Assessing Options in Afghanistan

Eric Schmitt and Scott Shane survey US policy options in Afghanistan in the New York Times today. Framing the debate as whether “the United States needs a large and growing ground force in Afghanistan to prevent another major terrorist attack,” Schmitt and Shane hear from Bruce Hoffman that

the argument that terrorism can be prevented essentially by remote control was
“immensely seductive” — and completely wrong. “We tried to contain the
terrorism problem in Afghanistan from a distance before 9/11,” [Hoffman] said.
“Look how well that worked.”

Hoffman continues:

[T]he success of strikes from Predators in killing Qaeda suspects in Pakistan
depended on accurate information on terrorists’ whereabouts from Pakistani
intelligence. In Afghanistan, without such sources, “we’d be flying blind,” he
said.

UPDATE: Peter Bergen weighs in on Afghanistan, noting that

• More than five million refugees have returned home since the fall of the Taliban. This is one of the most substantial refugee repatriations in history, yet it is little remarked upon because it has largely gone so smoothly.
• One in six Afghans now has a cell phone. Under the Taliban there was no phone system.
  Millions of kids are now in school, including many girls. Under the Taliban girls were not allowed to be educated.
• In 2008, Afghanistan's real GDP growth was 7.5 percent. Under the Taliban the economy was in free fall.
• You were more likely to be murdered in the United States in 1991 than an Afghan civilian is to be killed in the war today.

Bergen concludes that Afghanistan is in better shape than it is made out to be.

More on Stability (A Methodological Detour)

Last month, Foreign Policy released the latest edition of its Failed States Index. Given recent events in Pakistan and Iran, and the renewed discussion of the US national interest in a stable Afghanistan, it is worth doing some thinking about how we measure and explain state failure, using the FSI as a starting point. Despite its grounding in extensive empirical observation and its attempt at methodological sophistication, the FSI is a potentially misleading measure of propensity for failure.

A casual survey of the 2009 index reveals some potential empirical inconsistencies. Do we really believe that North Korea is at roughly the same risk of failure as states like Haiti and Ethiopia? Are China’s communist party and Israel’s democracy really as vulnerable as the regimes in places like Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, or even Russia for that matter? Regional comparisons are also problematic. For example, Uzbekistan, under the control of Islam Karimov’s authoritarian regime since independence, is rated at greater risk of failure than both Tajikstan, which is less than ten years removed from civil war, and Kyrgyzstan, which less than five years removed from the Tulip Revolution, and is arguably characterized by organized crime groups competing for power.

Part of the reason for these discrepancies is that Failed States Index is a bit of a misnomer. I suspect many casual analysts, including myself at times, have used the FSI as an indicator of state strength or weakness. In fact, Foreign Policy argues that the index is a measure of a state’s risk of failure (loosely defined as vulnerability to collapse or conflict). The index is composed of the aggregation of 1-10 rankings on 12 indicators of social, economic, and political cohesion and performance. As such, the FSI is an implied explanation for why states fail, and a poor one at that.

If your aim is to produce an explanation (or prediction) for state failure, social and economic indicators should be analytically separated from the political. Strong political institutions may be able to absorb the demands arising from the economic and social pressures the FSI incorporates. Furthermore, state strength must not be defined in terms of its ability to incorporate these demands. A better way to explain state failure would be to establish independent measures of state capacity or efficacy (say an index including degree of monopoly on force, degree of autonomy/meritocracy of the bureaucracy, quality of public goods provisions, degree of “stateness” problems, etc). The FSI political indicators actually provide a rough approximation of what this measure should look like (arranging the rankings according to these indicators results in some interesting reorderings. Then, having established variation on this index, the degree to which social and economic factors explain this variation is an empirical question. Regressing the political indicators on the social and economic indicators would provide a better idea of the significance and relative weights of these factors’ effects on state failure. An alternate approach would be a survival model using these 12 indicators as independent variables. I’m sure there is no shortage of academic analyses of this type (the State Failure Project/Political Instability Task Force comes to mind), but the inability of social science to make their work accessible to the policy community is another matter.

The way that you conceptualize and explain failed states has real and important implications for policy. For example, the argument that al Qaeda was nourished in an environment of relative state capacity strikes me as revisionism. Going forward, this debate requires the explicit identification of what constitutes a strong state capacity, and the careful identifications of the most important factors that cause variation in capacity. In short, the FSI succeeds in its goal of providing a “starting point for the discussion of why states fail.” However, the uncritical use of these types of indices in policy analysis and decision making is likely to lead to the misallocation of scarce resources to either A) prop up states that don’t need it, or B) correct problems that really have no effect on state failure.

On Stability

Colin has repeatedly suggested that the United States should abandon Afghanistan. He believes that the costs of occupying Afghanistan are greater than the potential benefits. He does not, however, identify potential costs and he seems to suggest that stability is not a worthy goal. Indeed, he has questioned whether instability is a bona fide threat to US national security.

Let me begin by noting that I do not agree with every aspect of the United States strategy in Afghanistan. As I have noted in previous posts, there are facets of US strategy that need great reform, particularly the US approach to poppy growth and opium production. I am also in agreement with Colin in so far as I question whether that is an achievable goal. Colin and I – so far as I can tell – diverge on the question of what US goals ought to be and whether those goals are achievable. As I have written previously, I do not believe that western style democracy is in the offing in Afghanistan but I do believe that stability there is achievable and that it is worthwhile goal for the United States from a national security perspective.

States are best able to deal with other states. It is unsurprising that after several hundred years of a state-centric international (or at least, western international order), states are predisposed to develop and effectuate policies with a view towards other states. The international system is likewise designed to account for interactions between and among states. This system provides a convenient hierarchy for decision making – it is a heuristic that allows decision makers to contextualize events and place them in appropriate bins: international organization, state or individual; interstate or intrastate.

Stability within and among states is thus convenient and, to some extent, necessary for states to craft responses. But stability for its own sake is not a sufficient reason for the United States to be involved in Afghanistan. Indeed, creating instability has, at times, been a useful tool for the United States and an appropriate goal for the United States. For example, the United States fueled the anti-Soviet insurgency in Afghanistan because creating a quagmire in Afghanistan for the Soviet army allowed the United States to inflict non-trivial damage on the Soviet Union for little cost. Instability there, and at that time, was an appropriate goal.

However, persistent instability, once a policy goal has been achieved – in the case of Afghanistan, depleting Soviet resources, driving the Red Army out of Afghanistan, and contributing to the collapse of the U.S.S.R – serves no positive foreign policy objective and can become a source of insecurity.

Afghanistan is frequently depicted as having been chaos under the Taliban. That was not in fact the case. While the Taliban were a backwards and despicable regime, they did provide some semblance of order. There writ was weak and the extent of their control territorial speaking was limited. Within this limited control, Al Qaeda was able to carve out what amounted to a fiefdom in Afghanistan – an area of the country, nominally under Taliban control, run by Al Qaeda. Within that space, Al Qaeda was able to conduct its operations, culminating with the September 11, 2001 attacks.

So, non-state threats to the United States are not necessarily born from chaos. But a weak state allows non-state threats to operate with impunity. When those non-state threats are given access to infrastructure that facilitates a global reach – airports, say – through porous borders, then the ability of that non-state organization to act with impunity within a putative state is a threat to the national security of the United States.

Additionally, a weak state affording the non-state actor safe haven (potentially unknowingly or unwillingly) presents the United States with a policy dilemma. How does the United States address the non-state threat? Traditionally, the United States could demand the state to turn over member of the non-state organization, or demand that the state cease facilitating the non-state organization under threat of some sort of state-driven reprisal. But this presumes that the state is sufficiently cohesive to comply with US wishes, or sufficiently cohesive for the United States’ state-driven reprisals to have effect. The United States might pressure the non-state actor directly and by-pass the putative state. Or, the United States might attack both the sheltering state and the non-state actor simultaneously – as it did in Afghanistan in 2001.

This is not to say, however, that instability does not present a threat to the United States as well. First, it would be hard to imagine a state that is sufficiently chaotic in which a cohesive non-state actor would not be able to setup a fiefdom like Al Qaeda managed to do in Afghanistan before 2001. Even in Somalia, the preeminent example of a collapsed state in chaos, features areas of either incredible stability (Somalialand) or areas that have been pacified by a non-state actor to facilitate the non-state actor’s goal (see Islamic Courts Union). Second, the net effect of one state’s instability on US national security must be examined on a case-by-case basis: Has there been spillover? If so, what are the consequences of the spill-over? How do those consequences impact US national security? This is not a linear system and its effects may not be immediately nor readily identifiable.

In Afghanistan, spill-over has been obvious. The Pashtu-based insurgency that rose up in the wake of the US invasion in 2001 has traditional cross-border links. The porous nature of the Afghan-Pakistan border and the relatively weak control Pakistan exerts over its border areas provided the Pashtu insurgency with safe haven – another, though slightly removed, example of instability threatening US national security. This, in turn, has fueled a Pashtu-based insurgency in Pakistan, attacking the state. Disruption of Pakistan is a threat to the national security of the United States – that is self-evident.

At this point, while the Afghan and Pakistani insurgencies have separate goals, they clearly contribute to each other. It is highly unlikely that in leaving Afghanistan, the insurgency in Pakistan will burn-out. Leaving Afghanistan, however, will remove whatever ability the United States has had to prevent the Pakistani Pashtu insurgency from using Afghanistan as a safe haven in its war against the Pakistani state. That the Afghan state is currently too weak to provide a similar role is apparent, and the likelihood that an abandoned Afghanistan would give the Pakistani Pashtu insurgency strategic depth militates against the United States leaving. Further, there is little reason to believe that, should the United States abandon Afghanistan, that Al Qaeda or some other non-state actor would not be able to carve out yet another fiefdom where it could enjoy operational freedom, engendering an additional threat to the United States.

Building a stable Afghan state with a government able to exercise its writ sufficiently to prevent the development of a new non-state fiefdom is no easy trick. That said, abandoning the Afghan project is the only way to guarantee failure with regard to that strategic objective. Yes, leaving would stem American expense of blood and treasure in the short-term. It is likely that in the medium and long term, however, quitting Afghanistan at this stage, will only cost the United States greater expenditures of both. Failure of long-term policy thinking and engagement during and following the last Afghan war contributed directly to the attacks of September 11, 2001. These failures are hallmarks of US foreign policy making in the post-War era. But making the same mistake, in the same place, twice is not just bad policy, it’s criminal. Simply abandoning Afghanistan would be just that.

UPDATE: Ahmed Rashid writes in today's Washington Post:
Many dissenters in Washington, such as columnist George Will, insist that the Afghans are incapable of learning and unwilling to build a modern state. Others, including former British diplomat Rory Stewart, argue that Afghan society should be left alone. But the dissenters do not sufficiently acknowledge the past failures of the Bush administration that led us to this impasse. What's worse, they offer no solutions.

On Media, Deliberation, and General Silliness in the Healthcare debate

In a blog entry for Newsweek, Jenny Hontz discusses the influence of Facebook on healthcare reform, and spuriously concludes that it has some. In contrast to some other shameless glorifications of technology in the media, Hontz at least provides some evidence for her inference: one advertising cliche, one B-list celebrity, and 7 or 8 anecdotes/off the cuff comments from "experts." The reality is that there is no evidence to support the idea that Facebook status updates have ever affected major policy decisions, and no reason to believe they ever will.

Hontz's reference to social networks as "the real town halls" leads to me to believe the root of this general silliness in the media lies in a popular, and fundamental, misunderstanding of the nature of democratic politics. Much animosity and general frustration generated by the healthcare debate would be ameliorated if we just dispensed with the myth that American democracy is somehow deliberative. Over 50 years ago, Joseph Schumpeter conceived of democracy as a marketplace in which political entrepreneurs compete for customers in the form of voters in elections. Democracy is not a process by which reasonable people come together to discuss differences and arrive at a common good, which becomes policy. Politicians make policy, or don't, because of their calculations about what will win them elections, not by getting together in the Senate chamber and changing each others' minds about what serves the best interests of society.

Viewed in this sense, the healthcare debate looks less passionate and more rational. The idea that town halls are deliberative is silly. Elected representatives in opposition are in the privileged position of not having to make policy. Instead the opposition just does what it does best- oppose. Not with specific alternatives or reasoned debate, but with misinformation, name calling, and general populist rhetoric. Of course they have no incentive to reign in this type of rhetoric at town halls, because town halls are primarily a mechanism for the transmission of voters' intentions, not for deliberation.

Analogously, there are two mechanisms by which online social networks might affect policy. The first is that they facilitate deliberation, which Hontz argues is occurring on healthcare, a proposition for which there is absolutely no evidence. Second, networks may facilitate the transmission voter intentions. This mechanism is certainly more plausible, but the evidence that representatives respond to these intentions is thus far scant. As Hontz rightfully notes, updating your Facebook status is cheap talk, and may not be a credible signal of your intention to support. In any case, a more careful consideration of the democratic process, and more accumulation of serious evidence is necessary before we start declaring that "Facebook Revolts" are shaping policy making.

Don’t Listen to George Will

George Will writes in tomorrow’s Washington Post:

Genius, said de Gaulle, recalling Bismarck's decision to halt German forces
short of Paris in 1870, sometimes consists of knowing when to stop. Genius is
not required to recognize that in Afghanistan, when means now, before more
American valor, such as Allen's, is squandered.

And what would Will have us leave in our wake? He does not say. Abandoning Afghanistan as it stands would do nothing for Allen’s valor nor for the valor of the 1352 American and NATO forces killed in Afghanistan since our invasion nearly eight years ago.

The fact is, Afghanistan is a hash. The best opportunity the United States and NATO had for transforming that failed-state came in the immediate aftermath of the invasion. But instead of deploying the necessary troops, technicians, and funds to rebuild and reconstitute a functioning Afghan state, the Bush administration balked, distracted by a head-long drive to war with Iraq and fool hardy notions of transformed conflict.

Now, in the wake of at best irregular elections, the West is fighting from a position of weakness. We have managed to aggravate the famed Pashtu mistrust of outsiders by propping up a corrupt and ineffectual government. Our mismanagement of Afghanistan is grotesque: we’ve lost control of our (corrupt) man in Kabul; our meager deployment of resources under the Bush administration has convinced the populace that the Taliban are a better bet because they’re not going anywhere; and our reliance on artillery, air strikes, drones, and a ham-handed anti-narcotic campaign has driven rural Afghans into the Taliban’s ranks.

All is not lost, though. The Obama administration is clearly focused on Afghanistan. In marked contrast to the previous administration, President Obama appears not to be driven by ideological notions of victory without application of sufficient resources. And, as bloody as August was and 2009 has been, Afghanistan pales in comparison to Iraq at its bloodiest.

The Obama administration would do well to listen to Anthony Cordesman – the key in Afghanistan is, as it has always been, as it always is with counterinsurgency, to deploy not only sufficient troops to establish and maintain security, but to deploy enough civilians to rebuild the country and undercut the insurgents.

Letting the Perfect be the Enemy of the Good

In a New York Times article today, a number of prominent Catholic Bishops came out against President Obama’s healthcare reform. The objections varied, from the seemingly Cold War minded Bishop R. Walker Nickless insisting, “The Catholic Church does not teach that government should directly provide health care. Any legislation that undermines the vitality of the private sector is suspect,” to the more conventional objections that in a federal plan, federal money would be used for abortions, ostensibly indicating a government endorsement of the procedure. Some bishops, like Bishop Nickless, believe “No health care reform is better than the wrong sort of health care reform.” My goal with this post is two fold. First, let’s take the abortion issue head on. I was raised Catholic and spend fourteen years in the Catholic education system, I’m going to tell you what I think and it’s a position, I believe, shared by many Americans. Second, let’s talk about the opposition of some bishops, but also the support from others.

I am opposed to people getting an abortion. I believe personal responsibility begins before conception and those unwilling or unable to handle the responsibility of having a child need to be mindful of the decisions that make prior to conception. That said, I consider myself pro-choice. I am pro-choice not because I am pro-abortion, but because we step on to treacherous ground when our government outlaws medical procedures primarily because of religious beliefs. I don’t think I’m in the minority of people when I say I don’t want people to have abortions, but I also don’t want to criminalize it. I don’t want to see federal money used on abortions, because I respect that a good portion of the society objects to it and there are ways to work around it. I would support legislation that makes this possible, but I won’t demand some bold-faced clause that says “Federal funds will never be used for an abortion.” It seems so simple, but that’s not how good laws get written. There are simply too many unanticipated scenarios in the real world that don’t allow for that kind of simplicity. So I'd rather people not have abortions, but I am not self-righteous enough to believe my beliefs are the only right beliefs, and I’m not so simple-minded to demand a simpleton clause that could expose thousands of well meaning doctors, nurses, and administrators to prosecution for doing their job and making the tough choices.

Of course the oft derided “Obamacare” would not be the first federally funded healthcare program. Currently for Medicaid, many states do not allow public funds to be used for abortions. This is not sufficient for the protesting bishops. They want a different model and some, like Bishop Nickless, would rather see the whole thing fail than to negotiate.

And that is the problem with so many of the current healthcare reform opponents. They simply oppose reform, but to disguise their intransigence on the issue they pick and choose every little thing they can and say they only oppose this part or that part. What you don’t hear from these protesting bishops or the conservative talking heads are viable alternatives. If this sounds like what I said in my last post on healthcare it’s only because it remains true. The opponents to reform are so intent on preventing reform and so disinterested in solving a tremendous issue, both as an issue of social justice and as an issue of spiraling entitlements, that they simply poo-poo any idea straying from the status quo. When I last posted on healthcare it led to a spirited and largely reasoned debate in the comments section between Colin, Ben, and I. I still disagree strongly with Colin and think he puts too much faith in capitalism. I also think his plan (a plan I have heard from some corners of conservatism recently) creates a wide gulf between the two sides, though perhaps not an insurmountable one. Despite our disagreements, in our discussion there was a point of agreement. Every American has a right to healthcare. I couldn’t wrest from Colin support that it is a moral imperative, but then again talking of moral imperative makes me sound a bit more like a priest…or a bishop….


And that is why I’m encouraged by what I hear from so many other Catholic bishops. They share the concerns of the protesting bishops that federal funds not be used for abortion, but they feel (which is in line with the broader themes of Catholic teaching) that healthcare is a right. They want to come to the table and participate in the shaping of this legislation. They know there will be compromises and they know what they’re sticking points and non-negotiables are. They have stated them plainly, but they still want to work with the president and Democratic lawmakers to find a solution. Access to healthcare is a right, and I don’t believe the quantity or quality of care should be conditional based largely on one’s socio-economic situation. We need change and we need to negotiate. What we don’t need is a cadre of protesting bishops so transfixed on one element of a much broader reform that they would let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

The More Things Change...

“Voters expected change. The believed they have voted for change. [Now] they think they got more of the same.”

Steinmo and Watts (1995) draw attention to this quote from analyst Stuart Rothenberg, who, you guessed it, was referring to President B…ill Clinton. Rothenberg was talking about public disappointment with a professed reformer that was unable to effect significant change. Steinmo and Watts use the quote to make the larger point that individual leaders are insignificant in an American institutional system that (both intentionally and unintentionally) fragments power.

I want leave aside the merits of Steinmo and Watts’s argument for a second to highlight their critique of some alternative explanations of health care reform failure, which persist today and inform much of the unsophisticated “analysis” in the media. First, opposition to health care reform is not a function of American political culture. The authors’ critique of cultural explanations for Clinton’s failure holds today. I don’t have the polls on hand, but I would suspect the levels of people that support some kind of reform are similar to 1992- high. More importantly, however, cultural argument lacks comparative perspective. It is unable to explain why, if culture is relatively constant, reformers have been able to pass social welfare policies (education, medicare/medicade/social security) in the past. Demonstrating that the US has become more conservative since 1992 is an uphill climb indeed. Steinmo and Watts also point out that there is little empirical evidence to support the proposition that massive public demand resulted in health insurance reform in Europe. Like Steinmo and Watts, I find it more compelling that institutional change drives shifts in attitudes, rather than the converse.

Second, the authors argue that health insurance reform in 1992 did not fail because of opposition from powerful interest groups. This is the weaker of their two major critiques, especially since they show later how interest groups utilize particular institutional features to achieve their goal. Nonetheless, their critique is compelling. Opposition from entrenched, powerful interest groups is a constant in all reform efforts across time, and in different countries. Thus the strategies of interest groups cannot explain health insurance reform failure, except inasmuch as you are able to specify the unique institutional channels through which they exert influence.

Finally, although they (rightly) devote little space to it, the authors brush aside the sophomoric explanations that attribute health insurance reform failure to the abilities and strategies of Bill Clinton, his team, or idiosyncrasies of the plan itself. Their analysis traces the historical process by which the American institutional barricade to sweeping reform was constructed, intentionally by the founders, and as the unintentional byproduct of previous unrelated goals. Much is the same with Barack Obama. Steinmo and Watts published this article in 1995, but their descriptions of the reform effort, from the post-election atmosphere, to the effect of the media, to the strategies of the opposition, are uncannily familiar. When health insurance reform fails again in 2009 or 2010, Americans will once again express frustration at their leadership, failing to realize their beef is not with individuals, but with the rules that shape their leaders' options and strategies. Only this time, blame on the President may not be misplaced- for failing to heed Steinmo and Watts’s 1995 advice to change the rules of the political game before you attempt sweeping social reform.

The End of Maliki?

In contrast to the AP’s breathless declaration that the new Iraqi bloc, the National Iraqi Alliance, will increase Iranian influence, Juan Cole crunches the numbers and concludes that Prime Minister Maliki may not earn a second term.

The NIA is basically the old United Iraqi Alliance minus Maliki’s Dawa Party. Prof. Cole writes:

In the provincial elections held last January in Dhi Qar, ISCI, the
Sadrists and the Islamic Virtue Party got altogether about 40 percent of the
vote. The Da'wa got only about 23%. Other provincial tallies are
given here. In most provinces, with the exception of Baghdad and Basra, the
old United Iraqi Alliance did just about twice as well as Da'wa.

If the NIA does as well in provincial elections as the old UIA did in
provincial elections, it will again be the biggest party/coalition in the
national legislature. By the constitution, it would therefore form the next
government, and al-Maliki may at that point regret not having joined.

Iranian Influence

The AP reports today that a political shakeup in Iraq has brought the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (formerly, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq) and Muqtada al-Sadr’s bloc together but left the Prime Minister Maliki’s Dawa party out in the cold. The AP suggests that a Shiite political bloc that omits Dawa will increase Iranian influence in Iraq. The AP is overreaching.

Iran has been heavily involved with each of the major Iraqi Shiite parties and it is difficult to discern why the AP believes that Iran wields greater influence through SIIC and Sadr than through Dawa. Indeed, Maliki’s recent raid on the MEK base at Camp Ashraf signaled that Iran holds great sway over Prime Minister Maliki and presumably the Dawa Party. Further, Maliki and his Dawa party found refuge in Iran after the Islamic Revolution – though the independent-minded Dawa Party eventually fell out of favor with Iranian Mullahs who preferred their creation, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, over a native-Iraqi Shiite group.

Still, Iran provided safe harbor to Dawa throughout Saddam’s reign and Dawa has apparently been influenced by Iran since the US invasion of Iraq. On the other hand, Muqtada al-Sadr has spoken like and acted like an Iraqi nationalist consistently. Unlike the Hakim family, Muqtada al Sadr did not spend Saddam’s reign in exile in Iran. Sadr has also bucked Shiite norms by establishing himself as an Ayatollah without the experience and study generally necessary to earn that honorarium. His political activism diverges from the quietist philosophy of most Shiite clerics in Iran in particular. Additionally, Sadr has used his influence and forces as a foil against the American occupation of Iraq and in defense of Iraqi sovereignty, apparently without reference to Iranian goals – see, for instance, his solidarity with Iraqi Sunni insurgents in 2004 and 2005.

Undisclosed CIA Program More Operational Than Thought

Last month, the New York Times was the first outlet to report that (previous blogpost here), in the period following September 11, 2001, the CIA had begun a program to capture or kill members of Al Qaeda. At the time the story broke, much ink was spilt discussing how operational the CIA program had been – the extent to which the CIA’s program was operational, it was argued, had a direct bearing on whether the CIA was required by law to inform Congress of its activities. I did not buy the argument that the supposedly nascent CIA program escaped the reporting requirements of the National Security Act at the outset but now it appears the CIA’s program was further along than previously thought.

The New York Times reports today that in 2004 the CIA hired Blackwater, the infamous private security contractor, “as part of a program to locate and assassinate operative of Al Qaeda.” The Times cannot say whether “the CIA planned to use the contractors to actually capture or kill Qaeda operatives, or just to help with training and surveillance in the program.”

Either way, as the Times rightly notes, the CIA’s relationship with a private security force in an operation designed to kill or capture people raises serious concerns.

So, the CIA’s until-recently-undisclosed program to kill or capture member of Al Qaeda is troubling on two fronts. The CIA, supposedly at the behest of the Bush administration, avoided its reporting requirements under the National Security Act of 1947. And the CIA looked to outsource some portion of a lethal program to a private security contractor.

Is it a Republic if the Leader is a Dictator?

The New York Times reports today that an anonymous letter, written by clerics, questioning Ayatollah Khamenei’s authority is circulating in Iran. According to the New York Times, the letter accuses Khamenei of fomenting violence in the wake of the June 12 elections and transforming the IRGC into his personal guard. He is, the authors suggest, a dictator.

The cleric’s letter comes at the same time the Assembly of Experts has scheduled an emergency meeting to consider criticism leveled against Khamenei since June 12. The Assembly of Experts theoretically has the power to remove and replace the Supreme Leader.

Khamenei’s removal remains unlikely. But his influence has waned significantly. Once God’s unquestioned representative to the Iranian people, by condoning (if not coordinating) June 12’s election fraud and subsequently attempting to consolidate power, Khamenei has forfeited his position as senior jurist and in doing so, he has forfeited legitimacy conferred upon him by the people and by many clerics in favor of raw force of arms. The import of Republic in Islamic Republic was too often over looked in the Western press.

Republicans, for Death Panels Before They Were Against Them.

Amy Sullivan does some old fashioned reporting and discovers that the Death Panels – that is, reimbursing Doctors for providing end of life counseling to patients – appeared in the Republican’s 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug Bill. You remember that bill, the one that made it illegal for the federal government to negotiate costs with prescription drug manufacturers.

Sullivan notes that the text of the bill includes this statement:

The covered services are: evaluating the beneficiary's need for pain and symptom
management, including the individual's need for hospice care; counseling the
beneficiary with respect to end-of-life issues and care options, and advising
the beneficiary regarding advanced care planning.

She goes on, “The only difference between the 2003 provision and the infamous Section 1233 . . . is that the first applied only to terminally ill patients. Section 1233 would expand funding so that people could voluntarily receive counseling before they become terminally ill.” (hyperbole omitted).

Incidentally, not only did Sen. Grassley join 41 other Republicans in supporting the bill, he was a cosponsor of the Senate version of the bill, introduced by former Senator and Majority Leader Bill Frist.

Quiet and Persistent

The seeming quiet in Tehran’s street deceives us into believing the uprising has been crushed. Yes, Ahmadinejad has been sworn in as President of the Islamic Republic for a second term, squelching the most obvious near-term goal of the opposition. But his inauguration was marked by both public snubs – in the form of many Majlis deputies and Ayatollah Rafsanjani’s absence – and by demonstrations in the street.

The show trial of dissidents arrested during the unrest following the June 12 election has proven to be a debacle. Accusations of rape have given way to heated rhetoric flying between supporters of the regime and the opposition: Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami (not to be confused with former President Mohammed Khatami) declared such allegations to be a “total slander against the Islamic system.” Calls for the arrest and trial of Karroubi have resumed.

On the other hand, Reformist politicians sent a letter to the Assembly of Experts demanding that the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, be investigated. The Assembly of Experts is the Iranian body that appoints the Supreme Leader – in theory, it also has the power to remove him, though this has never been tested. Ayatollah Rafsanjani is the head of the Assembly of Experts.

The War in Kunduz

While much attention is paid to the US-led offensive in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, the war remains very much alive, if forgotten, in northern Afghanistan. Yesterday, Taliban militants stormed a police station in Kunduz province, killing the district police chief.

A joint German-Afghan offensive aimed at securing Kunduz province ahead of the Afghan presidential elections was launched in July. Reportedly, the German-Afghan operation was designed to disperse IMU militants who fight both in Afghanistan and in neighboring Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Since that operation’s end, militants have moved back into Kunduz province and Taliban activity has trended upwards in recent days. Though Kunduz is in the north of the country, it is still a majority Pashtun province and shares cultural and linguistic links with the Pashtun tribes that harry NATO forces in Helmand and Pakistani forces in Waziristan.

The Party of Fear – Healthcare Edition

If you watched CNN this morning you saw, presumably, what I saw. You saw videotape of town halls devolving into shouting matches between people on both sides of the healthcare debate. You probably also saw the signs of protestors. For those in support of healthcare reform you saw signs saying “Obamacare saves $$$” or “Everyone deserves insurance.” I’m paraphrasing slightly, but you saw signs meant to positively advocate for healthcare reform. If you looked at the protestors against healthcare reform you saw signs with a picture of Hitler and the words “Yes we can” underneath it, invoking the catchphrase of Obama’s presidential campaign. You saw signs with the words “Death Panel” partially covered by the ubiquitous and universal sign for no. You saw signs designed to frighten, or assuming a greater nobility, signs expressing the fears of those that wielded them. The debate on healthcare has devolved to a state so devoid of intelligence it is comparable only to the period right after 9/11.

What’s everyone so angry about? Call me too Midwestern, but I was watching people shout at each other in town halls and carrying signs so acidic in their opposition that I couldn’t help but wonder why people are so angry. Rumors have been started by that every elusive “them” that a government-run healthcare option will lead to “death panels” where grandma or grandpa will be denied care because the cost of treating them is greater then their societal worth as determined by a panel-to-be-named-later, though clearly for many “death panel” is the leading contender for the name. It sounds so ridiculous to me that at first I dismissed it, but when it didn’t go away I tried to think backwards. How do we get from a government-run healthcare option to death panels?

When I thought it through, here is the domino effect I presume is the “logic” that led us to death panels: Basically, if a government-run healthcare option is passed, then employers will stop providing a private health insurance option to employees. Why should they if the government going to act as the safety net? And how can they compete against the competitiveness and efficiency of a government-run system? The employer abandonment of private health insurance will drive the health insurance into the ground so that eventually even the companies that didn’t drop their private option will have to because there will be no private option. Presto, change-o we have only a government option for health care. So why does grandma have to die? Well with the exploding cost burden on the system tough choices will have to be made. We’ll need a panel full of mustache twisting, number crunching bureaucrats that will size up grandma and decide if she’s fit to contribute to society or she should be allowed to die.

Now let’s set aside some of the problems of logic here and focus on a few key assumptions on the surface. First, there has been no healthcare reform. There is no government-run option available to people to buy into. Second, the Democratic leadership and President Obama have repeatedly said that the public option is not a sole-provider, Canadian-esque system. Third, no one has talked about a panel that would deny care to the infirmed because they were infirmed. Turning to the logic, we are making some mighty leaps here and presuming an extreme level of nefariousness from our government officials. I mean that members of Congress and the President would push for a system that they fully know and anticipate will require the government to make life and death decisions requires a level of government distrust that is beyond anything I felt during the darkest periods of the Bush administration. If the path I presented above is not within reason, what is?

Okay, so here comes the econ lesson. There are two main drivers to have a government-run healthcare option as part of healthcare reform. First, to serve as a safety net, expanding Medicaid so that people who are currently uninsured can receive preventative healthcare. The thought being if a cough can be suppressed with an antibiotic prescribed from a clinic it will be less expensive then letting that cough worsen, requiring a trip (either planned or unplanned) to the emergency room for more dramatic, invasive, and expensive care. Second, it is to make private insurers compete. I have written on this topic in the past and Paul Krugman of the New York Times writes on this all the time, but basically currently private health insurance providers operate without competition. They only compete to be the health insurance vendor for large organizations. As far as the consumer is concerned, especially if you have employer-based health insurance, you might get a lot of options in the amount of coverage you receive, but it’s all coming from the same company. It’s like going to Baskin Robbins. There are 50 flavors, but it’s all Baskin Robbin’s ice cream.

It is for these two reasons that a government-run option is essential. We need to expand the safety net and introduce competition into the marketplace. Expanding the safety net would seem a moral imperative, but the thought of competition in the marketplace is a major reason for many people government-run becomes death panel. Will some business, especially small businesses, drop private insurance for their employees? Absolutely. Is there a possibility that this government-run system will drive all the private insurers out of business? Yes, but it’s not a probability. And part of the reason it’s not a probability is because the government-run system, presumably, will not run as efficiently as a private insurance option. Opponents of healthcare reform can’t have it both ways. They can’t decry a bureaucrat will sit between you and healthcare (even though one already does) and that this government system will run so well it will destroy the private health insurance industry.

I titled this post The Party of Fear, because as the healthcare debate devolves, the Republican, conservative strategy for defeat reform has become clear. See, first they tried to remind you how bad government is, but that didn’t really take hold. So the tactic has changed. Now they want you to be scared to death of government. They put their arm around grandma and ask if you want her to be put in front of a death panel. Reform and change are things to be feared. The government is rife with evil, dark figures (allusion intended) set on running your life, removing your God-given free will, and, for kicks, killing your grandma. Once again the choice has been made to abandon intellectualism and instead embrace fear.

You know what I haven’t heard from the Republican party? A solution. So much energy has been used. So much money has been spent to tell you all the reasons the reform is bad and when mild, classic reasons didn’t work they turned up the volume. It is far easier to sit in a room and breakdown an idea. It’s far harder come up with an idea, incorporating all the different interests involved. Healthcare reform is THE domestic issue for this generation and most certainly the next.

And so I’ll make a final appeal to those Republicans willing to listen. Stop spreading fear. Come to the table with ideas and an open mind. There will be disagreements, but let them be intelligent disagreements. Something needs done and you can either be a part of the solution, or remain the party of fear. The American people are united in their desire for change, but remain unwedded to a mode. There is an opportunity.

Market Limitations

Kai Ryssdal of NPR reported on the annual Aspen Ideas festival by re-broadcasting a speech delivered by Michael Sandel, professor of government at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Professor Sandel’s speech discussed the limitations of markets and market logic. In particular, he discusses how applying free market logic to some policy problems results in perverse incentives. He also discusses how markets are unable to account for moral qualms with such matters as using market logic to regulate matters like asylum. It’s an interesting listen, check it out here.