The Godfather's Vito Corleone: A Metaphor for Uncle Sam Today?

"The Godfather Doctrine", a foreign policy parable by John Hulsman and Wes Mitchell, uses the Godfather movie metaphor to describe the current situation the United States is confronted with. As a superpower in relative decline like the Godfather in the movie, Uncle Sam faces a situation similar to the one Vito Corleone's sons Michael and Sonny and adopted son Tom Hagen, the consiglieri, faced right after the unexpected attack on the feared but aging Vito Corleone at the peak of his power. It compares the fruit stand attack on Vito by upstarts (Sollozzo) to the 911 attacks by Al Qaeda on the United States.

The metaphor in the book classifies Tom as a "liberal institutionalist" who wants to use the elaborate institutional network Vito Corleone created by making alliances with other crime families and buying out policemen, judges and politicians. This is the system that Tom, in his role as consiglieri, was responsible for maintaining. By sharing access to the policemen, judges and senators that (as Sollozzo puts it) the don “carries in his pocket like so many nickels and dimes,” the family managed to create a kind of Sicilian Bretton Woods—a system of political and economic public goods that benefited not only the Corleones, but the entire mafia community who joined hands with the Corleones.

Sonny's visceral response to the crisis is to advocate “toughness” through military action, a single-minded policy prescription for waging righteous war against the rest of the ungrateful mafia world. Dismissing Tom’s pleas that business will suffer, Sonny’s damn-the-torpedoes approach belies a deep-seated fear that the only way to reestablish the family’s dominance is preemptive action to eradicate all possible future threats to it. While such a strategy makes emotional sense following the attempted hit on his father, it runs counter to the long-term interests of the family. So Sonny represents "the necon" who goes on a rampage, much like the Bush administration did after 911, in response to the attack on his father and fails miserably and gets killed. By starting a gangland free-for-all in the wake of the hit on his father, Sonny unwittingly severs long-standing family alliances and unites much of the rest of the mafia world against the Corleones. The resulting war is one of choice rather than strategic necessity. Sonny’s rash instinct to use military power to solve his structural problems merely hastens the family’s decline.

Michael is the "realist" (Obama?) who survives to use a combination of hard power and soft power to maintain and enrich his crime family by co-opting other emerging crime families, which the book compares with the US attempts to co-opt the BRIC countries, representing Brazil, Russia, India and China among others. It is the strategy that ultimately saves the Corleone family from the Sollozzo threat and equips it for coping with multipolarity. Unlike Tom, whose labors as family lawyer have produced an exaggerated devotion to negotiation, and Sonny, whose position as untested heir apparent has produced a zeal for utilizing the family arsenal, Michael has no formulaic fixation on a particular policy instrument. Instead, his overriding goal is to protect the family’s interests and save it from impending ruin by any and all means necessary. In today’s foreign-policy terminology, Michael is a realist.

While addressing the family’s immediate need for a more versatile policy tool kit and shoring up its teetering alliances, Michael also takes steps to adjust the institutional playing field to the Corleones’ advantage on a more fundamental, long-term basis. Where Tom sees institutions as essentially static edifices that act as sources of power in their own right and Sonny sees them as needless hindrances to be bypassed, Michael sees institutions for what they truly are: conduits of influence that “reflect and ratify” but do not supplant deeper power realities. When the distribution of power shifts, institutions are sure to follow. As the Tataglias and Barzinis gain strength, Michael knows they will eventually overturn the existing order and replace it with an institutional rule book that better reflects their own needs and interests. Evidence that this process is already underway can be seen in the ease with which Sollozzo is able to enlist the support of a local precinct captain—the mafia equivalent of a UN mandate—when police loyalties formerly belonged to the Corleones. Similarly, Washington increasingly finds the very institutions it created after World War II being used against it by today’s rising powers, even as new structures are being built (like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization) that exclude the United States as a participant altogether.

Authors Hulsman and Mitchell compare Iran and North Korea, who defy US and the US-backed institutions such as the UN Security Council consistently, with Sollozzo, who challenges Vito Corleone. And the US doesn't quite know how to deal with them. Sollozzo realizes that fundamental changes are underway in the global system and knows that they give him greater latitude for defying the Corleones than he had in the past. As Sollozzo tells Tom, “The old man is slipping; ten years ago I couldn’t have gotten to him.”

I think the elaborate international alliances and institutions that US has built over 60 years ago, such as UN Security Council, NATO, World Bank, OECD, WTO, IMF, IAEA etc, through which America exercises tremendous power and control, are being weakened partly due to America's own missteps, and my guess is that these alliances and institutions will not survive as they are today. There will be a huge realignment of nations, as the powerful new players, including China, Russia, Germany, Japan, Brazil, India, South Africa want greater say in the affairs of the world. So do the Iranians, the Koreans and the Arabs.

So the only way the US can retain significant power and influence is by co-opting some of these emerging nations. The ones that seems ready to play ball are India and established economic powers like Germany and Japan, who have economically benefited from globalization under the US leadership. Others, such as Russia, China and Brazil, who have also benefited from globalization, are not willing to be co-opted by the US.

In my opinion, India appears to be well on its way to join the US as a close ally in this emerging new multipolar world. There is a burgeoning US-India relationship in almost all spheres. Indian Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh summed it up well when he said to former President Bush on his visit to the White House last year, "The people of India deeply love you."

The Prime Minister continued with the theme of affection and gratitude by adding, “In the last four and half years that I have been Prime Minister, I have been the recipient of your generosity, your affection, your friendship. It means a lot to me and to the people of India.”

Later, India's Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon explained: “I think, if you look at the public opinion polls, the ratings for President Bush are higher in India than in any other country. That is the factual basis.”

As the US-China rivalry grows and US and India continue to build ever closer ties, it is very likely that Pakistan will be forced to make a choice and grow away from the US and closer to China in the years ahead. This decision will be driven partly by the powerful anti-US currents in Pakistan's public opinion.

The book "The Godfather Doctrine" paints the United States as a power in relative decline, and it forecasts the emergence of a new, multi-polar world, with US being one of many power centers. In all likelihood, America will still be quite strong and powerful for a while, but its writ will no longer be unchallenged. It will have to rely on support from other powers to deal with the Solozzos (Iran, North Korea, al Qaeda etc.) of the world.

As you can see, the drama in real life is not quite over yet. Let's see if the metaphor makes sense as it plays itself out.

Here's a video clip from the movie:



Related Links:

Pax Corleone

The Godfather movie

Manmohan Singh Professes Love of America

Will Iran Scuttle the Obama Agenda?

President Barak Hussein Obama has unveiled a very ambitious U.S. domestic agenda to deal with the worst global economic crisis in at least sixty years and to remake America after thirty years of the Reagan revolution, deregulation and less government. The president has already acknowledged "the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they’re gearing up for a fight as we speak". The president has warned them that he, too, is "ready for the fight".

As if the escalation in Afghanistan and Pakistan and domestic special interest groups were not enough , it is now being argued by some that Obama is about to be blind-sided by the powerful Israeli lobby pushing for war against Iran to stop its nuclear program. Can the Israeli lobby succeed in their latest war quest? Conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan is worried about it. Here is a piece he recently wrote on this subject:

"Real men go to Tehran!" brayed the neoconservatives, after the success of their propaganda campaign to have America march on Baghdad and into an unnecessary war that has forfeited all the fruits of our Cold War victory.

Now they are back, in pursuit of what has always been their great goal: an American war on Iran. It would be a mistake to believe they and their collaborators cannot succeed a second time. Consider:

On being chosen by Israel's President Shimon Peres to form the new regime, Likud's "Bibi" Netanyahu declared, "Iran is seeking to obtain a nuclear weapon and constitutes the gravest threat to our existence since the war of independence."

Echoing Netanyahu, headlines last week screamed of a startling new nuclear breakthrough by the mullahs. "Iran ready to build nuclear weapon, analysts say," said CNN. "Iran has enough uranium to make a bomb," said the Los Angeles Times. Armageddon appeared imminent.

Asked about Iran's nukes in his confirmation testimony, CIA Director Leon Panetta blurted, "From all the information I've seen, I think there is no question that they are seeking that capability."

Tuesday, Dennis Ross of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a front spawned by the Israeli lobby AIPAC, was given the Iranian portfolio. AIPAC's top agenda item? A U.S. collision with Iran.

In the neocon Weekly Standard, Elliott Abrams of the Bush White House parrots Netanyahu, urging Obama to put any land-for-peace deals with the Palestinians on a back burner. Why?

"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is now part of a broader struggle in the region over Iranian extremism and power. Israeli withdrawals now risk opening the door not only to Palestinian terrorists but to Iranian proxies."

The campaign is under way to conflate Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria as a new axis of evil, a terrorist cartel led by Iranian mullahs hell-bent on building a nuclear bomb and using it on Israel and America. The full-page ads and syndicated columns calling on Obama to eradicate this mortal peril before it destroys us all cannot be far off.

But before we let ourselves be stampeded into another unnecessary war, let us review a few facts that seem to contradict the war propaganda.

First, last week's acknowledgment that Iran has enough enriched uranium for one atomic bomb does not mean Iran is building an atomic bomb.

To construct a nuclear device, the ton of low-enriched uranium at Natanz would have to be run through a second cascade of high-speed centrifuges to produce 55 pounds of highly enriched uranium.

There is no evidence Iran has either created the cascade of high-speed centrifuges necessary to produce HUE or that Iran has diverted any of the low-enriched uranium from Natanz. And the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors retain full access to Natanz.

And rather than accelerating production of low-enriched uranium, only 4,000 of the Natanz centrifuges are operating. Some 1,000 are idle. Why?

Dr. Mohamed El-Baradei, head of the Atomic Energy Agency, believes this is a signal that Tehran wishes to negotiate with the United States, but without yielding any of its rights to enrich uranium and operate nuclear power plants.

For, unlike Israel, Pakistan and India, none of which signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and all of which ran clandestine programs and built atom bombs, Iran signed the treaty and has abided by its safeguards agreement. What it refuses to accept are the broader demands of the U.N. Security Council because these go beyond the treaty and sanction Iran for doing what it has a legal right to do.

Moreover, Adm. Dennis Blair, who heads U.S. intelligence, has just restated the consensus of the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that Iran does not now possess and is not now pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

Bottom line: Neither the United States nor the Atomic Energy Agency has conclusive evidence that Iran either has the fissile material for a bomb or an active program to build a bomb. It has never tested a nuclear device and has never demonstrated a capacity to "weaponize" a nuclear device, if it had one.

Why, then, the hype, the hysteria, the clamor for "Action This Day!"? It is to divert America from her true national interests and stampede her into embracing the agenda of a renascent War Party.

None of this is to suggest the Iranians are saintly souls seeking only peace and progress. Like South Korea, Japan and other nations with nuclear power plants, they may well want the ability to break out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, should it be necessary to deter, defend against or defeat enemies.

But that is no threat to us to justify war. For decades, we lived under the threat that hundreds of Russian warheads could rain down upon us in hours, ending our national existence. If deterrence worked with Stalin and Mao, it can work with an Iran that has not launched an offensive war against any nation within the memory of any living American.

Can we Americans say the same?

Related Links:

Who Rules America?

Buchanan OpEd in San Jose Mercury News

Iran Joins Elite Space Club

Jewish Power Grows in U.S. Congress

Obama's Ambitious Domestic Agenda

National Intelligence Estimate on Iran

Are Jews Culprits of Collapse on Wall Street?

Pakistani Neocons or Nationalists?

Pakistani Neocons and UN sanctions
By Khalid Hasan
Like bullfrogs out after heavy summer rains, Pakistani cyberspace and the realm of the printed word are full of the croaking of neocons who have convinced the already ignorant that the Security Council sanctions against Jama’at-ud Dawa (aka LeT) and certain individuals only came because Pakistani officials were either sleeping at the post or had conspired with the 15-member Security Council to let the axe fall.

These people are not interested in facts. They only have opinions.

One cybercon who answers to the name Ahmed Quraishi writes on December 24, “We have a government with shady characters in key places, strongly backed by the Bush administration, acting and behaving as if they were representing a US occupation government in Pakistan.” Under “recommendation”, he proposes, “We need to start a witch-hunt in Pakistan to cleanse our academia and public life of such self-haters and defeatists who poison the minds of young Pakistanis about their homeland. Such academics and human rights activists should not be allowed to hide behind the freedom of expression.”

The two “traitors” he refers to are Pervaiz Hoodbhoy and Asma Jehangir.

Then there is the Ann Coulter of Pakistan, Shireen Mazari, who writes, “Thanks to the pusillanimity shown by our leaders ever since the Mumbai acts of terrorism, Pakistan is being squeezed by so-called friends and foe alike.” She goes on to predict, “However, let there be no doubt that India is going to carry out surgical strikes, probably beginning with AJK. After all, the extraordinary and unscheduled Envoys Conference can only have been called to contain the diplomatic fallout of such strikes.”

It is pointless to inform her that the envoys’ conference had been scheduled for some time and was not summoned because of Mumbai. Mazari also wrote that “in the Mumbai aftermath, we chose to prevent our allies from rallying around us in the UN Security Council.”

Ann Coulter, I should explain, is a neocon American figure who urged the bombing of Mecca and who wrote, “Liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots, and on the matter of America’s self-preservation, the difference is irrelevant.”

She is also an ardent admirer of the late Senator Joseph McCarthy and his witch hunts.

But to return to the Security Council sanctions, a statement issued by the Foreign Office in Islamabad laying out facts was lost in the din created by our croaking neocons. So let me quote that for the record:

“Action against the JuD and certain individuals was initiated following their designation by the UN Sanctions Committee established pursuant to the UN Security Council Resolution 1267, on the Consolidated List of individuals and entities associated with Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The request for enlisting the JuD had been under consideration of the UN Sanctions Committee since 2006... Since this resolution was adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, it is obligatory on Pakistan to fully implement its provisions. Pakistan, as a responsible member of the United Nations, has fulfilled its international obligations.”

On December 9, a day before the resolution, Pakistan’s UN ambassador Abdullah Hussain Haroon said in a statement, “After the designation of Jama’at-ud Dawa (JuD) under (Security Council resolution) 1267, the Government, on receiving communication from the Security Council, shall proscribe the JuD and take other consequential actions, as required, including the freezing of assets.”

This shows that the sanctions were more than expected as was their imminence and the UN mission was not asleep as is being charged by the Ann Coulters and other neocons of Pakistan.

Those who are rising in defence of Lashkar-e Tayba and its mutation, the Jama’at-ud Dawa, perhaps neither know nor do they care to know what the Security Council’s terrorism sanctions committee is. And although these cybercons and super-patriots are beyond redemption and repair, let me nevertheless explain what this committee is and in the face of which Pakistan is accused of having acted pusillanimously.

The Security Council Committee established pursuant to Resolution 1267 (1999) on October 15, 1999, is also known as “the Al Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Committee”. The sanctions regime has been modified and strengthened by subsequent resolutions, including Resolutions 1333 (2000), 1390 (2002), 1455 (2003), 1526 (2004), 1617 (2005), 1735 (2006) and 1822 (2008) so that the sanctions measures now apply to designated individuals and entities associated with Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and/or the Taliban wherever located.

The names of the targeted individuals and entities are placed on the Consolidated List. The resolutions listed above have all been adopted under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter and require all states to take a number of specified measures in connection with any individual or entity associated with Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and/or the Taliban as designated by the Committee.

And what are those measures? Freeze without delay the funds and other financial assets or economic resources of designated individuals and entities; prevent the entry into or transit through their territories by designated individuals; and prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale and transfer from their territories or by their nationals outside their territories, or using their flag vessels or aircraft, of arms and related materiel of all types, spare parts, and technical advice, assistance, or training related to military activities, to designated individuals and entities.

The Committee is one of three subsidiary bodies established by the Security Council that deal with terrorism-related issues. The other two committees are the Counter-Terrorism Committee and the 1540 Committee. The three Committees and their expert groups coordinate their work and cooperate closely and the Committees’ chairmen also brief the Security Council on the activities of the Committees in joint meetings, when possible.

No one can prevent the action of the committee; nor is anyone invited or told about its proceedings. Normally the first signal is a note circulated to all UN member states.

And now the unvarnished truth.

Since 2006, Pakistan, against better advice and reasons that have been blown sky-high by Mumbai, had kept the sanctions from being clamped with the help of China. However, after the Mumbai attacks, China informed Pakistan that it could no longer block the terrorist group and individuals from being sanctioned. The question the neocons and the super-patriots should ask, but don’t, is: Why was Pakistan blocking sanctions against a terrorist group?

And this takes me back to Pervez Musharraf’s first visit to the US after his coup. At a meeting with a group of journalists among whom I was present, my dear and much lamented friend Tahir Mirza, then the Dawn correspondent, asked Musharraf why he was not acting against Lashkar-e Tayba and Jaish-e Muhammad. Musharraf went red in the face and shot back, “They are not doing anything in Pakistan. They are doing jihad outside.”

Khalid Hasan is Daily Times’ US-based correspondent. His e-mail is khasan2@cox.net

Source: Daily Times

Riaz Haq's Note: Mr. Hasan quotes Ahmed Qureshi in the above piece as follows:

One cybercon who answers to the name Ahmed Quraishi writes on December 24, “We have a government with shady characters in key places, strongly backed by the Bush administration, acting and behaving as if they were representing a US occupation government in Pakistan.” Under “recommendation”, he proposes, “We need to start a witch-hunt in Pakistan to cleanse our academia and public life of such self-haters and defeatists who poison the minds of young Pakistanis about their homeland. Such academics and human rights activists should not be allowed to hide behind the freedom of expression.”

While I don't agree with what Mr. Quraishi proposes, I do worry about the constant doom and gloom that dominates Pakistani media and intellectual discourse. It can potentially discourage any hope in Pakistan and make such talk a self-fulfilling prophesy. BTW, such overwhelming negative talk in Pakistan is welcome news to those in India who argue for covert actions to hurt Pakistan.

Vikram Sood, former top spy in India, elaborates on India's covert warfare options to target Pakistan in the following words: "Covert action can be of various kinds. One is the paramilitary option, which is what the Pakistanis have been using against us. It is meant to hurt, destabilize or retaliate. The second is the psychological war option, which is a very potent and unseen force. It is an all weather option and constitutes essentially changing perceptions of friends and foes alike. The media is a favorite instrument, provided it is not left to the bureaucrats because then we will end up with some clumsy and implausible propaganda effort. More than the electronic and print media, it is now the internet and YouTube that can be the next-generation weapons of psychological war. Terrorists use these liberally and so should those required to counter terrorism."

Leaving aside the personal attacks on "Pakistani neocons", Mr. Hasan has asked the most relevant question in this piece above: Why was Pakistan blocking sanctions against a terrorist group (LeT or JuD)?

To answer this question, what is needed is a serious, independent investigation that is aimed at discovering the truth rather than diverting the world's attention from the long-festering core issue of Kashmir between India and Pakistan. One can speculate on all sorts of motives and conspiracy theories, but here's one answer from a respected Japanese writer Yoichi Shimatsu, a former editor of The Japan Times in Tokyo who currently teaches journalism at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Shimatsu is not known to be neocon and he has covered the Kashmir crisis and the Afghan War:

"Why then is New Delhi and Washington insisting that Islamic militants in Pakistan are primarily responsible for the attack while downplaying Dawood’s larger role?

Lashkar-e-Taiba is the convenient solution for the politicians who are trying to cement an Indo-American “civilian” nuclear pact and military allianace, and every such arranged marriage demands a common enemy.

Blaming the Lahore-based Lashkar is all-too easy since the outfit was once the West Point of the Kashmir insurgency. The Army of the Righteous, as it is known in English, was a paramilitary force par excellence that routinely mauled the Indian Army along the Himalayan ridge that forms the Line of Control of divided Kashmir. In an attack on the strategic town of Kargil in late spring 1999, Lashkar broke through India’s alpine defense line and came close to forcing New Delhi to the negotiating table.

Along the sawtooth LoC, Lashkar is respected by professional soldiers on both side. A Pakistani hero who fought on the Baltistan heights, Corporal Ahmed, told me of his admiration for the stoicism of these jihadis, who wore sandals to battle in the snow. At a checkpoint in Indian-controlled Kargil, an army captain wearing a Sikh turban said frankly that nobody in the Indian Army could fight man-to-man against Lashkar.

Lashkar earned its reputation in clean-fought mountain warfare, pitting lightly armed guerrillas against Indian armor and superior firepower.

In its finest hours, these fighters would never consider the dirty tactics used against civilians in Mumbai, for example, the gangland-style executions using a shot to the back of a kneeling captive’s head. That is more typical of the Mumbai underworld.

Like many of the misguided decisions in the war on terror, the banning of Lashkar by Pakistan in 2002 did more harm than good. Without central discipline and a unifying cause, splinter groups broke off and many a cadet went solo. During his residency in Karachi, Dawood is known to have sent his young recruits for training by former Lashkar instructors. The moralistic cause had degenerated into a school for hitmen."



Related Links:

Pervez Hoodbhoy on Mumbai

Mastermind of Mumbai Massacre

Solving the Mumbai Attack Puzzle

Pakistan, US Act in Mumbai's Aftermath

Can India "Do A Lebanon" in Pakistan?

ISI Rogues

The "High Confidence" National Intelligence Estimate on Iran

High Confidence
The latest US national intelligence estimate says that Iran discontinued its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that it is currently not pursuing such a program. This report validates what the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Iranian Government have both been saying for sometime as the Bush administration has been ratcheting up its hostile rhetoric against Iran, and talking up the "dangers Iran poses to the world". What caught my attention in this report was how the NIE characterized its conclusions regarding Iran as "high confidence". After a report like this, one would expect the neo-cons would re-think the folly of their ways and accept this conclusion. Instead, President Bush, Sen Lieberman, the neo-cons and their supporters such as the Wall Street Journal have started spinning the report in various ways. The spin ranges from claiming " the need for continued US and international pressure on Iran" to outright rejection of the NIE as inaccurate or naive. Among others, Michael Ledeen asserts, since "you can't prove a negative", the NIE must be wrong. Frank Gaffney goes on to say that, since no one "outside a small circle in Iran has certain knowledge about the state of nuclear weapons program", therefore "we had better be prepared to use military force". In other words, the facts do not matter when it comes to their personal animosity toward Iran as a member of the "Axis of Evil".

International Isolation
The initial response from the Bush administration indicates that they will continue their efforts to build international support for sanctions and even military action against Iran. Russia and China have already expressed their opposition and the EU members are clearly rethinking their future course of action. I think any arm-twisting by the US at this point would be counterproductive and could lead to international isolation of the US rather than Iran. No country, even the US, can afford to be isolated in this day and age.

Iranian Reaction
In terms of what will happen next,a lot would depend on how the Iranians choose to behave after the NIE report. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has a way of engaging in inflammatory rhetoric, making even his friends and neighbors feel uncomfortable and insecure. Iranian President's statements about "wiping Israel off the face of the earth" not only contravene the UN charter but also invite hostility of the world. He would be well-advised to try and build confidence in his neighborhood with conciliatory gestures toward all of his neighbors and the broader Middle East. Such a policy would serve the Iranian people well and save the US and the world from another disastrous misadventure by the United States.

The Future
There seems to be almost universal agreement in the US and the rest of the world that the Bush foriegn policy has been short-sighted and counterproductive. The excessive use of the military power has been disastrous for the US and its relations with most of the rest of the world. As the US goes into the 2008 general elections, there are hopes that the end of the Bush era would bring greater emphasis on the use of diplomacy and soft power by the US. However, one can not take this for granted. The foreign policy statements by the front-runners of both parties do not seem to be particularly reassuring. Let's hope better sense will prevail once the elections are over and the reality of governing sets in for the new leader of the free world.