Every time I get shaky on my decision re Obama (and I have been this week), I read something that makes me take a deep breath and relax just a bit.
Via the always excellent normblog, here’s Samantha Power (in Coventry just now because she was honest about Iraq and mean to Hillary – but a core Obama advisor nonetheless) with a smart suggestion about Zimbabwe:
One by one, those African and Western leaders who claim to be disgusted with Mugabe should announce that they bilaterally recognize the validity of the March 29 first-round election results, which showed the opposition winning 48% to 43%, though the margin was almost surely larger. The countries which do would make up the new “March 29 bloc” within the U.N. and would declare Morgan Tsvangirai the new President of Zimbabwe. They would then announce that Mugabe and the 130 leading cronies who have already been sanctioned by the West will not be permitted entry to their airports.
Tsvangirai and his senior aides should do as South Africa’s African National Congress did throughout the 1960s and ’70s: set up a government-in-exile and appoint ambassadors abroad – including to the U.N. That ambassador should be given forums for rebutting the ludicrous claims of the Zimbabwean and South African regimes.
If “the U.N.” is disaggregated into its component parts, Mugabe’s friends will be exposed. “June 27” countries will be those who favor electoral theft, while “March 29” countries will be those who believe that the Zimbabweans aren’t the only ones who should stand up and be counted. This can be a recipe for gridlock in international institutions – but the gridlock won’t get broken by lamenting its existence.
Norm (who I believe was born in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) continues, contrasting her approach with a far softer one via The Nation – and it’s worth reading.
Marc,
This was an “insta” tongue in cheek joke? Right? Please!
Otherwise, while you and Marty Peretz would seemingly reside in one or the other of Obama’s hip pockets, I see nothing in any link here that would have anything to do with Sen. Obama save it was written by a disgraced/fired/former “campaign advisor”.
Mugabe is primarily supported by the 20th Century Lefts heroic government, South Africa.
And, what free/Democratic African government (are there any?)has publicly opposed/sanctioned/whatever this thugocracy?
If you want to use Mugabe to prop up your candidate, what has he (Obama) said about Mugabe and how he’d correct this disaster?
Mike
BTW, Samantha is just overwhelmingly simplistic in her thinking!
Mike – well, one assumes that the thinking of his advisers represents a good window into the kinds of policies he’d implement, no?
Yes, SA has covered itself with shame in it’s relationship with Mugabe’s thug government – so call them out and give them a real choice to make, and let’s see what happens.
A.L.
This won’t do anything. For one, South Africa and other African nations/leaders fully support Mugabe. That he’s a thug who loots the nation and acts as dictator is precisely the point. It’s what they all do or want to do anyway. This also accounts for his support across the Third World thug-ocracy.
The Apartheid era South Africa eventually got tired of suppressing the Black majority and made a deal to get most of their money out and property sold. That’s not Mugabe’s model — once he leaves power he (and more importantly, his followers) are dead or poor or both.
ONLY crushing Mugabe militarily will do anything, and no African country will do that because they all are led by people who hope to be king like Mugabe and loot the place dry for themselves (and their followers). Rwanda’s killing only stopped when the RPF led by Paul Kagame got backing from Uganda to go and stop it, for tribal reasons as well as the Interamhamwe’s habit of backing cross-border raids into Uganda. All the hand-holding kumbayah, and “concerts” did absolutely nothing.
Please, let’s have Democrats just shut the heck up (and Obama has drank a cold tall glass of that) about Zimbabwe, Tibet, Burma, Darfur, and every other Third World hell-hole. If they won’t use military force to change the politics, nothing will happen. Mugabe ain’t Pinochet or Botha.
Soft power = no power. Dems want to play stupid “Lightworker” fantasies out of “Charmed” where the good angels use magic to fix the world, fine, please do that out of the public sphere. Fantasy ideologies do no one any good.
Dems ought to be happy with the killing: this is the predictable result of the discrediting of the Bush Doctrine (pre-emptive military intervention to rid the world of a dictator threatening American interests). “Stop the War in Iraq, we surrender!” = killing in Zimbabwe. Which will go on and on until there’s about half the population left (see: Stalin and the Ukranians).
Somebody missed the report of the SA Trades Unions refusing to transship Mugabe’s arms. Yes, the SA government is so far disappointing, but if the popular base is against Mugabe there is room to improve.
As far as the Bush Doctrine goes, I could say many things, one of which is that since Zimbabwe has no oil and few opportunities for Halliburton to make money, we would not have invaded it in any case, no matter how enthusiastic the Democrats might have been about Iraq in the alternative conservaverse. There’s also, of course, the strain on our existing military resources: we can’t even send what we need to Afghanistan, much less open up fronts in Zimbabwe and Burma.
Here’s a better idea, and it’s actually Africa-pandemic: screw Africa.
By that I mean cut off all foreign aid to Africa. Close up all the embassies and consulates and bring them home. Simple sigh and walk away.
Let the Africans sink or swim by themselves. Starve or prosper. Whatever.
The place is a dark, moist hole of lost humanity. Let it go. Write it off. Shrug when the NGO community grit their teeth and wail.
When the Africans are ready to join the civilized nations of the world, we’ll still be here… prospering.
Samantha Power’s policy idea is good, but it’s a bad sign for foreign policy guidance that she mis-describes the domestic political context and the alternatives in partisan, point-scoring ways.
Over time, people who can’t see things straight, but have to twist every situation to give themselves a good charge of partisan scorn and hate, and then believe their own lies, are likely to produce poor results. They blind themselves to the moral resources of the American people and America’s serious allies, and they’re likely to “deal with” important and soluble problems by blaming the domestic opposition instead of using the capacity America and its real allies have for forming reasonably solid united views and acting accordingly.
bq. _The ruthlessness and savagery of Mugabe have given rise to two basic reactions in Africa and around the world: fruitless hand-wringing by committed multilateralists who want to solve the problem through “constructive engagement,” and consequence-blind militarism by zealous moralists who call for regime change by force.”_
That’s not an accurate description. It’s one that would make Samantha Power a moral and political genius compared to everything else going if it was true, which is why she likes this account. But it’s not right, or even plausible. There are plenty of non-multilateralists who are not champing at the bit to invade Zimbabwe, because they don’t see a good balance of risk and reward for doing so. I admit this outlook also doesn’t offer realistic hope for the people of Zimbabwe. But my point is that the habit of getting the problem description phase wrong in ways that make you look good and your domestic opposition look bad is a bad one.
bq. _”The moralists, for their part, have begun demanding the military overthrow of Mugabe. Many of them are neoconservatives motivated largely by the desire to ridicule multilateralism and resuscitate the so-called Bush Doctrine. Such voices conveniently forget that the Bush Doctrine has never actually been tried in practice. The war in Iraq was fought over alleged weapons of mass destruction, a contrived link to 9/11, oil, a father’s unfinished legacy–but not as a humanitarian intervention.”_
In attributing the motive of ridiculing multilateralism to those who do want to invade Zimbabwe and get rid of its tyrant, Samantha Power says something extremely nasty about and damning to people she’s defining as domestic political opponents. To say that the “moralists” want to undertake the bloodshed and destruction of war for the trivial, frivolous, pose-striking motive of ridicule damns them as hypocrites when they try to speak from a “moral” perspective, and pushes offstage their genuinely moral motives such as horror at what Robert Mugabe is doing. _But it’s a bunch of hooey. It’s a heap of lies that are obviously lies, but that are politically palatable from a highly partisan perspective._
This is not the right basis for making foreign policy. The inability to refrain from taking cheap shots displayed here is an indication of lack of talent.
On the other hand, the idea itself is a counter-indication.
And when he fires said advisors, one could assume that represents a good indication that he doesn’t agree with those policies.
Personally I think a better window into a candidate’s likely future policies is what the candidate says about what they’d try to do if elected. I realize that with Obama it may depend on the hour of the day, the direction of the wind, or what he put on his waffles that morning but it’s usually at least a bit more reliable in assuming that he really means to implement the policies just announced by the advisor that he fired earlier.
Make that “but it’s usually at least a bit more reliable than assuming that he really means to implement the policies just announced by the advisor that he fired earlierâ€
I miss preview.
The West, if it tried this, might find that “anti-colonialism” trumps everything, even outside of Africa.
South America, the Middle East and parts of Asia might well decide that if the price of thumbing their nose at the West is being Mugabe’s friend, they’ll take it.
Soft power is still power, diplomatic regime change is still regime change, and the smaller and weaker countries of the world don’t want to set the precedent.
And perhaps the diplomatic class have already figured this out, which is why it hasn’t been tried.
Recognizing the opposition would just be… well.. _rude_…
I like that idea, except that I would go further. Don’t bar them from landing at any airports; but make a public statement that he and his advisors, if they land at any airport (or get into any appropriate country by any other means) they will be promptly arrested and publicly executed as the mass-murderers they are. Screw proper legal process; trials are meant and designed to establish the truth, and everybody in the entire world (including his supporters) knows the truth – that the only reason that Mugabe hasn’t killed as many people as Stalin did is because his country is smaller.
Personally, I would also apply this idea to Ahmadanutjob and whoever the current king of Mordor (AKA Saudi Arabia) is.
bq. The countries which do would make up the new “March 29 bloc” within the U.N. and would declare Morgan Tsvangirai the new President of Zimbabwe. They would then announce that Mugabe and the 130 leading cronies who have already been sanctioned by the West will not be permitted entry to their airports.
(This is the one time where I wish you had those annoying little smiley yellow characters. So what I’ll do is describe it for you.)
[Insert one on its side tears flowing from it’s eyes in laughter and pounding the floor.]
You know this would require that the UN would actually grow a set and do something besides condemning Israel for defending itself. Sanctions from the UN? Hey, we _*KNOW*_ how well those work, don’t we?
bq. …set up a government-in-exile and appoint ambassadors abroad – including to the U.N.
Ooooooo! I smell resume opportunity! *For her.* And another waste of the the US’s money for something that will be as effective as the UN stopping genocide in Darfur. Oh? That didn’t work out?
bq. If “the U.N.” is disaggregated into its component parts, Mugabe’s friends will be exposed. “June 27” countries will be those who favor electoral theft, while “March 29” countries will be those who believe that the Zimbabweans aren’t the only ones who should stand up and be counted. This can be a recipe for gridlock in international institutions – but the gridlock won’t get broken by lamenting its existence.
This is the only part I halfway agree with, the *U*seless *N*itwits split apart? Not a bad idea. I have a better one. Let’s just dissolve the whole UN idea and throw them out of NYC lock, stock and barrel. Make them pay for their parking tickets or seize what assets they have. The time for the UN is long past shelf life and they smell as bad as month old milk.
Jim Rockford –
bq. Please, let’s have Democrats just shut the heck up (and Obama has drank a cold tall glass of that) about Zimbabwe, Tibet, Burma, Darfur, and every other Third World hell-hole. If they won’t use military force to change the politics, nothing will happen. Mugabe ain’t Pinochet or Botha. (paragraph) Soft power = no power. Dems want to play stupid “Lightworker” fantasies out of “Charmed” where the good angels use magic to fix the world, fine, please do that out of the public sphere. Fantasy ideologies do no one any good.
But Obamagic is so much more _*FUN*_! His superior *Hopeychangitude Lightwork* is going to make the world a better place and fix all the boo-boo’s. C’mon Jim, you have to just go and crush the hopes and dreams of all the Left? /snark off
Paul A’Barge – You must be channeling Kim du Toit or at least you guys share part of a world view. For those who do not know, Kim is an emmigrant to the Texas area from SA. His take? ‘Let Africa sink.’ He says we have poured billions into the continent over the decades and *it is worse than it was*. It is not working for them or us. The idea is that when they learn to fish for themselves, they will be ready to join the world. Kim writes about RKBA issues at “The Other Side of Kim”:http://www.theothersideofkim.com/
Okay, enough for this Shabbat morning. I am headed for “Avdat”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avdat.
Mugabe’s depradations are nothing new. This is normal for many parts of Africa. What is abnormal is the normal functioning of government.
Those who say this plan has little chance of success are telling the truth; but the downside of the plan if it doesn’t work is approximately zero, and the upside if it does work is a breakup in an established body of lockstep support for tyranny, and with that range of outcomes you can afford for the odds to be ninety-nine to one against you. It’s a legitimate hope shot. That’s the beauty part.
Government in exile. That always works. No wait- that never works. Generally they make a useful front for the CIA to funnel money and weapons, which invariably leads to the de jure regime staying in power an extra 20 years.
#14 from Mark Buehner:
bq. _”Government in exile. That always works. No wait- that never works. Generally they make a useful front for the CIA to funnel money and weapons, which invariably leads to the de jure regime staying in power an extra 20 years.”_
And of course the government in exile would find the need to practice terrorism, in line with traditional African values. The same sort of African values that support Robert Mugabe in the first place. And of course we’d be blamed for this terrorism. It couldn’t be the fault of the Africans themselves.
OK, that’s a legitimate point. The government in exile thing isn’t such a great idea.
U.N. gridlock needn’t wait for Samantha Power.
Russia and China veto UN sanctions.
Well, that’s two “June 27” countries that have no problem standing up and being counted.
The despotic alliance protects its own. Sanctions are easily spun as the machinations to the meddlesome and neo-colonial west. Is this really a surprise to anyone?
“Government in exile. That always works. No wait- that never works. Generally they make a useful front for the CIA to funnel money and weapons, which invariably leads to the de jure regime staying in power an extra 20 years.”
Sometimes there are no easy answers. The CIA, MI6, etc., will be blamed even if they do nothing. Maybe a government in exile is better than no opposition at all.
I recall during the Cold War there many governments in exile from Eastern Europe. I doubt if any were welcomed with open arms when the Cold War ended. But, for people in those countries at least the government in exile provided a gleam of hope that things might change one day.