Valentina Pasquali

Michael B. Katz is Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History and a Research Associate in the Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a resident fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies (Princeton), the Russell Sage Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Education, National Academy of Social Insurance, and the Society of American Historians. Professor Katz is considered one of America’s leading experts on the history of social welfare, poverty and inequality. In 2006 he co-authored, with Professor of Social Welfare and History Mark J. Stern, Co-Director of the Urban Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania, the book One Nation Divisible, a sweeping history of twentieth-century that weaves together information from the latest census with a century’s worth of data to show how trends in American life have changed while inequality and diversity have endured. Professor Katz spoke with Valentina Pasquali about the issue of racism and how it might affect the 2008 presidential bid of Democratic candidate Barack Obama.

Valentina Pasquali: There has been much talking recently about Barack Obama’s problem with white working class voters. Do you think that this is true at the national level or are his difficulties with this particular constituency regionally-based?

MK: My sense is that it may be a problem in general with white working class voters but I suspect that it is more extreme and regionally concentrated in some areas, such as rural areas and Southern states. Basically we are talking about those places with a history of slavery and confederation, where I think racism lingers, especially among less educated people.

VP: How much do you think these problems could affect the general elections and the race against John McCain? Is it something the Democratic Party should seriously worry about? And could it be an issue that might convince super-delegates to endorse Clinton against the results of the primaries?

MK: My suspicion is that if Obama wins the greater number of delegates, the majority of leaders and officials of the Democratic Party will move behind him and mobilize in those areas where he has been weak. In the cities this would be easier to do because there are more established Democratic machines and voters could be rallied more easily.
As far as white working class voters that seem hostile to Obama, their influence in the general election will depend on the state where they are located, what percentage of the population they comprise and if they will turn out to vote. In the last analysis, these people will really have to ask themselves if they want to vote for a Republican, considering the state of things now, between the Iraq war, the economy, gas prices, and the housing crisis. I think it will be very hard for them to make such choice.
Then there is the other side of the issue as well, or the disgruntled Republicans. Yesterday I read an interesting piece on The Nation which pointed out that in a number of primaries, Republicans chose to vote in the Democratic contest and over 70% of them cast a ballot for Obama.

So, I think these will be very complicated elections; on one hand there will be white working class Democrats that could go Republican. On the other, there could be those frustrated Rockefeller-type Republicans that might go Democratic.

And, we should consider that there might be a slight decline in white working class voters’ turnout, but other than that there will be a huge participation among African Americans and young people. Obama has this way of mobilizing people that is incredible.

VP: What kind of an African American would you say Barack Obama is? How black is he?

MK: It is not a question of how black he is; it is a question of how street he is. And he is not street. He is a highly educated, articulate, handsome, presentable American and, let’s put it this way, I think that most Americans that would be uncomfortable with Jesse Jackson would be comfortable with Obama.

VP: Considering his peculiar profile and personal history, do you think Barack Obama should be viewed as a symbol of real change in America, of the end of an era of segregation and discrimination? How much instead is he just an exception?

MK: I honestly think that his candidature is a momentous development because, it is true, he does have a white mother and an unusual upbringing, but he is cast in the mind of the public as an African American, that is how people look at him. The fact that an African American could very well be the next President is unprecedented; something that ten years ago I would not have imagined could happen in my lifetime. But it can only be an African American who has Obama’s characteristic, well spoken and highly educated. It could not be someone like Al Sharpton.

VP: Because of his mixed racial heritage, his international background and his degrees from Ivy League universities, would you say that there could be doubts about Barack Obama within the African-American community itself?

MK: There was some discussion of it earlier, about the fact that Obama wasn’t black enough. But then people have come around. The African-American population in general has a very mixed background, and the homogenous view that is normally cast is simplistic and racist. Obama falls within this group.

VP: In conclusion, what do you think will be the biggest challenges for Barack Obama in running for President of the US?

MK: I do share the worry of many people that he might be a target for assassination. This is true for Hillary Clinton too. I think every President is, but there are hardcore racist people and hardcore misogynist people. I don’t think that this should stop him from running or people from supporting him. But I hope his security is well taken care of. Just think about those doctors who perform abortion and how heavily they are targeted by groups of extremists.

Secondly, he will have to unite the Democratic Party. He has to win over the people that have been Hillary Clinton supporters and he has to make them enthusiastic and get them to work for him and to go vote. I think Clinton will come around and she will support him wholeheartedly.

In the end, the two elements that will decide the race are, on one hand, the attraction for Obama, which is very great. On the other, there is the repulsion for Bush. So the next thing to watch in this election is how successful John McCain will be in distancing himself from Bush. But Republicans have a terrible record right now.

Originally reported and written for Washington Prism

Mickey Edwards is a lecturer in public and international affairs at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School and the vice president of the Aspen Institute. Before Princeton he taught at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he was the John Quincy Adams Lecturer in Legislative Practice. Prior to his teaching career, Mr. Edwards was a member of Congress for 16 years as the Representative for Oklahoma’s 5^th District. He was a member of the House Republican Leadership, a member of the Appropriations and Budget Committees, and the ranking member of the House subcommittee on foreign operations. A leading conservative, Mr. Edwards was also one of three founding trustees of the Heritage Foundation and national chairman of the American Conservative Union. Mr. Edwards has been a weekly political commentator on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and a weekly opinion columnist for the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and other major newspapers. Mr. Edwards’ primary interest is in the field of constitutional studies. In his most recent book, Reclaiming Conservatism, Mickey Edwards offers a frank and provocative critique of George W. Bush’s two terms in office. Troubled by the concentration of power in the hands of the Executive that has taken place under the current administration, Mr. Edwards launches an attack on today’s GOP for having abandoned its original mission of defending the Constitution and protecting the individual rights of the people. Finally, Mickey Edwards lays down the principles that are at the roots of American conservatism in an attempt to revive the movement from the ground up.

Mr. Edwards spoke with Washington Prism about the crisis of Conservatism, the Bush Administration, the future of the Republican Party and the 2008 presidential campaign.

Valentina Pasquali (VP): When and why did you originally start thinking about writing this book?

Mickey Edwards (ME): There were many triggers overtime. I decided to write the book when I reached the breaking point, when there were so many things that had got me so upset about the direction of the Republican Party that I couldn’t just privately grumble about it anymore, I needed to do something about it. In 2004 I didn’t even vote for George W. Bush, even though I had been a foreign policy advisor to his campaign in 2000. But I still wasn’t being very publicly outspoken, only my family knew that I had not voted for him. As things began to pile up, more and more things that really bothered me, I really felt like I had to say something about it.

VP: How much do you think the conservative message still resonate with the American public at large? Do you think the take-over of the Republican Party by movements different from Conservatism was the result of intra-party power struggles, or it also reflected changes of ideology occurring at the level of public opinion?

ME: I think the views that were predominant in the party, and that were primarily the views of Ronald Reagan, are still very popular. But that’s not what the current Republican Party is presenting, what it stands for. But I don’t think what the public wants has changed, so I don’t think that the Party has changed in response to a public demand. I think what happened was that various narrower interests began to take over the party. It wasn’t a matter of a change in the feelings of grass-root people, registered Republicans, but of the people in the political class, those who were running for office, for example the religious right, to some extent the Neo-conservatives. I don’t think the great bulk of the American people, or even the bulk of the Republicans agree with that. But in a political context, a small political group can have a lot of influence. Because they turn out to vote in the primaries, and, in America, it’s not who the most people are for, but who the most people who go vote are for. To some extent the rise of the religious right and the neo-con came about because America stopped participating in elections, especially in primary elections.

I just visited my home district in Oklahoma and I was worried about people’s reaction to what I wrote. But I found overwhelming support for those ideas. I think there’s an important fault line; on one side it’s the people who worked in the Reagan Administration and supported the Reagan Campaign, and of course, before then, those that were a part of the Goldwater and Nixon times. These people very strongly agree with me. Then there are the people who came after Reagan, which is when the religious right and the neo-con actually reached their greatest strength; they hate what I’m saying. They are the tail wagging the dog.

VP: How much of the base of the Republican Party is comprised by the so-called religious right?

ME: Most of the numbers I’ve seen are in the range of 20-30%. I remember one poll from the Florida primary, which is considered to be a pretty hard-core conservative state, where less than 30% of the Republicans said that they considered themselves very conservative. And in today’s language very conservative means either religious right, or strong supporter of the Bush’s foreign policy. It was certainly less than a third of the Republican voters and in terms of the whole electorate a very small proportion. However, if a group represents the 25%-30% but it is made of people who work in the elections and show up to campaign, if they make phone calls and distribute literature, then they have an influence way beyond their number.

I think the better question, but I don’t know the answer, would be what percentage of the Republicans who actively participate in somebody’s congressional campaign, for example, are a part of the religious right or are neo-con. I haven’t seen any number but it’s has to be way higher than 30%, probably over 50%.

VP: What do you think Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan’s opinion would be of present-day Conservatives and the current Administration?

ME: I’ve said several times that if Lyndon Johnson or Bill Clinton had done the things that this President is doing, real conservatives would have marched on Washington to protest and I think Barry Goldwater would be leading that march. And I think he’d be leading it against this President too. All of that Goldwater stood for was opposed to this concentration of federal power, to presidents acting like kings, who believe that a President is above the law. Our complaint about government was that it was intruding in the freedom of the people. Well, Lyndon Johnson never intruded on the freedom of the American people the way George Bush does. So I think Goldwater would be just sick. In fact, Barry Goldwater Jr., his son, has been extremely outspoken about this President and how bad he is.

VP: What approach do you think a truly conservative President would take toward Iran and how do you evaluate George W. Bush’s stance toward Teheran?

So far George Bush is not doing anything about Iran except insisting that Iranians pose a threat to us. He worries about their nuclear ambitions; he is concerned about whether they are helping the terrorists in Iraq fighting American soldiers. I think any American president would have exactly the same position. But I think Ronald Reagan, for example, would not have a problem sitting down with the Iranian President. There would be a lot of groundwork laid first; we would have to see whether there was something we could talk about. But he sat down with the Soviet leaders when they had missiles aimed at the United States, and they had not renounced Khrushchev’s statement that they were going to bury us, when they still had the Eastern part of Europe locked up. Reagan went to talk to them. I don’t think he would say never ever talk to them. But neither Reagan nor Goldwater would just let the Iranians off, to continue with nuclear weapons or to do harm to American soldiers in Iran. On Iran, I think Bush’s policies are not very different from what any American president would do.

VP: Considering what we have been saying thus fur, how did George W. Bush win a second term?

ME: For two reasons: First, most of what he did, and is now disliked for, became much more visible in his second term. Remember that the elections for his second term came only about a year after we had gone into Iraq. There still wasn’t full information available about the fact that maybe we had been misled. I remember, in 2004, there were people still insisting that the weapons of mass destruction had to be there, but that we just had not found them yet. Secondly, Republicans don’t win so much as Democrats lose. The Democrats continued to put forth candidates who just don’t resonate with the American people. To some extent George W. Bush won and to some extent John Kerry lost. Even in 2000, when Gore won more of the popular vote, most surveys showed that the people didn’t like him. Maybe they agreed with his policies, but they didn’t really like him and when you have this kind of a society that is so driven by the media, whether or not you like someone versus just reading about his/her policies makes a huge different.

VP: What is your opinion of John McCain? Where do you think he would stand in relation to Conservatism if he was to become the new President?

ME: There’s wishful thinking here, but I want to believe that the real John McCain is the one who ran in 2000, the one who is now publicly distancing himself from George Bush, on the way to handle foreign policy, on the attitude toward war, the environment. I hope that that is the real John McCain. From time to time, he starts worrying about the hard-core conservatives, 30% is enough that you don’t want to lose them, even though they are a minority, and so he says things that bother me, that are too much like Bush. But I think the real John McCain is more like what I’ve been talking about a not a lot like George W. Bush. I hope that, if he were President, and given his age there are pretty good chances that he would choose not to run for a second term, that that would free him up to be the maverick that a lot of us think he really is.

VP: Who are, in today’s GOP, the political personalities that you think still embody American Conservatism and that should lead the reclamation of the movement that you advocate for?

ME: I don’t know. At the national level, those who are in Congress already, it’s hard to know which one believes what because they have so automatically rallied behind the President and supported the President, with almost everything he wants to do, that you don’t know what they would really do on their own. Ron Paul has some of the things that we talked about, but he’s also off in other directions especially on monetary issues, and he’s too old to be leading any kind of reclaiming of the party. I don’t see one right now. I see some people but they are people who are in state legislatures or who are holding some state office. I don’t see any on the federal level. I see people at the federal level who receive a lot of attention, but I don’t know enough where they really stand on issues. So far they’ve been casting outrageous votes supporting the President. I’m guessing this kind of new movement will have to come from people from the states that we don’t know about yet.

VP: Do you think these individuals could be hiding among those names that are being thrown around as potential running mates for McCain?

There are people like Bobby Jindal in Luisiana, Charlie Crist in Florida, Tim Pawlenty in Minnesota. There are a number being considered, plus people like Romney, who is a former governor. None of them really fits the same model. I’ve always liked Bobby Jindal, but when he ran for Governor he ran on a pretty hard-core conservative program. Mike Huckabee (Governor of Arkansas) remains a possibility. I don’t know if I see any of them in that light. Maybe Tim Pawlenty in Minnesota and Charlie Crist in Florida; I’d say those are probably the two closest.

But way too much attention has been paid to this. There is always an assumption now that the vice-president will be like Dick Cheney, real powerful input. But Cheney is very unusual; the history of the United States has been very different from that, with the vice-president that has virtually no influence. When Harry Truman became President, he wasn’t even aware that we had an atomic bomb. That was much more typical, that the vice-president is not a decision-maker. Charlie Crist, who’s very popular in Florida, could cause a few additional people in Florida to vote Republican and that could help carry Florida. So the choice of the vice-president does that. Like Lyndon Johnson helped carry Texas. But they are not important because they have any real impact on policies.

VP: Does the “reclamation of Conservatism” necessarily need to take place within the ranks of the Republican Party?

ME: If a democrat adopted those policies I’d be for a democrat. We thought we had taken over the Republican Party, instead the Republican Party took us over, and party dominance became the greatest goal. Well that’s not my goal; my goal is protecting the Constitution, a government that follows our Constitution. I care about America more than I care about the Republican Party. Bill Clinton, when he was President, said that it would be the end of welfare as we knew it, that he wouldn’t be the old fashion left wing liberal democrat anymore. And I said then, “don’t attack him, just claim victory.”

VP: What do you think instead of this year’s Democratic candidates?

ME: First of all I don’t know if there still are candidates in the plural. In any case, I think Hillary Clinton would make a decent President. I think she’s has sound judgment in foreign policy. There were a lot of things wrong with her husband but his policies weren’t all that bad. Unfortunately she’s run a terrible campaign. In the early stages she let Obama get ahead because she did a really poor job with grass-root organizing. She thought that because she was who she was, she could just cruise through. And instead Obama had organizers who killed her in the caucuses.

As far as Barack Obama; in one way I’m worried about him, because he does seem very naïve and inexperienced, and that’s a dangerous thing in foreign policy. I really like his approach to politics, his talking about getting beyond party divisions. I don’t know how real this is, because in his policies, he seems a pretty traditional liberal democrat, they are not middle-ground policies. And I also hope that we are not just being taken in by somebody who’s simply a really good public speaker. I wish I knew if that was real or smoke and mirrors. If he’d been in office for 10 years and he was talking this way, you could look back on his record and see if that’s the real him. But now we have no way of knowing. You either take his word or you worry that is all air.

VP: In conclusion, do you feel optimistic about the possibility of reclaiming Conservatism?

No. And I don’t feel optimistic because so few Americans really understand what our system is like. If you walk down the street and ask someone; “who’s the head of Government?” they won’t know. They’ll say; “it’s the President.” But he is not. “Who’s in charge of foreign policy?” “The President,” well, he is not. “Who’s supposed to decide on whether you go to war, or what you do with prisoners of war?” “The President,” well, he is not. We have been so unchallenged for over two hundred years that people have gotten lazy in remembering why our system of government is what it is. It is decentralized, with the powers being all separated. The thing that makes America different is that we’ve left the power in the hands of people through their representatives. That’s different from almost any country in the world and that what scares me today. Until people can’t understand what the President should be and what the job of Congress should be I don’t see how things can change.

Originally reported and written for Washington Prism – Persian Edition

Washington DC – In the last decade, and following the financial crisis that hit economies throughout the region in 1997, Asian countries have grown increasingly integrated into the global stage and, even more significantly, have engaged more closely among themselves. Asia’s New Regionalism is the title of a new book by Ellen Frost, a visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington DC and a former counsel to the United States Trade Representative under the first Clinton Administration.

“This is a very slow-moving but profoundly strategic development going on in Asia,” said Frost at the book launch co-sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars and Asia Society.  In her latest study, the Peterson Institute’s fellow offers a broad overview of the continent’s history, politics and economy, and depicts the emergence of two Asias; maritime Asia and Asia Major.

Maritime Asia is “the vast sweep of coastline and water connecting central and southern India, Southeast Asia, China, the Korean peninsula, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.” Here integration is happening spontaneously, driven by individuals through mercantile exchanges, foreign investments and travel. Maritime Asia provides the ground for Regionalization, the process that is knitting the economies and societies of the region closer together. Asia Major instead “is a political construct. It is the locus of planned integration driven by national governments,” a top-down process that Frost calls Regionalism.

Regionalism has taken the form of a series of multilateral forums, such as ASEAN (the Association of East Asian Nations) and its most recent version ASEAN+3 which includes China, Japan and Korea. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is another example of a security-related intergovernmental organization that binds together China and the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Russia.

Meanwhile, levels of trade and financial exchanges are proof of the parallel process of Regionalization.  Data released by the Asian Development Bank shows that the share of intraregional trade as a percentage of total exports from Asia rose from 26.2% in 1985 to 37.3% in 2005. Similarly, according to a study by Rabin Hattari and Ramkishen S. Rajan, two research scholars at George Mason University in Virginia, intraregional Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) had grown to make up 40% of total FDIs to Asia by 2004.

These political and economic trends, although separate, are progressing hand in hand and could encourage some to believe that Asia is on its way to “European Union-style” integration.

In 2004, Norbert Walter, the Chief Economist of Deutsche Bank Group, wrote that “Asia is a logical candidate to take a leadership role in the reform of global currency markets- by creating a common Asian currency.” Dr. Walter set a potential deadline at the year 2025.

In 2007, the Asian Development Bank launched a two-year assessment project aimed at studying Asian emerging regionalism on the premises that “Despite their diverse economic structures, income levels, and resource endowments, Asian economies are starting to use closer regional ties to provide a new platform for their development process.”

In spite of the optimism, observers in Washington DC are inclined to warn against the overestimation of the state of integration in Asia. “The governments are happy with the status-quo,” Ellen Frost told Washington Prism in an interview. “Nation states are not going away any time soon,” she emphasized.

Mike Green, Chair of the Japan Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), in an interview with Washington Prism explained that “multilateral cooperation is good, but it should not be over-hyped.” Green pointed out that Asia still sends 80% of its investment out of its territory and relies on the outside world for about 80% of incoming portfolio investment. Furthermore, despite the fact that intraregional trade flows are growing, the production networks are still sending a large part of the final product out of the region to North America and Europe. Green’s assessment is that “the capital markets in Asia are not mature enough to be the financial engine for an EU-type common market and the high savings/low consumption patterns across the region also make it unlikely in the near term.”

Experts across the US capital have expressed similar understandings in interviews with Washington Prism.  Christopher Griffin, a Research Associate at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI), said, “European-style integration is not in the cards for Asia, at least not for many years.” The fact is that many countries still treat regionalism as a form of rivalry. This is the case, for example, of the Sino-Japanese approach to multilateral forums as vehicles for competition over regional leadership. Zhongying Pang, an International Affairs Scholar at the Brookings Institution, added; “The ongoing process is not an EU-like regional cooperation.

Although Asia has made progress on regional cooperation, it is still in its nascent stage of regionalization and regionalism. There are no formal mutually binding regional institutions and mechanisms yet.” Teresita Schaffer, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia in the late 1980s and currently Director of the South Asia Program at CSIS echoed her colleagues. “I don’t see any demand for political union, and the countries of the region are too jealous of their sovereignty to want to move in that direction.”

“There are four areas of disagreement still that will keep the process very slow,” Mike Green explained to Washington Prism. First of all, there are extremely different understandings of integration. “At one end the Chinese say ‘non-interference in internal affairs.’  At the other end Japan says there should be ‘principled multilateralism’ that moves the region towards higher quality norms of good governance and democracy,” Green told us. Secondly, there is disagreement over the definition of Asia itself and which countries belong to it. “Japan, Singapore and Indonesia say India, Australia and New Zealand are in.  China says not in any ‘East Asia’ community. The USA says it must be in.  The rest of Asia agrees, but can’t decide on exactly what role beyond the US security presence that would be in the future,” Mike Green continued. Then there is the question of the provision of public goods. A great part of the region still looks to the USA and its allies to provide security, a trend that doesn’t seem likely to change in the future. Finally, an agreement has yet to be reached over what kind of economic union should be sought. “Japan is exploring currency cooperation and a common financial system, but others resist.  China and some Southeast Asian states want very low quality free trade agreements, but other countries insist that trade liberalization must be real.”

Basically, major players in the continent are now competing over the form integration should take as it progresses: should Asia maintain the ASEAN+3 formula, resurrect APEC or embrace the East Asia Summit (which includes ASEAN+3 and also India, Australia and New Zealand)? “ASEAN, Japan and China have their different understandings on the future of the three regional or trans-regional bodies,” Zhongying Pang told Washington Prism. As a result, “Asia will not have a full regional integration in the near future,” Pang continued, “but in sub-regional levels such as Southeast Asia, the regional integration will be deepened.”

However slow, an agreement exists on the fact that Asian integration will continue. Nevertheless, there remain issues that could hinder the process. Griffin of AEI notes that “integration in Asia is so fragile largely because of the fact that many Asian countries view the use of force as a legitimate mechanism to settle their myriad disputes, especially China and North Korea.” Even so, it is highly unlikely that integration will come to a sudden and complete halt. Pang, of Brookings, believes that “in the future, ASEAN will not abandon its pursuit of a Southeast Asia regional community and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will continue to be consolidated. Even the Six-Party Talks over DPRK nuclear issue is promoting a regional cooperation in Northeast Asia. So, there will be no such possibility of regional cooperation collapse.”
Despite their differences, “Asian nations have been willing to put many resources behind this community building exercise,” Ellen Frost highlights. Regionalism, in her opinion, “contributes to stability and provides a roof for cooperation.” Hence, the trend will almost certainly progress, although it might be decades before it takes a shape more similar to that of an economic, monetary and political union.

Originally reported and written for Washington Prism

Washington DC – In November 2003 the USS Vandergrift docked at the port of Ho Chi Minh City completing the first port call by an American navy ship to Vietnam since the end of the war in 1975. Onboard the vessel was an old slim Vietnamese man, who had joined the parade at the invitation of both the United States ambassador to Vietnam Raymond Burghardt and United States consul general Emi Lynn Yamauchi. Nobody seemed to recognize him, other than a colonel that approached him and asked in Vietnamese, “Excuse me, are you General Pham Xuan An?”

The old smoke-consumed Vietnamese was no other than X6, the most famous Communist agent employed by the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. Throughout the conflict, Mr. An also worked as Time Magazine correspondent – the only local to be assigned such role by a major American news organization. Journalism was Pham Xuan An’s cover, and as a reporter writing on American and South Vietnamese military and diplomatic events, he was granted access to off-the-record briefings by American authorities. This information made the reports Mr. An filed back to his North Vietnamese superiors invaluable.

Journalism, combined with Pham Xuan An’s personality and warmth, was also what allowed him to knit a close network of true and intimate friendships with many renown Americans and to maintain them through the end of the war and beyond. Incredibly so, nobody ever felt betrayed by him, despite Mr. An’s life of deception.

“Pham Xuan An was a great conversationalist, he loved speaking,” Larry Berman, author of Mr. An’s first western biography, told Washington Prism in an interview. “He was a man of extraordinary self-control, very discipline mentally. And he had a talent for math, it had been his favorite subject at school,” Professor Berman continued. “An said that it helped him to compartmentalize things and to live these two lives without a crack.”

Professor Larry Berman, of the University of California Davis, is a historian specialized in the history of the Cold War. He met Pham Xuan An by coincidence, at a dinner he attended while traveling through Vietnam in 2000, at a time when he was conducting research for a book on the secret Paris negotiations between Henry Kissinger and his North Vietnamese Communist counterpart, Le Duc Tho. In the interview with Washington Prism, Mr. Berman explained; “I wasn’t in the Vietnam War, I never served. But I grew up during the War and so I was always really curious to understand this threshold event in my own life.”

After their first casual encounter, Professor Berman had to face stubborn resistance by Pham Xuan An before finally succeeding in convincing him to tell his story as agent X6. Mr. An was worried that the information he might have disclosed would put the lives of other people at risk. Finally Mr. An gave in and Larry Berman became his official biographer in the West, beginning a collaboration that lasted until Mr. An’s death in September 2006 and that gave birth to “The Perfect Spy”, which comes out in paper back this month.

Born outside Saigon on the 12 of September 1927, Pham Xuan An joined the Communist national liberation movement– the Vietminh – in 1944, when he was only 16. At the time, the organization was fighting the Japanese occupation of Vietnam. Mr. An later became a spy for the Communist government in the North, right after Vietnam was partitioned following the departure of the French in 1954. He was immediately selected to infiltrate the South Vietnamese Army, which in turn assigned him to the Central Intelligence Agency, unknowingly making Mr. An a double agent.

His work with the CIA offered Mr. An an invaluable opportunity to start studying the American mind and to nurture close ties with many powerful Americans. Among them, there was Colonel Edward Landsdale, director of the CIA Saigon Military Mission and one of the leading anti-communists of that time. Mr. Landsdale grew so fond of Mr. An as to become the sponsors of his U.S. visa when, in 1956, Mr. An received a State Department scholarship to attend Fullerton College in California.

It was in California that Pham Xuan An began his career as a journalist, a profession that he always passionately loved and wished he could practice exclusively. During two years that he described to Professor Berman as “the best of his life,” Mr. An worked on the school newspaper and held an internship at The Sacramento Bee, the daily newspaper of California’s capital.

Mr. An moved back to Vietnam in 1958, working in Saigon for The Associated Press and then Reuters, until he landed the job at Time Magazine, which he held from 1965 to the fall of Saigon in 1975. Throughout the war, he became the most prominent source for all American journalists covering Vietnam, the only person who could explain to them the complexities of the country’s politics. At the same time, Mr. An was also the most valuable informer of the North Vietnamese.

The liberation of Saigon of April 30^th 1975, to which Pham Xuan An had dedicated his life, failed to fulfill many of the expectations that he had fostered during his years as a spy. Mr. An had hoped that, in a unified and independent Vietnam, he would have been able to practice journalism in that fair and objective manner that he had learned in America. The Communist regime crashed such dream and, not trusting Mr. An because of his close connections to the Americans, never even allowed him to leave the country to pay visit to his friends in the United States.

Nevertheless, Mr. An, who was named a national hero for the services rendered during the war, remained committed to the cause and accepted to live the rest of his life within the restrictions imposed on him and his family by the government. Until that November day in 2003, when gliding into the port of Ho Chi Minh City onboard a U.S. warship, Mr. An finally saw his two lives coming together; “I can die happy now. I served my country, my people, and reunification,” he later told Professor Larry Berman.

“If there was not Pham Xuan An, would the outcome of the war have been different?” Professor Berman wonders. In the interview with Washington Prism, he told us; “I think the answer is no, the outcome of the war would not have been different, the Americans would have never achieved their political objectives in Vietnam.” Nevertheless, Mr. Berman believes, Mr. An played “a major role in effecting the outcome of the war, just not a decisive one.”

Originally reported and written for Washington Prism – Persian Edition

Washington D.C. – Five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq and over 4000 American deaths later — and an imprecise number of Iraqi victims — a consensus has yet to be reached in Washington on how to move forward. Among the three candidates running for the White House (John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton), the two democrats have promised a relatively quick withdrawal of the troops, although they seem committed to slightly different timetables, with Obama showing the greatest urgency. John McCain instead remains a strong supporter of prolonged U.S. presence in Iraq and of the surge, the increase in the number of American soldiers on the ground that was enacted by President George W. Bush in 2007 and of which the Senator of Arizona had been a proponent.

One thread runs through these two seemingly opposing approaches; Americans, both Republicans and Democrats, show a tendency to treat the War in Iraq as merely a matter of US domestic politics, failing to grasp, or at least underestimating, the level of engagement of other important actors and their efforts at influencing the outcomes of the conflict to their advantages. Among such actors, Iran is certainly the most prominent.

This, at least, is the picture that emerged from a conference held on May 14^th at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, a research center in Washington D.C. Following two recent visits to Teheran, Selig Harrison, Director for the Center of International Policy, a non-governmental organization based in the national capital, was invited to speak on the triangular relation between the U.S., Iran and Iraq and to help gauge the view from Teheran. “I don’t think there can be an orderly withdrawal of our troops and a successful post-war reconstruction, without the help of Iran,” Mr. Harrison said. According to the Director of the CIP, Iran should not be viewed exclusively as a threat to the stability of the Middle-East, but could turn out to be a precious ally in the resolution of the conflict in Iraq, at the condition that Washington was willing to engage seriously with Teheran.

Geographic and historical reasons explain Iran’s interest in Iraq. The two countries share a 900-mile border, they both comprise a Shiite Muslim majority and they have entertained bilateral dealings for millennia. “For five centuries,” Mr. Harrison explained at the Wilson Center, “Iran has waited for the moment when the Sunni minority rule in Baghdad would end and when Teheran could finally regain some of its influence.” When, in 2003, the United States decided to overthrow Saddam Hussein, the neighboring Islamic Republic experienced conflicting feelings. On one hand, Teheran was worried about the presence of U.S. troops at its borders. On the other hand, the Iranian government quickly recognized the opportunity to seize control and influence.

Five years later, there is little doubt that Iran has acquired increased leverage on the Iraqis and that many of the progresses achieved – the latest one of which is the cease-fire agreed upon by the government of Nouri al-Maliki and the anti-American militias of Muqtada al Sadr – have been made possible thanks to Teheran’s intervention.

It appears that the U.S. might be growing increasingly dependent on Iran for a positive resolution to the conflict in Iraq. Fortunately, Washington and Teheran have a common interest in maintaining order and stability and that Iraq remains a unified country. Teheran is particularly worried about the Kurdish separatist movement, which they fear could inspire an uprising of Iran’s Kurdish minority. Moreover, according to Mr. Harrison, Iran has shown strong signals of a willingness to cooperate with the Americans. “Iran is restraining al Sadr and is ready to help stabilize Iraq, but only if Washington sets a timetable for a withdrawal of US troops and accepts Iran’s right to be a major player in post-war Iraq,” Mr. Harrison said.

In short, Iraq could become the stage for a new era of cooperation between the United States and Iran. At the same time, if Americans choose not to change course, it cold also turn into yet another proxy war and the theater of a violent confrontation between the two countries.

Whatever choices will be made by Teheran and Washington in Iraq, they will reverberate throughout the region. According to Selig Harrison, “Teheran’s frustration over American behavior in Sadr City (a neighborhood in Baghdad populated by 2 million people that has been the scene of the latest violent uprisings and of the brutal response by the U.S. Army), could have partially caused the most recent developments in Lebanon,” suggested the Director of CIP Wednesday morning, referring to the reigniting of the struggles between the Iran-sponsored Hezbollah and the U.S.-backed government in Beirut.

Vice versa, an American opening toward Iran in Iraq could mark the beginning of new diplomatic relations, which could then possibly extend to covering the nuclear issue. So far, Mr. Harrison believes, “the U.S is not serious about a negotiated settlement, or it would not be asking for the suspension of all enrichment as a pre-condition to negotiations.” Selig Harrison is convinced that it will be possible, at some point in the future, to obtain a complete freeze of Iran’s nuclear program under the oversight of the International Atomic Energy Agency; “the U.S. however will have to make a formal commitment to never use nuclear weapons in the Gulf.”

Selig Harrison laid out on Wednesday the reasons why Washington should re-evaluate its approach toward Teheran. Among the presidential hopefuls, Barack Obama is the only one to have said that he is, at least theoretically, willing to talk to Iran. John McCain is determined to stay the course initiated by George W. Bush. Hillary Clinton has repeated several times that she does not foresee meeting Iranian President Ahmadinejad, and that negotiations at the presidential level will not happen unless the Iranian government implements serious reforms. Considering where the 2008 campaign is now, it is likely that Barack Obama will be battling John McCain for the White House. If this is the case, the outcome of the general elections will certainly carry direct implications for American foreign policy, particularly as far as Iran and Iraq.

Originally reported and written for Washington Prism

Washington D.C. – The American polling industry is working around the clock during this year overextended primary season, trying to track the moods of the nation in the run-up to November general elections. National Journal Group Inc., a leading publisher of magazines, newsletters and books for politics and government professionals, presented Friday the results of one such survey, conducted in partnership with FD, a business communications and consulting firm headquartered in London and New York. The poll was carried out between April 30^th and May 3^rd, immediately before the primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. Nevertheless, the data presented at the Watergate by Ed Reilly of FD and Amy Walter of The National Journal depict an accurate and up-to-date image of the country’s political attitudes and can even help explain why Hillary Clinton might still have a chance to win the Democratic nomination.

Overall, the study shows a people deeply dissatisfied with the direction in which the country is headed, with 75% of voters interviewed saying that the U.S. is on the wrong track. “These are curves that you would see during a currency crisis in Argentina,” Ed Reilly commented. With a few variations, this feeling is common to all Americans, independent of party lines. Among the Democrats, up to 90% expresses frustration, while this figure is 74% among Independents and 56% among Republicans.

Americans are not only disappointed with President George W. Bush – whose historically low approval ratings are well known (according to The National Journal 64% of Americans disapproved of the job of the current administration as of the beginning of May). Voters appear even more disillusioned about Congress, which has been in the hands of the Democratic Party since 2006. 75% of the people interviewed said they are unhappy with the politics of Capitol Hill. As the president of FD put it on Friday, “it appears that you really would not want be part of what has happened in Washington in the last few years if you were a candidate.”

As far as the issues, the economy “now really defines the electorate’s psyche,” said Mr. Reilly, after many years dominated by worries about the War in Iraq, terrorism and national security. Curiously, voters view the three candidates still running for the White House as equally prepared on economic issues, each one of them receiving the approval of about 28% of the people contacted for the survey.

Senators Obama, Clinton and McCain are viewed positively by similar percentages of the electorate, (respectively 52%, 46% and 48%), while Clinton is perceived in a negative light by a larger group of voters, 48% versus the 39% of both Obama and McCain. “She’s been incredibly weakened, she’s the candidate that needs to get out,” said Amy Walter of The National Journal.

When it comes to the general elections, asked in the survey about a purely theoretical choice between one democrat and one republican, voters pick the former 49 times out of 100 and the latter only 35 times. Moreover, 53% of people contacted believe that, independent of their own preference, it will be a Democrat to win in November. This means that there is a substantial group of republican voters that are convinced they will lose the elections but that have decided to remain faithful to the party.

According to the analysis of Mr. Reilly and Ms. Walter on Friday, this group will be interesting to watch over the next few months, together with another one comprising voters that, despite being dissatisfied with George Bush’s job, remain determined to vote for the republican candidate. These two constituencies may seal the deal for John McCain in November, if they decide to stay the course. At the same time, they may end the hopes of the Arizona Senator, if they change their minds or simply decide not to vote.

However hard predictions on the outcome of the general elections are to make, the study by The National Journal helps highlight the different scenarios that would characterize the two eventual match-ups Obama-McCain or Clinton-McCain. “Clinton has a well defined ceiling and a well defined floor of support,” Ms. Walter explained. “She will go for the same states that John Kerry won in 2004, hoping to add one or two (such as Ohio), just enough to win the White House.” As for Obama, the editor of the National Journal believes that “he has a limitless ceiling and a bottomless floor. He can aim for states where Clinton couldn’t even imagine being competitive.” And yet he could lose others that are traditionally democratic strongholds.

On the republican side, John McCain must deal with an unenthusiastic base. He has to find a way of rallying republican voters. As Amy Walter put it on Friday, “Republicans are not a group of happy people.” In this respect, the National Journal poll indicates that 42% of those who say they will vote for the Senator from Arizona in November will do so exclusively with the purpose of voting against the Democrats and only 34% (a figure that was 50% in February) shows enthusiasm for John McCain as a candidate.

One of the means available to McCain is the choice of the Vice-president. The Senator from Arizona, who is counting on his appeal with independents and moderates, needs to find a running mate who caters to the right of the party. As such, he needs a politician who is a strong conservative. In order to balance some of his other supposed weaknesses, John McCain might also want to find someone who is younger, less entangled in DC politics and more grounded on economic issues. The task is not easy. Amy Walter said at the Watergate: “I don’t know how he can put on the ticket someone who could excite his base unless he was able to exhume Ronald Reagan.”

As a conclusion, and wrapping up the data that emerged from the survey, Ed Reilly of FD sketched out the strategies that the poll seems to suggest to the two parties. “Any kind of a connection that can be drawn between McCain and Bush will be a top-priority for the Democrats,” Reilly said. The Republicans, instead, “will have to distance themselves from the current administration.”

Originally reported and written for Washington Prism

In spite of the fact that water covers more than two-thirds of the Earth’s surface, 97.5% of it comprises of salt-water. For the most part, the fresh water supply is either stored as ice at the poles, in underground beds that are inaccessible to humans or retained as soil moisture. As a result, only a small fraction of the planet’s water resources, approximately 1% of the total, is available for human use. With the world population growing exponentially, issues of water scarcity are becoming increasingly pressing.

A UNDP report from 1999 predicted that access to water was likely to be the single biggest cause of conflict in Africa in the following 25 years. Almost a decade later, the global pressure on water supplies has increased due to population growth, continued deforestation and climate change, making water an increasingly scarce and precious commodity. According to the World Bank, 1.1 billion people today lack access to safe water, normally calculated as a minimum of 20 liters per day from an improved source within one kilometer of the home.

“Africa’s Lake Chad,” writes Lester R. Brown, founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute, “once a landmark for astronauts circling the earth, is now difficult for them to locate.” The lake, surrounded by fast-growing countries such as Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria, has shrunk 96% in 40 years. “The shrinkage of Lake Chad is not unique,” notes Dr. Brown, one of America’s leading environmentalists and author of Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization. “The world is incurring a vast water deficit.” The flow of the Jordan River is also steadily diminishing – along with those of the Yellow River in China, the Mekong in Southeast Asia, the Amu Darya in Central Asia and the Colorado River in the United States. And, as the Jordan River decreases, the Dead Sea is also shrinking. Over the past 40 years, its water level has dropped by some 25 meters and it is estimated it could disappear entirely by the year 2050.

Moreover, with demand growing, several countries are exploiting their groundwater to the point of exhaustion and water tables in parts of China, India, West Asia, the former Soviet Union and the western United States are dropping. According to Dr. Brown, in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, with a population of over 62 million, wells are going dry almost everywhere because of the depletion of underground water tables. Similarly, Iran is over pumping its aquifers by an average of five billion tons of water per year, causing “water refugees” to abandon their villages in the eastern part of the country as wells dry up.

Considering the extent of the problem, it shouldn’t be surprising that the 1999 UNDP study forecasts that should water wars occur, they would most likely break out in regions where rivers or lakes are shared by more than one country. Lester R. Brown agrees. “Nowhere is this potential conflict (over water) starker than among Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia in the Nile River valley.”

The Nile River Basin

The Nile River Basin is a reservoir of water covering 1.3 million square miles, a surface slightly larger than the territory of India. There are ten riparian countries to the Nile River, the longest running in the world: Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, and Eritrea. However, three of them – Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia – account for 85% of the territory that constitutes the hydrologic boundaries of the basin.

Whereas 95% of Egyptians rely exclusively on the Nile for their water supply and 77% of Sudan’s fresh water comes via the river, the Nile originates in Ethiopia and controls 85% of its headwaters. “Ethiopia is an interesting case,” says an economist with the Ministry of Water Resources in Addis Ababa who asked not to be identified by name, “since its economic fate is closely tied to unreliable rainfall and since 90% of its water resources are ‘trans-boundary,’ which means that rivers flow into other countries that inevitably oppose upstream development that might reduce their own resources.”

The already high demand for water in the region is projected to increase steadily through the next forty years. The population in Egypt, today at 75 million, should reach 121 million by 2050. Sudan is expected to have 73 million people by 2050, almost double today’s 39 million. And the number of Ethiopians is projected to grow from 83 million to 183 million.

Population growth is not the only factor of stress on the region’s water resources. David Shinn, former ambassador to Burkina Faso and Ethiopia and professor of International Affairs at George Washington University, told Washington Prism in an interview, “Irrigation projects are the greatest threat to the future of amicable Nile water usage.  Big irrigation projects simply use so much water that never returns to the river system.”

Deforestation and soil erosion also represent a threat. According to Mongabay, one of the most influential climate and environment websites, Ethiopia lost 14.0% of its forest cover between 1990 and 2005. Fewer trees could result from less rainfall. They could also cause worsening soil erosion, which in turn would increase sedimentation and reduce the lifespan of water storage infrastructure.

Competition vs. Cooperation

“Since there is already little water left in the Nile when it reaches the Mediterranean,” Lester Brown writes in Plan B 3.0 , “if either Sudan or Ethiopia takes more water, then Egypt will get less.” Moreover, international agreements grant Ethiopia only a minuscule share of water. “Given its aspirations for a better life, and with the headwaters of the Nile being one of its few natural resources, Ethiopia will undoubtedly want to take more,” Dr. Brown believes.

Possibly the biggest problem with the Nile River Basin is the lack of reasonable agreements among riparian countries on the equitable share of water rights. The most recent one was signed by Egypt and Sudan in 1959 and resulted in a virtual Egyptian monopoly over Nile water. Based on an annual flow at Aswan of 84 billion cubic meters, it allocated 55.5 billion cubic meters, or three-quarters, of the water to Egypt and 18.5 billion cubic meters, one-quarter, to Sudan. “The 1959 treaty remains in effect but is only accepted by Egypt and Sudan.  This is the big problem,” Ambassador Shinn told Washington Prism. The other eight riparian countries do not accept the agreement, but unfortunately there is no formal structure in place for handling such political contentions. “There are periodic bilateral and even regional discussions on water-related issues, but they have not yet achieved a breakthrough on redistribution of Nile water.  That is why this situation could, not will but could, result in conflict some day,” said Ambassador Shinn.

The one example of an attempt at cooperative development of the Nile is the 10 year-old Nile Basin Initiative (NBI). The World Bank-led NBI provides a framework through which its member states can cooperatively make use of the resources of the Nile Basin to fight poverty and promote socio-economic development in the region. Each member has agreed to share information with other riparian states on the projects it intends to launch and, if possible, to undertake joint studies to ensure the sustainability of such projects. The initiative has been regarded as generally successful and the parties to the NBI appear very committed to it. However, Ambassador Shinn believes that the “NBI is an organization that deals primarily with technical and practical issues and not controversial political ones.  It is easier to cooperate on technical matters than political ones.” What remains to be seen is whether the riparian states of the Nile River can find a way to approach the hard-button issues of water rights and water equitable shares.

Responses

The story of the Nile River Basin illustrates the challenges confronting people and policymakers around the world. Current trends in population growth, deforestation, agriculture and the general inefficiency in the way we use available water signal that conditions of water scarcity are only destined to worsen and suggest that conflicts over water resources are becoming increasingly likely.

According to figures from the U.S. Census Bureau, world population is projected to grow from six billion in 1999 to nine billion by 2042. In the meantime, while more than one-fifth of the world’s tropical forests have been cleared since 1960, tropical deforestation continues at rates averaging about 0.7% per year. As for agriculture, close to 70% of the Earth’s freshwater already go towards irrigation projects. The Food Policy Research Institute projects that irrigated cropland area for grains will grow 11% worldwide between 1995 and 2025. Finally, wasteful consumption of water, especially in developed countries, is also contributing to the gradual depletion of global supplies. For example, a report published by the European Union Commission in 2007 estimates that water usage in the EU alone could be reduced by about 40%. As a result, water becomes a more precious resource each day.

If financial markets are any indication of the value of a commodity, a new movement toward the trading of water reinforces the idea that this will be the next most sought after good. It was recently reported that a wave of water purification companies are going public in hopes of increasing their value. “Water companies have become prized acquisition targets as a result of growing concerns over shortages of clean water, the increased infrastructure needs of developing countries, more stringent regulations and an aging water distribution system in the United States,” wrote Euan Rocha for Reuters.

The British economist Roger Bate, currently a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington D.C., explained to Washington Prism: “Water is traded amongst farmers, municipalities and industries in many semiarid countries: Australia, Chile, United States, South Africa. It is either literally transferred or the rights to use the water are transferred, much like a contract for many commodities.” Dr. Bates, an expert on water policy, believes that water trading “improves efficiency by allocating water to the most efficient uses, and as such it is also better for the environment.” The premise is that there is enough water in the world for everyone, but it is being used wastefully almost everywhere. What is needed then is a system for allocating water shares more efficiently and an increasingly large number of experts believe that markets can provide such a system.

Trading in water shares is becoming popular even among small investors. Ronald Saville told Washington Prism in an interview, “Water is already a limited resource just when considering it for consumption. Add into the mix the fact that we are going to rely more on it for energy, and its importance for the future is readily apparent.” Saville is a young professional employed in the field of international education in Washington D.C. “I think water will become the next oil and these companies will stand to make huge profits on it, similarly to the way oil companies are making them now,” said Mr. Saville, who has decided to buy shares of a “water mutual fund” known as Powershares Global Water.

Although markets can help allocate a commodity more efficiently by determining the price at which offer meets demand, questions arise as to how they can help distribute equitably a resource such as water, which is equally indispensable to all human beings independent of income, and as to whether or not finance can help preserve it for the future. Oil will be traded at higher and higher prices until it runs out. Unfortunately, while mankind can survive without oil, the same cannot be said for water.

According to Roger Bate, while oil is only slowly replenished, water is a renewable resource. “Water can be commoditized successfully without it ever having to run out,” Dr. Bate says.. “Water markets are based on tradable quotas calculated on supplies. If you set the quotas at below the total amount you will not run out.”  According to Bate, it is crucial then to set the right quotas. “It often happens that a government sets more quotas then there is water to fulfill,” he concedes. However, he believes that “this is not the fault of the market; it is the fault of the quota allocation, in this case the government”.

Even those like Bate who strongly believe in the efficiency of the market as a system of resource allocation see a role for governments and politics in the process. “Making sure people have the funds to be able to afford water is the job of a government, creating a safety net. It is much better that the poor pay for water and get used to paying for it so its not wasted, but that simultaneously they are subsidized to do so. For too long too many users, and notably farmers, have not paid enough for water and wasted it,” explained Bate.

Ethiopia is a very good example of the need for both investments and a political response. Since at an aggregate level Ethiopia still has an abundance of water, the biggest question for Addis Ababa is how to store it, manage it and, if necessary, transfer it.  The economist with the government’s Water Ministry told us: “This is the major concern, since it requires massive finance which of course is not readily available.  In the medium to long term, if investment keeps coming the improved ability to manage water resources will likely more than offset the reduced total quantity of water due to climate and localized factors.  But that may be a big if.”

Since water is a public good and one of the fundamental sources of life, and since it inherently raises trans-national issues, a concerted global political effort at managing and preserving it may be the best strategy for confronting water scarcity and the conflicts that could potentially arise. “I think that there is not much that can be done at a national level, other than more of the same,” the economist with the Ethiopian government told us. “The major solutions will need to be international.”

Originally reported and written for Washington Prism