foreignpolicy--2020-02-12--As Numbers Soar, Here’s Everything We Don’t Know About the Coronavirus

As Numbers Soar , Here ’ s Everything We Don ’ t Know About the Coronavirus Questions about the coronavirus are coming thick and fast—but not answers .
Today China reported a startling leap in cases , adding over 14,000 – a third of the existing number – to the total in Hubei , the central Chinese province where the virus started .
This seems to be in part the result of a broader methodology that has moved many cases from the suspected column into being clearly counted as confirmed – but much remains uncertain .
As the death toll @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wrapped in a cloud of doubt .
Some of these issues will eventually become clear .
Many won ’ t .
There are several reasons for this .
One is the novelty of the coronavirus , which like any new disease will take months to fully detail through hard and tentative scientific work .
Another is the sheer scale of the disaster ; there are roughly 1.4 billion people in China , all of whose lives have been touched by the disease or the measures around it .
As would happen anywhere , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and much goes unreported or exaggerated .
But there are also specific problems here .
The Chinese Communist Party has a record of covering up or underreporting the toll of natural disasters from floods to earthquakes .
Information is routinely concealed by officials from the public and their superiors for personal reasons .
Top-level politics are almost entirely opaque to outsiders even at their most bloody .
There are no independent watchdogs and increasingly few journalists able to report with even a modicum of freedom .
All this leads to an awful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We don ’ t know how many coronavirus cases there are .
The Chinese authorities are producing daily figures of confirmed and suspected numbers—but there are clearly many more out there .
Just how many is a big question .
Neil Ferguson , a prominent epidemiologist , estimated last week that as few as 10 percent of cases could be being detected .
Other early modeling also showed the possibility of startling underestimates ; one study suggested the number of cases in Wuhan alone had reached 75,000 by Jan. 25 .
Many factors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Some victims appear to have relatively mild symptoms , especially children .
( Reassuringly , early details of asymptomatic spreaders appear to be mistaken . )
The incubation period for the virus could be 14 days , as is currently generally believed , or it could be 24 .
There ’ s a severe shortage of diagnostic kits ; while Wuhan itself appears to be catching up with the numbers , doctors elsewhere report having quarantined patients but no ability to test them .
The sudden rise in cases today appears to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Hubei but not elsewhere – patients clinically diagnosed by doctors but that had not been able to be fully tested into the ‘ confirmed ’ group .
Because of fears of being isolated or stigmatized , some people showing symptoms may be avoiding the medical system , which is why the authorities have now restricted the sale of medication .
In a country where out-of-pocket payments are the norm , people may be avoiding hospitals due to lack of money : Despite the government ’ s promise to cover costs , no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them , and some patients are paying many times their monthly income .
We don ’ t know exactly how deadly the virus is .
While the percentage of deaths among all known cases has remained steady in the official number at around 2.1 to 2.2 percent , there are several problems with that .
Most of those diagnosed started experiencing symptoms only in the last week , and the disease hasn ’ t yet run its course .
The number of deaths appears to be severely understated , with many reports of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before being counted in the official total .
( Cremation is a contentious issue in China and not just during epidemics . )
Deaths are also , so far , overwhelmingly concentrated in Wuhan itself , with the rate there nearing 5 percent .
On the positive side , though , the cases being missed are likely to be the less serious ones , meaning that the fatality rate could actually be quite low .
We don ’ t know whether the virus confirms immunity or resistance on people who have already had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re subject to reinfection—a particular worry as China rounds up patients into concentrated hospitals .
We don ’ t know whether the virus has reached the internment camps and prisons in Xinjiang where China is holding over a million Uighurs and others , many in poor health .
We don ’ t know how many health care workers have been infected .
The case of Li Wenliang , the whistleblower who died last week , has been widely covered , as has one instance in which 14 health care workers were infected .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ press that at least 500 of them have caught the virus .
We don ’ t know when exactly people inside the Chinese government knew the virus could be transmitted between humans and how long they delayed before releasing that information to the public .
Some folks , like the eight people threatened for “ spreading rumors , ” were talking about it in early January .
( We don ’ t know whether Li and another doctor were among the eight counted there . )
We don ’ t know why the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cluster of 41 cases until Jan. 18 , when the numbers suddenly leapt .
We don ’ t know whether the cover-up was the result of local political considerations or , as Wuhan ’ s mayor has hinted , orders from the top .
We don ’ t know why the crisis response went from zero to 60 in a few days .
By Jan. 20 , the numbers showed a significant outbreak ; by Jan. 23 , the city of Wuhan was shut down ; and by Jan. 25 , that quarantine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
We don ’ t know if that was informed action by the government based on estimates of the spread or whether it was what the longtime China watcher Ian Johnson has called “ actionism ” —a political need to be seen doing something .
We don ’ t know where the roughly 5 million people who left Wuhan before the quarantine was imposed went .
For middle-class Chinese citizens , tracking them has been relatively easy thanks to China ’ s extensive surveillance networks and the ubiquity of services like WeChat , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people in China .
But tracking the poor—especially the roughly 450 million people without internet access—is far harder .
We don ’ t know exactly what the population of Wuhan was before the virus and quarantine .
Chinese cities routinely undercount their populations by not including migrant workers because officials in the megalopolises are supposed to be restricting population there and so are incentivized to exclude people from their totals .
In contrast , the rural areas where migrants originate receive extra funding for more residents , so they often keep counting people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there a year .
We don ’ t know how big the Chinese population really is—perhaps overcounted by 115 million people or perhaps severely undercounted thanks to unregistered births .
All this means we don ’ t know whether the containment efforts will work .
Previous mass quarantines have produced highly mixed results .
Yet the extent of China ’ s lockdown is unprecedented , as is the degree of control the government can exercise .
Right now , new infections appear to be diminishing in number each day—but that has been the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be just an illusion .
We don ’ t know why the World Health Organization , which boasts of its partnerships with Beijing , initially chose not to declare a global health emergency in its early meetings and whether pressure from China—which has leaned on countries like Pakistan and Cambodia to maintain transport links and not evacuate their citizens during the outbreak—was involved .
We also don ’ t know whether the absence of cases in some countries is a sign that the virus hasn ’ t spread there through good fortune or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s especially worrying in countries like Indonesia , where the public health system isn ’ t prepared for epidemics , and in poorer African nations where commerce with China has grown significantly in recent years .
We don ’ t know whether the epidemic will remain contained largely within Wuhan , whether the clusters of several hundred cases in other Chinese cities will turn into outbreaks there , or whether outbreaks will strike other countries .
We don ’ t know if this will be a global pandemic .
We don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vaccine—perhaps in six months , perhaps in a year , perhaps in 18 months .

Questions about the coronavirus are coming thick and fast—but not answers. Today China reported a startling leap in cases, adding over 14,000—a third of the existing number—to the total in Hubei, the central Chinese province where the virus started. This seems to be in part the result of a broader methodology that has moved many cases from the suspected column into being clearly counted as confirmed—but much remains uncertain. As the death toll reaches over 1,300, the virus remains wrapped in a cloud of doubt. Some of these issues will eventually become clear. Many won’t.
Questions about the coronavirus are coming thick and fast—but not answers. Today China reported a startling leap in cases, adding over 14,000—a third of the existing number—to the total in Hubei, the central Chinese province where the virus started. This seems to be in part the result of a broader methodology that has moved many cases from the suspected column into being clearly counted as confirmed—but much remains uncertain. As the death toll reaches over 1,300, the virus remains wrapped in a cloud of doubt. Some of these issues will eventually become clear. Many won’t.
There are several reasons for this. One is the novelty of the coronavirus, which like any new disease will take months to fully detail through hard and tentative scientific work. Another is the sheer scale of the disaster; there are roughly 1.4 billion people in China, all of whose lives have been touched by the disease or the measures around it. As would happen anywhere, the situation on the ground is chaotic, and much goes unreported or exaggerated.
But there are also specific problems here. The Chinese Communist Party has a record of covering up or underreporting the toll of natural disasters from floods to earthquakes. Information is routinely concealed by officials from the public and their superiors for personal reasons. Top-level politics are almost entirely opaque to outsiders even at their most bloody. There are no independent watchdogs and increasingly few journalists able to report with even a modicum of freedom.
All this leads to an awful lot we don’t know.
We don’t know how many coronavirus cases there are. The Chinese authorities are producing daily figures of confirmed and suspected numbers—but there are clearly many more out there. Just how many is a big question. Neil Ferguson, a prominent epidemiologist, estimated last week that as few as 10 percent of cases could be being detected. Other early modeling also showed the possibility of startling underestimates; one study suggested the number of cases in Wuhan alone had reached 75,000 by Jan. 25.
Many factors could be causing cases to be missed. Some victims appear to have relatively mild symptoms, especially children. (Reassuringly, early details of asymptomatic spreaders appear to be mistaken.) The incubation period for the virus could be 14 days, as is currently generally believed, or it could be 24. There’s a severe shortage of diagnostic kits; while Wuhan itself appears to be catching up with the numbers, doctors elsewhere report having quarantined patients but no ability to test them. The sudden rise in cases today appears to have been a result of shifting – in Hubei but not elsewhere – patients clinically diagnosed by doctors but that had not been able to be fully tested into the ‘confirmed’ group.
Because of fears of being isolated or stigmatized, some people showing symptoms may be avoiding the medical system, which is why the authorities have now restricted the sale of medication. In a country where out-of-pocket payments are the norm, people may be avoiding hospitals due to lack of money: Despite the government’s promise to cover costs, no clear mechanism is in place to compensate them, and some patients are paying many times their monthly income.
We don’t know exactly how deadly the virus is. While the percentage of deaths among all known cases has remained steady in the official number at around 2.1 to 2.2 percent, there are several problems with that. Most of those diagnosed started experiencing symptoms only in the last week, and the disease hasn’t yet run its course. The number of deaths appears to be severely understated, with many reports of victims dying at home and being cremated before being counted in the official total. (Cremation is a contentious issue in China and not just during epidemics.)
Deaths are also, so far, overwhelmingly concentrated in Wuhan itself, with the rate there nearing 5 percent. On the positive side, though, the cases being missed are likely to be the less serious ones, meaning that the fatality rate could actually be quite low.
We don’t know whether the virus confirms immunity or resistance on people who have already had it and recover or whether they’re subject to reinfection—a particular worry as China rounds up patients into concentrated hospitals.
We don’t know whether the virus has reached the internment camps and prisons in Xinjiang where China is holding over a million Uighurs and others, many in poor health.
We don’t know how many health care workers have been infected. The case of Li Wenliang, the whistleblower who died last week, has been widely covered, as has one instance in which 14 health care workers were infected. Medical workers inside Wuhan have told the press that at least 500 of them have caught the virus.
We don’t know when exactly people inside the Chinese government knew the virus could be transmitted between humans and how long they delayed before releasing that information to the public. Some folks, like the eight people threatened for “spreading rumors,” were talking about it in early January. (We don’t know whether Li and another doctor were among the eight counted there.) We don’t know why the Wuhan government admitted to only the initial cluster of 41 cases until Jan. 18, when the numbers suddenly leapt. We don’t know whether the cover-up was the result of local political considerations or, as Wuhan’s mayor has hinted, orders from the top.
We don’t know why the crisis response went from zero to 60 in a few days. By Jan. 20, the numbers showed a significant outbreak; by Jan. 23, the city of Wuhan was shut down; and by Jan. 25, that quarantine had been extended throughout much of Hubei. We don’t know if that was informed action by the government based on estimates of the spread or whether it was what the longtime China watcher Ian Johnson has called “actionism”—a political need to be seen doing something.
We don’t know where the roughly 5 million people who left Wuhan before the quarantine was imposed went. For middle-class Chinese citizens, tracking them has been relatively easy thanks to China’s extensive surveillance networks and the ubiquity of services like WeChat, the mobile pay app used by many people in China. But tracking the poor—especially the roughly 450 million people without internet access—is far harder.
We don’t know exactly what the population of Wuhan was before the virus and quarantine. Chinese cities routinely undercount their populations by not including migrant workers because officials in the megalopolises are supposed to be restricting population there and so are incentivized to exclude people from their totals. In contrast, the rural areas where migrants originate receive extra funding for more residents, so they often keep counting people who spend only a week or less there a year. We don’t know how big the Chinese population really is—perhaps overcounted by 115 million people or perhaps severely undercounted thanks to unregistered births.
All this means we don’t know whether the containment efforts will work. Previous mass quarantines have produced highly mixed results. Yet the extent of China’s lockdown is unprecedented, as is the degree of control the government can exercise. Right now, new infections appear to be diminishing in number each day—but that has been the case for only two days and may be just an illusion.
We don’t know why the World Health Organization, which boasts of its partnerships with Beijing, initially chose not to declare a global health emergency in its early meetings and whether pressure from China—which has leaned on countries like Pakistan and Cambodia to maintain transport links and not evacuate their citizens during the outbreak—was involved.
We also don’t know whether the absence of cases in some countries is a sign that the virus hasn’t spread there through good fortune or that cases are going undiagnosed. That’s especially worrying in countries like Indonesia, where the public health system isn’t prepared for epidemics, and in poorer African nations where commerce with China has grown significantly in recent years.
We don’t know whether the epidemic will remain contained largely within Wuhan, whether the clusters of several hundred cases in other Chinese cities will turn into outbreaks there, or whether outbreaks will strike other countries. We don’t know if this will be a global pandemic.
We don’t know when there will be a vaccine—perhaps in six months, perhaps in a year, perhaps in 18 months.


foreignpolicy--2020-02-12--The Middle East Thinks America Is Going Crazy

The Middle East Thinks America Is Going Crazy When I landed in Abu Dhabi , United Arab Emirates , last week , the United States was in the throes of a bruising debate about Shakira , Jennifer Lopez , and the Super Bowl halftime show .
It was either the worst halftime show ever or the best , women were either shamed or empowered , and the kids were forever damaged .
The next day , things got more serious with the absurd debacle that was the Iowa Democratic caucuses , whose winner could not be announced until the following @ @ @ @ @ @ @ issues .
Almost immediately , the conspiracy theorists kicked into high gear , ignoring the most obvious explanation for the problems Iowa Democrats encountered : incompetence .
On my second morning in the Emirates , I woke up to President Donald Trump ’ s State of the Union address and all the fury that it produced over Rush Limbaugh ’ s Presidential Medal of Freedom—which surely debases the value of the honor for all past and future recipients—and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripping up the president ’ s speech .
Before I got @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Senate acquitted Trump of abusing his power and obstructing Congress .
The lone Republican dissenter in the abuse of power charge , Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah , was promptly disinvited from the Conservative Political Action Conference because organizers could not assure his safety .
Watching these events unfold in succession from 7,000 miles away rather from my usual perch inside the Beltway made America ’ s apparent crackup feel all the more real .
I was not the only one paying attention .
So were the Emiratis .
They carefully noted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , those I spoke to on my trip were horrified at the incompetence of the Democrats in Iowa , stunned by the lack of civility during and after the State of the Union , and firmly of the belief that Trump will be reelected in November .
The confidence that there will be a second Trump administration , however , does not allay a sense of disbelief and discomfort about America ’ s growing dysfunction .
They are concerned about the pathological polarization they see and what it might mean for their ties @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aren ’ t waiting around to find out .
The Emiratis are keenly aware of America ’ s ambivalence about the Middle East and are unapologetic about plans they already have underway to join find new partners to help them achieve their objectives .
And , across the Middle East , they are not alone .
For all of the talk in Washington about relitigating U.S. ties with its regional allies , Middle Eastern leaders are doing much the same with regard to the United States .
I first got a hint of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a conversation with an Egyptian official who related that what he called the “ isolationist ” worldviews of politicians like Sens .
Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders—and the apparent appeal of these ideas to large number of Americans—raised questions in the minds of leaders in Cairo whether the United States would in time relinquish its role as Egypt ’ s strategic partner and stabilizer of the Middle East .
In their own way , the Turks have been asking similar questions about American fecklessness over U.S.-Syria policy and Washington ’ s ties to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Units , which are connected to the Kurdistan Workers ’ Party—a terrorist group that has waged a violent campaign against Turkey since 1984 .
The Saudis , stung by the criticism heaped upon them from almost every corner after the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi , recognize the need for change even as they continue emphasize the importance of the bilateral relationship to them .
It is not so much that America ’ s regional allies are realigning , though there is some of that , but that they are diversifying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that their economic future lies with China , though they haven ’ t taken a side in the great-power competition that everyone is talking about .
Still , the Emiratis have a keen sense of how global power dynamics are shifting .
They hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Emirates for three days in the summer of 2018 and inked agreements with Beijing on energy , financial , military , and commercial ties .
Russian Vladimir Putin received an elaborate welcome when he visited a little more than a year later , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of deals in the health , technology , and energy sectors .
The Egyptians are more explicit about returning to something akin to the “ positive neutralism ” of the Gamal Abdel Nasser era , when Cairo sought to extract as much assistance as it could from competing powers .
They do not want American officials to demand that Egypt choose between Washington and Beijing at the same time being left alone to strengthen Cairo ’ s relations with Moscow .
Meanwhile , as Turkey ’ s differences with the United States have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have grown closer , notwithstanding significant differences over what is happening in Syria ’ s Idlib province .
And even as the United States remains the biggest investor in Saudi Arabia , the Saudis understand the importance of doing business with China—Riyadh ’ s largest trading partner .
They have also come to understand that having Russia at the table is at least prudent , which is why Putin received a warm welcome to Saudi Arabia in the fall of 2019 .
Of course , none of America ’ s allies regard Russia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ States yet , but as long as U.S. officials and politicians talk of pivots and declare their intention to end so-called forever wars , Middle Eastern leaders are going to explore their options .
Added to these geopolitical calculations is the perception that the political warfare consuming every aspect of life in the United States has rendered America unhinged and thus either uninterested in or unserious about the world .
The predictable result is not just hedging with other big powers but also taking matters into their own hands , which is how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and Syria have become bloodier and more destabilizing .
From a personal perspective , it was sobering to watch the debate about the Super Bowl halftime show , the Iowa clown show , the monstrosity that was the State of the Union address , and the aftermath of the president ’ s acquittal from half a world away .
The much-discussed adults in the room are either cowering in the corner or have been intimidated into silence .
I do not think I am being melodramatic when I say it feels like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the United States and its aspirational promise .
The effect on U.S. foreign policy may be less spectacular , but that does not mean it is not profoundly damaging .
Across the political spectrum , the idea of leaving the Middle East is deeply appealing—even if Americans do not know what it would mean in practice .
The region may feel far away , but the United States still has important interests and goals there .
Achieving them will be harder so long as U.S. partners , however flawed , regard the United @ @ @ @ @ @ @ downright crazy .

When I landed in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, last week, the United States was in the throes of a bruising debate about Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, and the Super Bowl halftime show. It was either the worst halftime show ever or the best, women were either shamed or empowered, and the kids were forever damaged. The next day, things got more serious with the absurd debacle that was the Iowa Democratic caucuses, whose winner could not be announced until the following Sunday due to “ quality control ” issues. Almost immediately, the conspiracy theorists kicked into high gear, ignoring the most obvious explanation for the problems Iowa Democrats encountered: incompetence.
When I landed in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, last week, the United States was in the throes of a bruising debate about Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, and the Super Bowl halftime show. It was either the worst halftime show ever or the best, women were either shamed or empowered, and the kids were forever damaged. The next day, things got more serious with the absurd debacle that was the Iowa Democratic caucuses, whose winner could not be announced until the following Sunday due to “quality control” issues. Almost immediately, the conspiracy theorists kicked into high gear, ignoring the most obvious explanation for the problems Iowa Democrats encountered: incompetence.
On my second morning in the Emirates, I woke up to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address and all the fury that it produced over Rush Limbaugh’s Presidential Medal of Freedom—which surely debases the value of the honor for all past and future recipients—and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripping up the president’s speech. Before I got on the plane back to Washington, the Senate acquitted Trump of abusing his power and obstructing Congress. The lone Republican dissenter in the abuse of power charge, Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, was promptly disinvited from the Conservative Political Action Conference because organizers could not assure his safety. Watching these events unfold in succession from 7,000 miles away rather from my usual perch inside the Beltway made America’s apparent crackup feel all the more real.
I was not the only one paying attention. So were the Emiratis. They carefully noted the three-ring circus. To a person, those I spoke to on my trip were horrified at the incompetence of the Democrats in Iowa, stunned by the lack of civility during and after the State of the Union, and firmly of the belief that Trump will be reelected in November. The confidence that there will be a second Trump administration, however, does not allay a sense of disbelief and discomfort about America’s growing dysfunction. They are concerned about the pathological polarization they see and what it might mean for their ties with the United States.
They also aren’t waiting around to find out. The Emiratis are keenly aware of America’s ambivalence about the Middle East and are unapologetic about plans they already have underway to join find new partners to help them achieve their objectives. And, across the Middle East, they are not alone.
For all of the talk in Washington about relitigating U.S. ties with its regional allies, Middle Eastern leaders are doing much the same with regard to the United States. I first got a hint of this a number of years ago during a conversation with an Egyptian official who related that what he called the “isolationist” worldviews of politicians like Sens. Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders—and the apparent appeal of these ideas to large number of Americans—raised questions in the minds of leaders in Cairo whether the United States would in time relinquish its role as Egypt’s strategic partner and stabilizer of the Middle East.
In their own way, the Turks have been asking similar questions about American fecklessness over U.S.-Syria policy and Washington’s ties to the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units, which are connected to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party—a terrorist group that has waged a violent campaign against Turkey since 1984. The Saudis, stung by the criticism heaped upon them from almost every corner after the murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, recognize the need for change even as they continue emphasize the importance of the bilateral relationship to them.
It is not so much that America’s regional allies are realigning, though there is some of that, but that they are diversifying their foreign policies. The Emiratis believe that their economic future lies with China, though they haven’t taken a side in the great-power competition that everyone is talking about. Still, the Emiratis have a keen sense of how global power dynamics are shifting. They hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Emirates for three days in the summer of 2018 and inked agreements with Beijing on energy, financial, military, and commercial ties. Russian Vladimir Putin received an elaborate welcome when he visited a little more than a year later, which resulted in $1.3 billion worth of deals in the health, technology, and energy sectors.
The Egyptians are more explicit about returning to something akin to the “positive neutralism” of the Gamal Abdel Nasser era, when Cairo sought to extract as much assistance as it could from competing powers. They do not want American officials to demand that Egypt choose between Washington and Beijing at the same time being left alone to strengthen Cairo’s relations with Moscow. Meanwhile, as Turkey’s differences with the United States have grown, the Turks and the Russians have grown closer, notwithstanding significant differences over what is happening in Syria’s Idlib province. And even as the United States remains the biggest investor in Saudi Arabia, the Saudis understand the importance of doing business with China—Riyadh’s largest trading partner. They have also come to understand that having Russia at the table is at least prudent, which is why Putin received a warm welcome to Saudi Arabia in the fall of 2019.
Of course, none of America’s allies regard Russia or China as replacements for the United States yet, but as long as U.S. officials and politicians talk of pivots and declare their intention to end so-called forever wars, Middle Eastern leaders are going to explore their options. Added to these geopolitical calculations is the perception that the political warfare consuming every aspect of life in the United States has rendered America unhinged and thus either uninterested in or unserious about the world. The predictable result is not just hedging with other big powers but also taking matters into their own hands, which is how conflicts in places like Yemen, Libya, and Syria have become bloodier and more destabilizing.
From a personal perspective, it was sobering to watch the debate about the Super Bowl halftime show, the Iowa clown show, the monstrosity that was the State of the Union address, and the aftermath of the president’s acquittal from half a world away. The much-discussed adults in the room are either cowering in the corner or have been intimidated into silence. I do not think I am being melodramatic when I say it feels like this moment has done irreparable harm to the United States and its aspirational promise.
The effect on U.S. foreign policy may be less spectacular, but that does not mean it is not profoundly damaging. Across the political spectrum, the idea of leaving the Middle East is deeply appealing—even if Americans do not know what it would mean in practice. The region may feel far away, but the United States still has important interests and goals there. Achieving them will be harder so long as U.S. partners, however flawed, regard the United States as untrustworthy, incompetent, and downright crazy.


foreignpolicy--2020-02-12--No, Pete Buttigieg Is Not a CIA Asset

No, Pete Buttigieg Is Not a CIA Asset

No , Pete Buttigieg Is Not a CIA Asset The American presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg ’ s narrow win in the Iowa caucuses earlier this month has turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory .
Headlines have been dominated by tales of chaos , not of an unexpected victory from a long-shot candidate .
And it ’ s helped fuel one of the strangest ideas to have emerged from the far-left : that Buttigieg is a CIA asset .
While the South Bend , Indiana , mayor appears to have edged out democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders in the delegate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the chaos of the counting , compounded by a buggy app designed by a firm whose staff largely back Buttigieg , have begotten conspiracy theories .
Some Sanders supporters now allege that the vote was , at best , fumbled on purpose or , worse , deliberately rigged .
Maybe , this was accomplished using the same tactics that the United States learned from ousting democratic leaders abroad .
This is nonsense .
The Iowa process was horribly botched—but caucuses have always been a mess , not least because of the ridiculous mathematical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can produce a sane narrative of how rigging could have occurred in a process where participants stand in the open to show their support and where observers from different camps document the proceedings .
Buttigieg ’ s strong second-place showing in New Hampshire on Tuesday should be a testament to the fact that he actually has a support base in the party .
But even though these theories may just be a product of conspiracy-minded websites and the cesspool of political Twitter , it it also represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the CIA @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the cost that the agency ’ s blundering imposed on the developing world .
A left-wing website , the Grayzone , has spearheaded the more tenuous theorizing around Buttigieg ’ s supposed CIA ties .
A series of articles , which concluded the national security regime had “ groomed ” Buttigieg for power and which draw shaky ties between Buttigieg and the CIA , have racked up thousands of shares , especially from pro-Sanders Facebook pages .
( The Grayzone notes that it does not directly allege Buttigieg is himself a CIA @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suggest it . )
In fairness , Buttigieg ’ s own past offers material for conspiratorial pickings .
At the consulting firm McKinsey , Buttigieg helped advise on grocery pricing for the Canadian grocery giant Loblaws—a company later implicated in an industrywide price-fixing scheme for bread .
McKinsey has also been a favorite contractor for the CIA , although that work was more about reorganizing the agency ’ s bureaucracy than rigging elections .
After that , Buttigieg joined the Navy Reserve and deployed to Afghanistan , where he did intelligence work , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not quite clear where , in his work history , Buttigieg was supposedly recruited to work for the agency .
Nor can anyone seem to explain how his military role somehow switched over into work for the CIA , beyond both roles involving intelligence .
It ’ s rare for an intelligence officer to use as his cover… being an intelligence officer .
That hasn ’ t mattered much for an audience that likes to see the CIA under every stone .
It was likely Chapo Trap House—a very popular political comedy podcast @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hundreds of thousands of listeners per episode , that is fanatically supportive of Sanders—that got # CIAPete trending on twitter .
On the first episode of the podcast after the delayed Iowa results were reported , one co-host , Will Menaker , concluded that the caucuses “ had probably done more to destroy the legitimacy of our democratic process than almost anything that happened in American history.
” Other hosts chimed in with their agreement .
Menaker turned to Buttigieg , calling him , his campaign , supporters , and all involved in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shit , ” concluding they were all guilty of electoral fraud .
Co-host Amber A ’ Lee Frost jumped in to add , “ We would actually be sending in troops if we were a South American country right now.
” “ Can you imagine if , in any Central or South American country , what happened last night took place ?
” Menaker agreed .
“ Pete Buttigieg literally did the Juan Guaidó playbook .
If you don ’ t think this guy is CIA-affiliated by now , I don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is straight out of the McKinsey-CIA election-stealing ratfucking playbook .
He declared himself the victor exactly like Juan Guaidó did with no support or evidence for it.
” The conspiracy theories swirling around Buttigieg appear to be mostly trying to explain away the rise of a centrist Democrat , with a relatively hawkish foreign policy , in a primary that has otherwise tilted leftward .
To get there , the Chapo pundits had to imagine themselves—prosperous New Yorkers—and other Sanders supporters as analogous to the actual victims of violence and civil war as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ America .
Buttigieg did , indeed , declare victory in the Iowa caucuses before the results were in—because the quirky rules of the Iowa caucuses mean anyone can , roughly , count the results themselves .
Yet that ’ s not even what Guaidó did—rather , he contested the Venezuelan election itself as having been fixed and claimed the authority to act as head of the National Assembly .
And there ’ s a bit of a gulf between an election that gives you control of a nation and a primary that secures @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ momentum ” and a handful of delegates .
Ludicrous as they are , the conspiracy theories are strangely apt for this primary season .
Past contests have largely wrestled with whether the Democratic Party should be quite hawkish in settling conflicts abroad or only somewhat hawkish .
This time , however , the diverse field ranges from Tulsi Gabbard , whose opposition to U.S. interventionism brought her to Aleppo to meet Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad ; to Joe Biden , who has fashioned himself as critical of his own administration ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Buttigieg , but even he supports a withdrawal of ground troops from Afghanistan and an end to U.S. support for the campaign in Yemen .
Virtually the whole field has taken the symbolic step to oppose America ’ s engagement in so-called forever wars .
But not since Eugene McCarthy , who first pushed for congressional oversight of the CIA , and George McGovern , who helped publicize the assassination attempts on Cuba ’ s Fidel Castro , has the party had a front-runner dove like Sanders .
Given that they are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actual history with political subterfuge abroad , it ’ s not all that surprising that Sanders ’ s supporters , in particular , see coups behind every corner .
But fans of Sanders should really study up on the very cases he cites , because they offer a useful guide to the CIA playbook .
And they help explain why the idea of the agency putting its finger on the scale of the Iowa caucuses , at least with any kind of success , is comical .
A frequent example of CIA coup @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Chilean President Salvador Allende , is particularly instructive in showing just how flat-footed the CIA can be .
The CIA spent much of the 1960s funding right-wing and Christian democratic groups in Chile in an effort to thwart a socialist rise .
They couldn ’ t even do that properly , and in 1970 the left-wing Allende won in a three-way race .
“ President Nixon informed the [ director of central intelligence ] that an Allende regime in Chile would not be acceptable to the United States , ” reads a 2000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the CIA dropped the subtle skullduggery and began providing weapons to anti-socialist elements in Chile—factions of which kidnapped and killed an army commander who refused to block Allende .
Still , the CIA couldn ’ t get a proper coup off the ground , and Allende took office .
The agency kept it up for the following three years , continuously communicating with and providing intelligence to right-wing groups , including in the military .
U.S. money indirectly supported a trucker strike , which kept supermarkets bare , stoked unrest , and ultimately @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shot himself as the Chilean Army closed in on his presidential palace .
His successor , Augusto Pinochet , would become one of the most brutal dictators in South America .
Some 3,200 Chileans were killed or disappeared during his 17-year rule .
The CIA , generally satisfied to have an anti-communist in power , cut off its aid to moderate and democratic activists .
The CIA ’ s ham-fisted tactics were applied across Central and South America .
Sanders rattled off a few examples in a foreign-policy interview with the New York @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the government of Guatemala , a democratically elected government , overthrew the government of Brazil , ” Sanders told the Times .
“ I strongly oppose U.S. policy , which overthrows governments , especially democratically elected governments , around the world.
” In 1954 , the CIA ran an incredibly expensive and widespread campaign in Guatemala to prop up a right-wing , anti-communist movement , largely through anti-communist media and propaganda .
When that didn ’ t take , the CIA chartered a private air force to start bombing military installations .
After @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that it was time for “ the surgeons to step back and the nurses to take over the patient , ” according to Tim Weiner ’ s history of the CIA , Legacy of Ashes .
Through “ brute force and blind luck , ” Weiner writes , the plot worked .
Leftist President Jacobo Árbenz was out , and military dictator Carlos Castillo Armas was in .
His brutal regime would lead into the 36-year Guatemalan civil war .
The list of other examples is long .
Mohammad Mossadeq was toppled in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over his nationalization of Iran ’ s oil .
João Goulart was overthrown in Brazil in 1964 , thanks in part to U.S. funds and arms .
The Reagan administration famously orchestrated a scheme to launder money to the far-right Contra rebels in Nicaragua by selling weapons to Iran—there was no coup , but tens of thousands of people died in the fighting before the left-wing Sandinista government lost power in 1990 .
All of these were bloody , chaotic affairs in which the CIA role was either apparent at the time or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ covert operations is long and varied—ordered by both Democrats and Republicans , targeting foreign leaders both democratic and authoritarian—but there are two things that tie virtually all of them together : CIA operations are not subtle , and they don ’ t stay secret for long .
Both of those factors slowly led to a decrease in CIA foreign operations .
Concerns about foreign coups led to the creation of the Church Committee , which , in 1976 , offered a clear and damning look at CIA meddling .
That led to an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leaders .
The CIA whined about that legal barrier , complaining it tied its hands as it tried to oust the Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega , once a CIA asset , in 1988 and 1989 .
Plans to get rid of him were leaked , too , before they were put into action—no matter , as Reagan ended up invading anyway .
The assassination ban has shifted over time , but the appetite for the swashbuckling days was evaporating .
Part of it was that nobody could keep their mouths shut .
Emmanuel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was outed as a CIA asset after a 1991 coup in that country .
Then he went on 60 Minutes to discuss his role .
The end of the Cold War removed the supposed justification for many of the CIA-organized coups .
A bad track record , accented by a list of bloody civil wars and purges brought on by U.S. meddling , meant a more constrained agency .
The new geopolitical reality was just more complicated , too .
When U.S. President George H.W .
Bush tried to bump off Iraq ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a lack of good options to replace him really complicated matters .
Speaking to the New York Times in 1996 , retired Lt. Gen. William Odom , also a former director of the National Security Agency , observed that “ covert action makes the least sense when you ’ re trying to achieve a foreign-policy goal on the sly without facing up to the strategic implications.
” Sanders is right to be critical of U.S. involvement in coups and regime change—and even today , oversight of intelligence is a critical issue .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can become a bit of a crutch—just ask the president—and can beget a fanatic fan base that rationalizes loss as the product of the supposed deep state .
There ’ s no doubt the CIA is still active , and we ’ re not always up to speed about the clandestine work it is doing — although history shows it generally comes to light .
The CIA certainly works abroad , but not all democratic opposition to a leftist leader is a plot hatched at Langley—especially not in the United States itself .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , undetectable , and ruthlessly effective clandestine operation capable of running a young , gay municipal politician through the gauntlet of the Democratic primary—and rigging votes when they don ’ t go the right way—while it orchestrates regime change in Latin America , leaving no real evidence behind .
But until the death squads emerge in Des Moines , the odds seem against it .

The American presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg’s narrow win in the Iowa caucuses earlier this month has turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory. Headlines have been dominated by tales of chaos, not of an unexpected victory from a long-shot candidate. And it’s helped fuel one of the strangest ideas to have emerged from the far-left: that Buttigieg is a CIA asset.
The American presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg’s narrow win in the Iowa caucuses earlier this month has turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory. Headlines have been dominated by tales of chaos, not of an unexpected victory from a long-shot candidate. And it’s helped fuel one of the strangest ideas to have emerged from the far-left: that Buttigieg is a CIA asset.
While the South Bend, Indiana, mayor appears to have edged out democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders in the delegate count for the Iowa Democratic primary, the chaos of the counting, compounded by a buggy app designed by a firm whose staff largely back Buttigieg, have begotten conspiracy theories. Some Sanders supporters now allege that the vote was, at best, fumbled on purpose or, worse, deliberately rigged. Maybe, this was accomplished using the same tactics that the United States learned from ousting democratic leaders abroad.
This is nonsense. The Iowa process was horribly botched—but caucuses have always been a mess, not least because of the ridiculous mathematical twists involved. None of the theorists can produce a sane narrative of how rigging could have occurred in a process where participants stand in the open to show their support and where observers from different camps document the proceedings. Buttigieg’s strong second-place showing in New Hampshire on Tuesday should be a testament to the fact that he actually has a support base in the party.
But even though these theories may just be a product of conspiracy-minded websites and the cesspool of political Twitter, it it also represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the CIA’s own competence—or lack of it—and of the cost that the agency’s blundering imposed on the developing world.
A left-wing website, the Grayzone, has spearheaded the more tenuous theorizing around Buttigieg’s supposed CIA ties. A series of articles, which concluded the national security regime had “groomed” Buttigieg for power and which draw shaky ties between Buttigieg and the CIA, have racked up thousands of shares, especially from pro-Sanders Facebook pages. (The Grayzone notes that it does not directly allege Buttigieg is himself a CIA asset, but it does plenty to suggest it.)
In fairness, Buttigieg’s own past offers material for conspiratorial pickings. At the consulting firm McKinsey, Buttigieg helped advise on grocery pricing for the Canadian grocery giant Loblaws—a company later implicated in an industrywide price-fixing scheme for bread. McKinsey has also been a favorite contractor for the CIA, although that work was more about reorganizing the agency’s bureaucracy than rigging elections.
After that, Buttigieg joined the Navy Reserve and deployed to Afghanistan, where he did intelligence work, among other things. It’s not quite clear where, in his work history, Buttigieg was supposedly recruited to work for the agency. Nor can anyone seem to explain how his military role somehow switched over into work for the CIA, beyond both roles involving intelligence. It’s rare for an intelligence officer to use as his cover… being an intelligence officer.
That hasn’t mattered much for an audience that likes to see the CIA under every stone. It was likely Chapo Trap House—a very popular political comedy podcast, boasting over 35,000 paid subscribers and hundreds of thousands of listeners per episode, that is fanatically supportive of Sanders—that got #CIAPete trending on twitter. On the first episode of the podcast after the delayed Iowa results were reported, one co-host, Will Menaker, concluded that the caucuses “had probably done more to destroy the legitimacy of our democratic process than almost anything that happened in American history.” Other hosts chimed in with their agreement.
Menaker turned to Buttigieg, calling him, his campaign, supporters, and all involved in the Democratic Party “ratfuck pieces of shit,” concluding they were all guilty of electoral fraud.
Co-host Amber A’Lee Frost jumped in to add, “We would actually be sending in troops if we were a South American country right now.”
“Can you imagine if, in any Central or South American country, what happened last night took place?” Menaker agreed. “Pete Buttigieg literally did the Juan Guaidó playbook. If you don’t think this guy is CIA-affiliated by now, I don’t know what to tell you. This is straight out of the McKinsey-CIA election-stealing ratfucking playbook. He declared himself the victor exactly like Juan Guaidó did with no support or evidence for it.”
The conspiracy theories swirling around Buttigieg appear to be mostly trying to explain away the rise of a centrist Democrat, with a relatively hawkish foreign policy, in a primary that has otherwise tilted leftward. To get there, the Chapo pundits had to imagine themselves—prosperous New Yorkers—and other Sanders supporters as analogous to the actual victims of violence and civil war as a result of U.S. imperialism in Latin America.
Buttigieg did, indeed, declare victory in the Iowa caucuses before the results were in—because the quirky rules of the Iowa caucuses mean anyone can, roughly, count the results themselves. Yet that’s not even what Guaidó did—rather, he contested the Venezuelan election itself as having been fixed and claimed the authority to act as head of the National Assembly. And there’s a bit of a gulf between an election that gives you control of a nation and a primary that secures, at most, a tale of “momentum” and a handful of delegates.
Ludicrous as they are, the conspiracy theories are strangely apt for this primary season.
Past contests have largely wrestled with whether the Democratic Party should be quite hawkish in settling conflicts abroad or only somewhat hawkish. This time, however, the diverse field ranges from Tulsi Gabbard, whose opposition to U.S. interventionism brought her to Aleppo to meet Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad; to Joe Biden, who has fashioned himself as critical of his own administration’s engagement in the Middle East; and to Buttigieg, but even he supports a withdrawal of ground troops from Afghanistan and an end to U.S. support for the campaign in Yemen.
Virtually the whole field has taken the symbolic step to oppose America’s engagement in so-called forever wars. But not since Eugene McCarthy, who first pushed for congressional oversight of the CIA, and George McGovern, who helped publicize the assassination attempts on Cuba’s Fidel Castro, has the party had a front-runner dove like Sanders.
Given that they are all too aware of America’s actual history with political subterfuge abroad, it’s not all that surprising that Sanders’s supporters, in particular, see coups behind every corner.
But fans of Sanders should really study up on the very cases he cites, because they offer a useful guide to the CIA playbook. And they help explain why the idea of the agency putting its finger on the scale of the Iowa caucuses, at least with any kind of success, is comical.
A frequent example of CIA coup involvement Sanders cites, 1973 ouster of Chilean President Salvador Allende, is particularly instructive in showing just how flat-footed the CIA can be.
The CIA spent much of the 1960s funding right-wing and Christian democratic groups in Chile in an effort to thwart a socialist rise. They couldn’t even do that properly, and in 1970 the left-wing Allende won in a three-way race.
“President Nixon informed the [director of central intelligence] that an Allende regime in Chile would not be acceptable to the United States,” reads a 2000 CIA review of the operation.
So the CIA dropped the subtle skullduggery and began providing weapons to anti-socialist elements in Chile—factions of which kidnapped and killed an army commander who refused to block Allende. Still, the CIA couldn’t get a proper coup off the ground, and Allende took office. The agency kept it up for the following three years, continuously communicating with and providing intelligence to right-wing groups, including in the military. U.S. money indirectly supported a trucker strike, which kept supermarkets bare, stoked unrest, and ultimately helped force Allende from power.
Allende shot himself as the Chilean Army closed in on his presidential palace. His successor, Augusto Pinochet, would become one of the most brutal dictators in South America. Some 3,200 Chileans were killed or disappeared during his 17-year rule. The CIA, generally satisfied to have an anti-communist in power, cut off its aid to moderate and democratic activists.
The CIA’s ham-fisted tactics were applied across Central and South America. Sanders rattled off a few examples in a foreign-policy interview with the New York Times.
“The United States overthrew the government of Guatemala, a democratically elected government, overthrew the government of Brazil,” Sanders told the Times. “I strongly oppose U.S. policy, which overthrows governments, especially democratically elected governments, around the world.”
In 1954, the CIA ran an incredibly expensive and widespread campaign in Guatemala to prop up a right-wing, anti-communist movement, largely through anti-communist media and propaganda. When that didn’t take, the CIA chartered a private air force to start bombing military installations. After that, an internal CIA cable instructed that it was time for “the surgeons to step back and the nurses to take over the patient,” according to Tim Weiner’s history of the CIA, Legacy of Ashes. Through “brute force and blind luck,” Weiner writes, the plot worked. Leftist President Jacobo Árbenz was out, and military dictator Carlos Castillo Armas was in. His brutal regime would lead into the 36-year Guatemalan civil war.
The list of other examples is long. Mohammad Mossadeq was toppled in a CIA-backed military coup in 1953, over his nationalization of Iran’s oil. João Goulart was overthrown in Brazil in 1964, thanks in part to U.S. funds and arms. The Reagan administration famously orchestrated a scheme to launder money to the far-right Contra rebels in Nicaragua by selling weapons to Iran—there was no coup, but tens of thousands of people died in the fighting before the left-wing Sandinista government lost power in 1990. All of these were bloody, chaotic affairs in which the CIA role was either apparent at the time or rapidly emerged.
The history of U.S. covert operations is long and varied—ordered by both Democrats and Republicans, targeting foreign leaders both democratic and authoritarian—but there are two things that tie virtually all of them together: CIA operations are not subtle, and they don’t stay secret for long.
Both of those factors slowly led to a decrease in CIA foreign operations.
Concerns about foreign coups led to the creation of the Church Committee, which, in 1976, offered a clear and damning look at CIA meddling. That led to an executive order banning the assassination of foreign leaders. The CIA whined about that legal barrier, complaining it tied its hands as it tried to oust the Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, once a CIA asset, in 1988 and 1989. Plans to get rid of him were leaked, too, before they were put into action—no matter, as Reagan ended up invading anyway. The assassination ban has shifted over time, but the appetite for the swashbuckling days was evaporating.
Part of it was that nobody could keep their mouths shut. Emmanuel Constant, a Haitian paramilitary leader, was outed as a CIA asset after a 1991 coup in that country. Then he went on 60 Minutes to discuss his role.
The end of the Cold War removed the supposed justification for many of the CIA-organized coups. A bad track record, accented by a list of bloody civil wars and purges brought on by U.S. meddling, meant a more constrained agency.
The new geopolitical reality was just more complicated, too. When U.S. President George H.W. Bush tried to bump off Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in the 1990s, a lack of good options to replace him really complicated matters.
Speaking to the New York Times in 1996, retired Lt. Gen. William Odom, also a former director of the National Security Agency, observed that “covert action makes the least sense when you’re trying to achieve a foreign-policy goal on the sly without facing up to the strategic implications.”
Sanders is right to be critical of U.S. involvement in coups and regime change—and even today, oversight of intelligence is a critical issue. But thumping the CIA as the ever-present bogeyman can become a bit of a crutch—just ask the president—and can beget a fanatic fan base that rationalizes loss as the product of the supposed deep state. There’s no doubt the CIA is still active, and we’re not always up to speed about the clandestine work it is doing — although history shows it generally comes to light. The CIA certainly works abroad, but not all democratic opposition to a leftist leader is a plot hatched at Langley—especially not in the United States itself.
Maybe the CIA has become an omnipresent, undetectable, and ruthlessly effective clandestine operation capable of running a young, gay municipal politician through the gauntlet of the Democratic primary—and rigging votes when they don’t go the right way—while it orchestrates regime change in Latin America, leaving no real evidence behind.
But until the death squads emerge in Des Moines, the odds seem against it.


foreignpolicy--2020-02-12--Will Sudan’s Bashir Be Handed to the ICC at Last?

Will Sudan ’ s Bashir Be Handed to the ICC at Last ?
For a decade , Sudan ’ s former President Omar al-Bashir flouted arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court for his alleged role in the genocide of Darfur , in a case that became a symbol of the body ’ s ineffectiveness .
Bashir even toyed with appearing at the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York in spite of the warrants .
So the surprise announcement that Sudan may cooperate with the ICC ’ s arrest warrant and turn Bashir over was a stunning example @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can change .
“ Over the course of a few months things have happened so fast that Bashir could end up in The Hague , ” said Oumar Ba , a professor of international relations at Morehouse College .
“ It shows how the international criminal justice system is tethered to local and global politics.
” The Feb. 11 announcement by Mohamed al-Hassan al-Taayeshi , a member of Sudan ’ s ruling Sovereign Council , was part of broader peace negotiations with Sudan ’ s rebel groups in Darfur .
Aspects of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Khartoum would allow those indicted by the ICC to appear before the court .
It was not immediately clear what that “ appearance ” might look like , but experts speculated that it could mean a trial based in Khartoum and not The Hague , which could set a new precedent for the court .
The initial reaction from observers in Khartoum was confusion .
“ It ’ s coming as a surprise , ” said Hala al-Karib , the regional director of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the prime minister or from the Sovereign Council , so we are not quite sure.
” But Kenneth Roth , the head of Human Rights Watch , told Foreign Policy that he held a “ very positive ” meeting on Wednesday with Sudan ’ s military chief , Abdel Fattah al-Burhan , who went further than the Taayeshi statement .
According to Roth , Burhan said the Khartoum government would “ focus not only on Darfur but crimes that have been committed across Sudan.
” “ We could not have hoped for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Foreign Policy in an interview from Khartoum .
“ But these are just statements and these are not actions .
We have to see how he lives up to these statements.
” A request for comment from a military spokesperson was not immediately returned .
Fighting between ethnically African rebel groups and Arab tribes backed by the government began around 2002 in the Darfur region of Sudan .
The U.N. says as many as 300,000 people died in the conflict .
Starting in 2009 , the ICC issued arrest warrants for Bashir that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ murder , extermination , war crimes , and other heinous acts .
Bashir repeatedly denied the claims .
The case could not go forward , because the ICC does not try people who are not present .
Despite marches on the national mall in Washington , D.C. , and a campaign to “ Save Darfur , ” it was a group of doctors , lawyers , and pharmacists inside Sudan who eventually took down Bashir .
Mass protests—orchestrated by a network of professional unions—and a military coup ended Bashir ’ s 30-year rule @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s new government was eager to repair its battered global status .
“ I have already talked to a number of friends and colleagues particularly at the [ United Nations ] Office of the Human Rights Commission in Geneva , ” Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok told Foreign Policy in August 2019 , just days after he was inaugurated .
Hamdok described South Africa ’ s model of justice and reconciliation as a model he wanted to follow in Sudan .
“ Nobody is naive here .
But there is a remarkable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mobilization , ” Roth told Foreign Policy .
Roth said he had also met with Hamdok , Sudan ’ s civilian chief , who said the ICC could set up an office in Khartoum to continue its investigation .
That additional support may prove crucial to the fate of Bashir .
Experts said that the 2009 ICC arrest warrant for Bashir from then-Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo was hampered by the court ’ s inability to travel to Darfur and gain primary evidence .
“ The Office of the Prosecutor relied mostly on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expelled by Bashir .
The prosecutor relied also on the testimonies of refugees and satellite images , ” said Morehouse College ’ s Ba , the author of a forthcoming book on the ICC .
“ It ’ s not clear yet whether the prosecutor has strong evidence incriminating Bashir for the specific crimes for which he is charged.
” In 2014 , the new prosecutor at the ICC , Fatou Bensouda , said that she was forced to “ hibernate ” the body ’ s investigation into the crimes committed in Darfur @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Since then , it is believed that the court ’ s investigation into Bashir ’ s actions has been inactive .
Khartoum ’ s willingness to engage with the ICC marks a new opportunity for the world court , which has been hamstrung by numerous flouted arrest warrants , failed prosecutions , a lack of funding , and opposition from leading world powers including the United States ( even though Washington accused Bashir ’ s government of genocide in 2004 ) .
“ The court needs to get this right : It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and publicize its work effectively so that justice is visible to the people affected by the crimes , ” said Alice Mogwe , the president of the International Federation for Human Rights , a watchdog group .

For a decade, Sudan’s former President Omar al-Bashir flouted arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court for his alleged role in the genocide of Darfur, in a case that became a symbol of the body’s ineffectiveness. Bashir even toyed with appearing at the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York in spite of the warrants.
For a decade, Sudan’s former President Omar al-Bashir flouted arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court for his alleged role in the genocide of Darfur, in a case that became a symbol of the body’s ineffectiveness. Bashir even toyed with appearing at the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York in spite of the warrants.
So the surprise announcement that Sudan may cooperate with the ICC’s arrest warrant and turn Bashir over was a stunning example of how quickly the tides of justice can change. “Over the course of a few months things have happened so fast that Bashir could end up in The Hague,” said Oumar Ba, a professor of international relations at Morehouse College. “It shows how the international criminal justice system is tethered to local and global politics.”
The Feb. 11 announcement by Mohamed al-Hassan al-Taayeshi, a member of Sudan’s ruling Sovereign Council, was part of broader peace negotiations with Sudan’s rebel groups in Darfur. Aspects of the statement were vague. It described how Khartoum would allow those indicted by the ICC to appear before the court. It was not immediately clear what that “appearance” might look like, but experts speculated that it could mean a trial based in Khartoum and not The Hague, which could set a new precedent for the court.
The initial reaction from observers in Khartoum was confusion. “It’s coming as a surprise,” said Hala al-Karib, the regional director of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa. “We did not hear formally for the prime minister or from the Sovereign Council, so we are not quite sure.”
But Kenneth Roth, the head of Human Rights Watch, told Foreign Policy that he held a “very positive” meeting on Wednesday with Sudan’s military chief, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who went further than the Taayeshi statement. According to Roth, Burhan said the Khartoum government would “focus not only on Darfur but crimes that have been committed across Sudan.”
“We could not have hoped for a better meeting,” Roth told Foreign Policy in an interview from Khartoum. “But these are just statements and these are not actions. We have to see how he lives up to these statements.”
A request for comment from a military spokesperson was not immediately returned.
Fighting between ethnically African rebel groups and Arab tribes backed by the government began around 2002 in the Darfur region of Sudan. The U.N. says as many as 300,000 people died in the conflict.
Starting in 2009, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Bashir that included accusations of crimes against humanity, murder, extermination, war crimes, and other heinous acts. Bashir repeatedly denied the claims. The case could not go forward, because the ICC does not try people who are not present.
Despite marches on the national mall in Washington, D.C., and a campaign to “Save Darfur,” it was a group of doctors, lawyers, and pharmacists inside Sudan who eventually took down Bashir.
Mass protests—orchestrated by a network of professional unions—and a military coup ended Bashir’s 30-year rule in April 2019, and the country’s new government was eager to repair its battered global status. “I have already talked to a number of friends and colleagues particularly at the [United Nations] Office of the Human Rights Commission in Geneva,” Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok told Foreign Policy in August 2019, just days after he was inaugurated. Hamdok described South Africa’s model of justice and reconciliation as a model he wanted to follow in Sudan.
“Nobody is naive here. But there is a remarkable transformation in this country because of popular mobilization,” Roth told Foreign Policy.
Roth said he had also met with Hamdok, Sudan’s civilian chief, who said the ICC could set up an office in Khartoum to continue its investigation. That additional support may prove crucial to the fate of Bashir.
Experts said that the 2009 ICC arrest warrant for Bashir from then-Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo was hampered by the court’s inability to travel to Darfur and gain primary evidence. “The Office of the Prosecutor relied mostly on NGO reports from organizations which were later expelled by Bashir. The prosecutor relied also on the testimonies of refugees and satellite images,” said Morehouse College’s Ba, the author of a forthcoming book on the ICC. “It’s not clear yet whether the prosecutor has strong evidence incriminating Bashir for the specific crimes for which he is charged.”
In 2014, the new prosecutor at the ICC, Fatou Bensouda, said that she was forced to “hibernate” the body’s investigation into the crimes committed in Darfur to focus on “other urgent cases.” Since then, it is believed that the court’s investigation into Bashir’s actions has been inactive.
Khartoum’s willingness to engage with the ICC marks a new opportunity for the world court, which has been hamstrung by numerous flouted arrest warrants, failed prosecutions, a lack of funding, and opposition from leading world powers including the United States (even though Washington accused Bashir’s government of genocide in 2004).
“The court needs to get this right: It must reengage with victims and affected communities and publicize its work effectively so that justice is visible to the people affected by the crimes,” said Alice Mogwe, the president of the International Federation for Human Rights, a watchdog group.


foreignpolicy--2020-02-12--Has the Coronavirus Reached Its Peak in China?

Has the Coronavirus Reached Its Peak in China ?
Welcome to Foreign Policy ’ s weekly China Brief .
The highlights this week : What to make of the apparent slowdown in new coronavirus cases , hundreds of people remain in quarantine on cruise ships , and President Xi Jinping makes a major public appearance .
If you would like to receive China Brief in your inbox every Wednesday , please sign up here .
The number of new coronavirus infections in China has dipped over the last few of days , but it ’ s unclear whether this is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or a statistical inaccuracy : There could be a backlog of diagnostic test kits from the weekend .
The decision by Chinese authorities , against World Health Organization guidelines , to eliminate cases where asymptomatic victims test positive has caused concern .
The virus remains effectively the only story in China , with more than 1,100 deaths confirmed and nearly 45,000 cases .
Though China is nominally back at work , few are in the office .
Lockdown measures are extended daily , with many cities closely monitoring compound residents and imposing exit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are holding classes online .
These restrictions aren ’ t likely to end this month and perhaps not even before April .
Flights to China have been dramatically reduced .
The U.S. Embassy in Beijing has encouraged nonemergency staff to leave , ordering mandatory evacuation of family members under 21 .
Is containment working ?
The number of new virus cases outside of Hubei province , where the outbreak began , has diminished over the last week .
It ’ s unclear whether containment is working or cases are going unconfirmed .
Doctors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ provinces , speaking by phone or mobile chat , said this week that their hospitals were holding several dozen patients in quarantine but there was a shortage of the kits required to test them .
Strained system .
As hospitals struggle to deal with the virus , the health care system in China has been put under extreme strain .
From dialysis to food poisoning to heart attacks , it ’ s increasingly difficult for patients to see a doctor .
It can take hours to get through on the emergency number in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ serious delays .
If containment works , the secondary death toll could exceed the number of those who die from the virus directly .
Cruise ship quarantines .
The coronavirus is spreading abroad the Diamond Princess , the cruise ship stuck in harbor in Yokohama , Japan , with quarantined passengers and crew confined below decks in cramped conditions .
The Japanese government ’ s handling of the case has been odd : It has kept those with the coronavirus inside the ship instead of transferring them to safer quarantine on land and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the passengers .
Another cruise ship , the Westerdam , left Hong Kong on Feb. 1 and has been forbidden port in five countries , despite not having any confirmed virus cases on board .
It has been permitted to disembark in Cambodia .
Xi resurfaces .
Chinese President Xi Jinping made his first public appearance for nearly a week on Monday , touring Beijing in a mask .
The move coincided with a renewed emphasis on his role as the leader of the “ people ’ s war ” against the coronavirus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Chinese Communist Party ( CCP ) “ with Xi Jinping at the core ” —a repeated propaganda phrase .
Xi still hasn ’ t visited Wuhan , putting his own credibility as a leader on the line .
That raises the stakes in the propaganda battle as well as on the front lines , as the failure to contain the virus will now look like a central CCP failure .
Smoggy weather .
Despite many factories being shut down or production reduced , a wave of smog has swept major cities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tianjin , and Wuhan itself .
The air pollution could be a result of coal usage for heating homes—especially with people stuck inside—or from straw-burning in the countryside .
Either way , it ’ s bad news for containing the coronavirus : Smog weakens the lungs , irritates eyes , and can contribute to the spread of the disease .
Citizen journalists disappear .
Two citizen journalists monitoring the situation in Wuhan , Chen Qiushi and Fang Bin , have disappeared—reportedly detained by police .
The arrests come as the government cracks down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expressly forbidden—and takes a much harder line in maintaining official propaganda .
Energy hit .
Oil demand has been pummeled by the coronavirus , with OPEC slashing its forecasts for the year .
That trend is likely to spread throughout the increasingly China-dependent energy sector , with the outbreak described as a “ black swan ” by one expert .
As with commodities , if the domestic economy can stagger back to its feet by March , the impact may be contained .
If the country remains on lockdown until April or later @ @ @ @ @ @ @ year .
Constant monitoring .
The police surveillance tools first rolled out in Xinjiang for use against the Uighur population are now being deployed to control and monitor China ’ s entire population during the virus outbreak .
The technology includes QR codes that have to be scanned to enter or exit buildings and tracking of infected citizens through their WeChat payments .
It ’ s worth remembering that 450 million people or more in China remain offline , meaning data networks don ’ t always translate to the countryside .
In rural @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been used for control for decades .
Many villages have forcibly imposed quarantines for people from Hubei province , even if they ’ ve had no contact with the region for months or years .
The loudspeaker towers usually used for CCP propaganda broadcasts are now blaring information about the virus .
Speeding up departures .
Firms across the global economy have been hit by the inability of Chinese factories to return to work .
On the ground in Beijing and Shanghai , many foreign firms have pulled personnel out of China because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had already created some departures , but the coronavirus may seal the deal or give firms an extra kick to get out .
This article , published by the dissident professor Xu Zhangrun and painstakingly translated by Geremie Barmé , is a dense but searing indictment of the CCP system and its handling of the coronavirus , complete with a dozen different ways to indirectly refer to Xi ( “ the core , ” “ the leader , ” “ the one who must be obeyed ” ) .
Xu is in an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is strikingly brave : He may well be in exile soon , at best .
Western-style houses are relatively rare in Chinese cities .
The majority of residents live in apartment blocks contained within residential compounds , or xiaoqu , originally built in the Soviet model .
In some ways , the xiaoqu reproduce the traditional walled homes of wealthy Chinese rich on a vast scale , with numerous residents instead of one sprawling family and their servants .
The compounds vary greatly in size , holding a few dozen people or a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contain shops , swimming pools , restaurants , and even police stations .
The xiaoqu also have their own security—critical during the coronavirus epidemic—and limited points of entry and exit , making monitoring the population inside easier .
That ’ s it for this week .
We welcome your feedback at newsletters @ foreignpolicy.com .
You can find older editions of China Brief here .
For more from Foreign Policy , subscribe here or sign up for our other newsletters .

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s weekly China Brief. The highlights this week: What to make of the apparent slowdown in new coronavirus cases , hundreds of people remain in quarantine on cruise ships , and President Xi Jinping makes a major public appearance.
Welcome to Foreign Policy’s weekly China Brief. The highlights this week: What to make of the apparent slowdown in new coronavirus cases, hundreds of people remain in quarantine on cruise ships, and President Xi Jinping makes a major public appearance.
If you would like to receive China Brief in your inbox every Wednesday, please sign up here.
New Virus Cases Are Slowing, but China’s System Is Straining
The number of new coronavirus infections in China has dipped over the last few of days, but it’s unclear whether this is the result of containment measures taking effect or a statistical inaccuracy: There could be a backlog of diagnostic test kits from the weekend. The decision by Chinese authorities, against World Health Organization guidelines, to eliminate cases where asymptomatic victims test positive has caused concern. The virus remains effectively the only story in China, with more than 1,100 deaths confirmed and nearly 45,000 cases.
Though China is nominally back at work, few are in the office. Lockdown measures are extended daily, with many cities closely monitoring compound residents and imposing exit and entry requirements. Schools and universities are holding classes online. These restrictions aren’t likely to end this month and perhaps not even before April. Flights to China have been dramatically reduced. The U.S. Embassy in Beijing has encouraged nonemergency staff to leave, ordering mandatory evacuation of family members under 21.
Is containment working? The number of new virus cases outside of Hubei province, where the outbreak began, has diminished over the last week. It’s unclear whether containment is working or cases are going unconfirmed. Doctors in Hunan, Hebei, and Jiangxi provinces, speaking by phone or mobile chat, said this week that their hospitals were holding several dozen patients in quarantine but there was a shortage of the kits required to test them.
Strained system. As hospitals struggle to deal with the virus, the health care system in China has been put under extreme strain. From dialysis to food poisoning to heart attacks, it’s increasingly difficult for patients to see a doctor. It can take hours to get through on the emergency number in Hubei, and other cities are seeing serious delays. If containment works, the secondary death toll could exceed the number of those who die from the virus directly.
What We’re Following
Cruise ship quarantines. The coronavirus is spreading abroad the Diamond Princess, the cruise ship stuck in harbor in Yokohama, Japan, with quarantined passengers and crew confined below decks in cramped conditions. The Japanese government’s handling of the case has been odd: It has kept those with the coronavirus inside the ship instead of transferring them to safer quarantine on land and failed to produce enough test kits for the passengers. Another cruise ship, the Westerdam, left Hong Kong on Feb. 1 and has been forbidden port in five countries, despite not having any confirmed virus cases on board. It has been permitted to disembark in Cambodia.
Xi resurfaces. Chinese President Xi Jinping made his first public appearance for nearly a week on Monday, touring Beijing in a mask. The move coincided with a renewed emphasis on his role as the leader of the “people’s war” against the coronavirus epidemic and reminders of the central role of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) “with Xi Jinping at the core”—a repeated propaganda phrase. Xi still hasn’t visited Wuhan, putting his own credibility as a leader on the line. That raises the stakes in the propaganda battle as well as on the front lines, as the failure to contain the virus will now look like a central CCP failure.
Smoggy weather. Despite many factories being shut down or production reduced, a wave of smog has swept major cities across the country, including Beijing, Tianjin, and Wuhan itself. The air pollution could be a result of coal usage for heating homes—especially with people stuck inside—or from straw-burning in the countryside. Either way, it’s bad news for containing the coronavirus: Smog weakens the lungs, irritates eyes, and can contribute to the spread of the disease.
Citizen journalists disappear. Two citizen journalists monitoring the situation in Wuhan, Chen Qiushi and Fang Bin, have disappeared—reportedly detained by police. The arrests come as the government cracks down on independent coverage of the virus—which is expressly forbidden—and takes a much harder line in maintaining official propaganda.
Tech and Business
Energy hit. Oil demand has been pummeled by the coronavirus, with OPEC slashing its forecasts for the year. That trend is likely to spread throughout the increasingly China-dependent energy sector, with the outbreak described as a “black swan” by one expert. As with commodities, if the domestic economy can stagger back to its feet by March, the impact may be contained. If the country remains on lockdown until April or later, all bets are off for the year.
Constant monitoring. The police surveillance tools first rolled out in Xinjiang for use against the Uighur population are now being deployed to control and monitor China’s entire population during the virus outbreak. The technology includes QR codes that have to be scanned to enter or exit buildings and tracking of infected citizens through their WeChat payments. It’s worth remembering that 450 million people or more in China remain offline, meaning data networks don’t always translate to the countryside.
In rural areas, though, carceral methods have been used for control for decades. Many villages have forcibly imposed quarantines for people from Hubei province, even if they’ve had no contact with the region for months or years. The loudspeaker towers usually used for CCP propaganda broadcasts are now blaring information about the virus.
Speeding up departures. Firms across the global economy have been hit by the inability of Chinese factories to return to work. On the ground in Beijing and Shanghai, many foreign firms have pulled personnel out of China because of the virus. The trade war had already created some departures, but the coronavirus may seal the deal or give firms an extra kick to get out.
What We’re Reading
“Viral Alarm: When Fury Overcomes Fear,” by Xu Zhangrun
This article, published by the dissident professor Xu Zhangrun and painstakingly translated by Geremie Barmé, is a dense but searing indictment of the CCP system and its handling of the coronavirus, complete with a dozen different ways to indirectly refer to Xi (“the core,” “the leader,” “the one who must be obeyed”). Xu is in an extremely risky situation, and this article is strikingly brave: He may well be in exile soon, at best.
Decoder
Western-style houses are relatively rare in Chinese cities. The majority of residents live in apartment blocks contained within residential compounds, or xiaoqu, originally built in the Soviet model. In some ways, the xiaoqu reproduce the traditional walled homes of wealthy Chinese rich on a vast scale, with numerous residents instead of one sprawling family and their servants. The compounds vary greatly in size, holding a few dozen people or a few thousand, and they tend to contain shops, swimming pools, restaurants, and even police stations. The xiaoqu also have their own security—critical during the coronavirus epidemic—and limited points of entry and exit, making monitoring the population inside easier.
That’s it for this week.
We welcome your feedback at newsletters@foreignpolicy.com. You can find older editions of China Brief here. For more from Foreign Policy, subscribe here or sign up for our other newsletters.


foreignpolicy--2020-02-12--Biden’s World Experience Proves a Lead Balloon

Joe Biden has been around Washington so long that he cast one of his first big votes as a U.S. senator during the Vietnam War—at a time when Bernie Sanders was a shaggy-haired radical in rural Vermont , Amy Klobuchar was in middle school , and Pete Buttigieg wasn ’ t even a glint in the eyes of his parents , who weren ’ t yet married .
As Biden frequently ( and truthfully ) tells voters about his vast and unmatched experience , especially in foreign policy : “ I ’ ve dealt with every one of the major @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now , and they know me .
I know them.
” And those same leaders , he said at another point , were phoning him and begging him to run , to save the world from an ogre of an American president , Donald Trump , and restore U.S. leadership .
None of it seems to be working .
Democratic voters in this election season don ’ t appear to value experience , particularly on the world stage .
Indeed most signs are that Biden ’ s experience , and his often halting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , may well have been working against him , if his devastating fifth-place finish in New Hampshire ’ s primary on Tuesday , with just 8.4 percent of the vote , is any indication .
Combined with his equally disappointing fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses a week before , Biden ’ s performance at the polls already has many electoral experts suggesting that the man once considered the Democratic front-runner may be on his way out of the race , though he ’ s still hoping for a big comeback victory in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Feb. 29 .
It appears many voters across the spectrum don ’ t want a restoration of anything—including , apparently , U.S. global leadership and the decades-old status quo that Biden is identified with .
Instead they are looking for the new , even if the new is old—like the 78-year-old Sanders , the anointed front-runner who would bring a radical shift toward anti-war , anti-free trade policies , many of which resemble the views of Trump more than those of traditional Democrats .
It is an enduring irony of presidential politics : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by foreign policy , for good or ill , presidential elections are not .
“ Unfortunately , foreign policy , the area where the president of the United States has the most authority , rarely resonates with voters as a top priority , ” said Michael Haltzel , a former senior policy advisor to Biden .
“ Joe Biden understands international relations far better than any of the other Democratic candidates , but unless in the next few weeks there is a major international crisis—and I hope there isn ’ t—I fear that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ won ’ t count for much with most primary voters .
It ’ s a sad fact of American political life.
” Biden , of course , has faced other difficulties on the campaign trail , many of them self-inflicted .
At 77 , he has proved uneven at best as a campaigner , with more foot-in-mouth episodes than any other candidate—most recently when he bizarrely called a young woman in New Hampshire a “ lying , dog-faced pony soldier ” after she asked him about his poor performance in Iowa .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ goal of fatally smearing Biden—a campaign that ultimately led to the president ’ s impeachment—by highlighting Biden ’ s activities in Ukraine while he was vice president as well as those of Biden ’ s son Hunter .
Even Biden staffers admitted that Hunter had created a serious conflict-of-interest issue for his father by taking a well-compensated job with a Ukrainian energy company .
Biden ’ s foreign-policy experience has also proved a double-edged sword , since his many votes and policy stances have left him vulnerable to criticism—none more so than his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2002 .
On the stump and at the Democratic debates , Biden has tried mightily to explain the nuances of his position : that the George W. Bush administration lied to him about its invasion plans and that he had pressed unsuccessfully for a resolution that would have required the president to delay the use of force until the United Nations approved a new resolution .
But such messages don ’ t seem to resonate well when fresh-faced candidates like Buttigieg , whose political experience is limited to serving as mayor of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , deliver one-line appeals to voters like Buttigieg ’ s call for the party to “ finally turn the page ” —as he put it at the most recent Democratic debate on Feb. 7 .
Buttigieg made clear he was taking aim at Biden in particular , adding , “ I freely admit that if you ’ re looking for the person with the most years of Washington establishment experience under their belt , you ’ ve got your candidate , and of course it ’ s not me.
” Considering that Buttigieg @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Tuesday night with about a quarter of the vote—nearly three times Biden ’ s total—many Democratic voters appear to see things his way .
If the end is indeed near for Biden in politics , it would mark the close of one of the most remarkable political careers in modern U.S. history .
It has been nearly 50 years since Biden , as a first-term senator who was inaugurated in 1973 , voted to end foreign aid for South Vietnam .
In later years , Biden was deemed one of the most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Committee and as Barack Obama ’ s vice president for eight years was a key figure in the withdrawal from Iraq , relations with Syria and Ukraine and many other issues .
In an interview with me in 2010 , at the height of his influence in the Obama administration , Biden spoke of the delightful partnership he had with a president whose popularity has grown since he left office—and which Biden once thought might carry him , by association , to the Democratic nomination .
At the time , Biden liberally used @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and told me that Obama had continued to “ turn over big chunks ” of policy to him to oversee .
Judging from recent trends , that may be the closest Biden will ever get to the presidency .

Joe Biden has been around Washington so long that he cast one of his first big votes as a U.S. senator during the Vietnam War—at a time when Bernie Sanders was a shaggy-haired radical in rural Vermont, Amy Klobuchar was in middle school, and Pete Buttigieg wasn’t even a glint in the eyes of his parents, who weren’t yet married.
Joe Biden has been around Washington so long that he cast one of his first big votes as a U.S. senator during the Vietnam War—at a time when Bernie Sanders was a shaggy-haired radical in rural Vermont, Amy Klobuchar was in middle school, and Pete Buttigieg wasn’t even a glint in the eyes of his parents, who weren’t yet married.
As Biden frequently (and truthfully) tells voters about his vast and unmatched experience, especially in foreign policy: “I’ve dealt with every one of the major world leaders that are out there right now, and they know me. I know them.” And those same leaders, he said at another point, were phoning him and begging him to run, to save the world from an ogre of an American president, Donald Trump, and restore U.S. leadership.
None of it seems to be working. Democratic voters in this election season don’t appear to value experience, particularly on the world stage. Indeed most signs are that Biden’s experience, and his often halting efforts to explain it on the stump, may well have been working against him, if his devastating fifth-place finish in New Hampshire’s primary on Tuesday, with just 8.4 percent of the vote, is any indication. Combined with his equally disappointing fourth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses a week before, Biden’s performance at the polls already has many electoral experts suggesting that the man once considered the Democratic front-runner may be on his way out of the race, though he’s still hoping for a big comeback victory in South Carolina, the next primary on Feb. 29.
It appears many voters across the spectrum don’t want a restoration of anything—including, apparently, U.S. global leadership and the decades-old status quo that Biden is identified with. Instead they are looking for the new, even if the new is old—like the 78-year-old Sanders, the anointed front-runner who would bring a radical shift toward anti-war, anti-free trade policies, many of which resemble the views of Trump more than those of traditional Democrats.
It is an enduring irony of presidential politics: While presidential legacies are most often shaped by foreign policy, for good or ill, presidential elections are not. “Unfortunately, foreign policy, the area where the president of the United States has the most authority, rarely resonates with voters as a top priority,” said Michael Haltzel, a former senior policy advisor to Biden. “Joe Biden understands international relations far better than any of the other Democratic candidates, but unless in the next few weeks there is a major international crisis—and I hope there isn’t—I fear that Joe’s foreign-policy expertise and record won’t count for much with most primary voters. It’s a sad fact of American political life.”
Biden, of course, has faced other difficulties on the campaign trail, many of them self-inflicted. At 77, he has proved uneven at best as a campaigner, with more foot-in-mouth episodes than any other candidate—most recently when he bizarrely called a young woman in New Hampshire a “lying, dog-faced pony soldier” after she asked him about his poor performance in Iowa. And Trump may have succeeded somewhat in his goal of fatally smearing Biden—a campaign that ultimately led to the president’s impeachment—by highlighting Biden’s activities in Ukraine while he was vice president as well as those of Biden’s son Hunter. Even Biden staffers admitted that Hunter had created a serious conflict-of-interest issue for his father by taking a well-compensated job with a Ukrainian energy company.
Biden’s foreign-policy experience has also proved a double-edged sword, since his many votes and policy stances have left him vulnerable to criticism—none more so than his vote to authorize the Iraq War in 2002. On the stump and at the Democratic debates, Biden has tried mightily to explain the nuances of his position: that the George W. Bush administration lied to him about its invasion plans and that he had pressed unsuccessfully for a resolution that would have required the president to delay the use of force until the United Nations approved a new resolution.
But such messages don’t seem to resonate well when fresh-faced candidates like Buttigieg, whose political experience is limited to serving as mayor of a small city, South Bend, Indiana, deliver one-line appeals to voters like Buttigieg’s call for the party to “finally turn the page”—as he put it at the most recent Democratic debate on Feb. 7. Buttigieg made clear he was taking aim at Biden in particular, adding, “I freely admit that if you’re looking for the person with the most years of Washington establishment experience under their belt, you’ve got your candidate, and of course it’s not me.”
Considering that Buttigieg came in a close second to Sanders on Tuesday night with about a quarter of the vote—nearly three times Biden’s total—many Democratic voters appear to see things his way.
If the end is indeed near for Biden in politics, it would mark the close of one of the most remarkable political careers in modern U.S. history. It has been nearly 50 years since Biden, as a first-term senator who was inaugurated in 1973, voted to end foreign aid for South Vietnam. In later years, Biden was deemed one of the most powerful chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as Barack Obama’s vice president for eight years was a key figure in the withdrawal from Iraq, relations with Syria and Ukraine and many other issues.
In an interview with me in 2010, at the height of his influence in the Obama administration, Biden spoke of the delightful partnership he had with a president whose popularity has grown since he left office—and which Biden once thought might carry him, by association, to the Democratic nomination. At the time, Biden liberally used the phrase “Barack and I” and told me that Obama had continued to “turn over big chunks” of policy to him to oversee.
Judging from recent trends, that may be the closest Biden will ever get to the presidency.