Pakistani army troops patrol during the general election in Rawalpindi on May 11, 2013. FAROOQ NAEEM/AFP/Getty Images

Last weekend’s general elections in Pakistan are significant for a variety of reasons. For the first time in the country’s history—and, unless the unexpected happens—there were will be a democratic transition of power from one civilian government to another one.

The vote was the clearest demonstration of the country’s young, vibrant civil society and private media, which can trump political corruption and the ever-looming specter of militant violence. Despite Taliban threats to disrupt the elections—bomb attacks across the country killed more than twenty people—there was record turnout.

These elections were also faithful to Pakistan’s tradition of diversity when it comes to contenders. From former popular cricketer Imran Khan to actress and former model Musarrat Shaheen, and from radical Sunni cleric Ahmed Ludhianvi to the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, A. Q. Khan, the variety of agendas and political programs is in itself a remarkable sign of a thriving democracy.

The responsibility of forming a government will fall on the shoulders of the two-time former prime minister and steel tycoon Nawaz Sharif, along with his Muslim League. The challenges his new government faces are many and varied. These include an economic crisis—Sharif needs to urgently strike a deal with the IMF to overcome a serious budget crisis—and the country’s calamitous infrastructure.

But one issue in particular, that of violent conflict, will continue to haunt the nation’s efforts to escape from its recent, troubled past.

So far, the change of government is showing some promise on this front. During the electoral campaign, Sharif declared his commitment to put an end to the scourge of militant violence. He has expressed concern about the US drone campaign in the tribal areas (which is not surprising, given his strong nationalistic credentials) and the internal hostility it generated towards the Pakistani government. He has also been vocal about the need to reach out to India, make peace with the Taliban, and pacify the border with Afghanistan, although he has made no substantial declarations on the ongoing insurgency and sectarian violence in Baluchistan, the country’s western province.

But there is a long way from words to deeds. The Pakistani army and the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) control foreign and defense policy. Their allegiance to the central government remains in doubt. It was the army, at the time led by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who overthrew Sharif in 1999.

These two entities are a state within the state. They are obsessed with India and its potential influence in Afghanistan, and will continue to feed this obsession while Kashmir’s borders remain contested. Equally destabilizing are the close relations that many elements of the army and the ISI maintain with Islamic militants across the country, who the former see as an informal army to be used in the event of war with India and a tool to exert influence over developments in neighboring Afghanistan.

Unless the roots causes of the various conflicts, at home and in the region, are addressed, Pakistan will continue to be a nation at war with itself, living in a daily state of emergency.

The Majalla’s first cover, edition No. 1 February 16-22 1980.

Happy 33rd Birthday, The Majalla! On February 16, 1980, the magazine’s first edition went to print. The cover story was penned by British historian Desmond Stewart, who travelled to Washington to investigate America’s next move in the Cold War against the Soviet Union. Less than two months earlier, Soviet troops had invaded Afghanistan, marking the start of a grueling nine-year war. Some lessons are not easily learned.

The American response was the Carter Doctrine, which US President Jimmy Carter revealed in his 1980 State of the Union address:

“An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.”

In line with the new doctrine, the US began building up its forces in and around the Gulf, beginning with the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force, which would eventually transform into Central Command (CENTCOM), the combatant command that oversaw the expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait in 1991 and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The Majalla’s lifespan has therefore seen the growth of American military presence in the Gulf from its small beginnings to the high watermark of the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. Now, with American forces out of Iraq, and soon Afghanistan, what does the future hold for America’s presence in the Middle East?

Although the US is leaving Iraq and Afghanistan, it is unlikely to abandon the region completely, despite its financial troubles and the widely touted ‘pivot to Asia’ in the face of rising Chinese power. One only has to look at the fraught negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program to see just one example of the issues that keep the US deeply intertwined with the Gulf, which remains the site of the world’s largest oil reserves.

American ties with Israel will also ensure that the US keeps one foot in the region. These ties, and the stated American desire for a two-state solution to the Israel–Palestine dispute, means that Washington will watch the talks between Hamas and Fatah with great interest and play a major role in any future negotiations between the two parties and Israel.

The threat of terrorism will also continue to hold American attention in the Middle East, particularly in the ungoverned spaces that allow it to flourish. As long as Yemen remains accessible to anti-American terrorists, the US armada of reconnaissance and attack drones will continue to patrol the skies in and around the troubled country from nearby bases like Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti. Barring a sudden change in American politics, a dramatic improvement in Yemen’s situation, or the retreat of militants linked to Al-Qaeda from the country, the US will therefore likely continue to launch lethal drone strikes into the Peninsula’s most troubled state.

Aside from the employment of military power in these limited (but destructive) ways, the US has a new opportunity to reconfigure its deployment of soft power in the Middle East. As new governments in the region struggle to recast the relationship between state and society, the US has the chance to pull back from its counterproductive entanglements in countries like Egypt, where it was closely identified with Mubarak’s regime.

This may not even mean a reduction in American influence. By keeping its distance, the US has the chance to regain some moral authority and credibility in the eyes of newly mobilized publics and the youthful populations of many Middle Eastern states, thanks to its history of democratic struggle and civil rights activism within its own borders. This could be assisted by the judicious use of economic and political aid, and the building of transnational links between educational institutions, NGOs and activists, with minimal state involvement.

At the end of the Cold War, a conservative intellectual who served as the Reagan administration’s representative to the UN, Jeane Kirkpatrick, wrote in the pages of the National Interest that the US now had the opportunity to be “a normal country in a normal time.” Ironically, given the extraordinary turmoil in the Arab world, the US should seize the opportunity to do just that: step back and give newly empowered Arab publics the chance to find the level of American involvement in their societies that they are most comfortable with. In other words, to stop being the familiar, overbearing ally, and find a new role more like that of any other state.

Two Afghan National Police keep watch on the outskirts of Herat, near the border between Afghanistan and Iran, on December 13, 2012. SOURCE: Aref Karimi/AFP/Getty Images

As it intensifies its Afghan efforts, Tehran appears to be relying on two principle approaches. First, it is increasingly touting it intervention as inevitable, an economic necessity for Afghanistan. Secondly, Tehran is looking to create the maximum possible agreement with those regional states that share some or all of Tehran’s interests in Afghanistan. On that list, India stands out.

Providing basics

Recent weeks have witnessed a flurry of Iranian overtures toward Kabul. The most recent example was the 28 January visit of Iran’s energy minister, Majid Namjou, who launched two Iranian-made electric turbines for power generation in the western Afghan province of Herat, which borders Iran. Dispatching Namjou to Kabul—where he also met President Hamid Karzai—was not a coincidence. Tehran is fully aware that Afghanistan suffers from both energy shortages and an unreliable supply. The Iranians are therefore promoting closer energy relations as an important driver in bilateral ties. This includes an announcement of a pipeline to carry Iranian oil to Afghanistan.

But leverage over energy supply is not the only card Tehran sees itself holding as it deals with the Afghans. Iranian media reported in December 2012 that overall trade between the two countries has increased from USD 500 million to USD 2.2 billion between the years 2006 and 2012. Tehran is also quick to point out that it provides land-locked Afghanistan with an important alternative transit route to global markets, given that routes via Pakistan frequently fall victim to Taliban attacks or political disputes between Kabul and Islamabad. Meanwhile, in Kabul, Namjou asked President Karzai to open up his country to more Iranian companies and investments.

The unambiguous message from the Iranians is that ties between Iran and Afghanistan are an economic necessity, as an impoverished Afghanistan ponders its future after the US scales back its involvement in the country. The intention is also to grab American attention by showcasing Iran’s economic leverage. The blueprint Iran is offering Washington is straightforward on paper: if the United States wants the Afghans to stand on their feet economically, then Iran is the inevitable part of the equation. The need for Iranian economic involvement, or so the message from Tehran goes, is particularly strong in in western and northern Afghanistan, where Iranian influence has historically been most prominent.

In mid-January, a senior Iranian national security official, Hossein Sheikholeslam, put political subtleties aside and went further in making this very point. He explained that Iran “can help the US to have an honorable and low-cost withdrawal from Afghanistan,” and stated that Tehran is “ready to hold talks with Washington just like it did before US troops pulled out of Iraq.” Sheikholeslam denied rumors that Tehran and Washington have already held direct talks about the future of Afghanistan, but said that Tehran is “ready to discuss Afghanistan issues with Americans in Afghanistan with Afghans present, to assure them that we do not intend to take [the Americans’] place in Afghanistan or take advantage of their absence.”

As it did in Iraq after the US invasion, Iran has systematically worked to build relationships across Afghanistan since 2001. Beside its robust economic presence, Iranian influence is very noticeable among Afghan media outlets and educational institutions thanks to Iranian funding and its persistent efforts to build ties. Meanwhile, many Afghan politicians are seen either as pro-Iranian or unwilling to go head-to-head with Tehran.

This was the point made by Amrullah Saleh, the former head of Afghanistan’s intelligence service. On 24 January, Saleh accused Iran of an extensive and multi-pronged campaign to increase Tehran’s influence in Afghanistan, a policy that he said is also designed to weaken the Afghan–US partnership. Rather controversially, Saleh specifically claimed that Afghanistan’s minority Shi’a community has been targeted by the Iranians—a charge that was widely criticized by Shi’ite Afghan commentators. Whether Saleh’s concerns will be echoed by other senior Afghan figures remains to be seen, but this is without doubt a development that would worry Tehran. Anti-Iran sentiment among the Afghan public is also a factor that can work against Tehran’s plans. The most recent example of this occurred in late December, when angry protestors attacked Iran’s consulate in Herat to denounce Tehran’s attitude toward Afghan immigrants. Iran, however, can reassure itself with the fact that until now its carrot-and-stick strategy vis-à-vis Afghanistan has largely mollified officials in Kabul.

Iran, the US and the regional play

Tehran’s ambitions in Afghanistan are not solely US-centric. Shi’a Iran is very concerned about the return of hardline Sunni Taliban to corridors of power in Kabul, attentive to the fact that this is a scenario favored by its regional rivals. Accordingly, from the beginning Tehran has been against President Karzai’s attempts to reach out to the Afghan Taliban. Iran is particularly suspicious of Qatari and Saudi roles in the reconciliation process.

This Iranian reluctance to see the return of the Taliban is shared by the Indian government. That is exactly the reason why Iran sent one of its top diplomats to New Delhi for discussions about the future of Afghanistan in early January. Saeed Jalili, the secretary at Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, reportedly pushed the Indians to revive the anti-Taliban front that India, Iran, and Russia set up to confront the Taliban in the 1990s. This was a zero-sum game, one in which the Pakistan-backed Taliban prevailed on the battlefield. Iran is seemingly preparing—and looking for old and perhaps new partners—for a new regional bloc to come together against the potential return of the Taliban to power.

There is also no doubt that Tehran regards its extensive influence in Afghanistan as a potential bridge between Iran and the United States. In other words, as Iran continues to look for a “grand bargain” with Washington; no other topic is as consistently mentioned as finding common ground with the US on the issue of the future of Afghanistan. Still, thanks to the convoluted and hostile Iran–US relationship, Tehran will find it very hard to position itself as a partner for the US in its Afghan exit strategy. But joint Iranian–Indian regional efforts, along with other regional partnerships, could do more to convince Washington as it contemplates its options for the post-2014 era—particularly if supported by the Afghans.

From the series ‘Mothers of Martyrs’ by Newsha Tavakolian, 2006

Rock the Kasbah is a series of street-scene photographs by Tunisian Jellel Gasteli, taken during the first protest of the Arab Awakening in Tunisia. He says, “The sit-in at the Kasbah has helped reveal a silent majority. I am not part of the silent majority.” The uprising that has shaken the Arab world drew local photojournalists, and also art photographers, to give a face to this silent majority. For the first time at a major museum—London’s Victoria and Albert (V&A)—an exhibition, entitled Light from the Middle East: New Photography, gives visibility and insight into the state of contemporary Arab photography. Several of the photographers, such as Egyptian-born Nermine Hammam, document the heartbeat of the Arab protest. In her series Upekkha, she transports weary soldiers she photographed in Tahrir Square to idyllic landscapes, like fantasy postcards far removed from turmoil. She uses digital manipulation to represent altered consciousness. Rose Issa, whose exhibitions and publications have given massive profile to contemporary Arab artists, comments, “The spread of digital technology, the internet and new communication technologies have accelerated the emergence of young talent in the region and speeded up the distribution of their photographs. . . Amateur and professional photographers helped create the Arab revolution.”

Marta Weiss, curator of the London exhibition, says that Arab photographers are “all palpably concerned with history, a common thread is a focus on human beings. . . this is socially engaged work”. This concentration on the lives of Arabs—both in their region and in the diaspora—grapples with questions of identity, belonging, emigration, and dislocation, and notably Arab women trying to modernise in the thrall of tradition. “These Arab photographers love their countrymen; they are insiders, not outsiders. We are witnessing their desire to reconstruct their own image,” adds Issa.

The exhibition features the work of 30 of the most dynamic and visually sophisticated photographers working today. They represent 13 countries, displaying their creative responses to social challenges and emotive political collisions. Curator Weiss declares: “In the past few years, contemporary photographic practice from and about the Middle East has been some of the most exciting, innovative and varied art anywhere in the world.” The show is part of collaboration between the British Museum and the V&A, supported by the Art Fund. Its director, Stephen Deuchar, writes, “This new collection is being formed at a time of profound change in the Middle East. Artists and photographers, as cultural commentators, are themselves amongst the agents of change.”

‘Saida in Green’, by Hassan Hajjaj 2000

Part of the second section, ‘Reframing’, includes reworking pre-existing photographs. Inspired by Qajar-era portraits, Shadi Ghadirian recreates these nineteenth century Iranian studio portraits with wry humour, updating them with contemporary props such as a ghetto-blaster, a vacuum cleaner, and Pepsi cans. As a wife and working mother, her work reflects her own life and addresses the concerns of Iranian women of her generation. “The jarring contrast of these modern consumer goods with the old-fashioned style of the portraits is indicative of the tension between tradition and modernity, public personas and private desires that many Iranian women navigate on a daily basis,” writes Marta Weiss.

‘Reframing’ could also imply rebranding. In what he calls Souk with a Twist, Hassan Hajjaj criss-crosses between tradition and brand logos, a juxtaposition similar to that of his two residences in Marrakech and London. He captures the upbeat rhythm of North African street life iconography with warmth, humour, and a degree of kitsch self-mockery. Dressed in veils and djellabahs, his models seem to respect their heritage. But look again: one of them is astride a Harley Davidson, another is winking above her veil; their hijabs sport the Louis Vuitton logo while their babouches display the Nike tick.

The final section, ‘Resisting’, displays photographs which question the authority of the photograph, challenging the medium’s ability to transmit factual information as documentary authority. Whether manipulating or digitally altering or scratching negatives, these artists undermine the reliability of photography. Rejecting modern technology and armed with a basic box camera, Atiq Rahimi records evocative sites across war-ravaged Kabul. He had fled Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion and returned after the fall of the Taliban. In his poetic, melancholy series Le Retour Imaginaire, he shows the bird market now selling mostly empty cages, as well as the Ghazi Stadium, used by the Taliban as a place of execution and now also empty.

In a series called the Zourkhaneh Project (House of Strength), Iranian Mehraneh Atashi investigates the possibilities of self-portraiture. She gained the confidence of members of an all-male gymnasium, not only capturing its world traditionally forbidden to women, but used mirrors to insert her own image. Youssef Nabil also embarked on self-portraiture after he left Cairo, and experienced diasphoric life. “I had closed a door behind me and I was no longer the person I used to be,” he said. Exile, whether voluntary or enforced, can inspire art used to rebuild a sense of self. (One of Nabil’s self-portraits depicts him sleeping among tree roots.) Another series, inspired by the golden age of Egyptian cinema in the 1940’s and 1950’s, created decadently pastiche, highly-staged portraits of glamorous women using a luminous gelatine-silver print process, which he then tints.

Contemporary Arab photographers are not only exploring questions of their own history, culture, identity and individual choices, but are reinterpreting photography’s role globally.

Light from the Middle East: New Photography runs from 13 November 2012 to 7 April 2013 at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

One of the Buddhist statues found at the site of Mes Aynak (credit: Brent Huffman)

Mes Aynak is in the mountainous Logar Province, a notoriously dangerous Taliban stronghold and the site of aquifers that provide the water supply to Kabul, a mere 25 miles away. The site is incredibly diverse; scattered with gold-plated Buddha statues and over a dozen stupas and frescoes that together represent over 2,600 years of Buddhist history. Archaeologists have also uncovered coins dating from the time of Alexander the Great, and believe that the site may well be the missing link that shows that Afghanistan was on the Silk Route.

In 2007, amidst widespread allegations of ministerial corruption, the Chinese state-owned China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC), was awarded a US$3 billion, 30-year contract, making the company the largest foreign investor in Afghanistan. Despite international calls for greater transparency, the contract and its terms remain largely unknown.

In 2009, MCC came under intense scrutiny after the Afghan government made the corporation aware that potentially significant Buddhist statues had been found at the site. Though initially reluctant to delay work on the site, Chinese officials gave in to international pressure, allowing the French-led Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan (DAFA) temporary access to the site to document and salvage the archaeological remains.

One Afghan worker on the site lost his eyes after a land mine exploded (credit: Brent Huffman)

Of the many who have been drawn to the imperilled site, documentary filmmaker Brent Huffman has been one of Mes Aynak’s most vocal supporters. In 2011, he began recording the process of rescue archaeology for his film, The Buddhas of Aynak, and now he hopes he can use the film to raise awareness and hopefully save Mes Aynak.

Huffman believes that local opposition, fomented by disillusionment over the lack of progress, has been one of the biggest threats to both the site and the safety of the archaeologists. Former villagers whose homes have been destroyed by work on the mine “have begun working with the Taliban to place land mines on the road at night, and to shoot rockets at the mining site and at the archaeology dig site.” Attacks by the Taliban have already taken a heavy toll; one Afghan worker on the site lost his eyes after a land mine exploded, and another lost his legs. These violent attacks have hampered efforts to recover precious artefacts from the site and caused the Afghan Ministry of Mines to drastically tighten security.

Huffman spoke of a rare interview he was granted with MCC officials, in which they described the archaeological site as “the problem” and conveyed their willingness to begin full-scale preparations on the mining site.

The mining of Afghanistan’s mineral reserves is a hugely contentious issue and is set to become potentially more complicated after US withdrawal from the region in 2014. Some fear that this will create a power vacuum and allow countries like China, with a history of poor environmental management of mining sites, to further exploit the lack of infrastructure and transparency.

As it stands, the Chinese and Afghan governments seem locked in a mutually destructive stalemate, with both exploiting the lack of transparency for their own gain. In a diplomatic cable from 2010 released by Wikileaks, an Afghan commercial attaché described the Chinese as a “cow to milk” for bribes and the Chinese, in turn, described the “mafia” of corrupt Afghan officials.

The Chinese consortiums have been accused of using bribes as a way to circumvent financial and environmental regulations and loosen the terms of the contracts. The most-cited example of this from Mes Aynak is a so-called “non-negotiable” clause, mentioned in leaked diplomatic cables, which was said to guarantee the delivery of crucial infrastructure such as railroads in exchange for the MCC’s mining contract. The Afghan ministry now deny that this clause ever existed, and that the construction of a railroad—along with other rumoured infrastructure projects, including schools—would be at the MCC’s discretion.

Much has been said by both Afghans themselves and by international experts about the importance of developing Afghanistan’s vast mineral resources and freeing the country from its reliance on international aid. Privately, Afghan officials acknowledge that endemic corruption has the potential to jeopardise lucrative mining contracts, and they are increasingly worried about delays at the sites. Some believe that the US has a vested interest in prolonging instability as a way to delay revenue and allow US consortiums to bid for any contracts that collapse from delays.

A tourist takes a photo at the site of Mes Aynak (credit: Brent Huffman)

In a country desperately in need of revenue, there is much more to fear from the mismanagement of heritage sites and mining resources than delays and corruption. Perhaps more disturbing than the wholesale destruction of Afghanistan’s rich cultural heritage is the potential for catastrophic and permanent environmental damage at these sites. China has a notoriously poor record of environmental management and engagement with local populations, as evidenced by the on-going conflict at Chinese-operated mines like Marcona in Peru.

In his documentary Colony, Huffman captured the destructive consequences of Chinese-owned companies operating in the resource-rich frontier markets of West Africa. He is fearful that the same process could be repeated in Mes Aynak and that “Afghanistan will see absolutely no benefit from this copper mine.” He cautions that the promise of infrastructure and jobs for the people of Logar province may never materialise, and that the more like scenario is that “the Chinese will bring in their own managers so the only thing that local people can hope to get are these low-pay, low-level jobs.”
Archaeological and mining specialists from the Alliance for the Restoration of Culture History (ARCH) have described the situation as a “zero-sum game.”
While mining specialists from the World Bank have praised the commitment to protecting cultural treasures at Mes Aynak and spoken of the positive example it can set, many remain unconvinced. Other vocal opponents of the site’s management are the archaeological and mining specialists from the Alliance for the Restoration of Culture History (ARCH), who have described the situation as a “zero-sum game.” In a report published in June 2012, the ARCH panel argued that the lack of transparency, coupled with an almost complete lack of environmental regulation, was leaving sites vulnerable to permanent damage and local populations vulnerable to exploitation.

Most people can agree on the importance of Mes Aynak in terms of setting a benchmark for heritage protection and the putting pressure on mining companies to establish environmentally sustainable and locally inclusive sites all over Afghanistan. None of this is possible without increased cooperation and transparency between the government of Afghanistan the mining consortiums.

Despite the looming December 2012 deadline, the archaeologists working at Mes Aynak remain cautiously optimistic that they can lobby for more time. Huffman, who will soon return to the site, echoes this sentiment: “Perhaps I will bear witness to the end of Mes Aynak, but I truly hope that is not the case.”

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney shake hands after the final presidential debate.

Republican challenger Romney all but endorsed his incumbent rival’s competent, if uninspired, record as commander-in-chief, though we may never know if that reflected his true convictions or his decision to re-animate himself as a moderate in the campaign’s decisive final weeks. What is certain is that both candidates lack the vision and courage needed to demolish the canned reference points that have sucked the imagination out of US foreign policy over the last six decades.

The candidates’ respective world views may differ in degree, but not in kind. Though both would likely launch a pre-emptive assault on Iran—Obama, after all, has committed his government to preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and the mullahs show no sign of backing down—a President Romney might give the order sooner and with relish; while Obama’s support for a viable Palestinian state may be sincere, he’d lack a second-term mandate strong enough to resist a Likudnik-controlled Congress eager to entrench Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land; throughout the campaign, both men have promiscuously bashed China, apparently unaware that Beijing is too busy with its own leadership transition to parse America’s political theater from its reality.

A fiscal abyss, Americans are told, is poised to swallow the US economy should automatic spending cuts kick in early next year if Congress cannot pass a budget. Yet neither Obama nor Romney have signaled they are prepared to dismantle Washington’s infrastructure of empire abroad in order to revive its economy at home. Neither Democratic nor Republican leaders have displayed a willingness to share the burden of global security with its allies, many of which are now among the world’s richest countries. Despite alarmist talk about how the Obama administration’s proposed defense cuts will leave America dangerously exposed—to whom or to what is never clearly spelled out—it is easer for Washington to cut funding for education and health care, particularly in urban areas, than military bases overseas.

Throughout the campaign, the visions expressed for America’s role in the world have been maddeningly small-minded. The country’s diminution as a superpower should be embraced rather than disparaged as an opportunity to consolidate its resources, reinvest in the homeland and contribute to the world as a wiser, if less militarized, nation among others. Sadly, and at ruinous cost, Washington’s foreign policy elites would rather America be feared than respected, a bipartisan myopia that has done as much as anything to hasten the country’s growing irrelevance.

US President Barack Obama

When Barack Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, hopes were high for a “fresh start” in American foreign policy. The title of the famous speech he delivered in Cairo in June of 2009 (in which he sought to recast American relations with the Middle East) was ”A New Beginning,” summing up the hopes many held for the next four years. After the second Bush administration, Obama was seen in some quarters as a transformative figure who would right the wrongs of the previous eight years, repair relations with American allies worldwide, and restore trust in the presidency amongst the war-weary US public. To some extent, he followed through on these expectations. Despite criticism from hawks, Obama ensured that the US met its commitments to pull the bulk of its troops out of Iraq (though this agreement was inherited from the previous administration). To widespread bemusement, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize; one commentator wryly observed it was “for not being George W. Bush.”

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney shake hands at the end of the third and final presidential debate.

Further tensions with the generals manifested when aides of the US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, were quoted in a magazine article mocking the administration and its officials. McChrystal was summoned to Washington to explain himself; he resigned after a meeting with Obama and was replaced with General David Petraeus, the former head of US forces in Iraq.

Despite these hiccups, Obama finally thrashed out a policy that will see American troops leave Afghanistan in 2014, if the timetable is followed. Instead, he is reportedly placing more and more weight behind the program of assassinations via drone attacks in the Pakistani tribal belt and to some degree in Yemen, reportedly even going so far as to personally vet the lists of militants to be targeted for drone strikes, and even though this is widely believed to be killing more civilians and embittering ever-larger parts of the population. This has alienated some of his original, liberal supporters, but he has doubtless calculated that he can survive this politically, aware of the benefits of being seen to be ‘tough on terrorism,’ and that the average American voter gives little thought to foreign affairs. This negative may also be cancelled out by the political gain from being the president who authorized the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden.

Another measure of a president is how well he deals with the unexpected, the occurrence of which is the only thing that can be expected with a great degree of certainty. In this case, it fell to Obama to preside over the crafting of the American response to the Arab spring and the various travails that have followed it. Obama was criticized from the Right and the Left for his cautious response to the events in Tunisia, Cairo, Libya, and now Syria, but it is difficult to see what else his administration could have done under the circumstances. In the case of Egypt, Obama passed perhaps the most important test: realizing that the ability of the US to directly influence the transition from dictatorship to a more democratic system was, and remains, limited. Obama’s response to the initial unrest in Egypt was therefore cautious—and he remained cautious throughout the process, careful not to get ahead of events. He only called for Hosni Mubarak to go when he was sure that the Egyptian president was doomed, but this was not out of any affection or regard for the man. The US policy towards Mubrarak’s successor, Mohammed Morsi, has also been cautious. As Hillary Clinton said, “I want to be clear that the United States is not in the business, in Egypt, of choosing winners and losers, even if we could, which of course we cannot.”

In the case of Libya, Obama was again cautious. He ensured that American intervention was carefully calibrated, allowing American allies to be appear to be taking the lead, despite the fact that the US military carried out most of the aerial attacks that shattered Qadhafi’s forces. In doing so, he overruled his own influential Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, who opposed US involvement. Judging by the response of the media and public opinion, Obama’s approach was vindicated, with Qadhafi overthrown without the loss of any American life. Subsequent unrest in Libya has tarnished this success somewhat. Especially damaging were the deaths of four Americans, including the US ambassador, Chris Stevens, in the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi on the anniversary of September 11th. (To be fair, this reflects Libya’s problems, and is beyond the control of any American president.)

Now, with Syria descending into civil war, Obama is again refusing to be stampeded into hasty, ill-thought-out action. This time, he has the Pentagon on his side. Instead of unleashing the might of the American military, Obama and his advisors seem to have calculated that US intervention would not serve Syrian or American interests. With a war-weary public, a troubled economy and with no clear endgame in Syria even if Assad falls, Obama is probably right to be cautious, and his cold-blooded focus on working behind the scenes to ensure that the crisis does not lead to a new flowering of international Islamist terrorism is probably the least-worst option. It is worth remembering that the Clinton administration’s attempt to solve the crisis in the former Yugoslavia was a long and agonizing process, in a situation that was not nearly as volatile and potentially dangerous, and in the much less contentious neighborhood of post-Cold War Europe.

On Iran and Israel, Obama’s record has been more mixed. His attempts to persuade Israel, in the form of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to make progress on a peace agreement with the Palestinians has been a failure. To be fair to Obama, it is not clear what leverage he had with the Israelis—even the president must respect the will of Congress, which is strongly pro-Israel. This has also plagued his policy towards Iran and its nuclear program. Iran has been a hot-button issue in American politics for 30 years, and the intersection of Iran and ‘nuclear threat’ (as portrayed by Israel and its supporters) has been a potent issue that has succeeded in mobilizing Congressional support for hardline policies. Nonetheless, Obama has been able to put the brakes on the rush to confrontation, insisting on sanctions rather than military strikes, and giving some signs that he may be more willing to try to reach out to Iran once more if he is re-elected in November.
Overall, Obama’s policy in the Middle East has made no new friends, but has not created any new enemies either. Given the problems he has been left to deal with, this is probably the best that he could have hoped for.

US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney

Romney then sketched the contours of an aggrandizing, militarized foreign policy that would have horrified Marshall, a model of sobriety and restraint and a skeptic of entangling alliances and the huge deployments of force that go with them. As a junior officer stationed in pre-revolutionary China, for example, Marshall and his comrades sniffed at the enforcers of imperial England as “treaty-port Brits.” In the Red-baiting 1950s, Marshall fiercely rejected calls by right-wing Sinophobes—the neoconservatives of their time—to wage war on communist China. Such a campaign would require a half million men, he told an aide, “and once I get them in how will I get them out?”

Yet there was Romney, ticking off a list of national security threats—China, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Afghanistan, Cuba, Venezuela—and calling for a vastly-enlarged military budget when even the Pentagon has acknowledged that the most formidable threat facing the country is fiscal dissolution.

Romney punctuated his address with references to Israel and what he regards as America’s scared obligation to defend it. Yet it was Marshall who, as America’s secretary of state, emphatically opposed then-President Harry Truman’s decision to recognize the infant state of Israel in 1948 for the danger it would create for US interests. George Kennan, a senior Marshall deputy at the State Department, blamed pro-recognition forces for forcefully advocating “objectives which could scarcely fail to lead to violent results.” Marshall famously admonished the president for politicizing foreign policy by appealing to pro-recognition groups, which he told Truman during a staff meeting was reason enough to vote against him. (As a civil servant loyal only to the institutions he served, Marshall did not vote.)

Romney argued that America’s foreign policy should be invested with its “values” and he assured listeners his policy proscriptions were not the brew of perpetual conflict. Marshall, in contrast, dismissed indulgent talk of American exceptionalism and he understood that unqualified military commitments assume lives of their own. (He would have demobilized the bulk of U.S. forces after World War II had Truman not opted for the ruinous policy of containing the Soviet Union and China.) Like Dwight Eisenhower, one of the Republican Party’s most popular twentieth-century presidents, Marshall’s hard-boiled realism would be irreconcilable with the party’s imperial ambitions of today.

What is most disturbing about Romney’s manifesto is not its deviations from current US foreign policy but its consistencies. Despite efforts to distinguish himself from his White House rival, there was little in Romney’s speech that distanced himself from the policies of President Barack Obama, who in his own way has done as much to militarize America’s posture abroad as any of his predecessors. This is not surprising, given how US foreign policy is charted largely by the Defense Department except in the Middle East, where it is driven by the voting patterns of Christian Zionists and their Jewish counterparts in thrall to Israel’s Likud Party.

It would take political reformation led by citizen-soldiers like George Marshall to change that. Sadly, we will not see his kind again.

The rubble of the World Trade Center smoulders following the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York

The Icarus Syndrome by Peter Beinart

Few books capture the transformation of America’s foreign policy and the nation’s psyche in the hours and months after the attacks on 9/11, and contextualize these events in the wider history of America’s foreign relations. Written in an eloquent and thoughtful style and markedly different from the other literature that has come out in the past decade or so, Beinart’s work should be read by anyone interested in American foreign policy after 9/11.

The 9/11 Wars by Jason Burke

Burke, a respected and thoughtful journalist who has spent much of his career in the regions of the world most impacted by the wars after 9/11, charts in 500 pages America’s interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also examines the impact of Europe’s experience with terrorism during this decade and its response.

The Three Trillion Dollar War by Joseph E. Stieglitz and Linda J. Bilmes

In an election year dominated by the economy and the debt crisis, Stieglitz and Bilmes illustrate the deep economic cost associated with America’s intervention in Iraq, and note that—including the intervention in Afghanistan—America has spent over 7 trillion dollars on the wars of the past decade. A sobering number that both explains problems faced by the United States in terms of its debt and also, the hesitancy about considering future military interventions in places such as Syria.

Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan by Rajiv Chandrasekaran

With Afghanistan barely mentioned in this year’s presidential elections and with America’s troops expected to withdraw by 2014, it is worth a moment to consider after 11 years at war in Afghanistan, what has been accomplished and what lies ahead for Afghanistan and America’s presence in the country.

Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them by John Mueller

Homeland security has become the buzzword for an entire industry of analysts in the United States and the Homeland Security Department has become a sizeable feature of the federal budget. A noted scholar on public opinion and national security, Mueller attempts to put homeland security in perspective and its impact on American public opinion. Mueller’s conclusions will surprise some and his work illustrates the domestic impact that 9/11 had on America’s perception of its security.

Credit: David Constantine

David Constantine’s photography expresses a dignified humanism. His images are often striking, but they are also infused with humility. Rather than seeking out photos that are highly unusual or conventionally dramatic, Constantine documents people and places with a gentle but illuminating manner.

The result is photography which has spiritual and emotional depth and clarity—a quiet wisdom, a form of observation which deemphasizes the photographer and his or her exploits, which drives so much of contemporary photography. His work instead favors deceptively simple portraiture and rendering of social interactions around the world.

Most of Constantine’s photos are not from the Middle East, but his images from Morocco reflect his restrained style. There is a pita seller with two children presumably purchasing bread from him, and another of a mother and daughter walking in the street, the daughter’s bright pink backpack contrasting sharply with the earth tones of much of Morocco’s cityscape and landscape.

Constantine’s photos from Afghanistan are particularly striking. In one, a boy sits beside Afghani elders in a school setting. The elders are handsome and weathered, their age creating a dignified juxtaposition with the youthfulness of the boy. One wonders what they have seen and know, and what wisdom they will impart to this child. Another photo depicts an Afghani girl in a classroom looking at the camera with a beautiful, generous smile, her fellow classmates facing forward.

Constantine also captures exuberance in surprising contexts: a well-built Nicaraguan farmer strikes a pose for his camera with an enthusiastic smile and robust confidence, clearly delighted to be documented and doing his best to communicate the strength of his physique. The result is a portrait of a Nicaraguan farmer that is highly distinctive and utterly compelling in its almost baroque gregariousness, from the smile of the farmer and his playful pose to the intensity of the sun.

There are also poignant photos whose power is understated but deeply felt. Constantine visited Poland in the early 1990s; he took a photo of two men speaking in front of a Polish synagogue in Krakow. Their conversation looks light and natural, with a deep smile on one of their faces. One is wearing a large, lavender-coloured Jewish head covering. Given the decimation of Poland’s Jewish community in the Holocaust and the tiny surviving Jewish community that struggled with anti-Semitism for many decades, it is a hopeful, moving, and intimate moment that captures two members of the Jewish community just as it began to reconstitute itself and grow following the collapse of Communism and the greater religious freedom, democracy and protection of human rights that followed.

Constantine’s portraits consistently reflect a photographic style that is refreshing and vital because of its simple, direct, and unembellished documentation of life. This is what makes Constantine’s photography unique and quietly compelling.

To see a selection of David Constantine’s photographs, visit:

http://www.sittingimages.com/