As many of you know, back in 2009 on TED I predicted that Iran would not build a nuclear bomb but would develop enough weapons grade fuel to establish that they have the know how. I reasoned that internal political differences in Iran were resolving in favor of this politically less provocative path and that the somewhat more moderate elements (defined in the Iran context) were likely to prevail. There were, of course, many more details in my analysis about specific players rising or falling in influence (e.g., the Supreme Leader declining in political power and dissidents rising, albeit slowly). anyway, by way of update, I encourage everyone to go to the link to the link below to an article in the Wall Street Journal updating all of us on the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear program since the 2007 estimate and see what it says:
The military is said to have the confidence and respect of the Egyptian people. To shore up that respect it seems that the time has come for the military to take a further step toward a transition to a stable, democratic future for Egypt. The step is to gently but firmly remove Mubarak from office, place him on an airplane to a destination in exile, and create a troika to oversee the transition. Any member of the troika should be openly, publicly and explicitly committed to not seeking or accepting office in the Egyptian government for the length of a new leader’s first term in office following free and fair elections as will be set out in a new constitution. The troika would be wise to grant amnesty to members of the Mubarak government, including Mubarak himself, so that it is made easier to facilitate the transition and so that he has less reason to cling to power (not to mention that a credible commitment of amnesty would also make it easier to oust dictators in other countries in the future).
The troika might consist of a representative of the military (perhaps Vice President Omar Suleiman or a General of the military leadership’s choice), and representatives of two secular movements such as the banned democracy movement and a leader of Egypt’s business, academic, or other appropriate community. Of course a religious person should have the right to serve on the troika but not in a capacity as a religious spokesperson since the future government if it is to succeed in building a successful civil society needs to be fully secular.
Egyptians, of course, will know best what elements their constitution requires but a few elements are well established as foundational to a successful democracy. These include freedom of speech (not to be restricted to prohibit anti-government or anti-religion statements), freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and protection of property rights. Without these elements competitive choices among alternative parties or prospective leaders is not possible.
The greatest danger for a new democracy is what happens by the end of the first two years. In the early period, as explained in my forthcoming book, The Dictator’s Handbook (with Alastair smith, to be published by Public Affairs Press in September), even autocrats have an incentive to pretend to be democrats during their first 6 months to two years in office. After that leaders show their true stripes. Make the new Egyptian government functionally dependent on a broad coalition and it will have a good chance of succeeding as a democracy. Make it dependent on a small group of generals and civil servants and it will fail.
The mounting revolutions in the Middle East are an important time for careful reflection. About a year ago I fretted that President Obama’s cut in foreign aid to Egypt – to help pay for the war in Afghanistan – was likely to have an unforeseen consequence. That consequence was to strengthen the hand of the Muslim Brotherhood. The current rebellion in Egypt is not a movement by fundamentalist groups but rather the articulation of pent-up frustration and rightful demands by the Egyptian people for greater freedom and greater opportunity. The danger, however, is that if and when they succeed in bringing down the current government of Hosni Mubarak, what will replace it? Will the cure for what ails Egypt be worse than the disease?
Perhaps moderate, pragmatic and farsighted leaders, like 68-year old Mohamed El Baradei will step in and establish a new government on a healthy path to democracy. Egypt’s lack of natural resource wealth makes it a good candidate for progress in that direction. But, more likely, he or someone like him will head a short-lived interim government. It is the Muslim Brotherhood among opposition groups that is organized and that also is fairly popular with many Egyptians. Democracy should result in the articulation of the will of the people and that may well mean the election of a Muslim Brotherhood government down the road. But democracy should also mean the freedom later to throw the rascals out at the ballot box and that is an option not likely to be offered should the Muslim Brotherhood come to control Egypt.
The protesters have shown that the current regime should go, but have they sufficient organization to be responsible for what will follow? Probably not! This is always the danger of revolution. People seek a better life than they have under an oppressive regime but more often than not their failure to organize an alternative leadership results in a still more oppressive regime stepping into the breach. That has been the story in Cuba, Iran, China, almost all of Africa, and sadly may prove to be the story in Egypt, Tunisia (they probably have the best shot at building an actual democracy), and Yemen. Sure some revolutions bring genuine reform – India’s, South Africa’s, the U.S. revolution – but most don’t. And so, we can only urge the protesters to do the hard work of organizing a new government before toppling the old. The new government, to succeed, must depend on support from a broad swath of the Egyptian people and not just a small, elite segment. It must first and foremost – above all else – guarantee the people the right to freely assemble, to freely protest peacefully, to have free speech and a free press. It must abandon laws that allow the declaration of a perpetual state of emergency as the excuse to suppress freedom. A government that will succeed is one that not only comes to power because of the will of the people, but that is vulnerable to being removed from power as well by the will of the people.
Sorry for the long silence. I thought I would just engage in a little brazen self-interest and get you caught up on what I have been doing. The last half of the last chapter of The Predictioneer’s Game predicted failure at Copenhagen and highlighted why it would fail — especially the differences between the US, Europe, China, India and Brazil. Here is a case where I am sorry to say the model has proven right and the world will probably be worse off for it.
Really if we want to cut carbon emissions the place to begin is at home. Unilateral action is a much surer way of having impact than toothless universal international treaties. See some of my presentations on line about this (talks at the World Affairs Council, the London School of Economics, La Ciudad de los Ideas in Puebla, Mexico and quite a few others).
How are things going in Pakistan? The analysis in the penultimate chapter of The Predictioneer’s Game indicated that IF — a contingent forecast — the US gave Pakistan $1.5 billion in aid then the Pakistani government would turn away from making side deals with the Taliban and Al Qaeda militants in Pakistan and, instead, go after them but not wholeheartedly. This is what has been happening. The Pakistani regime is now doing much more to rein in the militants but it has explicitly refused to go after the Pakistani Taliban leader (who you can see sitting next to the Jordanian doctor who murdered 7 US CIA agents in Afghanistan as well as one Jordanian agent). Going after him apparently is too politically costly for the Pakistani leaders. It will be interesting to see whether this changes given his video appearance. Anyone care to try to model that? Please do and post your results.
Before the aid deal was approved, the Pakistani government had negotiated a partial deal with the Taliban who had taken over Swat. Now they are fighting them. Looks like my students back in 2008 pretty much got it right.
I have been doing lots of talks, radio and TV about the book and having a great time in the process. It is frustrating, however, when people say the book lacks the math — true but then the math is in other, not widely read (because of the math) books and articles of mine so it is not like it isn;t available for those who really want to know. And then there are those who persist in believing the History Channels misstatement that it is all a big secret. Lots of papers appear in peer reviewed publications not only containing the theory but also containing real-time predictions so anyone can check out the track record in those publications as well.
Sorry to whine. These criticisms irk me exactly because I have tried to make everything transparent to avoid just these criticisms. Oh well, you really can’t please everyone.
I have gotten lots of nice feedback from people who have tried the model. How about some of you writing your experiences for the blog. For instance, someone recently called into the Forum radio show on NPR while I was on and said he tried the car buying method and saved over $2,000. Wow, that’s great. I’d like to hear more about such experiences. Others have used the online model with considerable success. Let’s share those experiences online.
To reduce Afghan corruption, Secretary Clinton could ask for a simple-to-implement concession. Select an outside agency (a major accounting firm, for instance) to audit Afghanistan’s books and the financial records of its senior government officials and senior civil servants. For the first audit — to be conducted based on the records as of one day prior to the Afghan president’s inauguration — guarantee amnesty to leaders and civil servants associated with missing funds. Ensure that the independent audit — not controlled by the Afghan government — is repeated each year and after the first year prosecute fully any cases that are consistent with ongoing corruption and improper allocation of funds. If the punishment for corrupt practices is severe enough then leaders and civil servants will have the incentive to police themselves against corrupt practices. If the second audit shows continued corruption on a significant scale then the United States should cut off aid to the government. The risk of lost aid will further incentivize improved behavior, stimulating accountability to the people and improved performance by the government.
And if the Afghan government refuses to go along with this proposal that is a good indication that they do not mean what they say when they promise to crack down on corruption.
What do you think? Seems like this will ferret out the crooks and possibly put Afghanistan onto a healthier developmental course.
And in a sermon at the main weekly prayers in Tehran on Friday, hardline cleric Ahmad Khatami gave vent to the misgivings of many in the regime.
“What guarantee do we have that if we deliver our enriched uranium, we will get the fuel?” he asked. “If they want to harm our rights, our response will be to enrich the fuel ourselves.”
In an interview with the New York Times on Thursday, the UN watchdog’s director Mohamed ElBaradei spoke of the difficulties of brokering a deal amid the legacy of suspicion between Tehran and Washington, which have had no diplomatic relations since the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution.
“There’s total distrust on the part of Iran,” ElBaradei said.”
OK, let’s diagnose this from a game theory point of view. Here we have a classic case of a time inconsistency problem: turn over enriched uranium today to a third-party (whose interests are different from Iran’s) and tomorrow the third party promises to deliver the enriched uranium in a transformed form for medical use. What guarantee, indeed, is there that the other party, once it takes possession of the uranium, will meet its end of the bargain. Those of us in the United States and Western Europe take on faith that our governments will act honorably but those with the most to lose do not. There is, in fact, no credible commitment in the deal.
What is needed is an arrangement that protects Iran’s right to enrich uranium for peaceful uses under the Nonproliferation Treaty while reassuring the rest of us that it will not build a nuclear weapon. Here is one idea of how to achieve this:
Simultaneously:
1. Iran agrees to allow IAEA inspectors to shut down — but leave intact – Iran’s centrifuges and to maintain as many inspectors on site as the IAEA believes it needs to guarantee that the centrifuges remain shut down.
2. The UN, with the financial backing of the US, EU, Russia and China, agree to provide Iran with a negotiated amount of civilian energy and medical isotopes. Iran pays part of the cost equal to the cost it would have borne in generating such energy and medica
With Palestinian moderate leader Abbas indicating he will not seek re-election we must ask where the prospects for peace between Israel and Palestine are headed and why. I am ever optimistic that peace will push its way into that corner of the world by the end of Obama’s first term, but I must admit that increasingly my optimism survives despite evidence to the contrary. So what’s the problem? Everyone is better off with peace. In fact, however war is resolved, the same deal presumably could be struck without all the costs of fighting so why can’t the leaders on each side look ahead and work out a sensible arrangement? Well, what is good for the people is not necessarily good for the individual leaders. Netanyahu’s constituents, for example, surely want peace (on their own terms) but are unwilling to make near-term sacrifices (settlements, water access, etc.) for long-term gains. Most of us, sadly, are relatively short-term maximizers, hoping others will bear the long term costs instead of us. And how about Hamas? They seem divided between those who want to pursue a moderate course and those whose own importance and well-being is tied to prolonged extremism. Abbas and Fatah have tried to play a moderating role and gotten precious little in return. That, of course, strengthens the arguments of hardliners. So why has Abbas been able to achieve so little (and lose so much — especially Gaza to Hamas).
One problem is that short-term electoral gains in Israel promote a tough stance. Another is the failure of US leaders to be creative in advancing the prospects of peace. Early in Obama’s term he gave a speech in Cairo that seemed to mark a sea-change in the US approach to the region. Sadly, as on so many other fronts (e.g., health care) the president was long on talk and short on follow-up action. And now, with Abbas saying he will step down (of course, he may be bluffing — anyone care to build a data set and use the online game to forecast what is likely to happen to Abbas and the prospects of elections in Palestine in January!) what does this say about the strategic need to threaten and cajole to get serious discussions moving forward.
For Netanyahu, negotiation at the expense of settlements seems like a no-brainer — Palestinians don’t vote in Israel so their interests are unlikely to shape his calculations. OK, so let’s throw some ideas out there.
One of the allegedly big issues between the contending sides is the “right of return.” Now under a UN resolution from the late 1940s Palestinians born in what is now Israel would have a right of return. Of course, we are 60 years beyond the resolution so the number of people it actually covers is probably pretty small. This seems really to be more a symbolic issue than real, at least under international law. Anyone in the international community willing to compensate those who fall under the resolution if they agree not to return? Just a thought. Later I will take up Jerusalem and other territorial issues.
Secretary of State Clinton is in the mid-east urging Israel’s government to stop the construction of further settlements and working on measures to build trust between the two sides. Israel’s Prime Minister obkjects that there should be no preconditions imposed on Israel before agreeing to start negotiations.
Give me a break: start negotiations! These tired old phrases and maneuvers have been going on forever. Negotiations start and stop every couple of years — must be seriously think that they always go back to square one. Isn’t it time for some fresh thinking instead of the same old same old?
I propose a simple step that serves the interests of both sides. Share tourist tax revenue. When there is violence, that revenue falls to a pittance. If each side policies itself, Palestinian income could rise 20 percent or more at no cost — and real gains toward peace — for the Israelis. I lay out the calculations in The Predictioneer’s Game if you want to see the details. This is a completely self-enforcing mechanism. Israel’s government might have the right self-interested incentives under this proposal to check settlements. The Palestinian leadership will likewise have the right incentive to check extremism on their side of the border. They don’t need to sit and negotiate to achieve this. Each can unilaterally declare its preparedness to put tourist tax revenue into a common pool to be distributed according to the current population distribution (about 60% Israeli and 40% Palestinian). Check out the details.
Dear Madam Secretary of State, please let’s bring some new ideas to the table. Land for peace and peace for land don’t work, won’t work, and shouldn;t be expected to work. They lack what game theorists call credible commitment. Please let’s not waste time on what we already know won’t be successful.
Sorry for the long silence. I am being kept pretty busy on the book tour circuit. Having just returned from London and Dublin, I thought you might enjoy an article from the Irish Times. It seems the author of the article, starting out as a skeptic, put my car-buying approach to the test in Ireland and found that he saved a bundle. You can find the article at
On another note, feverish work is moving ahead on putting an executable apprentice version of the game directly on the web so you don’t have to download anything. The web version, which could be up as soon as Friday but more likely early next week, will also allow you to enter data directly into the program. The downloadable version will, therefore, be taken down and stop working by the beginning of November. The online version should prove easier and more convenient to use.
Buying a car soon, check out the method in Predictioneer’s Game or just read the Irihi Times article discussed above.
