreign agricultural products disappear without a fight. Yet Japan is the country that doesn’t have a seat at the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) table yet.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) is one of several lawmakers and business lobbyists who are encouraging President Obama not to give Japan the green light to joining TPP discussions. Other participating countries, including Canada, Mexico and Singapore, have welcomed them; Australia and New Zealand, along with the U.S., have not. For his part, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and most of his citizens are open to the idea, even if farmers aren’t; for his, Obama has said Abe does not have to meet any preconditions before joining talks.

Despite his openness to the agreement in principle, Abe and his government are promising to fight for tariff exemptions for agricultural products, with the possibility that they may be lowered as a compromise. Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, might be open to dropping U.S. vehicle tariffs if Japan drops theirs first. As for the TPP at large, the agreement calls for all participating nations to drop all tariffs that affect each other’s exports. By the logic of these Democrats, the U.S. should also be left out of talks until they agree to eliminate their auto tariffs. It’s only fair, right?

It wouldn’t be the first time the U.S. has participated in a free trade agreement with exemptions. Despite its membership in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Canada still imposes tariffs on foreign dairy, poultry, eggs and sugar, much to the chagrin of every Canadian who has felt the need to go over the border for cheaper groceries. It’s entirely possible that the TPP will agree to a few exemptions of their own for the good of otherwise free trade. But they can’t do that without all hands on deck.

I happen to believe the elimination of trade barriers does more economic good than harm, and it’s the responsibility of a country’s domestic producers to maintain domestic demand. But the TPP nations will benefit from a good agreement, even if they can’t reach a perfect agreement. The only way to determine which kind of agreement they will get is to allow every Asia-Pacific nation to get involved in talks. That ensures a pathway to change from both the U.S. and Japan.

Of course, if we were talking about human rights abuses or state sponsorship of terrorism or anything of the sort, then I’d accept serious preconditions, as should we all. But tariff exemptions are nothing new.

North Korea spits on your sanctions

Sanctions will never be a one-size-fits-all solution to forcing other countries’ hands on their various forms of malfeasance, simply because each country has a different relationship with your own. Yesterday, in response to the announcement of a natural gas pipeline from Iran to Pakistan, the State Department floated the possibility of sanctions against the latter, with which it still has fairly close military and diplomatic ties. For that reason, Pakistan might actually feel a pinch, regardless of whether or not you think it’s necessary in this case.

But North Korea? The most isolated country on Earth? The one that feels no qualms about the fact that its people literally starve while the regime swaggers about with its nuclear potential? The idea that new sanctions are an appropriate punishment for its most recent threats are, at best, laughable. Yet still they come, specifically against four current and former government officials and the Foreign Trade Bank, freezing their U.S. assets and blocking transactions between them and any Americans. Quote from the State Department’s statement:

North Korea will continue to face isolation if it refuses to take concrete steps to comply with its international obligations and address the concerns of the international community over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. . . . North Korea must demonstrate its seriousness of purpose and commitment to authentic and credible negotiations by taking meaningful steps to show it will abide by its denuclearization commitments and respect international law.

And here’s what North Korea said.

In response to this and North Korea’s move to nullify its armistice with South Korea, the latter and the U.S. are preparing military drills, with simulated exercises for a war in the Korean Peninsula. Meanwhile, analysts are dismissive of the threats, calling it “brinkmanship,” “bellicosity” and “bluster.” North Korea’s actual demands seem innocent enough – a formal peace treaty with the South, not just an armistice, plus recognition as a nuclear state and direct talks with Washington. But why give it to them when their demands come with threats?

North Korea hasn’t been all that successful with most of its missile tests, so a direct attack on the U.S. may be as laughable as those sanctions. But why try them? Why not take out or at least sabotage command-and-control now, instead of possibly sabotaging individual rockets? Unlike Iran, we know the weapons are there, and we know there’s a U.S. ally right next door on whom an attack would hurt both countries. Why are we wasting so much time?

Since we can’t expect North Korea to “denuclearize” by themselves, we might as well eliminate the possibility of a successful attack on either the U.S. or South Korea. And then we can talk about a formal treaty.

The Chavez doctrine: Shut up and take my money

Had Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez been at war with the entire world when he died this week, only the yellowest of yellow press outlets would have any compliments to pay him. But we don’t call his type “divisive” for nothing. Now that I’ve had some time to reflect, my final word on Chavez is as follows: He had good intentions, and he even made good on a few of them, in the short term, but that didn’t make him a competent leader or anyone’s role model.

First, some key indicators of how Venezuela has changed since he took office in 1999. Extreme poverty is down nearly 15 percentage points. Infant mortality is down by seven per 1,000 births. Unemployment has almost been cut in half. Oil exports have almost quintupled, and gross domestic product (GDP) has more than doubled. But homicide is up by 20 murders per 100,000; inflation is eight percentage points higher; and in various world rankings, Venezuela has come in 117th in press freedom, 174th in economic freedom, 124th in competitiveness, in the bottom 20th percentile for innovation and dead last in judicial independence and public-sector integrity.

I hate to break this to Chavez fans, but all of those things are excellent ways to help citizens arise from poverty, much more so than any amount of cash your government can throw at you. As even Canadian governments have learned, albeit to a much lesser extent, an economy that depends on high commodity prices is a fundamentally unstable economy. Oil revenue still accounts for half of Venezuela’s national budget. If you want to know how well that’s worked for Venezuelan basics: Food shortages! Housing crisis! Terrible hospitals!

Then there are those who praise Chavez for “speaking truth to power” – power, in this case, meaning former President George W. Bush. I just wanted noted that other countries (cough, Canada) were able to oppose his decision to go to war with Iraq without nearly isolating themselves diplomatically or calling anyone the Great Satan. If you consider that a positive precedent for international relations, I really hope you never go into business.

Chavez’s heart may have been in the right place, at least when it came to people who were too poor and devoid of influence to piss him off. But before you praise him for his refusal to succumb to U.S.-style neoliberalism, consider which circumstances you’d prefer for your own day-to-day life. Then consider which country has a better record on things you probably value, like an independent media and depoliticized courts. Is it worth it to lose either of those if it means a battery of new social programs?

Isn’t it ironic that North Americans who praise Chavez are usually the first to decry the influence of Big Oil at home? I guess it’s all good with enough programs.

Drink when someone says “leverage”

Only Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) would be stubborn enough to build an entire bill around an amendment that already failed 79 to 19; and I thought we could take him seriously on making Congress more efficient. (Of course, that amendment was attached to an unrelated bill, despite his earlier call for one-topic bills. . . . OK, let’s not take him seriously at all.) Thankfully, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), who generally doesn’t have a good reputation around here, improved upon Paul’s idea. Both of their bills have been introduced, but one may actually pass.

Paul’s bill would prohibit the sales of tanks, F-16s and “other advanced weapons” to Egypt. Inhofe’s bill would not prohibit those sales entirely, but

would suspend them unless President Obama certifies that Egypt is committed to pursuing peaceful relations with Israel, providing security to U.S. embassies and consulates and respecting minority parties’ rights.

As Inhofe pointed out, arms sales to Egypt are worth $2.2 billion to the defense industry, and provide the U.S. with leverage over Egypt. The frequency with which we must use “leverage” when discussing relations with Arab Spring nations rivals the entire Battlefield Earth screenplay, and for that I apologize, as I’m sure it’s rather annoying. But it’s completely true. Aid for things like food, medicine and infrastructure aren’t nearly as appealing to new regimes, especially ones in which the military plays such a powerful role.

Inhofe frames maintaining arms sales, albeit conditionally, as a way to maintain a good relationship with the Egyptian military. He put it quite bluntly: “Egypt’s military is our friend – [President Mohamed] Morsi is our enemy.” That’s going a little too far. But is he an enemy of the kind of stability, democracy and pluralism Egyptians sought after deposing former President Hosni Mubarak? So far, yes; during his brief presidency, Morsi has attempted to exert too much control to embrace any of those values.

Furthermore, Inhofe’s insistence on checking on Morsi’s approach to Israel may turn out to be unnecessary. His explanations for his comments on Jews have been about as coherent as a Chuck Hagel confirmation hearing; however, his history with Israel itself has actually been closer to U.S. interests than Muslim Brotherhood interests. That’s what Inhofe should have put into his bill: certifying that the Muslim Brotherhood and its agenda will have no role in Morsi’s administration, as he promised.

If Morsi and the Egyptian military continue to be at odds, his version of a post-Mubarak Egypt will come closer to status as a failed state. Supplying the latter with arms will ensure a U.S. hand in picking up the pieces. But Inhofe should consider the military’s domestic responsibilities as well, namely identifying and supporting a truly democratic and pro-Western leader.

The State Department is a hot mess

Was anything made any clearer than before during Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee? In one of her final appearances in her current role, she answered questions from the committee’s Republicans about what she knew of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11 of last year. As you can expect, she was able to remove herself from the entire timeline while still accepting full responsibility, because, after all, that’s just what Cabinet heads do.

The goal for the Republicans was twofold: 1. Prove that U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice was ordered to go on the Sunday talk shows to offer misleading information, intentionally, about the nature of the attack. 2. Prove that Clinton saw the pre-attack requests from the consulate to send more security and ignored them, or knew of their existence and chose not to read them. So far, those goals have gone unmet.

There’s a problem with the first question. Within the Obama administration, Rice’s position is Cabinet-level. (Its status changes under every president, but neither President Bush gave it that status.) That means Rice reports to President Obama, not Clinton. Asking her if she was the one to dispatch Rice may have been pointless; however, it’s bad form for her not to know or admit who did. Expect more testimonies on that one.

As for the other charges: I find it very hard to believe that America’s top diplomat would not have been informed about a request for additional security at an American diplomatic facility. Read Clinton’s response to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) about this. Take note of how many other involved federal bodies she mentions, and how many other concerns there were at the time. The intended takeaway is “the fog of war.” It didn’t convince the Senate Republicans then, and it didn’t yesterday.

At best, the communication breakdowns in the days immediately after the attack resulted from hopeless bureaucratic entanglements between the White House, the State Department, the CIA and whoever else. At worst, the administration did lie about the nature of the attack. They would have had something to gain from such a lie; it wouldn’t fit into their pre-Mali narrative of al-Qaeda being “decimated.” (The Benghazi attackers were part of an al-Qaeda affiliate.) But this testimony did not expose any lies.

If Senate Republicans have any hope of doing this, they’ll have to find some bureaucrats willing to supply evidence that their accusations are true, since the bureaucrats got the brunt of the blame from Clinton. In the meantime, she could have done a better job of demonstrating that State “learned from the mistakes” by outlining any recent efforts to streamline reporting processes. That could have helped her save a little more face than she managed to save yesterday. But the crying helped.

Netanyahu needs a team of (moderate) rivals

To represent the political center in Israel, it seems you have to do two things: 1. Support renewed peace talks with the Palestinians. 2. Talk about income inequality in Israel. Also, it helps if you support revoking the exemptions to mandatory military service enjoyed by thousands of ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) Israeli Jews. Yair Lapid, head of the centrist Yesh Atid (“There is a Future”) party, did all three of those things and ended up surging in yesterday’s elections.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held on to his title, but his conservative Likud (“consolidation”) party, in coalition with the nationalist Yisrael Beitenu (“Israel, Our Home”) party weakened from 42 seats in the Knesset (the Israeli legislature) to 31. Yesh Atid, a party created just last year, scored an impressive 19 seats. The leftist Israeli Labor Party fell to third place, with 17 to 18 seats according to projections as of this writing. The ultra-nationalist Jewish Home Party, whose leader, Naftali Bennett, opposes a Palestinian state, racked up 12 seats.

Because there are so many parties in the Knesset – giving credence to the old saw that two Jews equals three opinions – parliamentary coalitions in Israel are de rigueur for the party with the highest number of seats. The choice for Netanyahu is with whom he should form a coalition: the center-left or the really, really, really right. With three other right-wing parties – the ultra-Orthodox Shas, United Torah Judaism (UTJ, an alliance of two other ultra-Orthodox parties) and Jewish Home – having been part of Netanyahu’s coalition in the previous Knesset, it’s easy to predict that he’ll pick them again.

But how would he benefit? Israel dealt with its own mass protests over economic inequality in 2011 – closer to Occupy than Arab Spring in tone – and resentment over Haredi exemptions from conscription, not to mention their influence in other facets of Israeli life (namely their treatment of non-Haredi women), has reached highs impossible to ignore, according to polls. And after this year’s eight-day war with Gaza, it seems Israeli voters have decided they want a new approach to Palestine.

One solution would be to remove the two smaller rightist parties from Netanyahu’s coalition and replace them with Yesh Atid. This would allow for the widest range of approaches to Palestine and the Haredi, plus a renewed focus on economics. Whether these parties would want to work together is a different story. But Yesh Atid offers more hope for a “team of rivals” than Labor, Shas or UTJ. Netanyahu has reached out to Lapid already; how far will he go to secure Yesh Atid in the coalition?

Most of the “Israel lobby” in the West sounds exactly like Netanyahu when it comes to foreign policy. But don’t let that fool you. The spectrum of real Israeli politics is at least as wide as ours, if not wider, and they have more on their minds than war.

Caught between instability and too much stability

Well, now we know for sure that al-Qaeda was not “decimated” after Osama bin Laden was killed. Its central command may have been, but as we are seeing with the burgeoning crisis in Mali, a decentralized al-Qaeda carrying out many smaller-scale operations can be as dangerous to American citizens and resources as a centralized al-Qaeda carrying out a few major operations. You can’t be “decimated” and “on the run” at the same time, despite President Obama using both terms to describe al-Qaeda on the campaign trail.

Besides the growth of al-Qaeda-linked groups in Mali – they’ve taken over the northern half of the country, which they call Azawad – they were there during the embassy attack in Benghazi, and they were there during this week’s hostage crisis in Algeria, which killed at least one American. A group known as al-Mulathameen (“the masked ones”), an offshoot of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which itself is an offshoot of al-Qaeda, took responsibility for the Algeria attack. AQIM itself has claimed responsibility for taking northern Mali.

In the cases of both Mali and Algeria, the international community’s alternative to turning a blind eye to these groups is to side with undesirable leadership. The remaining government in the southern part of Mali took power in a military coup last year. Algeria’s political system includes a president, a prime minister and a bicameral legislature, but its military high command (le pouvoir) makes the ultimate national decisions. Mali is the 16th-poorest country in the world; Algeria is wealthy, but far from economically diverse, and its efforts at liberalization have stalled.

Regardless of how Algerians feel about their government, because of the country’s oil wealth and memories of its civil war, its leadership will enjoy more help from the U.S. and others when trying to get rid of terror groups. They have appeased their people enough for them to be disinclined toward welcoming radical regime change, which might have meant a more stridently Islamist government. Mali, despite its dependence on foreign aid, has not done this.

Assuming putting American boots on the ground is out of the question, the task before the U.S. is to determine how Mali’s neighboring governments can be persuaded and trusted to help contain AQIM. If they have used previous aid monies to develop their economies to the point that their citizens are passive, if not overjoyed, they’d make good prospects. The coupling of a strong military and a strong economy are no substitute for a real democracy, but it’s a step along the way that can work.

Had Algeria’s institutions been as unstable as Mali’s, the hostage crisis could have bloomed into a real invasion on the level of Azawad. Solid and authoritarian is a better preventative combination against terrorism than any kind of volatility.

Iran’s not going to be ignored, Dennis

Here’s retiring Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) explaining why he voted against freshman Rep. Jeff Duncan’s (R-SC) Countering Iran in the Western Hemisphere Act:

Instead of taking a cue from other nations who are trying to open up relationships with Iran, we are trying to limit other nations’ ability to develop relationships.

Awww. He actually thinks Duncan opposes Iran’s efforts at diplomacy on principle! He thinks Iran’s intentions are just as honorable as any other country seeking overseas relationships! Isn’t that adorable?!

OK, sarcasm over. The bill tasks the State Department with assessing possible threats to the U.S. by Iran’s presence in the Western Hemisphere, primarily in Latin American countries whose leaders also have a history of heavily anti-American rhetoric. That would include a description of exactly which Iranian and Iran-allied entities are present and operating there, including Hezbollah, plus their business relations and which law enforcement organizations could be used against them. Border security and energy supplies are two particular areas of concern to Duncan, as they should be.

The bill passed both chambers as of this week, with a 386-6 vote in the House on Tuesday; besides Kucinich, five House Republicans, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and four of his disciples, voted against. This is somewhat curious, as on foreign policy matters, they’re known more for their opposition to interventionism and nation-building that does not affect U.S. interests. Meanwhile, the bill specifically mentions the attempted assassination of the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., which involved one Iranian and one Iranian-American seeking the help of a Mexican in the drug trade to carry it out. The proximity alone requires special attention.

Remember that this bill calls for a strategy, which is different than authorizing any new cross-border operations. That would come up after the strategy has been written up and presented to Congress (in classified form, thanks to the Senate vote) three months after enactment. Kucinich and Paul are both retiring and won’t be around to read it. Had that not been the case, they might have been able to react to what the U.S. will actually do.

Until the other four find out what that is, it’s irresponsible to say the U.S. doesn’t need a strategy, especially considering the continuing oil trade between them and Venezuela, led by a well-known Iranian ally. Yes, energy independence would help mitigate that factor, and indeed it is helping. But it’s not going to go away in three months, nor are the well-documented activities of Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. What, aside from short-term cost savings, would the U.S. gain by ignoring all this?