David Kenner's blog

It's almost as if God doesn't want the scientists at CERN to fire up the Large Hadron Collider.  The world's largest particle-collider, which cost around £4 billion to construct and, by the way, might destroy the world, has run into another technical mishap -- this time caused by "an errant chunk of baguette."

Somehow, a piece of bread got lodged into an electrical unit that is responsible for cooling the collider to 1.9 degrees above absolute zero. How the bread got there is a mystery: a CERN spokeswoman hypothesized that it was dropped by a bird or an airplane. But if the investigation does suggest sabotage, the local bakers' union will likely be a prime suspect.

The United States provides Egypt with an annual injection of around $200 million in development aid -- a vestige of the U.S. wheel-greasing that accompanied the 1979 peace deal between Israel and Egypt. It is the job of USAID to distribute a portion of that money to democracy promotion programs. A recent audit offers a depressing verdict on USAID's efforts: the impact of its programs was "unnoticeable" in improving Egypt's democratic environment.  Of the programs for which USAID distributed funds, donors carried out only 65% of the activities promised and achieved only 52% of the planned results, based on predetermined metrics.

The audit lays the blame for USAID's failure at the feet of the Egyptian government.  The government, "has shown reluctance to support many of USAID's democracy and governance programs and has impeded implementers' activities," says the report. Egyptian delays are caused by a combination of resistance to democratic reforms, bureaucratic red tape, and plain old cronyism. In one example, the audit describes how study tours abroad were subverted by an Egyptian contractor who kept selecting the same people for the tours.  One particular Cairo University professor, the report states, was selected for three separate trips on USAID's dime.

Stop the presses: the Egyptian government is riddled with corruption, and hostile to democratic reform! After three decades of distributing aid in Egypt, these facts shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone -- and shouldn't be an excuse for why USAID has been flushing taxpayers' money down the drain.

Fortunately, in 2005 Congress provided USAID with the authority to issue direct grants to Egyptian NGOs, bypassing the approval of the Egyptian government. As the audit shows, USAID "achieved its greatest success" with these direct grant programs. Direct grant recipients completed 80 percent of their planned activities during the 2008 financial year, in programs that ranged from anticorruption initiatives to programs emphasizing political processes and civic participation. The Egyptian government often still found ways to stymie these programs: in one case, the government delayed distribution of the civic education material produced by one recipient, making it difficult for the material to reach schoolchildren.

However, these obstacles pale in comparison to the difficulties of working directly with the Egyptian government. It is naive to expect a regime that is preparing to elevate Gamal Mubarak to the presidency will be willing to make aggressive reforms. And it is hypocritical for the United States to preach the virtues of democracy while still devoting most of its funds to efforts which have proven ineffective. U.S. policymakers know perfectly well how to design more effective programs in Egypt. They should do it.

The New York Times published an absolutely brilliant story today about the bomb detecting wands yielded by Iraqi security forces. Though the piece is written in the even-handed language you expect from the NYT, you can still practically hear the journalist screaming about how ridiculous this whole subject is.

You have the Iraqi general who claims: "I know more about bombs than anyone in the world."  There's the description of how the bomb-detecting wand works: a human operator, who must be well-rested and have a steady body temperature, inserts cardboard cards into the device, which does not have batteries or any other source of power. The piece even concludes with the reporter's failed attempts to use the wand to detect a grenade and pistol in plain sight on the table in front of him.

When you have facts like these, you don't even need editorials.

Sayyed Imam al-Sharif gets all the credit, but another important Islamist preacher has published a letter renouncing violence in Europe. Mohammed al-Fizazi is currently sitting in a Moroccan jail for his role in the 2003 Casablanca terrorist attack, which killed 45 people. In a letter published by Der Spiegel, al-Fizazi praises the religious freedom and employment opportunities available to Muslims in Germany. "The German chancellor is great," he writes, in one particularly effusive paragraph.

Like al-Sharif, al-Fizazi argues that Muslims are forbidden from jihad in Germany because they have signed visa application forms, which amount to a contract between them and the German state to abide by Germany's laws. "Germany is not a battle zone," he states, and engaging in terrorism "will only reinforce the backwardness of Muslims and their image as a group of backward-looking idiots whose place is in the caves and not in the streets of Hamburg."

As a general rule, I'm skeptical that the abstract arguments of Islamist philosophers such as al-Sharif or al-Fizazi really will have a practical impact on regular jihadis, who are likely motivated by more mundane concerns such as lack of political freedom and economic opportunity. However, al-Fizazi's letter is inspiring because he argues that it is the very presence of these freedoms in Germany that prohibits Muslims from conducting violence there. This suggests that Europe is doing a better job integrating its Muslim population than is commonly believed -- a development which is good news for the West, and bad news for radicals everywhere.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is currently in Tehran with his "friend," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as the two leaders discuss ways to bolster the bilateral ties between their two countries. While Turkey's realignment towards Iran and Syria is by now familiar, it is possible that the Obama administration might be more annoyed at this development than it has let on publicly.

Obama recently sent an invitation to Prime Minister Erdogan to meet with him in Washington D.C. on October 29. That just happens to be the Turkish equivalent of the Fourth of July -- the anniversary of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of the Turkish republic. Erdogan, placed in a bind over the need to be in Turkey on this national holiday, was forced to turn down Obama's invitation and reschedule, likely for a date in December.

This seems like a canny way for Obama to superficially appear to be continuing his philosophy of "engagement," while at the same time extending an invitation that he knew Erdogan would not be able to accept. And really, it's hard to believe that a prospective visit by the Turkish leader wasn't first cleared with a Turkey expert at the State Department, who could have pointed out the obvious conflict. 

However, it could just be that the administration is bad with dates. It wouldn't be the first time: remember, Obama announced the US decision to abandon its missile defense plans in Eastern Europe on the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland.

I recently wrote a not altogether positive article about Pakistan's chief military spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, for spinning everything in Pakistan from ISI sponsorship of the Taliban to U.S. drone strikes in the country.  Today, General Abbas has been in the news touting the success of the Pakistani military's recent offensive in Waziristan.

According to the Newsweek's Mark Hosenball, however, U.S. officials have more modest expectations for the recent assault. The publicity which accompanied the long run-up to the attack means that "among the least likely results" of the incursion will be the arrest of a major al Qaeda or Taliban leaders, who likely vacated the area long ago. Furthermore, the Pakistani armed forces lack the equipment necessary to clear the hostile territory of Waziristan, and its reliance on heavy artillery will likely cause greater civilian casualties -- thereby creating more insurgents.

Perhaps its lack of confidence in the Pakistani military is one reason that the Obama Administration has "dramatically ratcheted up" U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal region, in the words of a recent report by Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann (of AfPak Channel fame). Well, no matter what happens in Waziristan over the next few weeks, you can expect more spin from the Pakistani government.

There's nothing more frustrating than reading an article which purports to answer a question that it really dodges. Take, for example, "How to Measure the War," by inveterate Afghanistan and Iraq indexers Jason Campbell, Jeremy Shapiro, and Michael O'Hanlon. One would expect to finish the piece with a better understanding of the metrics that we will use to judge our progress in Afghanistan than after reading, say, Taro Gomi's Everyone Poops. That would be incorrect. 

Instead, the piece meanders inoffensively through thirteen pages, informing the reader that, yes, metrics are important in a counterinsurgency campaign. Yes, they can be misused and suffer from a lack of concrete data. And then there's this: "Unfortunately...metrics will not be up to the job of diagnosing clear and incontrovertible proof of progress or lack thereof in Afghanistan."

That's disturbing news, especially coming from the people who have followed the numbers in Iraq closer than anyone not in a uniform. It's also, thankfully, not particularly convincing. The authors argue that, because the primary measure of success in Afghanistan will be the effectiveness of the Afghan government, this presents a set of metrics which are hard to measure. Well, here are a few metrics to gauge the capability of the government off the top of my head: I would be interested in knowing in what parts of the country the government can collect taxes; how many students regularly attend government-run schools; and where the government can provide regular services, from functioning courts to trash pickup.

Those are just the basics. You can read the Obama administration's metrics for measuring progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan here. I'm sure there are more complicated metrics for a government's capabilities. So how about it, Passport readers? What do you think are the important factors to measure in Afghanistan to determine if the US war effort is worth the cost?

Imagine you're a tribal chief in Kandahar. You have to choose a side: either support the government in Kabul and its U.S. allies, or go over to the Taliban. Before you make that decision, it's very important for you to know the level of American commitment in Afghanistan. If they're going to increase their troop strength and invest in strengthening the central government, you could do pretty well by joining them. If they're going to pick up and leave in a year, they're going to leave you alone to face some very angry Talibs.

On Sunday, you hear on al-Jazeera that Rahm Emanuel cautioned against sending additional troops to Afghanistan until after the election, until the United States could determine if they had a "credible Afghan partner." But then, on Monday, you hear that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that the United States cannot wait for the legitimacy of the Afganistan government to be established before sending more troops.

So, if you're an Afghan tribal leader, what do you do in the face of the White House's mixed messages? Most likely, you start to discount the credibility of whatever the U.S. government says.  Even if all parties come together tomorrow and announce a fully-resourced counterinsurgency strategy, there's going to be that twinge of doubt about what the Americans are going to do the day after tomorrow. For this reason, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that all the White House principals have accomplished by airing their different strategies in public is a further narrowing of President Obama's options in Afghanistan.