Goldberg on Goldstone

"The Mysteries of Richard Goldstone," Jeffrey Goldberg @ The Atlantic. April 21, 2011.

Goldberg discusses the recent New York Times piece analyzing the lead-up to Goldstone's publication of his Washington Post op-ed retracting the key claims of the UNHRC report bearing his name.

See also "Past Holds a Clue to Goldstone's Shift on the Gaza War," Ethan Bronner and Jennifer Medina. New York Times. April 19, 2011.

"The Goldstone Report and International Law," Peter Berkowitz. Policy Review No. 162. August 1, 2010.


***

Michael Weiss on the incorrigible Hamas apologists in the West

Michael Weiss, "While Hamas turns Gaza into an Islamist state, the Western media praise it for keeping 'law and order." The Telegraph. April 21, 2011.

***

Pharoah's heirs and the multifold lessons of the Exodus

Every year around Passover, there are events and circumstances by whose light we can appreciate the enduring relevance of the Exodus story. Still, it's hard not to find this to be especially true in 2011.

Natan Sharansky writes about the rebellions today against modern-day Pharaohs in North Africa and the Middle East, and the challenges they present to those of us blessed to live under free governments. Mindful of the often forgotten follow-up to the escape from Egypt--that heaving off the chains of servitude is merely the first step towards liberty--Sharansky argues that we must strongly put our weight behind those fighting for their political freedom today. The logic of supporting "stable autocracies" is no longer viable, if it ever was. [For an account of why, see Tamara Cofman Wittes' Freedom's Unsteady March.]

"The Stakes in the Middle East," Natan Sharansky. Jewish Review of Books No. 5 (Spring 2011).

No movement toward freedom has succeeded in the blink of an eye, absent a struggle, or without periods when all has seemed lost. In the case of this latest movement, not only has its work barely begun, but it is up against a formidable combination of odds. That is why the next phases are so crucial—and why in my view the nations of the free world must, without delay, seize the moment to lend a hand.

The hard realities of democratic politicking have quickly overtaken the liberal youth movement that toppled Mubarak. This is neither surprising, nor reason to declare the whole thing a failure.
"Struggling to Restart Egypt's Stalled Revolution," Eric Trager. The Atlantic. April 2, 2011.

"Egypt's First Vote," Yasmine el Rashidi. New York Review of Books. March 19, 2011.

"In a Divided Egypt, the Military and Islamists Play for Political Advantage," Eric Trager. The Atlantic. March 18, 2011


Daniel Byman explains just how much it might take to actually topple Qaddafi, and what the potential pitfalls are. President Obama wants to do the right thing on the cheap, and it's not at all clear that the highly circumscribed approach that Obama has laid out is up to the task.
"Libya's Rebels: Approach with Caution," Daniel Byman. Slate. March 31, 2011.
See also a video with Byman, "Libya: Is the U.S. Prepared for a Long-Term Engagement?" March 21, 2011.


Elliott Abrams on why the fake republics of the Middle East and North Africa are more illiberal than the monarchies (see also Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws Books 6, 11, and 12).
"Ridding Syria of a Despot," Op-Ed: Washington Post. March 25, 2011.

Andrew Tabler on what the US can realistically do to undermine Assad.
"Twisting Assad's Arm," Foreign Policy. April 14, 2011.

Itamar Rabinovich, who is probably the most informed and prudent Israeli politician on Syrian matters, explains how the uprising in Syria looks from Jerusalem.
"Israel's Dilemma in Damascus," Foreign Affairs. April 10, 2011.


***

Jon Haber on the Tragedy of Goldstone

A very thoughtful analysis by Jon Haber of the ugly bargain Goldstone made

A clue to Goldstone’s decision (some would say his fall) can be seen in his Washington Post mea culpa in which he demonstrates his sincere belief that the goodness, virtue and sound judicial temperament he brought to the situation would mitigate the excesses of what he recognized was starting out as an unjust process. In other words, he was demonstrating what high-school students reading Greek tragedy for the first time would recognize as a “tragic flaw,” in this case, a belief that his own reputation and virtue could transform a corrupt institution (the United Nations and its ghastly so-called Human Rights Council), reforming it in the process into something that would no longer just be an Israel-libel factory but could possibly pave the way to true international justice.

But as he discovered, these forces of corruption were far more interested (and far more able) to co-opt Goldstone’s reputation for their purposes than vice versa. Beyond Goldstone himself, the investigative team was stacked against Israel to a ridiculous degree. Information gathering was shoddy, conclusions drawn from that information were disproportionate and one-sided. And most telling, once the Report was made public, it became the cornerstone of a propaganda war that relied heavily on leveraging Goldstone’s name, Jewishness and reputation to focus the Goldstone Report missile in one and only one direction.

At any point in this process, Goldstone could have resigned and gone public with his criticisms of flaws that could be seen by all before, during and after the investigation and report’s publication. But instead he chose to not only stand firm but to travel the world to defend the accuracy of the work now deeply associated with his name. In other words, the very corrupt institutions he was hoping to change had instead co-opted him to such a degree that he had no choice but to defend what he had done, regardless of the cost to Middle East peace, to his own reputation, and (most significantly) to the cause of international justice he thought he was championing.

In Goldstone’s case, he convinced himself that his virtue and reputation could change a corrupt process and possibly help issue in an era of international justice. But in making a deal with this particular devil, he actually helped turn whatever tools of international justice currently exist (some of which he helped forge) into weapons of war.

Should Goldstone have known better? As noted above, he (unlike most of us) has experience with making personal moral choices that have heavy international consequences. Goldstone will have to deal with the damage to his own reputation due to poor choices on his own (hopefully with a metaphorical Greek chorus in the background alerting him to the tragic consequences of moral vanity). Unfortunately the rest of us will not be able to help him on that journey, busy as we are with cleaning up the wreckage his decisions have caused.

But before leaving Richard Goldstone behind, we should recognize that the compromise he was offered (and took) that led to a tragic fall is something that will likely be offered to all of us at some point in our lives.

***

Goldstone retracts criminal accusations against Israel

Goldstone has basically retracted the criminal accusations against Israel in the report bearing his name. If he feels an apology or justification is an order, this is better than nothing. Nonetheless, the accusations of war crimes have already done their damage. In order to achieve the desired effects, the accusations don't need to hold up in an actual court--which Goldstone did clarify his commission was not (rather a "fact-finding" endeavor).  That is the nature of these things. The dirt remains on your face. Accusations stain your reputation whether they are substantiated ultimately or not.

For example, here's how the State Dept's reaction to the op-ed was summarized in the news: "Goldstone affirms US position Israel did not commit war crimes in Gaza."

Certainly, this will not persuade anyone deeply committed to the idea that Israel is a brutal, inhumane people, to whom all Palestinian suffering is to be attributed.  Their judgment of Operation Cast Lead was always based on their opinion of Israel's character more than anything else. What seems most offensive to this crowd is Goldstone's implication that Israeli internal investigations were credible--that such a people could possibly be trusted to scrutinize their own actions and characters. And we are asked believe that a group calling itself the Independent Committee of Experts is more authoritative than the Israel government, because, well, they are called the Independent Committee of Experts.

Others insist that Israel is still terrible and should feel terrible because civilians were killed in the attacks against Hamas. It is an uncomfortable fact that decent nations must sometimes use violence and other forms of coercion to defend themselves, at least in the world we live in.  No amount of lashing out at the bearer of this painful lesson will change that fact. It may well make things worse. Warfare always carries the prospect of the wrong people getting killed. Hamas knows this quite well, and exploits it, with the deserved confidence that important figures abroad will blame Israel and not them.


While it won't circulate and gain traction with nearly among nearly as many as the original report, hopefully there will be some well-meaning but naive internationalists who will be a little more skeptical in the future when there is a fervor to assume the worst of Israeli soldiers (because we all know they are like that) and declare a multilateral commission to bring 'em to justice.

Jon Haber explains the tragic naivete of Goldstone in the face of the task he was invited to take up with the UNHRC.


Here's one rather humorous interpretation of the letter, mocking Goldstone for explaining that he sincerely thought Hamas would investigate its own actions during Cast Lead

Some have also suggested it was absurd to expect the Cookie Monster, a being that has a policy to eat cookies, to investigate what we said were serious crimes against cookies. In the end, asking Cookie Monster to investigate may have been a mistaken enterprise.

***

Trying to understand American policy in Libya

Why Libya? This is a rare instance where what we should do is something we can do. Qaddafi expresses enthusiasm for murdering his own people, and has been bullying and/or terrorizing us and our allies--and basically half the continent of Africa--for decades. He has no friends at home or abroad, thus eliminating one common obstacle to making war on repressive rulers who constantly thwart our interests. That makes him less complicated to attack then the majority of situations where the international community, such as it is, might like to intervene to prevent a tyrant from slaughtering his own people. Also, in some cases the tyrants are our friends, or not so much our friends as unsavory strategic deals we are stuck with, at least in the short-term (Saudi Arabia). This does not mean that we should not publicly criticize their brutal crackdowns on their own uprisings. We absolutely should do everything we can to pressure them to reform, but we are not going to be sending planes in to take down an government with which we are allied.

Then you have perhaps the most greatest obstacle to ousting tyrants in countries like Syria and Yemen (and Iraq under Saddam), which is that they are not nations at all. Sectarian hatreds are brimming just beneath the surface, and will only be exacerbated, at least in the short-term, by the removal of the current strong man. The rulers in these countries are not only violently repressive (and they are unmistakably that), but they are also the current stop valve on what we can easily imagine would be civil war otherwise (at least in the short-term). It is much less plausible to criticize that we are “intervening in a civil war” in Libya, than if we were asserting a no-fly zone in, say, Bahrain, Yemen, or Syria. Yemen is an especially difficult case in that anarchy already reigns in parts of the country. Yemen is already a hospitable environment for Al Qaeda to carve out a home for itself. And then there are the countries where Iran has a stake--Syria in particular, and Bahrain. There is a great deal of uncertainty about what forces and factions will dominate a Qaddafi-free Libya, but the opposition to Qaddafi (and support, as minimal as it is) does not overlap with obvious sectarian divisions. No doubt they will find they have things to argue about, but at least there is unity in opposing Qaddafi. In Syria, on the other hand, there are probably sincere defenders of the current regime among Alawites--and legitimate fears that if the current regime falls, they will be slaughtered or otherwise put under the boot.

***
Is the "Arab Street" more enthusiastic about American military invention against Qadafi than the "American Street?" Michael Slackman, "Dislike for Qaddafi Gives Arabs a Point of Unity." New York Times. March 21, 2011.

Why has Obama made less of an effort to rally support at home than abroad? The U.S. Congress, whatever else one might say about, at least was elected by the American people. Garrett Epps, "Barbary War III: The Case for Congressional Authorization." The Atlantic. March 22, 2011. NB: the question Epps addresses, rightly I think, is not, is the President legally required to obtain Congressional authorization, but is it prudent for him to do so, to which Epps responds, "yes."

On the internal administration dynamics in the past few weeks. Obama's female hawks?

D.B. Miller, "War in Libya: Why We Had No Choice." The Atlantic. March 22, 2011.

Here is the rare alignment of a terrible, tyrannical head of state, an oppressed people pressing for change, and formal censure not only from the West, but also the Arab League. However tarnished, the U.S. is the last superpower, and in times of crisis, the world still looks to it. The choice was to bear witness to an atrocity, or to end it. President Obama chose the latter.

The argument follows that the United States is somehow hypocritical for bombing Libya but not the other oppressed Islamic nations using violence against its citizens. The implication of this position is that the choice is either war everywhere at once, or no war at all; the president appears to have answered it with a policy based on patience and opportunity, one country at a time. Tunisia's Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak fell without U.S. meddling or force. When Qaddafi falls, no one can credibly argue that America was the driving force behind these changes.

The strength of the president's policy is also its weakness. By waiting weeks, and then only after submitting for United Nations approval, Qaddafi positioned the Libyan chessboard to his liking. He has placed human shields so as to maximize civilian casualties and capitalize on the resulting press. He seized and fortified the town of Ajdabiya and blitzed Benghazi, provisional capital of the interim government.

***

Egypt's constitutional reforms

Nathan Brown, "Egypt's Revolution Struggles to Take Shape." Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. March 17, 2011.


***