China tells Clinton to shut up

Seems like Hillary Clinton’s recent speech on internet freedom did not go over very well with everyone in China. According to Reuters:

A speech by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday showed a lack of respect for China, which cannot accept conditions on matters of “national security” or “social stability,” said Beijing Association of Online Media Chairman Min Dahong…

“How China’s Internet develops and how it is managed are Chinese people’s own affairs,” Min said in an interview with state-run Xinhuanet.com.

“On the Internet question, China doesn’t need any lessons from the United States on what to do or how,” he said…

“Hillary’s speech on January 21 insinuating that China lacks freedom of information and speech is in fact disrespectful and doesn’t stand up,” Min said.

Good for Secretary Clinton.

With friends like these…

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates did not receive a warm reception in Pakistan this week. Elisabeth Bumiller reports in the New York Times:

Pakistani journalists asked Mr. Gates if the United States had plans to take over Pakistan’s nuclear weapons (Mr. Gates said no) and whether the United States would expand the drone strikes farther south into Baluchistan, as is under discussion. Mr. Gates did not answer.

At the same time, the Pakistani Army’s chief spokesman told American reporters at the army headquarters in Rawalpindi on Thursday that the military had no immediate plans to launch an offensive against extremists in the tribal region of North Waziristan, as American officials have repeatedly urged.

And the spokesman, Maj. Gen Athar Abbas, rejected Mr. Gates’s assertion that Al Qaeda had links to militant groups on Pakistan’s border. Asked why the United States would have such a view, the spokesman, General Abbas, curtly replied, “Ask the United States.”

Well, I am no expert on Pakistan and I have no idea what links Al Qaeda has with “militant groups” along Pakistan’s border. All I know is what I read in the news. Here’s what Lehaz Ali reported in Agence France-Presse yesterday:

A suicide bomber killed at least four people including two children on Saturday while militants destroyed a NATO tanker in a region of Pakistan known for harbouring Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

OK, so Gates says there is a problem, the Pakistanis say there is not, and a few bombs just went off in the region where there may or may not be a problem, depending on who you ask. Seems like Pakistan and the US have some differences of opinion over this issue.

This may or may not be troubling for the US, depending on what sort of relationship it wants with Pakistan. Obama clarified this issue in his West Point speech:

…we are committed to a partnership with Pakistan that is built on a foundation of mutual interests, mutual respect and mutual trust. We will strengthen Pakistan’s capacity to target those groups that threaten our countries, and have made it clear that we cannot tolerate a safe haven for terrorists whose location is known, and whose intentions are clear.

That’s clear enough. It wants Pakistan as a partner. How’s that partnership working out? Seems to me we have a long way to go before we can tick off the checklist of “mutual interests, mutual respect and mutual trust.”

CFR chief urges regime change in Iran

In a bit of a shocker, Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), says the US should actively support regime change in Iran in Newsweek.

Haass starts the article by burnishing his credentials as a foreign policy realist who supports diplomatic engagement with Iran:

I am a card-carrying realist on the grounds that ousting regimes and replacing them with something better is easier said than done. I also believe that Washington, in most cases, doesn’t have the luxury of trying…

The incoming Obama administration…expressed a willingness to talk to Iran without preconditions…The other options – using military force against Iranian nuclear facilities or living with an Iranian nuclear bomb – were judged to be tremendously unattractive. And if diplomacy failed, Obama reasoned, it would be easier to build domestic and international support for more robust sanctions. At the time, I agreed with him.

He then explains why he has changed his mind:

The nuclear talks are going nowhere. The Iranians appear intent on developing the means to produce a nuclear weapon; there is no other explanation for the secret uranium-enrichment facility discovered near the holy city of Qum…

The authorities overreached in their blatant manipulation of last June’s presidential election, and then made matters worse by brutally repressing those who protested. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has lost much of his legitimacy, as has the “elected” president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The opposition Green Movement has grown larger and stronger than many predicted.

The United States, European governments, and others should shift their Iran policy toward increasing the prospects for political change.

Helpfully, Haass outlines what policies he would like to see the Obama administration enact:

…Iran’s Revolutionary Guards should be singled out for sanctions….

New funding for the project housed at Yale University that documents human-rights abuses in Iran is warranted…Such a registry might deter some members of the Guards or the million-strong Basij militia it controls from attacking or torturing members of the opposition. And even if not, the gesture will signal to Iranians that the world is taking note of their struggle.

It is essential to bolster what people in Iran know. Outsiders can help to provide access to the Internet…The opposition also needs financial support…

Just as important as what to do is what to avoid. Congressmen and senior administration figures should avoid meeting with the regime. Any and all help for Iran’s opposition should be nonviolent. Iran’s opposition should be supported by Western governments, not led. In this vein, outsiders should refrain from articulating specific political objectives other than support for democracy and an end to violence and unlawful detention. Sanctions on Iran’s gasoline imports and refining, currently being debated in Congress, should be pursued at the United Nations so international focus does not switch from the illegality of Iran’s behavior to the legality of unilateral American sanctions.

Haass ends by taking pre-emptive action against his likely critics:

Critics will say promoting regime change will encourage Iranian authorities to tar the opposition as pawns of the West. But the regime is already doing so.

Three points on the article. First, it is very well written. Second, the policies he recommends seem quite level-headed. Target the regime leaders for sanctions, support – but not lead – the opposition, and denounce the regime. Third, since Haass is the CFR’s president, this probably represents consensus (or near consensus) within the organization. I hope the Obama administration takes his suggestions seriously.

Solution in search of a problem

In a recent post, I wrote that I liked the policy idea in Secretary Clinton’s speech on internet freedom about using new technologies to hold governments more accountable. The more I talked about it with others, the more I felt like something was missing, not only in the idea, but in the speech more broadly. Evgeny Morzov at Foreign Policy made me realize what it was.

what’s the broader strategy here? I didn’t sense one…they are clinging to the old view “let’s make information available and see what happens,” which I think is a very passive (and often dangerous) way of going about it. I doubt they would be able to topple the Iranian regime with an iPhone app. Voice of America… already tried something similar. It seems like the State Department hopes to solve its political issues via economics: mobile phones will create universal prosperity and that will somehow guarantee democracy and human rights everywhere.  Maybe. Unless, of course, authoritarian governments develop even greater immunity to information, which will make the State Department’s job much harder.

More crudely, Clinton has a solution in search of a problem.

Internet Freedom

Secretary Clinton gave a speech today on internet freedom and announced a fascinating new policy for D&G technophiles:

…let’s say I want to create a mobile phone application that would allow people to rate government ministries on their responsiveness, efficiency, and level of corruption. The hardware required to make this idea work is already in the hands of billions of potential users. And the software involved would be relatively inexpensive to develop and deploy. If people took advantage of this tool, it would help us target foreign assistance spending, improve lives, and encourage foreign investment in countries with responsible governments – all good things. However, right now, mobile application developers have no financial incentive to pursue that project on their own and the State Department lacks a mechanism to make it happen. This initiative should help resolve that problem, and provide long-term dividends from modest investments in innovation. We’re going to work with experts to find the best structure for this venture, and we’ll need the talent and resources of technology companies and non-profit organizations in order to get the best results.

I agree, this would be very easy to design. I hope they follow through with this. Given how cheap and easy it would be to set up, even a small non-profit could afford to do it.

In the speech she also mentioned by name one of the delegates from the set of conferences we sponsored last fall in the Middle East who is visiting us this week:

…last Friday in Egypt, 30 bloggers and activists were detained. One member of this group, Bassem Samir – who is thankfully no longer in prison – is with us today.

Bassem and the other delegates met with Secretary Clinton for about 10 minutes yesterday. She invited Bassem on the spot. I guess you can say Clinton she is on my good side now.