Archive | July, 2022

Biden’s Middle East Visit: An Orgy of Cynicism, Hypocrisy, and Erasures

21 Jul

[Prefatory Note: A stylistically modified version of this post was published a few days ago in COUNTERPUNCH. It criticizes the dual tracks of Biden’s ill-executed trip in mid-July to Israel and Saudi Arabia. It faults Biden for the extreme cynicism of pursuing a realpolitik approach in Riyadh and an approach in Israel that mixed silences about apartheid, Shireen Abu Akleh, and the Palestinian ordeal with fanciful claims about shared values and democratic affinities.]

Biden’s Middle East Visit: An Orgy of Cynicism, Hypocrisy, and Erasures–

Shared Values and Fist Pump Geopolitics

The U.S. Government at the highest level criticized Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, because she went to China on a mission to develop opportunities for cooperation with respect to the protection of human rights, which I found appalling at the time. The mission had been carefully several weeks earlier by UN staff that had visited China and negotiated the itinerary of the visit, which took occurred in May of this year. The whole experience seemed a win/win breakthrough as a major country opening itself up to a high degree of independent international scrutiny with respect to its human rights record, an exposure the U.S. has resisted and opposed. High officials in Washington let it be known in advance that they considered the trip ‘a mistake,’ and expressed consternation that its hyped allegations of ‘genocide’ associated with the treatment of the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang were not confirmed by Bachelet, although human rights violations in the province were duly noted by the High Commissioner in her report on the visit. 

Western policy-minded China experts pointed to the supposed ‘danger’ of legitimating China’s narrative by the visit and contributing “an important milestone in China’s normative power.” [see Patrizia Zoguo and Lukian Da Bono, “The Steep Cost of Bachelet’s Visit to China,” The Diplomat,June 13, 2022] Critics even observed that such a visit so effectively whitewashed China’s wrongdoing that rather than improve prospects for its compliance with human rights the mission would likely have the perverse effect of emboldening China to commit even grosser violations in the future, and this despite China having agreed to establish a variety of continuing interactions and periodic consultations with the Geneva-based Office of the High Commissioner, connections no other geopolitical actor has seen fit to negotiate, and yet the critics failed to draw any such comparisons such was there resolve to prove it wrong for any part of the UN System to cooperate with China.

I regard China’s effort to enhance its image as a legitimate state to be a positive development not deserving the hostile reaction that it received in many sectors of the West, but especially in those quarters that were intent on a new cold war to blunt the competitive edge that China was gaining, especially in the world economy and on many technological frontiers of special relevance in the digital age. To seize upon this Chinese initiative, even granting that it was partly motivated by quite nomal soft power ambitions of sovereign states, is to denigrate most attempts to develop an international culture of respect for human rights as an essential foundation for indispensable cooperation in a variety of functional areas, including trade, climate change, migration, and environmental protection. And we should not overlook American class-based arrogance in relation to human rights, given its refusal to accord economic and social rights the normative status they deserve, and of which China is proud, and justly so, given its remarkable record of poverty alleviation over the course of the last half century. This acute societal shortcoming in the United States is exhibited to the world and visible to all in the form of large-scale urban homelessness in the cities of the United States, and accented by less visible unavailability of affordable health care and nutritious food to millions of its own citizens; as well, constitutionally validated gross violations of the right to life arising from permissive rules governing access to assault weaponry for anyone with the money to make the purchase. A surge of civic violence, including mass school and mall shootings that keep blindsiding governing institutions at all levels of society who remain willing to pander to the interests of the munitions industry and the toxic populism of gun culture. Should not we, as Americans, have long ago interrogated our distinctive vulnerability to such a pattern of negative exceptionalism.

It is with these considerations in the background that we should assess the Biden mid-July visit to Israel and Saudi Arabia. If the critical reaction to Bachelet’s mission reflected establishment resentment to this breach in the geopolitical wall of hostility that had been constructed during the last years of the Trump presidency to justify coercive diplomacy directed at China. In contrast, Biden’s visit to the Middle East dramatized the extent to which human rights are buried far underground when perceived to clash with strategic interests being pursued in foreign policy as abetted by the domestic incentives to treat certain flagrant violators of human rights as if they are upholding the highest standards of a model democracy. Of course, it is of relevance to note that overlooking Saudi Arabia dreadful record, which includes blood dripping from the hands of the de facto head of state, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmon (MBS), did bring Biden and the normally compliant media visible discomfort and occasioned some retreat from Biden’s fist pump greeting in Saudi Arabia. 

Perhaps embarrassed, Biden made clear that it was only national security interests prevented him from fulfilling his 2020 campaign pledge to treat Saudi Arabia as a ‘pariah’ state. Biden somewhat surprisingly affirmed, considering his good will diplomatic goals, that he still believed in the rightness of his pledge when it came to Saudi human rights. Even more provocatively, Biden rejected MBS’s insistence that he had nothing to do with the murder of Jamal Khashoggi back in 2018. In view of his praise of Israel’s democratic credentials, Biden made himself vulnerable to MBS’s clever taunt—you seem to care much more about Jamal Khashoggi than Shireen Abu Akleh. Rather than implicate Israel, the U.S. official investigation of the murder of its own citizen, seems constructed to share the grief of Akleh’s surviving family instead of accepting the political costs of seeking accountability of the sort that might protect future journalists covering dangerous hotspots in Israel and elsewhere.

When it came to Israel, not only were human rights issues off the table, but Israel was     praised extravagantly and unreservedly as an ally with shared values whose behavior could not be judged negatively. Biden displayed his affection for Israel by unnecessarily declaring himself to be a non-Jewish Zionist as if race was not a factor in the implementation of the Zionist vision in Israel. On another level, such a flourish seemed to express Biden’s view that disregarding the plight of the Palestinians was not a sufficient demonstration that U.S. partisanship was underpinned by a ideological identity. Pro-Palestinians had anticipated this one-sidedness, [See statement of the Global Network on the Question of Palestine, “Biden’s Upcoming Visit to the Middle East: A Recipe for Violence not Peace, July 12, 2022] and predicted its refusal to take note of such developments as the condemnation of the most internationally respected human rights NGOs in Israel and Occupied Palestine were branded as ‘terrorist’ organizations months ago by the Israeli Secretary of Defense and currently aspiring prime minister, Benny Gantz. Even nine of the most important EU members (including France, Germany, Spain, and Italy) issued a joint statement on July 12th repudiating this cynical branding by the Israeli government evidently designed to inhibit international funding as well as destroy the domestic viability of these key civil society actors. In the same spirit, although much more serious from a human rights perspective, Biden and Western media kept completely silent about the glaring reality of Israel apartheid despite the strong mainstream human rights NGOs in the West and even in Israel concluding that Israel was guilty of committing the continuing international crime of apartheid.[See 2001 reports of B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, and 2022 of Amnesty International, as well as 2017 UN report of the Economic and Social Council of West Asia).  Unlike the visit to Riyadh if Biden had raised these concerns even politely if would have undoubtedly produced a negative reaction among Jewish lobbying groups in the U.S., with repercussions for fundraising and the 2022 and 2024 elections. Despite Biden groveling at the feet of Yair Lapid, the Israeli caretaker prime minister, Trump remains the American leader of choice for the majority of Israelis according to recent public opinion polls. Trump doesn’t bother to pretend that he favors Palestinian statehood in a meaningful form, while Biden is apparently eager to retain membership in the liberal Zionist camp by way of rhetoric that falls short when it comes to policy.

The visit to Israel ended with the so-called The Jerusalem U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Joint Declaration signed by the two leaders on July 14, 2022. The opening sentences of the Declaration set the tone, which unlike the national interests justifications for the diplomatic visit to Saudi Arabia, the prior Israel visit is affirmed as a virtual pilgrimage, far exceeding the proprieties of alliance statecraft or the pursuit of common national policy agendas. The extravagant language used is worth noticing, and especially as it implicit vindicated the marginalization of the Palestinian quest for justice and a shared war-mongering tone toward Iran:

“The United States and Israel reaffirm the unbreakable bonds between our two countries and the enduring commitment of the United States to Israel’s security. Our countries further reaffirm that the strategic U.S.-Israel partnership is based on a bedrock of shared values, shared interests, and true friendship. Furthermore, the United States and Israel affirm that among the values the countries share is an unwavering commitment to democracy, the rule of law, and the calling of “Tikkun Olam,” repairing the world.”

The Declaration went on to attack the UN and even the ICC as giving way to anti-Semitism, all because it was a venue for well-evidenced criticisms of Israel’s state practices and policies. This love fest even agreed to join forces to oppose the BDS Campaign and indeed any effort regarded as delegitimizing Israel as a state. There were, as well, imprudently phrased commitments in the Declaration especially with reference to Iran, the language of which is provocative:

“The United States stresses that integral to this pledge is the commitment never to allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon, and that it is prepared to use all elements of its national power to ensure that outcome. The United States further affirms the commitment to work together with other partners to confront Iran’s aggression and destabilizing activities, whether advanced directly or through proxies and terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”[emphasis in the original}

Of course, among the revealing and dangerous silences associated with the Biden visit was the failure to mention Israel’s arsenal of nuclear weaponry and resulting strategic hegemony throughout the region. From any kind of detached perspective dedicated to peace and stability a nuclear free zone for the Middle East would be the optimal way to promote the true interests of the United States in the region, including energy production increases. When in history has a dominant state enacted its own policies in ways that ran against its national interests in response to pressures from a small state that it heavily subsidizes, including with weapons?

To end on a constructive note, the White House might considering entrusting future international political travel plans to American Express rather than the State Department. Its time to shed Blinken’s blinkered ‘rule-governed’ geopolitical fairy tale if we want to live together with others on the planet in ways that work. If this bit of unsolicited advice is follower, it might lead to real foreign policy gain! 

Tags: , , , , , ,

The Worst is Yet to Come: When the Center Cannot Hold

15 Jul

[Prefatory Note: The following post was published in slightly modified form in

COUNTERPUNCH on July 15, 2022. It attempts to connect my despair about developments

In America with wider global systemic tendencies. It is not hopeful about the future, yet 

Its central message is that we should continue to struggle for a future we can believe in given that we live at a time of radical uncertainty.]

The Worst is Yet to Come: When the Center Cannot Hold

No lines of poetry are more resonant with our time than the celebrated lines of

William Butler Yeats’ famous poem ‘The Second Coming’:

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst 

  are full of passionate intensity.”

This is especially true here in the United States, as it was in post-World War I Germany’s

nurturing the rise of Naziism and its demonic voice, Adolph Hitler, the consummate outsider who managed to crawl up the mountain to ascend its peak. The core disabling affliction of the United States in the 21st Century is an energized and armed extreme right-wing and a listless, passive center, a development lamented by liberals who would sell their souls long before parting with their stocks and bonds, all for a non-voting seat at various illiberal tables of power. This lack of humane passion at the political center serves as a reinforcing complement to the violent forces of alienation waiting around the country for their marching orders, as the January 6th insurrectionary foray foretells. Together these contrasting modes of ‘citizenship’ signal the death of constitutional democracy as it has functioned, with ups and downs, flawed by slavery, genocide, and patriarchy at birth, indeed ever since the republic was established in 1787 as ‘a more perfect union.’ In 2022 a fascist alternative is assuming institutional, ideological, and populist prominence with active support of many American oligarchs who fund by night what they disavow when the sun shines (again recalling the behavior of German industrialists who thought of Hitler as their vehicle, whereas it turned out to be the other way around).

This contemporary political ordeal is globally systemic, and not only the sad tale of American moral, economic, and political decline, temporarily hidden from public awareness by an orgy of excess military spending that has gone on for decades, a corporatized, compliant media, diversionary exploits abroad, and a greedy private sector that grows bloated by arms sales and a regressive tax structure, Pentagon plunder, and its profit-driven regimen. What may be most negatively revealing is the failure to take account of geopolitical failure or sanctified domestic outrages (mass shootings in schools and elsewhere with legally acquired weapons suitable only for organized military combat). It is time to link the inability to mount any serious challenge to the tyranny of the Second Amendment as interpreted by the NRA in cahoots with Congress and the Supreme Court, cowing much of the public to the sullen sense of befuddled spectators. Even before these hallowed institutions acquired their Trumpist edge, they shied away from constructing rights as if they were aware of the violent societal and ecological fissures tearing up the roots of bipartisan civility. The moral rot and criminality that victimizes society as a whole is less the work of the sociopaths among us than the outcome of a two-party plutocratic dynamic that is controlled by infidels and their bureaucratic minions who either actually like the way things are working out or feel impotent to mount a challenge with any chance of producing benevolent changes.

These same patterns of stasis are evident among the centrist elites who have been educated at the most esteemed universities. Perhaps the brightest, but surely not the best. Refusing to learn from Vietnam where military dominance, widespread devastation of a distant country, much bloodshed, resulted in a political defeat that should have induced some learning about the limits of military agency in the face pf colonial collapse and a new landscape of resistance. Instead of learning from the failure brought about by a changing post-colonial political balance in the countries of the Global South, anointed foreign policy experts in Washington whined about the ‘Vietnam Syndrome’ that allegedly hampered a pragmatic recourse to military instruments to advance U.S. national and strategic interests because the American citizenry feared a repetition of Vietnam. It was President George H.W. Bush who reveled in the defeat of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in the desert war fought against Iraq in 1991, not primarily because it restored Kuwaiti sovereignty but because it supposedly restored societal confidence that the U.S. could win wars of choice at acceptable costs. In Bush’s prematurely triumphalist words, “By God, we’ve kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all.” (March 1991) 

In plainer language, that American military power had efficiently vanquished its Iraqi enemy without enduring many casualties or expending much wealth, and hence the leadership of the country could feel free again to rely on military threats, weapons, and intervention as a decisive geopolitical policy tool to get its way throughout the world. But was this triumphalism vindicated? Better understood, this First Iraq War in 1991 was a strictly battlefield encounter between asymmetric military forces, and as in many earlier wars, so unlike Vietnam, the stronger side won this time quickly and without body bags alerting Americans to the sacrificial costs of a war meaningless to the security of the homeland. The lessons of Vietnam for the foreign policy establishment were to the extent possible substitute machines for troops, reinforced by professionalized armed forces replacing a military conscripted by government decree, as well as adopting tactics that shortened the military phase of political undertakings designed to nullify forms of self-determination that seemed to go against American post-Cold War resolve to run the world to serve the interests of its wealthiest 1%. 

These lessons decidedly were not what should have been learned from a decade of expensive failed blood-soaked efforts in Vietnam. The true primary lesson of the Vietnam War was that the political mobilization of a people in the Global South behind a struggle for national self-determination could now usually neutralize, and often eventually overcome, large margins of military superiority bv an outside intervening power, especially if it hails from the West. The stubborn refusal by politicians and the most trusted advisors by their side to heed this lesson led to regime-change and state-building disasters in the Iraq War of 2003, Afghanistan (2001-2021), Libya (2011), and others less pronounced and widely acknowledged failures. No matter how many drones search and destroy mission or how much ‘shock and awe’ is staged for its spectacular traumatizing effects on a vulnerable society, the end result resembles Vietnam more than Iraq after the 1991 war. Despite this accumulation of evidence, there is still no relevant learning evident, which would be most meaningfully signaled by massive downsizings of the military budget and more prudently and productively using public monies at home and abroad. The bipartisan foreign policy, again evident in response to the Ukraine War, is locking that country into an expensive and lengthy dynamic of failure and frustration, somewhat disguised by dangerous deceptions about the true nature of the strategic mission. Instead of intervention and regime change, the dominant insider Ukraine rationale for heightening tensions, prolonging warfare devastating a distant country and bringing tragic losses of life, limb, and home to many of its people, is scoring a geopolitical victory, namely, inflicting defeat and heavy costs on Russia while sternly warning China that if it dares challenge the status quo in its own region it can expect to be confronted by the same sort of destructive response that Russia is facing. Long ago patriots of humanity should have been worried about the ‘Militarist Syndrome’ and paid heeded the ‘Vietnam Syndrome,’ with a sense of gratitude. This could have led the U.S. to adopt a war prevention strategy rather than insisting on worldwide capabilities enabling a reactive military response to unwanted actions of others. Pre-2022 Ukraine diplomacy by the U.S. led NATO alliance rather than seeking a war prevention outcome in Ukraine seemed determined to provoke a war dangerously designed to extent life support to an unstable unipolar geopolitical order disliked by most of the Global South as well as China and Russia. 

Here at home with its embedded gun culture, massive urban homelessness, and cruelty to asylum seekers at the Mexican border, it is the underlying systemic malady that remains largely undiagnosed, and totally untreated—namely, a lame and unimaginative leadership that is alternatively passively toxic and overtly fascist in the domestic sphere, and geopolitically irresponsible and transactional when it ventures abroad for the sake of Special Relationships or insists that global security anywhere on the planet is of proper concerns only for Washington think tanks, lobbyists, and upper echelon foreign policy bureaucrats. It is not surprising that in such a quandary, those on the extreme right with energy, passion, and excitement on their side seem destined to control the future unless a surge of progressive energy erupts mysteriously, and enables a new social movement to emerge that is animated by strivings toward bio-ethical-ecological-political sanity.

This drift toward fascism is not the only plausible scenario for a highly uncertain American future. There is also Yeats’ assessment made long before the current world crisis emerged. We should not be surprised that poets see further ahead than foreign policy gurus, politicians, and mainstream academicians who remain fixated on electoral or other performance cycles even in autocracies:

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

And then there is to be newly considered Barbara F. Walter’s carefully researched assessment that the United States is drifting toward a second civil war, and not a fascist sequel to republican democracy. [See Walter, How Civil Wars Start and how to stop them, 2022] It presents a somewhat more optimistic view of the future, although it fails to contextualize the political challenge in relation to the global systemic damage done by neoliberal economic globalization, an unsettling lingering COVID pandemic, and a general planetary condition of ecological entropy.

Nevertheless, I find this prospect of civil wars less disheartening than the related drift toward fascism or the torments of anarchy. Civil wars end and can often be prevented, and the winners have a stake in restoring normalcy, that is, assuming the more humane side prevails, which under current conditions may seem utopian. At present, only respect for international law, responsible geopolitics, a UN more empowered to realize its Principles and Purposes (Articles 1 & 2), and ethically/spiritually engaged transnational activism can hope to turn the tides now engulfing humanity toward peace, justice, species survival, and a more harmonious ecological coexistence. Miracles do happen! Now more than ever before, struggle rather than resignation seems the only imperative worth heeding.

Tags: , , ,

A European Call for an end to the Ukraine War

5 Jul

[Prefatory Note The following letter appeared in the prominent German weekly, ZEIT, last week. It is written from a European perspective, calling for a ceasefire followed by bilateral negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. The organizers and the signers are almost totally drawn from the higher echelons of German intellectual and academic life. The letter does not directly address the geopolitical dimensions of the Ukraine War. As a result, it fails to cast blame on the United States or NATO for seeking a Ukraine battlefield victory or on Russia for threatening to unleash nuclear warfare. Nevertheless, the urgent call for an end to the killing and diplomacy is a welcome and valuable alternative to the idea, seemingly endorsed by leading NATO governments, of a prolonged Ukraine War even if it keeps escalation tensions at a heightened level, diverts attention and resources from climate change, and subjects especially countries in the Global South to multiple forms of severe hardship and dangerous forms of instability.]

Ceasefire Now. Negotiations as soon as possible.

Jakob Augstein (journalist), Richard A. Falk (professor of international law), Svenja Flaßpöhler (philosopher), Thomas Glauben (professor of agricultural economics), Josef Haslinger (novelist), Elisa Hoven (professor of criminal law), Alexander Kluge (filmmaker and author), Christoph Menke (professor of philosophy), Wolfgang Merkel (professor of political science), Julian Nida-Rümelin (philosopher), Robert Pfaller (philosopher), Richard D. Precht (philosopher), Jeffrey Sachs (professor of economics), Michael von der Schulenburg (former UN diplomat), Edgar Selge (novelist), Ilija Trojanow (novelist), Erich Vad (retired general, former military advisor to Angela Merkel), Johannes Varwick (professor of international politics), Harald Welzer (social psychologist), Ranga Yogeshwar (science journalist), Juli Zeh (novelist)

Europe faces the task of restoring and securing peace on the continent. This requires the development of a strategy to end the Russian war in Ukraine as soon as possible.

Ukraine has been able to defend itself against Russia’s brutal war of aggression for three and a half months now, partially thanks to massive economic sanctions and military support from Europe and the United States. However, the longer this support continues, the less clear it becomes which goals are being pursued with it. A Ukrainian victory with the recapture of all occupied territories, including the Donezk and Luhansk oblasts and Crimea, is considered unrealistic by most military experts, given Russia’s military superiority and ability to further escalate militarily.

All western countries that provide military support to Ukraine must therefore ask themselves what their precise goal is and whether (and for how long) arms deliveries continue to be the right course of action. Continuing the war with the aim of Ukraine’s complete victory over Russia means that thousands more victims will die for a purpose that does not seem realistic. 

Moreover, the consequences of the war are no longer limited to Ukraine. Its continuation is causing massive humanitarian, economic, and environmental distress around the world. Rapidly rising prices, energy and food shortages have already led to unrest in many countries. Fertilizer shortages will have a global impact if the war lasts beyond the fall. High casualty rates, many deaths from hunger and disease and destabilization of the global situation are to be expected. Warnings of these dramatic consequences are also being issued at the international political level (G7, UN). 

All western countries must stand united against Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and further revanchist claims. However, prolonging the war in Ukraine is not the solution. The current developments surrounding rail transit to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and Putin’s announcement to deliver nuclear-capable missile systems to Belarus, show that the danger of escalation is increasing. The western countries must do anything they can to ensure that the war parties reach a negotiated settlement as soon as possible. This alone can prevent years of a war of attrition with its fatal local and global consequences, as well as a military escalation that could lead to the use of nuclear weapons.

Negotiations does not mean a surrender of Ukraine, as is sometimes assumed. A dictated peace by Putin is not an option. The international community must do everything it can to create conditions under which negotiations are possible at all. This includes a declaration that the Western actors have no interest in continuing the war and will adjust their strategies accordingly. It also entails a willingness to secure the terms of a truce as well as the results of peace negotiations internationally, which may require a high level of commitment. The longer the war continues, the more international pressure will be necessary to get both sides back into negotiations. The West must make every effort to persuade the governments of Russia and Ukraine to suspend combat actions. Economic sanctions and military support have to be integrated into a political strategy aimed at gradual de-escalation until a ceasefire is fully implemented.

So far, there has not been a joint and concentrated effort by the international community, the major Western players in particular, to seek negotiations. As long as this is not the case, it cannot be assumed that an understanding is impossible and that Putin in particular does not want to negotiate. In a deadlocked conflict, it is a standard practice that war parties have maximum demands or explicitly reject peace talks. The course of the negotiation attempts so far has shown some initial willingness on both sides to come to an understanding by a flexible approach to the attainment of their goals. At this point, only a major diplomatic offensive can lead out of the current impasse.

The opening of negotiations is not a justification for war crimes. We share the desire for justice. Negotiations, however, are first and foremost a necessary means to prevent further suffering in Ukraine and adverse consequences of the war around the world. Considering the threat of humanitarian catastrophes and the manifest risks of escalation, stability must be restored as quickly as possible. Only a suspension of combat actions will create the time and opportunity necessary to do this. The supreme importance of this goal demands that we rise to the challenge and do everything in our power to make an early ceasefire and the start of peace negotiations possible – and refrain from doing anything that contradicts this goal.

Tags: , , , , ,