There is a growing academic research and consultancy industry on the issue of nation-branding, specifically: how a nation-state can improve its impact in the world by building a credible, recognisable brand-name for itself. Classic examples are Spain leaving Franco behind and re-creating itself as an idyllic, culturally-rich Mediterranean hotspot, and Norway earning a reputation as a quiet but effective behind-the-scenes conflict-resolver (otherwise known as ‘niche diplomacy’). But brands, as with anything in the marketplace, are not permanent and need to be constantly nurtured, otherwise the credibility soon dissolves. Spain has run into trouble as its hotspot image hits the financial buffers, but Barcelona remains ultra-cool. Norway has entered a period of major soul-searching now that Anton Breivik has shattered the domestic peace, but it remains an effective diplomatic force.

While there are plenty of recorded success stories, it is more interesting to watch the complete fragmentation of a national brand up close, in real time. Welcome to the Netherlands in late 2011.

When Uri Rosenthal became Foreign Minister just over a year ago, there was a sense that his reputation as a heavy-weight domestic political fixer and trusted advisor to Mark Rutte would carry some momentum into foreign affairs. Together with State Secretary Ben Knapen (‘The Nonconformist’), it was a noticeable change of tack for the Ministry. But the writing was already on the wall in the Governing Agreement between VVD and CDA that identified Israel as the only land that the Dutch minority government would strengthen relations with.

Overall, the Agreement declared that the Netherlands would “pursue international stability and security, the supply of energy and raw materials, the promotion of international law, and the trade and economic interests of the Netherlands and Dutch companies.” One year down the line and it is clear that Israel and economic interests – very narrowly defined – dominate everything coming out of The Hague. The long tradition of the Netherlands being on the side of a just, balanced international system, with development aid and peace-keeping as central parts of this, is being left behind for a petty nationalism lacking any vision except for immediate selfish gain. The Dutch brand is in free-fall.

Rosenthal has been repeatedly criticised for his ham-fisted determination to push national interests abroad. A discreet survey by the NRC, published yesterday, of Dutch diplomats and civil servants has produced a highly negative insight into the diplomatic apparatus. The pro-Israeli standpoint had led to the isolation of the Netherlands in the EU and the loss of one of the central planks of the Dutch brand, the support of human rights. The minimal Dutch contribution to NATO’s Operation Unified Protector – compared even to Denmark, or Belgium, which still doesn’t even have a government – and the hardly-worth-bothering-about ‘police training mission’ in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz has reduced The Hague from a worthwhile trustworthy ally of Washington to a small insignificant inward-looking country that the Americans don’t care about any more. G20 participation is long, long gone. The blinkered focus on economic interests has reduced the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to little more than an appendage to the Ministry of Economic Affairs under Maxime Verhagen.

In short, the current leadership of foreign policy is dismantling the Dutch brand, piece by piece, norm by norm, value by value. This is not totally down to Geert Wilders either – Rosenthal has long been an Israel supporter and does not need heat from the PVV to follow that line. This is simply his style. Typical is his reaction to the NRC‘s expose on Binnenhof today, disliking the fact that civil servants had spoken to the paper anonymously and dismissing them as the no-hopers most afraid of their jobs with the coming 75m Euro cuts at the Ministry. Not a response that suggests much self-reflection, or a willingness to accept criticism. He reacted equally negatively at the end of October after interviews with various ambassadors in the NRC sketched the Netherlands as an increasingly provincial land where small issues dominate the political scene.

As Juurd Eijsvoogel reminded everyone a week ago, the Dutch ‘Alleingang’ is a costly business. The promotion of economic interests relies on maintaining positive relations with your partners. Demanding results for oneself while ignoring the standpoints of others is a rapid way to de-friend yourself. As the Belgian ambassador put it – the Dutch could start by listening to others more (listening is not a Dutch strong point). Having spent the past decade nurturing a brand of international repute, the Dutch Foreign Ministry is now reducing everything to simplistic chauvinism.

Last Sunday and Monday Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal visited Tripoli, making some positive noises about releasing $2bn of frozen Libyan funds (earlier declarations of releasing $3.5bn have so far produced nothing). Dutch involvement in Operation Unified Protector was limited to enforcing the no-fly zone, leaving the serious stuff to others. But last week the most intriguing event in the whole Libyan escapade – the failed Sirte evacuation mission of Sunday 27 February – once more saw the light of day.

A short recap. A representative (who we know as ‘NN’) of infrastructure/engineering giant Royal Haskoning needed to be evacuated. The frigate Hr.Ms.Tromp, stationed just off the coast, sent a helicopter to rescue him. The location chosen was, remarkably, Sirte - home town of Gaddafi himself. The helicopter, which entered Libyan airspace without authorisation, and its three crew were held by pro-Gaddafi forces soon after landing. After plenty of behind-the-scenes negotiations, the crew were released after a week and a half.

On 1 November the Advisory Committee for the Intelligence and Security Services (CTIVD) made public its report on the role of the MIVD and AIVD in the evacuation mission. The results were not very startling. Coordination between the two intelligence services was lacking. The MIVD only informed the AIVD of the situation on 3 March. The AIVD then approached foreign intelligence services without informing the Foreign Ministry. Back in March the big joke had been that Military Intelligence didn’t work on Sunday and so failed to respond to the Tromp’s request for information that afternoon – an accusation that drew a furious response from the MIVD’s supporters. The CTIVD now largely exonerates the MIVD from any failure to respond.

But the CTIVD’s mandate for this report was very narrow – only look at the intelligence services. The decision to go ahead with the mission came from the very top - the Ministerial Core Group for Special Operations (MKSO), consisting of the Minister-President (Mark Rutte), Vice Minister-President (Maxime Verhagen), Minister of Defence (Hans Hillen), and Minister of Foreign Affairs (Uri Rosenthal). Under the MKSO’s responsibility lay “the evacuation of citizens from life-threatening situations.” As former MIVD boss Joop van Reijn said, the service had been unable to respond properly at the time because it had been deliberately excluded from the planning of the operation.

For the whole month of March both media and opposition MPs went after Defence Minister Hans Hillen and the MIVD. 124 parliamentary questions were tabled. Hillen survived, but many remained unconvinced.

Inevitably, the more interesting rumours circulated for a while in the outer reaches of the Dutch blogcloud. The origin seems to have been Klokkenluider.nl, who posted a remarkable alternate version of events already on 5 March. Other sites picked it up, but the mainstream media, as far as I am aware, never went near it apart from one or two passing references. Which is a pity – and in itself also says a lot.

It goes something like this. The official story is that the helicopter was sent to pick up a Dutch engineer and a woman with a Swedish passport who had somehow heard about the evacuation. Even though this ’Swedish woman’ was actually interviewed by the Dutch media in late March, this was a put-up job. The woman in Libya was in fact Princess Mabel of Oranje Nassau, Mabel Wisse Smit, wife of Prince Friso, who was in Libya to arrange a mutually acceptable solution for Gaddafi’s economic interests in the Netherlands. Gaddafi held a substantial stake in Fortis-ABN and this needed to be taken care of. The helicopter was not on a rescue mission but a hostage mission – the crew were to remain in Libya until the transaction was secure and Wisse Smit was out of the country – official reports state that the two ‘evacuees’ left the country on 2 March. Why Wisse Smit? A long-time executive in George Soros’s Open Society Institute and closely involved in Balkans affairs, she knew prominent son Saif Gaddafi through the World Economic Forum’s Global Young Leaders network, and was well-connected with both financial and governmental leaders on both sides. The Gaddafi assets were apparently transferred to Ageas, a successor enterprise to Fortis. Gaddafi’s economic interests in the Netherlands went far beyond the $3.5bn of frozen financial assets. There was plenty of private equity interest in the substantial funds available from the Libyan Sovereign Wealth Fund. Tamoil, the Libyan national oil company, has a base in Riddekerk from where it runs around 160 filling stations in the Netherlands. Verenex Energy, the Libyan oil and gas prospector, is based in the same location. From GeenNieuws came the nice extra detail: Wisse Smit’s Twitter timeline stopped on 24 February and restarted on 2 March, when she claimed to be in Ethiopia.

Elite / Conspiracy nonsense? Or simply a cover-up for a business transaction that almost cost the Defence Minister his job? Nothing more has come out on this that I know of. But the bottom line is that its just about believable. And its a great story.

Back in the glorious 60s the US Embassy in The Hague wouldn’t hesitate to describe Dutch-American relations as a ‘special relationship’. There may be policy differences over the years, but the basis remained solid. As recently as 2009 – celebrating the 400 years since the first contact between the Dutch and North America (in a ship captained by an Englishman! ) – you had Maxime Verhagen and Frans Timmermans waxing lyrical about the common political (democracy, human rights), economic (free trade, entrepreneurship), moral (tolerance, diversity), even mental (openness, curiosity) attitudes that had united the two countries for the past centuries. It seems like a long time ago.

Uri Rosenthal made his first visit to Washington DC last week, holding a joint press conference with Hilary Clinton on Friday. The website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a nice rendition of the meeting, with suitable emphasis on the shared intent of both countries to pursue the freedom/democracy/human rights/religious minorities mantra in the Middle East and North Africa, including ongoing military action against Gaddafi and promoting female emancipation. Rosenthal has used the opportunity to declare that Gaddafi must go, claiming that the combined effect of political pressure, economic sanctions, and military action will succeed. (NOS also picked up the curious fact that the two ministers would work together to ensure that people in poorer countries cook with non-poisonous fuel – a good cause, sure, but who came up with that in the current circumstances?)

But beyond the word for word coverage, others saw something slightly different. Rosenthal’s interview on the NOS confirmed that despite all his big words, the Netherlands wasn’t going to do anything extra to contribute to NATO’s Libyan mission. And the NRC‘s Washington correspondent Tom-Jan Meeus, writing in Friday’s paper (no digital version available), saw something quite different at the press conference – a largely disinterested Secretary of State going through the motions for the sake of protocol and media, unimpressed by the Dutchman’s anti-Gaddafi bluster.

In other words, the days when the Netherlands could function both as the behind-the-scenes transatlantic bridge-builder and sometimes as the confident pro-US ice-breaker in European affairs are fading out. Rosenthal tried to give a good impression of a Dutch foreign minister talking tough in DC, puffed up by his visit to the most powerful ally, but it was all too transparent that words and deeds didn’t match. A minimal police training mission in Afghanistan, a minimal contribution to the NATO mission over Libya, and a growing Euro-scepticism that means zero influence in the EU. Clinton knows it, and Rosenthal missed the point entirely:   what is the point in portraying relations as close as ever, and then responding to a journalist’s scepticism by stating that “the Netherlands is aware of its own interests and follows its own path”?

Washington is looking elsewhere for partners and power centres. Sarkozy’s throw of the dice on Libya correctly recognised the need for Europe for once to prove its worth in security matters. And the Dutch are convincing colleagues for neither.

Under cover of the media frenzy surrounding the Ministry of Defence’s large-scale cuts, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs quietly introduced the first phase of its own reform programme. Minister Rosenthal needs to cut back by 55m Euro on the diplomatic network, and this is being integrated into a wider shift in emphasis and direction that is as ground-breaking as what is going on in Defence, but getting much less attention.

Rosenthal announced from the beginning that he would be introducing more of an ‘economic politics’ approach, re-jigging the established embassy network according to Dutch economic interests and not political-diplomatic protocol. This means assisting business interests as much as possible in the increasingly competitive global market place, the search for prime investment sites, and the scramble for natural resources. He outlined this in slightly more detail during a lecture and discussion in the Food for Thought series at Tilburg University on 24 February.

Last Friday Rosenthal presented the results of this change in outlook to parliament, and this gives us the first chance to see where Dutch ‘economic politics’ (i.e. Dutch business interests) are heading. Nine embassies will close, and all are in Latin America and Africa: Uruguay, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Cameroon, Eritrea, Burkina Faso, and Zambia. The executive summary of the Ministry’s plans, entitled ’Modernising Dutch Diplomacy – A Timeless Profession Remodelled for Today,’ states that “the government wants stability and economic growth, and actively engages in promoting human rights; the three pillars of Dutch foreign policy.” They may be three, but they are not the same size and not of equal importance. The purpose of embassies as political presence is changing, and consulates  – smaller, more flexible, more limited in scope – are rising in importance, as signalled by Jan Melissen’s new book Consular Affairs and Diplomacy: Evolution and Transformation.

The document outlines briefly seven principles to guide the new outlook, the second being of special interest:

“Structure follows function. We have to know exactly where to do business, what’s in it for us, and how we can contribute. Only when we have a clear vision on the functionality, we can choose the matching structure. Our diplomatic presence does not always have to be an embassy (a building with a flag, charged with every conceivable task, with support and maintenance personnel); it can also take very different forms. Roving ambassadors, for instance, or flexibly deployable policy teams, based at regional support offices. Or specific efforts on behalf of the business sector.”

In this context it is worth noting where the new ambassadorial sites will come: Panama (understandable, as a kind of regional outpost), Juba in South Sudan, and a consulate general in Sichuan, western China. The last two are signs of things to come. That Juba deserves a new embassy in times of general cut-backs suggests there is serious business to be done (including oil? Shell does not appear to have any drilling concessions yet) with the new government of the soon-to-be-confirmed Republic of South Sudan. And western China is planning ahead in a region that is already experiencing large-scale industrialisation. Latin America is on the way out, (selected parts of) Africa and Asia are on the way in.

Back to Basics for the Dutch military?

The Dutch involvement in the Libyan rebellion has been one crazy escapade, from the still bizarre attempted rescue mission of a Royal Haskoning engineer (who will be forever known as ‘Paul’)  on 27 February, to the departure of six F-16s from Leeuwarden Air Base to join the NATO operation on 24 March, to this week’s long-feared announcement on drastic cuts in the defence budget (with around 10,000 jobs to be sliced). There is a strong sense that the Dutch intent in foreign affairs – returning to NATO’s war in Afghanistan with a police training mission in Kunduz, contributing to NATO’s other war in the Mediterranean, all in the name of a strong transatlantic alliance, its interests and values - is rapidly going to come apart at the seams. Because of stringent cuts by a right-wing government that pledges itself to the Atlantic alliance. Square pegs and round holes, anyone?

The rescue mission to Sirte – Gaddafi’s home town – on 27 February remains obscure and stinks of cover-up. HB covered it when the story broke (‘In Gaddafi’s Den’, 7 March) and thereafter it probably generated the most parliamentary activity in March as a whole. ‘Paul’ still remains incognito so we lack his version (despite the best efforts of the Jakhalzen to track him down), but we’ve had his boss Eric Oostwegel (“as far as I know we have no spies at Haskoning”), and we’ve had the Swedish teacher Rose Eriksson who suddenly turned up to be evacuated as well (“coordinated via the EU”), and we’ve had the desperate attempts by both Defence Minister Hans Hillen and Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal to explain themselves to a rampantly curious parliament. 124 questions were tabled, and Hillen and Rosenthal blamed each other in a show of true political back-stabbing. In the end the three captured Dutch naval officers were released on 11 March not thanks to presumed backdoor arbitration through Mabel Wisse Smit (member, along with Gaddafi’s son Saif – he of LSE fame – of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders Forum) or even Queen Beatrix (why did she finally go to Oman and Qatar at such an inopportune moment? Apparently to sell some naval vessels), but thanks to the input of Greek diplomatic troubleshooter Dimitris Dollis.

But the questions kept coming: why was a helicopter mission to get ‘Paul’ out, very risky because unauthorised by the Libyans, actually pushed through? In the end Hillen and Rosenthal got out of jail not by answering this obvious question (no way!) but first by directing attention toawards a scapegoat, the MIVD (military intelligence). The MIVD had not responded to a request for a swift analysis of the situation in Sirte, causing the mission to go ahead without it. Slack intelligence services! They screwed up on Iraq, and they are still useless! Only they didn’t screw up on Iraq, and the attempt again to blame the intel crowd for not doing there job drew a furious rejoinder from the MIVD’s former boss Joop van Reijn - if Defence had been following correct procedure for such an operation, the MIVD would have been fully involved in providing what was necessary when it was required. No scapegoats here, thank you.

Instead another escape hatch was quickly found – a civilised government does not leave its citizens in distress. As Rosenthal collapsed into absurdity (parliamentary debate on 29 March, referring to Sirte: “It is a terrible pity that afterwards it appeared that one of Gaddafi’s palaces was just up the road.” Wha..? Can Rosenthal pronounce ‘intelligence service’?), Rutte came to save Hillen’s bacon by turning the whole affair into a populist triumph. The government didn’t have to do this, but it was obliged to seize the opportunity and try. Nice. Unless, of course, you happen to be the family of Dutch passport holder Zahra Bahrami, who certainly did not receive the combined efforts of Defence and Foreign Affairs to try and secure her release from a death sentence in Tehran, a point well made by independent journalist Herman Vuijsje. So either ’Paul’ has very important friends (highly likely), or Royal Haskoning is more than just an engineering firm (possibly), or the government made a real mess of the whole business (definitely).

Which eventually brought the Netherlands to the main issue at hand – the debate over NATO involvement in enforcing UN resolution 1973, and what the Dutch might do about it. Predictably, a swift decision was taken to join in, and Operation Unified Protector got underway. But the domestic political circumstances for this mission could not be much worse. Hillen’s impending cuts will prevent the Dutch military from being able to conduct anything like an Uruzgan-scale mission in the future. The minesweeper Haarlem has been sent to the Med – but all minesweepers are slated for the scrap. A report from last November suggested that two-thirds of the 87 F-16s in the Dutch air force were grounded due to a lack of spare parts and repair, suggesting that the six aircraft sent to the Med may not be far off the maximum that could be allowed. And 10,000 of Defence’s 69,000 workforce (military and civilian) could be out of a job within a year or so. The bleak facts will become clear on Friday, which Hillen has already described as “a heavy day for Defence.” If this could be incorporated into the kindsof re-evaluation of Dutch foreign affairs that Ben Knapen has been carrying out, then there could be some value to the whole exercise. But the Sirte fiasco and the token gesture of the six F-16s suggests the opposite: more of the same, only less effective, and more pointless.

Interview with Ben Knapen yesterday in his old paper the NRC. Journalist Pieter Kottman is not sure how respectful he should be towards his old colleague, now State Secretary for European Affairs and Development. He ends up firing questions about Knapen’s youth, his religious belief, his controversial position on the board of PCM Publishers from 1999-2006, and to what extent he is an idealist. All typical Dutch stuff. While the two of them follow Knapen’s dawn-till-dusk itinerary through conflict-riddled Rwanda and Congo. A more bizarre setting for such a discussion is hardly imaginable.

Knapen was touring these two countries because they both receive development aid from the Netherlands. And the number of recipient countries is going to decline from 33 to 16 or less. The State Secretary was obviously not going to give anything away about final decisions while spending time as a guest in these two nations, but his comments and Kottman’s background commentary leave plenty of hints: Rwanda has economic growth of 6%, the Congo is a failed state with an exploding population problem. Both need help, but one is clearly ahead in the development sweepstakes. Incredibly, Kottman does not press Knapen on how the decision on who will get what will be taken. The setting is somehow incidental – this is all about who Knapen is, and what makes him tick. Rwanda and Congo as convenient backdrop for the worldly Binnenhof.

So does Knapen say anything interesting about himself and the Dutch situation while wandering around in his suit in the central African tropical heat? A little. He doubted about taking the State Secretary position and only seems to have done so when he received full-on guarantees that he could pursue his Europe/Development portfolios with sufficient autonomy from Wilders and the PVV. He appreciates the sentiments of the PVV voter who sees the EU – in the form of Polish workers taking low-wage Dutch jobs – as a threat. The benefits of the European mission should be explained better. But ultimately the ‘Tolerance Agreement’ between VVD and CDA on the one side, and Wilders on the other, does not determine everything, since all that is required is support from some corner of parliament in order to get the minority cabinet’s policies through.

Idealist? Weird that Kottman even thinks of this word. Knapen is a pragmatist of the highest order – not for nothing is the article titled “I have always been a man from the middle.” After almost five months of this cabinet, a picture is forming of its foreign policy apparatus. Rosenthal is not proving to be a good front man, moving from glitch to blotch with his rather clumsy style, talking reform but lacking the open thinking to appreciate what it means in practice. Marc Chavannes’ critique of Rosenthal last week was spot on, describing a Minister who presented himself as bringing new zeal to Dutch diplomacy in December (break up the stuffy diplomatic clique, close embassies, unite with European partners), but who since then has proved to be a major disappointment (the Bahrami case, undermining the commitment to human rights, no appreciation of the significance of the changes in the Middle East). Meanwhile Knapen, as he proved with the PCM business, slips through the cracks, avoiding controversy, gets on with the job. Non-ideological.  Businesslike. Efficient. The ‘straight man’ to Rosenthal’s unfortunate clown.

[Thanks to artikel7]

While Uri Rosenthal sweats to get Dutch citizens out of Libya, fending off criticsm that the response was too slow this week, Ben Knapen yesterday delivered his vision of the European future at a guest lecture at Maastricht University. Knapen sketched an EU badly in need of a boost – placing the Netherlands at the centre of the slide in confidence in recent years, since the negative referendum result on the EU Constitution. The Dutch forget what the EU provides for them:

[Thanks to ennik.nl]

In a long statement printed today in the Volkskrant and on the Foreign Ministry’s site, Uri Rosenthal gave the first solid reaction from the Dutch government towards the ongoing civil uprisings from Morocco to Iran (and even to China). The message is that the EU, more than any other state or group of states, has a ‘particular responsibility’ towards the region. But is his message clear?

Rosenthal begins by noting that the calls for human rights and democracy only demonstrates their universal value and unites the protestors with the very fundamentals of the European ideal. He goes on to emphasise that ‘Europe and its southern neighbours are geopolitically joined to each other.’ Trade partners, markets for Dutch products, transit routes for vital oil supplies, illegal migration, terrorism – all of these bind the two regions together. European interests are linked to social and political reforms across the Arab world.

In these circumstances, the EU has a special responsibility to ensure that it assists with a ‘transition packet’ to bring about a smooth process of political change. Together with the OSCE it can provide election monitors. But above all, it must provide an economic future for those who took to the streets out of economic desperation. Rosenthal states that the EU has already set out 11 billion Euro for 2007-2013 for development in the Arab region, but then he adds the conditions – a lack of abidance by human rights and democractic norms would exclude a nation from participation. Stimulate democratic reform through the economic carrot.   

And then things start to go a little awry. In return for increased development assistance, the EU should open its markets more, particularly for agricultural products, since – he adds unfortunately – this should help out with employment prospects for the young, ‘who we don’t want trying their luck here’ (van wie we niet willen dat ze hier hun geluk komen beproeven.) Technical assistance (read: improved governance) should also be pursued – ‘The normative power of the EU must be exported to the South.’ But he then draws a direct comparison with the 1989 revolutions, after which in the 1990s important lessons were learned about political and economic transition in Central Europe.

What lessons were learned, exactly? Well, that the EU would act above all to protect its privileges and pursue its goals (i.e. the Euro) regardless of major political upheavals elsewhere. It took fifteen years before Central Europe entered the EU – several states made it into NATO first. The only expansion in the 1990s was to include the Swedes, the Finns, and the Austrians in 1995. A positive model for what is happening now? Not really.

Then there is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which needs to be revived (yet again), so that the Israelis realise the need for a genuine peace deal and the Palestinians realise that any ‘unilateral steps’ will only ‘seriously hinder effective decision-making’ - a clear if sly reference to the Palestinian move to push for statehood recognition in the UN. Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay have  already signed up, with more states in Latin America due to follow. Rosenthal therefore only indicates further that the Netherlands is falling in line with the US against this move.

Rosenthal’s conclusion is that the EU can do a lot by uniting with the wishes of the protestors, not by determining the way forward, but by taking its responsibilities based on ‘shared values, common interests, and crystal-clear conditions.’  

What kind of message does this send? I have to say that it comes across as completely risk-averse, and there is absolutely no vision. The protests are interpreted purely on EU terms – as long as the resulting reforms fit European-based norms, we can talk. As long as European interests are not disrupted, the money will flow. As long as the illegal and economic migrants stay where they are, everything will turn out fine. It comes across as not so much what the EU should do for the Arab world, its what the Arab world should do for the EU.

No space here for a region seeking out its own path to political change in dramatic fashion. No understanding for the Palestinians trying to bypass complete Israeli intransigence towards a just settlement. As former diplomat Petra Stienen already pointed out last month, Rosenthal’s negative attitude towards Dutch NGOs active on civil projects that may not fit with the current Dutch government’s support for the Israelis shows all too well that the foreign minister is not interested in an ‘Arabic Spring’ at all. As he said in an interview in the Volkskrant in mid-December, ‘I find it of great importance that Israel is the only democratic state in the Middle East.’ And having given his statement, Rosenthal is this evening fully occupied with the task of evacuating the +/- 100 Dutch citizens from the increasing violence in Libya.

[Ben Bot returning from Syria with the Dutch-Syrian children Sara and Ammar in 2004, after they were illegally taken out of the Netherlands by their father. Photo: NOS]

Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal received more criticism for the handling of the Bahrami case last Friday, when a Q&A session in parliament revealed that on 12 January he had turned down advise from within the Ministry to bring in an independent negotiator. Rosenthal had trusted too much in the messages he seemed to be getting from the Iranians, and saw neither need nor urgency. The outcome – Bahrami’s execution on 29 January – has since forced him into a series of awkward reversals under fire from MPs of all stripes. At least one thing has been learnt from this tragic episode - Rosenthal does not admit mistakes easily. 

But an extra turn has been given to the case with the many references to former Foreign Minister Ben Bot. D66 leader Alex Pechtold, obviously primed through sources in the Ministry, raised the ‘negotiator’ issue to expose the rejection of the advice, and all fingers have since been pointing at Bot as the most likely candidate to have taken this on. Bot has denied it even though, after a request from the family, he did bring attention to Bahrami’s plight during a meeting with the Iranian ambassador already in the summer of 2010. 

Bot is an interesting guy. Back in January 2007, with a coalition still being put together following the November 2006 elections and Bot still Foreign Minister, I saw him give a remarkable speech in Middelburg. With the starting point being that “the existing legal order is losing legitimacy,” Bot outlined four ongoing cases that were undermining international rules and norms. Imagine how unexpected it was to hear a Dutch Foreign Minister place the the Americans (rendition, nuclear deal with India) together with the Iranians and the Serbians as the main culprits in this regard. Bot’s response – a call for a “realistic multilateralism” to reconstitute existing UN-EU-NATO structures - was hardly a radical solution, but the assessment of why it was necessary, from a Dutch perspective, certainly was.

Bot’s relations with the Americans were decidedly mixed, as the US Embassy cables from Wikileaks show. The story presented on the NOS site emphasises that US doubts over Bot being too pro-European changed into a positive opinion that he was actually an ideal promotor of US interests. Yet as the interview with Bot from last month at least mentions, his major bust-up with Condoleeza Rice over secret prisons and CIA rendition flights in 2005 was more typical of his principles. And by all accounts, it cost him his ministerial position due to Balkenende being unamused by this show of independence.

But Bot, of course, now sees international problem-solving as a business, not a duty. Since 2007 he has been a prominent member of Meines & Partners, the  ”lobbying, public affairs and strategic sourcing” organisation situated on Lange Voorhout in the centre of The Hague. Bot was already part of this scene in 2003, when he worked for Praaning Meines in Brussels prior to becoming Foreign Minister. Rio Praaning, Meines’ former partner, is now secretary general of Public Advice International, a foundation “identifying and developing new approaches to trans-boundary, trans-cultural and high tech introduction problems.” The idea of hiring Ben Bot as a kind of roving troubleshooter to solve otherwise intractable problems in Dutch foreign affairs is somehow appealing. A privatised foreign minister. Close down a few embassies and spend the money by bringing Bot in when something awkward comes along. Surely this cost-effective model would fit perfectly in the VVD’s commercially-driven world?

[Iran and the Netherlands: Interwoven through the Ages (2009), a book developed by the Dutch Embassy in Teheran as a cultural diplomacy product to highlight Dutch-Iranian relations since the East India Company's contacts in the 17th century. What is it worth now?]

The fall-out in Netherlands-Iran relations continued to simmer in the Dutch press last week. The emphasis has mainly been on the question of whether the Dutch government could have done more in the Bahrami case – and what it can do to prevent a similar outrage in the future. With around 150 Dutch and Dutch-Iranian citizens in Iran – and four of them in an Iranian prison – there is ongoing concern for their safety after Zahra Bahrami’s execution. Is the ‘quiet diplomacy’ route effective? What are the options?

 As reported in De Pers on Thursday, D66 leader Pechtold proposed sending former Foreign Minister Ben Bot as special negotiator to Teheran, outside of official diplomatic channels. The Bill Clinton in North Korea model. This brought a mixed response. Jan Melissen from Clingendael questioned the lack of neutrality of Bot, but Clinton was hardly neutral when he secured the release of the two US journalists in 2009. Former diplomat Nicholas van Dam questioned whether Bot could achieve something that the ambassador couldn’t. This only exposed his ‘traditional diplomacy’ lack of appreciation for exactly coming at the problem from a different angle by sending someone not in an official government position. But van Dam did raise probably the most salient point – what exactly does the Netherlands have to negotiate with?

The views of the Iranian community in the Netherlands and across Europe is clear – a harder tone is the only approach that can make a difference with the current Iranian regime. Groups such as the International Committee Against Execution point to the case of Sakineh Ashtiani, who’s death sentence was suspended indefinitely on 17 January this year following a major international protest action. Instead of trying to mobilise a similar effort for Bahrami, the behind-the-scenes ‘quiet diplomacy’ approach was adopted by the Foreign Affairs Ministry to try and monitor Bahrami’s case and ensure that she was treated fairly. But visits were refused by the Iranian authorities and it effectively led nowhere.

Kamran Ashtary of the Dutch-based human rights foundation Arseh Sevom was more explicit in his criticism over on DutchNews, with a list of eight ‘minimum recommendations’ to be adopted by the Dutch government – protecting dual nationality, mobilising the European Parliament, approve asylum applications from Iranians who left their country after 2009, clamp down on Iranian intelligence activities amongst the emigre community. But perhaps the one that stands out is number six: Respect for human rights needs to become a business concern as well as a political concern.

According to the Central Statistics Bureau, the Netherlands exported only around half a billion Euro to Iran in 2008 – a decline from a high point of 0.75 billion in 2004. This is all of 0.2% of Dutch exports, made up mostly of agricultural machines. In return, around 1.1 billion Euro worth of Iranian goods are imported – 0.4% of all Dutch imports. This is predominantly oil. These are hardly earth-shattering figures. Certainly not enough to worry about if relations start to collapse.

So why the pointed finger that human rights should be as much a business as a political concern? The previous HB post [The Perils of Engagement, 6 January] did draw a link between ongoing Dutch-Iranian relations and particular Dutch business interests that continued through 2009 despite US determination to tighten the sanctions regime. Prominent among these are not so much existing trade links but possible future investments – namely, in the oil and gas sector. That remains a hot issue. The Iranian energy sector, sitting on around 20% of known oil reserves, is antiquated and in desperate need of renewal. US companies are barred from trading with Iran (should the Iranians themselves want it), and it is in US interests to lean on its allies to prevent as many competitors as possible from taking advantage. So who is going to do it? All fingers point to the already-active Chinese.

But there is more to this story. If economic interests do, in some shape or form (probably liquid), lie somewhere behind Dutch ‘quiet diplomacy’, then the current insistence of the VVD-CDA cabinet, pressured by Wilders’ PVV, to throw its support behind Israel could potentially be seriously damaging. Uri Rosenthal used his first overseas trip as Foreign Minister for a mini-tour of the Middle East, finishing in Israel with a security conference and talks with Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Having got the difficult issues of Gaza, settlements, and the desire for a two-state solution out of the way, Rosenthal emphasised that the Netherlands wanted to intensify bilateral relations in the economic, education, innovation and research sectors. What this means in practice remains to be seen.   

‘Quiet diplomacy’ towards Iran, emphatic diplomacy with Israel? A nice attempt to try and have it both ways. Since the Ahmadinejad regime declared the Netherlands to be guilty of supporting terrorists on Tuesday, the current approach is hardly going to succeed.