Against the Lisbon Treaty

There is an idea abroad in North America that the European Union (EU) represents a progressive alternative to U.S.-sponsored neoliberalism. You can find this argument in books such as Jeremy Rifkin's The European Dream and in numerous articles in left-leaning journals. Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

At the behest of the European Commission, the EU's powerful unelected executive, member state governments are busy dismantling welfare states, enhancing their military forces, enacting illiberal political measures and neoliberal economic policies, and expressing undisguised contempt for anyone who disagrees with them. The dissenters include the peoples of France, the Netherlands, and Ireland, all of whom have had the nerve to vote against the neoliberal version of European integration.

The Irish, given a second chance to get the answer right in a referendum scheduled for October 2, are currently being subjected to a tidal wave of pro-Lisbon Treaty propaganda financed from their own taxes. Not a word of the treaty has been changed as a result of their rejection of it. According to the EU's own rules, this refusal to amend the original should have killed the proposal. But the Commission has merely appended a number of non-legally binding interpretative declarations. The protocol containing these declarations openly states that these declarations "will clarify but not change either the content or the application of the Treaty of Lisbon." The people of France and the Netherlands have been given no second chance, though the Lisbon Treaty is almost identical to the European Constitutional Treaty they rejected at the ballot box, in the Dutch case by a landslide.

The EU's much-vaunted successes are open to question, to say the least. Europe has indeed gone more than six decades without a major war, but whether or not this is a result of the European Union is impossible to say. A degree of economic integration, beginning in the 1950s with the European Coal and Steel Community, can almost certainly claim some of the credit. But building on the back of this integration a permanent, unquestionable, constitutionally established neoliberal economy is another matter. Like so many aspects of EU-style integration, the institutionalization of the misleadingly-named free market takes advantage of people's natural desire for peace and prosperity to build what is rapidly becoming a capitalist dystopia.

Undermining Social Ownership

The 2005 Directive on Services in the Internal Market, for example, has exposed almost all services to market-based competition. Despite assurances to the contrary, the EU is applying the directive across the board, making it increasingly difficult for local or national public authorities to provide services designed for people, rather than profit. Covering everything except transportation, financial services, certain services provided free of charge by the state, and those already covered by other directives, the Services Directive forbids member states from blocking operators if they've been authorized in any other member states. Despite claims from social democrats in the European Parliament, the Country of Origin Principle (COP) introduced by the Services Directive remains, in all its essentials, intact. The COP means that a company may register in one member state, operate in another, and follow the labor and environmental protection laws prevailing in its state of registration. A series of European Court of Justice rulings have declared that the right to establish or operate a business takes precedence over the rights of labor unions or national governments to negotiate or fix rates of pay per trade, for example. In addition to undermining workers' rights, the Services Directive makes it illegal for governmental authorities at any level to favor local businesses, which makes any effective regional development plan impossible.

In the last decade the EU has used competition policy to undermine social ownership in sector after sector. Fully aware of the extent of public opposition to privatization of essential services, the European Commission claims neutrality on ownership structures yet passes measure after measure forcing socially-owned enterprises to compete in the capitalist market. This enables private corporations to cherry-pick profitable elements of sectors such as postal services, water, energy, and health care. The shareholders of these corporations then pick up the profits, while the taxpayer picks up the tab for essential but unprofitable services.

The EU's malign policies are not limited to undermining both individual and social wages. The Common Agricultural Policy has ravaged Europe's countryside and handed agriculture en masse to corporate farmers. The Common Fisheries Policy has emptied the seas of fish, throwing families that in many cases have relied on the sea's bounty for generations of employment out of work. Trade and development policies have benefited EU-based corporations, with no thought given to the social, economic, and environmental consequences for developing countries.

Irish voters are also particularly concerned by the Lisbon Treaty's threat to the country's neutrality since the treaty effectively would bring Ireland into a military alliance. EU defence policy, the institutional and constitutional basis of which will be hugely enhanced by the Lisbon Treaty, is based not on the real security needs of Europe's peoples, but on the interests of the biggest, most powerful member states and their corporations. The treaty will boost defense spending by all 27 member countries and will encourage the consolidation of European arms manufacturers so that they become more powerful and competitive global actors.

Not Popular, Not International

There has never been a single popular demonstration in favor of European integration. In what Gramsci called a "passive revolution," an elite, lacking popular support, is using legalistic devices to enforce its will. The "Lisbon Strategy," with its absurd ambition to make the EU's economy the most competitive in the world by 2010, comes closest to admitting this. In this case, competitiveness equals efficiency, which equals profitability, with the final element serving as a justification for all manner of ills.

The EU is not an internationalist project at all. Internationalism is, as the name suggests, about cooperation among nations and peoples. The EU is, instead, a universalist project which seeks to impose universal values and universalized structures on a large group of countries with very different economies, histories, traditions, and constitutions. The values that underlie this instance of universalism are those of a hegemonic elite, an elite that has decided that the misnamed free market is a cornerstone of democracy, undermining the latter by transferring powers from elected to unelected institutions and drastically narrowing the policy space available to parliaments and national governments.

The Lisbon Treaty represents a further deepening of this corporate project. It would massively increase the voting power of big member states, more than doubling Germany's to 17% while halving Ireland's to below one percent. It would give the EU the power, for the first time, to harmonize indirect taxes. It would remove the Irish government's right to propose and approve an EU commissioner. It would underline and enhance the precedence of EU law over national legislation, including national constitutions. It would abolish the national veto in 32 new policy areas and thus all but eliminate the power of national parliaments and any possibility of popular influence on decision-making. It would permit heads of state and government to add to the list of areas where policies can be adopted without unanimous approval, with no need for a new treaty. It would create a powerful new office of EU President, an office over which the electorates of the 27 member states would have no influence. And it would require member states, including neutral Ireland, "progressively to improve their military capabilities" and to aid and assist other member states experiencing armed attack "by all the means in their power."

If the Irish reject the Lisbon Treaty a second time, they will not be rejecting cooperation between European nations, but rather a specific vision of Europe's future that is tilted in favor of military and corporate power.

Steve McGiffen

Violence increases in Russia’s Caucasus republics

By Niall Green

Earlier this year, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev proclaimed an end to the long-running “counterterrorism” operation in the North Caucasus. Speaking in April, Medvedev announced that Kremlin military planners would initiate the withdrawal of thousands of troops from the area. However, a recent spike in violence between Russian security forces and local militants indicates that Moscow has no plans to loosen its military grip in the region.

Moscow has maintained a large military presence in the troubled territory since separatist forces in the Russian republic of Chechnya declared independence in 1994. The Kremlin had hoped to draw down its operations in the region, which are a major drain on resources at a time of mounting economic crisis in Russia.

A suicide bomber killed six people and himself at a concert hall in the Chechen capital, Grozny, on Sunday. A further ten people were wounded. The number of violent clashes in Chechnya and other parts of Russia’s North Caucasus region has increased this year, following a reduction in killings in the aftermath of the bloody Second Chechen war in 2001.

The neighboring Russian republics of Ingushetia and Dagestan have seen the bulk of the increase in violence, linked to conflicts between Islamist separatists and Russian federal forces and their local allies. In May, the interior minister of Dagestan was assassinated by gunmen. The following month, the president of Ingushetia was seriously injured by a car bomb. Nine Chechen policemen were recently killed when militants attacked their vehicle during an operation in Ingushetia.

In July, Russian human rights activist Natalia Estemirova was kidnapped in Grozny and found murdered in Ingushetia. She was a prominent critic of the pro-Kremlin regime in Chechnya.

This week, Russian security forces killed eight suspected Islamist militants in Dagestan, following an hour-long gun battle in a forest near the capital, Makhachkala. Around the same time, another militant was killed in Chechnya. This brings the total number of alleged militants killed by Russian security forces in the three Muslim-majority Russian republics to over 20 in July alone.

Pro-Russian officials have been in talks with some Chechen separatists. Earlier this month, the BBC reported that a representative from the Chechen government of Ramzan Kadyrov, the son of a former Chechen warlord who had fought against Moscow in the 1990s, had talks with Akhmed Zakayev in the Norwegian capital Oslo.

Zakayev claims to be the head of the Chechen government-in-exile. In 2007, Zakayev split from the Chechen separatist leader Doku Umarov, president of the self-declared Republic of Ichkeria (Chechnya). Umarov had declared that Chechnya should be ruled under Shariah law and that Western countries were the enemies of Islam. Zakayev opposed this stance, favoring the building of ties with Western powers and rapprochement with more secular forces in Chechnya.

Though largely autonomous, it is very unlikely that the Kadyrov government in Grozny would enter into such talks, the first for eight years, without Moscow’s benediction. The Norwegian hosts of the meeting said that the dialogue had been coordinated “with the highest leadership in the Kremlin.”

Zakayev and his followers are reported to be close to but distinct from the separatist militants still fighting in Chechnya. The Chechen government representative stated that the talks had focused on “the total political stabilization of the Chechen Republic and the final consolidation of Chechen society.” Kadyrov has stated that Zakayev could safely return to Chechnya, where he should play a role “reviving Chechen culture.”

Asked by the BBC if he would take up this offer, Zakayev stated, “I will definitely return to the Chechen Republic and there are no conditions that I would impose on this.”

The Russian elite has strong interests in the region. The Northern Caucasus republics are transit routes for Central Asian oil and gas, and are considered vital to Moscow’s defence policy. In addition, the secession of one of these provinces would threaten the opening up of independence movements in Russia’s other ethnic and national minority republics, such as Tatarstan.

National and ethnic divisions were maintained by the Stalinist regime in the former USSR to divide the Soviet working class and peasantry. Russian chauvinism infused the bureaucracy, and national and ethnic grievances were exacerbated by brutal acts of repression, such as Stalin’s mass expulsion of the Chechen people to Central Asia after World War II.

Such separatist movements within the Russian Federation today reflect the inability of the Russian elite to meet the democratic and social aspirations of all Russians, while local ethnic and national elites, such as Kadyrov in Chechnya, see independence or autonomy merely as a means to enrich themselves and a narrow band of their cronies.

With Russia’s economy in crisis due to the fall in the price of oil and other natural resources, as well as major infrastructural problems, Moscow and its local proxies will be compelled to rely more on military and police violence to maintain their authority, as the weight of the recession is placed on the backs of working people.

Moscow is acutely conscious of the role of US foreign policy in the Caucasus region and is fearful of the threat of “color revolutions” spreading into its republics. While the current round of killings appears to be between Russian forces and Islamist groups, the means employed by the Kremlin are intended to signal to any dissenting faction the methods through which it will secure its rule.

Following on from their summit with US President Barack Obama this month, Medvedev and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin are seizing on a window of opportunity to advance the interests of the Russian elite in the region. In exchange for Moscow’s aiding of the war in Afghanistan—prior to the summit Medvedev allowed the US Air Force to fly across Russia en route to the US-occupied country—Washington appears to have conceded, for the time being, Russian interests in the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia, which borders Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan.

In a highly provocative move, shortly after Obama left Moscow Medvedev visited South Ossetia, the breakaway Georgian province at the center of the war between Moscow and the US-backed government in Tbilisi last year. This was a statement of intent that Moscow will seek to consolidate its power in the province, and also in the other pro-Russian Georgian territory of Abkhazia.

Seeking to maximize its renewed role as a partner in Washington’s war in Afghanistan, Moscow will pursue its own “war on terror” in the North Caucasus, while seeking to expand its authority on the southern side of the Caucasus Mountains.

Honduras: primera crisis latinoamericana en la era Obama

Los que tenían evaluaciones reduccionistas, equiparando a Obama con Bush, tienen que reevaluar de inmediato sus visiones equivocadas. Bastó el golpe en Honduras –la primera gran crisis latinoameriana desde el relevo en la Casa Blanca– para que se viera cómo Estados Unidos recupera capacidad de acción en un continente donde la había perdido casi por completo.

Bush seguramente no habría condenado el golpe, menos todavía presionado a los golpistas para que aceptaran el retorno del presidente depuesto; el golpe en Venezuela lo certifica. Pero lo hacen en un contexto en que los gobiernos latinoamericanos, que habían logrado dirimir por sí mismos conflictos anteriores, como fue el caso entre Ecuador y Colombia, a raíz de la invasión del ejército colombiano en territorio ecuatoriano, en la reunión realizada en República Dominicana retomaron las relaciones, ahora perturbadas por la nueva ola de denuncias irresponsables de Uribe, Colombia y Venezuela se ven apartados de la solución de la crisis hondureña. La existencia de Unasur, con un Consejo de Seguridad Sudamericano donde, por primera vez, no está Estados Unidos, que se limitó a mandar su flota naval, como para demostrar que sus armas son otras que las políticas, revela cómo el continente tiene formas propias para zanjar sus problemas y sus crisis.

Aun con ese poder de iniciativa, se cometió el error de aceptar la intermediación de Óscar Arias, no por casualidad propuesta por Hillary Clinton, que representa el ala más conservadora del nuevo gobierno estadunidense. Aun contando con la unánime condena internacional al golpe y el apoyo al retorno de Zelaya al gobierno, el movimiento dirigido por el presidente hondureño aceptó la intermediación de Arias que, si bien lo recibió cuando fue expulsado por los militares de su país, además de haber mediado en los acuerdos de Contadora –que le valieron el Premio Nobel de la Paz–, retornó a la política costarricense para implementar el Tratado de Libre Comercio con Estados Uidos. Tuvo grandes dificultades para triunfar por muy pequeño margen en las elecciones, tan es así que fue obligado a convocar a un referendo sobre el TLC, donde también triunfó por un margen muy pequeño. Es el hombre de Estados Unidos en la región, cuando otros gobiernos, como los de Nicaragua, El Salvador y el mismo Honduras, se distancian de Washington.

Arias se comportó exactamente como quería Estados Unidos. Promovió un reconocimiento de hecho al gobierno golpista, poniendo a las dos partes a negociar como si tuvieran estatutos similares. Planteó en primer lugar la condición de que Zelaya retorne a la presidencia, pero renunciando a cualquier iniciativa propia, haciendo que termine su mandato, simplemente para mantener la continuidad institucional, como si ésta no hubiera sido claramente vulnerada. Ni siquiera se acusaría a ningún golpista, al contrario de lo anunciado por Zelaya, que pretende sancionar a los militares que han perpetrado el golpe. Se terminaría el mandato, sin pena ni gloria, y como Zelaya perdió las elecciones internas del partido al que todavía pertenece, no concurriría con ninguna alternativa que permitiera que el pueblo se pronunciara sobre su gobierno.

Micheletti juega con la continuidad hasta que el nuevo gobierno sea elegido. La importante decisión de los presidentes del Mercosur afirma que no reconocerá a ningún gobierno surgido del golpe. Debiera ser una posición asumida por todos los que condenan el golpe.

Frente a la resistencia de Micheletti de devolver la presidencia a Zelaya, Estados Unidos pasó a una alternativa, que es la de que las fuerzas armadas acepten las condiciones propuestas por Arias. Se dice que la declaración de los altos mandos militares hondureños fue redactada en Washington, en la oficina de un senador demócrata estadunidense, para terminar de confirmar que el gobierno de Obama busca de todas formas salvar la apariencia de institucionalidad, como si no hubiera habido ya una ruptura de la institucionalidad democrática, que impide que Zelaya gobierne y que someta a su pueblo una alternativa de continuidad política fuera de las oligarquías que han dominado siempre al país, responsables de que sea uno de los más pobres del continente.

Así, tampoco se puede aceptar que Zelaya reasuma simplemente para concluir su mandato, como si nada hubiera pasado –es decir, sin la punición de los golpistas, entre ellos los altos mandos de las fuerzas armadas, la alta cúpula del Poder Judicial, políticos y dirigentes de los dos partidos tradicionales–, ni que el pueblo pueda pronunciarse sobre el gobierno de Zelaya, que debiera poder lanzar un candidato que represente la continuidad de su gobierno, por alguno de los partidos alternativos.

El retorno de Zelaya para cumplir su mandato simplemente, sería la victoria de la postura estadunidense, que salva las apariencias como condenando el golpe, sin castigar a los responsables, haciendo que se cumplan las semanas que faltan del mandato de Zelaya, que se retiraría del gobierno y con ello se terminarían las alternativas que empezaba a construir para Honduras.

Hace tiempo, desde el golpe en Venezuela, se han incrementado las ofensivas contra los gobiernos de Lula, Evo Morales y Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, pues la derecha intenta frenar la ola de gobiernos que salen del consenso neoliberal que los conservadores, apoyados por Estados Unidos, han impuesto en el continente. En caso de que logren su objetivo en Honduras, habrían encontrado una vía sui generis, sin victoria electoral y sin ensuciar sus manos, para intervenir directamente en un golpe. Sería la primera victoria del gobierno Obama en el continente, en un momento en que las posturas bushistas de Uribe amenazan con situaciones muy difíciles para el nuevo gobierno estadunidense, haciendo retroceder al escenario de aislamiento total en la región, cuando Colombia era su gran aliado.

Los gobiernos que han condenado el golpe en Honduras, que han construido la Unasur y el Consejo Sudamericano de Defensa, tienen que hacerse responsables por una solución democrática para la crisis hondureña, al igual que deben hacerse cargo de los conflictos que rebrotan entre Colombia y sus vecinos, para parar definitivamente los chantajes de Uribe, que sirven apenas para recubrir su proyecto de instalación formal y abierta de una base militar estadunidense en su país. Lo cual, además, choca con la pertenencia al Consejo Sudamericano de Defensa, que debería reunirse para exigir una declaración formal del gobierno colombiano de que no violará los acuerdos del Consejo.

O América Latina se hace cargo de sus problemas y de su destino, definitivamente, o el imperio, bajo una u otra forma, volverá a dictar las reglas en la región que más ha avanzado en el mundo en los procesos de integración regional y de construcción de alternativas al modelo neoliberal.

Emir Sader

«Le mouvement taliban nigérian est endogène»

Marc-Antoine La Pérouse de Montclos, chercheur à l'IRD revient sur les affrontements entre forces de l'ordre et insurgés islamistes au Nigéria.

D’où vient ce mouvement taliban au Nigeria ?

En janvier 2004, des islamistes radicaux se faisant appeler les «talibans» sont apparus dans la région du Borno, à la frontière du Niger. Ils venaient vraisemblablement du campus de l’université de Maiduguri. En Afrique de l’Ouest, le mot talibédésigne traditionnellement les jeunes élèves des écoles coraniques qui mendient dans la rue pour financer leur scolarité. Ici, on est clairement dans le cas d’une référence à l’islam radical à la mode pakistanaise ou afghane. A l’époque, les «talibans» de Maiduguri avaient attaqué des commissariats pour se procurer des armes. Puis, bizarrement, on n’a plus entendu parler d’eux, alors qu’ils ont, semble-t-il, monté des camps d’entraînement. Pourquoi des violences ont éclaté maintenant ? C’est un mystère. Il s’agit d’une zone peu contrôlée par le pouvoir central.

Qui dirige ce mouvement ?

C’est un autre mystère. On ne sait pas qui est leur leader. En 2006, un imam nommé Mohamed Yusuf avait été identifié et arrêté. Il avait reconnu avoir des «talibans» parmi ses fidèles, mais il ne se reconnaissait pas comme leur chef. Or, dans la longue histoire des mouvements islamiques radicaux au Nigeria, les «prophètes» autoproclamés ou millénaristes ne se sont jamais cachés. Qu’il s’agisse de Maitatsine, qui avait pris la tête d’une révolte ayant causé 5 000 morts à Kano (nord du Nigeria) en 1980, ou de Zakzaki, qui se réclame du chiisme.

Y a-t-il une dimension ethnique ou tribale dans ces troubles ?

Il semble que non. Les régions du Borno, de Yobe et de Bauchi, peuplées de Haoussas et de Kanouris, sont homogènes et très largement musulmanes. On n’est pas du tout dans le même cas de figure que les troubles qui ont récemment ensanglanté la région de Jos, dans la ceinture centrale du pays. A Jos, point de rencontre entre l’islam et la chrétienté, les violences interreligieuses recouvrent des disputes entre communautés pour le contrôle de la terre ou des réseaux commerciaux. Ce qui se passe en ce moment est une attaque contre l’Etat pour obtenir l’application d’une version dure de la charia, la loi islamique.

Y a-t-il une influence étrangère dans ces troubles ?

Il n’y a pas de liens connus avec Al-Qaeda. La Libye et l’Iran ont eu des velléités au Nigeria, via des fondations. On sait aussi que des pays arabes du Golfe ont financé le gouverneur de l’Etat de Zamfara, Ahmed Sani, lorsqu’il a voulu étendre le domaine d’application pénale de la charia. Mais le mouvement taliban nigérian, à ma connaissance, est complètement endogène. Son appellation relève d’une volonté d’être pris au sérieux dans sa capacité de nuisance. Un peu à la manière des gangs noirs sud-africains qui se faisaient appeler les «Germans», les «Berliners»ou les «Japanese» au lendemain de la Seconde Guerre mondiale.

Islam and pluralism are not incompatible

There is a pervasive view in the media today that Islam does not support pluralism. Sadly, we often hear how difficult it is for non-Muslim minorities to live in peace and harmony in Muslim countries. Violent extremists who misuse Islamic theology to justify terrorist attacks have exacerbated prejudices against Muslims and today many people think that Muslims do not believe in pluralism and diversity.

By contrast, history reveals that Islam – as preached in the Koran and exemplified by the life of the Prophet Muohammad and his companions – actually accepts, celebrates and even encourages diversity.

It should be noted that the term “minority” has no place in Islamic law. It has no place in Sharia (or law based on Islamic principles) and jurists have never used the term. Rather, it emerged from Western societies, which use it to distinguish between ethnic groups.

According to Islamic principles, everyone who lives in a Muslim state is entitled to enjoy the same rights of citizenship, despite the differences they may have in their religion or population size.

In 622, when the Prophet Mohammad migrated from Mecca to Medina in the Arabian Peninsula and started to build the first Muslim state, he ensured that its Muslim and non-Muslim inhabitants could coexist in harmony. There was a substantial Jewish community in Medina, and the Prophet proposed an agreement of cooperation – between Muslims and the 11 Jewish tribes – called the Constitution of Medina, which Muslim historians and scholars generally accept as the first written state constitution.

This constitution spelled out the rights of Jews as non-Muslim citizens in the Muslim state. As a result, the Prophet managed to establish a multi-faith political community in Medina based on a set of universal principles. The rules set out in the constitution were meant to maintain peace and cooperation, protect life and property, prevent injustice and ensure freedom of religion and movement for all inhabitants – regardless of tribal or religious affiliation. Allegiance to the community superseded religious identity, as spelled out in the rules for joint defense: “[E]ach must help the other against anyone who attacks the people of this document.”

The Prophet’s treatment of the “People of the Book,” in this case Jews, showed religious tolerance as well as prudence. The constitution established the pattern for the future relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims, specifying non-Muslim citizens as equal partners with Muslim inhabitants.

Almost 15 years later, when Muslims conquered Jerusalem from the Byzantines, Caliph Omar Ibn al-Khattab granted its people, who were mainly Christians, safety for their persons, property and churches. As well-known British historian Karen Armstrong writes, “[Omar] was faithful to the Islamic inclusive vision. Unlike Jews and Christians, Muslims did not attempt to exclude others from Jerusalem’s holiness.”

Omar’s assurance of safety to the people of Jerusalem stands as an important example for leaders in multi-faith societies today, and history has proven that when these examples were put into practice, non-Muslims were treated kindly and justly.

These examples of Muslim and non-Muslim coexistence are not confined to a specific time or place, but are meant to be applied in all times and places. Today, for example, Jordan’s Constitution guarantees freedom of religious belief. Christians in Jordan, who form the majority of non-Muslims, enjoy by law nearly 10 percent of the seats in Parliament and have similar quotas at every level of government and society. Their holy sites, property and religious practices are protected from any kind of interference by the state.

Cultural and social realities in many Muslim-majority societies have led to violations of the rights of non-Muslims in contemporary times. Islamic history, however, demonstrates that the path towards mutual understanding and tolerance does not deviate from the essence of Islam. On the contrary, to revive the spirit of inclusivity, Muslim societies should look to the Koran, and emulate the model it lays out.

An inclusive vision is, and always will be, the only safe haven for followers of other religions in an Islamic society.

Maher Y. Abu-Munshar

The Decider

Who Runs U.S. Foreign Policy?
And what role has Obama carved out for himself?
by Michael Crowley

Whether he is shaping the White House's message on Iran, or personally cajoling Asian leaders to crack down on North Korea, or brokering power deals among NATO allies, Obama has, in effect, been his own national security advisor and secretary of state.

"The level of harmony is just striking," says James Goldgeier, a national security aide in the Clinton White House and a political scientist at George Washington University. There are signs, however, that the administration's approach to foreign policy, however well-intentioned and well-executed, is vulnerable to unexpected challenges--the very kind that are likely to multiply the longer the president is in office.

The unanswered question is how Obama's confidence and emphasis on process will serve him in the months and years to come, as he begins to reap the fruits--or a lack thereof--of his strategic vision. Process only works if the assumptions underlying the strategy it is meant to implement are correct, but, as nations begin to respond to Obama's initiatives, those assumptions may be tested--from Jerusalem to Moscow. Already, we have seen one hitch in the Obama model: Iran.

Mapping a Legal Geography of Yugoslavia's Disintegration

Ana S. Trbovich's A Legal Geography of Yugoslavia's Disintegration is a valuable intervention in the long running and, at times, torturous debate over the collapse of the former Yugoslavia. The book provides a richly detailed, if not exhaustive, interpretation of the legal constitutional landscape of the region and its history. The author's academic and political credentials, most recently as director of the Center for European Integration and Management of Public Administration at the University of Singidunum in Belgrade, as well as her service as assistant minister of International Economic Relations for the government of Serbia, is reflected in her extensive knowledge and experience in the intricacies and nuances of political decision making. Trbovich chronicles the complex national state administrative and political incarnations of Yugoslavia, focusing primarily on post-1914 Yugoslavia. To this end, she carefully maps out the complex legal and political terrain -- the "legal geography" -- of the former Yugoslavia. The evolution of Yugoslavia as a state is meticulously researched, evidenced in extensive footnotes and citations, including scholarly work, a host of relevant legal statutes, resolutions, and reports. The list of maps as well as an extensive bibliography containing primary and secondary sources are excellent resources for those interested in both international law and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY).

The purpose of the book becomes clear early on, and that is to make a case for what the author argues was the complicity of the international community in the break-up of the former Yugoslavia and the illegal use of force in 1999 against the FRY by NATO forces. Most important though is Trbovich's analysis of what she argues is "an almost complete reversal" of international practice of respect for the territorial and constitutional integrity of sovereign states (p. 1). To this end, the author carefully lays out the legal, juridical, and constitutional grounds for intervention in the internal affairs of states by citing contexts where such action has been used not only legitimately but also in concert with international law and principles of sovereignty, as well as with respect for the integrity of state legal and constitutional structures. Trbovich begins her analysis with an examination of the problematic and selective interpretation of two pivotal international legal principles -- self-determination and secession -- and how, in the case of Yugoslavia, misguided assessments on the part of the international community led to the demise of Yugoslavia and the bloody wars of secession that followed. She demonstrates how policy decisions based on the protection of minority and human rights -- ubiquitous and, some argue, hegemonic concepts for which there are no consensual definitions -- undermine the credibility and force of international law. Thus, for example, when does a minority become a "people" deserving of the political right of self-determination? The dubious viability of particular (minority) rights regimes (and here the author cites the case of Kosovar Albanians) raises questions about the legality of claims for self-determination that often serve to undermine the integrity of a state's constitution. According to Trbovich, discussion and debate is better served by a focus on constitutional and legal provisions and precedents than by appeals to universal moral principles.

The author charts the historical development of the Yugoslav federation beginning in 1918 when Serbian, Croatian, and, to a lesser extent, Slovenian and other national movements were solidifying the ideological foundations of what would later become demands for self-determination and, eventually, secession in 1991. Throughout the book, Yugoslav regimes after 1918 all receive positive valuation relative to those of other states in the region. This is attributed to a history of democratic governance and recognition of the rights of Yugoslavia's constituent nations. The histories of Kosovo i Metohija (the name enshrined in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia constitution, dropped by Josip Broz Tito in 1974, and then reinstated by Slobodan Milošević in 1989), Croatia, Slovenia, and the other Yugoslav republics and provinces are examined with particular emphasis on the challenges they have posed to the legitimacy of Yugoslav federal administrative borders and to the state itself.¹ Among the historical examples the author uses to bolster her analysis, World War II comes under particular scrutiny as a period when Croatia aligned itself with the fascist Axis powers in 1941 and perpetrated atrocities against Serbs, Jews, and others. According to Trbovich, the actions of the fascist Ustasha state against Serbs amounted to genocide. While debates about the roles and responsibilities of Croats, Serbs, and others during this period, and charges of genocide and ethnic cleansing rage on, the author focuses mainly on the claim that Serbs were the primary victims of Croatian genocide. The fascist taint of Croatia during World War II is extended to the 1990s in reference to Croatia's offensive in Krayina (Krajina). The choice of language is significant: "Thus while Serbs are admonished for expelling Croats . . . the cleansing of numerous Serbs . . . occurred unnoticed" (p. 302, emphasis mine).

The tendency to present evidence to support one's arguments to the neglect of that which may cast doubt is not unusual in the scholarship on Yugoslavia, but it is somewhat troublesome given the lengths to which Trbovich has gone to present a comprehensive, extensively researched, and balanced perspective on the region and its history. For example, the omission of highly respected scholarship on Kosovo and Bosnia, such as Noel Malcolm's Kosovo: A Short History (1998) andBosnia: A Short History (1994), and Julie Mertus's Kosovo: How Myths and Truths Started a War (1999) is curious at best, as is that on Serbia, such as Robert Thomas's The Politics of Serbia in the 1990s(1999), and Jasminka Udovički and James Ridgeway's Burn This House: The Making and Unmaking of Yugoslavia (2000). The book also, at times, betrays a certain degree of hostility toward Croats, claiming ultimately that the foundations of Croatia's grievances against Yugoslavia amount to historical revisionism. While few would deny the brutality of Croatia's WWII fascist past and their actions in Operations Storm and Flash, Trbovich seems compelled to exonerate Serbs of any wrongdoing, reflected in frequent allusions to the "conciliatory" nature and peaceful intentions of FRY and their continuous willingness to compromise (p. 298). For example, the Yugoslav National Army is deemed to have "acted only in self defence" in responding to the "illegal use of force by secessionists" (p. 283). Scant attention is devoted to the culpability of the Milošević regime and of Bosnian Serbs for the brutal war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (including the four-year siege of Sarajevo), the massacre at Srebrenica, the destruction of Vukovar, and, more generally, the central role of extreme nationalism during the 1990s. If the author's intention is to present a balanced argument that focuses mainly on the constitutional and legal grounds of intervention in the affairs of sovereign states, then greater care should have been taken to present an evenhanded treatment of all parties to the conflict. The use of value-laden terms, such as "pogrom" in relation to Serbs only, as well as accusations of ethnic cleansing and genocide against Albanians and Croats to the exclusion of Serbs, is deeply problematic and diminishes the persuasiveness of Trbovich's analysis, especially in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary (pp. 355, 406).

Trbovich's analysis of the events leading up to and during the NATO bombing of Belgrade represents more careful and balanced analysis of the role of international bodies in intervention. Although the author mainly identifies discrimination of Serbs at the hands of Albanians in Kosovo (even though the reverse is well documented), Trbovich makes a compelling case against the controversial series of decisions that led to NATO's air campaign against FRY in 1999. The rush to respond resulted not only in devastating consequences for those caught on the ground, but also serious repercussions for the process by which claims for self-determination are assessed and acted on by the international community. Trbovich makes a strong case for her assertion that NATO's actions in FRY have compromised the principles on which international laws and precedents concerning state sovereignty are built. For example, Trbovich invokes the rules of jus ad bellum (law governing the right to go to war) and jus in bello (conduct of war once it has begun) embedded in the UN Charter, to underscore her contention that NATO actions were a direct violation of the UN Security Council process to which it was accountable and that diplomatic initiatives to resolve the conflict peacefully were not exhausted. The justification that followed the NATO campaign -- humanitarian intervention -- is thus flawed on both moral and legal grounds. Trbovich's argument is ever more urgent given the troubling spate of interventions by the West since 2001 in Iraq and Afghanistan and the looming threat of more to come. Her analysis confirms the critiques of many legal scholars who argue that debates concerning intervention in Kosovo or Bosnia and Herzegovina are increasingly difficult to evaluate, given that they often appeal to realist, relativist, and/or moral principles. Exceptions to prescriptive legal statutes and conventions, not to mention realpolitik, are becoming the norm in international affairs.

The final two chapters of the book thus provide some useful lessons for thinking about conditions under which international intervention is necessary and/or legitimate. Although in hindsight it is perhaps easy to say that the political fates of both Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina remain precarious, Trbovich argues convincingly for the need for greater commitment to early diplomacy in reaching negotiated solutions and cautions against the increasingly problematic trend toward the enforcement of democratic governance and the compromising of territorial sovereignty. This, according to the author, ultimately represents an abrogation of our collective duty to respect the integrity of state constitutions, sovereignty, and international law. While readers may find some observations, analogies, and/or conclusions drawn by the author objectionable, her contribution to the debates over the uses and abuses of international treaties, and laws around intervention in the context of human and minority rights, is a welcome and necessary one.

Daphne Winland

Note

1 The transliteration of Serbian names to phonetic English will be confusing to those who, particularly in the past fifteen to twenty years, have grown accustomed to reading script (sometimes with diacritics) in the Roman alphabet. Thus, a commonly cited name such as Milošević appears as Miloshevich.

'E pur si muove'

JOSÉ SARAMAGO

"Y sin embargo, se mueve". Estas palabras las diría como si fuera un susurro casi inaudible Galileo Galilei al terminar la lectura de la abjuración a que fue forzado por los inquisidores generales de la Iglesia Católica el 22 de Junio de 1633. Se trataba, como se sabe, de obligarlo a desmentir, condenar y repudiar públicamente lo que había sido y seguía siendo su profunda convicción, es decir, la verdad científica del sistema copernicano, según el cual es la Tierra la que gira alrededor del Sol y no el Sol alrededor de la Tierra. El estudio del texto de la abjuración de Galileo debería estudiarse con conveniente atención en todos los establecimientos de enseñanza del planeta, fuese cual fuese la religión dominante, no tanto para confirmar lo que hoy es una evidencia para todo el mundo, que el Sol está parado y la Tierra se mueve a su alredor, sino como manera de prevenir la formación de supersticiones, lavados de cerebro, ideas hechas y otros atentados contra la inteligencia y el sentido común.

No es, pese a la introducción, Galileo el objeto primero de este texto, sino algo más próximo en el tiempo y en el espacio. Me refiero al Barómetro Hispano-Luso del Centro de Análisis Social de la Universidad de Salamanca, publicado hoy, sobre las eventuales posibilidades de creación de una unión entre los dos países de la Península Ibérica de cara a la formación de una Federación hispano-portuguesa.

Los lectores que acompañan regularmente éste y otros comentarios míos recordarán la polémica, adornada con unos cuantos insultos elegidos y unas cuantas acusaciones de traición a la patria, que mi pronóstico de una unión de ese tipo suscitó hace relativamente poco tiempo. Pues bien, de acuerdo con el sondeo de la Universidad de Salamanca, 39,9% de los portugueses y 30,3% de los españoles apoyarían esa unión. Los porcentajes muestran un sensible avance, tanto en un país como en el otro, sobre los cálculos realizados en aquel momento. Los que rechazan la idea constituyen poco más del 30% de las personas consultadas, es decir, 260 de los 876 ciudadanos entrevistados durante los meses de abril y mayo de este año.

Al contrario de lo que generalmente se dice, el futuro ya está escrito, lo que ocurre es que nosotros no tenemos todavía la ciencia necesaria para leerlo. Las protestas de hoy pueden convertirse en los acuerdos de mañana, y, por supuesto, también podría suceder lo contrario, aunque una cosa es cierta y la frase de Galileo tiene aquí perfecto encaje. Sí, Iberia. E pur si muove.

ETA hace estallar un coche bomba en una casa cuartel de la Guardia Civil en Burgos · ELPAÍS com

ETA ha hecho estallar sin aviso previo una furgoneta con 200 kilos de explosivo junto a la residencia de los agentes. La bomba reventó el edificio y ha causado 46 heridos leves. La policía cree que el vehículo fue robado en Francia

Russian Economy and Russian Power

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Georgia and Ukraine partly answered questions over how U.S.-Russian talks went during U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to Russia in early July. That Biden’s visit took place at all reaffirms the U.S. commitment to the principle that Russia does not have the right to a sphere of influence in these countries or anywhere in the former Soviet Union.

The Americans’ willingness to confront the Russians on an issue of fundamental national interest to Russia therefore requires some explanation, as on the surface it seems a high-risk maneuver. Biden provided insights into the analytic framework of the Obama administration on Russia in a July 26 interview with The Wall Street Journal. In it, Biden said the United States “vastly” underestimates its hand. He added that “Russia has to make some very difficult, calculated decisions. They have a shrinking population base, they have a withering economy, they have a banking sector and structure that is not likely to be able to withstand the next 15 years, they’re in a situation where the world is changing before them and they’re clinging to something in the past that is not sustainable.”

U.S. Policy Continuity

The Russians have accused the United States of supporting pro-American forces in Ukraine, Georgia and other countries of the former Soviet Union under the cover of supporting democracy. They see the U.S. goal as surrounding the Soviet Union with pro-American states to put the future of the Russian Federation at risk. The summer 2008 Russian military action in Georgia was intended to deliver a message to the United States and the countries of the former Soviet Union that Russia was not prepared to tolerate such developments but was prepared to reverse them by force of arms if need be.

Following his July summit, Obama sent Biden to the two most sensitive countries in the former Soviet Union — Ukraine and Georgia — to let the Russians know that the United States was not backing off its strategy in spite of Russian military superiority in the immediate region. In the long run, the United States is much more powerful than the Russians, and Biden was correct when he explicitly noted Russia’s failing demographics as a principle factor in Moscow’s long-term decline. But to paraphrase a noted economist, we don’t live in the long run. Right now, the Russian correlation of forces along Russia’s frontiers clearly favors the Russians, and the major U.S. deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan would prevent the Americans from intervening should the Russians choose to challenge pro-American governments in the former Soviet Union directly.

Even so, Biden’s visit and interview show the Obama administration is maintaining the U.S. stance on Russia that has been in place since the Reagan years. Reagan saw the economy as Russia’s basic weakness. He felt that the greater the pressure on the Russian economy, the more forthcoming the Russians would be on geopolitical matters. The more concessions they made on geopolitical matters, the weaker their hold on Eastern Europe. And if Reagan’s demand that Russia “Tear down this wall, Mr. Gorbachev” was met, the Soviets would collapse. Ever since the Reagan administration, the idee fixe of not only the United States, but also NATO, China and Japan has been that the weakness of the Russian economy made it impossible for the Russians to play a significant regional role, let alone a global one. Therefore, regardless of Russian wishes, the West was free to forge whatever relations it wanted among Russian allies like Serbia and within the former Soviet Union. And certainly during the 1990s, Russia was paralyzed.

Biden, however, is saying that whatever the current temporary regional advantage the Russians might have, in the end, their economy is crippled and Russia is not a country to be taken seriously. He went on publicly to point out that this should not be pointed out publicly, as there is no value in embarrassing Russia. The Russians certainly now understand what it means to hit the reset button Obama had referred to: The reset is back to the 1980s and 1990s.

Reset to the 1980s and 90s

To calculate the Russian response, it is important to consider how someone like Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin views the events of the 1980s and 1990s. After all, Putin was a KGB officer under Yuri Andropov, the former head of the KGB and later Chairman of the Communist Party for a short time — and the architect of glasnost and perestroika.

It was the KGB that realized first that the Soviet Union was failing, which made sense because only the KGB had a comprehensive sense of the state of the Soviet Union. Andropov’s strategy was to shift from technology transfer through espionage — apparently Putin’s mission as a junior intelligence officer in Dresden in the former East Germany — to a more formal process of technology transfer. To induce the West to transfer technology and to invest in the Soviet Union, Moscow had to make substantial concessions in the area in which the West cared the most: geopolitics. To get what it needed, the Soviets had to dial back on the Cold War.

Glasnost, or openness, had as its price reducing the threat to the West. But the greater part of the puzzle was perestroika, or the restructuring of the Soviet economy. This was where the greatest risk came, since the entire social and political structure of the Soviet Union was built around a command economy. But that economy was no longer functioning, and without perestroika, all of the investment and technology transfer would be meaningless. The Soviet Union could not metabolize it.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was a communist, as we seem to forget, and a follower of Andropov. He was not a liberalizer because he saw liberalization as a virtue; rather, he saw it as a means to an end. And that end was saving the Communist Party, and with it the Soviet state. Gorbachev also understood that the twin challenge of concessions to the West geopolitically and a top-down revolution in Russia economically — simultaneously—risked massive destabilization. This is what Reagan was counting on, and what Gorbachev was trying to prevent. Gorbachev lost Andropov’s gamble. The Soviet Union collapsed, and with it the Communist Party.

What followed was a decade of economic horror, at least as most Russians viewed it. From the West’s point of view, collapse looked like liberalization. From the Russian point of view, Russia went from a superpower that was poor to an even poorer geopolitical cripple. For the Russians, the experiment was a double failure. Not only did the Russian Empire retreat to the borders of the 18th century, but the economy became even more dysfunctional, except for a handful of oligarchs and some of their Western associates who stole whatever wasn’t nailed down.

The Russians, and particularly Putin, took away a different lesson than the West did. The West assumed that economic dysfunction caused the Soviet Union to fail. Putin and his colleagues took away the idea that it was the attempt to repair economic dysfunction through wholesale reforms that caused Russia to fail. From Putin’s point of view, economic well-being and national power do not necessarily work in tandem where Russia is concerned.

Russian Power, With or Without Prosperity

Russia has been an economic wreck for most of its history, both under the czars and under the Soviets. The geography of Russia has a range of weaknesses, as we have explored. Russia’s geography, daunting infrastructural challenges and demographic structure all conspire against it. But the strategic power of Russia was never synchronized to its economic well-being. Certainly, following World War II the Russian economy was shattered and never quite came back together. Yet Russian global power was still enormous. A look at the crushing poverty — but undeniable power — of Russia during broad swaths of time from 1600 until Andropov arrived on the scene certainly gives credence to Putin’s view.

The problems of the 1980s had as much to do with the weakening and corruption of the Communist Party under former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev as it had to do with intrinsic economic weakness. To put it differently, the Soviet Union was an economic wreck under Joseph Stalin as well. The Germans made a massive mistake in confusing Soviet economic weakness with military weakness. During the Cold War, the United States did not make that mistake. It understood that Soviet economic weakness did not track with Russian strategic power. Moscow might not be able to house its people, but its military power was not to be dismissed.

What made an economic cripple into a military giant was political power. Both the czar and the Communist Party maintained a ruthless degree of control over society. That meant Moscow could divert resources from consumption to the military and suppress resistance. In a state run by terror, dissatisfaction with the state of the economy does not translate into either policy shifts or military weakness — and certainly not in the short term. Huge percentages of gross domestic product can be devoted to military purposes, even if used inefficiently there. Repression and terror smooth over public opinion.

The czar used repression widely, and it was not until the army itself rebelled in World War I that the regime collapsed. Under Stalin, even at the worst moments of World War II, the army did not rebel. In both regimes, economic dysfunction was accepted as the inevitable price of strategic power. And dissent — even the hint of dissent — was dealt with by the only truly efficient state enterprise: the security apparatus, whether called the Okhraina, Cheka, NKVD, MGB or KGB.

From the point of view of Putin, who has called the Soviet collapse the greatest tragedy of our time, the problem was not economic dysfunction. Rather, it was the attempt to completely overhaul the Soviet Union’s foreign and domestic policies simultaneously that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. And that collapse did not lead to an economic renaissance.

Biden might not have meant to gloat, but he drove home the point that Putin believes. For Putin, the West, and particularly the United States, engineered the fall of the Soviet Union by policies crafted by the Reagan administration — and that same policy remains in place under the Obama administration.

It is not clear that Putin and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev disagree with Biden’s analysis — the Russian economy truly is “withering” — except in one sense. Given the policies Putin has pursued, the Russian prime minister must believe he has a way to cope with that. In the short run, Putin might well have such a coping mechanism, and this is the temporary window of opportunity Biden alluded to. But in the long run, the solution is not improving the economy — that would be difficult, if not outright impossible, for a country as large and lightly populated as Russia. Rather, the solution is accepting that Russia’s economic weakness is endemic and creating a regime that allows Russia to be a great power in spite of that.

Such a regime is the one that can create military power in the face of broad poverty, something we will call the “Chekist state.” This state uses its security apparatus, now known as the FSB, to control the public through repression, freeing the state to allocate resources to the military as needed. In other words, this is Putin coming full circle to his KGB roots, but without the teachings of an Andropov or Gorbachev to confuse the issue. This is not an ideological stance; it applies to the Romanovs and to the Bolsheviks. It is an operational principle embedded in Russian geopolitics and history.

Counting on Russian strategic power to track Russian economic power is risky. Certainly, it did in the 1980s and 1990s, but Putin has worked to decouple the two. On the surface, it might seem a futile gesture, but in Russian history, this decoupling is the norm. Obama seems to understand this to the extent that he has tried to play off Medvedev (who appears less traditional) from Putin (who appears to be the more traditional), but we do not think this is a viable strategy — this is not a matter of Russian political personalities but of Russian geopolitical necessity.

Biden seems to be saying that the Reagan strategy can play itself out permanently. Our view is that it plays itself out only so long as the Russian regime doesn’t reassert itself with the full power of the security apparatus and doesn’t decouple economic and military growth. Biden’s strategy works so long as this doesn’t happen. But in Russian history, this decoupling is the norm and the past 20 years is the exception.

A strategy that assumes the Russians will once again decouple economic and military power requires a different response than ongoing, subcritical pressure. It requires that the window of opportunity the United States has handed Russia by its wars in the Islamic world be closed, and that the pressure on Russia be dramatically increased before the Russians move toward full repression and rapid rearmament.

Ironically, in the very long run of the next couple of generations, it probably doesn’t matter whether the West heads off Russia at the pass because of another factor Biden mentioned: Russia’s shrinking demographics. Russian demography has been steadily worsening since World War I, particularly because birth rates have fallen. This slow-motion degradation turned into collapse during the 1990s. Russia’s birth rates are now well below starkly higher death rates; Russia already has more citizens in their 50s than in their teens. Russia can be a major power without a solid economy, but no one can be a major power without people. But even with demographics as poor as Russia’s, demographics do not change a country overnight. This is Russia’s moment, and the generation or so it will take demography to grind Russia down can be made very painful for the Americans.

Biden has stated the American strategy: squeeze the Russians and let nature take its course. We suspect the Russians will squeeze back hard before they move off the stage of history.

George Friedman

Biden's Russia blunder

The vice president's comments on Russia don't say a lot for his supposed foreign policy expertise.

There's the real world and Bizarro World, there's matter and antimatter, and then there's Sarah Palin and Joe Biden. Both the would-be vice president and the actual one have a history of making foolish off-the-cuff remarks, and each has a knack for unnecessarily infuriating the opposition -- they just do it from opposite sides of the political spectrum. And if Palin scores political points by stretching the truth, Biden loses headway by being honest.

A case in point: his appallingly ill-advised statements over the weekend about Russia.

"The reality is, the Russians are where they are," Biden said, in comments published Saturday. "They have a shrinking population base, they have a withering economy, they have a banking sector and structure that is not likely to be able to withstand the next 15 years, they're in a situation where the world is changing before them and they're clinging to something in the past that is not sustainable."

Biden was just calling it as he sees it on Russia, but to upend the contents of his brainpan in front of a Wall Street Journal reporter, on the heels of a diplomatic initiative by the Obama administration that sent both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to Moscow bearing "reset buttons" and promises to open a new era of mutual respect and improved relations, was immensely counter- productive. The Kremlin sent a bristling response questioning whether the president or the vice president was shaping U.S. foreign policy goals, and Clinton tried to smooth things over by calling Russia a "great power" in an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press." But the damage was done.

As one Russian newspaper reported: "Joe Biden unexpectedly returned to the rhetoric of the previous Bush administration."

Obama surely knew when he chose Biden as his running mate that he was getting a loose cannon. So he can't possibly be surprised when his vice president shoots the occasional 16-pound ball through his policy agenda, such as the time in April when Biden advised people to avoid flying or riding subways so as not to contract swine flu, even as the rest of the administration was trying to reassure jittery Americans about the much-hyped flu bug and head off a transportation meltdown. And who can forget Obama's withering glance when Biden made sport of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. for mucking up the presidential oath at precisely the same moment that Obama was pleading for bipartisanship and mutual respect in Washington?

Yet Obama's principal rationale for choosing Biden was that the former senator's foreign policy expertise would make up for his own lack of diplomatic experience. This can't be what the president had in mind.

Los Angeles Times

A Russian Reign of Terror?

Cathy Young

The abduction and murder of human rights activist Natalia Estemirova in the conflict-ridden Northern Caucasus has been the latest crime to shake Russia's embattled liberal community - and raise the question of whether today's Russia lives not just under an authoritarian regime, but a reign of terror against dissenters. While there are different theories as to the real perpetrators of this vile crime, none are particularly flattering to the Kremlin.

On July 15, 50-year-old Estemirova, a teacher, journalist, and single mother of a 15-year-old daughter, was abducted outside her home in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. Later that day, she was found shot to death in neighboring Ingushetia, another turmoil-ridden Russian province of the Northern Caucasus.

Estemirova's death echoes the fatal shooting of journalist Anna Politkovskaya in her Moscow apartment building in 2006 and the brazen murder of human rights attorney Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova on a busy Moscow street in broad daylight last January.

Many critics of Vladimir Putin's authoritarian regime (and its incarnation under the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev) believe that the Kremlin is ordering and directing these murders to silence critics. Yet, if that is the case, the terror is extremely selective: Other equally or more outspoken critics of the regime have been often harassed, persecuted and censored, but not physically harmed.

Many point out that the Estemirova, Politkovskaya and Markelov murders all have a "Chechen connection": all three were relentless critics of human rights abuses in Chechnya and of its president, Ramzan Kadyrov. In the last several years, after a separatist rebellion and a brutal war, the Kremlin has "pacified" Chechnya by making rebel-turned-loyalist Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of the region, a de facto dictator. While Kadyrov has put an end to the random slaughter of Chechens by Russian troops, he himself is known for brutal killings and torture of political opponents. Several of his rivals have been assassinated outside Chechnya, in places ranging from Moscow to Dubai. Estemirova (who, unlike Politkovskaya, was not known for strong criticism of the Kremlin) had challenged Kadyrov, and he is known to have threatened her. Oleg Orlov, chairman of Memorial, the human rights group for which Estemirova worked - and which has suspended its activities in Chechnya for the time being - has openly named Kadyrov as the chief culprit.

If Kadyrov is, in fact, killing his critics, this does not necessarily mean that he is doing so with the Kremlin's active blessing: while Kadyrov is ostensibly in his post at Moscow's pleasure, it is very likely that he could not be removed without unleashing a new war. At the very least, however, it means that the Russian government has made a deal with the devil and is condoning assassinations to hold up that deal.

Andrei Piontkovsky, a Hudson Institute fellow and commentator for the independent Russian press, has voiced another theory on the Grani.ru website: the Estemirova murder, he suggests, may be the work of a hard-line Kremlin faction which resents the de facto independence granted Chechnya under Kadyrov's reign, and wants him compromised and removed and Chechnya placed back under the control of the Russian military.

Either way, in a very real sense the real blame does lie with Putin - as a group of Russian human rights activists asserted an open letter published after Estemirova's murder. If nothing else, during his 8-year presidency Putin helped create a climate of hatred and suspicion around human rights activists and journalists who did not toe the government line; he repeatedly depicted dissenters as disloyal and unpatriotic, once accusing them of "scrounging around foreign embassies like jackals." After Politkovskaya's murder, his reaction was to say that "she had minimal influence on political life in Russia" and added, "This murder does much more harm to Russia and Chechnya than any of her publications." Thus, in one breath, the then-Russian president not only dismissed Politkovskaya's work as insignificant but also branded it as harmful to her country.

On the surface, Medvedev's reaction to Estemirova's death couldn't have been more different. Not only did he condemn the murder and promise that the culprits would be found, he also praised Estemirova's work as "important" and "very useful": "She spoke the truth, she openly and perhaps sometimes harshly judged some of the processes taking place in the country, and that's the value of human rights activists, even if they are inconvenient and irritating to the government." But does this amount to anything more than words? In the same breath, Medvedev also complained that the versions of the murder getting the most exposure were the ones "most unacceptable to the government," as if the facts mattered less than convenience.

Despite Medvedev's promises, few concerned Russians - and Westerners - actually expect Estemirova's killers to be found. In a July 21 press release, top United Nations human rights offered the Russian government their help in solving her murder and others like it. As they noted, the assurances that justice will be done "will be worth little unless the authorities take steps that go beyond what has been done in the past, which has all too often led to a cycle of impunity."

No response from the Kremlin has been forthcoming. Meanwhile, on July 23, a rally to honor Estemirova's memory was broken up by riot police in downtown Moscow because it drew more people than stated in the organizers' request for a permit. An amateur video shows a 70-year-old man at the rally being dragged into a bus.

As with some other high-profile murders of people tied to the opposition, the Kremlin has tried to float the theory that the people behind the crime are enemies of Russia seeking to discredit the Russian government. So far, the Russian authorities' own actions bring them far more discredit than enemy subterfuge ever would.

How Russia Learned To Love Global Warming

Everyone focuses on China, but Russia might be an even bigger enigma when it comes to global climate talks. The country is still, let's not forget, the world's third-larger emitter of greenhouse gases, and, from a purely selfish perspective, wouldn't appear to have much interest in phasing out fossil fuels. Not only does Russia's economy rise and fall with the fortunes of the oil and gas industry, but, as Peter Savodnik reported in an eye-opening piece for The National last month, many Russia leaders are actually excited about a warmer world where Siberia's thawed out, St. Petersburg's more livable, and state-owned mining companies can drill like crazy in the ice-free Arctic:

It might seem impolitic to embrace what many regard as a looming global catastrophe. But this has not stopped the Russians. In September 2003, none other than Vladimir Putin signalled his approval, noting that global warming would help Russians "save on fur coats and other warm things". More recently, Rinat Gizatullin, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Ministry, told the BBC: "We are not panicking. Global warming is not as catastrophic for us as it might be for some other countries. If anything, we'll be even better off. As the climate warms, more of Russia's territory will be freed up for agriculture and industry."

Earlier this year, Alexander Bedritsky, head of Russia's state weather centre, issued a public statement noting that "the heating season will be reduced, and this is a positive factor for us as it will allow us to economise on fuel". The weather centre estimated that Russians could save as much as 10 per cent on heating bills by 2050. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the ultranationalist Duma deputy who is widely believed to be close to the Kremlin and who speaks for millions of like-minded Russians, has publicly pined for the day when global warming takes its toll on the West, gloating that London will be submerged by the Thames and "Britain will have to give freedom to Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland". ...

Enthusiasm for global warming in Russia, if that's the right way to put it, goes beyond simple household concerns or national economic interests. For the Russians, who regard the Arctic as essentially their rightful territory, shrinking ice floes will ease access to the bounty of natural resources around the polar ice cap, including large reserves of oil, gas, gold, diamonds, nickel and tungsten.

This doesn't sound like a country ready to clasp hands, sing Kumbaya, and ink a treaty to avert disruptive changes to the planet. And, indeed, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev has bragged that his country plans to increase emissions 30 percent by 2020. Now, thanks to the collapse of Soviet-era heavy industry, that goal would still put Russia's emissions 10 to 15 percent below 1990 levels, roughly the (weak) target other industrialized countries are shooting for. But Russia's economy is also grotesquely energy-inefficient and ought to be trying to clean up, not continue to spew recklessly. So is there anything that can convince Putin and Medvedev to shift course? In The New York Times today, Tom Zeller serves up some optimism:

"Russia has so much in terms of oil and gas resources, it's hard to focus on the renewables," said Isabel Murray, the Russia program manager for the Office of Global Energy Dialogue at the International Energy Agency in Paris.

But that, Ms. Murray and other experts say, is slowly starting to change. Beyond the meeting in Arkhangelsk, a new energy efficiency bill has gone through a first reading in the Russian Parliament, Ms. Murray said.

"That's going to happen," she said, adding that Russia recognizes that its stated goal of increasing fossil fuel exports is contingent on developing efficiency and renewable energy strategies. "In the end, if they use more renewables domestically, they can export more" fossil fuels, she said. "It's sort of a no-brainer."

I would add that another incentive for Russia to support a climate agreement is that, in the short term, one of the easiest ways for the world to cut emissions is, as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. argued in the Financial Times, to use natural gas instead of coal to generate electricity. (Natural gas still produces carbon-dioxide, but a great deal less than coal.) Russia has vast amounts of natural gas to export, and this should be a tempting proposition. Trouble is, most EU countries have been worried about making that switch because, quite understandably, they fear Russia could shut off the gas for political leverage, as it's been doing to Ukraine the past few years.

So Russia is a tough case, probably even tougher than China (at least Beijing's leaders are legitimately freaked out about pollution riots and the fact that the Gobi Desert is steadily chomping its way toward the capital). A recent report from the Center for American Progress suggested that the Obama administration could possibly entice Russia into cooperation by stressing the benefits of energy efficiency (Russia's industrial sector is notoriously creaky and wasteful). Beyond that, though, action on global warming won't be an easy sell.

--Bradford Plumer

New Balkan visa rules: Serbia in, Albania still out

A Fistful Of Euros

by Douglas Muir

And the Montenegrins and Macedonians. EU Commissioner Olli Rehn just announced his recommendation that these three countries be granted visa-free travel to the EU starting January 1, 2010.

While many European readers will blink and shrug, this is a huge, huge deal for the region. For the last 20 years, it’s kinda sucked to be a Serb. Back in Yugoslav times, you had one of the world’s best passports. East, west, developing world… the Yugoslav passport was welcomed for easy travel in almost every country on earth. But after 1991, suddenly your passport was a piece of junk: nobody welcomed Serbs, you were often viewed with suspicion, and you had to fill out elaborate forms (and wait for months) to get a visa to enter the EU. Even after the wars ended, Serbia was still kept firmly at arm’s length.

A whole generation of young Serbs have grown up grumpy about this: they didn’t do anything, so why are they being punished, while young Croats and Bulgarians can freely travel to London and Paris?

No more. Assuming the recommendations is approved — and it’s almost a rubber stamp — then six months from now, Serbs (and Montenegrins and Macedonians) will be able to jump on a plane and just fly to anywhere in the EU, no visa required.

Mind you, they won’t be able to get work permits. It’s just travel. But still: it’s going to make a huge difference.

This being the Balkans, there are of course some complications.

While Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia are in, Albania, Kosovo and Bosnia are still out. At one level, this makes sense; these countries just aren’t ready. None of them have managed to get biometric passports up and running, never mind any of a dozen other requirements. There are also legitimate concerns about illegal immigration; Albania and Kosovo, in particular, are full of unemployed young people who’d jump at the slimmest chance to work in Hamburg or Manchester, legally or not.

That said, this has some people muttering that the EU is discriminating against Muslims. After all, Albania is mostly Muslim, Kosovo is almost all Muslim, and Bosnia — well, here it gets tricky. See Bosnia is only about 50% Muslim — but the Muslim Bosniaks are going to be hit particularly hard by the new visa system, because the Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats can freely and easily get Serbian and Croatian passports. Both those countries allow, indeed encourage, double citizenship. But the Bosniaks? Are stuck.

The “anti-Muslim” thing is IMO idiotic. (It ignores, for instance, that about a third of the population of Macedonia is Muslim, while about a third of the population of Albania isn’t.) But it’s true that the Bosniaks are getting screwed here somewhat. On the other hand, Bosnia is a badly misgoverned little country, and the Bosniaks are not innocent in this regard. So while this is unfair, it’s not exactly a crime that cries to heaven for justice.

Meanwhile, another interesting wrinkle: what to do about Kosovo? As a self-proclaimed independent state, Kosovo issues its own passports. These are currently accepted by about 70 countries including most of the EU. “Accepted” meaning they won’t get you turned away at the airport. You still need a visa with them, though.

So: these Kosovar passports will still be accepted by most EU countries, but they will not be valid for visa-free travel in Europe. So far, so good. But — Serbia still issues passports to Kosovar Serbs quite freely, and also to Kosovar Albanians if they’re willing to go through some hassle. (Because having K-Albanians claim a Serb passport supports Serbia’s claim that Kosovo is really a province of Serbia. And K-Albanians sometimes apply because the passports are accepted in places where the Kosovo passport isn’t, and also because it lets them drive through Serbia with much less hassle. It’s the Balkans, it’s complicated.)

But the EU doesn’t want to grant visa-free travel to any residents of Kosovo, whether they’re ethnic Albanian, ethnic Serb, or whatever.

The proposed solution is to have Serbian passports for Kosovo residents issued only by a special office located in Belgrade. These passports will indicate that they are for Kosovo residents, and they won’t be acceptable for visa-free travel in the EU. (It’s not clear how this indication will be made. A big red “K”, perhaps?)

This leads to some interesting weirdness. If you’re an ethnic Serb living in Serbia? Come January 1, you’re good, no problem. Ethnic Serb living in Bosnia? You can’t travel to the EU on your Bosnian passport, but you can easily get a Serbian passport that will let you fly like a bird. Ethnic Serb living in Kosovo? Too bad — you can get a Serbian passport, but it will be the special “Red K” passport that will trigger alarms if you try to cross an EU border.

Ethnic Albanian living in Kosovo? Same drill — you’re stuck in Kosovo. Ethnic Albanian living next door in Macedonia, Montenegro, or Serbia itself? Congratulations! You’re free to go.

Obviously there is going to be some sudden border-crossing in the next few months. Albanians in Albania and Kosovo will suddenly discover roots in Macedonia; Serbs in Kosovo will suddenly develop addresses in Serbia proper. Nationalists on all sides will construe it as evidence that their side is right.

Hopefully it will all sort out in another year or two, and everyone will be able to go everywhere.