July 2011

A World of News and Perspective

■ TRAVEL & HOTELS SPECIAL SECTION INSIDE

HOTELS T R A V E L &

Q A Special Section of The Washington Diplomat

DIPLOMACY

AFGHANISTAN

As Protests Rage, Arab Ambassadors Strikingly Silent

Robert Hormats has come full circle with China. He’s gone from being a bright young bureaucrat who witnessed the historic ping-pong diplomacy between the U.S. and China, to climbing the corporate ladder at Goldman Sachs, back to the State Department, where China has become fair game for the top economic official as he presses the country to level the business playing field. PAGE 6

ENERGY

Japan Crisis Forces World to Rethink Nuclear Energy

culture

Jamaica: Oasis of Color With Shades of Gray “Contemporary Jamaican Artists” embraces the spectrum of change that’s swept the Caribbean. PAGE 34

PEOPLE OF WORLD INFLUENCE

From Goldman To Government, Hormats Calls It Like He Sees It

As noisy protests rage and regimes teeter throughout the Arab world, the cacophony of change can be heard from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea. Yet hardly a peep has been uttered from those countries’ ambassadors in D.C., as political uncertainty translates into diplomatic silence. PAGE 8

As if wreaking havoc on an entire nation wasn’t enough, the massive earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan sparked a chain reaction that went far beyond the crippled Fukushima power plant, forcing the entire world to rethink nuclear energy. PAGE 11

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Q July 2011

DIPLOMATIC SPOUSES

AFGHAN ENDGAME “It takes patience to explain to our citizens why it’s important to fight against terrorism,” says Afghanistan’s new ambassador, Eklil Hakimi. But patience is in short supply among both Afghans and Americans when it comes to the 10-year-old conflict, which recently surpassed Vietnam to become the longest war in U.S. history. PAGE 13

Wife Embodies South African Fight For Human Dignity Rosieda Shabodien, a gender rights advocate and wife of South African Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool, has spent a lifetime fighting against discrimination of all forms, whether racial or religious — and today uses her own example as a “scarfwearing, black South African Muslim” to proudly showcase the diversity of her homeland. PAGE 36

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July 2011

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A Project of the U.S. General Services Administration

Office for Trade Promotion We Measure Our Success by Your Success About Us The International Trade Center (ITC) is a preeminent forum in the heart of the nation’s capital advancing international commerce and cross-cultural dialogue. As a seamless, unifying framework, the ITC provides a platform for building connections, fostering diplomacy, growing businesses and creating a more prosperous U.S. and global economy.

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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Delivers Remarks at a Forum held at the RRB/ITC

Above Right: Muhammad Yunus, 2006 Nobel Prize Winner, Launches Book Tour at the RRB/ITC

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July 2011

CONTENTS THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT

23

11 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant

[ news ] 6

Wedding at the Fairmont

“K.3” by Frank Stella

20

38

[ hotels & travel ] 23

The massive earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan not only triggered a nuclear crisis in that country, but prompted a worldwide reassessment of the dangers of nuclear energy.

COVER PROFILE: AFGHANISTAN Kabul’s new ambassador, Eklil Hakimi, has his work cut out for him as he urges Americans and Afghans alike to stay patient with a war that has now raged for 10 years, killed more than 1,600 U.S. soldiers and costs an estimated $2 billion a week.

17

BOOK REVIEW

34

GLOBAL VANTAGE POINT Veteran Ambassador Christopher Hill offers his personal insights into “a larger-than-life figure” in the world of diplomacy: Lawrence Eagleburger.

COVER: Photo taken at the Embassy of Afghanistan by Lawrence Ruggeri.

ART

[ culture ]

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FESTIVALS Colombia comes to the National Mall as part of the Smithsonian’s 2011 Folklife Festival, the popular annual extravaganza that showcases cultures from around the globe.

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THEATER “Purge” is a painful but valuable slice of history where the brutalities in Estonia under Soviet oppression intersect with the more recent scourge of sex trafficking.

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PHOTOGRAPHY “E • CO” turns the lens on environmental issues from river pollution to the impact of nuclear power — bringing complex problems to vivid life.

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DINING D.C.’s Penn Quarter neighborhood continues to evolve as one of the area’s premier dining destinations with 901 Restaurant and Bar, which takes developer David von Storch’s successful business model up a few notches.

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FILM REVIEWS American director Andrew Rossi’s revealing documentary “Page One: Inside the New York Times” offers unfettered access to the inner workings of the esteemed Gray Lady, who’s beginning to show her age.

“Contemporary Jamaican Artists,” part of the “About Change” series on Latin art, is definitely contemporary, complicated, challenging — and yes, it’s all about change.

“Hard Line” forcefully dissects the Republicans’ historically hawkish approach to foreign policy, and what it may mean for future GOP ambitions abroad.

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AIRPORTS For the first time since 2007, all three Washington area airports saw a growth in ridership in 2010, a reflection of the area’s general economic health, but rising oil prices this year may make for a bumpier ride.

ENERGY

ART Two compact, complementary exhibitions at the Phillips reveal how Wassily Kandinsky’s groundbreaking abstract expressionism in the early 1900s informed Frank Stella’s “Scarlatti Kirkpatrick” sculpture series decades later.

EVENTS As a capital city of international import, Washington is home to serious business, and serious partying — as the city’s venerable hotels routinely host events that are as outstanding as the clientele they serve.

DIPLOMACY

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13

MEDICAL As dentists discover the dollars behind Botox, more and more are taking the plunge into the lucrative field of “facial esthetics.”

As noisy battles rage throughout the Arab world, a cacophony of change can be heard from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea. Yet hardly a peep has been uttered by those embattled countries’ diplomats in Washington.

11

38

PEOPLE OF WORLD INFLUENCE After nearly three decades with Goldman Sachs, Robert Hormats returned to government service as the top economic official at the State Department, where he’s made it his business to call China out if it doesn’t play by the rules.

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July 2011

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CINEMA LISTING

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EVENTS LISTING

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DIPLOMATIC SPOTLIGHT

51

WORLD HOLIDAYS / APPOINTMENTS

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CLASSIFIEDS

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REAL ESTATE CLASSIFIEDS

DIPLOMATIC SPOUSES Growing up in the working-class townships outside of Cape Town, Rosieda Shabodien’s early encounters with injustice put her on a lifelong path of human rights activism, much like her husband, South African Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool.

P.O. Box 1345 • Silver Spring, MD 20915-1345 • Phone: (301) 933-3552 • Fax: (301) 949-0065 • E-mail: news@washdiplomat.com • Web: www.washdiplomat.com Publisher/Editor-in-Chief Victor Shiblie Director of Operations Fuad Shiblie Managing Editor Anna Gawel News Editor Larry Luxner Assistant Editor Julie Poucher Harbin Contributing Writers Rachael Bade, Michael Coleman, Jacob Comenetz, Rachel Hunt, Lois Kapila, Luke Jerod Kummer, Ky N. Nguyen, Gail Scott, Gina Shaw, John Shaw, Gary Tischler, Lisa Troshinsky Photographer Jessica Latos Director of Sales Ben Porter Account Managers David Garber, Chris Smith Graphic Designer Cari Bambach The Washington Diplomat is published monthly by The Washington Diplomat, Inc. The newspaper is distributed free of charge at several locations throughout the Washington, D.C. area. We do offer subscriptions for home delivery. Subscription rates are $25 for 12 issues and $45 for 24 issues. Call Fuad Shiblie for past issues. If your organization employs many people from the international community you may qualify for free bulk delivery. To see if you qualify you must contact Fuad Shiblie.

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July 2011

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PEOPLE OF WORLD INFLUENCE

Robert Hormats

Top Economic Official at State Presses China to Play Fair

by Michael Coleman obert Hormats has come full circle with China. As a young man working under legendary former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Hormats — a Baltimore native — attended the first game of the historic ping-pong diplomacy series between the United States and China in College Park, Maryland.

R

Inspired by that exciting event, the bright young bureaucrat went on to a distinguished career in international diplomacy and economics, first as an economic staffer on the National Security Council in the early 1970s, then as deputy U.S. trade representative in the late 1970s, and finally as assistant secretary of state for economic and business affairs in the early 1980s.

In 1982, armed with a wealth of government experience and a doctorate degree in international economics from Tufts University, Hormats traded in his government ID for a fancier business card and a job with Wall Street financial powerhouse Goldman Sachs. Ever ambitious, Hormats worked his way up to become vice president of Goldman Sachs International, a position he held until 2009, when his old friend Hillary Clinton came calling.

As it turned out, Clinton — the new U.S. secretary of state — needed help with China, a much different, and more powerful, nation than Hormats had encountered 40 years earlier. Because of his experience working under four different U.S. presidents, as well as his intricate knowledge of international financial systems, Clinton saw Hormats as an appealing prospect.

Hormats had gotten to know Clinton and her husband when Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas and heavily involved in international trade. When Hillary called Hormats to offer him a job, the 68-year-old Goldman Sachs executive said he jumped at the chance, despite his powerful and lucrative career on Wall Street.

“I’m a Democrat, so I wanted to work for a Democratic administration and President Obama,” Hormats explained during a wideranging interview in his spacious State Department office overlooking the Potomac River. “I have known and been a friend of Hillary Clinton for a very long time and I have enormous respect for her.”

Hiring Hormats was also important to Clinton, who’s received widespread praise for elevating the State Department’s prestige during her tenure. As part of her campaign to improve U.S. diplomacy, Clinton has enlisted the help of the private sector, such as the recent public-private partnership with MAC Cosmetics to combat sexual violence and HIV/AIDS in South Africa.

Hormats embodies that blend of private savvy and public expertise. Today, he serves as the senior economic official at the State

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Department, advising Clinton on international economic policy and working to improve America’s bilateral relations with its various economic partners.

Hormats, whose official title is undersecretary of state for economic, energy and agricultural affairs, has a diverse portfolio in policy areas ranging from trade and investment, energy cooperation, aviation and more.

He’s just as comfortable talking about the role of innovation in global health as the importance of private companies competing with state-capitalist markets, or the profitable but deadly trade in conflict minerals, or the flaws in the Chinese economic model.

“As someone whose background is international economics and international finance, and has worked in various aspects of government before, these are issues I enjoy working on,” Hormats told The Washington Diplomat. “I also think they are important to the country and the world.”

A sampling of his schedule over the last two months reveals a diplomat who spends a lot of time on airplanes. Hormats has jetted PHOTO: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

“

There is a need for a level playing field and the need to work with China as a rising power to ensure that as they become a more important player in the global economy, they also assume more risk for the global economic system.

— ROBERT HORMATS

”

undersecretary of state for economic, energy and agricultural affairs

to Cairo in recent weeks, as well as to Amman for the U.S.-Jordan Business Summit, Texas for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) road show, and Paris for the G-8 and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) summits. In fact, Hormats joked that the only thing he lacks in his current job is sleep.

Closer to home, Hormats played a key role in the recent third annual U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Washington, delivered remarks to the U.S.Korea Business Council Coalition at the National Association of Manufacturers, and

met with ambassadors from the Czech Republic, India and Qatar, the Lithuanian energy minister, and officials from Chevron, among many others.

Although he works across a broad spectrum of issues, China naturally consumes a lot of the undersecretary’s time. It just so happened that 2009 — the year Hormats returned to the State Department — marked not only the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, but also the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and China.

“Despite the incredible challenges of the past 30 years, what has remained constant over these past three decades — under eight successive presidents of both parties — has been a recognition that our two countries have fundamental common interests and our relationship has enormous consequences for the world,” Hormats said at a conference in Washington last spring.

The economic expert reiterated that view in his interview with us. Diplomatically, Hormats declined to critique the Bush administration, which was widely perceived as alienating foreign governments with varyingly heavy-handed or indifferent diplomatic approaches.

“I do think there were a lot of areas where more proactive engagement on international economic issues was needed,” Hormats said. “One of them was East Asia.

This is the fastest growing area of the world where I think we needed to be more proactive and are already deeply engaged.

“I’ve spent a lot of my time on a wide range of issues — trade, intellectual property protection, protecting the interests of American investors in the region,” he noted.

Not surprisingly, much of his focus over July 2011

the past two years has been aimed at convincing China to compete fairly in the global economy. As part of that strategy, Hormats has been working to convince Chinese leaders of the benefits of something he calls “competitive neutrality.”

As Hormats sees it, a new challenge to the global consensus on open markets and private investment has emerged — and China is leading the pack, with India and other nations not far behind.He recently wrote that National Intelligence Estimates reveal that “wealth is moving not just from West to East but is concentrating more under state control.”

This means that in many countries, the state’s role in the economy is gaining influence as governments reject “the Western liberal model for selfdevelopment but are using a different model — state capitalism,” Hormats wrote.

In essence, governments, such as China’s, create state-owned or state-supported enterprises — or “national champions” as Hormats calls them — that are heavily subsidized or given wildly unfair competitive advantages within those countries.

Then these companies become serious global competitors, which can corrupt the naturally occurring competition and relatively even playing field for normal private sector firms.

“If they give companies preferential financing, or preferential regulatory treatment, or exemption from monopoly rules, or other advantages that private sector companies don’t have, it affords them a competitive advantage, not just doing business vis-à-vis foreign companies in China but it gives them an enormous competitive advantage in our market and in third-country markets,” Hormats explained. “Our goal here is to say to countries, ‘look, this is a very substantial threat to the competitiveness of our companies because it gives them — the Chinese and other countries’ companies — an artificial competitive advantage that private sector companies don’t get.’”

Hormats added that the advantages these favored companies enjoy are not necessarily based on better performance or innovation, but on government policies and practices that distort competition in the market.

“There is a need for a level playing field and the need to work with China as a rising power to ensure that as they become a more important player in the global economy, they also assume more risk for the global economic system,”Hormats said.

And how does the United States convince them to play by the established rules of the so-called “Western liberal model for self-development,” as he describes it?

“Lecturing doesn’t move them — very few countries respond to lectures by us or anyone else,” Hormats concedes. “But they have a very clear view of their self-interest. If you can make the point in a compelling way that their self-interest should compel them to respect intellectual property and to avoid discrimination against foreign firms operating in China and to eliminate these artificial advantages they give to their companies, they will listen.

“What’s in their interest is that their companies are now operating internationally and they want those countries to be treated on a level playing field, too,” he added. “They are producing more intellectual property, and they want their intellectual property protected — and they heavily rely on the global economic system.”

Hormats was quick to give due credit to the Chinese for their stunning growth. “They have done some very impressive reforms; they have raised hundreds of millions of people out of poverty; they are investing a lot in science, engineering, technology,” he said.“The fact is that they are a much more competitive country now and they shouldn’t have to resort to these arbitrary measures to enhance their competitiveness. They would be competitive without those.”

July 2011

At the same time, he points out that China’s transformation took place within a liberal international economic framework.

“Much of what China has accomplished, as noted, is due to its own ingenuity, its own reforms, and the hard work of hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens…. But China’s dramatic growth is also due to a stable global financial system, market access benefits of WTO membership and enormous capital inflows,” he said in a recent speech titled “The United States and China: The Next Five Years,” in which he openly wondered, “Will China work within the rules-based, market-driven, international economic system created at the end of World War II, or instead strive to dramatically change it?”

Hormats told The Diplomat that there are signals the Chinese are beginning to come around to the Western way of thinking on this issue, but they (among other countries) are not completely sold on the idea.

“Have they made some progress? Yes,” Hormats said.“Have they made enough progress to create a level playing field or a nondiscriminatory environment? No.They need to do a lot more.

“If they push back against an open trading and investment system then that’s going to [work to] the disadvantage of the Chinese,” he continued.

“They have an interest in making the system work because they have a big interest in the system.

They have an interest in foreign markets, in a stable international financial system, and they have an interest in the protection of their intellectual property.

“And because they have those interests, they should be doing a lot more to make sure the global economy is and is seen by people in the U.S. and elsewhere as operating fairly.”

Hormats also says that if more countries take China’s lead in propping up private companies with all kinds of economic and regulatory advantages, it could undermine the entire global system.

“If Americans perceive it’s not operating fairly — that one country or a group of countries is taking undue benefit of this system and it’s harming our interests — they are going to push back against the system itself,” he said, quickly adding that he doesn’t believe this is China’s goal.

“I don’t think they want to destroy the system or radically change it at all. They want to take the maximum benefits they can from the system,” he explained.“But if they want to continue to do that, they have to make greater contributions to the system by ensuring that it’s perceived and is a level playing field, and that intellectual property is protected, and that they don’t give their companies artificial advantages over other companies and they don’t discriminate against foreign companies in their procurement.”

And if they do?

“Then the system that has been very important in their rise will be more vulnerable and work to their ultimate disadvantage, if not now then down the road,” Hormats predicted.

Yet he also rejected the view — commonly held by some Americans — that China and the United States are on an inevitable collision course, economically or possibly even militarily in a doomsday scenario.

“Clearly there are going to be differences between the U.S. and China, but the fact is that it is in the national interest of both countries to work together,” Hormats said.“There is bound to be suspicion on a given issue or two, but we need to approach China and they need to approach us from the point of view of one common reality.

“If we don’t work together and we have constant disruptions in our relationship, it will affect both sides and the global economy,” he added.“We need to develop a constructive relationship with them and they need to do what they need to do to have a constructive relationship with us. I don’t think a confrontational relationship will serve

either side’s interest.”

Beyond China, the Middle East and the volatile “Arab spring” have been very much on Hormats’s agenda.The State Department official said he’s traveled to the region four times in the past two months and envisions more trips in the near future.

In the process, he’s defended the Obama administration’s decision to forgive a $1 billion loan to Egypt, even as the United States struggles to rein in its own debt at home.At the other end of the spectrum, some critics have argued that debt relief is not enough to address Egypt’s economic woes.

Hormats said the debt relief, even in the face of some protest here at home, is smart policy.

“The reality is we need to help Egypt to stabilize itself because the instability of the country, if the democratic reform process goes off track, the consequences for the region will be very serious,” Hormats warned.“If we do the right things, like the plan the president announced, we have a chance at supporting a process which will enable greater political and economic participation of larger numbers of Egyptians and strengthen the democratic process and the economic reform process.

“But it’s up to the Egyptians to implement this,” Hormats cautioned.“This is a huge turning point in the Middle East and the Middle East is critical to our national interests. If we miss the opportunity, then the consequences for American interests will be enormous.”

He also suggested that assistance to other Arab countries could be warranted as well, especially as their economies suffer from a drop in tourism, remittances and other revenues due to ongoing upheaval.

“It is critical that we take advantage of this moment and be as helpful as we can, but also not

forget some other places where the reform process is under way, like Jordan,” he said.“We need to help them stabilize their financial and economic situations. A lot of industries are just not functioning, so their revenue is way down and their reserves are depleting, and we need to strengthen them financially and economically.”

And that’s always been America’s virtue — the ability to pull itself up by the bootstraps and help others do the same, Hormats said, arguing that strong economies will foster democracy and help usher in a new era of stability in the region.

“Our real strength is our ability to connect to younger people in these countries who are really the dynamic source of change, supporting entrepreneurialism, efforts to create small- and mediumsize enterprises, and giving their kids opportunities to participate in the economy and opportunities to advance in society,” Hormats said.

“Throughout the whole history of the United States we’ve been an upward mobility society.

We’re an opportunity society. We give people an opportunity for upward mobility.

“They’ll create their own destiny and we can work with them and have venture capitalists there to help them.”

Michael Coleman is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

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DIPLOMACY

Washington, D.C.

As Upheaval Seizes Arab World, Uncertainty Paralyzes Ambassadors

by Larry Luxner

M

ore than half a year has now passed since 26-year-old fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid — sparking a pro-democracy revolution that has spread to the far corners of the Arab world.

Noisy street protests demanding the overthrow of authoritarian rulers have shaken capital cities across the region and given rise to the so-called Arab spring. Battles rage and regimes teeter in Syria and Yemen, Libya is engulfed in outright civil war, and tensions continue to simmer in half a dozen other countries including Bahrain, Jordan, Egypt and Tunisia, where it all began. A chaotic cacophony of change can be heard from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea.Yet hardly a peep has been uttered from those embattled countries’ diplomats here in Washington.

Except for Morocco’s Aziz Mekouar, who was profiled in last month’s issue of this newspaper, not a single Arab ambassador to the United States would speak to The Washington Diplomat for this story.

Perhaps that is the story.

“The Arab ambassadors here are all in a difficult position since they represent endangered regimes which may not last the summer. No one knows which Arab police state may collapse next,” suggests Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and now senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.“So the prudent policy is to keep mum — especially in public. If and when the revolution comes, then try to jump to the winner.”

Marwan Muasher, Jordan’s ambassador to the United States who went on to become his country’s foreign minister and now works at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, has long advocated for political and economic reform in the Arab world. But he too declined comment, saying he didn’t feel comfortable telling other Arab ambassadors what they should do.

In late February, Libya’s ex-ambassador,Ali Aujali, resigned in protest over Muammar Qaddafi’s atrocities, telling whoever would listen that he could no longer represent a regime that slaughtered its own people and earning widespread media coverage for his defection in publications such as the New York Times, including a cover profile in this newspaper (also see “Qaddafi’s Man No More: Disgusted, Envoy Breaks Free of Former Boss” in the April 2011 issue).

Yet the seasoned diplomat didn’t have much to say on the plight of his fellow ambassadors, other than that he’d be surprised if any of his Arab colleagues on Embassy Row did what he did and turn against their governments.

Indeed, although Aujali was joined by other Libyan envoys around the world in renouncing his old boss, there hasn’t been a wave of diplomatic defections by other nations’ envoys. Around the world, some of Yemen’s ambassadors, including its envoy to the United Nations, have resigned in recent months, as have a few envoys from Syria.

Notably, in a bizarre and confusing diplomatic hoax, Syria’s ambassador to France, Lamia Shakkour, adamantly denied a French news report that she had quit her post, saying someone had impersonated her as part of a disinformation campaign against Damascus.

But here in Washington, the majority of Arab ambassadors have remained put and sat silent — and the Middle East

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Ex-Ambassador of Libya Ali Aujali

Ambassador of Syria Imad Moustapha

Ambassador of Yemen Abdulwahab Al-Hajjri

Ambassador of Morocco Aziz Mekouar

“

The Arab ambassadors here are all in a difficult position since they represent endangered regimes which may not last the summer…. So the prudent policy is to keep mum — especially in public. If and when the revolution comes, then try to jump to the winner.

”

— BRUCE RIEDEL

senior fellow at the Brookings Institution

experts we talked to tend to agree with Aujali’s assessment that most won’t follow his lead.

Edward “Skip” Gnehm, former U.S. ambassador to Kuwait and Jordan and now a professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, said even in the best of times, it’s awkward for diplomats to criticize their bosses.

“If I were still the ambassador in Amman and there was a political campaign going on the States with mudslinging back and forth, I’d be very reticent to talk about that,” he explained.“I’d talk about the process and the issues, but I’d

Ambassador of Egypt Sameh Shoukry

Ambassador of Bahrain Houda Nonoo

be very careful to stay away from the personalities.”

Brookings scholar Shibley Telhami, who’s also a political science professor at the University of Maryland, said he doesn’t expect a single Arab ambassador accredited to the United States to follow Aujali’s example.

“By and large, most envoys — particularly those sent to Washington — are close to the top leaders in the countries that appointed them,” said Telhami, noting that Libya was a special situation. “Normally, envoys are professionals from their foreign ministries, but Washington is such a sensitive position that this is often a very personal appointment linked to the top leadership.”

In Yemen’s case, he said, Ambassador Abdulwahab Al-Hajjri “is well-liked in Washington, but he has a very personal relationship with the president’s family, and that makes it very hard to distance himself.”

In fact, Al-Hajjri’s sister is married to President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who in early June was flown to Saudi Arabia for emergency medical treatment following a particularly vicious attack on his compound in Sanaa, the capital. Saleh, who reportedly suffered burns over 40 percent of his body, is unlikely to ever get back the job he held for 32 years. It’s also a safe bet that Yemen will now descend further into anarchy and poverty than ever before.

The socially amicable but publicly shy Al-Hajjri, who’s been ambassador in Washington since 1997, rarely spoke to any media outlets even before the current unrest exploded across Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world — so his refusal to comment now doesn’t come as much of a surprise.

July 2011

At the same time, two other ambassadors who spoke freely to us and had a high public profile before the Arab spring, Bahrain’s Houda Nonoo and Syria’s Imad Moustapha, have clammed up in recent months.

Despite the Bahraini government’s recent call for dialogue and lifting of the emergency law, watchdog groups have accused the authorities of myriad human rights abuses, including mass detentions and closed-door trials following a violent clampdown on protests held by the country’s Shiite majority.

For awhile, the Bahraini Embassy on International Drive — the scene of several smallscale protests — was putting out rather nonsensical updates written in flowery praise of His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa but saying virtually nothing original.

Nonoo, a woman and the first Jew ever to represent an Arab country in Washington, a background that garnered her a lot of positive media coverage before the protests, hasn’t returned a single phone call to The Diplomat since widespread political violence erupted in the tiny, oilrich Gulf sheikhdom earlier this year.

Her embassy has released a barrage of statements aggressively trying to defend the government’s actions as necessary to restore public order and security.

“The protesters did not use peaceful tactics and during the height of unrest, protesters overran our main thoroughfare and threatened our infrastructure. Bahrain was under siege and any sense of normal life was brought to a halt.

Schools, businesses and ministries could not operate. The financial harbor was temporarily shut down due to road blocks and the main hospital was transformed into an opposition political command center,” declared an April statement from the embassy put out by PR Newswire.

“Bahrain’s protests had turned violent and the government was forced to respond.”

But many of the press releases have rung hollow in the wake of headline-grabbing incidents

that have tarnished Bahrain’s once-progressive reputation — such as the one-year jail sentence recently imposed on Ayat al-Qormozi, a 20-yearold poet who read a poem criticizing government policy and was later subjected to electrical shocks and beatings with a hose while in detention, according to a relative.

“By locking up a female poet merely for expressing her views in public, Bahrain’s authorities are demonstrating how free speech and assembly are brutally denied to ordinary Bahrainis,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa.

In another incident that has further strained U.S.-Bahraini relations, a human rights officer at the U.S. Embassy in Bahrain, Ludovic Hood, was forced to leave the country after he was the target of anti-Semitic slurs and his address was published in a web site linked to the Bahraini government — certainly putting Nonoo, one of only 36 Jews in Bahrain, in an awkward position.

Even more awkward is the fact that Nonoo has experience working in the human rights realm, having helped to establish the Bahrain Human Rights Watch Society in 2004 and serving as the group’s general-secretary in 2005.

That may in part explain why Nonoo has had little to say about the detention and trial of dozens of doctors and nurses who treated injured protesters — widely condemned by human rights groups — or the hundreds of opposition supporters, including two lawmakers, who’ve been detained and tried since March.

“In the case of Bahrain, you have a woman here without major diplomatic experience,” said Telhami of the University of Maryland. “There was no question she was appointed by the rulers, and she represents a very small community. So it would be very odd — because of the sectarian issue and her being elevated to this position — for her to take a different position than the one

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she’s taken. And while ambassadors do not speak publicly, obviously many of them speak privately.

And when they speak privately, there’s no question that they defend their governments.”

Syria’s Moustapha hasn’t talked much to the press either, other than a brief comment to the New York Times recently urging dialogue to quell the ongoing violence in Syria. But that hasn’t stopped the tech-savvy ambassador from blogging about the unrest, in which government forces have killed an estimated 1,400 civilians in nationwide demonstrations that began in midMarch.

“When faced with extremely distressing situations in the past, I would find solace in various sources. Great works of literature were my first refuge at difficult junctures in my youthful years — particularly the work of Dostoyevsky,” wrote Moustapha, an avid blogger for years, though many of his countrymen now struggle to get their opinions online in the wake of a government Internet crackdown.

Moustapha also put up an official message on the embassy website denouncing what he described as superficial media coverage of the “events in Syria underway since March” and justifying the government’s response.

“Unfortunately, while the overwhelming majority of Syrians have adopted dialogue as the way forward, a minority view armed uprising as the preferred route. No government in the world, including the United States, would tolerate an armed insurrection, regardless of the motive,” the statement reads. “A clear distinction must be made between citizens demanding their legitimate rights versus militants pursuing the bleak path towards destruction and insecurity. Under no terms will Syria tolerate the latter. Our pursuit of far-reaching reforms to realize our vision of a more democratic, just and thriving Syria will continue, regardless of those who would seek to interfere with, or derail, this much-needed course

of action.”

The website also connects to a stream of news articles selectively backing the government’s position and the dangers if it collapses.

Similarly, various protests have been held outside the embassy in Washington, although the ambassador has only addressed the crowds at the rallies supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

That’s not a big surprise given that Moustapha is said to be a close friend of the president and is undoubtedly more keen to highlight Assad’s recent outreach and promises of reform than the crackdown his troops have unleashed against protesters.

“The Syrian ambassador in Washington represents a regime that is known for brutality and retribution, and deals very harshly with dissenters,” Gnehm told The Diplomat. “People have never forgotten what the father [the late President Hafez al-Assad] did in Hama when they revolted in 1982.You know what would happen to you if you say anything in Washington that’s hostile to Damascus? You’d be recalled immediately and be put in prison.”

On the other hand, says Gnehm, if Moustapha came out too strongly in defense of the Assad regime — for example, justifying the killing of 10,000 protesters if necessary — “I could at some point see the U.S. government saying that kind of diplomatic activity is unacceptable, and asking for his removal. But he’s not going to do that. He’s very professional, and if he says anything at all, it would be in diplomatic language.”

The simple fact is that most ambassadors’ hands are tied, uncertain of how much loyalty to show their home governments, which may or may not be around tomorrow (or in some cases may seek retribution on diplomats who’ve betrayed them), or even what to say in response to historic events that are unraveling each day and continue to stun the world.

However, Telhami singled out Egypt’s ambassador, Sameh Shoukry, praising him for not shying away from the media throughout the entire

18-day protest in Cairo’s Tahrir Square that finally dislodged President Hosni Mubarak from power after 30 years.

“When Mubarak was in trouble, Shoukry tried to be analytical and push forth his own analysis in a way that was relatively credible,” he said. “The ambassador conducted himself reasonably well, under very difficult circumstances, and he never stopped representing his government. Nobody knew what the outcome would be, but he was not an apologist [for the Mubarak regime]. Then when the transition happened, he embraced the change and went on.”

Washington consultant Joseph K. Grieboski — who’s lived in Israel and has traveled to Jordan, Egypt, Morocco,Tunisia, Lebanon, Iraq and Kuwait — said that if he were an Arab ambassador in Washington right now, he’d be all over the media.

“There are truths, half-truths and non-truths being told about each and every one of the Arab countries where public outcry is taking place,” said Grieboski, CEO of just consulting, an Alexandria-based international consulting and government relations firm.“It is essential that the ambassadors tell their country’s side of the story, be honest about the situation on the ground, and admit where reforms need to take place. If the embassies are not crafting the message or story, someone else is — and more than likely, it will not be in their countries’ favor.”

From press conferences and Capitol Hill briefings to advertising and social media websites, he said Arab embassies must be far more aggressive than they’ve been so far.

“If the ambassadors and embassies remain silent, they lose credibility — even the ones of states like Libya or Syria where horrid and repressive measures are in place,” said Grieboski. “The American people assume silence in the face of accusations means guilt.”

Larry Luxner is news editor of The Washington Diplomat.

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ENERGY

European Union

Fukushima Disaster Prompts Transatlantic Nuclear Debate

by Luke Jerod Kummer

A

s if wreaking havoc on an entire nation and crippling a nuclear energy complex weren’t enough, the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and massive tsunami that struck Japan in March set into motion a chain reaction that continues to have repercussions around the world today.

Much as the 9/11 terrorist attacks triggered a rethink of the aviation industry and security mindset in nearly every country around the globe, the calamity that melted down three of the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has prompted a comprehensive, worldwide examination of how nations and the international community can address the catastrophic risks of nuclear power while meeting the world’s growing energy demands.

That question was in sharp focus at a recent conference in Washington co-hosted by the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the Atlantic Council of the United States that brought together two of the biggest players in the unfolding nuclear debate — the United States and European Union. Each side seems to be dealing with the Fukushima fallout in different ways, although they both grapple with the same dilemma: how to fulfill their energy needs in an era of rising oil prices, dwindling natural resources, climate change and other global forces.

The conference, titled “After Fukushima: The Future of Nuclear Energy in the United States and Europe,” was held at Johns Hopkins University’s Kenney Auditorium on May 31. Invited speakers and panelists from the U.S. Department of Energy and the embassies of the European Union, Germany, France, Poland, the Czech Republic, Finland and Lithuania joined about a dozen nuclear experts to discuss the far-reaching implications of the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.

The ripples are still being felt, the speakers said, in terms of countries reconsidering their disaster preparedness; ordering facility inspections; assessing the role of nuclear energy in their economic development plans and foreign relations; and balancing environmental policies against energy policies. Many opinions and ideas emerged, but it was clear from the conference that at least from here on, any point in the history of nuclear power would be marked as either coming before or after Fukushima — much as previous discussions referenced Chernobyl.

So far, perhaps the greatest direct upheaval that Fukushima has caused outside of Japan was Germany’s announcement only a day before the conference that it will completely phase out its nuclear energy program by 2022. This is in line with earlier declarations that Germany would do so by 2036, but overall the move represents a major policy shift and contrasts pointedly with the responses of other nations, such as the United States and France, which have mourned the Fukushima disaster and called for increased safety scrutiny of all nuclear power plants but reasserted their commitments to nuclear energy in the near- and long-terms.

July 2011

CREDIT: UN PHOTO / IAEA / GREG WEBB

“

Chernobyl and Fukushima have proven that an accident here is an accident everywhere.

— JOÃO VALE DE ALMEIDA ambassador of the European Union to the United States

”

Germany’s decision to shutter its 17 nuclear reactors (eight of which are already offline) comes as a dramatic reversal for the nation where nuclear fission was first discovered in 1938. At the beginning of 2011, Germany relied on nuclear power for about a quarter of its total energy needs, which is about the same as the United States.

A leader in the fight against climate change, Germany has set ambitious targets to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions — a 40 percent reduction by 2020 and a 70 percent drop by 2040 — a pledge that will surely be tested if it turns to fossil fuel-burning coal plants to fill the void left behind by nuclear energy.The government has said its emissions won’t be affected and promised to aggressively boost the development of renewable energy sources, which currently comprise about 17 percent of the country’s power supply, although some experts doubt that will be enough to make up for the nuclear shortfall.

Mike Weightman, leader of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) fact-finding mission in Japan, examines Reactor Unit 3 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to assess tsunami damage and study nuclear safety lessons that could be learned from the accident.

Either way, it will require a major retooling of Germany’s energy strategy to keep up with the demands of its population — not to mention its internationally competitive industrial sector — without the benefit of a nuclear program.

“Germany had a love affair with nuclear energy,” Klaus Scharioth, the German ambassador to the United States, told the Johns Hopkins audience.“When I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, nuclear energy had an extremely positive image…. There was no other field where the German government spent as much money.”

Like the rest of the world, Germans were alarmed by the accident at Three Mile Island in 1979, but the Chernobyl disaster really dealt Germany’s near obsession with nuclear power a lasting blow. Wind patterns following the explosion at the nuclear plant in Ukraine exposed Germany to significant fallout. Milk was contaminated for weeks and animal carcasses and fruits showed elevated levels of radiation for years to come.

“So everybody in Germany felt the impact, and therefore immediately after Chernobyl the image of nuclear energy in Germany began to change,” said Scharioth.

At the time, Germany received 40 percent of its energy from nuclear power and maintained 23 reactors. But with the specter of another cataclysmic disaster looming large on the population, Germany began to

Continued on next page The Washington Diplomat Page 11

CREDIT: UN PHOTO / OLEG VEKLENKO

After the accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, thousands of Soviet soldiers assisted with the cleanup, working throughout a 30-kilometer zone around the plant, including highly contaminated areas near the damaged reactor. The recent nuclear crisis at the Fukushima plant in Japan was deemed a Level-7 incident comparable to the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986, although the radiation fallout from Chernobyl was far more severe.

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explore and expand alternatives to nuclear energy, such as hydropower, and the government slowly shifted its support away from the nuclear industry while adding subsidies for renewable energy.

By 2010, many Germans’ increasingly negative view of nuclear energy led to a nationwide discussion, according to the ambassador, over whether nuclear power was still required as a “bridge” until less potentially dangerous technologies could fully satisfy the country’s energy needs. A political movement was under way to make Germany independent from nuclear power as soon as possible, but the feasibility of a quick transition was still very much a matter of debate.

“That all changed with Fukushima,” Scharioth said, noting that the disaster categorically changed Germans’ opinion of the risks of nuclear energy.

The overwhelming public tide against nuclear power had immediate results at the top echelons of government. In fact, many were surprised by German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to speed up the timetable for scrapping nuclear power, a dramatic about-face when, just months earlier, her party had pushed through controversial legislation designed to extend the life of the country’s nuclear power plants through 2036.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Merkel’s announcement took place not long after her party lost elections in one of its biggest strongholds, the state of Baden-Württemberg, in a vote widely seen as a referendum on Merkel’s ardent support of nuclear energy.

Some experts worry though that Merkel’s change of heart to abandon nuclear energy within a decade is unrealistic. They warn that Germany’s carbon dioxide emissions will inevitably go up as a result of having to rely on coal to offset the loss in nuclear energy — possibly driving up the price of carbon-emissions permits throughout Europe or simply forcing Germany to import nuclear power from other countries like France.Another concern is that energy costs for Germans will jump, threatening the country’s economic growth.

But Merkel said Germany — which to a degree has long been haunted by the specter of atomic power given its World War II legacy — should “not let go the chance” to remove nuclear power from its national energy strategy once and for all.

Scharioth argues the cost-benefit breakdown also doesn’t support nuclear energy anymore.

“We had to come to the conclusion that there are very complicated technologies that you cannot get under control 100 percent,” he said, compar-

ing the cutting-edge engineering used to produce nuclear energy to that of a space shuttle program. “But of course if something happens [with a space mission], it affects seven, 10 or 12 people,” he pointed out. “Whereas with nuclear energy if something happens, it affects 30,000 or 100,000 or 2 million. If the nuclear reactors just north of New York were to have a problem, you would have to evacuate 10 million.”

The ambassador also cited the difficulty in storing nuclear waste and protecting facilities from terrorism as major concerns, and he said that the associated costs of sufficiently safeguarding such materials and sites was a contributing factor in the government’s decision.

While Germany has chosen to set Fukushima as the beginning of the end of its nuclear program, leaders in the United States and other nations have remained staunchly committed to nuclear energy and often point to environmental concerns as being among the very reasons they must continue to use and develop nuclear power.

In his keynote speech, Daniel Poneman, the U.S. deputy energy secretary, cited President Barack Obama’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions as a prime reason that nuclear power would remain a key element in U.S. efforts to achieve its environmental and energy goals.

“The development of America’s clean energy economy has been a top priority for President Obama and his administration from the outset,” he said.“The president recognizes that advancing clean energy innovation and diversifying our energy portfolio is essential for our economic, environmental and national security.”

Poneman went on to cite the president’s State of the Union address earlier this year, during which Obama called for doubling the amount of U.S. electricity from clean energy sources from 40 percent to 80 percent by 2035.

“Clearly that goal can only be met if we use all the low-carbon tools at our disposal,” he said.

The Fukushima incident has brought the safety of nuclear energy to the forefront of the public’s attention, Poneman conceded, but he said his agency and the Obama administration have never wavered from working to address these concerns.

Pekka Lintu, Finland’s ambassador to the United States, pointed out that his country faces inherent challenges in generating enough energy because of its lack of abundant carbon resources, cold climate and natural inability to generate

See NUCLEAR, page 19 July 2011

COVER PROFILE

Ambassador Eklil Hakimi

In Face of America’s Longest War, Afghan Envoy Pleads for Patience

by Larry Luxner

M

oments before being sedated for surgery to repair a torn aorta last December, the late Richard Holbrooke told his Pakistani doctor, “You’ve got to stop this war in Afghanistan.” Holbrooke, President Barack Obama’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, reportedly made the comment in jest.

But that plea — which history will remember as the veteran diplomat’s dying wish — underscores the urgency of ending a conflict that has now raged for 10 years, killed more than 1,600 American soldiers and costs taxpayers more than $2 billion per week.

Eklil Hakimi, who deeply admired Holbrooke, is Kabul’s new ambassador in Washington. By coincidence, his Feb. 16 appointment by the Afghan Foreign Ministry was announced a day after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton named retired U.S. diplomat Marc Grossman to replace Holbrooke as the State Department’s point man for Af-Pak affairs.

“It’s my job to explain — not only to our audience here in Washington, but also to the citizens of my country — that this is a long fight,” Hakimi told us.“It’s not one of those conventional wars where you have a clear definition of your enemy.The guerrilla war and the fight against terrorism is not something you can deal with overnight. It takes patience to explain to our citizens why it’s important to fight against terrorism.At the end of the day, it’s for the security of our citizens that we’re jointly fighting.”

Hakimi will also need plenty of patience in explaining the war to an increasingly restive American audience that’s grown tired and apathetic of the 10-year-old conflict — which recently surpassed the Vietnam War to become the longest war in U.S. history.The price tag for the war so far stands at more than $400 billion and counting, with $120 billion spent this year and just over $100 billion earmarked for 2012 — for a country with a gross domestic product of about $27 billion in 2010, a whopping 97 percent of which comes from foreign military and development funds.

The tab for both Afghanistan and Iraq has ratcheted up to more than $1.3 trillion over the last decade, although some say that doesn’t factor in long-term costs such as soldier rehabilitation. Not many people questioned the price tag when the Bush administration launched both wars, although starting a war and finishing it are two very different things, and today, most Americans simply don’t have the stomach for the kind of investment it takes to rebuild a war-torn nation.

July 2011

With a re-election campaign coming up, the economy tanking and the financial toll in Afghanistan mounting, President Obama finds himself under intense pressure to bring the decade-long conflict to a close, especially after the May 2 killing of Osama bin Laden.

In a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center on June 21, a majority of the Americans polled, 56 percent, said the Obama administration should remove U.S. troops from Afghanistan as soon as possible; 39 percent said the forces should remain there until the situation has stabilized. The number favoring a quick withdrawal rose significantly from the same survey taken days after bin Laden’s death, when 49 percent favored removing troops as soon as possible, while a year ago, just 40 percent of respondents were urging an immediate pullout.

“I know the American people are tired of war,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently told CNN.“But look, the reality is PHOTO: LARRY LUXNER

“

It’s my job to explain — not only to our audience here in Washington, but also to the citizens of my country — that this is a long fight…. It’s not one of those conventional wars where you have a clear definition of your enemy. The guerrilla war and the fight against terrorism is not something you can deal with overnight.

— EKLIL HAKIMI ambassador of Afghanistan to the United States

the United States had a very limited commitment in Afghanistan until well into 2008. And we didn’t have the right strategy and the right resources for this conflict.”

The reasons for that are well known — even Gates admitted that “we were diverted by Iraq, and we basically neglected Afghanistan for several years.”

Indeed as soon as it became obvious that President George W. Bush’s declaration of “mission accomplished” in Iraq had fallen woefully short, Afghanistan quickly fell by the wayside.Today, many say Bush’s invasion of Iraq was a costly mistake that

”

diverted attention from the real fight.

Obama campaigned on a pledge to refocus that fight back to the country from where the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks originated, and since taking office, he’s boosted the size of the U.S. force in Afghanistan by around 65,000, including a surge of 33,000 troops in late 2009 — with an initial pullout slated for this month.

On June 22, Obama announced that of the roughly 100,000 U.S. troops now serving in Afghanistan, 10,000 will be withdrawn by the end of this year, with the bulk of the 33,000 troops committed as part of the 2009 surge home by the end of

next summer in 2012 — a steeper pullout than what Gen. David Petraeus and other senior Pentagon officials wanted.

As pundits analyze whether the drawdown is too much or too little, one thing is abundantly clear: U.S. officials are searching for an endgame to the nation-building endeavor in Afghanistan, where the definition of “success” is constantly being recalibrated and scaled back — as Obama eschews his predecessor’s grander notions of fundamentally remaking the Afghan state in favor of more narrowly defined goals such as denying al-Qaeda a safe haven.

“We’re not trying to make Afghanistan a perfect place,” one senior administration official told the New York Times. As Obama himself put it in his June 22 address:“The tide of war is receding.”Yet it also seems the war is receding as an American priority.

Hakimi though says that despite the contentious debate over the U.S. troop presence, there is a clearly defined transition already in place for Afghanistan — and it must stay on track, especially given the tremendous sacrifices Americans have made for his country.“The Afghan govern-

See AFGHANISTAN, page 15 The Washington Diplomat Page 13

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Afghanistan ment, together with international coalition forces including the U.S., agreed at the summit in Lisbon last November to endorse the road map and a plan for the transition,” the ambassador said. “That transition will start in July 2011 and end sometime in 2014. This is something we agreed on.”

That transition is largely predicated on training some 350,000 Afghan security forces to take the lead by the end of 2014 and on the lofty assumption that the central government in Kabul can get its act together. Reconciliation talks with the Taliban — despite having sputtered for years — have re-emerged as part of the exit strategy as well.

In fact, Hakimi, 43, spoke with The Washington Diplomat the afternoon of June 17, just as the U.N. Security Council was voting to delink the Taliban from al-Qaeda — part of an effort to reach a political settlement with certain Taliban fighters. Following the unanimous adoption of Resolutions 1988 and 1989, which distinguishes between the Taliban and al-Qaeda in the enforcement of a 1999 travel ban, asset freeze and arms embargo, Susan Rice, U.S. envoy to the United Nations, said the creation of two separate sanctions blacklists “sends a clear message to the Taliban that there is a future for those who separate from al-Qaeda, renounce violence and abide by the Afghan constitution.”

The very next day, Afghan President Hamid Karzai publicly confirmed for the first time what by then had already become common knowledge: that the United States has begun preliminary talks with Taliban insurgents.

But in that same speech to a youth conference at the presidential palace, the always unpredictable and at times erratic Karzai once again lashed out at U.S.-led NATO forces for ordering air strikes that have killed hundreds of innocent civilians — and accused them of using Afghanistan “for their own purposes.”

“The nations of the world which are here in our country are here for their own national interests,” he said. “It is just for their national interest that they put our lives under their feet and dishonor the people.”

The war is indeed becoming significantly more dangerous for Afghans, despite coalition attempts to minimize civilian casualties. In May, according to the United Nations, 368 non-combatants were killed — 82 percent of them by the Taliban and 12 percent at the hands of

CREDIT: DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE PHOTO BY LANCE CPL. KOWSHON YE, U.S. MARINE CORPS

U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Christan A. Marlow, left, talks to Afghans while conducting a reconnaissance patrol in Sangin, Afghanistan. Of the 100,000 U.S. troops currently serving in Afghanistan, about 10,000 will be withdrawn by the end of this year, with the bulk of the 33,000 troops committed as part of the 2009 surge home by the end of next summer, giving the Pentagon just shy of one full fighting season with most of the surge forces still in place.

NATO forces. Reflecting similar trends, the United Nations said that 2,777 Afghan civilians lost their lives last year, the most since the war began, with insurgents responsible for about 75 percent of those deaths (which includes the recruitment of child suicide bombers, a relatively new tactic). Yet it’s the deaths caused by U.S. and NATO forces that attract the most attention — and anger.

In early May, Karzai bluntly warned that NATO must stop air attacks on Afghan civilians immediately, or face “unilateral action” from his government.“If they continue their attacks on our houses, then their presence will change from a force that is fighting against terrorism to a force that is fighting against the people of Afghanistan,” he declared.

“And in that case, history shows what Afghans do with trespassers and with occupiers.”

The outburst prompted an equally harsh response from America’s outgoing ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry. “When Americans, who are serving in your country at great cost — in terms of life and treasure — hear themselves compared with occupiers, told that they are only here to advance their own interest and likened to the brutal enemies of the Afghan people,” Eikenberry said,“my people,

in turn, are filled with confusion and grow weary of our effort here.”

The weariness has been boiling over on both sides, but Hakimi, an amiable yet reserved diplomat, is not one to engage in heated rhetoric.

A large portrait of Karzai hangs on the wall directly above his desk.

The ambassador, who’s been on the job less than five months, hasn’t had much time to decorate his office.The only other items of interest are a framed award from a 2002 “achievement summit” in Dublin, and a map of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces made from the semi-precious blue stone lapis lazuli.

Asked what kind of relationship he has with his president, Hakimi simply said:“I represent his government. I’m in frequent contact with his office, and President Karzai is committed to a long-term partnership between the U.S. and Afghanistan. Because of that, we have initiated negotiations for a strategic partnership document that will define our future relationship.”

Nice words, yet when asked about Karzai’s increasingly antagonistic comments against the United States — which have infuriated many lawmakers on Capitol Hill — Hakimi painted a rosy picture of bilateral ties in the way only diplomats can do.

“We have a very good relationship, and we work with each other as strategic partners,” he insisted. “Here and there are some misconceptions and misunderstandings, but that’s part of my job, and my colleagues in Afghanistan, to clarify those misconceptions and bring about mutual understanding.”

Pressed to explain what he meant, Hakimi said that “between the two partners, on a day-to-day basis, sometimes you say something to your domestic audience that could be misinterpreted in the other capital. But as far as the bigger picture is concerned, we are partners in the fight against terrorism and in achieving the main objectives.You have more than 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, and we are deeply grateful for all those young men and women in uniform who have sacrificed with their blood.”

In fact, American blood is flowing faster than ever.

In May, 56 U.S. soldiers died in Afghanistan compared to 51 the year before, while 51 other coalition troops lost their lives in April compared to 34 in April 2010.“The rising death toll has set off alarm bells within the American high command in Kabul, which is desperate to show that its strategy is working,” wrote Yochi J. Dreazen of National Journal.

“It is particularly alarming to many Pentagon officials,” he continued,“because senior military commanders had expected a high death

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toll in Afghanistan in 2010 — when the surge troops were fighting their way into Taliban-held areas of Kandahar and Helmand provinces — but believed that casualties would start to decline this year as NATO and Afghan forces expanded their control over the former insurgent strongholds.”

Hakimi offered his own take on this year’s rising body count.

“Recent casualties have been high, but this is because the enemy has suffered a lot. Gen. Petraeus did a great job of putting pressure on them, and securing areas where we had problems before,mainly in southern and westernAfghanistan.

So the insurgents have diverted attention elsewhere and have intensified their violence. But according to military experts, even though there’s been some violence here and there, the overall security situation in Afghanistan in those two areas is improving.”

Hakimi though wouldn’t comment specifically on how many U.S. troops ought to be withdrawn from Afghanistan. “This should be based on realities on the ground,” he said.“It should be a bottomup approach, meaning that commanders in the field can assess the situation better than we can.

We need the view from military experts to assess the situation, and based on that, we can reduce troop levels.”

Outgoing Defense Secretary Gates has made it patently clear that he thinks the military needs time for its strategy to bear fruit and preserve the fragile gains the country has made.And despite the litany of bleak headlines, Afghanistan has made tangible progress. For example, more than 8 million children — nearly 40 percent of them girls — were enrolled in school this year, a seven-fold increase since the war began. In addition, the widespread attrition and illiteracy rates among army recruits have been slashed, and the U.S. troop surge has largely accomplished its stated goal of ousting Taliban insurgents from the strategic southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar.

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Gates, in a June 19 interview with CNN’s “State of the Union” in which he affirmed that the United States had begun talks with the Taliban, reiterated his concerns that a precipitous withdrawal this summer could jeopardize recent progress squeezing Taliban fighters. “Real reconciliation talks are not likely to be able to make substantive headway until at least this winter,” he said.“I think the Taliban have to feel themselves under military pressure and begin to believe they can’t win before they are willing to have a serious conversation.”

Yet others counter that whether it’s winter 2011 or winter 2014, the Taliban will simply bide their time until the Americans leave. Moreover, not all of Afghanistan’s 30 million inhabitants are exactly thrilled about having any kind of conversation with the Taliban, which imposed a strict version of Sharia Islamist law during its 1996-2001 rule and was notorious for its barbaric treatment of women (stoning, acid attacks and mutilation were just a few of the repercussions women faced for defying the Taliban).

Human Rights Watch says women living in areas where Taliban extremists have regained strength since being booted from power in 2001 now once again suffer intimidation, violence and death. And even with the Taliban formally out of power, Afghanistan was still ranked the most dangerous country in the world for women, according to a recent Thomson Reuters Foundation poll — ahead of Congo, where it’s estimated that as many as 40 women are raped each day.

“Afghan women want an end to the conflict.

But as the prospect of negotiations with the Taliban draws closer, many women fear that they may also pay a heavy price for peace,” Human Rights Watch warned in a 70-page report.

“Reconciliation with the Taliban — a group synonymous with misogynous policies and the violent repression of women — raises serious concerns about the possible erosion of recently gained rights and freedoms.”

In fact, the very weekend that reports of Taliban negotiations were confirmed by U.S. and Afghan officials, a New York Times article pointed out that the well-financed government program to reintegrate former fighters has only lured a handful of midlevel commanders.At most, the article said, the program has attracted “only a fraction of the 20,000 to 40,000 Taliban insurgents, and many of the fighters who have taken advantage of the program may not even be Taliban, just men with weapons.”

Gates himself, speaking to CNN, said it could be months before such talks yield results, if they even do so at all.

“Who really represents the Taliban?” he asked, highlighting the difficulty of locating members of the Taliban who could credibly speak for the group’s Pakistan-based leadership. “We have said all along that a political outcome is the way most of the wars end…. The question is when and if they are ready to talk seriously.”

Former Afghan diplomat Masood Aziz, who’s now with the Atlantic Council, says he has no doubt that “without a broad political reconciliation seeking full, genuine and legitimate represen-

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tation for all, we will never have stability” in either Pakistan or Afghanistan. But he too sounds a loud note of caution.

“Let us not believe in the naïve notion that negotiation with the Taliban means handing Mullah Omar a position in the Afghan Cabinet or that money will buy loyalty from the Taliban,” said Aziz. “Instead, it should mean doing everything possible to endow the local authorities to have the ability to reach into the villages, allowing each district to have enough security so that they can form local jirgas, determine their own needs and seek partnerships with the authorities — assisted by international aid — to extract themselves from the yoke of poverty and insecurity, and from the coercion of the extremists.”

Hakimi, for his part, again counsels patience.

“This is one of those sophisticated wars that will continue for quite some time. Besides the military surge and the civilian surge, we have added this political surge into the overall strategy.

Our aim is to open the doors and start negotiations with those insurgents and opposition armed forces who are willing to join a political settlement,” Hakimi explained.

“We agree to this with three conditions. Those who renounce violence, cut ties with al-Qaeda and accept the Afghan constitution are more than welcome to join the peace process. Once they accept this, they can be reintegrated into Afghan society.”

Hakimi, who spoke to The Diplomat following a lengthy interview with state-owned China Central Television (CCTV), is Afghanistan’s former envoy to both China and Japan.

The ambassador’s father is from Laghman province and his mother from Kapisa province, both located northeast of Kabul. Hakimi — who is fluent in Dari and English, and well versed in Pashto, Urdu and French — received a master’s degree in engineering from the Kabul Polytechnic Institute in 1991, after which he joined his country’s foreign service. But when civil war broke out three years later, he fled with his family to California, settling in Orange County.

Hakimi returned to Afghanistan in 2002 and went on to become deputy foreign minister for political affairs after serving in Beijing and Tokyo.

As such, he took a leading role in an ambitious project to link Turkmenistan,Afghanistan, Pakistan and India by a 1,700-kilometer gas pipeline that has yet to be inaugurated.

Hakimi was sent to Washington to replace Said Tayeb Jawad, a former press spokesman and chief of staff to Karzai. Jawad had served as Afghanistan’s eloquent, media-savvy ambassador for seven years — until his sudden dismissal last year following the appearance in Kabul of photographs of an alleged embassy gala for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, showing women in sleeveless outfits and liquor flowing freely. Jawad insisted the photos were doctored and that he was on an official trip to Latin America when the supposed party took place.

We asked Hakimi if his management style differs much from that of his high-profile predecessor,

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BOOK REVIEW

Colin Dueck

‘Hard Line’ Makes Solid Case

For Hawkish GOP Foreign Policy

by John Shaw

W

hile the outcome of the 2012 presidential and congressional elections is, of course, uncertain, the Republican Party is poised to attract a constant stream of attention, analysis and speculation in the run-up to the closely watched race, from which it could emerge in a strengthened political position.

It’s quite possible Republicans will control both the House and Senate after the next election, and a Republican candidate will mount a serious challenge to President Barack Obama’s re-election bid, especially if the economy founders.

But there’s no shortage of “ifs” heading into the 2012 election, and it’s just as possible that Obama will emerge victorious and the political winds will shift back in Democrats’ favor.

Whatever the case, the GOP has managed to define much of the national debate with its singular focus on deficit reduction and ambitious plans to slash government spending. It also has a natural edge in generating public and media interest as the riveting contest over who will ultimately lead the party plays out over the next year.

But beyond the fascination — some say obsession — with figures such as Sarah Palin and the all-consuming budget battle lie lesser-publicized elements of Republican thinking, namely the party’s historic approach to foreign policy and its likely future policy stances.

Those wishing to learn more about how Republicans view the world and America’s place in it should read “Hard Line: The Republican Party and U.S. Foreign Policy Since World War II,” by Colin Dueck. Clear, balanced and comprehensive, the book provides an interesting perspective on how Republicans develop and implement their foreign policy vision.

Dueck, a professor at George Mason University, says the book is written from a “conservative point of view,” but his primary objective is to describe the GOP’s foreign policy record rather than advocate for Republican electoral hegemony.

His central argument is that Republican foreign policies have been basically hawkish since 1950s, hence the book’s title, “Hard Line.” He describes the GOP as the “party of hawkish nationalism,” adding that there have been policy oscillations among Republican leaders over the decades — including a divide between realists and idealists during and after the Cold War — but there’s also been great continuity.

“The most important such continuity is a consistent, hard-line American nationalism. Republicans believe in American exceptionalism, have sought to preserve their country’s freedom of action in world affairs, and have tried to avoid what they view as excessive accommodation toward hostile or threatening nations,” he writes.

Dueck says the Republican Party has been the conservative voice in U.S. politics for many decades. In his view, conservatives are skeptical about what government can accomplish; they oppose revolutionary political change;

July 2011

PHOTO: PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

“

Republicans believe in American exceptionalism, have sought to preserve their country’s freedom of action in world affairs, and have tried to avoid what they view as excessive accommodation toward hostile or threatening nations.

”

— COLIN DUECK, author of “Hard Line: The Republican Party and U.S. Foreign Policy Since World War II”

and they support the rule of law, respect for private property, reverence for the past, the importance of religion, and the necessity of public and private virtue.

As it pertains to foreign policy, Dueck says conservatives tend to be pessimistic about transforming the international system and doubt that international organizations or treaties can preserve the peace. They focus instead on protecting the nation’s interests and are deeply reluctant to relinquish sovereignty to international or transnational organizations. They are also typically cautious about using force with the intention of transforming the domestic arrangements of other nations, although in recent years this point has been seriously

questioned given the Republican-launched wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yet Dueck sees four distinct conservatives foreign policy archetypes that span the gamut of interventionist beliefs: “realists” who support the prudent use of force and diplomacy to advance carefully defined political interests; “hawks” who believe in the utility of military power and at times support armed interventions overseas; “nationalists” who seek to preserve the nation’s sovereignty and independence while avoiding diplomatic concessions to adversaries; and “anti-interventionists” who try to avoid military entanglements abroad.

With this foundation established, “Hard Line” dissects the careers and convictions of eight GOP foreign policy leaders. These case studies provide an excellent primer on the most consequential Republican leaders of the last 70 years and the policy debates they led.

For example, Dueck describes two Republican senators who shaped the GOP foreign policy agenda despite their failure to win the presidency. Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio embodied the doctrine of conservative anti-interventionism. Serving in the Senate from 1939 to 1953,Taft believed that extensive military entanglements abroad would endanger American traditions of limited government. An impressive senator, Taft tried unsuccessfully several times to win the Republican presidential nomination, although his anti-interventionist views resonated with a large number of Republicans and still have adherents today.

Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona, who served in the Senate from 1953 to 1965 and then from 1969 to 1987, was a less consequential lawmaker than Taft but succeeded in winning the Republican presidential nomination in 1964. Although he was drubbed

by Lyndon Johnson in that election, his campaign catalyzed insurgent Republicans, primarily based in the South and West, who were conservative on economic issues and hawkish on foreign policy.

Dueck argues that Goldwater launched a grassroots conservative coalition and political network that came to dominate American politics nearly two decades later, articulating themes that resurfaced in later Republican campaigns. Goldwater derided containment, arms control and diplomatic engagement with the Soviet Union.

He called for an assertive foreign policy of anti-communist rollback and prodded Republicans to become the chief advocates for robust defense spending and unapologetic military intervention.

Dueck believes the GOP’s foreign policy has also been profoundly shaped by several important Republican presidents. In particular, he sees President Dwight Eisenhower, who was in office from 1953 to 1961, as one of the most successful foreign policy presidents of the 20th century. Eisenhower’s central goal was to contain communism and to preserve America’s global leadership without bankrupting the government.A celebrated World War II general, Eisenhower had the standing to challenge the nation’s military establishment and cut the defense budget. He may also have been the last U.S. president to carefully weigh the nation’s overseas commitments with its fiscal limitations.

Eisenhower’s vice president, Richard Nixon, was defeated by John Kennedy in 1960, but would win the presidency eight years later. In Dueck’s view, Nixon,

See BOOK REVIEW, page 52 The Washington Diplomat Page 17

GLOBAL VANTAGE POINT

Diplomacy

My Ambassador: Larger-Than-Life Diplomacy of Lawrence Eagleburger

by Christopher Hill

F

or many of us in the United States Foreign Service, Lawrence Eagleburger, who died June 4, was a larger-than-life figure who left an indelible mark on our institution and on our lives.

Eagleburger, who served and later often closely advised a string of U.S. presidents from John F. Kennedy to George H.W. Bush — and was briefly Secretary of State himself — was a diplomat who went after every tough issue there was.

His courage was matched only by his determination and humor. He wouldn’t so much vanquish his adversaries as make them melt in his presence. It was appropriate that he was the only Foreign Service officer to become Secretary of State. Indeed, had he been appointed in late 1992 for longer than the interregnum between the Bush and Clinton administrations, he arguably would have been the best secretary of state the U.S. ever had.

In the Foreign Service, one’s first ambassador is a very special person. Mine was Eagleburger. I met him in 1978 in his office at the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade for my required “courtesy call,” a stress-inducing event on every newcomer’s arrival checklist. I had just arrived as the “assistant commercial attaché,” a rather modest position, appropriate to a 25-year-old junior Foreign Service officer.

Eagleburger told me what he was trying to do in Yugoslavia in the twilight of President Josip Broz Tito’s life: weave a web of relations with Yugoslavia such that it would keep the country from going in another direction. He had, after all, first been assigned to Yugoslavia in 1963, and become known as “Lawrence of Macedonia” for his relief work after the Skopje earthquake in August of that year.

I listened carefully to his explanation of my role in the “web of relations.” His capacity to link the tactical task of assisting visiting U.S. businessmen to the strategic goal of managing the coming postTito Yugoslavia was extraordinary. I had been scared to death for the entire 20-minute meeting, but I walked out a little taller for having realized that he valued my job. I felt an instant sense of loyalty to him, maybe partly because I sensed that he would be loyal, too.And he always was.

Of course, another reason I was so frightened to enter his office was his legendary temper. I saw it many times on the tennis court. As one of the most junior officers in the embassy, I was often summoned as an emergency fourth player for tennis at the ambassador’s residence.

Eagleburger, who was short, but only a little overweight at the time, would range over the court, not particularly mindful that he was playing doubles. He wielded

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The Washington Diplomat

a Wilson T-2000, an all-aluminum, state-ofthe-art racket at the time, ugly and unbreakable — and potentially lethal when hurled at warp speed after a failed lunging shot. I can remember diving for my life to the dirt, and hearing the menacing whir of the flying metal racket, accompanied by Eagleburger cursing at himself.

Tito died in May 1980, after a sixmonth illness. Eagleburger argued forcefully with the White House, ultimately without success, that the president should lead the U.S. delegation to the funeral. As a junior officer accompanying him to commercial events, I was often privy to his comments about some of his Washington interlocutors: “a mile wide and an inch deep,” was how he described a very senior member of the Carter administration at the time.

His courage was matched only by his determination and humor. He wouldn’t so much vanquish his adversaries as make them melt in his presence.

He never shrank from taking on Washington or letting officials there know what he thought. “I didn’t come here to preside over a post office,” he wrote in protest against delivering what he considered a useless note to the Yugoslavs.Then he explained a better course of action, admonishing that “pique is no substitute for policy,” a line I always remembered — and had many occasions to use.

The Ambassador, as I would always call him, went on to bigger and better things.

He was Undersecretary of Political Affairs in 1989 during the Polish and Central European revolutions, overseeing and spearheading U.S. assistance.

But his health — even 20 years ago — started to fail him. As the State Department’s desk officer for Poland, I accompanied the intrepid and iconic Polish democratic revolutionary Jacek

Lawrence Eagleburger, who died June 4 at the age of 80 after a heart attack, was a foreign policy advisor to U.S. presidents over a span of 40 years and served for 42 days as secretary of state at the end of President George H.W. Bush’s term.

Kuron to Eagleburger’s enormous seventh-floor office. Eagleburger, then in a wheelchair because of his knees and phlebitis, coughing from his cigarette habit and his asthma, instantly recognized a kindred spirit in Kuron. When Kuron asked if he could have a cigarette, Eagleburger, frustrated perhaps by his doctors’ nagging advice and new State Department regulations, responded: “You smoke?!? Fantastic! I’ve got some,” whereupon he whirled his wheelchair 180 degrees, and headed at breakneck speed to his desk. He and Kuron lit up, and it took us hours to pull them apart.

I visited him a few years ago at his home in Charlottesville, Virginia, and we talked for a couple of hours. He wanted to know all about the negotiations with North Korea, and I described some of the more theatric moments. He laughed at my admitting that I had borrowed some of his performance art. “That’s all right, Hill. Glad you learned something from me.”

“How do you think the Foreign Service

is doing,” he asked. He was worried that we’d surrendered too much of our role to the military. I told him that we would be fine, and that we would do our duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, military engagements about which he had great concerns.

“Just make sure our people show some guts,” he responded, and he lit another cigarette.

Christopher R. Hill, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asia, was U.S. ambassador to Iraq, South Korea, Macedonia, and Poland, U.S. special envoy for Kosovo, a negotiator of the Dayton Peace Accords, and chief U.S. negotiator with North Korea from 2005 to 2009. He is now dean of the Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver. He was also profiled by The Washington Diplomat in the December 2008 cover story “Disarming Presence: U.S. Envoy Negotiates Fine Line With North Korea.”

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2011. www.project-syndicate.org

July 2011

from page 12

Nuclear much solar, wind or hydro power. “That kind of limits our position to some extent,” he said. As a consequence, almost 30 percent of Finland’s electricity production is based on nuclear power, with the rest coming from fossil fuels and renewable resources. Like Poneman, Lintu said that his country’s commitment to a robust environmental policy and a rigorous timeline to reduce carbon emissions mean that “we still need nuclear power in our mix.”

Similarly, other European countries such as Britain and Poland have so far ruled out forsaking nuclear power. Perhaps most notable among this group is France. Because of its own lack of carbon assets, France is among nuclear power’s biggest proponents globally. The country has long relied on nuclear energy to fill the majority of its needs, especially since it was severely affected by the oil shock in 1973. Since then, France’s government has been steadfastly committed to nuclear technology.

Today, nuclear energy supplies roughly 75 percent of France’s power, and the country operates almost 60 nuclear reactors.

“The very favorable prospects that existed not so long ago throughout the world for the development of nuclear energy were stymied by the Fukushima nuclear accident,” admitted François Delattre, the French ambassador to the United States.

But in sharp contrast to the announcement by France’s neighbor Germany, Delattre said at the conference that not only would France continue to rely primarily on nuclear power, it would also maintain its policy of providing aid to other countries to

develop their own nuclear energy capacities under President Nicolas Sarkozy’s initiatives.

“President Sarkozy wants to give new momentum to helping countries that want to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes,” the ambassador said. He added, however, that these potential partners would have to uphold the highest safety standards.

On that note, João Vale de Almeida, the European Union ambassador to the United States, said that a vast renewal of safety procedures was set to launch across the EU, including a wide battery of stress tests for nuclear installations.

The envoy said that nuclear power is an individual choice for each of the EU member states, 14 of which, he pointed out, currently use nuclear power, and he noted that one-third of the union’s electricity comes from nuclear energy.

“Chernobyl and Fukushima have proven that an accident here is an accident everywhere, so we would like to see the strengthening of mechanisms, standards and rules at the international level,” said Vale de Almeida.

“The European Union will continue to respect the national decisions of each member state on whether or not to continue, or whether or not to invest further in the nuclear industry, and we express the wish — and I believe this debate contributes to that — that the discussion about nuclear is an informed one, a cool-headed one, not biased by emotions, based on facts and rational approaches but respecting concerns that may occur particularly after an accident like Fukushima.”

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MEDICAL

Cosmetic Enhancement

Cavities and Crow’s Feet: Botox at the Dentist’s Office

by Gina Shaw

T

he next time you visit your dentist to get a filling replaced or have your teeth cleaned, he might ask if you’ve considered doing something about those pesky frown lines between your brows or crow’s feet wrinkles around your eyes.

That’s because more and more dentists — especially general dentists — are taking the plunge into the lucrative field of “facial esthetics.”According to a survey done by “The Wealthy Dentist” (www.thewealthydentist. com), 16 percent of dentists are already offering Botox to their patients, 27 percent would like to if regulations permitted, and 37 percent might consider it someday.

Only 20 percent said “No way!”

Botox, or botulinum toxin, was recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat migraines, and it’s also used by some dentists to treat temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorders that cause pain around the jaw area and face (Botox relieves jaw tension by making muscles unable to engage in the grinding movement of the jaw that can produce headaches and pain).

From there, it wasn’t much of a leap for some dentists to start considering the treatment — a neurotoxin that’s injected into a muscle, blocking nerve signals or paralyzing certain muscles — for other conditions.

That’s because the real money in Botox is in bestowing a Nicole Kidman-esque smooth forehead. At $300 to $400 per treatment (or more), with a lot of repeat business — all paid out of pocket with no insurance company discounts — the profits can add up fast. That kind of cosmetic treatment has usually been the province of the plastic surgeon, but the times they may be a-changing, as dentists discover the dollar signs behind Botox.

In some states, like Minnesota, dentists are already permitted to offer their patients cosmetic Botox, as long as they adhere to the requirements that other specialists must meet. “As a dentist, I’m very well trained in the musculature and anatomy of the face, and I feel no other doctor can give an injection better than a qualified and experienced dentist,” Michael Skadron, D.D.S., told the Minneapolis Star Tribune in March, two months after he began offering Botox at his West River Dental Care in Minneapolis.“It’s a marvelous fit.”

Other states, like California and Nevada, have labeled cosmetic Botox as outside the scope of general dentistry.

The website of the Dental Board of California is pretty clear on the matter: “Botox or any related agents can only be used for the diagnosis and treatment of TMD/ myofascial conditions as part of a comprehensive treatment plan. Use for isolated cosmetic purposes is illegal, unless privileged under the Facial Cosmetic Surgery Permit.”

In New Jersey, new regulations that will take effect in December may limit the ability of dentists to provide Botox injections. They mandate that dentists are only allowed to administer Botox and filler injections to the “perio-oral area and associated tissue,” which might prevent them from injecting the drug into the forehead area, where most people want to wipe out wrinkles. But the general counsel of the New Jersey Dental Association

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The Washington Diplomat

PHOTO: DENNIS GUYITT / ISTOCK

“

[A] plastic surgeon takes 15 years to learn to do what he does.

I can learn it in a couple of weekends? I don’t think so.

— DR. KONSTANTINE TRICHAS general dentist in Montclair, N.J.

”

argued that the term “associated tissue” cannot be clearly defined.

Konstantine Trichas, a general dentist in Montclair, N.J., is just fine with the restrictions. He receives at least one solicitation every month from companies wooing him to attend weekend Botox continuing education courses — which he promptly throws away.

“They believe that we have enough head and neck training through our schooling and accreditation process that it’s just the matter of getting a certificate,” he said.“But my thought process is, a plastic surgeon takes 15 years to learn to do what he does. I can learn it in a couple of weekends? I don’t think so.What makes a doctor great is his ability to handle things when something goes wrong, and I don’t think a few weekend classes give me the ability to handle a crisis with Botox. Could I sleep at night if I had a case of facial paralysis?”

An Illinois dentist who responded to the Wealthy Dentist’s survey feels the same way:“It isn’t dentistry,” he wrote. “Just because we’re qualified to give injections, and these cosmetic injections are within inches of the mouth, does not mean that the procedure should be done by dentists.”

But others are enthusiastic.“With proper certification, I would support this. Oral surgeons are doing it, and we certainly have the training and intelligence to include this procedure with additional training in this product and its indications, techniques and contraindications,” wrote a Florida dentist surveyed by the Wealthy Dentist.

So, if you’re considering getting Botox, should you let your dentist do it or not? First, make sure he or she is permitted to do so. In Virginia, for example, the state dental board permits only oral and maxillofacial surgeons who have additionally received a cosmetic certification to provide Botox. General dentists aren’t allowed to jump into the field. Maryland also does not allow general dentists to provide cosmetic Botox, although the subject is still under discussion in the wake of a public hearing held last October. (The D.C. Board of Dentistry did not respond to a call seeking information.)

Once you’ve established that your dentist is actually permitted by his licensure to provide Botox, ask these questions: How long have you been providing Botox?

What training did you receive? Are there reasons I shouldn’t get Botox? (For example, your provider should know that people with neuromuscular disorders have a higher risk of side effects.) What are the possible side effects? How often have you encountered them, and how do you manage them?

While getting Botox from a licensed dentist is probably at least safer than getting it at a “Botox party” in someone’s home, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s your best bet. So consider all your options carefully before going “under the needle.”

Gina Shaw is the medical writer for The Washington Diplomat.

July 2011

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The Washington Diplomat Page 21

from page 16

Afghanistan who has since joined the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. The diplomat thought for a minute.

“I’m not aggressive,” he finally said. “I’m very systematic and results-oriented. I want to do things gradually, but firmly. I don’t expose myself too much, especially to the media. I want to spend my time and resources on something I believe in, on something that at the end of the day could best serve the interests of my country.”

And chief among those priorities is the fight against terrorism.

Hakimi fondly recalled the day nearly two months ago, when Navy SEALs raided Osama bin Laden’s three-story complex near Abbottabad, Pakistan, killing the al-Qaeda leader instantly.

“That was a major milestone and a significant success for all of us,” said Hakimi, who learned the news through official channels but wasn’t surprised that bin Laden had been hiding out in Pakistan.“Eliminating a symbolic leader of terrorist groups made us more than happy, because we are the ones who suffered the most from what he did.

Our president said very clearly that this was a happy day for the Afghan people.

“But let’s not forget we are fighting a very complicated terrorist network. Yesterday it was announced that al-Qaeda’s main command has named Ayman al-Zawahiri to replace him. That reminds us all that this network is still there. This war is crucial, and we must fight shoulder to shoulder to eliminate this threat.”

Equally crucial to eliminating that threat is Pakistan, Afghanistan’s unstable neighbor to the east, where the 9/11 terrorist mastermind had found refuge. That country’s rapidly deteriorating partnership with the United States took a sharp turn for the worse after bin Laden’s killing — which the Pentagon conducted on Pakistani soil but without Islamabad’s permission (also see “Pakistan: Marriage of Convenience or Is U.S.

Sleeping With an Enemy?” in the June 2011 issue of The Washington Diplomat).

Noting that “Afghanistan didn’t choose Pakistan as a neighbor,” Hakimi charged that the country’s mountainous tribal area is “a safe haven for terrorists who demolish our schools and kill our children.”

“We don’t have a choice.We have to deal with it,” he said, noting that after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, more than 4 million Afghans took refuge in Pakistan.

“During the resistance, Pakistan played a crucial role, but after the Soviet withdrawal, everything totally changed. Ever since 9/11, we have been saying that the main cause of terrorism is within those safe havens.

“In Pakistan, there are questions about freedom of media,” Hakimi added of the acrimonious bilateral relationship. “If you talk about things the government doesn’t like, they shut down the system.

You won’t find these kinds of restrictions in Afghanistan.”

Yet many U.S. policymakers now argue that the real terrorist threat emanates from Pakistan, not Afghanistan. Even the late Holbrooke, in the musings he left behind to his wife, wrote: “A stable Afghanistan is not essential; a stable Pakistan is essential.”

As a result, some say America’s limited resources should be directed toward Pakistan, a Muslimmajority nation that is home to a growing nuclear arsenal and whose secular government is being increasingly challenged by Islamic extremists.

Pakistan has received approximately $20 billion from the United States in mostly military assistance since 2001. The tab of course for Afghanistan is far higher. The Pentagon is on track to spend $118.6 billion on its Afghan operations this fiscal year, and it is seeking $107 billion for the next.

“To many of the president’s civilian advisers, that price is too high given a wide federal budget gap that will require further cuts to domestic programs and increased deficit spending,” wrote Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post. “Growing doubts about the need for such a broad nationbuilding mission there in the wake of Osama bin

Laden’s death have only sharpened that view.”

In fact, it can cost upward of $500,000 to keep an American civilian employee or contractor in Afghanistan for one year — although that’s still a bargain compared to the $1 million a year each deployed service member costs.

Last year, Chandrasekaran noted, the United States spent nearly $1.3 billion on military and civilian reconstruction operations for 80,000 people living in one district of Helmand province.That’s as much as total U.S. military assistance to Egypt.

“It is fundamentally unsustainable to continue spending $10 billion a month on a massive military operation with no end in sight,” said Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, in early May. A report compiled by Kerry’s committee and released in early June urged the administration to rethink its assistance strategy, arguing that poor planning and oversight have hampered the costly rebuilding effort in Afghanistan — at times flooding the country with money that it’s ill-equipped to manage.

The report suggested “a simple rule: Donors should not implement projects if Afghans cannot sustain them,” also debunking the theory that there’s always a correlation between insurgent attacks and traditional nation-building efforts such as combating poverty and improving education.

This “tidal wave of funding,” when not monitored, can also fuel waste and runaway corruption.

In fact, some NATO officials have put the annual price tag of Afghanistan’s corruption at more than $12 billion, a mix of bribes, graft, stolen government revenue, pilfered foreign aid and black-market smuggling.

Yet Hakimi defended Afghanistan’s track record.

“You can see corruption everywhere,” he said.“As a least-developed country, we admit that yes, there is corruption in Afghanistan. But making corruption some big issue is not the way to resolve it.”

In addition to corrupt local officials skimming their share of U.S. and foreign development money, Afghanistan’s democracy is still in its infancy and was marred in 2009 by Karzai’s contested election

victory against former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah. There are also widespread problems within the country’s nascent army, including drug abuse, illiteracy and ethnic tensions, and despite the infusion of foreign funds, roughly 40 percent of Afghans remained mired in poverty.

On the flip side, that same congressional report warned that Afghanistan could tumble into a “severe economic depression when foreign troops leave,” while also citing examples of successful development projects.

“Let’s not forget that after 30 years of war and destruction, we have lost most of our infrastructure,” Hakimi pointed out. “Over the last 10 years, with the support of our partners, we have achieved a lot. We are not completely reliant on U.S. aid. We have enormous natural and human resources which we can explore one day. The support we need from our friends is that we should stand on our own feet, and get to the point of collecting our revenues and developing a dynamic economy.”

Hakimi, while acknowledging growing frustration with the war, said the NATO-led effort is gradually making progress in weeding out the Taliban — and urged Americans to be patient and keep the past sacrifices and future perspective in mind.

“Because of our shared values, we have accepted a democratic system where our people can decide their own destiny. We are surrounded by countries whose people are thirsty for freedom.And the freedom of speech and religion we enjoy today, you can’t find in any of these countries — not in Iran, nor Uzbekistan, nor Tajikistan, nor Turkmenistan.

And for sure you cannot find them in China,” he said.

“To the extent that I can, I try to reach out to key members of Congress to explain the overall situation in Afghanistan and about our progress. We try to explain what kind of role Afghanistan could play as a partner — not only in the fight against terror but as a permanent ally of the United States in the years to come.”

Larry Luxner is news editor of The Washington Diplomat.

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July 2011

HOTELS T R A V E L &

■ A Special Section of The Washington Diplomat

■ July 2011

A wedding at the Colonnade in the Fairmont Washington, D.C.

Serious Parties

Washington Hotels Excel at Catering to Superlative Events

PHOTO: THE FAIRMONT WASHINGTON, D.C.

by Jacob Comenetz

As a capital city of international import, it’s only fitting that Washington, D.C., hosts more than its fair share of larger-than-life luminaries, political and otherwise. And the city’s venerable hotels, famous destinations in their own right, are well-versed in what it takes to satisfy their singular demands, especially when it comes to hosting big-time events.

Continued on next page

■ INSIDE: Ridership at all three area airports is on the rise, but so is the cost of oil, which may cause turbulence ahead. PAGE 30 ■

July 2011

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The Washington Diplomat

“We’re lucky in Washington because this town is just amazing when it comes to numbers of galas and clients. For somebody in our industry, this is one of the most exciting cities to be in.”

— ROBERT MIKOLITCH, director of catering at the Fairmont Washington, D.C.

Continued from previous page From political fundraising and charity dinners, to galas honoring world leaders, to multicultural weddings with hundreds of guests, the events that top Washington hotels host are as outstanding as the clientele they serve.To get a sense of what goes on behind the scenes to produce some of the largest, most exceptional events, The Washington Diplomat talked to catering directors at three leading hotels: the Fairmont and Ritz-Carlton, both in the West End, and the Washington Hilton in Dupont Circle.

Though each hotel emphasized different facets of the event-planning process — from setting trends in decoration and cuisine, to arranging rapid room reconfigurations, to dealing with the intricate security requirements of high-level guests — the catering directors at these hotels were unanimous in their passion for their jobs, a passion that has a lot to do with location. As Robert Mikolitch, director of catering at the Fairmont, said:“We’re lucky in Washington because this town is just amazing when it comes to numbers of galas and clients. For somebody in our industry, this is one of the most exciting cities to be in.”

Situated at M and 24th Streets, NW, in the heart of the West End, the Fairmont hosts around 60 events a year, including galas, weddings and fundraisers.The hotel is distinguished by its blooming courtyard, complete with a splashing fountain centerpiece, which truly gives it the feel of being a lush oasis in the city.Abutting one side of the courtyard is the hotel’s signature Colonnade Room: a glass pavilion in the shape of a four-leaf clover, anchored by a gazebo-like stage. Mirrors and chandeliers hanging from the glass-domed ceiling create a glittering, light-drenched space, which “automatically makes any event more fun,” said Mikolitch. “We’re very lucky with the Colonnade, a great special events space because it doesn’t look like a hotel ballroom.”

The Fairmont recently hosted the “Newsbabes” reception in the Colonnade, an event made up of local female TV news anchors to raise breast cancer funds for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.

This “pink” gathering was not the hotel’s only such fundraiser, however.

Mikolitch says that among the Fairmont’s “largest and most inspiring” events is the annual Living in Pink gala, held for the past eight years in October, national breast cancer awareness month.The gala features a fully pink menu for “400 ladies every year — a tough audience,” Mikolitch joked.

“The pastry chef has a lot of fun coming up with creative pink creations,” he said, noting that during the entire month of October, the Fairmont features pink uplighting in the courtyard and pink-themed drinks at the lobby bar, with proceeds going to the Living in Pink organization.

“So it’s an event that the entire hotel embraces.”

Mikolitch, who has been at the Fairmont for eight years and in catering for 25, takes pride in producing events that not only

TRAVEL & HOTELS

exceed his clients’ expectations, but also push the envelope of the event-planning profession while setting trends for decorators and hotels around the country. He talked through his creative process, and the fruit it bore in the case of two exceptional events the hotel has hosted over the past several years.

“The key when you come up with an idea or theme is you’ve got to really be able to incorporate that theme into the entire event, so people just remember the message through the entire evening,” Mikolitch told The Washington Diplomat.

An example is the Sip and Sample, an “event planner’s event” geared toward wedding planners that the Fairmont has put on for the past five years.“What we do for this event is sit down with several of our local event vendors, including Party Rentals who handles tablecloths, Capitol Décor who handles flowers, and Hitched, the bridal store in Georgetown, and brainstorm: What are the trends we’ve seen?

What are the hot new colors? What are the hot new flowers? What are the different ways people are now entertaining?”

Out of this brainstorming session the Fairmont and its partners produce “our social and bridal trends reception,” attended by event planners and brides-to-be, showcasing the latest offerings in parties and entertaining. But the event is practical from the hotel’s standpoint as well, Mikolitch says, in that the culinary team has a chance to practice making its menus in miniature versions, served as hors d’oeuvres.

“When you walk in the hall it’s like you’re walking through a garden of wedding cakes,” he said. One sweet specialty of the hotel stands out: a yellow-and-white multilayer cake, decorated with ornate swirls and adorned with frosted honeybees. The cake is inspired by the hotel’s own beehives, located on its roof, which produce about 40 pounds of honey each year.“It’s a unique local angle for us to be able to incorporate our local honey,” said Mikolitch. “Plus, from an environmental standpoint it’s wonderful since bees are slowly disappearing, and it’s nice to know we have three healthy hives up on the roof.”

The Fairmont also hosts an annual Signature Event, inviting “all of Fairmont’s top clients to showcase our hotel as a hotel that really knows how to entertain in terms of food and beverage and creativity,” Mikolitch explained.“These people are well traveled and used to really wonderful things, so it’s a group that’s hard to spoil.”

He added: “It’s a real challenge for us every year to come up with a theme that’s going to be fun for them,” but this is precisely where the Fairmont Washington excels.

Mikolitch showed The Diplomat pictures of the most recent Signature Event, inspired by the bestseller “Eat, Pray, Love.”

The hotel named its own event “Eat, Drink, Sleep” — “a salute to famous beds around the world,” he said.

“You went down a long staircase, a

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July 2011

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from page 24

Parties ‘dream hallway’ with walls of stars and a carpet made of feathers.A host in silk pajamas would greet all guests as they came down the dream hallway, to clear your mind and get you ready for this party-scape when you walk in,” Mikolitch explained.“As you enter, we had the sandman at the door; he was passing out dreams in little silver scrolls.And some of the dreams were prizes, trips to different Fairmonts and things like that. He would walk around the room in his nightshirt — he was on stilts — so he was the first person you saw before you even went into the room. In the ballroom we had all different types of beds, some beds made of tents, some to sit on, and some as buffets, and food and drink was brought to the guests.”

The “Eat, Drink, Sleep” event also featured an inflatable “cloud bar,” numbered sheep for counting, and drinks done with liquors meant to serve as aphrodisiacs. Not surprisingly, “people are still talking about this event,” noted Diana Bulger, the Fairmont’s area director for public relations.

Located just a few blocks east on M Street, the Ritz-Carlton is no stranger to putting on spectacular events for as many as 900 guests, including political heavyweights, high-profile celebrities, media personalities and glamorous everyday divas. As directors of social catering, Annie Boutin-King and Amal Zaari told The Diplomat that clients often come to the Ritz with particularly challenging demands because they know that the hotel, with its “all hands on deck” approach, can deliver. “We’re more daring because we know we can do it fast, so we take the challenge,” said Boutin-King.

Though the Ritz handles many political and diplomatic galas and receptions each year, these tend to PHOTO: THE FAIRMONT WASHINGTON, D.C. be traditional in style, compared to weddings and especially bar and bat mitzvahs, which often entail the most unique requests, Zaari said.

She described a challenging mixed wedding between an Indian groom and American bride, for which the Ritz successfully staged three separate, successive events in the same ballroom.

“For this wedding we first did an Indian ceremony with a mandap for about 400 people,” Zaari said, referring to the ornate, covered stage-like structure on which the bride and groom sit during the ceremony.“Then we transformed this ballroom into a Christian

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The Washington Diplomat

CREDIT: ROOM DECOR BY ENCORE DÉCOR / PHOTO BY RODNEY BAILEY

One of the biggest appeal of the Washington Hilton’s International Ballroom, above, is its sheer size, which at 36,000 square feet can accommodate more than 2,600 for dinner. Meanwhile, the Fairmont touts its ability to push the envelope of event planning, as seen in its dreamy “signature event,” at left, dubbed “Eat, Drink, Sleep,” in honor of famous beds around the world.

wedding ceremony within a very short period of time. And then going to the cocktail reception, we had to transform the ballroom another time, for dinner and dancing. So it was multiple transformations within a very limited amount of time,” she recalled.

“Every time the guests walked back into the ballroom, they were walking into a new space, with décor and lighting completely transformed, all within an hour’s time. It really requires everyone in our banquet team to make it happen, including us, moving tables and setting up chairs,” she added.

Zaari, originally from Morocco, and Boutin-King, originally from France, also highlighted the Ritz’s multicultural staff, which hails from around 30 countries.The Ritz is a popular choice for major Indian, Jewish and Persian weddings, among other cultures, because its “ladies and gentlemen,” as staff are called, are highly knowledgeable about the respective traditions and can consult with clients, should they request it, on how to cater to diverse customs.

The Ritz’s clients choose to host major events there, Boutin-King said, because they value the hotel’s ability to “deliver what they’re expecting, and in style.”

TRAVEL & HOTELS

July 2011

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Weddings at the Ritz-Carlton, such as this pink-themed ceremony, can be intricately tailored depending on taste, traditions and cultures, with the Ritz being a popular venue for elaborate Indian, Jewish and Persian weddings.

“From a capacity standpoint, others can do it, but the Ritz-Carlton does it on a luxury level,” said Boutin-King, who has been with the Ritz in Washington for seven years.“When you research events, you won’t find luxury hotels that have the capacity to do such large events. Why do clients take a chance with us, to do events that are so big? Precisely because they know we make it happen.”

For dinner events with 600 to 700 people, anywhere from 12 to 15 chefs, including the executive chef and two executive sous-chefs, are at work in the Ritz-Carlton’s kitchen. When it comes to fulfilling requests for particular cuisines or precisely tailored fusion dishes, the hotel has two strategies: It can tap into its network of chefs at its properties around the world, soliciting their expertise, or, in the case of national day celebrations hosted by many embassies, it will often invite the embassies’ chefs into the hotel to work side by side with the Ritz’s own crew.

“We’re probably the only hotel I know that welcomes very easily other chefs,” said BoutinKing.“And I think [the Ritz’s chefs] look forward to working with other people, because you’re always going to learn something. And it makes it authentic — we’re known for that. That was something I’d always heard about the Ritz before joining — the quality of the food….That’s to me very important. It’s why I joined. Some other brands are culinary-specific, but I think more so with the Ritz-Carlton.”

The Ritz pulls off its speedy ballroom transformations and culinary feats even as it adjusts to the security demands of the Secret Service, which sometimes needs to do sweeps and pull kitchen and banquet staff away at inopportune moments. When hosting a recent fundraiser honoring a prominent political appointee, the catering directors negotiated a compromise to make sure each side could fulfill its respective mission — of providing security and “putting together a wonderful party.”

When it comes to working with security services, however, the Washington Hilton, located on Connecticut Avenue above Dupont Circle, is a seasoned veteran. The hotel — famous for its gargantuan International Ballroom, the largest in Washington — hosts two of the biggest events on the Washington social calendar, the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in May and the National Prayer Breakfast in February.

It also welcomes the president of the United States “several times” in the spring and fall as well as at inaugural balls and dinners, according to director of catering and events Thomas O’Doherty.

In an interview at the Washington Hilton’s oneyear-old, 11,000-square-foot Heights Courtyard — part of a recently completed $150 million overhaul of the entire hotel — O’Doherty told The Diplomat about some of the security procedures the hotel must undergo when welcoming high-level guests.

At the inaugural ball, for instance, when it hosts upward of 5,000 guests, the Secret Service extends the security perimeter to cover the entire hotel, so that guests must be funneled

July 2011

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through designated checkpoints located around the exterior. “We work a lot with the Secret Service,” O’Doherty says, “and have had some times where for safety reasons we changed the setup in banquet rooms at the last minute, to make sure everything was safe, particularly for the president.”

The hotel also hosts the first lady several times each year, including at the annual First Lady’s Luncheon held by the Congressional Club each spring. Indeed, The Diplomat’s interview was delayed due to the visit of a “VVVIP,” later revealed as none other than Michelle Obama.

The Washington Hilton, which defines itself as a convention hotel, with 110,000 square feet of function space, also hosts a variety of large events throughout the year, including the Fight for Children charity fundraiser, featuring four sanctioned bouts in a real boxing ring; the Howard University Charter Day gala; and the Professional Convention Management Association’s industry event, a showcase for top event and meeting planners.

O’Doherty recounted a moving story involving two back-to-back visits by Barack Obama to the Washington Hilton, immediately before and after being inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States. On the night prior to the inauguration, Obama walked down a hall in which the Hilton hangs portraits of all presidents who have visited the hotel. The president-elect took note of the two empty hooks, waiting for his portrait to be hung. The following night Obama walked down the same hallway, pausing to see his likeness hanging from the hooks. “I’m president,” he said — a moment that was caught by the White House photographer and became a part of American history.

O’Doherty also took The Diplomat through the expansive halls of the hotel to the storied International Ballroom, which, at 36,000 square feet, is one of the largest on the East Coast. “We can do 2,670 for dinner,” he said nonchalantly, adding that the room seats 4,000 when chairs are arranged theater style. “We don’t mess with the fire warden either,” O’Doherty said with a chuckle.

When the Washington Hilton hosts its trademark events, such as the White House Correspondents Dinner, 250 to 350 waiters serve the guests, along with 100 additional support staff. It’s a precisely timed parade that’s made possible by the special design of the kitchen, which O’Doherty notes allows hot toffee pudding and ice cream to be served side by side and deployed to guests quickly enough so that the ice cream does not melt.

When you really think about that, it’s quite a stupendous achievement — and an example of the serious work that takes place behind the hotel curtain to create the perfect party. But for the Washington Hilton, as for the other hotels, it’s all in a day’s work.And judging by the enthusiasm the catering directors exhibit for their work, they wouldn’t have it any other way.

Jacob Comenetz is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

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[ airports ]

Upward Trajectory Ridership Rises at Area Airports, But Turbulence May Lie Ahead

by Lois Kapila

F

or the first time since 2007, all Washington area airports saw a growth in ridership in 2010, a reflection of the area’s general economic health and of specific gains at its three major airports.

But this year, rising oil prices may make for a bumpier ride.

Reagan National in D.C. served 18.1 million passengers in 2010, a 3.1 percent increase over 2009, while Washington Dulles International in Virginia served 23.7 million passengers in 2010, a 2.3 percent increase on 2009 figures.

But the biggest jump was at Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport (BWI) in Maryland, one of only two major U.S. airports to show growth in 2009. In 2010, BWI set an annual passenger record, with 21.9 millions riders — a 4.7 percent increase on the previous year.

Driving the growth, according to BWI spokesman Jonathan Dean, is “the strength of the region.

The Washington-Baltimore region remains attractive to airlines due to the strength and growth in this market.”

Another critical factor is the popularity of lowfare flights — largely attributable to Southwest Airlines, which recently purchased AirTran Airways and now operates 70 percent of the flights at BWI. PHOTO: METROPOLITAN WASHINGTON AIRPORTS AUTHORITY Meanwhile, some of the growth at Dulles International and Reagan National was thanks to D.C.’s Reagan National Airport, above and opposite a host of new services introduced at the airports page, served 18.1 million passengers in 2010, a 3.1 perover the course of 2010. cent increase over 2009 — reflecting similar trends at all At Dulles, Bolivian airline AeroSur launched a three major Washington area airports, which collectively weekly nonstop service to Bolivia, Turkish saw ridership increase for the first time since 2007.

Airlines began flying four times a week to Istanbul, and OpenSkies, a subsidiary of British Dean is expecting another recordAirways that offers business class-only flights, breaking summer for BWI, mainly thanks started a service to Paris Orly International to the magnetic pull of Southwest — JONATHAN DEAN Airport (also see “Ready for Liftoff: OpenSkies Is Airlines. “Southwest Airlines is the largBaltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport All Business in Its Push To Resurrect Air Luxury” est airline partner at BWI. In the peak in the July 2010 issue of The Washington summer travel months, Southwest will Diplomat). Most recently, Icelandair launched nonstop flights in May from offer 195 daily departures, a new all-time record for Southwest at BWI. Last Dulles to Keflavik International Airport outside Reykjavík — having pulled out summer, Southwest had an average of 182 daily departures,” he said. of BWI in 2008. In addition, JetBlue and Delta both began to offer multiple new Tara Hamilton, a public affairs manager for the Metropolitan Washington domestic flights from Reagan National.

Airports Authority (MWAA), which operates both Dulles International and But whether the upward trend will continue this year, at all three airports, is Reagan National, is more circumspect, explaining,“It is always hard to predict still unclear. For both Reagan National and BWI, the figures are looking good. what will happen since the overall economy has an impact on travel.”

Dean pointed out that in March 2011, the most up-to-date statistics available, In fact, airlines are notoriously vulnerable to a whole range of external fac1.88 million travelers flew through BWI — another new record for the month tors. In early June, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the airline of March, representing a 3.3 percent increase from March 2010. “BWI has set industry trade group, drastically downgraded its profit forecast to $4 billion. new monthly passenger records in 10 of the past 11 months,” he noted.

That is less than half of their original forecast of $8.6 billion in March — and a Reagan National has experienced an equivalent boost in passengers, with far cry from the $18 billion net profits airlines reaped in 2010.

1.64 million travelers passing through the airport in March 2011, a 3.3 percent The reasons, according to Giovanni Bisignani, IATA’s director general and increase from March of the previous year. chief executive officer, are multiple. In a statement, Bisignani said, “Natural With 1.93 million passengers in March 2011, though, Dulles is the only air- disasters in Japan, unrest in the Middle East and North Africa, plus the sharp port to have witnessed a fall (2.8 percent) in passengers from the same point rise in oil prices have slashed industry profit expectations to $4 billion this the previous year. year. That we are making any money at all in a year with this combination of unprecedented shocks is a result of a very fragile balance.The efficiency gains SUMMER SPIKE? of the last decade and the strengthening global economic environment are Despite the recent surge, there are varying outlooks for the busy summer balancing the high price of fuel.”

Passengers though have already been feeling the pinch of global shocks. holiday season.

“The Washington-Baltimore region remains attractive to airlines due to the strength and growth in this market.”

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July 2011

PHOTO: METROPOLITAN WASHINGTON AIRPORTS AUTHORITY

A number of airlines have tacked on additional fuel surcharges to ticket prices to try to protect their bottom lines from soaring oil prices.

MWAA’s Hamilton hopes that the special characteristics of the Washington region, with its international inhabitants and capital attractions, will mitigate the adverse impact of oil instability.

“The price of fuel affects the decisions airlines make about their service patterns. However, the Washington region is a major destination for travelers, whether for business or tourism, and airlines find service to our market to be a good revenue generator,” she said.

IMPROVEMENTS ON THE GROUND Washington area airports have a mixed track record when it comes to customer satisfaction.

In a 2010 survey carried out by J.D. Power and Associates, BWI came out in front with 707 out of 1,000 points. Reagan and Dulles got 672 and 646 respectively, below the average for mediumsize airports of 690.

BWI also comes out in front in terms of afford-

July 2011

ability, which no doubt has propelled the larger passenger figures at BWI, where the price of domestic airline tickets is consistently well below the national average. According to U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, in the fourth quarter of 2010, the average domestic fare at BWI was $284.

At Reagan and Dulles, the figures were $360 and $420, respectively.

Yet low cost is not the only factor passengers consider when they are thinking about buying a ticket. J.D. Power and Associates asked 12,000 customers about their entire airport experience, from airport accessibility, baggage claim, the check-in process, terminal facilities, as well as security check and food and retail services.These are all areas that the three major Washington area airports have been trying to improve in recent years.

Dean points to BWI’s newly opened Airspace Lounge as proof of his airport’s consistent attention to customer needs. Located on Concourse D, the lounge can be used, for $17.95 a day, by any traveler regardless of the airline on which they

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Continued from previous page are flying. In the swanky modern space, passengers can enjoy complimentary food and beverages while tapping into free WiFi or using the lounge’s MacBooks and Windows computers.

Hamilton said that Dulles International and Reagan National have also been “working to increase passenger amenities at both airports, with more offerings in our concessions and creating an art program to enhance the facilities and provide some viewing pleasure for our customers.You’ll see that art throughout the terminals and in the International Arrivals area at Dulles.�

Far more important than paintings on the wall, Dulles has just finished almost 12 years of continuous expansion construction, with a new runway, new air traffic control tower, an expanded Concourse B, new roadways, and a much-publicized automated airport train system dubbed AeroTrain to replace the outdated mobile transport lounges. Finally operational in January 2010, after significant delays, the sleek AeroTrain system connects passengers from the Main Terminal to the A, B, and C Gates at speeds of up to 42 miles an hour.

In April 2011, the MWAA also announced that WiFi, which travelers previously had to pay for unless you were lucky enough to already have a service-provider account, would now be free of charge for everybody at Dulles International and Reagan National.

Looking ahead, probably the most important project in the works remains the construction of the Silver Line Metro, which would connect the airport with downtown Washington, D.C., much like Metro now does with National.

As Hamilton points out,“The Silver Line is important because multi-modal options for a major international airport are expected, and we will be pleased to offer mass transit as

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The Silver Line project though was recently thrust back in the headlines over disagreements about what form the station at the airport should take. In April 2011, the MWAA voted to build an underground station at a cost of $330 million more than an aboveground version. Officials from Loudoun and Fairfax Counties, whose taxpayers would have been responsible for footing part of the bill, reacted with anger.

At the end of May, the fighting over funding got so heated that U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood was forced to intervene, giving local officials a month to find a compromise and agree on cost estimates.

Hamilton defends Dulles’s decision to back an underground system as a convenient alternative, despite the added costs. “The aboveground station was not the original location in the planning for the rail system and would be located 1,200 feet away from the Main

Dulles International Airport has recently added a host of new services and upgrades, including the launch of nonstop service to Bolivia, Turkey and Iceland, as well as a long-awaited automated airport train system dubbed AeroTrain.

Terminal,� she explained. “The project called for an underground station that would connect directly into the Main Terminal at a 600foot distance. This planned station would be more convenient, direct and protected from the elements.�

Three-quarters of the cost for the second phase of the Silver Line construction is to be funded using revenue from the Dulles toll road. MWAA is currently working to finalize plans for the entire second phase, which, Hamilton noted, includes looking at all options for cost savings.

The Silver Line is currently expected to be completed in 2017.

Lois Kapila is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C.

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The Meaning Of Humanity Ubuntu is a cherished African mantra with multilayered meanings, and though difficult to define concretely, it’s clear that Rosieda Shabodien, wife South African Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool, has it in abundance. PAGE 36

FESTIVALS

ART

DIPLOMATIC SPOUSES

■ JULY 2011

VIBRANT

SHADES “Contemporary Jamaican Artists” at the Inter-American Development Bank Cultural Center features a relatively small number of artists who embody a remarkably big range of ideas that reflect the island’s colorful complexity, from traditional meditations on slavery to high-tech modernist works that ponder the effects of globalization and change. PAGE 34

Colombia on the Mall More than 100 Colombians will represent the South American country at the Smithsonian’s 2011 Folklife Festival, which since 1967 has brought more than 23,000 people from all over the world to the National Mall to showcase their community-based traditions. PAGE 35

THEATER

Brutal ‘Purge’ Two women depict the psychological hell that comes from internalizing external abuse and oppression in Sofi Oksanen’s gut-wrenching “Purge.” PAGE 39

DINING

FILM REVIEWS

David von Storch adds upscale dining to his portfolio with 901 Restaurant and Bar. PAGE 41

“Page One: Inside the New York Times” asks if the Gray Lady can turn over a new page. PAGE 42

[ art ]

More Than Yeah Mon Beautiful Complexity Makes Up Contemporary Jamaica

by Gary Tischler

O

ver the years, the Inter-American Development Bank’s Cultural Center, under director and curator Félix Ángel, has become an unparalleled venue to trace the roots and progress of Latin American art through a series of exhibitions focused on certain regions, countries and time periods.

The results have often been surprising — for the great diversity as well as similarities that revealed themselves — and consistent in that so much of the art was inspired by certain universal elements. Colonialism, indigenous cultures, the challenges and eventual embrace of modernism juxtaposed with the traditional, and excitement tinged with wariness toward new technologies and globalization have all cropped up time and again in the center’s thematic shows.

The current Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) exhibition, “Contemporary Jamaican Artists,” springs almost organically from all of these underpinnings. It also embodies the “About Change” series of exhibitions, a project implemented by the World Bank Art Program in conjunction with the IDB and the Organization of American States (OAS) to showcase Latin American and Caribbean art at D.C. venues throughout 2011.

In fact,“Contemporary Jamaican Artists” dovetails a previous exhibition at the OAS Art Museum of the Americas called ““Wrestling with the Image: Caribbean Interventions,” which included large contributions from Jamaican artists, some of whom are part of the IDB show (also see “Consequential Caribbean” review in the March 2011 issue of The Washington Diplomat).

“Change is a critical thing in all Latin American art, and it includes the use of technology,” said IDB Cultural Center Director Ángel. “Many artists embraced technology early, others came to it late. Jamaican artists — because of the unique geographical position of Jamaica, an island surrounded by other islands with different cultural references — came particularly late to this. There were issues of identity here, unique to Jamaica and Jamaican art, as you can see in this exhibition.”

Also in this exhibit, tradition,“the narrative element in Jamaican art, has always been strong,” Ángel pointed out — yet now it collides with contemporary ideas and technolPHOTOS: INTER-AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK CULTURAL CENTER ogy, and the mix is both fervent and fruitful.

Here, you find artists dealing with the metaphorical and physical repercusFrom top, Charles Campbell’s “Actor sions of this collision, such as Charles Campbell’s entrancing meditations Boy V,” Gerard Hanson’s “Gaza” and based on the region’s history of slavery and emancipation, to Gerard Phillip Thomas’s “Carousel” — as well Hanson’s provocatively titled portraits using archival inkjet that ponder the as Michael Parchment’s “From Slavery complex diversity and displacement that still defines Jamaican society. to Freedom” on the culture cover — What’s impressive is that even among this relatively small number of are among the eclectic works in works — 20 by a total of nine artists — there is a remarkable range of big “Contemporary Jamaican Artists.” ideas, larger metaphors, transcendent feelings, and a narrative that examines the past, present and future of an island with a richly distinct identity but one that’s also been shaped by many overlapping forces. Slavery, for example, is a residual that become more disquieting the more you gaze at them, an eerie ride populated by issue not only in Jamaica but throughout the Caribbean, as opposed to South America, what the artist calls “cultural reliquaries, artifacts and social curiosities.”

There are curious connections everywhere — and a multidimensional, multicultural where colonialism wore a different face.

Hanson, a British-born artist who resides in Kingston, creates works that almost seem undercurrent found not only in the materials, but the artists themselves. Margaret Chen, to scream Jamaica, with their redolent colors, urban edge and musical energy, yet the a Chinese-Jamaican, wrought an oval-shaped construction out of X-rays and wood strips artist also wants his work to highlight the overlap of cultural, national and racial identities called “Cross Section of Arc” that evokes a sea-faring canoe, a sleek but fragile vessel from the past made of decidedly new materials. and the subsequent feelings of being “out of place” in the very place in which you live.

Laura Facey’s “Their Spirits Gone Before Them” is a different kind of canoe, this one Like Hanson, Ebony G. Patterson seems inspired by Jamaica’s urban backdrops, made of cottonwood, that explores similar themes but in a although she focuses her attention on the fashionable more visceral way. Inside this canoe are 1,357 resin figures trends within Jamaican dance hall culture and specifically Contemporary Jamaican Artists made of dried sugarcane, meant to echo the words of the machismo that permeates notions of masculine and through July 22 Marcus Garvey as sung by Bob Marley in his “Redemption feminine roles in society.The in-your-face result is a digital Inter-American Development Bank Cultural Center Song” — “None but ourselves can free our mind.” collage of big gangsta bling that challenges traditional conMichael Parchment’s “From Slavery to Freedom” is a 1300 New York Ave., NW cepts of beauty in popular black culture. more colorful, somewhat more hopeful vision of looking Marlon James takes a more dressed-down approach For more information, please call (202) 623-3774 beyond the past but still preserving it, while Oneika Russell with his portrait subjects, allowing them to relax naturally or visit www.iadb.org/cultural. uses video animations to muse about her postcolonial expebefore his camera so “these people unveil in front of my lens,” as he puts it — which they do in striking real-life photographs that capture the rience and her own journey from Jamaica to Japan.

In these works, you see what separates Jamaica from other Caribbean islands, but subjects’ outsize personalities.

More enigmatic is Campbell’s “Actor Boy” series, inspired, according to the artist, by there’s also the shared oppression that blankets the region’s history like a ghostly layer. the circular mandala form found in Hindu, Buddhist and other religions. As mesmerizing The art though goes beyond yesterday’s colonialism to offer a thought-provoking, as Campbell’s circular renderings are, it’s his large black-and-white “Bagasse Cycle” depict- nuanced look at today’s Jamaica — which itself goes beyond the tired old associations of ing the leftovers of sugar cane that speaks to the island’s economic lifeblood that was reggae and Rastafarianism and sunny smiles. It’s contemporary, complicated, challenging, unpredictable and beautifully uninhibited — and yes, it’s about change. once tended by slaves.

A very different kind of circle is depicted in Phillip Thomas’s “Carousel,” a moody, somewhat traditional work with its indistinct riders, straining horses and muted colors Gary Tischler is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

[

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July 2011

[ festivals ]

Lively Colombia From Coffee to Salsa, Folklife Festival Spotlights Vibrant Culture

by Larry Luxner

P

EREIRA,Colombia—Jorge Iván Valencia Londoño drives up a winding, bumpy mountain road so steep that it seems his 1954 Willys jeep might roll backward at any moment. For the group of American visitors he’s just picked up, it’s five minutes of exhilarating terror.

But the pristine view from the mountaintop is well worth the effort.

From this vantage point 1,600 meters above sea level, lush green coffee fields stretch in nearly every direction — even though the city of Pereira is only seven kilometers away. It’s a spectacularly beautiful vista that the 49-year-old coffee farmer wakes up to at 5 a.m. every day.

“It’s quiet here. We hear only the roosters and the birds,” said Valencia, whose tiny finca, or plantation, barely covers three hectares. He’s typical of Colombia’s 500,000 or so coffee farmers, 92 percent of whose plantations measure five hectares or less.

“My grandfather was a farmer, and this finca was passed down from my father,” said Valencia, who produces around 5,000 kilograms of coffee beans for export every year, mainly to the United States, Germany and Japan.

“When my father died five years ago, my three brothers and I said either we sell the place or one of us takes it over. I took it over because I was the one who liked coffee the most.”

Valencia is so passionate about quality coffee that he was one of 100 lucky Colombians chosen to represent this South American country at the Smithsonian’s 2011 Folklife Festival, which runs for 10 days on June 30 to July 4 and July 7 to 11.

The popular annual event, which takes place on the National Mall and has been around since 1967, has in recent years showcased international offerings from Senegal, Mexico, Wales, Oman, Haiti, Mali and Bhutan, in addition to thematic programming Harmony”” and “Nuestra such as “Appalachia: Heritage and Harmony, Música: Latino Chicago.” Since its inception, it has brought more than 23,000 musicians, artists, performers, craftspeople, workers, cooks, storytellers, and others to the Mall to demonstrate their community-based traditions.

Now in its 45th year, the festival — free to the public — is expected to attract 1.2 million visitors. In addition to Colombia, the 2011 festival will highlight the work of the Peace Corps on its 50th anniversary, as well as America’s long musical tradition of rhythm and blues.

“We have beautiful geography, and that is now being validated by the fact that the Smithsonian picked Colombia as a showcase country for this year’s Folklife Festival,” said Colombia’s ambassador to the United States, Gabriel Silva.“It’s a very important cultural event, and very few countries have been selected for this.”

Adds Olivia Cadaval, curator of the Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage:“Our center has had a long relationship with Colombia.We thought it would be really interesting to feature grassroots culture, the real Colombia so many people don’t know about.”

Cadaval, who’s spent much of the past month helping to set up the festival’s elaborate pavilions and exhibits, says the $1 million event “is a perfect opportunity for people to demonstrate the living traditions of Colombia.”

July 2011

PHOTO: JEFF TINSLEY, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

Now in its 45th year, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall spotlights cultures from around the world, such as Wales, above, in 2009. This year, more than 100 Colombians, including dance instructor Luz Aydé Moncayo Giraldo, at left, will showcase traditions such as salsa dancing and macetas, decorated “candy trees” made from white sugar mass, far left, as part of “Colombia: The Nature of Culture.”

One of those people is Esther Otero Llanos, one of 11 brothers and sisters who make macetas in a big house in the historic San Antonio neighborhood of Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city. The maceta is a traditional “candy tree” made from white sugar mass PHOTOS: LARRY LUXNER and decorated with Colombian flags, brightly colored ribbons, figurines and other adornments.A reminder of the region’s historic links to the sugarcane industry, these distinctive souvenirs are traditionally given to local children every year on June 29, the annual Fiesta de Maceta.

“I remember my mother making these since I was 4 years old,” said Otero, 61, who like her siblings was born in this house.The family produces 40 or 50 macetas per day in the weeks and months leading up to the annual celebration, and sells them for 15,000 pesos (around $8.50) each.

Joining Esther Otero and her brother Jaime at the 2011 Folklife Festival will be Zully Murillo, a well-known singer from the northwestern department of Chocó, near Colombia’s border with Panama. The 67-year-old musician — who dances and sways with the energy of a woman one-third her age — sings religious Catholic songs with a band that uses traditional instruments such as the chirimía (a type of oboe), bombardiño (tuba) and redoblante (drum).

“I studied math and physics in the university, but I was always interested in music and my African roots,” said Murillo, interviewed at her Cali home.“My participation in the festival was accidental.The person who was supposed to go couldn’t make it. But this is important for me because I know about our customs and I want to show them to the world.”

Luz Aydé Moncayo Giraldo is also fiercely proud of her customs. An award-winning salsa dancer and instructor, she runs the Sondeluz dance academy in downtown Cali.

See FESTIVAL, page 37

The Washington Diplomat Page 35

[ diplomatic spouses ]

Principled Life South African Wife Embodies Spirit of ‘Ubuntu’

by Gail Scott

A

single word, ubuntu, is a cherished African mantra with multilayered meanings, generally referring to interconnectedness, community and humanity. It’s a philosophy that can be applied to personal relationships, politics or economics, and although difficult to define concretely, it’s clear that Rosieda Shabodien, wife South African Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool, has it in abundance.

“Your humanity is bound to my humanity,” Rosieda told The Washington Diplomat.“If I treat you badly, actually I am treating myself badly.

Ubuntu is an old African concept but [former President Nelson] Mandela and other South African leaders have brought it forward in a new way.”

Rosieda is the mother of two children,Tahrir, a first-year pre-med student at Howard University, and 11-year-old Tanwir-Sadr, a rising sixth-grader at Washington Waldorf School. She grew up in the working-class townships in Cape Flats, just outside Cape Town, and from a young age both experienced and questioned the injustice of oppression. Her early encounters with apartheid put her on a lifelong path of human rights activism, not unlike her husband, who held leadership roles in the United Democratic Front (UDF) and African National Congress (ANC) and has been involved in Islamic and interfaith initiatives over the years.

A practicing Muslim who can often be seen wearing a headscarf, Rosieda became active in the anti-apartheid movement in the late 1980s and over the years has participated in groups such as Call of Islam and the World Conference on Religion and Peace, working to shed light not only racial discrimination but religious discrimination as well (less than 2 percent of South Africa’s populaCREDIT: OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO BY LAWRENCE JACKSON tion is Muslim).

The couple’s activism in fact forced them to delay their marriage plans — a Rosieda Shabodien, center, joins her husband, South African Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool, “taste,” as Rosieda says, of what it was like living under apartheid rule. The wedding date right, as he presents his credentials last summer to President Obama, along with their two had been set for Dec. 16, 1987, but Ebrahim was jailed by the apartheid regime on June children, Tanwir-Sadr, a sixth-grader at Washington Waldorf School, second from left, and Tahrir, 6, 1987.After he was released a year later, the two eventually got married on Dec. 4, 1988. a first-year pre-med student at Howard University.

Even the wedding though had political overtones.“When it finally happened,‘our big day,’ And this diplomatic wife has a head and soul for working toward the common good, our wedding reception, become a big political mass rally with 1,500 people attending,” Rosieda recalled.“So it was a celebration, anti-apartheid speeches, political rally and police with an impressive resume to boot. Rosieda began helping others when she started a vehicles hovering around the reception hall all in one.Yes, I am still dreaming of my small career in physiotherapy, later specializing in community-based rehabilitation and teaching garden wedding,” she mused.“Maybe our 25th wedding anniversary celebration can be in on the subject at the University of the Western Cape. In 1990, Rosieda became an active member of Eco Programme, a leading South African environmental nongovernmental a garden.”

Today of course, South Africa is a completely different place than it was when Rosieda organization that focuses on sustainable livelihoods and shifting the green debate away and Ebrahim wed.Although the country still grapples with major social problems such as from an exclusively conservationists’ agenda and incorporating it into the black agenda.

Throughout her adult life, she has also been a champion of women’s rights, in particupoverty and crime, it has bravely moved past its lar emphasizing the need for gender equality legacy of apartheid with a reconciliation movepatriarchal religious institutions and tradiment — underpinned by a national sense of In my case, my very persona challenges within tions. “I especially want to connect with women’s ubuntu — that in many ways remains unprecedented in the modern world. myths about South Africa. As a scarf-wearing, organizations here [in D.C.],” noted Rosieda, who has been involved in some of the most important “What else can we bring to the world? This is women’s organizations in South Africa. black South African Muslim, of Malay slave the most important concept for South Africa and In 1997, she became director of the Gender has become part of our ‘branding.’ With ubuntu, origin, I reflect the multicultural and religious Advocacy Programme or GAP, one of the pre-emiyou can see your soul,” Rosieda said.“You have the nent gender and women’s rights NGOs in South responsibility and dignity [to be a citizen of the diversity of South Africa, while also asserting Africa at the time. Rosieda then became director of world]. Our impressions of people are not in terms Manenberg People’s Centre to aid one of the of color, religion, ideals, culture, way of life, but of its gender equality. I defy the neat boxes that the most poverty-stricken townships of the Western their goodness and understanding that the world is Cape. During her innovative tenure at Manenberg, one place.” some have worked out for people like me. she instituted food gardens, promoted the greening She also notes that her own eclectic background of the center, and pushed skills-building programs embodies the diversity of her nation.

— ROSIEDA SHABODIEN for the unemployed. She was also one of the found“In my case, my very persona challenges myths wife South African Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool ers of the Women’s Leadership Collective, a forum about South Africa. As a scarf-wearing, black South of female NGO directors, as well as the South African Muslim, of Malay slave origin, I reflect the multicultural and religious diversity of South Africa, while also asserting its gender equal- African Women’s Museum initiative, whose objective was to ensure that South Africans ity. I defy the neat boxes that some have worked out for people like me. So when I remember the crucial role that women played in the anti-apartheid struggle.

In May 2007, South African President Thabo Mbeki appointed her to head the encounter Islamophobia, I regard it as requiring the same resilient response that we displayed toward those who categorized us and discriminated against us during apartheid,” Commission for Gender Equality, a constitutional gender equity watchdog institution in Rosieda explained. “They will not define me, but I have the responsibility to work for a South Africa. There, she continued her work to promote gender justice in the religious, day when people can look at each other’s soul rather than race, gender, ethnicity or reli- traditional and cultural spheres and to ensure the advancement of gender-sensitive legislagion…. [I] cannot be judged by what is on my head, but by what is in my head and tion — leaving the post when her husband was called to Washington.

Rosieda not only appreciates and lives the ethic of ubuntu that has come to be closely soul.”

“

”

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The Washington Diplomat

July 2011

from page 35

Festival A newspaper clipping announces the wedding of Rosieda Shabodien and Ebrahim Rasool, which was delayed when Rasool, a prominent member of the United Democratic Front and African National Congress, was jailed for a year in 1987 while protesting South Africa’s apartheid regime.

associated with post-apartheid South Africa, but she cherishes the opportunity to share her country’s core philosophy with other nations and people, especially in Washington.

“That’s my role here as I see it,” said this well-educated, eloquent wife and mother. “I want to help all Americans and everyone else I meet here to not only understand the concept of ubuntu, but to understand how we have all been able to follow Mandela’s great example of forgiveness after 27 years in jail during apartheid. Our job here is to spread that peaceful message and to tout South Africa’s beauty in its people and in nature.”

She added: “All of us took Mandela and other anti-apartheid leaders’ lead and forgiving. What everyone must remember in apartheid is that we were not fighting a person or a people. We were fighting a system. We were not fighting white people. Instead, we were fighting a system that denied people the right to their dignity, to living a dignified life.

“Our flag tells the story,” she pointed out.“It is the only flag in the world that has six colors, just like our anthem contains the five major languages in our country. Both our flag and our anthem, both 16 years old now, speak about the great South African desire for inclusion and, therefore, all languages, religions, flags and people reflect the diversity — the whole tapestry — that is South Africa.”

The flag’s design of red, white, blue, black, green and yellow is an amalgamation of the old apartheid colors and the colors of the liberation parties. The “Y” shape reflects the convergence of diverse elements within South African society, creating a new road ahead of unity. It not only signifies South Africa’s many people coming together, but coming together in peace.

“My husband and I are here to encourage and entice as many Americans and diplomatic guests as possible to not only understand South Africa and our unique history but to consider investing and coming to our country to experience all that is South Africa,” said Rosieda as we toured the first floor of South Africa’s new residence in D.C.’s Spring Valley neighborhood.

“The ambassador’s residence has become a vital part of the armory to promote our message,” she explained. “Our residence reflects the story of our country, with an array of South African art, cuisine, culture and hospitality. Guests, having heard the South African story, know that it’s a sad history but we tell them about our great future, especially with ubuntu triumphing over evil.”

Rosieda reports that as she and her husband approach the completion of their first year in Washington, it’s been a very busy — and productive — time, mostly due, she says, to “how driven my husband is.”

“Ebrahim hit the tarmac running. He started as he got off the plane and he hasn’t stopped since,” she said.“His job was clear: to represent

July 2011

South Africa in the finest way possible and to ensure that South Africa achieves its economic and social development goals. He is a very hard worker and passionate about the transformation in our country; his work has been on trade, tourism and investment, and promoting the South African story of development and transformation and debunking the myths about Africa.”

Ebrahim Rasool’s government experience includes leading roles in health, welfare, finance and economic development. He most recently served as a member of Parliament in the National Assembly, special advisor to the State President of the Republic of South Africa, and as premier, or governor, of the Western Cape Province, where he was instrumental in attracting foreign investment into the province worth approximately $1 billion and making significant strides toward the U.N. Millennium Development Goals.

After they arrived in Washington last summer, Rosieda set up the household, made sure their children were settled into their schools, and helped her husband in his official diplomatic functions.

When the family does have time together, they love to take picnics in Rock Creek Park or on the National Mall. “Your museums, your city parks with the great sculptures are lovely and I can’t wait to see all your art galleries too, but most of all the whole family just likes to take a picnic and discover a whole new area,” Rosieda said.

Now, she is ready to “walk lightly because I am a diplomatic guest in your country, but resolutely because I have a role to play, side by side my husband … to export South Africa’s story of a successful and peaceful transition living in diversity and practicing ubuntu.

“We walk in the United States with wideangle lenses,” she continued.“We do not want to miss an opportunity to learn from your society of managing democracy and diversity in the context of different races, genders, shifting migration and many religions.Then there is the culture of politics and politicians in the context of elections, budgets and recession, and, of course, your educational system and memorialization.

“I love how you do so much to keep the memories alive of your leaders and your history with all your great monuments in Washington…. Perhaps we can do more of this at home, monuments to remember our heroes,” she mused.

“The challenge is always not to draw conclusions or make judgments, but simply to synthesize this information and learn what is relevant for South Africa and share with you the South African experience,” Rosieda observed.“You can learn from us and we, from you.”

Moncayo, 43, has been dancing salsa since her fifth birthday and has been a professional instructor for the last 25 years.

“I’m a systems engineer, but I noticed long ago that my passion was salsa,” she told The Diplomat during a quick break in between children’s dance classes.“In Cali, it’s very normal and natural, and kids — from a very young age — have it in their blood to dance salsa. For us, salsa is everything.”

Moncayo will be demonstrating complicated dance moves as well as giving free salsa lessons during the Folklife Festival. Here in Cali, she charges foreigners 30,000 pesos ($18) per hour for such classes.

When she was only 17, the Colombian government named Moncayo a “cultural ambassador” and sent her to New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami to show off PHOTO: LARRY LUXNER her dancing skills.

“I was the first Colombian woman invited Jorge Iván Valencia Londoño, who has a to Cuba to teach the Cubans how to dance 3.2-hectare farm in the mountains outside salsa caleña,” she noted proudly.“In 10 hours, Pereira, Colombia, inspects dried coffee beans.

I can teach any foreigner how to dance salsa. Valencia will demonstrate the art of coffee cultivation at the 2011 Smithsonian Folklife Festival I do everything with lots of amor.”

Like the maceta candy-trees made by the in Washington this summer.

Otero clan, salsa music is not only a symbol of Cali. It’s actually decreed by law as “nationAt the same time, a dramatic rebound in al patrimony.” world coffee prices — from 40 cents a pound “Even though salsa as such didn’t originate a few years ago to just over $3 per pound in Cali, our style is original,” said Moncayo, today — has allowed small farmers like himwho gives dance lessons to imprisoned juve- self to invest in quality and disease-resistant nile delinquents in her free time. “But reg- strains of coffee varieties. gaetón and other types of music “We are recovering from are replacing salsa here. That’s hard times and taking advanwhat the young people prefer, regtage of the high prices to gaetón. So my intention is to prerevive our plantations,” said serve our heritage.”

Valencia, who employs seven In a way, that’s what Valencia is pickers during harvest time.

The Smithsonian 2011 trying to do, too.

“At the moment, the coffee Folklife Festival runs The lifelong coffee farmer from business is excellent.”

June 30 to July 4 and Pereira, who’s never traveled to The entire program is also July 7 to 11 on the the United States before, will be on geared to celebrate the rich National Mall. For more hand at the Folklife Festival to help bio-cultural diversity of information, please visit his new American friends learn the Colombia and explore how www.festival.si.edu. entire coffee process —from cultidifferent elements of the vation to picking to preparation. country’s culture are inextriShowing visitors around his little finca high cably connected to their distinctive environup in the mountains, Valencia explained that ments. Other traditions to be highlighted at 200 or so area producers have recently band- the festival include gold-mining activities from ed together to create a specialty coffee brand the Río Atrato to the Pacific rainforest, such as that will command higher prices overseas. panning, work songs, filigree jewelry-making “If you buy coffee in the United States from and gold trading; basket and clothing weaving my farm, it will say exactly where the coffee that utilizes the diverse fibers and reeds found was grown,” he said. Indeed, Valencia’s coffee in the Andean savannah; as well as leather isn’t organic, but it is traceable — an ecologi- crafts from the Orinoco plains that exemplify cally responsible trend increasingly associated the ranching lifestyle. with fine gourmet products like wine, cheese and even tequila.

Larry Luxner is news editor of The Washington Diplomat.

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Gail Scott is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat and lifestyle columnist for the Diplomatic Pouch.

The Washington Diplomat Page 37

[ art ]

Kinetic Inspiration Kandinsky Complements Stella at Phillips

by Michael Coleman

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[ Page 38

he Phillips Collection consistently organizes some of the most visually arresting and intellectually challenging art exhibitions in Washington, and two of its latest — “Kandinsky and the Harmony of Silence: Painting with White Border” and “Stella Sounds: The Scarlatti K Series” — continue that tradition.

The compact, complementary and informative exhibitions reveal how Wassily Kandinsky’s groundbreaking work in abstract expressionism in the early 1900s informed Frank Stella’s “Scarlatti Kirkpatrick” sculpture series decades later.

After visiting his native Moscow in 1912, Kandinsky aimed to turn what he called his “extremely powerful expressions” of the Russian city into a painting that encapsulated Moscow’s musical sounds and his overall impressions. The Kandinsky exhibition effectively showcases the artist’s commitment to this effort, revealing a slew of drawings, watercolors and oil studies completed over a period of five months that culminated in the renowned “Painting with White Border.”

The exhibition includes about 10 of Kandinsky’s preparatory studies for the painting, which was complete in 1913. These rough drafts — composed in oil, watercolor, ink and pencil — show us Kandinsky’s thought processes as he worked out his ideas for “White Border,” illustrating the pronounced concentric movement and kinetic energy found in this masterpiece of abstract art.As in the final version, the preparatory studies require viewers’ eyes to move with the lines, forcing us to actually participate in the painting.

The two most consistent motifs seen in the preparatory studies and on the final canvas are a troika (a three-horse sled) and St. George, both of which were closely associated with Russia. A 1913 essay that Kandinsky wrote about “Painting with White Border” explains how he distilled the troika motif into an “arrangement of three lines, curve at the top, which with different variations run parallel to each other.”

Kandinsky went on to say that the lines represented the lines of the back of the three horses in a Russian troika — and the three-pronged image is evident in every preparatory study for the painting.According to the exhibition’s wall text, Kandinsky’s painting is also believed to include a representation of the legend of St. George and the dragon, a theme he first explored as a pencil drawing in 1907.The reference is evident in “Painting with White Borders” in three curved lines on the right of the canvas and a protruding lance-like image aimed at seemingly living images on the far left.

The Phillips exhibition also features an illuminating, detailed examination of the latest technical research on the painting and its related studies. Experts from the Phillips and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York examined “Sketch I for Kandinsky and the Harmony of Silence: Painting with White Border,” owned by the Painting with White Border Phillips, and the final product, owned by the and Guggenheim, using techniques ranging from Stella Sounds: The Scarlatti K Series infrared imaging to chemical analysis. In the process of comparing brushwork, media and through Sept. 4 the development of the compositions, conserPhillips Collection vators uncovered a painting below the surface 1600 21st St., NW of “Sketch I.” It’s a representational landscape For more information, please call (202) 387-2151 attributed to German artist Gabriele Münter, or visit www.phillipscollection.org. who was Kandinsky’s girlfriend and one-time student.This is just one in a series of revelations viewers will enjoy while spending time with this hyper-focused exhibition.

Having viewed Kandinsky’s work, viewers will immediately recognize similarities in the sculpture of Frank Stella, the American painter and printmaker who is a sig-

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The Washington Diplomat

PHOTO: SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM, 2011 ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY, NEW YORK / ADAGP, PARIS

In two complementary exhibits, the Phillips Collection examines how Wassily Kandinsky’s famed “Painting with White Border,” above, a masterpiece of abstract expressionism, informed and inspired Frank Stella’s “Scarlatti Kirkpatrick” sculpture series decades later.

nificant figure in minimalism and abstraction. The Phillips exhibition showcases eight sculptures from his “Scarlatti” series, inspired by 18th-century Italian composer Domenico Scarlatti’s PHOTO: STEVEN SLOMAN, 2011 FRANK STELLA / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY, NEW YORK harpsichord sonatas and the writings of 20th-century American musicologist Ralph Kirkpatrick. The exhibition serves as a showcase not only for Stella’s talent, but also the similarities between Stella’s forms and the work of Kandinsky, whom Stella has referred to as “one of the defining creators of 20th-century abstraction.”

Stella’s “K3” — all silver coil and edges — brings to mind something dangerous or industrial while emulating the sinewy lines of Kandinsky’s work in the next room. Meanwhile, Stella’s “K5” is hypermodern art juxtaposed with the abstractionism founder’s art in the next room.Visitors can literally gaze upon “K5” and then lift their eyes to see Kandinsky’s “Sketch I for Painting with White Border” in the next gallery. Stella’s work takes inspiration from Kandinsky’s two-dimensional idea and pulls it out into the round.The shadows of Stella’s sculptures cast upon the Phillips Collection are especially revealing as the simple lines of the shadows perfectly emulate the motion found on Kandinsky’s canvas from decades earlier.

Curator Elsa Smithgall explained that Stella’s forms have “a lightweight, dynamic quality.”

“They combine sculpture, painting and even drawing, since Stella sees the steel armatures as a form of drawing that serves to orient the polychrome sculpture in space,” she explained.“There’s color, movement and abstraction.”

And no small amount of whimsy. During a Sunday afternoon viewing in June, a visitor remarked on the playful nature and aesthetic appeal of Stella’s vibrant, kinetic sculptures.

“These would make good earrings,” she said.

Michael Coleman is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

July 2011

[ theater ]

Exhaustive ‘Purge’ Disturbing Catharsis Dredges Up Important Baltic History

by Lisa Troshinsky

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[ July 2011

heater goers planning to see Sofi Oksanen’s literary sensation “Purge” performed by Scena Theatre should take director Robert McNamara’s warning that “the play isn’t for the faint of heart” into sizeable consideration. Then take two aspirin and call him in the morning.

“Purge,” a political terror, isn’t your usual summer theater fare. Rather than an evening of wistful romance or Shakespearean comedy, Washington audiences will be exposed to a painful but valuable history lesson — one that wouldn’t normally get much attention in the city’s self-absorbed whirlwind of inside-the-Beltway political preoccupations.

For Scena, whose mission is to “bring the best international theater to D.C. and stimulate cultural exchange between local and global artists,” it is most apropos to stage the regional premiere of Oksanen’s handiwork.The author and playwright, who is half Finnish and half Estonian, turned the play “Puhdistus (Purge)” into a bestselling novel, which won her the Finlandia Prize, Runeberg Prize and the Nordic Council Literature Prize.

The play debuted in the United States at La MaMa Theatre in New York City in February and is playing in D.C. with the support of the Finnish and Estonian embassies.

The feminist political story mines Estonia’s turbulent, not-so-distant past, before the Baltic country, ravaged by World War II and German and Soviet occupations, morphed into its current status as a democratic member of the European Union and one of the most tech-savvy nations in the world. Far from today’s ubiquitous backdrop of cell phones and Skype (an Estonian invention), the play chronicles the lives of two desperate and hardened women whose paths cross in the 1950s, during the country’s second Soviet occupation, when mass deportations of Estonians opposing Soviet ideology or deemed to have corroborated with the Germans were shipped off to Siberia.The women meet again in the early 1990s, after the Soviet Union’s collapse, when countless numbers of women and girls became victims of sex trafficking.

The plot unfolds in the Estonian home of a Aliide, whom we see in both her younger and older forms and who long ago traded honesty and family loyalty for illgotten freedom while posing as a Soviet loyalist. Aliide’s life of estranged solitude collides with the past she’s fought hard to forget, in the form of young Zara, an escaped Russian sex slave. In Zara’s effort to free herself, she also harbors incriminating secrets. Both women depict the psychological hell that comes from internalizing external abuse and oppression. Although it’s difficult to represent the plight of an entire country and its people in the embodiment of two characters, you wouldn’t think that when captivated by these two women on stage.

The play is powerful and harrowingly realistic because it forces its audience to experience the agony of these women — a shared sense of pain that’s heightened in this production, housed in the lowceiling, darkened H Street Playhouse, Purge which has an underground, subversive through July 3 quality. The air conditioning is either H Street Playhouse nonexistent or not working, which 1365 H St., NE prevents detached comfort on a steamy Tickets are $16 to $40.

D.C. night, and the simple, intimate For more information, please call stage bleeds into the audience, which (703) 683-2824 or visit www.scenatheater.org. imposes a shared nightmare with the characters.

Colleen Delany, a regular in Scena’s casts who’s known for her work at the Shakespeare Theatre, is almost unrecognizable here in her transformation as the marginal Zara. Her compelling portrayal of an extreme victim-turned-outlaw who demands redemption is admirable. Matching her intensity is Kerry Waters, a founding member of Scena, whose solid performance of the elder Aliide reaps the benefit of having worked with director McNamara since 1987. Waters foreshadows suspense with resonant, articulate intonation that makes it impossible not to hang on her every

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PHOTOS: DON SUMMERS JR.

Long-suppressed secrets explode when Zara (Colleen Delany, above left), an escaped Russian sex slave, crosses paths with Aliide (Kerry Waters, above right), who traded family loyalty for ill-gotten freedom while posing as a Soviet loyalist in her youth (portrayed by Irina Koval, left) in Estonian-Finnish playwright Sofi Oksanen’s emotionally brutal “Purge.”

word. The contentious interaction between old Aliide and her younger self, portrayed by Irina Koval, highlights the character’s slow descent into madness with no one else to talk to other than her own self, who exhibits a split personality.

If a criticism were to be made of this production, it would be that the director is heavy-handed with brutal material that needs no exaggeration. Less than sublime are the male goons — whether Soviet or Russian — who mean to do harm to these women.The men fall into violent KGB-like stereotypes that interrupt the audience’s trance that the female actors have worked hard to secure.

“Purge” means to evacuate, clear of guilt, and to free from moral defilement.

Through this play, Oksanen purges both her characters and her audience on personal and political levels, and both go through a sort of cathartic transformation.Aliide and Zara were emptied of their political and personal freedoms by outside forces, and in reaction, committed ethical and moral wrongs from which they try to cleanse themselves. Meanwhile, society committed horrific crimes of rape and torture in the Baltics, and Oksanen points out that just as the oppressors tried to cover it up, so did the press in glazing over these victims in the news. So just as the script attempts to purge its characters of guilt, the author tries to do the same with history; to rewrite and reconsider it. It’s a gut-wrenching way to re-examine Estonia’s painful history, but this play makes the emotional journey both revealing and worthwhile.

Lisa Troshinsky is the theater reviewer for The Washington Diplomat.

The Washington Diplomat Page 39

[ photography ]

‘E • CO’ Consciousness Photo Collectives Capture Jarring Environmental Picture

by Rachael Bade

S

[ Page 40

ergi Camara considers himself a “photographer first,” but the Spanish artist ties that in with another passion: activism — specifically, environmentalism.

One photo from his collective depicts mountain-size heaps of recycled computers and boxy old printers stacked under a clear blue sky. In another, Ghanaians crouch over a ground littered with tangled wires. They lace their hands through the cords, scraping off the copper from the wormlike vines in hopes of selling it for a profit.

Camara’s photographs are among several dozen striking, environmentally focused images on display at American University’s Katzen Arts Center.

The exhibit “E • CO” turns the lens on environmental issues from river pollution to biodiversity loss to the impact of nuclear power — bringing complex problems to vivid life. The stinging visual essay is the work of 20 photo collectives around the world from Peru and Costa Rica to France and Germany.

The featured photographs flaunt a wide spectrum of colors and innovative techniques, but the strength of the exhibit lies in its internationalism. Like a thunderous choir, the pictures sing — at times even scream — a compelling narrative that’s reinforced by the fact that they hail from all over the world yet attest to a universal phenomenon:The environment is telling us something.

And each image speaks volumes about what it’s trying to tell us.

“I wanted to portray how men create garbage,” the dark-haired Camara explained through a translator of his photographs depicting electronic waste.“The electronic problem is an environmental theme that hasn’t been explored. It’s every new iPhone, iPad and upgrade — you throw the old one away for the new version.”

Standing before his photos at the Katzen, Camara said Europe — at this rate — will double its electronic garbage by 2020. But Europeans, like most Western nations, won’t be the ones who have to deal with the garbage — ld h d they’ll dump it off onto the developing world, he said.

According to Camara, Europeans must pay 3.5 euro to recycle old computers, or they can donate the electronics to places like Ghana and E • CO Pakistan for 1.5 euro. But there’s a catch: through Aug. 14 Only one in 10 of the discarded items still functions, so the other nine end up in vast American University Museum junk piles, the electronic debris and toxins at the Katzen Arts Center contaminating the landscape and the peo4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW ple, Camara explained.

For more information, please call (202) 885-1000 “They donate the electronics as if they or visit www.american.edu/cas/museum/. were a gift, but the truth is, it hurts the people,” he said.

The photos of high-tech trash reveal just one story. Another group of eight pictures titled “La Parede” (“the wall” in Portuguese) questions a new Brazilian initiative that separates the rainforest from a neighboring slum with a three-meter-high, 350-meter-long wall in Rio de Janeiro.

An aerial shot captures the disheveled makeshift homes and the surrounding forest, as the massive gray concrete barrier snakes and zigzags up a mountain. On one side of the wall, the thick forest grows wild, shielded from encroaching human development.

But on the other side, people are segregated into an enclave of housing projects perched on the hillside, leaving little if any room for vegetation or expansion.

Although the Brazilian government calls the wall an “eco-barrier,” many just see it as a form of separation apartheid. “A wall is essentially an end to diplomacy, the failure of

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The Washington Diplomat

PHOTOS: AMERICAN UNIVERSITY MUSEUM AT THE KATZEN ARTS CENTER

Images from 20 photography collectives around the world — including, from clockwise top, the Documentography collective in Britain, Nòmada collective in Costa Rica and Odessa collective in France — document a range of environmental issues from river pollution to electronic waste in the exhibition “E • CO” at the Katzen Arts Center.

dialogue,” reads the display beside the photographs.

In a similar vein, another collective from the United Kingdom shot acres upon acres of slums and slum dwellers. In a more visually surreal offering, stuffed ferrets, bobcats and other anil sit ffrozen as h mals home ddecorations in a series of photos from a Portuguese collection that decries mankind’s treatment of animals and the subsequent loss of biodiversity. A collective from Mexico snapped pictures of polluted water for a photo essay on unsanitary drinking and irrigation water.

“It’s a big problem, and it’s the same problem that’s happening in all parts of the world,” said exhibit curator Claudi Carreras of Spain.

He started the environmental-themed exhibition after traveling in Latin America for three years and seeing how photographers were working to document environmental degradation in their midst.

Carreras opened the exhibit in Madrid last year in conjunction with “E • CO 2010,” a meeting organized by the Ministry of Culture of Spain to highlight professional photographers’ challenges and needs in the rapidly evolving digital media landscape. Since then, the photos have been displayed in Brazil and, with sponsorship from the Embassy of Spain, are stopping in Washington, D.C., before continuing to Miami and Chicago.

“E • CO” is the American University’s sixth exhibition showcasing environmental issues. Jack Rasmussen, director and curator of the American University Museum, said the exhibits illustrate the salience of the many efforts striving to make the world a “greener” place.

“It is not just the case that more artists are turning their attention to the environmental challenges we are facing today,” Rasmussen said.“Everyone is more focused on climate change and the sustainability of our food, water, air and energy. Our survival depends on our ability to focus.”

Rachael Bade is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

July 2011

[ dining ]

Savvy Business 901: Von Storch’s Latest Venture Is Smart Addition to Penn Quarter

by Rachel G. Hunt

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ashington’s Penn Quarter neighborhood continues to evolve as one of the area’s premier dining destinations with the opening of 901 Restaurant and Bar. Located at 9th and I Streets across from the Washington Convention Center, 901 is the first upscale venue for developer David von Storch, owner and president of Urban Adventure Companies Inc., the group responsible for the Capitol City Brewing Company as well as an expanding D.C.-based Vida Fitness.

Through his latest restaurant, von Storch aims to offer diners the kind of high-end experience that typifies his other ventures. To achieve the look, he turned to Stoneking/ von Storch Architects, his brother Stephen’s Virginia-based company, as well as Hallock Design Group out of Miami to create an industrial chic space that is stunningly eye-catching. A black lacquer-exposed ceiling and dark distressed wood flooring give the 7,500-square-foot restaurant a sleek yet open feel, punctuated by neutral colors and flashes of bright red. Platinum leather banquette and cream leather upholstery, a whimsically tiled bar area, striking red ball light fixtures, a mid-wall fireplace in the lounge, and a cascade of clear glass bubbles suspended over the entrance foyer come together in an eclectic and exciting mélange.

Eclecticism characterizes the approach that von Storch has taken with his menu as well. Not constrained by any particular culinary style, although it hones mostly to American flavors, 901 offers dishes that can satisfy almost any taste.To assist with his foray into upper-end dining, von Storch brought in Culinary Institute of Americatrained Thomas Hall to serve as executive chef at 901. Previously with TenPenh (which unfortunately just closed its doors after more than a decade), Hall is no stranger to the multilayered concept that underlies von Storch’s vision for the restaurant.

Their approach structures the meals in two different ways that make 901 neither a distinctly tapas nor full-plate restaurant, but rather a combination of both. Half the menu constitutes of small plates, sharing dishes, salads and sides. And unlike many tapas places that say each sharing plate is meant for four people, 901 actually means it.Tidy little (but not too little) cheeseburger sliders come four to a plate and are rich and satisfying, with smoked cheddar cheese, spicy aioli and sweet potato buns.

Make sure to request them medium rare as otherwise they may be a bit overdone for some. The spinach crisps, also four to a plate, featuring 901 Restaurant and Bar chili pepper aioli and pico de gallo 901 9th St., NW are flavorful and have an interesting(202) 524-4433 ly coarse texture. Two come breaded and fried, www.901dc.com while the other two are naked. Both ways are very good. The lump crab bruschetta is an Lunch: Daily, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. unusual and decadent choice, with its mixture Dinner: Mon. - Thu., 5 - 11 p.m.; of crab, roasted bell pepper and cream cheese Fri., Sat., 5 p.m. - 12 a.m.; served on slices of sundried tomato bread. As Sun., 5 - 10 p.m. promised, it arrives as four nice-size pieces.

Finally, the tuna tartar is piled in a stack over Appetizers, small plates: $11 - 17 avocado mousse atop a crispy wonton skin and Entrées: $17 - $31 dressed lightly with Japanese aioli. The dish is Desserts: $8 - $15 quite mild, whereas other dishes trend toward Reservations: Accepted the salty or spicy side.

On the other side of the menu, 901 offers a Dress: Urban chic variety of meat, seafood, pasta dishes and sandwiches tinged with multicultural influences. In some cases, chef Hall clearly hews to a specific culinary tradition. Signs of his previous work at TenPenh, for example, show up in the Thai lettuce wrap and the fried tuna roll sharing plates, as well as the lemon grass seafood udon pasta dish.Also on the pasta side, the bistro shrimp picatta with capellini noodles, parsley, white wine and lemon sauce looks directly to Italy for its inspiration.

Other dishes borrow ingredients from across cuisines. The jumbo lump crab cake, served with fried green tomatoes, chipotle remoulade and poblano corn relish, echoes

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July 2011

PHOTOS: JESSICA LATOS

Dark wood flooring and bright red light fixtures give the new 901 Restaurant and Bar a sleek, upscale ambience, which is complemented by a wide-ranging menu by executive chef Thomas Hall that combines tapas-style small dishes with full-size entrées.

traditions in the Deep South but incorporates Southwestern touches as well. The roasted chicken is a classic comfort dish, as is the mac and cheese fritter that accompanies it, but in this version, the pairing with wild mushroom ragout and charred lemon, along with the treatment of the mac and cheese, puts the chicken in a whole other category. Another superb dish is the scallops — pan-seared and served with crispy polenta cake, citrus brown butter sauce and apple salad, forming a perfect amalgam that demonstrates Hall’s ability to seamlessly blend styles while creating a thoroughly satisfying dish.

One might think that with his background in the fitness industry, von Storch might be tempted to forgo, or at least minimize, desserts at 901. Thankfully he didn’t. Pastry chef Ron Johnson interprets several traditional favorites in delightfully inventive ways. Bread pudding at 901 is cobbled together using chopped doughnuts, while the chocolate crème brulee is flavored with chipotle chilies.The cheesecake is made of three cheeses, including goat cheese, which gives it a new dimension that is effectively set off with a tart sour cherry compote.The strawberry shortcake departs from traditional versions by bringing out distinct orange notes in the scone, chantilly and the Citronge. For those unable to pick one dessert, 901 has also put together a sampler plate of mini versions of four of the five choices. (Be aware, however, that some of the flourishes that make each larger dessert so unique are missing in their smaller presentations.)

In an interesting departure from other recently opened fine dining venues in the area, von Storch’s has wisely capitalized on his Capitol City brewery connection to build a beer-centered beverage program at 901. He turned to Mike McCarthy, the director of brewing operations at Capitol City, who has created several excellent craft keg brews that are exclusive to 901, including a delightful India Pale Ale that is rich and hoppy (but not overly so) and complements other regional craft varieties. 901 also offers a substantial and varied wine list, with an emphasis on domestically produced varieties, a number of which are available by the glass. The ubiquitous (though short by current standards) cocktail list offers several fun concoctions. In particular, the cucumber-basil mojito is

See DINING, page 45 The Washington Diplomat Page 41

[ film reviews ]

Pressing the Gray Lady ‘Page One’ Asks If New York Times Can Change With the Times?

A

by Ky N. Nguyen

[

merican director Andrew Rossi’s revealing documentary “Page One: Inside the New York Times” succeeds because of its largely unfettered access over one year to the inner workings of a newsroom, particularly the media desk of the New York Times. These days, daily newspapers are struggling to survive, many going bankrupt amidst the media revolution unleashed by the Internet. Casualties, to varying degrees, include the Boston Globe (owned by the parent company of The Times), the Tribune Company and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The Times is not immune to these external societal pressures despite its prominence as the perennial paper of record of the United States.

Indeed, that long-time position of strength may be inhibiting the Times from making the changes necessary to survive in the future media landscape. Today, the Gray Lady is truly showing her age, epitomized by a scene in which writers are working in WordPad on old PCs. And even her esteemed reputation has been damaged by scandals, notably the fictitious news stories made up by Jayson Blair and the incorrect reports of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Judith Miller.

PHOTO: MAGNOLIA PICTURES The documentary is especially timely given Andrew Rossi’s revealing documentary “Page One: Inside the New York Times” offers unfettered access the recent naming of Jill Abramson as the Times executive editor, the first woman to the inner workings of an esteemed newsroom trying to survive in a rapidly changing industry. to hold the position, and Dean Baquet as managing editor, prompting speculation on what direction the venerable 160-year-old paper will Vincent Gellner (Florian David take under its first female editor.

Fitz) is a young man who struggles “Page One” though focuses mostly on four journalists. A major hero with the socially awkward sympis outspoken media reporter David Carr, a former chronicler of the toms of Tourette syndrome. After Oscars who has long examined the media industry’s intersection with his mother’s death, his father culture, business, and government. Young Turk Brian Stelter started off Robert (Heino Ferch), a deteras an unknown blogger who was hired by the Times at 21, rising to fame mined politician seeking public covering and interviewing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Another office, is overwhelmed by the rising young star, Tim Arango, made a demands of the campaign comrapid climb from risky war coverage to Page One bined with taking care of his now becoming the chief of the news bureau motherless son. Robert sends his (English; 87 min.) in Baghdad. Meanwhile, media desk son to a rehabilitation clinic where Landmark’s E Street Cinema editor Bruce Headlam strives to keep he’ll be taught to better keep his all the chaos in some semblance of spontaneous verbal expressions ★★★★✩ order. and physical tics under control. At In the documentary, spirited debates the clinic, Vincent’s roommate is take place over the future of the Times, including an impending “pay Alexander (Johannes Allmayer), an PHOTO: CORINTH RELEASING wall” for online access (which has now been implemented), as well as obsessive-compulsive patient with day-to-day matters regarding stories. Despite the increasingly challeng- As a man suffering from Tourette syndrome, Florian David Fitz, left, is sent a penchant for stolen cars, fine ing environment in which they work, the top reporters at the Times to a rehabilitation clinic by his father in “Vincent Wants to Sea.” clothes, and the esteemed German continue to churn out quality, respected journalism that they hope classical composer Johann continues to benefit the public good.Yet a stable — let alone profitable Sebastian Bach.The role of Vincent’s tour guide around the — future is far from certain. Knowing he’ll only be writing another decade clinic is assumed by Marie (Karoline Herfurth), a spirited Vincent Wants to Sea or so, Carr glibly quips,“Have fun figuring it out.” anorexic with a sense of adventure.

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(Vincent Will Meer)

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In the beaten vehicle owned by the clinic’s Dr. Rose (Katharina Müller-Elmau), the trio of misfits escapes the Landmark’s E Street Cinema ‘Vincent Wants to Sea’ confines of the clinic to embark on a madcap road trip — Opens Fri., July 8 oblivious to the mayhem they create along the way.They’re German director Ralf Huettner’s “Vincent Wants to Sea,” written by headed down the autobahn to the Mediterranean Sea, Florian David Fitz, who also stars in the title role, manages to be a sensitive ★★★★✩ where Vincent intends to honor his mother’s dying final portrayal of a man suffering from Tourette syndrome while providing plenty of belly-aching laughs.The German title,“Vincent Will Meer,” is also a play on words wish and scatter her ashes. Meanwhile,Vincent’s father Robert and Dr. Rose chase them in with “Vincent Wants More.” Certain scenes recall situations in two other fine movies from hilariously futile pursuit. For example, after the trio is discovered, they manage to abandon the late 1990s about Tourette’s patients, Gary Winick’s “The Tic Code” (starring Gregory Dr. Rose’s jalopy and take over Robert’s shiny new black BMW to continue their journey.

Along the way,Vincent, Robert, and Marie become close friends as they touchingly talk Hines) and Bob Gosse’s “Niagara, Niagara” (starring Robin Tunney and Henry Thomas).

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The Washington Diplomat

(German with subtitles; 96 min.)

July 2011

about the difficulties of their diseases. Despite their vast differences in background, Robert and Dr. Rose are forced to work with each other. And though there is, in the end, no Hollywood-style happy ending, Vincent and Robert at least come to understand each other.

tools to Carlos, leaving him with his fat portfolio of clients as well.

But a big problem — one that recurs frequently — is that Carlos lacks a driver’s license, so he risks deportation anytime he is pulled over. Furthermore, he doesn’t have the money to buy the Cultivating ‘A Better Life’ truck, though that obstacle is overcome Successful American director Chris Weitz (“About a when his sister loans him the funds.

Boy,” “New Moon,” “The Golden Compass”) goes small Sadly, cruel fortune steps in when the with “A Better Life.” Weitz’s surprisingly intimate feature truck is stolen on Carlos’s very first day won’t draw the big crowds of his mainstream movies, as its owner, depriving him of his livelibut it will be a special treat for discerning moviegoers. hood.

The personal story of “A Better Life,” written by Eric So the father and son, a reluctant Eason, provides an authentic glimpse at the harsh reality companion, embark on an epic quest of life for an undocumented immigrant in the contempo- — reminiscent of Vittorio De Sica’s rary United States.

Italian neorealist classic “The Bicycle In the touching tale, single Thief” — searching for father Carlos Galindo (Mexican the poor man’s stolen A Better Life star Demián Bichir), an illegal truck, paid for with (English and Spanish immigrant in East Los Angeles, borrowed money, that he needs to with subtitles; 97 min.) struggles to eke out a living, dodge make a living as a gardener. Father and Theater TBA immigration officers and prevent son, who are nearly strangers in pracOpens Fri., July 15 his teenage son Luis (José Julián) tice, bond and learn a lot about each from being sucked into gang life. other as they travel through the poor ★★★★✩ Since his wife abandoned the famneighborhoods of Los Angeles. ily, Carlos has raised his son alone, supporting the family More often than not, this subtle interaction takes place by working as a helper to a gardener with a brisk busi- rather wordlessly. The non-verbal communication is ness. One day, his employer decides he wants to return capably illustrated by the setting of verisimilitude creatto Mexico.The boss offers to sell his truck and gardening ed under assured direction by Weitz and enlightening

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July 2011

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PHOTO: MERRICK MORTON / SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT, LLC

Single father Carlos Galindo (Mexican star Demián Bichir), right, works to provide and protect his son (José Julián) in “A Better Life.”

cinematography from Spanish director of photography Javier Aguirresarobe. The absorbing mise-en-scène is enhanced by revealing production design by Missy Stewart and an appropriately minimalist score with Latin-infused flavors from veteran French composer Alexandre Desplat.

Ky N. Nguyen is the film reviewer for The Washington Diplomat.

The Washington Diplomat Page 43

[ film ]

CINEMA LISTING

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT

July 2011

*Unless specific times are listed, please check the theater for times. Theater locations are subject to change.

stock market, but their personal and professional lives begin to unravel when the plan backfires.

The Man Who Knew Too Much

Cantonese

Freer Gallery of Art Fri., July 22, 7 p.m., Sun., July 24, 2 p.m.

English

A family vacationing in Morocco accidentally stumble onto an assassination plot and the conspirators are determined to prevent them from interfering. (English, French and Arabic)

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

AFI Silver Theatre Sat., July 23, 7 p.m., Sun., July 24, 5:05 p.m., Thu., July 28, 7 p.m.

Directed by Terry Gilliam (U.K./W. Germany, 1989, 126 min.)

Midnight in Paris

The Beast Stalker (Ching yan) Directed by Dante Lam (Hong Kong, 2008, 109 min.)

A straight-arrow cop seeking redemption pursues a vicious killer who is slowly losing his sight, while a determined prosecutor seeks vengeance on the man who stole her daughters.

Freer Gallery of Art Fri., July 29, 7 p.m., Sun., July 31, 2 p.m.

Bodyguards and Assassins (Shi yue wei cheng) Directed by Teddy Chan (China/Hong Kong, 2009, 139 min.)

In 1905 Hong Kong, where the Qing dynasty will do anything to hold on to its power as a revolutionary movement spreads throughout China, Sun Yat-Sen prepares for a historic meeting that will shape the future of the country while a motley crew is entrusted to protect him from the deadly assassins determined to kill him.

Freer Gallery of Art Fri., July 8, 7 p.m., Sun., July 10, 2 p.m.

Somewhere in the middle of Europe, circa 1740, an eccentric old man interrupts a performance of “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” in the town square, claiming to be the real Baron Munchausen, the inveterate teller of tall tales and tide-turner of the Turkish invasion — and to prove it, he tells the story himself.

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock (U.S., 1956, 120 min.)

Directed by Woody Allen (Spain/U.S., 2011, 94 min.)

PHOTO: ROGER ARPAJOU / MEDIAPRO, VERSÁTIL CINEMA & GRAVIER PRODUCTIONS

Marion Cotillard, left, as Adriana and Owen Wilson as Gil in “Midnight in Paris.”

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

AFI Silver Theatre Fri., July 29, 9:35 p.m.

Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff

Monte Carlo

Beginners

Directed by Craig McCall (U.K., 2010, 86 min.)

Directed by Mike Mills (U.S., 2010, 104 min.)

A new love floods a man with memories of his father who — following 44 years of marriage — came out of the closet at age 75 to live a full, energized, and wonderfully tumultuous gay life.

AFI Silver Theatre Landmark’s Bethesda Row Cinema Landmark’s E Street Cinema

“Cameraman” illuminates a unique figure in British and international cinema: Jack Cardiff, a man whose life and career are inextricably interwoven with the history of cinema spanning nine decades and some of the industry’s greatest icons, from Audrey Hepburn to Humphrey Bogart.

West End Cinema Opens Fri., July 8

Fire of Conscience (For lung)

A Better Life

The Hunger

Directed by Dante Lam (Hong Kong, 2010, 106 min.)

Directed by Chris Weitz (U.S., 2011, 97 min.)

Directed by Tony Scott (U.K., 1983, 97 min.)

Captain Manfred must solve a brutal murder to prove his partner’s innocence and expose the truth behind Hong Kong’s police force.

A gardener in East L.A. struggles to keep his son away from gangs and immigration agents while trying to give his son the opportunities he never had.

(English and Spanish)

Tony Scott’s arty, edgy vampire saga opens in bravura fashion, with bloodsucking bohemians Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie prowling for victims at a Manhattan goth discotheque, but Bowie is succumbing to age after all those centuries, so the two seek out research scientist Susan Sarandon for her experiments with age reversal.

Freer Gallery of Art Fri., July 15, 7 p.m., Sun., July 17, 2 p.m.

Overheard (Sit yan fung wan) Directed by Felix Chong and Alan Mak (Hong Kong/Singapore/China, 2009, 100 min.)

Two cops stumble upon a juicy bit of insider trading information during a surveillance job and see no harm in trying to make a quick (but illegal) killing on the

Theater TBA Opens Fri., July 15

Breakfast at Tiffany’s Directed by Blake Edwards (U.S., 1961, 115 min.)

A quirky New York socialite becomes interested in a young man who has moved into her apartment building.

(English and Portuguese) AFI Silver Theatre July 15 to 20

Repertory Notes

Just Like Us Directed by Ahmed Ahmed (U.S., 2010, 72 min.)

American comedian Ahmed Ahmed, in his directorial debut, along with a host of acclaimed stand-up comedians as they perform in Dubai, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt to sold-out crowds totaling more than 20,000 people.

Directed by Thomas Bezucha (U.S./Hungary, 2011, 108 min.)

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Three young women vacationing in Paris find themselves whisked away to Monte Carlo after one of the girls is mistaken for a British heiress.

Little Women

Theater TBA Opens Fri., July 1

Directed by Mervyn LeRoy (U.S., 1949, 122 min.)

No Country for Old Men

In 1860s Concord, Mass., with their father fighting in the civil war, four sisters grow up and find love while being raised their very outspoken mother.

AFI Silver Theatre Tue., July 19, 4:30 p.m., Thu., July 21, 4:30 p.m., Fri., July 22, 4:30 p.m.

The Man Who Fell to Earth Directed by Nicolas Roeg (U.K., 1976, 139 min.)

In this uncut 35th anniversary release, space oddity David Bowie lands on 20th-century Earth seeking water for his drought-stricken planet but instead uses his highly advanced technology to become a wealthy industrialist who succumbs to American decadence in the form of TV, booze, sex and stock issues.

Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., July 5

Directed by Ethan and Joel Coen (U.S., 2007, 122 min.)

Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon some dead bodies, a stash of heroin and more than $2 million in cash near the Rio Grande.

(English and Spanish) AFI Silver Theatre Fri., July 8, 9:15 p.m., Sun., July 10, 2:45 p.m., Thu., July 14, 9:20 p.m.

Page One: Inside the New York Times Directed by Andrew Rossi (U.S., 2011, 87 min.)

In the tradition of great fly-on-the-wall documentaries, “Page One” deftly gains unprecedented access to the New York Times newsroom and the inner workings of its media desk at a time of sweeping industry change.

Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., July 1

by Washington Diplomat film reviewer Ky N. Nguyen

GOETHE-INSTITUT “Pushing the Boundaries” (July 5, 11) concludes with two sports films by Pepe Danquart.

(202) 289-1200, www.goethe.de/ins/us/was/kue/flm/enindex.htm

FREER GALLERY OF ART The Sixteenth Annual Made in Hong Kong Film Festival (July 8-Aug. 12) opens with Donnie Yen (“Hero,” “Blade II”) starring in

The Washington Diplomat

AFI Silver Theatre Sat., July 9, 9:30 p.m., Sun., July 10, 9:45 p.m.

This documentary features Egyptian-

Please see International Film Clips above for detailed listings available at press time.

Page 44

Traveling to the French capital for business with their family, a young engaged couple is forced to confront the illusion that a life different from their own is better.

Teddy Chen’s blockbuster “Bodyguards and Assassins” (July 8, 7 p.m.; July 10, 2 p.m.).

(202) 357-2700, www.asia.si.edu/events/films.asp

AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE (AFI) SILVER THEATRE “Alfred Hitchcock Retrospective, Part III” (July 2-Sept. 5) continues the massive comprehensive review of the British master of suspense. “Elizabeth Taylor: A Screen Remembrance” (July 1-Sept. 6) looks back at the legacy of the beloved, beautiful British actress.

“Totally Awesome 5: Great Films of the 1980s” (July 1-Sept. 7) revisits memorable flicks from the ’80s, including “Time Bandits” and “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.” “Keeping Up With The

Coen Brothers” (July 1-Sept. 5) provides a retrospective of the American auteurs of black humor. “Arthur Penn: A Screen Remembrance” (July 8-21) shows work by the distinguished American director, whose 1967 classic “Bonnie and Clyde” (July 8-12) was influenced by the French New Wave. “Blake Edwards: A Screen Remembrance” (July 15-Aug. 7) showcases early films by the American director. “Dennis Hopper: A Screen Remembrance” (July 2-Sept. 8) brings us back through the career of the iconic American actor. “NIH Science in the Cinema” (July 6-Aug. 10) features free DVD screenings, discussed by an expert guest, relating to alcoholism, stuttering, the obesity epidemic, schizophrenia, suicide prevention and meurosurgery.

(301) 495-6700, www.afi.com/silver

July 2011

The Pink Panther Directed by Blake Edwards (U.S., 1963, 115 min.)

Bumbling and conceited French police inspector Clouseau tries to catch The Phantom, a daring jewel thief whose identity and features are unknown - and is acting right under his nose. (English and Italian) AFI Silver Theatre July 22 to 28

A Place in the Sun Directed by George Stevens (U.S., 1951, 122 min.)

Young up-and-comer George Eastman (Montgomery Clift) is thrust into the bluecollar life of a rich uncle’s family business, becoming involved with a simple, trusting girl on the assembly line and falling in love with a gorgeous, high-society woman (Elizabeth Taylor).

adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father.

AFI Silver Theatre Opens Fri., July 1

The Trip Directed by Michael Winterbottom

(U.K., 2010, 107 min.)

When a man is asked to tour the country’s finest restaurants, he envisions it as the perfect getaway with his beautiful girlfriend, but when she backs out, he has no one to accompany him but his best friend and source of eternal aggravation.

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Tron Directed by Steven Lisberger (U.S., 1982, 96 min.)

A hacker is literally abducted into the world of a computer and forced to participate in gladiatorial games where his only chance of escape is with the help of a heroic security program.

German

Norwegian

love on tour in the south of France, but only after mortal consequences. (Screens with “Mots CroisĂŠsâ€?)

Hell on Wheels (HĂśllentour)

TrollHunter (Trolljegeren)

National Gallery of Art Sun., July 17, 4:30 p.m.

Directed by Pepe Danquart and Werner Schweizer (Germany, 2004, 120 min.)

Directed by AndrĂŠ Ă˜vredal (Norway, 2010, 103 min.)

Mots CroisĂŠs

The government says it’s just a problem with bears making trouble in the mountains and forests of Norway, but local hunters don’t believe it, and neither do a trio of college students — who soon find themselves documenting an unlikely hero, the Troll Hunter, and risking their lives to uncover creatures only thought to exist in fairytales.

Directed by Michel Linsky and Pierre Colombier (France, 1926, 61 min.)

Home Game (Heimspiel)

Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., July 1

National Gallery of Art Sun., July 17, 4:30 p.m.

Directed by Pepe Danquart (Germany, 1999/2000, 95 min.)

Silent

Son Premier Film

Bonheur Conjugal!

In Paris to get an inheritance, provincial actor CĂŠleste NomĂŠnoĂŠ becomes famous overnight after his surprise film debut, although now he is known only as “Grock.â€?

(Silent with live piano accompaniment)

This documentary looks at one of the world’s biggest sports events, the Tour de France, showcasing its history, fanatic crowds and the men on the bikes in all their torture and glory.

Goethe-Institut Tue., July 5, 6:30 p.m.

AFI Silver Theatre July 1 to 4

This beautifully shot film follows the Die Eisbären (“Polar Bearsâ€?), an ice hockey team from East Berlin, over a season 10 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, providing a moving portrait of the East German sense of identity in transition.

A Shot in the Dark

Vertigo

Goethe-Institut Mon., July 11, 6:30 p.m.

Directed by Blake Edwards (U.K./U.S., 1964, 102 min.)

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock (U.S., 1958, 129 min.)

As murder follows murder, beautiful Maria is the obvious suspect, but bumbling Inspector Clouseau drives his boss mad by seeing her as plainly innocent.

A San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend’s wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.

AFI Silver Theatre Sat., July 2, 9:15 p.m.

Tue., July 5, 2 p.m., Wed., July 6, 4 p.m.

French

Landmark’s E Street Cinema Opens Fri., July 8

Oliver Tate, 15, has two big ambitions: to save his parents’ marriage via carefully plotted intervention in their love life, and to lose his virginity before his next birthday.

Viva Riva!

Mandarin

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

Riva is a small-time operator who just returned to his hometown of Kinshasa, Congo, after a decade away with a major score — a fortune in hijacked gasoline — and finds himself embroiled with a beautiful nightclub denizen and an Angolan crime lord relentlessly pursuing his stolen shipment of gas. (French and Lingala)

Directed by Richard Ayoade (U.K./U.S., 2010, 97 min.)

The Tree of Life Directed by Terrence Malick (U.S., 2011, 138 min.)

This impressionistic story of a Midwestern family in the 1950s follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack, through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned

Directed by Djo Tunda Wa Munga (Democratic Republic of Congo/France/ Belgium, 2010, 96 min.)

Landmark’s E Street Cinema

National Gallery of Art

Directed by Ralf Huettner (Germany, 2010, 96 min.)

A young man suffering from Tourette syndrome absconds from an institution with two other inhabitants to travel to Italy to fulfill his mother’s last wish.

Submarine

A debt-ridden playboy bored with his timeto-settle-down marriage to a wealthy bourgeoise runs off to follow his actress first

Directed by Jean Kemm (France, 1926, 99 min.)

Vincent Wants to Sea (Vincent will Meer)

AFI Silver Theatre Sat., July 30, 7 p.m., Sun., July 31, 5:15 p.m.

AFI Silver Theatre Fri., July 29, 5:20 p.m., Sun., July 31, 12:30 p.m.

Directed by Robert Saidreau (France, 1922, 64 min.)

A New York bank employee, off to France with his fiancĂŠe after winning a crosswordpuzzle championship, encounters a couple en route to Nice who’ve got mĂŠnage a quatre on their minds — with hilarious results. (Screens with “Bonheur Conjugal!â€?)

City of Life and Death (Nanjing! Nanjing!)

Directed by Lu Chuan (China/Hong Kong, 2009, 132 min.)

The Imperial Japanese Army siege of the Chinese capital of Nanking, in which as many as 300,000 citizens were killed, is recreated through the eyes of both victims and occupiers. (Mandarin and English) Landmark’s E Street Cinema

from page 41

Dining light and fresh, with an interesting depth imparted by the dark rum, while the Georgia peach tea is a sweet remembrance of spring breaks gone by.

Given the success of his other ventures, it’s clear that von Storch understands the critical importance of customer service in any customerdriven endeavor. He has translated his experience effectively to the operations at 901. His staff is uniformly efficient, well informed, and noticeably agreeable. And when they ask whether there was anything you thought should be improved, you get the sense your feedback will actually be taken to heart. While there are some of the inevitable glitches that accompany any opening (timing to the table was a bit off on some visits), there are surprisingly fewer than one might expect in such a new establishment.

All in all, 901 is a welcome new addition to Penn

July 2011

READIN’

ART

’RITING ’RITHMETIC

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PHOTO: JESSICA LATOS

Virginia’s Stoneking/von Storch Architects and Miami’s Hallock Design Group created an industrial chic space for the 7,500-square-foot 901 Restaurant and Bar, which recently opened in D.C.’s Penn Quarter.

Quarter dining, and yet another testament to the success of von Storch’s approach to business.

Rachel G. Hunt is the restaurant reviewer for The Washington Diplomat.

The Washington Diplomat Page 45

[ around town ]

EVENTS LISTING **Admission is free unless otherwise noted. All information on event venues can be found on The Diplomat Web site at www.washdiplomat. com. Times and locations are subject to change.

Unless listed, please call venue for specific event times and hours of operation.

National Gallery of Art

ART

Through July 24

July 7 to Aug. 28

Possible Worlds: Mexican Photography and Fiction in Contemporary Art The artists of “Possible Worlds” are part of a new generation of photographers who break away from traditional photojournalism and offer imaginative, alternative ways of documenting the natural world, influenced by film, literature, fantasy, science fiction and electronic music.

Organization of American States Art Museum of the Americas July 12 to 16, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Indonesian Batik: World Heritage

painters of the mid-17th century, Gabriel Metsu captured ordinary moments of life with a freshness and spontaneity that was matched by his ability to depict materials with an unerring truth to nature.

Word, Shout, Song: Lorenzo Dow Turner Connecting Community through Language Lorenzo Dow Turner’s foundational work in the 1930s established that people of African heritage, despite slavery, had retained and passed on their cultural identity through words, music and story wherever they landed. Features of the exhibition include rare audio recordings, photographs and artifacts from Turner’s linguistic explorations into the African Diaspora.

Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum Through July 29

Art Deck-O: Playing Card Originals

This exhibition showcases the rich heritage of Indonesian batik fabrics with its beautiful colors and patterns from many parts of the Indonesian archipelago, including workshops on how to make batiks — part of the American Batik Design Competition, hosted by the Indonesian Embassy, a challenge to U.S. citizens to craft batik designs with a distinct American style. For information, call (202) 775-5242 or e-mail gaby@ embassyofindonesia.org.

This past winter, more than 50 of Washington’s finest artists came together to produce wildly creative designs that form a playing card deck unique to our area, with the culmination of these efforts published in a deck of fully functional playing cards with traditional suites of diamonds, hearts, spades and clubs.

Embassy of Indonesia

Yaroslav Koporolin: Cryostasis

Through July 15

Luxembourg by Hot Air Balloon Floating over the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg by hot air balloon, Rob Keiffer produced picturesque aerial photographs of the tiny country’s fascinating scenery and settings.

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Touchstone Gallery Through July 20

Growing up in Moscow in the post-Soviet era, Yar Koporulin witnessed the dramatic rebirth of Russian society and culture, interpreting these transformations through metaphorical characters in his art, which also portrays the world surrounding us as a contorted tangle of string.

Ancient Iranian Ceramics Some 3,000 years ago, in the area south of the Caspian Sea in what is now modern Iran, craftsmen developed a distinctive type of pottery. This small installation features some of the outstanding treasures in the Sackler Gallery’s collection of ancient Iranian ceramics, celebrating the talents of these ancient potters.

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Through July 17

The Orchid in Chinese Painting Coinciding with the National Museum of Natural History’s annual orchid show, the Sackler presents 20 works related to orchids in Chinese painting, ranging in date from the 15th to the 19th century.

Preston Sampson’s mixed media and pulp paintings feature the common working man with an very uncommon burst of life and expression.

International Visions Gallery Through July 24

Gabriel Metsu 1629–1667 One of the most important Dutch genre

Page 46

The Washington Diplomat

National Air and Space Museum

In 1992, the city of Salzburg honored wellknown writer and political observer Stefan Zweig with an exhibition commemorating the 50th anniversary of his death — a retrospective that now comes to Washington with more than 120 photographs and numerous reproductions and other documents on his life. Admission is free but registration is required and can be made at www.acfdc.org/events-registration.

Through Sept. 3

Through Oct. 22

gute aussichten: young German photography 2010/2011

Mexico Through the Lens of National Geographic

Works by eight winners of gute aussichten, the seventh annual German competition for graduate photography students, come to Washington on the exhibition’s worldwide tour.

Embassy of Austria

Through Sept. 5

With more than 150 articles, no country has seen more coverage in National Geographic magazine than Mexico, generating a stunning archive of visual imagery documenting the country’s culture, history and physical beauty — a slice of which can be seen in this selection of 132 photographs drawn from the National Geographic’s archives.

Stefan Zweig – An Austrian from Europe

Through Aug. 13

The Last Full Measure: Civil War Photos from the Liljenquist Family Collection Portrait photographs of the young men who fought and died in the American Civil War serve as a memorial to those who gave their lives during the devastating conflict, displaying the faces of 360 Union soldiers — one for every 1,000 who died — and 52 Confederate soldiers, one for every 5,000.

Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building Through Aug. 14

Registro 02 Is a work of art defined by the artist’s intent and methods, or do the people viewing it help define the work through their perceptions of it? Encompassing the works of four individual artists and one collective, this exhibit sets out to show that both the artistic process and the audience’s perception help inform art’s meaning.

American University Katzen Arts Center

Washington Color and Light

July 30 to Nov. 6

Perspectives: Hale Tiger

Corcoran Gallery of Art

This marks the most comprehensive exhibition of drawings by Tom Wesselmann, a brilliant colorist and innovator who in the 1960s was one of the key leaders in the pop art movement alongside Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.

The Kreeger Museum

Multimedia artist Hale Tenger, born in Izmir, Turkey, creates videos and installations that examine the tangible and intangible traces of events, filming the façade of the St. George Hotel in Beirut — the site of the assassination of Rafik Hariri, former prime minister of Lebanon — while it was being renovated from 2005 to 2007.

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Through July 31

Preston Sampson: Common Threads

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

Through Aug. 12

Artists associated with the Washington Color School and their contemporaries were united by an exploration of the language of abstraction, a desire to experiment with materials, and a love of color.

This exhibition reveals the artistic innovations and individual approaches that shaped new directions in abstract painting and sculpture from the 1950s to the late 1970s.

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Through July 23

1958 as a way to communicate the accomplishments, setbacks and sheer excitement of space exploration over the past five decades to the public.

Through Aug. 14 Through July 30

Echoes of the Past: The Buddhist Cave Temples of Xiangtangshan Majestic sixth-century Chinese Buddhist sculpture is combined with 3D imaging technology in this exploration of one of the most important groups of Buddhist devotional sites in early medieval China: the Buddhist cave temples of Xiangtangshan carved into the mountains of northern China — home to a magnificent array of sculptures, from monumental Buddhas and divine attendant figures to crouching mon-

July 2011

viewers to reconsider the way they perceive and experience the world — from a single moment in time to an idea of the infinite.

sters framed by floral motifs.

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

Hillyer Art Space

Tom Wesselmann Draws Opening July 16

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT

Through Aug. 21

Race to the End of the Earth A century ago, two teams led by Britain’s Robert F. Scott and Norway’s Roald Amundsen braved starvation and Antarctica’s frozen environment in a race to be first to the South Pole. An array of breathtaking photographs, historic artifacts and interactive exhibits recount this truelife adventure tale while examining classic and modern methods of polar travel, science and technology — as well as the human instinct to explore our world.

The Goethe-Institut

The Capitoline Venus The “Capitoline Venus” — on loan to the United States for the first time — is one of the best-preserved and most famous masterpieces from Roman antiquity.

National Gallery of Art Through Sept. 30

Democratic Principles This exhibit of 22 portraits by Elizabeth McClancy represent contemporary progressive political leaders in ways that reveal the magnitude of the challenges they face and the leadership they must assume.

A special panel discussion on June 8 at 7 p.m. features Howard Dean and will discuss the next of the arts in democratic development. For information, visit www.democraticwoman.org.

The Woman’s National Democratic Club Through Oct. 2

The Guerrilla Girls Talk Back The Guerrilla Girls, a group of anonymous artist-activists, critique the sexism and racism pervading contemporary culture through their populist art production, which includes posters, books and live performances in which they wear gorilla masks.

National Museum of Women in the Arts Through Oct. 2

Pressing Ideas: Fifty Years of Women’s Lithographs from Tamarind Featuring 75 works by 42 artists including Elaine de Kooning, Louise Nevelson, Margo Humphrey, Jaune Quick-To-See Smith and Kiki Smith, “Pressing Ideas” explores the breadth of experimentation in lithography and women’s contributions to a workshop that stretches creative boundaries.

National Museum of Women in the Arts

Mexican Cultural Institute Through Nov. 27

Italian Master Drawings from the Wolfgang Ratjen Collection: 1525–1835 The splendors of Italian draftsmanship from the late Renaissance to the height of the neoclassical movement are showcased in an exhibition of 65 superb drawings assembled by the European private collector Wolfgang Ratjen.

National Gallery of Art Through Dec. 4

Artists in Dialogue 2: Sandile Zulu and Henrique Oliveira The second in a series of exhibitions in which two artists are invited to create new works — each inspired by, and in response to the other — this installment features Sandile Zulu, who lives in Johannesburg, and Henrique Oliveira, who lives in Sao Paolo, and their site-specific works composed of unlikely materials such as weathered wood and fire.

National Museum of African Art Through December 2011

African Mosaic A towering, striking sculpture of Haitian leader Toussaint Louverture by contemporary Senegalese artist Ousmane Sow is the centerpiece of this exhibition of important acquisitions over the last decade, including more than 100 traditional and contemporary works, some never before on display.

National Museum of African Art Through Jan. 1

Wedding Belles: Bridal Fashions from the Marjorie Merriweather Post Family, 1874-1958

A new exhibition featuring 20 works by groundbreaking contemporary artist Nam June Paik (1923–2006) is the third in a series of shows installed in the Tower Gallery that centers on developments in art since the midcentury.

Sumptuous bridal gowns and bridesmaid dresses belonging to heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post and her family, along with a royal veil and stunning Cartier bag carried by Post’s daughter —actress Dina Merrill — tell the story of 20th-century wedding styles through the lens of one of America’s most notable and fashionable families.

National Gallery of Art

Hillwood Estate and Museum

Through Oct. 9

Through Jan. 16

Fragments in Time and Space

NASA / ART: 50 Years of Exploration

Family Matters: Portraits from the Qing Court

Fragments in Time and Space draws primarily on the Hirshhorn’s collection to present works by artists such as Tacita Dean, Thomas Eakins, Douglas Gordon, Ed Ruscha and Hiroshi Sugimoto, encouraging

More than 70 pieces of art — from the illustrative to the abstract — offer a look at the works commissioned by the NASA Art Program, which was established soon after the inception of the U.S. space program in

Lavish portraits — almost evenly divided between images of men and women, some nearly life-size — show Qing dynasty royal family members dressed in the elaborate formal robes required for attendance at

Through Oct. 2

In the Tower: Nam June Paik

National Geographic Society Through Aug. 28

July 2011

court or more casual attire in moments of leisure, offering a fascinating look at imperial family life in the later half of China’s Qing dynasty.

sessions — with a chance to win a trip to Paris. Tickets are $65.

Sat., July 16, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Through July 3

Through July 10

French Festival and After Party

Old Times

Venus in Fur

La Maison Française

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

Wed., July 20, 6:45 p.m.

Indigo: The Color that Seduced the World

Memory and reality collide in British playwright Harold Pinter’s “Old Times,” as three friends recall their 20-year relationship in a highly charged exploration of whether we can truly ever know another person, or even ourselves. Tickets start at $37.

David Ives’s crackling exploration of desire and control pits actress against playwright in a seductive game of cat and mouse.

Tickets are $44 to $65.

DANCE

The Alliance Française de Washington teams up with Hillwood Museum, Estate and Gardens to bring you a Bastille celebration that starts at Hillwood — with events for children and performances from Opera Lafayette and New York Baroque Dance Company — and continues at Alliance Française, where guests can enjoy crepes, cheese, champagne, a silent auction, live music and DJ mixing traditional French music with today’s hits.

Tickets are $18 for the daytime festival and $49 for the after party, or $69 for both.

The Shakespeare Theatre

Through July 24

Fri., July 8, Sat., July 9,

‘Frida’ and ‘Homenaje a David Alfaro Siqueiros’ This evening of Latino, modern and Indian dance presented by GALA Hispanic Theatre and the Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company combines colorful visual design and projections with explosive movements that fuse traditional Bharatanatyam and modern dance.

Tickets are $15 to $25.

GALA Hispanic Theatre Fri., July 15, 8 p.m., Sat., July 16, 8 p.m.

Caracalla Dance Theatre: Zayed and the Dream Caracalla Dance Theatre’s “Zayed and the Dream” follows the journey of seven horsemen as they travel through the sands of time in search of the “destined one” who will engrave his vision on the deserts of Arabia in a spectacular dance musical that features the participation of 100 artists and guest dance performers from China, Spain, Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates.

Tickets are $45 to $125.

Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater

Blue gold,” “the devil’s dye,” even “the path to the infinite” — indigo has been called all of these. Author Catherine McKinley tells its story and the pigment’s varied uses, from religious and court purposes to cosmetics, tattooing, and of course the glorious textiles.

Tickets are $25; for information, visit www.smithsonianassociates.org.

Location on ticket Wed., July 27, 6:45 p.m.

Skin Deep: The History and Art of Indigenous Tattooing Lars Krutak — whose almost 1,000 razorand knife-cut scars testify to his quest for understanding this ancient art form — discusses how tattooing reflects worldviews, ancient myths and ancestral traditions, from the earliest known tattoos of 7,000 years ago in Chile and Peru to the many current cultures around the world who use the art form today. Tickets are $40; for information, visit www.smithsonianassociates.org.

S. Dillon Ripley Center

FESTIVALS July 7 to 24

The Capital Fringe Festival

DISCUSSIONS Mon., July 11, 7 p.m.

A Life with Whales Go on a stunning visual and narrative adventure to the underwater realm of whales with Charles “Flip” Nicklin, one of the world’s leading cetacean photographers and National Geographic’s premier whale photographer and marine mammal specialist. Tickets are $25; for information, visit www.smithsonianassociates.org.

S. Dillon Ripley Center Tue., July 12, 12 p.m.

Capital Portraits: Treasures from Washington Private Collections The National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition “Capital Portraits: Treasures from Washington Private Collections” (through Sept. 5) showcases 60 portraits from private collections in the Washington area.

In this illustrated lecture, curators Carolyn Kinder Carr and Ellen Miles discuss how each portrait tells a unique and surprising story, whether it is a family heirloom or a work collected for its aesthetic merit.

Tickets are $25; for information, visit www.smithsonianassociates.org.

National Portrait Gallery Wed., July 13, 6:45 p.m.

Spy vs. Spy: Civil War Espionage Clayton Laurie, a historian for the CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence, discusses how the Civil War became a battle of wits as well as one of strength and military superiority, how both sides used intelligence-gathering, and how this influenced the outcome of key battles.

Tickets are $35; for information, visit www.smithsonianassociates.org.

S. Dillon Ripley Center Wed., July 13, 7 p.m.

Le Studio: Wine Tasting 101 Every month, Le Studio focuses on a different wine region of France with some of its most famous vintners. This time around though, a blind tasting will test participants’ knowledge from the previous

July 2011

The fifth annual Capital Fringe Festival brings downtown D.C. alive with hundreds of performances by adventurous and innovative performing artists at more than 20 traditional and non-traditional venues, featuring a range of work from theater, dance and puppetry to the unclassifiable. For information, visit www.capfringe.org.

Various locations Sat., July 9, 2 to 8 p.m.

Indonesia Festival This festival showcases Indonesian culture and entertainment, including Indonesian music, jazz, Brazilian drums, traditional dances, cultural exhibits and native cuisine. A highlight will be an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the largest angklung ensemble, a traditional Indonesian bamboo instrument, which starts at 5 p.m. For information, visit www. embassyofindonesia.org/indonesianfestival or register by e-mail at indofest2011@ embassyofindonesia.org.

Washington Monument Grounds July 10 to 12

Fancy Food Show Argan oil from Morocco, twice-roasted seaweed from Korea, chunky papaya jam from Senegal and gluten-free pasta from Italy will be among the 180,000 foods from 80 countries and regions around the world on display at the Summer Fancy Food Show, the largest marketplace for specialty foods and beverages in North America. For information, visit www.specialtyfood.com.

Washington Convention Center Sat., July 16, 7 p.m.

Bastille Day at the Embassy of France

Hillwood Estate (10 a.m. to 7 p.m.)

Alliance Française (7:30 to 10 p.m.)

Through July 17

FIFA Women’s World Cup Germany 2011

The Studio Theatre

The Merchant of Venice

Through July 3

Reduced Shakespeare Company: Completely Hollywood (abridged) America’s “Bad Boys of Abridgement” are back, taking on 186 movies in 100 minutes with hilarious results. Tickets are $39 to $49.

Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

Whether contemplating the contents of gilded chests or the darkest corners of human nature, “The Merchant of Venice” — which features some of Shakespeare’s most complex and memorable characters — challenges audiences to look beyond misleading appearances to find the true measure of things Tickets are $20 to $98.

Shakespeare Theatre Harman Hall

July 8 to Oct. 2

Oklamhoma!

The best-selling show in Arena Stage’s 60-year history is back for 12 weeks.

Inspired by the toughness of the prairie, Artistic Director Molly Smith sets her production in the robust world of territory life filled with a cast as rich and complex as the great tapestry of America itself, set against the backdrop of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s timeless music. Please call for ticket details.

July 26 to 31

MUSIC

Arena Stage

Georgetown University Davis Performing Arts Center

Through July 24

Through July 9

Castleton Festival

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

Through Aug. 21

Keegan Theatre presents this Tony Awardwinning musical that tells the story of five eccentric kids vying for first prize, bragging rights, and most importantly, a trip to the National Spelling Bee Competition. Tickets are $40.

Long before that girl from Kansas arrives in Munchkinland, two girls meet in the land of Oz — one is smart, fiery and green, literally, while the other is beautiful, ambitious and very popular. How these two grow to become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good makes for what the New York Times calls “the defining musical of the decade.” Tickets are $37 to $250.

This year, the Women’s Soccer World Cup is being hosted by Germany for the first time, with the motto “The Beautiful Side of 20Eleven!” The Goethe-Institut will be screening most of the games where Germany or the United States are represented.

Goethe-Institut

The Castleton Festival in Virginia was founded in 2009 by Lorin and Dietlinde Maazel and has quickly become a magnet for superb young vocal and instrmental artists. About 200 musicians and theater professionals come to Castleton Farms, the Maazels’ farm in rural Rappahannock County, Va., each summer to live and work together under the guidance of Maestro Maazel, one of the world’s preeminent conductors.

The summer 2011 performances include a new production of Puccini’s “La Bohème,” Ravel’s “L’enfant et les sortilèges,” and Kurt Weill’s “Seven Deadly Sins” in addition to a variety of concerts. For information, visit www.castletonfestival.org.

Castleton Farms

THEATER Through July 3

Don Quixote Synetic Theater once again merges its unique physical theater style with text in its season closer, “Don Quixote,” as the iconic character abandons his home and reality to become a wandering knight, lost in the mystical world of his books.

Tickets are $40 to $50.

Synetic Theater at Chrystal City, Va. Through July 3

The Glass Menagerie In a tenement apartment in 1930s St. Louis, the Wingfield family struggles to hang on to their dreams for the future in this fresh re-envisioning of Tennessee Williams’s legendary masterpiece, his most autobiographical play, presented as part of Georgetown’s Tennessee Williams Centennial Festival. Tickets start at $35.

Arena Stage

Church Street Theater Through July 10

Next to Normal Three-time Tony winner “Next to Normal,” starring Alice Ripley, is a story of family members torn between caring for themselves and each other — set against a thrilling rock score. Tickets are $35 to $120.

Through July 3

La Maison Française

The Studio Theatre

Wicked

Kennedy Center Opera House

For a complete list of events, please visit our Web site at www.washdiplomat.com.

CULTURE GUIDE English Classes Learn English in a friendly & supportive environment. Beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels available. Information about American culture also included during classes.

Great location for Embassy personnel.

Mondays and Wednesdays from 7-9 pm, only $60 for a 10 week course.

Next session begins 7/18/11.

Sponsored by The Global Neighborhood Center 3855 Massachusetts Avenue, NW (Christ Church) Washington, DC 20016

202-363-4090

Plan Your Entire Weekend.

The History of Kisses A writer sequesters himself in an oceanfront motel to finish a collection of tales of seaside romance, only to find himself drawn into the romantic and sexual goings-on around him. Tickets are $44 to $65.

This ensemble-based stage adaptation of Michael Pollan’s best-selling book moves from the corn fields of Iowa, to a small organic farm in Virginia, to America’s dinner tables, grocery stores and fast-food emporiums — asking the question: What should we have for dinner?

Tickets are $15 or $18.

Kennedy Center Eisenhower Theater

www.washdiplomat.com

La Maison Française and Comité Tricolore host a special Bastille Day fundraiser at the French Embassy featuring chefs from the most prestigious restaurants offering a wide-ranging buffet while you enjoy live performances, cocktails from the open bar and a luxury-item silent auction. Tickets start at $90.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma

TO ADVERTISE IN THIS SECTION Contact Dave Garber at: email: dgarber@washdiplomat.com phone: (301) 933-3552, ext. 30 fax: (301) 949-0065

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301.933.3552 The Washington Diplomat Page 47

DIPLOMATIC SPOTLIGHT

The Washington Diplomat

July 2011

Refugees International Annual Dinner

PHOTO: GAIL SCOTT

Ambassador of Iceland Hjálmar Hannesson, left, joins Lisa Barry of Chevron at the Refugees International 32nd anniversary dinner at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium.

PHOTO: GAIL SCOTT

PHOTO: REFUGEES INTERNATIONAL

PHOTO: REFUGEES INTERNATIONAL

PHOTO: REFUGEES INTERNATIONAL

Queen Noor of Jordan, left, enjoys a chat with Finnish Ambassador Pekka Lintu, the honorary diplomatic chair of the Refugees International 32nd anniversary dinner, which raised more than $715,000 for Refugees International’s lifesaving advocacy on behalf of the world’s displaced.

Eileen Shields-West, board chair of Refugees International, center, joins Ambassador of Japan Ichiro Fujisaki and his wife Yoriko Fujisaki, who will serve as the diplomatic chairs for the 2012 dinner for Refugees International, which advocates for lifesaving assistance and protection for displaced people and promotes solutions to displacement crises.

Actor Sam Waterston, emcee and longtime supporter of Refugees International, left, joins Laurel Colless, wife of the Finnish ambassador, at the 32nd anniversary gala dinner for Refugees International.

Wife of the Indonesian ambassador Rosa Rai Djalal, left, joins Queen Noor of Jordan, a Refugees International board member, at the Refugees International 32nd anniversary dinner held at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium.

Center for Global Development Embassy Dinner President of the Center for Global Development (CGD) Nancy Birdsall, left, joins Deputy Head of Mission of the British Embassy Philip Barton at the CGD “Embassy Progressive Dinner,” which honored the center’s 10th anniversary with cocktails at the British Residence, followed by dinner at the Embassy of Finland and capped off with dessert at the Norwegian Residence.

PHOTO: GAIL SCOTT

Dikembe Mutombo, retired CongoleseAmerican professional basketball player with the Houston Rockets and now chairman and president of the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation, left, joins Ambassador of Finland Pekka Lintu at the Center for Global Development 10th anniversary dinner, which also paid tribute to the African Development Bank.

Kati Marton, the widow of Richard Holbrooke, left, joins the niece of Amina Hersi Ali at the 32nd anniversary gala dinner for Refugees International, which honored longtime diplomat Holbrooke, who died last December from a torn aorta, and Ali, a grassroots refugees worker who died of cancer days before the May 5 fundraising gala.

PHOTO: GAIL SCOTT

From left, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Ambassador of Mexico Arturo Sarukhan talk with former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who received the McCall-Pierpaoli Humanitarian Award for his humanitarian work at the Refugees International 32nd anniversary dinner held at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium.

Jamaican Artists at IDB From left, Prime Minister of Jamaica Bruce Golding; Margaret Bernal, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) executive director for the Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago; Richard Bernal; and Director of the IDB Cultural Center Félix Angel attend a reception for the exhibition “Contemporary Jamaican Artists” at the IDB Cultural Center’s gallery.

From left, Ambassador of Norway Wegger Christian Strommen, USAID Administrator Raj Shah, and Ambassador of Finland Pekka Lintu attend the 10th anniversary dinner for the Center for Global Development held jointly at the British Residence, Finnish Embassy and Norwegian Residence.

PHOTO: DEBRA CORRIE, IDB

Center for Global Development board member and co-founder of Quince Hill Partners Susan Levine, left, greets Rev. Dr. Cecilie J. Strommen, wife of the Norwegian ambassador, at the dessert portion of the Center for Global Development 10th anniversary dinner held at the Norwegian Residence.

From left, longtime supporters of the Center for Global Development (CGD) Nicky Oppenheimer, chairman of De Beers Group; Jennifer Oppenheimer, co-founder of the Isbindi Trust; Byron Auguste, managing director of McKinsey & Co.’s Social Sector Office and a board member of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; CGD President Nancy Birdsall; and Jonathan Oppenheimer, executive director of De Beers Group attend the CGD 10th anniversary dinner.

Page 48

The Washington Diplomat

PHOTOS: KAVEH SARDARI

Center for Global Development founder and board chair Edward Scott, left, joins Jendayi Frazer, former U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs who is now with Carnegie Mellon University, at the 10th anniversary dinner for the Center for Global Development, which works to reduce global poverty and inequality through rigorous research and active engagement with the policy community.

Japanese Fundraiser at Singapore Philanthropist Jane Cafritz, left, joins wife of the Israeli ambassador Sally Oren at the Japanese earthquake fundraiser held at the Embassy of Singapore.

PHOTOS: GAIL SCOTT

From left, Ambassador of China and Mrs. Zhang Yesui join Ambassador of Singapore Chan Heng Chee and Mrs. and Ambassador of Japan Ichiro Fujisaki at a fundraiser for Japanese earthquake relief efforts hosted by UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Esther Coopersmith at the Embassy of Singapore.

July 2011

Jamaican Tea-Off to Good Health

Bin Laden Security Roundtable

PHOTOS: INSTITUTE FOR EDUCATION

From left, Jennifer Griffin of Fox News, former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, and former CIA Director Michael Hayden headline an IFE/INFO public policy roundtable on the subject of “The World After Osama bin Laden” hosted by the Institute for Education (IFE) and held at the Norwegian ambassador’s residence.

PHOTOS: THOMAS COLEMAN

From right, President of the Jamaican Women of Washington (JWoW) Dr. Jacqueline From left, Erika Martin, Daphne Jarvis, Board Chairman of the United Way of the National Watson joins emcee John Schriffen of NBC Washington News, Ambassador of Capital Area Robert A. Malson, and Vice President of Corporate Citizenship and Social Jamaica Audrey Marks, and Jeffrey Earl Thompson, chairman and CEO of Responsibility at Pepco Debbi Jarvis attend the Jamaican Women of Washington’s “Tea-Off Thompson, Cobb, Bazilio & Associates as well as DC Chartered Health Plan Inc., to Good Health” fundraiser and silent auction. who was honored by JWoW for his health care leadership at the nonprofit’s ninth annual “Tea-Off to Good Health” held at the Four Seasons Hotel.

Realtor Stacie Turner of “The Real Housewives of D.C.,” left, joins President of the DC Collaborative Jeff Travers at the Jamaican Women of Washington’s “TeaOff to Good Health” fundraiser and silent auction, whose theme was “Hypertension: Believe the Hype! Prevention is Better than a Stroke.”

Ambassador of Grenada Gillian M.S. Bristol, left, joins Victoria Rogers, a business development manager for the Jamaica Tourist Board, at the Jamaican Women of Washington’s (JWoW) ninth annual “Tea-Off to Good Health” at the Four Seasons that highlighted Jamaican culture and JWoW’s efforts to help vulnerable populations in both the Caribbean and Washington, D.C.

From left, Lisa Gregory, former first lady of D.C. Michelle Fenty, Nancy Koide, and Vice President of Corporate Citizenship and Social Responsibility at Pepco Debbi Jarvis attend the Jamaican Women of Washington’s “Tea-Off to Good Health” fundraiser and silent auction, proceeds of which went to the Carl Vogel Center to help provide health screenings for medically underserved D.C. residents.

From left, founder of the Institute for Education (IFE) coach Kathy Kemper, wife of the Israeli ambassador Sally Oren, wife of the Norwegian ambassador Rev. Cecilie J. Strommen, and wife of the Luxembourg ambassador Louise Åkerblom attend an IFE/INFO public policy roundtable at the Norwegian ambassador’s residence.

Croatian President Visit President of Croatia Ivo Josipovic, Ambassador of Croatia Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, and Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who is also co-chairman of the Congressional Croatian Caucus on Capitol Hill, share a laugh at a reception held for President Josipovic in honor of his first official visit to Washington.

Russian National Day

PHOTO: THOMAS COLEMAN

From right, Ambassador of Russia Sergey Kislyak greets Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and his daughter Arianna and wife Gail at the Russian National Day reception held at the Russian Embassy.

From left, Ambassador of Turkmenistan Meret Bairamovich Orazov, Ambassador of Mongolia Bekhbat Khasbazar, and Ambassador of Tajikistan Abdujabbor Shirinov enjoy the cuisine at the Russian National Day reception.

From left, wife of the Russian ambassador Natalia Kislyak greets Mrs. and Ambassador of Japan Ichiro Fujisaki at the Russian National Day reception.

From left, U.S. Chief of Protocol Capricia Marshall, Ambassador of Russia Sergey Kislyak, and Ambassador of India Meera Shankar attend the Russian National Day reception.

PHOTO: THOMAS COLEMAN

PHOTO: THOMAS COLEMAN

Ambassador of Cyprus Pavlos Anastasiades, left, and Ambassador of Ukraine Olexander Motsyk attend the Russian National Day reception.

July 2011

Ambassador of Liechtenstein Claudia Fritsche, left, joins wife of the Cypriot ambassador Maria AntonopoulouAnastasiades at the Russian National Day reception.

PHOTO: THOMAS COLEMAN

Ambassador of Austria Christian Prosl, left, and Ambassador of Slovakia Peter Burian attend the Russian National Day reception held at the Russian Embassy.

Ambassador of Kazakhstan Erlan Idrissov, left, shares a laugh with Ambassador of Russia Sergey Kislyak at the Russian National Day reception.

Mrs. and Ambassador of Uzbekistan Ilhomjon Tuychievich Nematov attend the Russian National Day reception held at the embassy.

The Washington Diplomat Page 49

DIPLOMATIC SPOTLIGHT Fulbright Program at Peru

The Washington Diplomat

From left, Benedict Duffy, Assistant Secretary for Education and Cultural Affairs Ann Stock, and Executive Director of the France Fulbright Commission Arnaud Roujou de Boubée attend a reception at the Peruvian ambassador’s residence to celebrate the Fulbright Program, the U.S. government’s flagship international exchange program.

Latvian Art and Jazz

From left, Lilliam Malavé, Director of the Fulbright Scholar Program Debra Egan, and Sarita Samora attend a reception at the Peruvian ambassador’s residence to celebrate the Fulbright Program, which, since 1946, has provided more than 300,000 participants from more than 155 countries with the opportunity to study, teach, conduct research and exchange ideas.

PHOTOS: JACOB COMENETZ

From left, Ambassador of Peru Luis Valdivieso, Cecilia Valdivieso, Richard Shea and Ninoska Shea attend a reception at the Peruvian Residence to honor the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board as well as the U.S.-Peru Fulbright Program. Ambassador and Mrs. Valdivieso are both Fulbright Program alumni.

July 2011

Ruta Berzins Mudlaff of Milwaukee, left, joins Latvian Ambassador Andrejs Pildegovics at the Latvian National Day reception held PHOTO: GAIL SCOTT at the embassy, which also featured a performance by the jazz ensemble Maris Briezkalns Quintet and an exhibit by artist Ieva Bondare.

From left, Ambassador of Macedonia and Mrs. Zoran Jolevski join Ambassador of Azerbaijan Yashar Aliyev and wife of the Barbados ambassador Leila Mol Beale at the National Army Day of Azerbaijan reception held at the embassy.

Azerbaijan National Army Day From left, wife of the Uzbek ambassador Gyul Asal Nematova, Lisette Barry, Ambassador of Uzbekistan Ilhomjon Tuychievich Nematov, wife of the Azeri ambassador Neegiar Aliyev, Ambassador of Ukraine Olexander Motsyk, and Embassy Series Artistic Director Jerome Barry attend the National Army Day of Azerbaijan reception.

From left, Hilde Merete Grytting, Defense, Military, Naval and Air Attaché at the Albanian Embassy Col. Idriz Haxhiaj, Defense Attaché at the Norwegian Embassy Rear Adm. Trond Grytting, and Mrs. and Defense and Air Attaché at the Turkish Embassy Brig. Gen. Murat Yildirim attend the National Army Day of Azerbaijan reception.

Italy’s 150th Celebration

Ambassador of Monaco Gilles Alexandre Noghes, left, joins Ambassador of Bulgaria Elena Poptodorova at the Italian National Day gala held at the Italian Embassy, which also marked the 150th anniversary of Italian reunification.

Taiwanese Tea at Freer PHOTOS: TECRO From left, Director of the Press Division at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in Washington Frank Yee Wang joins Freer Gallery of Art film curator Tom Vick and Scott Chamberlin Hoyt, director of the film “The Meaning of Tea” at a screening of Hoyt’s film, which was followed by a tea ceremony in the courtyard at the Freer Gallery of Art featuring high-altitude mountain specialty teas from Taiwan and traditional music performed by Alice Gu-Zheng Ensemble.

Danish Queen at Phillips

From left, Ambassador of Italy Giulio Terzi, Antonella Cinque, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Sen. Marcello Pera, former president of the Italian Senate, offer a toast at the Italian National Day gala held at the Italian Embassy.

Ambassador of Fiji Winston Thompson, left, joins Ambassador of Italy Giulio Terzi at the Italian National Day gala.

Prince Consort Henrik of Denmark poses in front of Renoir’s “Luncheon of the Boating Party” at the Phillips Collection.

From left, philanthropist George Vradenburg, U.S. Ambassador to Denmark Laurie Fulton, and former U.S. Ambassador to Denmark Stuart Bernstein attend a luncheon and private tour of the Phillips Collection in honor of Danish Queen Margrethe II’s visit to the modern art museum.

PHOTOS: THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION

Director of the Phillips Collection Dorothy Kosinski, left, shares a laugh with Queen Margrethe II of Denmark in front of Renoir’s “Luncheon of the Boating Party” during a visit by the Danish queen and her husband to the Phillips.

Page 50

The Washington Diplomat

Calvin Cafritz, left, and Wilma Bernstein attend a private luncheon and tour at the Phillips Collection in honor of Danish Queen Margrethe II’s visit to the modern art museum.

July 2011

AROUNDTHEWORLD

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT

July 2011

HOLIDAYS ALGERIA

MALDIVES

July 5: Independence Day

July 26: Independence Day

Send Us Your Holidays and Appointments

ANTIGUA and BARBUDA

Fax to: The Washington Diplomat at: (301) 949-0065

July 4: Caricom Day

E-mail to: news@washdiplomat.com

ARGENTINA July 9: Independence Day

Mail to: P.O. Box 1345, Silver Spring, MD 20915-1345

July 14: Bastille Day

July 10: Independence Day

CAPE VERDE

GHANA July 1: Republic Day

BELARUS

July 5: Independence Day

July 3: Independence Day

COLOMBIA

July 4: Caricom Day

BELGIUM

July 20: Independence Day

JAPAN

GUYANA

July 21: Independence Day

COMOROS

BOLIVIA

July 6: Independence Day

July 16: La Paz

BOTSWANA July 1: Sir Seretse Khama Day July 20: President’s Day July 21: Public Holiday

BRUNEI July 15: Birthday of the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam

COSTA RICA July 25: Guanacaste Annexation Day

July 19: Marine Day (Umi no hi)

KOREA, REPUBLIC OF July 17: Constitution Day

July 25-27: Celebrations for the Day of the National Rebelliousness

July 17: King’s Birthday

LIBYA

July 5: St. Cyril and St. Methodius Day July 6: John Hus Day

July 23: Revolution Day

BURMA (MYANMAR)

EGYPT

July 19: Martyrs’ Day

July 23: National Day

BURUNDI

FIJI

July 1: Independence Day

July 28: Constitution Day

UNITED KINGDOM

July 5: St. Cyril and St. Methodius Day

July 12: Battle of the Boyne (Orangemen’s Day)

SOLOMON ISLANDS July 7: Independence Day

URUGUAY

MOROCCO July 30: Throne Day (King Mohammed VI’s Accession to the Throne)

SPAIN

July 18: Constitution Day

July 25: Apostle Santiago Day

VENEZUELA

SURINAME July 1: Emancipation Day (Keti Koti)

July 5: Independence Day July 24: Simón Bolívar Day

ZAMBIA SWAZILAND

NEPAL

July 22: Public Holiday

July 7: The King’s Birthday (National Day)

July 5: Heroes’ Day July 6: Unity Day

NICARAGUA July 19: Sandinistas Revolution Day

PALAU July 9: Constitution Day

CZECH REPUBLIC

Petr Gandalovič assumed his responsibilities as ambassador of the Czech Republic to the United States n May 20. Ambassador Gandalovič previously served as a member of the Chamber of Deputies in the Czech Parliament (2006-11), during which time he was a member of the Foreign Committee (2010-11) and a member of the Agriculture Committee (2009-10). He was also the mayor of the city of Ústí nad Labem (2002-06), the Czech minister of agriculture (2007-09) and minister of regional development (2006), as well as consul general of the Czech Republic in New York (19972002). In addition, Ambassador Gandalovič served as minister advisor (1994-95) and director of the Economic and Information Section (1995-97) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and deputy minister at the Ministry of Environment (1992-94).

Ambassador Gandalovič graduated from the faculty of mathematics and physics at Charles University Prague and he is married.

TUNISIA

SLOVAK REPUBLIC

July 10: Armed Forces Day

LIBERIA July 26: Independence Day

Czech Republic

July 25: Republic Day

LESOTHO CUBA

July 12: Crown Prince’s Birthday

ST. VINCENT and THE GRENADINES July 4: Caricom Day

July 11-13: National Naadam Holiday/ Anniversary of the Mongolian People’s Revolution

July 1: Canada Day

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July 5: Constitution Day

BAHAMAS

July 7: Saba Saba

July 12: Independence Day

July 3: Fisherman’s Day

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ROMANIA

MALAWI

RWANDA

July 6: Republic Day

July 1: Independence Day

July 29: Day of the National Hymn

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The Washington Diplomat Page 51

from page 17

Book Review working closely with his top foreign policy aide, Henry Kissinger, epitomized Republican realism.

From 1969 to 1974, Nixon and Kissinger presided over a shrewd reorientation of U.S. foreign policy that emphasized great power relations and geopolitics. They slowly extracted the United States from the Vietnam War, opened up ties with China, consolidated America’s position worldwide, and implemented a sophisticated policy of detente with the Soviet Union, although the Watergate scandal drove Nixon from the presidency and badly tarnished his legacy.

Dueck is plainly intrigued by the last three Republican presidents. He describes Ronald Reagan, who served from 1981 to 1989, as the leading conservative Republican leader of the past 70 years. In his view, Reagan redefined the image of the American right, ushered in conservative dominance of the Republican Party, and left the GOP stronger and more coherent than at any time since the 1920s.

In foreign policy, Dueck says Reagan pushed a “fundamentally daring, ideologically charged strategy” that challenged the Soviet Union militarily, politically and culturally. Blending force with tactical skill, Reagan always seemed to negotiate from a position of strength. Despite occasionally bellicose rhetoric, he avoided protracted military intervention and was careful not to overreach either domestically or internationally.

Reagan, Dueck argues, had a greater impact on U.S. politics than any American president since Franklin Roosevelt. He was forceful and pragmatic

Page 52

The Washington Diplomat

and made conservatism the dominant force in the American political discourse. “Most presidents seem to shrink in significance as their tenure recedes in time. Reagan only looms larger; sunny, single-minded and remote,” he writes.

Dueck believes that George H.W. Bush was an underrated president who conducted a highly competent foreign policy that emphasized caution, stability and prudence. Serving as president from 1989 to 1993, he guided U.S. foreign policy with considerable skill, encouraging German unification, quietly supporting political revolutions in Eastern Europe, and calmly observing the implosion of the Soviet Union. He supported arms control, democracy and international trade and built an impressive international coalition to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait in 1991.

Dueck sees the elder president’s son, George W. Bush, as a good politician who articulated conservative foreign policy themes during his 2000 campaign but dramatically shifted course after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Bush then launched a foreign policy of regime change, aggressive democracy promotion and preventive war.

On this front, Dueck unleashes withering criticisms of Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003, arguing it was a risky venture that stood in opposition to conservative principles. “Under Bush’s ultimate guidance, the invasion and early occupation of Iraq were conducted with boundless optimism, inattention to local circumstance, and a serious lack of preparation for postwar reconstruction, counterinsurgency and stability operations,” he writes.

There is no evidence, he declares, that Bush “presided over or insisted on a truly searching analysis among his leading advisors over how to

successfully occupy Iraq, much less whether or not to invade.”

However, Dueck notes that Bush accomplished important achievements during his presidency that extended from 2001 to 2009. He improved America’s relationships with China, India, Japan and much of Africa. He also credits the Bush administration for securing an arms control agreement with Russia, building a generous global HIV/ AIDS program, uncovering the A.Q. Khan nuclear smuggling network, and securing an agreement with Libya to abandon its nuclear program.

Dueck is plainly intrigued by the last three Republican presidents.

But he argues that Bush’s record on Iraq will dominate the historical assessment of his presidency and that the war is likely to be judged as “ill considered not only in terms of implementation but in terms of conception.” Dueck concludes that even if Iraq emerges as a stable and democratic nation, Bush’s handling of the war’s chaotic aftermath “cannot be a model for Republicans” to follow. And he notes that when Bush left office in January of 2009, Democrats were in control of both the White House and Congress.This, he says, is “no great legacy from a conservative point of view.”

As for the present day, Dueck believes the GOP is now dominated by what he calls a hawk-nationalist alliance that is skeptical of arms control agreements, the United Nations, and the efficacy of negotiations with North Korea, Cuba and Iran.

This group strongly supports Israel,Taiwan, NATO expansion, missile defense, and a fierce war on terrorists. It sees China and Russia as strategic competitors, not partners, believes in a global mission for the United States, and deplores President Obama as weak.

This hawk-nationalist worldview prevails in conservative interest groups, think tanks, and among Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

“They offer clear, bold arguments that resonate with popular feeling regarding American exceptionalism and strong national defense.They believe in what they are doing. Finally, they operate within a party that is basically hawkish and nationalistic, as they are, on foreign policy matters, and has been for several decades.This gives them a natural influence and a natural audience, regardless of temporary setbacks,” he writes.

Dueck says the central challenge for the GOP is to find a new foreign policy agenda that adjusts for the policy and political failings of the Bush years and is more traditionally conservative. A greater emphasis on conservative realism would be consistent with the actual practices of successful Republican presidents such as Reagan, Eisenhower and Theodore Roosevelt, Dueck argues.

In addition, a revived conservative realism would focus on America’s major alliances with Europe and Japan while de-emphasizing involvement in the internal politics of relatively small countries such as Somalia and Iraq. The overarching goal would be to safeguard American primacy on the world stage.“The preservation of American primacy and the effective management of great power politics ought to come first when thinking about U.S. foreign policy,” he writes.

It would also recognize that the country’s most pressing challenge is defeating terrorists who want to use weapons of mass destruction on the United States and its allies, according to Dueck.

On that note, the author turns to a common Republican refrain that American defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan would embolden its enemies, so the United States must win these wars. Notably, however, he does not explain what constitutes

victory in either of these wars.

The conservative realism that Dueck supports regards diplomacy as neither inherently good nor bad, but as a potentially useful tool that should be wielded skillfully. The United States should work with international organizations such as the United Nations, but not expect too much from them.

However, Dueck insists that the United States cannot be solely responsible for keeping the peace around the world and argues that military interventions should be undertaken only when there is a vital American interest at stake and a strong likelihood of success. “On the whole, American military interventions should be rarer and more carefully prepared than was the case under either the Clinton or Bush administrations.

Picking fights in highly unpromising locations only encourages the impression of weakness when these fights go badly,” he writes.

Finally, the United States should support democracy, but be wary of democracy promotion that is divorced from local political and cultural realities.

Dueck argues that it makes far more sense for the United States to support democracies that now exist rather than try to create them.

“Hard Line” is an impressive book that sheds considerable light on the Republican Party and its vision of American foreign policy. Dueck writes clearly and forcefully, and for the most part, the book is a model of fair-minded scholarship.

However, there are a few quibbles.

I found his comments on Democratic presidents and foreign policies to be less persuasive than his central thesis on the GOP. His dismissal of President Bill Clinton’s foreign policy seemed reflexive and even a touch glib.

And some of his criticisms of the Obama administration are too sweeping and lack necessary context. For example, Dueck accuses Obama of “endless spending, regulation and domestic economic experiments” without discussing the scope of the economic calamity he inherited — fueled in large part by the Bush administration’s decision to cut taxes while launching two costly wars. With the United States facing the prospect of a catastrophic depression in 2009, it hardly seems credible that traditional GOP policies of cutting taxes and easing regulation would have been the preferred way to revive a collapsing economy.

I also wish Dueck would have explored more deeply why so few Republicans challenged President George W. Bush as he contemplated war with Iraq in 2003 and pondered remaking Iraqi society, even while another war was being waged in Afghanistan. As Dueck points out, with this initiative, Bush’s foreign policy agenda departed from the central tenants of conservatism and more nearly resembled Wilsonian idealism. But very few Republican leaders challenged Bush’s risky venture.Why? Perhaps Dueck does not dwell on this question because there are no very good answers apart from unfailing GOP loyalty to a Republican president.

Dueck largely refrains from commenting on what might happen in 2012, or the current crop of Republican presidential hopefuls, but “Hard Line” does lay a strong historical basis for how Republican foreign policy has been shaped over the decades — one that he hopes will serve as a guide to future conservative leaders.

John Shaw is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

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