Libya and the Reality of Foreign Policy

So there’s change ahoy in Libya (added, without doubt, by a hefty payload of bombs from certain Western powers). No doubt for some we are seeing the dawn of a brave new era for Libya as a murderous dictator slowly falls from power. Now, for all those celebrating this turn of events, I’m probably going to sound cynical, but I’m going to wait to see what happens next before I get too excited by Libya’s Brave New Dawn.

After all, we’ve seen similar events play out before. For example, there was a Middle Eastern country where an unpopular dictator who had enjoyed considerable support from foreign sources was usurped by a populist movement in his own country. But post revolution Iran is hardly renowned the world over as a beacon of freedom now, is it? Of course, there are no guarantees that Libya will go the same way, but you’ll have to excuse me if I wait to see whether it does or not before I start popping the metaphorical champagne corks.

And it is worth pausing for a moment to consider the chequered relationship this country has had with the Gaddafi regime. Sure, we’ve hated him when he’s been involved in the murder of a police officer or the bombing of innocents on an aircraft. But when it looked like he could be an ally in the spurious War on Terror, we were happy to jump into bed with him. We’re helping to depose him now in an apparently noble crusade of freedom for the people, but dig into our relationship with Libya even just below the surface of the current headlines and you’ll get a much less edifying picture.

Which is the reality of foreign policy. It involves ugly compromises with temporary partners who, under normal circumstances, we probably wouldn’t deal with. Witness, for example, America funding bin Laden in the Cold War against the Soviet Union before he went to war with them. Or the allies joining the totalitarian regime that was the Soviet Union in World War Two in order to defeat the mutual enemy of Nazi Germany. Foreign policy is messy and involves difficult choices. Which is why anyone telling you about an ethical foreign policy is either terminally naïve or lying to your face. The grim reality of foreign policy is the realisation that Morton’s Fork and that the law of unintended consequences are your constant companion. And there are no guarantees that both concepts won't be rearing their ugly heads as Gaddafi apparently falls from power in Libya.

On Libyan Intervention

So, we're bombing Libya. Cue rapturous applause from neo-conservative types and wails of disgust from our peacenik brethren. I can't manage either emotion. There's nothing to celebrate here, but equally it had become pretty difficult for the Western world to stand by idly as Gaddafi continues to cling to power using some of the most brute force.

Which is the point, really. There seems to be a tendency among many to want to see issues in international relations in black and white terms - or rather making immediate and sweeping assumptions about whether any interventions are right or wrong. The reality is a little more complicated that.

Basically, as far as I can see, we had three options. Standing by and doing nothing would ensure that the coalition kills no-one. At least not directly. At best, this option would leave us with blood on our hands indirectly. At worst we would, once again, be turning a blind eye as an evil dictator kills his way to further power.

The second option - limited intervention - is the one we've gone for. And I have no doubt whatsoever that it is only a matter of (very limited) time before we start seeing reports about collateral damage - of innocents slayed by our armed forces. Then we drift into the difficult calculations about military interventions - would more people have died had we not intervened, or are our actions creating carnage that otherwise wouldn't exist?

This is even more pronounced in the third option - a direct onslaught, including ground forces, against the Gaddafi regime. We may yet end up in this situation; for what it's worth, I really hope that we don't. But with this option you can be pretty much guaranteed that Gaddafi will fall (the US army could destroy his forces on their own without too much fuss) but again there's the question of carnage. How many will have to die - on both sides, and among the civilians - for regime change to occur in Libya?

And there's a further problem with options 2 and 3. They leave us open to the charge of hypocrisy. We are fighting to protect rebels in Libya. What about rebellions in other parts of the world? What about dealing with other abhorrent dictators? Why aren't we doing something about, say, North Korea? You could argue that there is no credible indigenous resistance in North Korea, but then again that is hardly surprising given North Korea is a brutal totalitarian state. The reality is that we cannot afford to fight every regime across the world with whom we do not agree. But then how do we prioritise them? Why is the life of a North Korean less of a priority that the life of a Libyan? Again, we can argue that change is happening in Libya; we're just giving those forces of change a push. But the charge of hypocrisy can still be leveled. After all, Iraq in 2003 was hardly in the grip of a rebellion, was it? But when there was an uprising there after the first Gulf War, it was 'turn a blind eye' time again.

International relations is a messy arena, and an ethical foreign policy is in practice impossible. But what we can do is, whatever actions we take, make sure we consider the outcomes. So we're carrying out air operations in Libya. What's our endgame here? To enforce a no-fly zone? To just protect the existing rebel strongholds? Or are we actually going for the toppling of Gaddafi? And if that's the plan, who or what is going to replace him? Such questions appear to be obvious, but if we look back on the invasion of Iraq back in 2003, they were either not asked or not credibly answered.

It is impossible to know right now whether the intervention in Libya will ultimately prove to have been the right thing to do. If you think you know already, one way or another, then you're probably being naive. We won't know whether this was the right thing to do or not until it's all over, when the blood has been shed and the history books are being written.

The Foreign Secretary

BBC news:

Foreign Secretary David Miliband will visit Ukraine later in an attempt to build the "widest possible coalition against Russian aggression".

Does anyone else feel slightly embarrassed when they read about David Miliband prancing about on the international stage? That this dweeb with a lopsided grin, sticking out ears and general charisma of a snail crushed underfoot is our Foreign Secretary? Whenever I see him gurning away on television, a little bit of me dies. I'm very pleased that I seldom actually hear him speak - I think that his nasal whine, more normally associated with sulking teenagers than international statesmen, would be too much for my frayed nerves.

Seriously, what possessed Gordon Brown to put such an awkward individual into such an important position? Did he look around, realise Napoleon Dynamite was busy, and compromise on Miliband? I know that Miliband was a potential rival and that Brown himself is the very definition of awkward - but seriously, Miliband was the best possible option for Foreign Secretary? Couldn't Pob have been drafted into the role instead?

I know that this basically is a personal attack on a politician, but there is a wider problem with having Miliband as Foreign Secretary. He represents Britain on the international stage. He walks shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Condaleezza Rice and Nicholas Sarkozy (who, like all rampant egotists, is effectively doing both the roles of Foreign Secretary and President for his nation). Whatever you think of their politics, does anyone really believe that Miliband has the gravitas to operate with this individuals? Can you imagine him challenging Putin? I can picture Putin talking to Miliband, and then asking himself "who is this pesky child?" before returning to his bumper book of Cold War strategies.

Having Miliband as Foreign Secretary means that not only is Miliband dismissed on an international level, but so is Britain. With the calibre of the current Prime Minister and the curretnt Foreign Secretary, you can guarantee that the UK is being ignored across the world.

The role of Foreign Secretary is one of the most important roles in government. What a shame that it has been given to the political equivalent of Adrian Mole.

Don't make me tell you again!

A wonderful headline from The Guardian:

Russia warned: withdraw from Georgia, or else

The phrasing is great. It reminds me of an angry parent with a reluctant child. “Look Russia, I’ve already told you once, and I am not going to tell you again! Pull out of Georgia or else! I’m serious! Stop bloody laughing at me! Why you… Don’t make me come down there!”

Of course, that isn’t quite what has been said:

Nicolas Sarkozy of France threatened the Kremlin with an ultimatum for the first time, warning that more delays in a pullout "would have serious consequences on relations between Russia and the European Union".

Putin, with his massive army, huge supplies of oil and massive arsenal of nuclear weapons, must be shitting bricks after Sarkozy’s threat. He must be crying himself to sleep every night. Probably crying with laughter, mind, rather than with fear.

The world needs to redress how it deals with Russia. The invasion of Georgia is illegal an unacceptable, but there is precisely fuck all that anyone can do about it. Russia is a sleeping giant showing the first signs of awaking. It will probably do something very similar to the Georgian adventure very soon, and will continue to do so until it encounters a foe that really fucks with them – just as the Soviet Union did when it invaded Afghanistan. In the meantime, the rest of the world should stop this inane posturing. Unless the EU, or the US, or whoever wants to get aggressive with Russia, all this talk of “serious consequences” means the square root of fuck all. Let’s cut the bullshit. Any real attempts to restrict the Russian behemoth will lead to, at best, a Cold War. At worst, the consequences are unthinkable.

Freedom's March

George W Bush is doing his farewell tour of the world, and is currently visiting lil ol' England. The pointless visit is as predictable as the pointless protests - Bush is a world leader on the way out, an unpopular, idiotic lame duck. The protests are a knee jerk reaction, and will achieve nothing more than further disruption to the City of London. The time has come to start getting over Dubya - within months he will have begun his slow decline into obscurity. Hopefully he should become a footnote in the history books, an oddity - an example of what not to do in the White House.

Of course, that won't be the way he wants to be remembered. Indeed, part of this farewell world tour is to start working on that legacy. Look at his interview with Sky news. The rhetoric is already coming through:

"This isn't the American Empire, the British Empire or coalition empire; this is freedom's march. And freedom has had a way of taking hold in some of the places where people have never given freedom a chance.... I'm not surprised that an enemy that can't stand freedom is trying to shake our will."

One of the many ways in which Bush - a man who restricts stem cell research, who believes abortion is evil and should be banned, a man who does not allow gay couple to form a civil union - has failed is in his understanding of freedom. Whenever you see Bush talking about freedom, insert a "my" before the word freedom. Because - and make no mistake about this - it is all about a very narrow vision of freedom. A Christian Fundamentalist, neo-conservative mutant strand of freedom. One that should be alien to anyone who generally believes that people should be free to choose how they live. In some respects, Bush's vision of freedom is not that different from Kim Jong Il's - "you can be *free*, just so long as it is my vision of *freedom*".

But whilst Bush will probably spend a large portion of the next six months painting himself as a freedom fighter, the rest of history will have something different to say. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will rage on, whilst other oppressive regimes that have been prodded by the Bush administration happily go on suppressing. Then there are other countries that abuse human rights and have little freedom that have been glossed over by the Bush regime - Burma, China, Zimbabwe. Even if history does see Bush as a man who brought freedom through war to two nations, it will have to judge him as a man who was very selective about which countries were allowed to join his freedom march.

And people have been questioning it - not just during Bush administration, but throughout the past century - just why does the USA have a right to decide which countries need to be freed, and why does it award itself the ability to free those countries? The Bush years will become synonymous with US arrogance, and of a belief that freedom is best brought to countries in the wake of the US war machine ploughing across the landscape.

On the radio this morning, I heard Bush being compared to Ronald Reagan. It made the point that Reagan was disliked by many during his time in office, but is now seen as someone who brought freedom to many countries. Now, whilst Reagan did help to bring freedom to a good many people in the world, it was part of a team effort. Thatcher also played a role. As did - both intentionally and unintentionally - Gorbachev. And one of the few good things Pope John Paul II managed to achieve - in between condemning homosexuality, continuing to forbid his followers to use contraception or have an abortion, and hiding paedophile priests - was supporting the bid for freedom in Poland. Reagan did play a part in all this, but the more important distinction is between how Reagan's push for freedom was achieved and how Bush has tried to achieve his. Reagan (perhaps because of the ever present threat of nuclear war, perhaps for other reasons) used diplomacy in almost all cases. Bush has unleashed the might of the Military Industrial Complex.

Bush has displayed the judgement and tactics of a schoolyard bully who believes he is right - he doesn't understand the need to persuade, to convince, the win over the other person. No, he would rather go in with his fists and punch anybody who doesn't agree with him into submission. His freedom march is much less free than he realises - he's there to force people and nations to be free.

I love America - I think she has brought a great deal to this world, and will continue to do so. I hope America will become a democratic beacon to the world once more. But I know this can only happen when Bush gains his rightful legacy in this history books - as an aberration, as a zealous ignorant maniac whose perverted vision of freedom damaged the US and the world.

I wish George W Bush the very best when he goes back to his ranch for good. That is his natural place, not as a freedom's hero in the history books.

David Miliband Is Foreign Secretary. Oh Christ.

What the frig fuck is it with Nu Labour and their Foreign Secretary? Do they really look at the leading lights of their party and decide to give the role to the least capable, least charismatic option?

I mean look at those who have held the post recently. The ginger weasel who, in retrospect, was more interested in his affair with his secretary rather than foreign affairs. He was replaced by the Demon Headmaster, a bumbling buffoon who helped with the lurch into an illegal war. And then we had Margaret Beckett - a woman who looks, speaks and acts like she slept in a hedge after a gin bender. But just when you thought things couldn't get any worse that total geek Miliband gets the gig.

But then again, is he really Foreign Secretary? Blair has been made the Middle East Envoy for the US, UN, EU and Russia. Or, I rather suspect, Foreign Secretary for the US, UN, EU and Russia. Miliband has been made Foreign Secretary for the parts of the world we either can't do anything with, or don't care about. Miliband being made Foreign Secretary is less concerning than it should be as Blair's new role has made the position a complete irrelevance.

Deals with the Devil

I’ve not really commented on the execution of Saddam Hussein – I briefly thought about putting a cheap shot on here about it when I heard that he had gone but I decided against it. Instead I settled on sending the Moai a text commenting that the Iraqi government did not hang about with Saddam.

But Prescott’s comments that the leaking of the video was deplorable (hell, if ever a man would know about being deplorable it would be Two Jags) have roused me from my post New Year’s Eve stupor and into commenting.

Sure, those in the execution chamber did not give Saddam a dignified exit from this world and I agree that they should have conducted themselves with a little more decorum (even if the executions conducted in Saddam’s name were very similar Saddam’s own death). And I agree that there is something really ghoulish and seedy about filming someone’s death on a mobile and then posting it on a website - it is actually because I find it so ghoulish and seedy that I am not going to link to one of the copies of the video. They are out there if you want to find them. But I actually find the circumstances of Saddam’s demise – as unpleasant as they are – quite ironic given both the nature of capital punishment and what the ensuing scandal about the mobile video indicates about the state of Iraq at the moment and how foreign policy works.

I’m not sure how I feel about the death penalty. On the one hand, I think that some people probably do warrant the death penalty (Saddam being a very good example) but I am not sure what the willingness to put its’ citizens to death says anything positive about said state at all. But I would imagine that, when you are stood, like Saddam, on the trapdoor with a comedy sized noose around your neck then your focus lies elsewhere rather than on what the witnesses are doing. Sure, the jeering and lynch mob attitude shown on the mobile phone video are unpleasant and sickening – and very different to the cold and clinical way in which the US puts its’ citizens to death – but scratch away the baying of the mob and you get to the real crime – the actual execution, the actual state sponsored murder. By all means have a debate about the execution of Saddam Hussein, but let’s focus on the key event that happened in that execution chamber – which was, as obvious as it sounds, the execution. Forget the mob atmosphere – that is very secondary to the fact that a man died.

But even if you are most shocked and stunned by the taunts of the crowd, why would you be surprised? This was the death of a hated man, in a hastily arranged execution, in a country that has a legacy of undignified, and often far more brutal, executions. The execution of Saddam Hussein was an act of revenge – regardless of whether you think that revenge is justified or not. And given it was revenge, it could have been a lot worse for Saddam.

And ultimately for me, the real dark side to the death of Saddam is less about the fact that the Iraqi state put him to death (as mentioned above, I would say he is probably deserving of the sentence) but rather what it says about International Relations and foreign policy. One dictator dies for his crimes against humanity. Others - like Pol Pot, Saparmyrat Nyýazow, and Pinochet – die of natural causes, unpunished for their crimes. And others still – like Kim Jong-Il, Muammar al-Gaddafi and Fidel Castro – sit in their palaces, untouched, still persecuting their people. The Coalition of the Willing took on Saddam Hussein (and the Taliban in Afghanistan) because they were (relatively speaking) easy to defeat. Nyýazow and Pinochet were allowed to go on because they offered some sort of support at some point to the West. Castro and Jong-Il are tolerated because they are (or have been) too difficult to take on. The death of Saddam simply indicates the brutal and disheartening compromises inherent in any sort of foreign policy – we attack one dictatorial regime and allow the leader to drop to his death through a trapdoor, but have to leave others to go on as they are, suppressing their people, confounding and compromising the supposed democratic ideals of the West. For me, the undignified and unseemly end to Saddam may be one small piece of human evil leaving this world, but it cannot hide the evil still ruling over so many countries in this world. All this death shows is the awful unethical compromises and the deals with the Devil that make up the reality of foreign policy.

It's the end of the world as we know it...

...And I feel fine.

North Korea, the very definition of a rogue state, has nuclear weapons. Which, given I have seen Threads and The War Game (both of which deal with the aftermath of a nuclear attack), can be no good thing.

Still, you've got to smile. Seriously, let's look at the comedy value of this. And that mainly comes in the form of North Korea's statement. I know it was meant to be taken seriously, but the levels of self deception and utter nonsense make me smile.

"...at a stirring time when all the people of the country are making a great leap forward in the building of a great, prosperous, powerful socialist nation."

Stirring? Try scary. Or terrifying. And I am not sure how building a device that could wipe out North Korea (which, let's face it, does not have a great track record when it comes to storing weapons) constitutes a great leap forward.

"It marks a historic event as it greatly encouraged and pleased the KPA (Korean People's Army) and people that have wished to have powerful self-reliant defence capability."

I'd imagine that if you asked a North Korean what he thought he probably would be encouraged and pleased. Mainly because if he dissented, he would be imprisoned, tortured and executed. However if you asked them how they felt and they were free to talk, they might reveal that they would be more "encouraged and pleased" if the government spent money on food for the population rather than Weapons of Mass Destruction that may attract the unwanted attentions of the UK.

"It will contribute to defending the peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and in the area around it."

Brilliant, just brilliant. Pure, unadulterated comedy genius. The nuclear test risks not just the Korean Peninsula, but the stability of the world. This could be the event that pushes us towards nuclear conflict. To claim that is has something to do with peace is beyond irony, almost beyond satire.

Ceasefire ramblings

I have a lot to say about Israel and Lebanon agreeing a UN sponsored ceasfire, but it is too difficult to adequately and intelligently write those thoughts down at the moment. So instead I thought I would mock the inane crap spouted by others about the ceasefire. And where better than go that the BBC's Have Your Say? Two comments stand out amongst the hysterical, polemical, and ignorant dross - one from Ali and one from Jeff Smith. Ali starts by saying that the Jews lived together with the Arabs for thousands of years in peace and that is was only the state of Israel that has created the problem. Now, I am 99% sure that is total bollocks, but I am too lazy to do the research to prove Ali wrong at the moment so I will concede the point. What I this is total shite is this:

"Basiclly Europe wiped their hands clean of their own jewish problem (ie they were racist towards the jews for over 200 years) and put it in the middle east."

Ignoring the poor spelling and punctuation, it is highly offensive to talk of a "Jewish problem". We don't speak of a "Muslim problem" in this country, rather a "fundamentalist problem". As for Europe solving their "Jewish problem", I am not convinced that the majority of Europeans had a problem with the Jews. Certain elements in Europe did, certainly, and they had a go at solving their Jewish "problem", and it is one of the darkest times in human history. It is also worth pointing out (1) many Jews wanted to go to the Middle East (and fought for it), what with it being their Holy Land and all, and (2) many Jews still live in Europe - without a "problem". As with so many of the comments about the conflict in the Middle East, there is an ugly reek of Anti-Semitism to what Ali writes.

However Jeff's post deserves the dubious honour of complete reproduction here, partly to marvel at the terrible spelling (Islanic, anyone?) and spacing, but also just to marvel at the nonsense he is spouting. He says:

"Israel wanted rockets to stop and a buffer zone.Hezbollah wanted Sheeba Farms, no more Israel, and a Fundamentalist Islanic state modelled on Iran.Israel 2/2, Hezbollah 0/3.With one side achieving its aims and the other not, peace will not last."

Errrmmmm, no. Israel's war aims were to rescue the kidnapped soldiers and stop Hezbollah chucking missiles into Israel. Read the rest of the news, Jeff. Hezbollah still fired missiles at Israel last night, and the two soldiers are still missing. Neither side has acheieved what they wanted, true, but the assertion that peace will come only when both sides achieve their aims is dense beyond belief. Hezbollah's fundamental aim it to destroy Israel; Israel's core aim is to protect their state and their citizens. One side succeeds and the other fails - there is no compromise, no mutually aggreable solution in what is a fight for survival. There will be no lasting peace as Hezbollah will do all it can to destroy Israel, and the IDF will do all they can to stop them.