August 2013 by The Washington Diplomat

A World of News and Perspective

■ INSIDE: MEDICAL

SPECIAL SECTION

MEDICAL ■ A Special Section of The Washington Diplomat

■ August 2013

Pr e v en tion ■ VOLUME 20, NUMBER 8

101

■ WWW.WASHDIPLOMAT.COM

In Cancer’s Complex Journey, It’s Important to Start With Basics

■ AUGUST 2013

ESPIONAGE

NSA Spying Leaks Embarrass U.S., Rankle Its Allies Exactly how the National Security Agency espionage scandal will affect America’s longterm relationships abroad remains unclear, but one thing is certain: It’s done significant damage to U.S. foreign policy objectives — and prestige — in the short term. PAGE 8

ISRAEL

by Carolyn Cosmos

When it comes to cancer, we often think of what happens after the diagnosis. There is the agonizing analysis of treatment options — from the Cadillac battle plan of chemotherapy, to the newer models of genetically targeted therapies and other cutting-edge advances. We pore over the latest clinical trials or the newest drugs. But many of us often lose sight of the basics in this age-old fight: how to prevent a cancer diagnosis in the first place. Not all cancers, of course, are preventable. Some, like breast and ovarian cancer, can be tied to genetic mutations in certain people. In other cases, the reasons why cancer strikes otherwise seemingly healthy individuals can be a complete mystery. But a large portion of cancer cases can, in fact, be prevented. The World Cancer Research Fund, for example, argues that the majority of cancer cases stem from environmental factors, many of them controllable. While medical estimates typically hold that about a third of all cancers are due to outside factors like behavior and the environment, a few leading experts and researchers are venturing beyond those figures. Continued on next page

August 2013

MEDICAL The Washington Diplomat

Page 27

MICHAEL OREn’S SwAn SOng

BILATERAL DISPUTES

Like a Bridge (Or Two) Over Troubled Waters Lately, the Peace Bridge and the Ambassador Bridge — the two most important border crossings between the U.S. and Canada, which share the longest, busiest uninterrupted frontier between any two countries in the world — have been anything but peaceful or diplomatic. PAGE 10

culture

Savvy interlocutor, crisis manager or glorified messenger? With Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren leaving, pundits are busy debating his legacy. But the historian-turned-emissary no doubt hopes the end of his term is remembered for the start of something else: peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. PAGE 15 DIPLOMATIC SPOUSES

PEOPLE OF WORLD INFLUENCE

It’s All in the Family For Azerbaijani Wife

Shah’s Son Wants New Iranian Revolution As the last crown prince of the former Imperial State of Iran, Reza Pahlavi knows he carries a lot of baggage, but he’s dedicated his life since leaving his homeland to helping it regain its freedom. PAGE 5

The Collector And the Cubist Duncan Phillips’s admiration of Cubist master Georges Braque is on full display at the museum that bears his name. PAGE 30

Lala Abdurahimova, wife of the Azerbaijani ambassador, is a diplomat herself (as is her brother) who’s helped her husband establish Azerbaijan’s diplomatic presence in the United States. PAGE 31

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The Washington Diplomat

August 2013

CONTENTS THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT

10 U.S.-Canada relations

[ news ] 5

INTErNaTIONal rElaTIONS

INSIdE ThE ChambEr

rElIgION

arT

[ culture ]

“Georges Braque and the Cubist Still Life, 1928-1945” highlights a period when Braque distinguished himself from Cubism’s other pioneer, Pablo Picasso.

FIlm rEvIEwS “Our Nixon” is a meticulously researched and distinctly personal documentary that takes a broader view of the disgraced former president.

CaNCEr PrEvENTION When it comes to cancer, we often think of what happens after the diagnosis. But there are many simple things we can do to prevent that diagnosis in the first place.

dININg Maestro’s Fabio Trabocchi is orchestrating a D.C. comeback with the upscale Fiola, along with two more casual ventures in the area.

The Washington National Cathedral has become an outspoken advocate for gay rights, using its religious authority to promote, not demean, same-sex marriage.

[ medical ]

arT The Art Museum of the Americas is looking not to the south but to the Far East for the inspiration behind its latest exhibit: “Fusion: Tracing Asian Migration to the Americas.”

Richard Haass takes a big-picture view while offering nuts-and-bolts suggestions in “Foreign Policy Begins at Home: The Case for Putting America’s House in Order.”

COvEr PrOFIlE: ISraEl

COvEr: Jay Mallin / Bloomberg via Getty Images

bOOk rEvIEw

ThEaTEr “One Night with Janis Joplin” revives that mix of 1960s idealism, rebellion and catharsis embodied by the “queen of psychedelic soul.”

In the United States, you’re either a Democrat or a Republican, but the Cato Institute offers a third way: libertarianism, which espouses seemingly bipolar political views.

dIPlOmaCY

Michael Oren’s splashy four-year term as Israel’s envoy in Washington was marked by many lows, but he hopes to end his posting on a high note: the resumption of peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.

POlITICS

dIPlOmaTIC SPOuSES Lala Abdurahimova and her husband, Azerbaijani Ambassador Elin Suleymanov, are giving Baku a formidable diplomatic presence in the United States.

The Canadian American Business Council works to separate politics from trade, whether it’s the charged Keystone XL pipeline project or even lingering sensitivities over NAFTA.

Richard Lugar, the two-time chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, returned to his old haunts to celebrate a new initiative that connects the worlds of Capitol Hill and Embassy Row.

One Night with Janis Joplin

As Reza Pahlavi, son of the last Shah of Iran, watched his homeland elect a moderate new president, he felt wistful for what could have been — and hopeful for what might still be.

Disputes over the Peace Bridge and Ambassador Bridge have been a rare road bump between the U.S. and Canada, which share the longest and busiest uninterrupted frontier between any two countries in the world.

Cancer prevention

PEOPlE OF wOrld INFluENCE

The NSA spying leaks have certainly been a black eye to the snooping agency, but will the revelations cause long-lasting damage to America’s relationships abroad?

August 2013

CINEma lISTINg

EvENTS lISTINg

dIPlOmaTIC SPOTlIghT

aPPOINTmENTS / wOrld hOlIdaYS

ClaSSIFIEdS

rEal ESTaTE ClaSSIFIEdS

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 Contributing writers Martin Austermuhle, Michael Coleman, Carolyn Cosmos, Audrey Hoffer, Rachel Hunt, Kat Lucero, Sean Lyngaas, Ky N. Nguyen, Gail Scott, Gina Shaw, John Shaw, Gail Sullivan, Gary Tischler, Lisa Troshinsky Photographers Jessica Latos, Lawrence Ruggeri account managers Jim Cameron, Chris Smith, Patrick Thomas 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. The Washington Diplomat assumes no responsibility for the safe keeping or return of unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, artwork or other material. The information contained in this publication is in no way to be construed as a recommendation by the Publisher of any kind or nature whatsoever, nor as a recommendation of any industry standard, nor as an endorsement of any product or service, nor as an opinion or certification regarding the accuracy of any such information.

August 2013

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A World of News & Perspective

The Washington Diplomat

August 2013

PEOPLE OF WORLD INFLUENCE

Reza Pahlavi

Son of Iran’s Last Shah: ‘I Am My Own Man’ by Michael Coleman

s Reza Pahlavi watched moderate Iranian politician Hassan Rouhani elected to be the next president of his troubled homeland on June 14, he felt wistful for what could have been — and hopeful for what might still be.

As the last crown prince of the former Imperial State of Iran and son of the former Shah, the 52-year-old eldest son in the House of Pahlavi is first in line to the throne under the Persian Constitution of 1906. That means in theory he could become head of a constitutional monarchy if the current Islamic Iranian regime ever crumbles or is overthrown. Of course, that’s a huge “if” and a possibility Pahlavi downplayed, but did not outright dismiss, in a recent interview with The Washington Diplomat at his stately country home in suburban Maryland. He stressed that his only ambition is to help the Iranian people topple the oppressive clerical regime that has dominated the country since 1979. “I am just trying to help Iran gain back its freedom and self-determination,” Pahlavi said during an hour-long interview. “I think it is for Iranians to decide who they want as their leaders, who they esteem to be valuable or helpful down the line. If it happens to be me, so be it.” It probably won’t be, given his baggage. Pahlavi’s father, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, will go down in history not only as a deeply polarizing figure, but as the man whose rule led to the 1979 Revolution that ushered Iran’s hard-line clerics into power. During his 37-year reign, the Shah was seen as both a modernizing force and a puppet of the West. A secular Muslim, the Shah instituted a number of progressive reforms, granting women suffrage, boosting economic development and becoming the first Muslim head of state to recognize Israel. At the same time, the Iranian aristocrat used profits from his dealings with Western oil firms to consolidate his grip over the country, stifling the opposition while enriching his family. After years of tensions with the Shiite clergy and his Islamic critics, the Shah was forced to flee the country amid growing political unrest. Despite the controversial circumstances surrounding the Shah’s rule, many Iranians — at least those who also fled after the 1979 Revolution — still fondly recall the era when young couples could kiss in public, Tehran was a cosmopolitan haven of art and culture, and Western investment dollars flowed freely. Others, however, remember growing inequality, the Shah’s lavish spending and his brutal crackdown on opponents. August 2013

Nevertheless, Reza Pahlavi remains proudly involved in efforts to foment change in the embattled Middle Eastern nation. In 2011, he founded the Iranian National Council, a Paris-based collective that he said enjoys the support of thousands of reform-minded individuals. He also serves as the group’s spokesman and has been working the international media circuit, sitting for interviews with CNN, London’s Guardian newspaper and other outlets. “I do have a unique political capital that I think Iranians recognize,” Pahlavi told The Diplomat. “One of my jobs is to keep them focused and keep up their hope….We have to remain united and put aside our petty differences. This is bigger than one particular group or ideology — it’s about our national struggle for freedom.” As crown prince of Iran and the oldest of four siblings, Pahlavi left Iran at the age of 17 for air force training in the United States. Unable to return after the revolution, he earned a degree in political science from the University of Southern California. Pahlavi then entered the U.S. Air Force Training Program at Reese Air Force Base in Lubbock, Texas, and earned fighter pilot

“

If the Iranian Revolution had not occurred, we would be South Korea, and today we are North Korea, bottom line. — Reza Pahlavi

”

crown prince of the former Imperial State of Iran

certification. As the Iran-Iraq War raged, Pahlavi said he volunteered to serve his country as a fighter pilot, but was rejected by the regime. In the three decades since, Pahlavi has spent most of his time advocating for democracy in his homeland. “Since the day after the passing of my late father in Cairo, my singular focus, besides my personal family, has been my homeland.The entirety of my time and personal resources have been devoted to working to heal divisions among Iranians, providing humanitarian assistance, and in voicing, to the best of my abilities, the aspirations of my compatriots for secular and democratic

governance,” Pahlavi said. “We must have freedom of elections because I think the only way you can measure the will of a nation is through the sanctity of the ballot box, which is the last measure that can tell any of us what the people really want. Until we are there, anything else is irrelevant as far as I am concerned.” Iranians do have some measure of freedom in electing their president, although the ultimate arbiter of power in Iran is the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who vets all candidates before they can go up for a vote. Still, Rouhani’s surprisingly decisive victory sparked hopes that changes are afoot.

Despite being an establishment insider, the president has already chided Iran’s clerics for interfering in people’s personal lives. And even though Khamenei holds ultimate sway over nuclear talks, Western pundits hope Rouhani will bring the pragmatic streak he once showed as Iran’s top nuclear negotiator back to the table. Pahlavi is not nearly so optimistic. “All in all, I would say I find it very difficult for this regime to steer away all of a sudden from the positions it has taken so far — most of it due to Mr. Khamenei himself as the ultimate decision maker, particularly as it pertains to the nuclear issue,” he said. “From day one, I’ve said as long as the people of Iran don’t have their full destiny in their own hands, we cannot say the system is representative of their wishes and desires. “Let’s not forget, he is one of the preapproved candidates that have passed the filter of this regime as his predecessors have,” Pahlavi added of the president, who

Continued on next page The Washington Diplomat Page 5

Continued from previous page formally takes office Aug. 4. “The way the regime has played this game was to pretty much enable the supreme leader to have the final say.” To that end, he’s skeptical progress will be made on the nuclear front, suggesting Rouhani is little more than a political puppet. “He said he’d like to see the wheels of centrifuges turn, but he would also like to see the wheels of our economy turn,” Pahlavi said. “How can you translate this? It translates in my view into being very coordinated with the supreme leader. It means they’re not going to give up on anything. It’s no longer a subject of debate. In other words, we’re not going to give up on our rights to enrich [uranium].” However, Pahlavi said that if Rouhani were to manage to extract some concessions from the supreme leader — such as loosening restrictions on Iranian society — it would be a significant step forward. “I would love to see a setback by the regime, to see it cave on something, whether it is to domestic or international demand, because the more the regime gives in, the less likely it is to survive,” he said.“Whether it will is a different story.” Pahlavi, a husband and father of three girls, said he’s not focused on Iran’s nuclear agenda as much as its human rights agenda. “We’ve always said the nuclear agenda may be important for the world, but it’s not the most important thing for Iranians,” Pahlavi said. “For us, it’s the lack of human rights and lack of freedom that is the core issue, and we believe that a different system — a democratic system — with one stroke of the wand will eliminate every problem this regime has been associated with.” Perhaps, but Iran didn’t exactly get full democracy when Pahlavi’s father was in charge either. When a democratically elected prime minister briefly nationalized Iran’s oil industry in the 1950s, a U.S.-backed coup overturned the government and returned the Shah to power, along with the foreign companies that gorged on the country’s oil.

But Pahlavi suggested that those who forced his elections, basic human rights and democracy in Islam will serve as a model for our neighbors in father from power in 1979 didn’t grasp what was Iran. the region — to avoid,” Pahlavi said.“Like all politiin store for them. “We announced it would be grassroots from the cal ideologies, political Islam will ultimately be “The enemies of the previous regime who bottom up, not something for elites,” Pahlavi said. judged by its ability to deliver freedom and opporfought against my father didn’t even know what “We wanted everybody to participate with as tunity to the people. It has failed miserthis man [Khamenei] would actually represent,” he many average Joes as possible. More than 25,000 ably — catastrophically — in Iran and sooner or asserted. “Case in point, most of them who were people signed this document, and 500 people later it will find itself accountable to the people in part of bringing the same regime to power had to were chosen to represent this council, which was my homeland and elsewhere.” flee the country a few months later. Women were conducted in Paris last April.” Turning to the subject of his father’s legacy, immediately dealt with in the most brutal way, The council’s first official act was sending a let- Pahlavi grows more contemplative. Mohammad becoming second-class citizens instantly as a matter to Khamenei demanding the immediate, Reza Pahlavi is credited with fostering human ter of constitutional law. Since then, people have unconditional release of political prisoners and rights and championing secular government. But been stuck with a regime that put them through the cancellation of the June 14 election that he is also accused of bilking the country for bileight years of war [with Iraq] while the regime Pahlavi said was “totally meaningless.” The letter, lions of dollars’ worth of oil money and using entrenched itself and built up its infrastructure of not surprisingly, went unanswered. Iran’s then-intelligence agency, SAVAK, to suppress surveillance and the Revolutionary Guard. By the Despite pushing for regime change, Pahlavi political dissent and imprison and even torture end of the war, they had a very well-entrenched stressed that he opposes military intervention in opponents. Gestapo-like, mafia-like, KGB-like setup.” Iran and is skeptical that U.S.-led sanctions have The son concedes the father made mistakes, He added: “Since that time people have had to had much of an effect other than hurting his coun- but insists his good deeds by far outweighed the struggle and hope that maybe through reforms trymen. In their place, he has advocated for boy- bad. they could accomplish something, but it has back- cotting elections (a plea that apparently fell on “The overall track record of my father and fired.” deaf ears in Iran as 72 percent of voters cast bal- grandfather, it is overwhelmingly positive,” he said. After the so-called Green Movement of 2009, in lots in June) as well as labor strikes. “Which system doesn’t have negatives? The most which thousands of pro-democracy demonstra“One of our objectives is to try to bring change important thing is to acknowledge where things tors in Iran took to the streets to protest the dubi- at the least possible cost to our nation,” Pahlavi went wrong and have them not repeated in the ous election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, only to explained.“More often than not, the quickest way future. My father has been rehabilitated in the see their cause crushed by the Iranian govern- to paralyze a regime no matter how brutal or minds of many. I think he is more popular today 32 ment with very little blowback from the Obama oppressive it is, is by slowing down its ability to years after his death than he was at the height of administration, Pahlavi decided to launch the survive by paralyzing its economic means of sur- his popularity in Iran.” Iranian National Council. vival. Labor strikes and work disruptions are the Pahlavi grew philosophical wondering what “After the Green Movement when people were quickest way to paralyze the system. There are so might have been had his father — and then himbeing thrown in jail and tortured and what have many different ways to utilize civil disobedience self — been in power the past three decades. you, I didn’t want to see another generation sacri- that are not harmful to the people but would cer“If the Iranian Revolution had not occurred, we ficed for nothing,” he said.“The need for some kind tainly hurt the regime.” would be South Korea, and today we are North of a structure had been talked about before, but The exiled crown prince suggested creating an Korea, bottom line,” he declared. “If you look at it nothing had been created. Something needed to incentive fund that would help guarantee striking from that prism, where the Shah was trying to be created outside of Iran. Why outside of Iran? workers some financial compensation if they take Iran, we ought to have been there. Now, we Obviously, because no visible structure that would walked off their jobs in protest. He also suggested look at Dubai next door and look at lost opportube in open defiance of the regime could reform or that those who think diplomacy, or even coercing nities and say where are we now?” even advocate from the inside. Iran with sanctions, will change conditions in a But, he added, there’s no sense wallowing in “We needed to create a platform to be a voice country ruled by Islamic law are naive. regret. “I am inspired daily by the dedication of for the Iranian people at home,” he said. “Can Iran, at the end of the day, coexist with the progressive Iranians to ‘get past the past’ by workThe council established a 16-point document world as we know it?” Pahlavi asked rhetorically. ing with compatriots across a broad political NOTE: Although every effort is made to assure your ad is free of mistakes in spelling and declaring its intention to advocate for free and fair “Can there be an actual, rational coexistence in spectrum for a better future.” content it is ultimately up toonthe customer to quick make the final proof. the same sphere by a regime that is hell-bent Pahlavi is also to assert that while he is his exporting an ideology and its only obstacles are father’s son, he is his own man. The two changes made costthere to the subsequent changes thefirst values andfaxed principles that thewill freebe world and at no“Sure, wereadvertiser, mistakes made, ” he conceded. particularly the at Western world is based “But I think most people whoconsidered look at me underwill be billed a rate of $75 peron?faxed alteration. Signed ads are approved. “All of the values that the West stands on are the stand that I have not genetically inherited the cirbiggest enemy ofPlease this regime, ” he said. not cumstances or policies of my check this“You ad are carefully. Mark any changes topredecessor. your ad. I am my talking about North Korea. You are dealing with a own man. I have my own vision and I have my regime that from the beginning of its inception own thoughts. I just happen to have the same If thehadadnoisother correct sign or and faxwhich to: (301) ambition goal, in fact 949-0065 is name,” he told us.needs changes codified and stipulated in its own constitution — “In the end, I ask people to judge me by deeds is the exploitation of an Islamic Shiite ideoloand words rather than anybody else’s.” The that Washington Diplomat (301) 933-3552 gy worldwide. If they could impose this using the nuclear deterrence as a means to force a fait Michael Coleman is a contributing writer Approved __________________________________________________________ accompli on everyone … they will do that. for The Washington Diplomat. Changes ___________________________________________________________ “Otherwise, let’s face it — would this regime take our country to the brink of military attacks ___________________________________________________________________ and economic collapse just to produce a few kilowatts of nuclear electricity?” To that end, Pahlavi discounts Iran’s hybrid model of political Islam, especially when it comes Follow The Diplomat to nations such as Egypt, which itself flirted with Connect at www.washdiplomat.com. Islamic democracy only to recently recoil from it. “The Iranian experimentation with political

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August 2013

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International Relations

Security

Besides Bruised Egos, Will NSA Spy Leaks Cause Lasting Pain? by Michael Coleman

xactly how the National Security Agency espionage scandal will affect America’s long-term relationships with foreign countries remains unclear, but one thing is certain: It’s done significant damage to U.S. foreign policy objectives — and prestige — in the short term.

At a time when President Barack Obama’s administration was hoping to ratchet up pressure on China to curb intellectual property theft and put renewed emphasis on already-deteriorated relations with Latin America, NSA renegade contractor Edward Snowden’s geopolitical bombshell about U.S. spy practices exploded not only at home, but abroad. “Snowden screwed [the Obama administration],” said Douglas H. Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Paal, who served on the National Security Council staffs of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, said the very public reports of U.S. espionage have deeply undermined American credibility on privacy and intellectual property issues. “The timing of that revelation has soured the world’s attitude toward the United States and its behavior in the cyber realm just at the time we were trying to get the world focused on China. It’s just gotten smashed on the side by this runaway bus named Snowden,” he told The Diplomat. But will the Snowden train wreck derail relations or eventually run out of steam? When WikiLeaks released hundreds of thousands of classified diplomatic cables in 2010, pundits thought the candid missives would damage America’s relationships around the world. The cables were certainly enlightening and consequential — but ultimately not destructive. Likewise, while accusations that the NSA has been spying on Americans merit debate, Snowden didn’t expose anything new when it comes to what the eavesdropping agency does abroad: It eavesdrops. That’s because governments spy on each other. President Obama admitted as much shortly after the scandal broke out, saying “that every intelligence service [tries] to understand the world better and

Page 8

“

PhotO: Kheng Guan Toh / fotolia

All nations conduct espionage and frankly all of them kind of conduct it in roughly the same way…. If the Europeans have complaints about American espionage, it might be simply that we are a little bit better at it than they are. — Michael Hayden

”

former director of the National Security Agency

what’s going on in world capitals.” Yet just because everyone snoops doesn’t mean they want their dirty laundry aired in public. The unprecedented window into how the NSA operates is certainly a black eye for the vaunted security agency. And much like the WikiLeaks cable dump, Snowden’s revelations about the NSA’s surveillance programs have rankled governments around the world and are certain to fray ties to some extent. Already there’s been diplomatic fallout from the scandal. In July, Bolivian President Evo Morales’s airplane was denied air space in several European countries before being forced to land in Austria. Morales and his entourage were detained for 14 hours while the plane was searched for the fugitive Snowden — an interna-

tional incident widely believed to have come at the behest of someone in the U.S. government. The unusual and aggressive breach of diplomatic etiquette sparked outrage across Latin America and beyond. It was hardly a coincidence that shortly afterward, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela offered refuge to the 30-yearold ex-security contractor (who as of press time was arranging temporary asylum in Russia). The backlash in leftist Latin nations that relish sticking it to the United States was hardly a surprise. But even some of America’s longtime allies in privacy-conscious Europe — including Germany and France — were infuriated by reports in the Guardian and Washington Post that the U.S. routinely installed covert listening devices in European Union offices,

including the bloc’s mission in D.C. German Chancellor Angela Merkel — whose nation is especially sensitive about government spying, given its Nazi and communist past — recently called for tighter internet data protection rules in Europe. Earlier, French President François Hollande suggested that the NSA revelations could imperil a massive pending transatlantic trade deal.“We cannot accept this kind of behavior from partners and allies,” he declared on French television. Media outlets such as Le Monde and Foreign Policy were quick to point out the hypocrisy in Hollande’s umbrage. “If you’ve been paying attention, you know that France is a proficient, notorious and unrepentant economic spy,” wrote Adam Rawnsley in the article “Espionage? Moi?” (Interestingly, evidence of France’s rampant industrial spying comes in part from none other than WikiLeaks cables.) And despite threats to delay the start of negotiations over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), those talks started on time last month. Paal and some other Washington-based foreign policy experts — including former NSA Director Michael Hayden — told The Diplomat that leaders of foreign countries, virtually all of which also engage in espionage, will milk the scandal for as many political points as they can

The Washington Diplomat

August 2013

score at home. But the experts also said major areas of bilateral cooperation with the United States, such as security and trade, will not suffer in the long term. “They [politicians] are going to do things for their own publics, but that passes,” Hayden said in an interview. “I don’t think this causes any long-term damage.” Hayden, who served as NSA director from 1999 to 2005 and is widely credited with helping to usher in an era of cyber-savvy at the agency, staunchly defended the spy program. He said European outrage, in particular, is misplaced. “I would confirm that yes, indeed, the United States does conduct espionage,” Hayden said with his tongue firmly in cheek. “Second, the Fourth Amendment that protects American privacy isn’t an international treaty and therefore doesn’t innately protect the privacy of non-Americans. “All nations conduct espionage and frankly all of them kind of conduct it in roughly the same way — at least with the same tools,” Hayden said. “If the Europeans have complaints about American espionage, it might be simply that we are a little bit better at it than they are.” Hayden, a retired four-star general who also served as CIA director, stopped short of calling Snowden a traitor, but he condemned his actions. “Traitor is a very narrow legal definition,” Hayden said. “I don’t know if he meets the definition of traitor. He is certainly not a hero. He is certainly not a whistleblower. I believe he has done a very, very bad thing.” The former spy chief also said the Snowden leak was damaging not only to the United States, but to its foreign allies (some of whom have undoubtedly benefited from American intelligence on possible terrorism attacks). “Who on this planet [now] believes the Americans can keep a secret?” Hayden asked. “This really erodes the kind of corporation that our intelligence service has with other intelligence agencies.” Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue and an adjunct professor of Latin American studies at Georgetown University, agreed that the Snowden leak is a setback for U.S. relations with countries such as Ecuador and Venezuela, whose leaders have in recent months suggested a potential thaw in their deep freeze with America (also see “Snowden Makes Headlines for

Ecuador, and Headaches for D.C.Ambassador” in the July 2013 issue of The Washington Diplomat). The NSA scandal also revealed expansive U.S. spy efforts in friendly Latin countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica and Brazil in particular, and has diminished any lingering glow of official goodwill visits by top U.S. dignitaries in Obama’s second term.That included Obama’s own trip to Mexico and Costa Rica in April, Vice President Joe Biden’s appearances in Colombia, Brazil and Trinidad and Tobago in May, and Secretary of State John Kerry’s diplomatic mission to Guatemala in June. “It [the NSA scandal] exacerbates the already strained relationships with a handful of countries, it makes it harder to engage with those governments,” Shifter said, citing Ecuador, Bolivia and Venezuela in particular.“I think it is also a setback even for relations with friendly countries — U.S. allies in the region. Understandably, there has been a lot of solidarity and support for [opposing] what happened to Morales. It doesn’t help build confidence.” In fact, Shifter suggested the detaining of Morales’s plane was more damaging than the spying. “It had a huge cost and it definitely hit a nerve,” he told us. “It reinforces the worst accusations about U.S. attitudes about Latin America: that the U.S. can do whatever it wants and act the way it wants and bully Latin America and not adhere to international norms and standards without paying a price.” He also said the plane’s forced diversion and international uproar that ensued will only boost Morales’ standing at home. “This was a tremendous gift to Morales and Morales has taken political advantage of it, as the Venezuelans have and others have,” Shifter said.“This sort of vindicates what they have been saying all along — that the U.S. hasn’t changed its old ways. This gives them some ammunition for their argument.” At the same time, Shifter said the harm to U.S.-Latin American relations probably isn’t long lasting. “I don’t think it should be overstated — it’s not fatal for relations,” he said.“I think governments understand that there are lots of interests at stake, and that the U.S. is an important player and a major investor and trading partner. These governments are not going to want to put that at risk. I think it should be put in the context of the effort to re-engage Latin America.” On that note, he lamented:“There was some momentum building

and I think that momentum has stalled.” The same can be said of Obama’s campaign to shine a light on the Chinese cyber theft of American intellectual property. The president has tried to distinguish between blatant hacking of corporations like Apple for economic gain and traditional government-ongovernment spying — a distinction that’s likely to fall on deaf ears in the wake of the NSA imbroglio. Paal said the Obama administration, deeply and rightly frustrated by China’s unwillingness to crack down on intellectual theft, was preparing a major initiative to recruit international pressure on the Asian giant. “Behind the scenes, they are developing a real strategy to put the pressure on China to see if it can slow the theft of intellectual property from American corporations, which has become rampant,” the Carnegie expert said. “Everything was designed to have Obama make a big case to the president of China out [at a June presidential summit] in California and then Snowden comes out of the blue and completely frustrates the process. “The president, I’m told, personally is very concerned about this,” Paal added. Paal allowed that virtually all nations engage in some degree of cyber espionage, but he said cyber communications can also be used for good — to stop international child pornography or drug cartels, for example.And the Snowden affair has probably imperiled those efforts. “All of that was headed in the right direction and then Snowden’s revelation has made it radioactive for politicians even in places like England,” he said.“If Snowden showed up at the London airport — Heathrow — I think it would be a pretty tough decision for [British Prime Minister David] Cameron to ship him onto the U.S. because of public opinion.” Paal was attending an international conference in Europe when the NSA scandal broke and was taken aback by the reaction. “The sense of betrayal and excess American intervention into their private communications was very strong,” Paal recalled.“Over time it will probably dissipate and we’ll get past this. But at the moment, it is hard for leaders anywhere to face their own political system and say well, it’s time to cooperate with the Americans.”

Michael Coleman is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

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International Relations

North America

U.S.-Canada Relations: A Tale of Two Bridges by Larry Luxner

he two most important border crossings between the United States and Canada — which share the longest and busiest uninterrupted frontier between any two countries in the world — are the highly symbolic Peace Bridge and the Ambassador Bridge.

Yet recent plans to expand the 3,580-foot-long Peace Bridge, which links Buffalo, N.Y., and Fort Erie, Ontario, haven’t been exactly peaceful. And a long-running dispute over replacing the obsolete Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, has prompted Canada’s actual ambassador, Gary Doer, to demand immediate action — all this at a time when bilateral ties have been focused on the proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline linking the oil sands of Alberta to refineries in the U.S. Gulf Coast (a project Doer has been actively lobbying for). It also comes as 30 of Doer’s own staffers in Wash ington — most of them high-ranking officials — are on strike against their own federal government in Ottawa, part of a labor dispute that’s lasted since April and shows no sign of slowing down. Doer did manage to quell another dispute that spans vastly different terrain. On June 26, the ambassador and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an agreement to cement improvements to the Peace Bridge, narrowly averting a bill in the New York state legislature that would have abolished the 80-year-old binational authority that supervises the famous bridge over the Niagara River. “It’s called the Peace Bridge; it’s not called the Conflict Bridge,” Doer told reporters at a Buffalo press conference, with David Jacobson, the departing U.S. ambassador to Canada, at his side.“This is a good deal for hard hats, not lawyers.” Added Cuomo:“It’s a win for New York; it’s a win for Canada. The Peace Bridge works best when it works for Canada and when it works for Buffalo.” That’s a lot more, well, diplomatic than the way his administration was sounding just a few months ago, when Cuomo’s chief representative to the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority criticized his Canadian counterparts for their “deceitful, disrespectful and arrogant behavior.” The surprising war of words between the two normally friendly ALSO SEE: neighbors (perhaps more surprising that it involved Canadians than Council Smoothes the feisty Cuomo administration) Occasional Hiccup began when Canadian officials Between Indispensable demanded to know why their Trade Partners counterparts in New York wanted PAGE 20 to spend millions of dollars more than the appraised value for a piece of land near the U.S. side of the Peace Bridge. According to the New York Times, Cuomo’s rep, William B. Hoyt III, even tried to have the authority’s Canadian general manager fired. The Canadians were reportedly shocked at the personal attacks leveled against them.

Page 10

Photos: Larry Luxner

“

We prefer partnership over litigation; we prefer action over congestion. — Gary Doer

”

ambassador of Canada to the United States

There was mudslinging on both sides, though. Hoyt accused the authority’s general manager of hiring his son’s air charter business to transport authority officials, while the authority’s Canadian chairman had to undergo sensitivity training after calling an American bridge project manager “the governor’s concubine.” But now it seems peace has finally been restored to the Peace Bridge. “We prefer partnership over litigation; we prefer action over congestion,” Doer told reporters, adding that the deal “respects the board’s fiduciary responsibility.” The four-page accord — which came after intense negotiating on both sides, including six hours of deal making led by Doer himself — leaves the Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority intact. It calls for three specific projects to begin quickly and simultaneously: widening the toll plaza on the U.S. side, a pre-inspection project to have U.S.-bound cargo trucks examined in Fort Erie to reduce congestion and pollution on the American side, and various improvement initiatives for the U.S. plaza. According to the Toronto Star, the Peace Bridge Authority will contribute up to $50 million for the projects, while the rest — about $15 million — will come from New York state. In addition, a permanent, $30 million pre-inspection facility is planned, though funding is still to be determined.

Canadian and U.S. flags fly over the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, Ontario. The Canadian government and many U.S. officials and businesses support replacing the aging suspension bridge, but a Michigan tycoon who owns the Ambassador Bridge has blocked efforts to build a new $2.1 billion crossing between the U.S. and Canada.

“The road map for progress at the Peace Bridge represents a mutual understanding that trade, travel and good relationships benefit Americans and Canadians alike,” said a press statement by Transport Canada that was provided to The Washington Diplomat by a spokeswoman at the Canadian Embassy.“The Peace Bridge is an essential part of both countries’ infrastructure. With $40 billion in trade crossing the Peace Bridge annually, it has a vital role in facilitating trade, creating jobs and supporting both economies.” In fact, few Americans realize the extent of that trade (also see “Council Smoothes Occasional Hiccup Between Indispensable Trade Partners” on page 20). According to a Canadian Embassy handout, more than 8 million U.S. jobs depend on trade with its northern neighbor. Measuring 5,525 miles in length (including 1,538 miles shared with Alaska), the U.S.-Canada border is the longest in the world. It’s also one of the busiest, with more than 160 million crossings per year, from Blaine, Wash., to Calais, Maine. Last year, Canada’s two-way trade of goods and services with the United States came to $742.5 billion, according to the embassy. Canadian-owned companies in 17,000 locations across the United States employ more than 619,000 Americans. Canada also buys more goods and services from the United States ($233 billion in 2012) than China, Japan and the United Kingdom combined. It’s also America’s largest supplier of foreign oil, as well as its top source of foreign tourists — more than 25 million a year. Even more important, Canada represents the top export market for 38 states, with Michigan exporting $25.3 billion worth of goods to Canada in 2012 — more than any other state.

The Washington Diplomat

August 2013

All of which makes replacing the 83-year-old Ambassador Bridge linking Detroit and Windsor an urgent priority, says Canada’s top diplomat in Washington. “The bridge is too narrow for today’s needs and lacks adequate customs plazas. In addition, access to the bridge is located in downtown Windsor, which requires trucks to travel through residential streets and 16 traffic lights to reach the onramp,” Doer complained in an online posting last year to Michigan voters.“Any plans to expand the current bridge do not, therefore, solve the larger congestion and delay problems. With truck traffic conservatively predicted to increase 128 percent over the next 30 years, it is imperative that a solution be found.” But like the Peace Bridge, the spat over the Ambassador Bridge — which saw more than $120 billion worth of trade cross over it in 2011 alone — has been rather undiplomatic. Both Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, support the building of a publicly owned bridge, to be known as the New International Trade Crossing, to replace the aging suspension bridge. So do the state governments of Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky, as well as the chambers of commerce of Michigan, Indiana and Ohio, not to mention auto manufacturers, building trades, steelworkers’ unions and farm organizations. But efforts to replace the bridge have been perpetually stonewalled by Michigan billionaire Manuel Moroun, whose family has owned the Ambassador Bridge since 1979. Lawyers for Moroun indicated that his Detroit International Bridge Co. would file for emergency relief following an April announcement by Snyder and Canadian officials that they had received a U.S. presidential permit to build the $2.1 billion New International Trade Crossing. Last year, voters rejected a proposal, pushed by Moroun, that would have delayed or blocked the new bridge — even though the tycoon reportedly spent $31 million on newspaper, TV and outdoor

advertising in his campaign to keep out the competition. According to Doer, the new bridge won’t cost Michigan taxpayers a dime. “Michigan’s share of the bridge cost, estimated to be $550 million, will be paid by the government of Canada and recouped through bridge tolls. Any cost overruns or revenue shortfalls will be paid by Canada,” Doer said in his message to state residents.“The bridge will be built with U.S. and Canadian steel. The waiver to Buy America allows for Canadian steel to be used, but not steel from other countries.” Furthermore, he promised, the new bridge will create 10,000 to 15,000 direct construction jobs in Michigan, whose unemployment rate is 8.7 percent, one of the highest in the nation. It would also give a badly needed boost to cash-strapped Detroit, which is in the process of declaring the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. That would still leave unanswered the question of what to call the new bridge. It could be named after a famous American or a prominent Canadian. But chances are it’ll be given a neutral, positivesounding moniker, sort of like the Peace Bridge, in the interests of the kind of political correctness that was sorely lacking until just recently. In any event, nobody seems in a rush to name it. Even under the rosiest scenario, it’ll be at least 2020 before the New International Trade Cross ing carries any actual vehicle traffic — meaning officials won’t cross that bridge until they come to it.

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Diplomacy

Washington, D.C.

Lugar Institute Aims to Bridge Chasm Between Capitol Hill, Embassy Row by John Shaw

ichard Lugar, the two-time chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, returned to his old haunts in mid-June to celebrate a new initiative to connect the worlds of Capitol Hill and Embassy Row. Lugar, a moderate Indiana Republican known for reaching across the aisle during his 36-year Senate career, lost a primary challenge in 2012 to a tea party-backed candidate, Richard Mourdock (who in turn lost the general election a few months later). Lugar’s defeat was not only a stinging indictment of the bipartisanship he espoused, it was also a huge blow to the diplomatic community, which lost one of its top foreign policy minds in a Congress consumed by domestic matters. But the revered statesman hasn’t gone into retirement. Since leaving the Senate in January 2013, Lugar has been involved with a number of projects related to his careerlong interest in foreign affairs. Now a senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund, Lugar has worked with GMF to create the Richard G. Lugar Institute for Diplomacy and Congress, which seeks to increase cooperation and understanding between the foreign diplomatic community in Washington and the U.S. Congress. The institute celebrated its launch on June 19 with a reception in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing room, where Lugar, 81, was joined by former congressional colleagues and members of the diplomatic community. Guests included Secretary of State John Kerry, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee,Ambassador Rachad Bouhlal of Morocco, and Ambassador Srdjan Darmanovic of Montenegro. Morocco and Montenegro are founding country members of the Lugar Institute, while Wolfgang Pordzik of DHL is the founding partner.

“

The Lugar Institute’s mission of strengthening ties between diplomats and lawmakers in Washington fills a great need to support robust diplomacy in a complex globalized world. — Craig Kennedy

”

president of the German Marshall Fund

In comments at the gathering, Lugar said he was delighted to return to the Foreign Relations Committee room where he spent important moments of his professional career and worked with such colleagues as John Kerry, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel when all three served in the Senate. Lugar said he hopes the newly formed Institute for

Page 12

Photos: Drew Angerer

From left, Ambassador of Morocco Rachad Bouhlal, former Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), and Ambassador of Montenegro Srdjan Darmanovic listen as Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, Lugar’s successor as the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, gives remarks at the launch of Richard G. Lugar Institute for Diplomacy and Congress, held in the chamber where Lugar presided twice as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

From left, Secretary of State John Kerry talks with Ambassador of Morocco Rachad Bouhlal and Ambassador of Montenegro Srdjan Darmanovic, both founding country members of the Richard G. Lugar Institute for Diplomacy and Congress.

Diplomacy and Congress can “bridge that gap” that often divides American lawmakers and international diplomats assigned to Washington. Members of Congress, the sixterm senator said, can profit from relationships with the diplomatic community to better understand policy issues and learn how to better attract investment and boost jobs for their constituents. That’s a key mission of the new institute: to educate American legislators about world affairs and how events abroad can have an impact at home — while teaching diplomats how to explain that narrative to Congress. Corker, Lugar’s successor as the senior Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, said Lugar “continues to create legacies” and cited this new program as an important post-senatorial contribution. Craig Kennedy, president of the German Marshall Fund, said, “The Lugar Institute’s mission of strengthening ties between diplomats and lawmakers in Washington

fills a great need to support robust diplomacy in a complex globalized world.” The nonprofit Richard G. Lugar Institute for Diplomacy and Congress resides under the umbrella of the German Marshall Fund, a nonpartisan American public-policy and grant-making institution dedicated to strengthening transatlantic relations. The Lugar Institute will try to close the gap between Embassy Row and Capitol Hill by offering regularly scheduled training courses for incoming diplomats and members of Congress, monthly networking and policy events including a Senate speaker series, and an annual retreat for ambassadors and members of Congress. Embassies sign up for annual memberships to access the workshops and events, which are designed to build relationships and examine strategic issues, from energy security to transatlantic cooperation. Already, the institute has hosted several ambassadorial roundtables where Lugar talked about the fiscal cliff debate and its impact on U.S. and world affairs, as well as the implications of America’s polarized political system for international affairs in President Obama’s second term. Each off-the-record discussion drew some two dozen diplomats from countries in Europe, Africa, Asia and Central America. In addition, Lugar welcomed ambassadors from the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Israel, South Africa and elsewhere for a January reception and dinner at the U.S. Botanical Gardens honoring the freshman congressional class. Lugar, who was a freshman in the fall of 1976 when he was first elected to the Senate, left the chamber with a

The Washington Diplomat

August 2013

considerable legacy. He is regarded as one of the most influential senators in the realm of foreign policy in the last quarter of a century. A stalwart proponent of comity and compromise, Lugar worked for 36 years with presidents and lawmakers of both parties to promote arms control, combat the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, craft sensible energy policies, tackle the global food crisis, and make his nation’s foreign policy machinery work more effectively.A lifelong and loyal Republican, Lugar often teamed up Democratic lawmakers over the years, including senators such as Sam Nunn, Joe Biden, John Kerry, Bob Casey and Chris Dodd. Lugar’s central legislative accomplishment was the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program.Working with Democratic Sen. Nunn, he developed a program to help the nations of the former Soviet Union secure and then dismantle weapons of mass destruction. It has grown into a global program with initiatives in Africa, Asia and Europe. Lugar proudly notes the program has eliminated more nuclear weapons than the combined nuclear arsenals of France, China and the United Kingdom. (Russia almost abandoned the program this summer until a last-minute deal was struck to extend the arms agreement; also see “Few Options as Landmark Pact With Russia Set to Expire” in the June 2013 issue of The Washington Diplomat.) Lugar also played a major role in helping to secure Senate approval of important arms controls treaties, including the START treaties, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Agreement and the Chemical Weapons Convention. Lugar helped to persuade the Reagan administration to change its policy toward the apartheid regime in South Africa in the mid1980s and to recognize Corazon Aquino as the winner of the disputed Philippines presiden-

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), right, talks to his former colleague, Richard Lugar, who served in the Senate for 36 years.

tial election in 1986 between Aquino and Ferdinand Marcos. While serving in the Senate, Lugar did the important but unglamorous work of making American foreign policy operate more smoothly. He served as a presidential envoy to Libya, an election observer in the Philippines and Ukraine, a congressional observer to arms control talks with the Soviet Union, and a U.S. observer to the ceremony announcing the Nabucco pipeline aimed at diversifying Europe’s natural gas supplies. Lugar was also one of the first lawmakers that diplomats sought out when they visited the United States, and he arranged time in his schedule to meet with overseas visitors who were in Washington (read more on what Lugar’s departure meant for the diplomatic community in the June 2012 edition of the Diplomatic Pouch online at www.washdiplomat.com/ DPouch/2012/June/story1).

PHOTOS: DREW ANGERER

From left, Ambassador of Montenegro Srdjan Darmanovic is introduced by former Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) to Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) at the June 19 launch of the Richard G. Lugar Institute for Diplomacy and Congress, a new initiative housed under the German Marshall Fund to bring embassies and Congress closer together.

In addition to lending his name and support to the Lugar Institute for Diplomacy and Congress,he has affiliations with the University of Indianapolis,Indiana University,Georgetown University, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the German Marshall Fund. The former senator has also created the Lugar Center, which seeks to generate policy proposals that transcend short-term political

considerations.The Lugar Center concentrates on three areas that Lugar is passionate about: controlling weapons of mass destruction, enhancing global food security, and reforming America’s foreign assistance programs.

John Shaw is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat. He is the author of the 2012 book “Richard G. Lugar, Statesman of the Senate: Crafting Foreign Policy from Capitol Hill.”

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August 2013

COVER PROFILE

Ambassador Michael Oren

Michael Oren: Israel’s Man In Washington Bids ‘Shalom’ by Larry Luxner

hen President Obama visited Israel last March, the longawaited but largely symbolic trip marked his first to the country since taking office five years earlier — and Michael Oren was there to savor every moment of it.

“I remember accompanying the president to the Jerusalem Convention Center, where we were surrounded by Israeli and American flags,”Oren recalled with pride.“And as he spoke in front of 2,500 cheering students, I thought to myself, where else in the Middle East could this happen?” For Oren, that evening in Jerusalem was the emotional high point in a fouryear term of office punctuated by many lows. Case in point: Just last month he was summoned to Israel for emergency meetings to discuss U.S. furor over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to back out of a terrorism money laundering case against the Bank of China, reportedly to appease Beijing. It was just the latest dustup between Oren’s boss and President Barack Obama, who haven’t exactly been the best of friends. Over the years, they’ve locked horns over Jewish settlements and Iran’s nuclear program, making Oren the “man in the middle,” as the New York Times put it in a September 2012 profile of the envoy. Now he’s a man at the end of his posting, which began in June 2009 and will wrap up sometime this fall, when the 58-year-old author, historian, professor and ambassador will be replaced by Netanyahu confidante Ron Dermer. Since the announcement of his departure, Oren — a telegenic, wellspoken envoy who’s been in the media limelight the last four years — embarked on a flurry of interviews. On June 28, he sat down withThe Washington Diplomat in the embassy’s downstairs Jerusalem Room — the only place within Israel’s fortress-like mission where laptops are allowed. Our 45-minute interview touched on everything from settlements to Iran to Israel’s own track record on democracy and human rights. “Israel is the only functioning democracy in the Middle East. It’s never known a second of non-democratic rule,” the ambassador said.“We have a very strong military that enables us to defend ourselves. But the crucial factor is that Israel is the only country in the Middle August 2013

East that is unequivocally, exuberantly pro-American — and that has a huge impact.” S A Z X C C V

Oren is a prime example of the bonds that underpin this strategic alliance. Born in upstate New York and raised in West Orange, N.J., in a conservative Jewish household, he became active in pro-Israel activities early on. At the age of 15, he traveled to Washington with fellow young Zionists for a meeting with Israel’s top envoy to the United States at the time,Yitzhak Rabin. “Upon meeting the ambassador, Oren told himself, ‘That is what I’d like to be when I grow up,’” according to an August 2009 profile of Oren by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA). In 1979, the aspiring diplomat immigrated to Israel, and in 1982 married San Francisco native Sally Edelstein, who had immigrated to Israel the year before.

“

Photo: Anne Mandlebaum

Israel is the only functioning democracy in the Middle East…. We have a very strong military that enables us to defend ourselves. But the crucial factor is that Israel is the only country in the Middle East that is unequivocally, exuberantly pro-American — and that has a huge impact. — Michael Oren

”

ambassador of Israel to the United States

Thirty years later, when his lifelong dream came true, Oren had to give up his U.S. citizenship as a condition of his appointment as ambassador. Oren also had to give up his penchant for freely speaking his mind — especially when his views clashed with the official line in Jerusalem. At a Feb. 22, 2009, lecture at George town University, where he was a visiting professor, Oren was emphatic about the need to achieve a two-state solution

before extremists on both sides made that option impossible. “I believe that the only alternative Israel has to save itself as a Jewish state — and let’s be frank about that, the Jewish state is predicated on having a Jewish majority — the only way we can do that is by unilaterally withdrawing our border and withdrawing our settlements in the West Bank,” he told students at the time. Yair Rosenberg, a commentator for

the online Tablet Magazine, wondered whether Oren would go back to speaking his mind now that he’ll no longer be representing the Netanyahu government. “Finally freed from the constraints of public office, will Oren return to the more centrist line he took during his prior academic career? Might he run for Knesset? Or will he embark on his next literary project, and pen another entry in the history of Israel and the Middle East?” he wrote July 5. Oren, with his American-accented Hebrew and easygoing manner, certainly has the intellectual credentials to move on to the job of his choosing. He’s perhaps the only ambassador in Washington with two New York Times bestsellers to his credit. But the Princeton- and Columbiaeducated author is no meek bookworm. An officer in the Israel Defense Forces, he was a paratrooper in the Lebanon War, a liaison with the U.S. Sixth Fleet

Continued on next page The Washington Diplomat Page 15

Continued from previous page during the Gulf War, and an IDF spokesman during the Second Lebanon War in 2006 and Israel’s Gaza operation in January 2009. The Jerusalem Post listed him as one of the world’s 10 most influential Jews. And by his own estimate, Oren penned no less than 45 original articles during his ambassadorship for major newspapers and magazines — including a controversial article in the May-June 2011 issue of Foreign Policy, “Israel: The Ultimate Ally,” that embassy staffers reprinted as a slick booklet and handed out by the thousands. A familiar face on the TV talk-show circuit, Oren has mixed it up with the women of “The View” and gone toe to toe with acerbic comedian Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show.” But he also got into hot water when he reportedly tried to kill a “60 Minutes” piece on the plight of Arab Christians in Jerusalem.The effort backfired and Oren’s call to CBS News Chairman Jeff Fager lambasting the story became a central focus of the unflattering broadcast. Oren also caught flak for jumping the gun on Twitter, erroneously blaming Iran for a 2012 attack at an Israeli border outpost before retracting the statement. Such stumbles, though, were rare for the polished envoy, who generally won plaudits for smoothing over bumps in the bilateral relationship. While Oren was a highprofile emissary for Israel, was he an effective one? The verdict is still out whether the ambassador will be remembered as a savvy interlocutor, perennial crisis manager or glorified messenger. S A Z X C C V

Uriel Heilman’s 2009 profile of Oren in JTA predicted that he would “play only a tertiary role” in maintaining Israel’s relationship with its most important ally.“Oren’s role will be largely ceremonial and explanatory,” he wrote. Ultimately, that’s exactly what happened, according to Middle East hand Aaron David Miller. “Over the last 15 years, both the U.S. and Israeli governments have been bypassing their own ambassadors in order to establish high-level channels. So when there’s a crisis or a need to communicate a particularly sensitive message, it doesn’t work the way it used to,” said Miller, vice president for new initiatives and a distinguished scholar at the Wilson Center’s Middle East Program. “An ambassador must reflect the confidence of the prime minister, but there’s a difference between being a confidante and being an intimate,” Miller told us. “I think Michael, though he’s a talented diplomat and historian, was put in a difficult position under those circumstances — especially during the stormier years of the Obama-Bibi relationship. Michael could have played a bigger role had they decided to make him a primary point of contact.” Michael Koplow, program director of the Israel Institute, disagrees, writing recently in Foreign Policy that, “Oren has been in the unique position of bypassing traditional channels and reporting directly to Netanyahu. This is because Oren didn’t come from within the ranks of the Foreign Ministry and so wasn’t in any way beholden to former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.” Gary Rosenblatt, a well-known blogger for the New York Jewish Week, called Oren “a highly praised historian and author who was a highly effective public face of Israel here, though given low grades by colleagues for his managerial skills.” Whatever the case, the job now falls to Ron Dermer, a senior advisor who was dubbed “Bibi’s brain” by Tablet Magazine. The appointment had been rumored for months, although some saw Dermer as a strange choice, given his strong Republican ties, hardline conservative views (he’s publicly dismissed the two-state solution as “childish”) and speculation that he was behind Netanyahu’s support of Mitt Romney’s campaign to unseat Obama. “But since November, he has worked to repair his reputation in Washington and has won over many in the White House,” wrote Jodi Rudoren in the New York Times of Dermer, whose father and brother both served as mayor of Miami Beach. Oren, an avid Twitter fan who at last count had more than 13,500 followers, sent out a tweet congratulating Dermer on his appointment and also reminded friends on July 4 that “the democracy and freedom upon which this great nation was founded are the same values that help form the foundation of the unbreakable U.S.-Israel bond.” Yet that bond was tested during Obama’s first term in the wake of Netanyahu’s determination to build Jewish settlements in the West Bank and expand existing ones in the face of White House opposition. To date, more than 350,000 Jews live among 2 million Palestinian Arabs throughout the landlocked territory, nearly double the number of Jews who lived there only 12 years ago. In addition, East Jerusalem — which Palestinians hope to one day make their capital — is now home to some 200,000 Jews beyond the internationally recognized green line.

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Photos: Larry Luxner

Above, secular Israeli Jews enjoy a summer day at the beach in Tel Aviv. At left, an Orthodox Jewish boy in Jerusalem wears a T-shirt that says in Hebrew “I buy only from Jews.” Tensions between Israel’s fastgrowing ultra-Orthodox community and its secular majority have been rising, with the Knesset debating whether to end military exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jews and women waging a high-profile protest for equal praying rights at the Western Wall.

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The Palestinians say settlement construction must be frozen and that the 1967 borders should serve as the basis for any peace talks. For Oren, the deep gulf over land should be hashed out during talks, not beforehand. “In 2010, we had a 10-month moratorium on settlement construction in order to bring the Palestinians back to the table. We have always felt the sense of urgency. Abu Mazen doesn’t,” said the ambassador in reference to Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority. “We understand that the settlements are a problematic issue — and not just for Palestinians — but we also know they are not the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict. We pulled up 21 settlements in Gaza in 2005 to get peace, and we didn’t get peace. Instead, we got thousands of rockets fired at us.” That’s why he says “there are other, more urgent issues, like finding stability on our borders and reaching an arrangement that guarantees a negotiated peace will be maintained.” But for Palestinians, settlements lie at the heart of the conflict, because there can be no peace as long as Israelis keep taking land on which they hope to build a nation. After all, what’s the point of negotiating over a piece of pie that’s steadily being eaten away while you talk? “I think they believe that time is on their side, and that the longer they defer the resolution of the conflict, the better off the conditions and the position of Israel for any future engagement,” Maen Rashid Areikat, chief of the PLO’s delegation in the United States, told the Jerusalem Post in mid-July. Some of Netanyahu’s hawkish allies aren’t shy about their territorial ambitions. In June, Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon, a member of the prime minister’s Likud Party, said the majority of Israelis had “given up the idea of land for peace.” Israeli politician Naftali Bennett was more blunt. “Speaking to a settlers’ conference, Bennett urged Israel to ‘build, build, build’ in order to establish an ‘Israeli presence every-

where,’ called for the rapid annexation of more than 60 percent of the West Bank, declared that the land had been Israel’s for 3,000 years, and characterized the quest for a two-state solution as a colossal exercise in futility,” wrote Roger Cohen of the New York Times.“In short, two states? Fuhgeddaboutit.” Netanyahu though seems more open to territorial concessions than ever before, and Oren insisted that the toxic issue of settlements can be negotiated. He noted that 80 percent of the 125 or so settlements scattered throughout the West Bank are in two blocs adjacent to the pre-1967 border. “It’s widely understood that these blocs would be incorporated into Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu said we have to be honest with ourselves, that [some] Israeli settlements would lie beyond Israel’s borders. We acknowledge there will be a permanent internationally recognized border, and that not all Israeli settlements will be a part of it.” But for Oren, land is secondary to the real issue: recognizing Israel as a specifically Jewish state.“We’re committed to the solution of the conflict based on two states for two peoples. We’ll say that but the Palestinians won’t. If you ask me, that’s the core of the conflict: the Palestinians’ refusal to accept Israel as a Jewish state.” Nonsense, Palestinians counter, saying it’s not up to them to declare what religion Israelis should be and that the demand — a relatively new condition that only surfaced after the 2007 Annapolis peace conference — is just a stalling tactic. They warn that recognizing Israel as an expressly Jewish state would effectively turn the country’s sizeable Muslim and minority communities — estimated to be a quarter of the population — into second-class citizens. It would also, they fear, negate any discussion on the right of return for Palestinian refugees, a key demand in any peace deal. S A Z X C C V

Whether it’s recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, curbing settlement growth, sharing the holy city of Jerusalem, or settling the question of Palestinian refugees, the chasm between the two sides is as deep as ever. Which is why Secretary of State John Kerry surprised many Mideast watchers when he made reviving the comatose peace talks a priority. But following his sixth visit to the region in July, he finally had something to show for his efforts, announcing that Israeli and Palestinian officials had “established a basis” for the first direct talks in three years. To avoid a public backlash, the parties are keeping a tight lid on whatever formula Kerry has proposed to restart negotiations.As of press time, representatives from both sides were planning to meet

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August 2013

to settle on a framework for future discussions — in other words, talks about talks. U.S. officials, now led by former Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, must still hammer out a delicate compromise on terms of reference such as the possible release of Palestinian prisoners, establishing a baseline for border talks and settlements. Oren said the biggest challenge will be getting Abbas to “come to the table and stay at the table. It would be very unfortunate if he tries to achieve outside of negotiations for free what he’d have to achieve by giving up and making compromises. We believe this will not create peace.” By that, the envoy means unilateral efforts by the Palestinians to achieve international recognition. In November 2012, the U.N. General Assembly passed a motion upgrading Palestine from “entity” to “non-member observer” status, and so far, 132 of the U.N.’s 193 member states have recognized Palestine, despite Israeli lobbying urging them not to do so. That’s the impetus behind Kerry’s plunge into the Israeli-Palestinian impasse — so that he can show a wisp of progress before the U.N. General Assembly meets in September, when the Palestinians could take advantage of their newfound observer status to consolidate their international legitimacy and lodge legal complaints against Israel. (Rumor is that the Palestinians would hold off on such moves for a period of time if talks move forward.) Oren said he’s “deeply appreciative” of Kerry’s shuttle diplomacy — and that Kerry might get better results than did his predecessor, Hillary Clinton, if only because of his persistence. “In terms of substance, the basic parameters of the negotiations remain, but Kerry has chosen to put a particular focus on resolving the IsraeliPalestinian conflict, whereas during Secretary Clinton’s term, we saw the Palestinians continuously refuse to negotiate with us. Without Palestinian cooperation, and with the U.S. planning to pivot toward different regions, she crafted a policy that put greater emphasis on women’s rights, minority rights and on outreach to many countries outside of the Middle East,” he said. But Natan Sachs, a fellow at Brookings’ Saban Center for Middle East Policy, said Kerry should husband his energy on a more modest diplomatic effort that doesn’t promise comprehensive solutions. “A Washington tenet of Middle East peace negotiating is that the United States cannot want peace more than the parties themselves,” he recently wrote. “If Israel and its Arab neighbors are not serious in pushing forward with diplomacy, no amount of U.S. cajoling can achieve a lasting agreement between them.” The Wilson Center’s Miller, who was a Mideast negotiator under six U.S. secretaries of state, also doesn’t see the point of bringing the Israelis and Palestinians to the bargaining table if neither side wants to budge on the real issues that divide them. “The reason we don’t have an Israeli-Palestinian agreement is because neither Abbas nor Netanyahu are prepared to pay the price on the four core issues: security, borders, refugees and Jerusalem,” he said. Indeed, Kerry’s bid to dive into final status negotiations has puzzled some observers, who suspect he’s wasting his time. The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg said it was a “delusion” that Kerry thinks he can succeed where all other secretaries of state have failed. Haaretz called Kerry’s gambit “naïve.” S A Z X C C V

The skepticism is warranted. The Palestinian government remains hopelessly split between Abbas’s Fatah party in the West Bank and Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip.Abbas also lost his highly regarded technocratic prime minister, Salam Fayyad, who resigned earlier this year. Fayyad’s replacement quit just a few weeks after August 2013

it will be impossible to remove enough of them to create a viable Palestinian state,” warned liberal writer Peter Beinart in his controversial book “The Crisis of Zionism.” “If Israel honors the promise in its declaration independence: May 14, 1948 (from League of Nations of independence to provide ‘full equality of mandate under British administration) social and political rights’ to all the people under location: Middle East, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, its domain…. Israel will commit suicide as a between Egypt and Lebanon Jewish state,” he wrote. Netanyahu seems to sense this danger.Though Size: Slightly larger than New Jersey many observers still doubt whether the prime Population: 7.7 million (July 2013 estimate) minister really believes in a two-state solution, he life expectancy: 81.1 years has increasingly talked about the threat of Israel becoming “a binational country.” Oren too said Religions: Jewish 75.6 percent, Muslim 16.9 percent, that the government is “aware of the dangers Christian 2 percent, Druze 1.7 percent, other 3.8 percent (2008) inherent in maintaining the status quo” in the GDP (purchasing power parity): $252.8 billion (2012 estimate) West Bank. He also disputed the notion that because Israel is a prosperous, technologically GDP per-capita: $32,800 (2012 estimate) superior nation whose military dwarfs its Arab GDP growth: 3.1 percent (2012 estimate) neighbors that it can afford to drag its feet on the peace process. Population below poverty line: 23.6 percent “History has proven just the opposite,” he (As of 2007, Israel’s poverty line is $7.30 per person per day.) insisted. “During periods of economic distress Exports: Machinery and equipment, software, cut diamonds, agricultural products, NOTE: Although every effort is made to assure your ad is at free mistakes in spelling and dislocations the of beginning of this century, and chemicals, textiles and apparel was low supportthe forfinal a two-state content it is ultimately up to the there customer to make proof.solution. Now, 70 percent of Israelis support it. Some imports: Raw materials, military equipment, investment goods, rough diamonds, fuels, Israelis that with the Middle Eastchanges in grain, consumer goods The first two faxed changes will be made at no costwould to thesay advertiser, subsequent such a fluid state, we have to be very careful will be billed at a rate of $75 per faxed alteration. Signed ads are considered approved. Source: CIA World Factbook about creating another state along our border. The record of Arab countries in recent years has Please check this ad carefully. notMark any changes to contrary, your ad. been one of stability. On the there’s taking office, reportedly because of political state, or absorb masses of Palestinians in the been a tremendous surge of extremism.” infighting. occupied territories andand Israelfax proper. It’s a tired If the ad is correct sign to: (301) 949-0065 needs changes The ambassador pointed to the civil war in Meanwhile, the Palestinian economy is in but true refrain: Israel will have to choose Syria, which has taken more than 100,000 lives, it wants to be a Jewish or a(301) democratic shambles, propped up largely by foreign aid.AndThe whether as well as political unrest in neighboring Egypt Washington Diplomat 933-3552 no amount of financial enticements (Kerry state. — one of only two Arab states (the other is recently announced a plan to boost private “One day, maybe five years from now, maybe Jordan) that have signed a peace treaty with __________________________________________________________ investment in the territories by $4 billion) willApproved fifteen, maybe it has already happened, the green Israel. get around the Israeli checkpoints and bureau-Changes line will disappear: West Bank settlers will have ___________________________________________________________ “We have long warned our allies well before cratic roadblocks that strangle the potential for___________________________________________________________________ grown so numerous and so entrenched within Continued on next page real growth in the West Bank. the Israeli government, rabbinate, and army that On the flip side, many Israelis seem content, even secure with the status quo — for good reason. Their economy is humming along, with GDP growth of 3.1 percent last year. Terrorist attacks are no longer a major concern for beachgoing urbanites in Tel Aviv — largely thanks to a separation barrier that at times snakes deep into Palestinian neighborhoods and farms. The huge concrete barrier may be reviled by peaceniks, but it’s brought unprecedented peace inside Israel. Outside the wall, however, the region is more volatile than ever. With Syria engulfed in civil war, Egypt convulsing, and the Arab world teetering under the weight of sclerotic regimes, analysts doubt Israel would stick its neck out and give up territory to strike an elusive deal amid such turbulence. At the same time, others point out that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the raw nerve that electrifies Western resentment in the region — and the Arab Spring is exactly why a peace deal is more urgent than ever. “Together, Israelis and Palestinians actually have the power to model what a decent, postauthoritarian, multireligious Arab state could look like,” wrote columnist Thomas Friedman last month. “Nothing would address both people’s long-term strategic needs better.”

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That may be, but short-term pessimism abounds on both sides. A June poll by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah showed that a majority of Israelis (68 percent) and Palestinians (69 percent) view the chances of establishing an independent Palestinian state next to Israel in the next five years as low or non-existent — although majorities on both sides still support the idea of a twostate solution. The growing complacency over a peace deal belies the stark choice many experts say Israelis will face in the near future: let go of the West Bank and agree to an independent Palestinian

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Continued from previous page the outbreak of fighting about the instability generated by the regime of Bashar al-Assad,” Oren said of the Syrian leader. “Certainly his departure would be a blow to Iran and Hezbollah. We’re not naïve and we know there are Islamic extremist groups [among the rebels]. We’re not making any recommendation to the United States whether or not to arm the Syrian rebels. All we’re saying is that they should be seriously vetted.” He added: “We may not be able to affect the internal situation in Egypt or Syria, but one of the few areas where we can really make a material difference is our relationship with the Palestinians.”

Hasidic Jewish men pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Judaism’s holiest site.

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Yet a plan has been quietly floating around since 2002 that its supporters say could not only redefine Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians, but with the entire Arab world. The Arab Peace Initiative was first proposed by Saudi Arabia and endorsed by the 22-member Arab League and the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation. It offers Israel normalized relations with all its Arab neighbors in exchange for a full withdrawal from territories captured in 1967 to create a Palestinian state and a “just solution” for Palestinian refugees. The initiative languished until this past April, when Kerry persuaded Arab officials to agree that final borders could be modified from the 1967 lines through mutual land swaps. Israeli officials, though, have been largely mum on the sweeping peace plan. The ambassador said the initiative is a “positive contribution” to the peace process, but not much more than that. “We welcomed it, but the Arab initiative doesn’t call for negotiations. It calls for Israel to withdraw from territory, and then the Arab world would

Photo: Larry Luxner

normalize relations [with Israel]. There’s no sense of give and take.” Fellow Israeli scholar Alon Ben-Meir, a professor of Middle East studies at New York University, says the response to the Arab Peace Initiative (API) has been shortsighted. “By rejecting the API, successive Israeli governments have made a mistake of historic proportions,” he wrote in the April 2013 commentary “Resurrecting the Arab Peace Initiative.” “The API stands out singularly as the most viable framework, especially because it was the initiative of the collective Arab political body,” he wrote. “The sweeping upheavals in the Middle East and the concerns over renewed IsraeliPalestinian violent confrontations resulting from the continuing stalemate are making the Arab states increasingly concerned. Thus, settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which they view as the main source of regional instability, has

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assumed greater urgency. The API provides the vehicle around which all Palestinian factions can coalesce with the full backing of the Arab states in search for an equitable solution.” Ben-Meir, talking to The Diplomat, also had some stinging criticism for Oren. “As an ambassador, Michael Oren was certainly a bright person and understood the issues, but from my perspective, he acted more like a messenger than a diplomat. He pretty much conveyed messages from one side to the other without interjecting his own views, which could have specifically advanced the Israeli-American relationship at a time of tension,” Ben-Meir argued. To be fair, an ambassador is usually more messenger than policymaker. Still, the NYU academic, who like Oren has written numerous articles for newspapers, magazines and scholarly journals, criticized what he called the departing ambassador’s lack of creativity. “I don’t think Israel has been able to project itself in a positive way in connection with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Oren made very little effort, if any, to improve that narrative,” he said. “The perception here is that Israel is losing the PR battle and the Palestinians are gaining. But he pretty much repeated Netanyahu’s position rather than trying to put a positive spin on it, in a manner that’s going to resonate with the American public. He did not use his knowledge and experience to the best of his abilities. You need to demonstrate sensitivity to the other side, and I think he failed in that regard.” S A Z X C C V

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For his part, Maen Rashid Areikat, the Palestinians’ representative in Washington, said he knew Oren but declined to talk about what he thought of him personally, saying “it’s not my responsibility to publicly comment on that.” “We ran into each other during TV interviews and receptions, and we exchanged greetings, but I never had a meeting with him, neither formally or informally,”Areikat told us. For a while, Oren refused to meet with J Street, a liberal Jewish advocacy group that opposes Israeli settlement building in the West Bank. Oren, who turned down an invitation to speak at J Street’s first conference in 2009, once blasted the dovish group as “significantly out of the mainstream.” The two eventually made amends and Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street, had nothing but warm words for the departing diplomat. “Ambassador Oren has served the State of Israel as a passionate advocate for the U.S.-Israel alliance,” he said. “We have valued our interactions with him over these past four years and wish him luck in his future endeavors.” Oren has gone out of his way to interact with students at college campuses across the country, where he occasionally faced hostile audiences, including younger American Jews disillusioned with Israel’s increasingly hard-line religious

nationalism. Oren said one of the most rewarding, yet frustrating, aspects of his job has been placating the Jewish community in the United States, which numbers around 5.5 million — almost as many as the 6 million Jews who live in Israel itself. “The American Jewish community is politically and intellectually vibrant and diverse, and that’s a wellspring of its strength,” Oren told us. “AIPAC [the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee] is different than just about any other Jewish organization because by mandate it supports the policies of the Israeli government. J Street has had a high media profile, but some Jewish groups on the right are very critical of Israel for being too lenient, while others think we’re not liberal enough. Part of my job has been interacting with all these organizations, keeping them in the pro-Israel tent.” Oren’s job was certainly easier in Congress, many of whose members are ardent supporters of Israel. But the ambassador says this devotion doesn’t spring from powerful lobby shops like AIPAC. “Understand that members of Congress are pro-Israel because they’re reflecting American public opinion. The United States is a religiously observant country, and that impacts people’s worldviews. They read in the Bible that God promised this land to his people, and they take that very seriously,” Oren told The Diplomat. “The $3 billion [Israel receives in annual U.S. foreign aid] is an investment not just in Israel’s security but in American security — whether it be in the development of joint missiles or intelligence sharing. It’s the use of our airfields and ports, and it’s weapons pre-positioning, and it enables America’s military to focus on other areas of the Middle East and not just on us,” he said, adding that 75 percent of that aid is spent in the United States, where it creates tens of thousands of American jobs. S A Z X C C V

In fact, despite the early friction between Barack and Bibi, cooperation between the United States and Israel has never been stronger. “The public atmosphere was one of tension, but behind the scenes we worked together as allies on the Iron Dome, on the Marmara affair, on the Palestinians’ unilateral moves in the United Nations and on Iran as well,” Oren told Israel’s Haaretz in a July 11 interview. “The intelligence cooperation between our two countries is unlike the cooperation the U.S. has with any other country.” But Iran, especially now that it’s under new leadership, will continue to test that cooperation. Oren told us the Netanyahu government has no illusions about the clerical regime, despite recent elections that saw former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — who called his denial of the Holocaust “one of the greatest achievements” of his career — replaced by the presumably more moderate Hassan Rouhani. Even though Rouhani described Ahmadinejad’s anti-Israel rants as “hate rhetoric” during the election campaign, Oren said “he was selected by the supreme leader. They were vetted down to five people. This puts a tremendous onus on the Iranians. Let’s see if he’s such a moderate.” So far, he said,“they haven’t moved at all.” The official Israeli assessment is that Iran has edged ever closer to Bibi’s infamous “red line” presented during a September 2012 speech at the United Nations and tweeted around the world. “They have not crossed it yet, but are continuing to enrich uranium at higher levels. They’re installing 3,000 centrifuges that can increase the rate of enrichment five-fold, and they continue to build underground,” Oren said.“We have been

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August 2013

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Israel’s controversial security fence near Bethlehem is punctuated by watchtowers on the Israeli side of the separation barrier, which has been criticized for snaking deep into Palestinian territory but has dramatically reduced terrorist attacks inside Israel.

very supportive of the sanctions programs. They’ve been singularly successful and have made an immense impact on the Iranian economy, but they have not succeeded in stopping the nuclear program. In fact, it keeps accelerating.” But Washington and its European allies are likely to give diplomacy more time to bear fruit following the surprise victory of Rouhani, who showed a pragmatic, flexible streak when he was Iran’s top nuclear negotiator. But will Netanyahu have that same kind of patience? Asked the million-dollar question if Israel would launch a unilateral military strike against Iran in the event it does cross that red line — even without a green light from Washington — Oren smiled. “I’m not going to go into tactical details with you, but Israel is a sovereign nation — a tiny nation with an Iranian proxy along our border,” he responded. “We’re the ultimate ally of the United States. We not only have the right, but the duty, to defend ourselves.” S A Z X C C V

Israelis are naturally worried about the volatility all around them, but they’re equally, if not more, concerned with challenges at home — and there are plenty. Income disparities are widening and poverty is on the rise. There’s also a growing rift between Israel’s secular majority and its expanding ultra-Orthodox minority. Parliament is currently debating a contentious law to end wholesale military draft exemptions for Jewish seminary students, and women have waged a high-profile protest to demand equal praying rights at the Western Wall. “Israel has gone through a profound social and economic transformation,” Oren said.“We’ve had a high-tech boom. Our average income is surpassing that of Western European countries. But you have the emergence of an income gap that didn’t exist before.We also have large traditional Arab and ultra-Orthodox populations where women don’t work. We have to address all of those challenges, acknowledging the fact that we are an economic success story.We have to encourage Arab women and ultra-Orthodox men to get into the workforce. It’s important that they share the burden.” In fact, according to a recent survey conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Israel ranked a dismal 25th out of 36 countries in overall quality of life — even though Israeli respondents consistently say they’re happier than most of their Western European counterparts. Furthermore, Israeli political and cultural August 2013

institutions are said to be among the most corrupt of all OECD member countries; 73 percent of Israelis surveyed by Transparency International say their government is controlled by special interests, as compared to 62 percent of Mexicans, 49 percent of Turks and 5 percent of Norwegians. Even so, Oren took pains to highlight Israel’s impressive economic achievements in its 65-year history — pointing out the country’s leading role in everything from software development to water desalinization to telecommunications (among Israel’s many inventions are the USB flash drive, drip-irrigation technology, the cherry tomato and the PillCam, a tiny camera designed to record video images of the digestive tract). “With all of these transformations that Israel has faced, we still offer extensive safety nets to those who have fallen below the poverty line,” Oren said.“We have universal medical care that is world famous, and of our six universities, three are among the world’s top 100. The total cost of an Israeli bachelor’s degree is under $10,000, so we haven’t abandoned our socialist legacy.” Oren also said Israel hasn’t abandoned the liberal values upon which it was founded. As ambassador, he made a point to reach out to people who might have otherwise never connected with the Jewish state — an activity he clearly enjoyed. “We had a Hispanic concert with David Broza and dinner with Latino leaders. We had an LGBT night. We did an Irish night and even had Martin O’Malley play,” Oren recalled, smiling at his own mention of Maryland’s governor — a likely candidate for president in 2016 who led a trade delegation to Israel earlier this year. “We had an Iranian night and brought in Rita [Jahanforuz, a singer]. We had a PalestinianIsraeli band, Shesh Besh, and members of the Israeli Philharmonic playing fusion. Jews and Muslims were dancing together in my house. We jammed all night. These people were incredible.” Despite such feel-good multiculturalism — including several high-profile Iftar dinners held at the ambassador’s residence with Muslim leaders — Oren acknowledged that his little country still has a long way to go. “Israeli Arabs represent us in the Knesset, in the Supreme Court and in our universities. Israeli Christian Arabs are better educated and more affluent than Israeli Jews, but sadly, like every country in the world, we’re not free of discrimination,” he said. “Israel in that way is a work in progress.”

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Inside the Chamber

Canadian American Business Council

Council Smoothes Occasional Hiccup Between Indispensable Trade Partners by Sean Lyngaas

or a pair of large countries with global clout that share some 4,000 miles of border (5,500 miles if you count Alaska), the United States and Canada get along well. There is the occasional trade spat, bridge dispute, and disagreement over policy in Afghanistan, but these things are largely navigable. Canada, needless to say, doesn’t provoke near the amount of anxiety in U.S. lawmakers that America’s other big neighbor, Mexico, does. So one might think lobbying for closer U.S.-Canada business ties is a simple task. But that would underestimate the way bilateral relations can be swept up and forgotten in the distortions of everyday politicking in Washington, D.C., and Ottawa. When this distortive tide swells above a high-water mark, the Canadian American Business Council (CABC) is there to hold the heads of politicians in both towns above water and keep their eyes on the broader scope of bilateral relations. While the CABC is in favor of Keystone XL, the controversial 1,700-mile pipeline that would bring bitumen from oil sands in Alberta to refineries in the Gulf Coast, it takes a long view of bilateral relations in deciding not to be uncompromisingly for the project. “We are in favor of the project, but we are also in favor of the broader bilateral relationship, the context in which that decision is being made,” Maryscott “Scotty” Greenwood, a senior adviser at CABC, told The Washington Diplomat recently. The council has made public comments on the proposed Keystone project like countless others have, but has not let the project overshadow its other work.

Built on Trade The CABC’s dozens of corporate members include firms with big North American footprints like Chrysler, General Electric and Shell (TransCanada, the company behind Keystone, is also a member). Basic annual membership costs $5,500, while sponsorship of special events, such as the CABC’s July 4th celebration at the Canadian Embassy in

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Photo: Second Glance Photography

If the Keystone XL pipeline is approved, 10 years from now people will take it for granted even though it’s a big controversy now. — Maryscott “Scotty” Greenwood

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senior adviser at the Canadian American Business Council

Washington, can run $25,000 or more. The group set up shop in Washington, D.C., in 1987 to shine a light on the potential of cross-border commerce. Bilateral trade has ballooned from roughly $211.7 billion in 1993, the year before the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) took effect, to $616 billion in 2012, according to data in nominal dollars from the U.S. Census. Canada is America’s largest trading partner, with roughly $1.3 million in goods and services traded every minute. Canada is also the largest customer for American goods and could feature prominently in President Barack Obama’s effort to ramp up exports. Obama has set a goal of doubling U.S. exports from 2010 to 2015 and has embraced the TransPacific Partnership (TPP), a proposed 12-member free trade agreement that includes Canada and Mexico and has been billed as a successor to NAFTA. Extolling the virtues of free trade is a weekly, if not daily, task at the CABC. Having been there every step of the way as bilateral trade blossomed through the

1990s, the council can now point to the growth as inexorable and ask policymakers if they want to get in the way or get involved. But the word “NAFTA” is not necessarily part of CABC’s free-trade pitch, Greenwood said. Phrases like “North American economic integration” are more common when the council speaks to American audiences. The trade pact became a dirty word in the U.S. Democratic Party’s presidential primaries in 2008 when then-candidates Obama and Hillary Clinton skewered NAFTA as bad for the middle class and pledged to renegotiate it if elected (Obama, as president, has not followed through). “During that campaign, NAFTA was more of a placeholder for general economic anxiety,” said Greenwood, who served as chief of staff at the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa in Bill Clinton’s administration and is now a senior managing director at the law firm of McKenna Long & Aldridge.“People were really worried about jobs going overseas and jobs in general.And I think they sort

The Canadian American Business Council (CABC) recently hosted a July 4th celebration at the Canadian Embassy in Washington. The council was established in 1987 to promote business ties between the two neighbors, which are the world’s largest trading partners.

of vented the anxiety on NAFTA.” There’s no reason for a trade chamber to get involved in political playacting, but a line is crossed when the legality and integrity of NAFTA is questioned. The CABC felt it had to enter the fray in 2005 when an American lumber group questioned the constitutionality of NAFTA after the treaty’s arbitration panel required the reduction of U.S. duties on Canadian softwood lumber (the United States had slapped tariffs on Canadian lumber, saying the country’s federal and ALSO SEE: provincial governments U.S.-Canada were unfairly subsidizing Relations: the lumber industry). A Tale of In the council’s view, Two Bridges the argument struck at the core of CanadianPAGE 10 American relations and was not made in good faith. So Greenwood and her colleagues rose to “defend the integrity of NAFTA.” When the disagreement dragged on so long that it threatened to disrupt trade relations,“our position became:‘Don’t let this issue stand in the way of a good relationship,’” she recalled. (Both sides settled

The Washington Diplomat

August 2013

the longstanding lumber dispute in 2006.) The council sees that the broad thoroughfare of cross-border commerce stays smooth while leaving aside the smaller squabbles. But the goal of keeping open a border that some 400,000 people cross each day sometimes runs up against a sense of insecurity felt on both sides. The Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which took effect in 2009 based on recommendations from the 9/11 Commission, sought to close a loophole allowing travelers to re-enter the United States from Canada without a passport. What “concerned us was if this initiative were enacted or implemented too quickly, that it would have a harmful effect on the normal day-to-day commerce,” Greenwood said. The largest bilateral trade relationship in the world — between two countries that also share the longest international border — was at risk of being undercut by security measures.The CABC lobbied the commission for more time and help set up pilot projects between British Columbia and Washington state where something short of a passport — a driver’s license, for example — could get you over the border. Greenwood and her colleagues view the gradual implementation of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative as one of their greatest policy accomplishments in their more than a decade with the council. CABC’s recommendations for implementing the travel initiative “ultimately were enacted and I think we know that they’re successful by the fact that you’re not writing about it after that because it’s not controversial,” Greenwood reflected.

PIPELINE FIGHT To CABC’s chagrin, the Keystone pipeline is the controversy that won’t go away. The State Department’s initial approval of the pipeline was overturned last year by President Barack Obama, who cited environmental concerns. He is expected to make a final decision on

PHOTO: SECOND GLANCE PHOTOGRAPHy

A sign for the Canadian American Business Council stands outside the Canadian Embassy during a July 4th celebration. Bilateral trade between Canada and the United States has ballooned since NAFTA took effect, with some $1.3 million in goods and services traded every minute, but occasional trade spats and tensions still occur.

the project later this year. “Allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built requires a finding that doing so would be in our nation’s interest,” Obama said in a June speech seen as a pronouncement of his second-term environmental policies.“And our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution.” Those words were welcomed by environmental groups that are casting Obama’s decision on the pipeline as a litmus test for the U.S. government’s willingness to tackle climate change. But the president could also have been hinting that

carbon pollution by 250 percent, reckons the Pembina Institute, a Canadian environmental group. Environmentalists such as James Hansen, longtime head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, say Keystone is integral to the tar sands industry’s expansion plans. “The idea that the tar sands would get developed at the same rate without the pipeline is undercut by mainstream financial analysis and industry documents that show Keystone XL is the linchpin for tar sands expansion in the next decade,” Hansen, who first warned about climate change in 1988, wrote in a recent Los Angeles Times op-ed. “All of President Obama’s achievements will fade if he doesn’t act swiftly and decisively on climate change. Rejecting Keystone is the first step.” But Greenwood has a quick rebuttal to claims of Keystone XL’s environmental degradation:“The carbon impact to the planet if you don’t build the project is actually more severe,” she argued, offering this hypothetical: Would opponents of the pipeline rather have Canadian oil sands taken by tanker across the Pacific Ocean to be burned in China, the world’s biggest carbon polluter? “As long as we’re using oil, would we rather get it, from an American point of view, from Canada or from somewhere else?” And one more question: What’s the most environmentally responsible way to transport it? And when you look at it from that point of view, there’s no question to us that the project makes sense, Greenwood concluded. But the debate over North American energy triggered by the pipeline is far from over and could carry on for years. The CABC, having made its case for the project, thinks the proof will be in the pudding. “If the Keystone XL pipeline is approved, 10 years from now people will take it for granted even though it’s a big controversy now,” Greenwood predicted.

the pipeline might go through if the mining companies involved offer concessions to offset greenhouse gas emissions. Those conditions would probably not satisfy environmental groups that say Keystone XL represents the expansion of a dirty industry. Production of Canadian oil sands could jump from 1.8 million barrels per day last year to 5.2 million daily barrels in 2030, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (which happens to be a CABC member). This expansion of production could increase toxic Sean Lyngaas is a contributing writer waste from mining operations by 150 percent and for The Washington Diplomat. NOTE: Although every effort is made to assure your ad is free of mistakes in spelling and content it is ultimately up to the customer to make the final proof.

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The Washington Diplomat Page 21

Politics

Washington, D.C.

Libertarian Cato Institute Breaks Bipartisan Mold by Martin Austermuhle

s diverse as the United States is, its political sys tem is unflinchingly bipar tisan. The narrow twoparty system that dominates the country, though, doesn’t always translate into actual bipartisanship. Voters who believe in the power of government to help solve social problems and seek to promote and protect diversity generally align themselves with the Democratic Party, while those who believe in a more limited role for government and a more traditional concept of American society side with the Republican Party. But what of voters who take a little from both? Maybe they believe in government austerity but also gay marriage, or perhaps they support immigration reform and drug legalization while opposing restrictions on guns and banks. Well, they’re libertarians, and despite their failure to break open the bipartisan edifice, they are constantly knocking at its door. There are still plenty of voters in the United States who identify themselves as independents and have no allegiance to either party. But that’s distinct from libertarians, who espouse competing — even at times seemingly bipolar — political views. “You might say libertarians are fiscally conservative and socially liberal,” explained Aaron Ross Powell, a research fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C. Though libertarians exist in many shades, he said, they draw from — and often reject — political positions championed by both right and left, Republican and Democrat. In a divided capital where left and right are as starkly different as black and white, libertarianism provides not so much a middle ground, but a refreshing shade of gray. “There’s a chart that we often use where we ask, ‘How much freedom do people want over economic decisions? How much freedom do they want over social decisions?’ We libertarians want maximum freedom in both,” Powell explained. “The presumption is always in favor of liberty, and it’s the people who would want to restrict liberty that would have to make an argument for why,” said Powell of libertarianism’s guiding man-

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Photo: Cato Institute

There’s a chart that we often use where we ask, ‘How much freedom do people want over economic decisions? How much freedom do they want over social decisions?’ We libertarians want maximum freedom in both.

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— Aaron Ross Powell, research fellow at the Cato Institute tra, both at home and abroad. Since its founding in 1977, the Cato Institute — named after Cato’s Letters, a series of 18th-century essays expounding the views of philosopher John Locke — has promoted libertarian ideals through research, publications and conferences. According to the group, the principles of “individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace” underline its work. With a staff of 100 and a 2011 budget of $23.6 million, the institute has injected itself into Washington’s political discourse by holding elected officials — no matter the political party — to account for any apparent restrictions on economic or social freedoms. During the presidency of George W. Bush, it backed him on the privatization of Social Security while opposing him on the Iraq War and his stance on same-sex marriage; during President Obama’s two

terms, it expressed support for immigration but opposed his signature health care overhaul and any efforts to curb gun ownership. Cato’s work hasn’t been limited to domestic matters, though. On top of opposing many of the conflicts the United States has become embroiled in, the institute has recognized that the fight for economic and social liberty takes place across the world. Since 2002, it has awarded the biennial Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty (and its $500,000 prize money) to a dissident or critic abroad; in 2008 Venezuelan student leader and lawyer Yon Goicoechea won the prize, while in 2012 it was given to Chinese economist Mao Yushi. Interestingly, in 2010 the prize went to Iranian journalist and writer Akbar Ganji, who — despite being a vocal pro-democracy activist — criticized the United States for trying to impose its will on the

The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C., that eschews traditional right and left political positions — supporting, for instance, gay marriage and drug legalization but not financial regulation or gun restrictions.

Islamic republic in a blunt speech that clearly made a few conservatives in the audience uncomfortable. He specifically called out America’s “double standard” in its approach to Israel and Iran’s nuclear programs, warning that the regime in Tehran would exploit this double standard. Those comments stood in stark contrast to the more standard pro-Republican rhetoric earlier in the night, as conservative columnist George Will and Cato President Ed Crane lambasted the Obama administration and Europeanstyle socialism. The schizophrenic speeches were an example of how Cato — whose supporters often include Republican corporate titans — isn’t afraid to ruffle feathers. That ideological independence came under attack in 2012 when a dispute between the organization’s founders led to lawsuits brought by billionaire industrialists David and Charles Koch, two of Cato’s four founding shareholders. Critics of the Koch brothers worried that they wanted to push the institute closer to the GOP Party, sacrificing its ability to chastise even Republican officials for not

The Washington Diplomat

August 2013

hewing to libertarian principles. It was a surprising rift — the Koch family had donated some $30 million to Cato since its establishment. But when the Koch brothers tried to replace the institute’s libertarian board members with their own handpicked choices, the backlash was fierce. Justin Logan, director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, called the lawsuits “a hostile takeover by strongly partisan donors” in the April 2012 Foreign Policy piece, “Save the Cato Institute, Save the World?” He argued that the Koch brothers were trying to corrupt Cato by making it produce research to suit their political agenda — the type of politicization that discredits other think tanks and turns them into rubberstamp research centers for special interests. “Do [Koch-affiliated] groups really want to hear detached scholarship arguing that security threats are overblown, that immigration is a net plus for the country, that the war on drugs has pointlessly killed tens of thousands of Mexicans, and that the United States should dramatically scale back its global military ambitions? Probably not,” Logan wrote. In June 2012, though, an agreement was brokered to settle the matter, creating a 12-member board of directors that includes David Koch. Cato President Ed Crane, a Koch critic, was also replaced. John Allison, a former chairman and CEO of BB&T Corp., now heads up the institute. In a joint statement, Cato and the Koch brothers said “the agreement confirms Cato’s independence and ensures that Cato is not viewed as controlled by the Kochs.” The Cato Institute has earned praise as an important independent voice, despite being neither Democrat nor Republican in a town that is. In 2012, the University of Pennsylvania’s Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program ranked Cato as the 19th-most influential think tank worldwide, putting it in an elite category populated by the likes of the Brookings Institution, Chatham House, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies. But for all the independence and political freedom that libertarians and the Cato Institute may have, they haven’t succeeded in another important realm: at the ballot box. In the 2012 presidential election, libertarian candidate Gary Johnson only received 1.2 million votes nationwide — just shy of 1 percent of the vote.The Libertarian Party’s best showing since it started running candidates in 1972 was in 1980, when Ed Clark claimed just over 1 percent of the national vote. Powell explains that libertarians have had trouble converting

PHOTO: FOTOBRICENO LLC / CATO INSTITUTE

Since its founding in 1977, the Cato Institute — named after Cato’s Letters, a series of 18th-century essays expounding the views of philosopher John Locke — has promoted the libertarian ideals of individual liberty, limited government and free markets.

their values into votes because they decry one of the most effective and time-tested means of winning elections: promising tangible benefits to voters. “There’s the sense that one of the ways that you can win an election is to promise goodies to voters, to say,‘Look, if you vote for me I will get subsidies for your farms or I will increase the benefits we’re giving you or I’ll channel factories to your town.’A libertarian simply wouldn’t do that.They would allow the free market to allocate resources,” said Powell, who’s also the editor of Libertarianism. org, a Cato project. “It can be a harder sell to say to people,‘Look, if you vote for me we’ll increase freedom and things are going to get a lot better and we’re all going to get wealthier, but it’s going to mean that you’re going to have to give up these particular benefits you’ve been getting.’ Voters are often hesitant to do that, so we have to convince them that freedom will get you more,” he said. Libertarianism’s political fortunes may be changing, though. Not only are younger voters more progressive on many social issues, but they have lived through years of political gridlock between the two parties on issues such as spending and the budget deficit. Many are also saddled with high levels of debt and have never known their country not to be at war. Recent developments such as the Internal Revenue Service’s

aggressive focus on tea party groups and extensive wiretapping operations by the National Security Agency may also be giving credence to the libertarian belief that big government is a threat to freedom. This shifting dynamic has best been expressed by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who despite his Republican affiliation has publicly espoused libertarian-leaning views since he joined the Senate in 2011. In early March, Paul, the son of former libertarian presidential contender and ex-Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas), attracted wide acclaim for a 13-hour filibuster aimed at raising concerns about the use of drones abroad and at home. He has also aligned himself with liberals on many social issues, and in a May interview with Wired magazine outlined a libertarian strategy that could help Republicans win more elections. “The way we’re going to compete is by running people for office who can appreciate some issues that attract young people and independents: civil liberties, as well as a less aggressive foreign policy, not putting people in jail for marijuana, a much more tolerant type of point of view,” he said. Recently, though, Paul’s political ambitions were sidetracked by revelations that one of his top aides once advocated Southern secession and praised the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in writings that seemed to reek of racism. Matt Berman of the National Journal wrote that the controversy, while most likely fleeting, represents a more deep-seated problem for Rand and libertarians in general, who can’t seem to shake the “wacko-bird fringe” often associated with the movement. Over the years, there have been other sporadic attempts to create third party alternatives that could challenge America’s twoparty establishment, such as Ralph Nader’s Green Party and Ross Perot’s Reform Party — to little avail. Whether or not libertarians are able to break into the mainstream and win office, though, Powell says that maintaining an outside voice in Washington is where the Cato Institute can set itself apart from other think thanks that are more closely aligned with Democrats or Republicans. “I think our broad role is to keep everyone honest. Since we don’t have party commitments we can approach ideas objectively. We can do that without the burden of having to support our guy or having to make sure that Democrats win elections or Republicans win elections,” he said.“We can be fair and honest.”

Martin Austermuhle is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

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The Washington Diplomat Page 23

Book Review

Richard Haass

Haass: U.S. Should Fix Its Own House Before Cleaning Up World’s Messes by John Shaw

n his international affairs career, Richard Haass has worked as both a nuts-andbolts practitioner and a big-picture analyst who has offered sweeping assessments about how the United States should conduct its foreign policy.

it did immediately after the end of the Cold War. In Haass’s view, the early 21st century resembles in some ways the 19th century, with shifting political alignments, multiple power centers, and nations coming together and then moving apart. This complexity is compounded by remarkable advances in technology and rapid globalization. Haass believes that non-polarity will dominate the early 21st century and international affairs will be shaped by dozens of nations and nongovernmental actors jostling for influence.The United States, China, In his new book, “Foreign Policy Begins at Home: Japan, Russia and India will lead the pack, but other The Case for Putting America’s House in Order,” Haass nations will also assert themselves, such as Chile, draws largely from his perspective as a panoramic Germany, France, Venezuela, Mexico, Egypt, Iran, thinker but also offers a number of specific policy Israel, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Poland,Australia, recommendations. Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Additionally, large organizations such as the United Relations, believes that U.S. foreign policy has become Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, overextended in the last two decades and its political European Union, Organization of American States, system has failed to address critical domestic chalArab League and NATO will play important roles, as lenges related to the budget, economy, education, will the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting energy, immigration and infrastructure. He argues that Countries, World Health Organization and the the United States should be more restrained about International Atomic Energy Agency. Joining this what it tries to do abroad and more disciplined about matrix are powerful corporations such as JPMorgan what it does at home. Chase and Caterpillar, global media conglomerates “The message of this book is that the United States, such as CNN, the BBC and Al Jazeera, and NGOs such while in a unique position to do some valuable things as the Gates Foundation, Doctors Without Borders in the world, cannot do everything,” he writes. “It and Greenpeace. certainly cannot continue doing the same things in “China’s rise is one of the defining features of this the same way either at home or abroad. What is era. China has come a remarkably long way in a short needed is nothing less than a new approach to both time,” he writes, noting that in recent decades, domestic and foreign policy; changing just one would China’s population has grown 40 percent from 900 be desirable but insufficient. The stakes could hardly million to 1.3 billion while its economic output has be greater: the nature of the twenty-first century and Photo: Basic Publicity increased 35 times from $200 billion to $7 trillion. the prosperity and security of the United States.” Likewise, China’s per-capita gross domestic product The book does not embrace international isolationhas skyrocketed from under $200 to more than ism, however, but rather warns that if the United $5,000. States cannot fix its problems at home, it cannot In contrast, Haass argues that Europe’s decline is begin to address the myriad problems around the striking and will continue.“Europe’s position as a major world, where America remains an indispensable For the United States to continue power in the 21st century world looks to be all but over,” power. he writes, citing its anti-military culture and inability to to act successfully abroad, it must restore “Either the United States will put its house in order resolve tensions between nationalism and European and refocus what it does abroad, or it will increasingly the domestic foundations of its power. integration. find itself at the mercy of what happens beyond its Importantly, despite China’s rapid ascension, he borders and beyond its control,” he writes. “Such an Foreign policy needs to begin at home, believes that great power conflict is unlikely in the foreoutcome would not be in the interests of either the seeable future, giving the world a period of relative world or the country. The good news is that such a now and for the foreseeable future. peace. future can be headed off if the United States does what This complicated but less threatening world allows most Americans already know needs doing.” — Richard Haass the United States to be more discriminating about how The author or editor of 12 books on U.S. foreign author of “Foreign Policy Begins at Home: it operates internationally. From the American perspecpolicy, Haass is a prominent analyst and prolific writer The Case for Putting America’s House in Order” tive, the international system is providing a strategic about international affairs. During his career, he’s respite in which the United States has the time and moved in and out of government service and the think tank world. He was senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs at the National space to reassess its foreign and domestic policies and forge a new path as a global leader. Haass argues the United States should embrace a new foreign policy doctrine that he calls Security Council during the George H.W. Bush administration and then headed up foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution during the Clinton presidency. He served as policy Restoration. This calls for a more restrained, selective approach to global affairs, with less planning director at the State Department during George W. Bush’s first term, working for emphasis on military responses to problems and more aggressive use of diplomacy. “Restoration as a U.S. foreign policy doctrine is about restoring the internal sources of Secretary of State Colin Powell, before accepting the presidency of the Council on Foreign Relations in 2003. The council is a widely respected, nonpartisan membership organization, American power and restoring balance to what the United States aims to do in the world and how it does it,” he writes. think tank and publisher. In Haass’s view, the United States should have a foreign policy that is active, but also pruHaass organizes “Foreign Policy Begins at Home” into three sections.The first considers the international landscape, the second discusses what the United States should and should not dent. He even offers a bumper sticker for it that’s very reminiscent of President Obama’s re-election campaign mantra:“Less nation building abroad, more at home.” do abroad, and the final section examines America’s domestic challenges. The United States, he argues, is still the leading power in the world, but it operates in a See Book Review, page 26 global landscape that has become increasingly complex. It no longer dominates the world as

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Page 24

The Washington Diplomat

August 2013

Religion

Gay Rights

Washington National Cathedral Embraces Same-Sex Marriage by Gail Sullivan

n 1965, Rev. Francis B. Sayre Jr., the fifth dean of the Washington National Cathedral, joined Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in the final leg of the voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Dean Sayre’s outspoken support for African American civil rights in the wake of the “Bloody Sunday” beatings of peaceful demonstrators by law enforcement was a hugely divisive move for a national religious leader at the time. At Sayre’s invitation, King delivered what would be his last sermon at the Washington National Cathedral on March 31, 1968, four days before his assassination. Today, the Washington National Cathedral continues to be an outspoken voice for social justice on issues ranging from gun violence, to HIV/AIDS, to gay rights.The cathedral’s current dean, Rev. Gary Hall, has been outspoken supporter of marriage equality and announced this year that his Episcopal Church would perform same-sex marriages. “Washington National Cathedral has a long history of advancing equality for people of all faiths and perspectives,” Hall said after the January announcement. “We enthusiastically affirm each person as a beloved child of God — and doing so means including the full participation of gays and lesbians in the life of this spiritual home for the nation.” “The fact that [the National Cathedral] wants to represent all Americans, and to provide pastoral care and services, including performing weddings, is really significant,” said Ross Murray, head of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation’s Religion, Faith and Values Program.“It speaks to how far this country has come in terms of how it treats LGBT citizens,” he said, referring to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. For decades, the Episcopal Church has been among the progressive Protestant denominations on the leading edge of support for LGBT equality among faith-based institutions. But the cathedral’s announcement that it would start performing same-sex marriages was of particular significance because of the church’s status as a quasi-public institution. “Because the cathedral is such a visible faith community in the life of the nation, the symbolic gesture of us coming out so emphatically for same-sex marriage really sent this message out above and beyond the Episcopal Church,” said Richard Weinberg, the cathedral’s director of communications.

August 2013

The cathedral is not funded by the government but serves a symbolic role in American civic life. The Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation of the District of Columbia was granted a charter by Congress in 1893 to establish the National Cathedral. Since then, the church has presided over presidential funerals and guided the nation in times of celebration and sorrow.

Flipping the Christianity Script The Washington National Cathedral’s bells rang out in celebration on June 26 when the Supreme Court struck down section three of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), ending discrimination against gay and lesbian couples by the federal government. Rainbow flags waved at a special prayer service at the cathedral that evening, where LGBT

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Photo: WNC / Mimi McNamara

So often the case against marriage equality is being spoken from a religious standpoint. The cathedral speaks to reflect a version of Christianity that’s welcoming and open to all and affirms people as beloved children of God. — Richard Weinberg

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director of communications for the Washington National Cathedral

couples and their allies gathered and sang “Surely it is God who saves me,” modified with gender-neutral language. Hall’s sermon reiterated words he spoke outside the Supreme Court in March, at a rally organized by the United for Marriage coalition. “The freedom to marry the person you love is a not only a Constitutional right. It’s a moral right,” Hall told the crowd that had gathered beforehand for an interfaith prayer service at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation a few blocks from the court. While the DOMA case was a big win

for the LGBT community and its allies, gay marriage remains illegal in most states. Continuing the fight for equality is a priority for the cathedral, and so is changing the narrative when it comes to religion and homosexuality. While some are wary of mixing the Bible with the ballot box, people of faith within the gay community welcome the cathedral’s outspoken progressive message. “The common story that exists in the media is that religion is opposed to marriage equality,” Ross said. The significance of what the National Cathedral is doing to dismantle that stereotype can-

Supporters rally for marriage equality at the Washington National Cathedral. The Episcopal Church has been among the progressive Protestant denominations on the leading edge of support for gay rights among faith-based institutions.

not be underestimated, he added. “So often the case against marriage equality is being spoken from a religious standpoint. The cathedral speaks to reflect a version of Christianity that’s welcoming and open to all and affirms people as beloved children of God,” said Weinberg, who also leads the cathedral’s outreach with the LGBT community.

International Impact The National Cathedral’s work on international LGBT human rights issues is especially relevant here in Washington, which is home to a diverse international community, policymakers that shape America’s message abroad, and diplomatic representatives from around the

Continued on next page The Washington Diplomat Page 25

Continued from previous page world. In May, the cathedral hosted a screening of “God Loves Uganda,” a documentary about the campaign against homosexuality in Africa led by American fundamentalism evangelical Christians, in partnership with St. Paul’s Foundation for International Reconciliation. Uganda is one of 76 countries where it is illegal to openly identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, and to provide HIV services to LGBT people. “In the states we rally around our freedom to marry,” Weinberg said. “We are absolutely committed on the domestic front … but when you weigh marriage equality to life and access to health care and basic things that you and I as Americans can’t relate to not having, which do we think is more important? That is why the dean is so passionate about the international issues.” St. Paul’s Foundation also joined the cathedral earlier this year in hosting a panel discussion with three African community leaders, Victor Mukasa and Maxensia Nakibuuka of Uganda and Rev. MacDonald Sembereka of Malawi. All three were visiting D.C. as the first-ever LGBT faith leaders invited to speak at the Civil Society Policy Forum, part of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s annual meeting. Mukasa is a 37-year-old transgender from Uganda, where a proposed law would make homosexuality punishable by death. Mukasa’s is the kind of “untold story the cathedral wants to shine a light on,” said Weinberg. But shining a light on issues so culturally divisive both at home and abroad requires a balancing act. “When you’re talking about dialogue on issues that are so rife in a different cultural landscape, you have to do so respectfully,” Weinberg cautioned. “We are discerning what role the cathedral can play without being too heavy handed.”

Photos: WNC / Mimi McNamara

Rev. Gary Hall, dean of the Washington National Cathedral, above right, has been an outspoken advocate for samesex marriage, saying that, “The freedom to marry the person you love is a not only a Constitutional right. It’s a moral right.”

Intersection of Faith and Public Life In America, “faith is a matter of choice, not coercion,” wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jon Meacham in his 2006 book “American Gospel.” In doing faith-based advocacy, the National Cathedral aims to be a voice that “shapes the life of the nation without strangling it,” to borrow Meacham’s phrase.That is a difficult line to walk in a secular democratic country whose population is as diverse as it is devout in

from page 24

Book Review While vague on exactly how America’s international posture should change, Haass says the nation should protect its vital interests and invest fewer resources in peripheral engagements. Notably, it should avoid Middle East entanglements, including Syria, and focus on the Asian-Pacific region — echoing the administration’s highly touted Asian pivot.This more limited role will allow the nation to reduce national security spending without putting itself in danger, he says, noting that core U.S. defense spending is currently about $500 billion a year — more than China, Japan, the European Union, India and Russia spend in total. Haass says the United States can cut its defense budget, which has roughly doubled since 9/11, between 5 percent and 10 percent without causing harm. In the final section of the book, Haass calls for new domestic policies and a more confidenceinspiring political system. “Restoration is not just about doing less or acting more discriminating abroad; to the contrary, it is even more about doing the right things at home,” he writes. Effective domestic policies would boost Richard Haass growth and give other nations the example of a flourishing American economy and a disciplined political system. This would be beneficial in its own right and serve as a major foreign policy asset. “The biggest threat to America’s security and prosperity comes not from abroad but from within. The United States has jeopardized its ability to act effectively in the world because of runaway domestic spending, underinvestment in human and physical capital, an avoidable financial crisis, an unnecessarily slow recovery, a war in Iraq that was flawed from the outset and a war in Afghanistan that became flawed as its purpose evolved, recurring fiscal deficits, and deep political divisions. For the

Page 26

its religious faiths. “The cathedral would be the first to defend the separation of church and state,” Weinberg said, “but that does not mean that faith does not play a role in the life of the nation.The very existence of the cathedral speaks to the symbolic role faith does play in our civic life.” That commitment is reflected in the Washington National Cathedral’s long history of gospel-based activism — from Rev. Sayre’s march with Dr. King, to the arrest of Sayre’s successor, Bishop John T.Walker, a close friend of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, during an anti-apartheid protest

United States to continue to act successfully abroad, it must restore the domestic foundations of its power. Foreign policy needs to begin at home, now and for the foreseeable future,” he declares. Haass says this domestic renewal should concentrate on reducing budget deficits, developing a comprehensive energy policy, improving secondary education, upgrading infrastructure, and modernizing immigration policy. Haass’s overall argument is credible and compelling. His central message of recalibrating U.S. foreign policy so that its goals and its resources are in better alignment is wise and has been advanced by other leading thinkers for many years. But it is very hard to do. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all campaigned on pledges to find this balance, but each became diverted by various foreign policy challenges once in office. Many of the specific prescriptions Haass proposes are sound and persuasive, although some have been circulating in the think tank realm for years. It’s not exactly a revelation that our transportation system needs major upgrades or that unrestrained entitlement spending threatens the health of the economy. I was disappointed that Haass did not clearly explain how these disparate policies connect to each other or how to persuade the American public to support them. He reiterates what many consider to be conventional wisdom but fails to directly address a critical question: Why has it been so hard to get balanced and sensible policies put in place? Most of his recommendations on budget policy ring true, though at times his agenda isn’t completely coherent. His sense of urgency about the need to fix American fiscal policy is warranted.“The United States is fast approaching one of those truly historic turning points,” he warns.“Either it will act to get its fiscal house in order, thereby restoring the prerequisites of this country’s primacy, or it will fail to and, as a result, suffer both the domestic and international consequences. The world is looking for a signal that the United States has the political will and abil-

outside the South African Embassy in 1985, to the cathedral’s participation in this year’s Capital Pride Parade and its outspoken advocacy on behalf of the LGBT community. “Our mandate is to be a witness for Christian beliefs and values in the midst of this city that is both the federal government’s seat of power and home to staggering inequality,” Dean Hall has said.“One of the ways we are called to do this is by speaking to legislators, decision makers, voters and lobbyists — and refusing to be complicit in the systemic injustice, poverty, racism and violence that infects our culture.”

Gail Sullivan is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

ity to make hard choices.” Haass favors a 3-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to tax hikes and argues that it’s critical to reform large entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. But he also urges policymakers to cut annual budget deficits by about $250 billion a year over the next four to five years. Most budget experts agree that entitlement reforms are key to the nation’s future fiscal health, but they often caution that these reforms will generate only modest budget savings in the short term but will yield much larger savings in the future. Haass’s fiscal agenda does not clearly acknowledge the important distinctions between these short-, medium- and long-term challenges. My main concern with the book is that Haass does not satisfactorily grapple with the central problem that is crippling America domestically and internationally: the nation’s polarized and dysfunctional political system. To be fair, Haass does cite many factors that have hampered the effectiveness of the nation’s political system: highly partisan redistricting of state legislatures and Congress; campaign finance rules that force lawmakers to depend less on their political parties and more on their own prowess in fundraising; the fracturing of the media into smaller and more partisan segments; the power of special interests to prevail over the larger public good in key policy debates; and Senate rules that make delay and obstruction by a determined minority easy to accomplish. However, Haass does not suggest a package of reforms that is commensurate with the current level of political dysfunction. I wish he had devoted more time to this corrosive problem and offered more compelling answers on how to fix the system. Unless political reforms are accomplished, any common-sense reform agenda is likely to languish or get watered down. So while Haass makes a forceful case that foreign policy must begin at home, it’s undermined by sensible but sweeping declarations that don’t delve into the nitty-gritty on why Americans haven’t been able to put their house in order.

John Shaw is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

The Washington Diplomat

August 2013

MEDICAL ■ A Special Section of The Washington Diplomat

■ August 2013

Prevention

101

by Carolyn Cosmos

In Cancer’s Complex Journey, It’s Important to Start With Basics

PhoTo: WaveBReak MedIa LTd / BIgSToCk

MEDICAL August 2013

The Washington Diplomat Page 27

Continued from previous page The American Cancer Society says one third of all cancer deaths in the United States each year are linked to diet and physical activity, including being overweight or obese, while tobacco products cause another third. Other studies go further than that. “Only 5-10% of all cancer cases can be attributed to genetic defects, whereas the remaining 90-95% have their roots in the environment and lifestyle,” said a 2008 article in the scientific journal Pharmaceutical Research. The lead author, Bharat B. Aggarwal, is a professor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, consistently ranked the best cancer center in the country by U.S. News and World Report. Aggarwal’s article,“Cancer is a Preventable Disease that Requires Major Lifestyle Changes,” says the top factors that affect cancer and death rates “include cigarette smoking, diet (fried foods, red meat), alcohol, sun exposure, environmental pollutants, infections, stress, obesity, and physical inactivity.” The well-established link between tobacco and cancer may not be news for many people in the United States, but around the world, it remains an underappreciated killer. The World Health Organization (WHO) says that tobacco use is the most important risk factor for cancer, causing 22 percent of global cancer deaths and 71 percent of global lung cancer deaths. In fact, despite myriad treatment advances, cancer remains the leading cause of death around the planet, according to WHO, which predicts that deaths from cancer worldwide will jump from 7.6 million in 2008 to an estimated 13 million in 2030.

and proliferation of cancer cells,” said Dr.Yan Zhang, lead author of the study. “The next step in this research would be to inactivate fat progenitor cells in an effort to slow cancer progression,” added senior study author Mikhail Kolonin.

SimPly effecTive

The science behind cancer and obesity and, more broadly, food is still evolving and can at times be downright confusing. One minute it seems there’s a study that touts the cancer-fighting effects of coffee or fish, for instance, only to be debunked a minute later by another study.And beyond the ability of everyday foods to prevent cancer, there’s a whole world of unanswered questions about how our complex, chemically altered food chain impacts our health — from artificial sweeteners, to genetically modified staples such as corn and soy, to the chemicals in the containers that hold our food. The science is in constant flux, but there are general, common sense recommendations for cancer prevention that interweave healthy diet patterns, exercise and stress management, McKindley said. The basics include maintaining a healthy weight, choosing mostly plant foods, limiting red meat, and avoiding processed meat. One key bit of advice:“Be physically active every day in any way for 30 minutes or more,” she advised. The American Cancer Society recommends limiting sedentary behavior, such as sitting in front of the computer or lying on the couch watching TV for hours on end, both of which have been shown to be far more detrimental to health than previously thought.The group also advises eating at least two and a half cups of vegetables and fruit each day, and choosing whole grains instead of SiDelining PrevenTion refined grain products. When it comes to diet, though, there is no single bullet that will prevent cancer, McKindley That’s why the area of prevention is just as critical as treatments.Yet two of the most important lifestyle factors often cited in cancer statistics — obesity and diet — appear to be among the least emphasized. However, there’s good evidence that some foods can decrease cancer risk while others will likely raise it. well understood. The American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR), which fosters research on diet and prevenA 2010 survey by the American Institute for Cancer Research found that 94 percent of those polled knew about the cancer risks associated with tobacco use, but only 51 percent were aware tion, and the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF), a nonprofit umbrella for charities specializing in cancer prevention, have set up the Continuous Update Project (CUP) that puts new research of any link between obesity and cancer. In January 2013, a poll on obesity and its consequences conducted by the Associated Press and about cancer and lifestyle into an evidence database as it is published worldwide. McKindley said CUP can be a big help to health professionals who are formulating specific recthe University of Chicago’s NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that while 78 percent of the roughly 1,000 Americans interviewed connected obesity to heart disease, only 7 percent ommendations for cancer prevention or tailoring diets for cancer patients. For example, she said that based on recent research, it’s probable that non-starchy vegetables mentioned cancer. Why is the general public seemingly unaware of this critical information? One reason might be such as asparagus, broccoli and kale as well as fruits decrease the risk of head and neck cancer; the changing and often uncertain state of evidence. Definitively establishing causality between food vegetables containing allium such as onions and garlic probably do the same thing for stomach and certain types of cancer isn’t easy. There’s also the reluctance of mainstream medicine to cancer. Foods such as tomatoes that contain lycopene probably decrease the risk of prostate cancer, as embrace this line of research — writing about the latest high-tech tool or therapy can be sexier probthan repeating the simple mantra of watch what you eat and stay active. It hasn’t helped that early does the selenium in Brazil nuts, shrimp and tuna, while the folate in dark green leafy veggies prob ably lowers the risk of pancreatic cancer, McKindley said. adopters of the modern food-for-health moveAICR recommends filling at least two-thirds of your plate with ment were often devotees of alternative medi medivegetables, fruit, whole grains and beans. cine, defined for much of the 20th century as Among its list of proven cancer-fighting unscientific. foods are: apples, berries, cruciferous and “By 2005, we knew that obesity played a dark green leafy veggies, cherries, coffee, huge role in cancer development, but we’re grapecranberries, flaxseed, garlic, grapes, grape only now building on it” to undertake increastomafruit, green tea, legumes, soy, squash, toma ingly sophisticated research and translate find findtoes and whole grains. ings into practical recommendations about Other tips: avoid sugary drinks, limit alcodiet, said Clare McKindley, a clinical dietitian hol (two drinks a day for men and one drink at MD Anderson Cancer Center. a day for women, preferably red wine), cut Thousands of scientific studies around the back on the salt and get moving. world have now examined body weight, exer exerIn 2013, AICR and WCRF concluded with cise and dietary factors important in the pre“confidence” that carrying excess body fat vention and treatment of cancer, McKindley increases the risk of seven specific cancers: told The Diplomat. However, she noted that endoesophagus, pancreas, colon and rectum, endo the biological systems involved are complex postmetrium (lining of the uterus), kidney, post and in many cases the cause-and-effect con-menopausal breast and gallbladder. nections remain unclear. It’s now clear that avoiding obesity is key to — ClAre MCKindley eatcancer prevention. McKindley notes that eat Science of fAT clinical dietitian ing small, healthy snacks between meals can at Md anderson Cancer Cen In fact, the biological mechanism of how keep your insulin levels steady. Among the ter fat affects cancer cells remains somewhat of options: unrefined carbohydrates such as raw a mystery. PhoTo: ISToCk carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, whole grain bread Ivana Vucenik, an associate professor at or nonfat yogurt mixed with a the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the graduate program director in the school’s Department epartment of Medical and Research Technology, researches the molecular mechanisms of cancer protein like raw nuts, low-fat cheese or hummus. cell growth and the anticancer functions of dietary compounds. McKindley warned that people who go too long without food, more than five or six hours, In the search to elucidate the connection between obesity and cancer, she cited a key 2004 study develop a stress response that can lead to feelings of hunger and loss of control over diet plans. by Eugenia Calle published by the New England Journal of Medicine that found increased body “Small, frequent meals” are less overwhelming to such patients, McKindley said. Similarly, even weight specifically associated with increased death rates in cancer patients. The study “challenged brief, simple activities and small steps toward exercise — brisk walks, practicing your golf putt, etc. the rest of us working in the field to find the underlying mechanism,”Vucenik told The Diplomat. — will stimulate the digestive system and counteract stress. These incremental steps can go a long way toward reducing overall cancer risk. Breast cancer is Scientists have now learned that fat tissue is actually an organ that produces and secretes hormones such as estrogen and leptin, Vucenik wrote in an overview paper published last year. These a prime example of how this simple message often gets trumped by more specific headline-grabfat-produced hormones influence body mechanics such as inflammation and, in the case of leptin, bing discoveries. For instance, while women who carry the BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation have a significantly higher chance of developing breast and ovarian cancer than women who don’t, only appetite control. Leptin, which is more abundant in obese people, also seems to promote cell proliferation, 5 to 10 percent of all breast cancer cases are attributed to these genes. For the majority of women, there are probably a host of common environmental factors at play. whereas the protein adiponectin, which is less abundant in obese people, may have the opposite A sweeping 2007 report by AICR and WCRF found “convincing” evidence that breastfeeding effect. Similarly, researchers have found that insulin, the pancreas hormone that regulates blood sugar, decreases breast cancer risk, while alcoholic drinks increase it.There was also strong evidence that and the insulin-like growth factor IGF can both promote cell proliferation — encouraging tumors limiting body fat and staying physically active helped to fend off the disease. “This study represents the clearest picture we have ever had on how lifestyle affects a woman’s to grow in people who have diabetes or serious weight problems, Vucenik explained. Last fall, researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center showed how extra fat cells risk of breast cancer,” said Dr. Martin Wiseman, a medical and scientific adviser for AICR and WCRF. in animals can fuel tumor growth. Working with lab mice, the group discovered that tumors active- “We are now more certain than ever that by maintaining a healthy weight, being physically active ly recruit young and somewhat unformed fat cells, emitting a signal that attracts these undeveloped and limiting the amount of alcohol they drink, women can dramatically reduce their risk.” Added AICR Director of Research Susan Higginbotham: “We estimate that almost 40 percent of cells. (The cells in question are found in abundance in obese animals, while their numbers go down dramatically in animals that are lean.) Unfortunately, when the young fat cells arrive at the cancer breast cancer cases in the U.S. — or about 70,000 cases every year — could be prevented by maktumor, they get sucked into a network of blood vessels where they’re put to work strengthening ing these straightforward everyday changes.” the tumor, keeping it well fed and helping it expand. Fat cells “recruited by tumors improved vascular function and, therefore, increased the survival Carolyn Cosmos is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

“By 2005, we knew that obesity played a huge role in cancer development, but we’re only now building on it.”

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MEDICAL The Washington Diplomat

August 2013

culture & arts

■ WWW.WASHDIPLOMAT.COM

entertainment

■ AUGUST 2013

ART

DIPLOMATIC SPOUSES

Bridge to Baku From L.A. to D.C., Lala Abdurahimova and her husband, Ambassador Elin Suleymanov, are bringing Azerbaijan and the U.S. closer together. PAGE 31

Braque’s Biggest Fan

THEATER

Soulful Revival

Duncan Phillips, founder of the Phillips Collection, embraced Cubism thanks to Georges Braque, whose work he believed “would better stand the test of time” than fellow Cubist pioneer Pablo Picasso. Nearly 100 years later, the benefactor’s admiration for the Frenchman has also withstood the test of time. PAGE 30

“One Night with Janis Joplin” is a pitch-perfect homage to the legendary female rocker who gave voice to an era of freedom and rebellion. PAGE 32

ART

Asian-Latin ‘Fusion’ There’s an Asian-Latin “Fusion” brewing at the Art Museum of the Americas, but this melting pot has nothing to do with food. PAGE 33 Photo: 2013 Artists rights society, New york / ADAgP, PAris

DINING

FILM REVIEWS

Fabio Trabocchi returns to his Italian roots at Fiola without abandoning the disciplined attention to detail for which he’s won wide acclaim. PAGE 34

“Our Nixon” goes beyond Watergate to examine Richard Nixon’s entire presidency, before its ignominious end. PAGE 36

[ art ]

Collector and Cubist Duncan Phillips’s Veneration of Georges Braque on Display Photo: 2013 Artists rights society, New york / ADAgP, PAris

by Kat Lucero

[ Page 30

t the turn of the 20th century, technological advances in electricity and communications altered societies and art. The Cubist movement emerged from this period in response to the rapid innovation the world was experiencing and a desire by artists to move past established norms and find new ways to interpret the chaotic world around them. Enter Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, the men who pioneered the first style of abstract, avant-garde art. Together in the early 1900s in Paris, the Spaniard and the Frenchmen radicalized the art world by rejecting the traditional forms of techniques, perspective and modeling. Instead, they broke down and reassembled objects using angular geometric forms that became a hallmark of Cubism, fragmenting the subject yet lending it three-dimensional depth. To Duncan Phillips, founder of the Phillips Collection, Braque was the apple of his eye. The collector was first appalled by Cubism in its early stages, led by Picasso. However, he credits his later understanding of the style in the late 1920s largely to Braque’s work. The modern art aficionado became an avid fan and was influential in attracting a wider American audience for the French painter. In comparing Picasso and Braque, Phillips was convinced that the “artistries of the reserved Frenchman would better stand the test of time,” according to an exhibit catalogue. Nearly 100 years later, the Phillips Collection celebrates its benefactor’s admiration for the painter in “Georges Braque and the Cubist Still Life, 1928-1945.” The exhibition highlights 44 canvases, including a few paintings from the museum’s private collection, done at a time when Braque refined the art form from Cubism’s early beginnings, amid the tumult of World War II. War does not make an overt appearance in these works, which focus on still lifes of largely domestic scenes. Georges Braque and the Braque used this period Cubist Still Life, 1928–1945 to differentiate his style from Picasso’s, experithrough sept. 1 menting with color, scale, Phillips Collection materials and texture — 1600 21st st., Nw the latter seen in subtle For more information, please call (202) 387-2151 variations of surface that or visit www.phillipscollection.org. reflect Braque’s early experience as a house painter. Phillips, the discerning art collector, went to great lengths to acquire Braque’s pieces. Among them is “The Round Table,” a striking vertical still life placed at the center of the exhibit’s entrance. When Phillips first saw the composition at a New York exhibition in 1934, he was so smitten by what he described as an “unquestionable masterpiece” that he was willing to trade Braque’s smaller works to acquire it, a move that made his heart sink, according to a letter to the art dealer.“The Round Table” then became his collection’s largest and most

]

The Washington Diplomat

The Phillips Collection presents the first in-depth study of still lifes by cubist painter georges Braque (pictured below in Paul strand’s 1957 photo), done at a time when he honed his style in pieces such as “the round table,” left, “lemons and Napkin ring,” above, and “stool, Vase, Palette,” pictured on the culture cover.

abstract work, showcasing how Braque manipulated materials to create a textured effect — in this case using oil, sand and charcoal. Phillips’s deep appreciation of Braque’s creative process is also revealed in letters about his art dealings and a video installation that explains the artist’s intricate method for layering materials as part of what the Phillips Collection calls his “lifelong concern with the tactile depiction of space.” The exhibit also reunites, for the first time in 80 years, four paintings that made up the “Rosenberg Quartet,” once housed in the Parisian home of Braque’s dealer Paul Rosenberg. Taking advantage of their coveted market value, Rosenberg quickly sold two of the paintings in 1931. Phillips was the buyer of “Lemons and Napkin Ring.” It became the fifth painting by Braque in his collection and was immediately featured in an installation called “A Survey of Modern Painting.” The four canvases also speak to Braque’s process, as he reworked and fine-tuned the Photo: 2013 Artists rights society, New york / ADAgP, P, PAris PPAris pieces over several years in his studio, exploring variations of the same theme in several paintings — an approach he would repeat in other series. Interestingly, the “Rosenberg Quartet” includes a mosaic table depiction of one of the paintings. In 1975, Rosenberg donated “The Crystal Vase” to the Cleveland Museum of Art. His son later told the museum’s director more about the background of the painting and its three companions. Created in the late 1920s, these four pieces were used as models for marble floor panels in Rosenberg’s dining room.They were all removed from the floor and turned into tables during World War II. Braque lived through two wars in Europe (he enlisted in the French army in 1914 and suffered a head injury and temporary blindness).As such, one would expect Braque’s work to express this upheaval as Picasso did in the dramatic “Guernica,” one of his most famous works. Instead, the Frenchman who was trained as a house painter and decorator went on with his still life creations and experimented with bolder hues and angles. He later added new Photo: PhilADelPhiA MuseuM of Art motifs such as skulls, as showcased in “Baluster and Skull.” Critics speculated that the macabre theme was perhaps a response to war, but he simply said:“A skull is a beautiful structure and used to waiting.” Phillips’s deep admiration for Braque doesn’t stop with this exhibition.The artist was forever etched into the museum’s structure when the founder commissioned one his works — a bird in flight — to become a larger-than-life sculpture that stands at the building’s entrance. Today, the bird symbolizes an enduring collaboration that remains a source of inspiration for the museum that bears Phillips’s name. Kat Lucero is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C.

August 2013

[ diplomatic spouses ]

Young and Determined Husband-Wife Diplomats Introduce u.s. to Their emerging Nation by Gail Scott

Lala Abdurahimova and her he striking water features in husband, Azerbaijani Ambassador Washington and Baku conelin suleymanov, met while worknect the two capital cities for ing in the office of the President Lala Abdurahimova, the statuin Baku. later they headed to los esque wife of Azerbaijani Angeles, where suleymanov set Ambassador Elin Suleymanov. up Azerbaijan’s diplomatic presWhile the Potomac River ence on the west coast. snakes through the District and divides it from Virginia, Baku borders on the much bigger, hydrocarbon-rich gave him a compliment: ‘He had Caspian Sea. a good suit on.’” “Washington reminds me of home In the fall, they hope she can since it is very hot here,”Abdurahimova attend Washington International said of the similarities between the School near their residence. two cities. “Back in Baku, we have a In Washington, Abdurahimova seaside right in town.There are resorts feels she has another job: to and everyone has someone in their show Americans the life of a family who has a summerhouse where “contemporary Muslim woman” you can go to swim and relax. Of from a country that only got its course, here you just drive a little bit independence in 1991 after the and you are at the ocean.” collapse of the Soviet Union. The couple also got a taste of the Since then, Azerbaijan, slightly ocean at their previous posting in Los smaller than the state of Maine, Angeles, where for five years has raced to build a modern Suleymanov served as Azerbaijan’s republic on the back of oil revefirst-ever consul general to L.A., leadnues that for a time gave it the ing the team that established the highest economic growth rate in country’s diplomatic presence on the the world. Photo: DAN VerMillioN West Coast. In recent years, however, that Ironically, “when we lived in L.A., we had the seagrowth has cooled dramatically, part of the reason why side all the time, but I missed having the rest of the the government is working to diversify its economy for a young country like seasons like we have here and at home,”Abdurahimova away from oil and gas. Abdurahimova noted that the reflected. country is working to develop its information technolAzerbaijan, it is wonderful for people Abdurahimova is no stranger to diplomacy. A diploogy and agricultural sectors.A graduate of the Azerbaijan mat herself, she worked at the Azerbaijani Embassy in University of Languages who speaks English, Turkish, … to know all about us. Belgium as the cultural attaché and later in Baku as Russian and French in addition to her mother tongue, protocol counselor in the Office of the President. Abdurahimova also noted that “the whole country has — LALA ABdurAhimovA She met Suleymanov in the office of the minister of a high literacy rate of over 90 percent.” wife of Azerbaijani Ambassador elin suleymanov foreign affairs while he was home in between studyStill, energy has made Azerbaijan a geostrategic ing at Tufts’ Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in player in the region. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Massachusetts. Later, they got to know each other when they both worked in the pipeline, Abdurahimova pointed out, is the second-longest oil pipeline in the former President’s Office — she as protocol counselor and he as a senior counselor in the Soviet Union and allowed the landlocked nation to export its natural resources to Foreign Relations Department.They remembered meeting before and it only took one Europe and elsewhere.Azerbaijan’s Shah Deniz gas field is also part of the Southern Gas month before they were married. Six months later, they were off to Los Angeles. Corridor project, which, its backers in the West hope, will be key to delivering Caspian But she cannot serve on the same staff as her husband, so Abdurahimova could only gas to European consumers and weaning the continent off Russian-supplied gas. volunteer informally to help her husband in California as he set up the country’s first Indeed, Azerbaijan has been a reliable partner for the West. The Muslim-majority diplomatic mission on the West Coast. nation of 9 million people preaches religious tolerance, ships gas to Israel, and is a “If he is chief of the mission or ambassador, I am not allowed to be on the staff,” said critical transit route for U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan. Abdurahimova, whose younger brother is also a diplomat and is currently posted to Despite its economic progress and strong relations with the United States, Brazil as a second secretary specializing in economics. Azerbaijan’s track record on democratic reforms is far less impressive. The current In Washington, the rule is the same.“I volunteer here and help wherever I can with president, Ilham Aliyev, inherited the position from his father, Heydar Aliyev, who develdesigning the National Day celebration and other kinds of embassy entertaining,” said oped a personality cult of sorts during his rule from 1993 to 2003. Today, the political Abdurahimova, although she admitted,“I am looking for something to do here.” system in the former Soviet republic remains completely dominated by the ruling New Still, she has plenty to do watching over Emine, or Emi for short, the couple’s ener- Azerbaijan Party and dissent is stifled. getic, inquisitive 4-year-old daughter.“Even when we are on the phone and mention her Azerbaijan has also been dogged by a bitter feud with Armenia since 1992, when the name, she wants to know what’s going on and,‘Why was my name mentioned?’” two countries went to war over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. An estiThis summer will mark the first time that the couple returns home to Azerbaijan in mated 25,000 people died and more than a million were made homeless by the fightfive years, so many relatives and close friends will be seeing Emi for the first time. ing, and despite a 1994 ceasefire, the territory remains under Armenian control. Emi was born in Santa Monica and earned the nickname “Obama girl” when she Azerbaijan, in fact, lives in a prickly neighborhood. “Of course, you make mistakes accompanied her father and mother for their credentialing ceremony at the White when you’re learning,”Abdurahimova said of Azerbaijan’s evolution since gaining indeHouse with President Obama.“She was uncontrollable,” her mother recalled.“When the pendence 22 years ago. “We are between Russia and Iran, a ‘sandwich position,’ and it door opened to the Oval Office and she saw him, she opened her mouth and was so is difficult.” excited and jumped into his arms. The president held her for the official White House photo. She was thrilled with her box of M&M’s with the president’s signature. And she see SPouSeS, page 35

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The Washington Diplomat Page 31

[ theater ]

Rocking Homage Janice Joplin’s soulful reincarnation electrifies arena stage by Lisa Troshinsky

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he 1960s was all about catharsis. The belief that letting it all out on a personal and political level will cure you; that experience — up close and personal without restraint — will cleanse you of evil. Compare that with today’s conservative culture where human interactions are onceremoved by emails, text messages and instant messaging, and where social caution is considered common sense, not an affront to personal expression. Playwright and director Randy Johnson must have intuited our collective need for a mix of ’60s idealism and rebellion when he created “One Night with Janis Joplin.” “Janis,” in a revival at Arena Stage this summer, is a well-done tribute to one of the artistic greats who lived and breathed the flower-power philosophy of the 1960s to the fullest and, rightly, shouldn’t be forgotten.The icon’s spirit comes alive in this explosive production, as does her music. “In these days where fame is instant and true musicianship rare, the word ‘artist’ is an often misused statement,” Johnson wrote.“As we are held hostage to a manufactured pop culture on a daily basis, I feel we must constantly revisit our history and explore the authentic forces that have shaped the landscape of our lives.”

one Night with Janis Joplin through Aug. 11 Arena Stage 1101 6th st., sw tickets are $40 to $99. For more information, please call (202) 488-3300 or visit www.arenastage.org.

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This nostalgic homage (more concert than plot-driven play) makes it painless to glide back to a simpler era of long-hair men (and women) with incredible guitar licks, purple haze, and gutwrenching rock ‘n’ roll. This effortless time travel wouldn’t be possible without the mega talent of Mary Bridget Davies, whose impersonation of the “queen of psychedelic soul” in looks, mannerisms and vocal styling is uncanny. Davies, who dressed like Janis Joplin for Halloween growing up in the 1980s, has solidified her career by portraying the singer since 2005 — starring as Joplin in the national tour of “Love, Janis.” She was also awarded Best Actress by the Cleveland Critics Circle Awards and nominated for Best Actress in a musical by Broadway World for “One Night with Janis Joplin,” and she is headed to Broadway in the fall with this current production. Davies’s vocals are incredulously flawless, a feat that’s hard to pull off given Joplin’s signature pitch-perfect wailing and screaming. She treats the audience to a “concert,” showcasing many Joplin hits, including “Me and Bobby McGee,” “Cry Baby,”“Piece of My Heart,”“Down on Me,” and “Try (Just a Little Bit Harder).”Adding

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The Washington Diplomat

to Davies’s believability is her authentic 1960s garb — wide bell bottoms, flowing tops, brightly colored shades and, of course, the hippie bling of garish necklaces and wrist bangles. The play’s premise is this: The audience in the theater becomes an audience at a Joplin concert, during which the artist shares snippets from her childhood, sources of her inspiration, and musings on life, love and performing. Those who are not familiar with Joplin’s back story will discover that she was from an upper middle-class Texan family, was a painter before a performer, and grew up singing along to Broadway records (her mother’s influence). Most important, at an early age she latched onto and was influenced by female blues legendaries like Aretha Franklin, Etta James, Nina Simone and Bessie Smith.The result was a special blend that mixed rock, blues and Joplin’s Southern folksy roots, or “cosmic blues,” as she put it.This passion for blues comes to life with the portrayal of these famous vocalists by the talented Sabrina Elayne Carten, who also played Photos: JiM cox the part of Joplin’s blues inspirations in the world premiere of “Janis” at the Portland Center Stage. Joplin was also heavily influenced by African American girl “doo-wop” groups like the Shirelles, portrayed here by capable singers Alison Cusano, Shay Saint-Victor and Kim Yarbrough. The fact that Joplin was a young, white girl from Texas (she referred to herself as a “middle-class white chick”) and idolized African American artists at a time when civil rights was just taking center stage is just one of the ways in which Joplin was different from her peers. While being an oddity helped her career — she broke ground as one of the first female rockers to hit the music scene — it didn’t fare well for her personal life. “No man has ever made me feel as mary Bridget davies gives a rousing good as an audience,” Joplin tells the tribute to 1960s rock icon Janis Joplin crowd more than once throughout the as she belts out hits such as “Piece of evening. My heart” in “one Night with Janis More of Joplin’s personal life can be Joplin” at Arena stage. gleaned in Arena Stage’s lobby, which features framed reproductions of letters she wrote home from San Francisco, the spot she and others like Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead migrated to follow their musical passions. Along with Davies, the success of this production is truly an ensemble effort.The singers, the musicians (Joplin’s band), lighting, sound, wardrobe and hair all create an authentic concert high. As Joplin says, the blues “can milk you with two notes.”The same can be said for this production. Lisa Troshinsky is the theater reviewer for The Washington Diplomat.

August 2013

[ art ]

Asian-Latin ‘Fusion’ Intermingling of Two Continents Produced strand of superb art by Audrey hoffer

he Art Museum of the Americas leads to the grand courtyard of the headquarters of the Organization of American States, replete with fountain, pebble walkways, greenery, a few sculptures and a sense that you are deep in Latin America rather than a stone’s throw from the White House. Inside the museum’s galleries, however, is a very different cross-cultural immersion. This haven of contemporary Latin American and Caribbean art — whose stunning entrance is punctuated by decorative bas-relief tiles with sculpted Mesoamericanlooking faces — is showing an even more far-reaching face of its culture: Latin artists with Asian roots. “Fusion:Tracing Asian Migration to the Americas through AMA’s Collection” explores the migration of artists or their families to the Americas from Asia during the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. After the 1834 abolition of slavery in the British Empire, Asian migration to the Caribbean, Central and South America took shape in boatloads of indentured servants brought over to work on plantations. Labor shortages up until the 1930s continued to bring in waves of Asian workers, including Japanese, Chinese, Indian and Indonesian immigrants. The workers usually stayed on and their descendants absorbed the customs of their distant homelands in the East and the Latin way of life into which they were born.Artists Fusion: Tracing Asian migration who emerged thus imbued two cultures in their creative to the Americas through process, resulting in a rich tapestry of visual arts seen in AmA’s Collection countries such as Brazil, Peru, Cuba, Suriname, Argentina, and Trinidad and Tobago. through sept. 15 Their work in the early-to-mid 20th century is represenArt museum of the Americas tative of art trends at the time — abstract expressionism 201 18th st., Nw and surrealism — and some pieces bear obvious resemFor more information, please call (202) 370-0147 blances to specific artists such as Paul Klee, Joan Miró and or visit www.museum.oas.org. Piet Mondrian. For example, Manabu Mabe’s “Solemn Pact” is strikingly surreal.A taut white string drops from a white bone-like wing that juts across the brilliant blue canvas and ends in a blood-red object that seeps outside the canvas.A black ship-like mass embellished with soft brushstrokes emerges from the left to somehow balance the white bone.

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Dreams form the backbone of the exhibit. large crisscrossed the country — from New york to los Angeles, san francisco to las Vegas, and New orleans to D.c. — to depict “the underbelly of our nation of dreamers, those struggling to obtain the promise we all hope to achieve,” according to wall text. french-born photographer Anne-lise large offers her what exactly they hope to achieve is left to perspective on American culture in “the Burning of Visibility: the viewer’s imagination. the images in “lost” from reality to Dream” at the Art Museum of the Americas are hazy, both in appearance and interpretation. “Mythology,” above, is part of a series f street gallery. in one, a girl clad in a nightdress stands before of images by French-born photograthe exhibit consists of “lost Angels,” “Mythology” and an open window and balances a white dove on “Margins,” a series of several dozen pictures shot between pher Anne-Lise Large that reflect her wrist. in another, a dark celestial scene is 2009 and 2012. large has resided in the united states for the illuminated only by a full moon high in the sky on American culture. past four years and offers an outsider’s take on a rapidly and reflected on the back of a girl. changing society. in “Mythology,” which large says captures the metamorphous of individuin “lost Angels,” large portrays lonely, seemingly lost girls. the images als as they transform into character, we see portraits of women wearing are blurred and unfocused and suggestive of gerhard richter’s style of fragblank expressions like masks hiding their true intentions and identities. mented reality. the lack of sharpness renders the girls strangely dreamy in large’s signature blurring both distorts and amplifies the focus of the frame, a helpless, pitiable sort of way. as viewers try to get a bead on the person in the shaky picture.

SIDEBAR

Outside Looking In

August 2013

Photos: oAs AMA | Art MuseuM of the AMericAs collectioN

Tikashi Fukushima’s “Verde,” top, and Manabu Mabe’s “solemn Pact” are highlighted in “fusion: tracing Asian Migration to the Americas through AMA’s collection” at the Art Museum of the Americas.

Diffuse photographs paired with writing comprise “Margins,” which blends abstraction and realism while highlighting the influence of our surroundings. individual words are discernible but not sentences. two ballerinas in red, their hair piled high, stand by a wall in one scene, while another depicts the bearded, elongated, barely visible face of a man against a yellow parchment background. large currently lives in washington, D.c., where she is a professor of philosophy and photography at the french international school. she’s also participated in various conferences and workshops to discuss the correlation between photography and philosophy — a correlation that clearly informs her body of work. “Photography shows what cannot be said and writing says what cannot be seen,” large mused. “All of these people — they are captured, but they are living.” “The Burning of Visibility: From Reality to Dream” runs through Aug. 9 at the Art Museum of the Americas F Street Gallery, 1889 F St., NW. For more information, please call (202) 370-0147 or visit www.museum.oas.org. — Audrey hoffer

The Washington Diplomat Page 33

[ dining ]

Fabio, Simplified at Fiola, Maestro Wunderkind Comes Down to earth With Heavenly Creations by rachel G. hunt

hen Fabio Trabocchi returned to Washington in 2011, it was to open Fiola, the first restaurant of his own.The location was significant. It was the spot where Bice once operated, and where he began his career in Washington. The goal of Fiola, a modern upscale trattoria, was to use traditional Italian dishes, many of which Trabocchi learned as a child growing up in Le Marche (a heavily agricultural region of Italy on the Adriatic Coast), as a springboard for his modern adaptations. The chef was laden with accolades for his modern interpretations helming Maestro, the ultra haute restaurant in the Tysons Corner Ritz-Carlton. He was named Food & Wine magazine’s best new chef in 2002, chef of the year in 2005 by the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington, and the James Beard Foundation’s best chef in the midAtlantic in 2006. In 2007, he left Maestro to open Fiamma in New York. Despite earning high praise from critics, and changing the menu to make it more broadly accessible, the primary owner closed Fiamma to open another concept in the space. Some initial reactions to Fiola suggested that Trabocchi did not reach the same pinnacle that he’d achieved guiding the kitchen of the acclaimed Maestro. But he had returned from New York with a lesson learned from the economic downturn — that even a much-lauded restaurant can be too expensive to survive. And the Maestro model was an exorbitant one. Trabocchi’s dishes at Maestro were renowned for their subtly and complexity, and while nominally Italian, borrowed heavily from French cuisine. Everything was perfectly fresh, but the emphasis was not on locally sourced, seasonally available ingredients. Rather it was based on getting just the right ingredients from wherever necessary, regardless of cost. At Fiola, the Italian origins are more direct and the approach simpler. The menu is structured as a typical Italian meal, with choices of antipasti, pasta, fish, main meat courses, vegetable sides, and sweets and cheeses. Throughout, Trabocchi hews to the cornerstone of Italian cooking: fresh, seasonal and locally grown produce — the kind his father used to pick out at the farm and prepare the next day for the family on Sundays. Fiola’s menu changes daily, based on what’s available. This time of year, when local produce is abundant,Trabocchi offers an education on how even something as plain as summer squash can be transformed. On a recent visit, the menu featured a side dish of roastFiola ed pattypan and long neck squash served 601 Pennsylvania Ave., Nw over a meatless tomato ragu and accented (202) 628-2888 with unsmoked bacon and basil. The dish, stunningly perfect in its simplicity, gives the www.fioladc.com false impression you could just whip it up at Lunch: Mon. - fri., 11:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. home. At its core, that is what Italian cooking is all about, and it highlights the fundadinner: Mon. - thu., 5:30 - 10:30 p.m.; mental difference between Maestro and fri., 5:30 - 11:30 p.m.; sat., 5 - 11:30 p.m., Fiola. The former was awe-inspiring but closed sun. rather foreboding, the latter comprehensiAppetizers: $18 - $24 ble and inviting. That said, Trabocchi has not sacrificed entrées: $24 - $80 any of his creativity. Fiola’s dishes demondesserts: $10 - $12 strate his hallmark ability to texture and layer flavors, but on a less rarified scale. A reservations: Accepted house special, the veal chop, prepared with dress: Business casual or upscale chic alba hazelnuts, sautéed wild mushrooms, ossobuco sauce and gremolada, is a robust combination with an almost earthy appeal. The pappardelle pasta reveals rich dairy notes of parmigiano that give way to a slightly acidic ragu Bolognese melded with aromatic homemade sausage and the savory balance of royal trumpet mushrooms.And the Guinea hen, smoked with hay, is paired with meaty eggplant, sour cherries, rich foie gras and a nutty marsala. It is these unexpected, but delicious, combinations that offer a window into Trabocchi’s talent. But not all of the dishes at Fiola depend on complex combinations for their effect. Some focus on highlighting the primary ingredient. The daily choice of fresh fish, for

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Photos: JessicA lAtos

After helming the widely acclaimed Maestro, chef fabio trabocchi, pictured above, returned to his italian roots for fiola, a modern upscale trattoria that will soon be joined by two more casual trabocchi ventures in D.c.

example, is grilled simply with only lemon or salsa verde, a risky approach unless you cook the fish perfectly, which Fiola’s kitchen does. As a coastal area, fish and seafood are central elements of the cuisine from La Marche, so naturally Trabocchi has included them throughout Fiola’s menu. Brodetto, a fish stew from the Adriatic Coast, demonstrates Trabocchi’s mastery of the traditional. His version, which varies daily, consists of a main fish (on recent visits it was Atlantic wolffish and branzino) cooked in a light tomato-based broth with an assortment of shellfish, in the shell. While light, the intense seafood flavor makes it a thoroughly satisfying dish. But perhaps one of the best seafood renderings is the Ahi tuna carpaccio. In Trabocchi’s version, which is more substantial than others, chunks of the tender raw tuna sit on a bed of roasted tomatoes, just slightly darker in color than the fish, and are topped with skinless segments of sweet Meyer lemon, taggiasche olives, yuzu juice, and a dollop of a slightly bitter sorrel cream. One of Trabocchi’s strategies is to surround himself with talent that rivals his own. He tapped existing relationships and D.C.’s expanding pool of restaurant professionals to create a team at Fiola that could ensure a consistent level of quality and performance.To handle the dolci side of things, he recruited longtime colleague Tom Wellings, who worked with him at Maestro and Fiamma and also served as pastry chef at both Equinox and Restaurant Eve before joining Fiola.

August 2013

Wellings refines and updates classic Italian desserts, producing specialties such as the Bomboloni — light-as-air ricotta doughnuts served with a dense burnt honey gelato. His panna cotta, made with goats milk and paired with fresh fruit and a fruit sorbet (recently sour cherry), is much more intensely flavored than the typical version. Layering is also evident on the dessert menu, literally. The Zuppa Inglese is a parfait-style delight of mascarpone custard, cake, Limoncello granita and macerated berries. Scooping down through the dish, you get a bite that is sweet, tart, cold and creamy all at once. One thing to note, Wellings’s desserts are consistently less sweet, in some cases considerably so, than their traditional counterparts. Trabocchi also brought on Jeff Faile, an accomplished mixologist formerly with Palena, to create a beverage program for Fiola that would complement his focus on fresh ingredients and distinct flavors in classic yet innovative preparations. Faile’s beverage menu offers an extensive array of aperitifs, negroni, cocktails, bottle craft beers and artisanal liquors. Even among the increasingly whimsical cocktail concoctions at top area bars, Faile’s pairings stand out. For instance, Ain’t That a Daisy, a Milagro Tequila-based drink, introduces hibiscus cordial as the dominant note. Lime and grapefruit juice balance the floral element for a totally tropical (bit not too sweet) effect. On the darker side, Smoke Gets in Your Rye is an almost menacing brew

of Rittenhouse Rye whiskey, Los Amantes mezcal, Cocchi Vermouth, Averna liqueur, habanero tincture (a concentrated alcohol infusion) and chocolate bitters. The Jolanda, on the other hand, made with Maraschino liqueur and prosecco, is a sweet little flibbertigibbet of a drink. One major criticism of Fiola lies in calling itself a trattoria, albeit an upscale one. One tends to think of a trattoria as an eating place for the people. Not so at Fiola. It is very expensive, though not on the scale of Maestro. Its décor is appealing, but undeniably elegant (though without the bland understatement that characterized Maestro), despite the exposed brick designed to lend a rustic air that echoes the down-to-earth nature of the menu. Perhaps that’s why Trabocchi is diverging from Fiola’s upscale roots to open two more low-key restaurants in D.C., the casual Casa Luca, which opened in July in the space that once housed the gastropub Againn, and seafoodfocused Fiola Mare, scheduled to debut at the end of the year in the Washington Harbour. The ventures show that the venerated chef is not only back in town, but here to stay and further refine his craft. While Maestro was a showcase of a talented young chef’s technical expertise and creative brilliance, Fiola feels like the confident assertion of a more mature restaurateur comfortable with keeping things simple. Rachel G. Hunt is the restaurant reviewer for The Washington Diplomat.

Photo: JessicA lAtos

Fiola’s menu hews to the cornerstone of italian cooking: fresh, seasonal and locally grown produce, with simple ingredients given innovative makeovers.

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Spouses

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Difficult, yes, but its position has also presented the country with the chance to portray itself as the secular antithesis of the conservative clerical regime in Iran, with whom Baku has frosty relations. Scantily clad pop stars such as Jennifer Lopez, Shakira and Rihanna have all performed in Baku, a glitzy modern capital often described as a cross between Paris and Dubai. Azerbaijan also won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2011 and as the winners, hosted the hugely popular event in 2012, a crowning achievement in the country’s Western outreach. “Azerbaijanis love music.We have a lot of international classical and folk music festivals,” said Abdurahimova.“When we won Eurovision, it was only our fourth time to enter. The first time we were eighth [place], the second time we were third, the third time we were fifth, and then we won the fourth time in 2011! What a showcase — we didn’t expect it. And now this year we were second. For a young country like Azerbaijan, it is wonderful for people, all of Europe, to know all about us.” Azerbaijan may be young, but it’s been an ancient crossroads between Europe and the Caucasus.Today, the country’s historical treasures serve as a backdrop to a rapidly modernizing society. “Inside historic Old [Town] Baku, you’ll find a 24-hour café culture, especially in the summer,” Abdurahimova said. Not far from the cobblestone streets of Old Town, a Four Seasons hotel rises above Baku’s sprawling waterfront promenade, joining other international chains such as Hilton that have set up shop in the capital city. The government is hoping to entice tourists to visit Azerbaijan, despite sometimes-hefty visa fees and a lack of development outside the capital. Abdurahimova though says the country offers plenty of diversions for intrepid travelers. “Leave Baku and you can be skiing in the mountains and enjoying the resorts there. Besides the beach resorts on the Caspian Sea, the tea plantations in Lankaran also beckon. Out of 11 climate zones, we have nine,” she said. And visitors won’t go hungry.“Kabobs and rice pilafs are native fare and sturgeon and caviar from the Caspian Sea are favorites, but so is meat, especially chicken and lamb,” she said, noting that fruit holds a special place on the Azerbaijani dinner table. “We have wonderful fruits — pomegran-

The Japanese-born Mabe (1924-97) came to Brazil as a child, worked in a coffee plantation, made a living as a young adult peddling his own hand-painted ties for 85 cents to $1.15, and painted at night. When finally recognized as an artist he was catapulted to fame. Time magazine declared 1959 “The Year of Manabu Mabe.” Tikashi Fukushima (1920-2001), also a Brazil immigrant born in Japan, is represented here with “Verde,” a large abstract oil done primarily in two shades of iridescent green. The sea of green is interrupted by a turmoil of black, brown and a splash of red that speaks to Fukushima’s deftness in creating sweeping brushstrokes of luminous color. Born to a Japanese immigrant father and Peruvian mother in 1932, Venancio Shinki painted “Tierras Bien” in a style that echoes Paul Klee. Specks of ivory, brown and yellow float against a tawny gold backdrop in airy, semi-transparent suspension. Meanwhile, Eduardo Tokeshi’s oversize white-on-white collages “Pajaro” and “Ventana de Luz” resemble fabric stretched and tied over curved rods that could be hangars. The Peruvian artist with Japanese parents epitomizes the soul of an immigrant’s child: “I always say that I was educated on the island of Okinawa, in the center of Lima.” Likewise, M.P.Alladin (1919-80) embodies the cultural transplant. Born in Trinidad and Tobago to Indian parents, he was an art teacher who promoted the mixing of island styles in his students’ work, contrary to prevailing mores that encouraged Western or European traditions. Indeed, “Las Palmas” has a strong Latin character, featuring black intermingling palm fronds on a deep blue background punctuated with violet-red splotches. The abstract piece conveys the lightness of Caribbean air as the palms seem to sway and wave. Mexican artist Gunther Gerzso’s “La Casa de Tataniuh”appears to mimic Piet Mondrian with its geometric lines and palette of red,

August 2013

Fusion

Photo: gAil scott

Lala Abdurahimova, pictured with her husband, Azerbaijani Ambassador elin suleymanov, helped to organize a massive National Day celebration this summer at the Andrew w. Mellon Auditorium that attracted nearly 650 guests.

ates, grapes, apricots, peaches, cherries, persimmons and a very unusual fruit called feijoa, which tastes like a pineapple mixed with a guava.” She incorporated some of that indigenous cuisine at the country’s recent National Day extravaganza in Washington inside the cavernous Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium. Abdurahimova was the main organizer of the event, which drew nearly 650 people. She brought in a band from Los Angeles and designed a festive atmosphere that featured multihued lighting and Azerbaijani table decorations, with help from Heba Al-Tamimi, head of event planning at the embassy. Abdurahimova was especially proud of her pomegranate centerpieces, an homage to the popular Azerbaijani fruit. “Washington,” she explained,“is a very stressful place. We wanted our National Day to be fun, so everyone could relax and celebrate. So we brought a singer from L.A. who is Argentinean. Her name is Maria Entraigues. And then we had a DJ after that. My husband and I danced first when the music started so everyone else would start. We didn’t stop dancing until 10:30 and would have gone longer if it hadn’t been a work day the next day.” Gail Scott is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat and Diplomatic Pouch.

Photos: oAs AMA | Art MuseuM of the AMericAs collectioN

eduardo Tokeshi, a Peruvian artist with Japanese parents, creates oversize whiteon-white collages such as “Pajaro.”

white and golden brown but is wholly original. This colorful silkscreen is an abstract portrayal of a cityscape — with a tilt of the eye you can envision the buildings.The artist’s “layered inter-locking geometries suggest a metaphorical excavation of Mexico’s indigenous legacy,” reads the wall text beside the print. Gerzso is not of Asian heritage and this print isn’t part of the exhibit. But it’s interesting to look at his work alongside his Latin-Asian contemporaries in the other room.The paintings echo each other in certain elements and styles yet each have their own distinct personality — much like the larger melting pot of Latin cultures that have influenced each other while retaining their individual flavor. Venancio Shinki could’ve been speaking for all Asian-descended artists when he said: “Although Japan is indeed part of my heart and veins, I am profoundly Peruvian and Latin American.” Audrey Hoffer is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

Plan your entire weekend. www.washdiplomat.com

The Washington Diplomat Page 35

[ film reviews ]

Whole of History ‘Our Nixon’ Takes Expansive Look at Presidency, Beyond Watergate by Ky N. Nguyen

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merican director/co-producer Penny Lane’s distinctively personal documentary “Our Nixon” celebrated its D.C. premiere at the recent AFI Docs film festival, right off the National Mall in the historic National Archives, fittingly where much of the documentary’s primary source material resided. The packed “Our Nixon” premiere was an example of the ambitious efforts by AFI Docs, newly rebranded after 10 years as Silverdocs, to expand beyond its previous base in Silver Spring, Md. (also see “New Decade, New Name for Expanding Documentary Showcase” in the June 2013 issue of The Washington Diplomat). After the premiere, CNN’s “The Lead” anchor Jake Tapper moderated a panel, including remarks from two senior aides to former President Richard Nixon: speechwriter Lee Huebner and special assistant Dwight Chapin. Only a few documentaries have been made about the ignominious presidency of Nixon, who resigned in disgrace under threat of impeachment from the Watergate scandal.Yet “Our Nixon” provides a particularly unique perspective with its high use of original source material. To accurately depict the Nixon presidency’s rise and fall as it actually appeared at the time, Lane and co-producer Brian Frye adroitly utilize a bevy of historical footage, which Lane calls “the best way to experience history as it was lived.” Super 8 film still courtesy of Dipper Films Stock interview and news clips include President Richard Nixon is surrounded by nearly 90 members of the press corps, including Helen Thomas to his left and Barbara Our Nixon Chapin’s observation in Walters to his right, during Nixon’s historic trip to China in 1972. “Our Nixon” uses reams of original source material to docu(English; 84 min.) 1974 about Watergate, ment Nixon’s presidency. CNN/U.S. (cable) when he proclaimed, “I don’t think you can take that little piece of histo- between the White House and the media, the damaging leak of the Pentagon Papers, Aug. 1 to 11; check local listings ry, which may have been the darkest days of and the shocking revelations of the Watergate break-in. Theater TBA Richard Nixon’s career, and construct, from that, a Opens Fri., Aug. 30 The Act of Killing mosaic that tells you all about the man.” Mass Murder as Musical ★★★★✩ “Our Nixon” exposes intimate scenes carefully (Indonesian and English with English At AFI Docs 2013, one of the most disturbing, innoselected from more than 500 reels of previously subtitles; 122 min.) forgotten home movies shot in Super 8 by whiz kid Chapin,White House chief of staff vative and must-see films was “The Act of Killing,” Landmark’s E Street Cinema H.R. Haldeman and domestic affairs advisor John Ehrlichman. Their individual film directed by American filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer (“The Entire History of the Louisiana Purchase”) and diaries visualize the Nixon administration’s early excitement following Nixon’s elec★★★★★ executive produced tion in 1968, capping his remarkby German auteur able political comeback after losWerner Herzog (“Encounters at the End of the World,” ing the 1960 presidential race to “Grizzly Man”) and American master documentarian John F. Kennedy and the 1962 Errol Morris (“The Fog of War,”“The Thin Blue Line”). California governor’s election to Morris was also fêted at the National Archives for his Pat Brown. It continues with the lifetime body of work as the 2013 honoree of the political successes and public prestigious Guggenheim Symposium at AFI Docs. goodwill surrounding landmark In the filmmakers’ radical approach to documenevents such as NASA’s Apollo 11 tary storytelling, “The Act of Killing” depicts the landing on the moon in 1969, the strange tale of Indonesian killing squad leaders by White House Rose Garden weddeploying outlandish cinematic visual stunts in which ding of Nixon’s daughter Tricia in the actual criminals, including main subject Anwar 1971, and Nixon’s historic diploCongo and his colleagues, role-play in front of the matic visit to China in 1972. That camera.The leaders are asked to re-enact their real-life year, Nixon overwhelmingly won mass killings in whichever cinematic genres they re-election, nabbing an extraordichoose, including classic Hollywood crime capers nary 49 out of 50 states in the and lavish musical numbers. Electoral College. Photo: Drafthouse Films The psychedelic result provokes challenging quesThough lacking video, equally tions about reality, morality and society — declining to candid are audio selections sifted The leaders of Indonesian death squads who went on a killing spree in the mid-1960s dispense overly simplistic answers digestible in readily from close to 4,000 hours of audio- to purge the country of communists re-enact their genocide in spectacular fashion in understood sound bites. In “The Act of Killing,” the tapes secretly recorded in Nixon’s “The Act of Killing.” real-life mass murderers take pleasure dancing in choWhite House. Complemented by news reels, these tapes recall how Nixon’s presidency was later engulfed by escalating reographed musical numbers.They also act as cowboys who yodel while they happily turmoil, including protests and opposition to the Vietnam War, rising mutual mistrust work and ride down the prairies. Perhaps closer to home, the death squad leaders

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August 2013

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portray classic gangster parts in re-enactThe Hunt ments of organized crime shot in film (Jagten) noir tradition — all while re-enacting (Danish, English and Polish with English gruesome, merciless killings. subtitles; 111 min.; scope) “The Act of Killing” delves into a pecuLandmark’s E Street Cinema liar aspect of contemporary Indonesian society in which the heads of death ★★★★★ squads are still celebrated as national heroes.The state-sanctioned killers were led by the likes of Anwar, who rose from accused protagonist Lucas. petty criminal to his current status as a Vinterberg and co-writer Tobias self-confessed mass murderer proud of Lindholm’s intelligent screenplay deftly personally taking the lives of hundreds. lays out an intricate story architecture: After a 1965 coup that took down the Following the double whammy of a rough existing government, assassin teams prodivorce and losing his job, highly admired liferated to wipe out the new enemies of schoolteacher Lucas (Mikkelsen) must the state: alleged communists and their start again. He has endured limited visitasympathizers. The hit squads’ brutal tion privileges with his teenage son Marcus purge accumulated into a full-fledged (Lasse Fogelstrøm), but things look promisPhoto: Per Arnesen / Magnolia Pictures genocide, leaving an estimated 500,000 ing for Marcus to return to live with Lucas Mads Mikkelsen, left, plays a teacher whose attempts to rebuild his life are derailed by a child’s up to 1 million dead across Indonesia full time. Lucas is also hired as a kindergar(backed in part by Western governten teacher, which leads to a potential budwrongful accusations in “The Hunt.” ments). ding romance with a foreign colleague Since Anwar and his contemporaries (Alexandra Rapaport). both in real life and on screen. have already been quite open about their past misdeeds, Meanwhile, his 5-year-old student Klara (Annika for which they have effectively enjoyed immunity, they Wedderkopp), the daughter of his best friend Theo were more than happy to cooperate with the filmmakers Wrenching Witch Hunt (Thomas Bo Larsen), develops a playful crush on him. for “The Act of Killing.” Their brazen lack of remorse and Following its world premiere at the 2012 Cannes When her physical affection exceeds societal norms, he flippant attitude toward mass murder can be both mes- International Film Festival, “The Hunt” has been widely carefully resets his boundaries with her, which she intermerizing and nauseating. At one point, Anwar matter-of- called the best work from respected Danish writer-direc- prets as rejection, hurting her immature feelings. Her factly says, “War crimes are defined by the winners. I’m a tor Thomas Vinterberg (“Submarino,”“It’s All About Love”) imagination leads her to wrongfully accuse Lucas of indewinner.” since he helmed 1998’s “The Celebration.”At Cannes,“The cent exposure, which shatters Lucas’s modicum of progBut Oppenheimer’s documentary wasn’t seeking to Hunt” built a lot of buzz, though Vinterberg lost the cov- ress rebuilding his life. Klara’s false claim spreads like merely shoot interviews in which the killers confess to eted Palme d’Or to Michael Haneke for “Amour.” wildfire throughout their small, tight-knit community, their crimes on camera, which would be gotcha moments As a consolation prize, Vinterberg did take home the damning poor Lucas who is assumed by most to be guilty for standard documentaries. Instead, he offers an extraor- Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, while Danish leading man before proven innocent. For the most part, he must stand dinarily surreal look at genocide that startles the senses, and international crossover star Mads Mikkelsen (“Casino alone in defending himself from the ensuing witch hunt. and scruples — atrocities that Anwar and his buddies Royale,” “A Royal Affair”) deserved his Best Actor prize at were more than happy to orchestrate and participate in, Cannes for his intense, haunting portrayal of wrongfully Ky N. Nguyen is the film reviewer for The Washington Diplomat.

Repertory Notes

by Washington Diplomat film reviewer Ky N. Nguyen

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

Freer Gallery of Art The new series “Seen and Not Seen: Thai Cinema Today” kicks off with “36” (Fri., Aug. 9, 7:30 p.m.), preceded by a 6 p.m. reception sponsored by the Thai Embassy, and continues with “Tang Wong” (Sun., Aug. 11, 1 p.m.), “Mekong Hotel” (Sun., Aug. 11, 3 p.m.) and “Shyamal Uncle Turns Off the Lights” (Sun., Aug. 18, 2 p.m.) with director Suman Ghosh and producer Arindam Ghosh in person. Cosponsored by the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, the crowd-pleasing 18th annual Made in Hong Kong Film Festival concludes with its viewer’s choice: Wong Kar-wai’s “Days of Being Wild” (Fri., Aug. 2, 7 p.m.; Sun., Aug. 4, 2 p.m.), the final film in the Freer’s tribute to the late Leslie Cheung, also starring Maggie Cheung and Andy Lau. ((202) 357-2700, www.asia.si.edu/events/films.asp

National Gallery of Art National Gallery screenings in August include the D.C. premiere of French director Bruno Dumont’s “Hors Satan” (Sun., Aug. 25, 4:30 p.m.), the D.C. premiere of Italian auteur brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani’s “Caesar Must Die” (Sat., Aug. 31, 4 p.m.; Sun., Sept. 1, 2 p.m.), and American filmmakers Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine’s doc “Ballets Russes” (Sat., Aug. 3, 2:30 p.m.; Sat., Aug. 24, 2:30 p.m.) “The Hitchcock 9” retrospective of British-born master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock’s silent films restored by the British Film Institute, presented with AFI Silver, concludes at the National Gallery with a ciné-concert of “The Pleasure Garden” with live musical performance by Andrew Simpson (Sun., Aug. 4, 4:30 p.m.). (202) 842-6799, www.nga.gov/programs/film

American Film Institute (AFI) Silver Theatre “The Hitchcock 9” retrospective at AFI Silver, presented in association with the National Gallery of Art, offers restorations of Britishborn Alfred Hitchcock’s silent movies, concluding with “The Farmer’s

August 2013

Wife” with live musical accompaniment by Andrew Simpson (Sat., Aug. 3, 5 p.m.). Continuing series include “Ozploitation: Australian Genre Classics” (through Sept. 9), “Scandinavian Crime Cinema” (through Sept. 18), “70mm Spectacular, Part 2” (through Sept. 2), “Ernest Borgnine Remembered” (through Sept. 18) and “Totally Awesome 7: Great Films of the 1980s” (through Sept. 14). (301) 495-6700, www.afi.com/silver

Goethe-Institut Friendship, Freedom, Tolerance: 50 Years French-German Friendship The series “Friendship, Freedom, Tolerance: 50 Years FrenchGerman Friendship” continues its celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Élysée Treaty with “We Shall Overcome | Break the Power of the Manipulators | Inextinguishable Fire” (Mon., Aug. 12, 6:30 p.m.); Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s “Love Is Colder than Death” (Mon., Aug. 19, 6:30 p.m.); and “We Shall Overcome | Yesterday Girl” (Mon., Aug. 26, 6:30 p.m.). (202) 289-1200, www.goethe.de/ins/us/was/kue/flm/enindex.htm

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

Bengali Shyamal Uncle Turns Off the Lights Directed by Suman Ghosh (India, 2012, 65 min.)

After noticing that the streetlights in his neighborhood stay on all day, 80-year-old Kolkata retiree Shyamal Uncle goes on a mission to stop this wasteful expense of electricity. Freer Gallery of Art Sun., Aug. 18, 2 p.m.

Cantonese Days of Being Wild (A Fei jingjyuhn) Directed by Wong Kar-wai (Hong Kong, 1991, 94 min.)

Yuddy, an aimless young man who discovers he was adopted, decides to search for his birthmother. While on his quest, he seduces and abandons a demure shop clerk. She befriends a cop, who in turn takes Yuddy to task for his self-obsessed life philosophy. Freer Gallery of Art Fri., Aug. 2, 7 p.m., Sun., Aug. 4, 2 p.m.

Czech Love is Love (Láska je láska) Directed by Milan Cieslar (Czech Republic, 2012, 105 min.)

An 18-year-old pianist, who lost her sight at age 10 and lives with her overprotective grandfather, falls in love with a dark-haired gypsy boy while her grandfather runs into his own long-lost love. The Avalon Theatre Wed., Aug. 7, 8 p.m.

Danish

A small-time drug dealer, in massive debt to a Balkan drug baron, trolls the Copenhagen underworld to raise the funds that will save his life (Danish, Swedish and Serbo-Croatian). AFI Silver Theatre Fri., Aug. 2, 8:15 p.m., Sat., Aug. 3, 9:30 p.m., Thu., Aug. 8, 7:30 p.m.

With Blood On My Hands: Pusher II Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn (Denmark/U.K., 2004, 100 min.)

Released from his latest stint in prison, Tonny quickly falls back into the Copenhagen criminal life, desperate to finally impress his father, the criminal kingpin known as the Duke (Danish and SerboCroatian). AFI Silver Theatre Fri., Aug. 9, 8 p.m., Sat., Aug. 10, 9:20 p.m., Thu., Aug. 15, 7:15 p.m.

English Ballet Russes Directed by Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine (U.S., 2005, 118 min.)

From the Diaghilev-era early years in turnof-the-century Paris, to the American tours of the 1930s and 1940s, to the final downfall in the 1950s and 1960s, this documentary presents rare interviews and dance footage in a compelling portrait of revolutionary Ballet Russes. National Gallery of Art Sat., Aug. 3 and 24, 2:30 p.m.

Cleopatra Directed by Joseph Mankiewicz (U.K./U.S./Switzerland, 1963, 258 min.)

Restoring more than 40 minutes of deleted scenes, this newly restored chronicle of the life of Egypt’s cunning queen, embodied by Elizabeth Taylor, more elegantly breaks her story arc into two parts: Cleopatra and Caesar, and Cleopatra and Mark Antony.

Flickering Lights (Blinkende lygter)

AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Aug. 17, 2 p.m., Sun., Aug. 18, 6:45 p.m.

Directed by Anders Thomas Jensen (Denmark/Sweden, 2000, 109 min.)

The Dirty Dozen

Four Copenhagen gangsters run away from their mob boss to retire in Spain. But when they’re forced to lie low in a small village, the charms of country life win them over, and they opt to go into the restaurant business together. AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Aug. 24, 1:30 p.m., Thu., Aug. 29, 7:10 p.m.

I’m the Angel of Death: Pusher III Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn (Denmark, 2005, 90 min.)

Serbian drug lord Milo looks to unload a large shipment of ecstasy while busy with preparations to host his daughter’s 25th birthday party. Unfamiliar with this new drug, he makes a risky offer to the young guns looking to grab an ever-larger piece of his action (Danish, Serbian and Polish). AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Aug. 17, 9:30 pm., Thu., Aug. 22, 7 p.m.

Pusher Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn (Denmark, 1996, 105 min.)

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Directed by Robert Aldrich (U.S./U.K., 1967, 150 min.)

The “dirty dozen” are a group of military misfits and criminals given a reprieve from the brig to carry out an especially dangerous assignment. The objective is a brothel hosting high-ranking German officers and the operative command is “anything goes.” AFI Silver Theatre Fri. Aug. 2, 5:15 p.m., Sat., Aug. 3, 1:30 p.m., Wed., Aug. 7, 6:45 p.m.

Ice Station Zebra Directed by John Sturges (U.S., 1968, 148 min.)

When a Soviet satellite crashes in the Arctic circle, a commander must stealthily pilot the submarine USS Triggerfish beneath the sea ice to capture the satellite, with a British intelligence agent, Russian deserter and U.S. marine by his side. AFI Silver Theatre Fri., Aug. 16, 5:15 p.m., Sun., Aug. 18, 11 a.m., Mon., Aug. 19, 6:30 p.m.

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT The Last Contract (Sista kontraktet) Directed by Kjell Sundvall (Sweden/Norway/Finland, 1998, 115 min.)

A Stockholm cop receives word that a British hit man arrived in town and has no sooner begun to investigate the lead than he is called off and told to forget it (English and Swedish). AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Aug. 31, 12 p.m.

The Last Unicorn Directed by Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin Jr. (U.S./U.K./Japan/Germany, 1982, 92 min.)

Fearing she’s the last of her kind, unicorn Amalthea goes to the realm of King Haggard in hopes of finding her lost brethren. But after being transformed into a beautiful young woman, Amalthea catches the eye of the king’s son. AFI Silver Theatre Mon., Aug. 12, 7:15 p.m., Sat., Aug. 17, 11:05 a.m.

Lawrence of Arabia Directed by David Lean (U.K., 1962, 237 min.)

Legendary British officer T.E. Lawrence rallies the Arabs against Turkish invaders during World War I in this masterpiece of 70mm photography. AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Aug, 31, 2:45 p.m.

Long Weekend Directed by Colin Eggleston (Australia, 1978, 92 min.)

With their marriage on the rocks, Peter coaxes his reluctant wife to quit their suburban home for a camping trip in the outback. During their car trip, Peter, asleep at the wheel, runs over a kangaroo and leaves the wounded animal to die, causing Australia’s animal kingdom to exact revenge. AFI Silver Theatre Mon., Aug. 19, 9:20 p.m., Wed., Aug. 21, 9:20 p.m.

The Man from Hong Kong (aka Dragon Flies) Directed by Jimmy Wang Yu and Brian Trenchard-Smith (Australia/Hong Kong, 1975, 111min.)

A Hong Kong special branch inspector travels to Sydney to investigate the Australian connection to a dangerous international drug ring. AFI Silver Theatre Fri., Aug. 2, 10:30 p.m., Sun., Aug. 4, 8:30 p.m.

The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey Directed by Vincent Ward (Australia/New Zealand, 1988, 90 min.)

Fearing the black plague may be imminent, a young psychic believes he can rescue his fellow villagers by leading them into an abandoned mine, where dig to the center of the earth, only to emerge upon a future bustling New Zealand city street. AFI Silver Theatre Aug. 10 to Aug. 14

Patrick Directed by Richard Franklin (Australia, 1978, 112 min.)

Troubled teen Patrick possesses frightening psychokinetic powers, and, after murdering his mother and her lover in a rage, falls into a coma. But when the hospital plans to

August 2013

AFI Docs Wrap Up At the recently concluded AFI Docs presented by Audi, the Audience Award for Best Feature was presented to director Yoruba Richen’s “The New Black,” an insightful documentary exploring the divide over gay marriage among black voters, including its entrenched opposition by African American churchgoers. The Audience Award for Best Short went to director Joshua Izenberg for “Slomo,” a fresh look at doctor John Kitchin’s leisurely but fulfilling life rollerblading on the beach after giving up his successful but hectic medical practice. “While this was a transformational year for the festival with an expanded footprint into the heart of Washington, D.C., at our core remains a commitment to celebrating the best in the documentary form. The tremendous enthusiasm and response to the film program and its related panels surpassed even our highest expectations,” said Sky Sitney, AFI Docs director. The AFI Docs film festival, previously thriving as Silverdocs for 10 years, completed a successful first year under its new name, which marks the film fest’s expansion beyond Silver Spring, Md., and the American Film Institute’s foray back into D.C., where its 1965 founding was initially announced in the White House Rose Garden. AFI Docs unspooled 53 films from 30 countries in prominent cultural venues across the city. Among this year’s 19,000 attendees were 845 filmmak-

pull the plug on their costly patient, Patrick once again uses his powers to seek revenge. AFI Silver Theatre Fri., Aug. 9, 10 p.m., Sun., Aug. 11, 9:25 p.m.

Raiders of the Lost Ark Directed by Steven Spielberg (U.S., 1981, 115 min.)

From the steamy South American jungle to snowy Nepalese mountaintops to the dusty Egyptian desert, Indiana Jones battles ruthless Nazis to discover an ancient relic in the film that started the blockbuster series. AFI Silver Theatre Fri., Aug. 16, 8:15 p.m., Sat., Aug. 17, 11:30 a.m. and 7 p.m.

Razorback Directed by Russell Mulcahy (Australia, 1984, 95 min.)

Trucker Pat Quid is framed for murder by a clever highway serial killer. AFI Silver Theatre Fri., Aug. 23, 10 p.m., Sun., Aug. 25, 8:30 p.m.

Smilla’s Sense of Snow Directed by Bille August (Denmark/Germany/Sweden,

Photo: AFI Docs

Yoruba Richen’s “The New Black”

ers, documentary subjects, reporters, industry professionals, panel speakers and other special guests. Government officials and policymakers included Attorney General Eric Holder, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), and White House staffer Frances Anne Holuba. Film professionals appearing in person included 2013 Guggenheim Symposium honoree and Oscarwinning director Errol Morris, Pulitzer Prize winner and “Undocumented” director Jose Antonio Vargas, and AFI Docs opening night film “Letters to Jackie” director Bill Couturié. This year also marked the debut of the Public Policy Engagement Program, which provided forums for more than 52 filmmakers to engage with Obama administration officials and congressional policymakers in a “film and politics boot camp” that explored topics such as education, immigration, intellectual property and the role of humor in politics. — Ky N. Nguyen

1997, 121 min.)

Lonely Copenhagener Smilla Jasperson, a transplanted Greenlander, suspects foul play after the death of a neglected Inuit boy. Enlisting the aid of a mysterious mechanic, she uncovers a conspiracy stretching from her ancestral home to the Danish business elite. (English and Inuktitut). AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Aug. 31, 11 a.m.

Turkey Shoot Directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith (Australia, 1982, 93 min.)

In the dystopian future of 1995, “social deviants” are sent to nightmarish re-education camps. After an initial round of torture, they accept a dangerous deal: They will be hunted down as human prey in a “turkey shoot;” if they can elude their hunters until sundown, they will be set free. AFI Silver Theatre Fri., Aug. 16, 10:45 p.m., Sat., Aug. 17, 11:30 p.m., Thu., Aug. 22, 5 p.m.

Finnish Ariel Directed by Aki Kaurismäki

The Washington Diplomat

August 2013

(Finland, 1988, 73 min.)

Taisto is arrested and sent to jail, but along the way he also finds love with a single mom that keeps him going during his time in jail and inspires him to break out, pinning his hopes on an escape to Mexico aboard the ship Ariel. AFI Silver Theatre Sun., Aug. 25, 1:30 p.m., Wed., Aug. 28, 9:15 p.m.

Inspector Palmu’s Error (Komisario Palmun erehdys) Directed by Matti Kassila (Finland, 1960, 103 min.)

After hosting a crime-themed party, a wealthy playboy is found dead in his pool, and Inspector Palmu suspects foul play. AFI Silver Theatre Sun., Aug. 4, 2 p.m., Tue., Aug. 6, 7 p.m.

The Match Factory Girl Directed by Aki Kaurismäki (Finland, 1981, 68 min.)

Kaurismäki’s revisionary spin on Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Match Girl” casts the titular heroine as an exploited proletarian who goes looking for love in all the wrong places.

Yesterday Girl (Abschied von gestern) Directed by Alexander Kluge (Germany, 1966, 88 min.)

Anita G., a Jew, travels to West Germany from East Germany in 1966 but, having not come to terms with her past, is unable to successfully integrate into West German society (screens with “We Shall Overcome” (East Germany, 1971, 18 min.) about East German support to the U.S. civil rights movement).

Directed by Costas Kapakas (Greece, 2011, 95 min.)

Grappling with a personal crisis, the failed filmmaker of a hapless duo embarks on a road-trip odyssey to rival those of the ancient Greeks in this comedy that contrasts the beauty of the Greek landscape with the ugliness of the economic crisis. The Avalon Theatre Wed., Aug. 7, 8 p.m.

Icelandic

Muscle-bound Tóti finds his easygoing childhood friend a place in his gang, and for a while they enjoy easy access to cash, booze, drugs and girls. But the big boss demands a Satanic level of servitude from his minions.

Washington DCJCC Tue., Aug. 6, 7 p.m.

Hors Satan Directed by Bruno Dumont (France, 2011, 109 min.)

Driven by a private moral code, the destitute and solitary hero becomes the protector of a vulnerable village girl who bears her own share of torments. National Gallery of Art Sun., Aug. 25, 4:30 p.m.

You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet (Vois n’avez encore rien vu) Directed by Alain Resnais (France/Germany, 2012, 115 min.)

Directed by Óskar Thór Axelsson (Iceland, 2012, 104 min.)

AFI Silver Theatre Fri., Aug. 23, 7:45 p.m., Tue. Aug. 27, 9:30 p.m.

Italian Caesar Must Die Directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani (Italy, 2012, 76 min.)

Inmates perform a production of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” inside a maximum-security prison on the outskirts of Rome, reflecting the prisoners’ firsthand encounters with the loyalty-betrayalvengeance cycles of the criminal underworld. National Gallery of Art Sat., Aug. 31, 4 p.m.

The Girl By the Lake (La ragazza del lago) Directed by Andrea Molaioli (Italy, 2007, 96 min.)

A who’s-who of French acting royalty are summoned to the reading of a late playwright’s will in which he appears on a TV screen from beyond the grave and asks his erstwhile collaborators to evaluate a recording of an experimental theater company performing his “Eurydice,” a play they themselves all appeared in over the years.

Inspector Sanzio is called up from Rome to investigate the murder of a beautiful young girl in an idyllic lakeside village in Northern Italy.

The Avalon Theatre Wed., Aug. 21, 8 p.m.

Norwegian

German

A Somewhat Gentle Man (En ganske snill mann)

Love is Colder than Death (Liebe ist kälter als der Tod) Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Germany, 1969, 88 min.)

A small-time pimp forms a friendship with a gangster trying to recruit him into a large syndicate in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s debut film. Goethe-Institut Mon., Aug. 19, 6:30 p.m.

After his daughter weds, a prosperous middle-age widower decides to marry again, and with the aid of his faithful housekeeper, sets to finding a desirable mate with hilariously disastrous results.

Directed by Bo Widerberg (Sweden/Denmark, 1984, 106 min.)

AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Aug. 3, 5 p.m. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock (U.K./Germany, 1925, 75 min.)

French

A German-occupied Paris, a black marketer is given a chance to avoid jail by agreeing to spy on a Paris mosque where police suspect authorities are assisting Muslim Resistance agents and North African Jews.

The Man from Majorca (Mannen från Mallorca)

Greek Magic Hour

AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Aug. 24, 7 p.m., Wed., Aug. 28, 7:15 p.m.

Directed by Hans Petter Moland (Norway, 2010, 113 min.)

Released after a 12-year stint for murder, Stellan Skarsgård starts to reconnect with his ex-wife and son. But his former mob boss urges him to take revenge on the snitch who ratted him out (Norwegian and Swedish). AFI Silver Theatre Sun., Aug. 11, 5:15 p.m., Wed., Aug. 14, 7:15 p.m.

AFI Silver Theatre Thu., Aug. 1, 9:10 p.m.

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock (U.K., 1928, 107 min.)

The Pleasure Garden

Black’s Game (Svartur á leik)

Directed by Ismaël Ferroukhi (France, 2012, 99 min.)

The Farmer’s Wife

Goethe-Institut Mon., Aug. 26, 6:30 p.m.

AFI Silver Theatre Sun., Aug. 18, 4:15 p.m., Tue., Aug. 20, 5 p.m.

Free Men (Les homes libres)

Silent

A new restoration brings this seldom-seen masterwork focusing on the muddled romantic lives of two chorus girls back into the fold of Hitchcock’s most interesting early work (Andrew Simpson in performance). National Gallery of Art Sun., Aug. 4, 4:30 p.m.

Swedish Avalon Directed by Axel Petersén (Sweden, 2011, 79 min.)

Once a bright, young Stockholm scenester, Janne is now a 60-year-old party promoter, an ex-con living hand-to-mouth off his crinkly good looks and the few connections he still has for work.

Just as their investigation digs up promising leads on an audacious outlaw who robbed a crowded post office, two undercover cops are ordered to drop the case. AFI Silver Theatre Sun., Aug. 18, 2 p.m., Tue., Aug. 20, 7:10 p.m.

In the Name of the Law (I lagens namn) Directed by Kjell Sundvall (Sweden, 1986, 87 min.)

Aggressively keeping the peace, four violent Stockholm cops think nothing of preemptively using force on luckless punks, drunks and street hustlers. But after one of their victims turns up dead, an inspector uncovers the cops’ brutality. AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Aug. 24, 11:10 a.m., Sun., Aug. 25, 11:10 a.m.

Thai 36 Directed by Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit

(Thailand, 2012, 68 min.)

Constructed of just 36 shots, the film tells the story of a movie location scout who learns that memories captured with the click of a digital camera can just as easily be lost. Freer Gallery of Art Fri., Aug. 9, 7:30 p.m.

Mekong Hotel Directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand, 2012, 61 min.)

Friends Phon and Tong engage in casual conversations about love, reincarnation, Thai folklore and a ghost story about Phon’s mother, who turns out to be a supernatural known for feasting on human organs. Freer Gallery of Art Sun., Aug. 11, 3 p.m.

Tang Wong Directed by Kongdej Jaturanrasmee (Thailand, 2013, 83 min.)

This touching comedy centers on four teenage boys who each hope for success at Bangkok’s Luang Poo shrine. When their wishes surprisingly come true, they must give thanks by publicly performing a traditional Thai dance, even though it’s the last thing they want to do. Freer Gallery of Art Sun., Aug. 11, 1 p.m.

AFI Silver Theatre Fri., Aug. 30, 7 p.m.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest Directed by Daniel Alfredson (Sweden/Denmark, 2009, 147 min.)

As Lisbeth Salander is hospitalized with a bullet in her head, a triple homicide charge awaits her should she recover. So Mikael Blomvkist races against time to clear her name, setting the stage for a court trial that will pit them against entrenched, corrupt interests. AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Aug. 10, 11:10 a.m., Sun., Aug. 11, 11:10 a.m.

The Girl Who Played With Fire Directed by Daniel Alfredson (Sweden/Denmark, 2009, 129 min.)

Lisbeth Salander is framed for the murder of two journalists working on an exposé of the illegal sex trade in Sweden. To clear his friend’s name, Mikael Blomkvist delves deep into her traumatic personal history. AFI Silver Theatre Sat., Aug. 3, 11:10 a.m., Sun., Aug. 4, 11:10 a.m.

False Trail (Jägarna II) Directed by Kjell Sundvall (Sweden, 2011, 129 min.)

Erik returns to the Norrland police department he quit in disgust, his old boss having requested his help to investigate a grisly murder. But Norrland’s current top cop quickly declares the case closed. AFI Silver Theatre Mon, Aug. 5, 7 p.m., Tue., Aug. 6, 9:15 p.m.

READIN’

ART

’RITING ’RITHMETIC

Royal dukes are squaresville. They have no rhythm. And they wear crowns.

Give your kids a chance to succeed. Up their daily dose of art.

The Hunters (Jägarna) Directed by Kjell Sundvall (Sweden, 1996, 113 min.)

Returning to his hometown after the death of his father, Erik investigates the slaughter of the local Samis’ reindeer herd, uncovering a massive and lucrative organized poaching ring involving those closest to him.

August 2013

The Washington Diplomat Page 39

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August 2013 understanding of war, immersing viewers in the experience of soldiers and civilians through images by more than 200 photographers from 28 nations that span conflicts from the past 165 years — from the Mexican-American War through presentday conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

**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.

ences for more than 400 years. This 50-item display will feature manuscripts, printed scores, librettos, photographs, correspondence and set designs dating from the late 18th century through the beginning of the 20th century.

ART

Library of Congress James Madison Building

Corcoran Gallery of Art

Through Aug. 4

Aug. 27 to Sept. 30

Arts of Japan: Edo Aviary and Poetic License

Cardboard City

Through Oct. 6

Complementary but distinct installations examine two themes of Edo period art: “Edo Aviary,” which traces how depictions of birds were influenced by natural history painting, and “Poetic License: Making Old Words New,” which shows how classical Japanese and Chinese literary traditions were absorbed into the merchant and artisan classes.

Through Sept. 1

Through Aug. 4

David Levinthal, a central figure in the history of American postmodern photography, has staged uncanny tableaux using toys and miniature dioramas for nearly 40 years. Mounted to celebrate the museum’s acquisition of a major, career-spanning body of work, this exhibition is the first to feature all of the artist’s work on the subject of war.

Photographers Gabriel Benaim, José Manuel Castrellón and Lorena Endara examine the stunning transformation Panama has undertaken in the last few years, manifested into a real estate and building boom that has changed Panama City’s skyline.

Ellen Harvey’s new project is a glimpse into the world of the distant future. Human civilization having long since come to an end, the earth is populated now only by ruins, ripe for archeological interpretation by visitors from another planet. Attempting to make sense of what they find, Harvey’s aliens immediately mine the potential of one of the greatest neo-classical cities — Washington, D.C. — as a tourist destination.

Goethe-Institut

Freer Gallery of Art

Views of Panama

NOW at the Corcoran – Ellen Harvey: The Alien’s Guide to the Ruins of Washington, D.C.

Three artists from three countries — Ger many, the United States and Russia — present their aesthetic representations of the city as memorial and as a form of life. Their art — made using cardboard, a raw, industrial material that is available everywhere in the world — raises questions about that which surrounds and influences us.

David Levinthal: War Games

Photo: Music Center at Strathmore

On Aug. 1, Grammy-winning crooner Natalie Cole performs at the Music Center at Strathmore following the recent debut of her first Spanish-language album.

human form. Embassy of Argentina

OAS Art Museum of the Americas F Street Gallery

Corcoran Gallery of Art

Through Sept. 8

Through Sept. 1

Through Aug. 4

Georges Braque and the Cubist Still Life, 1928–1945

Over, Under, Next: Experiments in Mixed Media, 1913-Present

A World of Bonds: Frederick Sommer’s Photography and Friendships

Frederick Sommer (1905–99) explored an unusually broad array of subjects ranging from disorienting landscapes and macabre aspects of the natural world to surreal arrangements of found objects and virtual abstractions. National Gallery of Art Through Aug. 9

The Burning of Visibility: From Reality to Dream

Renowned French photographer Anne-Lise Large has resided in the United States for the past four years, lending a unique perspective to her latest photographic series, which offers an outsider’s view of what constitutes “American culture.” Art Museum of the Americas F Street Gallery Through Aug. 11

Hand-Held: Gerhard Pulverer’s Japanese Illustrated Books

Featuring 44 sumptuous canvases, the exhibition charts French cubist master Georges Braque’s (1882-1963) work in the still-life genre — from depictions of intimate interiors in the late 1920s, to vibrant, large-scale canvases in the 1930s, to darker and more personal spaces in the 1940s. The Phillips Collection Through Sept. 2

Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, 1909-1929: When Art Danced with Music

More than 130 original costumes, set designs, paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings, photographs and posters reveal how the Ballets Russes — the most innovative dance company of the 20th century — propelled the performing arts to new heights through groundbreaking collaborations between artists, composers, choreographers, dancers and fashion designers. National Gallery of Art Through Sept. 2

Butterfly wings, glass shards, doll parts, crumpled automotive metal, jigsaw puzzle pieces, clothing, straight pins, furniture, and colored sand — these are just some of the materials in “Over, Under, Next,” an exhibition of approximately 100 examples of collage and assemblage, primarily drawn from the Hirshhorn’s collection.

school in the 1910s because of her gender, she became a prominent decorative arts designer who became for her later poetic abstract paintings. National Museum of Women in the Arts Through Sept. 27

The Marvelous Real: Colombia Through the Vision of its Artists

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

This visual tour of 36 pieces by 24 artists highlights the complexities, challenges and singularities of Colombia through the eyes of several of its most important artists, including Edgar Negret, Fanny Sanín and David Manzur.

Through Sept. 13

Inter-American Development Bank Cultural Center

Seven Points (Part Two)

“Seven Points” is a series of exhibitions that showcase the work of seven Australian contemporary artists: Daniel Boyd, Marley Dawson, Newell Harry, Anna Kristensen, Angelica Mesiti, Kate Mitchell and Tim Silver. Informed by periods of residency internationally, these artists’ works offer alternative points of entry into the diverse conditions of Australian culture. Embassy of Australia Through Sept. 15

Fusion: Tracing Asian Migration to the Americas

Through the permanent collection of the Art Museum of the Americas, one of the most vital sources of contemporary Latin American and Caribbean art in the United States, this exhibition explores the migration of artists or their families to the Americas from Asia during the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.

Through Sept. 29

A Book Behind Bars: The Robben Island Shakespeare

Nelson Mandela signed his name next to a passage from “Julius Caesar” in Shakespeare’s “Complete Works” on Dec. 16, 1977, while serving 18 years as a political prisoner at Robben Island. More than 30 of Mandela’s fellow prisoners also signed their names next to passages, documenting a part of their experience through their shared knowledge of Shakespeare. Accompanying the Robben Island Shakespeare book — on display for the first time in the United States — is a series of sketches Mandela made in the early 2000s, reflecting on his prison life.

More than 100 volumes reflect on the Edo period Japan (1615-1868) as an age of great social and political change that gave rise to an unprecedented “reading culture” of artists, writers and publishers. Similar to blogging and e-publication in the 21st century, illustrated books (ehon) in Edo Japan opened up a new avenue with which to share ideas, marked by epic levels of publishing and book consumption.

Nine Deaths, Two Births: Xu Bing’s Phoenix Project

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

Art Museum of the Americas

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

Through Sept. 6

Through Sept. 22

During renovation of the Folger Great Hall, the Folger Shakespeare Library offers a special exhibition in the Founders’ Room celebrating the collecting history of its founders, Henry and Emily Folger.

Bice Lazzari: Signature Line

Folger Shakespeare Library

Aug. 15 to Jan. 25

A Night at the Opera

The grandeur of opera — its unforgettable music, stellar performers, and lavish scenery and costumes — has transfixed audi-

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Chinese artist Xu Bing spent more than two years creating his newest work, “Phoenix Project,” a massive installation that comprises two birds fabricated entirely from materials found at construction sites in Beijing.

Living Water Paintings

Buenos Aires-born painter Dolores GomezBustillo learned from leading artists across the Americas, including Argentina, Peru and the United States, taking as her inspiration the beauty of simple landscapes and the

In collaboration with the Italian Embassy, this exhibit features 25 paintings and drawings by Lazzari (1900-81), one of Italy’s most revered modern artists. Discouraged from studying the figure in art

Folger Shakespeare Library Through Sept. 29

The Folgers Our Founders

Through Sept. 29

WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath

This landmark exhibition revolutionizes our

Corcoran Gallery of Art Through Oct. 6

Peter Coffin: Here & There

Nature, science, pseudoscience, psychological displacement, urban happenstance and what-if brainstorms are among the myriad departure points for the works of New York-based artist Peter Coffin. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Through Oct. 13

Out of Southeast Asia: Art that Sustains

The last exhibition presented in the Textile Museum’s historic location before the museum’s 2014 reopening promises to be a beautiful pairing of tradition and innovation, demonstrating how four artists are reinventing traditional Southeast Asian textile techniques, designs and ideology in new and meaningful ways. The Textile Museum Through Oct. 15:

Guerrero: 7 Regions of Art and Tradition

The southwest Mexican state of Guerrero is a richly diverse blend of geography and ethnicity that’s home to four major ethnic groups and seven regions, each with their own distinctive artistic culture. These regions celebrate material and immaterial heritage at once both communal and unique, inherent in their archeological sites, churches, parks and plazas. From these shared spaces come the crafts, clothing and artwork that help to underwrite Guerrero’s larger identity. Mexican Cultural Institute Through Nov. 10

American People, Black Light: Faith Ringgold’s Paintings of the 1960s Faith Ringgold is well known for originating the African American story quilt revival in the late 1970s. In the previous decade, she created bold, provocative paintings in direct response to the civil rights and feminist movements. Ringgold’s unprecedented exploration of race and gender in America is examined in this comprehensive survey of 49 rarely exhibited paintings. National Museum of Women in the Arts

The Washington Diplomat

August 2013

Through Nov. 10

Through June 8, 2014

Awake in a Dream World: The Art of Audrey Niffenegger

Perspectives: Rina Banerjee

The first major museum exhibition of visual artist and author of “The Time Traveler’s Wife” reveals a mysterious, strange and whimsical world, both real and imagined, through 239 paintings, drawings, prints and book art. National Museum of Women in the Arts

adaptation of Puccini’s 1904 opera “Madame Butterfly” explores the ongoing impact of love, loss and the collision of cultures during the Vietnam War. Please call for ticket information.

Born in India and based in New York City, artist Rina Banerjee draws on her background as a scientist and her experience as an immigrant in her richly textured works that complicate the role of objects as representations of cultures and invite viewers to share her fascination in materials.

Signature Theatre Through Aug. 18

The Book of Mormon

Nine 2011 Tony Awards say it’s the Best Musical of the Year. Vogue says, “It’s the funniest musical of all time.” And the New York Times says, “It’s the best musical of this century.” It’s “The Book of Mormon,” the Broadway phenomenon from “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone and “Avenue Q” co-creator Robert Lopez. Tickets are $43 to $250.

Arthur M. Sackler Gallery

Through Dec. 31

S.O.S. Spanish Office Showroom

As part of the SPAIN arts & culture program (www.spainculture.us), “S.O.S. Spanish Office Showroom” presents the most avant-garde pieces of Spanish design conceived for modern working environments, highlighting how the creativity of contemporary Spanish designers adapts to any office space and how Spanish design companies are successfully competing in international markets, such as the United States. Former Spanish Residence Through Jan. 5

A Democracy of Images: Photographs from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

More than 100 photographs selected from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s permanent collection celebrate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the museum’s photography collection, examine photography’s evolution in the United States from a documentary medium to a full-fledged artistic genre, and showcase the numerous ways in which it has captured the American experience. American Art Museum Through Jan. 5

Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa Some 100 exceptional works of art from the late 18th to 21st centuries come together for the first major exhibition and scholarly endeavor to comprehensively examine the rich relationship between African artists and the land upon which they live, work and frame their days. National Museum of African Art Through Jan. 12

Living Artfully: At Home with Marjorie Merriweather Post

From the glamour of Palm Beach, to the rustic whimsy of the Adirondacks, to the distinguished social scene of Washington, D.C., heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post brought to her multiple residences a flawless style of living and entertaining that was made possible only through the gracious management of loyal staff. Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens Through Feb. 9

Lines, Marks, and Drawings: Through the Lens of Roger Ballen This exhibit considers the 40-year-plus career of Roger Ballen, one of the more recognized photographic artists working today, through a new approach: an examination of line and drawing in his photographs. National Museum of African Art

DISCUSSIONS Thu., Aug. 8, 9:30 a.m. to 3:15 p.m.

The Courts of Renaissance Italy: Power, Patronage, and Prestige

The families who shaped the dominant courts in Renaissance Italy wanted more than just political influence and power. Guided by the era’s new vision of man and his potential for achievement, they also sought to express their sway through patronage of art, architecture, and literature, helping to nurture talents such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. Tickets are $130; for information, visit www.smithsonianassociates.org. Freer Gallery of Art Tue., Aug. 13, 6:45 p.m.

Literary Libations

Photo: Mason Summers

Joseph Carlson plays John the Baptist in the Scene Theater production of Oscar Wilde’s “Salomé.”

Strathmore, only weeks after the June 2013 debut of her first Spanish-language album, “Natalie Cole en Español,” a memento to her father, Nat King Cole, and his Spanish recordings. Tickets are $33 to $92. Music Center at Strathmore

If your idea of a perfect evening is to settle in with a good cocktail and a great novel, how does a good cocktail from a great novel sound? Raise a glass to the drinks showcased in the works (and lives) of William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Ian Fleming, Truman Capote, Dorothy Parker and other sipping scribes. Tickets are $70; for information, visit www.smithsonianassociates.org.

Aug. 1 to 2

National Museum of the American Indian

Wolf Trap

Aug. 27 to 28

Jewelry Trunk Show of South African-Based Beloved Beadwork

The Embassy of South Africa and National Museum of Women in the Arts welcomes Beloved Beadwork designer and founder Anna Richerby from Cape Town, South Africa, for a trunk show and designer “meet and greet.” This small company of 12 Cape Town women, who create intricate pieces of high-end jewelry using complex weaving techniques and glass beads, was founded by Richerby in 2009. National Museum of Women in the Arts Wed., Aug. 28, 6:30 p.m.

Wagner at 200: Tristan and Isolde Comes to Washington

Members of the “Tristan and Isolde” cast and creative team present a program that celebrates Wagner’s bicentenary and explores the Washington National Opera’s forthcoming production of Wagner’s romantic masterpiece. RSVP to goetheinstitutwashington.eventbrite.com. Goethe-Institut

MUSIC Thu., Aug. 1, 8 p.m.

Natalie Cole

Nine-time Grammy award winning singer, songwriter and performer, Natalie Cole, brings her “Unforgettable” voice to

NSO at Wolf Trap: Bugs Bunny at the Symphony II

See the iconic “Wascally Wabbit” in classic shorts such as “What’s Opera, Doc?” and “The Rabbit of Seville,” as Emmy-winning creator-conductor George Daugherty combines the magic of the symphony with Looney Tunes hijinks. Tickets are $22 to $55. Sun., Aug. 4, 7 p.m.

Rodrigo y Gabriela

They’ve been heard in film scores from “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” to “Puss in Boots.” But Rodrigo y Gabriela’s live shows trump all — the mind-blowing speed strumming of this virtuosic guitar duo lends an edge-of-the-seat thrill to every song they touch, from the folk songs of their native Mexico to heavy metal to classical and beyond. Tickets are $55 to $78.

THEATER Aug. 1 to Sept. 1

A Chorus Line

Featuring hit Broadway songs, “A Chorus Line” follows 17 dancers competing for eight coveted spots in the chorus of a Broadway musical. Throughout the audition, they bare their souls while sharing stories of their childhood, ambitions, fears and experiences in show business. Tickets are $32.50 to $65. Olney Theatre Center Through Aug. 4

The Third Beast

A series of characters tries to escape everyday life in search of true identity in “The Third Breast,” written in 1975 by one of Poland’s “angry young men,” Ireneusz Iredyński (1939-85), who explores such themes as addiction to power; fear of the other; the search for an absolute; love and erotic fascination; and the consequences of blind faith. Tickets are $20 to $40 (for mature audiences). Mead Theater Lab at Flashpoint Aug. 15 to Sept. 22

Miss Saigon

Created by the acclaimed writers of “Les Misérables,” this modern, rock-infused

Kennedy Center Opera House Through Aug. 18

Salomé

Scena Theatre, in the final production of its 25th anniversary season, presents Oscar Wilde’s engrossing biblical tragedy in one act — a provocative, controversial stage play that is rarely performed. Tickets are $35 or $40. Atlas Performing Arts Center Aug. 20 to Sept. 1

Much Ado About Nothing

The Shakespeare Theatre Company’s annual “Free For All” presents one of the greatest romantic comedies ever written, as two young lovers, Hero and Claudio, their quick-witted sparring companions, Beatrice and Benedick, and the schemes of friends and foes twist the couples’ relationships with playful hilarity. Sidney Harman Hall Aug. 21 to Sept. 15

The Beauty Queen of Leenane

Maureen, a lonely spinster in her 40s, lives with her diabolically manipulative mother Mag in an isolated cottage in the west of Ireland. When Maureen is offered a last chance at love, she sees a chance to escape, but Mag has other ideas, setting in motion a chain of deceptions, secrets and betrayals that are both heartbreaking and hilarious. Tickets are $10 to $45. Round House Theatre Bethesda

Music Center at Strathmore Tue., Aug. 6, 6 p.m.

CULTURE GUIDE

El Gusto

After fifty years of separation, an orchestra of Jewish and Muslim musicians torn apart by history and war reunite and embark on their first U.S. tour this summer. Kennedy Center Millennium Stage Wed., Aug. 7, 7 p.m.

Free Summer Outdoor Concert: Carlos Núñez

Known as “The Seventh Chieftain,” beguiling Spanish musician Carlos Núñez plays the gaita, a traditional Galician bagpipe. His unique folk music showcases his native region of Galicia, in northwest Spain, and the surprising Celtic traditions that thrive there. Music Center at Strathmore

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August 2013

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The Washington Diplomat Page 41

DIPLOMATIC SPOTLIGHT

The Washington Diplomat

August 2013

Monaco Toasts Prince

photos: gail scott / Anna Gawel Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

Diplomatic Corps at White House President Barack Obama walks with Ambassador Capricia Marshall, the outgoing chief of protocol, in the Green Room of the White House after a reception in honor of the diplomatic corps.

From left, Ambassador of Italy Claudio Bisogniero joins Ellen Noghès and Ambassador of Monaco Gilles Noghès at Monaco’s Prince Albert II celebration, the last time the Noghèses will host the annual event. They will retire to Michigan, where Ellen was born, in the fall.

From left, Ellen Noghès and her husband, Ambassador of Monaco Gilles Noghès, welcome former Congressman John Tanner (D-Tenn.) and his wife Betty Ann Tanner at a reception hosted by Monaco celebrating the eighth anniversary of Prince Albert II’s accession to the throne.

From left, Special Representative for Global Partnerships Elizabeth Frawley Bagley, former Ambassador of Mexico Arturo Sarukhan, now chairman of Global Solutions at the Podesta Group, and Ambassador of Canada Gary Doer attend Monaco’s celebration of Prince Albert II’s accession to the throne.

From left, Ambassador of Montenegro Srdjan Darmanovic, former Ambassador of Georgia and Mrs. Temuri Yakobashvili, now with the German Marshall Fund, Ambassador of Turkey Namik Tan, and Ambassador of Oman Hunaina Sultan Ahmed Al Mughairy attend Monaco’s Prince Albert II celebration reception.

From left, Ambassador of Oman Hunaina Sultan Ahmed Al Mughairy, Ambassador of Lebanon Antoine Chedid, and Ambassador of Bahrain Houda Nonoo attend Monaco’s Prince Albert II celebration held at the Metropolitan Club.

U.S. Chief of Protocol Capricia Marshall, enjoying one of her last diplomatic receptions before leaving office, left, joins Marie Royce, wife of Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, at Monaco’s Prince Albert II celebration.

Ambassador of Austria Hans Peter Manz, left, and Ambassador of Cape Verde Maria de Fatima Lima da Veiga attend Monaco’s Prince Albert II celebration.

Ambassador of Antigua and Barbuda Deborah Mae Lovell, left, joins Gladys Boluda, assistant chief of protocol for diplomatic affairs, at Monaco’s Prince Albert II celebration at the Metropolitan Club.

From left, wife of the Barbados ambassador Leila Beale, Ambassador of Indonesia and Mrs. Dino Patti Djalal, and Marie Royce, managing director of global strategic initiatives and a vice president at Alcatel-Lucent, attend Monaco’s Prince Albert II celebration held at the Metropolitan Club.

From left, Ambassador of Ukraine Olexander Motsyk, wife of the Russian ambassador Natalia Kislyak, wife of the Ukrainian ambassador Nataliia Terletska, and Ambassador of Russia Sergey Kislyak attend Monaco’s Prince Albert II celebration.

U.S.-Russian Concert

Ambassador of Russia Sergey Kislyak, right, welcomes Valery Gergiev, music director of the Mariinsky Theatre, to the Russian Embassy for a concert by the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America (NYO-USA). Gergiev will lead NYO-USA’s inaugural season, including a performance in Moscow and St. Petersburg featuring famed American violinist Joshua Bell.

Ambassador of Fiji Winston Thompson and his wife Queenie Thompson attend Monaco’s Prince Albert II celebration held at the Metropolitan Club.

Ambassador of Brazil Mauro Vieira, left, talks with Ambassador of Portugal Nuno Brito at Monaco’s Prince Albert II celebration.

From left, Ellen Noghès welcomes Ambassador of Slovenia Roman Kirn and his wife Jovana Kirn to Monaco’s Prince Albert II celebration.

From left, Librarian of Congress James Billington and his wife Marjorie Anne join Sylvia Symington and former Rep. James Symington (D-Mo.) of the American-Russian Cultural Cooperation Foundation at a concert by the National Youth Orchestra at the Russian Embassy.

Photos: Gail Scott

President of the International Firebird Arts Foundation Xenia Woyevodsky, left, and wife of the Russian ambassador Natalia Kislyak attend a concert by the National Youth Orchestra, which comprises the best young American musicians ages 16 to 19.

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From left, Ambassador of Russia Sergey Kislyak, Ambassador of Belgium Jan Matthysen, and Ambassador of Bulgaria Elena Poptodorova attend a concert by the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America.

Former Chief of Protocol Selwa “Lucky” Roosevelt, left, and Chairwoman of the American Red Cross Bonnie McElveen-Hunter attend a concert at the Russian Embassy by the National Youth Orchestra, conducted by renowned Russian maestro Valery Gergiev.

Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Ann Stock, right, greets Valery Gergiev, who is conducting the inaugural season of the 120-member National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America.

The Washington Diplomat

August 2013

Mozambique Independence

Philippine Independence Ambassador of Austria Hans Peter Manz, center, joins retired U.S. Deputy Chief of Protocol Lawrence Dunham and his wife Deborah at the reception marking the 115th year of Philippine Independence.

Photo: Gail Scott Photo: Gail Scott Photo: Gail Scott

From left, wife of the Singaporean ambassador Gouri Mirpuri, wife of the Philippine ambassador Maria Victoria Jose Cuisia, Ambassador of the Philippines Jose L. Cuisia Jr., and Ambassador of Singapore Ashok Kumar Mirpuri attend the Philippine Independence Day celebration atop the Hay-Adams.

Ambassador of the Philippines Jose L. Cuisia Jr., second from left, and his wife Maria Victoria Jose Cuisia, right, recognize Dr. A. Gabriel Esteban for being the first non-Catholic priest to head Seton Hall University, the largest Catholic university in New Jersey, at the Philippine Independence Day reception.

Ed Royce (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, left, joins Ambassador of the Philippines Jose L. Cuisia Jr. atop the Hay-Adams Hotel for a reception marking the 115th year of Philippine Independence. Photo: Gail Scott

Photos: Gail Scott

From left, Ambassador of Namibia and Mrs. Martin Andjaba, Ambassador of Burundi Angele Niyuhire, and Ambassador of Malawi Stephen Dick Tennyson Matenje attend Mozambique’s Independence Day reception. Ambassador of Mozambique Amélia Matos Sumbana hosts a luncheon in Sterling, Va., to celebrate Mozambique’s Independence Day.

Photo: Gail Scott

Ambassador of the Philippines Jose L. Cuisia Jr., second from left, and his wife Maria Victoria Jose Cuisia, right, recognize Cristeta Comerford for being the first woman and first minority to serve as White House executive chef.

photo: kate oczypok

From left, Bess Alarcon, Filipino master chef Evelyn Bunoan, and Oscar Bunoan attend the Philippine Independence Day reception.

From left, Ingrid Richardson, State Department Protocol Officer Sherman Wright, and Devetta Miles were among nearly 300 guests who celebrated the Philippine Independence Day. Ambassador of Malawi Stephen Dick Tennyson Matenje, left, and Deputy Chief of Mission at the Embassy of Mozambique Eduardo Zaqueu attend Mozambique’s Independence Day reception.

Robert Koepcke, left, and First Secretary at the Embassy of Indonesia Zelda Kartika attend the Philippine Independence Day reception. photo: kate oczypok

photo: kate oczypok

From left, Senior Business Operations Analyst at SRA Jesse Gatchalian, Executive Director of the Migrant Heritage Commission Grace Valera, and wife of the ambassador of Laos Somdy Soukhathivong attend the Philippine Indepen dence Day reception.

From left, Justin Silvers, Thryza Navrarrett, and Monsignor W. Ronald Jameson of St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington attend the Philippine Independence Day reception. photo: kate oczypok

Arlene Magno, first secretary and consul/ administrative officer at the Philippine Embassy, wears traditional dress at the Philippine Independence Day reception.

Ana Maria Raquel Alberto, commercial counselor at the Embassy of Mozambique, left, and Kary HintzTate, desk officer for Mozambique, Lesotho, and the Southern African Development Community in the State Department attend Mozambique’s Independence Day reception.

Slovenian Farewell

Spanish Design

Photo: Audrey hoffer

Itziar Taboada, director for cultural and scientific affairs at the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, left, and Guillermo Corral, cultural counselor of the Spanish Embassy, stand by rug by contemporary Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola in the former Spanish ambassador’s residence, now home to an ongoing exhibit on the creativity of modern Spanish office space designs.

Photos: Gail Scott

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), center, bids goodbye to outgoing Ambassador of Slovenia Roman Kirn and his wife Jovana Kirn at their farewell reception held at the Slovenian Embassy.

Ambassador of Belgium Jan Matthy sen and his wife Agnes Julia Aerts attend the Slovenian ambassador’s farewell reception.

Ambassador of Liechtenstein Claudia Fritsche comes to bid farewell to Ambassador of Slovenia Roman Kirn and his wife Jovana Kirn.

August 2013

Ambassador of Macedonia Zoran Jolevski and his wife Suzana Jolevska join Etleva Galanxhi and Ambassador of Albania Gilbert Galanxhi Galanxhi at the Slovenian ambassador’s farewell reception.

The Washington Diplomat Page 43

DIPLOMATIC SPOTLIGHT

The Washington Diplomat

August 2013

Supporting Markey London Drink Tank

Longtime Democratic supporter Esther Coopersmith welcomes guests to a reelection barbeque for Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) at her residence, joined by former Vice President Al Gore, left, and current Vice President Joe Biden. The event raised more than $200,000 for Markey’s campaign.

Former Vice President Al Gore, left, talks with Susan Blumenthal, wife of recently elected Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), at Esther Coopersmith’s residence during a fundraiser for Markey, who served in the House from 1976 to 2013 and recently won a special election to succeed John Kerry in the Senate.

Ambassador of Egypt Mohamed M. Tawfik, left, and Ambassador of Monaco Gilles Noghès attend a victory party for recently elected Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).

Photos: gail scott

From left, Shaista and Ray Mahmood, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Ellen Noghès, Ambassador of Monaco Gilles Noghès, Rosa Rai Djalal, and Ambassador of Indonesia Dino Patti Djalal attend a reception at the home of Esther Coopersmith celebrating Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a 37-year veteran of the House who won a 2013 special election for a seat in the Senate.

Canada Day

Ambassador of Israel Michael Oren and his wife Sally Oren, right, join hostess Esther Coopersmith, a former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., at her home to celebrate the election victory of Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).

Rear Admiral Susan J. Blumenthal, the former U.S. assistant surgeon general, joins her husband Sen. Ed Markey at a victory party after winning John Kerry’s seat in the Senate.

General Manager of the Intercontinental London Park Lane Alvaro Rey, left, and General Manager of the InterContinental London Westminster Andrew Coney attend an InterContinental “Drink Tank” at the Willard InterContinental Washington hotel celebrating the brand’s relationship between Washington, D.C., and London.

Rex Granum, a partner at Prism Public Affairs, left, and Myron Belkind, vice president of the National Press Club and former chief of the Associated Press London Bureau, attend the InterContinental “Drink Tank” at the Willard InterContinental Washington hotel celebrating the ties between London and D.C.

photos: kate oczypok

From left, Rex Granum and Dale Leibach, both of Prism Public Affairs, Robert Tappan, director of external relations at Koch Companies Public Sector, and Ed Purnell, area director of marketing at InterContinental Hotels Group in London, attend the InterContinental “Drink Tank” at the Willard.

Former Rep. Mark Kennedy (R-Minn.), left, and General Manager of the InterContinental London Westminster Andrew Coney attend an InterContinental “Drink Tank.”

Guests show their Canadian pride at the embassy’s pancake breakfast celebration of Canada Day.

Tennis Match

photos: embassy of Canada

To celebrate Canada Day, the Canadian Embassy hosted a “Stampede Pancake Breakfast” in the embassy courtyard.

Nordic Jazz

Ambassador of Israel Michael Oren and his wife Sally Oren attend the Canadian Embassy’s “Stampede Pancake Breakfast” in honor of Canada Day.

photo: gail scott

Top row left, Dr. Joanna Breyer of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and wife of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer; Rev. Dr. Cecilie Strommen, wife of the outgoing Norwegian ambassador; Christine Sager, wife of the Swiss ambassador; and bottom row left, Rosa Batoréu, deputy chief of mission at the Portuguese Embassy, and coach Kathy Kemper, founder of the Institute for Education, participate in the Second Annual Louise International Tennis Cup at Congressional Country Club — won by Breyer.

African Chieftaincy Iceland’s Tómas R. Einarson Trio performs at the House of Sweden as part of the seventh annual Nordic Jazz Festival. photos: gail scott

Ambassador of Finland Ritva Koukku-Ronde and her husband Dr. Hidde Ronde brought their two daughters, Emma and Elsa, to a concert at the Finnish Embassy as part of the seventh annual Nordic Jazz Festival, sponsored by the Nordic embassies and Twins Jazz Club.

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Finnish saxophonist Eero Koivistoinen plays at the Finnish Embassy as part of the seventh annual Nordic Jazz Festival in D.C. featuring performers from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.

From left, Cyril E. Ibe, the Okwelube 1 of Amaokwe Achara in Uturu, Abia State in Nigeria, Prince Emeka Ibe and Ugo Eze Margret Ibe attend a ceremony awarding the chieftaincy title of Adaoha (“the First Daughter of Uturu”) to Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole, director of the National Museum of African Art.

The Washington Diplomat

photos: audrey hoffer

Director of the National African Art Museum Johnnetta Betsch Cole, right, and her husband, James Staton Jr., attend a ceremony at the museum conferning Cole with a chieftain title following her installation in Nigeria earlier this year in Abia State, Uturu.

August 2013

AROUNDTHEWORLD

THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT

August 2013

HOLIDAYS AFGHANISTAN Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr Aug. 19: Independence Day

BENIN Aug. 1: National Day Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr Aug. 15: Assumption

ALBANIA Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr

BOLIVIA Aug. 6: Independence Day

ALGERIA Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr ANDORRA Aug. 15: Assumption AUSTRIA Aug. 15: Assumption AZERBAIJAN Aug. 8: Ramazan Bayramy BAHAMAS Aug. 1: Emancipation Day

BRUNEI Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr BURKINA FASO Aug. 5: Independence Day Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr Aug. 15: Assumption BURUNDI Aug. 15: Assumption CAMEROON Aug. 15: Assumption

BAHRAIN Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr

CAPE VERDE Aug. 15: Assumption

BANGLADESH Aug. 8: Eid-al Fitr

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC Aug. 13: Proclamation of Independence Aug. 15: Assumption

BARBADOS Aug. 1: Emancipation Day Aug. 1: Kadooment Day BELGIUM Aug. 15: Assumption

CHAD Aug. 8: Aïd-El Fitr Aug. 11: Independence Day

CHILE Aug. 15: Assumption COLOMBIA Aug. 7: Battle of Boyacá Aug. 15: Assumption CONGO, REPUBLIC OF Aug. 15: Independence Day

EAST TIMOR Aug. 15: Assumption Aug. 30: Constitution Day ECUADOR Aug. 10: Independence Day EGYPT Aug. 8: Eid El Fitr

COSTA RICA Aug. 15: Assumption/ Mother’s Day

EQUATORIAL GUINEA Aug. 3: Armed Forces Day Aug. 15: Constitution Day

CÔTE D’IVOIRE Aug. 3: Laïlatoul-Kadr Aug. 7: National Day Aug. 8: Aïd-El Fitr Aug. 15: Assumption

ERITREA Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr

CROATIA Aug. 5: Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day Aug. 15: Assumption CYPRUS: Aug. 15: Assumption

ESTONIA Aug. 20: Day of Restoration of Independence FRANCE Aug. 15: Assumption GABON Aug. 15: Assumption Aug. 17: National Day

DJIBOUTI Aug. 8: Eid El Fitr

GAMBIA Aug. 8: Eid-al-Fitr Aug. 15: Assumption

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC Aug. 16: Restoration Day

GEORGIA Aug. 28: Assumption (Mariamoba)

GHANA Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr

IRAQ Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr

GREECE Aug. 15: Assumption

IRELAND Aug. 5: Bank Holiday

GRENADA Aug. 1: Emancipation Day

ITALY Aug. 15: Assumption

GUATEMALA Aug. 15: Assumption GUYANA Aug. 4: Freedom Day HAITI Aug. 15: Assumption

Republic of Korea Ahn Ho-young became ambassador of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) on July 18. Ambassador Ahn previously served as first vice minister of foreign affairs and trade (2012-13), ambassador to Belgium and head of the Korean Mission to the European Union (2011-12), and deputy minister for trade at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT) from 2008 to 2011, during which time he was the president’s Ambassador sherpa for the G-20 and G8 outreach meetings. Other postings in MOFAT include director-gener- Ahn Ho-young al of the Multilateral Trade Bureau (2003-04) and director of the International Trade Law Division in the Office of the Minister for Trade (2002-03). He was also an adjunct professor in law and diplomacy at Korea University from 2006 to 2008, before which he was director-general of the Economic Cooperation Bureau at the Ministry of Finance and Economy from 2004 to 2006. In addition, Ambassador Ahn was a counselor for the Korean Permanent Delegation to the World Trade Organization in Switzerland (1998-2002); counselor for the Korean Delegation to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in France (1996-98); director of the International Trade Division III in the International Trade Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1994-96); and director of the Treaties Division II in the Treaties Bureau of the ministry (1993-94). In the early part of his career, Ambassador Ahn, who joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1978, served as second secretary to the Korean Embassy in India (1984-90) and as first secretary in the Korean Embassy in the United States (1990-93). Ambassador Ahn, born July 5, 1956, graduated from the Department of International Relations at Seoul National University and from the Graduate School of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

Uzbekistan Bakhtiyar Gulyamov became ambassador of Uzbekistan to the United States on July 18, having previously served as ambassador to Belgium and head of mission to the European Union and NATO since 2010. Before that, he was Uzbekistan’s ambassador to Germany from 2005 to 2009, during which time he was also ambassador to the Czech

August 2013

PAKISTAN Aug. 8: Eid-ul-Fitr Aug. 14: Independence Day

KENYA Aug. 8: Idd-Ul-Fitr

INDIA Aug. 8: Idu’l Fitr Aug. 15: Independence Day

KUWAIT Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr

Republic, Sweden (2008-09) and Switzerland (2007-09), with residence in Berlin. In addition, Ambassador Gulyamov was a first secretary at the Uzbek Embassy in Japan (2001-03) and second secretary at the Uzbek Embassy in Great Britain (1995-98). Other postings in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs include head of division and head of department within the ministry’s Department of UNO and International Organizations (2003-05), first secretary in the Ambassador Department of Political Analysis and Forecast (1998-2001), as well as senior inspector, secBakhtiyar ond secretary and head of division in the Gulyamov Consular Department (1992-95). Ambassador Gulyamov was also a chief specialist with the Uzbekyengilsanoat (Uzbek light industry) Association (1991-92), a senior inspector with the International Relations Division of the Tashkent Technical Institute (1989-91), and a military interpreter with the U.S.S.R. Ministry of Defense (1986-89). Born in Moscow on Feb. 18, 1964, Ambassador Gulyamov graduated from Tashkent State University specializing in the history of Arab countries. In 1999, he completed the Academy on State and Social Construction under the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan and received a master’s degree in international relations. Ambassador Gulyamov speaks Arabic, English and Russian, and is married with two children.

Recently Credentialed The following ambassadors were credentialed by President Obama on July 18: Georgios Chacalli of Cyprus; Lukman Abdulraheem Abdulkareem Al Faily of Iraq; Mathilde Mukantabana of Rwanda; Ahn Ho-young of South Korea; Liberata Rutageruka Mulamula of Tanzania; Oliver Wonekha of Uganda; and Bakhtiyar Turadjanovich Gulyamov of Uzbekistan.

Bidding Farewell The following ambassadors are leaving their postings this summer: Michael Collins of Ireland; Wegger Christian Strommen of Norway; Adrian Vierita of Romania; Jonas Hafström of Sweden; and Mokhtar Chaouachi of Tunisia.

SRI LANKA Aug. 8: Id-Ul-Fitr

JORDAN Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr

ICELAND Aug. 6: Commerce Day

APPOINTMENTS

NIGER Aug. 3: Independence Day Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr NIGERIA Aug. 8: Id-el-Fitri

KAZAKHSTAN Aug. 30: Constitution Day

IRAN Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr

SPAIN Aug. 15: Ascension of the Virgin

JAMAICA Aug. 1: Emancipation Day Aug. 6: Independence Day

HUNGARY Aug. 20: National Holiday

INDONESIA Sept. 8: Idul Fitri Aug. 17: Independence Day

NAMIBIA Aug. 26: Heroes’ Day

KYRGYZSTAN Aug. 31: Independence Day

SWITZERLAND Aug. 1: National Day Aug. 15: Assumption

OMAN Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr

PANAMA Aug. 15: The Founding of Panama City PARAGUAY Aug. 15: Founding of Asunción PERU Aug. 30: St. Rosa of Lima PHILIPPINES Aug. 8: Eid Ul Fitre

LIBERIA Aug. 24: National Flag Day

POLAND Aug. 15: The Ascension of St. Mary

LIBYA Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr

PORTUGAL Aug. 15: Assumption

LIECHTENSTEIN Aug. 15: National Holiday (Assumption)

QATAR Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr

LUXEMBOURG Aug. 15: Assumption MACEDONIA Aug. 2: National Day (Ilinden) MADAGASCAR Aug. 15: Assumption MALAWI Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr MALAYSIA Aug. 8: Hari Raya Puasa Aug. 31: National Day MALTA Aug. 15: Assumption MAURITANIA Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr MOLDOVA Aug. 27: Independence Day Aug. 31: National Language Day MOROCCO Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr Aug. 14: Commemoration of Oued Eddahab (Reunification Day) Aug. 20: Revolution of the King and the People Aug. 21: King’s Birthday

SYRIA Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr TAJIKISTAN Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr TANZANIA Aug. 8: Farmers’ Day (Nane Nane) THAILAND Aug. 12: HM the Queen’s Birthday TOGO Aug. 15: Assumption

LEBANON Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr Aug. 15: Assumption

LITHUANIA Aug. 15: Assumption (Zoline)

SUDAN Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr

RWANDA Aug. 15: Assumption ST. KITTS and NEVIS Aug. 5: August Monday ST. LUCIA Aug. 1: Emancipation Day ST. VINCENT and THE GRENADINES Aug. 5: August Monday SAUDI ARABIA Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr SENEGAL Aug. 15: Assumption SEYCHELLES Aug. 15: Assumption SENEGAL Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr SINGAPORE Aug. 8: Hari Raya Puasa Aug. 9: National Day SLOVAKIA Aug. 29: Slovak National Uprising Day SLOVENIA Aug. 15: Assumption SOUTH AFRICA Aug. 9: National Women’s Day SOUTH KOREA Aug. 15: Liberation Day

TRINIDAD and TOBAGO Aug. 1: Emancipation Day Aug. 8: Eid-Ul-Fitr Aug. 31: Independence Day TUNISIA Aug. 8: Aïd El Fitr Aug. 13: Women’s Day TURKEY Aug. 8: Seker Bayram Aug. 30: Victory Day TURKMENISTAN Aug. 8: Ramadan Bairam UGANDA Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr UKRAINE Aug. 24: Independence Day UNITED ARAB EMIRATES Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr UNITED KINGDOM Aug. 26: Summer Bank Holiday URUGUAY Aug. 25: Independence Day UZBEKISTAN Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr VENEZUELA Aug. 15: Assumption YEMEN Aug. 8: Eid al-Fitr ZAMBIA Aug. 4: Farmers’ Day ZIMBABWE Aug. 11: Heroes’ Day Aug. 12: Defense Forces’ National Day

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