MEMO TO PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: How to Win On Foreign Policy in 2012

To: President Barack Obama
From: Jim Arkedis, Director of the Progressive Policy Institute’s National Security Project
RE: How to Win on Foreign Policy in 2012

Mr. President:

I hope and trust that you had better things to do than watch the GOP’s last two debates on foreign policy. I took care of that for you, and reread the transcripts just because I am a masochist.

It’s clear the Republican field is offering nothing new on foreign policy this election cycle, and that creates a real political opening. This memo serves as a guideline for how you can use the issue to your advantage on the campaign trail in 2012. In a nutshell, the public must see you as a stronger leader: Your numbers are hurting there right now, and you should trumpet your national security record to help them rebound. The trick is that if voters view you as a strong leader generally speaking, it will create a spill-over effect, bolstering their confidence in your leadership on domestic issues (read: the economy).

Getting America’s exploding deficits and debt under control isn’t just an economic and political imperative, it’s also vital for U.S. national security. America’s military strength and leading role in international affairs rest on the foundation of a dynamic, growing economy. To the extent that runaway public debt undermines prospects for growth and compromises America’s economic sovereignty, it also endangers American security.

Let’s be clear at the outset: defense spending is not driving the fiscal crisis. True, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have contributed to the debt, but that’s because President Bush, in a break with wartime precedent, declined to raise taxes to pay for them. The good news is that as the overseas deployments wind down, future military spending is set to naturally shrink.

The structural causes of America’s escalating national debt are the unsustainable cost growth of federal entitlements—Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—and historically low tax revenues (which reflect both subpar economic growth and the Bush tax cuts). But it has become apparent that as America’s political leaders shirk tackling tax and entitlement reform, the burden of debt reduction threatens to fall disproportionately on domestic discretionary spending, including defense.

The first shoe has already dropped. On August 2, President Obama and Congressional Republicans struck a deal that would cut spending by $2.1 trillion over ten years in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. Among other cuts, the compromise takes an initial bite of $350 billion from defense spending. The deal also created a Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction or “supercommittee” to come up with an additional $1.2 to $1.5 trillion in federal savings by the end of the year.

If the committee fails, it will trigger a “sequester” that automatically cuts domestic and defense spending across the board. That could mean an additional $500 billion—if not more—cut from the military.

In the GOP’s Establishment v. Tea Party battle, this round, at least, looks like it was won by the outsiders. And, so it seems, the Establishment looks to be fine with that.

After making a big political show last week of storming out of Vice President Joe Biden’s fiscal negotiations over taxes, Republican Whip Rep. Eric Cantor (D-Va.) appears to have made a decision: cutting the Pentagon’s budget is less sacrosanct to conservatives than raising revenue. Cantor has positioned himself firmly against tax increases while using the Tea Party’s focus on spending cuts as political cover to give the appearance that he’s willing to give ground on Defense spending. “Everything is on the table,” Cantor said when referring to Defense cuts, implicitly endorsing the position of Tea Party-backed freshman Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) who says we “can’t afford” this Republican “sacred cow” anymore.

Not so fast, my friends.

Here’s a message that President Obama would do well to tell to the American people tonight:

Good evening, my fellow Americans.

The last time I addressed you on Afghanistan in 2009 from West Point, it was to announce a new direction in that campaign. I appreciate that you might be getting tired of these kinds of speeches. Though our deployment in Iraq is winding down, America remains involved in two major war zones and a mission to protect Libya’s civilians.  I get it — we’ve been at war for nearly ten years, and we’re tired of it. Particularly in this time of economic difficulty, many are rightly asking tough questions: What are we doing there? Is America’s mission still keeping us safe as we spend billions of dollars every month? Can we come home now that we’ve killed Osama Bin Laden?

General Chen Bingde, head of the general staff of China’s People Liberation Army (PLA), has confirmed that his country is constructing its first aircraft carrier, to begin sea trials next year. The ship is a Soviet Varyag-class, and China’s first carrier. Spy-masters in Washington and London have been monitoring the ship’s progress for some time, but Gen. Chen’s comments are the first time the PLA has commented publicly on its existence. Purchased from a Ukrainian shipyard in 2002 for $20million by a Macau-based company, the original contract stipulated that the vessel could not be used for military purposes. The buyer claimed the ship would be converted into a floating amusement park, complete with a hotel and casino. Whoops.

The president is set to deliver a major address today on the Middle East. Here are five things his speech must include:

1. The Obvious: America stands by people the world over who seek freedom of expression and exercise of their democratic rights.

2. Frankness: Decades of American administrations have struck Faustian bargains with regional despots throughout the Middle East. The quid pro quo has been American financial support — militarily and otherwise — in exchange for regional stability.

During his 60 Minutes interview Sunday night, President Obama underscored the point that Seal Team 6 collected a “treasure trove” of information that could prove of incredible valuable to the intelligence community. So what’s in all the thumb drives, and how might, as the president asserted, the information “serve us very well”? To be clear, [...]

To say Ken Adelman – Ronald Reagan’s UN ambassador – takes thin appreciation for the benefits of foreign assistance would be an understatement. Writing in response to Joe Nye’s article on the importance of “smart power,” his rebuttal piece in Foreign Policy paints is a myopic view of American foreign aid, and in Adelman’s rush to end the practice, manages to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

NATO’s current strategy has effectively reached the end of its road. Divisions between member states, anti-Qaddafi forces, and the alliance’s command structure, plus Qaddafi’s forces’ adopting altered tactics, suggest that it’s now time to go after the Libyan leader’s personal pressure points if NATO wants to compel him to step down. Hitting Qaddafi’s palaces, remaining military command centers, and sources of personal wealth may be necessary to convince him that Libya’s future is best without him.

The good news is that finding a Qaddafi-specific target set shouldn’t be construed as classic mission creep: as Qaddafi has adopted new mechanisms to attack and terrorize his own citizens in places like Misrata, NATO remains justified in using “all necessary measures” to protect them. It’s clear that the only way to do that is without Qaddafi.

Along with its annual Human Rights Report, the State Department has unveiled a new website, HumanRights.gov, ostensibly for the cause’s promotion. I’ve spent some time browsing the site, and though I was disappointed that it doesn’t seem to be fully stocked with reports — I searched for this year’s on Iran and came up empty — I’m sure that problem will take care of itself over the long term.

The outstanding question in my mind is what a new government website can really accomplish. Yes, it’s fine and welcome that Foggy Bottom puts time and resources towards building a dedicated internet portal, but the challenge is to avoid the bureaucratic temptation to measure success by having created something, rather than judging its usefulness by the effect it has on others. Essentially, it’s a question of measuring inputs (a site) vs. outputs (what the site accomplishes).

Not much has been made of the truly stunning events unfolding in Cote D’Ivoire over the past 48 hours. Laurent Gbagbo, the ex-president who lost last year’s vote but refuses to cede power, is on the verge of giving up the post in favor of Alassane Ouattara, the rightful victor.

Gbagbo has held his country hostage for nearly four months, as forces loyal to him had hunkered down in Abidjan, the commercial capital. But Outtara massed his own army, and in recent days made a strong push essentially pinning down Gbagbo’s forces in the city.

On Friday, I spent an hour or so with Senate staffers selling the merits of ending the war funding supplemental bills. We remain mired in the midst of budget negotiations, and my aim was to get Hill staff to keep in mind the bigger picture while they’re in the midst of scrutinizing every line-item.

As I state in the paper, as well as the op-ed in Politico that accompanied it, the goal of ending war funding bills is simple: as the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan have long been predictable (save the troop surge in Afghanistan, but even that isn’t a huge outlier), we should be paying for our military operations at the same time and with the same Congressional scrutiny as the rest of the Defense budget. Currently, we pass separate budgets to pay for what have become known as “Overseas Contingency Operations”, which essentially writes a blank check to the Pentagon, reduces Congressional oversight, and creates uncomfortable votes for Democrats.

The issue remains both valid and pressing. If policymakers want to demonstrate their fiscal chops in the current environment, I suggest a read.

PPI has launched a new task force on human rights inside Iran. We’re proud to team up with Freedom House in this endeavor, and the project will be chaired by PPI Senior Fellow and frequent P-Fix contributor Josh Block and Andrew Apostolou, Senior Program Manager for Iran at FH. Yours truly will be a member of the group.

We’re calling the task force Beyond Sanction: The Next Iran Strategy, a nod to the necessity of bringing fresh ideas and new life into the debate on how to handle Tehran. As Iran defiantly continues efforts to construct a nuclear device, it has become glaringly clear in the wake of the 2009 Tehran protests in response to the country’s sham presidential elections that the regime lacks popular legitimacy. In the context of recent upheavals across North Africa and the Middle East, it’s important to remember that the pro-democracy movement began not in Tunisia, but in Iran.

He kept tee-ing it up for himself, but seemed to stroke a few long drives that were barely the wrong side of the foul pole last night.

I wanted the president to come out with a thunderous defense of why humanitarian intervention is in our national interest. I sense he knew he had too, which is why he circled round to the issue no less than four times by my count. He spoke of the importance of protecting human life, of why a massive refugee crisis would be disastrous, and why non-intervention could ultimately lead to a higher cost in the future.

Though it would be fair to say Obama administration has struggled to keep pace with the groundswell of popular protest from Morocco to Yemen, the White House’s rhetoric and actions have thus far enshrined it on the proverbial “right side of history.” That is, through the lens of historical scholarship, the president’s course of action in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya will be judged as just in the face of non-democratic and violent forces.

Then there’s Bahrain.

The small island nation — home to a non-democratic Sunni ruling family and allied with the U.S. as host to the Navy’s 5th Fleet — has had a steady stream of pro-democracy demonstrations since January. While paying lip service to Shi’ite Bahrainis’ grievances, last week the royals called in Saudi and Emirate military muscle to quash a popular uprising before it gained steam. Pearl Square — the protesters’ main gathering place — was shut down immediately after the foreign troops’ arrival; at least eight people have been killed and dozens are reported missing.

Qaddafi’s hired mercenaries are closing in on the rebel stronghold in Benghazi. If they overrun the city, two things will almost certainly happen: Any hope for a democratic Libya will die (for now), and thousands of innocent bystanders — women and children among them — will perish as Qaddafi fights to his self-proclaimed “last drop of blood.”

Before Libya’s tyrant launches his final push, there’s news that the international community, including the United States, is preparing, albeit tardily, to act. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice said today that “We are discussing very seriously and leading efforts in the Council around a range of actions that we believe could be effective in protecting civilians… The U.S. view is that we need to be prepared to contemplate steps that include, but perhaps go beyond, a no-fly zone.” [bolding mine]

On the surface, Bahrain’s invitation to Saudi forces is really bad. A small but all-powerful ruling class is fearful that internal calls for democracy could reach the undesirable fervor of the masses’ brethren in Tunisia, Egypt, and in the extreme, Libya. When you dig deeper, it’s even worse: sidelined by 30 years of bankrupt policy in the Middle East, America’s relative ambiguity is providing a unique opportunity for Iran to — however absurdly — identify with its oppressed Shi’ite cousins across the Gulf.

In an effort to snuff out the Libyan option amid ever more vehement protest, the Bahraini monarchy has tried to forge an awkward policy. In near-perfect English, Bahraini crowned prince Saman Bin Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa sought to appease at least the Western governments watching him:

We know that a significant portion of the electoral base feels that their voice is unheard. And they want the respect due to them by — to be given to them by the opposition. They want to sit with them and talk to them. So, you know, at the end of the day, we’re all going to have to live in the same country together. And we’re all going to have to talk to each other.

… while calling in the Saudi military in a desperate and potentially disastrous attempt at crowd control.

Ouch. Sorry about the pun in the title.

But it happens to be true. Little noticed was a potentially significant piece of news, as a representative of the Arab League told French Foreign Minister Alan Juppe that the League would, in fact, support a no-fly zone over Libya. On the surface, it seems a big deal: autocrats across the Middle East and North Africa are standing on the side of oppressed peoples in the face of their murderous leader.

In the search for international legitimacy, securing the Arab League’s endorsement, not to mention ones from the Organization of Islamic Conference and Gulf Cooperation Council, should go some distance, even if those organizations essentially draw on membership from the same states.

A rift seems to have opened between the Obama administration and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on the ever-sensitive topic of North Korea. Sen. Kerry convened a hearing today on the subject, and previewed his own views in a press statement released this morning.

Arab revolutions have overthrown one dictator after another in strikingly orderly fashion. There’s an almost biblical quality to it: Tunisia begat Egypt, and Egypt begat Libya and Bahrain. One of the problems of such a linear evolution of revolutions is that we tend to focus on only one at a time. Remember Egypt? Barely – it’s yesterday’s news. And Tunisia feels like it happened in the Bush administration (note: it didn’t).

As our gaze floats from one country to the next, it’s worth remembering that now—when the hard work of democracy begins—is just as crucial a time across the Arab world. Political parties, civil society organizations and democratic institutions are just beginning to form. As in any power vacuum, Egypt’s infant governing class is scrambling first to organize the pillars of democracy, and then to contest power.