WhirledView

“The Kitchen Debate” in Retrospect

By Patricia H. Kushlis

On July 24, 1959, exactly fifty years ago this month, a dispute took place between then Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and US Vice President Richard Nixon not only in the model kitchen at the first US cultural exhibition in the Soviet Union but also in front of some 125 journalists who accompanied them – notepads open, pens scribbling away. It was truly a 1959s kitchen – or actually two halves of a standard, tract-home American kitchen cut down the middle by a path for viewers to walk along – and it was part of the US National Exhibition, a much larger display of Americana and America at the time.

There’s a transcript of the debate on the Teaching American History website which is certainly worth reading – but Hans Tuch, then American Embassy Press Attache who accompanied Nixon, Herbert Klein, the president’s press secretary, and the journalists covering that infamous exhibition walk-through recently wrote – to his knowledge no official transcript was kept, tape recording made or filed. So whatever transcripts are available on Teaching American History or elsewhere, they are likely patched together accounts of the dust-up over the dishwasher as reported by various news sources including and especially The New York Times. The best first person account of the event I’ve read thus far is in Tuch’s recent book Arias, Cabalettas and Foreign Affairs but feel free to suggest others in the comments section below.

Please get the location right

There’s another small problem with the transcript on the Teaching American History site and that is the argument did not occur at the US Embassy Moscow despite the transcript’s subtitle. Rather, the Exhibition was held across town at Sokolniki Park in Moscow’s northeast.

Yet the importance of this exhibition was neither its location nor what brought it the sensational headlines in the western media: that famous verbal clash between Nixon and Khrushchev amongst the pots and pans.

Unresolved in Iran

by Cheryl Rofer and Patricia H. Kushlis

Trita Parsi, founder and president of the National Iranian American Council, was kind enough to participate in a conference call with bloggers today. He wanted to emphasize, that, although the demonstrations have quieted down, the movement hasn’t ended and the election results are not yet resolved.

In contrast, John Bolton is willing to ratify the victory of his alleged enemy, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, so that he may give the Israelis the go-ahead for (you guessed it) bombing Iran.

It’s easy to cover a demonstration of thousands or hostile words from one person or another, but Parsi emphasized the power of the quiet, patient approach that the Obama administration has taken toward Iran. An external threat always unites a country. When the head of another country, such as President Bush, threatens regime change, even the internal opponents of a regime have to mute their criticisms lest they open their country to a greater external threat. Obama’s statements of mutual respect, Parsi said, dissolves the “glue” that the regime change rhetoric provides.

If we want to see dissent in Iran censor itself, Bolton’s bluster is the way to go. But President Obama is smarter than that.

Bolton makes much of Iran’s nuclear program, his motivator for attack. Parsi said that there is no information that the nuclear program has slowed down, nor would one expect the election to have that effect. If Mousavi were president, he has said that he would continue the civilian program, but Parsi said it is likely that Mousavi would try to build confidence in the world community that the program was indeed for civilian power, probably by re-implementing the Additional Protocol Iran has signed and which allows more intrusive IAEA inspections. Iran would likely want something in return for this, perhaps moving consideration of its nuclear program back to the International Atomic Energy Agency from the United Nations Security Council.

CKR has speculated, although not at WhirledView, that there might be a faction of engineers and scientists in Iran’s nuclear program who very much want to build a bomb. There were such factions in Israel, in India, and in Pakistan as their nuclear programs developed. Those factions took advantage of political confusion or unrest in those countries to press their cases. Parsi confirmed that such a faction exists in Iran. Their case is very much strengthened by the neocons’ bluster.

The dissidents in Iran continue their resistance. The election is not yet a done deal. It remains difficult to get information from Iran. Bolton, as usual, has it wrong.

Many thanks to Kombiz Lavasany for organizing the call.

Iran is not Iraq, 2009 is not 1979, and Obama is not W

By Patricia H. Kushlis

In 2005, a student of mine began his report to the class on the relationship between politics and Islam in Iran with the title “Iran is not Iraq.” Most, if not all of the students in that upper division Islam and Politics class already knew it but his was a particularly effective opening, and as he told me later, far too few Americans knew the difference between the two countries at the time of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and fewer still could differentiate between these two large Middle Eastern countries on the map.

Presumably, after the events in Iran over the past couple of weeks and the heavy news coverage here far more Americans may – hopefully - now recognize some of the major differences between the two countries. These include the facts that the majority of Iranians speak Farsi or a Farsi dialect while most Iraqis speak either Arabic or Kurdish; that almost all Iranians are Shiite Muslims while Iraqis are either Sunni or Shiite; that Iraq was an artificial entity patched together from three former Ottoman provinces by the British during the colonial period while Iran traces its origins to the Persian Empire; and finally that Iraq has been governed as a secular state since its independence in 1932 whereas Iran has been controlled by a Shiite theocracy since 1979. There are more differences, but enough for now.

Hopefully Americans also realize that there is a huge internal political struggle underway in Iran that burst into the open in the streets in reaction to the Iranian regime’s mangling the aftermath of the country’s recent presidential election.

Walking That Fine Line

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Several years ago an American businessman who had spent considerable time in Iran pre- 1979 recommended I read Steve Kinzer’s book All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (2003) to put the current troubled relationship between the US and Iran in historical perspective. The suggestion was excellent. Kinzer’s is not the only book worth reading on the topic but it was a terrific place to start.

Let’s face it: The US foreign policy track record in and toward Iran over the past sixty years has been checkered. Yet certainly, the US is not the sole protagonist: disputes take two or more. Understanding, however, the failures and misunderstandings of the complex and troubled past are crucial for anyone watching the events unfold in today's Iran and questioning the measured restraint of the Obama administration in reaction.

The problem is the US is walking a fine line where words must be carefully chosen and their timing closely calibrated.

It wasn’t, for instance, until Saturday and in response to the Supreme leader’s hard-line speech at Friday prayers letting loose the attack dogs on the streets of Tehran to cow an ever growing opposition that the White House statements began to harden.

For the record, here is what Obama said on Saturday: “We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights. . . .” The entire text is here.

On the Horns of the Dilemma

There are, in fact, two aspects of an exceedingly difficult dilemma facing the Obama administration.

First, the lengthy and troubled history so well documented in Kinzer’s book that led to the situation described by Time Magazine’s Joe Klein in a PBS Newshour interview Thursday night after returning to the US from a ten day election reporting trip to Iran. Here’s what Klein said, “The sense in Iran of the United States, from the reformers to the Ahmadinejad government, is that we're meddlers, that, you know, we supported the shah, we supported Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war, we called them part of the axis of evil.”

“And if the president had been more demonstrative,” Klein continued, “it would have been an excuse for the supreme leader and Ahmadinejad to send out the tanks, kill a lot of people,” and blame it on the US.

And second, the last thing this administration can afford to do is repeat the mistakes made by the Eisenhower Administration during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Not only do I painfully remember watching from the American Embassy in Moscow the events that transpired in Iran between 1978 and 1980 but I also can’t forget the lessons of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution when the US promised far too much and in the end, with international stakes too high, delivered nothing.

Let the “War on Terror” RIP Please

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Until recently, I had wondered whether the misnamed “War on Terror” would ever be allowed to rest in peace. In fact, its demise began on January 20, 2009 with President Obama’s inauguration address – although, of course, our right wing isn’t willing to concede that the times, words, and framing of America’s view of the world - have changed and, oh my gosh, for the better. Give me Global Engagement anytime.

Nevertheless, bereft of anything else, our political ultra-right is doing it’s very unlevel-headed best to undermine this far more positive and realistic approach to the world.

The Bush administration’s War on Terror? James Glassman’s War of Ideas? These paranoid, fear-evoking words are gone: quietly tossed out the back door of the White House like yesterday’s paper napkins. Along with the likes of Eliot Abrams, Doug Feith and, I fervently hope, the shadowy Harold Rhode's and Michael Ledeens.'

All this, despite former (thank heavens) Vice President Dick Cheney’s admonitions to the contrary, the world has not become a less safe place. The overall level of security may not have changed all that much – except in reverse at home thanks to our own xenophobic loonies - but at least the president and the US are no longer pariahs in Europe or parts of the Muslim world. Just check the polls if you don’t believe me.

An unsettled place

Such is the tenor of the times. The world is indeed an unsettling and unsettled place and its tectonic plates are shifting. But we need to engage it – not raise the draw-bridge or tote out the guns out of misplaced and misguided fear.

Prologue or First Act? Obama's speech to the Muslim world

By Patricia H. Kushlis

On The News Hour Friday evening,Washington Post writer Ruth Marcus characterized President Obama’s June 4 speech in Cairo as a prologue. Earlier that day FT columnist Roula Khalaf described it as “turning the page” on the last eight years when Bush’s “war on terror” was seen by Muslims as a war on Islam.

Giles Kepel, France’s best known specialist on the Islamic world, told an interviewer in Le Monde not just that “Barack Obama has made Islam an American religion” but that also the objective of his speech . . . was to change the perception of the United States.

But could Obama’s speech have been little more than empty rhetoric – as some critics on the left and right charge? Did it amount to a sellout of Israel – as the Greater Israel crowd scream? Will it result in no significant changes in US policies towards the Middle East and in public sentiment among Muslims and others towards the US? Will it have no impact on the people - as a commenter on an earlier post of mine about Obama’s April visit to Turkey claimed – with no data to support that contention, I might add? Is it one apology after another – as certain Republicans – grasping at straws – have chosen to paint Obama’s foreign policy initiatives?

Obama’s Speech to the Muslim World

By Patricia H. Kushlis

On June 4, 2009 President Barack Obama is slated to address the Islamic world from Cairo. The contours of that speech are likely to be being discussed, debated, written and rewritten as I post this even though the final draft is unlikely to have yet approached the finish line.

The speech should set the course this administration hopes to take in its dealings with the some 1.3 billion or more Muslims many of whom live - like the Egyptians - in countries that straddle the equator.

Certain individuals – particularly western human rights firsters – have criticized the administration for choosing Cairo as the location for the speech. They point to Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarian regime in power since 1981 and its suppression of the political opposition arguing that Obama’s speech would better be delivered from Turkey or Indonesia, two moderate Sunni majority nations with multi-party democratic governments. Or even Malaysia, Indonesia’s neighbor to the northeast.

Reflections on Memorial Day – Past, Present and Future

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Lest we forget: “Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation's service.”

The house around the corner flew a huge American flag and a Marine Corps one right below it all weekend. The church – likely Christian evangelical – a few blocks away displayed on its large billboard a reminder to those of us who just might have forgotten that it is our religious duty to honor the military. Not those who have “fallen in service to our country” but the military. End of story.

The president delivered his Memorial Day address at Arlington National Cemetery where he invoked those in attendance - or watching on television - to honor the military that have fallen in service to our country. Fine. As far as it goes.

But wait a minute. Let’s look a little more closely at the definition of Memorial Day. Here’s what I found in my Time Almanac:

“Memorial Day became a federal holiday in 1971 and is observed on the last Monday in May. It originated in 1868, when Union General John A. Logan designated a day in which the graves of Civil War soldiers would be decorated. Originally known as Decoration Day, the holiday was changed to Memorial Day within twenty years, becoming a holiday dedicated to the memory of all war dead.”

What is wrong with today’s picture?

Simply put: Those who died in America’s wars are more than the US military in whose name this holiday appears to have been hijacked.

Just walk into the lobby of the State Department through the Diplomatic Entrance on C Street and look at the ever growing list of names carved into the marble wall on the left – if, that is, the security guards will let you in. Those are names of American diplomats who died in service to their country beginning before the Civil War. This list is increased every year on Foreign Affairs Day which occurs on the first Friday of May. Sure, many included in it did not die in war zones, but some did.

The others?

Let’s just say they helped keep this country safe and out of war. Isn’t that as important if not far more so?

What about the CIA’s fallen? And what about war correspondents and civilians caught in the cross-fire? Shouldn’t they too be honored on Memorial Days past, present and future? Aren’t they too America’s war dead?

Seems to me its time to reclaim Memorial Day from its current exclusive military preserve. Of course: Honor the military who have died in America's wars – but not exclusively. We also need to remember that in the long run it’s not just the US military that helps keep this country free and safe.

Putting the US-Russian relationship back together again

By Patricia H. Kushlis

The good news is that the long derailed US-Russian relationship is beginning to be put back on track as old treaties and experienced American negotiators are being hauled out of the closet, revived, resuscitated, revamped and recalled from retirement after the go-it-alone, devil-may-care zaniness of the Bush years.

Whether updating START, a twenty year old nuclear weapons reduction treaty first proposed by President Reagan, negotiated between the US and the Soviets and signed by Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and George H.W. Bush in 1991 that is about to expire at the end of the year is a one-off or whether successful negotiations will lead to further reductions in both nuclear and non-nuclear weapons and discussions of other high and low wire differences and thus help break the ice that has formed between the Eagle and the Bear since Putin took office is an open question.

Differing perceptions: this is why negotiations are essential

That answer may lie as much in the differing perceptions of the Russians and the US as to how to improve the overall relationship and deal with a host of thorny issues that include US plans to install pieces of a missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic not to mention continuing US-Russian differences over Georgia.

Radio Wave Wars

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Why is it that America’s airwaves are consumed with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Savage, Mark Davis and others spouting the tired right wing Israeli government/AIPAC ultra-hard line on Iran while the US military is trying to figure out how to eliminate or at least reduce the influence of their Taliban talk show opposite numbers in places like Pakistan’s SWAT valley?

Yes, this question is important and the two issues are related because if civil strife in Afghanistan and Pakistan is to be quelled, the Iranians can be far more helpful than the Israelis ever could, and Iran is certainly not going to do so if either the US or the Israelis rain bombs down on their country or impose - or threaten to impose - a stepped up short-fused sanctions regime.

National security not appeasement issue

This is not an issue of appeasement – it is foremost an issue of US national security including the security of Americans – those in military uniform and those in Bermuda shorts – both at home and abroad. Countries must negotiate with their adversaries to settle differences; they less often need to do so with their friends. In this instance, the Israelis and their AIPAC enablers would do us all a favor by sitting down and keeping quiet for a change.

This is also just one reason the “attack Iran short-fuse policy” goes against the policies of the Obama administration. In truth, “attack Iran soon” also turned out not to be the policy of the previous administration despite the Iran-baiting ravings of its supporters in America’s ultra-right wing which – throughout W’s tenure - the US military kept at bay.

Rewriting military information operations

As the military rewrites its information operations manual for the first time since 2003 re-evaluating and restructuring the template of how it conducts its communications activities overseas particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the issue of how best to counter the “hundreds of radio programs, distribution of audio cassettes and deliverance of night letters” by the Taliban to cow the local population is of major concern.