Immigration and Governance....

Immigration is one of those lightening rod issues about which hardly anyone is without an opinion. That, of course, is a key element in understanding why the issue is so intractable. Major foreign policy crises such as the Ukraine and the apparent unravelling of Iraq have overshadowed developments in long-simmering debates about immigration in the United States. In the last several months, a bizarre crisis has been unfolding along U.S.-Mexico border as thousands of children, most from Central America, have crossed into the U.S. unaccompanied by their parents (See Link). Since October 2013, some 47,000 children have crossed the border and immediately surrendered themselves to U.S. immigration officials who have then shipped them off to make-shift detention centers to await processing. What's going on? It's simply people responding to incentives.....

Iraq is Back.....

Those who have followed (or at least tried) Iraq's progress since the withdraw of all U.S. military personnel in 2011 know that Iraq has been on a long descent into chaos. The sources of the descent are multiple, but are largely anchored in unwillingness of Iraq's Shiite dominated government to compromise with the Sunni and Kurdish minorities in the country. Instead, the levers of power have been used to settle old scores, alienate enemies, and consolidate power. I wholeheartedly agree with those who argue that the lion's share of the responsibility for all of this rests with Iraq's government (see article).

The rapid advance of ISIS (The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) into some of Iraq's most important cities is yet another example of the perils of "presidential doctrines" I wrote about in my previous post. Foreign policy is tough and seldom presents officials with simple choices. To the degree Obama Doctrine can coherently be described as the use of "necessary force," the advance of ISIS, and the related conflict next door in Syria, continue present the administration with an almost unfathomable set of difficult problems in deciding if, where, how, and when force should be deployed. If foreign policy were an old silent Hollywood western, we'd start lobbing missiles at the guys with the black hats. But it's not a Hollywood film.

Even if there are no good solutions for American policy makers, there are plenty of boo-birds tossing around diagnoses of what has gone so rapidly off the rails, many of them pointing to President Obama. House Speaker John Boehner yesterday said the president had been "taking a nap" as Iraq has been spinning out of control. Senator McCain, a regular critic of Obama's foreign policy, called for the resignation of the President's entire national security team (see link). For those interested, the Rand Corporation produced a lengthy diagnosis of America's failures in Iraq that makes for sober reading (PDF via this link).

However, when looking for source material for what is transpiring today, it's hard to ignore some of the "what ifs" that flow from Coalition Provisional Authority Orders No. 1 and No. 2 in the spring of of 2003; the de-Ba'athification degree issued by CPA Administrator, Paul Bremer.