Restitutor Orbis

We are nearly at the end of Obama's first week in office. These have been momentous days, pregnant with hope and promises fulfilled. Most significant of all the changes Obama has brought to the presidency is his willingness to embrace diplomacy. And this openness, this willingness to talk before shooting, is already bearing fruit. According to the Associated Press,

Fidel Castro is said to like the new American leader, and North Korea and Iran both sounded open to new ideas to defuse nuclear-tinged tensions...Iran still considers the U.S. the "Great Satan," but a day after Obama was sworn in, it said it was "ready for new approaches by the United States." Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said his country would study the idea of allowing the U.S. to open a diplomatic office in Tehran, the first since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

I have been reading a very compelling book, David Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerilla (Oxford, 2009), who points to the problems long plaguing US relations with Iran. I have to wonder if Obama isn't familiar with Kilcullen, who served General Petraeus in Iraq as Senior Counterinsurgency Advisor. This is what Kilcullen has to say:

There is a certain amount of irrationality in our Iran policy, arising in part from the experiences of the U.S. Embassy hostage crisis in Tehran in 1979-80...There is baggage on both sides, of course; some Iranians remember the U.S.-led overthrow of the Mossadeq government in 1953 with equally vivid bitterness while others, opposed to the current regime, blame America for the revolution of 1979. This baggage sometimes makes American policy-makers reluctant to accept the historical and geopolitical fact of Iran's importance in its region, and hence the underlying legitimacy of Iran's long-term aspirations to play a regional role, including in Afghanistan and Iraq. Of course, the United States and the rest of the international community have a clear interest in ensuring Iran plays a constructive role in those countries, rather than its current highly destructive and de-stabilizing role. Still, it seems clear that distinguishing Iran, as a country, from the clericist regime in Tehran and from the Iranian people it opposes, is fundamental to developing an effective Iran policy. The youthfulness of Iran's population, and Iranians' widespread dissatisfaction with the only regime many of them have ever known, are key advantages for the United States. But lack of diplomatic representation in Tehran, along with limited willingness to engage in discussion with Iran's leadership group - backed by force and international consensus, and addressing the broadest possible range of issues in partnership with other Muslim allies - severely limits U.S. options and restricts situational awareness. This makes it hard to clearly discern the Iranian role in an Islamic civil war, or to formulate viable policy responses to it (pp. 20-21).

Clearly, the US has understood as little of Iran's real and legitimate concerns as it did those of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. We always tend to think in terms of Good vs. Evil and those are not useful demarcations. The real world is more complex than that. We're not always innocent of blame; the other side is not always guilty of the blame.

The Brookings Institute has released a paper studying the issues, Europe, the United States, and Middle Eastern Democracy: Repairing the Breach. They suggest the following steps:

• Avoid concretizing divergent rhetoric in disparate European and American mechanisms or institutions. Brussels and Washington should consider setting up a higher-level transatlantic forum for coordinating policies in the Middle East, along the lines of the U.S.-E.U. strategic dialogue on Asia established in 2005.


• Continue issuing joint diplomatic statements on the need for and desired shape of Middle Eastern reform. The Atlantic community should leave Arab leaders in no doubt of the West’s continued interest in and attention to democratic growth and human rights improvements in the Middle East.


• Coordinate rewards on offer for democratic reform. The Atlantic allies should seek common criteria for determining such rewards and coordinate on the use of positive conditionality to induce greater reform and ease the costs of change.


• Uphold the principle that local civil society can seek and accept foreign assistance. The European Union and the United States should articulate clearly and forcefully that their links to and support of Arab civil society are non-negotiable.


• Coordinate positions on engagement with Islamists. Western defense of peaceful political activism should not be selective, and transatlantic pressure should be wielded when regimes crack down on nonviolent Islamist organizations or prevent them from meeting with Western donors.


• Improve coordination in the provision of non-governmental aid. American and European government funders should engage in more sustained and regular dialogue on funding strategies for democratic development in specific states, and how to use their funds most efficiently to achieve common goals.


• Stress jointly that democratic development in the Middle East is a common interest of Europe, the United States, and the peoples of the region, not a means to other ends. Democracy should be supported as a system that meets the aspirations of Middle Eastern citizens for greater say in their government, and not simply because it is judged as instrumental for Western interests.

The paper points out the Europe and the US approach the problem from different angles and conclude that "If European and American policymakers wish to move beyond the ructions of recent years, they can and should focus on their points of relative similarity as a foundation from which transatlantic cooperation in the Middle East can, cautiously, be rebuilt."

On the economic recovery front, the full text of the bill to be introduced is now available from the US House of Representatives Committee on Rules here.

The New York Times reports that
"The Obama administration plans to move quickly to tighten the nation’s financial regulatory system":

Officials say they will make wide-ranging changes, including stricter federal rules for hedge funds, credit rating agencies and mortgage brokers, and greater oversight of the complex financial instruments that contributed to the economic crisis.

The Times observes that "Some of these actions will require legislation, while others should be achievable through regulations adopted by several federal agencies."

The best news of all is perhaps this: "Administration officials have begun to study ways to control executive compensation."

“Excessive executive compensation that provides inappropriate incentives,” Mr. Geithner said, “has played a role in exacerbating the financial crisis.”

Hail to the chief!