Does the international affairs community need some Razzies?

Your humble blogger was innocently surfing the web yesterday when someone linked to Niall Ferguson’s latest Newsweek column.  Now even though I’ve warned everyone — repeatedly — not to go to there, I made the mistake of clicking.  And this is what I saw: 

Everyone knows there could be a surprise before Nov. 6—a news story that finally makes up the minds of those undecided voters in the swing states and settles the presidential election.

[T]he only kind of surprise I can envisage is a foreign-policy surprise. And if the polls get any scarier for the incumbent, we might just have one.

Recently The New York Times–increasingly the official organ of the Obama administration—offered a tease. “U.S. Officials Say Iran Has Agreed to Nuclear Talks” ran the headline. In the story, the Times quoted unnamed officials as saying that one-on-one talks with Iran had been agreed to in “a last-ditch diplomatic effort to avert a military strike on Iran.”….

Not only that. If the White House could announce a historic deal with Iran—lifting increasingly painful economic sanctions in return for an Iranian pledge to stop enriching uranium—Mitt Romney would vanish as if by magic from the front pages and TV news shows. The oxygen of publicity—those coveted minutes of airtime that campaigns don’t have to pay for—would be sucked out of his lungs….

[There is] an alternative surprise—the one I have long expected the president to pull if he finds himself slipping behind in the polls. With a single phone call to Jerusalem, he can end all talk of his being Jimmy Carter to Mitt Romney’s Reagan: by supporting an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

A few things: 

1)  Here’s a pro tip:  if your foreign affairs observations represent a reprise of wacky Donald Trump musings, maybe it’s best to take your ball and go home. 

2)  It’s really kind of adorable that Ferguson thinks a foreign policy surprise would move that many voters.  Sorry, Niall, while presidents eventually pivot to foreign policy, it’s not going to matter that much to undecideds right now. 

3)  If you want a foreign policy "tell" that Obama is in such serious straits that he’s willing to gamble on a foreign policy initiative, there’s a smaller-bore policy that would work better:  an opening to Cuba.  If Obama suggests that in the remaining week, it’s a sign that:  a) he thinks Florida is a lost cause; and b) he is trying to shore up support in the midwest with agricultural concerns that would love a new export market. 

4)  The laziness involved in Ferguson’s essay got me to thinking…. could this be the worst international affairs column of 2012?  How can we be sure?  I mean, to be fair, Ferguson cited a real New York Times story in the column — that indicated an actual modicum of effort.  As I suggested last night, it might be an interesting exercise to create an NCAA-style bracket competition to determine the Worst International Affairs Essay of 2012.  Why shouldn’t the foreign policy community have it’s own version of the Razzies? 

To that end, I hereby ask commeters and the foreign affairs blogosphere to suggest candidate entries and possible rules for  this contest, as well as possible judges.  We’ll see if there’s enough momentum to add this contest to the coveted Albies.