Who's on first?

The state department recently named Dennis Ross as a special adviser for the Gulf and Southwest Asia. Those are fairly broad and non-standard regional descriptions, so you might be saying to yourself "Self, I wonder what specific countries that means Dennis Ross will be advising SecState Clinton on?" Fair question. Apparently some inquisitive reporter was wondering the same thing and decided to ask at a state department press briefing on Tuesday. Makes sense- if the state department just named Mr. Ross as a special adviser, then they must know which countries he will be advising on. Right? And surely the briefer will have more than some stock answer about strategic regional advice considering this is a fairly important foreign policy decision. Right?

QUESTION: What is he in charge exactly of?
MR. WOOD: Well, Dennis is –
QUESTION: Is it Iran? And if it’s not Iran – if it’s Iran, why is it not written in the statement?
MR. WOOD: Well, let me just start off by saying, the Secretary is very happy that Dennis Ross agreed to serve as her special advisor for the Gulf and Southwest Asia. What Dennis is going to be charged with doing is trying to integrate policy development and implementation across a number of offices and officials in the State Department. And, you know, he is going to be providing the Secretary with strategic advice. He will be also trying to ensure that there’s a coherence in our policies and strategies across the region.
Let me be clear, he’s not an envoy. He will not be negotiating. He’ll be working on regional issues. He will not be – in terms of negotiating, will not be involved in the peace process. But again, he is going to be advising the Secretary on long-term strategic issues across the region.
QUESTION: Can you give us – well, what is the State Department’s definition geographically of Southwest Asia? What countries does that include?
MR. WOOD: Matt, I didn’t --
QUESTION: No, you guys named an envoy for Southwest Asia. I presume that you know what countries that includes.
MR. WOOD: Yes. Of course, we know. I just – I don’t have the list to run off – you know, right off the top of my head here. But obviously, that’s going to encompass – that region encompasses Iran. It will – you know, it’ll deal with --
QUESTION: Does it include Iraq?
MR. WOOD: Indeed, it does. He is going to be, again, as I said, providing her with advice – strategic advice, looking at the long term, the bigger picture and how we can make sure that our policies are coherent across the board in the region. And as I said, the Secretary is very pleased that Dennis has agreed to do this. He’s got years of experience in the region. And, you know, it’s a daunting task, but it’s one that she felt was necessary.
QUESTION: And so, does it include parts of the Middle East?
MR. WOOD: Yes.
QUESTION: It does? Does it include Syria, and it includes Israel and it includes Jordan?
MR. WOOD: Well, he’ll be looking at the entire region that will include, you know –
QUESTION: Where does that stop? I mean, you know, you have NEA which, you know, runs all the way to Morocco. So does it include –
MR. WOOD: Well, he’s going to be in touch with a number of officials who work on issues throughout this region.
QUESTION: Does it include Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, countries that are within the – within the Middle East or within the Near Eastern Affairs Bureau, but are not necessarily technically part of Southwest Asia?
MR. WOOD: He will be providing advice to the Secretary on a – across that entire region, where appropriate, where she needs it, and that’s the position he will serve.
QUESTION: So he’s going to meet with the leaders in the region as well, so you said he is going to offer an assessment --
MR. WOOD: That’s right. At some point, he will.
QUESTION: -- including the Iranians?
MR. WOOD: Well, I’m not sure at this point. But again, our policy with regard to Iran is under review, so once that review is completed, we’ll be able to go forward vis-à-vis Iran. But until that time --
QUESTION: Well, was there a consideration at some point that you would have a special envoy for Iran? And why didn’t you now go in that direction?
MR. WOOD: Well, a decision was made by the Secretary that she needed broad strategic advice to look at a range of issues across the entire region that we just talked about. And it was felt that his skills could be better used to do that type of work, given the years of experience that he’s had dealing with the Middle East, other parts of the world. And so, again, as I said, Iran will be one of those countries that he will be, you know, looking at in his portfolio. But --
QUESTION: The military sometimes refer to parts of the -stans, Central Asia, as Southwest Asia. Are those included in your --
MR. WOOD: Well, look --
QUESTION: Can you find out? Because, I mean, this is --
MR. WOOD: We can get you that. Yeah, we can get you a breakdown of --
QUESTION: I mean, does this – is there a geographic limit to his portfolio, or is it really an issues-based thing so that he could be dealing with Morocco and Algeria --
MR. WOOD: Yeah.
QUESTION: -- and Tunisia --
MR. WOOD: I would look at it, Matt, as more of a regional --
QUESTION: -- and Kyrgyzstan, and the -stans that are not covered by Ambassador Holbrooke? And does it include Turkey? Does it – you know, there are a lot of unanswered questions from – from the statement last night as to exactly what he’s going to be doing. I mean, I presume it’s all of the Gulf – Saudi Arabia, that makes sense. But does it include Somalia, which is – you know, that there is – does it include – I don’t know --
QUESTION: Or is it (inaudible) Iran?
MR. WOOD: Your question is – you know, let me answer your --
QUESTION: It could be anything. Or is he limited by the geographic --
QUESTION: Or did you just not want to put Iran in the name, and so this is your clever way of doing that?
MR. WOOD: Can I speak now?
QUESTION: Sure.
MR. WOOD: Thank you, and thank you. Look, it’s more – he’s going to be providing advice to the Secretary on a number of regional issues, and I would not try to limit Dennis’s advice to, you know, just those regions. He may have other – you know, he may have advice that he wants to give the Secretary on other issues. I don’t think we’re trying to narrow it here. If you’re looking for a geographical breakdown of those countries that he will be looking --
QUESTION: It would be nice to find out what the State Department considers to be Southwest Asia.
MR. WOOD: We can certainly do that for you.
QUESTION: Thank you.

True to his word, State Department spokesperson Robert Wood was a little more prepared the following day.

QUESTION: Have your ace geographers been able to determine what Southwest Asia is and thereby figure out what exactly Dennis Ross’s mandate is?

MR. WOOD: I’m so shocked that you asked that question. Let me give you my best – our best read of this. From our standpoint, the countries that make up areas of the Gulf and Southwest Asia include Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Yemen, and those are the countries.

The 8th Pillar- Entertainment Edition!

It's awards season, and I wanted to join in the fun. Though they walked away without any Oscars, I want to highlight two foreign films that received nominations.

The first is "Der Baader Meinhof Komplex." This film tells the story of the Red Army Faction's beginnings. The RAF was a leftist terrorist organization operating in West Germany primarily during the 1970's. This group provides a how-to guide for running a terrorist organization in a western nation.



The second movie is titled "Waltz with Bashir." It's an animated documentary following an Israeli veteran of the 1982 Lebanon War as he confronts his inner demons and hazy memories of war.



The final addition to the Entertainment Edition!, involves a lovely singing group out of my favorite former Soviet republic in the Caucasus- Georgia. As we're all aware, Georgia was pummeled this summer by the Russians. Depending on who you believe, Russia was either defending Russian citizens in South Ossetia or trying to show the Americans they're still the big man in the region. Either way, to use the technical military term, Georgia got spanked. Bad. But fear not lovers of freedom, Georgia has finally decided to launch a counter-attack. This year's Eurovision song contest is being held in Moscow. The Georgian entry features a song entitled "We Don't Wanna Put In." This is a not-so-subtle dig at Former Russian President and current Russian Prime Minister Putin. It has not yet been decided whether the official Kremlin response will be to drop the band out of a window , accidentally shoot them in the head, or poison them with Polonium- but with Putin involved, who knows...they may do all three.

Did the Tamil Tigers just pull a rope-a-dope?

A quick backgrounder for those not familiar with the Sri Lankan civil war. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, or Tamil Tigers) have been waging a bloody insurgency against the government of Sri Lanka since the 1970's. The LTTE are fighting for a ethnically Tamil state to be carved out of the mostly Sinhalese Sri Lanka. Throughout the years the LTTE has been a force to be reckoned with; they have controlled enormous chunks of territory and have employed their own naval and air force assets in their fight for a Tamil homeland. The conflict has been extremely bloody, showcasing several horrific suicide campaigns by the Tigers (that's right folks, contrary to redneck wisdom, the most prolific suicide bombers in history are neither Muslim nor from the Middle East; they are secular Hindu nationalists off the coast of India). The Tigers use the tactic often enough to have entire military units of suiciders, called Black Tigers (Black Sea Tigers for those who strike through use of boats or scuba).

Recently though, the fight has been going extremely well for the Sri Lankan government. The LTTE have lost nearly all their territory, including: Kilinochchi, the administrative HQ of the Tigers during the last 10 years; the vital Elephant Pass; and the whole of the Jaffna Pennisula. In fact, the LTTE holds only approximately 100 square km and the Sri Lankan army is encircling the last town still under tiger control, Puthukkudduyirppu.

The cost of this success has been high, and borne mostly by Tamil civilians. There are concerns that the army is paying little attention to the well-being of the civilian population in their quest to eradicate the Tigers. Some 250,000 have been displaced throughout the north and east of the country. The free press has also become a casualty of the fighting, with journalists facing interrogation, abduction, and even death, with little to no action taken by the government to safeguard their rights.

The title of this post references the attack launched today by the LTTE's air force against the capital of Sri Lanka, Colombo. The Tigers have launched only a handful of airborne attacks, though just having the capability is fairly impressive for an insurgent group. Two LTTE planes managed to drop one bomb near the Sri Lankan air force HQ before being shot down or crashing kamikaze style in the city. I do not think that this is the beginning of a Tiger offensive; more likely, it is one of many LTTE death throes we will see in the upcoming weeks.

A new challenge for the government will begin as the fighting winds down. Even without the LTTE around, roughly 10% of the population is Tamil and feels persecuted by and distrustful of the Sinhalese majority. They reside in land that has seen fighting for much of the last 30 years. They have no economy to speak of, and with the LTTE gone, will have no administrative structures to fall back on. If Sri Lanka desires a lasting calm, they will need to build up the economic, political, and social structures of the Tamil people. Failing to address these issues will likely lead to more fighting.

Consequences of Obama closing Guantanamo

Last week, Interpol released an Orange alert at the request of Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom wants assistance gathering intelligence and/or capturing 85 terrorists with known links to al-Qaeda. Nothing too newsworthy about the alert, except that 11 of the 85 had been recently released from American custody at Guantanamo Bay.

This only adds to the debate over what to do with the detainees when the base closes. In the long run, a few dozen released terrorists won't do much harm; at least not as much as would be done by leaving Guantanamo open. The detention camp has hurt this country, both in reputation and by fueling a new generation of terrorists. But there is no need to let obviously dangerous individuals roam free.

President Obama was understandably under a lot of pressure to close the detention center following his campaign rhetoric, and he was right to make it a high priority. But perhaps he should have had a plan first.

Venezuela's big choice

The people of Venezuela are voting today on a change to their country's constitution. The change, if approved, will abolish term limits for elected officials; effectively granting Hugo Chavez full dictator status. Though voters rejected a similar measure in 2007, polls show that this election will be close.

Mr. Chavez rose to prominence in 1993 when, as a Colonel in the Venezuelan armed forces, he led an failed coup attempt. After several years in prison, Chavez ran for president in 1998, ultimately winning with 56% of the vote. He ran on a platform of helping Venezuela's many poor, the support of whom he still enjoys at ridiculously high levels. Since first being elected, Chavez has twice been reelected, has emerged victorious from a recall referendum, and survived a coup attempt in which he was captured.

Chavez is known the world over for his political antics and showmanship. He hosts a weekly radio program called "Alo Presidente" (Hello, Mr. President) during which he speaks for hours at a time. Topics range from his perceived victimization by America to the evils of capitalism, and from his life as a child to his daily schedule as president. As president, Chavez enjoys putting on a show to make a point; the list of countries Chavez has broken diplomatic ties with (mostly only for a few weeks at a time) is long. It was Chavez who stood in front of U.N. General Assembly and called George Bush a devil who smelled of sulfur. This has earned him many disciples throughout Latin America, where leftist governments praise Chavez for standing up to the West.

But regional governments support Chavez for more than his big mouth; he also doles out huge amounts of money to prop up his fellow leftists. This was less of a problem for Venezuela when oil prices were at record highs. But with the recent decline, Chavez is going to have to make some difficult choices between cutting support for like-minded governments or cutting programs in the quest to implement his "21st Century Socialism."

Venezuela's oil requires extra refining and fetches less on the open market than oil from the Middle East. And it's not just the price drop hurting the country's finances (now at less than half of last year's average); Venezuela's production capacity has dropped by nearly 1 million bpd over the last decade, due mostly to Chavez's redirection of research and exploration funds from the state owned oil company into social welfare programs. The country suffered from 31% inflation last year, and has already had to dip heavily into their currency reserves. On top of all the economic problems, Venezuela has also become one of the more dangerous countries in the world, with a murder rate that has more than doubled since Chavez came to office.

My hunch is that the people of Venezuela will not abolish term limits today; though even if they do, I don't think it necessarily means Chavez will become president-for-life. As already noted, Chavez owes much of his support to the large numbers of rural and urban poor in Venezuela. These people give themselves to Chavez because of his expansive social programs; programs which he can no longer finance. Despite Chavez's slight authoritarian bent, there is a thriving opposition in Venezuela. If the poor begin flocking to them, Chavez will have to step down or call out the army to stay in power. Unfortunately he may be more inclined to pick the latter of the two.

***UPDATE***
Well, apparently my hunches don't amount to much. By an approximately a 54%-46% margin, Venezuelan voters did away with term limits. This should be interesting.

Perks of the Westminster system

There are a two aspects of the British parliamentary system of government I would like to see here in America. The first is the practice of having a shadow government. In the Westminster system of government, the ruling party gets to decide which members of parliament will hold important positions in the government- who will be Prime Minister, who will receive positions in the cabinet, etc. Taking the U.K. as an example, Labour won the last election, therefore their leader, Gordon Brown, is the current Prime Minister, and Labour MPs hold all the cabinet positions. This is not that far removed from our own system in that traditionally the President draws on members of his own party to fill cabinet positions.

A shadow government allows for the opposition party to have their say in how they would run the government were they in charge. Sticking with the U.K., the Conservatives, after placing in second during the last election, are now the official opposition party. As such, their leader, David Cameron, is the shadow Prime Minister. He has filled a shadow cabinet with fellow Tories. This provides the Conservatives with an opportunity to give the public a clear picture of what a Conservative government would look like: which policies it would endorse; which MPs would head each department; how it would be different than the current actual government.

It's obviously not a perfect translation to our system of government. Lots of details would have to be hammered out. The benefits are alluring though. Instead of focusing all their energies on trying to make the party in charge fail, the opposition party could have an outlet to promote their own policies and show the public what the alternative choice would be. The increase in dialogue between the parties and the people they want to represent would be fascinating.

Part deux of my hypothetical British invasion would be starting something similar to Prime Minister's questions. Every Wednesday for half an hour, the British Prime Minister stands in front of his fellow MPs and takes questions. Any topic. No prior knowledge of the questions. For starters, it's highly entertaining; Involving much wit and quick thinking. More importantly though, it keeps the Prime Minister accountable for his actions and decisions.

During the presidential campaign, John McCain promised to institute something similar if he became President. It wouldn't be too difficult a proposition. Once a week (or every two weeks, or every month) the President could appear before the Congress and answer questions from both parties regarding new plans and initiatives, or the state of the government. Anything really. Think of it as a State of the Union address, except not mind-numbingly boring.

The biggest benefit is the excitement a President's Questions could bring. It's not just policy wonks who are interested in Prime Minister's Questions in the U.K. Everyday people watch and discuss the weekly verbal sparring. There seems to have been a surge in interest regarding politics in this country (though I'm not sure if it's due more to people loving Obama, or hating Bush), and something informative, interactive, and entertaining like President's Questions could really capitalize on the momentum gathering right now in this country.

Will Joseph Ratzinger be to the Vatican what George W Bush was to the White House?

Apparently enraging the entire Islamic world wasn't enough for this Pope. He has now moved on to the Jews. First, Pope Benedict XVI reinstated the Tridentine Mass, which calls for the conversion of Jews from darkness to Catholicism. Now, the BMOC at the Vatican has un-excommunicated four Bishops, one of whom is a holocaust denier.

If I may, Mr. Pope, allow me to give you some flippant advice. As the head of a church the leader of which (at best) turned a blind eye to Nazi atrocities during WWII, and who is yourself from Germany, and who was a member of the Hitler Youth (even if unenthusiastic about it), perhaps you should have given it a little more thought before rehabilitating a holocaust denier.

On a slightly more serious note, there is more to the title of this post than both Bush and Benedict XVI knowing how to stick in the collective craw of millions of Muslims. They both also followed an immensely popular predecessor (Clinton and John Paul II). And from what I understand Benedict XVI shares W's love of yes men. Recent reports indicate that the Pope has surrounded himself only with men of similar opinion and inclination. This has increased criticisms from many sources, surprisingly enough even from within the Catholic church. Several European Cardinals have publicly criticized the Pope, going so far as to call his decision "disastrous" and saying they have lost faith in Benedict XVI.

I know at least one Catholic reads these ramblings of mine. I would be curious to hear some lay Catholic responses to this situation. If I were one, I would be questioning whether Benedict XVI is the right man to have the power of making "infallible" decisions for the church.