You Can't Outsource Diplomacy: Liveblogging the CPC Hearings on Pre-emption

cross-posted at Daily Kos and the Democracy Cell Project

Rep. Barbara Lee opens the session by reminding us that she proposed HRes 82, which disavows pre-emption as a foreign relations approach. She proposes that we are heading towards pre-emption with Iran. Iran is heading towards a quagmire and "This is not an administration that can be trusted".

She points out no oversight hearings have been held on pre-emption on Iran and ask "how can we force these to happen? We want the truth told, in keeping with our Constitutional responsibilities."

The goal for today: Prevent another misguided war and address pre-emption.

Members and speakers: Rep. Lynne Woolsey

Members who are here: Manuel Becerra, Jim McDermott, Chris Van Hollen, Rush Holt, Jan Schakowsky, Steve Rothman

First speaker:

Professor Samantha Power

Professor Power is Former Executive Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and author of the widely acclaimed, thought-provoking book entitled “A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide.” She will address: The Use of Force and Key Questions About the Bush Doctrine of Preemptive Warfare in the Post 9/11 World. Pulitzer for nonfiction, Books Critics Nonfiction and Council on Foreign Relations.

She is talking about pre-emption in the context of genocide. She wrote a book about the major responses of the US to genocide over the 20th century. The response has generally been one of apathy.

How many saw the NY Times cartoon showing a protest, with a two-sided sign; one side said "Get out of Iraq" and the other side said "Get Into Darfur"...Well, that's what we see over and over.

She makes four points:

1. On the non-use of force in service of our values: Lessons of 20th C. genocide: looking at it allows us to isolate how we act when "mere" values are at stake, and otherwise--the toolbox we have of diplomacy, denunciation, prosecution, coalitions, sanctions, etc stays shut. Exceptions occur when the nexus of international and domestic political costs (Darfur and Balkans are examples), but in any case the response is both spasmodic and reactive. Eventually, the hammer comes down. Also, historically there has been no domestic political price for early response. Weakness begets weakness politically.

2. American power: In the old days we measured power by stash; the GNP, military and economic power. The Republican party does not know that true power is measured in influence. Credibility counts as well. Power is measured by competence also--Katrina respnse affects the perception of the US' competence around the world. They also see we cannot finish what we set out to do. We need to recalibrate our and words/reframe.

3. It's not just us--that is, issues of competence and legitimacy--there's a void on the international stage right now--the welfare of humans need to be taken seriously. he Khaddafi article in New Yorker-Khadaffi's son was asked about what they would do without an army if Egypt attacks them" His response: "Why should Libya have an army; the US will defend us." Meanwhile, there are no takers for protection forces in Darfur.

4. There will be occasions when we need to take something out pre-emeptively, and also possibly need to bypass the Security Council, as we did wrongly in Iraq case--but with two 19th C. powers., two 20th C powers, and 1 21st C. power who not a friend to the US, this is a huge problem. Think about the day when we would need to bypass them.

Our legitimacy has been compromised--we are the boy who cried wolf. Can't do this a la carte. Build and rebuild.

Dr. Jessica Tuchman Matthews

Dr. Matthews is President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of “Power Shift”, which was chosen by the editors of Foreign Affairs Magazine as one of the most influential articles in that prestigious journals’s 75 years of publication. She will address: U.S. – Iran Relations: Would War with Iran Help or Hurt U.S. National Security.

She does not feel ambivalent about this topic. War with Iran would be folly. She puts the chances of an attack before the 2006 election between 1 in 3 and 1 in 2 and this administration will not come to Congress first. Therefore they must be stopped. Iran is not an imminent threat.

The threat we DO face: the Iranians here are the bad guys, but WE LOOK like the bad guys now. The reason: Russian and China fear that taking any action against the Iranian problem will be used by US to go after regime change.

The biggest mistake of the Clinton administration was to not to decide about Iraq and nonproliferation. Bush adminstration officials decided they had to make the decision. But the Iran issue has been frozen and split down the middle--the hang-toughers said the students were pro-American and they would take care of it--after last year, that position disappeared. We have now move from frozen non-policy to what looks like preparing for "failure of diplomacy". We went to the UN and they failed to act. So we have to act ourselves.

The reaction to an invasion will begin as a Shiite jihad. It will unite Sunnis and Shiia in an anti-western union. Oil prices WILL go up.

On Israel: She has seen and talked with senior Israeli officials and has seen a sea change in the last eight months. In the next year, absent some extraordinary info (and we know a lot more about Iran than we did about Iraq--IEA has been all over) Israel, privately, is very clear that this should be handled diplomatically. Iran is an existential threat but they are aware of the information she just laid out. (Jan Schakowsky and Steve Rthman just added that they were in a meeting yesterday with top Israelis and Bush, and while Bush is clear that we "fight evil", the Israelis were not anxious to go there.)

Israel knows the first retaliation will be against them.

Dr. Matthews reminded us that eight generals got whacked after criticizing Rumsfield. Their profession did this--speaking up politicizes the military in a dangerous way. So the bar is much higher than it would have been.

On the Indian nuclear deal: She does not feel so hopeless on this because we haven't TRIED to solve it yet. The use of miliary force vs economic sanctions--what about diplomacy? Why the Bush Adminsitration does not think of diplomatic solutions: "You can't outsource diplomacy"

We need to get engaged in diplomacy and take regime change off the table. There will need to be coercion and the costs have to be RAISED. When the balance between costs and benefits of challenging directions are weighed, countries often back off. Brazil and Argentina stopped their nuclear programs once they weighed these.

RECOMENDATION: START THE PUBLIC DISCUSSION IMMEDIATELY. THE AMERICAN PUBLIC DOES NOT WANT THIS.

Discussion is now occurring on how the progressives in Congress can lead and direct the preventive process. But it is clear that the people must demand diplomatic solutions from this administration.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus forum on Iran is now available online (1 hour, 39 minutes total run time). The video is available at this link:

http://www.politicstv.com/blog/?p=32