America in Transition

How do you lobby Washington when an international crisis occurs during the Democratic and Republican conventions?

Representatives of both Georgia — the country, not the American state — and the Russian Federation have traveled to Denver to press their points of view, as the NYT reports.
I was able to interview one of the Georgians, Chairman of Parliament David Barakidze, this morning by phone, just after Russian President Dimitry Medvedev officially recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states.

This unilateral action has been condemned by the United States, the United Kingdom and a host of other countries.

Barakidze believes that Moscow has followed armed conflict with economic war against Georgia and that, without the $1 billion in assistance that Joe Biden has called for, Georgia will lose foreign investment and risk becoming a “failed state” that Moscow can then manipulate.

Meanwhile, Cindy McCain is in Tbilisi and Dick Cheney is heading there.
American politicians and convention delegates, many of whom a month ago couldn’t find Georgia (the country) on a map, much less South Ossetia, are getting a briefing on the matter by David Barakidze. And the Russians, adopting the hardball lobbying techniques of Washington, are staging their own info blitz.

It will be hard for the two conventions to escape tales of the crisis in the Caucasus.
You can listen to the full audio of my interview with David Barakidze by going to http://public.me.com/dillenmark and downloading the mp3 file.

There were many reasons for Barack Obama’s choice of Joe Biden, including Biden’s experience, biography and personal qualities. NYT columnist David Brooks neatly detailed these positive attributes a day before Obama made his announcement. The greatest long-term impact, however, may be the Democratic ticket’s combined profile when it comes to foreign affairs.

Joe Biden has been on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for 35 years, and Committee Chairman since 2007. Obama arrived in Washington less than four years ago, and knows the world principally from his biographical experiences before being elected to the Senate; Biden knows the world from his experiences as a Senator specializing in foreign policy. Together they should complement and deepen each other’s understanding and focus attention on the interrelationship between foreign and domestic issues.

For the campaign, of course, Joe Biden’s other attributes may be more important: his Pennsylvania blue collar roots, his Roman Catholicism, his Irish-American political gifts. But it will be in foreign affairs, where he can neutralize McCain’s “experience” argument, and then, if elected, contribute real value and expertise, where the long-term impact will be seen.

Obama’s flagging poll numbers have the pundits searching for an easy explanation. Was McCain the beneficiary of voter concern over Russia’s aggressive moves in Georgia? Did McCain’s ardent appeal for new offshore drilling strike a chord with gas-dependent America ? Or do the polls simply reflect the fact that Obama was on vacation in Hawaii last week while the McCain campaign piled it on with a series of attack ads?

With national poll averages now giving Obama only a one-point lead over McCain, it is imperative that team Obama correctly analyze the reasons for its candidate’s sagging fortunes. In a few hours the polling setbacks will be overshadowed by their candidate’s text-message announcement of his choice of his running mate, which will then segue into the week-long Convention extravaganza in Denver. The pace of the campaign will only increase, and the way the Democratic Convention is perceived becomes critical. If Hillary, Bill and their supporters seem to upstage or undermine support for Obama and his running mate, the usual “bump” in polling numbers that follows a party convention may fail to materialize, which would lead to a crisis in the campaign just as McCain and the Republicans begin their own convention.

If there’s a foreign affairs dimension to Obama’s troubles, don’t look for consistent treatment of it in the media. CNN’s “Situation Room” yesterday drew the conclusion that McCain’s “strength” on the Georgia crisis was the reason for his gains in the polls, then proceeded to cast doubt on whether the U.S. — under any President — could take effective action to reverse Russia’s course.
As of this writing, Russia has again announced a withdrawal of its forces from Georgia proper, to take effect on Friday. But NPR’s reports this morning, among the first by Western correspondents who traveled to South Ossetia from Russia, make clear that Russia is digging in as an occupying force, welcomed by many, if not most, of the remaining Ossetian population. South Ossetia (and Abkhazia) will likely declare their independence, then formally ask to join the USSR — whoops, the Russian Federation.

The American public is as conflicted as are its media pundits. It would like to see quick military action conclusively defeat tyrants and terrorists but understands, at some level, that we’re in an age of partial, uncertain victories, achieved at great, long-term cost. The West will deal with Russia through diplomacy, which will “take a while,” in Condi Rice’s words yesterday. Petraeus leaves Baghdad calling the situation “fragile.” All along the perimeter of the Southwest Asia landmass, from Pakistan, Afghanistan to Iran, Iraq and the Caucasian borderlands, there are military challenges that resist military solutions. It’s only when the public forgets, and momentarily follows exhortations such as McCain’s “Today…we are all Georgians,” that we are beguiled into belief in the quick victory and the simple solution. Rhetoric yields temporary gains in popularity, which falls once the difficulty of long-term action is revealed.

See my post here at the Climate Change blog on two recent superb opinion pieces on the candidates and energy policy.

No rest for the U.S. Presidential candidates as the Caucasus erupts. As the Times reports, both McCain and Obama have been reacting to the evolving military conflict between Russia and tiny Georgia. The candidates’ responses highlight their different approaches to crisis management and U.S.-Russian relations. But other important contrasts abound: between incumbent President Bush and Prime Minister Putin, who left Bush in Beijing and rushed to manage the Russian attack from across the Georgian border. And, between Bush and Saakashvili, the Georgian President, who had counted on his relations with the U.S. to keep Russia at bay.

A few thoughts on the conflict itself, below:

The ethnic mixing bowl of the Caucasus and North Caucasus is the scene once again of Russian military intervention. When Putin came to power in Moscow eight years ago, it was with a promise to subdue Chechnya, which was then fighting to become independent from Russia.

Tens of thousands of civilian deaths later, Chechnya is subdued.

Now Putin, as Russian Prime Minister, has promised to subdue Georgia, a sovereign state that is trying to quell its own minorities bent on independence.

How is it that the rights Russia insists on in defending its own territory from insurrection are no longer valid when applied to Georgia?

Georgia did not have full control over South Ossetia prior to the start of hostilities on Friday. But it was part of an internationally recognized independent state of Georgia. While President Saakashvili may not have been wise in his handling of South Ossetia, he had a right to try to assert control over all of Georgian sovereign territory.

As Russian tanks stream into South Ossetia to join the Russian “peacekeepers” that have been there since 1992, one thing is clear: there will many more civilian deaths, just as there were in Chechnya. You can see the results of Russian bombings in today’s NYT.
And that, for those wishing to see one, is the comparison with Kosovo. Kosovo’s independence was recognized by the international community as the only way to protect a civilian population that had been attacked by Serbian military and forced to leave their country.

As Putin bombs military and civilian targets in Georgia, he not only causes suffering, but violates the rights he insisted on in Chechnya and misapplies the lesson of Kosovo – that only the international community may intervene and grant sovereignty to protect civilians from military attack.

Just three months to go until November 4th, but the American electorate, and its Presidential candidates, seem to be in a rut. The pollsters at Pew say the public is suffering “Obama fatigue,” whatever that means, yet McCain doesn’t exactly seem to be setting audiences on fire, either. Meanwhile, Congress recesses without passing energy legislation and McCain and Obama spar over offshore drilling and nuclear power. The electronic media — bowing to Paris Hilton’s PR machine — display once again their lack of judgment and recycle her faux campaign ad as though it were a serious political statement.

Maybe this is a sign that everyone needs to go on vacation, which is exactly what Obama plans to do next week. For once, the current President’s activities (in China) have more spectacle attached to them than do those of the candidates who would replace him.

Before casting our glance away from the current tedium, however, a few remarks may be in order. First, am I alone in finding the crop of putative Vice Presidential candidates, on both sides, less than awe-inspiring? Everyone, by now, accepts that Hillary Clinton is not in this number, which leaves the discussion on the Democratic side to Indiana’s Evan Bayh and Virginia’s Tim Kaine. (Why not New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, with foreign affairs and energy credentials, geographic balance — who withstood pressure from the Clintons to give Obama early support?) Similarly, McCain’s short list is said to focus on Mitt Romney and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, both safe but uninspiring choices.

For all the talk by Obama and McCain of changing or fixing Washington, the short lists of both candidates seem to focus on safe and steady options. If that bias is confirmed in the choices that Obama and McCain make, then it may just prove that the nostrums we have been fed by the attack ads — that Obama lacks “experience” and McCain flies off the handle — have gained enough credibility to determine who becomes the next Vice President.

If that thought is too disturbing, just forget about the race. We’ll always have Paris.