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    US and South Korea Renew Commitment to Promoting Democracy

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    The summit in May between Joe Biden and Moon Jae-in delivered numerous positive outcomes that advanced the United States and South Korea as a future-oriented alliance. The two allies redoubled their cooperation in areas that are becoming more and more crucial globally, including emerging tech, climate change and space policy.

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    The expanded multidimensional collaboration marked meaningful progress in the transition of the US–South Korea relationship from that of a traditional military alliance to a more versatile, modernized partnership. But perhaps even more noteworthy was the joint commitment to strengthening regional governance and championing human rights, especially women’s rights. 

    Making a Statement

    To begin with, the Biden and Moon administrations reinforced their common vision of promoting regional governance centered on liberal values in the Indo-Pacific. Broad-brush commitments from the 2019 joint statement by the US and the Republic of Korea (ROK) — such as encouraging regional digital transparency and advancing openness, sovereignty and the rule of law in the Indo-Pacific — solidified into more explicit terms during the recent meeting in Washington.

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    For instance, both sides agreed to oppose all activities that undermine, destabilize and threaten the rules-based order; uphold freedom of navigation and stability in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait; support open and inclusive regional multilateralism, including the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad); and build clean 5G and 6G telecommunications networks. The allies also established the KORUS Global Vaccine Partnership, a tangible step toward strengthening regional leadership and governance through public health and vaccine distribution.

    For Washington, getting South Korea to acknowledge and emphasize the importance of liberal norms in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, as well as demonstrate mutual support for the Quad, was a welcome change. Out of fear of damaging strategic ties with China, its largest trading partner and an important broker of regional diplomacy with North Korea, leaders in Seoul have largely avoided publicly siding with the US on China-related issues.

    South Korea’s traditional wariness is based on experience. In 2016, after Seoul deployed the THAAD missile defense system, which China perceives as a vehicle for US strategic surveillance of Chinese interests, Beijing imposed informal economic boycotts against South Korea and cut off bilateral defense talks. Against this backdrop, the Biden-Moon statement from the summit, which contains language that can be viewed as contrary to Chinese interests (such as supporting the Quad and upholding liberal norms around disputed East Asian seas), signaled that Seoul is growing more confident in standing up for its own values and supporting a free and open Indo-Pacific, regardless of Beijing’s preferences and despite the possibility of retaliation. 

    Human Rights

    In addition to regional governance, human rights marked another issue where Washington and Seoul renewed commitment at the summit. The joint statement comprised several pledges that soundly reflected the alliance’s devotion to human rights. This included expanded financial aid for Northern Triangle countries, commitment to aiding North Korean citizens, support for the ongoing democratic movement in Myanmar, and standing for justice against racism and hate crimes targeting Asian Americans. But particularly eye-catching was the alliance’s unusually strong emphasis on empowering women and enhancing gender equality.  

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    The Biden-Moon statement acknowledged “women’s full participation” as the key to resilient democracy and presented several important commitments for women’s empowerment. The two presidents mentioned exchanging best practices to reduce the gender wage gap, empowering women in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and combating abuses against women, including domestic violence and cyber-exploitation.

    When it comes to workplace equality, both allies stand well below the average for member states of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on issues like gender wage gap disparity and female leadership (or the glass ceiling phenomenon), with South Korea ranking last. Tied to this is gender disparity in STEM, which limits greater labor diversification and which has also been a concern for both the United States and South Korea. Violence against women is a challenge both societies face.

    These are all vital areas of improvement for both countries to elevate their state of gender equality and overall democracy. The specific mention of these issues in the joint statement is encouraging for women’s rights advocates. 

    Falling Short

    Despite this promising turn, shared awareness of gender equality issues does not mean much if not put into action. Inconsistent progress on this front has been a problem for both allies. Women’s empowerment was a key goal at the summit in 2015 between Barack Obama and Park Geun-hye. But while the US remained committed to these shared objectives, South Korea fell short. While things have improved in South Korea, with its gender equality ranking rising from 118 to 102 under Moon, the US saw a backslide under former President Donald Trump, going from 45th to 53rd place globally, according to the World Economic Forum.

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    However, under the Biden administration, which prioritizes gender equality, the US will likely make significant progress in the future. Promoting gender equality is an indispensable element of the universal human rights agenda. As two sophisticated democracies championing human rights, both the US and South Korea are responsible for making enduring efforts to empower women. Under any administration ruled by whichever political coalitions, the value of women’s rights should not be undermined. 

    On top of striving to tackle gender inequality at home, the US and South Korea should lay out more concrete bilateral initiatives and build a high-level communication channel to discuss progress regularly and hold each other accountable for tangible progress toward their commitments. Gender inequality remains a longstanding obstacle to regional growth in Asia. At the regional level, the US–ROK alliance could revisit and expand on its pledges from the 2020 East Asia Summit regarding women’s economic empowerment and participation in security and peacekeeping issues.

    After all, the Biden and Moon administrations’ renewed cooperation on regional governance in the Indo-Pacific and gender equality established a good framework for the US–ROK alliance to expand its influence and spread democratic values throughout Asia. Both sides should make sure to diligently implement the commitments going forward.

    *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Young Professionals in Foreign Policy.]

    The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Biden’s Myth of Bipartisanship Takes a Hit

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      In January, Joe Biden assumed the leadership of a nation in disarray. On Donald Trump’s watch, the US had struggled for nearly a year to come to terms with a pandemic that disrupted not just the economy, but people’s lives and relationships. Last summer, an unprecedented protest movement against the brutal treatment of black Americans rivaled the COVID-19 pandemic for headlines. These parallel events underlined deep contradictions that have long existed in the social fabric. As a parting gesture, Trump chose to put on display the apparently irreparable division of the body politic by encouraging a mob to assault Congress as it prepared to validate his election loss.

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      Those particular events were dramatic enough. But in the background lay other pressing issues. First among them was the rapid decline of the health of the planet due to anthropogenic climate change. At the same time, the effects of wealth and income disparity became ever more visible inside the US and across the globe. In the background was the persistence of wars, terrorism and global instability accompanied by a very real nuclear threat, aggravated by powerful nations’ obsession with producing increasingly sophisticated weaponry. Arms sales had become essential for the economies of Western nations, exacerbating instability in entire regions of the world. Not only the American people but also the global population were becoming increasingly aware of the stakes implied by these converging issues. In this context, expectations grew for Biden’s FDR-style change in American politics. Not that he would challenge the existing order, but that he would for once address the real issues.

      President Biden thus entered the White House with an implicit mission to restore a semblance of order, whatever that meant. Observers quickly discovered that today’s version of US democracy entertains two possible approaches to restoring order. The first, which to many people appears logical, requires assessing the nature of the crises and promoting policies designed specifically to address the perceived causes. The second is clearly less logical but represents a long-standing tradition a seasoned politician such as Joe Biden fully understood. It consists of weighing the opinions and interests of the two parties that share power and devising solutions that do not threaten their specific interests. It also implies relegating the needs and desires of the nation’s population to a secondary position.

      Biden quickly put his well-honed skills to work. The New York Times describes the dramatic scene in which he “strode to the cameras on the White House driveway on [June 24], flanked by an equal number of Democratic and Republican lawmakers, to proudly announce an overall infrastructure agreement totaling $1.2 trillion over eight years that could cement his legacy as a bipartisan deal maker.” 

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Bipartisan:

      A descriptive term for any agreement between the two dominant parties designed to buttress the status quo, bipartisanship becoming a necessary ingredient when the status quo itself has become exceptionally dysfunctional, built on policies that are unpopular with the majority of the electorate but considered vital to the preservation of donor support by the political class

      Contextual Note

      Progressive Democrats wasted no time expressing their displeasure with a bill that fails to address even the most tepid of Biden’s campaign promises concerning the real problems the nation was facing. Emboldened by his belief in his own bipartisan superpowers and wishing to appease progressives, Biden explained, in response to a question from the press, his commitment to pushing through another bill that would deal with those issues. He even promised to reject the bipartisan version he had just negotiated if it was not accompanied by the partisan version. The Times commented: “It may not seem like much, but it was enough to upend Mr. Biden’s proud bipartisan moment.” Pride certainly appears to be a more powerful motivator for the president than problem-solving.

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      Revealing the strategy that would have had a chance of working only if left unmentioned, Biden announced, “if this is the only thing that comes to me, I’m not signing it.” This set off a firestorm among his bipartisan partners, who judged they had been taken for a ride. Over the next 24 hours, Biden had to find a way of walking back his imprudent remarks. He dutifully promised to back the original bill with no conditions, and peace was restored. Republicans now have a clear path to devise ways of canceling the threat of action being taken on the issues that matter.

      There is still a small chance Biden could succeed by mobilizing every member of the Democratic Party to pass the “real” infrastructure bill through reconciliation. But the odds seem rather long. This leaves some observers wondering whether the gaffe was inadvertent. Perhaps Biden’s real bipartisan aim was to provide his opponents with a pretext for ensuring that the second bill never gets passed.

      “The drama does not appear to have sunk the deal,” The Times writes reassuringly, “but Mr. Biden admitted that his comments on Thursday left ‘the impression that I was issuing a veto threat on the very plan I had just agreed to.’” That was ‘certainly not my intent,’ he added.” This glib explanation of the confusion may sum up the public’s perception of the first months of the Biden presidency. There is a thick fog around his intent.

      Politico reports that Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell criticized accused Biden of “‘completely caving’ to the party’s left wing and has repeatedly emphasized his commitment to derailing Biden‘s progressive agenda.” What this means is that the nation must prepare for a direct confrontation between the ideologies of the two parties, the very opposite of bipartisan government. The logic has come full circle, as often happens these days in Washington.

      Historical Note

      The myth of bipartisanship in US politics is relatively new. It is linked to the emergence a century ago of a binary political system in which only two dominant parties could legitimately claim the right to govern. It took new meaning in recent decades once the parties had settled into their stable ideological identities. For the first two-thirds of the 20th century, the Democratic Party drew its capacity to govern from its force as a coalition of Northern liberals and Southern segregationist Dixiecrats. The Republicans had their own two factions: Northeastern liberals and heartland conservatives. In such circumstances, bipartisanship was both an inevitable ingredient of almost all legislation and a meaningless concept. Once the Democrats became “the liberals” and the Republicans “the conservatives,” bipartisanship would become a real challenge.

      Joe Biden entered Congress at a time when the old bipartisanship was fading but not yet deceased. At one point, progressives excoriated Biden for expressing his nostalgia for the days when he collaborated respectfully with white supremacists. The progressives were right in their reproach, but not for the moral reasons they cited. Rather for what it indicates about Biden’s inability to dissociate himself from an irrelevant past. He still hasn’t adapted to today’s very different reality.

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      The idea of bipartisanship may be the central myth of the Biden presidency. Conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans have fallen in love with it and revere Biden for his commitment to it. Senator Mark Warner, a conservative Democrat, lauded Biden’s successful negotiation in these terms: “The message it sends to the American people, and also to our friends and adversaries around the world, is so important. In a post-Jan. 6 world, it shows that people who come from different political views can still come together on national priorities.” The fiasco that followed Biden’s threat to veto his own bill demonstrates the absurdity of this maudlin sentiment.

      Despite persistent public quarrels about budgets and taxation required to maintain the conservative or liberal label of the two parties, bipartisanship has actually been the norm in recent decades. And it is a destructive norm. Critiquing Biden’s brazenly illegal bombing this weekend of Iraq and Syria, Glenn Greenwald makes this historical point: “This has continued for close to two full decades now because the establishment wings of both parties support it. Neither of them believes in the Constitution or the rule of law, nor do they care in the slightest about the interests of anyone other than the large corporate sectors that fund the establishment wings of both parties.”

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      The Sad Reality of US Dealmaking

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      The fallout from US President Joe Biden’s week in Europe has just begun. There was no dramatic moment that sums it up, though the media vaguely hoped the one-on-one with Russian President Vladimir Putin might produce something akin to the jabs, uppercuts and right crosses of Rocky Balboa vs. Ivan Drago in their opening round. But there was nothing to see. The fight wasn’t televised and Biden carefully avoided the risk of seeing both on stage in a joint press conference.

      Though no spectacular shift in US–Russia relations will likely appear in the months ahead as a result of the encounter, some aspects of Biden’s performance concerning the posture and attitude of the US on the world stage may prove pivotal. Biden’s actions and rhetoric in Europe have contributed in significant ways both to defining his presidential legacy and clarifying the shifting vocation of the US in a world that has become far more complex than the one previous presidents had to deal with.

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      Biden seems to realize it as he frequently refers to this moment of history as an “inflection point.” He’s right, though he seems to have seriously misjudged the nature of the tectonic shift the world is undergoing. Biden defines such inflection points as “moments in time when we’ve made hard decisions about who we are.” But the era in which presidential decisions in themselves constituted historical inflection points probably ended in March 2003, when the US, under George W. Bush, invaded Iraq. Forces were then unleashed that no longer await presidential decisions. Powerful undercurrents of history, the economy and of nature itself — all beyond any politician’s control — have been fueling the largely unmanageable force behind today’s inflection.

      Jonathan Lemire and Aamer Madhani are the authors of an AP article that focuses on Biden as America’s pitchman to the rest of the world. The title of the article is: “Biden Abroad: Pitching America to Welcoming If Wary Allies.” Reduced to its essence, Biden’s pitch consisted of reassuring his allies that he can be trusted simply because he is not Donald Trump, even though his policies have shown little indication of breaking with the former president’s innovations.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The world remembers Biden’s previous boss, Barack Obama, who before his election in 2008 claimed to represent a radical shift away from everything that Bush stood for. He even convinced the Nobel committee he was a prince of peace. Once in office, Obama prolonged most of Bush’s policies, including foreign wars, reinforcing the surveillance state and maintaining tax cuts for the wealthy, all of which imperiled the economy itself, leading to the 2008 financial crisis that he was tasked with solving.

      Lemire and Madhani note that whilst the allies in the G7 appeared relieved by the feeling that there was now “a steady hand at the wheel,” they were far from convinced that the US was permanently back on an even keel. They did end up agreeing to the general drift of Biden’s campaign to highlight the opposition between democracy (the West) and autocracy (China and Russia). 

      At the same time, the authors remarked that “Germany, Italy and the representatives for the European Union [were] reluctant to call out China, a valuable trading partner, too harshly.” More significantly, they noted that there was “a wariness in some European capitals that it was Biden, rather than Trump, who was the aberration to American foreign policy and that the United States could soon fall back into a transactional, largely inward-looking approach.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Transactional:

      An adjective that describes not only the willingness to make deals with others, but also the refusal to recognize the existence of anything other than calculation of individual interest in the conduct of one’s affairs and relationships even with permanent partners and allies.

      Contextual Note

      After his meeting with Putin, Biden declared: “This is not about trust. This is about self-interest and verification of self-interest.” He needed to reassure the American electorate that, unlike Trump, he had nothing but mistrust for Putin. But he may have been signaling what most Americans always want to hear: that nobody should be trusted, because all relationships begin — and most end — with the assertion of self-interest. America’s European allies have understood that, despite protestations of solid alliances, special relationships and undying friendship, Trump’s approach of reducing everything to a transactional deal was a true description of the reality of US policy under every recent president.

      The language used by the media demonstrates this reality with some clarity. The AP journalists already described Biden’s action as “pitching America.” In an article with the title, “Biden Struggles to Sell Democracy Abroad When It Faces Challenges at Home,” The Washington Post described Biden’s behavior in Europe to that of a street barker. “But then, like any good pitchman, Biden quickly regained his footing,” the Post reports. Diplomacy always involves self-interest and always contains an agenda, but when it consistently appears as a pitch, potential customers begin to doubt the sincerity. The authors of the AP article make it clear that, however persuasive the pitch, Biden has not yet closed any deal. They even seem to doubt one is likely.

      Historical Note

      Writing for Spectator World, historian Andrew Bacevich commented that Joe Biden’s premise concerning US leadership of democratically-inclined allies sounds like a desire to return to an imagined status quo that, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, appeared to be heralding what George H.W. Bush called “a new world order.” But in this century, history has moved on in ways Biden and most American politicians appear either not to have noticed or persist in willingly ignoring. “The idea that a US-led bloc of Western nations will determine the future of the planet will become increasingly implausible,” Bacevich explains.

      The historian puts in perspective Biden’s insistence on managing an inflection point: “While repeatedly insisting that history had reached ‘an inflection point’, he simultaneously reiterated the claim made by every US president since Harry Truman (Trump excepted) that ‘the partnership between Europe and the United States’ will determine the fate of humankind.”

      The G7 is that partnership, which now includes Japan. But the fate of humankind will rely on the interplay of forces that no single nation or group of nations controls. If there were a way of getting humankind itself into the picture through, say, a global democratic revolution that respects the classic democratic dictum of one man, one vote, the combat to promote democracy over autocracy might make some sense. But that is on no one’s agenda. The degree of inequality between nations and within nations may now have reached a point of no return.

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      Trump’s presidency taught the Europeans about the dangers of getting on board with grand US-led projects. They are beyond risky. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), even more than the Paris climate accord, provides a perfect example. At a truly interesting historical moment marked by the election this weekend of a new president in Iran, the US actually has an opportunity to push toward a solution that would involve reconciling a number of competing interests stretching across a wide expanse of the globe.

      The New York Times believes that the election of Ebrahim Raisi as Iran’s new president may be the perfect opportunity for Biden. Its reasoning makes sense. If Raisi makes the concessions necessary to remove US sanctions, Iranians will have the hope of returning to a prosperous economy. Still, the heritage of Donald Trump has seriously weakened US credibility. “The Iranians have demanded a written commitment that no future American government could scrap the deal as Mr. Trump did,” the Times reports. “They want something permanent — ‘a reasonable-sounding demand,’ in the words of one senior American official, ‘that no real democracy can make.’”

      What the official means is that a real democracy could make that “reasonable-sounding demand,” but not the US version of democracy. The Times explains: “Mr. Biden, like President Barack Obama before him, could never have gotten the consent of two-thirds of the U.S. Senate. So it is termed an ‘executive agreement’ that any future president could reverse, just as Mr. Trump did.”

      Bacevich is right. The US, even with Europe, cannot “determine the future of the planet.” It can’t even define a line of policy that will hold for more than four years. The most powerful nation in the world is also the most powerless.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      NATO’s New Challenge in East Asia

      by

      US President Joe Biden used the occasion of his trip to Europe for the G7 summit to attend his first NATO meeting. His influence on the meeting appeared unambiguously when a communiqué by the NATO alliance designated China’s influence on the world stage as a military challenge. 

      NATO was born in the aftermath of the Second World War as the West’s response to the ambitions of the Soviet Union, which controlled large portions of Eastern Europe and represented an ideology considered inimical to Western political and economic culture. This gave rise to the Cold War, framed as the rivalry between two systems of social and economic organization: capitalism (supported by democracy) and communism (the dictatorship of the proletariat).

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      Because humanity had entered the nuclear age, the Cold War cultivated a permanent and universal feeling of potential terror, unlike tensions and wars of the historical past. Its name, “Cold War,” has been attributed to George Orwell, who didn’t live long enough to see how it would develop. The author of “1984” imagined “two or three monstrous super-states, each possessed of a weapon by which millions of people can be wiped out in a few seconds.” In the end, there were only two major players. The laws of hyperreality, just like the laws of conventional information technology, require reducing the governing logic to a binary opposition. The age of quantum logic, which humanity is only just now discovering, had not yet begun.

      The Cold War was cold in relative terms, simply because the heat that a real nuclear war might produce would have dwarfed anything humanity had ever experienced. As soon as a nuclear war started it would be over, as no one would be left standing. This too reflected the binary logic of the time. There were exactly two choices: hot war or cold war. There could be no warm war between the two proud rivals. A cold war was clearly preferable in the eyes of anyone who wielded power. The leaders in the US understood how to profit from that preference. It justified the creation and rapid growth of a powerful military-industrial complex at the core of the American empire.

      The Cold War marked a moment of history in which military technology was undergoing its most radical paradigm change, thanks to the invention of nuclear weapons in the US and their capacity for devastation demonstrated by their operational deployment in Japan that put an exclamation point on the end of the World War. The entire world became gripped in a state of permanent fear, attenuated only by the sense that because no leader would likely be suicidal enough to engage in open conflict, the actors of the economy were free to realize their boldest ambitions.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In the West, the Cold War produced an odd cultural effect of “carpe diem,” the feeling that it was necessary to “seize the day” and have fun, because there may be no tomorrow. This feeling drove both the rapid growth of the consumer society and the cultural liberation movements we associate with beatniks and hippies. It also proved fatal for the Soviet Union’s false utopia of worker solidarity that depended on accepting austerity for the good of the collectivity.

      NATO should have become obsolete after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989. But the camp built around the clout of the US military-industrial complex could not simply be dismantled and put to pasture. Two presidents, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, had little choice but to maintain NATO because the entire US economy now revolved around the logic of the military-industrial complex.

      That militarized economy had become the key to installing a global, neocolonial system capable of replacing Europe’s colonial system that was in the decades following World War II. Because it was industrial as well as military, it spawned the technologies that began to dominate the global economy. These new technologies conveniently straddled the pragmatic (civil applications) and the political (military applications), providing a new motor for the late 20th economy that we all live under today.

      Though NATO had lost its initial geopolitical justification, it continued to operate as a pillar of the new military-economic system. It influenced the evolution of the formerly isolated regime of communist China, destined to become a major actor in the global economy. There was only one model for any large nation that wished to participate effectively in the global economy. It had to encourage capitalism and have its own military-industrial logic. China has succeeded, thanks to the global consumer market spearheaded by the US. For various reasons, India, which might have moved in that direction, failed.

      NATO now finds itself in an odd position. Contested by the mercurial Donald Trump, its members greeted with a sigh of relief the electoral victory of a conventional Cold War establishment politician, Joe Biden. For the past five years, Biden’s Democratic Party has sought to revive the ambience and ethos of the Cold War, focusing on Russia. But Russia simply isn’t a serious rival of the US. Both major US parties have designated China as the bugbear to focus on. But China falls way outside NATO’s “North Atlantic” purview.

      Nevertheless, Biden appears to have persuaded NATO to include China in its official discourse. The communiqué from this week’s meeting makes the case: “China’s stated ambitions and assertive behaviour present systemic challenges to the rules-based international order and to areas relevant to Alliance security.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Systemic challenge:

      A politically correct euphemism for “serious threat,” applied to anything that calls into question the weaknesses and vices of an existing system, especially when that system’s weaknesses and vices have become dramatically visible

      Contextual Note

      The unresolved pandemic that has been raging for nearly a year and a half and the growing crisis of climate change have created a situation in which the system now being challenged has been found seriously wanting. Defending the status quo has become an ungratifying task. All lucid observers agree that the political and economic system inherited from the 20th century needs either to evolve radically or be replaced by something new. 

      It is equally clear that Beijing has no alternative system to propose. This is partly because China’s success is due largely to its adaptation to and integration within the system being challenged, but equally because the Chinese system of autocratic communism is a failed model itself and the Chinese themselves know it.

      NATO worries about China’s “stated ambitions and assertive behaviour.” But in reality, its ambitions appear modest and the behavior, while certainly assertive, cannot compare with the historically aggressive behavior of the US, so clearly demonstrated in Korea, Vietnam and the Middle East.

      Historical Note

      As for the “systemic challenges to the rules-based international order,” the rules that existed at the time of the creation of the United Nations and the establishment of the Bretton Woods system have long been challenged by the Western powers, to the point of being distorted beyond recognition.

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      Even the reference to “areas relevant to Alliance security” needs to be put in historical perspective. NATO is nominally focused on one area in the world: the North Atlantic. But for the past two decades, it has ventured further and further, not only into Eastern Europe, but also Afghanistan, presumably turning Central Asia into an area of “Alliance security.” With the political turmoil that emerged in 2016 in both the US (Donald Trump) and Europe (Brexit), there should be enough to feel insecure about within NATO’s traditional sector of the North Atlantic. Reaching out to China’s area of influence would be a real stretch.

      It’s true that China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) seeks to extend its influence across both Asia and Europe. This could be interpreted as potentially encroaching on the North Atlantic military fiefdom. But the BRI’s character is economic and clearly not military. It is soft power rather than hard power.

      Most lucid observers in the West, conscious of the current system’s growing incapacity to deal with any global problem — whether it’s a pandemic, war, migration, domestic tranquility or climate change — find themselves looking for something that could be called a “systemic challenge” to the current unproductive and often unjust system of doing things. At the end of the day, the systemic challenge at home will likely have more impact than China’s.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Can Joe Biden Convince America?

      by

      It has become so hard to be hopeful about America. Disappointment awaits around every corner and under every rock. Yet, there he is, Joe Biden, president of the United States of America, telling the nation that we can be so much better than we are and then having the guts to tell us what we need to do to get there. Other “leaders” have given it a try, but there was always one important thing missing. What makes Biden different than the others is having the political courage to tell the nation how we have failed to be what we have for so long told ourselves that we were and are.

      Biden Scores Key Wins in First 100 Days

      READ MORE

      I don’t know of anyone who predicted that this 78-year-old lifelong politician could seize the moment and grip the nation. But somehow, he has. It was to be expected that anything would be better than Trump, and Biden could have coasted on that alone. But that is not what is happening.

      President Biden has used quiet confidence, competence, compassion and a solid moral foundation to propose the most progressive agenda in decades to try to lead Americans to where they didn’t know they wanted to go. Senator Bernie Sanders, among others, understood and articulated the problems and offered a vision of fundamental reform. Now, somewhat out of the clear blue, Biden may prove to be a leader capable of actually delivering some of that reform.

      Biden Has More in Mind

      After the election in 2020, there was much talk about the Biden who most thought to be a transitional figure, at best. But while we were talking to each other, it seems that Biden was actually telling himself and maybe a few others that he had much more than that in mind. Progressives like me didn’t even know he was listening to us. Maybe we had become so often disappointed that we never quite understood how far compassion and empathy can take someone when they are empowered with the opportunity to try to make a real difference.

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      To be clear, it will take much more than compassionate leadership to move America even slowly toward fulfilling its promise. It will take steady and competent administration officials and public servants committed to progressive ideals and then willing and able to turn ideals into public policy. It will take a united Democratic Party at all levels of government to both support and actively promote the policy initiatives. And then it will take President Biden to remind the whole nation that good people not only can accomplish good things, but that there is a moral imperative to do so now.

      There will be no help whatsoever from Republican politicians at the national level, and the right-wing media apparatus will only ramp up its bile. Somewhere, around 70% of those who identify as Republicans still reject the reality that Biden is the legitimate president of the United States. With this in mind, Biden should ignore the national Republican Party and its acolytes until there is a clear and unequivocal affirmation of the results of the last presidential election from their political “leaders,” including the disgraced and seditious losing candidate.

      In the current political environment, the most basic tenet of democratic governance continues to require repetition, so here goes: No one can be entrusted with democratic governance without a commitment to the democratic process, the rule of law and the resulting government. So, for all of you Republicans who still are waiting for Trump’s “triumphant” return and those who try to diminish the institutional significance of the insurrection that shook the nation, you have earned the right to be ignored. No nation can succeed at governance if those who do not believe in government continue to have a seat at the table.

      I have some confidence that Biden knows this as well. And even more confidence that those counseling the president are exploring all of the realistic options to achieve their policy objectives. Further, they know that it will be imperative to negotiate with Democratic officials at all levels of government to increase broad public support for his progressive agenda.

      Republican Officials

      There may also be some state and local Republican officials willing to sign on. However, Biden and his supporters will have to work much harder than they should have to in order to convince state and local Republican officials of the painfully obvious value of federal support for education, health care, child care, roads and bridges, better wages, affordable housing and the like. After years of local community neglect, most Republican officials still seem willing to reflexively resist any federal mandates, no matter how much those mandates might benefit their constituencies.

      In this context, it will not be necessary to fix everything at once. However, it will be essential to initially restore a national faith in the capacity of government to meet collective societal challenges and to convince the nation that solutions to 21st-century problems require an actively engaged national government.

      Embed from Getty Images

      To succeed at this, Biden will have to directly address the most persistent element of resistance to collective national solutions — the perception that to implement policy changes beneficial to all requires that some give up a little individual “liberty” and a measure of individual “security.” There is only one cohesive response. It is that realizing a better America engenders a collective liberty that provides a more secure future for all of us.

      This is what transformation looks like. Over the 40 years since Ronald Regan first stained governance with his disdain for the very government he was chosen to lead, much has been lost. A certain atrophy has set in that has often resulted in government failure, not because government can’t work, but because political leaders never trusted the institutions that were essential to success. It was much easier to find failure than the courage to fix it. And it was even easier to allow delusional waves of national greatness to mask a shameful level of collective despair.

      Convincing Americans

      If President Biden is to be transformational, he will need to convince a cynical nation that government is worthy of the trust needed to meet the challenges ahead. Then, he will need to fight for the resources required to meet those challenges and to demonstrate that we are writing a better chapter this time because we finally realize the distortion of previous chapters.

      To write new and better chapters, the usual national distractions will have to be avoided. Two simple “truths” need to be emphasized. The first is that deficit spending is not a threat to needed reform, while resistance to paying taxes to meet public policy objectives is a threat. The second is that costly international adventures can only be avoided by accepting that “winning” is not a given. In both instances, simple cost/benefit analysis would serve America well and temper the hubris at the core of so much national angst.

      Joe Biden may well be suited to rise above the exaggerated pride and self-confidence that has driven many of his predecessors to achieve far less than they could have or should have achieved and that has shattered promise after promise. Maybe Joe is the guy. I sure hope so. It is nice for the moment to feel like some of us are no longer walking alone.

      *[This article was co-published on the author’s blog, Hard Left Turn.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Biden Should Rejoin the Iran Deal Before It’s Too Late

      by

      As Congress still struggles to pass a COVID relief bill, the rest of the world is nervously reserving judgment on the new US president and his foreign policy after successive administrations have delivered unexpected and damaging shocks to the world and the international system.

      Cautious optimism toward President Joe Biden is very much based on his commitment to Barack Obama’s signature diplomatic achievement in 2015: the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear agreement with Iran. Biden, along with his fellow Democrats, excoriated then-President Donald Trump for withdrawing from the JCPOA in 2018 and promised to promptly rejoin the deal if elected. But Biden now appears to be hedging his position in a way that risks turning what should be an easy win for the new administration into an avoidable and tragic diplomatic failure.

      Will the US and Iran Meet Jaw to Jaw?

      READ MORE

      While it was the United States under Trump that withdrew from the nuclear agreement, Biden is taking the position that the US will not rejoin the agreement or drop its unilateral sanctions until Iran first comes back into compliance with the terms of the JCPOA. After withdrawing from the agreement, the US is in no position to make such demands, and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has clearly and eloquently rejected them, reiterating Iran’s firm commitment that it will return to full compliance as soon as the US does so.

      Biden should have announced US reentry as one of his first executive orders. It did not require renegotiation or debate. On the campaign trail, Senator Bernie Sanders, Biden’s main competitor for the Democratic nomination, simply promised, “I would re-enter the agreement on day one of my presidency.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      It wasn’t just Sanders. Then-candidate Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said during the Democratic primary, “We need to rejoin our allies in returning to the agreement, provided Iran agrees to comply with the agreement and take steps to reverse its breaches.” Gillibrand said that Iran must “agree” to take those steps, not that it must take them first, presciently anticipating — and implicitly rejecting — Biden’s self-defeating position that Iran must fully return to compliance with the JCPOA before the US will rejoin.

      If Biden just rejoins the JCPOA, all of the provisions of the agreement will be back in force and work exactly as they did before Trump opted out. Iran will be subject to the same International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections and reports as before. Whether Iran is in compliance or not will be determined by the IAEA, not unilaterally by the United States. That is how the agreement works, as all the signatories agreed: China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, the United Kingdom, the European Union — and the United States.

      Neocons and Hawks

      So, why is Biden not eagerly pocketing this easy first win for his stated commitment to diplomacy? A December 2020 letter supporting the JCPOA, signed by 150 House Democrats, should have reassured Biden that he has overwhelming support to stand up to hawks in both parties. But instead, he seems to be listening to opponents of the Iran deal telling him that Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement has given him “leverage” to negotiate new concessions from Iran before rejoining. Rather than giving Biden leverage over Iran, which has no reason to make further concessions, this has given opponents of the JCPOA leverage over Biden.

      American neocons and hawks, including those inside his own administration, appear to be flexing their muscles to kill Biden’s commitment to diplomacy at birth, and his own hawkish foreign policy views make him dangerously susceptible to their arguments. This is also a test of his previously deferential relationship with Israel, whose government vehemently opposes the JCPOA and whose officials have even threatened to launch a military attack on Iran if the US rejoins it, a flagrantly illegal threat that Biden has yet to publicly condemn.

      In a more rational world, the call for nuclear disarmament in the Middle East would focus on Israel, not Iran. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu recently wrote in The Guardian, Israel’s own possession of dozens — or maybe hundreds — of nuclear weapons is the worst kept secret in the world. Tutu’s article was an open letter to Biden, asking him to publicly acknowledge what the whole world already knows and to respond as required under US law to the actual proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East.

      Instead of tackling the danger of Israel’s real nuclear weapons, successive US administrations have chosen to “cry wolf” over non-existent nuclear weapons in Iraq and Iran to justify besieging their governments, imposing deadly sanctions on their people, invading Iraq and threatening Iran. A skeptical world is watching to see whether President Biden has the integrity and political will to break this insidious pattern.

      The CIA’s Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control Center (WINPAC), which stokes Americans’ fears of imaginary Iranian nuclear weapons and feeds endless allegations about them to the IAEA, is the same entity that produced the lies that drove America to war on Iraq in 2003. In December 2002, WINPAC’s director, Alan Foley, told his staff, “If the president wants to go to war, our job is to find the intelligence to allow him to do so” — even as he privately admitted to his retired CIA colleague Melvin Goodman that US forces searching for WMDs in Iraq would find “not much, if anything.”

      What makes Biden’s stalling to appease Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the neocons diplomatically suicidal at this moment in time is that in November 2020, the Iranian parliament passed a law that forces its government to halt nuclear inspections and boost uranium enrichment if US sanctions are not eased by February 21.

      It’s Getting Complicated

      To complicate matters further, Iran is holding its own presidential election on June 18, and election season — when this issue will be hotly debated — begins after the Iranian New Year on March 21. The winner is expected to be a hawkish hardliner. Trump’s failed policy, which Biden is now continuing by default, has discredited the diplomatic efforts of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif, confirming for many Iranians that negotiating with America is a fool’s errand.

      If Biden does not rejoin the JCPOA soon, time will be too short to restore full compliance by both Iran and the US — including lifting relevant sanctions — before Iran’s election. Each day that goes by reduces the time available for Iranians to see benefits from the removal of sanctions, leaving little chance that they will vote for a new government that supports diplomacy with the United States. The timetable around the JCPOA was known and predictable, so this avoidable crisis seems to be the result of a deliberate decision by Biden to try to appease neocons and warmongers — domestic and foreign — by bullying Iran, a partner in an international agreement he claims to support, to make additional concessions that are not part of the agreement.

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      During his election campaign, candidate Biden promised to “elevate diplomacy as the premier tool of our global engagement.” If President Biden fails this first test of his promised diplomacy, people around the world will conclude that, despite his trademark smile and affable personality, he represents no more of a genuine recommitment to American partnership in a cooperative “rules-based world” than Trump or Obama did.

      That will confirm the steadily growing international perception that, behind the Republicans’ and Democrats’ good cop-bad cop routine, the overall direction of US foreign policy remains fundamentally aggressive, coercive and destructive. People and governments around the world will continue to downgrade relations with the United States, as they did under Trump, and even traditional US allies will chart an increasingly independent course in a multipolar world where the US is no longer a reliable partner and certainly not a leader.

      So much is hanging in the balance, for the everyday people of Iran suffering and dying under the impact of US sanctions, for Americans yearning for more peaceful relations with our neighbors around the world, and for people everywhere who long for a more humane and equitable international order to confront the massive problems facing us all in this century. Can Biden’s America be part of the solution? After just weeks in office, surely it can’t be too late. But the ball is in his court, and the whole world is watching.

      *[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Will the US and Iran Meet Jaw to Jaw?

      by

      On February 4, US President Joe Biden visited the US State Department, located down the street from the White House. He went to deliver a foreign policy message much needed by the men and women of that department and the nation. His audience was a receptive one, not surprising given that nearly all of the hundreds in attendance were career diplomats and civil service employees. He delivered exactly what they wanted to hear, affirming that, “You are the center of all that I intend to do … the heart of it.” That message dovetailed with his plans for an expansive reassertion of American diplomacy. It was necessary because American diplomacy had been absent for the last four years under the Trump administration.

      Unchanged or Unchained: What’s in Store for the JCPOA?

      READ MORE

      The foreign policy agenda outlined by Biden variously referred to: fortifying ties with America’s key allies and partners in Europe and Asia; serving notice to Russian President Vladimir Putin that Biden will challenge, “in a manner very different from my predecessor,” Moscow’s cyber threats and authoritarian moves against neighbors; challenging America’s new nemesis, China, on human rights, intellectual property and global governance but also offering cooperation when it serves US interests; calling out Saudi Arabia on Yemen and Myanmar on the recent coup; and recommitting the US to defending democracy and human rights and to upping immigration numbers into the US.

      The one major foreign policy challenge staring President Biden directly in the face but not mentioned was Iran. During his election campaign, he had promised to re-enter the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear accord with Iran from which then-President Donald Trump had withdrawn the US in May 2018.

      So Many Voices

      Not mentioning the subject in this — Biden’s first major foreign policy address of his brief presidency — may have been a wise course of action. First, his secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, have promised that the US will consult with America’s P5-plus-1 partners — Britain, France and Germany — as well as regional allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia before making decisions or taking any action. Moreover, at this stage, speaking too critically or harshly so soon would only trigger further stubbornness and resistance from an already recalcitrant Iran. And speaking too hopefully would ignite strong pushback from members of Congress resistant to almost anything short of Tehran’s capitulation.

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      Rejoining the JCPOA is replete with challenges that Biden’s former boss, Barack Obama, also faced but badly mishandled. Both Blinken and Sullivan have indicated that simply re-entering the nuclear agreement cannot be this administration’s sole objective. Any agreement with Iran that lasts into and through the next Republican administration must also address Iran’s growing missile arsenal and its meddling behavior in the Middle East, including in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and elsewhere.

      Just getting these issues on the agenda with Tehran would be an achievement, given the Islamic Republic’s oft-stated opposition to such discussions. Nevertheless, Biden knows that to reach a genuinely enduring agreement that survives his presidency, these issues must be on the table. Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, should also understand that for any agreement to offer his country predictability and stability in its international endeavors into the future, these issues are inescapable.

      Iran isn’t the only party with whom the Biden administration will have to negotiate. First, there are America’s allies who are part of the accord and who, for the last four years, have battled to keep the JCPOA on life support. It will be Britain, France and Germany who will run the initial interference for the US before it can meet face to face with the Iranians. Furthermore, the US will have to have their firm support before it can reach out to the other P5-plus-1 members, China and Russia. So, winning their support will be vital to the administration’s success.

      Second, there are America’s regional allies, most especially Israel, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, who have a genuine — they might say existential — interest in the outcome of any future talks. There was considerable dissension among these countries in the run-up to the 2015 accord and in its aftermath. Some, most especially Israel, made their objections known publicly and undiplomatically. Nevertheless, their concerns were valid, and President Biden and his team will have to find a way to ensure that these governments’ concerns, fears and interests are taken into account.

      Moreover, any dialog addressing the regional issues — whether on Iran’s malign activity in the Middle East or perhaps even the presence of US forces in the region — will likely have to include these countries. (How that might happen is a mystery, given that states like Saudi Arabia and Iran don’t yet officially recognize Israel.) What is essential for the Americans, however, is that these governments are somehow a part of the negotiations and that whatever results from the next round of negotiations is acceptable to the nations of the region most impacted. Blinken and Sullivan, chastened by the experience of 2015 and what came after, undoubtedly understand this.

      The Invisible Partner at the Negotiating Table

      Then, there is the final and likely most challenging party to future talks. That is the US Congress. Securing congressional approval for a follow-on agreement(s) and ensuring it endures beyond the Biden presidency will depend on winning that body’s approval. While Biden probably will not submit any new agreement to the Senate for approval, as the Constitution requires for formal treaties, he will nevertheless need to have at least its implicit support.

      Biden cannot afford to make the mistake of Woodrow Wilson in 1918 with the League of Nations and President Obama in 2015 with the JCPOA. He must find a way to bring in key members from both the House and Senate, even if only indirectly, in order to ensure that whatever results reflects their concerns. If Biden and his team can satisfy the concerns of the other two major groups — America’s P5-plus-1 partners and regional allies — then they will likely have addressed many of Congress’ concerns. But he cannot afford either to take their support for granted or to neglect Congress. They will have to be engaged throughout the process.

      Complexity (Times 100): Iran and All the Issues

      Of course, there is also the heart of the issue: the longstanding distrust and animus between the US and Iran. The imperfect deal brokered by Obama and the withdrawal from it by Trump served to exacerbate these feelings among Americans and Iranians, respectively. So, the sides may be starting from a more difficult position than they did in 2012, when they initially began their dialog that culminated with the JCPOA. Hardliners on both sides have further hardened their positions, Republicans (and some Democrats, too) in the US and the all-powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its leadership in Iran. They’re not just polar opposites — they live at opposite ends of the galaxy.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Furthermore, the issues have been brought into stark relief as a result of the American exit and subsequent imposition of crushing sanctions on Iran, its leadership, banking institutions and the IRGC. The country’s economy is reeling, though it has managed to finally stabilize. But any notion or hope of significant growth that reaches rank-and-file Iranians and businesses is non-existent under US sanctions. In 2021 and beyond, a nation of some 84 million people must be a part of the international community and most especially the global economy. That can’t happen as long as US sanctions hang over Iran’s head. The choice is stark, albeit hard, for Iran’s leadership: continue on the path to nuclear capability or join the rest of the international community.

      Despite Iran’s early declarations, an immediate US return to the JCPOA and suspension of sanctions prior to some of the aforementioned talks are a chimera. The Biden administration hasn’t taken the bait and shouldn’t. With sanctions in place, Biden has an advantage, no matter how much he may have opposed them in 2018.

      The administration should use this advantage. So, at the very least, before rejoining the JCPOA, it should insist on Tehran’s acceptance of follow-on negotiations on: the various time horizons on Iran’s nuclear development with weapons implications; the range and numbers of missiles; more comprehensive inspections, including of military sites; and its involvement in countries of the region and support for various militias and groups almost universally viewed as terrorists. Iran’s hardliners see some of these issues — like missiles and support for militia groups in the Middle East — as necessary and even existential, but there may be no avoiding talking about them.

      Iran doubtlessly has its chronic issues with the Americans, from threats of regime change to menacing military presence throughout the region, including US Navy aircraft carriers off its coast to American Air Force heavy bomber flights near its borders. It will also want some guarantees that whatever is agreed this time has some assurance of continuing. Then there are America’s non-nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, e.g., those relating to terrorism, terrorism financing, human rights, religious persecution, etc. These also are likely to become issues in any future talks.

      The Main Thing

      Hanging over all of this is the justifiably feared nuclearization of the Middle East. There can be no doubt that a nuclear-armed or -capable Iran would inevitably trigger similar strategic moves by Saudi Arabia and perhaps the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. Such a development in the world’s most volatile region is nightmarish.

      Resolving these supremely difficult issues will come down to some hard diplomacy and earnest, patient dialog. There is no military solution. Nuclear weapons can never be one either. And, as the previous administration’s “maximum pressure” approach demonstrated, Iran cannot be sanctioned into capitulating.

      In the words of Winston Churchill, “Meeting jaw to jaw is better than war.” It’s time for both sides to set their jaws to work.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Reworking US Policy in the Middle East and North Africa

      by

      US foreign policy has shifted dramatically from just a brief 20 years ago. This is not the making of Donald Trump, Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin. Rather, they are symptoms of forces that have been building since the post-Soviet era. With the ascendency of the US as the global superpower and the “Washington Consensus” as the pillar of economic development, it was easy to assume that Pax Americana was our legacy to the world.

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      In less than three generations, we are now less sure of our leadership and concerned — as are other nations — with the contradiction of a great power festering internally. Yes, the US certainly retains the world’s strongest military, economy, number of Nobel Prize winners and sometimes even Olympic gold medals. But America’s leaders are unsure of its place in the world, and they disagree on key issues: climate change and the environment, sustainable economic growth, support for international organizations, reengineering the social contract and similar deep-seated concerns.

      The US in the Region

      It is no surprise that there are many opinions on what US foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region will look like under an administration led by Joe Biden or Donald Trump. The only clear agreement is that there is no going back to 2000, 2008 or 2016. The world has changed in many respects. While we can discern a pattern of Trump’s preferences, Biden’s policies would reflect what he and his team learned from their time in the White House under Barack Obama and, hopefully, what he has learned in his almost 50 years of being in Washington. 

      Opinions about a return of Trump’s world vision run the gamut from doomsday to what could be better? For example, writing for Brookings, Thomas Wright exclaimed that “a second Trump term would make a lasting impact on the world right when it is at a particularly vulnerable moment. U.S. alliances would likely crumble, the global economy would close, and democracy and human rights would be in rapid retreat.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      This is hardly the view of the president’s supporters. They believe that international alliances, the global economy and promoting democracy and human rights have not secured stability or prosperity for the US, so why continue with policies that do not serve America’s vital interests? This brings us to the nub of the question: What are those interests that are literally worth fighting for?

      On the macro-level in the MENA region, it used to be simple: Israel and oil, with a secondary nod to trade and arms sales. This is no longer the case. Trump has put Israel on the road to control over its future by pressuring Iran and Hezbollah, continuing bilateral defense arrangements that enhance Israel’s qualitative edge, sealing the normalization of relations between the Israelis and some Arab countries, and ensuring that the UN Security Council will never pass another annoying resolution challenging Israel’s worldview.

      In world energy markets, Saudi Arabia has found itself outmaneuvered as the US can shift the supply paradigms to Asian markets by increasing its exports, which now makes America a more dangerous competitor than Russia. Even in arms sales and commerce, the US finds itself in tough competition with Russia, China and a host of regional producers — from Turkey to France and the UK.

      Regarding who are US allies and who are not, it appears that Trump favors leaving the Middle East and North Africa to its own devices, which includes supporting leaders who reflect his values of disdain for democratic limitations on their exercise of decision-making. This includes Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman and the UAE’s Mohammed bin Zayed. Trump’s penchant for transactional diplomacy is well illustrated by his treatment of the Kurds, Iraqis, the Syrian opposition, Turks, Iranians and others, often viewing diplomacy as a zero-sum competition.

      Does this mean a Trump foreign policy in the MENA region is without merit? Not if you are a supporter of Israel’s security, a hard-line approach on Iran’s dysfunctional role in the region and beyond, pro-arms sales as a tie that binds the US to its friends, and ending what seem to be “endless wars” that make no sense to many American voters.

      A Second Trump Administration?

      If Trump wins a second term in office, his administration would further refrain from direct action in places like Yemen, Libya, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt, again focusing on the benefit to US interests as the guiding principle. For weak states like those in North Africa as well as countries such as Lebanon, it will continue to be a tug-of-war within the State Department as to how best to support US interests in any bilateral relationship. The bigger the country (Egypt), the better endowed with energy resources (Algeria) or the more likely to be convinced that normalizing ties with Israel will be tolerated by its citizens (Sudan), the more attention it will get. As has been noted by a former US ambassador, “This will become a major priority of the next Trump administration and they will make foreign aid contingent on normalization agreements.”

      How this shakes out for Morocco and Saudi Arabia, both of which are targets of US-Israel diplomacy, is not clear as the two countries have special ties to Jerusalem not easily superseded by realpolitik. Don’t plan on seeing any reduction in US support for the Saudis in Yemen unless the Senate goes to the Democratic Party, which may force the president to deal with his friends in the Gulf.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Somalia remains an outlier, although its fits and starts toward democracy may draw the attention of policymakers who realizes the threat of the geostrategic encroachment of China and Russia in the Horn of Africa. As for Mauritania and Djibouti, like many Americans, most members of Congress can’t find them on a map, which leaves these countries open to the jaws of Russia and China.

      The great powers game in the MENA region is just beginning to be engaged as China has expanded its ports to the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. Its economic diplomacy is making inroads in a long and patient march to North Africa. Russia is not leaving Syria anytime soon and will continue to press Lebanon and Egypt to accept military assistance, as it will also do in Iran, much to the detriment of US–Israel interests.

      It would be quite short-sighted to minimize the roles of Iran and Turkey as regional powers in being able to affect key issues: Libya, Lebanon, Syria, eastern Mediterranean energy, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar, the use of mercenaries, arms sales and taking risks that are considered illogical to some Washington policymakers. Each must be considered on its own terms and with a close eye on their often expressed interests and weakening domestic support. While a paper can be written on each of these countries, suffice it to say that a second Trump administration will have to use much greater diplomatic finesse in convincing Erdogan to work with rather than against Washington’s interests.

      And a Biden Administration?

      The biggest challenge to an incoming Biden administration is to indicate how it will retain the best policies of the Obama administration while introducing initiatives that will strengthen perceptions of US commitment to act decisively. Many people in the Middle East and North Africa look at President Obama’s hesitation to act firmly in Syria and Libya, the hands-off treatment over Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, and the uneven commitment to human rights as indications of weakness and inconsistency.

      A Biden administration would begin from a different set of values that define different interests than the Trump White House. Ironically, Joe Biden’s values have more in common with the internationalist agendas of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush than with the current Republican administration. The cornerstones of Biden’s platform include the primacy of diplomacy, building relationships and alliances, emphasizing multilateralism for conflict-resolution, and greater attention to human rights and rule of law.

      As an open letter of endorsement for Biden by former US ambassadors and Middle East experts states, while “each country faces its own unique issues, the core complaints of poverty, corruption, and a scarcity of freedom are a common challenge.” Many of Biden’s positions are aspirational — for example, assuming that the right combination of sticks and carrots will bring Iran back to the bargaining table while Russia and China are already working to bolster their regimes militarily and economically.

      Promoting human rights and democratic values are front and center, but one wonders how those values resonate with the current generation of leaders, many of whom ignore and suppress expressions of dissension and calls for change. Part of Biden’s pledge is to support economic and political reforms, which may be opposed by those regimes he seeks to move toward. These reforms include greater inclusiveness and economic development for the young, women and marginalized groups.

      Biden claims that his administration would not countenance regimes that deny the basic civil rights of their citizens, nor ones built on widespread corruption and cronyism or those that meddle in the affairs of neighboring states. There is a gnawing fear among pro-Israel Americans that he will veer from his traditional uncritical support for Israel and insist on an end to actions that undermine the possibility of a two-state solution between the Israelis and Palestinians. These include halting the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and stopping the annexation of Palestinian territory. Biden has already noted that he will restore economic and humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians and reopen the US Consulate in East Jerusalem that serves the Palestinian communities.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Regarding Lebanon, the former vice president favors assisting its civil society and citizens to develop and implement policies that will be inclusive, and also supporting a dynamic state that reflects democratic values of equality and fairness. He mirrors the Trump administration in promising to continue support for the Lebanese armed forces. Biden also recognizes the need to sustain extensive humanitarian assistance to Syrian refugees and host communities in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. What Biden won’t do, according to his statements, is continue to tolerate support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen and its pursuit and punishment of dissidents and critics inside the kingdom and elsewhere.

      While no specifics are mentioned regarding Biden’s policy on Syria beyond “standing with civil society and pro-democracy partners on the ground,” his campaign platform maintains the role of US leadership in the coalition to defeat the Islamic State group and restore stability and promote a political solution in partnership with others in the region.

      Although not an Arab country, Iran plays an outsized role in the Middle East. Biden has already noted that he will renegotiate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran — with a broader focus on ending Tehran’s regional interference, support of terrorism and militias, and production of missiles. A similar agreement tailored to the specifics of Erdogan’s endgame in the region is also critical if any of the goals mentioned by a Biden administration are to be realized.

      While these goal statements are well-crafted, the lack of details — while understandable — raises concerns considering challenges, such as needing to reenergize a dispirited US diplomatic corps, indifferent or hostile players in the region, and unsure allies in Europe and the Middle East and North Africa. The critical need to focus on America’s domestic economic and psychological revival in the coming years will also compete with international priorities. Of course, the disposition of the races in the Senate and House of Representatives are also critical to closing the gap between aspiration and implementation.

      The authoritarian regimes in the MENA region prefer the devil they know. Yet the youth, women and those who are marginalized are desperate for changes that incorporate their aspirations and are built on equality, justice and opportunity. Donald Trump and Joe Biden are both known in the Middle East and North Africa. It will be quite interesting to see how the region reacts on November 4.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Joe Biden and the Fragile Realm of Possibilities

      by

      Almost every commentator in the media commended Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.

      At the core of his speech, Biden offered this thought, as if he was composing a humorless Devil’s Dictionary: “I have always believed you can define America in one word: Possibilities. That in America, everyone, and I mean everyone, should be given the opportunity to go as far as their dreams and God-given ability will take them.”

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Possibilities:

      1) In a non-deterministic world, the element of chance that keeps hopes alive even when all the evidence points to a fundamentally hopeless situation
      2) The opposite of probabilities, meaning there is a low likelihood of success

      Contextual Note

      The New York Times accurately describes the feeling the Democrats had at the end of their week of a virtual convention as a sense of relief more than accomplishment: “Democrats breathed a collective sigh of relief this week after the party pulled off an all-virtual convention, half political music video and half Joe Biden infomercial, largely without a hitch.” Neither hitch nor major glitch. This sums up the performance of the Democratic Party’s team of practicing high jumpers. They have honed their ability to sail over low bars.

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      The media identified the real reason for deeming Biden’s acceptance speech successful: low expectations. This may be emblematic not only of this entire election cycle, but also of how Americans have come to conceive of their democracy itself. The phenomenon was already visible in the 2016 presidential contest. The two dominant parties appear to have settled on a strategy designed principally to allow them to propose candidates with little appeal, possibly because neither party really wants to govern. In 2016, the parties opposed the two least popular candidates in history. And 2020 doesn’t look that different.

      The Hill reports, with a tone of mild surprise, the assessment of Fox News host Chris Wallace, who “said that the former vice president’s speech ‘blew a hole’ in President [Donald] Trump’s characterization of him as mentally unsound for the presidency.” Astead W. Herndon and Annie Karni, the authors of The Times article, interpret this as the result of a strategic error on the part of Trump. “The Joe Biden many Americans saw this week,” they wrote, “was cleareyed and capable of commanding an audience, albeit reading from a teleprompter in a room that was largely empty.” 

      On the other hand, they have no illusions about what this means. “If that is a low bar, it is because Mr. Trump and some of his most prominent allies have helped to lower it,” the authors add. It sounds something like Muhammad Ali’s famous “rope-a-dope” strategy to win back the heavyweight championship.

      When Biden insisted that America could be defined by a single word, “possibilities,” he set the bar as low as it might go. Throughout most of the 20th century, the phenomenon he is referring to as “possibilities” was called the “American dream.” It was the idea that anyone could become rich and anyone could become president. It was just a question of self-motivation. If you didn’t attain it, it was because you didn’t want it enough.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Even before the coronavirus pandemic, most Americans had lost confidence in the American dream. Biden either hasn’t kept up with the trend or sees nostalgia as a last-ditch marketing tool. With tens of millions of newly-unemployed Americans wondering whether they may not need to become an Uber driver just to ensure their short-term future, the American dream has achieved the status of an opiate-induced hallucination. 

      In its heyday, the American dream posited that the improbable is always possible. But now, given the failure of all systems — starting with government — to guarantee any form of economic and social stability, it requires accepting the idea that what everyone now is resigned to seeing as utterly impossible may somehow still be possible. The strain may be too great to justify holding that belief.

      But Biden may not be wrong. After all, Trump is a real president and Biden is still a possible president. If, in the midst of all the current crises, the real is now perceived as the source and explanation of the impossibility of survival, the remote hope that a change could happen has unquestionable appeal. That may be true even if Biden — unlike Trump in 2016 — represents not something new and different, but all that is only too familiar as a pillar of the traditional political establishment.

      In the runup to the 2016 election, Barack Obama, understanding that voters preferred his image to that of Hillary Clinton, invented the trope of his values being “on the ballot.” He famously intoned, “I am not on the ballot, but I tell you what. Fairness is on the ballot. Decency is on the ballot. Justice is on the ballot. Progress is on the ballot. Our democracy is on the ballot.”

      Recycling the trope, undoubtedly with Obama’s blessing, Biden offered a new variant: “Character is on the ballot. Compassion is on the ballot. Decency, science, democracy. They are all on the ballot. Who we are as a nation. What we stand for. And, most importantly, who we want to be. That’s all on the ballot.”

      In other words, he is saying: You all remember Obama. Let’s take two steps back and try to relive that experience characterized by the promise of hope and change. But the Democrats should be asking themselves this question: Are US voters motivated enough by Biden’s campaign to take two steps back? More fundamentally, is retreating into the past really what they want?

      Historical Note

      During the Democratic primary campaign, especially during the debates, Joe Biden repeated the same message over and over again. His latest formulation, in his acceptance speech, took the form of this truism every young American is taught at school: “[T]here’s never been anything we’ve been unable to accomplish when we’ve done it together.”

      Some may question the historical verity of such a statement. Since 1945, for example, the US has tried to win multiple wars (most of which it started) and, although doing it not only “together” but also equipped with the most sophisticated expensive technology, the nation has consistently proved literally unable to accomplish that feat. It is nevertheless true that sending men to the moon (but no women) was an example of accomplishing something extraordinary and doing it together. But the next time it happens, it will more likely be a private venture than a collective effort.

      The moon landings may have been the last authentic symbol of the shared American dream. One of the reasons people no longer evoke the American dream stems from their realization that it does exist, but only applies for a tiny group of people. And even their cases are fraught with ambiguity. What America accomplished when Neil Armstrong took “one giant leap for mankind” was a collective triumph. The next time it is more likely not to be in the name of the United States or mankind but of Elon Musk.

      Yes, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Musk — but also the more diverse examples of Kanye West, Michael Jordan and any number of Hollywood celebrities — have demonstrated the possibility of mobilizing their talent and other people’s money or fandom to realize the American dream.

      But many of the most recent achievements turn out to be flawed. Donald Trump himself is a prime example. He represents more a parody of the American dream than a realization of it. And he still has possibly 35% to 40% of Americans who continue to accept him as a role model. But there are too many Bernie Madoffs, Jeffrey Epsteins and Harvey Weinsteins alongside Trump and other fabulously successful but fundamentally unscrupulous characters not to call into question the morality of the quest for riches.

      By definition, the future is always a world of “possibilities.” But so is a poker game. Poker is — historically and symbolically — one way of realizing the American dream. But for each big winner, there are thousands if not millions of losers.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More