Jonathan Power: A True”Restart” at the U.S.-Russia Summit

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The first summit between President Barack Obama and Dmitri Medvedev is only days away and, so far, there has only been perfunctory mention of this potentially momentous occasion in the media. The silence on this meeting is odd, if not irresponsible.

If played right, this could be the most important U.S.-Russia summit since Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and George H. W. Bush, having torn down the Iron Curtain, decided that they had enough confidence in each other to introduce unilateral nuclear arms cuts, a valuable ancillary to the formal deal.

In the opinion of Georgi Arbatov, Gorbachev’s foreign affairs advisor (and before that Brezhnev’s),
the time is overdue for more unilateral cuts. He said to me, some two summers ago, that “we in Russia are not right in our approach. We have so many weapons we could decrease the numbers unilaterally and set an example. We could dismantle our rockets, take others off alert, and the Americans would be obliged to follow us.”

When I recently asked Igor Yurgens, one of Medvedev’s advisors, about what the “reset” button statement by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meant, he replied that “the tone is different.” He then added, somewhat amusingly, “We have a new generation—Obama and Medvedev. Since they are both Internet lovers, then the promise of change could be substantiated.”

Joking aside, Yurgens notes that “the line up on the U.S. side seems more broad minded than before.” Between Rose Gottemoeller, who spent four years in Moscow and is the head of the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks, and Gen. James Jones, a national security advisor to Obama who worked constructively on Iran, Yurgens said the Russians “see very good signs.”

“The United States and Russia have identical views on Afghanistan,” says Yurgens. “We are on the same page as the United States with [regard to] North Korea. We have some nuances in policy towards Iran, but I think they are surmountable. So, on those three issues (plus Pakistan, plus broader Middle East) there is more that unites us than divides us.”

At the July 7 summit, the new Obama administration must begin by giving a little.

Charles Cogan: Iran — They’re Gaming Us?

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Artistically and architecturally, the city of Isfahan is one of the urban jewels of Iranian civilization. It is a symbol of the beauty that Iranians have been able to render through their country’s history. But is Iran really ready to sacrifice all this glory (not to mention the lives of its citizens) in an attempt to annihilate Israel?

Surely, Iranians know what would be coming at them in retaliation for such a rash attack, were it to take place. The recent turmoil following the disputed elections has somewhat changed the way we look at (and what we hope for) Iran, but realists must confront the reality that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will likely remain in office, and will almost certainly continue his bellicose attacks on Israel and the West. (Though with the credibility of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and President Ahmadinejad having been somewhat damaged by the election campaign and its aftermath, we may see a temporary toning down of the rhetoric.)

Nonetheless, it is never too soon to begin reassessing the Iranian nuclear question.

Since the Iranian leadership would obviously prefer to avoid military annihilation, why are Ahmadinejad’s Hitler-like rants tolerated by Khamenei? To curry favor with the Arab street, which is not, by nature, disposed to like Persians? To brandish the threat of a weapon of mass destruction attack in the region in order to intimidate the leaderships of moderate Arab states?

Henry “Chip” Carey: A Constitutional Crisis in Honduras

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If it succeeds, the universally condemned Honduran military coup could send a disastrous signal to Latin America and beyond that the long slog of democratization can be interrupted on a moment’s impatience.

Deposed President Manuel Zelaya’s past performance leaves much to be desired, but so do the nation’s institutions, which need democratic reform, not military mentorship. Honduras represents an archetypal “Tier-II” category of democracy. As a nation, it has underperformed in forming a broad democratic alliance, and often bent the rules to build the rule of law.

It needs time, patience, and nurturing—even when democratically elected leaders govern undemocratically.

The unpopular, populist President Zelaya built a narrow coalition, alienating the business community while attempting to overturn single-term limits on the executive office. Zelaya had damaged his democratic credentials by failing to respect judicial independence in disagreeing with the Supreme Court decision to strike down his planned plebiscite that sought to allow him to run for president again. The vote (which would have amended the constitution) was planned for this past Sunday—though it is not clear he intended it to be binding.

Things heated up even further when the chief of the army, Gen. Romeo Vasquez, refused to allow the army to provide logistical support for the referendum. Zelaya promptly fired him, and the Supreme Court jumped back into the fray, demanding he be reinstated. In the end, the military, legislative leaders, and the president failed to work out compromises, even with some mediation from the U.S. ambassador, to prevent the breakdown of democracy.

The new ruling authoritarian coalition claims to be using a constitutional solution to the crisis by protecting the new president, Roberto Micheletti, who was previously head of the legislature. Indeed, many Hondurans have argued that a coup did not actually occur, since the legislature and Supreme Court had declared Zelaya’s referendum and various other acts to have been unconstitutional. In response, the court played its own constitutional card, by ordering the armed forces to reestablish a “democracy.” Thus, Micheletti’s constant public refrain: “democracia, democracia, democracia.”

Barring the chorus of claims from both sides over what is “constitutional” and what is not, it is important to note that, most likely, this was a classic middle-class coup—a Brumarian moment of relief for the privileged, bolstered by constitutional distortions to correct constitutional distortions. Zelaya had won office on a conservative, law-and-order ticket but increasingly had adopted the populist tendencies of many of his fellow Latin American leaders, alienating broad swathes of the legislature and the business community.

Perhaps the new regime (if it remains in power) may actually keep its word and reconfigure itself democratically, as it claims. Occasionally, when democratic leaders govern undemocratically, a new authoritarian alliance can put things right. But, in practice, it is usually the exception to the rule and a pretext for other aims—all too often, it is might that makes right. Worse, coups signal that the military is to be the arbiter. But in Honduras, the “man on horseback,” as the military is depicted, often governs in nineteenth-century, caudillo (“strongman”) fashion, making order by giving orders.

Jonathan Power: Europe, The Great (Christian) Republic?

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Since the European Union parliamentary elections some two weeks ago, Europeans have been putting themselves through a bout of navel gazing and introspection. People are asking what exactly is the purpose of the European Parliament when every country has its own legislatures, both national and local? Why did a record low number of voters turn out? Why did eastern Europeans—only recently liberated from the yolk of dictatorship which denied them the vote—cast fewer ballots than anyone else (with only a couple exceptions)? Why do the British talk as if membership to the European Union is a yoke around their necks?

More broadly, what is Europe?

Writing in 1751, Voltaire described Europe as “a kind of great republic, divided into several states, some monarchical, the others mixed but all corresponding with one another. They all have the same religious foundation, even if it is divided into several confessions. They all have the same principals of public law and politics unknown in other parts of the world.”

In a way that Charlemagne, Voltaire, William Penn, and William Gladstone—the early advocates of European unity—could only dream, a united Europe has become a reality with half a billion members.

Azubuike Ishiekwene: Echoes of 1979 in Iranian Protests

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Thirty years after the Shah was overthrown in a revolution, Iran is embroiled in an upheaval that appears to be threatening the grip of the Ayatollah over the country. There are striking ironies between what happened in 1979 under the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, and what is happening today under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the incumbent supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The way the Shah fell out with his Western allies, especially the United States, over arms build-up in the mid-1970s, has eerie parallels to the way the mullahs in Tehran have fallen out with Washington over Iran’s nuclear weapons program, among other issues. What has been dramatized today as the Iranian Revolution, Part II, is a delicate, almost inscrutable power game, fueled by suspicions and deep-seated mutual distrust on both sides.

It wasn’t always like that.

At the height of the love affair between Iran and the West in the 1950s up through the 1970s, the Shah could do no wrong. To fend off any possible communist incursions, the United States poured millions of dollars into Iran to shore up the Shah. The oil windfall of the late 1970s, brought on by the Arab-Israeli war, was also a blessing to Iran. The Shah took advantage of the profits to rebuild his country and a new middle class was born. The downside of the boom, of course, was that it created in the Shah a new taste for luxury and power beyond the pale. He went to extraordinary lengths to sustain his appetite. He created the SAVAK, a special (and much loathed) security and intelligence force, trained and backed by the United States, which helped him to rule with an iron fist and isolated him from the people.

Washington did not seem to mind, at least not in the early stages of the Shah’s neurosis.

A blog by Jeb Sharp on Iran-U.S. relations quoted Henry Precht, the young American intelligence officer who managed arms sales between the United States and Iran under the Shah, as saying, “They promised the Shah that he could buy whatever he wanted and no one would quibble with him. Everything up to but not including nuclear weapons. So, that was my marching orders, facilitate, don’t get in the way of this process…. Then came the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Oil prices rose dramatically. Suddenly, the Shah was flush with money. He bought massive quantities of the most high-tech weaponry money could buy. US officials were unsettled by the consequences of their bargain.”

Eventually, the Shah’s opulent lifestyle and tight hold on power through the security forces isolated the middle class, sidelined the communists and the mullahs, and narrowed the political space. Moreover, Pahlavi’s new hunger for high-tech military weapons—some argue that he laid the foundation for Iran’s nuclear program—isolated him from his Western allies, especially from Washington. By the time he was overthrown in 1979, he was a sad, broken man; betrayed and completely on his own.