The Politic - Fall 2013 I

The Politic

Fall 2013 I The Yale Undergraduate Journal of Politics Volume LXIX

The Faith Amid The Flames A Coptic Yalie Reflects on Egypt’s Church Today 1

Dear Reader,

The idea came to us one summer afternoon. Cairo was in chaos and Syria was spiraling out of control. Iran was irritating Israel and Russia was ruffling feathers. We asked ourselves: What was going on?

What was the United States doing? With a broken Congress and a stymied president, could Washington, D.C. really be expected to come to the rescue? We thought: Shouldn’t we go straight to the men and women who are engaging on the frontlines to keep the world from tearing itself apart? The challenge was conceived: The Politic was going to interview United States Ambassadors in every time zone and corner of the world, as many as we possibly could.

After months of dogged persistence, the magazine — a band of undergraduates with nothing but their computers, cellphones, and a little elbow grease — tracked down over one hundred of America’s top Foreign Service Officers. Our website proudly presents “Diplomatic Discourse,” the product of this summer-long crusade through the bureaucracy of the U.S. Department of State. Since we went live with the series, we have received notice from around the globe: an unprecedented spike in web traffic, attention from newspapers foreign and domestic, Tweets from a Russian tennis sensation.

With this year’s first issue of The Politic, we hope to build off this momentum. In our cover story, Baher Iskander ’16, the only Coptic Christian at Yale College, unpacks the terror this minority faces in post-Mubarak Egypt. Republican U.S. Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming sits down with The Politic hours after voting to reopen the government. Foreign Affairs Editor Gideon Rose recalls his time writing for our very own magazine as an undergraduate. And Toni Harp and Justin Elicker, New Haven’s two mayoral hopefuls, offer two opinion pieces on town-gown relations.

Our reporters delve deep into other remarkable stories — from New Haven’s City Hall to South Sudan’s Nile basin, and everywhere in between. Azeezat Adeleke ’17 puts Yale’s Directed Studies program under the microscope. Alex Petros ’16 offers Southern Democrats wisdom from the campaign trail. Zachary Austin ’17 explores the domestic implications of Syria’s civil war.

The Politic, of course, operates as more than just a printing press. This October, we hosted a conversation between two of Mexico’s sharpest political minds, former President Ernesto Zedillo and former Mexican ambassador to the United States, Arturo Sarukhán. We facilitated a live web discussion between students at Yale and in Egypt. Our blog churns out content daily and our social media presence is more robust than ever. We are planning so much for the days and months ahead.

We thank you for your readership, for your feedback, and for your ideas, which allow us to continue moving forward.

Faithfully, Eric Stern ’15 & Justin Schuster ’15 Editors-in-Chief

Editors-in-Chief Justin Schuster Eric Stern

Managing Editors David Lawrence Rachel O’Connell

Senior Editors Josef Goodman Noah Remnick

Associate Editors Amy Chang Rod Cuestas Anna-Sophie Harling Cindy Hwang Ezra Ritchin

Layout Editor Yuyeon Cho

Board of Advisors John Lewis Gaddis Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History, Yale University David Gergen Editor-at-Large, U.S. News and World Report Anthony Kronman Former Dean, Yale Law School Ian Shapiro Director, Yale Center for International and Area Studies

Business Manager Aaron Mak

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Illustrator Madeleine Witt Blog Editor Alisha Jarwala

Online Managers Derek Soled David Steiner

Disclaimer This magazine is published by Yale College students, and Yale University is not responsible for its contents. The opinions expressed by the contributors to The Politic do not necessarily reflect those of its staff or advertisers.

Pictures Pictures from Creative Commons used under Attribution Noncommercial license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses

The Politic

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B a h er Isk a n der

The Faith Amid The Flames A Coptic Yalie Reflects on Egypt’s Church Today

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S a m a n t h a G ardn er

The Odd Couple

Why is Israel so strongly supporting the fledgling nation of South Sudan?

Eliz abeth Miles

& Justin Schuster

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After Blackhawk Down

An Interview with Ambassador Robert Gosende

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T h e P ol i t ic

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Diplomatic Discourse Interviews with U.S. Ambassadors from Around the World

The Fightin’ 56th

What can national Democrats learn from a state house race in Kentucky?

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A z ee z at A del ek e

What Does DS Really Stand For?

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Reading deeper into the demographics of Yale’s Directed Studies program

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Jon at h a n Est y

Eye of the Storm Morality and Practicality in Yale’s Fossil Fuel Divestment Movement

R h y s Du bi n

Elephants in the Room

Given the similarities of New Haven Democrats and Republicans, can the GOP find its niche?

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A l e x Pe tro s

T on i Harp & J ust i n El ic k er

Town-Gown Relations

Mayoral Hopefuls Toni Harp and Justin Elicker debate the interwoven relationship of Yale University and New Haven

Zac h ary Aust i n

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Beyond the Red Line What’s Really at Stake in Syria?

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A n t hon y Kay ru z & Dav i d Lawr e nc e

Rouhani, Putin, & Dating Advice An Interview with Gideon Rose

Dav i d S t ei n er

Resolving the Shutdown

An Interview with U.S. Senator John Barrasso t h e p ol i t ic

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Government Shutdown

by the numbers

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Diplomatic Discourse Interviews with U.S. Ambassadors from Around the World

William J. Burns Deputy Secretary of State

“We recognize the promise of Egypt’s revolution .”

Earl Anthony Wayne U.S. A mbassador to Mexico

“Border security is stronger today than it has ever been.”

Barbara Stephenson former U.S. Charge d’Affairs to the United Kingdom

“We are looking to surpass Saudi Arabia as the largest producer of oil...and we have not completely worked our way through what that looks like in the U.S.UK relationship.”

Thomas A. Shannon Jr. U.S. A mbassador to Brazil

“As we address the issues of the Arab Spring and...deal with an increasingly competitive Asia, we [ought] not forget that we have...partnerships that can be very helpful to us in the Americas.”

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Over the summer, more than 50 members of The Politic interviewed over 100 U.S. Ambassadors about their careers in the Foreign Service and contemporary facing American embassies.

Visit www.thepolitic.org to check out the full series!

interv iew Available interv iew Unavailable interv iew Coming Soon

Gary Locke U.S. A mbassador to China

“The United States very much welcomes a...more prosperous China...

China also wants a strong economic recovery in the United States.”

David Adelman U.S. A mbassador to Singapore

“The Yale-NUS program may very well demonstrate the importance and effectiveness of freedoms within the context of higher education.”

Jeff Bleich U.S. A mbassador to Australia

“Australia and America are joined by shared common values, democratic principles, free and fair trade.”

David Wharton U.S. A mbassador to Zimbabwe

“Zimbabwe is...the bridge between the economic power of South Africa and the huge potential of Central Africa.”

James Smith U.S. A mbassador to Saudi Arabia

“Stability in the region is hugely important. Both the United States and Saudi Arabia have global responsibilities.”

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What Does DS Really Stand For? Reading deeper into the demographics of Yale’s Directed Studies program A zeez at A delek e

From left to right: Michael Tappel ‘17, Hayun Cho ‘17, Jon Terry ‘17, and Ben Marrow ‘17

We do not look at marginalized groups.

No, this was not a Mitt Romney caught-on-tape gaffe, an Antonin Scalia originalist tirade, or a Stephen Colbert in-character satirization. This message from Professor Howard Bloch, Chair of Yale University’s Humanities Program, was what welcomed the Directed Studies Class of 2017 at the start of the school year.

Directed Studies (“DS”) — the 125-student freshman-year survey of the Western canon in History and Politics, Philosophy, and Literature — has a storied history at Yale. The program, originally deemed a “planned exper6

iment” in liberal education, came into being in 1946 as the brainchild of George Pierson, the famed Yale academic and the first official historian of the university. According to Justin Zaremby ’03, GRD ’07, LAW ’10, a former DSer, DS professor, and author of Directed Studies and the Evolution of American General Education, the program sought to correct several trends in college education, principally “the fact that universities were becoming increasingly specialized in terms of academic focus.”

Pierson considered the general undergraduate program of studies to be “too standardized, too inflexible,

and geared too closely to the average and not very serious students.” DS would be a “radical experiment,” Zaremby explained, in returning to the roots of the liberal arts education.

In Pierson’s time, Yale was a very different institution: more homogenous in every sense. When the first DSers got their wings, the typical Yalie was white, male, Christian, and pretty well off. At Yale and its peer schools, heavy, ornate gates separated the Ivy-covered towers from the surrounding community.

The ensuing years have made Yale’s classes more diverse by all measures: race, gender, geography, sexual

orientation, and so much more. But as the makeup of today’s student body better reflects the outside world, DS has changed more slowly. This year’s DS class, like those before it, reflects the Yale of Pierson’s time to a greater extent than the Yale of our time.

Ben Marrow ’17, who is white, said, “The vast majority, I believe, [of DSers] are Caucasian and much more so than in most Yale classes. In other terms of diversity, no matter how you look at it, it’s much the same feeling.”

For some students, the blast from the past is jarring. “It kind of was a nightmare, I think, the first few days.

I didn’t even see, but I think I felt, the lack of diversity. It was uncomfortable,” said Hayun Cho ’17, a DSer of Korean heritage, of her initial experiences with the program.

Yale does not keep records of the demographics of DS, so The Politic sent a survey to this year’s DS class. In the survey, which received a 66 percent response rate, not a single student identified as African-American. On the other hand, 64 percent of respondents classified themselves as white, 16 percent as Asian American or Pacific Islander, 7 percent Latino or Hispanic, 10 percent “other” or “mixed race,” and 2 percent Native American.

Yale as a whole is not quite a multicultural utopia, but the demographics of the Class of 2017 paint a substantially more colorful picture.

According to university statistics, this year’s freshman class is 10 percent African-American, as well as 62 percent white, 20 percent Asian American and 10 percent Latino or Hispanic.

(Several freshmen indicated two or more ethnicities.)

Why, then, aren’t more minority students pursuing Yale’s premiere and selective humanities study program?

A possible explanation lies in the DS curriculum, which features authors who are overwhelmingly homogenous: Plato and Aristotle, Homer and Dante, Thucydides and Augustine. All white and all men. There are a couple of notable exceptions, including a work

by Virginia Woolf and the addition of W.E.B. Du Bois into the spring 2014 curriculum. But these token exceptions do little more than prove the rule.

The works that have been deemed “great” by Yale and the upper echelons

of academia are the product of a very particular subset of the population.

Perhaps even more significant is the demographic breakdown of those charged with teaching, grading, and inspiring. There are twenty professors that lead DS sections this year, and all twenty are white.

For the program administrators, the lack of diversity in the curriculum and the faculty is not a pressing concern. Kathryn Slansky, Director of Undergraduate Studies for DS this year, explained to The Politic that the faculty gathers annually to assess the curriculum, but they “don’t sit down and talk about diversifying [it]. Our commitment is to teaching books that have been highly influential over the course of what we call Western civilization.”

Classics Professor Joshua Billings, who teaches a Directed Studies section in literature, echoed that sentiment. “A great books course in the Western tradition [must] include mainly dead white men,” he said. The homogeneity is “lamentable,” Billings noted, but it remains “the culture that Yale was founded in and still finds itself in.”

For minority students, however, the nature of the curriculum may be a major reason for failing to pursue, or outright rejecting, entry into the DS club.

“Because of how the program is rooted in the Western canon, it grabs those individuals who feel some kind of cultural connection to it,” said Sterling Johnson ’15, a former DSer who is African-American. “And those populations are usually wealthy and white.”

An investigation by The Politic found that there is just one African-American DSer this year, Chicago native Jon Terry ’17. In Terry’s mind, the lack of black enrollment in the program is a result of perception.

“As far as the black community that I’m familiar with, there’s simply very little value in reading Plato or Aristotle,” said Terry. “Education is valuable and education can take you places, [but] it is difficult to see the value of reading dead Greek philosophers.” In a sense, the fears of George Pierson have been realized: the humanities-driven liberal arts education has become, in many minds, gratuitous.

As far as being the only black DSer, Terry explained, “It’s not some-

thing that makes me feel self-conscious or awkward or alone or estranged.”

Having attended the prestigious Groton School, a boarding school in Massachusetts, he has not found it difficult to immerse himself in the program. Terry is among the majority of DS students who attended private secondary schools. The Politic survey found that 56 percent of DSers were privately schooled, compared with only 42 percent of the overall Class of 2017. This nearly fourteen-point gap points to the role of privilege in determining which Yalies are accepted into Directed Studies.

“The program is geared towards individuals who have a very, very high collegiate level of writing going into Yale,” Johnson said. He noted that elite private secondary schools train their students in that mode of writing and expose those students to subjects that many public schools simply don’t have the resources to offer, such as philosophy and political theory.

Jeffrey Brenzel ’75, Master of Timothy Dwight College, former Dean of Undergraduate Admissions, and a current DS professor, said he struggled as a DS student himself. At the time, “Yale was just opening its doors to nontraditional audiences,” Brenzel explained, and as a first generation college student, he “wasn’t well prepared to tackle DS.”

Charlotte Finegold ’17, a white DSer who attended a public high school in New Jersey, recalled that the most rigorous classes offered at her school were Advanced Placement Literature and Advanced Placement Government. On the other hand, some of her peers in DS enjoyed small enrollment classes with as few as two students devoted to exploring the work of a single philosopher. “The resources that some kids have coming in are much greater,” Finegold added.

Among those surveyed by The Politic, 32 percent of DSers reported that they studied the classics, Greek, or Latin in high school.

“We don’t have any formal policy to support students who don’t have an exposure to the great books,” Slansky said. The program does, however, attempt to start its students on a level playing field. “We spend time telling them: what you think you know 7

about this book, you should put aside, because we’re now going to look at it in a different way.” Nevertheless, it is hard to imagine that prior preparation has no bearing on how students perform in the program — or on what type of students apply and are chosen.

There are two rounds of admission to Directed Studies. The first is a pre-selection process in which Yale Admission Officers guarantee individuals a spot in DS along with their acceptance to Yale. The majority of DS students are admitted in the second round, by application, after they’ve already committed to the university.

“Admissions officers nominate admitted students for Directed Studies who have demonstrated particular strength when it comes to their academic record and breadth of intellectual interest,” said Jeremiah Quinlan, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions.

But according to Brenzel, the former Dean, pre-admission is also used as a selling point for Yale. He said, “The admissions office tries to identify a certain number of students for whom DS might be such an attraction that it would make a difference as to whether they would come to Yale.” Yet this begs the question: are these especially strong students — deemed irresistible by the admissions office — less diverse than the general pool of admitted students? Or does the DS disparity result from the second round application process, where students who have been exposed to the rigorous study of the humanities can choose to continue it?

Current and former students were eager to offer a range of prescriptions for expanding membership to a wider array of Yale freshmen.

“I think Directed Studies would be significantly better if you were not allowed to apply to it,” Jack O’Malley ’17, a white DSer, remarked. In his mind, self-selection is the program’s biggest limitation in terms of diversity.

O’Malley proposed that Yale select those students who are strong in academic record and breadth of interest and push them to take the DS plunge.

A change that may be closer at hand could be modifying the DS curriculum. The idea of adding minority voices to the reading lists simply due to their race or gender was widely rejected by the DSers interviewed, as 8

well as by program administrators.

“Do I wish we had more minority voices — women, people color — on the syllabus?” asked Slansky. “Yeah, I wish we had them in the tradition. But they’re not there. We can’t go back in time and create them.”

Certainly, centuries of stifling of female and minority voices cannot be overcome so easily. However, some DSers, including Finegold and Cho, question the exclusion of certain non-traditional voices within the Western tradition that have come to be highly regarded in academia. If students read Alexis De Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, why shouldn’t they read Narrative in the Life of Frederick Douglas? If they read the white male ancient Greek playwright Euripides, why shouldn’t they read the lesbian ancient Greek poet Sappho?

If they read T. S. Eliot, why shouldn’t they read Zora Neale Hurston?

The most obvious constraint is time — the DS reading list cannot go on forever. According to Slansky, this year’s addition of DuBois’ The Souls of Black Folk meant that Nietzsche had to be dropped from the syllabus.

Is this a valuable trade off? Inevitably, the answer to that question will vary from DSer to DSer and from professor to professor.

At the heart of the debate over the diversity of the Directed Studies student body and curriculum lies a simple question: does this matter? For some students, the minority enrollment in the program or blend of historical perspectives is largely irrelevant.

“If the color of a person’s skin doesn’t fundamentally change the dialogues that students have in classrooms, it seems that there’s not much to fear in there being some degree of racial overrepresentation — or underrepresentation,” said Michael Tappel ’17, who is white. In his opinion, what DS lacks in racial diversity it makes up for in intellectual diversity. “I don’t think the classroom experience suffers much, if at all,” he concluded.

Other students strongly dissent from this view. According to many of the minority DSers interviewed for this article, the color of a person’s skin undoubtedly impacts her classroom experience. Sterling Johnson said that during his freshman year, DS events

and lectures became “real-world reflections of such a Western-centric worldview.” And for students whose heritage lies outside of that worldview, Johnson continued, “you feel like you’re not completely part of the mold.”

Hayun Cho, the Korean DSer, echoed the notion of the Western mold as a gold standard. “I think I have always grown up in America seeing this Western ideal as what is good, what is right, what is beautiful,” said Cho. “That is on so many levels, from the most superficial level, in terms of beauty to the most deep level, in terms of how to live your life.”

That question — “How we should live as human beings?” — is at the core of Directed Studies. What does it mean if the collection of voices surrounding the tables of DS seminars, attempting to use history as a lens to answer that question, is more homogenous than Yale as a whole? As Finegold said, “We’re learning about what it means to contribute to society and we will then be the ones to contribute to society. It really bothers me that only privileged white kids, for the most part, are getting that experience.”

Changing the perception — and the reality — of the Directed Studies program is no simple task. Decades of tradition have contributed to the development of the unique DS identity. Nearly every DSer calls the program a valuable experience. For Johnson, it was a way to explore a range of ideologies; for Terry it is an “awesome” starting point for his academic career; for Cho it is a solid basis for a future career in writing; for Tappel it is a “whole new way of thinking;” and for Brenzel, it was an “intellectual star” to follow.

But many of the those enrolled in the program believe that their experience could benefit from some modification. “It sounds like I hate the program — and I don’t,” Feingold concluded. “It could just be so much better.”

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Clockwise from top left: Charlotte Finegold ‘17, Jon Terry ‘17, Jack O’Malley ‘17, and Ben Marrow ‘17

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Eye of the Storm Morality and Practicality in Yale’s Fossil Fuel Divestment Movement Jonat h a n Est y

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It was almost midnight when the bombs went off in Ingalls Rink.

On May Day evening, Yale University students had just left the building after holding a public conference to discuss the Black Panther trials. They planned to return and pack into the space by the hundreds for a dance that night.

The explosives detonated early, however, and luckily no one was hurt. The perpetrators and their motives were never discovered.

A week earlier, as many as 70 percent of students had gone on strike to demand fair legal proceedings for Bobby Seale, a Panther member being tried for murder in New Haven.

University President Kingman Brewster responded by ending the school year early and opening the dorms and dining halls to demonstrators.

He spoke to Yale faculty to express solidarity with the students, saying he was “skeptical of the ability of black revolutionaries to achieve a fair trial anywhere in the United States.” This statement scandalized conservative alumni, and even prompted Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to grumble that Brewster’s assassination would be a benefit to the country.

This was 1970, the peak of student activism on campus. Yale had never before reached such a level of tumult.

And never since — not even during today’s global climate change crisis — has a Yale administration so fully partnered with a student movement. ***

Today’s fight centers not around people, but the planet.

“In the lifetime of everybody in this room, this planet has left the Holocene — the ten thousand years of benign climatic stability that underwrote the rise of human civilization — and moved into something else,” said Bill McKibben, a Middlebury College professor and icon of global environmentalism, describing the scope of the problem to an audience at the Met. “The only question is how far in we’re going to go.”

The “350.org” campaign, an environmental advocacy group founded

by McKibben, warns of the disastrous and potentially irreversible effects of climate change. Its website forecasts extreme weather, the disappearance of

glaciers that usually supply water for hundreds of millions of people, and even the sinking of cities, farmland, and entire island nations — all of which McKibben believes will come before the end of the century.

The 350.org campaign has taken its movement nationwide. It encourages the formation of a “Fossil Free Coalition” to lower atmospheric greenhouse gas levels to a safe level, below 350 parts per million of CO2 — a reduction that requires leaving 80 percent of fossil fuel untouched. College students have been instrumental in spreading the word, particularly by encouraging their universities to cease investing their endowments in companies with large carbon-emitting operations. A whopping 328 student groups affiliated with or inspired by the Fossil Free Coalition have sprung up at campuses around the country. But only six higher education institutions have committed to divestment.

Sometimes, the task is simple and smooth. In May 2013, San Francisco State University committed to divesting from coal and tar sands companies after a unanimous vote of the committee managing the University’s $52.1 million endowment.

Other times, administrators are not so receptive to change. Last year, the student organization New York University (NYU) Divest requested a “no-demands” audience with the University President to discuss the possibility of divestment. In April 2012, they secured a meeting with the Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Head of the Sustainability Office, and other senior administrators. NYU Divest co-founder Sophie Lasoff told The Politic that her group presented divestment as a “natural extension” of the University’s present efforts to combat climate change. NYU Divest presented data from the investment management firm Aperio demonstrating that divestment would pose only minimal risk to the endowment long-term. The CFO countered with a one-page article from the Chronicle of Higher Education referencing a study that predicted divestment could cause massive losses, up to hundreds of millions of dollars, over twenty years.

Administrators stated how they were “impressed by [students’] passion

and commitment in addressing this issue of climate change,” Lasoff said, but they thought “divestment as a tactic was not a good use of [their] time.”

Currently, student environmentalists are asking the Student Senate to take up a resolution in support of divestment, which would then be passed on to the University Senate, whose recommendations go before the Board of Trustees. The administration did not respond to NYU Divest’s request for a follow-up meeting. ***

The Yale Student Environmental Coalition (YSEC) jumped into the divestment movement when, earlier this year, it formed Fossil Free Yale — a campaign seeking to end Yale’s investment of its endowment in fossil fuel companies. Instead of pushing the University to divest through sit-ins and marches like the protestors of the 1970s, today’s Yale students seek change by coordinating a plan with administrators to address address the endowment’s carbon emissions impact.

This past February, leaders of Fossil Free Yale first met with the University’s Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility (ACIR), the body that coordinates with the Yale Corporation Committee on Investor Responsibility (CCIR). These two boards oversee “socially responsible” management of the endowment. Together with the Yale chapter of the Roosevelt Institute, a progressive nonprofit, and the Yale Environmental Law Association, YSEC submitted a detailed divestment proposal, focusing on the top 200 energy companies which hold the vast majority of the world’s fossil fuel reserves.

Patrick Reed ’15, former YSEC President and a co-author of the divestment report, stressed to The Politic that his group works within Yale’s established systems. YSEC has been “approaching the University according to its own guidelines,” he explained.

Reed felt encouraged by Yale’s history of pioneering the concept of social responsible investment. In 1972, Yale professors and graduate students authored The Ethical Investor: Universities and Corporate Responsibility, a handbook which led to the University’s establishment of the ACIR and CCIR.

The procedure of the ACIR calls 11

for action if companies are perpetrating a “social injury,” beginning with outreach to the relevant businesses, followed by requests for changes, and potentially culminating in divestment from uncooperative businesses. “[Yale] guidelines recommend using our role as a shareholder to express voice on issues where a company is engaged in causing ‘social injury,’” former University President Rick Levin said in an interview with The Yale Daily News. “If the use of voice fails, exit in the form of divestment is the final step.”

ACIR has only taken this “final step” twice since its founding. Yale partially divested from South African businesses during apartheid and fully divested from Sudanese oil companies at the height of the Darfur genocide.

It has also taken less severe punitive measures. In the mid-1990s, instead of ceasing investment in tobacco companies, ACIR requested that the industry add health warnings on their cigarette packaging and restrict sales and marketing to minors. In the twenty years since, the tobacco industry has been less than enthusiastic in complying.

Considering these precedents, Fossil Free Yale calls for systematic dialogue with energy companies prior to divestment. The University would ask fossil fuel companies to disclose their emissions data through a third-party 12

carbon-monitoring agency within six months. “We’re open to changing the timeframe,” granted Reed, but “reporting emissions is a precondition to investment.” After submitting its data, a company would have two years to get below a certain “dirtiness ratio,” a measure of emissions per energy produced. Yale would divest if the company did not meet its specified goal or refused to cooperate.

Even McKibben, the biggest champion of the divestment cause, told The Politic the goal of the movement is not primarily to harm fossil fuel companies financially, but to recast the industry as “Public Enemy Number #1.”

“Once we’ve broken their power enough to put a real price on carbon, they’ll become energy companies, not fossil fuel companies,” McKibben wrote in an email to The Politic. “But for the moment they’re adversaries.”

350.org and the country’s most ardent divestment advocates acknowledge, however, that even if every American university divested — their total endowments adding up to almost $400 billion — this would not hugely impact fossil fuel companies’ profits. Nonetheless, they still believe the impact would be substantial.

Yoni Landau SOM ’15, a coalition coordinator of Fossil Free Yale, agrees that Yale’s divesting would have more

than just a practical financial effect.

“Yale’s impact by making this statement first… will be massive” and “put climate change back on the agenda,” he said. “As one of the 6,000 or so students at Yale, the impact that you can have on the future of the world in your time here by using the full clout of your cultural and political leadership is massive.”

Yale’s divestment alone would not directly attack climate change, he admitted, but he hopes Yale alumni in elected office would use the University’s action as a springboard for national action. He noted that while Yale’s $20 billion endowment might be a drop in the bucket, “$550 billion in U.S. subsidies is not insignificant.” ***

For some of Yale’s peer institutions, the symbolic value of inspiration is not enough. On October 3, Harvard President Drew Faust ruled out divestment. Her detailed statement articulated much of the reasoning that makes major institutions — many of which are led by individuals supportive of environmentalist causes — reluctant to divest.

Faust said, “Climate change represents one of the world’s most consequential challenges,” but she still opposes divestment on three grounds.

It would jeopardize Harvard’s financial

health, “appear to position the University as a political actor rather than an academic institution,” and “distract us from more effective measures.” As Levin did, Faust favors “engagement” as shareholders “over withdrawal.”

Divest Harvard later attacked the possibility of successful “engagement” as bogus, noting that when Harvard representatives had the opportunity to use their shareholder influence to vote for environmental reforms at ExxonMobil, they instead opposed the measure, considering it “unreasonable in asking the company to address such a major shift in its business focus.”

Faust also found a “troubling inconsistency in the notion that, as an investor, we should boycott a whole class of companies at the same time that, as individuals and as a community, we are extensively relying on those companies’ products and services for so much of what we do every day.”

Landau, on the other hand, dismissed the idea that divestment is hypocritical.

Citing the Yale Office of Sustainability’s “impressive programs” such as biofuel-burning buses and local produce, he said “we are improving steadily — it’s the other aspect, the financial aspect, that’s lagging behind.” Rejecting Faust’s claims, he said that “just because we use fossil fuels in our daily lives doesn’t mean we shouldn’t seek to reduce our consumption where we can.”

Faust’s sentiments echo the fossil fuel industry’s position over the past few years.

“We’re very much not a [climate change] denier, very much at the table with our sleeves rolled up,” said Kenneth Cohen, Vice President of Public Affairs at ExxonMobil, as reported by Reuters in 2007. His company recognizes the “inevitability” of government action on climate change, in the form of either a carbon tax or a “carbon market” reminiscent of President Obama’s failed cap-and-trade legislation — and he wishes to cooperate. ExxonMobil would simply advocate for the plan that would minimally reduce profits. “The devil is in the detail,” noted Cohen.

Even prior to Faust’s statement, Divest Harvard embraced a confrontational approach to encouraging divestment — and this time, their tactics more closely mirrored those used in Vietnam War-era protests. Chloe Maxmin, head

of the organization, said her group coordinated a sit-in of Faust’s office until they received an audience with the President, after she had missed a deadline for a requested meeting.

Maxmin cited rhetorical “escalation” as a potential response to the administration’s firm opposition.

Divest Harvard published a full rebuttal in The Nation, dubbing Faust’s denial of Harvard’s political history “myopic” and imploring administrators to act as “[t]rue leaders” who “do not cling to the status quo of climate degradation and false neutrality.”

YSEC leaders approach the situation at Yale more collaboratively than their Harvard counterparts. They praise the administration’s efforts at cooperation. Landau expresses confidence in the board: “The individuals on the ACIR are thinking hard on this

issue… these are people who understand social responsibility.”

Though Maxmin’s group will “remain in dialogue with the administration,” it is planning more concrete action. Maxmin wants to demonstrate that the divestment movement is “not just on paper, not just on the Internet, it’s in person.” Not even a recent referendum — which showed 72 percent of Harvard students in support of divestment — could not sway Faust.

Sign-waving demonstrations in the classical activist mold are among the only choices left for Divest Harvard. ***

Although YSEC has worked to raise public awareness — it carved the words “Fossil Free” into the snow of Old Campus last winter — it has focused on contacting Yale administrators rather

Bill McKibben is an environmentalist, author, and journalist who founded 350.org.

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Brown University students protest in favor of divestment.

than staging public rallies. However, if the ACIR delivers a negative verdict, or if Yale President Peter Salovey speaks out against divestment as Faust did, they may alter their methods.

Reed acknowledged that “some people are saying that [divestment] is a radical thing” but argued that “people always say that about any student movement that’s trying to change something.” He emphasized the moderate nature of YSEC’s effort: “I don’t consider [divestment] to be radical… what I consider radical is companies actually changing the chemical composition of our atmosphere in a way that, scientists have clearly demonstrated, will make life unsustainable on the earth.”

Landau looks forward to a referendum to gauge student support for divestment in late fall of 2013. YSEC has already set up a website to count down every second that passes until the vote. Members of the ACIR have set the unofficial goal of exceeding 72 percent of students in support of the proposal — the proportion that Harvard achieved.

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“We were asked to beat Harvard, essentially,” Landau remarked. Apparently, the Committee hinted it would deliver a statement in the spring “if there’s clarity” of student opinion.

Landau said it would be “spectacular” to get an earlier decision, given that “South Africa took eight years.”

McKibben told The Politic that although he’d like “Yale to divest today,” he acknowledges that meaningful societal change can take years of dialogue, debate, and, of course, elbow grease. “I’d rather have two years of heated campaigning till every student, professor and alum knows that the fossil fuel companies are rogue companies and that we shouldn’t be in bed with them!” he said.

Landau sees this moment as a pivotal point in the history of the environmental movement. “Climate change advocacy has been going on meaningfully for two decades, since Kyoto,” he explained, but lacked “the same access to decision makers” it now enjoys. The goal of Fossil Free Yale is clear in his

mind: to do “whatever it takes to get a meaningful statement to use Yale’s leverage in the world to create effective climate policy.”

Landau tempered hopes for the future; the ACIR is an advisory body, he said, and the real decision lies in the hands of the CCIR and the Yale Corporation. While wary that modeling the campaign on Harvard’s example could make the activists appear “shrill,” Landau is absolutely unwilling to back down. “If we feel like we’re being ignored, we’ll get louder,” he affirmed.

Whether Salovey will prove to be a Kingman Brewster to the divestment movement, or a Drew Faust, remains to be seen. With the pomp and circumstance of his recent inauguration over, the tents and banners have been taken down and the campus is calm. It may not stay so quiet.

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15

Beyond the Red Line What’s Really at Stake in Syria?

Zach ary Aust i n

In Aleppo and Homs and Damascus and Darayya, the piercing, staccato rattle of bullets is common. Soldiers — Revolutionary Guardsmen and Free Syrian Army fighters alike — are everywhere. Bombed-out buildings are the new normal.

Not even the clamor of the Russian-made artillery used by President Bashar al-Assad’s formations disturbs life’s surreal rhythm in Syria since its civil war began in March 2011. The American public has focused on the humanitarian issue in Syria, but it has largely disregarded other factors which command further U.S. intervention.

Americans have unfairly and unwisely profiled the situation in Syria as another brutal nightmare taking place 16

in a distant land — when it is actually a pressing threat to the status of the U.S. in the world order.

Americans’ lack of familiarity with what is at stake in the Middle Eastern nation is no surprise, given the two countries’ historically lukewarm — even hostile — relations. U.S. foreign policy has never before shone the spotlight on Syria, and in its own right, Syria has opposed American interests almost incessantly since the first Arab-Israeli War in 1948. Economic interactions between the distant countries have been sparse, to the point that President Assad hardly took notice of President Obama’s sanctions. The scarce resources Syria does produce — only a few hundred thousand barrels of

oil per day — have flowed almost exclusively to Western Europe. While Syria had colonial connections to France, Britain, and, to an extent, Russia, no such ties existed with America.

To U.S. policymakers, the situation looks vastly different from the one the American and Syrian publics see. Despite the lack of direct American interest, the Obama administration still issued the infamous “Red Line” declaration, threatening military action if Assad decided to use deadly chemical weapons. The statement came as a surprise to Arabs still seething with Anti-Americanism and a U.S. population largely fed up with costly, lengthy, unilateral military action in far-off lands.

Public portrayal of the Syrian crisis has focused on the humanitarian implications of intervention. “The U.S. needs to come up with a plan to lead in the situation. This plan has to have the objective of ending the killing, of helping to end the suffering of the Syrian people,” stresses Mohamed Elfayoumy, an Egyptian Diplomat and Yale University World Fellow.

While saving lives is crucial to creating a meaningful peace in Syria, humanitarian dynamics alone cannot have prompted Obama to make his Red Line proclamation. His announcement breaks from the “Obama doctrine” of withdrawal from foreign commitments in favor of domestic action, according to Charles Hill, Diplomat in Residence at Yale.

“With the Obama Administration, we have conveyed that we are out of that business [of intervening]. It’s an end of an era. Obama is doing this in order to change America domestically,” Hill tells The Politic.

Dr. Steven Cook, Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, agrees that “the Red Line statement was more about domestic politics than it was about anything else. It was a way of solving a current political problem without thinking through the implications of it.”

In the face of mounting pressure to focus on domestic policy and a plethora of warzones abroad, why then has the Administration chosen to zero in on Syria? Though the U.S. lacks direct security interests in Syria, there are a variety of indirect geopolitical concerns at stake. “[Syria] touches on some of the most important strategic issues now,” Cook says. “Israeli security, Iranian nukes, Iraqi stability, Turkey and the Kurds, Lebanon, Jordan.

But the U.S. has no intrinsic interest in Syria per se, other than where it is located and the need to maintain stability there.”

Hill expresses amazement at “the disappearance of the Americans.

There is no sign we are doing anything other than abdicating.” Having ceded the initiative in the Middle East, President Obama is struggling to make up for lost time and devise a new strategy for Syria. Hence, Syria has evolved into what resembles a globally-signif-

icant Cold War proxy nation, wedged between Russia and China on one side and the reluctant U.S. and its allies on the other.

Welcome (Back) To the Jungle

The very idea of the conflict in Syria as a humanitarian affair derives from the global power struggle taking root in the unsuspecting nation.

Russia and China are both hardline supporters of traditional state sovereignty, while the United States, Britain, and France have spearheaded a drive for further internationalism under the umbrella of the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine of international law.

Conjured up in the wake of the Rwandan genocide, Responsibility to Protect holds that militarily powerful, external actors have a duty to intervene in civil unrest that threatens to devolve into genocide or protracted conflict.

Operation Unified Protector — in which the UN Security Council approved a strike in Libya — set a new precedent for this doctrine by giving the UN grounds to justify international intervention into sovereign states.

While the West applauded the measure, Hill characterizes the Chinese response as a process by which they “put weight on the political goal of trying to ensure there is no international record at the UN of intervention in any state’s internal affairs. China sees that as a political negative. If there is a precedent, people will say there should be some intervention in China. [The Chinese]

will veto or threaten vetoes or abstain just to keep that precedent [of state sovereignty] alive in an abstract way.”

Russia, also realizing the threat to its worldviews and interests posed by international interventions, has joined efforts with China to derail any repeat mission in Syria.

Russian President Vladimir Putin masterminded a strategy that forced the U.S. into a no-win situation: Obama could do nothing and allow the new Security Council precedent to fade away, or he could intervene by launching a unilateral mission against Syria and hope to secure a resolution later.

Putin’s primary concern, according to experts, is eroding the power of Sunni Extremism. “He sees the United States going around and picking off former Soviet allies to the extent that the Russians have one last strategic toehold in the region, and that is Syria,” Hill says of Putin’s response to the Red Line. “He is not going to let that happen; he is not going to be completely chased from the Middle East.”

Ironically, the U.S. would have to defy the Security Council by invading Syria without authorization in order to guarantee the body’s legitimacy and combat Russian and Chinese efforts to derail meaningful UN action in Syria. If the alternative were a hotbed of radical Sunnis to his south, Putin would likely concede to a democratic, American-backed, rebel-held Syria in the name of stability. The beleaguered

A volunteer for The Free Syrian Army, Syria’s armed opposition.

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Syrian National Council (SNC) — a coalition of Syrian opposition groups — continues to put out press releases espousing the importance of Responsibility to Protect doctrine, but the talk is cheap; they simply lack the force needed ensure a moderate rebel victory without assistance.

Cook believes the SNC is no longer relevant. “I don’t think it has ever been a unified force,” he says.

“There have been different [groups] which have fallen under the umbrella and claimed to be part of the Free Syrian Army [...] but this is essentially a disparate group of militias that are fighting. Lost in all this are these ideals of democracy and freedom. I think to the extent this has dragged on and on, people still maintain lip service to those principles, but achieving these principles becomes harder and harder.”

Elfayoumy also laments that “the opposition is only receiving moral and political support from different players, but when it comes to financial and military support, it is very unorganized and fragmented and lacking an objective, meaning that there are a lot of broken promises.”

A continuation of the conflict also allows China and Russia to profit from Syria’s chief pre-war export: oil.

Before the war, Syria shipped over 99 percent of its meager supply of oil to Western Europe. At the beginning of the conflict, when overconfident leaders on all sides felt the situation would conclude quickly, a sanction campaign against Syrian oil appealed to Western European powers who wanted to act without applying military force. Ultimately, though, the campaign did only short-term damage to Assad’s coffers but long-term damage to the European nations’ relations with their former oil supplier. Putin, meanwhile, has delightedly satisfied the extra European oil demands generated by Syria’s absence.

By ramping up its oil sales, Russia has gained from the war in Syria and subsequently passed along the profits to Assad in the form of arms shipments.

Perhaps more concerning to American interests is the embargo’s effect on Syria-China relations. Previously, few diplomatic channels connected Beijing and Damascus, but the Chinese are interested in Syria’s ability to disrupt the flow of oil if it is destabilized.

“What the Chinese want, basically, is stability in the region,” Cook says. “They want to be able to go into the Middle East and extract the resources they need to fuel their development and their economy with the least amount of turbulence or problems. They don’t see the fall of Assad as something that is beneficial to their overall mission.”

Syria, then, is so vital because it stands poised as the last battleground in the Cold War struggle for global power. “It’s a major turnabout,” Hill asserts. “The U.S. has taken a role for almost one hundred years as the steward and the ultimate manager of international order under the established international state system. President Obama is likely to go down in history as perhaps the most consequential American President ever because he will have brought this long era of American leadership to an end.”

Cook, however, disagrees. “I don’t see this as a retreat from the U.S. presence in the Middle East at all.

The administration’s allergy to getting involved in the conflict in Syria had more to do with its calculations about what it would require to be involved and how long the United States would be there, and based on a cost benefit analysis, [decided] this could not be good for the United States.” There is indeed great uncertainty regarding Syria’s significance, which is undoubtedly responsible for the haphazard U.S.

response to the Syrian conflict.

Fool Me Once…

“The U.S. has to know,” warns Elfayoumy, “that whether they like it or not, they are perceived as a major player in the world, especially in the Middle East, and they need to act accordingly.”

The U.S. has pegged its prestige on the SNC’s success, so as the Syrian government tightens its noose around the rebels, the opportunity for intervention is fading. Yet military action would be a serious undertaking in a highly defensible land guarded by a well-equipped government. American troops with a bloody history in the region would be expected to wipe Assad’s formations off the map while winning hearts and minds — a formidable task. The situation is considerably more dangerous now that both sides are armed to the teeth, committed to a quick and clean victory which will never come.

This is a quagmire the U.S. will not touch, according to Cook. “What you see is what you are going to get.

We are doing minimally what we said we were going to do. I think we will continue to be big supporters to refugee relief. Indirectly we are involved in a variety of ways. I think these things are being done to say we are doing something about the Syrian conflict, but overall America’s goal is to limit its involvement in the country.” However, he notes, “That’s not [indicative of America’s] interest in the region.”

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“Those that were trying to overthrow Assad were people that the outer world should have been very supportive of because they were looking for more freedoms and more involvement with the [international system],” says Hill.

“Because the U.S. didn’t do anything about this, the movement for freedoms got quashed, and now it’s jihadists versus dictators. That’s just two of the old gangs fighting each other.”

Given these new dynamics, an allied commitment would now have to be not just a mission without UN sanction but a total invasion; an air campaign would simply prompt an endless insurgency or renew the government’s strength. If Hill is correct, Obama’s domestic policies will stop him from using such great force. “Having already moved the American public mentality in another direction during his first term, he got caught because he had prepared the way for not getting involved.

[The public] said we don’t want to [intervene] because he had conditioned them to feel that’s the right way to go.”

America, however, cannot simply disengage on a whim. Obama has allowed a certain Middle Eastern mystique to grip the government, our allies, and our people at large, thereby halting the decision making process.

According to Cook, “[I]t is a function of a long, difficult decade in Iraq, and the fact nobody quite knows why the U.S. went to war. I think there is a general aversion to being involved in another Middle Eastern conflict. I don’t know how many times I heard during the debate that this is not our fight.” Intervention in Syria conjures up images of the next Iraq or the next Afghanistan.

The West’s paralysis has engineered the very situation these nations sought to avoid: Syria has become a land of constant war between sides embracing two extreme religious philosophies.

Even in this hostile environment, Elfayoumy still believes a balanced solution is possible. “Politics means you use all the resources that you have: diplomatic, economic, possibly military.

But the solution must be political.” Yet American policymakers have their own political concerns in mind; they refuse to let go of the idea that Syria is an internal, humanitarian conflict, not one with global implications that threaten America’s reputation.

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Unlike Elfayoumy, Cook maintains that we should steer clear, believing Syria is already lost. “I think early on there might have been something the U.S. could have done to prevent the outcomes we see right now; that having never been done, I think there is going to be an active insurgency regardless of what happens in Syria.”

On all sides of the discussion, one terrifying prospect remains absent from the discussion: If the situation contin-

ues escalating and we choose not to stay aloof, America could one day find itself forced into resolving a nearly unwinnable war in which defeat would threaten America’s geostrategic interests in the Middle East. We may push Syria to the back of our minds now, but the issue may haunt American foreign policy for decades to come if we continue to trundle down our path of indecisiveness.

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Rouhani, Putin, & Dating Advice An Interview with Gideon Rose A n t hon y Kay ru z & Dav id Lawr ence Gideon Rose (Yale Class of 1985) is the editor of Foreign Affairs and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. From 1994 to 1995 Rose served as Associate Director for Near East and South Asian affairs on the National Security Council. Rose has also worked as assistant editor of The National Interest and The Public Interest, as well as the Deputy Director of National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Rose graduated from Yale College with a degree in Classics, and at Yale he was Chief Editor of The Yale Political Monthly, now The Politic, and was a member of Scroll and Key. Rose received a Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University.

TP

After majoring in Classics at Yale, what drew you to foreign affairs?

GR I was a child of the late 1970s. I came of age in the wake of Vietnam, in the wake of détente, in the troubled Carter years in which you had not just domestic economic stagnation but you had a world climate that seemed particularly troublesome and going potentially from bad to worse – whether it was the oil shocks or the struggles in the Middle East, the rise of terrorism, or particularly the Soviet expansion.

I was a young neocon because that seemed appropriate at that stage.

There were so many problems going on and so many dangers. In the early years of the Reagan administration, it was pretty clear that the biggest game of all was global thermonuclear war.

Foreign policy dominates everything else if it goes critical. If you lose a war, you lose everything. So no matter how interested you are in domestic policy, foreign policy will ultimately trump domestic policy.

I grew up in an era in which getting foreign policy wrong legitimately could have meant global holocaust or submission to communist tyranny. Making sure that one avoided both those

Supporters rally in favor of newly elected Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

outcomes was so clearly, to me, the most important challenge and task facing anybody in the public sphere. It was the obvious thing to concentrate on.

TP Could you tell us about your

experience writing and editing for The Yale Political Monthly?

GR In retrospect, I think the vast majority of the value of each of those publications along the way would have been achieved if the truck bearing the magazines from the printer had crashed on the way out of the printer’s shop and gone up in flames. Despite what I thought when I was doing it, I don’t think anybody ever read these things, or if they did read them, it had any impact. And the people it had impact on of course were the people who wrote for it and edited it, because it trained them how to think clearly about issues, how to write an article, how to edit an article, how to put together a magazine, how to work together on projects and so forth. If I had fully understood that at the time, I would never have put in the work to do the thing. It was only the sense that you were doing something deeply important and significant that got you to do all the work that ultimately had its real value in training you up for the next level.

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I will give you one story that you will like. Fareed [Zakaria] and I have been travelling the same track for decades. Beginning of my junior year, beginning of Fareed’s sophomore year, I am the Editor of the YPM. He had done an article. It had been published in the first issue of the fall of my junior year, but I had never met him. He wanted to do lunch, so we scheduled a lunch. We go to Mory’s, and we have lunch, and he says, “I just want you to know that, I’m the head of the YPU [the Yale Political Union], but that’s going to be a one-year thing. I am looking around for what to do next, and I just want to let you know that what I want to do next is be the Editor of Yale Political Monthly. I think I would be good, so I just wanted to let you know that this is something I would consider doing.”

And I looked at this guy, who I had never met before, and what I actually said was, “Well, that is very nice.

We’ll see. Let’s get you involved.” But what I thought to myself was, “What?

Who the hell is this guy! What arrogance. You walk in, you have lunch, you introduce yourself, you say, ‘My next challenge: I’ll be editor of your magazine.’” Without this, though, you

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would not have Fareed Zakaria today.

Fareed Zakaria, to his credit, has mellowed and would be mortified in some respects to meet his earlier self, although he is obviously very similar.

TP Two days ago you met with Iranian President Rouhani, and

we are hoping you could tell us

about this experience.

GR The Iranian President meets with various constituencies, particularly American journalists, when he is in town for the UN General Assembly.

Ahmadinejad did this for a couple years, and it was pretty much all the same. He played games. He smirked.

He liked to tease and provoke and spar with the audience. It was semi-fun to see, but you did not get much out of it.

Now that Rouhani is president, it is completely different. He comes across as smart, thoughtful, serious, and professional. He is very much in control. He had a clear message: ‘We want to cut a deal. And I want you to help me create the media echo chamber that will help encourage the deal.’

It was almost the line during the 1992 campaign when George H.W. Bush

famously read the stage directions during a speech. He said, “Message: I care,” which is what his staff had written for him. So, Rouhani might as well have said, “Message: I want to deal.”

This was part of a deliberate, orchestrated charm offensive.

Some journalists who go to these events parse the words very carefully.

I go more to get a general sense of the person, to see what he is like, almost like a job interview. How does he respond, how does he answer questions, what sense of the guy can you get? He is a serious guy. He gave long, coherent, thoughtful answers. He spoke in Farsi, but he could speak in English — he got a Ph.D. at a Scottish university. But it is a matter of pride to speak in your own language. His message was simple: “I want to put this stuff past us.

I think there is a deal to be made. I am not prepared to give up on enrichment, but I am prepared to give up on other things. We are not out to provoke. We are serious. Now let us see if we can make a deal.”

It reminded me of Gorbachev circa 1985 or 86. These were a series of failed hopes before Gorbachev-Andropov in particular. There were all these articles saying that he was going to be a liberal, moderate reformer.

It did not happen. Gorbachev comes along, and is a complete breath of fresh air, and starts acting like no Soviet leader any of us had ever seen. He goes on a charm offensive, suggests some new policy ventures, and it creates this whole debate in the U.S. — “Is this guy serious? Is he just trying to play for time and strengthen himself? Is he reacting to problems so that we should heighten the pressure?”

The right right-wing line to Reagan was, “Oh, you are too soft on Gorbachev.” But if the left had been too quick to jump, the right was too slow to grab a real opportunity there. Reagan, actually, got it just right. He had been hawkish before, turns on a dime when he considers Gorbachev is actually a serious interlocutor, and responds well.

The question when Gorbachev first comes up, is, “Okay, he is clearly something new, and there is clearly some sort of room for progress, but is there really room for a deal, and if so on what?” We spent a few years grappling with that question and trying to figure

President Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in Geneva, Switzerland (1985)

it out, and I think that we are in exactly that same situation with Rouhani.

There are a couple differences.

First, Gorbachev was like Rouhani and Khomeini combined. We have a supreme leader, Khamenei, who has the real power in Iran, so Rouhani does not have full scale autonomy or authority to do things as he wishes.

On the other hand, it is pretty clear to me that Rouhani is not freelancing; Khomeini has authorized this charm offensive, but the question then becomes, beyond atmospherics, just how far are they prepared to go and on what issues is there a deal to be worked out and so forth. For me, this was like a sort of get-acquainted lunch this week.

Things went well. There is not going to be a one-night stand, it is not going to be consummated tonight, but the two parties like each other enough to go on another date.

TP Soon after Putin wrote a New

York Times op-ed, you said in a Reddit question and answer

session that he “looks like Dobby

but he acts like Lucius Malfoy.”

Could you speak to that analogy

and tell us what you think of

Putin and his strategies?

GR Putin is clever. He would make a good bad guy in a Bond film. He has got the right mix of charisma, brains, and thuggish cruelty to be a serious villain. Not a sort of Tony Montana brute thug, but more like the guy with the weepy eye in Casino Royale. My point about Dobby was obviously just a joke about the looks. Lucius is a scheming, crafty bad guy, who ultimately picks the wrong side and loses. You have got to be careful with him; Lucius is smarter and wiser and savvier than Draco, and you underestimate him at your peril.

Putin is playing his hand pretty well, I think. He decided to step in, offer Obama a way out of the crisis — not because he cares about chemical weapons, and not because he is repentant for Soviet policies in Syria previously, but because he thought this would be a way of advancing Russia’s interests — making Russia more of a central player, bringing things back to the UN where he has a veto and more stature, helping avoid a strike on his client. Maybe getting some chips from the Obama administration on the way. It is a smart move and it was well-played.

There are two interesting questions about this for me. One is, “What

are the stated or unstated quid pro quos that the Americans are essentially giving up in return for this?”

Clearly, we are not going to penalize Russia for their nastiness vis-a-vis Snowden — that is out the window!

Russia is now our partner and friend.

The more interesting question is, “Does this represent a lifeline to Assad in the guise of pressure and a defeat for him on chemical weapons?” In other words, is the implicit tradeoff, “You give up your chemical weapons but we will essentially continue to back off and not move forward on anything resembling efforts towards regime change?” And I think the answer is that is probably de facto true, at least in the short term.

The person who benefitted most from that Russian move was Barack Obama, because he was about to lose the congressional vote that would have been one of the most humiliating setbacks for any president in the last few generations. And he almost certainly would not have been able to do a strike after that vote. We would have been facing a Cameron-like humiliation. That was avoided because of Putin’s move.

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The Faith Amid The Flames A Coptic Yalie Reflects on Egypt’s Church Today Ba her Isk a n der

They stormed the church like madmen. Armed with fire bombs, sticks, and stones, they destroyed everything they encountered while yelling “Allah’u Akbar!” Within a few minutes, the church bus and two cars were on fire, and the church itself was in flames. At the entrance, a man climbed atop the church gate where a cross was firmly fixed. He beat it violently, shoving and kicking it over and over as the mob waved their sticks in support. The cross finally gave in and toppled; the mob below roared with 24

approval. They crowded around the fallen cross and beat it even more with their sticks as if it were alive.

Avenged and victorious, they exited the church, carrying whatever valuables they could lay their hands on. A cloud of dark smoke rose as fire consumed yet another Christian house of worship. ***

In August of 2013, Egypt’s Christian minority experienced a wave of violence and terrorism — within

a period of two weeks, more than eighty churches were burned down or attacked by Islamic extremists.

Many Christian orphanages, schools, businesses, and monasteries were destroyed. Sometimes, like in the case of the Sohag Church described above, the violence was well-chronicled, but more often it went undocumented.

The danger was such that for the first time in centuries, the Coptic Patriarch, Pope Tawadros II, canceled all Church activities to ensure the safety of his congregations.

In Dalga, a village 270 miles south of Cairo, Christians were forced to convert or start paying the jizya, a tax historically levied by Muslims on non-Muslims. For the Christians living in Dalga, failure to pay meant the physical abuse or even death of family members, according to The Washington Post. Many families have fled the village, and others have left Egypt altogether. In the last three months, countries like the United States, Australia, and Canada have seen an unparalleled surge of Christian Egyptian immigrants and asylees.

Father Abraham Azmy, a priest for a local Coptic congregation in Hamden, Connecticut, noticed a rise in families joining his congregation.

“Since 2011, Copts have been coming in larger numbers, but recently it’s reached a peak. There is a new family almost every Sunday,” he said. It is now estimated that there are over one million Copts in the United States. ***

By far the largest remaining Christian minority in the Middle East, Coptic Christians belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. Their history stretches back to the first century CE, as Christianity was beginning to spread in the Roman Empire. Copts thrived in Egypt for some 600 years — producing notable religious figures like Antony and Athanasius and establishing countless monasteries and theological centers.

But the tide turned in the seventh century when the Islamic military conquests began. Within 300 years, Egypt’s majority Christian population shrank to a fraction of its former size. Coptic, the spoken language, was replaced with Arabic through a process known, perhaps with a generous eloquence, as Arabization. In response, the Church began conducting liturgies in Arabic and Coptic to make sure the language did not completely die out.

Today, Copts make up about 15 percent of Egypt’s 85 million people.

They have endured generations of persecution and prejudice. While Copts in Cairo deal with routine discrimination in employment and education, those in more rural areas fear kidnappings, mob attacks — and even church bombings.

On January 1, 2011, as worship-

A boy graffitis, “Boycott the Nazarenes,” on a church wall. Nazarene is a deragatory term for Christians.

pers were exiting the Two Saints Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, a bomb exploded. Within minutes of the New Year’s Eve liturgy, the bomb had killed more than twenty worshippers and maimed about 100. The event was splashed across newspapers around the globe, and protests ensued worldwide. The massacre underscored a lack of adequate protection by the Egyptian government. In response to an Al-Qaeda threat listing specific church names as targets, Coptic churches in the United States, Canada, and Europe were on high alert — with policemen securing each church.

This violence against Copts, however, should be understood in the larger context in which it occurs. Islamists often attack Copts as a means of rejecting the established army and its secular supporters. “Christians themselves are often not the target of the attacks, despite the fact that they are the ones who are harmed,” said Frank Griffel, chair of the Yale Council for Middle East Studies. “It is like hitting the client when in reality the target is the master.”

While this explanation underscores the interwoven nature of religion and politics in Egypt, it brings no consolation to Coptic Christians. They are tired of persecution. They are tired of their position in between a government that will not protect them and Islamists who will not tolerate them.

What’s more, they are tired of appeals to America falling on deaf ears. ***

As a Coptic Christian who moved to the U.S. a couple of years ago, I do not directly face the inequality or fear others in Egypt confront every day. My parents, older brother, and I immigrated to Sugar Land, Texas when I was twelve years old. As the name might suggest, our struggle in Sugar Land was quite different. It was one of overcoming language and cultural barriers. It was one of learning about the “personal space,” the “you can’t ask that,” the “fake it till you make it,” and all of the tacit rules that come with being an American.

Every year since we left Egypt, family members came to visit us. I’ve been back for three summers and I foresee myself returning one day to stay. In the last several years, however, stories of horror and suffering have come back from Egypt. To know that Egyptian Christians are suffering and that tight-knit families are separating in hopes of a safer, better future abroad would be disquieting to anyone, let alone a Copt like myself.

Just last summer, the brother of a member of my Houston church was kidnapped in Egypt. After hopeless attempts to coordinate search efforts with the police, his body was found weeks later, mutilated. A relative of my cousin’s wife was also kidnapped last summer. After receiving a ransom, the kidnappers spared his life. Such attacks on Copts are not at all uncommon. *** It was not always this way. Copts once fared well, both socially and 25

politically. In 1908, Boutros Ghali was appointed Egypt’s first Coptic Prime Minister — 84 years later, his grandson preceded Kofi Annan as Secretary-General of the United Nations. Likewise, it was not uncommon to find Copts in top courts or Parliament. There were times when most Muslims attended Coptic feasts and weddings and vice versa.

But in the last fifty years, Christians have been marginalized and forced out of politics. Whether deliberately or intuitively, Copts began to insulate themselves in churches and communities as a natural means for protection.

Of course, Christians and Muslims continued to cross religious boundaries during day-to-day encounters, but a noticeable divide remained.

Cherif Albert, a journalist for Egypt’s renowned Al-Ahram, suggested a variety of reasons for this evolution.

He pointed to the rise of Islamism in the late 1970s and imported versions of Islam from the Gulf countries. “For the first time,” he said, “Christians and Muslims began viewing each other not as fellow Egyptians but as ‘the other,’ Muslim or Christian.”

In 2011, however, this animosity was put on hold. The promise of democracy — later dubbed the “Arab Spring” — gripped Egypt and the entire Middle East. Nations spontaneously rose up in unprecedented numbers against their authoritarian governments. And it was contagious; within months, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen had ousted their autocrats, and major protests were underway in Jordan, Algeria, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman — as well as Syria.

In Egypt’s Tahrir (Liberation) Square, an extraordinary sense of unity prevailed. Verina Maher, a student at the American University in Cairo, recalled one chant that reverberated throughout Tahrir Square: “Eed Wahda! Eed Wahda!” “One hand!

One Hand!” Christians and Muslims, indeed, stood as one in their will to oust longtime President Hosni Mubarak. Dotting Cairo were posters of a cross inside the Islamic emblem, a crescent. Men and women, students and pensioners, and Christians and Muslims all protested side by side in a way that captivated the world’s attention. “There was no one looking at you and wondering whether you were a 26

Christian or a Muslim,” Maher said.

Following Mubarak’s ouster, the Muslim Brotherhood — an Islamist organization — dominated the political arena. The Brotherhood won an overwhelming majority of seats in Parliament, and the first president elected, Mohammad Morsi, hailed from their political party.

Founded in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood was formally banned under President Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1960s due to political motives and in response to Brotherhood-led assassinations and terrorist attacks.

This interdiction continued into Mubarak’s presidency. Eventually, in a tacit pact, Mubarak allowed them to enter the public space and Islamize the society through private media, mosques, and limited legislation on the condition that they stay largely out of the political arena. “In the meantime, Copts were used as a scapegoat to please them,” added Albert, the Al-Ahram journalist.

Mubarak’s ouster, however, was just the opportunity the Muslim Brotherhood had long waited for. They formed the “Freedom and Justice Party” to qualify for the upcoming elections. They promised to continue the country’s peace treaty with Israel. They pledged to keep airspace open for the American military and the Suez Canal open for trade. Their anti-American, anti-Israeli speech was hastily done away with.

According to Albert, this transformation led the Obama administration to tacitly support the Freedom and Justice Party following the 2011 parliamentary elections. The U.S. government, regarding the Brotherhood as a “moderate” Islamist government, envisioned using them as an interlocutor through which it could accomplish its agenda in the Middle East.

And in many ways, it did, but at a high cost. “Morsi did a lot of mistakes… his record of governance was so bad,” said Mohamed Elfayoumy, an Egyptian consul to the Syrian Opposition and a current Yale World Fellow.

It was so bad, in fact, that within a year of Morsi’s election, Egypt was in a worse state of turmoil than ever before.

By appointing loyal Brotherhood members to every position of power, Morsi effectively alienated all of Egypt’s polit-

ical parties — even the hardline Salafis, a fundamentalist Islamist group and a former Brotherhood ally.

What’s more, the economy was collapsing. According to The Economist, unemployment had reached a peak of 13 percent, GDP growth had decreased by 3 percent, the country’s foreign reserve currency had plummeted from $36 billion to $13 billion, and the value of the Egyptian pound had dropped significantly. There were daily power outages and fuel shortages.

Revenue from tourism was almost nonexistent. Food prices soared.

“The presidential election of 2012 produced a largely inexperienced leader who himself covered his incompetence with authoritarianism,” said

Coptic Christians protest violence against Egypt’s churches.

Griffel, the Yale scholar.

It was no shock, then, that when Egyptians began planning the “Tamarod” or “Rebel” campaign against Morsi, it spread like wildfire, garnering twenty million petition signatures — the same number of votes Morsi had received a year earlier — within weeks.

Egyptians, including many previous Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers, were ready to end the Brotherhood’s short-lived reign. On June 30, 2013, in what was described by the BBC as “the largest political event in history,” millions of Egyptians flooded the streets and demanded Morsi’s ouster. While no one was able to accurately pinpoint the number of protesters, all agreed on one fact: far more people showed up to oust

Morsi than had shown up to overthrow Mubarak two years earlier.

The Church in Egypt, however, carefully refrained from asking Copts to take to the streets. Had Coptic officials supported the “Rebel” movement, and it had ended in failure, all Christians would have been rendered as enemies of the state. Nonetheless, many Copts were still active in the peaceful protests. For them, it was an opportunity to end the political and economic disasters — as well as to revive sentiments of equality and social justice from the 2011 revolution.

After giving Morsi an ultimatum — which he promptly declined — the army decided to oust him. Pope Tawadros accepted an invitation to

appear with General Fattah el-Sisi, the Morsi-appointed army chief, and Ahmed el-Tayeb, the Sunni Grand Imam and a former Grand Mufti of Egypt, to announce to the world the end of Morsi’s one-year rule.

The repercussions of his ousting, however, soon proved horrid for Christians. Angry mobs of extremist Brotherhood supporters stormed churches, Christian schools, businesses, and orphanages, rightly accusing Copts of supporting the military. Although the vast majority of Muslims did not engage in violence against Copts, many Islamic preachers and public figures alleged that Copts had initiated the “Rebel” campaign against Morsi. It was a canny way to discredit the popular movement 27

and portray it as a Christian conspiracy — not only against the Islamist government but against Islam itself.

Human rights groups around the world quickly began investigations into the attacks on Egypt’s Christians.

Amnesty International, for instance, called on the Egyptian military to “take immediate steps to ensure the safety of Egypt’s Coptic Christians” after what they described as “an unprecedented rise in sectarian violence across the country.” The European Union, Canadian and Australian governments, and even Republican leaders in the United States also condemned the violence against Copts in Egypt. Yet the White House remained silent. ***

At a place like Yale, I am conflicted. I see the unabashed allegiance most students have for President Obama and his administration. I feel the scorn they have for hard-right politicians and their media backers like Fox News. But for me — the only Coptic Yalie — these conservative talking heads were the ones that formed an envoy of eight Representatives and traveled to Egypt to visit the Pope and condemn the attacks. These right-wing media outlets, such as Fox and The Wall Street

Copts praying in their recently burnt church.

28

Journal, were the ones that aired and discussed our burning churches. They were the ones that brought to light the horrendous crimes endured by my people, and pushed for action.

My background as a Copt informs and shapes my attitude on America’s foreign policy in Egypt. And for many Copts, like myself, the President, Secretary of State John Kerry, and large media outlets like CNN were too busy condemning Egypt’s military, too busy wondering if a “coup” had indeed occurred.

While the United States continues to provide some assistance for health, education, and border management initiatives to Egypt, the 2013 fiscal year is the first since Egypt recognized the state of Israel that the U.S. will withhold military aid. This comes at a time when the situation in Egypt is so precarious and its citizens so desperate for support and stability. ***

“Why are you ignoring us?” asked Father Abraham, sitting in his Hamden church, surrounded by books and beautiful icons. “We could’ve been another Syria,” he said, referring to the atrocities committed against Syria’s Christian minority by rebel forces.

I had asked him what he would tell Americans, if he had one chance to speak with the country at large. Perhaps surprisingly, given the situation Copts face in Egypt, he was calm, even hopeful. “I think it’s getting much better. The Muslim Brotherhood and all Islamists were exposed — many Muslims are now sympathizing with the Copts.”

When asked what his wish would be for Egypt, Father Abraham replied, “I just want Copts to be equal to Muslims in everything.” I asked him if he thought that was ever possible. “I know it’s not possible, but that is my wish,” he said.

Nevertheless, there are stirrings of tolerance — even fraternity — amid the terrors of the last few years. After the church of the Two Saints was bombed, hundreds of Muslims surrounded Egyptian churches as a human shield. The same act occurred after the Sohag Church sacking last August.

Although Mohamed Elfayoumy, the Egyptian consul, agrees that full equality is unlikely, he does not believe it is impossible. “It’s a dream, and it’s a hard one to achieve,” he said. “It will take a lot of time.”

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29

The Odd Couple Why is Israel so strongly supporting the fledgling nation of South Sudan?

Sa m a n t h a G ardn er

Zaki Djemal, the former North American director of IsraAID, in South Sudan with South Sudanese refugees.

“I can’t tell you where they got them,” remarks Simon Deng, a South Sudanese activist, “but immediately after it was announced that Israel had recognized South Sudan, the streets of Juba were full of people waving small Israeli flags.”

Two years later, Juba, the capital of the newly-independent South Sudan, presents a remarkably pro-Israel scene: there is a neighborhood named Chai Jerusalem, the Shalom Hotel, and cars boasting three flags — those of South Sudan, the United States, and Israel.

The world’s youngest nation, 30

South Sudan officially declared its independence from Sudan on July 9, 2011, following a referendum which garnered approval from 99 percent of voters. Fewer than 24 hours elapsed before Israel recognized the new nation. Within a month, the two countries established full diplomatic relations. During an official state visit to Israel the following December, South Sudanese President Salva Kiir Mayardit met Israeli President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But Kiir’s strongest gesture came in the form of his announce-

ment that South Sudan would build an embassy in the contested streets of Jerusalem, a city claimed by many cultures and religions as a holy site. In an effort to avoid controversy, nearly every nation with a foothold in Israel — including the U.S. — has deliberately placed its embassy in Tel Aviv.

“In the long term, Southern Sudan is going to be the biggest, strongest ally to Israel in the continent of Africa,” predicts Deng. “What Southern Sudan will give to Israel will depend on what the Southern Sudanese have, and [it will] depend on what

Israel needs from Southern Sudan. On the South Sudanese part, the relationship is unshakable. It is relationship a between two friends.”

While this friendship has only recently entered the public spotlight, it stems from political roots first cultivated some fifty years ago. By aiding the Southern Sudanese people, Israel has earned itself a strategically-located partner, which one day could offer substantial economic returns. ***

The two countries’ relationship is now public, but it is hardly new.

Israel has quietly aided the predominantly Christian and animist southern Sudanese rebels in their fight against the Islamic north since the late 1960s.

Israel has no diplomatic relations with North Sudan, which forbids its citizens from visiting Israel. While neither Israel nor South Sudan has officially acknowledged any weapon transfers, it is widely accepted that Israel provided critical aid to the southern rebels during Sudan’s two civil wars, which raged from 1955-1972 and 1983-2005.

Impressed by Israel’s successes in the 1967 Six Day War and attracted by their similar security challenges, southern rebel army leaders sought Israel’s assistance. General Joseph Lagu, the founder and commander of the first civil war’s rebel group, Anya Nya, wrote a letter to then-Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol: “We have a common concern, and that is fighting the Arabs.”

Lagu argued that Anya Naga could prevent the Sudanese forces from strengthening the Arab fighters in Israel — with Israel’s support.

“They called everybody in the world to help them, and nobody did anything about it,” Haim Koren, the Israeli Ambassador to South Sudan, remarks to The Politic. “They described their situation and said, ‘Nobody wants to help us, can you do that?’” He continues, “We brought their leader, at the time, from the South to Jerusalem. He met our Prime Minister, Golda Meir, and she said: ‘We have to help them.’ So from the year ’69, we were the only country in the world that helped them to survive against the North. That, they don’t forget.”

Just as the southern Sudanese likened their security situation to

Israel’s, Amir Sagron, who formerly worked under Koren in the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, explains that Israel also “felt a resemblance to the [South Sudanese] situation: a non-Muslim nation, a small one, figuring out how to live inside this turmoil of Islamic radicalism around them. If you ask me, it was really natural that they turn[ed] to us.” Wary of extremist, Islamic governments, Israel jumped at the chance to assist South Sudan.

Many South Sudanese attribute their military perseverance to Israel’s assistance. A South Sudanese student studying in America, who preferred to remain anonymous, remembers his father — a military commander — explained that Israel provided their weapons.

“Personally, I would do anything to help the Israeli cause,” the student affirms, “seeing how much they helped us in our cause.” In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, Lagu claimed that although international arms dealers and Congolese rebels also supplied weapons, Israel’s truly “tipped the scales.”

Yet Israeli aid was actually relatively minimal. “It was not a big amount of funding, we mainly gave them training and guidance from the 1960s, and they know how about how to defend themselves when fighting against an army,” Koren grants. Israelis sent Soviet-made munitions seized from Arab forces, saving the nation money and decreasing the likelihood of being held responsible for arms shipments. “Occasionally, you’ll run into someone with an Israeli name, named after someone who worked with an operative” — like the technician or doctor Israel sent — says Zaki Djemal, the former North American Regional Director for IsraAID, a privately-funded civic organization present in over forty developing countries.

“The South Sudanese still remember the time when Israel was very supportive,” he continues. “My understanding is that the actual support in terms of numbers was quite minimal. But in the collective memory, it’s my sense, that it became much more important than it actually was.”

Salva Kiir Mayardit, the President of South Sudan.

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***

It is unlikely that Israeli aid was continuous since the 1960s, but after South Sudan became an independent state, both private and public Israeli donors substantially increased their support. The Israeli government backs South Sudanese agriculture and infrastructure, two severely underdeveloped sectors.

“We inherited almost nothing; they really had to start from scratch,” Susan D. Page, U.S. Ambassador to South Sudan, told The Politic in summer 2013. “We are not talking about just ordering some new furniture — they didn’t have pens, papers, and stationery, let alone computers, electricity, and running water, vehicles, roads.

It certainly is nation-building.” Israel can offer the lessons it has learned regarding: “agriculture, water management, post-trauma assistance, massive return and integration of diaspora/ refugees, to name just a few,” Ophelie

A map of Sudan’s oil fields and pipelines.

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Namiech, IsraAID’s country director in South Sudan, writes via email.

The Christian Science Monitor reports that South Sudan is projected to become one of Africa’s largest food producers. Israel may one day be able to import crops from the African state.

However, to this day, most communities barely produce enough to subsist, and the FAO-WFP has imported emergency aid to fill the “cereal gap.”

Israel has focused on improving cultivation methods and transporting crops to markets, but this will not alleviate the problems that the South Sudanese student sees plaguing agriculture: “[D]uring the war, the government threw a lot of landmines over productive places, which people are still trying to demine.” He observed many refugees who became psychologically dependent on food provided in camps and hesitate to resume farming: “It’s been really hard to convince people: ‘You need to go back and till the

land, there are no more landmines,’” the student regrets.

In addition to their government’s assistance, Israeli individuals fund IsraAID, which is devoted to furthering women’s rights in South Sudan.

IsraAID decided to focus on gender-based violence in a country where women cannot legally own property in South Sudan but are themselves used to compensate for debts. “We are essentially working with the Ministry of Gender and Social Development, the Police, and several community-based organizations,” writes Namiech.

“We are thinking about the whole issue, and we cannot do it in a month or at the moment.” Koren remarks. “We are just starting.” ***

Israel’s generosity is commendable, but one must wonder why the Middle Eastern nation is so eager to help the new nation, so distant from its borders.

“We know that we can help,” explains Sagron. “But let’s not be naïve; the second interest is economic… the fact that Israel doesn’t have oil.”

When South Sudan seceded from Sudan, it took about 80 percent of the formerly-united country’s oil reserves — approximately 6.6 billion barrels.

Israel, on the other hand, depends on imported oil. In January 2013, South Sudan signed a promissory agreement with a number of Israeli oil companies.

Yet this agreement is unlikely to provide immediate economic benefits for either country. Most of the oil fields lie in the disputed territory between Sudan and South Sudan, where violent clashes have raged since 2011. And even if the disputes are settled, South Sudan currently has no way to export its oil except through the Khartoum-controlled pipeline to Sudan. The newly split nations heatedly debate the pipeline’s use; it was nearly shut down in September, which would have led to extreme financial losses and damage to the pipeline.

President Kiir has considered constructing a pipeline through Kenya, but this may not be ready until 2030.

Koren is right to be pragmatic about the prospect of importing South Sudan’s oil. “I think that [importing South Sudanese oil] might be possi-

Volunteers arriving in South Sudan.

ble — with a careful, slow process,” he comments, “with listening and being aware of the difficulties.”

If the first two reasons for Israel’s support are humanitarian and economic, Sagron points out, “the third factor is strategic.” Sudan is located on the Red Sea, which has a “direct path to Israel.” And the Red Sea poses problems for Europeans, Americans, and Israelis alike.

“There are pirates, mainly from Somalia, and countries like Iran trying to sweep in to deliver bombs and weapons,” he explains. “You can see why Israel would want to be involved in the region. If we are just working with Egypt, sometimes it’s too late. When you see Iran and the Gulf nearby, you can understand why Israel needs to have the ability to defend itself.”

Some argue that an alliance with South Sudan will enable Israel to monitor weapon transfers from Iran, through Sudan, and finally to Hamas in Gaza. Israel calls Sudan a base for Islamic militants. While Koren dismisses the idea that intelligence may be

part of Israel’s South Sudanese strategy, he does acknowledge the benefit of an ally in the region: “if you are located so close to Sudan… it gives you a very good, a very different perspective.”

Deng, the South Sudanese activist, believes South Sudan’s upstream position on the Nile can even stabilize Israel’s relations with Egypt.

“Egypt needs South Sudan because of water. More than anything else, their life depends on the Nile,” he says.

Regional water politics are so important that Egypt opposed South Sudan’s independence. Yet, this issue is seldom discussed, and Koren laughs that he has not heard it before: “We have enough issues with Egypt; we don’t need South Sudan to help us with that bilateral relationship.”

South Sudan’s location is strategic for yet another reason. It falls within the East African Christian alliance that Israel has sought to build, as radical Islam has spread in the region. “South Sudan cannot directly help Israel,” Koren reiterates, “but it is strategically located in a place together

with countries like Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia. That is a kind of corridor of Christianity in Africa — that works together with the West, usually.” ***

Every relationship occasionally has problems, and this odd couple is no exception.

When South Sudan gained independence, President Kiir welcomed South Sudan’s displaced citizens.

Overwhelmed by swelling numbers of African refugees, and the widely publicized violence associated with them in South Tel Aviv, Israel immediately planned the return of the South Sudanese — who the Israeli Supreme Court had declared were no longer refugees.

The Israeli Interior Minister, Eli Yishai, announced in February 2012 that South Sudanese nationals must be repatriated by March. The South Sudanese could claim $1,300 and a plane ticket if they voluntarily resettled, or were forcibly deported if they refused.

Over the next two months, Israel sent the approximately 1,000 South Suda33

IsraAID volunteers in South Sudan.

nese who had come as refugees — some of whom had lived there for seven years — back to South Sudan.

The media widely criticized the way that Israel handled the situation. In June, the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv reported that 22 of the refugees returned to South Sudan had since died due to medical problems contracted in the underdeveloped state. Many of those quoted in the article disparaged Israel for failing to prepare the South Sudanese for their destination.

Deng, however, rejects the notion that it has had any effect on the South Sudanese sentiment toward Israel.

“When 2011 came and South Sudan became independent, nobody had any argument that the South Sudanese should not go back to their own country,” he says. Deng further asserted, “The relationship between South Sudan and Israel is not based on the refugees. It is a very long, solid friendship that is going to be there forever.”

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***

Despite the strong partnership, South Sudan and Israel are not in equal positions to contribute. From Israel, South Sudan receives muchneeded aid and institutional support.

It aspires to repay its ally. From South Sudan, Israel can only hope to obtain security benefits and, perhaps one day, economic benefits, too.

According to Deng, “The way that Israel has an ally in the United States, Southern Sudan [sic] is going to be that ally for Israel. Southern Sudan will not be silent when Israel is being bullied by their neighbors. When Israel is being bullied by its neighbors, they are bullying Southern Sudan itself.”

If South Sudan fulfills the highest expectations, Israel will reap immense economic and military benefits from its indebted ally. If it lags behind, like many of its African neighbors, the relationship is unlikely to change: Israel will continue

exchanging small amounts of aid for a strategic foothold in Africa and words of praise and promise. Meanwhile, the South Sudanese people continue to feel indebted to Israel.

As Lagu, the Anya Nya General, said to the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, Israel’s assistance helped “set us on the path to where we are today, and that will never be forgotten.”

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35

After Blackhawk Down An Interview with Ambassador Robert Gosende Eli z abe t h Mile s & J ust i n Sch ust er Ambassador Robert R. Gosende served for 36 years in the Foreign Service, in the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) and the Department of State. Gosende served as President Bill Clinton’s Special Envoy for Somalia, with the personal rank of Ambassador, at the height of the country’s crisis in 1992-93. In 1994, he was Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, directing the U.S. Government’s support of the first multi-racial elections held in South Africa in April of that year. Following his career in the Foreign Service, Gosende served as Associate Vice Chancellor for International Programs at The State University of New York (SUNY) and as the John W. Ryan Fellow in Public Diplomacy at SUNY Albany. Gosende received Presidential Awards from Presidents Bush and Clinton for his service as USIA’s Director for African Affairs and as the President’s Special Envoy for Somalia.

TP From 1966-1968, you served as

the Assistant Cultural Affairs Officer in Tripoli, Libya, and you

departed the country one year

before Muammar Gaddafi’s over throw of King Idris. Could you

hear the war drums beginning

to sound by the time you left Libya one year prior to the coup?

RG Yes, though it is all much clearer now than it was in foresight. We were scheduled to arrive in Tripoli on June 6, 1967. Halfway through the flight from London, the plane made a 180 degree turn, and the pilot announced we had lost our landing rights in 36

Tripoli and we would be returning to London. June 6, 1967 was the day the Arab-Israeli war broke out, and shooting was going on in Tripoli, so we went back to London for some time.

That was my first experience in the diplomatic service. It was, to say the least, an eye-opener.

In 1952, the United Nations declared Libya to be one of the three or four poorest countries in the world.

They had exports of maybe $300,000 each year. But then they discovered oil.

They didn’t discover a little oil; they discovered more oil than anyone could imagine. Occidental Oil Company brought in the world’s single largest

producing well in the desert of Libya.

This single well produced over 170,000 barrels of oil a day. The wealth was mind-boggling. Oil wells are not something that lead to democratic development in a country.

The port of Tripoli could handle four ocean freighters at a time when we got there in the 1960s. Offshore there would be, anchored, maybe forty waiting to get into the port. Running around the port were representatives of American oil companies trying to pay off the harbor managers to get the ships in. The corruption was rampant, and there were constant rumors about potential overthrows.

Of course, there were warning signs.

TP

What are the biggest ways in which Libya has changed since you departed from your post over forty years ago?

RG It changed vitally a year after we left Tripoli, when Gaddafi overthrew Idris. The country then went into a spiral of madness because Gaddafi was crazy. It was horrible, and it was unpredictable. There was no real central government in Libya. There was no central police force. There was no central authority. That impact resonates to this very day.

TP Ambassador Marc Grossman,

a Yale professor, spoke with The

Politic recently about a trend he

had noticed with regards to

embassies overseas. Embassies,

whether they be in Benghazi or Iraq or Pakistan, have moved

toward a more fortress mentality,

for the obvious need of security.

But it has also come at the cost

of cutting the embassy off from

the people in the civilization

around it. In these troubled and

dangerous security areas,

how do you balance the need for

security with the equally

important need to integrate an American presence?

RG First of all, in Benghazi, there was no fortress to get by when this happened. The fort didn’t work. People got right on the site, they poured fuel on the fort, set it on fire, and then the Ambassador suffocated inside the building. So he was killed at the consulate but that consulate was hardly a fortress. That consulate was a wretched villa — a wretched house on a large compound. They had thrown up some barbed wire, but there was no real security available at that place.

My God, it’s mind boggling. So, yes, Ambassador Grossman speaks about how we have created fortresses all over the world to protect our diplomats and how we diplomats now live and work inside those fortresses. And, for all intents and purposes, diplomats are cut off from the people of the country in which they are serving. That is an absolutely horrible situation. We need to get outside those fortresses. We need to take reasonable risk. But what I’m

saying about Benghazi is that the risk was unreasonable. It was beyond detail.

TP Transitioning to another area of

your career, you served in South Africa from 1970 to 1974 and

then from 1983 to 1986. Could

you describe the mood of the

nation in the heat of apartheid?

Is there a particular memory

that stands out to you that

encapsulates the divisiveness of

the country at that time?

RG South Africa, however horrible things are now, they’re not nearly as bad as everyone predicted they would be. People regularly said there would not be peace in South Africa without bloodshed — that black people would try to kill all the white people. That didn’t happen. When I first served in South Africa in 1970, I never believed that it would happen. I always believed that the black people would peacefully work for change if given the opportunity to do so. And, thank goodness, in April 1994, they got that opportunity.

They elected Nelson Mandela, the first black president in elections that were almost completely free. So, that was a great success for South Africa — that they went through this change without violence. How did the country change? In the end, the Afrikaners were convinced that they couldn’t kill everybody and they couldn’t go on with apartheid. The person who led that change more than anyone was De Klerk, the last white prime minister.

To his credit, he and his cabinet began to open things up, and Mandela was released. They realized, I think, that it just couldn’t go on. It was likely to lead to terrible violence.

TP You served in Somalia from 1992

to 1993 as President Clinton’s

special envoy at which point you

obtained the rank of ambassador.

During this time, there was a

significant amount of strife going

on, most commonly represented

in the United States as the Battle

for Mogadishu. Is there any single

memory that stands out to you

most from this assignment?

RG Somalia was the most difficult thing that I was ever asked to do in the

Foreign Service. What stands out to me was how many people were killed.

What stands out — what rings in your ears for the rest of your life — is the question of whether or not there was something we could have done differently that would have avoided so many people being killed. And I don’t mean only Americans — I mean Somalis too.

War is the ultimate example of chaos.

There will be military experts who will say “this is the tactic we were using” — I have been in the army, and believe me, what was going on was chaos. The people who thought they knew what was going to happen next had no clue what was going to happen next. It was the least civil country we were in, and from the development point of view, it was totally destroyed. All of Somalia’s electricity and telephone wires were ripped out and sold for scrap. Can you imagine — every single piece of development in the country was laid waste to. That’s pretty much where it lies now. Somalia is still a failed state.

There’ve been some murmurings now that things are changing. We are now setting up an embassy in the airport, but the country has gone through some twenty years of absolute hell. Just hell.

The way in which things played out made it impossible for me to be appointed ambassador anywhere after that. What I mean by that is, Somalia was seen to have been a mistake pretty quickly after Black Hawk was shot down. The way ambassadors are appointed is that the administration identifies someone they want to send somewhere, and they send that person’s name to the Senate Foreign Relations committee for confirmation. They weren’t going to send my name up to the Hill to be ambassador anywhere, because the first thing people were going to be asking was oh, tell us Mr. Ambassador — what’s going on in Somalia? And the administration didn’t want to talk about that with Congress anymore. The bureaucratic reality was, I wasn’t going to go on to be ambassador anywhere.

For the full text of this interview, visit www.thepolitic.org P

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The Fightin’ 56th What can national Democrats learn from a state house race in Kentucky?

A le x Pe tros

I stood in front of the Nonesuch Community Gas Station/Grocery Store/ Community Church in rural Woodford County, KY, waving a “James Kay for 56th District State Representative” sign to direct supporters to a cookout farther down the road. On the surface, it was among the most menial tasks of my summer internship for the Kentucky Democratic Party. Diving deeper, however, that sign waving — and everything at stake in that election — spoke volumes about the survival of the Democratic Party in the South. ***

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It was a three-way race.

I worked for the Democratic

candidate, thirty-year-old James Kay II, whose youth and political inexperience were constant lines of attack. Republican Lyen Crews and Independent John-Mark Hack also ran in the special election, convened after the previous 56th district representative, Carl Rollins (D-Midway), resigned to accept a post as head of the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority.

The 56th mainly encompasses Woodford County, a rural area between the city of Lexington and Frankfort, the state capital. In Woodford County, the sheriff is known as “Tiny,” the judge-executive is “Bear,” and gas stations/grocery stores/community churches are consolidated in a single

building. The district has a Democratic registration advantage, but broke big for both Mitt Romney and GOP U.S. Congressman Andy Barr in 2012.

This election was going to be a tight one.

At first glance, Kentucky might seem like a Republican stronghold in an equally Republican South, but the truth is much more complex. Since the Tea Party wave of 2010, Kentucky is the only Southern state with a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives.

The state also has a long line of Democratic governors. The current one, Democrat Steve Beshear, has a 60 percent approval rating and won re-election in a landslide despite aggressive imple-

mentation of the Affordable Care Act and an early endorsement of Obama.

The dichotomy between support for local Democrats and support for national Republicans in Kentucky is striking. The state’s two senators are Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Tea Party darling Rand Paul, two of the country’s most vocal conservatives.

The U.S. House delegation includes five hardline conservatives and just a single Democrat. Kentucky cast the first eight electoral votes for George Bush (twice), John McCain, and Mitt Romney, called mere minutes after the polls closed. Even among Kentucky Democrats, support for the national party is lacking, to say the least. In 2012, President Obama received just 58 percent of the vote in the state’s Democratic presidential primary. The other 42 percent opted instead to check an “uncommitted” box.

“Kentucky Democrats share with the national party a concern over issues of economic justice and equality, but differ mainly with the national party on social and cultural issues,” Dan Logsdon, chair of the Kentucky Democratic Party, told The Politic.

There are indeed issues in Kentucky for which practically no local Democrat would align himself with the national party; the most powerful of these is coal. Much of rural Kentucky’s economy is dependent on coal mining, and the state balks at any sort of regulation or climate change standard. The vast majority of Kentucky’s legislators, on both sides of the aisle, have a strong pro-coal stance.

“The environment is an important issue for national Democrats,” said John Henderson, a Yale University Political Science Professor and an expert in southern politics. “But local ones are wary of making it a big issue.”

Kentucky Republicans’ strongest attack line is almost always to tie their Democratic opponents to national Democratic leaders. Every race, from big U.S. Senate contests to small house elections in the 56th district, is rife with national innuendos. “Candidate X is Nancy Pelosi’s yes-man!” “Candidate Y is Harry Reid’s lapdog!” “Candidate Z is a rubber-stamp for the liberal Obama agenda!”

The massive amount of money raised and spent by both sides set the

56th district race apart from other local races. Because the election took place over a small, relatively rural area, fundraisers weren’t black tie affairs, but rather combinations of skeet shoots, teas and barbecues. And although they may not have been solicited from the Obama campaign’s massive donor email list, contributions were certainly pouring in. “I was able to raise money from many sources across the state without competing with other candidates,” Kay told The Politic. His campaign doubled the money his Republican challenger raised, yet was outspent by nearly $100,000 due to a flood of Super PAC donations.

“The Republican candidate had two Super PACs spending money on his behalf which in total was over $200,000,” said Chad Aull, Kay’s campaign manager.

Though a relatively small sum in national political terms, this was a huge amount for a special election for a state house race; there were a total of only 8,915 votes cast. As Aull said of the Super PAC involvement, “This, along with the high profile nature of the race, caused it to be the most expensive state house race in the history of Kentucky.” Between the three candidates, more than $550,000 was spent on the election. The average amount spent on a Kentucky state house race is just $36,054.

The outside money “meant that people couldn’t watch TV without seeing commercials,” Kay said. “It meant that mailboxes were full of flyers and pamphlets. It meant that lies spread and personal attacks were levied publicly regardless of truth or transparency as to where the money came from.”

Yet when the polls closed on June 25, Kay pulled out a victory by more than 10 points. Grassroots support and a superior Get-Out-the-Vote operation, coupled with an affable and well-known candidate, meant the seat would stay in Democratic hands.

Turnout, at more than 29 percent, was higher than expected.

“I think we saw a triumph of local politics over personal attacks and baseless rhetoric,” said now-Representative Kay.

When asked about the future of the Democratic Party in both Kentucky and the South, Logsdon was similarly

optimistic. “The future of Democrats in Kentucky is more positive than many on the outside believe,” he said. “[W] e will weather our existing challenges with the unpopularity of the national party and are poised for gains once the pendulum inevitably swings back.”

Henderson agrees. “The Democratic Party used to be dominate in the South, but has receded in recent years.

While they have most likely lost southern conservative whites, they will pick up demographic shifts, particularly the Hispanic vote. By 2040, Hispanics will be a plurality in Texas. The South will change in a way to benefit Democrats.” ***

The fight to maintain a Democratic presence in the South, indeed, will soon play out on a national scale.

In 2014, Democrats will defend Senate seats in North Carolina, Arkansas and Louisiana. A host of tight U.S. House and gubernatorial races will also be on the line. And in Kentucky, Sen. McConnell will take on (presumptive) Democratic nominee and current Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, in what could be the most closely-watched Congressional race in the country. McConnell is a fierce campaigner and has the advantage of an established campaign infrastructure and a massive war chest, yet is hobbled by increasing unpopularity in the state.

Grimes, like Kay in the 56th district, will seek to distance herself from national Democrats and tie McConnell in with radical wings of the Tea Party. And like Kay, she will face biting personal attacks and a huge fundraising gap. The lessons of the 56th district — that dogged, local campaigning can overcome outside money — might just be the key to a Grimes victory.

That, and maybe an enthusiastic intern waving a sign for her in Nonesuch.

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Elephants in the Room Given the similarities of New Haven Democrats and Republicans, can the GOP find its niche?

R h ys Du bi n

Republican Ward 1 alder candidate Paul Chandler ‘14 speaks with Yale students.

While national lawmakers lock horns over healthcare and debt, candidates for the New Haven Board of Alders are struggling to distinguish their policy positions. According to local voters, the candidates —avowed liberals and self-identified conservatives alike — sound almost identical. Though an unprecedented four non-Democrats have stepped up to run in the traditionally Democratic Wards 1, 6, 8, and 10, it seems that nobody is interested in being an ideologue. In fact, the distinction between Democrat and Republican in local New Haven politics may be, at most, a rhetorical façade.

The Board of Alders is faced with questions of immediate and tangible importance: crime, poverty, youth and 40

senior services — all within the immediate confines of a relatively small city. In theory at least, taking a stand on these issues does not require the partisan grandstanding that usually comes with the label of Democrat and Republican.

“You can’t really take these hardline press stances that you might if you were dealing with issues on a federal level because they’re so much more complex,” Paul Chandler, the Republican alder candidate in Ward 1, explained. “It’s a lot more of a role in the community.”

Nevertheless, New Haven is a decidedly one-party town. Aside from the uncontested position of Republican registrar of voters, every one of the city’s elected officials — including all

thirty current alders — is a Democrat.

Registered New Haven Democrats, indeed, outnumber Republicans by a margin of about 18 to 1.

Chandler ’14, is the first Republican to run in Ward 1 in 26 years.

The Democratic Party’s decades-long grip on Ward 1 is not surprising; the population of Ward 1 consists primarily of students from Yale, a fairly liberal university located within an overwhelmingly liberal city. The Yale College Republicans (YCR) decided to field Chandler in a moment of political pragmatism, believing that his moderate positions would jive well with Yale’s liberal streak.

“We considered an ideological campaign, just to make a statement,”

said Austin Schaefer ’15, chairman of the YCR. “[However,] that’s not what we’re doing. We’re actually trying to run somebody we think can win.”

According to Richter Elser, New Haven’s GOP town chairman, local Republicans all across the Northeast are more moderate than their counterparts in other part of the country. “Traditionally, New England Republicans tend to be much more fiscally-oriented than socially-oriented,” he said. “So for New England states in general — I can’t think of an example when they have supported a Tea Party-esque Republican.”

Given the national party’s recent strides away from this moderate regional mindset, Chandler has emphasized that he is not a “capital R” Republican. “I think even on those little issues, conservatives, liberals, Democrats, Republicans, whatever you may define yourself as, agree most of the time.” ***

This trend within the New Haven GOP is certainly not confined to Ward 1. Frank Lobo, the Republican challenger in Ward 6, explained that he is “very eager to point out that Republican and Democratic issues on the national level have nothing to do with local politics. None of us that are running for the board of alderman is going to distract at all from the good governance of New Haven.”

Andy Ross, the Republican candidate for Ward 8, in an interview with the The Politic claimed, “Given the way that the [national] Republican Party has been going for the past four years or more, I haven’t identified myself with them for a long time.” Though he labels himself a fiscal conservative, he said that his views are not so rigid as to impact worthy social programs in New Haven. “Locally, I’m a strict moderate, I’m a centrist, I’m down the middle.

I’m a very socially compassionate person,” he affirmed.

“Everything comes down to living within our means,” Lobo said, trying to explain the partisan difference in the city. “Republicans of course want city services, but it has to be done with a budget that is within the means available, not taxing people to fulfill a wish-list.”

Ward 1 Alder Sarah Eidelson ’12, however, maintained that Democrats

The Yale College Democrats, shown here in 2012, have coalesced around Eidelson.

have the edge when it comes to issues of fiscal responsibility. “I think you’d be hard-pressed to find an alder who doesn’t think fiscal responsibility is extremely important.”

Yet for other topics such as public safety and education, there appears to be even less disagreement. Upon reading each campaign’s literature on these issues, one could reasonably conclude that the Republican and Democratic candidates all recruited the same person to write their copy. For example, Ward 8’s Andy Ross and Democratic candidate Aaron Greenberg both support expanding community policing, reforming public schools, spreading development out to other areas of New Haven, and improving New Haven’s physical image through efforts to clean up litter and repair sidewalks. In fact, when asked what distinguishes his policy views from those of his opponent, Ross told The Politic, “I don’t know really. I don’t know where [Greenberg] is on a lot of matters.”

Remarkably, during a two-hour debate between the Ward 8 candidates, there were only two significant policy disagreements between Greenberg and Ross: Ross’s recommendation for a mandatory curfew for juveniles, which Greenberg attacked as being draconian,

and Greenberg’s support for revising the city charter to have two elected members on the school board, which Ross saw as conducive to corruption.

These, of course, are hardly the partisan disputes that we have come to expect between a Republican and a Democrat. But given the city’s strong Democratic bent, it remains to be seen whether even relatively moderate Republicans will be able to break through. After all, there has to be a reason for New Haven voters to support the GOP on November 5, and an “R” next to a name will most likely not cut it. ***

Perhaps realizing the striking similarities between the two Ward 1 candidates, the Chandler campaign has looked to take a clear stance on pre-existing squabbles amongst liberal New Havenites. Occasional divisions within the New Haven Democratic Party that have less to do with issues of concrete politics than with problems of influence and money. But the Chandler campaign has attempted to bring this debate to the fore with the question of union involvement in Ward 1 politics.

Over the past several years, Mayor John DeStefano’s fiscal policies, including layoffs of city workers and 41

calls for concessions in terms of benefits and pensions, have sparked obvious discontent amongst labor organizations. As a result, unions representing Yale employees have worked to recruit candidates and funnel money into aldermanic campaigns, with the goal of strengthening the board’s resistance to DeStefano. Their efforts have paid off: in the 2011 election, fourteen of the fifteen union-backed candidates won their alder races. Their influence, however, has left some candidates across the city dissatisfied. Doug Hausladen ’04, Ward 7 alder and the founder of Take Back New Haven, is one noteworthy example.

Insofar as Local 34 and 35 — Yale’s pink- and blue-collar labor unions — are a focal point for some kind of discontent, relatively few voters seem to express much dissatisfaction

with their policy proposals. New Haven Republicans, however, are determined to make their influence and involvement a larger issue during the campaign cycle.

“I just think you have to be careful when anybody is on both sides of the table in bargaining, or when any kind of supermajority is in power because, it’s not a genuine representative situation,” said Chandler.

In fact, this seems to be one of the main rhetorical fault lines cultivated in the Ward 1 election. Chandler campaign posters, which are nearly ubiquitous on campus billboards, read, “Alderwoman Eidelson has voted consistently with the Local 34 union block that employs her.” Ben Mallett ’16, Chandler’s campaign manager, further asserted that Eidelson’s campaign “is being financed by and is very much

Yale University students have actively participated in the election, both as supporters and as candidates.

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beholden to the unions in New Haven.”

The distinction in municipal politics, he emphasized, “isn’t between Republicans and Democrats. It’s between big special interests, unions, and independent-minded politicians.”

Eidelson, on the other hand, responded unequivocally to the Chandler campaign’s allegations. “My campaign hasn’t received any funding from political action committees or special interests,” she told The Politic.

“It’s been entirely individuals.” She also emphasized that her job for Local 34 as a graphic designer was strictly “separate from [her] leadership on the board,” a fact backed up by her campaign finance statements.

Yet even the issue of union involvement does not seem to be a universal aspect of Republican rhetoric.

When asked, Lobo commented briefly about the possible “harm” of such a powerful interest group on the Board, but went on to detail his support for strong unions. Andy Ross, the Ward 8 Republican candidate running against the union-backed Aaron Greenberg, holds a similarly tepid position. While he expressed concern that their numbers and money might exert an undue influence, he ultimately highlighted his respect for their involvement in local politics.

Ross and Lobo, it seems, are instead hoping that rifts within the Democratic Party will carry them over the finish line on Election Day. Indeed, up until this election cycle, political discontent was mostly confined to the Democratic Party, leaving many New Haven voters dissatisfied and looking for a real source of external antagonism.

In the 2011 Ward 1 race, for instance, the Yale College Democrats refused to endorse either Vinay Nayak or Sarah Eidelson. Several sources that chose to speak off the record expressed a desire for a clear opposition so that Democrats wouldn’t “eat their own,” and the entrance of several officially designated Republicans into races across the city opens the possibility of a shift in the dynamics of political debate on several spectrums.

“I’ve had a lot of fellow citizens of Ward 6 say that they are looking for open dialogue in City Hall,” said Lobo.

On the other side of the aisle, Nicole

A protest for union recognition on Yale’s campus.

Hobbs, President of the Yale Dems, explained that, “the fact that there is a Democrat versus a Republican changes our involvement.” Hobbes went on to say that, “having a Democrat running against a Republican has allowed the progressive community to coalesce around Sarah as a candidate.”

Certainly, an enthused progressive base underscores the difficulties that any Republican candidate will face when it comes to winning an election in New Haven. It also speaks to the YCR’s choice of Chandler as their candidate in Ward 1. According to Schaefer, the YCR chairman, the organization more or less didn’t exist two years ago.

“We played partisan pong with the Democrats,” he said, pointing to the extent of the group’s presence. But over the past year or so, the YCR has galvanized around the prospect of playing a larger role in city politics. Paul Chandler’s campaign seems to represent the apex of their current efforts.

Yet, due to the often-insipid results of this sort of pragmatism, the relative success or failure of Republican candidates across the city seems mostly predicated upon voters’ visceral reactions to the word “Republican” in a ballot booth.

“I think it’s the registration difference,” Lobo said when asked about chal-

lenges he faces. “To be honest, I think the actions on the national level of the Republican Party have not helped local Republicans. The brand is suffering.” ***

It is important to consider, of course, to what extent the local brand of Republicanism bears any resemblance to its national counterpart — or whether the concept of “party politics,” is in any way a useful category in the local sphere. “What drives someone’s ability to win a local race is how well you connect with your neighbors and the other residents in that ward.

It really has nothing to do with party politics,” Elser, the New Haven GOP chairman, observed.

Indeed, members of the Board of Alders are, first and foremost, integral members of their community, responsible for a small enough constituency that they are able to address pressing local issues with little focus on that which is outside.

“I’ve lived in Ward 6 for 23 years, I’m a known person, and I’m really running as a neighbor who has the interests of our neighborhood at heart, not as an ideologue,” Lobo stressed.

In many ways, it is refreshing to see this kind of intense focus on local issues — politicians truly responsible to

a constituency, rather than to a vague conception of party politics. The alder candidates, the Yale Dems, and the YCR all seem genuinely dedicated to crafting a better city for students and residents.

Yet, the presence of Republicans on the political scene may signal a crossroads in local politics. On one hand, the entrance of more GOP candidates could ossify political debate, as useless political divides are drawn up.

However, it could also herald a revival of a two-party system that will improve public debate and broaden the discursive horizon of city politics, strengthening coalitions and opinions across the political spectrum.

In the meantime, most New Haven politicos believe the Republicans will end this electoral cycle empty-handed, finishing little more than a footnote in the history of the 2013 elections. There are few clear differences between the GOP candidates and their Democratic opponents. And even if there were, most of the city’s left-leaning voters would likely side with the Democrats.

Nevertheless, this is the first election in recent memory in which the Republicans have even fielded a credible slate of candidates. As legendary U.S. House Speaker Tip O’Neill once said, “All politics is local.”

New Haven Republicans, at least, certainly hope so.

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Town-Gown

Mayoral Hopefuls Toni Harp and interwoven relationship

T on i Harp State Senator Toni Harp (ARC ’78) is the Democratic candidate for Mayor of New Haven.

With the inauguration of a new president and mayor, Yale and New Haven are poised to embark on an exciting chapter. To capitalize on this opportunity, each must see the value in expanding their partnership.

When I came to New Haven to study urban planning and architecture years ago, I was struck by how interwoven Yale was into the city’s fabric. Not only does Yale serve as the city’s single largest taxpayer and employer, but it is also its economic magnet, drawing visitors from around the world to enjoy its cultural heritage, recreational amenities, lively multiethnic neighborhoods, and tremendous quality of life.

Over the course of my time in this city, Yale and New Haven have had a productive and mutually beneficial relationship, and each mayor and president has figured out how to work together to accomplish shared goals.

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For example, in the 1990s, Yale and New Haven worked together to increase homeownership; in the 2000s, they collaborated to improve downtown.

As we move further into the 2010s, however, we need to build a broader vision of how the two institutions can cooperate. Over the past few years, we’ve allowed specific debates – such as our recent dialogue about selling certain streets to Yale – to obscure our need to work together more closely.

While these have been necessary and worthwhile discussions, they should represent only part of the vibrant, comprehensive relationship that we need.

During this year’s mayoral campaign, I’ve articulated numerous ways that we can work together. President Peter Salovey and I share a passion for improving educational outcomes for children and ensuring that the mental health needs of our students are cared for. In the realm of adults, to help the many city residents who are struggling to obtain much-needed job training, I look forward to collaborating with Yale to redesign how we deliver adult education. Given our commitment to meeting our residents’ social-service needs, I’ve also talked about soliciting Yale’s help to develop fresh outreach approaches to increase enrollment in various state and federal assistance programs. Yale can even help us with simple things, such as providing local youth with internships to augment their education with actual work experience.

Besides these objectives, I’ve also expressed interest in engaging Yale on the subject of jobs and economic development, another goal President Salovey and I share. In his inauguration speech, for example, President Salovey questioned how a one-hour train to New York would “change the intellectual and educational biosphere” of New Haven. As mayor of the city, I will partner with him and Metro-North

to cause that transformation. And while we both see the value in expanding New Haven Works to connect more city residents with local jobs, I believe that New Haven’s high level of unemployment demands that we go beyond this initiative by leveraging our complementary strengths to promote transformative entrepreneurial activity.

The Economic Development Corporation of New Haven, a Yale-directed organization, ably recruits larger businesses to the city, but I believe that it should embrace a wider vision of its mission by reaching out and working directly with small businesses and entrepreneurs. Several years ago, the city of Providence successfully took this approach when it worked with Brown University, the state of Rhode Island, and local businesses to spur entrepreneurial outreach and assistance. If we commit ourselves to this effort, between our productive workforce, research capabilities, and intellectual infrastructure, we ought to be able to incubate resident-, student-, and faculty-run companies, in areas from smartphone apps to biomedical sciences, to rival places like San Francisco and Boston.

Given all of these opportunities, I welcome President Salovey’s inauguration to his new role. He and I have similar life experiences: we are both Yale graduates who have spent the past several decades coming to understand this city, its people, and its challenges.

Having invested ourselves in learning how to work with different people, he and I appreciate the virtues of a collaborative, consensus-oriented leadership style, and know that accomplishing shared goals requires time, patience, and a willingness to listen and nurture relationships.

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Relations

Justin Elicker debate the of Yale University and New Haven

J ust i n Elick er Ward 10 Alder Justin Elicker (FES ’10 SOM ’10) is an Independent candidate for Mayor of New Haven.

The last two decades have seen tremendous change in the relationship between Yale and New Haven. Yale has contributed millions of dollars to rebuild downtown and support important community initiatives, like the Yale Homebuyers Program and New Haven Promise. New Haven’s leadership has increasingly viewed Yale as a potential partner, and not as an adversary.

But there is clearly more work to be done to promote a town-gown relationship that benefits both parties.

When I am mayor, City Hall will work with President Peter Salovey to better unite Yale resources with the needs of the New Haven community and to attract Yalies and all entrepreneurs to New Haven after graduation. At the same time, my responsibility as mayor will be to ensure that the people of New Haven, particularly the most vulnerable, can benefit from Yale’s resources.

Through a more equitable transportation system and a strategic approach to tutoring, Yale and New Haven can partner to better serve the community. Our current downtown transit system is redundant, inefficient, and unjust. I will support CT Transit and Yale’s ongoing efforts to create an improved, unified public transit system that serves everyone. And with thousands of students at Yale and area universities, New Haven should do a better job of harnessing that resource to ensure that every child in the city has a tutor or mentor.

My administration will take significant steps to make it easier for residents, including Yale students, to start their own business here. Cities across the country are finding that they thrive when they attract young professionals interested in entrepreneurism.

When I am mayor, we will make it easier for small businesses to start by reducing red tape and providing an easy small business online portal with city government. The city will also better connect Yale and New Haven incubator programs so that start-ups can thrive. Our city can benefit greatly by encouraging Yale students to settle here after graduation and contribute to our economy.

At the same time, I will not let Yale take steps that hurt the city. Earlier this year, the Board of Aldermen approved the sale of parts of High and Wall Streets to Yale, without guaranteeing the continued access of the public, for a fire-sale price. I opposed that plan, and will oppose any initiative by Yale, the hospital, or a company that is not respectful of New Haven’s residents and taxpayers.

And lastly, as a Yale student, you should know that I care deeply about your involvement in this city. During this campaign, while my opponent has largely avoided Yale, I have taken

a number of opportunities to come to campus. That speaks to two truths.

First, as mayor I will responsive to all New Haveners. I haven’t reached out just to Yalies, but have answered requests from everyone from individual citizens to our city’s largest organizations to meet, because I believe that all New Haveners deserve a seat with the mayor. And second, a good number of the policies that I have outlined here and as part of the 75 Days, 75 Solutions series depend upon engaging with Yale students.

You can work with native New Haveners to create a more prosperous and just city. You can stay in New Haven after graduation and start the next great tech start-up. If you elect me as mayor, I will help you do it.

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Resolving the Shutdown An Interview with U.S. Senator John Barrasso Dav id St ei n er John Barrasso is the junior United States Senator from Wyoming and Chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee. After serving in the Wyoming State Senate, Barrasso was appointed to the U.S. Senate in 2007 following the death of Craig L. Thomas. He won a special election in 2008 and was reelected in 2012. Before entering politics, Barrasso worked as an orthopedic surgeon and was once named “Wyoming Physician of the Year.” He spoke with The Politic just days after President Obama signed the budget deal that reopened the government and raised the debt ceiling.

TP

You voted for the budget deal, while your colleagues Mike Enzi and Cynthia Lummis voted against it. What do you make of the deal?

JB It was important to get the government open and to get people back to work. I opposed shutting down the government in the first place. I don’t think it’s a great deal. There’s not a lot to celebrate there. It’s important we actually do get verification of people’s income for the healthcare law, which was one component of it. But I voted for it because it was important to get the government open.

TP

How do you evaluate Republican leadership (Boehner and Cantor, McConnell and Cornyn) during the budget deal negotiations?

JB The Republicans are in charge of the House under John Boehner, and I hoped they would put together a package that would pass the House with a majority of Republican votes.

They weren’t able to put a package like that together. With that situation, on the final day for the debt ceiling, as declared, at least, by the Secretary of the Treasury — it may not have truly been that date, but that is the date that he had set — it became incumbent upon the voices of the Senate to get something done, to get the government open, to get people back to work, and to live to fight 46

another day on the significant spending and debt we have in this country.

TP

What, in particular, do you wish Speaker Boehner had done differently?

JB He worked closely with his members and there’s broad diversity in the strategy to address it. Every Republican is committed to, and unified in our concerns about, spending, debt, borrowing, and the health care law.

The differences and the disagreements are in what strategy to use and what timeline — how rapidly you can get major changes made legislatively. The differences were strategic.

TP

Where is the Republican Party heading? Did Ted Cruz take it off course?

JB Conservatism in America is very strong. People are very concerned about this level of debt. The president wanted to raise the debt ceiling by a million dollars a minute for the next 14 months. People understand you can’t do that. Families can’t do it. A university can’t do it. States can’t do it. This country really can’t do it either. So, we will have another opportunity to address the debt.

The health care law is terribly unpopular. I’m a doctor. I did my surgical training here at Yale. I practiced surgery in Wyoming for almost 25 years.

This health care law is unworkable; it’s unfair; it’s unaffordable for us as a country; and it’s very unpopular. I’m going to continue to work to try to repeal it, tear it apart, and if you think about how poorly this rollout of the exchanges has been — the president says, “Well, it’s just a glitch.” After a week, he has kind of changed his tune. Last Friday, I was with him in the White House, and he said, “Well, it’s just a problem with the cash registers.” With a cash register, you’ve already gone to the store, you’ve already shopped, you’ve gotten through the front door, you’ve found what you want to buy, and then you take it to the cash register.

The president doesn’t have a full understanding, or is not admitting, how deeply flawed and how terribly failed the computer system for the exchange is. He says, “We’ve had all these people that have come to shop there.” There are thousands of websites that get more traffic every day than the Obama healthcare exchange website.

People see this and say, “If government can’t even get the website right, how are they going to get the healthcare part of it right?”

For the full text of this interview visit www.thepolitic.org.

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Click in and Learn Yale faculty in international and area studies are interviewed about their current research.

New webisodes air each Wednesday at noon

www.yale.edu/macmillanreport

The MacMillan Report is made possible through funding from the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale.