thebulwark--2020-11-15--The Grim Pandemic Outlook for Fall and Winter

In April 2020 , when the first COVID-19 surge was peaking , the United States hit a high of roughly 34,000 positive daily tests .
Over the next two months , the crisis subsided to under 20,000 cases per day before spiking to around 75,000 in mid-July , more than double the April peak .
The late-summer “ lull ” of 34,000 daily infections , reached on September 13 , was equal to the peak of the spring surge .
What this data suggests is that over the past nine months , the United States has been quietly building momentum @ @ @ @ @ @ @ full burden of a mismanaged pandemic is now bursting upon us .
On election day , the United States recorded about 86,000 new COVID-19 infections .
Not even two weeks have passed since then , but the figure has leapt to around 140,000 daily infections .
This approaches a doubling of the highs touched in July and there ’ s nothing to suggest the curve is anywhere near its peak .
The United States has also blown past its previous grim hospitalization peak ( 60,000 in April ) rising above 67,000 in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and medicine have helped to cut COVID ’ s fatality rate significantly ( although it is still six times the death rate associated with seasonal flu ) but we continue to hover around 1,000 deaths daily , a figure that is sure to rise in the wake of mounting infections and hospitalizations .
There ’ s no place in the country that isn ’ t struggling with COVID right now , but some places are in a much better position than others .
New England , Maryland , California , New York , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have maintained low infection rates .
These jurisdictions have , without question , paid a high price economically and their joblessness rates continue to exceed the national unemployment rate .
However , they kept infections low by imposing strict controls early and then gradually reopening with robust testing and contact tracing , allowing these states to identify emerging hotspots and target restrictions to cities and even zip codes where they are most needed , thus limiting outbreaks and minimizing further economic disruption .
On the other hand , states like Idaho , Iowa @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Utah , and Wisconsin refused to take the most difficult steps to slow the rate of spread in their communities .
They are increasingly paying the price of inaction .
Positive tests rates , which public health officials have urged be kept under 5 percent , have soared into the double digits—reaching previously unheard of highs of 54 and 48 percent in in South Dakota and Iowa respectively .
Kansas is reporting positivity rates over 41 percent and Idaho has hit 40 percent .
As predicted earlier this year , health workers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their limits in many areas of the country .
North Dakota announced last week that its entire hospital system is full and took the extraordinary step of asking COVID-infected staff without symptoms to stay on the job .
The governor of Indiana re-imposed restrictions on businesses and individuals , pleading with Hoosiers to prevent a wave of infections from swamping hospitals .
Some observers argue these infection rates are largely meaningless as they are not being accompanied by rising mortality rates .
To these people , we have just one word : wait @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , there is roughly a three-week lag between spikes in infection and deaths .
In December , we ’ ve been told to expect daily deaths will rise to between 1,200 and 2,100 as infections lead to hospitalizations , complications , and deaths .
Since infections and hospitalizations are rising so quickly , the number of deaths is likely to continue rising for months .
The worst is very much yet to come .
The question at the moment is how we get through the next several months .
For the worst-affected areas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ significant restrictions on business and other social contacts .
In other words , lockdowns .
This will be extremely difficult in light of the way COVID has infected politics and vice versa .
Take Sioux Falls , South Dakota , afflicted with one of the earliest , worst , and most persistent COVID-19 outbreaks in the country .
With its hospitals bursting at the seams , the city council rejected a local masking ordinance last week by a 5-4 vote on the logic that any public health gains would be offset by increasing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are being seen elsewhere , such as in El Paso , where city , county , and state officials are fighting each other over public health measures as hospitals and temporary morgue spaces fill up .
This kind of nonsense has to stop if any progress is to be made .
As is visible in the tables above , a chaotic and irrational approach to pandemic management is having very large , real-world impacts .
So-called “ red ” states that resisted stringent measures like lockdowns are much more likely to be in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” states that have enacted more aggressive mitigation strategies .
The leadership of high-infection states have , unfortunately , characterized opposition to social distancing , masking , and shutdowns as “ freedom ” and counterprogrammed such measures as “ socialism.
” As we noted in August , there ’ s a symbiotic relationship between a state ’ s electorate , its governance , and the severity of the pandemic there .
Those with the deepest “ red ” voters and governance have tended to experience the highest levels of infection , while those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tended to experience the least .
In perhaps the highest irony of our current situation , several of the best-performing states—Massachusetts , Vermont , Louisiana , and Maryland—are ones in which parties share power .
Divided pandemic government , it turns out , may be the best pandemic government .
As with so many other facets of public life , the circumstances surrounding COVID combine tragedy and farce .
The truth is that tough early mitigation policies , combined with serious testing and tracing programs , were probably the best chance we had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and avoidance of even tougher requirements in the future .
Especially for states that succumbed to our toxic national political environment and failed to slow the spread of disease , that future is now .

In April 2020, when the first COVID-19 surge was peaking, the United States hit a high of roughly 34,000 positive daily tests. Over the next two months, the crisis subsided to under 20,000 cases per day before spiking to around 75,000 in mid-July, more than double the April peak. The late-summer “lull” of 34,000 daily infections, reached on September 13, was equal to the peak of the spring surge. What this data suggests is that over the past nine months, the United States has been quietly building momentum toward a huge fall/winter outbreak. The full burden of a mismanaged pandemic is now bursting upon us.
On election day, the United States recorded about 86,000 new COVID-19 infections. Not even two weeks have passed since then, but the figure has leapt to around 140,000 daily infections. This approaches a doubling of the highs touched in July and there’s nothing to suggest the curve is anywhere near its peak. The United States has also blown past its previous grim hospitalization peak (60,000 in April) rising above 67,000 in the last two days. Improvements in treatment and medicine have helped to cut COVID’s fatality rate significantly (although it is still six times the death rate associated with seasonal flu) but we continue to hover around 1,000 deaths daily, a figure that is sure to rise in the wake of mounting infections and hospitalizations.
There’s no place in the country that isn’t struggling with COVID right now, but some places are in a much better position than others. New England, Maryland, California, New York, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C. have maintained low infection rates. These jurisdictions have, without question, paid a high price economically and their joblessness rates continue to exceed the national unemployment rate. However, they kept infections low by imposing strict controls early and then gradually reopening with robust testing and contact tracing, allowing these states to identify emerging hotspots and target restrictions to cities and even zip codes where they are most needed, thus limiting outbreaks and minimizing further economic disruption.
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On the other hand, states like Idaho, Iowa, North and South Dakota, Missouri, Utah, and Wisconsin refused to take the most difficult steps to slow the rate of spread in their communities. They are increasingly paying the price of inaction. Positive tests rates, which public health officials have urged be kept under 5 percent, have soared into the double digits—reaching previously unheard of highs of 54 and 48 percent in in South Dakota and Iowa respectively. Kansas is reporting positivity rates over 41 percent and Idaho has hit 40 percent. As predicted earlier this year, health workers and hospitals are being pushed close to their limits in many areas of the country. North Dakota announced last week that its entire hospital system is full and took the extraordinary step of asking COVID-infected staff without symptoms to stay on the job. The governor of Indiana re-imposed restrictions on businesses and individuals, pleading with Hoosiers to prevent a wave of infections from swamping hospitals.
Some observers argue these infection rates are largely meaningless as they are not being accompanied by rising mortality rates. To these people, we have just one word: wait. According to the public health models, there is roughly a three-week lag between spikes in infection and deaths. In December, we’ve been told to expect daily deaths will rise to between 1,200 and 2,100 as infections lead to hospitalizations, complications, and deaths. Since infections and hospitalizations are rising so quickly, the number of deaths is likely to continue rising for months. The worst is very much yet to come.
The question at the moment is how we get through the next several months. For the worst-affected areas, it may be impossible to avoid significant restrictions on business and other social contacts. In other words, lockdowns. This will be extremely difficult in light of the way COVID has infected politics and vice versa. Take Sioux Falls, South Dakota, afflicted with one of the earliest, worst, and most persistent COVID-19 outbreaks in the country. With its hospitals bursting at the seams, the city council rejected a local masking ordinance last week by a 5-4 vote on the logic that any public health gains would be offset by increasing divisions in the community. Similar battles are being seen elsewhere, such as in El Paso, where city, county, and state officials are fighting each other over public health measures as hospitals and temporary morgue spaces fill up. This kind of nonsense has to stop if any progress is to be made.
As is visible in the tables above, a chaotic and irrational approach to pandemic management is having very large, real-world impacts. So-called “red” states that resisted stringent measures like lockdowns are much more likely to be in the soup right now than “blue” states that have enacted more aggressive mitigation strategies. The leadership of high-infection states have, unfortunately, characterized opposition to social distancing, masking, and shutdowns as “freedom” and counterprogrammed such measures as “socialism.” As we noted in August, there’s a symbiotic relationship between a state’s electorate, its governance, and the severity of the pandemic there. Those with the deepest “red” voters and governance have tended to experience the highest levels of infection, while those with deep “blue” governance have tended to experience the least. In perhaps the highest irony of our current situation, several of the best-performing states—Massachusetts, Vermont, Louisiana, and Maryland—are ones in which parties share power. Divided pandemic government, it turns out, may be the best pandemic government.
As with so many other facets of public life, the circumstances surrounding COVID combine tragedy and farce. The truth is that tough early mitigation policies, combined with serious testing and tracing programs, were probably the best chance we had to balance public health, individual freedom, and avoidance of even tougher requirements in the future. Especially for states that succumbed to our toxic national political environment and failed to slow the spread of disease, that future is now.


thebulwark--2020-11-16--Five Foreign Policy “Don’ts” for President Biden

The world is a different place than when Joe Biden left the vice president ’ s residence at Number One Observatory Circle four years ago , let alone when he entered it twelve years ago .
Some priorities and problems of those times are now irrelevant , and many of those that remain relevant face different circumstances .
Ideas that a few years ago might have seemed wise , or at least defensible , now no longer suit today ’ s challenges .
When Biden moves into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in nine weeks , there are old policies and ways @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The following five proposals offer what might be called a “ not to do ” list for the new administration .
Every U.S. administration since Reagan has tried and failed to reach a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians .
That ’ s quite a track record : Six presidents who failed , each with different styles and preferences .
It will be tempting for President Biden , as it was for his predecessors , to think he could be the one man who finally brokers peace .
But the current circumstances are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Palestinians .
Consider the obstacles to a peace deal , starting with the fact that each side is simply unwilling to make compromises the other demands .
Both sides , for instance , want full control of Jerusalem for nationalist and religious reasons , and the only thing worse than not controlling the holy city for them is if the other side controls it .
There are more problems , too .
Palestinian leaders are beneficiaries of the current circumstances .
A peace deal that gives Palestinians sovereignty and takes the conflict out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their power .
For decades , they have justified their autocratic rule on the grounds that the “ emergency ” situation demands it .
Mahmoud Abbas is about to complete the fifteenth year of his four-year term .
A true Palestinian state would also mean that Palestinian leaders would have to be held accountable for their incompetence , no longer having the Israelis to blame for their people ’ s problems .
And then there are the financial considerations .
Abbas ’ s predecessor , Yasser Arafat , died a billionaire .
Abbas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ million .
Ending the conflict would mean a slowing down in the foreign aid that has enriched Palestinian leaders .
Besides , at 85 , Abbas simply does not have much interest , flexibility , or political capital—and all of his likeliest successors will be even more hardline , so in the unlikely event that Abbas were to negotiate an agreement in good faith , they would presumably do their best to sabotage it as they are awaiting Abbas ’ s death so they can become the new leader .
Biden won ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this area during his own term , but he can help set the stage for one of his successors to do so .
He should have a plan to build a civil society in the West Bank and push Hamas out of power in the Gaza Strip .
A peace deal will be more tenable once Palestinians are no longer indoctrinated to hate their Jewish neighbors and blame them for all of their problems .
This is not the work of four or eight years ; it is a generational undertaking .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would mark the first time that a U.S. president would be investing in a peace that is not hopeless from the beginning .
Such a plan would require vigorous investment in the West Bank , and intensive verification to ensure that the strategy is working .
It would require promoting a Palestinian government that is capable of managing the affairs of its people competently and is responsible and accountable to their needs and demands .
It would require investing in liberal education in Palestinian areas and fighting corruption .
And it would require @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the widely respected and internationally trained economist and politician who was briefly the Palestinian Authority ’ s prime minister .
These kinds of conditions can help lead to a lasting peace—and a far-sighted but not unrealistic Biden administration can help establish them .
To paraphrase one of Ronald Reagan ’ s favorite lines : There is no limit to what Biden can achieve in Israeli-Palestinian peace if he does not mind who gets the credit .
2 .
Don ’ t reach an agreement with Iran that doesn ’ t include human @ @ @ @ @ @ @ campaigned on returning to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—the deal negotiated between Iran and the United States , United Kingdom , China , France , Russia , Germany , and representatives of the EU .
It was a key outcome of the Obama administration , and one that the former vice president was proud to be associated with .
Biden ’ s national security adviser at the time , Jake Sullivan , helped lead the talks and remains close to Biden today .
Of the frontrunners to be the secretary of state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ involved with the talks .
A third , Susan Rice , was a national security principal when the agreement was reached and involved with the talks and implications .
A fourth , Chris Coons , was a supporter of the deal in the Senate .
So naturally there will be inevitable temptations to revive the deal , which quickly began to die when President Trump withdrew from it .
But resuscitating the Iran deal is unlikely to succeed .
One of its arms embargoes has already expired .
And the agreement includes sunset @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made with a cross-that-bridge-when-they-get-to-it mindset , reasoning that maybe the regime would collapse before the embargoes ran out .
But one of those embargoes will expire in 2026 , which means that Biden will be nearing that bridge as his term is ending .
Besides , Iran is already in breach of the agreement , even though it remains a party to it .
In sum , the world has moved on , and the circumstances are different than they were when the United States left the treaty .
There is more to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actions in the Middle East have increased since the agreement , including its use of proxies against U.S. forces in Iraq .
And—most importantly—Iran ’ s regime has never been more vulnerable at home .
U.S. sanctions have inflicted real pain on the Iranian economy , but the Iranian people no longer buy the regime ’ s propaganda that the primary driver of their problems is external .
They increasingly blame the regime for the sanctions , as shown in the two mass protests in the past three years , both of which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ administration , rather than trying to bring back the old deal , should try to reach a new agreement with Iran—one that addresses today ’ s questions , using the enormous leverage that the United States has .
That new agreement should of course address Iran ’ s nuclear ambitions and regional aggressions , but it should also include human rights clauses .
Iran ’ s violation of human rights has always been grotesque , but it has gotten even worse in the years since Biden left the vice presidency .
Joe Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ championing democracy and human rights .
He should live up to that promise by pushing hard for human rights in Iran , where political freedom in Iran is all but nonexistent ; the number of political prisoners is increasing and the regime ’ s treatment of them is getting worse ; and ethnic , religious , and sexual minorities have all faced crackdowns .
3 .
Don ’ t neglect Latin America and Africa as sites of competition with China and Russia .
For too long , the United States has ignored the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In the new era of great power competition , we can no longer afford to make that mistake .
China has been aggressively investing in Africa through diplomacy and foreign aid to get access to the continent ’ s human and natural resources .
Chinese foreign aid to Africa has surpassed America ’ s level .
This is while Africa is an increasingly attractive replacement for China as a part of America ’ s supply chain .
In fact , Africa is so attractive for manufacturing that China itself is moving factories there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ week marks the seventh anniversary of when then-Secretary of State John Kerry declared the Monroe Doctrine “ over.
” He was wrong then and even more obviously wrong today .
China and Russia are trying to increase their military ties in Latin America .
Russia , China , and Iran have all been providing support to the Maduro regime in Venezuela and maintaining their close ties with the Cuban regime .
China has also been buying influence in Latin America through foreign aid as America has been increasingly neglecting the region .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in its own neighborhood .
A Latin American tour by the secretary of state—or better yet , the president himself—will be a good signal that America is back .
The Iraq War seemed like an early success , then turned into a catastrophe , was redeemed by a strategy shift ( the “ surge ” ) , only for the United States to depart and leave the country to Iranian wolves .
And while U.S. public opinion about the war ’ s start remains very divided—not once since 2006 has Gallup ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of respondents calling the war a “ mistake ” —there doesn ’ t seem to be much division when it comes to interest and patience today : Americans are just over Iraq .
But just because Americans are not interested in Iraq doesn ’ t mean that Iraq is not interested in them .
The United States is oil-self-sufficient , but our allies are not , and Iraq is the world ’ s sixth-biggest producer of oil .
As a Biden administration is almost certain to try to contain Russia , the United @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , including Iraq .
America ’ s interest in Iraq goes beyond energy , however .
As with Latin America and Africa , the Middle East is a site of great power competition .
China wants to increase its influence in the region .
The Russian military is back in the region , too—for the first time since Egypt kicked it out a half century ago .
And America needs to keep the region from tipping away decisively from the liberal world .
Especially with the Russian military in Syria and the forthcoming @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have a military base in Iran , the United States needs a pro-U.S. Iraq to balance China and Russia .
And for the first time in many years , there is a ray of hope .
Last year ’ s protests in Iraq finally produced some positive results .
Combined with the killing of the Iranian general , Qassem Soleimani , Iran is now fighting for its life in Iraq .
The Iraqi people rightly blame Iran for their political dysfunction , and they want Iran out .
News coverage of the pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Iraq this year : Mustafa al-Kadhimi ’ s ascension to power in May .
The new Iraqi prime minister is anti-Iran , and the pro-Iran factions strongly objected to his appointment .
He has done a decent job of overseeing reform so far , but he is just an interim prime minister , and he has promised to hold parliamentary elections next June .
As conditions in Iraq are finally starting to look promising , the Biden administration must avoid any suggestion—even rhetorical—of walking away from Iraq .
Instead , President Biden should @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his reform agenda as the right man to bring a new and better era to Iraq .
5 .
Don ’ t renew the New START without including all Russian nuclear arms .
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty ( New START ) was another signature achievement of the Obama administration .
The treaty limits the deployment of Russian and American high-yield ( “ strategic ” ) nuclear weapons .
Conservatives objected to the treaty back in 2010-11 , but it was ratified by the Senate with a bipartisan vote .
The real @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not what it included but what it left out .
Vladimir Putin has been trying to overcome its financial inferiority to NATO by undertaking low-cost strategies .
One of these low-cost strategies has been developing low-yield ( “ nonstrategic ” ) nuclear weapons .
The current Russian stockpile of low-yield nukes is superior to those of the United States and NATO members combined .
This gives Russia “ escalation dominance ” in Europe against NATO—that is , the ability to escalate the violence of a conflict to a level at which it has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to expire in February 2021 , and Vladimir Putin has already expressed interest in renewing it for another five years , which is an option under the agreement .
There will be a temptation to simply renew this signature outcome of the Obama administration , one that several senior actors of the new Biden administration were involved in achieving—but that temptation should be resisted : One should always be suspicious in doing anything Vladimir Putin is interested in .
The incoming administration should consider renewing the treaty only under the condition of putting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s nuclear weapons , not just the high-yield ones .

The world is a different place than when Joe Biden left the vice president’s residence at Number One Observatory Circle four years ago, let alone when he entered it twelve years ago. Some priorities and problems of those times are now irrelevant, and many of those that remain relevant face different circumstances. Ideas that a few years ago might have seemed wise, or at least defensible, now no longer suit today’s challenges. When Biden moves into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in nine weeks, there are old policies and ways of thinking that he should avoid.
The following five proposals offer what might be called a “not to do” list for the new administration.
1. Don’t pursue Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Every U.S. administration since Reagan has tried and failed to reach a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians. That’s quite a track record: Six presidents who failed, each with different styles and preferences. It will be tempting for President Biden, as it was for his predecessors, to think he could be the one man who finally brokers peace.
But the current circumstances are incompatible with peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. Consider the obstacles to a peace deal, starting with the fact that each side is simply unwilling to make compromises the other demands. Both sides, for instance, want full control of Jerusalem for nationalist and religious reasons, and the only thing worse than not controlling the holy city for them is if the other side controls it.
There are more problems, too. Palestinian leaders are beneficiaries of the current circumstances. A peace deal that gives Palestinians sovereignty and takes the conflict out of the equation is a threat to their power. For decades, they have justified their autocratic rule on the grounds that the “emergency” situation demands it. Mahmoud Abbas is about to complete the fifteenth year of his four-year term. A true Palestinian state would also mean that Palestinian leaders would have to be held accountable for their incompetence, no longer having the Israelis to blame for their people’s problems. And then there are the financial considerations. Abbas’s predecessor, Yasser Arafat, died a billionaire. Abbas has a net worth above $100 million. Ending the conflict would mean a slowing down in the foreign aid that has enriched Palestinian leaders.
Besides, at 85, Abbas simply does not have much interest, flexibility, or political capital—and all of his likeliest successors will be even more hardline, so in the unlikely event that Abbas were to negotiate an agreement in good faith, they would presumably do their best to sabotage it as they are awaiting Abbas’s death so they can become the new leader.
Biden won’t be able to make history in this area during his own term, but he can help set the stage for one of his successors to do so. He should have a plan to build a civil society in the West Bank and push Hamas out of power in the Gaza Strip. A peace deal will be more tenable once Palestinians are no longer indoctrinated to hate their Jewish neighbors and blame them for all of their problems. This is not the work of four or eight years; it is a generational undertaking. But such a plan under a Biden administration would mark the first time that a U.S. president would be investing in a peace that is not hopeless from the beginning. Such a plan would require vigorous investment in the West Bank, and intensive verification to ensure that the strategy is working. It would require promoting a Palestinian government that is capable of managing the affairs of its people competently and is responsible and accountable to their needs and demands. It would require investing in liberal education in Palestinian areas and fighting corruption. And it would require promoting and protecting figures like Salam Fayyad, the widely respected and internationally trained economist and politician who was briefly the Palestinian Authority’s prime minister.
These kinds of conditions can help lead to a lasting peace—and a far-sighted but not unrealistic Biden administration can help establish them. To paraphrase one of Ronald Reagan’s favorite lines: There is no limit to what Biden can achieve in Israeli-Palestinian peace if he does not mind who gets the credit.
2. Don’t reach an agreement with Iran that doesn’t include human rights as a centerpiece.
Joe Biden campaigned on returning to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—the deal negotiated between Iran and the United States, United Kingdom, China, France, Russia, Germany, and representatives of the EU. It was a key outcome of the Obama administration, and one that the former vice president was proud to be associated with. Biden’s national security adviser at the time, Jake Sullivan, helped lead the talks and remains close to Biden today. Of the frontrunners to be the secretary of state, two—Tony Blinken and Bill Burns—were directly involved with the talks. A third, Susan Rice, was a national security principal when the agreement was reached and involved with the talks and implications. A fourth, Chris Coons, was a supporter of the deal in the Senate. So naturally there will be inevitable temptations to revive the deal, which quickly began to die when President Trump withdrew from it.
But resuscitating the Iran deal is unlikely to succeed. One of its arms embargoes has already expired. And the agreement includes sunset clauses for enrichment embargoes—a compromise the negotiators made with a cross-that-bridge-when-they-get-to-it mindset, reasoning that maybe the regime would collapse before the embargoes ran out. But one of those embargoes will expire in 2026, which means that Biden will be nearing that bridge as his term is ending. Besides, Iran is already in breach of the agreement, even though it remains a party to it. In sum, the world has moved on, and the circumstances are different than they were when the United States left the treaty.
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There is more to the equation. Iran’s hostile actions in the Middle East have increased since the agreement, including its use of proxies against U.S. forces in Iraq. And—most importantly—Iran’s regime has never been more vulnerable at home. U.S. sanctions have inflicted real pain on the Iranian economy, but the Iranian people no longer buy the regime’s propaganda that the primary driver of their problems is external. They increasingly blame the regime for the sanctions, as shown in the two mass protests in the past three years, both of which the regime brutally stifled.
The Biden administration, rather than trying to bring back the old deal, should try to reach a new agreement with Iran—one that addresses today’s questions, using the enormous leverage that the United States has. That new agreement should of course address Iran’s nuclear ambitions and regional aggressions, but it should also include human rights clauses. Iran’s violation of human rights has always been grotesque, but it has gotten even worse in the years since Biden left the vice presidency. Joe Biden campaigned on a foreign policy platform of championing democracy and human rights. He should live up to that promise by pushing hard for human rights in Iran, where political freedom in Iran is all but nonexistent; the number of political prisoners is increasing and the regime’s treatment of them is getting worse; and ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities have all faced crackdowns.
3. Don’t neglect Latin America and Africa as sites of competition with China and Russia.
For too long, the United States has ignored the importance of Latin America and Africa. In the new era of great power competition, we can no longer afford to make that mistake.
China has been aggressively investing in Africa through diplomacy and foreign aid to get access to the continent’s human and natural resources. Chinese foreign aid to Africa has surpassed America’s level. This is while Africa is an increasingly attractive replacement for China as a part of America’s supply chain. In fact, Africa is so attractive for manufacturing that China itself is moving factories there.
(Chris Coons, who, as mentioned above, is a contender for secretary of state in the new administration, serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s subcommittee on Africa, and formerly was its chairman. Susan Rice, another contender, is an Africa expert and the former assistant secretary of state for African affairs.)
As for Latin America, this week marks the seventh anniversary of when then-Secretary of State John Kerry declared the Monroe Doctrine “over.” He was wrong then and even more obviously wrong today. China and Russia are trying to increase their military ties in Latin America. Russia, China, and Iran have all been providing support to the Maduro regime in Venezuela and maintaining their close ties with the Cuban regime. China has also been buying influence in Latin America through foreign aid as America has been increasingly neglecting the region. The last thing America needs is Sinophile governments in its own neighborhood. A Latin American tour by the secretary of state—or better yet, the president himself—will be a good signal that America is back.
4. Don’t give up on Iraq’s democracy.
The Iraq War seemed like an early success, then turned into a catastrophe, was redeemed by a strategy shift (the “surge”), only for the United States to depart and leave the country to Iranian wolves. And while U.S. public opinion about the war’s start remains very divided—not once since 2006 has Gallup’s tracking poll shown fewer than 50 percent of respondents calling the war a “mistake”—there doesn’t seem to be much division when it comes to interest and patience today: Americans are just over Iraq.
But just because Americans are not interested in Iraq doesn’t mean that Iraq is not interested in them. The United States is oil-self-sufficient, but our allies are not, and Iraq is the world’s sixth-biggest producer of oil. As a Biden administration is almost certain to try to contain Russia, the United States will need to protect oil-rich countries, including Iraq.
America’s interest in Iraq goes beyond energy, however. As with Latin America and Africa, the Middle East is a site of great power competition. China wants to increase its influence in the region. The Russian military is back in the region, too—for the first time since Egypt kicked it out a half century ago. And America needs to keep the region from tipping away decisively from the liberal world. Especially with the Russian military in Syria and the forthcoming Sino-Iranian agreement that will allow China to have a military base in Iran, the United States needs a pro-U.S. Iraq to balance China and Russia.
And for the first time in many years, there is a ray of hope. Last year’s protests in Iraq finally produced some positive results. Combined with the killing of the Iranian general, Qassem Soleimani, Iran is now fighting for its life in Iraq. The Iraqi people rightly blame Iran for their political dysfunction, and they want Iran out. News coverage of the pandemic drowned out some good political tidings from Iraq this year: Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s ascension to power in May. The new Iraqi prime minister is anti-Iran, and the pro-Iran factions strongly objected to his appointment. He has done a decent job of overseeing reform so far, but he is just an interim prime minister, and he has promised to hold parliamentary elections next June. As conditions in Iraq are finally starting to look promising, the Biden administration must avoid any suggestion—even rhetorical—of walking away from Iraq. Instead, President Biden should come out in support of Kadhimi and his reform agenda as the right man to bring a new and better era to Iraq.
5. Don’t renew the New START without including all Russian nuclear arms.
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) was another signature achievement of the Obama administration. The treaty limits the deployment of Russian and American high-yield (“strategic”) nuclear weapons. Conservatives objected to the treaty back in 2010-11, but it was ratified by the Senate with a bipartisan vote.
The real problem with the treaty has always been not what it included but what it left out. Vladimir Putin has been trying to overcome its financial inferiority to NATO by undertaking low-cost strategies. One of these low-cost strategies has been developing low-yield (“nonstrategic”) nuclear weapons. The current Russian stockpile of low-yield nukes is superior to those of the United States and NATO members combined. This gives Russia “escalation dominance” in Europe against NATO—that is, the ability to escalate the violence of a conflict to a level at which it has clear dominance.
New START is due to expire in February 2021, and Vladimir Putin has already expressed interest in renewing it for another five years, which is an option under the agreement. There will be a temptation to simply renew this signature outcome of the Obama administration, one that several senior actors of the new Biden administration were involved in achieving—but that temptation should be resisted: One should always be suspicious in doing anything Vladimir Putin is interested in. The incoming administration should consider renewing the treaty only under the condition of putting a limit on all of Russia’s nuclear weapons, not just the high-yield ones.


thebulwark--2020-11-16--With ‘Missionaries,’ Phil Klay Looks at the Wounds of War

What does it mean to win a war ?
George W. Bush was roundly mocked for his premature “ Mission Accomplished ” declaration in 2003 , but Barack Obama ’ s claim , as he withdrew troops in 2011 , that “ after nearly nine years , America ’ s war in Iraq will be over ” proved to be just as toothless .
In the last decade we have remained heavily involved supporting Iraq ’ s attacks on ISIS , and in March of this year two Americans—a contractor and a soldier—were killed in a rocket strike north of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Forever ” wars like Iraq and the even-longer American entanglement in Afghanistan may seem like peculiarly modern problems , but philosophers and poets have always understood that “ war ” and “ peace ” better describe conditions of the heart than discrete periods in history .
In her reflections on the Iliad written during the Nazi occupation of France , Simone Weil defined force as “ that x that turns anybody who is subjected to it into a thing.
” She argued that force itself , rather than any character , was the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ epic : In Weil ’ s view , war is a terminal condition .
In claiming that our mission in Iraq had been accomplished , Bush was wrong , but his error is ours , too , whenever we assume that progress can render violence a thing of the past .
Phil Klay , a writer and teacher of writing , is a Marine veteran who served as a public affairs officer in Anbar Province during the Iraq War surge .
Redeployment , his collection of short stories about the wars in Iraq @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Award in 2014 , garnering favorable comparisons to Tim O ’ Brien ’ s The Things They Carried , and establishing Klay , a practicing Catholic , as a writer who brought spiritual questions to bear on modern warfare .
With his debut novel , Missionaries , Klay pursues these themes more broadly , examining the effects of American military involvement on lives around the globe .
As Weil did before him , Klay understands that violence is both cause and effect : War is a perpetual state of the soul , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and victims alike .
As the title suggests , Klay has written a thoroughly religious war novel , and its unflinching journey into the heart of suffering ultimately uncovers , in the midst of the effects of war , the roots of peace .
The story , which spans several decades , centers on the lives of several individuals in Colombia , where , since the late 1990s , the United States has been involved in the government ’ s attempt to combat various insurgent groups .
The similarity to situations in Afghanistan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strategies and personnel are swapped from one theater to the other , and Klay ’ s American characters—Mason , a medic , and Lisette , a journalist—both spend time in the Middle East before arriving in Latin America .
Though they are fatigued from the war on terror , they are not ready to leave war behind them , and are drawn to Colombia because it appears to be a place where the United States is winning .
Klay ’ s Colombian characters complicate that notion .
Abel , a native of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the novel , loses his entire family at the hands of a paramilitary group when he is a boy .
In need of protection and a home , Abel joins the very same group , leaving his former self behind as he forges a new identity in violence .
Yet as his biblical name suggests , Abel is more victim than assailant , and throughout the novel , his character straddles the realms of war and peace , never quite at home in either .
On the other side of the Colombian conflict @ @ @ @ @ @ @ official who has spent his life battling groups like Abel ’ s for control over the remote region , whose hard-to-police terrain makes it ideal for growing coca .
Many bands of violent groups grapple for power , and Abel himself struggles to make sense of them : Even for native Colombians , there is no clear distinction between the good guys and the bad guys .
On one hand paramilitary groups murder uncooperative local officials , but on the other they offer protection to the small towns they control , and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the successful transport of their crops .
When certain groups are driven away , new ones sprout like weeds .
Voids of power rarely go unfilled for long .
All of this makes it quite confusing for the reader , but this is purposeful on Klay ’ s part .
The effect is to destabilize our understanding of what power is and how it operates .
He is not content to let his readers associate violence with a certain band of rebels or military insignia : As with Weil , for Klay the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of us .
Likewise , the novel calls into question many of the perceived distinctions between U.S.-led military action and that of the Colombian guerrillas or the Taliban in Afghanistan .
One way Klay achieves this is by describing the material conditions of the poor Colombians as largely dependent on the detritus of American culture .
Every group fights with the weapons of the military-industrial complex ; those used by American soldiers are just newer and more powerful .
Communist guerrillas wear Van Halen t-shirts ; the most powerful paramilitary leader watches Steven @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opponents by hand like Tommy Lee Jones , and even goes by an American mononym : Jefferson .
The main events of the novel occur in the run-up to the 2016 referendum on a peace treaty between the Colombian military and the FARC guerrillas ( the real-life referendum was narrowly defeated , only to pass shortly after in a different form in the Colombian legislature ) .
Though the international community viewed the peace treaty as a potentially historic agreement , Klay ’ s characters have mixed feelings about it .
Juan Pablo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ military ’ s ability to draw upon American support to keep law and order in the region .
Most Colombians view it apathetically , aware that , like war itself , any official peace would be vague at best .
Missionaries suggests that the roots of conflict lie too close to the human heart to be successfully counteracted by any bureaucratic agreement , however strongly buttressed by military might .
In this novel , peace is not the opposite of war—at least not the kind of ceremonial , “ Mission Accomplished ” peace @ @ @ @ @ @ @ success abroad .
In spite of this , Klay does not resign his story to despair .
War may not have an opposite , but in the firefights of Afghanistan and the remote villages of Colombia , he locates its antidote .
It is not something found in politics or activism , he implies , but in the very effort of coming to terms with human suffering .
Throughout the novel , he draws our attention to the wounds inflicted by warfare and the ways in which characters tend to one another ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ descriptions border on graphic .
In an early scene Abel ’ s paramilitary group marches an uncooperative mayor into his town square and cuts him in half with a chainsaw ( Klay leaves little to the imagination ) .
Later he vividly describes Mason the medic packing the wounds of fellow soldiers in Afghanistan so that their internals would remain in place during transport to field hospitals .
Gut-wrenching though these scenes may be to read ( they will cause some readers to put the book down ) , their purpose grows clear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not look away from suffering , for in facing pain and helping each other bear it , Klay ’ s characters possess an otherworldly strength , over which violence itself possesses no power .
This power is perhaps best exemplified in Klay ’ s juxtaposition of child-bearing with the ravages of war .
One particularly powerful scene describes a very pregnant young refugee whose body , with the exception of her bulging belly , is crisscrossed with black stitches , the marks of an attempted murder by machete .
In another scene , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by mistake wanders into a darkened hut where a young mother is in labor , surrounded by nuns .
When they see the imposing armed man enter the room , a nun scolds him sternly and shoos him away .
Though Jefferson is shamed , he lets it go : Jefferson doesn ’ t understand this strength because , unlike violence , it is a force that disarms rather than fights back .
While he embodies a “ pure power built of fear and envy and desire , ” these practitioners seek to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inflict it upon others .
The Catholicism that Klay and his Colombian characters share gives context to the relentless focus on wounds .
Crucifixes abound in Klay ’ s story—often of the garish variety common in Latin American culture—and various characters contemplate the connection between the suffering Christ and the suffering around them .
Juan Pablo recounts how , on a Jesuit retreat as a schoolboy , he had a mystical experience of God , in which he “ felt as though the material world had been pierced , and life itself was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he later falls away from his faith , the birth of his daughter reminds him of this , as he senses “ eternity wounding the material world , wounding the boundaries of my own brain and body , and making me part of a larger story.
” Klay ’ s story is suffused with traces of an incarnate God , and is buoyed by the distinctly Christian notion that redemption is achieved not by the raising of swords but the opening of wounds .
Ultimately , the novel implies that violence arises from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the intent to understand his or her predicament .
Lisette , though well-intended , struggles to live up to this calling in her role as a journalist .
She journeys to Colombia with hopes of selling a longform story to a major American magazine , and bristles at her editor ’ s notion that local knowledge is essential , instead confident that her experience reporting on the war on terror thoroughly acquainted her with all systems of violence : “ she did know Colombia , because she knew Iraq and Afghanistan.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ headlong into the rural region and ends up the hostage of a start-up group of rebels .
Lisette ’ s capture , and the subsequent mission to rescue her , ushers in the novel ’ s bloody denouement .
At the novel ’ s moral center lies a quiet , strong , Colombian woman named Luisa .
We are first introduced to her as a victim—her father was the man who was publicly ripped in half with a chainsaw .
Years later , Luisa finds herself at the head of a university-sponsored endeavor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and suffered from the decades-long rural conflict .
She holds no grudges : Abel , who oversaw her father ’ s execution , is one of her clients , and her foundation helped him open a successful convenience store .
Luisa and her group spend their time recording the stories of those who have suffered at the hands of the various violent groups , processing their data , so to speak , and applying on their behalf for government money .
Though the money doesn ’ t always arrive , the storytelling itself @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to get started in the process of reclaiming their identities .
The foundation ’ s operating principle is a simple one : “ Come tell your story.
” Sharing suffering is cathartic , something that even Lisette has experienced through her journalism , though she won ’ t admit it to herself .
To return to Simone Weil ’ s definition of force as “ that x that turns anybody who is subjected to it into a thing , ” force ’ s opposite , then , would be the giving of one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , treating him or her as a human subject , rather than an object .
This is what Luisa does through her foundation , and what Mason does in packing the wounds of his fellow soldiers .
Weil herself famously likened this kind of attention to prayer , remarking that If we are united in our shared affliction , hope for peace is found in the scars of war .
Missionaries is an often-brutal tour of those scars , but it never succumbs to despair .
Near the novel ’ s end , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ foundation rather carelessly release information that results in the killing of two individuals connected with the project .
They are grief-stricken , but a more experienced human-rights worker points out their naïveté : “ To live in a country like this was to have blood on your hands .
.
.
.
‘ This is no kind of work for saviors .
We only want the guilty here.
’ ” For the work of rehabilitation to begin , one must collapse the distance between the conquerors and the conquered .
It matters little @ @ @ @ @ @ @ collect data in order to exert control : Both keep their subjects at arm ’ s length .
The drive to dominate unites all factions in the story .
Jefferson dreams one day of controlling all the drug routes between Colombia and Venezuela .
In a few years , he muses , “ I could be Pablo Escobar .
I could be Che Guevara , Osama bin Laden , Barack Obama.
” That he has aspirations to be men who were mortal enemies of each other does not seem to deter him from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accomplish a singular mission , to vanquish and declare victory .
Not all those who intervene in the Colombian conflict are driven by such ambitions , however .
The thoughtful medic Mason functions as a kind of military conscience in the novel , and near its close , he offers something resembling a verdict on American involvement in Colombia : “ This was a messy war , but that was the nature of war .
And as wars went , it was a good war.
” But what can wars , even good @ @ @ @ @ @ @ postscript to the events in Colombia , Klay closes the story by sending Juan Pablo to the Middle East as a mercenary helping to fight guerrilla outfits .
The missions he directs there are similar to those in his native Colombia : air strikes on insurgent leaders that are carried out with Western technology and precision .
The culture , though , is unfamiliar to him , and the reader imagines the violence continuing ad infinitum , as the police of the liberal world order , no matter how well intended , grow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those on the other side .
For all this , Klay does not give violence the upper hand .
Modern warfare is brutal and the wounds it inflicts can be horrible , unpredictable , and lasting .
But Klay ’ s novel suggests that , like a forest fire that as it burns provides the nutrients for new growth , war ’ s terrible effects can contain the seeds of peace .
In its often unbearable wounds war creates occasions for us to share in each other ’ s suffering .
And that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recognizes , is something with which brute force can never reckon .

Missionaries
by Phil Klay
Penguin, 407 pp., $28
What does it mean to win a war? George W. Bush was roundly mocked for his premature “Mission Accomplished” declaration in 2003, but Barack Obama’s claim, as he withdrew troops in 2011, that “after nearly nine years, America’s war in Iraq will be over” proved to be just as toothless. In the last decade we have remained heavily involved supporting Iraq’s attacks on ISIS, and in March of this year two Americans—a contractor and a soldier—were killed in a rocket strike north of Baghdad. Closure remains elusive.
“Forever” wars like Iraq and the even-longer American entanglement in Afghanistan may seem like peculiarly modern problems, but philosophers and poets have always understood that “war” and “peace” better describe conditions of the heart than discrete periods in history. In her reflections on the Iliad written during the Nazi occupation of France, Simone Weil defined force as “that x that turns anybody who is subjected to it into a thing.” She argued that force itself, rather than any character, was the “hero” of Homer’s epic:
For those dreamers who considered that force, thanks to progress, would soon be a thing of the past, the Iliad could appear as an historical document; for others, whose powers of recognition are more acute and who perceive force, today as yesterday, at the very center of human history, the Iliad is the purest and the loveliest of mirrors.
In Weil’s view, war is a terminal condition. In claiming that our mission in Iraq had been accomplished, Bush was wrong, but his error is ours, too, whenever we assume that progress can render violence a thing of the past.
Phil Klay, a writer and teacher of writing, is a Marine veteran who served as a public affairs officer in Anbar Province during the Iraq War surge. Redeployment, his collection of short stories about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, won the National Book Award in 2014, garnering favorable comparisons to Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, and establishing Klay, a practicing Catholic, as a writer who brought spiritual questions to bear on modern warfare. With his debut novel, Missionaries, Klay pursues these themes more broadly, examining the effects of American military involvement on lives around the globe. As Weil did before him, Klay understands that violence is both cause and effect: War is a perpetual state of the soul, and it shapes the identities of its perpetrators and victims alike. As the title suggests, Klay has written a thoroughly religious war novel, and its unflinching journey into the heart of suffering ultimately uncovers, in the midst of the effects of war, the roots of peace.
Podcast · August 15 2023 A.B. Stoddard: All the Ex-President’s Conspirators Donald Trump has been a low-rent mobster for his entire career, and now he’s getting…
The story, which spans several decades, centers on the lives of several individuals in Colombia, where, since the late 1990s, the United States has been involved in the government’s attempt to combat various insurgent groups. The similarity to situations in Afghanistan and Iraq is not superficial: Military strategies and personnel are swapped from one theater to the other, and Klay’s American characters—Mason, a medic, and Lisette, a journalist—both spend time in the Middle East before arriving in Latin America. Though they are fatigued from the war on terror, they are not ready to leave war behind them, and are drawn to Colombia because it appears to be a place where the United States is winning.
Klay’s Colombian characters complicate that notion. Abel, a native of the tumultuous rural region at the center of the novel, loses his entire family at the hands of a paramilitary group when he is a boy. In need of protection and a home, Abel joins the very same group, leaving his former self behind as he forges a new identity in violence. Yet as his biblical name suggests, Abel is more victim than assailant, and throughout the novel, his character straddles the realms of war and peace, never quite at home in either. On the other side of the Colombian conflict is Juan Pablo, a high-ranking military official who has spent his life battling groups like Abel’s for control over the remote region, whose hard-to-police terrain makes it ideal for growing coca. Many bands of violent groups grapple for power, and Abel himself struggles to make sense of them:
Paracos and guerrilla and narcos and bandits and police and soldiers and even a few smaller groups, local militias put up by Motilones or other indios. And there were different types of guerrilla, and different types of paracos, and different types of narcos. . . . It was all too much.
Even for native Colombians, there is no clear distinction between the good guys and the bad guys. On one hand paramilitary groups murder uncooperative local officials, but on the other they offer protection to the small towns they control, and the farmers rely on their presence to ensure the successful transport of their crops. When certain groups are driven away, new ones sprout like weeds. Voids of power rarely go unfilled for long. All of this makes it quite confusing for the reader, but this is purposeful on Klay’s part. The effect is to destabilize our understanding of what power is and how it operates. He is not content to let his readers associate violence with a certain band of rebels or military insignia: As with Weil, for Klay the desire to impose force resides within each of us.
Likewise, the novel calls into question many of the perceived distinctions between U.S.-led military action and that of the Colombian guerrillas or the Taliban in Afghanistan. One way Klay achieves this is by describing the material conditions of the poor Colombians as largely dependent on the detritus of American culture. Every group fights with the weapons of the military-industrial complex; those used by American soldiers are just newer and more powerful. Communist guerrillas wear Van Halen t-shirts; the most powerful paramilitary leader watches Steven Seagal movies, dreams of mutilating his opponents by hand like Tommy Lee Jones, and even goes by an American mononym: Jefferson.
The main events of the novel occur in the run-up to the 2016 referendum on a peace treaty between the Colombian military and the FARC guerrillas (the real-life referendum was narrowly defeated, only to pass shortly after in a different form in the Colombian legislature). Though the international community viewed the peace treaty as a potentially historic agreement, Klay’s characters have mixed feelings about it. Juan Pablo opposes it because it would hinder the military’s ability to draw upon American support to keep law and order in the region. Most Colombians view it apathetically, aware that, like war itself, any official peace would be vague at best. Missionaries suggests that the roots of conflict lie too close to the human heart to be successfully counteracted by any bureaucratic agreement, however strongly buttressed by military might. In this novel, peace is not the opposite of war—at least not the kind of ceremonial, “Mission Accomplished” peace by which the Western world measures its success abroad.
In spite of this, Klay does not resign his story to despair. War may not have an opposite, but in the firefights of Afghanistan and the remote villages of Colombia, he locates its antidote. It is not something found in politics or activism, he implies, but in the very effort of coming to terms with human suffering. Throughout the novel, he draws our attention to the wounds inflicted by warfare and the ways in which characters tend to one another’s pain. At certain points the descriptions border on graphic. In an early scene Abel’s paramilitary group marches an uncooperative mayor into his town square and cuts him in half with a chainsaw (Klay leaves little to the imagination). Later he vividly describes Mason the medic packing the wounds of fellow soldiers in Afghanistan so that their internals would remain in place during transport to field hospitals. Gut-wrenching though these scenes may be to read (they will cause some readers to put the book down), their purpose grows clear as the story unfolds: We must not look away from suffering, for in facing pain and helping each other bear it, Klay’s characters possess an otherworldly strength, over which violence itself possesses no power.
This power is perhaps best exemplified in Klay’s juxtaposition of child-bearing with the ravages of war. One particularly powerful scene describes a very pregnant young refugee whose body, with the exception of her bulging belly, is crisscrossed with black stitches, the marks of an attempted murder by machete. In another scene, Jefferson, the ruthless paramilitary leader, by mistake wanders into a darkened hut where a young mother is in labor, surrounded by nuns. When they see the imposing armed man enter the room, a nun scolds him sternly and shoos him away. Though Jefferson is shamed, he lets it go:
He had been scolded like a child. It had happened in front of his men. He considered heading back in, but to do what? Beat her? That wouldn’t regain him any respect. Nuns have a power. And women giving birth, they also have a power. He’d never understood it.
Jefferson doesn’t understand this strength because, unlike violence, it is a force that disarms rather than fights back. While he embodies a “pure power built of fear and envy and desire,” these practitioners seek to unite themselves with suffering, rather than inflict it upon others.
The Catholicism that Klay and his Colombian characters share gives context to the relentless focus on wounds. Crucifixes abound in Klay’s story—often of the garish variety common in Latin American culture—and various characters contemplate the connection between the suffering Christ and the suffering around them. Juan Pablo recounts how, on a Jesuit retreat as a schoolboy, he had a mystical experience of God, in which he “felt as though the material world had been pierced, and life itself was flooding out from the wound.” Though he later falls away from his faith, the birth of his daughter reminds him of this, as he senses “eternity wounding the material world, wounding the boundaries of my own brain and body, and making me part of a larger story.” Klay’s story is suffused with traces of an incarnate God, and is buoyed by the distinctly Christian notion that redemption is achieved not by the raising of swords but the opening of wounds.
Ultimately, the novel implies that violence arises from a failure to approach another human being with the intent to understand his or her predicament. Lisette, though well-intended, struggles to live up to this calling in her role as a journalist. She journeys to Colombia with hopes of selling a longform story to a major American magazine, and bristles at her editor’s notion that local knowledge is essential, instead confident that her experience reporting on the war on terror thoroughly acquainted her with all systems of violence: “she did know Colombia, because she knew Iraq and Afghanistan.” Mistaking data for understanding, she plunges headlong into the rural region and ends up the hostage of a start-up group of rebels. Lisette’s capture, and the subsequent mission to rescue her, ushers in the novel’s bloody denouement.
At the novel’s moral center lies a quiet, strong, Colombian woman named Luisa. We are first introduced to her as a victim—her father was the man who was publicly ripped in half with a chainsaw. Years later, Luisa finds herself at the head of a university-sponsored endeavor to rehabilitate those who have fought in and suffered from the decades-long rural conflict. She holds no grudges: Abel, who oversaw her father’s execution, is one of her clients, and her foundation helped him open a successful convenience store. Luisa and her group spend their time recording the stories of those who have suffered at the hands of the various violent groups, processing their data, so to speak, and applying on their behalf for government money. Though the money doesn’t always arrive, the storytelling itself, the novel suggests, helps characters to get started in the process of reclaiming their identities. The foundation’s operating principle is a simple one: “Come tell your story.” Sharing suffering is cathartic, something that even Lisette has experienced through her journalism, though she won’t admit it to herself.
To return to Simone Weil’s definition of force as “that x that turns anybody who is subjected to it into a thing,” force’s opposite, then, would be the giving of one’s total attention to another person, treating him or her as a human subject, rather than an object. This is what Luisa does through her foundation, and what Mason does in packing the wounds of his fellow soldiers. Weil herself famously likened this kind of attention to prayer, remarking that
the love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say to him: “What are you going through?” It is a recognition that the sufferer exists, not only as a unit in a collection, or a specimen from the social category labeled “unfortunate,” but as a man, exactly like us, who was one day stamped with a special mark by affliction.
If we are united in our shared affliction, hope for peace is found in the scars of war. Missionaries is an often-brutal tour of those scars, but it never succumbs to despair. Near the novel’s end, two young workers at Luisa’s foundation rather carelessly release information that results in the killing of two individuals connected with the project. They are grief-stricken, but a more experienced human-rights worker points out their naïveté: “To live in a country like this was to have blood on your hands. . . . ‘This is no kind of work for saviors. We only want the guilty here.’” For the work of rehabilitation to begin, one must collapse the distance between the conquerors and the conquered. It matters little if the conquerors use physical force or collect data in order to exert control: Both keep their subjects at arm’s length.
The drive to dominate unites all factions in the story. Jefferson dreams one day of controlling all the drug routes between Colombia and Venezuela. In a few years, he muses, “I could be Pablo Escobar. I could be Che Guevara, Osama bin Laden, Barack Obama.” That he has aspirations to be men who were mortal enemies of each other does not seem to deter him from identifying them all with the drive to accomplish a singular mission, to vanquish and declare victory. Not all those who intervene in the Colombian conflict are driven by such ambitions, however. The thoughtful medic Mason functions as a kind of military conscience in the novel, and near its close, he offers something resembling a verdict on American involvement in Colombia: “This was a messy war, but that was the nature of war. And as wars went, it was a good war.”
But what can wars, even good ones, really accomplish? As a postscript to the events in Colombia, Klay closes the story by sending Juan Pablo to the Middle East as a mercenary helping to fight guerrilla outfits. The missions he directs there are similar to those in his native Colombia: air strikes on insurgent leaders that are carried out with Western technology and precision. The culture, though, is unfamiliar to him, and the reader imagines the violence continuing ad infinitum, as the police of the liberal world order, no matter how well intended, grow no closer to the lived complexities of those on the other side.
For all this, Klay does not give violence the upper hand. Modern warfare is brutal and the wounds it inflicts can be horrible, unpredictable, and lasting. But Klay’s novel suggests that, like a forest fire that as it burns provides the nutrients for new growth, war’s terrible effects can contain the seeds of peace. In its often unbearable wounds war creates occasions for us to share in each other’s suffering. And that impulse, as even the arch-villain Jefferson recognizes, is something with which brute force can never reckon.


thebulwark--2020-11-17--What Biden Can Learn from Trump on China

President-elect Joe Biden ’ s presidential campaign was defined in large part by extreme differentiation from the incumbent .
While Trump was erratic , Biden was stable .
While Trump was ruthless , Biden was compassionate .
But while Biden can continue to emphasize his differences with the outgoing president on matters of character and personality , there is at least one area in which he should continue the policy begun by the Trump administration .
For all their disagreements , the president-elect should build upon his predecessor ’ s hardline approach against companies with ties to China ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of China has long sought to assert its economic and military power on the global stage .
Under its “ Made in China 2025 ” plan , which debuted in 2015 , the Chinese government , working through state-backed companies , plans to dominate the key technologies that will determine both economic and military advantage in the 21st century , especially artificial intelligence and 5G capabilities .
To that end , the government has not only heavily subsidized domestic research , but has begun to loot U.S. technology , equipment , and knowhow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and outright theft .
To achieve its dominance , China is actively ramping up its ability to produce semiconductors , the substances at the heart of every computer chip .
The “ Made in China 2025 ” plan pledges $ 120 billion to support the country ’ s indigenous semiconductor manufacturing industry , with a stated goal of producing 70 percent of domestic semiconductor consumption within the next five years .
Once almost exclusively dependent on foreign-made chips , China has made significant strides in recent years to bolster its semiconductor manufacturing capabilities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chinese facility jumped multiple generations of technology , a feat that should have taken years , in a matter of months .
China ’ s race to establish its semiconductor industry poses a threat to U.S. national security .
Semiconductors are a “ dual-use ” technology , in that they have both civilian and military capabilities .
The same technology that allows a refrigerator to communicate with a smartphone can allow reconnaissance and weapons systems to communicate .
The U.S. military is the most technologically sophisticated in the world , and that sophistication @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it the most fearsome fighting force in history .
But , if a challenger like China achieves technological parity , relying on technology could become a vulnerability .
By copying , appropriating , or stealing American technology , the Chinese can exploit vulnerabilities in U.S. defense systems and apply U.S. technologies to its own military weapons .
The Trump administration has sought to cut off the flow of sensitive semiconductors and semiconductor manufacturing equipment to China through export controls .
Since March 2019 , the U.S. Department of Commerce ’ s Bureau of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ added 153 Chinese State Owned Enterprises ( SOE ) to the Entity List , requiring U.S. companies to obtain a license to sell them sensitive technology .
In September , the BIS added a new restriction that requires U.S. semiconductor and equipment makers to get a license to sell to China ’ s largest semiconductor manufacturer , Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation ( SMIC ) .
The new requirement came after reports that SMIC was secreting sensitive information to China ’ s military , the People ’ s Liberation Army ( PLA ) .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the Entity List .
At least two other major Chinese semiconductor makers are known to have ties to the PLA : ChangXin Memory Technologies and Yangtze Memory Technologies Company .
In the near-term , U.S. policymakers should put those SOEs , along with SMIC , on the Entity List to stop further technology that could be used against us from reaching the PLA .
Under the 2018 Export Controls Act , the president has broad discretion to implement export controls on dual-use technology .
The current system is porous , with plenty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strict enough controls for the system as a whole to be effective .
If Congress decides not to update and tighten the restrictions on dual-use technology exports , the Biden administration should use the authority Congress has delegated it to do so .
China ’ s attempt to commandeer control of modern technologies began in full under President Obama , whose China policy took a less conciliatory turn at the end of his presidency .
President Trump continued the late-Obama-era policy toward China by treating it as the strategic competitor it is .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the course and take the necessary measures to protect America ’ s semiconductor industry .
Otherwise , China will have an advantage in global economic markets and on the battlefield .
If America is to maintain its position in the international system , it must protect the engines that drive its unrivaled economic productivity , especially technology innovation .
But perhaps more importantly , if American military might is to continue to act as a deterrent to another great power war , our military supremacy must never be uncertain .
If China is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is own economic and military rise , both of these important advantages could disappear .

President-elect Joe Biden’s presidential campaign was defined in large part by extreme differentiation from the incumbent. While Trump was erratic, Biden was stable. While Trump was ruthless, Biden was compassionate. But while Biden can continue to emphasize his differences with the outgoing president on matters of character and personality, there is at least one area in which he should continue the policy begun by the Trump administration. For all their disagreements, the president-elect should build upon his predecessor’s hardline approach against companies with ties to China’s military.
The People’s Republic of China has long sought to assert its economic and military power on the global stage. Under its “Made in China 2025” plan, which debuted in 2015, the Chinese government, working through state-backed companies, plans to dominate the key technologies that will determine both economic and military advantage in the 21st century, especially artificial intelligence and 5G capabilities. To that end, the government has not only heavily subsidized domestic research, but has begun to loot U.S. technology, equipment, and knowhow through forced technology transfers, espionage, and outright theft.
To achieve its dominance, China is actively ramping up its ability to produce semiconductors, the substances at the heart of every computer chip. The “Made in China 2025” plan pledges $120 billion to support the country’s indigenous semiconductor manufacturing industry, with a stated goal of producing 70 percent of domestic semiconductor consumption within the next five years.
Once almost exclusively dependent on foreign-made chips, China has made significant strides in recent years to bolster its semiconductor manufacturing capabilities. A recent report found that one Chinese facility jumped multiple generations of technology, a feat that should have taken years, in a matter of months.
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China’s race to establish its semiconductor industry poses a threat to U.S. national security. Semiconductors are a “dual-use” technology, in that they have both civilian and military capabilities. The same technology that allows a refrigerator to communicate with a smartphone can allow reconnaissance and weapons systems to communicate. The U.S. military is the most technologically sophisticated in the world, and that sophistication is a large part of what makes it the most fearsome fighting force in history. But, if a challenger like China achieves technological parity, relying on technology could become a vulnerability. By copying, appropriating, or stealing American technology, the Chinese can exploit vulnerabilities in U.S. defense systems and apply U.S. technologies to its own military weapons.
The Trump administration has sought to cut off the flow of sensitive semiconductors and semiconductor manufacturing equipment to China through export controls. Since March 2019, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has added 153 Chinese State Owned Enterprises (SOE) to the Entity List, requiring U.S. companies to obtain a license to sell them sensitive technology.
In September, the BIS added a new restriction that requires U.S. semiconductor and equipment makers to get a license to sell to China’s largest semiconductor manufacturer, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC). The new requirement came after reports that SMIC was secreting sensitive information to China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The rule stopped short of adding SMIC to the Entity List.
At least two other major Chinese semiconductor makers are known to have ties to the PLA: ChangXin Memory Technologies and Yangtze Memory Technologies Company. In the near-term, U.S. policymakers should put those SOEs, along with SMIC, on the Entity List to stop further technology that could be used against us from reaching the PLA.
Under the 2018 Export Controls Act, the president has broad discretion to implement export controls on dual-use technology. The current system is porous, with plenty of strategically significant technologies not subject to strict enough controls for the system as a whole to be effective. If Congress decides not to update and tighten the restrictions on dual-use technology exports, the Biden administration should use the authority Congress has delegated it to do so.
China’s attempt to commandeer control of modern technologies began in full under President Obama, whose China policy took a less conciliatory turn at the end of his presidency. President Trump continued the late-Obama-era policy toward China by treating it as the strategic competitor it is. President-elect Biden would be wise to hold the course and take the necessary measures to protect America’s semiconductor industry. Otherwise, China will have an advantage in global economic markets and on the battlefield.
If America is to maintain its position in the international system, it must protect the engines that drive its unrivaled economic productivity, especially technology innovation. But perhaps more importantly, if American military might is to continue to act as a deterrent to another great power war, our military supremacy must never be uncertain. If China is allowed to use American technology to power is own economic and military rise, both of these important advantages could disappear.


thebulwark--2020-11-17--Pompeo Plays Favorites in the Georgia Runoffs

As Georgia gets ready for runoff elections , tensions are high .
The opposition and incumbents are at odds , and calls continue for the top election official to resign .
Much is at stake in the outcome of the second round .
Critics of the first round are calling for recounts , if not outright new elections .
For Americans , recent developments in the Caucasus nation sound awfully familiar .
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is due to arrive in Tbilisi , Georgia , Tuesday evening for meetings Wednesday .
Pompeo ’ s trip , the most high-level @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Mike Pence was there in the summer of 2017 , comes at a volatile time for both Georgia and the United States and risks undermining U.S. policy toward Georgia if not handled carefully .
Georgia , the most pro-Western state in the Eurasia region , has been an island of fragile democracy in a sea of authoritarianism and instability .
An important strategic partner of the United States , Georgian troops have fought with Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan .
Together with Ukraine , Georgia is the only country in Eurasia that aspires @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The U.S. Army and Marines have train-and-equip programs in Georgia to help its military to deploy with us , and to deter further Russian aggression .
( After the 2008 Russo-Georgian War , Russia still occupies about 20 percent of Georgian territory in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia . )
The recent fighting between Georgia ’ s neighbors , Armenia and Azerbaijan , and the deployment of a nearly 2,000-member Russian peacekeeping force to the South Caucasus , highlight the precarious position in which Georgia finds itself .
For the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ country of 3.7 million people , has become embroiled in a political crisis over contested parliamentary elections .
The party in power , Georgian Dream , claims to have won the October 31 elections with 48 percent of the vote for their party list .
( Of the 150 members of the parliament , 120 are elected by at-large party lists while 30 are elected from single-member districts . )
At the same time , eight opposition parties received enough votes to be represented in the parliament .
Opposition parties , disunited before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accuse Georgian Dream of rigging the election and have vowed to boycott upcoming runoff races .
They have also declared that they will not take their seats in the new parliament unless Georgia Dream yields to their demands , which include holding new elections , the removal of the head of the Central Election Commission , and release of all those detained in protests in the aftermath of the election .
The October 31 elections were indeed flawed , as reflected in assessments by both domestic and international observers .
According to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rights , “ Georgia ’ s parliamentary elections were competitive and , overall , fundamental freedoms were respected .
Nevertheless , pervasive allegations of pressure on voters and blurring of the line between the ruling party and the state reduced public confidence in some aspects of the process.
” While commending Georgians for voting during the coronavirus pandemic , the OSCE observers noted that “ the dominance of the ruling party in the election commissions negatively affected the perception of their impartiality and independence , especially at the lower levels.
” Reputable domestic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ harsher in their assessments .
Protests over the past week were met with an overly forceful response from the authorities , with more than 300 people arrested and a number injured by water cannons , used without any warning to disperse .
Tensions in the country are running high .
The United States , of course , is in the middle of its own controversy , with President Trump refusing to concede defeat to President-elect Joe Biden .
That doesn ’ t leave U.S. officials on the strongest grounds to opine on other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is the subject of several investigations by the State Department Inspector General , didn ’ t help matters last week when he absurdly claimed that the United States would see a “ smooth transition to a second Trump administration.
” Such statements in defiance of the duly recognized results of the U.S. election undermine his credibility to advance democracy and human rights in other countries .
He hasn ’ t earned the swagger he promised he would bring to the State Department , and should consider instead a strong dose of humility instead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pompeo ’ s every word .
His schedule for Tbilisi includes meetings only with government representatives , civil society activists , and the Georgian Patriarch ; he has no meetings scheduled with the Georgian opposition .
This is a major mistake .
Pompeo should meet with representatives of all parties ( except for the pro-Russian Alliance of Patriots ) .
Arriving as he is between rounds of a contested election—the second round for single-member district races is set for this Saturday—and failing to meet with all key political players will create the impression @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the ruling Georgian Dream party .
Pompeo risks badly discrediting America ’ s standing among the more than 50 percent of the population who did not vote for Georgian Dream .
He is also missing an opportunity to play a key role in encouraging the main parties toward compromise .
The United States has long had outsized influence over the situation in Georgia , dating back to the restoration of its independence in 1991 , and can ill afford to allow a nascent democracy in an unstable region to become a one-party @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Russian dictates .
It doesn ’ t help that Georgian politics have become hyper-personalized , with the Georgian Dream faction dominated by oligarch and former prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili , and the main opposition party , United National Movement , centered around former president ( and former governor of the Odesa Oblast in Ukraine ) Mikheil Saakashvili .
Indeed , the key challenges facing the country , including the pandemic , the economy , Russia ’ s continuing threat , and Georgia ’ s aspirations to join Euro-Atlantic institutions , are often @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
( This too may seem familiar to Americans . )
Over the past few days , Georgian Dream officials and representatives of the opposition parties have met at the residence of the U.S .
Ambassador to Tbilisi , Kelly Degnan , along with envoys from the European Union , raising hopes of a compromise .
Parachuting into the tense situation in Tbilisi , Pompeo can ’ t treat his visit as part of some vain farewell tour .
He needs to keep America ’ s support for democracy foremost in mind , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ major political leaders , not just government representatives , and encourage all parties to reach a satisfactory resolution .
American interests in Georgia and the wider region , as well as Georgia ’ s future , are riding on it .

As Georgia gets ready for runoff elections, tensions are high. The opposition and incumbents are at odds, and calls continue for the top election official to resign. Much is at stake in the outcome of the second round. Critics of the first round are calling for recounts, if not outright new elections. For Americans, recent developments in the Caucasus nation sound awfully familiar.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is due to arrive in Tbilisi, Georgia, Tuesday evening for meetings Wednesday. Pompeo’s trip, the most high-level visit to the country since Vice President Mike Pence was there in the summer of 2017, comes at a volatile time for both Georgia and the United States and risks undermining U.S. policy toward Georgia if not handled carefully.
Georgia, the most pro-Western state in the Eurasia region, has been an island of fragile democracy in a sea of authoritarianism and instability. An important strategic partner of the United States, Georgian troops have fought with Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. Together with Ukraine, Georgia is the only country in Eurasia that aspires to join NATO and the EU. The U.S. Army and Marines have train-and-equip programs in Georgia to help its military to deploy with us, and to deter further Russian aggression. (After the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, Russia still occupies about 20 percent of Georgian territory in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.) The recent fighting between Georgia’s neighbors, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and the deployment of a nearly 2,000-member Russian peacekeeping force to the South Caucasus, highlight the precarious position in which Georgia finds itself.
For the past two weeks, Georgia, a country of 3.7 million people, has become embroiled in a political crisis over contested parliamentary elections. The party in power, Georgian Dream, claims to have won the October 31 elections with 48 percent of the vote for their party list. (Of the 150 members of the parliament, 120 are elected by at-large party lists while 30 are elected from single-member districts.) At the same time, eight opposition parties received enough votes to be represented in the parliament.
Opposition parties, disunited before the election, have come together to accuse Georgian Dream of rigging the election and have vowed to boycott upcoming runoff races. They have also declared that they will not take their seats in the new parliament unless Georgia Dream yields to their demands, which include holding new elections, the removal of the head of the Central Election Commission, and release of all those detained in protests in the aftermath of the election.
The October 31 elections were indeed flawed, as reflected in assessments by both domestic and international observers. According to the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, “Georgia’s parliamentary elections were competitive and, overall, fundamental freedoms were respected. Nevertheless, pervasive allegations of pressure on voters and blurring of the line between the ruling party and the state reduced public confidence in some aspects of the process.”
While commending Georgians for voting during the coronavirus pandemic, the OSCE observers noted that “the dominance of the ruling party in the election commissions negatively affected the perception of their impartiality and independence, especially at the lower levels.” Reputable domestic observers such as Transparency International were even harsher in their assessments.
Protests over the past week were met with an overly forceful response from the authorities, with more than 300 people arrested and a number injured by water cannons, used without any warning to disperse. Tensions in the country are running high.
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The United States, of course, is in the middle of its own controversy, with President Trump refusing to concede defeat to President-elect Joe Biden. That doesn’t leave U.S. officials on the strongest grounds to opine on other countries’ elections. Pompeo, who is the subject of several investigations by the State Department Inspector General, didn’t help matters last week when he absurdly claimed that the United States would see a “smooth transition to a second Trump administration.” Such statements in defiance of the duly recognized results of the U.S. election undermine his credibility to advance democracy and human rights in other countries. He hasn’t earned the swagger he promised he would bring to the State Department, and should consider instead a strong dose of humility instead.
Yet Georgians will be hanging on Pompeo’s every word. His schedule for Tbilisi includes meetings only with government representatives, civil society activists, and the Georgian Patriarch; he has no meetings scheduled with the Georgian opposition. This is a major mistake.
Pompeo should meet with representatives of all parties (except for the pro-Russian Alliance of Patriots). Arriving as he is between rounds of a contested election—the second round for single-member district races is set for this Saturday—and failing to meet with all key political players will create the impression that Pompeo and the United States side with the ruling Georgian Dream party. Pompeo risks badly discrediting America’s standing among the more than 50 percent of the population who did not vote for Georgian Dream.
He is also missing an opportunity to play a key role in encouraging the main parties toward compromise. The United States has long had outsized influence over the situation in Georgia, dating back to the restoration of its independence in 1991, and can ill afford to allow a nascent democracy in an unstable region to become a one-party government, making it even more vulnerable to Russian dictates.
It doesn’t help that Georgian politics have become hyper-personalized, with the Georgian Dream faction dominated by oligarch and former prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, and the main opposition party, United National Movement, centered around former president (and former governor of the Odesa Oblast in Ukraine) Mikheil Saakashvili. Indeed, the key challenges facing the country, including the pandemic, the economy, Russia’s continuing threat, and Georgia’s aspirations to join Euro-Atlantic institutions, are often overshadowed by just a couple of personalities. (This too may seem familiar to Americans.)
Over the past few days, Georgian Dream officials and representatives of the opposition parties have met at the residence of the U.S. Ambassador to Tbilisi, Kelly Degnan, along with envoys from the European Union, raising hopes of a compromise. Parachuting into the tense situation in Tbilisi, Pompeo can’t treat his visit as part of some vain farewell tour. He needs to keep America’s support for democracy foremost in mind, expand his itinerary, meet with all major political leaders, not just government representatives, and encourage all parties to reach a satisfactory resolution. American interests in Georgia and the wider region, as well as Georgia’s future, are riding on it.