There is nothing particularly surprising about the nearing government shutdown. Those libertarian-leaning freshmen in Congress have practically guaranteed the eventuality of this kind of thing and most of us should have seen it coming. The really unfortunate thing, though, is the thought of the disillusionment this will engender. The unbridled optimism that Obama’s campaign conjured will become further damaged. That optimism, so thoroughly tested over the past two years, has been creeping towards brink of death and is now teetering on the edge. This shutdown could be the final push.
Government that represents a suspicious and disgusted public has no agency for good. Of course, there are debates over the size of government, but does anyone believe we should have useless government? In order to let government run well, it must trusted, and without well-run government, there is no trust. This is the cycle that must be broken.
This will be easier said than done of course, but there needs to be a higher premium on compromise Some members of Congress and those who support them believe that compromise is antithetical to their beliefs, that compromise is code for unprincipled. Why just recently, I attended a dinner where Obama’s ability to compromise was derided as a weakness. That must be changed. We cannot see a politician who refuses to be moved as principled where others are weak willed.
There is nothing wrong with having principles, but principle without pragmatism is reckless and unrealistic. To assert that the .05 percent of the budget stands between you and your integrity is a questionable claim. A government shutdown is nothing more than a political ploy for Congress members who think more of reelection than they do of the system they choose to work within. At the moment I count myself among the disgusted, but I’m certainly open to compromise.
Obama on Monday night after explaining his recent decision to join the coalition assisting Libyan rebels in their fight to defeat the regime of Col. Muammar Qadaffi. (Doug Mills, New York Times).
In an attempt to quell a rising tide of ill-will directed at the White House, President Obama assumed the stage earlier this evening to give the first detailed explanation since his decision to enter Libya nine days ago.
Without offering an explicit time-line or any clear objectives for the allied military operation to assist the Libyan rebels, the President instead offered what instead seemed like a defense of America’s ethical responsibility to avert humanitarian crises wherever and whenever they may arise. One thing the President did make clear is that the ouster of Col. Qadaffi will to be strenuously avoided.
Then, of course, the obvious question would is: What is to become of Libya if Qadaffi were to remain? Could anyone assume he would refrain from exacting reprisals upon all those who opposed him? Without monitoring by international observers, the prospects would be grim. In any case, the pressure on the United States, even if NATO takes control of the operation, to remain in Libya to prevent any this from happening would be great.
Will this prospect assuage those agitated congress members currently lambasting the White House?Let’s just say, the odds aren’t great.
For all the commentary and analysis, the President’s foreign policy remains inscrutable. For now, Barack Obama is continuing down the path of compromise—that lonely road that yields a lot of fair-weather fans and few diehards. It’s been five days since the U.S.-backed United Resolution to authorize military action in Libya was passed and politicians can’t seem to agree on anything besides the fact that Obama royally mismanaged the situation.
In Congress he’s being besieged from all sides. Some hawkish Republicans like Lindsey Graham are bemoaning the President’s failure to act sooner: “One test in foreign policy—at least be as bold as the French,” said the South Carolina Senator on March 16. “Unfortunately, when it comes to Libya we’re failing that test.” Today, House speaker John Boehner spoke for the first time since the attacks, asking those tough questions that are easy to ask if you don’t have to answer them.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, the traditionally anti-war Democrats have also voiced misgivings—and then there’s Dennis Kucinich. Citing what he says is a blatant disregard for constitutionally prescriptions limitations on the executive’s power, the outraged Ohio Representative is even going so far as to call for the president’s impeachment.
In response to these politically motivated charges, Obama has kept remarkably silent, preferring to state his case to the American people. During his trip to Latin America, he appeared on television, assuring a wary public that no ground forces would be deployed. For this, we should be thankful. It is a refreshing to watch President Obama decline the political baiting of those seeking a partisan battle.
After two weeks of trying to distance the U.S. from the slowly unraveling situation in Libya, the President judged that a failure to support the uprising would discredit America’s principles. There are dueling theories when it comes to the role of the executive, and the President has unwaveringly erred on the side of modesty. Undeterred by those who critics who see this as a lack of determination and assertiveness, the Obama has stepped forward only when he feels necessary, a obvious repudiation of the previous administration’s heavy-handed military power in the Middle East which led to, among other things, a blighted, neo-colonial reputation in the Arab world.
This caution, although, should not be confused with the lack of conviction. The President’s ambitious agenda has manifested in a number of seminal laws and policies that, while objectionable to many, have been difficult to prevent. Part of this can be attributed to the large Democratic majorities in Congress during Obama’s first two years in office. It is undeniable that much is due to the President’s style of leadership.
Many who attempt to locate a defining characteristic of the Obama administration have typically been frustrated. This is because there are looking for something that isn’t there—some kind of clear-cut ideology worth pursuing in the face a reality that doesn’t reflect its tenets. This is not the way Barack Obama thinks or the way he leads. He isn’t dogmatic. He’s thoughtful. His direction is subtle, and he painstakingly considers the consequences of his actions. He has an agenda, of course, but that agenda is fluid to account for unforeseen obstacles of which there are always myriad.
In the case of Libya, he held back until there was significant evidence to support intervention. In the long run, America will avoid being labeled an aggressor, and this is a significant and a crucial victory. This is this kind of victory that characterizes the President’s strategy—one that couldn’t be further from something rigid and unyielding. And in an ever-changing, increasingly complex world, this seems to be the most appropriate option.
As international calls for Western intervention in Libya become more insistent by the day, government officials weigh the prospect of a no-flight zone, a measure officially endorsed by the Arab League on Saturday. The proposal was met with tentative support from the Obama administration, which stopped short of fully endorsing the measure; most agree that the U.S. would need to play a leading role in the enforcement of such an effort. The UN Security Counsel has continued to block the resolution, in an echo of their trepidation over the U.S. led Iraqi invasion.
Meanwhile, some Libyan rebels have implored the U.S. for assistance, an unsurprising request given the U.S.’s strong legacy of military action on behalf of various rebel uprising. In recent memory both Presidents Clinton and Bush the younger faced similar dilemmas in Iraq and Kosovo respectively—each responded by ordering what are referred to as “lift and strike” maneuvers. Supporters of the no-flight zone are now pointing to these events in defense of what they are calling as well established precedent.
So, if we acknowledge that precedent, are we obliged to follow it? The problem is that once we account for our previous attempts at such “surgical strikes” in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, we are left with an overwhelming doubt regarding temporary nature of such measures. Michael Lind of Salon.com asserts that “The lesson of [U.S. intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan and Bosnia] is that the rhetoric of lift-and-strike is a gateway drug that leads to all-out American military invasion and occupation.”
While this type of calculation may seem bloodless, it merely acknowledges that foreign policy must remain pragmatic to avoid impetuousness. Refusing a no-flight zone does not preclude other forms of assistance. Libyan author Hisham Matar wrote in an Op-Ed article in the New York Times that the West could provide much needed food and arms. Military assistance, on the other hand, would deflate a hard won fearlessness that would be crucial in the formation of any future government.
Instead of applying ham-fisted military power to Qadaffi’s forces, the global community must provide him with compelling incentives to leave office. While the impulse to defend liberty and democracy wherever it arises is admirable, the U.S. must tread carefully and ignore the advice of discredited neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz calling for action. We must face the stark reality that our forays into the Middle East have produced little benefit for the region and know that any lasting change must originate within the people, not the Oval Office.
Unless you are a member of Congress, you probably won’t hesitate to blame the United States’ budget maladies on overgrown entitlement spending. Immediately following President Obama’s announced budget proposal last Monday, critics assailed the plan’s failure to address rising healthcare costs which account for over half of all federal spending. On this issue, Republicans have stayed silent, as they too have declined to address the politically toxic issue. In response to this somewhat galling lack of initiative, an influx of private sector solutions have emerged in its stead. Technology firms in particular hope to reduce bureaucratic redundancy that many see clogging the nation’s byzantine health care system. In contrast to the single-payer system used in most other industrialized nations, America’s complex web of HMO’s, insurance companies and hospitals make coordinated care profoundly difficult to achieve. Even a simple task such as compiling medical records into a single electronic database can be frustratingly complex.
Companies like IBM are putting in the legwork to achieve this goal, bringing together what technology analysts refer to as “data silos”—sets of data collected by a panoply of machines, doctors and hospitals—every collection of information disconnected from all other sets of data. As columnist Megan McArdle reports in the December issue of The Atlantic, IBM suggests that if the data could be stored and collated together, wasteful tests would be avoided while providing doctors with better information to diagnose illnesses and stop infections at an earlier stage. Doctors, on the other hand, are wary, fearing new regulations such as standard diagnoses and malpractice ramifications that would restrict them from effectively doing their job.
As with any complex problem, there are no monolithic solutions. Every innovation must acknowledge its weaknesses as IBM must realize its own weakpoints. In addition to creating electronic medical databases, it has just announced its plan to employ Watson—the latest bit of Artificial Intelligence created for the sole purpose competing against Jeopardy! champions—to the Columbia University Medical Center so it can learn how to diagnose illness. In today’s New York Times, author Abraham Verghese expresses trepidation over the thought of further removing the doctor from his patient, questioning whether machines could ever imitate the intuition that health care specialists gain through years of working with patients, consciously and unconsciously absorbing an infinite amount of subtle information that would be difficult to express verbally, let along program. Before we make the mistake of treating technology as the answer to skyrocketing healthcare costs, we must locate its unintended consequences in order to weigh them against the benefits, mitigating them where possible.
Whatever the answers to these questions, what is clear is that health care professionals must depend on themselves, not technology, to enact meaningful changes within our healthcare system. If we rely solely on technology to solve our the problem of rising costs, we are ignoring the most important, dynamic variable: the doctor who prescribe tests and are the ones who ultimately have to use the technology. We cannot change behaviors by merely offering cool new gadgets; we must institute a system designed around facilitating coordinated care on all levels of medical care. Here, credit must be given to the Affordable Care Act for initiating pilot programs, many of which seek to find which method of payment best promotes effectiveness of treatment rather than more treatment. If we can incentivize doctors and hospitals to coordinate with specialist to provide quality care, the technology to facilitate it will certainly follow suit.
Last Thursday, President Obama made a trip to the West Coast. Extending his effort to build ties with the business community, he had dinner with 14 Silicon Valley executives and entrepreneurs at the home of John Doerr, a Bay Area venture capitalist. Among the attendees were Eric Schmitd, CEO of Google and Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle, both of whom were overshadowed in most news reports by the presence of Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and Twitter’s CEO, Evan Williams. Now these other guys are not just any business owners. No, these guys are titans. Larry Ellison is the sixth richest guy in the world, and Google—well they’re Google. Both of these men are at least as impressive as Zuckerberg and Evans yet merit less attention according to most major news outlets.
What is driving this intense interest? The fact that social media exceeds the cursory mention in culture sections of newspapers bears explaining and that explanation may be, in part, due to the isolationist stance America has taken in regards to the uprisings in the Arab world. Let me explain: People in this country are looking to social media as a force of democracy and American morality in general. Americans, because of their sense of global responsibility, crave an active role foreign affairs. While I am certainly a supporter of net neutrality and self-determination, we must not see social media as an adequate American contribution to these protesters’ noble cause, lest we be disappointed by the unexpected or unwanted results of our efforts or lack thereof. While the media and the administration may be giving social media the recognition for the Middle Eastern tumult we are currently seeing, we should be wary of this claim and not mistake social media as real intervention or aid.
Friday afternoon in Cairo, Vice President Omar Suleiman announced in a short statement on national Egyptian state television that the Egyptian people had succeeded in toppling Hosni Mubarak, one of the most notoriously enduring autocrats in the region. This comes after weeks of mounting pressure during which protesters sustained about 300 deaths at the hands of off-duty security officers and what were, mostly likely, paid government strongmen.
Shortly after the Vice President uttered the few words that protesters wanted to hear, Tahrir Square erupted into a wave of ectstatic jubilation. According to reporters at the scene, car horns and shouts of “God is Great” filled the square after the announcement that Mr. Mubarak had ceded control to a military council, finally buckling under the pressure of two weeks of protests and heavy foreign pressure.
Many had expected the uprising to take a turn towards violence today, as protesters spoke of marching on the presidential palace in response to Mr. Mubarak’s stubborn refusal to step down in a speech he gave Thursday night. The question is now whether this contagion of rebellion that began in Tunisia two weeks ago will spread to other dictatorships such as Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Already there has been relatively mild unrest in a few of these countries such as Yemen and Jordan. But the success of the Egyptian protesters may have further emboldened many others living under the yoke of oppression.
The event will likely prove a historic one, as young, tech-savvy Egyptians upended what Anthony Shadid of the Times called “an American order: the nation in service of a strongman.” Whether or not the sentiment will spread to other restless nations, uprooting other entrenched regimes, what is certain is that the Egyptian people have spoken loudly in favor of self-determination.
As the situation in Egypt begins to normalize for the first time in weeks, we have begun to take stock of the populist uprising that has all but delegitimized a regime that, for many, had come to exemplify ossified Middle Eastern power. Many were understandably shocked by the effectiveness of the protesters in discrediting a regime that had enjoyed a thirty year monopoly on coercive with the help of over a billion dollars in U.S. aid annually. How is the U.S. now attempting to square its perennial espousal of democratic values with its longstanding support to the Mubarak regime? Actually, it isn’t.
The Obama Administration has, over the past few weeks, offered little in the way of support for the movement, while sustaining a relationship with Hosni Mubarak in the event that he retains his position in the government. This is the Administration’s way of hedging it’s bets. All along, we have heard pundits putting the Administration’s tepid support into a larger context. Realism, rather than idealism, should be our guide to foreign policy decisions. It would be unrealistic, many say, to throw our support behind a movement that may, unfortunately, come to naught. While many of us, including myself, wholeheartedly support the ousting an authoritarian rule built on intimidation and fear, we can not base foreign policy decisions on hope.
Scott Shane, of the New York Times, situates recent events into the context of the United States’ long and storied precedent of questionable alliances:
“The agony of Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt raises again the question of whether such a pattern can ever be broken. More than mere misjudgment or duplicity is behind it; the embrace of dictators has been so frequent over the last half-century that it obviously results from hard-headed calculation.”
Shane sees the central conflict as one of expediency over idealism; time and again, the U.S. has chosen the path of least resistance when it comes to forwarding its interests abroad. In the case of Egypt, the U.S. gained a “staunch ally against Soviet expansionism, a critical peace with Israel, a bulwark against Islamic radicalism, and a trade- and tourist-friendly Egypt.” The tradeoffs were seen as minimal. Now, though, those tradeoffs are being scrutinized and derided as morally bankrupt by every news outlet in the country and our decisions are looking a little less expedient and a little more cynical.
The issue has been a consistently divisive one in American politics, with some foreign policy experts citing the unavoidability of associating with certain regimes that might help us achieve certain foreign policy objectives. In my mind, the Administration’s current path to redemption lies in a strong support of the protesters while eschewing the sort of aloof ambivalence it has adopted thus far. The protests are not assured victory at this point, but they certainly have our values on their side.
