Annie Lowrey's blog

It now seems close to certain that Herman Van Rompuy, the prime minister of Belgium, will be EU president, and Catherine Ashton, currently the EU trade commissioner and the former leader of the British House of Lords, will be foreign-policy czar.

The picks have a symmetry thought necessary in Europe: Rompuy and Ashton are male and female, from a small country and a large one, conservative and liberal.

They are also expected and surprising. Rompuy has for weeks been considered a frontrunner for president. Ashton -- decently known in Britain and on the continent, but barely known elsewhere -- is something of a surprise. The BBC and other outlets report that up until the very end of negotiations, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown pushed for former PM Tony Blair to win the top spot. Germany and other big continental countries advocated for Rompuy, and won; Brown and social-democrats then pushed Ashton through.

Ultimately, Ashton is the more interesting pick. I believe the foreign-policy gig will end up being the vastly more influential one -- Ashton will control thousands of civil servants and a large budget, and will have powers to set policy priorities for the EU. It is unclear just what Rompuy's staffing and responsibilities will be.

But is Ashton qualified enough? Prominent enough? And might any countries object? She has an important job as trade commissioner, but has only been in it for a year. We'll have answers to those questions -- as well as to how transformative these positions might be -- when she and Rompuy take office next month.

Matt Yglesias has some good commentary on the new team and the importance these positions might have, as well as a useful explanation of Ashton's formal title (she is known as Lady Ashton, Baroness of Upholland -- not because she inherited a barony, but because she won an honorific title when she joined the House of Lords). And we'll post any more interesting updates here.

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Today, the way Europe functions as a political bloc might change dramatically. In a matter of hours, we should have official word from Brussels as to the new presient and foreign-policy chief of the European Union: positions hashed out over the course of a decade and finally approved by the passage of the Lisbon Treaty, which might -- just might -- give Europe a much more powerful and unified presence on the international stage.

We'll have the latest, as soon as we hear, here.

At this point, the most-tipped favorite for president is Herman van Rompuy, the prime minister of Belgium. And British papers have already announced Catherine Ashton (the Baroness of Upholland, naturally), a somewhat obscure former leader of the House of Lords and current EU trade commissioner, as foreign-policy chief. 

Woe to the Maersk Alabama, the U.S.-flagged freighter captured by pirates in April! Today, the U.S. Navy reported, pirates attacked and nearly boarded the same boat again. The New York Times has some pirate commentary on the incident: 

Pirates in Xarardheere, one of their strongholds in Somalia, said Wednesday that some of their colleagues had been killed Tuesday night. "We have been told over the phone today that four of our colleagues were killed and two were injured," said a Somali pirate boss known as Red Teeth. "We will keep attacking on foreign vessels until illegal fishing and toxic dump is stopped," he added.

A few things of note.

First, the pirate activity off the Somali and Kenyan coasts and in the Gulf of Aden is generally chalked up to insecurity in the teetering African state. Pirates steal and murder at sea because of the dearth of opportunities and complete lack of governance at home. I hadn't heard the "illegal fishing and toxic dump" political argument, which sounds like it comes from Greenpeace, not Red Teeth, before.

Second, what strikes me most is the detail that the Maersk Alabama was 600 miles off of the Somali coast at the time of the attack -- the distance the Navy recommends. As ships have fortified and moved off the coast, the number of attacks has not decreased as one would expect (cf. the ICC maps of incidents from 2008 and 2009). The pirates have moved off shore with the boats -- and attacks have become more resource-intensive, dangerous, and difficult for them.

Michael Crowley has an excellent article in this week's New Republic, "Reset Button," assessing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's public breaks from official U.S. policy. He runs through her out-of-line statements on Kim Jong-il's successor in North Korea, human rights in China, and Israeli settlement-building, as well as her snapping at an audience member during her trip through Africa and calling North Korea an "unruly teenager." He questions whether these incidents were the gaffes of an independent-thinking, fallible, and very tired diplomat, or cannily constructed political statements designed in concert with the White House to express something otherwise taboo.

The article is cast in black and white, told through the dialectics of candidate and victor, ally and enemy, on message and off, either and or. Crowley opens the article describing the schizophrenic reaction to Clinton's naming as secretary; some, he argues, thought it "nuts" and some a "stroke of genius." A Democratic operative says of Clinton's out-of-bounds statements, "Sometimes that's helpful, sometimes it's not." Crowley also discusses an "old Hillary duality" -- her "disdain for the media" (making herself available for questions just once on a weeklong trip) and "occasional efforts at outreach" (bringing the hungry traveling press bagels).

Throughout, he flip-flops between calling the secretary "Hillary" and "Clinton," to heighten the point -- Hillary being the strident and frank candidate and Clinton the hyper-controlled political tact-machine.

Eventually, Crowley blows over his own either-or straw-woman, noting that the idea of Clinton as some sort of infallible policy robot is absurd. She, like all politicians, has mucked up dozens of times in the past. But he sadly doesn't plumb the idea much further.

It follows from the conception of her as a complex person that her perceived missteps are similarly complex. She speaks publicly on literally a world's worth of issues every day. She makes mistakes, sometimes on purpose, sometimes not, sometimes with effect, sometimes without. To paint with black and white is to miss a very colorful picture. And ultimately, it is the press that paints her in such egregiously schizophrenic, love-her-or-hate-her terms.

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Reuters reports that an Italian judge has delayed the resumption of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's tax fraud trial until January, at least. Why? "Pressing state business" -- that is, presiding over a U.N. summit on hunger in Rome.

But Berlusconi has not managed to delay the other criminal case pending against him and is due in court later in November. The magnate/bon vivant/political leader allegedly paid a prominent British lawyer $600,000 to testify falsely on his behalf in a 1997 corruption case. (David Mills, who accepted the bribe, has already been convicted and is currently appealing his jail sentence.)

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is undoubtedly one of the most murderous people in U.S. custody today, a self-proclaimed terrorist "to the bone." He masterminded the 9/11 attacks and the 2002 Bali bombing. He has confessed to a number of crimes, and will go on trial in federal court for 2,973 counts of murder as well as terrorism and conspiracy charges, the Justice Department announced today. But because he was tortured, is the U.S. evidence against him inadmissible? Could the case be thrown out? Could KSM walk free?

Well, the U.S. and Pakistani forces who captured KSM on March 1, 2003, certainly didn't read him his Miranda rights. (In his book At the Center of the Storm, former CIA director George Tenet says that KSM told his captors, "I'll talk to you guys after I get to New York and see my lawyer.") He did not have access to legal counsel until after his months-long and utterly brutal interrogation, rendering what he said during his detention inadmissible. But the government is trying him in a federal court rather than a military tribunal precisely because the intelligence evidence against him is strong.

At a press conference today, Attorney General Eric Holder said, "I would not have authorized the bringing of these prosecutions unless I thought that the outcome -- in the outcome we would ultimately be successful.  I will say that I have access to information that has not been publicly released that gives me great confidence that we will be successful in the prosecution of these cases in federal court."

It's things like jury selection that might pose a thorny issue. Under U.S. law, prosecutors in the southern district of New York will need to find an impartial group of jurors to determine his innocence or guilt -- a daunting task given KSM's high and rising profile.

Today, Greg Craig, the White House's top legal advisor, stepped down from the post he once described as his dream job. The speculation over the much-respected lawyer's resignation has been swirling for months, reaching a fever pitch back in October, when the New York Times published a story on the controversy in the White House office of legal counsel.

Craig's resignation comes on the day the administration announced it will    try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- among the tougher Guantanamo cases from a prosecutorial stance, given that he was tortured and that the government hopes to seek the death penalty -- in federal court a few blocks from Ground Zero.

The most obvious reason (Craig gave none specifically in his resignation note) is that he was the person charged with closing the facility at Guantanamo Bay, determining how to relocate and try all of the detainees. When Obama came into office, he promised it would be done by Jan. 22, 2010. It will not, likely costing Craig his job. The October Times story explained:

When an administration stumbles, whispers begin and fingers point in search of someone to blame. At a certain point, assumptions can become self-fulfilling, and an official in the cross hairs finds it harder to do the job. In Mr. Craig’s case, friends said he was unfairly being made a scapegoat for decisions supported across the administration.

It is, of course, not a good thing that the administration has stumbled in its goal of closing Guantanamo. But it is worth considering that it isn't really Craig's fault at all.

Gitmo, ultimately, isn't closed because Craig did not take any of the easy ways out. He could have moved all of the prisoners to Bagram or another overseas military facility. He could have tried all of them in military commissions, the legal process jerry-rigged by the Bush administration. Because, in part, of Craig's insistence on taking each case separately and at least trying to conform to U.S. law, Guantanamo remains open.

It is a much lesser sin than what came before it. Craig is stepping down less due to his own failures than due to the extralegal maneuvering of the Bush administration. Lawyers like John Yoo and David Addington made a mockery of due process back then, and their sins are now being revisited upon members of the Obama administration. If anyone should have to answer for Greg Craig's job, it is John Yoo.

For the past two years, 192 countries have participated in talks on the pressing issue of climate change, which will culminate in the Copenhagen summit next month. So far, more than 40 heads of state have agreed to attend, to act as negotiators and more importantly to demonstrate a firm commitment to ambitious targets. The growing list includes Angela Merkel, Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

But the RSVPs seem lost in the mail for the leaders of the countries considered to be the lynchpins of the deal -- China, the United States, and India. Hu Jintao, Barack Obama, and Manmohan Singh haven't committed yet -- and they should. This summer, Obama indicated he would not attend because Congress has not yet passed climate change legislation. He's since waffled a bit, saying he would if his appearance would close the deal. It's weak tea, and those calling for him to attend include Al Gore and Brazil's da Silva, who used his weekly radio address to implore Obama and Hu to make the trip.

It is less likely that Hu or Singh will attend. Their developing countries have been good negotiators, but reticent to commit to ambitious targets. (China recently called for keeping the Kyoto protocol instead.) If Obama commits, though, they would be a lot more willing -- and that should be reason for the U.S. leader to consider heading across the pond.

In other climate news, the International Energy Agency released its full World Energy Outlook yesterday. One choice doomsday passage:

For every year that passes, the window for action on emissions over a given period becomes narrower -- and the costs of transforming the energy sector increase. We calculate that each year of delay before moving onto the emissions path consistent with a 2°C temperature increase would add approximately $500 billion to the global incremental investment cost...A delay of just a few years would probably render that goal completely out of reach.