I wonder how long this speech is going to stay on the White House website. I was directed to it by a thoughful lawyer/blogger Glenn Greenwald today

In a speech in Buffalo, NY on April 20, 2004, Bush states that "a wiretap requires a court order." He goes on, "When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important to our fellow citizens to understand when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution."

Mr. President, square that with the nation now. You are implying that constitutional law requires you -- as President of the United States -- to secure a court order before wiretapping.

You said it. Plain as day.

How do we know when you are telling the truth to Americans -- on sacred matters dealing with the Constitution, presidential authority and its limits, and the system of checks and balances in this country?

Were you lying? Will you admit it? Or was this obfuscation, to give you the benefit of the doubt, permitted because we are in a so-called national security crisis and you are President?

Compare the Constitution and the Bible for us, Mr. President. I hate making this kind of comparison because I believe that the Constitution of this country is more sacred than the Bible, but I want to get on your turf Mr. President.

If you were to talk to parishioners about some message from Jesus Christ and then behind your book orchestrate the opposite, what would and should people think?

Or are the Constitution and the Bible there to be paid attention to when its convenient?

In my book, the Bible may be adhered to or ignored casually -- but not the Constitution of the United States.

Will you be telling the truth tonight, Mr. President? How in the world do you expect Americans to know?

It's pretty clear that the constituents of Congressmen Quinn and Reynolds as well as Governor George Pataki, up at your Buffalo speech, were lied to with you defending the Constitution in your lobbying for the authority for the Patriot Act.

Here is the full speech, and below the relevant grafs:

So the first thing I want you to think about is, when you hear Patriot Act, is that we changed the law and the bureaucratic mind-set to allow for the sharing of information. It's vital. And others will describe what that means.

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

But a roving wiretap means -- it was primarily used for drug lords. A guy, a pretty intelligence drug lord would have a phone, and in old days they could just get a tap on that phone.

So guess what he'd do? He'd get him another phone, particularly with the advent of the cell phones. And so he'd start changing cell phones, which made it hard for our DEA types to listen, to run down these guys polluting our streets.

And that changed, the law changed on -- roving wiretaps were available for chasing down drug lords. They weren't available for chasing down terrorists, see? And that didn't make any sense in the post-9/11 era. If we couldn't use a tool that we're using against mobsters on terrorists, something needed to happen.

President Bush tarnished the Constitution of the United States before the people of Buffalo on April 20, 2004.

And Senator Chuck Hagel would like to hear more from the President about this gap between what he has publicly stated and secretly done.

-- Steve Clemons

Greetings Web Geniuses:

If you click on the comments below, you will get an error message. My web buddies have not yet responded to panicked calls.

If any of you have any thoughts on what a quick fix might be, let me know.

Thanks.

-- Steve Clemons

The State Department website is going to "audio stream" tonight's State of the Union address by President Bush in several languagues.

From a State Department release:

President George W. Bush will deliver the annual State of the Union Address to a Joint Session of Congress, Tuesday, January 31, 2006. The Department of State will provide live audio streams of the State of the Union Address at 9:00 pm EST (0200 GMT) in the following languages:

English, Arabic, Farsi, Bahasa Indonesian, Spanish, French, Russian.

To access these streams, log onto www.state.gov.

At 1:00 am EST (0600 GMT) Wednesday, February 1, audio files of the following languages will also be available:

Portuguese, Swahili and Turkish.

At 12:00 pm (1700 GMT) on Wednesday, February 1, an audio file in Hausa will be available.

Additionally, these audio streams will be available as podcasts on Wednesday, February 1 at 12:00 pm (1700 GMT).

I am actually glad that the State Department is reaching out to people across the English language wall, but there are some obvious missing biggies:

Mandarin, Cantonese, Hindi, Korean, Japanese

Asia has some of the densest points of DSL deployment in the world, particularly in South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Taipei, and Hong Kong.

Many of the targeted language groups have low internet penetration, though some may tune in anyway.

But a question for State, will the rebuttal also be aired?

To show that America has some belief in "the rights of the political minority" not airing the rebuttal would send all the wrong signals.

-- Steve Clemons

Today, the Program on International Policy Attitudes is releasing a new World Public Opinion poll on Iraqi public opinion.

Here are the poll results.

Among the findings:

The poll has found that 80% of Iraqis believe that the U.S. plans to have permanent military bases in Iraq.

76% thought America would not withdraw if asked. 70% want Americans to be asked to withdraw in a time-line from within six months to two years.

47% of all Iraqis approve of attacks on US-led forces in Iraq.

If the Kurds were exluded from counting, then by TWN's estimation, 62% of Iraqis would support attacks that target American troops.

64% of Iraqis believe that violent crimes and attacks will decrease when the United States withdraws.

a majority would prefer the UN, rather than the US, to oversee Iraq's reconstruction

Sunnis and Shia are deeply divided over whether the recent election was legitimate and fair

As an aside, I was with General Brent Scowcroft last night and discussed his powerful and well-reported comments at the New America Foundation a year ago -- that Iraq may very well be entering a period of incipient civil war.

From these numbers, it doesn't look like the circumstances Scowcroft was diagnosing have changed a bit -- even after a full year of American efforts to turn things around.

-- Steve Clemons

I don't have much time at the moment, but I have been told that all or part of our morning forum, "The Real State of U.S. Foreign Policy 2006" will be airing on C-Span just after 8 p.m. C-Span will probably air the progam in segments as there were four sections to the conference (yours truly haunts all of them -- but is primarily in the first).

On other fronts, this is sad news. I have mixed feelings about this last minute filibuster, that should have been planned a month ago.

Alito will contribute to a vast expansion of Executive Power, and this will seriously harm our democracy. No one "owned" this battle in the progressive community, and those who rallied troops at the end were encouraged by the cynical electioneering stances of John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and others. I believe Ted Kennedy's opposition was real, as was Pat Leahy's -- but the machine against Alito should have been launched day one.

David Frum and Bill Kristol were out within minutes of Harriet Miers' nomination -- while many of the leading Dems were off getting seduced by Davos.

Dems will rue the day that they let Alito pass; so will moderate Republicans; and so will independent-minded Americans who value our system of checks and balances. I think that there have been some real heroes doing their best against Alito -- but the Democratic establishment is still inchoate and without the backbone to fight consistently against the White House.

Quite unbelievably, Alito's win reverses the lame duck status of the Bush presidency, the night before the State of the Union address.

An honest accounting puts Bush back in the game with a lot of juice -- and Dems and Republican moderates have to figure out how to throw him off-balance again. It will take a while.

I'm off to a black tie Nixon Center Awards Dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel honoring Senator Pete Domenici and James Schlesinger tonight and am going with CNN's cool blog mistress and Situation Room producer Jacki Schechner.

At 9 p.m. eastern (and middle of the night in the UK), I am doing BBC Radio's "Five Live" show on DC Blogs and the President's State of the Union Address.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

Truth in advertising. I have friends involved with the Partnership for a Secure America ad posted above, which will appear as a purchased full page in tomorrow's New York Times.

This ad and what it represents will be one of the primary topics of my speech tomorrow at the "Real State of U.S. Foreign Policy 2006" conference starting at 9 a.m. and taking place in SD-G50 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The conference can be watched on C-Span 3 live, or over the internet on C-Span's site.

America as a nation -- depicted in a bull's eye target -- is a way to enhance fear and certainly does draw people together -- shivering and paranoid clustered together.

But in my view, this type of campaign perpetuates the false notion that if we check every container that comes into America, hassle every tourist, and convince people that leak-proof ballistic missile defenses are possible that they will be SAFE.

But it's a false campaign, designed not to promote trust -- but rather to keep the beneficiaries of a high-fear world in place.

Much of the world is at odds with America not because of who we are but because of policies that are blind to both their aspirations and their grievances.

Zbigniew Brzezinski has articulated this perspective brilliantly -- and the absence of his name on this ad sponsored by the Partnership for a Secure America which Brzezinski originally signed on to -- is a clear indicator that he doesn't buy the bipartisan "fortress mentality" perpectuated here.

The list of signers of this document are for the most part good people who really do have concerns about the welfare and safety of the nation. But I would just appeal to them to broaden their focus.

Doing what we can as a nation to deal with grievances and to remove incentives from the rest of the world to "target" us seems like a far more effective strategy than tinkering with the amount of spectrum available for emergency disaster relief (of which the Pentagon already sits on a vast amount by the way).

Here is the signed letter.

Here is the pdf (BEWARE: VERY LARGE FILE) of the New York Times ad.

Because it's tough to read above, the signers include:

Warren Rudman US Senator (R-NH) 1980-92

Lee Hamilton US Congressman (D-IN) 1965-99, Vice Chair, 9/11 Commission

Madeleine Albright Secretary of State 1997-2001

Howard Baker US Senator (R-TN) 1967-85

Warren Christopher Secretary of State 1993-97

Slade Gorton US Senator (R-WA) 1981-87, 1989-2001, Commissioner, 9/11
Commission

Gary Hart US Senator (D-CO) 1975-87

Rita Hauser Chair, International Peace Academy 1992-present

Carla Hills US Trade Representative 1989-93

Richard Holbrooke Ambassador to UN 1999-2001

Nancy Kassebaum Baker US Senator (R-KS) 1978-97

Thomas Kean Governor, New Jersey 1982-1990, Chairman, 9/11 Commission

Anthony Lake National Security Advisor 1993-97

Richard C. Leone President, Century Foundation 1989-present

Robert McFarlane National Security Advisor 1983-85

Donald McHenry Ambassador to UN 1979-81

Sam Nunn US Senator (D-GA) 1972-96

William Perry Secretary of Defense 1994-97

Thomas Pickering Undersecretary of State 1997-2000

Ted Sorensen White House Special Counsel 1961-63

John C. Whitehead Deputy Secretary of State 1985-88

Frank Wisner Undersecretary of State 1992-93

The really sad thing about this ad sponsored by the Partnership for a Secure America is that it is indistinguishable from the kind of ad that the Foundation for Defense of Democracies or the Committee on the Present Danger would put together.

There, in that place of fear -- we can all stand together -- liberals, conservatives, centrists (even 'radical centrists'), libertarians, and neoconservatives. We can all use fear to tie ourselves together in common purpose.

But isn't that what the President and Dick Cheney have been trying to orchestrate the last several years?

It's important to be smart about national security at home, but we achieve nothing unless we get smarter about our diplomatic achievements that undo the "root cause" problem abroad. This ad does little to get America back on to a "smart security track".

Again, I respect many signers of this letter and proponents of the AMERICA NEEDS TO FEAR ad, but it is wrong-headed, and I think that they need to rethink their position, retool, and issue an ad that gets us back in the game of enlightened diplomacy and smart national security policy making.

-- Steve Clemons

Today, on This Week with George Staphanopoulos, Senator Barack Obama was queried on whether he was 'the unnamed Senator' mentioned by Senator Harry Reid in a blogger conference call, on which TWN reported several days ago.

The quote that Stephanopoulos highlighted was:

"(A)n unnamed Democratic Senator had come to him with a proposal on "ethics reform" ala Abramoff that could be bi-partisan. Reid told this person that this was the wrong time to be engaged in construtive "reform" proposals with the other side. He said that this was the time to draw a line and to show how "our side" differed dramatically from 'their side.'"

Summary by Steven Clemons
www.TheWashingtonNote.com January 18, 2006

Here is the Audio Podcast of today's This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

Senator Obama did not deny that he was the unnamed Senator referred to. He went on to state that he believed that the approach needed on ethics reform had to be bipartisan, even though the current Abramoff scandal rested solely at the footsteps of the Republican Party.

When queried whether Reid had given him marching orders to focus more on contrasting Democratic ethics positions with Republican ones, Obama said that Reid knew he'd speak his mind in support of credible, bipartisan approaches.

And when George Stephanopoulos pushed him further, asking whether Obama and Reid were really on the same page, Obama said that he was sure that Reid was on the side of taking credible steps that would substantively clean up the current ethics mess in Washington.

In other words, reading between the lines:

1. Obama was the so-called unnamed Senator;

2. Reid did try and give Obama marching orders on ethics reform strategies, which Obama is bucking; and

3. Reid and Obama are not "exactly" on the same page.

There are valid reasons from my point of view why Reid's strategy on drawing a line between the Dems and Republicans -- particularly on the Abramoff scandal and all the mess tied to Tom DeLay -- makes a lot of sense.

But at the same time, the Dems have to initiate credible reform packages that would appeal to the sensibilities of well-meaning Republicans.

Credible reform that seduces part of the other side to Democratic objectives is the way for Dems to eventually win Congress, or at least half of it, back.

I was pleased that George Stephanopoulos's team checked out TWN and am glad that this national conversation is taking place.

-- Steve Clemons

Here is the final schedule for Monday's forum that my colleagues and I have organized titled "The Real State of U.S. Foreign Policy 2006".

The meeting will take place from 8:30 a.m. - 1:45 p.m. on Monday, January 30th, in the SD-G50 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Among those speaking are General Wesley Clark, former National Review Editor-in-Chief and Hudson Institute Senior Fellow John O'Sullivan, TWN blogger and New America Foundation foreign policy programs director Steve Clemons, CNN Terrorism Analyst and bin Laden tracker Peter Bergen, New America Foundation Senior Research Fellow Anatol Lieven, Whitehead Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation Michael Lind, Scowcroft Group Partner and former senior State Department oficial Kevin Nealer, Nixon Center President and National Interest publisher Dimitri Simes, Albright Group Partner and former Counsel to the Secretary of State as well Special Presidential Envoy on North Korea matters Wendy Sherman, former Special Advisor to President Clinton and political journalist Sidney Blumenthal, World Policy Journal founding editor and New America Foundation Global Middle Class Program Sherle Schwenninger and Economic Strategy Institute President and former Reagan administration senior official Clyde Prestowitz.

C-Span will be covering the entire conference LIVE. However, we have learned that the progam will most likely appear on C-Span 3, which is usually available with many digital television packages -- and also available for live streaming over any PC.

This will be a significant foreign policy discussion -- that I think will have some impact on the journalistic environment just preceding the President's Tuesday night State of the Union address.

So, please join us -- in person or over C-Span -- for a discussion of the "Real State of U.S. Foreign Policy 2006".

My comments will be one of the first two in the conference -- and I'm paired with former National Review editor-in-chief John O'Sullivan.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

We learned in the last U.S. presidential election that one has to tiptoe carefully through exit polls, which are often wrong and distracting, but this news out of the Palestinian election rings true to me. If anything, the Palestinians may even perform better than figures being released because of the cohesiveness of their party list.

Some exit polls are showing that Hamas placed a close 2nd, behind Fatah, in the election -- garnering about 40% of the popular vote.

The tension is that while few in "official corridors" of Israeli government would say this publicly, many of them privately told TWN that Israel expected and "could deal" with Hamas at 30%. One important Labor Party official told my colleagues and me though that one vote for Hamas beyond 30% and "all bets were off."

The question though is what happens when a public votes democratically for a group like Hamas? My view is that one hopes Hamas learns to play in a heterodox political order and matures beyond its commitment to violence. Most serious Israeli officials believe that that is happening inside Hamas and say that the threat is no longer Hamas -- but rather the lesser-organized, self-initiating jihadist terrorists that are tougher for all parties to control.

So, 40% is certainly not 30% -- but the result was achieved democratically.

Secretary of State Rice is leaving for London on Sunday, returning on Tuesday afternoon -- just in time for the President's State of the Union address.

TWN has a 'hunch' that there will be some discussion with the Brits of how to move the ball forward in the Israel-Palestine situation and to manage the electoral outcome in Palestine as well as manage matters during the lead up to Israel's March elections.

Despite Ivo Daalder's interesting critique of Secretary Rice's diplomacy that just appeared in Dutch in the NRC Handelsblad, I actually see that she has pulled off quite a number of successes, some of them low-hanging fruit, but nonetheless many are in the positive column.

But my sense is that she has "a plan" on Palestine and final status negotiations that she is not disclosing. Her moves are calculated and appear as if on her own personal road map. She's putting more time into the Israel-Palestine problem than the media seem to be aware of or acknowledging -- and the way she is working in my view is designed to keep Cheney's thugs from undermining her.

More later. Stay tuned.

-- Steve Clemons

UPDATE: Huge news is breaking. The Fatah Party has announced that it has calculated that Hamas has won a majority of the 132 seats being contested.

The Palestinian cabinet has resigned and has given instructions to Hamas to form a new government.

To some degree, the formation of the Kadima Party in Israel crippled Fatah and empowered Hamas, not because Ariel Sharon and his hard-line on establishing what he considered would be Israel's permanent border radicalized many Palestinian voeters but because it compelled Palestinian President Abbas to begin shaking up his own party, working behind the scenes to generate semi-rival lists and splinter groups. This gave Hamas the ability to win more seats than its rival, even though Fatah may have won a greater percentage of the popular vote.

Gut instinct leads me to believe that many Israelis will now tilt toward the right, but much depends on the first moves made by Hamas. The new leaders of the Palestinian government have seven weeks to reinvent themselves or Israeli voters may feel compelled -- sadly -- to entrench themselves with the far right again.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

I really like Bartlesville, Oklahoma -- a small town there just 35 miles north of Tulsa.

I was actually born in Salina, Kansas at a military hospital there, but I've always considered Bartlesville the anchor spot of my family even though I have lived practically everywhere else as an Air Force brat other than Bartlesville (except on long vacations).

The picture above is of my great-grandfather, William Franklin Clemons, who was one of the early ministers in Bartlesville and his son, my grandfather. If you have time and want to go back in time, my great grandfather's journal from the year 1900 is a fascinating read.

This article ran today in the Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise and caught me by surprise as I thought the writer needed a few more weeks to find anything worthy of reporting on some of my work.

I don't have a copy but I hear from some other Bartlesville residents that there is a nice picture of Lawrence Wilkerson and me having lunch at Restaurant Kolumbia in D.C. (I highly recommend it -- not only because of the food but because you can actually 'hear' the person you are having lunch with and not be overwhelmed by the clatter and chatter echo chambers that so many modern restaurants have become).

So, a shout out to those in Bartlesville who have been supportive of my crusades. It's a conservative place, but people there have always been open to hearing my less predictable takes on political issues and foreign policy.

And of course...I need to say...hi Mom!

Also, I want to thank the three groups I met in the Bay area -- one group of bloggers and blog fans at Berkeley, another in North Beach, and then the members of the San Francisco Committee on Foreign Relations last night. One loyal TWN reader, Kim, was kind enough to work her way into the dinner and pay the rather steep price for the meal. It was a pleasure to meet all of you.

To be completely self-critical, I found my blogger conversations more focused, gritty, and really fascinating communal learning exercises.

I'm usually on fire in my talks and fairly focused -- but I think I was too broad and unfocused until questions before the hyper-distinguished crowd (federal judges, academics, former ambassadors, vineyard owners, top SF city managers. . .a very informed and capable group of folks) I had dinner with. I think it still went well, but it just reminds me that this country's population is very diverse, and people are in very different places when they approach the big questions of American power in the world, what to do with it, and what our limits and opportunities are.

In any case, a great two days in California. Thanks to all.

-- Steve Clemons

General Wesley Clark is going to keynote a conference my New America Foundation team and I are putting together on the Real State of U.S. Foreign Policy 2006, and this will take place on Monday, January 30th in the Senate (Senate Dirksen G-50) from 9 a.m. until 1:45 p.m.

General Clark's speech, "The Real State of the Union: A No Nonsense Discussion America's Foreign Policy and a Call to Action" will start at 12:15 p.m.

TWN readers are invited. If you would like to attend the conference (the whole thing), let me know via steve@thewashingtonnote.com -- but if you RSVP yes and your plans change, please let me know.

President Bush, as you know, will be providing his own views on America's foreign and domestic policy state of affairs in his State of the Union address on Tuesday night. So, General Clark's commentary will perhaps be of interest to the White House and the public.

Other details of the program are still being prepared, but I will post the rest of this exciting program when I have them ready to go.

And yes, I will ask General Clark what a courageous and visionary President in these times should do with Iran. . .and Iraq.

-- Steve Clemons

Last Friday, TWN reported that Paul Wolfowitz was engaging in personnel appointment strategies that were beginning to smell of partisan cronyism.

By Monday, a staff letter was sent to Wolfowitz expressing sentiments of significant "dismay" about the President's appointment of political hacks in key positions that should be open to transparent competition -- with decisions made on the basis of merit.

Today, Paul Blustein of the Washington Post adds more to the story and reports on the letter and Wolfowitz's troubling pattern of management decisions.

From Paul Blustein's piece:

Tensions flared yesterday between World Bank President Paul D. Wolfowitz and bank employees, as the bank's staff association criticized some of Wolfowitz's recent appointments and Wolfowitz fired back that he was trying to correct lax enforcement of the bank's internal corruption rules.

The controversy is the starkest sign of discontent among the staff nine months after President Bush chose Wolfowitz to head the bank. Wolfowitz is a former deputy defense secretary best known for his role in planning the invasion of Iraq.

In a letter circulated yesterday evening to bank staffers, the staff association chair, Alison Cave, raised pointed questions about last week's appointment of Suzanne Rich Folsom, a bank official with Republican party ties, to head the Department of Institutional Integrity, a unit that investigates misconduct and corruption at the bank. The letter also cited the recent naming of Kevin S. Kellems, a former aide to Vice President Cheney, as the bank's top communications strategist.

Their selection, the letter suggested, had been undertaken without a properly open and competitive process, potentially undermining the bank's ability to persuade developing countries to adopt transparent and clean procedures in hiring and procurement. "We are concerned . . . that the positions were not filled in accordance with established recruitment procedures, which exemplify our commitment to good governance," the letter said.

Those at the bank who have thoughts on this evolving situation -- or insider information -- on Wolfowitz's agenda, feel free to contact me.

-- Steve Clemons

I have not been there yet but have been assured that Cafe Sappore is a nice place to hang out, grab a coffee, and discuss political stuff or anything folks want to know about Oakley the Amazing Weimaraner (without NSA eavesdropping).

I'm going to be there between 3:30 and 4:00 p.m. today -- and have to leave just before 6 p.m. to give a talk for the San Francisco Committee on Foreign Relations.

I have had about a dozen people contact me about meeting -- so those whose schedules fit -- feel free to stop by.

Steve Clemons of The Washington Note

Tuesday, 24 January, 3:30 - 5:30 p.m.

Cafe Sappore

790 Lombard Street (cross street is Taylor)

San Francisco

Cafe Phone: (415) 474-1222

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Chris Nelson of the Nelson Report runs one of the single best daily US-Asia policy and national security issues analysis letters in Washington. Normal beings can't subscribe, and it's not available on the web.

Whenever I get asked how to get on his list by TWN readers, my response is that 'hiring' Chris Nelson via his consultancy at Samuels International is probably the only sure way. A second approach could be a subscription fee equal to about a dozen high end sushi dinners (with sake. . .from Niigata, heated) for two people over a year. The other is to have information that one can 'trade' with Chris to earn one's way into his network. His stuff is great; typos and all. (He and I have bonded over typo tantrums from our readers).

On occasion, I will repost the entire Nelson Report with Chris Nelson's permission because they are just too useful and important not to get very broad play.

Today's entry is about Iran and North Korea -- but really, mostly about Iran.

THE NELSON REPORT -- Friday, 20 January 2006

IRAN AND KOREA. . .NASTY PEAS IN THE SAME POD

SUMMARY: This week, we've featured long quotes from patient Loyal Readers who have the advantage of long experience in thinking and dealing with non-proliferation issues, with a focus on Iraq. As an Asianist, we don't pretend to enjoy waxing (word inserted by TWN) on the Middle East, the olympian self assurance on Korea which no doubt many find irritating. So we will continue to offer informed commentary from the proven competent.

In that regard, Carnegie's Joe Cirincione, and Arms Control Wonk Jeffrey Lewis, have been instructing us all on Iran et al, and the gist of their thinking, below, has been posted on Carnegie's website. To start tonight's discussion, here is Joe's version for the Loyal Readership, followed by Jeff's reaction, and finally, a brief critique from a Loyal Reader we've been relying on for similar commentary, if sometimes differing conclusions.

Please note especially Cirincione's point that this is not a nuclear bomb crisis, but a nuclear regime crisis, and that press accounts of an Iranian bomb being "imminent" are dangerous nonsense from the same folks who brought us the political sales job (our phrase, not his) on Iraq WMD:

"Chris, are we seeing a coordinated [scare] campaign on Iran? The same neoconservative pundits who championed the invasion of Iraq are now beating the drums on Iran. They all got the same talking points this week. On Monday, urging us to keep military options open, William Kristol claims Iran's 'nuclear program could well be getting close to the point of no return.' Wednesday, Charles Krauthammer said, 'Instead of being years away from the point of no return for an Iranian bomb. . .Iran is probably just months away.

"This is complete nonsense. There is no need for military strikes against Iran. The country is five to ten years away from the ability to enrich uranium for fuel or bombs. Even that estimate, shared by the Defense Intelligence Agency and experts at IISS, ISIS, and Carnegie assumes Iran goes full-speed ahead and does not encounter any of the technical problems that typically plague such programs. In the next few months, they will be lucky to get a test centrifuge cascade up and running. Hardly a "point of no return."

"This is not a nuclear bomb crisis, it is a nuclear regime crisis. US Ambassador John Bolton has correctly pointed out that this is a key test for the Security Council. If Iran is not stopped the entire nonproliferation regime will be weakened, and with it the UN system.

"But it will have to be diplomats, not F-15s that stop the mullahs. An air strike against a soft target, such as the uranium conversion facility at Isfahan would inflame Muslim anger, rally the Iranian public around an otherwise unpopular government and jeopardize further the US position in Iraq. Finally, the strike would not, as is often said, delay the Iranian program. It would almost certainly speed it up. That is what happened when the Israelis struck at the Iraq program in 1981. Israel knocked the Osirik reactor, but Saddam went underground, expanding from 500 to 7000 workers on a more ambitious program that escaped detection until 1991. By then he was closer to producing a bomb than he ever would have been with Osirik. It went from a side project to an obsession.

"Your other Loyal Reader is correct that we could not destroy it in 1991 war. Even 43 days of coalition bombing failed to destroy the program, which ended only when U.N. disarmament teams methodically destroyed the equipment on the ground. This is the lesson to keep in mind as simplistic 'solutions' to the Iran program come churning out of the neocon machine."

-0-

Arms Control Wonk Jeff Lewis comments on his frequent-collaborator: "Joe is dead-on correct. I have one comment -- I don't like saying this is a crisis. As Joe noted, we have lots of time. More important, we are so focused on the question of when Iran could have a bomb, we underestimate the real depth of our interests here. The current situation, where Iran does not have a bomb -- but gives everyone the impression it is moving in that direction -- is almost as bad as an Iranian deterrent -- the day in, day out haggling creates a slow, steady erosion of confidence in the Nonproliferation Regime.

"Moreover, talking about this as a crisis leads to hasty conclusions about what happens if Tehran "gets" the bomb -- the world will not end, though we will be less secure. Assuming that Iran masters enrichment, we have a variety of interests to protect even if Iran stockpiles a few nuclear weapons. I would rather Iran have one, than ten. I would rather Iran have fuel, but not assemble the bomb. I would rather Iran not test it nuclear weapons or master the process of miniaturization that would allow delivery by ballistic missile. Most important, I want Iran to understand that it's deterrent is only good for retaliation, not coercion; that transfer of any of its nuclear materials to terrorists would result in the elimination of the Islamic Republic and its elites; and the use of nuclear weapon would be a prelude to the historical conclusion of Persian civilization.

"My advice, not fashionable these days, is to take a page from LBJ after the Chinese nuclear test. We need to act confident that the acquisition of Iranian nuclear weapons does nothing to enhance their security and everything to further isolate and weaken them.

"But our political system tends to reward the hysterical at the expense of the calm."

-0-

To close on this subject for tonight, commentary on Cirincione and Lewis from an informed Loyal Reader we often quote: " 'The point of no return' is a great phrase. The Israelis are quite fond of it, and it doesn't surprise me to see pundits cribbing it. I have no idea what if anything it is supposed to mean in technical terms, but the Israelis routinely put it forward before IAEA Board of Governors votes. It won't surprise you that Joe C.'s reasoning by analogy doesn't work for me. I haven't arrived at strongly determined views on the question of bombing, so he's not appealing to my prejudices. A strike on Iran's nuclear facilities would cut both ways: it would presumably end all restraint on the regime's part, accelerating their efforts. It would also reverse a lot of their labors to date."

Think about it, this critique continues, "It is not at all obvious to me which effect would overwhelm the other, but I do note that Jeff and others have written a fair bit about the difficulties Iran has experienced in trying to master conversion and enrichment. It's difficult to work out the kinks in large-scale operations when you no longer have facilities to operate! So there is a potential rationale here that should not be dismissed. The less restraint the Iranians show in operating their facilities, moreover, the better such a move for short-term advantage looks, since there is less to lose by it. There are also some uncertainties in the 5-10 year estimates for Iran's going nuclear that we could discuss at greater length later. These questions cut both ways when it comes to arguments for military action -- it's not cut-and-dried..."

-0-

Obviously, until we know if the Iranians will re-seal Natanz, and what, if anything, the IAEA will do in two weeks, this critical debate can but continue. Many thanks to the many informed Loyal Readers who have taken the time to help us Asianists navigate these highly relevant, but dangerously obscure waters.

Joe Cirincione and Jeffrey Lewis have offered blazingly logical, unsentimental assessments of America's current Iran problem.

In my own view, Iran's nuclear pretensions are a direct result of America removing Iran's chief antagonist in the region, Iraq under secular (and yes, fascist) rule -- as well as from the sad fact that America's mystique of power and capability has been greatly damaged by bogging down in the Iraq quagmire. When the perception of American power declines, allies are prompted not to count on the US as much and enemies have an incentive to move their agendas.

Other factors that Charles Krauthammer, Frank Gaffney, James Woolsey, Clifford May, Michael Ledeen and other neoconservatives fail to mention in their commentary is that Iran's current president had his preferred Oil Minister rejected four times by Iran's National Assembly. What was that about? What system of checks-and-balances exists in Iran (that seems to be less evident in America of late) that we are not discussing? Does that tension inside Iran's political system between the assembly and president offer any opportunities? Is Ahmadinejad attempting to outmaneuver his legislative shackles with his "wipe Israel off the map" jingoism, and is this having a positive or negative effect on his executive authority?

Iran's president is not a monarch -- and as nasty a character as I feel he is, he is not a Saddam Hussein. He's teasing deeply held theocratic convictions to try to legitimate himself and thus is doing what any rational power-maximizer would try and do when constrained. We need to apply our intelligence and thinking to this puzzle and familiarize ourselves with the factors that are driving his behavior.

We need to become more knowledgeable about Iran's internal government processes that enhance and constrain his abilities to move.

All that said, I do believe that Iran's nuclear pretensions run deeply and are morphing into a benchmark of ascendant nationalism. Even "healthy" nationalists in Iran would have robust nuclear power -- and perhaps even nuclear weapons -- on their list of what a "great nation" must have in its tool kit.

I believe that there are a great many options between war with Iran and doing nothing regarding its nuclear activities, but I am also convinced that Iran -- in the long run -- will probably have nukes. Iran has 70 million people and is a rich nation with a great past. As China reclaims some of its historical prestige, others who aspire to past glory also will -- and there is little that America or the world can do to permanently preempt such pretensions.

Economic sanctions, political and econoic carrots -- even harsher sticks -- can slow Iran's nuclear program, but the blowback from a harsh, military intervention will produce the single worst outcome in such an encounter: a significantly isolated, angry, democratically empowered hypernationalist nuclear power that will be focused more on the emotional need for revenge than on the pragmatic objective of regional balance with Israel, and general order and security.

Recently, both Senator Hillary Clinton and newly inaugurated Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine spoke about Iran -- and argued for a "tough policy." What does this mean? Their prescriptions are not only shallow on the facade -- but dangerously weak conceptually because Iran is a far more complicated and dangerous threat than Iraq was to the US.

America's objectives are to hopefully preempt Iran's move to nuclear weapons, but if this proves impossible over the next five to ten years -- which is the amount of time the intelligence community believes exists between today and when Iran could conceivably process the fuel and overcome technical handicaps in assembling a warhead -- then the better option is to find some way, either directly or through proxies, to slow Iran's progress towards a robust system that it will eventually develop.

One objective might be to keep Iran's program covert and undeclared, much like Israel's. And in the interim to begin cultivating a rhetoric and language of regional balance of power, and of nuclear deterrence in the region.

These are radical ideas -- but if Israel's regional nuclear monopoly is going to end, as America's nuclear monopoly once did, it is vital to educate all parties about (as Jeffrey Lewis states above) nuclear weapons in their "deterrent role", not as an instrument of coercion.

The only presidential candidate who has been talking semi-sensibly about the "realities" in the Middle East as they are and not in some fictionalized sketch is Wesley Clark.

While Clark believes that we need a great deal more diplomatic effort to redirect Iran from its current nuclear course, he also knows that one can't deal with either Iran or Iraq in a bubble unto themselves. General Clark has stated publicly that America needs to do a deal with Iran. He believes we cannot manage Iraq and potential explosive realities in the region without buy-in from Iran. In that, there may be opportunities to appeal to Iran's desire to be less isolated on the international stage and dealt with in a more dignified way given its size and importance in the region.

This is no proposal to appease Iran -- and no call for America and Europe to "bless" Iran's nuclear activities. The truth is that American military power, allied with our allies' military capacity -- properly and lethally constructed -- should be in our "last resort tool kit" if Iran shows no interest in negotiating on any front -- and is demonstrably bent on using its eventual nukes actively rather than holding them for security. But the James Woolsey types of this era want such military options much higher on the list, without much regard for consequences to America's overall security or the viability of its military and foreign policy objectives.

A strong, visionary U.S. president would go to Iran and do a deal akin to what Kissinger and Nixon accomplished with China. Maybe such a deal involves a covert nuclear program and maybe not -- but what is extremely important for US policy makers to know is that a replay of the mistakes that America made running up to our Iraq mess may finally be the punctuation point that ends America's role as a globally powerful, mostly benign hegemon.

America loses if it forfeits its ability to marshall like-minded powers on objectives the US feels are important to its own and global security.

Woolsey and his colleagues from Scoop Jackson circles are doing serious harm to America's national security portfolio -- and they will not stop, not ever -- until the Congress, rational parts of the Bush administration and Pentagon, civil society and the American public shut down these dangerous pundits.

-- Steve Clemons

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Committee on the Present Danger, two front organizations in the neoconservative network, will try and move a "military strike" against Iran a notch closer tomorrow.

Monday morning, 9:30 a.m., in SC-6 of the U.S. Capitol, war-profiteer and former CIA Director R. James Woolsey will be joined by former RNC Spokesman and President for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies President Clifford May and Arizona Senator (and staunch supporter of the recess appointed John Bolton) Jon Kyl to help roll out public opinion research that allegedly states that Americans support military action against Iran and its alleged nuclear weapons program.

Some may try and laugh this off -- but it's no funny matter.

James Woolsey successfully master-minded the mass communication fiction that Saddam Hussein was connected to the 9/11/2001 al Qaeda attacks in New York and Washington by alleging that connection on major news stations on the day America was under siege. And while connecting Iraq to America's new terror problem, Woolsey failed to disclose that he was assisting his legal client Ahmed Chalabi who had everything to gain from a war against terror that included Iraq.

Woolsey & Co. are at it again on Iran.

From the press advisory:

As President Bush prepares to deliver his sixth State of the Union address (Jan. 31), the CPD (Committee on the Present D