Cheney: The Most Dangerous Veep Ever?

In the June 15 dead-tree version of The Nation (online since May 27), Jonathan Schell writes that the Iraq war was produced by torture. Everyone knows that the "war on terror" and the Iraq war produced torture, but few have focused on the reversed causal arrow. And we are still learning details of the prominent and apparently unprecedented role Vice President Dick Cheney played in approving torture and promoting war.

To document his charge, Schell references a remarkable blog post at The Washington Note penned by Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, former chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell:

what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002--well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion--its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa'ida.

So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to [Vice President Dick] Cheney's office that their detainee "was compliant" (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP's office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa'ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, "revealed" such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop.

There in fact were no such contacts.

Wilkerson says that the intelligence agencies stopped all forms of torture after the Abu Ghraib photos. "No torture or harsh techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator. Period. People were too frightened by what might happen to them if they continued."

Transparency works!

Schell also quotes Major Paul Burney, a former Army psychiatrist with the Army's 85th Medical Detachment Behavioral Science Consultation team, whose April 2006 testimony appears in the Final Report of the Senate Armed Services Committee (p. 41), declassified this past April:

"[T]his is my opinion, even though they [captives] were giving information and some of it was useful, while we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq and we were not being successful in establishing a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq. The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish this link ... there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results."

The full title of that report is Inquiry Into The Treatment of Detainees In U.S. Custody," dated November 20, 2008.

I know much of this information has appeared previously in the blogosphere, often in response to Dick Cheney's outrageous claims about the successes of harsh techniques during the Bush years, but I wanted to note the key quotes here with original sources noted.

That same issue of The Nation includes a lengthy and disturbing review of reporter Barton Gellman's book on Cheney (The Angler) written by NYU law professor Stephen Holmes. According to Holmes, "Gellman lavishes most of his attention on the fabrications Cheney used to enable the executive branch to circumvent constitutional checks and balances." Again, however, it is clear that Cheney was pushing very hard to justify war against Iraq regardless of the costs or consequences. Here's an example of how he fabricated truth to the House Majority leader in 2002:

Cheney's "major role in bringing war to Iraq" likewise required a strategic twisting of the truth. Gellman details a private briefing in late September 2002 that Cheney provided to Republican Congressman Dick Armey, then majority leader of the House. Armey opposed an invasion of Iraq on the reasonable grounds that the United States should not attack a country that had not attacked it. Usually hawkish, Armey presented an embarrassing hurdle to the war party in the administration. As Gellman says, "If Armey could oppose the war, he gave cover to every doubter in waiting," making him "the center of gravity of the political opposition." Something had to be done, and Cheney did it. According to Gellman, Cheney, brandishing top-secret satellite photos, made statements about Saddam Hussein's nuclear arsenal and ties to Al Qaeda that he knew to be erroneous: "In the privacy of his office, for this one crucial vote, Cheney leveled claims he had not made before and did not make again." Some of these claims "crossed so far beyond the known universe of fact that they were simply without foundation." Gellman concludes that Cheney deliberately told Armey "things he knew to be untrue," bamboozling a Congressional leader of his own party just long enough to extract a go-ahead vote. Having been preapproved on false pretenses by a gullible or complicit Congress, the misbegotten invasion was launched six months later.

Read the entire review.

Bonus video

The Gazprom Song:

Friday Putin fix

In case you haven't seen it yet....

Revisiting Skocpol on Iran's Revolution

I happened to be consulting the triangle on page 83 of Skocpol's Social Revolutions in the Modern World for an article I'm drafting, and came across her chapter "Rentier State and Shi'a Islam in the Iranian Revolution." I decided to take a closer look to see if there were any insights that might help put recent events into a broader context. Indeed there were.

Now, Skocpol, a leading scholar of social revolutions before she was a scholar of health care reform, was commenting on the 1979 Iranian Revolution in 1981. It is striking how many of her insights could be useful today. On the context necessary for a revolution:

I have stressed, following Charles Tilly, that mass, lower-class participants in revolution cannot turn discontent into effective political action without autonomous collective organization and resources to sustain their efforts. Moreover, the repressive state organizations of the prerevolutionary regime have to be weakened before mass revolutionary action can succeed, or even emerge. Indeed, historically, mass rebellious action has not be able, in itself, to overcome state repression. Instead, military pressures from abroad , often accompanied by political splits between dominant classes and the state, have been necessary to undermine repression and open the way for social-revolutionary upheavals from below. In my view, social revolutions have not been caused by avowedly revolutionary movements in which an ideological leadership mobilizes mass support to overthrow an existing system in the name of a new alternative...

Currently missing in the current Iranian politics: open fracturing of the state security forces. Recent reports indicate that they are stacked (intentionally so) with Ahmadinejad loyalists. There is rampant speculation that there are rifts among the ruling elite, but no confirmation that any political splits between dominant classes and the state have actually emerged in a public fashion around which revolutionaries could mobilize.

Skocpol believed that

Revolutions are not made. They come.

The 1979 revolution challenged this wisdom, in that it was "made" to a certain degree. However, today, her original insight seems again prescient. Moussavi did not run as a revolutionary candidate, rather, his initial platform seemed much more of a modest reformer, and he has only radicalized post-election. Reflecting on the making of the 1979 revolution, Skocpol observed:

it was made through a set of cultural and organizational forms thoroughly socially embedded in the urban communal enclaves that became the centers of popular resistance to the Shah. Even when a revolution is to a significant degree 'made,' that is because a culture conducive to challenges to authority, as well as politically relevant networks of popular communication , are already historically woven into the fabric of social life. In an of themselves, the culture and networks of communication do not dictate mass revolutionary action. But if a historical conjuncture arises in which a vulnerable state faces oppositionally inclined social groups possessing solidarity, autonomy, and independent economic resources, then the sorts of moral symbols and forms of social communication offered by Shi'a Islam in Iran can sustain the self-conscious making of a revolution. No innovative revolutionary propaganda retailed to 'the masses' overnight, in the midst of a societal crisis, can serve this purpose. But a world-view and a set of social practices long in place can sustain a deliberate revolutionary movement.

In 1981, she was talking about the cultural resources of Shi'a Islam. Superimposing "the Internet" as the social network already woven into public life (as Iran has a rather high penetration of the internet and Farsi is one of the fastest growing languages in use on the web and blogosphere), and perhaps the infrastructure exists to sustain a deliberate revolutionary movement. As Gary Sick reminds us, don't expect instant resolution to Iran's political crisis. The 1979 revolution unfolded over the course of a year, with fits and starts, ebbs and flows, before the old regime collapsed.

Skocpol offers a useful reminder to temper our bold assertions made in the heat of the moment that any one particular event is necessarily a 'game changer' but at the same time, provides a framework for assessing how profound Iran's political challenge are.

Is Obama channeling Bush?

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says that Barack Obama is behaving just like George W. Bush. Reuters, June 25:

Obama said on Tuesday he was "appalled and outraged" by a post-election crackdown and Washington withdrew invitations to Iranian diplomats to attend Independence Day celebrations on July 4 -- stalling efforts to improve ties with Tehran.

"Mr Obama made a mistake to say those things ... our question is why he fell into this trap and said things that previously (former president George W.) Bush used to say," the semi-official Fars News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

"Do you want to speak with this tone? If that is your stance then what is left to talk about ... I hope you avoid interfering in Iran's affairs and express your regret in a way that the Iranian nation is informed of it," he said.

Obama, of course, famously said last year that he would negotiate with Iran without precondition -- even though the Bush administration considered Iran part of an "axis of evil."

Conservatives have generally been criticizing Obama for failing to employ Bush's brand of cowboy diplomacy toward Iran -- talk tough and carry a big gun.

Yesterday, Obama made his toughest statements to-date about Iran:

"the United States and the international community have been appalled and outraged by the threats, the beatings, and imprisonments of the last few days."

The U.S. has few ties with Iran, so it has almost no leverage with which to bargain. Thus, the Bush-Obama divide largely reflects the problem of trying to advance foreign policy interests in such at environment.

Bush used tough rhetoric and threatening sticks to try to coerce Iran into doing what it wanted.

Obama apparently wants to soften U.S. rhetoric and offer potential carrots. He wants to find common interests that might set the table for some horse trading.

Neither approach is guaranteed to work, of course, but the U.S. has been using the stick approach for about 30 years. I would also note that the policy hasn't worked very well toward Cuba either -- and Obama recognizes that as well.

Health Care Reform

I don't usually post on domestic policy issues. I'm even less likely to waste bandwidth explicitly seconding sentiments found on a big-time website. But, I'm afraid, that's what I'm going to do here.

Theda Skocpol, author of, among other things, a bookthat insiders assure me gets a great deal right about why the Clinton health-care plan failed, gets it right.

Key leaps forward for U.S. public social provision -- Social Security, Medicare, etc. -- have NEVER happened through "bipartisan" compromises and they always happen in close votes. They have always sqweaked through after gargantuan effort, strong presidential pressure, and refusal to allow eviscerating compromises. Think of Social Security if the Clark amendment -- allowing corporate opt-out -- had passed in 1935. We would not have it. And conservatives and the medical and insurance establishments cried "socialism" in 1965, too. We would not have Medicare if we had listened.

Obama and the Democrats are coming off a historic, landslide election. They have all the popular support for robust reform they will ever have. Good policy design as well public desire for change and considerations of social justice and economic efficiency insist that they enact health care reform with a strong public plan in the mix. That is the only way to move toward cost control and guaranteed access with quality to all -- especially for Americans in lower economic strata or in rural states where one or two private insurers call the tune. There is no need for "bipartisanship" and the calls for it from some weak-kneed Democrats are merely excuses for doing the business of the medical-insurance establishment. Senators Baucus, Conrad, Feinstein, Nelson, Landrieu, Bayh -- this means you. All of you come from states where people really need robust reform and you should step up.

So far, though, the Democrats have managed to avoid one of the problems that doomed reform the last time around: a proliferation of alternatives offered by a slew of Senators, think tanks, and opinion-editorial writers. But beyond that, she's totally right. The Senate Democrats can play the bipartisanship game as long as they want, but only so long as their endgame involves passing reform via the reconciliation process.

None of the "compromises" on the table are likely to garner enough Republican support without weakening reform beyond acceptable limits, although some of the ideas aren't necessarily bad. For example, I can see an acceptable endgame in which the public-option bargaining chip gets traded in for two concessions from private stakeholders: (1) the creation of regional health cooperatives constituted with sufficient bargaining leverage to mitigate that lost from abandoning a public option and (2) the implementation of government mandates and strong regulatory powers concerning a portfolio of plans that private insurers would have to offer. But I just don't see this kind of alternative as making much headway on the bipartisanship front.

So, when it comes down to it, I understand why Democrats from "Red States" are trying to cover their behinds. But pointing to a moderate Republican or two who voted for the bill isn't going to make any difference to their re-election prospects. Swing voters are unlikely to turn against them for standing up to health insurance companies, who, I suspect, are locked in a tight competition with Wall Street firms for "least popular sector of corporate America." And here's the deal: there will be a backlash--aided by corporate money--against Democrats whether or not they pass a bill. However, if they pass a bill we'll also see, for lack of a better term, a countervailing "prolash" in favor of the Democratic party. That lack of a "prolash" arguably made a big difference in the 1994 debacle that crippled the party for the next twelve years.

My Final Two Cents for the Summer

So starting this week I'm going on a six-week blogging hiatus to make an epic road trip west with my kids, visiting friends and family. Prepping for this trip while getting my book to the publisher and doing committee work hasn't left me much time lately to weigh in on Iran, but by way of a temporary farewell, I decided to leave you with this final thought for the summer:

Is it not high time that the international community established an international regime for governing and adjudicating democratic elections in all countries?

Various international organizations already monitor elections in many transitional contexts on an ad hoc basis, with a fair measure of success; indeed for transitional countries, Judith Kelley argues that international election monitoring has become a norm. But this norm extends only to democratizing countries: current international understandings suggest that the mark of a genuine democracy includes an ability to monitor one's own elections, so established democracies generally do not consider allowing international monitors to involve themselves in the democratic process, nor do they experience pressure to do so.

Yet this intersubjective understanding among countries seems completely counterintuitive and counterproductive given widespread perceptions among electorates - even in the most established liberal democracies - that the democratic process in their own country is at least somewhat suspect. Increasingly, it seems to me, the expectation of a democratic process, coupled with the perception that elections are rigged or unfair, and coupled with lack of credible evidence one way or the other, leads to the very domestic instability that democracy is expected to pre-empt. Iran is only the latest example.

In a global society that is or proclaims to be inching toward ever greater lip-service to democracy as a constitutive norm of responsible statehood, and in a global system whereby the outcome of elections in one country now have ripple effects around the world, it is quite easy to imagine treating genuine "free and fair domestic elections" as a global public good. This public good - "free and fair elections" is as plausibly and feasibly overseen through an international organization's collective legitimation function as are various other global social processes, from the adjudication of trade disputes to the development of scientific consensus regarding climate change to the verification of compliance with weapons treaties to the prosecution of war criminals and genocidaries.

Why not elections as well? What if an independent international organization - separate from the United Nations - were created whose mandate it is to monitor national elections in every democracy? What if signing onto such a regime and abiding by its rules (that is, subjecting one's national elections to international oversight) became understood as a constitutive element of a claim to be a democracy, a way of distinguishing sham democracies from the real McCoy? What if such a bureaucracy adjudicated electoral outcomes, rather than leaving it up to the internal machinations of the governments whose very interests are at stake? What if citizens of every genuine democracy came to expect no less, and came to trust in a disinterested third party to ensure a fair outcome?

I pose this question to readers not so much to invite a discussion about whether such an idea is realistic (the "how do we get there from here?" is another interesting question - but then again, all international regimes existing today would once have seemed infeasible). Rather, I invite a discussion about whether, if implemented, such a regime would not be a positive step for democracy and for global civil society. I think it would: am I wrong, and if so why?

I look forward to reading over the summer, participating in comments from time to time, and picking up the pen once again in the Fall. Ciao for now.

The US keeps coming back for more...

US and Kyrgyz negotiators reach a deal on Manas:

Kyrgyzstan said on Tuesday it would temporarily allow the US to continue using a military air base on its territory that is critical to coalition forces fighting the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Kadyrbek Sarbayev, the Kyrgyz foreign minister, said Washington had agreed to more than triple the rent for use of the Manas base, a transit hub used for refuelling aircraft carrying troops to Afghanistan.

Kyrgyzstan gave the US six months to vacate Manas last February after accepting a promise of $2bn of financial assistance from Russia which objects to the presence of US troops in former Soviet central Asia.

Mr Sarbayev said a one-year agreement signed with the US would increase annual payments for use of Manas to $60m from $17m. The US would also provide $67m to improve the airport and contribute funds to combat drug trafficking and terrorism in Kyrgyzstan.

Did we get played?

You betcha.

I expect next year will deliver yet another "rinse and repeat."

We can hope that the US intends to use the "breather" to develop alternative supply routes so as to enhance our leverage--or even exit from the arrangement ourselves--next time around.

Another bad aspect of the process: we let the negotiations become framed entirely in terms of the amount of "rent" the US is willing to pay for the base. While we do, in fact, pay rent (in one way or another) for basing and access rights, the US government likes to pretend otherwise. And for good reason: turning basing negotiations into very public exercises in price negotiations is both undermines the legitimacy of the base and likely will put upwards pressure on future negotiations across much of the basing network.

Do you hear the people sing?

Three important steps in Iran over the past few days. Much of this is distilling the obvious, I think. Nevertheless...

1. The State has decided to confront the People directly, with violent force. In 1979, the Shah fled rather than order the security forces of the state to turn on the people as they revolted. Revolutions can fail and repressive often states survive uprisings through the use of repressive force. This raises the stakes considerably, as people will and have died to advance the cause of revolution.

It is at this point where the numbers really matter. Armed thugs can turn back a crowd of thousands, but not hundreds of thousands. Police can control large groups, but not hundreds of thousands of people determined to resist. If there are millions of people marching, it will take the military / revolutionary guards to repress them.

Regardless of how this ends up, the very act of the state ordering its security forces to suppress popular demonstrators in such a public fashion does rob it of its legitimacy. It is a tipping point--either tipping the regime to ultimate failure or tipping the regime to a true garrison state.

2. Based on the reporting in the Western press, there seem to be splits among the elites. This matters because these fractions within the regime rob it of its full power and ability to present a coherent counter to the resistance. As clerics and perhaps certain members of the military defect, it lends legitimacy to those countering the state. Most importantly, it impacts the calculus of the soldiers who may be asked to fire on the protesters--as they defect, the regime crumbles.

3. The position of the resistance's leadership has "evolved" to give voice to the broad grievances the people are lodging against the government, providing a manifesto for revolution. In a sense, the leaders have finally figured out where their supporters are going and rushed to the front of the crowd. This is important, though, because revolutions need a voice, a theme, a message, a way to instill social purpose in a movement such that people are willing to put their lives on the line for the cause. With the state cracking down violently, it will be very important for the resistance to rally faith in the cause and move people to step up and stand in harms way--who will give all they can give so that a banner may advance?

Joking cousins

The most recent Utne Reader includes a short piece from Katie Krueger about the practice of "joking cousins" in Senegal:

This means that whenever we meet, as a sign of friendliness, we insult each other without hesitation. Every ethnic group in Senegal has at least one or two joking cousin groups, so meeting one is rare enough to be a delight but common enough that it is protocol.

Professor Brett O'Bannon of DePauw University (a former graduate student of mine) has written an academic paper arguing that such "joking relationships" are threatened by the forces of globalization. Yet, he notes, these localized relationships ordinarily play important roles in maintaining peaceful order in some societies.

In a short blurb describing his academic work, O'Bannon explains that the "joking relationship"

"binds families, clans or even whole ethnic groups into ties of imagined kinship. For example, when two people of the Ndiaye and Diop families (quite common family names in the Senegambia) meet, they are required to 'dis' each other. That is, they insult each others' family heritage, eating habits, you name it. It's pretty funny stuff, actually. The important thing is that they are not only required to engage in these insulting exchanges, but they are equally obligated not to take offense."

"For one, these fictive relationships have been known to bring an end to quite serious conflicts. I document an instance in which a rebel group in southern Senegal actually released a carload of hostages because the driver successfully pleaded for their lives in the name of the Serer-Diola joking relationship. The Serer and Diola are two ethnic groups bound by a mutual pact of non-aggression, so to speak. The rebels in question are mainly from the Diola group and the terms of their joking relationship prohibit the spilling of the other's blood. The potential for these kinds of indigenous institutions of self governance is significant."

Apparently, the practice is fairly common throughout Africa -- though O'Bannon's field work (like Krueger's travel) has been based in Senegal.

In the Occasional Paper, O'Bannon views joking relationships as "quintessential indigenous governance institutions," particularly important because rural Senegal faces conditions consistent with state collapse. Farmers and herders, for example, find themselves increasingly in conflict over natural resources. O'Bannon explains that neoliberal economic policies have wrought changes in rural Senegal that impose barriers between herders and ranchers that did not previously exist -- individual property rights claims, for instance, which limit access to land. In his words, "the ties between these putative cousins are fraying."

I find this practice an interesting supplement to my ongoing work on the comedy of global politics. In Medieval and other historical contexts, the court jester was similarly allowed to make jokes at the expense of the king -- without fear of retribution. I see these as important elements in critical IR theory.


Note: the Krueger story originally appeared at World Hum.

I also fixed the typo in the title. Blogger doesn't seem to identify spelling errors in the title.

Tripe for sale!

The burning question of the day: is Paul Wolfowitz and idiot or does he just think the rest of us are dumber than dirt?

In his latest missive, "'No Comment' is Not an Option," Wolfowitz takes a little stroll down memory lane. He first reminisces about how Ronald Reagan dropped the ball and failed to call Philippine autocrat Ferdinand Marcos out for manipulating the results of the 1986 election. But, thanks to George Schultz's efforts, the US got on the 'right side of history':

On Feb. 15, the White House issued a new statement: "The elections were marred by widespread fraud and violence perpetrated largely by the ruling party." The following day, Marcos and Aquino each claimed victory. On Feb. 22, when Marcos ordered the arrest of two key reformers, as many as a million Filipinos poured into EDSA Square in Manila to block the arrests in a dramatic demonstration of "people power."

Reagan's final message to Marcos was delivered two days later, when the president's close friend, Sen. Paul Laxalt, warned that Reagan opposed any use of force against the crowds and urged him "to cut and cut clean." The next day, Marcos left the Philippines.

This was, in fact, a great moment for the Reagan administration. It withdrew support from a dictatorial regime; in doing so, it enabled a democratic transition in a US client state.

All of this would make for a nice analogy.. if Iran was a US client state. I don't think the absurdity of the comparison should be particularly difficult to grasp: the major difference between the Philippines in 1986 and Iran in 2009 is that United States enjoyed tremendous leverage over the former, but lacks much of any in the latter. Marcos left because he knew the jig was up; the US even helped arrange for him to safely make his way into exile. He died of natural causes in Hawaii.

Wolfowitz, on the other hand, spins a little fairy tale in which the magical power of Reagan's words (alone) worked an enchantment upon the Philippines, reaching deep into Marcos' black heart and causing him to see the light.

But, at least in some respects, Wolfowitz's second analogy strikes me as even more bizarre. He recalls the 1991 Soviet coup that threatened to restore Communist hardliners to power.

Responding early that morning, the [President Bush] refused to condemn the coup, calling it merely "a disturbing development." He expressed only lukewarm support for Gorbachev and even less for Yeltsin, and neither was among the world leaders that he tried to contact about the crisis. He seemed focused on working with the new Soviet team, hoping that their leader, Gennady Yanayev, was committed to "reform."

Although Defense Secretary Dick Cheney had argued consistently for the United States to support the peaceful aspirations of the Russians, Ukrainians and other Soviet peoples, it was Yeltsin -- with a powerful personal letter -- who persuaded Bush to abandon equivocation and oppose the coup. By late afternoon, the White House had reversed course, condemning the coup attempt as "misguided and illegitimate." Bush then called Yeltsin to assure him of his support.

The thing is, Wolfowitz doesn't even bother to pretend that Bush's (rhetorical) position made one whit of difference. Which, of course, it didn't.

Still, despite the total irrelevance of any of this to Obama's public stance on unfolding events in Iran, Wolfowitz wants us to believe that a failure to hand Ahmadinejad and his associates a rhetorical loaded gun to use against the opposition will somehow leave the Obama Administration culpable should Ahmadinejad hold onto power.

Maybe I'm not being fair to Wolfowitz. After all, he does let us know that decisive action "does not mean that we need to pick sides in an Iranian election or claim to know its result. Obama could send a powerful message simply by placing his enormous personal prestige behind the peaceful conduct of the demonstrators and their demand for reform -- exactly the kind of peaceful, democratic change that he praised in his speech in Cairo."

Quite right. After all, it isn't like Wolfowitz just implied that it was the decision of past American Presidents to "take sides" that "tipped the scale" in favor of democratic movements. At least Wolfowitz is calling on Obama to change course and say, well, pretty much exactly what Obama's already said to the world about Iran.

I admit we may be approaching a time when the calculations change. Khamenei dashed reformist hopes yesterday and threw down the gauntlet. We've already seen signs that the Iranian police state is starting to fully mobilize. But if, and when, that time comes, I think we can safely say that Wolfowitz's mess of column adds nothing to our understanding of how, and under what conditions, to proceed.

Washington Post Death Spiral Watch indeed.

Why not just burn money instead?

I suppose that in an era of Credit Default Swaps, massively over-leveraged firms, and other assorted lunacies in the financial industry, we shouldn't be surprised by much of anything. Still, I have to wonder which members of the "best and the brightest" thought insuring North Korean interests was a great business move?

The North Korean nuclear test: something doesn't smell right

Now this is pretty damn interesting:

Researchers were scratching their heads earlier today at a meeting convened by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) over puzzling results from last month's nuclear test by North Korea. While the test produced a clearly recognizable seismic signal that was picked up by CTBTO's worldwide network of sensors, the organization's atmospheric detectors failed to pick up a whiff of the expected radionuclides in air. Even a deep underground test is usually expected to leak radionuclides, so their absence in this case caused quite a stir. Anders Ringbom of the Swedish Defense Research Agency in Stockholm says CTBTO's detectors for radioactive noble gases—a telltale signature of a nuclear test—can pick up a couple of hundred atoms from a cubic meter of air. On the lack of a signal, he said: "I was a little surprised, yes."

Some 400 scientists gathered here, CTBTO's home base, this week to discuss the results of a series of studies carried out by external researchers over the past year to test the capabilities of the system for detecting clandestine tests and to consider other scientific uses for the wealth of data collected. The system comprises 337 sensors across the globe looking for seismic signals, radionuclides, hydroacoustic signals in the oceans, and very low frequency infrasound in the air. Seismologists at the meeting say that the 25 May Korean test was an unmistakably man-made event and showed characteristics that make it almost certainly a nuclear rather than a chemical explosion. But the presence of radioactive xenon is considered the smoking gun for the nuclear nature of an explosion—and it wasn't detected.

Here's the problem: if the scientific community does not find evidence of xenon, then this raises questions about our ability to effectively monitor and enforce compliance with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which the United States has failed to ratify. Susan Watts of the BBC writes:

But there was one thing everybody in the room wanted to know. Had the network of sensors picked up radionuclides from the North Korean explosion two weeks ago? Seismologists here today say they are comfortable that explosion was a nuclear test, but detecting radionuclide evidence in the form of radioactive gas is the "smoking gun". And the big news here is that they have not found that signal.

What's more, scientists don't really seem to know why. One delegate, an expert on radionuclide detection from Sweden, told the conference how well the network performed after North Korea's nuclear test in 2006. Twelve days after that event the network picked up just a few hundreds of atoms of the noble gas Xenon 133 in Canada. He confessed to being "surprised" that this time round, so far, there has been nothing. He said he is sure the sensors are working properly. So why might there be no signal, and does it matter?

The eminent seismologist Professor Paul Richards from Columbia University implied it didn't matter so much. The network includes a range of technologies - using seismic, infrasound, hydroacoustic and radionuclide technologies precisely to give the world what he described as a "a quiver of arrows". Thus if one arrow doesn't hit the target, then others will; if one detection set-up sees no nuclear signature, others will. And his personal view is that this was most likely a nuclear test.

So was there a deliberate attempt by the North Koreans to contain the explosion? Or was the explosion contained by accident? Some larger yield nuclear explosions can apparently "melt" the rock around them, so less noble gas seeps out. Attempts to explain the lack of a noble gas signal remain educated guesses at the moment. The official line here is that all this highlights the need for more countries to ratify the Treaty, so that it can come into force, thus allowing on-site inspection teams to move in to check out such tests.

In the meantime, scientists here might be keeping their fingers crossed that something shows up soon, but they seem already to be resigned to the possibility that it may not.

Still, some news sources are raising the possibility that the North Koreans faked an explosion:

eports indicate that a global network of sensors designed to verify nuclear testing has failed to pick up radioactive gases from North Korea’s nuclear blast, which indicates that the country might have used conventional explosives to mimic a nuclear test.

North Korea conducted what it claims was its second nuclear test on May 25 this year. Within seconds, a global network of seismographs had detected the shock wave from the blast.

The seismographs are operated by the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), a Vienna-based body that would enforce a global ban on nuclear testing if enough nations were to sign up to the treaty.

The CTBTO seismographs showed that the tremors caused by the explosion were of magnitude 4.5, far larger than the nation’s first nuclear test in October 2006.

According to a report in Nature News, the seismic signature of the test strongly suggested that the blast was man made, but the CTBTO hoped to use a follow-up set of measurements to verify its nuclear nature. [...]

Zerbo points out that the CTBTO network is far more complete in 2009 than it was in 2006 and that all stations were operational at the time of the test.

“If we didn’t measure it, it’s unlikely that anyone outside of North Korea’s borders did,” he said.

The lack of isotopes has become an interesting puzzle for proliferation researchers. It could mean that the North Koreans used conventional explosives to mimic a nuclear test.

Such a mock test would be unusual, although not unprecedented.

In the 1980s, the United States government set off several multi-kilotonne chemical explosions to test how various weapons and communication systems would respond to a nuclear blast. (ANI)

Given that the last test struck many as a likely fizzle, I suppose this isn't outside the realm of possibility.

What to watch for

As the incredible events in Iran unfold--in the streets of Tehran and on Twitter--the obvious question is: is this the 'Green Revolution' or something else for which we don't have a pre-fab category.

I would call your attention to two outstanding posts that give a very good insight into what to watch for. The unifying theme was perhaps best articulated by an anonymous Iranian commentator at Salon: "Legitimacy, much debated by social scientists, actually turns out to matter. It's not just force that rules..." (h/t). In short, this is a moment of contentious politics* where the legitimacy of the Revolution, Islamic Republic, Supreme Leader and a few other major social institutions in Iran is in flux.

1. Rob Farley at LGM notes that the most important actors in the entire process aren't the protesters, but the police. Farley's review of the Tilly-esque story of the development of the state reminds us of the central function of the modern bureaucratic state is, as Weber noted so long ago, to maintain the legitimacy that allows rules to rule. States exercise the monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. When the security forces no longer feel compelled by the erstwhile legitimacy of the state, the state ceases to exist as we currently understand it. If you see the police, revolutionary guards, and others standing by, or even supporting the resistance, the game is up.

Now, I'm not an Iran expert, and as Dan has noted, you should take all our analysis with that major caveat in mind. So, I don't have an intimate knowledge of the institutional structure of the regime. That said, two points. First, the gangs of pro-regime thugs beating up protesters should not be seen to be the same as the State going after protesters. These groups may be encouraged by the ruling elite, but they are not the official actors of the state. They are thugs who wouldn't be able to use force in normal times. Its those legitimated to use force who matter. Second, given the unique nature religion plays in the Islamic Republic, one might argue that some senior clerics might exercise the legitimate use of rhetorical force, so they bear watching as well.

2. orgtheory reminds us that revolutions are actually social movements that must have a social and organizational structure. These social resources--social networks, leadership, organizers, mobilizers, and experts--require time and effort to build and deploy. Its important to see if the protesters can wield any other levers of power against the regime beyond sheer numbers of people. It matters how many people come out-- as Dan noted, thousands can be dealt with by the repressive institutions of the state, millions not so much. Its possible that the ability to conduct offensive cyber-war against the regime is a step in this direction. The potential for success comes when an alternative power structure emerges that could replace the existing regime in running the state. If the Supreme Leader falls, someone else needs to be ready to step in and take his (metaphorical) place.

More to the point, orgtheory offers a very powerful reminder:

I’ll be a bit incendiary to justify these questions by pointing toward the invasion of Iraq: The kind of thinking which suggests that a large, loud, outburst topples governments and then magically leads toward the emergence of a new order which “makes more sense” was, in the end, what undid our efforts in Iraq. It was naive – of us then and perhaps of protesters today – to think that opposition and even toppling a regime is enough. It’s what comes next—the alternative power structures and institutions that will step into the void—which require our attention now. Because it will be a power struggle–just as it became in Iraq. Educating ourselves on the underlying layers of Iranian society is vital because understanding this is how the US and supporters of Iranians’ freedom can best lend target support. Now is the time to educate ourselves.

Meaning, we need to be paying much more attention to what Gary Sick is saying, and not go overboard with the idea that we can fight the war with the right twitter-feed.


*h/t PTJ who said this to me earlier today.

The not-so-twittered revolution

Some comments from a friend of Iranian extraction, who kindly agreed to allow me to repost them here.

As someone who has family members primarily outside Tehran and who has been following the revolt via them, I can say that what drives everything, that intensifies protest, that prevents a calming down of anger is the very clamping down on all press that the conservatives immediately mobilised and which they thought would be effective in suppressing protests.

Rumour has been intensely spreading about everything that it actually results in people in provinces feel they need to do "something". So before last night (7 people were killed), there were no dead protestors, but people in the provinces were hearing casualties of 14 people, resulting in escalating anger.

There have been all sorts of rumours: that Rezaii (the ultra-conservative candidate) had endorsed Ahmadinejad's win (he hadn't), that Moussavi was under house arrest (he wasn't), that the plain-clothes men beating people were imported from an ominous sounding "Arabic-speaking country" (they weren't) and on and on.

I think the rumour mill here has been central to the escalation of protest and someone MUST do some research on this.

Finally, a note about Twitter. Twitter and Facebook and blogs are primarily for the protestors to reach outside Iran, not in the country itself. Furthermore, internet speed has apparently slowed to a crawl and mobile phone networks (and SMS capability) has been severely circumscribed. So, I'd be cautious about accepting at face value the accounts celebrating this as a "blogged" or "twittered" revolution! [emphasis mine]

How do you say ‘hanging chad’ in Persian?

The news yesterday that the Iranian Guardian Council has ordered what amounts to an inquiry into certain disputed ballots may at first glance appear as a positive development. However, it is not at all clear that simply recounting certain ballots is going to truly reconcile the apparent disparity between the expected results and the actual results. I would posit that right now you have the leadership in Iran scrambling to send signals both domestically and internationally that it will take the accusations seriously and act as an impartial arbiter, so as to avoid a number of unwanted outcomes (i.e. continued rioting, increased risk of internal revolt/revolution, international sanctions, etc). Of course, it isn’t clear what they could do to make these signals credible, but it is interesting that rather than simply suppress the outbursts by force (which is happening, although not to the full extent possible) they are taking care to not appear as a brazen oppressor and dictator--the optics still matter to them. Even dictators take into account how they are perceived by various audiences, even domestic.

In terms of the 're-count', Renard Sexton at fivethirtyeight lays out the possible causes of the voting irregularities and what the corresponding recourse would be—with a re-count only helpful in one instance:

1. Intimidation and electoral violence: Reports of activities of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and paramilitary forces have been widely discussed. If Nate's hunch is correct, perhaps 15% or more of the population was willing to abstain from voting.
Recourse: New round of voting

2. Deliberate misreporting of vote totals: The blogosphere has been buzzing with reports of Mousavi's camp receiving word from the electoral commission that he had won the upwards of 60% of the vote, which was then retracted. If this was simply manipulation of the totals by loyalists in Tehran, and the political winds have shifted, the real total could possibly emerge.
Recourse: Recount

3. "Lost" ballots": Allegations have also abounded that a significant number of votes were disposed of from areas of strength for Mousavi and Karroubi (probably Rezai as well, but few reports).
Recourse: New round of voting

4. Khameni decided ahead of time: There are commentators, expert and not, that have suggested that the whole electoral process in Iran is a sham, with the results dictated long in advance by the Supreme Leader. Similar allegations were leveled in 2005, when then-unknown Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won a surprising second place in the first round.
Recourse: Rioting in the street; move to London

Of course, a political-coup was likely orchastrated with the explicit consent and participation of the various power structures in Iran, meaning that it is highly unlikely that a re-count would actually show evidence of widespread fraud. More than likely, they will show sporadic fraud--enough to appear as thought they acknowledge some mischief, but not enough to swing the election. More than likely the only way you see real action is if the social movements get so far out of control that the leadership decides it has to enter into some kind of bargain to have any chance of avoiding a 'green' revolution. The calculas is not straightforward and relies primarily on the leadership's perception of risk and probability. At this point, I am hardpressed to see a how Moussavi gets declared the winner without increased social unrest and violence. More than likely, there will be some kind of compromise--what that looks like I don't know. I think an Iranian specialist would need to weigh in on what a potential bargian (if any) could look like.

What if...?

... a mechanism existed by which citizens of countries around the world could weigh in on the elections of a particular country, proportional to that country's impact on their country's politics, as computed by some impartial international authority, and actually have their opinions count for something?

Tha'ts not a window on the world, that's a bloody mirror you're staring into!

I apparently missed the memo, because I only just discovered that the right-wing chattering class is accusing the Obama Administration of "moral cowardice" because it won't hand Ahmadinejad and his associates a rhetorical loaded gun to use against the opposition.

I don't know what's most annoying about this kind of accusation.

1. Is it the narrow parochialism of people who just don't understand that some foreign populations react poorly to the United States--or, more generally, "the West"--picking sides in their domestic political disputes? I mean, this is Iran we're talking about: a country with not insignificant (and, from their perspective, largely unpleasant) experience of British and American meddling in their country.

Indeed, much of the repertoire of the current movement invokes events, places, and slogans of the 1979 revolution that overthrew Mohammad Rezā Shāh and ended Iran's place as a US client state.

I have to admit I'm not being completely fair. It isn't as if the "blame Obama first crowd" haven't thought about these arguments. It's more a matter of how silly their responses are. Take "Allahpundit" of Hot Air:

Lefties keep assuring me on Twitter that western meddling will only make it easier for the regime to demonize the protesters, but (a) the demonization’s going to happen anyway, (b) no one’s asking Obama to send in the Marines, just to speak up, and (c) Angela Merkel managed to issue a statement earlier today calling the Basij thuggery “completely unacceptable” without killing the uprising in its crib.

Well, this isn't rocket science but: (a1) the concern is how effective that demonization is; (a2) the key audience isn't the Republican Gaurd or the guys throwing stones at Basiji complexes, but those who remain undecided about what to do; (b) calling attention to how your bleating is really over what, when it comes down to it, amounts to ineffectual posturing doesn't exactly help your case; and (c) last time I checked, not only are Germany and the United States different countries, but Germany (c1) doesn't routinely project power into the Middle East, (c2) doesn't pursue a containment policy against Iran, (c3) didn't orchestrate a coup d'état against a man who is now revered Iranian hero, and (c4) wasn't the key backer of a reviled Iranian dictator.

Recall when George Bush tried to send encouraging words to Iranian liberals? That didn't work out so well.

2. Or is it an outlook on international politics that treats foreign policy as an extension of the O'Reilly Factor? I don't think one needs to be a hard-core advocate of realpolitik to recognize that consequences matter, that the US will often need to deal with unsavory people, and that the "game" isn't won by shouting the loudest. In fact, that route has cost us a great deal of influence in the world of late.

I know that neoconservatives and their fellow travelers see moral and military strength as mutual force multipliers; for them, Reagan "won the Cold War" by speaking loudly and carrying a big stick.

But even if that were true, most of those who Reagan provided moral encouragement to when he called out the Soviet Union were themselves victims of Soviet imperial domination. The Eastern Europeans firmly associated communism with control by a foreign power, and liberal democracy with national self-determination.

At the risk of repetition, things in the Middle East just aren't that simple. The last round of imperialism there was carried out by western democracies, and the taint of imperialism can easily discredit democracy.

So, at the end of the day, we need to remember that sometimes cautious statements don't signal moral cowardice, but maturity. The US isn't "losing standing" in the world because Obama fails to follow the example set by George W. Bush. Claiming that it is either amounts to a cynical attempt to score cheap points against the administration, or it reflects a narcissistic projection of what American movement conservatives think onto the rest of the world.

I think it is fair to say that if we've learned anything from the last eight years, it's that views of American movement conservatives hardly represent mainstream global public opinion.

Academics say the darndest things....

From a recent article on social-science methodology:

For example, gravity is a trivial necessary cause of revolution, because gravity is simply always present regardless of whether or not a revolution happens.

Clearly, not everyone in my field is a science-fiction fan.

nb: someone has suggested to me that the authors mean "revolution" as in "Venus revolves around the Sun." But gravity is certainly not a non-trivial cause of such revolution; given the context of the article, I'm pretty sure the authors use the term in the "grab the pitchfork and storm the castle" sense....

Apropos my last post

Today's rally in Tehran was, by all accounts, truly massive. Now the BBC reports the security forces pro-Ahmadinejad militia members opened fire on at least some of its participants. I may have been premature in my assessment of the regime's ability to disrupt collective mobilization against it by targeting vectors of communication among members of the active opposition. With a united opposition still capable of turning out large numbers of people, it seems increasingly clear that the direction this all takes depends, in no small measure, on:

1. Ahmadinejad's and his faction's ability to control the coercive apparatus of the state.
2. The political maneuvering taking place among members of the regime and its various power-centers which will help determine who controls which parts of that coercive apparatus;
3. Whether a sizable popular counter-mobilization takes place among Ahmadinejad supporters;
4. How the demands of various parties alter (or not) in response to changing circumstances, and how those demands shape the first three factors.

(Note that "forces aligned with the regime opening fire on crowd of demonstrators" comprises an extremely well-rehearsed 'event' in modern contentious politics. Such events often turn out to be important moments in the unfolding of both failed and successful mass movements.)

Given my lack of any expertise on the substance of Iranian politics, I'll be looking to others to provide information concerning these processes.

UPDATE: I'm coming around to the reality that I seriously underestimated the ability of the Iranian opposition to circumvent disruptions of their communications networks. Perhaps the movement is just too big at this point, with too many different vectors of dissemination--at least in Tehran. It would be nice to know what's going on in the rest of the country...

Elite cohesion faltering in Iran.. or just kubuki theater?

Today Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordered an investigation into allegations of vote fraud in the presidential election as "tens of thousands" of pro-Mousavi protesters took to the streets in a so-far peaceful march. The march suggests that despite the government's extensive attempts to disrupt counter-regime mobilization, opposition leaders and ordinary people are making headway in coordinating their activities.

I still believe that events in Iran throw cold-water on network-mobilization optimism, insofar as they demonstrate that governments still enjoy, ceteris paribus, fundamental advantages over social movements, and that these advantages will often carry the day if the government chooses to put them into practice.

But the latter is the key issue. If Khamenei's decision reflects an growing increasingly intense rupture among various power-holders and power-centers in the Iranian regime, then the opposition has real cause for optimism. But if this is just kabuki theater, designed to de-mobilize the opposition and reinforce the legitimacy of the election among those loyal to Ahmadinejad, then it is far from clear whether that will ultimately take the wind out of the oppositions sails, or embolden them by showing the they've managed to scare the regime. It's also far from clear whether a certification of the election results by the Guardian Council will help push any fence-sitters away from the opposition or, instead, further undermine the legitimacy of another part of the establishment. And this decision is sure to play into speculation that Ahmadinejad and his allies are attempting to carry out a shadow coup against the old guard, including Khamenei.

Unfortunately, I'm not an Iran expert, so I really have no idea. But that also reflects the underlying unpredictability of revolutionary processes. More on that theme, if time permits, later.

UPDATE/CLARIFICATION: I think the way I wrote this may be a bit misleading. In many respects, what's happening in Iran is an inter-elite squabble; the issue is whether the various power-centers in the regime completely fracture or enough of them hold the line to, among other things, ensure Ahmadinejad holds onto the Presidency.

Regime adaptation and anti-regime collective action

Mark Beissinger, in a fantastic article entitled "Structure and Example in Modular Political Phenomena: The Diffusion of Bulldozer/Rose/Orange/Tulip Revolutions" (abstract), develops an account of what he terms "modular revolutions":

In the study of collective action, the notion of modularity has often been applied to the borrowing of mobilizational frames, repertoires, or modes of contention across cases. The revolutions that have materialized among the post-communist states since 2000 are examples of a modular phenomenon in this sense, with prior successful examples affecting the materialization of subsequent cases. Each successful democratic revolution has produced an experience that has been consciously borrowed by others, spread by NGOs, and emulated by local social movements, forming the contours of a model. With each iteration the model has altered somewhat as it confronts the reality of local circumstances. But its basic elements have revolved around six features:

1) the use of stolen elections as the occasion for massive mobilizations against pseudo-democratic regimes;
2) foreign support for the development of local democratic movements;
3) the organization of radical youth movements using unconventional protest tactics prior to the election in order to undermine the regime's popularity and will to repress and to prepare for a final showdown;
4) a united opposition established in part through foreign prodding;
5) external diplomatic pressure and unusually large electoral monitoring; and
6) massive mobilization upon the announcement of fraudulent electoral results and the use of non-violent resistance tactics taken directly from the work of Gene Sharp, the guru of non-violent resistance in the West.

Beissinger also contends that not only do anti-regime movements learn--and derive inspiration--from past revolutions, but that regimes learn as well; in fact, they take proactive steps to disrupt the processes that lead to successful "color revolutions."

Regimes have adapted by preventing adequate election monitoring, particularly by western organizations such as the OECD; in consequence, there's no independent authority around to declare elections fraudulent. They've gone after independent media and otherwise attempted to limit the ability of regime opponents to coordinate with one another or get their message to the broader public. And so on and so forth. (We've even blogged about this kind of thing a bit in the context of Russia's last national election).

Beissinger's conclusion on this front is pessimistic for the success of future "color revolutions." Regime adaptation, he argues, will outpace the strategies and tactics of democratic (or, at least, anti-regime) movements.

If this all sounds familiar, that's because we're seeing a stunning example of such adaptation in Iran: access cut to social networking technology and websites (including, possibly, Tehran Bureau), cutting cell phone communications, as well as a media blackout that extends, apparently, to jamming BBC reports, shutting down foreign media bureaus, and throwing out foreign journalists. They've deployed a massive presence in Tehran (and presumably in other major cities); some of their security forces as roving the streets on motorcycles in an attempt to quickly, and brutally, crack down on unrest.

In at least one respect, the true facts about the Iranian election--which we are unlikely to ever know--are secondary to a basic fact: we're seeing a vivid example not only of regime adaptation to a particular "revolutionary" process, but also strong evidence--at least so far--that modern communications technologies have failed to tip the balance when it comes to "networks" against "the state" to the degree that many, many scholars, pundits, and social theorists have claimed.

Which, oddly enough, is what my recent book concludes is a "lesson" of the Reformations Era for the present period.

Nate Silver on Iranian Elections

Nate analyzes some statistical analysis claiming to show fraud in Friday's elections. Short story, he is not buying the analysis (as the results are mostly an artifact of how the numbers were released), nor is he discounting the possibility that it occurred (which, I would say, is more than reasonable).

Rob Farley links to a nice summary regarding what's in the air regarding the dimensions of the 'political coup'. Part of this, if true, shows an attempt to cover up data that would more than suggest outright fraud.

Still waiting for a reliable statistical model of estimated electoral fraud. Even if we had one, it appears the authorities in Iran are intent on withholding the inputs necessary for such a model.

Iran, competitive authoritarian regimes, and fraud

I agree with Josh Tucker that Iran doesn't really fit the major categories of regime-type au currant in comparative politics, but, as I also suggest in comments, we should only lose sleep over that if we treat analytic types as filing boxes for cases rather than, say, as ideal-typifications. Still, if the analysis I'm seeing from reliable sources (and I, like Randy, have no idea what to make of the election outcome in Iran), it does seem that the regime engaged in some pretty brazen fraud of one form or another.

If that's right, then we're looking at a familiar dynamic: while most observers would have believed a fraudulent result that netted Ahmadinejad around 52-55% of the vote, the reported results just aren't very credible. So why inflate margins in fraudulent elections?

Unfortunately, this isn't a literature I know terribly well. But if what we see in the Russian case is generalizable--where no one doubted that the governing party would win, yet it still sought to inflate its margin of victory--such regimes seek greater "legitimacy" than a close election allows for. More generally, close results create more ambiguity as to the actual victor; indeed, as a non-Iran expert my initial reaction to the margin was "I guess that, whatever irregularities there might be, Mousavi must have lost."

Still, assuming that the result was rigged, one has to wonder if the inflated margin here will actually backfire. It certainly seems to have produced incredulous reactions outside of Iran, let alone among opposition supporters in Iran

Estimating the Degree of Election Fraud in Iran: Nate Silver, are you out there?

Given the recently held presidential elections in Iran, and the claims from each candidate that they won the election, I am wondering if it is possible to reliably estimate the amount of voter fraud in favor of one candidate. At the very least, can we reliably estimate the amount of fraud perpetrated by the incumbent, who naturally has the advantage in terms of infrastructure and resources at their disposal? I honestly don't know and have never thought deeply about such a problem. However, my instincts tell me that there ought to be a way, depending on the quality and volume of data one has at their disposal to determine when outcomes are highly improbable and what the size of the anomalous effect is. The problem is, for those elections that we most care about--in this case, Iran--the polling data is not as detailed and representative as is necessary.

Over at fivethirtyeight.com, Renard Sexton took a look at the data from Iran before the polls opened. He notes that while there as been extensive polling in the run up to the elections, the data is skewed due to a number of factors, including geography (Tehran) and issues with the questions themselves. While polls showed a much closer outcome between the top two candidates, those polls focused on Tehran, where support for Mousavi is highest (Ahmadinejad's base is rural). While I certainly don't trust the numbers coming from Iran's state media (62.6% to 34%), if the original polls where highly skewed towards urban centers like Tehran the difference between the expected results and the actual results may simply be a function of sampling-error. The one issue, as Renard points out, is that historically as voter turnout increases in Iran the share of the winning vote has decreased. It is hard to believe that if there was in fact record turnout, Ahmadinejad would have actually earned more votes this time out than during the previous election (where there was a run-off).

Here's hoping that Nate and the folks at fivethirtyeight do some work on the question of estimating election fraud abroad.

Query: IPE and Blogging

Via sitemeter I recently found my way to IPE at UNC. Which leads me to wonder: I know there's a fairly robust subculture of security blogs--and camps within that subculture, such as COIN and nG Warfare* blog communities--but what about IPE?

*With n equaling a value between four and six, inclusive.

Balancing: A Reply to Tobias Harris

Tobias Harris over at Observing Japan, weighs in on the discussion regarding Japanese balancing (or lack thereof). Harris' post is an excellent addition to the discussion and includes some excellent points that require me to clarify my original post. And away we go...

1) Tobias is correct that given the current and likely current state of the DPRK they are not exactly a Gilpin-esque revisionist power. However, I don't think that a state must have asperations and likely capabilities to match to be considered a revisionist state in general. A state that clearly is unhappy with the current political order (whether it be regional or global) and shows intent to press for revisions to the status-quo can be considered revisionist. No one thinks that Iran is capable of challenging the US for global dominance or seriously affecting the current global order, but they certainly can rock the boat regionally which can make them revisionist in many states' view. My larger point was that the DPRK is more likely in the short term to be the focus of any reactive balancing by Japan--given that they are a more immediate security threat.

2) I think we are in agreement that China is certainly the long-term focus of any balancing, whether that be internal or external. My larger point was that it isn't likely to serve as a catalyst for change in Japan's currently policy short term.

3) On Japan's desire to strengthen it's alliance with the US: I actually agree. Some of their behavior, even that which may require changes to the status-quo of their own security policy, can be explained by their need to signal to the US that they are a reliable partner in the alliance. To do so requires not only a shift in material capabilities, but also a shift in political capabilities--meaning, a greater willingness domestically to allow for these types of military operations. A dashing young scholar has explored this dynamic with regards to Germany after the Cold War. I am not as well versed in the domestic and foreign policies of Japan as Tobias seems to be, but from what I've seen I think a similar case can be made, particularly looking at the evolution of Japan's willingness and ability to project power in coordination with UN or US-led campaigns.

4) Finally, I should have been more explicit in terms of hedging my post. I wrote that the idea had merit. I don't have enough knowledge of Japan to say for sure that this is the case, only that it was plausible and that I thought there was a compelling logic to it. Needless to say I will certainly be keeping a closer eye on it to see if the effects and behavior I posit eventually come to pass.

Some thoughts on the American politics topic du jour

There's no substantive difference between the attempts by right-wingers to define Nazism as a phenomena of the left and Marxist attempts to define Soviet Socialism as "state capitalism."

Anyway, I think the speed with which the right-wing blogsphere has circled the wagons over the shooting at the Holocaust museum speaks for itself.

It should be patently obvious that any disagreements your typical conservatives have with someone like Von Brunn are far more important than relative location on a one-dimensional political spectrum.

So why bother? The two major theories right now:

• They realize they look pretty silly for their attacks on the DHS right-wing extremism report, i.e., it's CYA time.

• They're freaked out that people will draw a connection between the increasing paranoia found online (and on conservative talk radio) and both the Holocaust Museum attack and the George Tiller murder.

I sympathize with the second concern, but not at all with the first.

I find it pretty hard to blame typical right-wing bloggers and message-board posters for the actions of an octogenarian neo-Nazi, or even the murder of an abortion doctor [update: maybe I'm being too generous when it comes to the Tiller murder].

But they should recognize this strategy is a total loser. For example, arguing that a racist couldn't be right-wing because right-wingers oppose Affirmative Action just makes you look like an idiot. No one outside the bubble is buying it. In fact, we're in "don't think of an elephant" territory here: the more they protest, the more the rest of us think about the possible connections.

(They also need to muzzle people like Randall Terry. Now.)

And frankly, they need to take a long and hard look at themselves. Because violent resistance is the logical conclusion of their rhetoric; if they really believe the US is turning into a left-wing police state run by a foreign agent, then they should be at least planning for insurrection.*

I almost have to wonder if some of the people peddling this stuff might be, perish the thought, insincere.

*Note the difference between this and, say, claiming that the Bush administration's interrogation and executive power policies justified impeachment or voting the bums out of office. But, of course plenty of left-wingers made parallel accusations about the "fascism" of the Bush regime. I seem to remember right-wingers excoriating them for doing so.

Balancing, Uncertainty, and Domestic Politics

Peter brings up an interesting question and one that we don’t yet have a final answer on: Under what circumstances will states balance against another? If shifts in the balance of power are not enough to provoke balancing, what does? I think the notion that Japan could be provoked into balancing by the DPRK rather than China certainly has merit. A few initial thoughts as to why this may be the case:

1) Increased Economic Dependence: China’s military modernization has been and will continue to be fueled by its growing economy. Japan has become arguably China’s most important economic partner (both in terms of trade and investment) over the past few decades. With Japan being China’s third largest export market it would seem that the PRC would have less incentive to militarily threaten the Land of the Rising Sun. There is no such interdependence with the North Koreans. Wait, you might say, Japan does provide a ton of aid to the DPRK. Surely that can create a form of dependence that would deincentivise military provocation. Except that historically it hasn't stopped the DPRK from continuous provocations. And Japan has repeatedly suspended aid in the wake of missile and nuclear tests.

2) Provocative Signals and Established Images: North Korea has repeatedly test-fired missiles in Japan’s direction, recently test-fired a ballistic missile over Japan, has a history of naval incidents with the Japanese, and as is well known recently conducted an underground nuclear test. Taken together, these are recent provocative signals that make it more likely Japan will see North Korea as a threat. At the very least, it makes it much harder for Japan to comfortably predict status quo behavior from the DPRK. There hasn't been much for Japan to use to build a status-quo image of the DPRK in the last few decades, meaning most actions by the North are likely to be interpreted as evidence of their hostile and revisionist nature. Simply reviving aid will not be enough to reliably predict status-quo behavior going forward.

3) Domestic Politics: Over the past few decades there has been a growing call with Japan to re-examine its role internationally, particularly with regards to military affairs and the projection of power. At a minimum, many have called for greater participation in collective defense, which by definition of late has meant the ability to project power and not merely defend the home front. International events can create "windows of opportunity" for domestic policy entrepreneurs looking to alter the status-quo. Various scholars, including so-called "neo-classical realists" focus on the influence that domestic political players can have in shaping a state's foreign policy.

For me, the two most important factors related to reactionary balancing (as opposed to long-term balancing which does not require a catalytic event) are uncertainty and domestic politics. The role of uncertainty in international politics (and social life in general) cannot be understated, and has certainly been highlighted by scholars from various paradigmatic points of view. The fact that the DPRK isn’t as tightly interwoven and dependent on Japan’s market as, say, China combined with their repeated and recent provocations which bring about detrimental sanctions from the Japanese (in the form of cutting of food aid, etc.) may lead Japan to view the North as unpredictable (or, possibly as predictably hostile). Combining unpredictability with a track record of hostility towards Japan as well as significant military capabilities will likely lead Japan to perceive the DPRK as the more significant threat.

Secondly, and building on the first point, domestic politics is always lurking. Yes, Japan was humbled and restrained as a military power after World War II and Article 9 constrains their ability to project power. However, there are significant parts of the Japanese body politic that have and continue to push for ‘normalization’ regarding their military, whether that be conventional or nuclear. In fact, the lifting of the rhetorical taboo on these topics as been steadily declining for years, and calls for revision has not been limited to right-wing circles. Proponents of revisionist policies often need a catalyst, an opening to allow them to push through a major change in policy. Given the continuing normalization in relations with China, economic integration, and the lack of bold, provocative military signals from China of late makes them a less likely candidate to supply the kind of 'perturbation' necessary to bring about change in policy.

Domestic terror

Remember the controversy in April when someone leaked a report from the Department of Homeland Security warning against the threat of right-wing extremism and domestic terrorism? Fox News, for example, reported that the intelligence document was aimed at Republicans -- and military veterans.

Look at the report yourself (using the pdf link above). It warns specifically against "Threats from white supremacist and violent antigovernment groups." A bit later, the DHS report says:

Anti-Semitic extremists attribute these losses to a deliberate conspiracy conducted by a cabal of Jewish “financial elites.”

The report also noted "white supremacists’ longstanding exploitation of social issues such as abortion."

Within the last two weeks, a radical anti-abortion advocate gunned down a Wichita, Kansas doctor outside a church -- and then warned that more violence would be forthcoming so long as abortion is legal.

Today, a neo-Nazi opened fire with a rifle inside the Holocaust Museum in DC. He killed a security guard after firing up to 5 shots. Fox:

Law enforcement officials identified the suspect to FOX News as James W. Von Brunn, who has a history of virulent racism, ties to white supremacy groups and a criminal record that includes an attempt to take members of the Federal Reserve board hostage,

So, it appears as if DHS was on to something.

Operation Iraqi Stephen: Going Commando

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Formidable Opponent - Don't Ask, Don't Tell
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Stephen Colbert in Iraq

This week the Colbert Report is broadcasting from Camp Victory, Iraq as part of a USO tour. Sporting a suit made of cammo, a regulation haircut, and swinging a golf-club Bob Hope style, he has been entertaining the troops, reminding people that there is still a war in Iraq, and offering some rather brilliant and bold meta-satire of the entire operation.

If you haven't been watching, you really need to. Right now.

Last night he did what I thought was an exceptionally bold and brilliant sketch--a Formidable Opponent (Stephen debating himself) on Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Had this bit appeared as a regular segment on the show it would have been funny but unremarkable. Performed live, in front of an audience of hundreds of active-duty military members, at Camp Victory, in Iraq, its genius. Much has been said about DADT, from polling data showing support for its repeal to the role of his new Army Secretary in building support for repealing the policy. By mocking the policy in front of troops--and not just any troops, but those in a very active combat zone--to legitimate applause, he ridicules the policy to the point of rendering it a farce. From Iraq, the arguments that seem so self-important inside the beltway sound so hollow when forced to occupy center stage in front of military personnel who go in harm's way each and every day.

The entire enterprise is quite brilliant so far. Its quite the feat. He must respect, entertain, and build morale for the troops he's visiting. He must be funny and produce a show for air that night. And, he is doing all that while still offering a fantastic meta-critique on Iraq policy. That's hard to pull off in front of a live (and armed) studio audience. Not to mention the cameo's he's been able to secure. President Obama ordering General Odierno to give Colbert a haircut. Greetings from John McCain, Bill Clinton, George Bush (the older).

Really, watch both episodes-- Monday and Tuesday.

Science Fiction, Popular Culture and the Concept of Genocide

Claims of "genocide" abound in policy discourse. So do misunderstandings about the concept.

Some recent examples. In the last two years, Russia claimed that Georgia's attack on Tshkinvali was "genocide;" US House of Representatives accused Iran of inciting genocide in response to Ahmadinejad's inflammatory comments about wiping Israel (as it is currently politically constituted) off the map; and Gideon Polya apparently discovered a correlation between countries experiencing "war, genocide and occupation" and the failure of those countries to win Olympic medals.

These examples demonstrate both the political salience of the "genocide" label as a catch-all term for "evil-doing," and the general lack of understanding of a relatively narrow term which connotes a set of actions aimed to destroy national, political, religious or ethnic groups, not to describe all the other horrors against individual human beings of which Mankind is capable, and certainly not all forms of deadly political violence. At the heart of this misunderstanding is a confusion about the distinction between group rights and individual rights.

Popular culture often doesn't help. So I argue in my new essay "The Enemy We Seek to Destroy," just published in Adam Jones' collection Evoking Genocide. The article analyzes narratives about "war crimes," "crimes against humanity" and "genocide" in the science fiction series Star Trek: The Next Generation, and focuses particularly on the Federation's understanding of ethical conduct vis a vis a truly genocidal enemy, the "Borg."



Excerpts from my essay are below the fold.

Star Trek, a cultural phenomenon that encompasses the original TV series, five spin-off series, ten feature films, and numerous books, comics, games, magazines, and fan websites, has long been understood by cultural theorists as a political commentary on contemporary world affairs. Those of us who have followed it closely see it above all as a morality play. Episodes routinely discuss timeless issues of what it means to be a person; whether good can triumph over evil; the relationship between emotion and reason; the meaning of free will; and the nature of justice.

As a young person, and later as a budding human rights theorist, I perceived in Star Trek a commitment to liberal individualism and a respect for cultural self-determination. In that sense, the “United Federation of Planets” – the cosmopolitan organization that dispatches the Starship Enterprise to its distant realms – opposes violations of both individual and group rights. Growing up, the show was a constant touchstone for my emerging ethical and political consciousness. In several episodes, the Enterprise encounters planets where genocidal practices are in place. Each case is treated as the outer limit of the non-interference doctrine (the Prime Directive), which might be read as an early articulation of the norm of humanitarian intervention.

Against this background of appreciation for the show’s moral universe, I later found myself, somewhat to my surprise, disillusioned by a particular episode, one in which the Federation itself contemplated genocide against an alien collectivist culture. The Borg are a cybernetic race who evolve through assimilating organic species, and their technological distinctiveness, into their own cyber-collective – linking individual “drones” to a single collective consciousness. In the fifth season episode, I, Borg, the Enterprise encounters the crash site of a Borg scout ship, along with a lone Borg survivor. At the insistence of the doctor, Beverly Crusher, the drone is taken aboard for medical treatment – although the inclination of the other officers is to shoot the drone, since “the collective will come looking for it.” (In fact, the Borg have engaged the Federation previously, with the goal of assimilating Earth’s entire civilization into their collective. Picard was once abducted by the Borg, which possibly explains his no-holds-barred attitude.)

When the drone recovers consciousness, Captain Picard hatches a plan to introduce an “invasive programming sequence” into the drone’s subroutine. When the drone interfaces with the Borg collective, Picard hopes that the computer virus will “infect the entire collective” and “disable their neural network,” in effect shutting down their brain, and eliminating them as a threat to the Federation. Over the course of the episode, however, the crew is forced to reconsider this plan, as the Borg drone, now severed from the collective, begins to function as an individual, evoking the sympathy of the crew and respect for his rights.

What immediately struck me about this sequence is that, while the characters eventually come to view harming the individual Borg as wrong, the idea of genocide (as a crime against a collective) is never fully critiqued. Most of the officers accept with very little discussion that eradicating the Borg collective as such is an appropriate course of action. Crusher is alone in questioning the policy of genocide. Other officers concur with Picard: “We’re at war”; “They’ve attacked us at every encounter.” But even Crusher appears implicitly to accept the crew’s argument that exterminating the Borg as a collective could be justifiable on grounds of self-defense. Her disagreement focuses on whether exterminating individual Borg non-combatants is ethical. She does not concur with Picard’s argument that individual drones lack rights. Were collective rights her reference point, Picard’s argument about the Borg collective consciousness would not have been “convenient,” but would rather underscore the atrociousness of targeting that civilization-defining consciousness.

Subsequent to this scene, the morality of destroying the Borg collective as such is evaded. The ethical debate in the episode (for in Star Trek, there always is one) centers only on whether the “invasive program” would violate the rights of Borg drones as individuals. Dr. Crusher does argue on behalf of the Borg prisoner: “When I look at my patient, I don’t see a collective consciousness. I see a living, breathing boy who has been hurt and needs our help.” But this is reminiscent of protections for wounded prisoners enshrined in humanitarian law. She also continues to question the ethics of “using” an unsuspecting individual to destroy his people, though increasingly the targeting of “the people” itself is lost in the discussion.

Crusher’s claims are validated as the episode progresses. The drone, now separated from the collective, begins to exhibit individual traits, and becomes increasingly identifiable as a person. Thus, while early on Picard had used classic genocidal rhetoric in encouraging his crew not to become too attached to “it,” he eventually comes to view the prisoner as an individual worthy of respect, protection, dignity, and choice. In many respects, the episode is a study in the power of dehumanization to enable atrocity, and of rehumanization to restrain it. But rather than transforming Picard’s understanding of the Borg collective, this newfound sensibility simply provides him with a different set of concerns to weigh against the supposed moral viability of genocide. The goal of eradicating the collective continues to hold sway throughout the episode, but it becomes difficult to justify forcing the individual drone to return to the collective like, as Crusher puts it, “some sort of walking bomb.”

In fact, it seems that the ability to view the drone as worthy of rights at all is contingent on viewing him as distinct from the Borg, rather than as an individual of a sentient race that ought not to be exterminated on principle. This is perhaps best exemplified by Picard’s statement, when he finally concludes that it would be wrong to bring the plan to fruition: “To use him in this manner would be no better than the enemy we seek to destroy.” Destroying the enemy “as such” is not questioned – only the use of a sentient individual as a tool for this purpose. This is thoroughly inconsistent with the rules of war in liberal international society, as well as the rules of engagement in the Star Trek universe. There, one does not seek to destroy one’s enemies, but merely to defeat their military forces, and perhaps transform them into allies.

To my mind, the Borg episodes in general, and this one in particular, engage a range of ethical questions relating to the concept of genocide (or xenocide?). First, are genocidal strategies appropriate against an enemy bent on committing genocide themselves? That is, is genocide justifiable if committed in self-defense? If so, what is the burden of proof for demonstrating that defense against genocide is impossible with less draconian methods?

Second, if an entire society is mobilized (as the Borg arguably are), does treating that society as a military objective constitute genocide, or would it be consistent with the laws of war that permit targeting military objectives? (That is, is it only genocide if the targets are non-combatants, or is the reference point the existence of the collective entity itself?) Are the laws of war obsolete when defeating an entire military would, essentially, require the destruction of an entire society? Is destruction of a civilization as such acceptable, even appropriate, if the destruction takes place through non-lethal means and is carried out so as to liberate “oppressed” individuals from a cultural context inimical to their own individual freedoms? And how should a military officer respond, when given a command that could be deemed profoundly unethical?

“I, Borg,” and Star Trek more generally, offers an opportunity to meditate on these issues. Indeed, as a multimedia phenomenon, it promises (and often delivers) a careful, nuanced grappling with some of the important political problems of our day. In this instance, however, I think the show missed an opportunity to educate viewers about the nature of genocide both as concept and as crime: as something distinct from war, and from questions of individual human rights. Apparently, even the most liberal ethical narrative can accommodate genocidal thinking within certain parameters. This should give us pause.