Vermont is still by-and-large a mountainous idyll, an unimpeachably beautiful place that in many ways serves as a positive stereotype of itself.  From the time one leaves the city limits of Burlington and heads eastward, there are practically no big-box stores; there are no billboards; the highway ambles between compact, centuries-old villages, boxed into vales by shaggy hillsides.  This cultural and topographical preservation is not an organic development.  It relies on a cavalcade of comprehensive regulations, including the state’s revolutionary Act 250, which affords regional planning boards the ability to reject projects larger than one acre for any “adverse effects” they may have on local “aesthetics, scenic beauty, historical sites, or natural areas.”  Also included in these initiatives are an outright, statewide ban on billboards and hundreds of byzantine, yet effective local zoning ordinances that have single-handedly limited the number of Wal-Marts in the state to four.  If such regulations seem grounded in government intrusion into the minutiae of construction, it’s because they are; these comprehensive measures are made possible by the semi-collectivist nature of Vermont politics and the civic fabric of its citizenry, represented by an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature and a self-described “socialist” senator in Bernie Sanders.  As a liberal, I have no philosophical quarrel with this form of politics, and I imagine that even conservatives with a strong predisposition against the process would admire the sprawl-less, civically harmonious, and aesthetically beautiful end.  Nevertheless, I realize that the libertarian counterargument is deontological, focused on the intrusive means of government, rather than the aesthetics of the result.

Across the border in New Hampshire, this libertarian reasoning has definitively triumphed.  Upon crossing the Connecticut River while traveling eastward on Interstate 89, those with an eye for municipal planning might as well be crossing the River Styx.  This isn’t to say that I hate New Hampshire; it is, in many places, one of the most beautiful states in the nation.  But whereas the journey in Vermont is completely devoid of bland corporatism, the traveler entering New Hampshire is immediately confronted with pallid seas of asphalt and big-box obelisks, a Kmart, a Ninety-Nine Restaurant, a TJ Maxx, a Kohl’s, a Verizon outlet, an Olympia Sports, a CVS, and a Payless Shoe Source all lining the highway within its first mile.  A local conservative poet, Robert Frost, wrote in one of his anthologies, “Mountain Interval,” of a boy who is killed by a buzz-saw while he overlooks the Connecticut, a buzz-saw that churned out identical, monotonous slices of stove-length wood in a process symbolic of modernity.  Ninety-two years after the poem was written, it is clear that it was not only the boy who was killed by the apathetic strokes of the modern machine, but the community surrounding him as well.  In the violent sweep of sprawl, local identity has been gobbled up into strip malls, parking lots, and retail chains, making once compact yankee villages indistinguishable from the highways of Dixie or the suburbs of LA.  Far too much of the journey’s remainder is scarred by this demeaning form of development, a frustration expressed by author and New Urbanist, James Howard Kunstler, in his 1996 book, The Geography of Nowhere:

Most of this [new development] is depressing, brutal, ugly, unhealthy, and spiritually degrading – the jive-plastic Potemkin village shopping plazas with their vast parking lagoons, the Lego-block hotel complexes, the “gourmet mansardic” junk food joints, the Orwellian office parks featuring buildings sheathed in the same reflective glass worn by chain-gang guards, the particle-board garden apartments rising up in every meadow and cornfield…the whole, destructive, wasteful, toxic, agoraphobia-inducing spectacle that politicians proudly call “growth.”

Kunstler is generalizing a bit in the last part of his quote.  Many non-Republican politicians (and even, admittedly, some Republicans) can distinguish between responsible and irresponsible development.  But in the rural north of New Hampshire, where distrust of government is a societal dogma, the difference between responsible and irresponsible growth has become an irrelevant, peripheral point of argument.  Regulation has become poison, and the idea that government action could preserve local identity, heretical.

Upon reaching the borderlands of Maine and New Hampshire the traveler is offered a respite against the soulless sprawl that springs from this anti-government virulence.  Partially out of local design, mostly out of neglect and isolation, the most rugged uplands of the White Mountains are free of Arby’s and Applebee’s, and a lack of business investment softens the SmartGrowth debate.  However, once the traveler arrives in my home in a tourist-laden corner of bumpy western Maine, just to the east of the Appalachian spine, local communities are once again confronted by the continuous prospect of architectural conformity.  What’s more, the zoning debate here is made particularly contentious by the composition of the local population: a broad base of Ron Paul libertarians (multiple inland counties of Maine, from Piscataquis to Aroostook,  did vote for Ron Paul), sprinkled with a healthy number of Vermont-style, cosmopolitan transplants.

In 1997, current Harvard Business Review writer Joshua Macht wrote an article about this debate, focusing on the regional village of Bethel, Maine, titled “Entrepreneurs Collide: Will Zoning Take Town Downhill?”  Within its pages, one paranoid businessman, Rick Whitney, explicitly analogizes local zoning proposals with Stalinist Russia, quipping “ ‘There were plenty of comprehensive plans and 10-year plans in the USSR.  But did citizens have their freedom.”  Another local entrepreneur effectively sums up the libertarian argument, adding  “ ‘There are people in this town that wouldn’t mind regulating everything.  But they take away some of the Maine heritage I know.’”

Fifteen years after Macht’s profile, the regulations have hardly strengthened, and Rick Whitney has by-and-large thwarted the Marxist-Leninist conspiracy afoot amongst a third of the county’s population (including myself, apparently).  What’s more, the same Rick Whitney has managed to build several hideous lumber warehouses on the outskirts of town, part of the wave of concentric sprawl that has emanated outward from Bethel over the last two decades.  In my own neighboring village of eight-hundred and two residents, a recent comprehensive planning proposal was voted down easily, but not before it exploded into an armed encounter between a belligerent anti-Zonist and one of the plan’s drafters.  Thus, it seems that my town of Greenwood will, for the foreseeable future, be as susceptible as ever to the prospect corporate obelisks gobbling up our hamlets and degrading our community, naturally and architecturally.

In recent years, the political climate for those of us fighting against this “geography of nowhere,” as James Howard Kustler put it, has only deteriorated.  On the state level, Maine’s Tea Party-backed governor Paul LePage, former executive of the big-box retailer Marden’s Surplus and Salvage, has effectively destroyed the Informed Growth Act, our state’s watered down version of Vermont’s Act 250, which had previously mandated several town meetings before a community accepted a gross retailer’s construction permit.  The Bangor Daily News deemed that LePage is opposed the act because he worries that the statutes contain a “bias against big-box stores.”  But LePage seems not to understand the spirit of the law.  Of course there is an ingrained bias against big-box stores.  Does the governor think, after all, that we’re interested in holding twelve town meetings every time a bohemian pottery shop moves to town?

To be sure, this hatred of SmartGrowth initiatives by the Tea Party tranche of the Republican Party is not a purely local phenomenon.  Focusing on the anti-sprawl Agenda 21 passed by the United Nations in 1992, the Republican Party has denounced compact-growth policies as a form of “destructive and insidious” internationalism, and Tea Partiers have occupied countless zoning meetings throughout the country in an attempt to thwart the supposed multilateral conspiracy.  In any case, this brand of Republicanism is not a force for the ironic destruction of local autonomy just in my mountainous slice of Maine, nor in just the states of northern New England for that matter, but in all crannies of the nation where civic-minded citizens are attempting to wrest a sense of cultural uniqueness from the slings of architectural conformity.  Such realizations give me a headache, and I’ll have to go down to the new, obeliskoid RiteAid in order to medicate myself as the local apothecary has been driven out of business.  Perhaps my neighbor down the slope, the one with the ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ flag on her lawn, will ascend the hillside to ask if she can borrow my axe-helve.  I won’t be here, but that is no matter.  She can simply travel down to the newly constructed Wal-Mart and purchase a new blade, sold by a man she has never met, manufactured in a country she can’t pronounce, destined to cut the boundary lines of a subdivision populated by flatlanders with whom she’ll never interact.  Hopefully, she’ll experience a cathartic moment beforehand, but if not, I my fear that only by surrounding herself with defeated geography and hollow interaction, will this Tea Partier realize which parts of “the Maine heritage” are most worth defending.

Perhaps you have come to Harvard from a position as the head of your Sunnyville High School Young Democrats, Republicans, Policy Wonks, or Communists. If this is true for you, the Harvard College Democrats and the Harvard Republican Club are organizations that you might consider joining.

For those of you that sympathize with the tattered remnants of Occupy, you should SLAM yourself into place with the far-left element of campus. And for those who love play-acting The West Wing, you will forevermore call the IOP (Institute of Politics) your home.

Of course, you might also decide to write for a publication on campus in a political fashion.

However, even those interested in the political goings-on of the world might find these organizations as a hesitant home.

And so we come to the real question: What about the rest of us?

The Period of Ennui

I arrived at Harvard in August 2009, then a proud potential Neuroscience concentrator (pre-med, of course). However, even though I would eventually declare Government, I am more apathetic about political organizations now than I was then. My slackening fervor might have been caused by the increasingly besieged Obama administration, but also for the fact that liberals have it tough at Harvard. While in my home state of Texas I would be continually forced to hone my left-of-center arguments, at Harvard there is definitely a reduced need to defend things like public education or universal marriage rights. And, my political debate muscles have weakened with each passing discussion that concluded with, “Well I think we all agree on the unethical nature of corporate personhood.”

When I would “dorm-storm” for the Harvard College Democrats in 2010, six out of 10 doors I knocked on had the near-identical reply of “I don’t care about politics,” sometimes qualified with “I guess I’m liberal, but I don’t really think about it.” Now, a year later, political conversation in my extended friend group has ground to a halt. “Did you know that Santorum suspended his campaign?” was the singular statement that prompted a reaction recently: sighs from those who were frustrated he had been a legitimate candidate for this long and groans from those that wanted to prolong the Republican brawl. As shocking as this may seem, Harvard has been in the position before.

Past Views of Apathy

In a Crimson article published on Dec. 4, 2007 (one year before the Obama election), Alumni criticized Harvard students for “widespread apathy and political indifference.” But wait! Ten years earlier, in a Crimson editorial piece, the author mentioned a similar vein of criticism against Harvard’s lackluster political activist scene, making the argument that “We have a lifetime for political activism, of which many of us will take full advantage. We have only four years of liberal education (except for the few who study for a Ph.D.). With limited time, students must make a choice, and most students prudently choose their education over activism.” Three years before that, an anonymous student argued that “We are often so involved with our lives here on campus that these world-wide problems are relegated to a back burner.” At this rate, I feel that if I went back to the first editorial pages of The Crimson, I’d find a piece bemoaning the youth’s apathetic handling of Ulysses Grant’s re-election. (Then again, the drinking and voting ages were different in the good old days.)

When the argument didn’t stand in a similar fashion to “I don’t go to church because I’m too busy,” the general consensus from those bygone days, especially the snafu in 2007, lied in the supposition that Harvard students were more likely to use organizations such as the IOP and PBHA to create change. Teach for America’s hold amongst recent Harvard graduates is ever-tightening, and the disapproving reactions against Occupy Harvard (and the greater movement as a whole) give a hint as to student views on protest as an inferior form of political action to internal systemic change.

Apathy Redefined

It is true that there are fewer and fewer incentives for college students to be involved in political campaigns. The Citizens United decision has rendered dollars in pockets more important than boots on the ground, a resource that young volunteers could provide en masse. With a shifting focus onto careers in finance, the sciences, and technology, the resources to be politically active dwindle as quantifiable proficiency is valued more than qualified rhetorical ability.

However, discussion is not dead. Harvard still provides the avenues to engage in a more societal approach to political ideas. To paraphrase and bastardize Clausewitz, what is politics but an extension of war by other means. Politics at Harvard can be a war on sexism, racism, or inequalities in schooling. In that sense, they are unlike the meaningless fear-mongering of the War on Drugs, Terror, or Christmas, because the ultimate goal is to find the causes of harm, and to muster the intellectual capacity and courage to fight them wherever they may be.

So prepare yourself for a deeper brand of politics, one that requires the flexibility to reference Katniss Everdeen’s lack of self-awareness or Christopher Hitchens’ Arguably, to cite a professor in one breath and an Atlantic column in the other, and to further dialogue between each other through a combination of the desire for truth and the freedom to find it completely on your own. No pre-packaged party-approved messages. No hopeless campaigns in Russia in winter.

You can be apathetic about that, but be prepared to deal in politics, whether it seems to be clearly demarcated as such or not.

Some—if not many—of Harvard’s best moments seem to lie outside the classroom. You could create your own world-class education simply by cherry-picking from amazing speakers that pass through: Ban Ki Moon, David Petraeus, Oprah, Geoffrey Canada, Stephen Colbert. Even if their words are at times trite, their very presence, personality, and tone are master classes in public leadership.

But this surfeit jades the best of us; my freshman fall, I jumped eagerly at the chance to hear Michelle Bachelet, President of Chile, speak at the Kennedy School. I couldn’t believe it. Heads of state would come just to speak to students. I lined up for half an hour and happily sat in the worst seats in the house to see her. Her story, that of a political prisoner tortured by Pinochet turned pragmatic and successful president, was breathtaking.

Yet today, I find myself doing laundry or surfing Facebook instead of trekking to the Kennedy School. Some insidious normalcy has set in, where the routine and banal have edged out remarkable possibility. This evolution is pervasive among students at Harvard, from wide-eyed idealism to nose-to-the-grindstone cynicism. And unsurprisingly, it closely tracks the journey from freshman to senior.

But, I recently put my laundry aside—just for a few days—and rediscovered the intriguing narratives that emerge in the cross-current of speakers on campus. In the span of two weeks, I heard from three profoundly impressive people: Steven Holl, renowned American architect, Dilma Rousseff, President of Brazil, and General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Each had a unique charisma, Holl in his self-assured and sweeping aesthetic vision, Rousseff in her down-to-earth poise, and Dempsey in his frank wit. But, what was more striking than their individual messages or even personal magnetism was the unspoken undertone that linked them.

Holl, an architect not exactly concerned with practicalities, spoke on the use of scale in his buildings. They were daring, ambitious, perhaps even crazy. His “linked hybrid” is a city in the sky, soaring towers joined by floating bridges complete with daycare, cinemas, and cultural venues. His “sliced porosity block” consumes an entire city block, with deep slices cut through the imposing building to provide sunlight to interior apartments. And his “horizontal skyscraper” is exactly as it sounds. They seem like the imaginings of unchained artist, but they exude an unmistakable optimism, that society can be challenged and inspired by audacious architecture. Amazingly enough, these fantastical buildings are being constructed—in China.

The story is much the same for Brazil. President Rousseff, while acknowledging the significant challenges her country faces—crime, poverty, currency appreciation—asserted a confident, optimistic Brazil. It is a nation that has never shied away from dreaming big: in the early 1960s, President Kubitschek ordered the building of a utopian capital in the middle of the country. Photographs of its construction are stunning, modernist monuments rising out of a barren savannah. Half a century later, Brazil has continued to live out the bold spirit of Brasilia: 40 million people have been raised from poverty to the middle class, and before the decade is out, Brazil will have hosted the the Olympics and the World Cup. Rousseff capped her speech tellingly, “Brazil needs Harvard as much as Harvard needs Brazil.”

After all this, Gen. Dempsey delivered the coda, declaring that “America is not a country in decline.” It may not be, but it seems that these days, we have settled for the small and the quotidian. We’ve stopped dreaming and doing big things, our aspiration for the future replaced by narrow cynicism. Acela is what we call high-speed rail, and One World Trade Center is our new architectural centerpiece. That might be how nations evolve, but I sure wish it weren’t.

Jonathan Yip

Today, I awoke to a punch in the gut. Somewhere in the middle of Joshua Keating’s commentary on a recent University of Chicago sociology study on atheism and religiosity around the world, a disturbing revelation written off as a footnote: “Israel saw the largest increase in belief in God (23 percent)”. To most readers, there is nothing particularly incongruous about thinking of Israel and God in the same breath: after all, Israel is the Jewish state, its capital city is a focal point of three religions, and its Iron Age name is literally suffixed with divinity (El, the Canaanite-Hebrew word whose Arabic synonym is Allah).

I have always had to explain to schoolmates: “No, not everyone in Israel walks around in black hats. In fact, it’s one of the most atheistic countries out there!” Watching the American religious right tout a fanatical, shallow love of a biblicized Israel, I have long wanted to show Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann on a tour of the robust Euro-debauchery that gives Tel Aviv its charm. Despite Israel’s immutable significance in religious imagination and its lack of separation between church and state, the revived Jewish society has always been fundamentally secular at its cultural and political core.

As the years go by, it looks increasingly as though I’ll have to revise my story. Keating mistakenly explains Israel’s religious revival as the result of an “influx of ultra-Orthodox Jews”. If he has the right definition of influx, this explanation is patently false—most recent immigrants to Israel are secular types from the former Soviet Union. Neither can it be explained in terms of the contemporary American religious narrative—unlike the individualistic ‘born-again’ movement some might imagine, it’s exceedingly rare to hear of secular Tel Aviv hipsters leaving the clubs for a life of pietistic self-denial in nearby Bnei Brak.

Rather, Israel is growing more religious as a result of the state-subsidized mass breeding of a once-tiny, now-burgeoning ultra-Orthodox community. It’s no secret that the Jewish state has been bucking global trends in reproduction: because of pro-natalist campaigns to maintain Israel’s demographic heft, the country’s fertility rate of 2.96 children per woman far outstrips all of its socioeconomic peers. And although the secular Jewish elite has ventured forth in search of a reproductive holy grail—a higher secular Jewish birthrate—the greatest gains have been accrued to the ultra-Orthodox community.

Since Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion struck a detail on the eve of Israel’s independence with what he saw as a dying religious minority—allowing them exemptions from army service, a separate state-funded school system, and trappings of theocracy in the civil state in exchange for their acceptance of Zionism—the numerical strength and political clout of the ultra-Orthodox community has taken off. But as I’ve written before, we’d be deeply mistaken to think of ultra-Orthodoxy in Israel as comparable at all to religious traditionalism in the United States. Judaism, whose legal-ritualistic framework bears little similarity to the faith-based creeds of Protestantism, cannot be enjoyed primarily as an individual experience; in Israel, your level of religiosity is almost inextricable from your social identity, neighborhood of residence, and political alignment.

So when Tom Smith’s study, “Beliefs about God across Time and Countries”, shows young Israelis to be far less atheistic and more certain about God’s existence than old Israelis—at variance with the trend in Ireland, Chile, the United States, Russia, and almost every other country—the numbers do not depict some sort of evangelical revival of Orthodox Judaism among the masses. Rather, they are the product of differential birth rates, with the seculars at the heart of Israel’s art, poetry, and political thought falling behind. Although old Israelis are far less religious than old Americans, young Israelis (a staggering proportion of them from the ultra-Orthodox community) have begun to overtake young Americans in their devotion to a higher power. To what I can only imagine would be the deep dismay of Herzl, Bialik, and Ben-Gurion, Israel is now one of the few most devout countries in the OECD.

If you are expecting a rapture any time soon, this is cause to be heartened. But the Smith numbers should be sounding alarms for Israeli policymakers and secular advocates of Israeli culture. For one, they signal an age in which a growing proportion of the population elects not to teach its children about democratic values, global engagement, gainful employment, and secular science—in other words, the transformation of Israel into what Israelis accuse its neighbors of being.

More tangibly, they tell a story already well-known to political economists: while one sector of Israeli society is contributing vigorously to the global exchange of capital and ideas, another, reliant on the dole, is wallowing in some of the First World’s worst developmental conditions. As the two separate societies become set in their respective cultural ways and comfortable with their respective economic situations, the prospects for reconciliation continue on a trend to oblivion.

But I won’t refrain from value judgments: it is the rise of religious fanaticism in Israel that poses the greatest threat to the country’s future. In such a contested space as the biblically-based Land of Israel, growing certainty in the existence of a personal god who is concerned with human affairs justifies self-defeating, morally problematic ideas about West Bank settlement expansion and the peace process in general. As the religious ranks have swollen, the level of access these delusional ideas have to policymaking channels has only increased.

Luckily, brave voices of liberal Zionism like Gershom Gorenberg and Peter Beinart have set out on a polemical campaign to warn the Jewish community of Israel’s policy mistakes before the dream of a lasting Jewish democracy à la Herzl becomes untenable. However, they fail in offering too narrow a diagnosis of Israel’s problems. Yes, the inability to achieve peace with the Palestinians represents a fundamental threat to Israel’s existence. But equally damning, independent of threats to state coffers or the peace process, is the rising religious tide in Israel—something to which Gorenberg and Beinart, both self-identified Orthodox liberal Zionists, are reconciled in some form.

All else aside, somebody needs to speak up for the secular Hebrew culture that produced the Haganah and parliamentary democracy, Tchernichovsky’s sonnets and Amichai’s love poems, Tel Aviv’s symphony orchestra and gay pride parades, the Weizmann Institute and Hebrew University. A growing proportion of Israelis, sadly, would prefer to go without all these Hellenistic trappings, travel back two thousand years, and give alleged assimilationists like us a hard drubbing. But as Jonathan Haidt reminds us, we seculars are generally terrible at arguing our message: we are less sure of ourselves, less group-oriented, and less inclined to hyperbole than our religious brethren. Something has to give.

Yair Lapid’s entry into politics on the platform of an end to religious privilege is a step in the right direction. If Binyamin Netanyahu and Shaul Mofaz can muster the support to overturn the Tal Law, there is some hope for a national conversation on the proper place of religion in Israeli public life. But above all, Israel’s waning secular majority needs the support of liberals, secularists, and Zionists around the world—lest they lose the soul of the country they struggled to build. The stakes are far greater than the difference between belief and disbelief in the existence of God.

Component 1: The Volunteers

Many campaigns advertise themselves as volunteer-driven, but few campaigns have integrated volunteers as well as the Obama campaign. Plouffe describes how their approach consisted of giving more to and expecting more from their volunteers. Their philosophy is embodied in the motto, “Respect. Empower. Include.” Since the beginning of the Democratic Primary in Iowa, Obama strove to develop a system of volunteer leaders and coordinators. He wanted to include these volunteers not only in phone banks and canvasses, but also in high-level strategy planning sessions. Especially poignant is the scene in which a victorious Obama on the night of the Iowa primary chooses to spend time alone with his young Iowa volunteer leaders and emerges from the room with tear-laden eyes. This incident epitomizes the depth of involvement and connection between the campaign and its volunteers. Today, the campaign strives to hold itself to a very high standard of volunteer leadership. Obama for America Massachusetts has only one paid staff member, state director Carl Nilsson. All other positions from regional leaders to volunteer captains are not only unpaid, but can demand up to 15 hours a week part time or 40 hours a week full time. The Obama campaign is unafraid to ask more of its volunteers and to trust its volunteers to carry the campaign. This will enable it to sends its campaign deep into communities in this cycle.

Component 2: The Metrics

The campaign’s strategy is driven by metrics. In The Audacity to Win, Plouffe’s passion for numbers and statistics shines through the pages. He repeatedly describes field data, delegate math, and methods for tracking volunteers and donations. In 2012, the love for data has evolved into a phrase that every Organizing Fellow hears from the team leader at least once a week: “If it isn’t in VAN [the Democratic database], then it didn’t happen.” “What are your numbers?” a phrase used equally often, also highlights the campaign’s commitment to monitoring number of contacts, meetings, or new volunteers added. While Ron Paul’s campaigns have succeeded in attracting a dedicated core of volunteers, they fail to reach a broader base. Obama’s system enables a focus on quantity as well as quality of outreach.  Simply increasing the number of supporters is just as important an indicator of success as building commitment and enthusiasm among these supporters.

Component 3: Discipline

The essential component of Obama’s 2008 campaign was its discipline. Plouffe credits the discipline to the President’s personality, saying, “one of the President’s greatest strengths, and therefore his organization’s strength, is his discipline: once a course is set, he is determined not to let a chorus of critics alter that game plan.” Without this discipline, the campaign would have abandoned the ultimately successful technique of expanding the electorate by registering new voters. Without this discipline, they would have stopped courting the youth vote. Without this discipline, their victory would have been unlikely as they responded to the media’s and Democratic establishment’s criticisms and waffled between methods. Even when pundits like Democratic strategist Peter Fenn warn, “It is it is very difficult for the Obama campaign to duplicate the groundswell of enthusiasm and commitment to Change You Can Believe In,” and claim that the energy and passion no longer exist, the campaign’s focus will continue to be on volunteers, on youth, and on speaking to one voter at a time. The clear and consistent strategy represents a significant advantage. It will enable the campaign to concentrate on execution and action rather than decision-making and debates over strategy.

A Player in Transition

With immense wealth, a novel brand, and a distinctive foreign policy agenda, Qatar has emerged as a rising power in the Persian Gulf. Abetted by 13 percent of the world’s total natural gas reserves and the preeminence of its national news outlet, Al-Jazeera, Qatar has demonstrated a unique capacity for promulgating its own soft power. Indeed, with traditionally dominant states such as Egypt and Syria engrossed in internal conflicts and political turmoil, Qatar is taking advantage of a shifting geopolitical landscape. Because Qatar’s agenda and strategic objectives remain ambiguous, one must wonder whether its current prominence is merely a transitory phenomenon or if it signals the arrival of a new dominant force in the Middle East.

Activism in the Arab Spring

A catalyst for the Arab League’s support for intervention in Libya, Qatar was also the first Arab country to recognize the Transitional National Council established by rebel forces. During Gaddafi’s overthrow, Qatar not only supplied financial and logistical support to insurgents, but also put several hundred special-forces personnel on the ground. These instances of intervention mark a substantial departure from a Qatari foreign policy that traditionally exhibited a neutral disposition. However, according to Dr. Ibrahim Sharqieh, Deputy Director of the Brookings Doha Center, this agenda emerged from an ideological shift among neighboring Middle Eastern states whereby most governments are increasingly less averse to interventionism.

Elsewhere, Qatar, both independently and through the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), has undertaken an activist role. Within the GCC, sustained rapprochement and close collaboration between Qatar and Saudi Arabia have allowed Qataris to act with unprecedented strength. Although they are traditional rivals, the two nations have been bound by mutual interests. Justin Dargin, currently a Research Associate with The Dubai Initiative and a Fulbright Scholar studying the Persian Gulf, characterized these states as, “less willing to allow intra-Gulf issues” to impede cooperation. The GCC-brokered deal that eased Ali Abdullah Saleh out of power in Yemen and pro-monarchy intervention in Bahrain exemplify this. More recently, a meeting with the Friends of Syria opposition movement in Istanbul resulted in a joint pledge by Qatar and Saudi Arabia to provide financial aid and weaponry to rebels.

Reconciling the Irreconcilable

Through its newly acquired position in international politics, Qatar has been able to develop strategic partnerships with many actors, balancing relationships between seemingly irreconcilable groups. Indeed, Qatar has long enjoyed U.S. protection and friendship, even hosting several American military bases. Simultaneously, Qatar maintains amicable relationships with groups conventionally opposed to U.S. interests. Qatar’s support of Islamist movements including the Muslim Brotherhood has been viewed with suspicion by U.S. administrations. Qatar also has close and relatively congenial relations with Iran and, partially stemming from its connections with Taliban leadership, it facilitated the proposed Taliban office in Doha, encouraging now stalled negotiations to end the Afghanistan conflict. In Egypt, Qatar has close ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and is a substantial, yet opaque source of funds to affiliated political parties.

Qatar has long used economic tools to establish and maintain alliances outside of traditional political or diplomatic frameworks. Previously, due to rivalry with Saudi Arabia, Qatar sought to form independent relations with its neighbors in what Dargin described as an “alternative power bloc.” In the Dolphin Gas Project, initiated in 1999, Qatar spearheaded the construction of a natural gas pipeline to establish closer ties with the United Arab Emirates and Oman. Qatar has also improved friendships with its Gulf neighbors by selling natural gas below market price. Paralleling this, with goodwill accumulated from its economic and military aid during the Libyan Revolution, Qatar has moved toward establishing strong partnerships with Libya’s energy sector.

Strategy or Sentiment?

In general, Qatar’s objectives are framed as a combination of security concerns and symbolic considerations. Dr. Michael Herb, author of All in the Family: Absolutism, Revolution, and Democracy in the Middle Eastern Monarchies, tells the HPR that Qatar’s primary security interest is defending its petroleum wealth. In addition, he notes that the vast natural gas field shared with Iran, “adds another dimension to the necessity to cooperate,” facilitating the maintenance of generally amicable relations.

However, Qatar’s policies have gone beyond what is necessary for ensuring these interests. Herb believes that, “the degree of activity in international politics has something to do with the desires of the leadership to make an impact.”  As Dr. Gregory Gause, an expert on the Persian Gulf with the Brookings Institute, asserted to the HPR, it is, “hard to characterize Qatari foreign policy” because it tends to be “very much driven by the Emir and the Prime Minister…[and] not based on anything you would argue is national interest.” From his perspective, “personality-driven” policies and ambition have driven these leaders to seek status and power for Qatar. For instance, Qatar mounted an aggressive campaign, under the leadership of the Emir himself, to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup and will be the first Arab state to do so. In preparation, massive infrastructure projects, such as an expanded metro system and a Qatar-Bahrain causeway, are being planned. Through domestic infrastructural investment, Qatar is seeking symbolic recognition along with geopolitical dominance.

Yet, simultaneously, Qatar has ample reason to seek alliances. As a small nation in an ever-perilous region, Qatar faces fundamental challenges to its security. In particular, the escalating confrontation surrounding Iran’s nuclear program puts Qatar at risk. As Gause points out, while the U.S. base in Qatar does provide protection, this could also drag Qatar, however unwilling, into a future confrontation or make it a target for retaliation. He characterizes the presence of air bases as a “double-edged sword” as it has the potential to make Qatar collateral damage in a massive geopolitical conflict.   For instance, a potential U.S. air strike on Iran could best be launched from these bases, yet recent statements by Qatar have expressed strong opposition to such an attack. Dargin describes Qatar as, “attempting to serve as a moderating voice in the conflict” by seeking, “to balance various forces in the region.”  Yet ultimately, as Sharqieh warns, “When great powers fight… small players would be likely to pay the price.” Thus, Qatar’s use of financial and soft power to build influence and goodwill are likely fundamentally motivated by concerns for its security.

The Honest Broker?

Although Qatar has only recently garnered a central role in Middle Eastern power politics, the nation has long played the part of intermediary and problem-solver. Past successes include brokering a solution to political gridlock in Lebanon and facilitating the entente between Fatah and Hamas. Through maintaining and further developing relationships with emerging power centers, Qatar could fulfill the increasingly essential role of an honest broker in the Middle East, even if these initiatives are driven by personal ambition and self-protection. Ultimately, although Qatar’s privileged geopolitical position may not be sustainable, its liminal position and critical role will make it integral to the future stability of the region.

Iraqis protesting the potential explusion of refugees from Camp Ashraf.

With the closing of Camp Ashraf, one of the most remarkable untold stories of American involvement in Iraq is concluding. With support from the United States and United Nations, the Iraqi government has begun moving long-time residents of Ashraf, the Mujahedin e-Khalq in Iraq’s Diyala province, to another location called “Camp Liberty,” potentially the first step in allowing them to leave the country. Composed mostly of Iranian dissidents, the population of Ashraf has consented to the transfer, fearing a crackdown by pro-Iranian elements in the Iraqi government that emerged with the U.S. military withdrawal.

Without much evident consideration, the international community has trusted this very government as the primary overseer of the relocation process. In response, a growing movement is speaking out against perceived irresponsible trust in the Iraqi government. In American circles, many are questioning the extent to which the U.S. is responsible for the saga of Ashraf’s imperiled residents, a problem that demands a deeper exploration of the base, its history, and its future.

Camp Ashraf: A Community of Exiles

Amidst the arid desert of Iraq’s Diyala province, an area stretching northeast from Baghdad to the Iranian border, Ashraf lies on the Tigris River. Despite the surrounding area’s impoverishment, the longstanding base contains schools, parks and trees, swimming pools, mosques, a museum, and a university. Ashraf is a self-sufficient, hermetically-sealed enclave amidst Iraq’s geopolitical chaos.

Ashraf’s origins however, lie across the border in revolutionary Iran. In 1965, Iranian leftists who strongly opposed the Shah founded a group known as the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK), or The People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI). They heavily partook in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but found their humanitarian and democratic goals at odds with the Shiite Islamist regime that ultimately seized power. Amir Emadi, co-founder of campashraf.org, explained to the HPR that these Iranian citizens were severely persecuted for their political and social beliefs. Out of fear and a desire to continue their democratic struggle, they sought refuge in Iraq, establishing Ashraf in 1986.

Over the last two decades, Ashraf has grown into a community of 3,500 MEK members, sympathizers, and their families, playing an integral role in Diyala’s politics and society. Despite the camp’s partial isolation, Emadi detailed Ashraf’s importance to nearby Iraqi locals: its construction services, shops, museums, and park-like beauty drew those searching for otherwise rare residential and commercial amenities. Moreover, residents of Ashraf, Shiite Iranians under the patronage of Iraqi Sunnis, helped facilitate peace talks between local Sunnis and Shiites during bouts of sectarian violence. Compelled by these experiences, over 525,000 Iraqis showed their support in April 2011 for the residents of Ashraf, declaring, “We, the people of Diyala, view the PMOI as our esteemed guests, and consider their presence in Iraq and in Ashraf as a national imperative against the Iranian regime’s meddling.”

Under U.S. Occupation

Because of its anti-Iranian platform, the MEK had been friendly with Saddam Hussein and his Sunni regime. During the Hussein years, the Iraqi government provided most of the group’s funding, weapons, and protection, directly helping construct Ashraf. However, Hussein’s removal in 2003 quickly ended the MEK’s long standing protection and privilege. Residents were viewed as enemy targets by coalition forces, whose attacks resulted in several casualties and considerable structural damage. According to Emadi, the MEK deliberately did not retaliate, declaring their neutrality to demonstrate their cooperation with the U.S. military. By April 2003, the group signed a cease-fire agreement with the United States, handing over their arsenal of weapons in exchange for guaranteed protection. By 2004, the residents of Ashraf were granted “protected persons” status under the Geneva Convention, ushering in years of continued security and stability.

Since the Withdrawal

When the United States began withdrawing from Iraq, the security of Ashraf was gradually handed over to the new Iraqi government on the stipulation that residents would continue to be protected. However, upon the narrow re-election of Iranian-backed Nouri al-Maliki to Iraq’s highest office, the Iraqi government has dramatically reversed its policy, even conducting organized attacks against Ashraf.  Emadi explains that if the Iraqi government could act without American encumbrance, it would immediately arrest and, “repatriate the residents to Iran, where they would face certain death for their political beliefs.”

Beginning in July 2009, conflict erupted when Iraqi forces entered the camp to establish police stations without the MEK’s consent, leading to a skirmish that killed nine residents. An additional 36 were detained and subjected to harsh beatings and torture. After a series of smaller attacks, April 2011 saw a full-fledged raid by Iraqi forces, leaving 34 dead and over 300 wounded. Although international observers responded negatively, scrutiny was mostly deflected when Iraqi officials claimed that security forces were responding to rocks thrown during a “riot.” Meanwhile, the Iraqi government has maintained a blockade of the camp, depriving its residents of basic services including proper medical care. Though humanitarian groups have begun analyzing the Iraqi government’s conduct for potential human rights violations, the process has been extremely slow and ineffective.

The Current Situation

According to Emadi, although the residents of Ashraf would prefer to remain, “they are not seeking a bloody confrontation with the Iraqi government.” Therefore, their only viable option is resettlement outside of Iraq. Last December, the Iraqi government and United Nations agreed to a phased plan that would transport the residents of Ashraf to a temporary location called Camp Hurriya, a deserted U.S. military base formally known as Camp Liberty. Residents did not anticipate, however, that their lives would once again be controlled by the Iraqi government. The U.S. State Department’s special advisor on Ashraf, Ambassador Daniel Fried, said that, “The Government of Iraq has committed itself to the security of the people at Camp Hurriya, and is aware that the United States expects it to fulfill its responsibilities.”

Reports from the first wave of 400 residents who were relocated on February 18^th this year have demonstrated that Camp Liberty, contrary to its name, is merely a prison that the Iraqi government controls with brutal force. Iraqi police stations surround the camp’s enclosing wall, armed troops are on constant guard, and surveillance devices dominate the landscape. These 400 residents have publicly accused the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), whose responsibility is ensuring that the camp meets “international humanitarian standards,” of lying. Nonetheless, the United States has continued its support for closing Ashraf, trusting the Iraqi government to fulfill its humanitarian responsibility.

The MEK’s “Terrorist” Problem

To complicate the issue further, the MEK was added to the U.S. government’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list by the Clinton administration in 1997. Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School calls the move a “mistake.” Dershowitz tells the HPR that including the MEK on this list was a political strategy used by the Clinton Administration to “open [America’s] doors” to Iran. Published in 1995, the book titled Democracy Betrayed claims that the then-drafted State Department’s report on MEK is, “characterized by innumerable discrepancies, falsifications, and distortions of simple, unambiguous facts.” Furthermore, many American officials have acknowledged that the MEK has provided intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program and the Islamic Republic’s growing influence in Iraq, critical to shaping America’s security policy.

Promises to Keep

American advocates for Ashraf’s residents have been emphatic in calling for the U.S. government to maintain its protection. These backers charge America with two tasks to combat the situation: first, the U.S. must take MEK off the list of designated terrorist organizations. According to Dershowitz, their affiliation with this list has made European countries that would normally accept Ashraf’s residents as refugees reluctant or unwilling to do so. Perhaps Secretary of State Clinton’s recent remarks that, “MEK cooperation…will be a key factor in any decision regarding the MEK’s [Foreign Terrorist Organization] status” signal a shift in American policy. Second, they call on the United States to ensure that the evacuation from Ashraf proceeds rapidly and that the Iraqi government adheres to humanitarian standards. The livelihood and security of these residents depends on whether they can escape stifling repression.

Should the United States fail to act, it will abrogate the promise made to Camp Ashraf’s residents in 2003. Devastating consequences will result for an American-aligned group at the nexus of Iraq-Iran relations. To promote regional stability and human dignity, the international community would do well to pay greater attention.

Tying the Knot: Gay Marriage

Marriage equality continues to dominate the gay rights debate, both in the United States and abroad. Yet, only 10 countries and 11 U.S. states currently recognize same-sex marriages. Even in the United Kingdom, which has shown strong leadership in international affairs and equal rights movements, gay marriage remains a contentious subject, with many politicians opposing its legalization. The continued controversy over gay marriage in Northern Europe, a bastion of LGBT toleration, is indicative of the movement’s struggles. Meanwhile, Spain and Argentina, with strong Catholic influences, are unexpected countries that legalized gay marriage.

Even more surprising, with the African continent’s historical hostility to gay rights, South Africa legalized gay marriage in 2006. Timothy McCarthy, a Harvard Kennedy School Professor and founding member of President Obama’s National LGBT Leadership Council, told the HPR that, “in the aftermath of the fall of apartheid, there was a nearly unprecedented commitment to reconstructing the country in such a way that no one would become the victim of the kind of repression, violence, prejudice, and discrimination that black South Africans had been subjected to.” Indeed, the horrors of apartheid led to strong demand for protecting all individuals.

Infected: Blood Donations

These advances are evidence that universal marriage equality is a closer possibility than expected, despite the challenges faced. However, less glamorous elements of the gay rights struggle remain unresolved, among them blood donations from gay men. Since the outbreak of the HIV epidemic, most nations have prohibited gay men from donating blood. Chris Viveiros from Fenway Health, a Boston-based health provider for the LGBT community, tells the HPR that this occurs because, “men who have sex with men have higher rates of HIV infection than the general population.” In fact, the Centers for Disease Control reports that gay and bisexual men comprise a majority of new infections, accounting for 61 percent of new HIV transmissions in 2009.

However, many countries have relaxed their policies regarding gay male blood donations. France and Italy, for example, no longer question their donors about their sexual history, and with great struggle activists in Britain reduced the lifelong donor ban on gay men to one year for only those that are sexually active. One important factor in this trend is the realization that other demographic groups are also at increased risk. Thus, singling out all homosexual men for life-long bans imposes an unjust stigma, especially when heterosexuals with HIV-positive partners are not subjected to the same standards. But even though this issue is arguably more scientific than social, some countries have adopted relatively liberal policies: Russia, with its general restrictions on liberty, nevertheless lifted all blood donor restrictions in 2008.

Homosexuality and Transsexuality: A False Dichotomy?         

The area of transsexuality precisely highlights the inconsistency that pervades LGBT policies around the world. In the otherwise liberal country of Sweden, legislation related to gender reassignment surgery has sparked controversy and international attention. Dating back to 1972, Sweden imposes sterilization and divorce upon individuals undertaking gender reassignment surgery. Despite the outdated nature of this policy and clear support from many in government for repealing it, the process has been delayed due to the opposition of a small conservative party in the governing coalition.

Conversely, in Iran, where homosexuality is legally punishable by death, transsexuals enjoy relatively positive treatment. Gender reassignment surgery is preferred over having transgender individuals retain their birth sex. Afsaneh Najmabadi, Harvard Professor of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, tells the HPR that a, “sex change [operation] is explicitly framed as the cure for a diseased abnormality, and on occasion it is proposed as a religio-legally sanctioned option for hetero-normalizing people with same-sex desires and practices.” There, transsexuality is viewed as a condition that can be remedied through surgery. While this justification is founded on discriminatory assumptions, it has allowed transsexuals to live safer and more fulfilling lives.

The Future of Gay Rights

The road ahead for international gay rights is characterized by the difficult need to prioritize goals. Marcelo Ferreyra, a program coordinator for the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, tells the HPR that, “the pace of progress around civil and human rights throughout the world is frequently slow [and] uneven… The right to marriage seems to be in the foreground these days: it is one that affords recognition, dignity and parity to openly love your partner of choice.”

Nevertheless, international trends hint at movement toward a more open dialogue about LGBT rights. Waqas Jawaid, a second year graduate student and an LGBT freshman proctor at Harvard University, spoke to the HPR about the policies in his home country of Pakistan. He notes that, “especially in the cities, there’s a lot of conversation, activism, and support. It has to do with the globalization that has allowed the conversations happening here [in the West] to percolate within the global community, and the cities in Pakistan are part of this global community that has become very accepting.”

Overall, the belief that Uganda and many other countries need fundamental change in their treatment of LGBT individuals is uncontested by many. However, too often advocates forget to fight for closing the gaps in liberal states where other human conditions are satisfactory. By drawing attention to these cases and commending progressive policies wherever they might be found, equality can finally be realized throughout the world.

But, this former political juggernaut is slowly fading into the background. Nearly three years later, the Tea Party website that promoted the 2009 protest no longer exists, and the remaining Republican presidential contenders are not significantly associated with the Tea Party. Simultaneously, the co-founder of the prominent Tea Party Patriots has resigned due to internal turmoil while the movement struggles to unite divergent factions to promote a consistent message.

While the Tea Party will likely remain politically relevant for the near future, its previous influence over the national agenda is over. The movement that originally claimed political independence has largely been co-opted by the Republican Party.

A Party in Transition

Naturally, some are loath to admit the Tea Party’s decreasing political relevance. Lucas Scanlon, a Texas transplant who founded and leads Harvard University Tea Party chapter, told the HPR that, “people are frustrated because nothing has gotten done [and] there’s no value in a political party,” creating an environment ripe for the Tea Party to flourish.

But outside observers see a different story. Van Jones, author and founder of Rebuild the Dream, an organization dedicated to progressive goals, characterized the Tea Party for the HPR as, “a dying gasp of a particular kind of racialized, divisive, small-minded politics from the right.”

John Halpin, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, also disagrees with Scanlon’s analysis, telling the HPR that, “there’s no infrastructure currently in place that suggests the Tea Party will be around in the long-term.” Regardless though, the Tea Party’s prior impact on political discourse in this country is indisputable.

One of a Kind or More of the Same?

The modern Tea Party’s roots stretch back to a televised rant by CNBC commentator Rick Santelli less than a month into the Obama presidency. The Tea Party Patriots, the most prominent Tea Party grassroots organization, confirmed in November 2010 that Santelli’s rant, “started [the] entire movement.”

Nevertheless, Tea Party enthusiasts stress that, despite popular perception, the movement is actually quite distinct from the Republican Party. Scanlon, who questions why Democrats have not adopted any Tea Party principles, said that both major parties were caught off-guard. “I think the Republicans and Democrats have been scared by the response to the Tea Party.” Scanlon also stressed that many individuals, himself included, became politically involved for the first time through the Tea Party.

Though Jones believes the Tea Party’s message was, “a repackaging of ideas that have been around for a very long time,” nobody could not deny that this, “particular uprising pulled in new leaders and new voices.” Halpin offered a similar analysis, saying that the movement primarily was, “just a clever rebranding of right wing activism,” spurred by Obamacare.

Strategy (or Lack Thereof?)

The Tea Party’s initial success in gaining press coverage and plugs by prominent conservative legislators led Obama’s supporters to inquire whether he could turn around the Democratic Party. Feminist Camille Paglia asked this very question in Salon magazine as early as September 2009. Though the Tea Party likely cost Republicans key senate races in Delaware and Nevada last election cycle, overall the midterm elections swept Tea Partiers onto Capitol Hill, leading most pundits to characterize the election as a triumph for the movement.

Scanlon however says this emphasis on the Tea Party’s electoral strategy misses the movement’s larger goals, claiming, “I see more focus on messaging [than electoral strategy].” Indeed, nearly every congressional Republicans signed the “Taxpayer Protection Pledge” created by Americans for Tax Reform leader Grover Norquist. This document, which reflects Tea Party principles, states that legislators will not support net tax increases. Similar pledges with socially conservative goals also experienced immense popularity among Republican candidates.

The pressure the Tea Party has exerted on Republicans to adopt their views is largely undisputed by liberals and their allies. Halpin said the influence of Tea Party members in the House has put Speaker John Boehner, “on a leash,” and Jones noted the Tea Party can, “push the buttons of the Republican Party.

However, this messaging does not necessarily translate into electoral success, as Halpin notes, “They were not very successful at all at the senatorial level and they won’t be successful at the presidential level because they’re a marginal ideology.”

Indeed, the Tea Party’s message generated discourse, though not always for positive reasons. Jones discussed how the rigid ideology of the Tea Party prevent members from celebrating landmark pieces of legislation, including the New Deal safety net and environmental protections. He argues that those “are seen by the Tea Party as betrayals of the republic rather than our greatest achievements.”

Back to the Future

The impending Supreme Court decision regarding the constitutionality of Obama’s signature health care legislation has kept the Tea Party movement animated. One journalist described Tea Party protesters, “flood[ing] the steps” of the Supreme Court during oral arguments, protesting in a fashion reminiscent of summer 2009. Scanlon adds that, regardless of its decision, the Supreme Court’s verdict can only help the Tea Party. Should the legislation be overturned, the Tea Party will “see [the ruling] as a huge victory and it will bolster its ranks.”

Others are not quite as optimistic. Halpin argued that though as a, “grassroots group of people… [the movement] should be lauded,” their long-term prospects are dim. “I think they’ll have to do a lot more to define an agenda, a set of candidates, if they want to exist in the long-term.” Many have also highlighted the lack of a viable Tea Party candidate in the presidential race as a harbinger of their waning influence.

Such rhetoric does not bother Scanlon though, who sees the Tea Party’s message beyond a black and white electoral strategy. “I think there’s a question right now in what our country is going to become … as long as that question remains, I think the movement will continue.”

While Scalon remains optimistic, the Tea Party’s future is uncertain, and as voters have seen over the past year, the Republican Party will continue to subsume Tea Party rhetoric and candidates. The movement that once prided itself on its political independence is increasingly nothing more than a small, yet vocal, interest group within a larger entity.

Eric Hendey: Ignore the Election-Year Rhetoric 

An anonymous columnist from The Economist recently took on the voice of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a humorous blog post. In the piece, the Supreme Leader analyzes the hawkish statements of American leaders, discerning whether or not the risk of war is serious. In particular, he worries about Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s purported intent to send more warships to Iran’s shores. Having already experienced two Bushes and one Clinton, however, Khamenei has become familiar with American speechifying:

I’m not convinced. Our intelligence people point out that this Romney is just a businessman from an unloved minority sect. Our own bazaaris tend not to like war. He is probably just pandering to the Zionists, as they all do.

We should certainly take a leaf from the Supreme Leader’s book when analyzing our politicians’ proclamations on Iran. For better or for worse, every public statement made until November will be colored by the upcoming election.

The USS Carl Vinson in the Strait of Hormuz.

Foreign policy with Israel has never been more politicized than it is today. Over the past decade, Republicans have hoped to turn support for Israel into a wedge issue, one that could sway traditionally Democratic Jewish voters. This has led to an arms race with the Democrats over who can seem more pro-Israel.

Just take a look at what has been said this election cycle. In an interview with a Jewish cable TV station, Newt Gingrich called the Palestinians “an invented people” who want to destroy Israel. Politicians on both sides, not just the evangelical Right, have been guilty of making sweeping statements about Israel.

The pro-Israel lobby is powerful. Its capacity to steer campaign contributions to supportive candidates has certainly had an impact on the national discourse. This is part of the reason why President Obama, in a recent address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, stressed that he would not hesitate to attack Iran to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

The seeming eagerness of American politicians for war could be a cause for concern. However, the result will likely not be an attack by the U.S. military. Despite the saber-rattling, negotiations over the nuclear program have resumed, and we are likely to see the continuation of the current containment system.

Yet it is almost impossible to sell a moderate program of sanctions and negotiations as part of a presidential campaign; we can expect to hear many more threats of warships or worse. This situation begs a bigger question: what effect does the democratic political process have on global peace? On the one hand, elections encourage aggressive rhetoric. On the other hand, drawn-out wars have often undermined support for elected officials. So what we can really expect from situations like this is a lot of talk and little action—another compelling reason to ignore the rhetoric.

Tom Lemberg: Consider the Cyber Option

Economic sanctions and military force are getting a lot of attention these days as ways of halting the purported Iranian drive for a nuclear weapon. Yet there is an under-considered alternative—the cyber option. Relatively low costs and risks make cyberattacks on the Iranian nuclear weapons program an attractive option.

To begin, let’s recall Stuxnet, the computer worm that sabotaged Iran’s nuclear program in 2010, setting it back two years. Cybersecurity firms from multiple countries have concluded that the worm could not have been developed without government support, naming the United States and Israel as its likely creators. Researchers at Symantec, an American cybersecurity firm, recently discovered a new Stuxnet virus, indicating that future cyberattacks are a real possibility.

Cyberattacks have unique advantages. For one, they are an order of magnitude cheaper than the alternatives; trade sanctions can trigger an increase in oil prices, and military force is inherently expensive in terms of both dollars and lives. Secondly, cyberattacks are effective—when they work, they work.

There are certainly drawbacks. Although the attacks occur under the radar, they are not necessarily discrete, and another cyberattack could incite some kind of Iranian retaliation. Reliability is another concern. After all, Stuxnet was the first worm of its kind, and there is no guarantee that another virus will be able to upend the Iranian weapons program soon enough.

Yet assessing ways of undermining the Iranian nuclear program is a comparative exercise, and the alternatives don’t look promising. Though sanctions have reduced Iranian oil exports to Asia, sanctions are unlikely to damage Iran’s economy enough to make its authoritarian leadership reconsider the program. A military strike on Iran would likely unite the Iranian population under an anti-West banner, and it might not even cripple the Iranian weapons program for long.

With Iran’s nuclear program still at least two years away from nuclear launch capability, it seems the cyber option deserves a fair shot, or at least more attention.

Photo Credit: United States Navy