Daily Graph

I stole this from the Economist.com, but an interesting graph showing a modified Human Development Index with countries and U.S. States side by side.

Ben, I'm sorry to here about Arkansas being 47 out of 50.

Negotiating with Iran

Our good friend, Reza Marashi, got published somewhere people actually read. His article with Trita Parsi on 5 tips to make the next round of US-Iran negotiations better then the last recently published in Foreign Policy magazine is an interesting and quick read.

While I defer to Reza on just about everything Iran, I have some thoughts to share (that's what the blog is for after all):

1. Tip #3 is the biggest tip of all in my opinion. There was a study put out by the RAND Corporation last year titled Mullahs, Guards, and Banyards. If you want to have the first clue about Iran power dynamics, it's a must read. It also really reinforces Tip #3. There are so many stakeholders in Iran. You could draw a Venn diagram, but in the end it would look like a bad acid trip with all the overlapping circles. I think it's important for the U.S. to remember that there are people in position of power in Iran interested in working with us and while we can't cater to them exclusively, it's an opportunity.

2. Could we get a corresponding article about what Iran can do to make the negotiations productive? That's like saying "Thank you for the apples, but how about some damn oranges!" but I had this nagging feeling reading the tips that the U.S. had to do X, Y, and Z and Iran did not. Thirty years of enmity will cause that kind of reaction.

3. Let's accept we were wrong to support the Shah the way we did. Let's maybe even apologize. Guys, as a nation we messed up in Iran. We messed up in a lot of nations during the Cold War, but the reaction in Iran was perhaps the most stark and the relationship sense likely the worst. It is not a sign of weakness to apologize. It's a sign of humanity and a dignified gesture (since we can't undo what happened) befitting a superpower. Our arrogance and own ignorance/denial of history make us look childish.

One final thought: It's all connected. The Islamic revolution of 1979, the overthrow (and subsequent hanging) of Bhutto by Zia al-Haq, the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and America's impotence in the entire region is all connected. We spent many decades messing about in the affairs of Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and I don't think we could be considered a net positive. Negotiating with Iran, earnestly, patiently, and in anything resembling good faith could be the first step in trying to reverse the reviled perception of the U.S. in the region.

Afghanistan

I just finished this morning Barfield’s Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History. I mentioned it before, but wanted to return to it as I think it is currently the definitive book on Afghanistan’s history out there right now. Barfield comes to a few conclusions about the current state of Afghanistan that I think are worth noting.

First, Barfield believes the Karzai government has squandered their opportunity and is losing legitimacy with every day that passes. Inevitably in Afghanistan, the key to ruling the country by the acquiescence, if not the allegiance of the populace has been the perception of legitimacy of one’s right to rule. This legitimacy has not historically come through elections, but familial, religious, or nationalistic claims.

Second, the Karzai government (and initially his international backers) believed that Afghanistan had to have a strong centralized government to hold together disparate ethnic groups. This belief came despite the recorded demise of every regime that has tried to wield significant power over the entirety of the country from Kabul. Indeed, the most effective regimes have declared supremacy from Kabul, but allowed the historical regions to be largely autonomous. The key has always been to limit the actual footprint of the Kabul government in the day to day lives of the Afghans.

It was also a misreading of the ethnic divisions. They exist, to be certain, but have not manifested into the kind of dynamic we have seen in the Balkans. There is an Afghan identity, which may be secondary to ones ethnic or tribal identity, but not so inferior as to foment a nationalist uprising in specific ethnic regions.

Third, every regime in Kabul that tried to enact sweeping social changes has faced opposition from the rural areas of Afghanistan. The social changes are seen as an assault on Islam and, in some regions, Pashtunwali that have defined relationships and local governance for hundreds of years. Successful and stable regimes have fostered social change in major cities, but largely left social custom unchanged in the rural areas. This goes back to the issue of a strong central government. If social changes are enforced at the local level, then the government footprint isn’t light and resentment arises, oft leading to rebellion.

Given these observations of the current state of affairs in Afghanistan, Barfield makes two key recommendations on how to get a handle on the situation.

1) Don’t look to have a strong central government. Instead, create a federal or pseudo-federal system where governance is largely handled in the historic regions of the country. This federalization should not look like the districts or whatever that Karzai has created. Instead, the historic power centers of Herat, Khandahar, Kabul, and Mazar should be empowered to handle much of the governance. This is how Afghanistan has worked historically and there is little reason to believe it wouldn’t work now. In fact, it would feed nicely into the dogma that Afghanistan is trapped in the middle ages.

2) Everyone needs to slow down on the social changes. This is hard to listen and abhorrent to many in the West, but Barfield makes note of the failure of all regimes that tried to change social custom dramatically and uniformly across the country. Instead, he notes the shifting demography, the large number of young people, the increasing urbanization, and he recommends a model adopted by the most stable of Afghan regimes in the 20^th century. Embrace social change in urban areas, but don’t enforce it in the rural areas. Over time customs and culture change. Rather to have the people choose to change, then to have the government enforce change.

I think both of these suggestions are pretty solid, though maybe a tough political sell. Overall, I greatly enjoyed the book and it satisfied what I wanted. I wanted something that took me back to square one in Afghanistan. Barfield does that and does it well and he brings you all the way to the present and gives some great analysis of the current situation and some recommendation on how to move forward. Will American, and perhaps more importantly Afghan, policymakers learn the lessons that Barfield offers? I have my doubts, but if you want to know more about Afghanistan and put the book down with a sense of hope that there is a path out of the wilderness then I recommend picking up Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History.

About Tonight

Ah, the First Tuesday in November, E-Day. A few thoughts and predictions about this evening's outcome:
- GOP picks up between 35 and 38 seats in the House.
- Joe Sestak and Patrick Murphy win in PA
- Harry Reid hangs onto his seat.

One overarching comment directed to the Obama Administration: a mid-term defeat does not 1994 (nor, ultimately, 1996) make. The Republican Congressmen and women elected tonight are not interested in legislating and, therefore, are not interested in compromise. I would stop looking at the post-1994 Clinton White House as a model.

Latin America from on the ground

I spend the last couple weeks in Latin America and thought I'd provide my thoughts on a few of the countries I saw. Some of the lead-ins are going to sound like something out of a Thomas Freidman column. Please don't take that as an endorsement of his style, content, or being.

Brazil
I was in Sao Paulo last week and something occurred to me. These folks have a long way to go, but they are making progress. I was staying at a fantastic Hilton is what was a decidedly business district (the adjoining mall was closed on Saturdays and Sundays) thinking up new words for large, complex topics and decided to take this picture out my window.

It's a little bit hard to see, but notice the rising favellas on the hill. I was in Sao Paulo and even as I was ensconced in a fabulous hotel, I was advised not to wander too far. This is the juxtaposition of a place like Sao Paulo. Barely more then a stones throw away from Brazil's world trade center (in the foreground) was a favella. Now the government is investing heavily in this location and I would wager the days are numbered for the particular favella.

This was a theme throughout the Latin American cities I visited in the past few weeks. There are a growing number of haves, but a persistent number of havenots as well. Of course, different governments have embraced economic policy. The great contrast being between Chile and Brazil (among the countries I visited).

Chile
I was talking to a businessman in a five star hotel in Santiago drinking a pisco sour (which I was told originated in Chile) he spoke of how the country has been dealing with some issues, both short-term and long term. In the short-term the country had been dealing with a massive earthquake and the mining disaster. In fact, as we met Chilean news had minute by minute coverage of the miners with the countdown graphic as they road the Phoenix to escape the cavern that had been their prison for 2 months. Despite this, he remarked how proud his country was. They had dealt with both problems with aplomb, in his estimation, and it seemed to be validation of a system of governance and economics that allowed Chile to do better then many countries during the recession.

Of course, this prompted the long-term issue. Chile suffers from a post-Pinochet identity crisis. As the liberal, Chicago school economic policies of the Pinochet regime bear fruit Chileans are put in a weird position. Can they applaud some of the policies while deriding the man? It is a whisper on the lips of many successful Chileans, something alluded to but rarely said allowed. The mention of Pinochet can still induce a visceral reaction among many Chileans, but it is becoming increasingly clear that the economic policies and institutions his regime put in place have positioned Chile well to move past a commodity dependent economy. Of course challenges remain, and they haven't made the transition away from commodities yet. Many of the miners broke through to the surface and immediately called for new mining safety regulations to prevent the kind of accidents they fell victims to. They weren't martyrs, but messengers and they brought their message at the point of greatest resonance with the population. The government response remains to be seen.

Peru
I really liked Peru, the people, the city of Lima, the food, and the pisco sours (which I was told originated in Peru). It, like many of the cities in Latin America is a city of contrasts. Consider this picture of the tourist-y upscale district of Miraflores.















And then consider this shot of a village about 30km away near the Pachacamac ruins. As much as I loved Peru, on statistic that I had heard shocked me. I had read Hernando De Soto's The Other Path sometime ago for grad school and he talks extensively about the need to bring the informal economy into the government fold. He talks about valuing ownership, and he presents all this as a way to combat the ideology of the leftist terrorist group The Shining Path.

Peruvian President Fujimoro embraced many of the policies and indeed The Shining Path was largely marginalized. The streets of Lima were some of the safest I walked in the region. And yet I heard that 60% of the Peruvian economy is estimated to be informal. This is the largest percentage in Latin America.


So those are just some random thoughts about a few of the countries I visited. It's an amazing region with amazing people and history (and food: chicarron, feijda, ceviche). All my observations are amateurish reflections from 4 and 5 star hotels, but for what it's worth, that's what I saw and thought.

GOP: All the Benefits of Anti-Bailout Populism . . .

. . . none of the downsides.

Awakening Council Reverting

No matter how you look at it, this isn't good for Iraq or the US. It seems like there are a number of reasons for the reversion back to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, but perhaps the most troubling is the perception (or perhaps reality) that the Iraqi government isn't keen to bring Awakening Council members into the fold.