Author: Aylin D. Miller

Gilad Atzmon: Israel needs Turkey

The world famous Israeli- born musician Gilad Atzmon said to TIMETUR:“Turkey’s friendship is very important for Israel and Israel needs Turkey.”

Hasan: Dear Gilad, How do you evaluate the Israeli carnage in Gaza?

Gilad: Dear Hasan, I don’t really think that it is a matter of evaluation. We are all aware of the level of destruction brought upon innocent civilians by the Jewish state. Gaza looks as if it was nuked. Yet, as we know, the devastation is not the outcome of a single atomic bomb. It was actually a merciless and lengthy campaign conducted by a national and popular army that employed a chain of heavy bombardment using conventional and unconventional shells. Gaza’s carnage is the outcome of a sinister, continuous, intense air raid against civilians in the most populated spot on this planet. Hence, rather than evaluating the carnage itself, I am very interested in the evaluation of the people who are capable of bringing such destruction about. In other words, I am interested in the Israeli and the Jewish collective identity. I wonder how is it possible that the Israelis, the people who were ‘raised from the ashes’, have matured collectively into the embodiment of modern evil. How is it that Diaspora Jews happen to institutionally support Israel and its crimes against humanity?

Hasan: Why does Israel always break the international laws and does not obey the agreements?

Gilad: I assume that the Israeli is imbued with feelings of superiority that have something to do with the secular interpretation of the notion of Jewish Chosenness. At the end of the day, Israel is the Jewish state. Though Israel is largely a secular society, it manages to maintain the Judaic heritage of racial supremacy. It is actually the secular nationalist interpretation of Judaic tradition that had evolved into a collective murderous inclination. It is important to note that while within the Judaic context, chosenness is interpreted as a moral burden in which Jews are demanded to stand as an exemplification of ethical behaviour, in the Jewish state, chosenness is interpreted as an entitlement to dominate and kill. Since the Israelis regard themselves as the chosen people, they clearly feel free of any ethical or moral concerns. Moreover, they are not concerned at all with other peoples’ or nations’ judgment or thought. This arrogant philosophy was defined by Israeli PM David Ben Gurion in the 1950’s when he said, “it doesn’t matter what the Goyim (Gentiles) say, the only thing that matters is what the Jews do.”

Hasan: What is the importance of PM Erdogan’s reaction in Davos?

Gilad: For me it is clear that PM Erdogan was rather courageous in confronting the Israeli lie on an international stage. Moreover, he really hit the nail on the head by exposing the ultimate symbol of this very lie. I am referring here to war criminal President Shimon Peres, who in spite of his devastating past (Kefar Kana, Nuclear reactor Dimona etc.) has managed to grab a Nobel Prize for peace. Considering his contribution to the Dimona WMD project, a Nobel Prize in nuclear physics would be more appropriate.

Hasan: How does / can the Jewish lobby work against PM Erdogan and the Jews with conscience?

Gilad: This is a very good question, I am not an expert on Jewish lobbying tactics. However I am fully aware of their influence. As long as British Labour finance is run by rabid Zionists such as Lord cash Machine Levy and as long as White House chief of staff is a rabid Zionist, we should expect Zionist interests to shape our reality and this means a lot of conflicts, carnage and blood of innocent civilians.

However, we have to bear in mind that the tide is turning. What we see and hear in Gaza brings about a mass indignation against Israel and its lobbies around the world.

It is hard for me to predict what the measures taken by Jewish lobbies against PM Erdogan will be. He can probably expect himself to be presented as their new anti-Semite protagonist. As we know it doesn’t take a lot to become one. While in the old days, anti-Semites were those who didn’t like Jews, nowadays, anti-Semites are those the Jews Hate.

Nevertheless, we must bear in mind that Turkey’s friendship is very important for Israel. Turkey had been Israel’s only friend in the region. Lately, it had been a negotiator with Syria. In short, Israel needs Turkey.

Hasan: How can the Israeli-Turkish relations be effected after the Erdogan-Peres clash in Davos?

Gilad: I really prefer not to answer this question, I am not exactly an expert on the subject…

Hasan: What kind of days are waiting for Israel and Turkey in the global political arena?

Gilad: Again, international affairs isn’t exactly a topic I specialise in.

Hasan: Do you have a final message for the world and the Turkish people?

Gilad: I do not like to come with final messages for three reasons:

1.      I do not like final statements, I insist upon reserving the option of regretting and want to be able to revise my views on every possible topic.

2.      I believe that people who come with ‘final messages’ must be very important and clever. I am more of an artist. I look into myself, and I share what I see with my listeners and readers.

3.       Unlike politicians who know what is right and wrong for other people, I hardly know what is right for myself.

However, my politics, so to say, are very simple. I am looking for an ethical voice. It means that in any given circumstance, I would try to find out myself what is right and what is wrong. I do not believe in dogmatism. I insist that the ethical search is a dynamic process of shaping and reshaping.

A week ago or so, a friend of mine, the legendary musician Robert Wyatt, helped me put it into words in the most eloquent and simple way. “My politics”, he said, “is very simple, I am just an anti-racist”. This is really what it is all about, being an ‘anti-racist’.

I am totally against any form of racist politics and this is why I despise any form of Jewish politics left, right and centre. I am tired of all these ‘Jew only’ settings. Whether it is the ‘Jews only state’ or ‘Jews for peace’. I am against it because; it is there to promote Jewish tribal interests rather than humanity and brotherhood. The Jewish political experience is somehow always racially orientated and chauvinist to the bone.

Though I believe that people are entitled to fight for their rights e.g., the Palestinian national struggle, I also believe that people should know how to reinstate peace and harmony. As far as Israel and Jewish politics is concerned, this is exactly what we lack. All we see is vengeance and anger that lead to more and more violence. It is rather apparent that Israelis are not familiar with the notion of mercy and compassion. Jesus’ spiritually harmonious suggestion known as ‘turning the other cheek’ sounds to the Israeli as an amusing ludicrous concept. Apparently, for them, ‘shock and awe’, sounds far more appealing. They democratically vote for carnage, destruction and genocide. At the end of the day, they are entitled to vote. They are the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’, at least this is what they claim to be.

Source: , 07 February 2009

February 10, 2009
Talking Turkey About Israel

Philip Giraldi *

The Israeli invasion of Gaza and the slaughter of civilians was such an egregious error in judgment that the usual suspects are working overtime to make it all look like a heroic defense of democratic values. The expected beneficiary of the “defensive action,” the ruling Kadima Party, so miscalculated that it is now likely to lose today’s election, with the Israeli electorate convinced that an even more extreme right-wing government is the only solution to the moderate right-wing bungling.

Israel will likely choose hard-right nationalism by electing Bibi Netanyahu as the next prime minister. Netanyahu has never let any values, democratic or otherwise, stand in his way in his quest for a Greater (Arab-free) Israel encompassing all of the West Bank and running from the Litani River in Lebanon in the north to the Suez Canal in the south. He has already promised that if elected he will not turn any occupied land over to the Palestinians.

There have been numerous signs that the world is no longer buying into the Israeli creation myth, even in the United States, where the suffering of the Gazans, neatly concealed by most of the mainstream media, nevertheless produced an outpouring of sympathy. The beleaguered little state of Israel founded as a homeland and refuge for the victims of persecution in Europe has become a regional military superpower ruled by a corrupt political class, with a socialist economy kept afloat by the U.S. taxpayer. Israel continues and even expands its occupation of the lands of its neighbors and engages in the brutal suppression of those who resist. Far from seeking a political solution that would create two states side by side, it has deliberately aborted every genuine peace initiative and now seeks absolute regional hegemony, pressing forward with racist policies that marginalize its own citizens of Arab descent. Most of the world has finally realized that claiming perpetual victimhood as a shield against criticism does not work very well when you can muster Merkava tanks, helicopter gunships, and white phosphorus against a civilian population.

The sharp exchange between Israeli President Shimon Peres and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan at Davos on Jan. 29 exemplifies Israel’s public relations problem and also casts light upon what steps the Israeli government and its friends in the United States are taking to counteract the negative press. Media reports suggest that Israel preceded its attack on Gaza by alerting a network of supporters to post comments on blogs, saturating the Web with the Israeli government’s justification for its action. This was evident on a number of blogs, including Huffington Post and the Washington Note. Many of the posters were Israelis, and it is believed that a number of them were active-duty military personnel selected for their fluency in English and other European languages as well as their familiarity with the Internet.

The coverage of the Erdogan-Peres exchange was carefully managed in the U.S. media, but less restrained in Europe and the Middle East. In a one-hour discussion of Gaza moderated by David Ignatius of the Washington Post, an odd choice for such an important discussion, Peres was allowed 25 minutes to speak in defense of the Israeli attack. Erdogan and two other critics on the panel were given 12 minutes each. The YouTube recording of the debate shows Peres pointed accusingly at Erdogan and raised his voice. When Erdogan sought time to respond, Ignatius granted him a minute and then cut him off claiming it was time to go to dinner. Erdogan complained about the treatment and left Davos, vowing never to return. Back in Turkey, he received a hero’s welcome.

Four days later the Washington Post featured an op-ed entitled “Turkey’s Turn From the West” by Soner Cagaptay, a Turkish-born, American-educated academic who is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). WINEP was founded by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Cagaptay is also on the board of the American Turkish Friendship Council, one of several Turkish lobbying groups that are supportive of the Israel-Turkey relationship. A review of Cagaptay’s writings reveals that he is AIPAC’s go-to guy for any argument that Turkey is becoming more anti-Western and religious.

That Cagaptay is a genuine expert on the country of his birth is clear, but his view on developments there is very much shaped by who pays him. He finds anti-Semitism lurking everywhere in Turkey and being “spread by the political leadership.” He is astonished by Erdogan’s assertion at Davos that Israel is “killing people.” He finds inexplicable the prime minister’s belief that there was “Jewish culpability for the conflict in Gaza” and that the “Jewish-controlled media outlets were misrepresenting the facts.” For good measure, Cagaptay believes it “doubtful whether Turkey would side with the United States in dealing with the issue of nuclear Iran,” and he sees a regrettable Turkish “solidarity with Islamist regimes or causes.”

AIPAC’s Turkey expert might be surprised to learn that most of the world, which saw the images of dying Palestinian children on nightly television, would probably agree with Erdogan. Israel planned its invasion of Gaza six months in advance, timed the assault for maximum political benefit for the ruling party and to engage the incoming U.S. president in its policies, committed war crimes against a largely defenseless civilian population, and then kept journalists out of the combat zone so it could lie about everything that it was doing. The U.S. media in particular chose to ignore the carnage and present the Israeli point of view. Though it would be unfair to claim that the media is controlled by any ethnic or religious group, it is certainly true that Jewish organizations mobilized to make sure that pro-Israel commentary far exceeded any reporting of Palestinian suffering.

Cagaptay likewise fails to see what the rest of the world sees regarding Iran. No one admires Iran’s government, but America’s European allies, not just Turkey, will not support yet another war in the Middle East, even if Tehran does move closer to acquiring a nuclear weapon. Turkey’s development of closer ties with the Islamic world, which Cagaptay tellingly insists on calling “Islamist,” is also an understandable response to being repeatedly snubbed in its bids to join the European Union, something that even WINEP’s reliable scholarly claque surely knows to be true.

Efforts to control and spin the narrative, to turn black into white, have been unrelenting since the Israelis decided to attack Gaza. Cagaptay is only a part of that effort, but his smearing of Turkey and its elected leaders is unfortunate, particularly as his newspaper audience probably knows little about Turkey and will assume that the analysis is credible. Anyone who knows Turks well knows that they are an exceedingly stubborn and honorable people who will invariably say what they think to be true. Prime Minister Erdogan spoke the truth in Davos and has been speaking the truth about the invasion of Gaza. Attempts to label him anti-Semitic and to denigrate the Turks in general will certainly have some impact, most certainly on the U.S. Congress, which will rapidly fall into line and comply with AIPAC’s instructions on an appropriate punishment. But Israel’s attempt to portray itself as always the victim of a global anti-Semitic, anti-Western conspiracy just will not stand any more, no matter how many Soner Cagaptays are paid by AIPAC to write for the Washington Post.

Source: www.antiwar.com, 10.02.2009

* Philip Giraldi is a former officer of the United States Central Intelligence Agency who became famous for claiming in 2005 that the USA was preparing plans to attack Iran with nuclear weapons in response to a terrorist action against the US, independently of whether or not Iran was involved in the action. He is presently a partner in an international security consultancy, Cannistraro Associates.

February 10, 2009
Man in the News: Pope Benedict XVI

By Guy Dinmore

Published: February 6 2009 19:17 | Last updated: February 6 2009 19:17

As the head of the world’s oldest organisation, holding a global market share of 17.5 per cent and with defined values and established decision-making procedures, Joseph Ratzinger should be the envy of any corporate chief executive.

Yet in the space of two weeks Pope Benedict XVI has stumbled into the worst crisis of his four-year-old papacy, dealing in the process the most serious blow to relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the Jewish faith in half a century. Cardinals and bishops are starting to mobilise in revolt. For the moment their disquiet is aimed at a handful of figures surrounding the 81-year-old pontiff who they fear is becoming a timid recluse, buried in his reading and writing, vulnerable to manipulation.

That is the charitable explanation of why last month Pope Benedict lifted the excommunication of four ultra-traditionalist clerics, including British bishop Richard Williamson, who has questioned the extent of the Holocaust and denied the existence of gas chambers in Nazi death camps.

EDITOR’S CHOICE

Editorial Comment: A Pope’s fallibility – Feb-05

Merkel raps Pope over Holocaust row cleric – Feb-04

Pope opens YouTube channel – Jan-23

But for progressive theologians this latest attempt by Benedict to heal a decades-old schism confirms his barely disguised sympathies for the doctrinal views of the ultra-conservatives and calls into question the reforms of the historic Second Vatican Council of 1965. The harm done to interfaith dialogue is considerable, says Miroslav Volf, an Episcopalian and professor of theology at Yale University. “This is not the first time that this pope has caused such interfaith damage. He is an equal opportunity interfaith offender,” Prof Volf tells the FT, recalling the angry response of Muslims to the Pope’s 2006 Regensburg speech interpreted as equating Islam with violence.

“Only some of it can be attributed to the Vatican bureaucracy. He is over-zealous in protecting the truth of the faith and unity of the church, the hallmarks of his pontificate … His mistakes and blunders all lean in one direction, appealing to the traditionalists. He is not a Holocaust denier. But why this blunder?”

The reactions from political and religious leaders – including Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel – have focused on Mr Williamson’s blatant anti-Semitic (and sexist) views. That the decree was issued just days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day was seen as a public relations disaster. One close follower of the Vatican says Pope Benedict’s media image as “God’s rottweiler” is wrong. “In reality he is timid, shy, bordering on the recluse and could potentially be bullied.”

The pontiff is a popular teacher but appears cut-off, rarely giving access to cardinals and nuncios, unlike his predecessor. His isolation is a subject of considerable debate and mystery, as is how the decision was made to revoke the excommunication of the clerics, followers of the Pius X Fraternity established by Marcel Lefebvre, the schismatic French archbishop who died in 1991.

Sandro Magister, a prominent commentator, blames Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the secretary of state who is effectively the Vatican’s prime minister. The cardinal was “distinguished by his absence” in the affair, travelling in Mexico and Spain, indulging in endless rounds of conferences and celebrations. “Benedict XVI was left practically alone, and the curia (civil service) was abandoned to disorder,” Mr Magister writes on his blog.

Others suggest the Italian cardinal – appointed by the Pope in September 2006 – played a more deliberate role, keeping key cardinals out of the decision-making process. They note he helped the then Cardinal Ratzinger in trying to negotiate a solution with Lefebvre in 1988, shortly before Pope John Paul excommunicated the rebel archbishop and the four bishops he had illegally ordained.

In rare displays of public discord, prominent cardinals have expressed dismay at not being consulted. Cardinal Bertone was forced into damage control, issuing a statement that the Pope did not know of Mr Williamson’s views on the Holocaust. He also ordered the renegade bishop to recant his views if he wanted to serve as prelate in the Church.

Mr Williamson’s remarks on the gas chambers were made to a Swedish television station in November but only released on January 21. That was the day the Vatican decided to lift his excommunication although the decree was not made public until three days later. The timing has led to a conspiracy theory that someone in the curia tipped off the broadcaster. Even so, Mr Williamson had aired similar statements before. As Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, says: “All somebody had to do was Google him.”

Others must have known, despite their denials, critics contend. One was Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos who persuaded the Pope to reverse the excommunications. Cardinal Hoyos heads Ecclesia Dei, a group with ties to the ultra-traditionalists, sharing their adhesion to the traditional Latin mass whose return was permitted amid great controversy by the Pope in 2007. There are doubts Benedict will remove Cardinal Bertone, but a revolt by senior clerics could persuade him to resign.

For Benedict – the first German pope since Victor II in 1055 – the furore must be painful. While he has been unapologetic in his rejection of religious pluralism, moral relativisim, economic liberalism, contraception, divorce, women priests and same-sex civil unions, he has consistently spoken out against the Holocaust and persecution of Jews.

Born in 1927 in a Bavarian village not far from Hitler’s own birthplace, his childhood was spent in the shadow of the Third Reich. As a 14-year-old seminary student, he was obliged to join the Hitler Youth. He saw prisoners from the Dachau camp and Hungarian Jews shipped to their death. He was later sent to the Austrian Legion where he was “bullied by fanatical ideologues” and in 1945 he deserted, to be taken prisoner by US soldiers.

Ordained in 1951, he became a professor of dogma and fundamental theology at age 30, starting a long life in academia. By 50 he was archbishop of Munich and soon a cardinal but with little pastoral experience. In 1978 Karol Wojtyla became Pope and in 1981 persuaded Cardinal Ratzinger to head the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s enforcer of orthodoxy tracing its roots to the Holy Inquisition. He disciplined at least a dozen high profile, liberal Catholics. Some were excommunicated.

Much is now at stake in how Benedict responds to this latest challenge to the Church. In an interview he gave when still a cardinal, he remarked however: “I am like the cellist Rostropovich. I never read the critics.”

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

February 9, 2009
CLINTON SIGNALS A SMART RETREAT FROM DEMOCRATISATION

By Gideon Rachman

Published: February 5 2009 20:39 | Financial Times

Taking questions from staff at the state department this week, Hillary Clinton highlighted the hard-headed approach she hopes to take to the US’s relations with the rest of the world, write Daniel Dombey and Demetri Sevastopulo. “When we talk about the three pillars of American foreign policy – defence, diplomacy, development – they’re not just words to the president and me,” the new secretary of state (below) declared, repeating a formula she has spelled out several times in the days since she took office.

Singularly absent from her outline of the struts of US foreign policy is a fourth “D” – democracy promotion – a goal that served as one of the guiding themes of the Bush administration.

The Obama administration has gone out of its way to signal a pragmatic, non-ideological approach. It is a modus operandi that stresses continuity with policy under George W. Bush in terms of the tools it uses while setting out arguably more “realistic” goals.

“This team is very deliberate and what you’ll see is them taking a long look at what they’ve inherited to see what of that works,” says a US official. “They have learnt the lesson from the beginning of the Bush administration, which threw everything out that had to do with [former president Bill] Clinton.”

Mrs Clinton’s “three D’s” mantra uses a vocabulary of the possible rather than charting grand objectives. It suggests that the US will continue to assert its military might while emphasising the kind of diplomatic outreach many US allies called for during Mr Bush’s presidency. The secretary of state also wants to use US aid to put pressure on countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and to win control of assistance currently dispensed by the US military so that it can be more easily put to the service of political goals.

In a phrase Mrs Clinton has borrowed from Joseph Nye, a Harvard professor, and Richard Armitage, a former Bush administration state department official, she labels such an alliance of “hard” and “soft” power as “smart power”. Her stance is bolstered by similar positions struck by President Barack Obama and Robert Gates, defence secretary – a veteran champion of “realism” in the long-running Washington debate with liberal interventionist “idealists”.

Not for nothing did Mr Obama promise to work with authoritarian states in his inaugural address. While Mr Bush used his second inauguration to set out “the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world”, Mr Obama told undemocratic states that “we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist” – an offer he later explicitly addressed to Iran.

Indeed, just days before taking office, the then president-elect took care to avoid Mr Bush’s emphasis on free elections. “Elections aren’t democracy, as we understand it,” Mr Obama told The Washington Post, stressing priorities such as freedom from arbitrary arrest and fighting corruption. “They are one facet of a liberal order.”

Mr Obama’s emphasis on stabilising Afghanistan to reduce the threat of terrorism rather than on establishing a US-style “Jeffersonian democracy” follows this train of thought, as did his pre-election suggestion to General David Petraeus, then the commander of forces in Iraq, that the US should be content with a “messy, sloppy status quo” in that country.

Ahead of Mr Obama’s expected approval of the deployment of 12,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan, Mr Gates has also suggested that the US scale back its ambitions, cautioning that any attempt to create “some sort of Central Asian Valhalla over there” would inevitably fail.

Yet while the goals set out by the Obama administration may differ from – or sometimes be more pragmatic than – those endorsed by the Bush administration – the tools it employs are often the same. Last week Mr Gates signalled that the US would continue to launch missile strikes against suspected terrorists inside Pakistan. Less than three days after Mr Obama moved into the White House, the CIA carried out such a strike, an attack that almost certainly was approved by the new president.

Other instruments established by Mr Bush and set to continue include the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear programme, which Mrs Clinton has labelled “essential”, and similar discussions on Iran. “Where continuity is appropriate, we are committed to doing that,” Mrs Clinton said, also instructing Todd Stern, her climate change envoy, to take part in both “United Nations negotiations and processes involving a smaller set of countries” – an apparent reference to Mr Bush’s controversial “major emitters” grouping.

“From Iran to the plans for an early meeting with [Russian president Dmitry] Medvedev to recent statements on Afghanistan, there is a strong realist strain appearing, although whether that will hold sway at the end of the day remains to be seen,” says Cliff Kupchan, a Washington-based analyst and former Clinton administration official.

While the debate between realists and idealists that rocked the Bush administration continues, Mr Kupchan observes that now “the portions of meat and vegetables are different”.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

February 9, 2009
The Foreign Policy Team of Obama

Shifting horizons

By Gideon Rachman

Published: February 5 2009 20:39 | Financial Times

February 6, 2009 10:32am

European policymakers will this weekend be able to have their first close look at the foreign policy team of President Barack Obama. The American delegation to the annual Munich security conference will be led by Joe Biden, US vice-president, and will include General James Jones, Mr Obama’s new national security adviser.

But for those searching for clues to the new administration’s approach to the rest of the world, there is a treasure trove of evidence that has been little examined – the writings of the people who will shape foreign policy.

Several are prolific authors. Many are moving across Washington, from venerable think-tanks such as the Brookings Institution on Massachusetts Avenue, into offices in the state department or at the White House. Others are arriving from universities including Harvard, Princeton and Stanford.

It would be naive to assume that ideas floated in journal articles will be translated directly into US foreign policy. The real world is too messy for that. But the writings of the appointees and those likely to serve alongside them at least illustrate the intellectual climate and help identify some of their underlying assumptions.

Out goes the “war on terror”, which the new brood sees as an ideological rather than a military struggle. In comes a need to reappraise both America’s power and its vulnerabilities. Back are a belief in the importance of the United Nations, of diplomacy in general – with a new stress on broad-based regional initiatives – and of relations with allies in western Europe.

Since the “war on terror” was the organising principle of the foreign policy of George W. Bush, it is not surprising that the Obama team is urging a re-think. The early decision to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay reflected a belief that the struggle with terrorism is as much about ideas and principles as it is about military force. Daniel Benjamin, a Brookings scholar who is expected to take up a senior state department position dealing with counterterrorism, has argued that terrorism is never likely to be definitely vanquished. Rather it is a threat that needs to “managed and reduced”.

Daniel Benjamin

Brookings scholar expected to take up a state department counter-terrorism position

In the same vein, Philip Gordon – also of Brookings and expected to take up the post of assistant secretary of state for Europe – argues that “the battle against Islamist terrorism will be won when the ideology that underpins it loses its appeal”.

This rethinking of the war on terror reflects a broader reassessment, both of American power and of US national security. Rather than putting military power at the centre of US foreign policy, the Obama team wants to rehabilitate America’s “soft power” – diplomacy, persuasion, cultural influence, development aid and the power of example. Indeed, the man who coined the phrase “soft power” – Joseph Nye, a Harvard professor – is tipped to be US ambassador to Japan or China.

Philip Gordon

Brookings scholar expected to take up the post of assistant secretary of state for Europe

Anne-Marie Slaughter, a Princeton academic, is expected to be appointed head of policy planning at the state department – a job once held by George Kennan, architect of the policy of containment of the Soviet Union. Ms Slaughter is keen to get away from the militarised and Manichean world view of the Bush years. In a recent article, she suggests that the US “need not see itself as locked in a global struggle with other great powers; rather it should view itself as a central player in an integrated world”. In her view, American power is as much to do with a dense web of cultural and economic connections with the rest of the world as it is to do with the number of aircraft carriers possessed by the navy.

Anne-Marie Slaughter

Academic tipped as head of policy planning at the state department

But while the thinkers around Mr Obama have played down traditional threats to national security, they are keen that the administration should take a new generation of threats much more seriously. Kurt Campbell, expected to become assistant secretary of state for Asia, argues that “unchecked climate change will come to represent perhaps the single greatest risk to our national security”. Susan Rice, the new ambassador to the UN, thinks extreme poverty leads to state failure and, therefore: “We ignore or obscure the implications of global poverty for global security at our peril.”

Kurt Campbell

Likely assistant secretary of state for Asia; sees climate change as a security threat

Some of Mr Obama’s early statements suggest that the Bush administration’s occasionally Messianic view of “democracy promotion” as a central priority of US foreign policy, may now be quietly shelved (see below). But this is one area in which there is likely to be considerable debate and disagreement within the Obama camp. Some of the new president’s appointees can sound just as ardent about democracy promotion as any neo-conservative.

Susan Rice

The new ambassador to the UN; thinks extreme poverty leads to state failure

Michael McFaul, a Stanford academic who is expected to be in charge of the Russia desk at the National Security Council, for example argued in Policy Review in 2002: “The US must once again become a revisionist power … The ultimate purpose of American power is the creation of an international community of democratic states that encompasses every region of the planet.”

Although the idea of creating a League of Democracies as an alternative source of legitimacy to the UN became closely associated with John McCain’s Republican presidential campaign, it is also a notion with which some Obama advisers have played around. Ivo Daalder, who is likely to become US ambassador to Nato, has proposed the formation of a “Global Nato” – an idea that might raise a few eyebrows among fellow ambassadors in Brussels. Mr Daalder’s argument is that because the alliance now takes on global missions, most obviously in Afghanistan, it should “open its membership to any democratic state in the world that is willing and able to contribute to the fulfilment of Nato’s new responsibilities”.

Ivo Daalder

Expected to be the US ambassador to Nato; has proposed the formation of a ‘Global Nato’

Although Mr Obama opposed the Iraq war, members of his foreign policy team are not against the expansive use of American power. Samantha Power, who is expected to take a top position in the National Security Council, came to Mr Obama’s attention when he read her book, A Problem from Hell, which criticised American passivity in the face of genocide, from Cambodia to Rwanda. She is a firm believer in the use of US power to achieve humanitarian aims and stop future genocides.

A belief in liberal interventionism and the promotion of democracy is not at odds with the neo-conservative world view. Where the Obama camp often departs decisively from the Bush years is in the belief in the importance of the UN. Ms Power’s second book, Chasing the Flame, was an admiring biography of a UN official killed in a terrorist attack in Iraq. The book’s belief in the world body as a force for good is a departure from the hostility and scepticism of the Bush years.

Samantha Power

Author of A Problem from Hell, tipped for a top position at National Security Council

At the NSC, Ms Power is expected to be given a portfolio dealing with global governance. Her counterpart at the state department will probably be Carlos Pascual of the Brookings Institution, another firm supporter of the UN. He has argued for beefing up its peacekeeping capabilities.

Many of these arguments are in the realm of grand theory. But Mr Obama’s people have also written extensively about the knotty diplomatic problems that they are already confronting. Richard Holbrooke, who has been appointed special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, has made it clear that he favours a broad regional approach to the problem. In a recent article for Foreign Affairs, he argued that Afghanistan should be seen as part of an “arc of crisis” stretching from Turkey through Iraq, Iran and Pakistan.

Richard Holbrooke

Special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan; favours a broad regional approach

The Obama team’s preference for a regional approach may also be demonstrated in the Middle East, where the Israeli-Palestinian question is likely to be tackled as part of a package of linked problems including countries such as Syria, Lebanon and Iran.

The voluminous writings of team Obama give some indication of how the appointees will approach things. But there are also cultural nuances that are not captured in journal articles or conference speeches. While many of the Bush team hailed from the south and the Midwest, many Obama appointees have cultural ties to Europe.

Several – including Ms Rice and Mr McFaul – studied at Oxford as Rhodes scholars. Mr Daalder was born in the Netherlands and Ms Power in Ireland. Mr Gordon was the official translator of French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s biography; Ms Slaughter has a Belgian mother. The pièce de résistance: Gen Jones, the new national security adviser, speaks fluent French, having gone to high school in France. Old Europe is likely to receive a cordial welcome in Mr Obama’s Washington.

February 9, 2009
Russia rattles sabres in Obama’s direction

By Quentin Peel

Published: February 6 2009 17:20 | Last updated: February 6 2009 17:20

Russia may face a grim economic downturn but one would scarcely think so to judge by the sound of sabre-rattling emerging from the Kremlin. Unless, of course, it is intended as a domestic distraction from the gathering gloom.

The double-act of Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin has come up with a series of security initiatives that seem designed to provoke, or at least irritate, the new administration in Washington. Without even waiting to hear how President Barack Obama intends to conduct his relations with Moscow – something that Joe Biden, his vice-president, may well address on Saturday at the annual Munich Security Conference – the Russian leaders have thrown down the gauntlet.

First, they leaked details of naval and air bases to be established on the shores of the Black Sea in the breakaway Georgian province of Abkhazia, whose independence is recognised by Moscow alone. Then they signed an air defence treaty with the former Soviet republic of Belarus, apparently paving the way for an anti-missile defence system to counter one planned by the previous US administration across the border in Poland. Moscow appears to have persuaded the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan to oust the US from its air base at Manas, outside Bishkek, in exchange for $2bn (€1.6bn, £1.4bn) in loans, and $150m in financial aid.

Russia and the former Soviet republics of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – the so-called Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) – have agreed to form a “rapid reaction force” which is intended to be just as good as the equivalent force operated by the Nato alliance, according to President Medvedev.

Outside analysts are sceptical whether any of these moves amounts to a particularly effective military gesture but they are certainly intended to suggest that Russia is not rushing to embrace the new US administration.

The air defence deal with Belarus is on a par with Mr Medvedev’s announcement, on the day Mr Obama was elected, that Russian Iskander missiles would be sited in the Kaliningrad enclave to counter the US missile defence system. It appears to negate a subsequent conciliatory gesture from Moscow, saying those missiles would not be deployed if the US also held back.

As for the Abkhaz naval base, it may be intended as an insurance policy for the day when, or if, Russia is forced to vacate the existing base for its Black Sea fleet at Sevastopol in the Crimea, which is leased from Ukraine until 2017. Oksana Antonenko, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London, believes all the actions are part of a pattern, intended to provoke a US reaction, and give Russia more bargaining chips in negotiating a new relationship with Washington. “In Russia there has never been any euphoria about Obama as there has been in the rest of Europe,” she says. “Russia is still very mistrustful of the US, and Putin profoundly so.

“But there is an overwhelming view in Moscow now that the Americans are in decline and will be forced to negotiate with Russia from a position of weakness. They seem to expect all the concessions to come from Obama. It is very unrealistic.”

The response from Washington has been muted. Russia is simply not a high priority for the new president. Western analysts believe Russia’s production of Iskander missiles is not enough to base any significant numbers in Belarus as well as on its southern borders. As for the rapid reaction force, it is regarded with wry amusement in Brussels. None of Russia’s would-be allies wants to be used as a pawn in some muscle-flexing contest with Washington. Even Abkhazia is unhappy about becoming a vast military base for its neighbour.

So perhaps the entire operation is for domestic purposes. That way it might at least make sense.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

February 9, 2009