Global Leadership Forum

Panel 6: The Global Economy

2008-05-02T13:51:02Z

By Michael Boyle

Moderated by Mr. Richard Lucas, a partner of Berwin, Leighton Paisner LLP, this session considered the changing dynamics of the global economy, particular in light of the turbulence recently seen in the global financial markets.

]]> Professor Willem Buiter of the European Institute of the London School of Economics and Political Science began the discussion by focusing on the changes wrought by the global financial crisis currently sweeping the world. He pointed out that there is a growing shift in financial and economic power from the North Atlantic region to the Middle and Far East. This re-alignment is serious and lasting and may be irreversible. He also linked the financial turmoil in the markets to the global food crisis. This is being driven, Professor Buiter pointed out, due by changes in global commodity process. And these changes – in the markets, food supplies and commodity prices – may be beyond the reach of governments. A solution can only be found after a rethinking of the problem on behalf of IMF and World Bank, particularly on the elimination of food subsidies; in the current climate, food subsidies, in particular, may have some benefits for particularly strapped government. Our contestation in the future, Professor Buiter suggested, will concern food, oil, water and energy. And in the future, there is a real risk of violent conflict emerging from this crisis, and in particular there is a risk of small, and nasty, brutal wars over water and energy.

Professor Daniel Drezner argues that we are currently facing an existential crisis in the global economy. There is a crisis in the financial markets, driven in part by a failure to properly assess the valuation of assets. In energy markets, there is the emergence of a kind of feedback loop concerning state control of energy resources; those states that exert the most control over their oil reserves tend also to then invest less in exploration and maintenance, leading to greater oil scarcity. Export barriers on food, and the failure to develop a functioning carbon market, are also serious problems for the global marketplace. Contrary to the claims of those who argue that the state is eroding in power, Drezner argued, there is actually a reassertion of the state control in the form of state-owned enterprises and soverign wealth funds. And it seems to be working: the ideas that countries like China are promoting with its strict regulation, of things like the financial markets and the internet, are having some measure of success. Similarly, elsewhere we are seeing states engage in incipient investor protection, and trade liberalization has stalled. The best case hope for the upcoming Doha round is that the negotiations are finished by this year; yet neither president is likely to ratify it, especially over the short term. Drezner pointed out that a number of different scenarios are possible: a return to the 1970s, with shifts in market power may also accompany shifts in political power. Bu the prediction of a return to the 1970s also need to be careful; many of those who predicted a permanent U.S. decline in the 1970s were wrong, as the U.S. experienced a thirty-year renaissance. And yet the worst case scenario is a return to the 1930s: a wholescale rejection of the open market, and an alarming and perhaps unsustainable mismatch between the power in the global financial institutions and the power in the actual market. Professor Drezner speculated that the return to financial situation of the 1970s is more likely.

Charles Dumas of Lombard Street Research pointed out that by early 2006 the U.S. had clearly gone beyond its debt capacity. The U.S. had become an export-lead, overheating economy, and it had as much debt as it can service. It is not an unsolvable problem, but for the next five years the U.S. will face high levels of government debt and problems in the equity markets. Its best solution for the U.S. would be a mix of devaluation of debt and deflation of the dollar. The Fed has essentially accepted the devaluation now. But by seeking an inflow of cash to offset deflation of the dollar, it has witnessed a serious drop in real income, which has affected American standard of living and made the prospect of recession worse. At the moment, the Chinese investment in U.S. debt is allowing the U.S. to buy back private debt and manage the market efficiently. But the Chinese are also seeing their trade balance shift back to normal, and their reserves are diminishing. This is good news: it means that the world economy is rebalancing. But it is not without its dangers; if the Chinese allows liberalization of capital so that Chinese investors can seek better rates of return elsewhere, it will increase the burden on the U.S. debt, increase inflation and interest rates and hurt the standard of living that Americans face.

Sudeep Singh of Caxton Europe Asset Management pointed out that the U.S. consumers are going through a classic developing country dilemma: spending too much on consumption and investing too little in their own economy. Investment in the housing markets has sustained excess U.S. consumption for a very long period of time. But now we are likely to see a drop in value of dollars and increase in inflation, but then an enforced end to spending for U.S. consumers. In truth, Singh argued, the U.S. had a negative savings rates because they were using houses as massive ATMs; this was obviously unsustainable. To get themselves out of this, the U.S. is going to have to accept a basic restraint: to save more than they spend. And there will have to be a basic adjustment, because Western banking systems are overly invested in the unstable U.S. housing market and the readjustments in that market will continue. There is a ray of hope: if the U.S. can stabilize its trade and financial relationship with China, and prevent further severe write-offs and devaluation, it may be able to muddle through this crisis. But it will take a very long time for U.S. consumers themselves to recover from this, and the Washington consensus – which was followed everywhere bur Washington – will be challenged. The best way to steer through this crisis is to have a strong economy, with a budget surplus, to insulate your country from the shocks.

All in all, a gloomy session. None of the panellists believe that the current global financial crisis is going to be short, or have modest effects. But there is no reason to despair, if the U.S. can work in partnership with China and other key players to ensure stability.

Panel 5: Iraq and The Broader Middle East

2008-05-02T12:43:55Z

By William W. Burke-White

This session raised the difficult questions surrounding the future of Iraq and, particularly, the role of the United States in Iraq after the 2008 elections. Panelists engaged on a number of issues, ranging from the internal developments within the Iraqi government to the political and military capability of the United States to remain in Iraq, and from the implications of the situation in Iraq for the Middle East to broader issues of global politics.

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While the panel did not offer any concrete solutions to the challenges in Iraq, a few key themes emerged. First, while some presidential candidates have called for a withdrawal from Iraq, such a full withdrawal could have significant and dangerous consequences. Rather, it is far more likely and appropriate that some minimal US presence will remain in Iraq for the foreseeable future. The real debate is about the size and shape of that presence. Second, relations with Iran will prove critical to the future of Iraq. Panelists thought carefully about the US-Iranian relationship, the shared interests of the two states in a stable Iraq, and the possible Iranian desires to build a client state relationship with Iraq. Finally, there was consensus that the situation in Iraq has far broader consequences for US global leadership and political developments as far away as south Asia.

Chris Dickey, the Middle East Bureau Chief for Newsweek, moderated the session.

Colin Kahl, Assistant Professor at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, began by reframing the US national interests in Iraq and suggesting that those interests are currently defined far too expansively and in a way that is largely Iraq-centric. He suggested an alternative framing of US national interest in Iraq that is, perhaps, more minimalist in nature and more focused on international terrorism, regional stability, and US global leadership. Preventing international terrorism requires ensuring that Iraq does not become a safe-haven for Al Qaeda, though Kahl sees that as highly unlikely. The regional stability imperative is to ensure that Iraq is not dominated by Iran, while recognizing that Iran will continue to have significant influence in Iraq. Third, Kahl observed that maintaining US global leadership might actually require a reduced US presence in Iraq, but a presence sufficient to ensure some stability and prevent genocidal levels of violence in Iraq. A longer term US presence in Iraq actually increases Iran’s influence by limiting US options in the region. Kahl also noted the military challenges facing the US in Iraq, particularly as a large-scale US presence for the long-term is unsustainable because the military is simply stretched too thin. Hence, Kahl argued that while the US has a vital national interest in avoiding a failed state in Iraq, the US must also downsize its military presence in the country.

Kahl observed some improvements in Iraq recently, suggesting four reasons for the positive developments: the increased US force presence there, the fact that tens of thousands of Sunni have switched sides, Muqtada al-Sadr’s ceasefire, and the separation of combatants into defensible enclaves. While the US has benefited from these developments, Kahl cautioned that the current situation was likely not sustainable over the longer term. Kahl suggested that we might have reached the minimum of violence that can be achieved without greater political accommodation within the Iraqi system itself. Hence, he suggested that the next steps involve a critical engagement with Iran on the common interest of avoiding a failed state in Iraq. Likewise, Kahl proposed that we think about the US withdrawal from Iraq as a negotiation with the Iraqi government, which would allow the US to bargain with Iraq on a number of issues.

Malcolm Chalmers, the Former Special Advisor to the Foreign Secretary at the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office and a Professorial Fellow at RUSI observed that policymakers like to portray foreign policy as something under their control, but that particularly in the Middle East over the next few years events outside the control of policymakers are likely to dictate the agenda. In Chalmer’s view, the test for the next American President will be how he or she responds to these unpredictable events we are likely to face. Chalmers then turned his attention to Afghanistan, largely from the British perspective, commenting that the UK-Afghanistan relationship is linked to a longer, deeper, more troubled history. Chalmers closed on a hopeful note, observing that in an ideal future, Iraq will provide a bridge between the Sunni and Shia worlds in the region.

Anatol Lieven, Professor at King’s College London, opened his comments, observing that the war in Iraq is very costly, particularly for Britain and the war has had consequences for both British and American power. Real power, in Lieven’s view, is relative power that can be aimed on a particular problem in a particular place. He noted that the Pashtun areas of Afghanistan are extremely recalcitrant to outside influence. Lieven then turned his attention to Russia and its role in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He suggested that Russia had interests that may well be opposed to those of the US in Britain in the region and could become problematic should the Russians seek to operational that influence. With respect to Iran, Lieven argued that Iran is not so much firmly backing the Taliban in Afghanistan, but rather has been creating lines of supply and communication that could be used to enlist the Taliban to attack US interests in Afghanistan should the US attack Iran. In order to address this growing Iranian influence in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US needs to establish a different relationship with Iran, particularly after the replacement of Ahmadinejad.

Andrew Shearer, Director of Studies of the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Australia, addressed the consequences of the situation in Iraq for US policy and influence in the Asia-Pacific. He suggested that there is no other part of the world where the credibility of US power and political will is more important than Asia. In Shearer’s view, Asia is still very much living in the era of geopolitics; the Cold War is not finished in Asia. He noted declining attitudes toward the US in Asia and, particularly, in Islamic South Asia. Yet, he also underscored the fact that the key Asian alliances are now stronger and more militarily capable than they have been. The US and Indonesia for example have restored their military relationship. Shearer observed that should the US withdraw fully and prematurely from Iraq, it would have highly destabilizing consequences for the Asia-Pacific region as well. In closing, Shearer commented that China’s energy use will double between 2000 and 2020 and that terrorism is still a very real threat in Asia. Therefore, in Shearer’s view, both China and Japan have significant interests in the Middle East and the success of US policy there.

Panel 4: Reinventing Multilateralism

2008-05-01T17:19:58Z

By Dan Drezner

The panel on multilateralism was split between those that focused on multilateral approaches to specific policy problems, and those that focused on the best way to leverage the multilateral system more generally. Let’s review!

]]> Rather than chat about his Concert of Democracies idea, Ivo Daalder decided to talk about multilateralism in the context of nuclear weapons. Americans haven’t debated the topic since end of the Cold War. This is going to change – a lot of policy heavyweights have brought up the issue, and the three remaining candidates have pledged to make this an issue.

Daalder thinks there needs to be a change. First, the U.S. doesn’t need nukes, given America’s overwhelming advantage in conventional forces. Second, terrorist networks badly want nuclear weapons, so the more tightly they are controlled the better. Third, the Non-Proliferation Treaty is cracking badly Iran and North Korea are treaty members, yet under the guise of the NPT treaty are pursuing their nuclear weapons programs. Finally, global warming issue will create new demand for nuclear plants, which means there needs to be a way to permit nuclear energy go forward while allaying proliferation concerns.

To restart the NPT, the nuclear states must jump-start the process, and the United States must jump-start cooperation among the five recognized nuclear powers. This means the U.S. should think about the purpose of nuclear weapons. According to Daalder, the primary function of nuclear weapons is to prevent the use of nukes by others. To deter, the U.S. only needs 1,000 nuclear weapons. The United States should therefore pledge to eliminate its surplus nukes by 2016. Then get other states on board. Start with Russia and move on from there.

Charles Grant can envision two possible futures for multilateralism. The first is the neoconservative’s dream: an Axis of Democracies and an Axis of Autocracies. The problem with this is that it cannot solve any of the pressing global public goods problems – global warming, non-proliferation, pandemics, etc. Also, it gives the Europeans the heebie-jeebies. The second possibility is a multilateral, multipolar world, in which everyone accepts the United Nations. Grant was unclear about whether ponies are free for everyone in this possible universe.

Europeans have multilateralism imprinted into their DNA, so Europe must take the lead in convincing everyone else to sign up.

China is the swing country that will determine which system is more likely to emerge. The Chinese are just as split on this issue as the Americans, and this plays out across a whole plethora of issues. Take global warming – if China does not sign onto reduction of CO2 emissions, Europe will impose tariffs on Chinese products. Within China, the key is whether officials in Beijing can convince the regions to comply with emission cuts. Africa and North Korea are areas where China is beginning to act in a more constructive manner. On global governance reform, China has mostly tried to look invisible. Their most notable accomplishment in this decade was blocking Japan from a permanent seat in the Security Council. With regard to the WTO and G-8, China has shied away from being a responsible stakeholder. So they will be the pivotal actor in the future.

According to Jaime Shea, NATO’s role in Afghanistan has been a mixed blessing. Sure, NATO can do the military thing, but it cannot do statebuilding on its own. NATO’s mantra now is a “comprehensive approach.” The alliance is having more success with multinational/plurilateral arrangements. In Afghanistan, for example, Australia and other countries are playing a role – and they are consulted in the planning process as well. NATO wants to keep this network together post-Afghanistan.

The real problem is getting traditional international organizations – the United Nations, the European Union, the IMF – to function in a world of complex, overlapping policy problems. It’s tough to get organizations to sign onto new, risky tasks. There are too many ad hoc arrangements on the ground.

There has been too much overweighting of military as opposed to civilian capabilities within international organizations. Shea advocates “synergizing” roles within organizations to avoid duplication and waste.

Kurt Campbell participated in a 18-month effort to get national security types and climate scientists to talk to each other. He came away from that convinced that global warming is now a national security issue. And it’s going to be extraordinarily painful, will require lots of leadership on this issue to bring populations along. The thing is, it’s tough for politicians to lobby for actions to prevent long-run catastrophes.

So, what are the essential components of moving forward on this? The United States is not a leader on this issue, so this is an opportunity for Europe to lead. It’s a problem that is too unwieldy to move forward at the U.N. level – too many actors to coordinate. And there will be no progress unless China, India are brought on board. China will join if they don’t think that they are alone. India is tougher – they want to be on the outside on this issue.

The biggest danger: that the American public switches from denial to despair without pausing at trying to solve the problem.

Having spent the academic year in Shanghai, Anne-Marie Slaughter has seen how the global supply chain works up close. She wants the multilateral system to operate more like this chain, in which a firm identifies the demand for a product, orchestrates which factories can do the job, and gets them to link together in a network. It’s how the EU gets things done – networks of national bureaucrats. That’s how NATO is working today – developing partners, channels of communication, etc.

The problems of the 21^st century require the creation of different clusters of countries to figure out a solution. Fundamentally, the United Nations should be reformed so it can be a network orchestrator, getting the right national government officials and regulators on the same page. Same with counterterrorism, anti-corruption, non-proliferation and other issues. This is the way the corporate sector works, the way global nonprofit sector works, and the way transnational criminal organization works – the multilateral system should work this way as well. Simply creating new agencies or new bureaucracies will worsen these problems, not solve them.

Professor Slaughter is the reason I’m attending this conference, so let me just say that her comments were absolutely brilliant and should be read by everyone, everywhere, for all eternity.

Panel 3: Reconfiguring the War on Terror

2008-05-01T16:25:00Z

By Michael Boyle

Moderated by Lyse Doucet of BBC World News, this panel considered how the war on terror could be reconfigured for the future. Sir David Omand started off the panel by pointing out that the present era was the first time that the threat cannot be named and that no agreement existed on the threat. That said, while the threat of terrorism is serious, it is perhaps not the biggest threat facing us; that may be global climate change, the global economy, and global governance challenges also await us.

]]> Although at a technical level cooperation between the U.S. and Europe has never been better, at the moment we are not on the same strategic page. The U.S. was attacked from without, but the UK was attacked from within. This is a significant difference, and the responses to these very different kinds of threats will also vary. Sir Omand also argued that the response to terrorism hinges on the level of analysis that you use to understand terrorism: that of the citizen, which worries about the consequences to them, irrespective of its origin; that of risk-management, which is about lowering the risks; this means a lot of things about lowering, but it also means the prospect of intervening early. The final way to think about the threat is to consider it in the context of the interconnectedness of nations, and think of finding ways to enhance international cooperation around the problem of terrorism.

Ms. Kori Schake of the State Department pointed out that many of the transatlantic differences between the U.S. and Europe stem from political culture. And she also acknowledged that much of the agenda of the war on terror is in doubt. Are we at war with terrorism, or with a specific terrorist group? How should this war on terror be conceptualized? The truth is, according to Ms. Schake, is that if it is a war then terrorism will involve more than law enforcement. In some cases, military affairs are necessary. We are most worried about ungoverned spaces, and for some threats emanating from them military force is an essential piece. In our eyes, then dealing with terrorism, is linked to state-building, local capacity, development and public affairs? But if the solution is, as we often here, is so obvious, why is the U.S. struggling to do it? Because the U.S. has a government which is designed to have division of powers, to prevent abuse and tyranny, which makes policy execution and interagency cooperation is difficult. This won’t change when the next president comes into office. European countries will also be asked to contribute more, including to Afghanistan, and they need to confront the fact that there is still a big constituency inside the United States that wonders if Europe is a winnable constituency for the United States.

Baronness Pauline Neville-Jones concurred with the previous speakers, and noted that it is still true that the machinery of government is not yet fully equipped to deal with the threat. But within our concept of national security, there is a growing convergence across Europe that we need to focus on internal or domestic threats of terrorism. Though the threat of terrorism is perhaps not the most serious global risk, it is the most urgent and the one most likely to bring a government down. In Britain, Neville-Jones pointed out that policymakers do not talk in the language of the war on terror any longer. However, they do take the view that jihadism, while it is incapable of being defeated, is at very least capable of being disrupted. Terrorism is a tactic and attempts to deal with it can be handled in a way which does not lend support to your ideological opponents. If you treat it as some kind of terrorist conspiracy, you are left with one choice: you can apply the law fairly and rigorously. Yet you begin to abridge rights like freedom of speech and assembly, you run the risk of giving away the laws that make you a democracy. On the issue of radicalization, however, Neville-Jones suggested that this is something that the U.S. with its tradition of integration and multiculturalism has a lot to teach Europe. The UK does not think enough about nation-building, and our policies have multiculturalism have perversely increased the tendency towards separation. So we have a great deal to do is in social welfare for our own alienated communities, which is a long range task involving many policy instruments and national will.

Ashton Carter pointed out that the next American president is going to find himself or herself with tough choices, particularly over the allocation of scarce resources. The U.S. national security budget will probably level off, and the supplemental funding for defence could also disappear. Our entitlements and health care costs are also rising, so in purely budgetary terms the U.S. is going to have to make hard choices. There are basically five strategic choices for U.S. defense, each of which has budgetary implications. First, we can concentrate on stability operations like what we saw in the Balkans and in Afghanistan. Second, we can concentrate on irregular war, such as Afghanistan and Iraq. Third, we can concentrate on counter-terrorism, which also has budgetary implications as well. This is deadly serious: with every passing year, the destructive power is falling into the hands of smaller and smaller groups of people, which in a world of interconnectedness is only more and more serious. Third, we can concentrate on China. No one knows how China will evolve, as this requires an estimate not of immediate Chinese ambitions but of the intentions of future Chinese leaders. But this requires investment in high-end military technology. Finally, we can concentrate on nuclear weapons, yet controlling proliferation also has its own budgetary implications. These are at least five vectors for our defense, and choices among them will determine whether we can maintain our pre-eminence.

All of the panellists agreed that the war on terror has reached a crucial turning point and that significant differences between the U.S. and Europe remain. Bridging these differences, and reconfiguring the war on terror to deal with a wider range of policy issues (including most especially Afghanistan, development, government and public diplomacy) is an essential first step for the next president.

Panel 2: The Future of the Transatlantic Relationship

2008-05-01T13:27:27Z

By William Burke-White

This second panel, chaired by Robin Oakley, The Chief European Correspondent for CNN International raised a number of key questions about the functional basis and future direction of the transatlantic relationship. The panel examined how the transatlantic relationship has operated over time, the functional issues around which such a relationship can be structured in the future, and the prospects for that relationship under Obama, Clinton, or McCain.

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Discussion during this second panel focused on perhaps three key points around which there was general consensus among the panelists. First, there are real prospects for change in and improvement of the transatlantic relationship after the US election. Second, the main purpose of the transatlantic relationship will no longer be in Europe, but rather in places such as Asia and the Middle East, where Europe and the United States will have to be united to achieve their policy objectives. Finally, just as the US election brings change on the US side of the relationship in terms of agenda setting and tone, the new US president will still have expectations of Europe in Afghanistan and elsewhere, that must not go unmet.

Robin Oakley opened the session by posing questions about how the US will view Europe after the November election and how the new US administration will respond to key European foreign policy challenges, such as the European-Russian relationship

Christopher Coker, the Chair of the Department of International Relations of the London School of Economics, suggested a need for a change in the terms of engagement in the transatlantic relationship. He noted that there were two particularly troubling moments in the transatlantic relationship in the past decades: first, the hubris of the American unipolar movement of the 1990s and second, the faulty European belief that the EU would lead to a kind of global democratic pluralism. Coker further noted that the revolution in military affairs meant that the United Sates could just “do Iraq” and so the US just did so, without realizing that its position of global dominance was being eroded. He observed that none of the US presidential candidates appear to have yet awoken to the fact that the world is very different than it was in 2000, for example they have not fully dealt with the rise of a newly assertive Russia or the growing power of China. He argued that the transatlantic alliance would have to come to grips with these new realities to be effective going forward. Coker closed, suggesting two specific paths forward. First, he argued that the US president must say to the American people that the United States is an “ordinary country” but that it can do extraordinary things. Second, Coker suggested that we need to bring NATO home to do real European security.

John Ikenberry, the Albert G Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School, asked if we are seeing an end to the West. He argued that the old transatlantic alliance is in crisis and needs to be reformed. Ikenberry went further however, suggesting the root of the crisis was not just the transatlantic relationship, but rather a broader crisis of liberal internationalism. The deeper nature of this crisis may in fact mean that the US and Europe have far more in common and need to set a broader agenda of cooperation in terms of reworking the fundamental bargains of the global system and brining new stakeholders into the system with the goal of preserving the architecture of the last sixty years. During that period, the US and Europe built a robust political order built on bargains around open markets, democratic solidarity, collective security, and US hegemonic leadership. Ikenberry asked why, given that this system has been the most successful in world history, it today finds itself in crisis. He answered his own question, suggesting that the problem is not simply George Bush.

Rather, he opined that the problems range from institutional weakness to new threats, from lack of leadership to sovereignty weakness. Ikenberry concluded, asking where, given this crisis, the US and Europe should go from here. His two-part response noted first the need new alliances with different and stronger purposes and, second, that the need to open Western institutions to Asia so as to lead to a universalization, rather than a decline, of the West.

The third speaker, Lord Powell of Bayswater, Chairman of the Atlantic Partnership, argued that the transatlantic relationship is most significant not for its impact in Europe or the US, but rather for its influence in Asia and the Middle East. This fact, in turn, gives the alliance ever greater relevance. Lord Powell cautioned the Europeans in the audience that, after the elections, they must not give the US grounds for overlooking Europe but instead must send a signal that Europe is serious both in terms if financing and putting boots on the ground. Lord Powell further observed that the transatlantic relationship will never be the same as it was in the past and that, while Europe remains America’s strategic base, there will still be significant constraints on the relationship, notably the lack of resources and political will. Europe will have to help find both. Finally, Lord Powell defended the current NATO action in Afghanistan, suggesting that it was headed in the right direction and that something reasonable can be achieved there.

Phillip Gordon, Senior Fellow for U.S. Policy at the Brookings Institution, made three points about the transatlantic relationship. First, he suggested that, when viewed from Washington, the transatlantic relationship is about issues that go far beyond Europe. The US will be thinking about how its key European partners can help us with the broad set of global challenges far beyond the borders of Europe. This was certainly the case when Prime Minister Brown came to Washington a week ago. Gordon noted that this broader role for the transatlantic alliance does not mean that Europe is no longer important, but that if might actually be indicative of a promotion of Europe’s position. Second, Gordon observed that the next US president will have an opportunity to move beyond the challenges of the last seven years and will be well positioned to address key issues such as Iraq and detainees. Third and finally, Gordon cautioned that the future of the relationship might not be easy. He warned that expectations might simply be too high and that there was not in fact a Golden Age of transatlantic relations to which a return would be possible. Likewise, Gordon cautioned that expectations of change may be too high in Europe, that the new US administration will still have to ask for European cooperation and, if that cooperation is not forthcoming on issues such as Afghanistan, the transatlantic relationship may not improve despite the change in leadership.

Finally, Karen Donfried, the Executive Vice President of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, noted that there is hope for a brighter future after the past seven years and most Europeans will breath a sigh of relief when Bush leaves office. However, Donfried noted that the strong anti-Bush sentiment is not a broader anti-Americanism. She argued that there is therefore meaningful opportunity for change in and improvement of the transatlantic relationship after the elections. Donfriend cited data from both the Pew and German Marhsall Fund global attitudes survey to support her claim that a change in government in the US could result in a significant improvement in the tenor of the transatlantic relationship. Donfirend also observed that the very process of the election in the US itself has improved the relationship by opening up discussion on key issues and showing the transparency of the US political system. She suggested that the common threat perception during the Cold War united the US and Europe far more than current threats do such that even if the personalities of the relationship change after Bush leaves the White House, the structure of the relationship may not. Finally, Donfried asked the Europeans in the room if they actually wanted to cooperate with the United States more deeply going forward, particularly given that issues such as Iraq will remain on the agenda, and noted that they should expect to be called on to cooperate on issues such as Afghanistan by a new US administration.

Panel 1: U.S. Foreign Policy and the 2008 Elections

2008-05-01T10:46:02Z

Posted by: Michael J. Boyle

Moderated by Mr. Stryker McGuire from Newsweek International, this panel examined the key positions of the 2008 U.S. presidential candidates on foreign policy. Ivo Daalder pointed out that the challenge for this upcoming election was about restoring trust in the United States, which has been lost due to circumstance and due to the foreign policy of the Bush Administration. In terms of forward strategy, a Democratic president will need to pay less attention to the war on terror, and focus more on global interconnectedness. That interconnectedness requires an engagement with the world and an understanding that, for the U.S. to be secure, others will have to be secure. The interconnectedness must now be the basis of U.S. strategy. Second, in terms of style, there will have to be multilateral engagement, within the context of institutions, for problem-solving on global challenges. This will involve a new and cooperative style of leadership. Finally, there will be a strategic reassessment: starting a process of removing troops from Iraq and downgrading Iraq as the centre of American foreign policy. Several new issues will get particular attention in the new administration, including climate change, Pakistan-Afghanistan, and nuclear weapons.

]]> Kurt Campbell noted that the elections have brought a lot of energy back to American politics, but it has also made all those associated with the campaigns exhausted and anxious. This is in part because Democrats have a wonderful tradition of pulling defeat from the jaws of victory. For the American people, this election is accountability moment: are you happy with what has transpired, in Iraq and elsewhere? And no matter who is elected, in the future, we have two options: trying to sustain America’s unipolarity, or to trying to manage the emergence of multipolarity. More immediately, we will see changes in style in America’s foreign policy, especially in terms of international law and treaties. The U.S. is also focused almost excessively on Iraq, and the rest of the world is going on without us. There are a whole host of issues not getting significant attention because of the effect of Iraq; in fact, the most scarce deficit in the U.S. government is attention to anything other than Iraq. But in reviewing these other issues the Democrats, if elected, are going to have to avoid succumbing to anything but Bush – continuing some of the good aspects of what Bush has done. And all will have to confront our real dilemma with Iraq: if we remain in Iraq, it will sap American power; but if we abruptly depart Iraq, it will undermine American credibility with powerful psychological consequences. The challenges facing the next president have never been greater than they are now.

Robert Kagan concurred that the U.S. needs to reach out and engage, not only just to listen to allies but also to be dissuaded by allies. We also need to get beyond the polarization and the demonization of the other side of the debate in Washington. Within the American foreign policy community, the gap between the two sides (Democrat and Republican) is not as wide as people imagined. We also cannot pretend that the U.S. and Europe will get along perfectly with a new president; historically, the relationship is always fraught. A lot of new issues – China, climate change, terrorism, and though Iraq cannot be the centre of U.S. foreign policy but we cannot imagine that the U.S. will rid itself of Iraq anytime soon. Iran is an issue because the problem is nearly insoluble; we are going to need to engage with negotiations with Iran, preferably sooner rather than later.

Peter Wehner made the case for the election of Senator John McCain. He pointed out that Senator McCain recognizes the threat of the global jihadist movement, which we saw on 9/11, is a fundamental philosophical and political challenge to the United States. Of paramount importance we must prevail in Iraq, which will go a long way towards shaping outcomes. Whether we like it or not, Iraq is the central front in the global war on terror in Senator McCain’s view; the Democrats believe that the war in Iraq is irredeemably lost, while Senator McCain believes that we can still produce victory in Iraq. Only Senator McCain also understands that we can only win in Afghanistan if we win in Iraq. If we lose the war in Iraq, it will have catastrophic consequences, possibly including genocide. America’s image in the world has suffered, certainly, but as president Senator McCain will pay a decent respect for the opinions of mankind and restore America’s image abroad.

Professor Michael Cox argued that there were two ways of America’s foreign policy in the world. There is this assumption that in the last eight years have been a deviant moment, and whatever happens in the upcoming election we will turn into something more normal. This is wrong; this is a new normal, with the changes brought in the international system being facts of life. There has been a loss of moral authority by the United States in the last few years. The legacy of Iraq has been poisonous and it is not going to be easy to erase. Is the U.S. now facing the end of its unipolar moment? Are we at a moment of decline? Can we ever find a moment where a great power accepted its decline gracefully? Are we entering a far more turbulent and difficult period than we ever have? This is systemic: it may not matter who is elected, because when you add up the global challenges from terrorism and climate change or Iran or China, and America’s declining ability to achieve these things on its own, you see that the U.S. and European Union must work together or find their collective problems will be insurmountable.

What this panel suggested was essentially a sea change in American foreign policy is taking place: a shift from a vigorous assertion of American power to a more, careful, nuanced engagement with the world. That said, there remains an active debate over whether American decline is inevitable and if the next president, whoever he or she is, is capable of changing the course of its trajectory.

The time to begin crafting a new transatlantic agenda is now

2008-04-28T16:23:00Z

By Anne-Marie Slaughter

The time to begin crafting a new transatlantic agenda is now, before the inevitable transition memos are drafted by both Republicans and Democrats in the fall to guide the new American president in 2009. It is time for Europeans and Americans from all political camps to come together and focus on what issues the U.S. and the EU can collaborate on in the wider world.

]]> When the EU and the US do align, their combined power represents 850 million people, GDP of over $ 30 trillion, the military power of NATO (excepting Canada), and significant minorities of peoples virtually unbeatable -- on trade, climate change, nuclear proliferation, counter-terrorism, poverty reduction, and developing regional institutions where they are badly needed, such as the Middle East. We should pick a couple of these issues that are most pressing and most amenable to getting something done and identify them as transatlantic priorities for the next American administration, the EU, and individual European countries in 2009.

Longer term, it would be useful to open a transatlantic dialogue about the possibility of creating a concert of democracies (COD). A respected friend and experienced politician recently wrote me:

While the ‘concert’ concept is advanced in the context of new administration initiatives and hence American politics, it implies the involvement of parties beyond America. To be meaningful and successful it must thus be attuned to the concerns of others. The world is cynical about another organization, especially one that seems designed to advance an American ideological agenda, but what it is crying out for is to be listened to and respected. It wants the U.S. to be less single-minded and more internationally democratic in thought.

With this thought in mind, a COD could be established to do three things: 1) provide a forum for concerting action among mature democracies; 2) strengthen weak democracies, and 3) engage non-democracies. In David Miliband’s recent speech on The Democratic Imperative, he referred to Paul Collier’s argument in The Bottom Billion that new and fragile governments should be given security guarantees conditional on their adherence to democratic conditions. A COD could figure out which of its members should offer security guarantees – or perhaps all – to which countries. A COD could also work to demonstrate the links between well-functioning democracy and economic growth; democracies have a stake in challenging authoritarian capitalist claims (See Mike McFaul and Kathryn Stoner-Weiss on Russia, The Myth of the Authoritarian Model.)

Finally, a principal function of a COD could be to conduct “democracy dialogues,” to engage countries around the world on how democracy should be defined and best achieved. As John Thornton’s recent FA article Long Time Coming makes clear, the Chinese are actively grappling with increased popular participation in government. They also argue raise the old Soviet argument that safeguarding economic and social rights is a critical part of what a democracy is supposed to do, but the Chinese have a far better track record of actually providing their citizens with a better economic and social life.

Yet another argument is that democracy means “being able to throw the bums out”; the Chinese and many other governments are not willing to go that far. Still, some of those governments seek to make their hiring and firing of public officials more responsive to public assessments of performance. Still others, like Robin Wright in a recent Washington Post piece, argue that democracy is “about differences, which are bound to explode once disparate sides of society are free to speak and make demands. Opening new space also does not guarantee who or what will fill it.” That view makes many governments genuinely afraid of moving toward democracy too far and too fast.

These ideas spring from the American experience with democracy; Europeans have many additional perspectives, as do democracies from the developing world. It is thus a very valuable transatlantic conversation to have. The common goals should be a COD that would serve together to strengthen democracy both within nations and among them -- not by drawing lines, but by crossing them.

Strategic Malaise

2008-04-28T16:21:00Z

By Michael Clarke (Director, RUSI)

The United States and Britain should not be so downhearted about the present strategic malaise in which they both now find themselves. True, it is mainly their own fault and it will be for future historians to allocate blame, or pity, as events in the Middle East, South Asia, or even within NATO, play themselves out. But strategic malaise is a normal condition for powers at the apex of a dominant civilisation; lesser powers and revisionist powers are the ones who have clear strategies.

]]> Dominant powers wear their strategies as if they were simply facts of international life. So it is with the United States, and even with twenty first century Britain. For the fact remains that Britain or the United States, either individually or together, have prevailed in every major – strategically important – conflict of the last three hundred years. Every single one. From the War of the League of Augsberg, the War of the Spanish Succession, the Seven Years War, the American War of Independence (where only one of them decisively won), the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars, the First World War, the Second World War, to the Cold War, one or both powers have prevailed. Their defeats have been in strategically unimportant conflicts. This has been both a symptom and a cause of the dominance of the ‘Anglo-sphere’ in modern international history, and though it may be a politically incorrect to talk about it these days, it nevertheless stands as a basic fact of modern history.

The converse, of course, is that the policy-makers in London and Washington have never really known what to do with these strategically significant military victories. But they must have been doing something right to have dominated so much of the modern history of the world, even without much strategic vision. These ideas are wonderfully expressed in the latest masterly work of Walter Russell Mead in his ‘God and Gold’ book – how Britain and America shaped the modern world. And the point of Russell Mead’s work is not lost on analysts of the current strategic malaise. If the dominant Anglo-sphere powers do not know quite how to interpret, let alone employ, their stunning victory in the Cold War, we should not be surprised. But equally, we must ask whether perhaps we have got ourselves, for the first time, into a strategically important conflict in the ‘war on terror’ that we might not win in a meaningful sense; and whether that 300 year old domination of the rules of international politics is coming to a natural end. Russell Mead would say not – or at least not necessarily, as long as we can be honest with ourselves and recognise our inherent strengths and weaknesses. But others would vociferously disagree. Even if the ‘Anglo-sphere’ ever really existed in this way, they argue, it is surely finished now in the face of complex globalisation. The rules of the game are everyone’s rules, the victories and defeats are everyone’s problem in an interdependent world.

It’s a tough circle to square. But lamenting the lack of ‘strategy’ in Washington or London – or for that matter in Berlin, Paris, Tokyo or Ottawa – is not really the point any more. The arguments about power, influence and ‘who makes the rules’ is much more about what sort of societies we are than about what sorts of strategy our leaders claim to be pursuing. And that’s the fundamental prize at stake in the war on – or is it just the problem of? – terror. We will win or lose that war according to who we are, much more than by what we do. Britain and the US have different circumstances to confront in their campaigns against terrorism. But the prize is the same for both: societies that are not frightened by terrorists, that prevail over terrorism without having to transform themselves into something they are naturally not, and which continue to represent a standard of freedom and liberality in a world where these attributes cannot simply be taken for granted.

A New Agenda for the War on Terror

2008-04-28T13:52:04Z

By Michael J. Boyle

One of the most daunting tasks awaiting the next president will be setting a new agenda for the war on terror. Seven years after the events of 9/11 – and after two wars and billions of dollars spent on improving homeland security - the war on terror is adrift. While al-Qaeda has been denied a sanctuary in Afghanistan, it is now multiplying as a kind of “franchise terrorism” across the globe. It has also found a significant base in Iraq and has made denying America a victory there the centrepiece of its strategy. Worse still, the Bush Administration’s handling of the war on terror has left serious doubts on both sides of the Atlantic about whether this war is intellectually or morally sustainable. In the eyes of many European observers, the war on terror has driven the U.S. and European Union further apart, rather than providing them with a common agenda for action.

]]> Much of the blame for this state of affairs lies with the Bush Administration. Rather than seizing upon the events of the September 11 to form a new global consensus over emergent security threats, the Bush Administration stubbornly refused to take seriously the concerns of key allies over issues like the treatment of detainees and the so-called “black sites” scattered across Europe. The Bush Administration also missed an opportunity for global institution-building in the war on terror. Its instinct was to preserve American freedom of action, but perversely it found it could only preserve this freedom of action at the cost of its political relationships with key European partners. After Guantanomo Bay, the invasion of Iraq, and Abu Ghraib, many Europeans are now asking themselves whether they want to play any role at all in America’s “war on terror.”

One of the jobs of the next president is to convince them that the war on terror is unfortunate but necessary, and that the bilateral and multilateral cooperation – with Europe in a key role – is essential to its success. In part, this can be done only by rethinking what it means to “win” the war on terror. For much of its term in office, the Bush Administration has drawn parallels between the war on terror and the twentieth century battles against communism and fascism, implying that the war on terror was principally an ideological struggle in which the U.S. would eventually be successful. But the reality is much more complex: terrorism is a tactic, not an ideology, and it is used by a range of state and non-state actors in the service of discrete political goals. If “terrorism” is not an ideology which can be defeated as communism once was, then the entire concept of victory implicit in the Bush Administration’s strategy is misplaced. If it is a tactic, it can at best be de-legitimized as forms of outlawed social behaviour, much such as slavery and piracy once were. But history shows that de-legitimation of outlawed social and political practices can only be accomplished in concert with other states, and through political rather than military means.

Working cooperatively with other like-minded states is the best way to de-legitimize the tactic of terrorism and to generate compliance with this emerging global norm. Seen in this light, the war on terrorism becomes less a war of ideas than a collective action problem. This is why the U.S. needs to engage seriously with European partners. On the most basic level, they are essential for generating a normative prohibition against terrorism and for constructing international order which is hostile to the indiscriminate killing of non-combatants. Moreover, European cooperation is necessary to create and sustain the kind of functional global institutions which reinforce that order and ultimately lower the long-term costs of counter-terror cooperation for the United States.

Resetting the agenda for the war on terror to reflect its normative purpose and its multilateral character is not going to be an easy task. But the facts are clear: the U.S. has spent much of the last seven years trying to manage this threat on its own through the exercise of brute power and coercion. After seven years, it finds itself exhausted by the struggle and alienated from its friends and allies. Only by admitting the limits of its own power, and engaging seriously with European partners in a transatlantic dialogue about a new agenda for the war on terror, can the next American president point a way forward from our current strategic impasse.

The Candidates

2008-04-27T23:23:05Z

By Daniel W. Drezner

Back in the days of the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary, there were a flurry of news stories and columns -- including one by me for Newsweek International -- about how the 2008 presidential campaign was improving America's image abroad. The competitiveness of the race, the diversity of the candidates, and the fact that none of these people were named George W. Bush triggered an unprecedented degree of interest abroad. As I wrote in January: "From an international perspective, the cream is rising to the top. The three candidates who would generate the most excitement outside the United States are Clinton, Obama, and McCain. The probability of two of them securing their parties' nominations is relatively high right now." A few months later, the cream is starting to curdle. The pressures of the campaign trail appear to be triggering statements that will erode America's soft power.

]]> Indeed, some of the campaigns have been kinder to America's adversaries than its allies. Senator Barack Obama has stressed that his administration would be willing to talk to Iran to resolve the issues surrounding that country's nuclear program. However, Senator Obama has been less charitable towards the United States' hemispheric allies. During the campaign, Obama has blasted NAFTA and the proposed free trade ageement with Colombia. He has also blamed economic globalization for America's racial divide.

Senator Hillary Clinton has been somewhat more consistent. She has bashed trade agreements with an even greater fervor than Senator Obama. She has also talked tough (some would say way too tough) on Iran, threatening to "toally obliterate" that country with nuclear weapons if that country should strike Israel. She has also called for a boycott of the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics -- a call that was echioed by Barack Obama and John McCain. Perhaps her memories of her now-infamous visit to Tuzla have colored her thinking about world politics more generally.

Senator John McCain has wrapped up his party's nomination, but that has not prevented him from making the occasional odd statement with regard to international relations. In a foreign policy speech, he proposed a League of Democracies as a backstop to the United Nations, but in response to reporters' questions he was unable to provide any specifics to his proposal. On a trip to Iraq, he got confused about the relationship between Iran and Al Qaeda. More recently, he attacked Obama by implying that he would receive the endorsement of America's enemies, such as Hamas and Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega. He pledged, "I will be Hamas' worst nightmare."

As the presidential campaign has worn on, each candidate has managed to annoy, alienate, or anger other parts of the globe. Part of this is due to the odd dynamics of this particular campaign. Between the Democrats, Obama and Clinton need to highlight their differences even though they agree on 95% of their domestic platforms. This leaves foreign policy as the obvious battleground. Meanwhile, Senator McCain's perceived comparative advantage is his foreign policy resume -- although his grasp of foreign policy details is not as sharp as it should be. This combination guarantees future quote-worthy material.

A lot of these contretemps will subside once the Democrat's nominee is determined. Some of them will persist, however. The rising tide of protectionist sentiment will likely lead the Democrat to continue to bash trade deals. McCain's need to secure the GOP base will give him cause to talk tough on the Middle East. Neither gambit will play well abroad.

America's Grand Strategy after Bush

2008-04-25T04:20:00Z

By G. John Ikenberry

The great challenge for the next American president will be to rebuild global institutions – the United Nations, security alliances, and multilateral mechanisms reorganized to tackle 21 st century problems. In this great endeavor, the United States has at least one indispensable partner, and that is Europe. The time is now to begin planning the agenda together.

]]> Indeed, the most serious threat to American national security today is not a specific enemy but the erosion of the institutional foundations of the global order that the United States has commanded for half a century and through which it has pursued its interests and national security. America’s leadership position and authority within the global system is in serious crisis – and this puts American national security at risk. The grand strategy America needs to pursue in the years ahead is not one aimed at a particular threat but rather at restoring its role as the recognized and legitimate leader of the system – and rebuilding the institutions and partnerships upon which this leadership position is based. America’s global position is in crisis, but it is a crisis that is largely of its own making, and it is a crisis that can be overcome in a way that leaves the United States in a stronger position to meet the diffuse, shifting, and uncertain threats of the 21 st century.

If I were to pick three global institutional challenges, they would probably be alliances, climate change/low-carbon energy, and non-proliferation.

So first, the United States should recommit to and rebuild its security alliances. The idea is to update the old bargains that lie behind these security pacts. In NATO – but also in the East Asia bilateral partnerships – the United States has historically agreed to provide security protection to the other states and bring its partners into the process of decision making over the use of force. In return, these partners have agreed to work with the United States – providing manpower, logistics and other types of support – in wider theaters of action. The United States gives up some autonomy in strategic decision making – although it is a more informal than legal-binding restraint – and in exchange it gets cooperation and political support. These bargains should be modernized and expanded -- and American-led security cooperation should be reaffirmed.

These alliances are more than security pacts; they are political architecture that facilitates consultation and cooperation across security, economic, and political realms. The old bargains that existing in past decades need to be updated for the new global and regional security environments. The first step is for the United States to signal its embrace of the “deep logic” of security cooperation.

Second, the United States should work with Europe to develop a comprehensive strategy to cope with global warming – emphasizing movement toward low-carbon energy and technology sharing with the developing world.

Finally, the United States should use the first year of the new administration to rebuild the NPT. Europeans realize that the NPT is in crisis, but Americans typically do not. The NPT is too valuable a tool for security to let its norms, agreements, and administrative capacities erode. The NPT is a near-universal organization that can be reintroduced to the world as an organizing mechanism to deal with 21 st century nuclear proliferation challenges. Renewal of the NPT must include American and European leadership in charting a path toward reduction of nuclear weapons and safeguarding of nuclear materials. Article IV of the treaty will need to be modified to allow the establishment of a credible international fuel cycle regime. Non-nuclear states must have access to civilian nuclear technology while the international community safeguards the enrichment and reprocessing of nuclear fuel.

There is much more that needs to be on the transatlantic agenda – including United Nations reform and the development of new mechanisms for security cooperation in East Asia. New countries are rising up and seeking a voice in the international system. The renewal and rebuilding of global institutions must be a collective effort that is undertaken with the help of this growing array of stakeholders and with an eye on the diffuse and shifting security challenges of the 21 st century.

The Middle East Today

2008-04-24T11:33:40Z

By Malcolm Chalmers

There is no single narrative that can encapsulate the complexity of the Middle East today. Nor is there some magic key which will unlock a comprehensive solution.

In the aftermath of 9/11, policy-makers, on both sides of the Atlantic, have been far too ready to buy into the narrative of an overarching ideological struggle between Western values and Islamism, and between modernity and obscurantism, as if all the conflicts of the region can be reduced to a single dimension. Alternatively, or even in parallel, many have been to ready to pin all the blame for the region’s ills on a single ‘rogue state’, a role now being filled by Iran.

]]> Yet American and European policymakers will only make headway in recovering the ground they have lost in the region since 2001 if they are willing to recognise the fluid, indeed often counter-intuitive, nature of what constitutes friends and enemies in the wider Middle East.

Nowhere is this truer than in relation to Iraq.

On the one side, remarkably, Saudi Arabia and other longstanding Arab allies of the US have still not established embassies in Baghdad, five years after the overthrow of Saddam. Despite unprecedented prosperity as a result of recent oil price rises, they have refused to forgive either the debts incurred by Saddam Hussein in fighting Iran in the 1980's, or the reparations imposed on his regime for the damage done to Kuwait in 1990. Despite the US’s best diplomatic efforts, they have still not come to terms with the existence of a Shi’a majority, and relatively pluralist, Iraqi state.

By contrast, relations between Iraq and Iran are flourishing. President Ahmadinejad’s visit to Baghdad in March led to major new economic agreements between the two countries, building on the burgeoning traffic in people and goods that has developed since 2003.

The complexity of the Iran/Iraq/US triangle is further illustrated by the recent statement of Iranian ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazemi Qumi, who welcomed the Iraqi Army’s clampdown on rogue Mahdi Army militia in Basra, even as he condemned US incursions into Sadr City in Baghdad.

What explains this apparent contradiction? On the one hand, Iran shares American and British interests in stabilising Iraq, since it now has a more sympathetic government in Baghdad than it has ever had before. On the other, it does not want the US to consolidate its military presence in Iraq, which could be used to threaten its own freedom of manoeuvre in future. For its part, the US shares Iran’s interest in a strong Iraqi government, not least so that it can withdraw most of its forces without another Vietnam-style humiliation.

The next years will not be comfortable ones. Yet it would be wrong to assume that chaos will inevitably follow a rapid withdrawal of US combat forces (say over the two years from early 2009). Violent political conflicts are likely for years to come. Providing the unity of the Iraqi armed forces can be maintained, however, there is a real prospect that, over time, Iraq may be able to attain levels of security comparable to those of Lebanon today.

Political violence, even the risk of civil war, will likely remain a continuing fact of life, even if well-developed power-sharing and revenue-sharing systems help contain these risks. But dire predictions of the inevitable breakup of Iraq are therefore overblown. Iraqi nationalism remains an important force for stability. Even in the Kurdish north, leaders recognise that autonomy within the Iraqi state provides vital protection against powerful neighbours Turkey and Iran.

Transition to a modicum of stability in Iraq will depend crucially on the support of both the US and Iran. One scenario might be where Iran accepts that it is in its interests to ensure strengthened constitutional government in Iraq, provided that this is accompanied by a rapid rundown of the US troop presence on its borders. But it would be prepared to accept continuing close relationships between Iraq and the West, and would not seek to press the former into a Syria-style dependent alliance.

Such an arrangement would, most of all, be optimal for Iraqi leaders, seeking to develop their national independence. But, for different reasons, both Iran and the US could perhaps live with it.

Perhaps the biggest joker in the pack remains the possibility of a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, by Israel or by the US. It is not clear what the ‘red line’ is that could trigger such a strike, though it could be Iranian withdrawal from the NPT or clear evidence of weapons-grade enrichment. Nor is it clear how Iran would react to such strikes.

Certainly, another round of substantial US/Israeli-inflicted civilian casualties would play very badly across the Arab world, in Europe and with public opinion across the world. But perhaps the most consequential damage to the US could be in its relations with the government of Iraq, which has continued to emphasise its reluctance to take sides in the conflict between its two most important partners. A strike on Iran, approved by the US, would make it very difficult for the Iraqi Government to sit on the fence. It might not be able to survive were it to side with Washington. One of the casualties of US support for strikes on Iran, therefore, could be the chances of a relatively smooth withdrawal from Iraq.