Regional multilateralism: The next paradigm in global affairs – GPS

What comes next as a model for dealing with global trouble spots?  Think about more Libya approaches:

In a world of diminished U.S. involvement and unsuccessful multilateralist endeavors, an alternative vision for global engagement is necessary. Instead we are faced with a reluctant China, an unprepared India, an European Union in the midst of a financial debacle and a host of regional powers that focus on their neighborhood rather than claiming a global role. Given these realities, regional multilateralism can serve as the way out from this dead end.

via Regional multilateralism: The next paradigm in global affairs – Global Public Square – CNN.com Blogs.

Qatar Presses Decisive Shift in Arab Politics – NYTimes.com

File this under “the power of small states” as well as an interesting commentary on how soft power amplifies national interests:

This thumb-shaped spit of sand on the Persian Gulf has emerged as the most dynamic Arab country in the tumult realigning the region. Its intentions remain murky to its neighbors and even allies — some say Qatar has a Napoleon complex, others say it has an Islamist agenda. But its clout is a lesson in what can be gained with some of the world’s largest gas reserves, the region’s most influential news network in Al Jazeera, an array of contacts many with an Islamist bent, and policy-making in an absolute monarchy vested in the hands of one man, its emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani.Qatar has become a vital counterpoint in an Arab world where traditional powers are roiled by revolution, ossified by aging leaderships, or still reeling from civil war, and where the United States is increasingly viewed as a power in decline.

via Qatar Presses Decisive Shift in Arab Politics – NYTimes.com.

I should note that this is a retread both in my posting and in the Times’ reporting.

What Does Occupy Wall Street Want?

What does the Occupy Wall Street protest represent?  A movement, a reaction orr a growing alliance among the left?  Is it the mirror image of the Tea Party (which Bill Keller asks, may be finished?

The Tea Party, for all its apparent populism, revolves around a vision of power and how to attain it. Tea Partiers tend to be white, male, Republican, graying, married and comfortable; the political system once worked for them, and they think it can be made to do so again. They revile government, but they adore hierarchy and order. Not for them the tents and untucked shirts, the tattoos, piercings and dreadlocks that are eye candy for lazy journalists. (“Am I dressed too nice so the media doesn’t interview me?” read one Occupy Wall Street demonstrator’s sign.)

In contrast, what should we make of Occupy Wall Street? The movement is, of course, nascent, and growing: on Oct. 5, it picked up thousands of marching supporters of all ages, many from unions, professions and universities, and crowded Foley Square. Its equivalents rallied in 50 cities. Deep anger at grotesque inequities extends far beyond this one encampment; after all, a few handfuls of young activists do not have a monopoly on the fight against plutocracy. Revulsion in the face of a perverse economy is felt by many respectable people: unemployed, not yet unemployed, shakily employed and plain disgusted. A month from now, this movement, still busy being born, could look quite different.

via Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party – NYTimes.com.

Famed Columbia professor and international development expert Jeffery Sachs offers his support for OWS, to Ban Ki-moon’s chagrin?

Paul Krugman weighs in:

What’s going on here? The answer, surely, is that Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is. They’re not John Galt; they’re not even Steve Jobs. They’re people who got rich by peddling complex financial schemes that, far from delivering clear benefits to the American people, helped push us into a crisis whose aftereffects continue to blight the lives of tens of millions of their fellow citizens.

via Panic of the Plutocrats – NYTimes.com.

Effort Fosters Tolerance Among Religions – NYTimes.com

Speaking of cooperative efforts (although only partially about consensus) consider the efforts of Patel on interfaith activism:

Interfaith activism could be a cause on college campuses, he argued, as much “a norm” as the environmental or women’s rights movements, as ambitious as Teach for America. The crucial ingredient was to gather students of different religions together not just to talk, he said, but to work together to feed the hungry, tutor children or build housing.

“Interfaith cooperation should be more than five people in a book club,” Mr. Patel said, navigating his compact car to a panel discussion at Elmhurst College just west of downtown Chicago, while answering questions and dictating e-mails to an aide. “You need a critical mass of interfaith leaders who know how to build relationships across religious divides, and see it as a lifelong endeavor.”

via Effort Fosters Tolerance Among Religions – NYTimes.com.

Why Libya Now? Thinking About Intervention

Why does the U.S. want the fighting to stop, Gaddafi’s forces to retreat and Gaddafi to leave the country?  via Why Are We Going to War with Libya?–Updated – Swampland – TIME.com.

The strategy may have been outlined by President Obama last Tuesday, as repored by Josh Rogin:

His overall thinking was described to a group of experts who had been called to the White House to discuss the crisis in Libya only days earlier.

“This is the greatest opportunity to realign our interests and our values,” a senior administration official said at the meeting, telling the experts this sentence came from Obama himself. The president was referring to the broader change going on in the Middle East and the need to rebalance U.S. foreign policy toward a greater focus on democracy and human rights.

via How Obama turned on a dime toward war | The Cable

One former administration policy leader at State and now critic of inaction, Anne Marie-Slaughter of Princeton layed out the main concerns against intervention in a NYT Op-Ed last week, addressing the question of national interests, the danger of Western involvement, effectiveness, unknown outcomes, and other tactics such as arming the rebels.

And Max Boot writes in the WSJ of the tension between justice and conflict resolution, arguing that pursuit of Qadaffi may actually encourage him to fight.

“The very real fear that Gadhafi & Co. effectively may have no place to go outside Libya where they would be safe from pursuit…provides a compelling incentive to fight on,” explains Wayne White, a scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington and a former State Department intelligence official.

For the international community, the dilemma has often amounted to a trade-off between conflict resolution and justice. In recent years, though, the arc of history has leaned toward justice, no matter the consequences.

via Threat of Trial Keeps Gadhafi Fighting – WSJ.com.

 

A Future for Unasur?

What are the prospects for a new political/security/economic/social group for Latin America sans the US?  Or, in other words, the “political complement which is missing with Mercosur“:

“It’s really only been, so far, a series of summits and declarations driven by personalities,” Sabatini said in a phone interview from New York on Nov. 24. “Clearly, Unasur has aspirations to become a regional grouping free of the United States that does what the OAS purports to do, but does it better. It has to have some sort of life between summits.”

via Unasur Pledges to Isolate Governments From Coups, Fight Drug Trafficking – Bloomberg.

The G20 and the United States: Opportunities for More Effective Multilateralism – Council on Foreign Relations

Need to know on the G20:  What, where, and how?  But as BYU Professor Wade Jacoby recently noted at the celebration of BYU’s Title VI grant awards in Europe, Asia, Middle East, and Global Management, mulilateralism isn’t going to save us–is just a means (talking to many parties) to an end (peace, prosperity, justice, etc.).:

The designation of the Group of Twenty (G20) as the “premier forum” for inter national economic coordination is the biggest innovation in global governance since the end of the Cold War.

via The G20 and the United States: Opportunities for More Effective Multilateralism – Council on Foreign Relations.

Shuttle Campaigning, Iraqi-Style – NYTimes.com

Iraqui leaders move about the region, jockeying for influence, building support, and trying to make things happen–in a process that mirrors coalition building in negotiations:

Asked about foreign influence, Mr. Maliki himself was cryptic to the point of opacity. “If we say that State A adopts Maliki and a State B opposes him, then this means that the two states have different policies,” he told Iraq’s state television the day after he won the Sadrists’ support. But he added that “a state of understanding among states” was possible.

via Shuttle Campaigning, Iraqi-Style – NYTimes.com.

Brazil says U.S. spat signals tough security reform | Reuters

Flexed muscles from the “B” in the important new bloc known as “BRIC”:

Emerging power Brazil downplayed on Saturday a cooling of its relations with the United States following a disagreement on diplomacy toward Iran, but said the incident suggested reform of global institutions would be tough.Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said opposition from big powers to a joint Brazilian-Turkish mediation effort on the Iranian nuclear dispute suggested they would resist changes to the global order, such as reform of the U.N. Security Council.Speaking to reporters at a conference in Geneva of the transatlantic International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank, Amorim said the United States and Brazil had disagreed only on tactics on Iran, not on fundamental strategy.

via Brazil says U.S. spat signals tough security reform | Reuters.

Brazil, India and China — not quite superpowers yet

Hold on BRIC … you’re not ready for primetime.

It’s an article of faith among the liberal, open-minded, well-meaning, Davos-crowd intelligentsia: The leadership of the big global institutions — the International Monetary Fund, the U.N. Security Council, the World Bank and the like — must be opened up to emerging powers. The current structures reflect old post-World War II realities and no longer make sense. It’s time to more fully include China, India, Brazil and other countries that are becoming dominant players in the 21st century.

Sounds very fair and nice and post-American-worldy, but Jorge Castañeda thinks it’s a lousy idea. In a provocative piece in the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs, the former foreign minister of Mexico warns that bringing in these new players threatens the principles and practices of democracy, free trade, nuclear nonproliferation, environmentalism and international justice that such institutions — and most of their current leadership — seek to spread.

via Brazil, India and China — not quite superpowers yet.