June 6, 2008
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Art of Growing Up

By DAVID BROOKS
In January 1841, Abraham Lincoln seems to have at least vaguely thought of suicide. His friend Joshua Speed found him one day thrashing about in his room. “Lincoln went Crazy,” Speed wrote. “I had to remove razors from his room — take away all Knives and other such dangerous things — it was terrible.”

Lincoln was taking three mercury pills a day, the remedy in those days for people who either suffered from syphilis or feared contracting it. “Lincoln could not eat or sleep,” Daniel Mark Epstein writes in his new book, “The Lincolns.” “He appeared at the statehouse irregularly, hollow-eyed, unshaven, emaciated — an object of pity to his friends and of derision to others.”

Later, Lincoln wrote of that period with shame, saying that he had lost the “gem of my character.” He would withdraw morosely from the world into a sort of catatonic state. Early in his marriage, Epstein writes, “Lincoln had night terrors. He woke in the middle of the night trembling, talking gibberish.”

He would, of course, climb out of it. He would come to terms with his weaknesses, control his passions and achieve what we now call maturity.

The concept of maturity has undergone several mutations over the course of American history. In Lincoln’s day, to achieve maturity was to succeed in the conquest of the self. Human beings were born with sin, infected with dark passions and satanic temptations. The transition to adulthood consisted of achieving mastery over them.

You can read commencement addresses from the 19th and early 20th centuries in which the speakers would talk about the beast within and the need for iron character to subdue it. Schoolhouse readers emphasized self-discipline. The whole character-building model was sin-centric. So the young Lincoln had been encouraged by the culture around him to identify his own flaws — and, in any case, he had no trouble finding them. He knew he was ferociously ambitious and blessed with superior talents — the sort of person who could easily turn into a dictator or monster.

Over the course of his young adulthood, Lincoln built structures around his inner nature. He joined a traditional bourgeois marriage. He called his wife “mother” and lived in a genteel middle-class home. He engaged in feverish bouts of self-improvement, studying Euclid and grammar at all hours. He distrusted passionate politics. In the Lyceum speech that he delivered as a young man, he attacked emotionalism in politics and talked about the need for law, order and cool reason.

This concept of maturity as self-conquest didn’t survive long into the 20th century. Progressive educators emphasized students’ inner goodness and curiosity, not inner depravity. More emphasis was put on individual freedom, authenticity and values clarification. Self-discovery replaced self-mastery as the primary path to maturity, and we got a thousand novels and memoirs about young peoples’ search for identity.

In the last few years, we may be shifting toward another vision of maturity, one that is impatient with boomer narcissism. Young people today put service at the center of young adulthood. A child is served, but maturity means serving others.

And yet, though we’re never going back to the 19th-century, sin-centric character-building model, for breeding leaders, it has its uses. Over the past decades, we’ve seen president after president confident of his own talents but then undone by underappreciated flaws. It’s as if they get elected for their virtues and then get defined in office by the vices — Clinton’s narcissism, Bush’s intellectual insecurity — they’ve never really faced.

It would be nice to have a president who had gone to school on his own failings. It would be comforting to see a president who’d looked into the abyss, or suffered some sort of ordeal that put him on a first-name basis with his own gravest weaknesses, and who had found ways to combat them.

Obviously, it’s not fair to compare anybody to Lincoln, but he does illustrate the repertoire of skills we look for in a leader. The central illusion of modern politics is that if only people as virtuous as “us” had power, then things would be better. Candidates get elected by telling people what they want to hear, leading them by using the sugar of their own fantasies.

Somehow a leader conversant with his own failings wouldn’t be as affected by the moral self-approval that afflicts most political movements. He’d be detached from his most fervid followers and merciful and understanding toward foes. He’d have a sense of his own smallness in the sweep of events. He or she would contravene Lord Acton’s dictum and grow sadder and wiser with more power.

All this suggests a maxim for us voters: Don’t only look to see which candidate has the most talent. Look for the one most emotionally gripped by his own failings.

RUSSIA: MEDVEDEV'S PROPOSALS AND MOSCOW'S ULTERIOR MOTIVES

Summary
Russian President Dmitri Medvedev made two proposals June 5 related to energy and defense. While both seem reasonable on the surface, they both actually aim at securing Russian interests at the expense of others. As such, they will be rejected.

Analysis

On his June 5-6 visit to Germany, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev proposed two plans that on their surface seem perfectly reasonable.

The first proposal would create international consortia -- comprising Russia, European consumer states and transit states -- to manage, operate and upgrade the various pipeline systems that transport Russian natural gas and oil to Europe. Such systems are leaky to say the least and are operating well below potential. Many portions could stand a complete reconstruction, though attempts to do so have failed repeatedly for both economic and political reasons.

The second proposal would involve all the European states -- including but not limited to EU members -- Canada, the United States and Russia. It would regiment arms control efforts, provide a single policy on illegal immigration and outlaw war as an arm of foreign policy.

Russia's own foreign policy in the Putin era -- yes, we are still in the Putin era -- bears many resemblances to Soviet foreign policy (something that longtime students of Kremlin behavior will hardly find surprising). At the core of Russian planning is the deep-rooted realization that Russia's geography is eminently indefensible. While many states can rely upon deserts or oceans or mountains to bar the advance of foreign military forces, Russia has wide-open spaces permeable, for instance, to attacking Mongol or German hordes. The only meaningful defense Russia can offer, therefore, is to absorb as much territory as possible to use as buffers to bog down would-be Napoleons and Hitlers. In a time of relative military weakness -- like now -- Russia cannot achieve this by force of arms, and so has to try to do it by force of money or diplomacy.

The pipeline and peace programs speak to this need to create a shield out of peripheral lands.

Yes, the pipeline consortia plan would potentially address serious deficiencies in transport efficiency, but that is not its real goal. At present, most states bar Russia from holding shares in their key infrastructure for fear Russia will use that ownership to force political concessions on other issues. The consortia deal would allow Russia direct ownership in natural gas pipeline networks in Ukraine, Belarus, Turkey and the European Union itself -- firming up a degree of economic influence throughout the region and counteracting European attempts at energy independence from the Russians. Notably absent from the proposal was the idea that these consortia would own pipelines on Russian soil.

As to the "legally-binding European Security Treaty," a bar on use of force would enshrine in treaty form the buffer status of Belarus and Ukraine and halt the West's advances into the former Soviet states via NATO. Note that this treaty would not offer membership to the Caucasian and Central Asian states; Russia would prefer to retain the option of using force in those areas.

While both of these proposals appear reasonable, both are really about securing Russian interests at the expense of others. As such, they will be rejected.

There is much more to Russian foreign policy than smoke and mirrors. Two other decisions announced in recent hours illustrate that the Kremlin does not live in a delusional fog.

On June 6, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced the "nonpolitical" decision that, in 2009, the price of natural gas sold to Ukraine would double to roughly $360 per 1,000 meters. Right now, Ukraine is (tenuously) ruled by a pro-Western coalition that seeks NATO and EU membership -- memberships that would rip the Ukrainian buffer out of the Russian orbit. The price hike for the Ukrainians is a well-aimed dart, which should shake Ukraine's pro-Westerners to the core and intensify popular resistance against Western institutions.

Also on June 6, Medvedev's office announced a presidential visit to Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan on July 3-5. Here, Russian policy is a bit more convoluted. Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan hold remarkably large energy resources, with Turkmenistan boasting particularly massive supplies of natural gas. But nearly all the natural gas Turkmenistan produces currently flows through Soviet-era infrastructure to Russia -- which then sells it at an impressive markup to Europe. The option exists of shipping that gas through a proposed pipeline under the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan and then on through other pipes to Turkey and Europe.

The Europeans have billions of euros on standby to fund just such a project. But first there has to be a political deal between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan -- the states that will host the production and the first segment of the pipeline. Until recently, the leaders of the two countries have hated each other with a passion, but both leaders recently died. In May, the two new presidents had their first face-to-face meeting; our sources indicate they got along swimmingly. If Medvedev cannot arm-twist the Azerbaijanis and the Turkmen into Russian plans directly, he is almost certainly going to Baku and Ashgabat to see what landmines he can plant on the road to better Azerbaijani-Turkmen relations.

Copyright 2008 Strategic Forecasting, Inc.

U.S., CHINA: THE FEASIBILITY AND FATE OF LIQUID COAL

Summary
Coal-to-liquid (CTL) technology has been sidelined for decades by exceedingly affordable oil. Today, with the price of oil at record highs, CTL is starting to look more appealing, though hurdles to its widespread use remain, particularly in the United States.

Analysis
Coal-to-liquid (CTL) technology essentially liquefies coal and allows it to be burned in conventional engines, mainly diesel and aviation engines. With the price of oil at record highs, we examine the status of CTL in the context of the United States and China -- by far the world's two heaviest producers and consumers of coal.

The Fischer-Tropsch process that converts coal to liquid actually dates back to 1920s Germany, where it was pursued to compensate for a lack of domestic petroleum resources. It would ultimately account for 90 percent of the Third Reich's aviation fuel and half its total fuel consumption, playing a significant role for imperial Japan as well.

But though this process is well understood, it has languished for decades because of exceedingly affordable oil (although South Africa still uses the process). With oil prices now at record highs, that logic no longer holds: CTL is technically feasible and easily compatible with current infrastructure and diesel and aviation engines. It is generally thought to be financially feasible with oil at around $70 a barrel -- which oil has held above for a year now. (Sustained prices at this level are an important prerequisite for investors in CTL, and it is not yet clear whether the current rise is irreversible.)

United States

But there are lingering problems with the technology. The problem for CTL in the United States is carbon emissions. The full cycle of coal liquefication, taken as a whole, emits more carbon than the full cycle of petroleum production does.

The key to reducing this footprint is known as carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), which essentially is the collection and storage of carbon emissions rather than the release of those emissions into the air. However, CCS is seven to 17 years from maturity, and doing it on a large scale is both complex and expensive -- adding greatly to the cost of CTL. Bringing a CTL plant with CCS online can cost $5 billion to $10 billion -- a huge investment by any measure and a significant risk, given the long-range uncertainty of oil prices.

The coal industry has pursued government subsidization and guaranteed contracts in order to help fund the expensive build-out of such plants. However, opposition to the expansion of coal use in general by environmental groups and sympathetic members of the U.S. House and Senate has led to a staunch campaign against CTL efforts. Activists helped develop a provision in the 2007 energy bill that legally restricts federal use of alternative fuels that have higher carbon emissions over their production life cycles (from extraction to refinement) than petroleum does. Despite the provision, Congress may still provide CTL a toehold in a defense appropriation bill that would allow the defense department to purchase a small amount of CTL fuel.

Meanwhile, the extraction of oil from tar sands (and to a lesser extent from oil shale) is gaining momentum. Refinery and pipeline infrastructure is being expanded to accommodate these efforts, and both Canada and the United States have large and promising reserves. Oil from tar sands and shale is the alternative more likely to make a significant dent in U.S. fuel needs. Tar sands, in other words, are already proven, while an environmentally friendly CTL remains mostly on the drawing board. Nor does it help the CTL cause that most of the pollution from tar sands remains in Canada, while CTL would bring its environmental issues to the United States.

As a result, CTL in the United States will remain mired in the regulatory realm over the short term. Until there is meaningful movement, such as a victory in the defense appropriation bill, few will be willing to invest the massive amounts of money required to make CTL a practical alternative.

China

Such prohibitive environmental and regulatory opposition is not a problem in China. Although it is beginning to recognize air quality as a legitimate concern, China has been studying CTL technology for years, and alternative clean-coal technologies remain a priority in the Chinese coal industry's 11th five-year plan. This priority will receive a significant boost in late 2008, when a CTL plant in Inner Mongolia operated by the state-owned Shenhua Group, China's largest coal mining company, starts converting more than 3.75 million tons of coal annually into just over 300 million gallons of diesel and other oil products -- the equivalent of approximately 20,000 barrels a day. Beijing's ambition is to turn this into 286,000 barrels a day (approximately 4 percent of China's energy needs) by 2020.

Funding and expertise will not be a problem. A host of foreign firms such as Royal Dutch/Shell, Sasol, General Electric, ABB Group and Siemens are lining up to help China experiment in deriving crude oil from coal. After 2009, when the successor to the Kyoto Protocol will likely be adopted, these companies will have incentives to develop modern energy technologies such as CTL/CCS.

Still, even in China, CTL development faces a number of barriers. First, the size and complexity of the country's energy bureaucracy has been a barrier to meaningful energy reform for a decade. And because energy reform has been so bureaucratically cumbersome, China remains heavily reliant on coal for power generation, and it is already coming up short in terms of coal supplies. Building out CTL infrastructure (which would require even more power) is not going to be considered an effective solution in the current crunch, and further use of coal for power generation may also take precedence over CTL.

The Chinese also do not use this coal efficiently by Western standards, and they have less spare capacity and are experiencing shortages in coal reserves (in April, reserves fell below a week's supply in some provinces). Chinese coal producers are currently prohibited from raising prices until 15 days of reserves are re-established. While the Chinese generally mine enough coal to meet their needs, they occasionally are forced to import small amounts when demand exceeds expectations.

And another crucial resource -- water -- also is in short supply. CTL technology is water-intensive, and China's ground-water levels are sinking, not rising. Worse yet, drinking-water shortages are an annual problem in some parts of the country. Shenhua intends to meet its annual water needs with nearly 9 million tons of ground water and by recycling water from the coal mines. Whether this will be enough remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, the Chinese have already prioritized natural gas, wind and hydroelectric generation as a stopgap until more nuclear plants can be built. Chinese efforts in Central Asia and Africa to lock down more petroleum sources also will offset some of this need.

For the long run, Beijing has consciously chosen to move away from coal as a fuel for generating power. Nevertheless, China's coal resources may prove to be an attractive alternative to oil. China's heavily industrialized economy is beginning to feel an acute pinch from increased fuel prices (much more so than more service-oriented economies), and petroleum fuel shortages are reaching a crisis point.

It remains to be seen whether efforts in Inner Mongolia ultimately prove to be an expensive experiment or the beginning of a significant CTL contribution to China's ever-growing energy needs. In any event, Beijing is not likely to rule out CTL as a promising alternative.

Copyright 2008 Strategic Forecasting, Inc.

Is There a Future for Christianity in Iraq?

GMT 6-5-2008 20:39:59
Assyrian International News Agency
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The Chaldean archbishop of Mosul, Paulos Faraj Rahho, was kidnapped on Feb. 29 following a celebration at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Mosul. His driver and two deacons were shot and killed in the course of the kidnapping. Archbishop Rahho was found dead several days later. This was the most recent in a series of kidnappings and killings of priests and religious in Iraq--20 of them in just five years. Not all the kidnappings have ended in murder. In January 2005, Basile Georges Casmoussa, the Syrian archbishop of Mosul, was kidnapped but freed two days later, after a ransom of $1 million was paid.

Christians are a popular target for kidnappers. They are a small minority scattered in many places and are largely defenseless. Because they are not Muslims, they are often considered to be allies of the American troops. Also, kidnappings of Christians are useful propaganda, because they are extensively covered in the Western press. The size of the ransom demanded can vary: a Christian layman is "worth" about $100,000, a priest $500,000. A bishop is worth more than $1 million.

In response to the violence, Christians have fled by the thousands to northern Iraq or neighboring countries. Half of the Christians who were living in Iraq in 2000 have left their homes. There are about 200,000 Christians in Kurdistan, of whom 90,000 are refugees; 180,000 others have fled to Syria, Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon. The Catholic philosophy and theology faculties in Baghdad have moved to Erbil, and the Mosul seminary has closed.

What We Saw and Heard

In February 2008, a delegation from Pax Christi, the international Catholic organization for peace, traveled to northern Iraq, visiting 26 different communities, mostly in Kurdistan, but also in Karmah, Qaraqosh and Kirkuk. The aim of the trip was to express solidarity between the Christians in Europe and the Christians in Iraq.

In one village, we met a man who had been kidnapped for a week and given back to his family the very morning of our arrival in return for a ransom of $60,000. His kidnappers had demanded that he convert to Islam, but he refused. His Christian identity is much more than his personal faith. He is a member of a Christian community, a Christian family and a Christian culture. In his case conversion would have been a betrayal of his religious beliefs and would have caused a complete separation from the social system he has known his entire life. In large numbers, such conversions would destroy whole communities. Because of this, the kidnappings have a political purpose: the eventual expulsion of all Christians from southern and central Iraq.

In spite of the difficulties and the violence, we were received very warmly, with processions and songs. It was like a Palm Sunday welcome. We traveled about 1,200 miles through the plains and the mountains. After being welcomed at the entrance to each community, we would go to the church to pray briefly together, explain why we were there and listen to their stories. Everywhere we went, the people asked us to be their voice among the Christians in the West and to tell their stories when we returned home.

Time and again, the townspeople would return to three basic themes:

We are forgotten by everybody. The Christians in the villages, whether permanent residents or refugees, feel isolated and forgotten. They are seen as just a small part of a larger problem, a cog in a huge political, military machine no one really controls. While Kurdistan has welcomed the refugees from southern Iraq and has provided food and shelter, the situation is still precarious.

We were forced to leave. Many Christians have left Baghdad and the surrounding regions because they feared for their lives and livelihood. They also abandoned Mosul, which was especially difficult for them, given the area's historical significance for Christians. Mosul, now governed by Islamic law, is a very dangerous place, and there are many stories of kidnappings and murders. At least 20 different terrorist groups have been battling for control of the city, while the U.S. military attempts to bring some security. The violence was so great that sometimes the Christians had to flee quickly, unable to take any of their possessions.

When the Christian refugees arrived in Kurdistan, some were returning to a land from which they had been forced a generation earlier by Saddam Hussein. Yet it is now a very different place. The refugees cannot find work and have to survive on food coupons. There is no industrial base, and land they owned before they were forced from Kurdistan in the 1970s is now occupied by Muslims, who refuse to give it back.

We are worried about the complete disappearance of Christians from Iraq. The refugees despair of the future, a future that seems totally closed, without any possibility of return to their homes in the south. Many hope to leave Iraq entirely and are awaiting visas to enter Western countries. So far only Sweden and Norway have welcomed them. Other countries, including the United States and many in the European Union, have effectively closed their borders. One further ominous sign is that the desire to leave is most strongly felt by the young people, so there may be little future for the Christians in Iraq. Yet what choice do they have? They can return to the south where violence and oppression await them, or they can remain in the north where there is no future. The Turkish invasion of northern Iraq in March reminded all refugees that their situation is very precarious. They are caught between the hope of stability in this region and the refusal of Turkey to accept a free and strong Iraqi Kurdistan just across the border.

Signs of Promise

The Christian refugees have received aid and support from two places. First, the church has been a powerful friend. The Chaldean and Syrian bishops and priests who decided to stay have been great signs of hope for the laypeople. And despite the violence and persecution, the church remains present and active as far as it can be. The Jesuits were expelled from the country in 1969, mostly because they were Americans, but Dominicans (belonging to the French province) still have a strong presence in Baghdad and Mosul, though they are now fewer in number. Even in the face of an uncertain future, churches are being built in many places; and a new seminary is being constructed in Qaraqosh. These are promising signs.

Further support has come from Kurdistan, where Christians have found refuge and peace. Sarkis Aghajan, a Christian who is Kurdistan's minister of finance, has played an important role in the building of 10,000 homes in some 150 villages, dozens of churches and the seminary in Qaraqosh. This has been a huge effort, one that is essential if there is to be any reasonable chance of survival.

A Way Forward?

Amid this chaos many have proposed a solution: a federal Iraq divided into three autonomous regions: Shiite, Sunni and Kurd. But those who put forward this idea, some of whom are prominent Christians, completely forget the Christians who also live in Iraq. Aghajan wants Christians to settle around the Nineveh Plain and the mountains of northwest Kurdistan in an autonomous region. The City of Ankawa, near Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan, has received hundreds of Christian families from the south, its population growing from 25,000 to 35,000 since the start of the war. For Aghajan, the presence of Christians in the Kurdish region is positive; it gives a good image to Kurdistan, and the Christians are hardworking and competent. But the refugees do not agree on the proposal for a special region. Some of them want the region as a refuge, but others reject the idea, especially people like Archbishop Sako of Kirkuk, because it might be seen as a surrender of their claims to their lands in the south. It is clear that any future discussion of a federal state for Iraq should include respect for the rights of Christians to control their lands and their destiny.

Why Focus on Christians?

Why should we focus on the plight of Christians when so many others are also suffering? This group is small, some may say, hardly 3 percent of the population of Iraq. Why are they so important? There are three reasons:

First, they are not just victims of a war, but also victims of religious persecution. At stake are the human rights of an entire religious minority.

Second, the Iraqi Christians are a sign of pluralism. As long as they are in Iraq, there is a chance that different religious faiths will be able to live together.

Third, they are part of the cultural and religious history of the region: Iraqi Christians have been there for centuries, a living sign of an ancient culture in the birthplace of the Bible.

Iraqi Christians are faced with a crucial dilemma. As a community they know that they should stay. This is the desire of many community leaders, including bishops like Archbishop Sako. But individually, they are ready to leave in order to save their futures and sometimes their lives. Who can blame them?

If Christians do decide to leave, they should be welcomed in foreign countries, especially the United States and Europe. They should receive help to settle. Students should be given visas allowing them to study. If they decide to stay inIraq, we in the West should lend vigorous assistance.

The question put to us by the plight of Christians in Iraq is bigger than whether to help a relatively small number of individuals with humanitarian aid and other support. At stake is the very survival of one of the oldest Christian communities in the world. Iraqi Christians should know that Christians everywhere will come to their aid.

By Pierre de Charentenay
www.americamagazine.org

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May 23, 2008
Study: Terrorist violence is on the decline

Here is something counter-intuitive: a study says that, rather than increasing, the amount of terrorist violence is actually on the decline globally.

There's a big caveat, we hasten to add. The stark decline is apparent only when violence in Iraq is excluded. That may seem ludicrous, but read on. The authors of the study at Canada's Simon Fraser University argue that the killings of civilians in wartime, such as in Iraq, is not normally described as "terrorism," but rather as a "war crime" or "crime against humanity." In fact, they point out, most major databases of terror count violence against civilians in Iraq as terrorism, but not violence against civilians in Sudan's Darfur region.

Without Iraq included, the report said, two major databases -- one at the University of Maryland and one at the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism -- charted a more than 40 percent decline in fatalities from terrorism since 2001.

Even when Iraq is included, terrorism fatalities have dropped recently, the report says.

The report's authors caution that a decline in deaths from terrorism does not necessarily mean the threat from terrorism, especially Islamist terrorism, is decreasing. But they argue there are signs that international counter-terrorism efforts are having an effect, as well as evidence of "bitter doctrinal infighting" within the global Islamist network and reduced support for al Qaida and similar groups in the Muslim world.

Check out the report. Decide for yourself.