The Washington Post - USA (2022-04-03)

SUNDAY, APRIL 3 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A29

I

n the agonizing final years of the Vietnam War, a strategist named Fred Iklé wrote a treatise titled “Every War Must End.” His basic theme was that “wars are easier to start than to stop” — a message that applies powerfully now to the conflict in Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine have been meeting for preliminary peace talks in Turkey last week, which has raised hopes for a settlement. Both sides have described the same basic terms for resolving the conflict: In exchange for a halt in the fighting, Ukraine would agree to a neutral military status that wouldn’t threaten Russia. But this formula masks painful choices: Such a pact would grant Russian Presi- dent Vladimir Putin at least partial victory. For many in Ukraine and the West, that is unacceptable. Putin launched an un- provoked, illegal invasion. His army com- mitted atrocities against civilians. He shouldn’t be rewarded for such behavior. The Biden administration’s view is that it’s up to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to decide whether to settle for neutrality or keep fighting for a better deal. “The Ukrainians will have to decide when the situation on the ground is ripe for a settlement,” argues Stephen Hadley, a former national security adviser to Pres- ident George W. Bush who keeps close contact with the Biden team. After fighting so valiantly, Ukrainians won’t want a settlement that leaves the country disarmed and vulnerable to a future attack. “This is viable to me in only one way — the kind of neutrality that Switzerland has — fully armed, with a citizen army,” Konstantin Gryshchenko, an influential former foreign minister of Ukraine, told me in an interview. The Russian military has performed poorly so far, and some Ukrainians think more fighting will bring victory. But U.S. officials specializing in Russia are skeptical. Russia is a large country with the ability to resupply and reposition its forces; Ukraine is a relatively small one that’s short on the essentials for survival. The war is 40 days old; who can say what the battlefield situation might be in six months or a year? Iklé offered a useful caution: “It often happens in wars that the weaker party makes no attempt to seek peace while its military strength can still influence the enemy, but fights until it has lost all its power to bargain.” He called this “self- d estructive perse- verance.” Iklé was similarly skeptical of punitive tactics such as Russia’s seeming determi- nation to bomb its way to a desirable settlement. “Inflicting ‘punishment’ on the enemy nation is not only an ineffective strategy for ending a war, it may well have side effects that actually hasten the defeat of the side that relies on that strategy,” he wrote. Often, wars don’t end with a peace treaty but a cease-fire that leaves forces in place along a “line of control.” Some ana- lysts think Russia may be moving toward such an outcome by consolidating its forces in a swath of southeastern Ukraine that could eventually stretch from Odessa to the Donbas region. Such partition lines are messy but can be surprisingly durable. North and South Korea are still separated without a formal peace treaty. A disputed line of control separates India and Pakistan, and also India and China. Vietnam was similarly partitioned for decades. Harvard’s Graham Allison argues that such a division could allow the Western- allied part of Ukraine to prosper. Before the Russian invasion, he contends, Ukraine was a failing state — one of the rare post-Soviet republics whose real gross domestic product per capita actually declined after 1991. A future Western Ukraine might become a version of South Korea, Allison says. As Russia and Ukraine exchange peace proposals, the United States and its allies are subtly pressuring Russia through what has been their best tool — the release of declassified intelligence. The latest in- stallment was a series of statements last week by U.S. and British officials arguing that Putin’s bloody invasion was marked by the Russian leader’s delusion and the incompetence of his advisers. “Putin’s advisers are afraid to tell him the truth,” but “the extent of these misjudgments must be crystal clear to the regime,” argued Jeremy Fleming, director of Britain’s code-breaking agency GCHQ, in a speech on Thursday. That zinger was aimed directly at the Kremlin, and it could have several interest- ing consequences: Putin may further blame his military and intelligence chiefs for failing to warn him of the disaster ahead; the generals and spies may further resent their remote president who has waged what Fleming described as his “per- sonal war”; and the Russian people may mistrust both Putin and his security chiefs. The most hopeful development I saw in last week’s peace feelers was a statement by Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky that, although Moscow rejects Ukrainian membership of NATO, it “has no objection to Ukraine’s aspirations to join the Euro- pean Union.” Maybe that is a building block for a real settlement. For a European Ukraine would represent a profound defeat for Putin’s dream of hegemony over Kyiv. That’s an essential requirement for a peace deal, along with stopping the killing.

DAVID IGNATIUS

Painful

choices lie

ahead for

Ukraine

W

hen, in Charles Dickens’s “Oliver Twist,” Mr. Bumble is told that the law assumes that a wife is under her husband’s “direction,” Mr. Bumble is flabbergasted: “If the law supposes that, the law is a ass — a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor.” So, about the kerfuffle concerning Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thom- as’s wife, Virginia. She is, politically, mad as a hatter. The shelves in her mental pantry groan beneath the weight of Trumpian hysterics about the 2020 presidential election having been stolen and the republic’s certain ruin- ation under Joe Biden. She bombarded Donald Trump’s White House with 21 (that are known) texted exhorta- tions, and received eight replies, about preventing Congress’s Jan. 6, 2021, certification of the electoral vote. To say that she was “strategizing” with the White House is akin to saying that the guy in the stadium’s upper deck yelling “Roll Tide!” and shouting suggested plays is strategizing with Alabama’s football team. Be that as it may, let us assume, as feminists and other enlightened think- ers should set an example by doing, that Virginia is not under Clarence’s direction. Should we not also assume that he is not under hers? So, what exactly is the problem? Appearances, apparently. Critics say he should recuse himself from cases concerning the election, such as the one in which the court, without written opinions, refused, 8 to 1, to block, pending further court proceedings, the release of some Trump documents from the National Archives to the House Jan. 6 commit- tee. It is, to say no more, not news that Thomas is comfortable in lonely dissent. Is there any reason to assume that Virginia’s obsessions rather than his jurisprudential convictions deter- mined his dissent? But, say his critics, consider the “perceptions” or “appearances.” Fuss- ing about such things is often what people do to justify unjustifiable ac- tions. For example, people eager to restrict political campaign contributions — eager, that is, to limit financing for the dissemination of political speech — say that such restrictions are necessary to prevent corruption or the appearance of it. Quid pro quo transac- tions — doing favors in exchange for favors — are corrupt. A candidate accepting contributions from people who agree with him or her is politics. If the “appearance” makes morally fastidious people grumpy, that is no reason to proscribe the behavior. Particularly because the fastidious often are selectively so. Would Thom- as’s current critics argue that a justice whose spouse is an environmental activist should recuse in cases involv- ing the Environmental Protection Agency? Unlikely. This, however, is likely: A Venn diagram of people who think Thomas’s recusal is required to protect the court’s reputation for impartiality, and of people who denounce the court as a conservative, illegiti- mate mini-legislature, would show a substantial overlap. During her Senate confirmation hear- ings, Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, who in a reasonable era would be confirmed 100 to 0, said she would recuse herself in the case concerning the allegedly race-based (anti- Asian American) admissions policies at Harvard, where she serves on one of the university’s two governing boards. But her recusal suggests that her presumed support, as a member of the Board of Overseers, for Harvard’s policies would preclude her from objectively assessing them in the context of evidence and arguments presented to the court. This insults her. Or her recusal suggests that non- r ecusal would present an “appearance” of partiality. Such a consideration should not curtail the participation on the court of a justice whose confirmation presumes her impartiality. Those who furiously opposed Thom- as’s 1991 confirmation inflicted a Sen- ate browbeating even worse than Rob- ert H. Bork experienced in 1987 — the beginning of confirmation circuses. Thomas’s tormentors perhaps con- vinced him that living long would be the best revenge. He is the longest-serv- ing member of today’s court. At 73, he appears to live by an axiom illustrated in the 1962 movie “Lawrence of Arabia.” Lawrence, played by Peter O’Toole, strikes a match to light a cigarette for a fellow soldier, William Potter. Then slowly, without flinching, Lawrence pinches out the match’s flame. The soldier tries this and exclaims, “Ow! It damn well hurts!” Lawrence: “Certainly it hurts.” Potter: “Well what’s the trick then?” Lawrence: “The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.” Thomas does not mind criticism — for the unbending originalism of his jurisprudence, for his minimal rever- ence for precedents he considers mis- taken, for the company his wife keeps, or for many other things. People who consider his starchy independence a problem have a problem.

GEORGE F. WILL

For the

Thomases, a

kerfuffle over

appearances

A

mericans who hope for a more peaceful political scene are in for more disappointment, I fear. The forecast is more division followed by a storm of craziness — but take this with a side order of salt. I can predict everything except the future. Let’s start with where things stand today. The Biden administration, working with a small and fractured majority in the House and an eensy edge in the Senate, has done a lot of legislating. President Biden has signed a huge coronavirus relief bill, an enor- mous infrastructure bill and a gargan- tuan budget bill festooned with once- taboo earmarks. Being Democrats, the lawmakers overshadowed these achievements by fighting bitterly over even larger projects they failed to fund. But raging inflation suggests that the U.S. economy might finally have had all the debt-driven stimulus it can, for the moment, tolerate. Biden’s poorly managed end to the long war in Afghanistan has been followed by a well-managed response to Russia’s savagery in Ukraine — though each day of the Ukraine crisis presents new tests of Western resolve. Regard- ing the pandemic, Biden drifted from triumphal to a shrug, saying there is “no federal solution.” In the bully pulpit, Biden has par- tially fulfilled his promise of a return to normalcy. Still, when big issues are on the line, he remains the oratorical equivalent of a kid learning to ride a bike in a room full of Ming vases. Heading into the midterm elec- tions, the public appears focused on the downsides of this mixed record. As Amy Walter of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report observes, “Every met-

ric we use to analyze the political environment — the president’s approval rating, the mood of the electorate, the enthusiasm gap — all point to huge gains for the GOP this fall.” A larger, seemingly cultural force also bodes ill for Biden’s party. Ameri- cans prefer divided government in Washington. Voters broke the Republi- can grip of 2004 with a Democratic backlash in 2006; the Democratic sweep of 2008 was undone by the Re- publican tea party of 2010; Republican victory in 2016 turned to Democratic victory in 2018. That history might not qualify as a “metric,” but it’s a strong tendency, likely to be repeated this year. Turning to the longer term: The return of divided government will commence the public phase of a presidential free-for-all. Everything appears possible, from a rematch of Biden vs. Donald Trump to a race in which neither man is on the ballot. By “possible,” I don’t just mean freak- a ccident possible; I mean entirely within the realm of likely outcomes. For a variety of reasons, Biden’s grip on renomination is unusually weak. The first is his age. The United States has been around for almost 250 years, yet there has never been an octogenar- ian president. Inaugurated at 78, Biden is already the oldest to hold the office. He also represents a party bat- tered by its intramural warfare over the failed Build Back Better agenda. A stronger incumbent would be closing off all avenues of attack from inside the party. Instead, Biden has opened at least two lanes: He can be challenged by a more progressive candidate — as incumbent President Jim- my Carter was challenged by Sen. Ed- ward M. Kennedy in 1980. And he can

be challenged by a candidate offering a torch-passing to the next generation. Should Biden choose not to run for reelection, the Democratic race will be entirely up for grabs, as Vice President Harris struggles to be more than the faintest of favorites. Even so, Democrats will have it easy compared with Republicans — espe- cially if Trump elects to run again. Though he is no spring chicken himself, the Mar-a-Lago Mauler is beloved by the Republican base. He’s also uniquely detested by the electorate at large. Turnout in 2020 was massive: Trump won more votes than any candidate before him yet still lost by more than 7 million. Given that Republicans did well in down-ballot races, the tsu- nami was clearly a wave of Dump Trumpers. Since then, the former president has doubled down: more claims of election fraud, more puckering up for Vladimir Putin, more feuds with insuf- ficiently sniveling Republicans, more cowbell. His fans love it, no doubt. But we know from 2020 that he turns more people off than on. The uneven per- formance of his endorsed candidates in Republican primaries is further evidence of Trump’s “ low ceiling” as political practitioners call the upper limit on a likely loser’s prospects. Many Republicans dread the dead end of another Trump candidacy. Some, such as former vice president Mike Pence, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, are eager for an open nomi- nation battle if and when enough toxic gas leaks from Trump’s balloon to make him vulnerable. In both parties, presidential politics is long overdue for new stars.

DAVID VON DREHLE

Those hoping for political peace

are in for more disappointment

DEMETRIUS FREEMAN/THE WASHINGTON POST P resident Biden answers questions from reporters on Thursday.

F

lorida Gov. Ron DeSantis pro- claimed himself unfazed by a federal judge’s opinion declaring provisions of the state’s new voting law unconstitutional and racially discriminatory. As a matter of raw judicial vote-counting, DeSantis is probably right. “It’s just a matter of how quickly it’s going to get reversed,” DeSantis said of the ruling Thursday by U.S. District Judge Mark Walker, an Obama appointee. The numbers back up the Republican governor’s bluster. Seven of the 11 active judges on the 11th Circuit, where Walker’s decision will be appealed, are Republican nominees, including a solid phalanx of six Trump appointees. The Supreme Court, if the dispute gets that far, isn’t apt to be any more attentive to voting rights claims. As Walker noted at the start of his 288-page opinion, voting rights “are under siege” — and here he blamed not states such as Florida but the Supreme Court itself, pointedly citing its spate of recent rulings eviscerating the Voting Rights Act and refusing to block racial gerrymandering. Still, the very prospect that this ruling is evanescent is what calls for paying attention to it now. To read the decision is to hear the unmistakable sound of Walk- er’s anguish: Over the conduct of his home state in enacting a law that solves no problem except to help Florida Repub- licans by suppressing Black votes. Over the persistent, and persisting, mistreatment of Black people in a state with “a grotesque history of racial discrimination.” And, perhaps most powerful, over the evident unwillingness of the federal judi- ciary to secure the “sacred right to vote” embodied in the Voting Rights Act. “Fed- eral courts must not lose sight of the spirit that spurred the VRA’s passage,” Walker wrote. But it is clear he believes too many

of his colleagues — and, more to the point, his superiors — have done just that. “To be sure, there are those who suggest that we live in a post-racial society,” Walker observed. “But that is simply not so.” This was, for a lower court judge, a cheeky takedown of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., cloaked in legal language: Walker’s citation pointed to Roberts’s rosy assertion, in 2013’s Shelby County v. Holder, that “our country has changed.” Walker’s ruling is the first by a federal judge to strike down major parts of one of the torrent of voting restrictions enacted by states in the aftermath of the 2020 election. Florida’s law, known as SB 90, limited the availability of drop boxes for absentee ballots, requiring that they be monitored round-the-clock and dramati- cally reducing the times during which most drop boxes could be used. It im- posed more stringent rules on third-party voter registration drives and threatened to penalize giving water, snacks or other help to those waiting in line to vote. Walker struck down these provisions as racially discriminatory, in violation of the Voting Rights Act and the Constitu- tion, although he rejected a challenge to new voter identification requirements for those casting mail-in ballots. Most surprisingly, he invoked a rarely used part of the Voting Rights Act, the “bail-in” provision, to require that the state submit future changes on those particular subjects for court approval. “Without preclearance, Florida could continue to enact such laws, replacing them every legislative session if courts view them with skepticism,” Walker wrote. “Such a scheme makes a mockery of the rule of law.” This wasn’t Walker’s first brush with Florida’s election laws. He’s heard 17 previous voting cases, and ruled against

the state in six. What was striking in this case was his refusal to ignore Florida’s extensive history of racial discrimination and violence to suppress Black voters and his insistence that the legacy of that mistreatment has present-day consequences. “Florida has a horrendous history of racial discrimination in voting,” Walker wrote. “As a result, Florida has long had a government that is not responsive to the needs of racial minorities. Because Flori- da’s government has historically been unresponsive to minorities, White Flo- ridians outpace minorities by almost every socioeconomic metric. Further, because of Florida’s racially charged past, race is closely correlated with politics in modern-day Florida.” And he linked that reality to the state’s voting laws, noting that “in the past 20 years, Florida has repeatedly sought to make voting tougher for Black voters because of their propensity to favor Dem- ocratic candidates.” Thus, the change in drop-box rules, seemingly inoffensive on its face, was actually racially motivated, Walker found: It “effectively bans drop box use at the specific times and the specific days that Black voters, not all Democratic voters, are most likely to use them.” The legislature knew just what it was doing. How different this analysis is from the arid, context-free way in which the Su- preme Court’s conservative majority has analyzed recent voting rights restrictions, resolutely obtuse to their foreseeable and desired impact on minority voters and credulously receptive to alternative ex- planations about combating nonexistent voter fraud. As DeSantis predicted, it may not last long, but it’s important to have someone set out, for the record, what is really going on here.

RUTH MARCUS

A judge calls out Florida’s attack on voting rights

The Washington Post - USA (2022-04-03)

Get our desktop app

Company

Features

Documentation

Resources