The 21st Century China Syndrome

Prior to 9/11 China was high on the Bush Administration’s priorities, but Iraq has pretty much consumed the Bush presidency since then. Here’s what BBC News reported on the eve of Secretary Powell’s first visit to Beijing in July 2001:

Almost immediately he arrived in the White House President Bush began talking tough on China. President Clinton liked to refer to China as a strategic ‘partner’. President Bush changed that to strategic ‘competitor’.

In the six years of the Bush presidency, the U.S. trade deficit with China has ballooned 180% from $83 billion in 2001 to $233 billion in 2006 per the Foreign Trade Statistics of the U.S. Census Bureau.

In January 2007, the Associated Press reported that

“China's foreign exchange reserves, already the world's largest, have passed US$1 trillion,”

and

“economists believe about 70 percent is in U.S. Treasuries.”

Given these statistics it would seem on the surface that the Bush Administration has only managed to further solidify China’s role as a “strategic partner” to the United States. In fact, with the U.S. economy now so heavily dependent on China, President Bush – in the little time that he has left in his term – and future U.S. presidents are going to find it increasingly difficult to change the status quo with China without a paradigm shift in our China policy.

So I was not at all surprised when George Will expressed his very own skepticism in a recent column, “Real Change In China?” using James Mann’s book, “The China Fantasy: How Our Leaders Explain Away Chinese Repression,” as a reference. However, it is important for Americans to realize that Mr. Will's “regime change” sought by President Nixon’s policy of engagement with China has still to bear fruit after 35 years. By comparison our policy of containment of the Soviet Union and communism, initiated by President Truman after World War II, achieved its objective in 45 years.

Coincidentally, containment was also beginning to languish as an ineffective doctrine around its 35th anniversary until President Reagan took office in 1981. He then jump-started it with his “evil empire” offensive and the Soviet Union collapsed barely a decade later.

As mentioned earlier, President Bush has been overwhelmed by the “global war on terror” that he initiated under the auspices of his very own “Bush Doctrine.” Unfortunately, the magnitude and complexity of conducting this preemption policy has rendered him incapable of seriously revisiting our China engagement policy – which happens to be languishing, like its Soviet containment cousin did, in its 35th anniversary.

Meanwhile, as the U.S. economy continues to get more and more interminably entwined and dependent on China, cold turkey disengagement is hardly a viable option and “real change in China” slips further into oblivion. No matter how China performs in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, it long ago won the gold medal for international statecraft.

Alas, we have already begun to witness the 21st century China Syndrome – in which China has already demonstrated its ability to launch a missile and destroy an orbiting satellite, to make and launch a satellite for Nigeria, and has also publicly announced its intention to land on the moon by 2010.

Thus, the strategic imperative for the United States is no longer in doubt – China has already morphed into a “worrisome competitor” – we must therefore redefine and pursue a more holistic relationship with this budding superpower, one that encompasses economic, foreign, and trade policies that are not only in sync with our core values, but also more cognizant of the 21st century China Syndrome.

The Political Pendulum: Swinging to Liberalism

There appears to be a karmic cycle in U.S. political ideology based on the political history of what is known as the "American century." A cursory analysis shows that U.S. political philosophy has followed a simple undulating pattern since the early 20th century.

The 1930s were a transitional decade from the roaring twenties – with the laissez-faire business policies pursued by Republican presidents, Harding and Coolidge – to the New Deal programs that were ushered in by Democratic president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), during the Great Depression.

The 1940s through 1960s defined the Liberal Era, which commenced under FDR – who went on to become the "demigod" of the Democratic Party. This progressive age witnessed unprecedented domestic reforms beginning with the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education outlawing segregation in public education, to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This golden age of liberalism also saw U.S. foreign policy in ascendant starting with the victory of our greatest generation in World War II, to the containment of communism during a prolonged Cold War, and culminating with a triumph in space over the Soviet Union by that visionary "leap for mankind" pre-ordained in the days of Camelot by President John F. Kennedy. Nonetheless, this exigent age also included an "Ozzie and Harriet" decade in the 1950s under the era's only Republican Administration led by President Eisenhower.

The 1970s became the next transitional decade from the swinging sixties – with the Great Society programs pursued by Democratic president, Lyndon Baines Johnson – to the initial chaos of Watergate and Vietnam under Republican presidents, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford; and to the latter turmoil of stagflation and the Iranian hostage crisis under Democratic president, Jimmy Carter.

The 1980s through 2000s define the Conservative Era, which began under President Reagan – who is now revered as the "icon" of the Republican Party. This restoration age gave birth to supply-side economics, has produced over 45 million jobs to-date while simultaneously taming inflation, and has seen a critical tilt in the U.S. Supreme Court toward starboard. This heyday of conservatism has also seen U.S. foreign policy reach an early crescendo with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of the "evil empire" to end the Cold War. However, following the attacks of 9/11, we have seen the advent of the Bush Doctrine and a new long "war on terror." Nonetheless, this challenging age also had an intervening decade of "peace and prosperity" in the 1990s under the era's only Democratic Administration led by President Clinton.

Based on this karmic cycle, one can expect to live through another transitional decade in the 2010s as the U.S. adjusts to the dawn of a new liberal era. However, as President Nixon did in 1969 with an unpopular war in Vietnam, the new president in 2009 will face a similar testing time trying to end America's involvement in another unpopular war in Iraq.

One can only hope that U.S. political history will be as instructive to the new president in 2009 as U.S. political karma should be to all of us? For the great American philosopher, George Santayana, had wisely intoned at the start of the great American century,

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Saving President Bush

While answering a question relating to the “war on terror” in August 2004, President Bush told Matt Lauer on NBC’s “Today” show,

“I don’t think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world — let's put it that way.”

With his then reelection a little over two months away, the President soon backtracked on the “cannot win it” part.

In September 2006 the New York Times published part of a leaked National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report, which suggested that the war in Iraq had only made the terrorism problem worse? Shortly after 9/11 and prior to the start of the Iraq war, the Bush Administration’s rhetoric was nowhere as critical of and as closely tied to the religious aspects of the “war on terror”. It is apparent that the Administration’s increasingly pointed linkage of Islam to terror has been directly proportional to the deteriorating situation in Iraq. In the lead up to the 2006 elections, we heard new phrases such as “Islamo-fascist”, “Islamic Caliphate”, “Islamic Totalitarianism”, “Islamism” enter the public consciousness. Such linkages inflamed not only the faithful but also the long dormant – as has been evidenced by the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

President Bush must surely know that there are over one billion Muslims in the world, totaling nearly one-sixth of humanity. He cannot continue to associate their religion with historically unpopular political dogma such as fascism, totalitarianism, caliphates, etc. and still expect to “create conditions” that come even remotely close to winning a “war on terror”. By conflating religion with politics, President Bush is making his own gut pronouncement to Matt Lauer come true – effectively putting victory, in what he has called the “defining struggle of the 21st century”, out of the western world’s reach.

With a Democratic Congress now ready to take over, we can finally expect some meaningful oversight of the President’s foreign policy. Unfortunately, trying to hold the President accountable for bad policy does not necessarily help make that policy better. One can only hope that the Iraq Study Group’s forthcoming recommendations make some progress in this regard. Nevertheless, I too would like to propose a new strategic direction for the larger foreign policy of the United States – one that I believe will help in saving President Bush. It may not guarantee him an enduring legacy, but I believe my five-point plan will help restore our country’s respect and leadership in the world.

1. Declare an end to the amorphous “global war on terror”.

The “war on terror” has been irrevocably lost, since it has become so clearly demarcated along religious lines both within and outside of Iraq. This is a war that should have never been explicitly declared, much less overtly fought. Following the attacks of 9/11, we knew exactly who its perpetrator (Osama Bin Laden) was and in which country he was based (Afghanistan). It was a no-brainer to declare war on Afghanistan, topple its government (the Taliban), and try to bring this perpetrator to justice.

We also knew that the perpetrator’s organization, Al Qaeda, had a network of terror cells around the world. We even surmised that many of these cells were organized as sleeper cells in various nations that were both friendly and unfriendly to the United States. Thus it should have been obvious that the disparate structure of this terror network would make an overt “war on terror” very difficult to successfully execute on a sustained basis. Following our overt military action in Afghanistan, we should have engaged the remainder of this terror network in a long “silent war” with the help of key western allies. The objective of this silent war would be to root out these terror cells around the world via covert action using “Special Ops” forces as and when required. In fact, I had recommended this “Silent War Doctrine” as a counter to the Bush Doctrine back in December 2001.

The Bush Administration’s conduct of the Iraq war, as a continuation of the global war on terror, has been an unmitigated disaster. Even if this had not been the original intent, it has become apparent that the Iraq war is causing the global war on terror to degenerate into a religious divide between the Judeo-Christian and Muslim worlds. There cannot conceivably be a healthy conclusion to a modern day crusade of this kind – as a result, we need to bring about a quick end to our occupation of Iraq. More importantly, we must find and kill Osama Bin Laden – even if this means reinforcing American troop strength in Afghanistan and engaging the Taliban inside Pakistan. After Osama Bin Laden has been taken “dead or alive”, we should declare an end to the overt global war on terror and let a covert silent war take its place to fulfill our ongoing post-9/11 objectives.

2. Dissolve the “axis of evil” and engage its two recalcitrant members in direct talks.

The reference to “axis of evil” was an unwise piece of rhetoric that should have never seen light of day and I indicated as much in an article that I wrote shortly after President Bush’s 2002 state of the union address, which gave birth to this monstrosity. Bush might have intended to emulate Reagan’s evil empire comparison – but Reagan took on an actual empire, with which there were no religious or theological affiliations to consider. Ironically, the application of the so-called Bush Doctrine to the first member of the axis of evil (Iraq) has resulted in the other two charter members of the axis of evil (Iran & North Korea) actually hastening their respective programs to acquire weapons of mass destruction. With preemptive action against these two nations no longer a viable option, diplomacy can make progress only if these nations are no longer vilified. In the long run, we stand to lose more by not talking directly with Iran and North Korea. If engaging these nations in direct talks requires that we “change our attitude”, we should do so – because it’s time that the Bush Administration realized that substance (producing meaningful outcomes) will eventually trump style (demanding or expecting certain types of behavior from lesser nations). As an indicator of our change in attitude towards Iran, President Bush must offer to re-establish diplomatic relations with Tehran.

3. Initiate “six-party talks” on a divided Iraq.

Shortly after the Biden-Gelb plan on Iraq appeared in the New York Times on May 1st, I endorsed it with the following qualifications in my blog dated May 6th:

“Most of the Biden-Gelb plan for “Unity Through Autonomy in Iraq” makes a lot of sense. However, it did not take into consideration one very important geo-political consideration that is critical to the plan’s success – Iraq’s neighbors. When Saddam was in power he was a constant threat to his neighbors. Once the United States withdraws and with no unifying authoritarian figure in control of Iraq, its neighbors will become a threat to its unity. We cannot forget that Iraq was a country created by the British from disparate nomadic regions. The Turks have had historical issues with the Kurds and Iran will continue to become increasingly influential and meddlesome with the autonomous Shia portion of Iraq. So we need to involve all of Iraq’s neighbors ¬– Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey – upfront in a Dayton-type round of discussions to ensure that the Biden-Gelb plan is destined to succeed.”

Now, more than six months later, I might be so bold as to suggest that the Sunni region of Iraq might want to consider merging with Kuwait to ensure its economic survival – which would be an ironical but fitting twist to Saddam Hussein’s geopolitical mis-adventure of 1990. It is also apparent that the Shia region of Iraq will become a satellite state of Iran, in effect delivering Iran a much-belated victory in its 1980-88 war with Iraq. In order for the Kurdish region to survive a combined Turkish and Iranian threat, we will need to maintain substantial troop strength there for several years – as we have done in South Korea.

4. Appoint President Clinton as Special Ambassador to the Middle East.

There can be no long-term peace in the Middle East until we successfully resolve the Israeli-Palestine problem. President Clinton got very close in 2000 but was betrayed by a greedy Yasser Arafat, who was not happy with the return of 97% of the occupied territories, including joint-control of Jerusalem. With Arafat out of the picture and his Fatah party feuding with Hamas, now might be a good time to mediate a new peace settlement. President Bush can condition his re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Iran to their intervening with Hamas in the West Bank and Hezbollah in Lebanon. He can then appoint President Clinton as his special ambassador to the region with cabinet rank and full authority to negotiate a 2000-style peace accord.

5. Accept the resignation of Vice President Cheney and appoint a prominent Muslim-American to his cabinet.

President Bush must realize by now that the failure of his foreign policy has been largely due to an aggressive Vice President and his band of neoconservative advisors. The firing of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld can only be the first step in the rejection of a failed “stay the course” strategy. Conservative writer, Peggy Noonan, was on to something when she had headlined a column back in February, “Hit Refresh? Why Bush may be thinking about replacing Cheney.” If he wasn’t thinking about it then, he must do so now – a revised Bush foreign policy has no chance of succeeding in the next two years with its old architect still around. Ms. Noonan was right – a Cheney replacement would have two years to be groomed as a logical successor to President Bush in 2008. John McCain would be a good choice.

Finally, President Bush must appoint a prominent Muslim-American to his cabinet. This would be a terrific gesture to not only the Muslims at home, but it would also show Muslims worldwide that we are a tolerant and inclusive society. There is no vacancy in the cabinet right now, but if someone were to resign, I think such an appointment would go a long way in defusing tensions in the Muslim world more than anything else.

Throttling the Supply Side Spin

At the outset, I have to praise The Wall Street Journal editorial page for reproducing a graph that can actually be interpreted in a bipartisan manner. I refer, of course, to their cocky editorial entitled, "Windfall for Washington" in today’s paper. While gloating over this year’s "revenue surge from investment income", they also

"thank heaven for the tax cuts that have helped to spur the economy that is now throwing off higher tax revenues. As the chart shows, those revenues are now rising back to their modern average as a share of GDP, just as supporters of the tax cuts predicted."

Here is the wonderful chart—which exemplifies the meaning of the phrase "a picture is better than a thousand words"—that they refer to:

Now, as far as my eye can see, revenue receipts per this chart have been over the 40-year historical average of 18.2% in only two sustained periods: 1980-82 and 1994-2001. As readers will recall, the Reagan tax cuts first went into effect in 1981 and then again in 1986. This graph clearly shows that revenue receipts, except for minor blips in 1987 and 1989, were below the 40-year historical average not only through the "seven fat years (1983-1989)" of the Reagan presidency, but also through the three lean years (1990-92) of Bush 41. Revenue receipts then began their climb over the 40-year historical average in the "seven fat years (1994-2001)" of the Clinton presidency. After the "trifecta" of 2001—recession, Bush 43’s first tax cuts, and 9/11—hit the U.S. economy, revenue receipts plunged sharply below the 40-year historical average through the remaining three years (2002-2004) of the Bush 43 first term!

These facts are there for the naked eye to see—we have been bitten twice by the supply side bug in the past 25 years, without sustained revenue rebounds. For readers that might be interested, I have presented more empirical data on this subject in my new book, "The Bush Diaries", which is being published by iUniverse next month. Notwithstanding this year’s upward surge in revenues and OMB’s optimistic estimate through 2010, I would wait at least another couple of years before celebrating any "Windfall for Washington".

Without Mark Felt "our long national nightmare" would be still going on!

Watergate was a criminal conspiracy, exposed in large part by The Washington Post, which brought down a Republican president. Whitewater was a shady deal, conflated to some extent by the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal, which unfairly tormented a Democratic president. So when the WSJ editorial page compares the two in “Deep Throat's Legacy”, the only commonality that I see is the “water” part. While the Watergate investigation opened the floodgates to expose real corruption, the Whitewater probe closed the dikes due to a drought of valid information. The WSJ editors conclude that “the Fourth Estate's first duty is to report the facts” — advice that they should have followed back in the 1990s when they were obsessing over Whitewater. By continuously churning Whitewater, they managed to create a lot of turbulence and no dirt really settled. Per the old adage, they should have known that “still waters run deep”.

Speaking of deep, Washington has been agog in the past couple of days with the outing of “Deep Throat” after 33 years under cover. This is a truly remarkable story in a number of ways, since it highlights:

* The irony of Woodward and Bernstein preserving a secret for three decades in a town that they seduced for gobs of information over three tumultuous years (1972-74) to unravel a corrupt presidency. Undoubtedly, along with Ben Bradlee, they have helped restore some integrity to journalism, which has taken a pounding in the past few years with the problems at The New York Times and USA Today.

* The dilemma for conservatives now vilifying W. Mark Felt, since he was pardoned by their hero, Ronald Reagan — albeit in a separate case. Nevertheless, President Reagan’s statement, while granting a pardon in 1981 to FBI agents Mark Felt and Edward Miller, praised “their good-faith belief that their actions were necessary to preserve the security interests of our country” and also said that they were “two men who acted on high principle”.

* The indispensable value of one’s conscience in prodding one to do the right thing, irrespective of one’s personal motives, as long as one determines that there are tangible benefits to organization, society, government, etc. in the long run.

Finally, one has to wonder, without Deep Throat how would “our long national nightmare” have ended? Here’s one scenario – Nixon would have completed his second term, Ford would have then probably beaten Carter in 1976, but Ford would have then lost to Mondale in 1980, Reagan would have been too old to run in 1984, so Mondale would have won a second term by beating Bush Sr. instead, Clinton would have defeated Dole in 1988 (instead of 1996), but Clinton would have lost a second term to Perot in 1992 – both, Republicans and Democrats, must agree that without W. Mark Felt "our long national nightmare" would be still going on!

Democracy and the D-word

The Sunday talk shows were abuzz about the possibility of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton being the Democratic nominee for President in 2008. Tim Russert, the host of NBC’s Meet The Press, asked Mike Allen of The Washington Post about it, “One of the senators that you cover, Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York--let me show you the latest Gallup poll in terms of the presidential race for 2008. Hillary Clinton, 40; John Kerry, 25; John Edwards, 17. What is going on?”

If you ask me, the world’s oldest democracy has finally succumbed to the lure of dynasty much like the world’s largest democracy. India was ruled by a democratically elected Nehru-Gandhi dynasty for 37 of its first 42 years since independence! If Senator Clinton is elected President of the United States in 2008 and completes even a single term in office, the Bush-Clinton dynasty will have been in power for 24 continuous years! Of course, there is no blood relation between Bush and Clinton, like there was between Nehru and Gandhi.

Nevertheless, for two families to head the government of a mature democracy like the United States for a contiguous two decades is simply remarkable. If Hillary wins in 2008 and is reelected in 2012, then we are talking “institutional duopoly” begging for a constitutional amendment that would bar any other Bush or Clinton from running for President for the rest of the 21st century! Hey, how else are we going to convince the House of Saud, the Assads of Syria, and the Mubaraks of Egypt that democracy is really not a family monopoly?

The Bush Doctrine gets a makeover

My son, Jay, was the first one to call me around midnight from his college dorm shortly after I made my foray into this “fools paradise”, a.k.a. blogdom. Jay made this really original suggestion, “Dad, why don’t you write something new? Who wants to read about Bush’s first term, anymore?” I refrained from quoting Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, but thanked him for his suggestion nonetheless. While we still have Bush to “kick around” for four more years, if we did not analyze his past mistakes, he is more than likely to repeat them (as us liberals fear) or make history (as his conservative base expects). In any event, nobody but nobody wants a war with Iran – even if, as President Bush declared at a news conference in Brussels recently, “all options are on the table”.

So I am reading Charles Krauthammer in this morning’s Washington Post and I am surprised to learn that his “Road to Damascus” goes through Beirut, but makes no stop in Tehran! In fact, Mr. Krauthammer’s only hint of Iran appears in this pregnant statement, “the entire region from the Mediterranean Sea to the Iranian border would be on a path to democratization”. It seems to me like there is at least one neocon who seems to have taken the Iranian option off the table? So will democracy stop at the water’s edge; will liberty be unable to cross the Persian Gulf? The answer lies in Iraq and the subsequent makeover of the Bush Doctrine by all manner of conservatives. They have decided that if the real world outcomes do not match the objectives of the Bush Doctrine, they will somehow make the Bush Doctrine match the real world outcomes.

The rai·son d'être for the Bush Doctrine was 9/11. Its core argument was based on President Bush’s notion that the U.S. would "make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them". It further postulated the right of the U.S. to preemptively wage war against terrorist cells and rogue states that were engaged in the production of, or in the possession of, weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which were deemed to be a threat to the U.S. and its allies. While President Bush promised to opt for multilateral solutions, he did not rule out unilateral action, if necessary. In its original incarnation, the Bush Doctrine did not clearly enunciate the need for liberty and democracy in all regions of the world. Such a requirement at the time would have plainly been an embarrassment to a number of our allies such as Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. So when did the Bush Doctrine incorporate President Kennedy's liberal inaugural vision, as in, “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”

I would suggest that the creationists turned evolutionary after the collapse of the original justification for the Iraq War – which was Saddam Hussein’s possession of WMD that were deemed to be an imminent threat (remember Condi “mushroom cloud” Rice) to the U.S. and its allies – when no WMD were found. Per Colin Powell’s “Pottery Barn” rule, we pretty much own a broken Iraq that requires serious fixing. After his reelection, President Bush decided to outdo Kennedy at his second inaugural. Thus Iraq became a beacon for freedom and democracy in the region and around the world. In fact, after a successful Iraqi election on January 30th, the Bush Doctrine is no longer as much about our security as it is about freedom and democracy around the globe. Amazingly, the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal have already started touting a 21st century version of President Eisenhower's “domino theory”. In the post Cold War era, I am tempted to remind them that Vietnam remains one of the world’s few communist countries, along with that “Bay of Pigs” paradise, Cuba! Meanwhile, the original “evil empire” struggles with democracy but gets only a wink and a nod from our “soul penetrating” President. And, don’t even get me started on China, which in President Bush’s 2000 election campaign was supposed to be his top priority because he considered it a “strategic competitor” unlike then President Clinton, who he claimed treated China like a “strategic partner”? But then, we do have four more years of foreign policy evolution to live through, so “fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride”.