Beginning on a Hopeful note?

We interrupt your Wikileaks coverage to bring you this late breaking story:

Secretary Clinton, while attending a Gulf Security Conference in Bahrain, spoke at length about the upcoming P5+1 talks. Two things were unique about the speech. Firstly that it focused heavily on engaging Iran, something that we heard a lot about in the campaign but very little since. She even acknowledged their right to a peaceful nuclear program, something we've heard before but not nearly often enough. And Secondly, the Iranians she was speaking to were in the room with her. Direct communication between the U.S. and Iran is almost unheard of, to the point where most of our negotiations are done through the Swiss or the Pakistanis. Not only was an Iranian delegation in the same room, but it was led by none other than Manouchehr Mottaki Iran's Foreign Minister. His presence as the same conference as Secretary Clinton was almost certainly no accident.

It will probably as yet come to nothing, but it does seem as good a sign for next weeks negotiations as we could ask for.

Best posts I've read

As promised here are some of the best posts I've read on the wikileaks scandal. I chose to highlight those who aren't simply (like so much of the media) focusing on the gossip of the leaks, but hard substance instead. First up is...

• the Democracy in American blog by The Economist. The writer W.W. points out what so many reports have missed, that this story isn't about Mr. Assange or the specific info dump, its about the new status qoe. The ability now exists to take actions like this, and though Mr. Assange and his Wikileaks organization have been exceptionally clever in their execution, the capacity is within the hands of near anyone. What will our politics, our society, and our institutions look like in such a world?

• Steve Levine's Oil and Glory blog. His post is nothing if not entertaining, apparently many of the foreign service officers he knows are enjoying having the limelight. Finally the world can recognize their genius. In a world where losing yourself a senate race or even losing yourself from your own wedding are enough to land you book deals It wouldn't surprise me if this leak ended in meal tickets for a few diplomats.

This post will be updated as find more I want to share.

Hero of the Week: Robert Gates

I'm already a big fan of Defense Secretary Gates for his attempts to cut useless and expensive programs (boondoggles) at the Pentagon and his lobbying on behalf of State and USAID but the quotes he's delivered on the wikileaks controversy quite simply made my day. Said Robert Gates when asked about Wikileaks publication of secret diplomatic cables:

    "Every other government in the world knows the United States government leaks like a sieve, and it has for a long time...  

     When we went to real congressional oversight of intelligence in the mid-'70s, there was a broad view that no other foreign intelligence service would ever share information with us again if we were going to share it all with the Congress.  Those fears all proved unfounded.  

     Now, I've heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on.  I think -- I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought. The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it's in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets... 

     Is this embarrassing?  Yes.  Is it awkward?  Yes.  Consequences for U.S. foreign policy?  I think fairly modest."

Favorite. Sec Def. Ever. 
Both his candor and sense of proportion are well appreciated. Two virtues I'd like to see more in our public discourse. Secretary Gates delivered these remarks at a press conference for DADT repeal and its worth reading for its intended content alone but these wikileaks quotes are priceless. The transcript of the press conference can be found here.

Bandwagoning with Bloggers

I haven't had much time lately to weigh in on the newest wikileaks disclosures, or for blogging in general, and I felt it was well time I did so. In the coming week I'll take some time out of my busy schedule (I'm in the middle of trying to get a paper published) to bring you some commentary on this evolving situation.

Look for: An analysis of several specific cables. Analysis of how the U.S. Government is handling the situation. And of course shout outs to the best pieces I've found on the leak and its impact.

If there are any blogs, op-eds, or other writings that you think are good share a link in the comments.


Updated: New Wikileaks posts

• Hero of the Week: Robert Gates
• Best Posts I've Read

America at the Human Rights Council

The United States stint before the UN's Human Rights Council last Friday has been all over the news recently (at least the news I read). David Bosco of the other multilateralist and Colum Lynch of Turtle Bay both present good analysis, but I thought I'd quickly review the situation for anyone who might have been distracted recently as well as throw in my own two cents.

Under President Obama's administration the United States has for the first time ever joined the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) which requires its members to submit a report on their adherence to international standards on human rights every 4 years, a practice known as the Universal Periodic Review. The US submission can be found: Here. After submitting the written report (and this is the fun part) representatives from other countries get to publicly question the US about it. Two minutes per country. A number of US adversaries (Iran, Venizualia, Cuba, and North Korea) actually camped out as if they were waiting for the next generation of iPhone, in order to get first speaking rights. Cuba won the right to go first, and those countries proceeded in providing a heavily critical of US policy.

In his article Bosco brings up some good points, framing it as "smart public relations" and reminding his readers that in exchange for being subjected to this interrogation the United States will be able to interrogate other regimes in turn, and that some of them have much more to worry about. He is right as far as it goes but he misses  something else: that the antagonistic opening speeches likely muted further criticism of US policy. After all, who wants to be on a list with with North Korea and Cuba?  And by all accounts the rest of the proceedings were fairly restrained, offering a mix of light criticism and praise. It makes it a lot harder to make a tackle a controversial subject like war crimes when you'll be lumped in together with those countries. I imagine it'd feel similar to how we in the US feel whenever someone starts listing off the countries that execute minors. That's not a good list to be on.

So much for isolating Iran...

Despite or perhaps because of America's fervent effort to isolate the Islamic Republic on the world stage Iran has been elected to the OPEC Presidency for the first time since the 79 revolution. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries may be small (only 12 countries) but in many ways it may be just as important to the global economy as any other international institution, it's a cartel of oil exporting countries that together control about 2/3 of known reserves and roughly 1/3 of current production.

Simply being the president doesn't give Iran control over reserves or production of course there's no need for alarm, but the important thing here may be that those eleven other countries elected Iran to the post. It's term is only a year so it isn't simply Iran's turn, it's missed out on the last few. Those 11 countries chose Iran to head their meetings and control their agenda. It demonstrates both a symbolic power and a structural power and at  the least a barometer of Iran's popularity with it's fellow oil producing states. It's significant that Iran hasn't been elected to the post in 36 years and it's equally significant that that dry spell has ended now.

An Open Letter to Congressman Don Young

The following is an open letter I have written to my Congressmen Don Young. He has added his name to a piece of legislation legalizing an Iranian terrorist group. I am very cross at him for this. This was a private letter ten days ago when I sent it, but having received no reply I have chosen to make it an open one.

"Dear Congressman Young,
I'm writing to ask you to withdraw your signature from H. Res. 1431. As you probably know this legislation calls for the delisting of the People’s Mojahedin Organization or (MEK) from the State Department's terrorist list. The thing is Congressman, that the MEK is on the terrorist list for a good reason. It is an Islamist/Marxist organization (two brands of ideology not exactly known for their pro American views) that has committed numerous terrorist attacks within Iran. They have no legitimacy within Iran and are viewed almost universally as traitors to their country because they sided with Saddam Huessain in the Iran/Iraq war. We don't want to be associated with these people and even appearing to side with them undermines us and undermines Iran's democratic opposition and Green movement.

Please withdraw your name and support from this legislation. I don't want my state or my country associated with support for terrorists.

Your constituent,
The Multilateralist"

House Resolution 1431 was written by Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA) and has 100 co-signatories including Don Young. If any of those are your congressional representatives feel free to write a similar letter, or even use this one with the names changed.


A detailed analysis as to why this resolution is a very bad idea can be found: here