Elections

People like me have been spilling a lot of ink (and blogspace) over events in out-of-the-way places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and the like, and I'm not going to apologize for it. But I sometimes think this illustrates the tendency for humans to focus on what is urgent or vivid instead of what's important. People dying and things getting blown up rivet our attention, but sometimes the calm workings of a democratic process might be of greater long-term significance.

Consider the recent Japanese election. I'm far from being an expert on Japanese politics, but I do know there are good reasons to think that genuine reform will be as difficult to enact there as it is here in the United States. (Among other things, entrenched bureaucrats in powerful ministries will be hard to weaken or dislodge.) Nonetheless, if the defeat of the LDP and the emergence of the more populist Democratic Party of Japan leads to the emergence of a genuine two-party system, makes Japanese political institutions more accountable, and generally opens up a set of sclerotic policies, the impact could be far-reaching.

After all, Japan is still the world's second largest economy. Its military spending ranks fifth in the world. It has a highly educated populations and many advanced industries and scientific establishments (including the potential to get nuclear weapons very quickly if it wished). It is the location of several key U.S. military bases, and is bound to Washington by a long-standing security treaty.   

All this means that if Japanese economic and foreign policy were to change significantly, the effects would be quite far-reaching. I'm not saying they will, but I am planning to spend a bit more time keeping an eye on events there.

TOSHIFUMI KITAMURA/AFP/Getty Images

I've been getting my teaching materials together for the fall term and didn't have time to do much blogging today. I have no further thoughts on Afghanistan in the aftermath of the election, except to say that I don't think the election itself was a very significant event one way or the other. The fact that the election did come off is modestly encouraging, though reports that turnout was lower than expected are somewhat worrisome. As everybody keeps reminding us, we won’t even know for certain who won until October.

But to me the real question -- no matter who ends up winning -- is whether the new government starts performing better than the Karzai government has done over the past several years. Holding a "successful" election won't mean much if it doesn't, and a deeply flawed electoral process wouldn't matter if Karzai or Abdullah nonetheless managed to implement more effective policies, root out corruption, coopt contending warlords, and help make sure that external aid programs deliver more direct and tangible benefits. And we won't know if the new government can achieve that goal for many months, if not years.

As far our current "war of choice" there, I thought Richard Haass's op-ed in today's Times was smart. He's somewhat more supportive of the current effort than I am, but he understands that the stakes there do not justify any level of effort for an indefinite length of time. Money quote:

If Afghanistan were a war of necessity, it would justify any level of effort. It is not and does not. It is not certain that doing more will achieve more. And no one should forget that doing more in Afghanistan lessens our ability to act elsewhere, including North Korea, Iran and Iraq. There needs to be a limit to what the United States does in Afghanistan and how long it is prepared to do it, lest we find ourselves unable to contend with other wars, of choice or of necessity, if and when they arise.

As we watch the riveting and disturbing events from inside Iran, bloggers and other commentators are already beginning to raise the political and rhetorical stakes. Over at the Atlantic, Andrew Sullivan (whose coverage of the events in Iran remains remarkable) declared today that "the first and absolute requirement of all Western governments" is not to recognize Ahmadinejad as president.

I can understand the sentiments behind this view, and I hold no brief for Ahmadinejad or the clerics behind him. But how far is Sullivan willing to take this? Suppose the existing regime survives the current turmoil and remains in power -- which is likely -- and that Ahmadinejad winds up serving as president for another term despite what appears to be clear electoral chicanery? Are we to have no dealings at all with Iran, despite the many issues of contention between us and them?  

And notice the double-standard at work: we recognized China while Mao Zedong -- a murderous despot -- still ruled there and maintained relations with it after Tianenmen Square. We cut various strategic deals with Uzbekistan after 9/11 despite its lamentable human rights record and we had numerous direct dealings with the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. We remain closely allied with Saudi Arabia despite its treatment of women and the complete absence of democracy, and we subsidize Israel generously even though it denies political rights to millions of Palestinians living in the occupied territories and killed more innocent civilians during the Gaza operation than Iran’s ruling authorities have done since last Friday.

Obama's measured response to the events in Iran strikes me as more sensible: we can and should deplore the abuses of basic rights and the democratic process, while making it clear that the United States is not interfering and remaining open to the possibility of constructive dialogue. Given our long and troubled history with Iran (which includes active support for groups seeking to overthrow the current government), any sense that we are now trying to back Moussavi is likely to backfire. Trying to steer this one from Washington won’t advance our interests or those of the reformists.   

Here's a hypothetical question for you to ponder. Which world would you prefer: 1) a world where Ahmadinejad remains in power, but Iran formally reaffirms that it will not develop nuclear weapons, ratifies and implements the Additional Protocol of the NPT, comes clean to our satisfaction about past violations (including the so-called "alleged studies"), permits highly intrusive inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities, and ends support for Hamas and Hezbollah as part of a "grand bargain" with the West; or 2) a world where Mir Hussein Mousavi -- who was the Ayatollah Khomeini's prime minister from 1981 to 1989 -- wins a new election but then doesn't alter Iran's activities at all? 

This is hypothetical, of course, and almost certainly does not reflect the likely policy alternatives. But your choice of which world you'd prefer probably reveals a lot about how you conceive of the national interest, and the degree to which you think foreign policy should emphasize concrete security achievements on the one hand, or normative preferences on the other.

BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/Getty Images

My nominee for the silliest comment on the Iraqi provincial elections comes from -- no surprise here -- former UN Ambassador John Bolton. After praising the elections as a vindication of the "surge" and characterizing them as a setback for Iran, Bolton warned that the elections will not "put an end to Iran's ambitions. Tehran appears to believe that its influence in the region is expanding and that its neighbors and the United States have failed to respond effectively. This belief is unsurprising, given the Obama administration’s acquiescent attitude toward Tehran."

Let me get this straight. Obama has been in office for about two weeks, and Iran has already drawn the lesson from that brief period that "its influence is expanding." Has Bolton forgotten about the Bush administration, whose mishandling of Mideast policy failed to slow Iran's nuclear program and strengthened Iran's position in the Gulf, in Lebanon, and possibly in Gaza as well? The neoconservatives who ran our Mideast policy couldn’t have done more to help Iran if they had been on Tehran's payroll.

Better get used to Bolton's line of argument, because we are going to hear it over and over and over. As the new administration wrestles with the mess that Bush & Co. bequeathed them, neoconservative stalwarts will be rewriting history at every opportunity. They will try to portray our position on January 21, 2009, as basically sound, pin every subsequent bit of bad news on Obama, and hope we all forget who we got us into this situation. I have no doubt that Obama and his team will make some mistakes of their own -- and I'll be happy to criticize them when they do -- but let's not forget who dealt them the hand they are being forced to play now.

My take on the elections? They contain some encouraging signs but also some disturbing features, notably the growing accusations of fraud and the fact that exceptional measures had to be taken to prevent violent disruptions. A substantial number of Iraqis seem to be rallying around more secular parties and around Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in particular, which may make it easier for the United States to stick to the withdrawal timetable agreed to in the Status of Forces agreement signed last November. (Don't forget that a majority of Iraqis want us out either immediately or soon, and Maliki's toughminded handling of the SOFA negotiations probably boosted his popularity, even among some Sunnis.) Maliki's Dawa Party and his main coalition partners (the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq) aren't going to be Tehran's lackeys, but as Juan Cole points out (directly contradicting Bolton’s claims), both groups have good relations with Tehran and are viewed much more favorably by Tehran than Saddam ever was.

One aspect of the results give me pause. Iraq's voters appear to have endorsed parties who favor a strong central state, as opposed to those who might favor greater regional autonomy. On the one hand, a unified Iraq is in the U.S. interest, and we want a central government that is strong enough to maintain order after U.S. forces withdraw. But on the other hand, the stronger the central government becomes, the more that the contending groups will want to control it and greater the potential for trouble with Iraq's Kurds, who still want autonomy if not independence. If Iraq's Sunni population thinks it is getting shut out of power again, then prospects for genuine political reconciliation will remain bleak and renewed violence is likely after we are gone. And that has been the $64,000 question ever since the idea of invading Iraq was first proposed: What is the political formula by which Iraq will be governed now that Saddam's brutal dictatorship is gone?

Chris Hondros/Getty Images