Europe's take on America's next president
Submitted by SHNS on Fri, 06/20/2008 - 15:54. By THOMAS P.M. BARNETT, Scripps Howard News Service editorials and opinion
The Wall Street Journal's European edition opines that the transatlantic bond remains "robust" despite President George W. Bush's supposed unilateralism. Harsh anti-Americanism, like that of France's Jacques Chirac and Germany's Gerhard Schroeder, is out and pragmatic pro-Americanism is in -- see replacements Nicholas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel.

With friendly presidents in every major capital save Madrid, Europe has moved past Iraq. Hence a "third" Bush term with John McCain would not signal disruption but a continued warming that characterized the second Bush term.

Having spent last week in The Hague consulting with dozens of Dutch senior officials from several ministries, I'm inclined to counter that rosy perception.

I concur with the Journal's underlying logic: America presents the best alliance option for a European Union feeling nervous about Russia's bare-knuckle pipeline diplomacy, China's predatory capitalism, and India's indifference to Iran's nuclear program. But being the best available option isn't the same as being the most desired option.

Certainly President Bush heard some gripes during his European tour last week. While the EU places more emphasis on human rights than any great power, including America, the Bush administration's promotion of democracy as central to a war on terrorism is viewed with real worry because of its potential to pit East against West, a dynamic Europe hoped had passed into history.

Polls indicate that Europeans overwhelmingly favor Barack Obama over John McCain, despite the latter's call for a stronger transatlantic relationship. Perhaps that has something to do with McCain's proposal for a "league of democracies" that would bypass the flaccid United Nations and decide on its own which dictators need challenging.

The idea came from well-known McCain adviser and longtime neoconservative scholar Robert Kagan, who promotes it as the central solution to America's alliance woes in his recent book, "The Return of History and the End of Dreams." Kagan, you might remember, told us just a few years ago that Europeans were from Venus and Americans were from Mars, meaning we remain comfortable with war while Europe is no longer willing to defend itself.

Again, it's not that Europe has changed its mind so much as it simply sees a scarier world and thus continues to appreciate our strategic friendship.

But here's what I found during my week in The Hague: the Dutch aren't convinced that America plus Europe translates into a quorum that's sufficient to tackle all the challenges we collectively face. In almost every issue you can name, Europe's coming to the conclusion that the West needs the East to figure out the South, as well as our shared future on this increasingly crowded and competitive planet.

The most obvious case is global climate change, since the greatest increases in CO2 emissions in coming years and decades will come overwhelmingly from emerging markets. With the West already built-up and saturated with vehicles, the opportunity to curb emissions will be found primarily in those emerging economies, where financial firm Morgan Stanley estimates $22 trillion worth of infrastructure will be constructed within the next decade -- almost half in China alone.

Here's where both U.S. presidential candidates frighten Europe: Obama's tough talk on trade strikes them as economically immature, but McCain's promise to kick Russia out of the G-8, only to expand it dramatically while keeping China out, seems truly backward. If anything, Europe admired Bush most for his cool handling of both Moscow and Beijing over his two terms.

That's where the rubber really meets the road for NATO: Obama promises that any drawdown of troops in Iraq will signal a far greater American military commitment in Afghanistan. Europe, especially the Dutch, fear NATO's global credibility is on the line right now in Afghanistan.

Bottom line?

Don't expect Europe to step in line behind any new American president. While Europeans see the same world, they still have different -- maybe even better -- priorities.

(Thomas P.M. Barnett (tom(at)thomaspmbarnett.com) is a strategist at the Oak Ridge Associated Universities and senior managing director of Enterra Solutions LLC.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)

Bjørn Lomborg is the best-informed and most humane advocate for environmental change in the world today. In contrast to other figures that promote a single issue while ignoring others, Lomborg views the globe as a whole, studies all the problems we face, ranks them, and determines how best, and in what order, we should address them. His first book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, established the importance of a fact-based approach. With later books, Global Crises, Global Solutions and How to Spend $50 Billion to Make the World a Better Place, this mild-mannered Danish statistician has steadily gained new converts. Not surprisingly, Time Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming will further enhance Lomborg’s reputation for global analysis and thoughtful response. For anyone who wants an overview of the global warming debate from an objective source, this brief text is a perfect place to start. Lomborg is only interested in real problems, and he has no patience with media fear-mongering; he begins by dispatching the myth of the endangered polar bears, showing that this Disneyesque cartoon has no relevance to the real world where polar bear populations are in fact increasing. Lomborg considers the issue in detail, citing sources from Al Gore to the World Wildlife Fund, then demonstrating that polar bear populations have actually increased five fold since the 1960s.

Lomborg then works his way through the concerns we hear so much about: higher temperatures, heat deaths, species extinctions, the cost of cutting carbon, the technology to do it. Lomborg believes firmly in climate change--despite his critics, he's no denier--but his fact-based approach, grounded in economic analyses, leads him again and again to a different view. He reviews published estimates of the cost of climate change, and the cost of addressing it, and concludes that "we actually end up paying more for a partial solution than the cost of the entire problem. That is a bad deal."

In some of the most disturbing chapters, Lomborg recounts what leading climate figures have said about anyone who questions the orthodoxy, thus demonstrating the illiberal, antidemocratic tone of the current debate. Lomborg himself takes the larger view, explaining in detail why the tone of hysteria is inappropriate to addressing the problems we face.

In the end, Lomborg’s concerns embrace the planet. He contrasts our concern for climate with other concerns such as HIV/AIDS, malnutrition, and providing clean water to the world. In the end, his ability to put climate in a global perspective is perhaps the book’s greatest value. Lomborg and Cool It are our best guides to our shared environmental future.

--Michael Crichton

(photo credit: Jonathan Exley)

From Publishers Weekly
Lomborg, a political scientist and economist with a conservative approach to environmentalism, presents a work that's likely to garner as much acclaim and disdain as his first book, 2001's The Skeptical Environmentalist. This "Guide to Global Warming," while thoroughly referenced and convincingly argued, ignores many climate studies and assumes that climate change will continue at a steady rate (not necessarily the case). From this vantage, Lomborg suggests workable solutions beyond "hysteria and headlong spending," proposing a tax on CO2 "at the economically correct level of about two dollars per ton, or maximally fourteen dollars per ton" and that "all nations should commit themselves to spending 0.05 percent of GDP in R&D of noncarbon-emitting energy technologies." Gross simplification, however, leads to misleading generalizations and questionable arguments, such as Lomborg's claim that a reduction in global cold weather-related deaths that outweighs the rising number of heat-related deaths means global warming is good for humanity. Though he argues passionately, Lomborg's efforts seem more about pushing his opponents' buttons than facing honestly the complexities of global climate change.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"This very useful compilation will serve to advance thinking and stimulate debate on these and related important contemporary global concerns." A.R. Sanderson, University of Chicago, CHOICE

"A hugely sensible book about global health and environmental problems, based on the 'Copenhagen Consensus' project documented in The Economist. Its authors, eminent economists, recognise that the resources to tackle such problems are finite and need to be applied where they are most likely to be effective. Better, for instance, to spend resources on the immediate problem of AIDS in Africa than the more distant one of global warming. This book is a healthy antidote to the narrow views of single-issue pressure groups." the Economist "Best Books of the Year"

"Especially recommended reading for government employees, non-governmental organizations, students of public policy and applied economics, and any individual with a direct personal or professional interest in global development issues." BOOKWATCH

Product Description
This volume provides a uniquely rich set of arguments and data for prioritizing our responses to some of the most serious problems facing the world today, such as climate change, communicable diseases, conflicts, education, financial instability, corruption, migration, malnutrition and hunger, trade barriers, and water access. Leading economists evaluate the evidence for costs and benefits of various programs to help gauge how we can achieve the most good with our money. Each problem is introduced by a world-renowned expert analyzing the scale of the problem and describing the costs and benefits of a range of policy options to improve the situation. Shorter pieces from experts offering alternative positions are also included; all ten challenges are evaluated by a panel of economists from North America, Europe, and China who rank the most promising policy options. Global Crises, Global Solutions provides a serious, yet accessible, springboard for debate and discussion and will be required reading for government employees, NGOs, scholars and students of public policy and applied economics, and anyone with a serious professional or personal interest in global development issues. Bjørn Lomborg is Associate Professor of Statistics at the University of Aarhus and the director of the Danish Environmental Assessment Institute. He is also the author of the controversial bestseller, The Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge, 2001).

Battle shapes up over future of U.S. role in Iraq
BAGHDAD (AP) — The decisive battle of the Iraq war is shaping up — not in the streets of Baghdad but in the halls of government where the future of America's role across the region is on the line.
American and Iraqi officials have expressed new resolve to hammer out far-reaching deals that would allow U.S. forces to remain on bases across Iraq once the U.N. mandate expires at year's end.

The stakes in the talks are enormous.

The outcome will shape not just Iraq for years to come — but, more important, America's strategic position all across the oil-rich Persian Gulf at a time when Iran's influence is growing. The U.S. maintains substantial air and naval forces elsewhere in the Gulf but few ground troops except in Iraq.

A pact also would assure Arab allies that Iraq would not fall under domination by Iran, which is pressuring the Iraqis to refuse any deal that keeps U.S. soldiers here.

But critics in the United States fear it will tie the hands of the next president when millions of Americans are anxious to bring troops home. Many Iraqis, in turn, worry the deal will allow American domination of their country for decades.

With so much in the balance, the Iraqi government said Wednesday that both Washington and Baghdad recognize the need to finish the talks by July's end "to avoid any legal vacuum that may arise."

That came only days after it seemed the deal was dead. But Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said the prospects for an accord had brightened because of new U.S. flexibility after meetings in Washington.

The White House said President Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki discussed the talks Thursday via secured video teleconference and affirmed their commitment to completing the deal.

Nevertheless, the two sides remain far apart on core issues, including the number of bases where the United States will have a presence, and U.S. demands for immunity from Iraqi law for American soldiers and contractors.

Other obstacles include U.S. authority to detain suspects, fight battles without Iraqi permission and control of the country's airspace.

Iraq's parliament must sign off on the deal by year's end — and approval is by no means certain.

Opposition to the initial U.S. demands brought together rival Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders who all complain the deal would leave real power in American hands.

The oil minister, who is close to the country's powerful Shiite clerical leadership, told the British newspaper The Guardian this week that Iraq will demand the right to veto any U.S. military operation.

But American commanders believe they need such sweeping powers to protect U.S. soldiers in a combat zone.

Publicly, U.S. officials have expressed confidence they can find language that will satisfy the Iraqis on all major issues. But the negotiations are taking place against the backdrop of war and intense power struggles among rival ethnic groups in Iraq — each with its own agenda.

The U.S. operates scores of bases throughout the country, including the sprawling Camp Victory headquarters in Baghdad, Asad air base in western Iraq and the giant air facility at Balad, a 16-square-mile installation about 60 miles north of the capital that houses tens of thousands of American troops, contractors and U.S. government civilians.

It's still unclear how many of the facilities Washington would want to keep.

If all else fails, the two sides could go back to the U.N. Security Council and seek an extension of the mandate allowing troops in Iraq.

But that could prove politically embarrassing — and difficult — in the waning days of the Bush administration or the early days of the new U.S. presidency.

The current standoff has its roots in events last August when leaders of Iraq's rival factions — facing enormous U.S. pressure to resolve their differences — signed a declaration of unity.

It included a statement that Iraq's government wanted a long-term security relationship with the United States apart from U.N. mandates, which Iraq has long wanted to end.

A few months later, Bush and al-Maliki signed a statement of principles to negotiate two agreements — a broad security framework and a second deal spelling out the rules for the U.S. military presence.

Talks began in March but Iraqi officials were outraged over the initial U.S. demands — especially immunity for U.S. soldiers and security contractors.

The American draft also included no firm commitment to defend Iraq from foreign invasion — which would require U.S. Senate approval — nor a timetable for the departure of American troops, according to Iraqi officials. U.S. officials have released few details.

After Iraqi negotiators briefed lawmakers last month, politicians from all walks paraded in front of microphones to denounce the U.S. proposals.

Some commentators likened the U.S. position to the Iraqi-British treaty of 1930, which gave Britain virtual control of the country and is widely seen here as a humiliation.

Shiite lawmaker Haidar al-Abadi, speaking for al-Maliki's party, said June 4 that "negotiations are at a standstill, and the Iraqi side is studying its options." A week later al-Maliki himself said talks had reached a "dead-end."

Aides scrambled to clarify that al-Maliki did not mean negotiations were over. But his comments reflected Iraq's resolve not to accept an agreement short of major Iraqi demands.

"We could not give amnesty to a soldier carrying arms on our soil," al-Maliki said then.

Such comments reflect each Iraqi faction's need to publicly defend Iraq's rights, amid the country's intense political rivalry.

Some Sunni groups, for example, privately favor a continued American presence as a counterweight to Iran's influence among Shiites. Yet several leading Sunni politicians signed a letter to Congress insisting on a timetable for a U.S. withdrawal — in part to needle al-Maliki on an nationalistic issue.

Shiite parties, in turn, believe the agreement would shore up American support for al-Maliki ahead of parliamentary elections next year — a goal they seek. But Shiite leaders are also anxious to take over full control of their country.

Meanwhile, recent Iraqi military successes against al-Qaeda in Mosul and Shiite extremists in the south have convinced some Shiite politicians they don't really need America.

"Iraq has another option that it may use," al-Maliki said recently. "The Iraqi government, if it wants, has the right to demand that the U.N. terminate the presence of international forces on Iraqi sovereign soil."

Foreign firms investing in Iraq
By Jim Michaels, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — European and Asian companies are beating their American rivals into Iraq now that security has improved the investment climate, Iraq and U.S. officials say.
"It's starting to turn … and the people who are getting in on the ground floor are not American," said Paul Brinkley, the Pentagon official who is leading U.S. efforts to help Iraq rebuild its economy. "It's ironic."

Foreign companies, including U.S. investors, have committed to deals worth about $500 million so far this year and Brinkley expects at least $1 billion in foreign investment by the end of the year.

So far, Romanian consortium and a Lebanese company have signed revenue-sharing deals with Iraqi state-owned cement factories. Each group will invest about $150 million.

China has also aggressively pursued the Iraqi market, selling machinery to the government and electronic products to consumers.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari, in Washington on an official visit, said Monday that larger U.S. firms were waiting for more security before entering the market.

Zebari noted that Turkish and Russian companies were already active in Iraq. "They take risks," he told USA TODAY in an interview. "No pain, no gain."

Many of the companies active in Iraq now are from countries, including France, Russia and Turkey, that did not send combat troops to back the U.S.-led invasion.

Some U.S. and Iraqi officials say American companies risk losing an early opportunity to establish long-term strategic ties with Iraq.

"My question is, 'Where are you guys in terms of investment, in terms of economic engagement?' " said Naufel al-Hassan, Iraq's commercial counselor in Washington. "Iraqis need your support. Why let someone else do that?"

There are no reliable historic numbers, but the deals this year are among the first major investment opportunities outside U.S.-funded reconstruction projects and they signal new confidence in Iraq's economy.

The activity by non-U.S. companies is not a cause for concern, said Charles Reis, the U.S. counselor for economic transition in Iraq. "This is a normalization of Iraq's relationship with the rest of the world," he said.

Large U.S. companies won the bulk of the $20 billion worth of reconstruction contracts funded by the military. Now, however, opportunities are riskier and require more local understanding.

That has favored non-U.S. investors who have had prewar experience in Iraq, said Timothy Mills, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Iraq.

American companies may also be reluctant to invest in Iraq because the war has generated so much controversy at home, Brinkley said.

The private investments that come from the USA are generally individual or institutional investors — not American corporations, Brinkley said. U.S. investors, for example, are part of a $120 million deal to build a hotel in the heavily fortified Green Zone, where U.S. and Iraqi government offices are located.

Americans lead other nations in the number of exports to Iraq, but other nations have ramped up trade. China doubled the number of exports to Iraq this year.

China is now Iraq's third-largest trade partner behind the USA and Turkey, according to Global Trade Information Services, a firm that tracks trade statistics.





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