During the Soviet war with Afghanistan, which Zbig Brzezinski once commented he helped lead the USSR into -- helping in his view to end the Cold War with the minor cost of riling up some Muslims -- morale among Russian troops was always reported to be high.

Read this piece from the Armed Forces Press Service:

U.S. Colonel Says Troop Morale 'Absolutely Tremendous' By Kathleen T. Rhem

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, May 26, 2006 -- The morale of U.S. soldiers in Baghdad is "absolutely tremendous," a U.S. Army commander there said today.

"When I talk to my soldiers on the ground, they're absolutely committed to what we're doing here," Army Col. Michael Beech, commander of 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, told Pentagon reporters via teleconference from Forward Operating Base Prosperity in central Baghdad.

He said this high morale is reflected in his unit's re-enlistment rate -- 116 percent of goal for first-term soldiers.

"They volunteered knowing they were coming to Iraq," he said. "A hundred and sixteen percent of the soldiers that we needed to re-enlist have now re-enlisted and elected to stay in the Army. That's a tremendous thing, given that we are now in Iraq, in Baghdad, in a pretty tough fight. So I think the morale of our forces is great."

The colonel also used his news briefing as an opportunity to share his unit's appreciation for their families in the United States.

"I'd like to thank all of our friends, family members back home, the family members of our soldiers," he said. "Of course, we couldn't do this without their love and support during this time period.

"And they're all our heroes," he added.

Those who are on the front lines fighting in Iraq were sent there by Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, and a complacent Congress.

Contriving some "big lie" about high morale among troops in an increasingly no-win situation where American objectives in the war have been forgotten worsens the crime of those at the top.

-- Steve Clemons

Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick didn't want to "manage" the State Department in the same manner that his predecessor Richard Armitage did. Zoellick wanted to carve out portfolios that he would manage, and left the meat-and-potato operations of the department to others.

Now Zoellick is planning to leave the government after hearing through the grapevine that he did not make the short list to succeed Treasury Secretary John Snow.

The question now is who will come in after Zoellick. Sources have told TWN that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice prefers to appoint Nick Burns as her DepSec.

But Cheney may use his influence to block Burns, whom many consider to be too much of a "diplomatic type". During the recent UN Security Council skirmishes with Russia and China over how to deal with Iran, John Bolton and various other Cheney acolytes began a whisper campaign against Nick Burns.

Burns has cut many deals lately -- including the Security Council resolution on Iran with Europe and the recent nuclear negotiations with India -- but he's no darling of the left. He's considered to be serious but is a believer in Rice's "transformational diplomacy" doctrine.

But Cheney had wanted John Bolton in the DepSec job rather than Zoellick -- and in this next round, Cheney will not want Burns to help further strengthen Rice's hand in foreign and national security policy.

It will be interesting to watch the sides square off, and whomever does succeed Zoellick will give some indication of the relative strengths of Rice and Cheney in the administration.

-- Steve Clemons

A few commenters and those who have emailed have taken exception to my stating where I am during my travels at the moment.

I state where I am because I like to meet TWN readers in the cities I visit. I attended conferences in Europe this past week -- and am now about to start some vacation -- during which Dave Meyer will be the MC of The Washington Note.

But to those of you who just don't like to hear where I am -- or my mentioning the cities -- this blog may not be for you. I'll be meeting some of my readers in Mykonos today. Vancouver on Friday and Saturday. Alaska next.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

I am currently in Mykonos, after having spent a few days at a conference organized by New York University's Center on Law and Security focusing on the legal frameworks through which governments pursue and handle would-be terrorists. One of the conference participants was Nir Rosen, a colleague of mine at the New America Foundation.

Rosen has just published this powerful op-ed in the Washington Post.

An excerpt:

Every morning the streets of Baghdad are littered with dozens of bodies, bruised, torn, mutilated, executed only because they are Sunni or because they are Shiite. Power drills are an especially popular torture device.

I have spent nearly two of the three years since Baghdad fell in Iraq. On my last trip, a few weeks back, I flew out of the city overcome with fatalism. Over the course of six weeks, I worked with three different drivers; at various times each had to take a day off because a neighbor or relative had been killed. One morning 14 bodies were found, all with ID cards in their front pockets, all called Omar. Omar is a Sunni name. In Baghdad these days, nobody is more insecure than men called Omar. On another day a group of bodies was found with hands folded on their abdomens, right hand over left, the way Sunnis pray. It was a message. These days many Sunnis are obtaining false papers with neutral names. Sunni militias are retaliating, stopping buses and demanding the jinsiya, or ID cards, of all passengers. Individuals belonging to Shiite tribes are executed.

Under the reign of Saddam Hussein, dissidents called Iraq "the republic of fear" and hoped it would end when Hussein was toppled. But the war, it turns out, has spread the fear democratically. Now the terror is not merely from the regime, or from U.S. troops, but from everybody, everywhere.

The meeting was strictly off the record, but one thing Nir Rosen stated at the meeting he has allowed on the record. During his presentation, Rosen stated that "the U.S. military has just become another militia in Iraq." He argued that Iraq is on the verge of genuine sectarian meltdown and that the Sunni population fears being wiped out by Shiites. This, in turn, may draw Sunni brethren from Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt in to prevent the sectarian cleansing of Baghdad and other cities.

Rosen is rethinking his position that America needs to get out of Iraq. He stated that had America withdrawn from Iraq a year ago, its departure might have forestalled the civil war that he believes is now underway. I think he is tilting towards the view now that America missed its window of opportunity to link its departure to a more stable outcome in Iraq -- and that now the question is what will America's departure do or not do.

If pushed, Nir Rosen believes that if America withdraws, the cork will blow off. The Shiite will attempt to wipe Iraq clean of Sunnis -- and neighboring nation Sunnis will pour into Iraq, possibly creating a major regional conflagration that can't be easily contained.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

I've always been interested in Mt. Everest and the spell it casts over some climbers and have been paying some attention to the recent tragedies of people climbing, getting sick on the mountain, and left by others who would risk their own survival if helping those who stopped on the mountain.

But I have to critique Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person known to have achieved the summit and survived, for his criticism of the "commercialization of Everest" that has been reported in the media.

This is not a new critique from Hillary. He's been saying the same thing for years, and Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air reports the same from Hillary.

While I actually agree with the famous New Zealander about Everest, his own role in commercializing Everest needs to be acknowledged.

Edmund Hillary made a string of commercials -- shown on television and in movie theatres -- of a Toyota 4-Runner charging easily up Everest making it look like anyone could handle the challenge (in a Toyota, of course).

Hillary has done amazing things for the local villagers who live at the base of the mountain and has provided schools, opportunities outside of Nepal, and been a tremendous Ambassador for those who aspire to climb the tallest of this globe's peaks.

But I think he needs to lay off the 'commercialization' theme since he has been complicit in the problem.

-- Steve Clemons

Julian Borger, Washington Bureau Chief of The Guardian, rang me in Florence yesterday to talk about Bush and Blair. I told him that I do not think that Bush was predisposed to giving Blair many legacy-building gifts, which is how Borger ended his piece.

I'm traveling to Athens today.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Sidney Blumenthal has a powerful piece in Salon today. He strikes out at the "Turning Point" and "Victory" rhetoric that continues to emanate from the White House.

If there were another President in the White House, I think that a rhetoric of defeat, of being stalled, or having made incorrect choices would also be tough. But we passed the point where "Big Lie-ism" was really working long ago. Now, Bush's failure to speak squarely about the realities in Iraq make America look even weaker and as if the nation simply denies clear realities.

Such reality-denial probably emboldens Iran to push harder -- sensing nonsensical weakness rather than clear-eyed, sober realism in the White House. To restore a sense of America's real abilities among allies and foes, American leaders are going to have to demonstrate that they are making tough choices about our military deployments and resources and to restore credibility to our brand.

So far, Bush's rhetoric breeds more doubt than confidence, and that is a bad position to be in when negotiating, even informally, with Iran over its nuclear pretensions.

From the Blumenthal article:

Bush has been proclaiming Iraq at a turning point for years. "Turning point" is a frequent and recurring talking point, often taken up by the full chorus of the president ("We've reached another great turning point," Nov. 6, 2003; "A turning point will come in less than two weeks," June 18, 2004), vice president ("I think about when we look back and get some historical perspective on this period, I'll believe that the period we were in through 2005 was, in fact, a turning point," Feb. 7, 2006), secretary of state and secretary of defense, and ringing down the echo chamber.

This latest "turning point" reveals an Iraqi state without a social contract, a government without a center, a prime minister without power and an American president without a strategy. Each sectarian group maintains its own militia. Each leader's influence rests on these armed bands, separate armies of tens of thousands of men. The militias have infiltrated and taken over key units of the Iraqi army and local police, using them as death squads, protection rackets and deterrent forces against enemies. Reliable statistics are impossible, but knowledgeable reporters estimate there are about 40 assassinations a day in Iraq. Ethnic cleansing is sweeping the country. From Kirkuk in the north to Baghdad in the middle to Basra in the south, Kurds are driving out Turkmen and Arabs, Shiites are killing Sunnis, and the insurgency enjoys near unanimous support among Sunnis. Contrary to Bush's blanket rhetoric about "terrorists" and constant reference to the insurgency as "the enemy," "foreign fighters are a small component of the insurgency," according to Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Patrick Cockburn, one of the most accurate and intrepid journalists in Iraq, wrote last week in the Independent of London that "the overall security situation in Iraq is far worse than it was a year ago. Baghdad and central Iraq, where Shia, Sunni and Kurd are mixed, is in the grip of a civil war fought by assassins and death squads. As in Bosnia in 1992, each community is pulling back into enclaves where it is the overwhelming majority and able to defend itself."

While Prime Minister Maliki has declared his intention to enforce an unused militia-demobilization decree proclaimed by the now disbanded Coalition Provisional Authority in 2004, he has made no gesture beyond his statement, and no Iraqi leader has volunteered to be the first test case of demobilization. The New York Times Wednesday cited an American official on the absence of action on this front: "'They need to begin by setting examples,' an American official in Baghdad said of the Iraqi government. 'It is just very noticeable to me that they are not making any examples.' 'None,' the official said. 'Zero.'"

Maliki's inability to fill the posts of minister of defense and minister of the interior reflects the control of the means of violence by factions and sects unwilling to cede it to a central authority. Inside the new government, ministries are being operated as sectarian fiefdoms. The vacuum at the Defense and Interior ministries represents a state of civil war in which no one can be vested with power above all.

In his speech on Monday referring to another "turning point," President Bush twice spoke of "victory." "Victory" is the constant theme he has adopted since last summer, when he hired public opinion specialist Peter Feaver for the National Security Council. Feaver's research claims that the public will sustain military casualties so long as it is persuaded that they will lead to "victory." Bush clings to this P.R. formula to explain, at least to himself, the decline of his political fortunes. "Because we're at war, and war unsettles people," he said in an interview with NBC News last week. To make sense of the disconcerting war, he imposes his familiar framework of us vs. them, "the enemy" who gets "on your TV screen by killing innocent people" against himself.

In his Monday speech, Bush reverted yet again to citing Sept. 11, 2001, as the ultimate justification for the Iraq war. Defiant in the face of terrorists, he repeated whole paragraphs from his 2004 campaign stump speech. "That's just the lessons of September the 11th that I refuse to forget," he said. Stung by the dissent of the former commanders of the U.S. Army in Iraq who have demanded the firing of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Bush reassured the audience that he listens to generals. "I make my mind up based not upon politics or political opinion polls, but based upon what the commanders on the ground tell me is going on," he said.

Yet currently serving U.S. military commanders have been explicitly telling him for more than two years, and making public their view, that there is no purely military solution in Iraq. For example, Gen. John Abizaid, the U.S. commander, said on April 12, 2004: "There is not a purely U.S. military solution to any of the particular problems that we're facing here in Iraq today."

Critics of George Bush, like myself, don't want to score political points by seeing America struggle in Iraq. If Bush and his advisors had rebuffed critics like Blumenthal and me with clear, unambiguous success -- then there would be nothing for us to do but to express our regrets for doubting the brilliance of this Bush presidency.

But that is not the case. Bush has not heeded the warnings and counsel of many and has led the nation into circumstances that are prompting allies to worry about our capabilities and prompting foes to move their national agendas as quickly as possible. Iran did not put us in our current circumstance. Nor did China. Nor did Russia, or Afaghanistan, or Pakistan, or the French.

America's actions -- more than any other nation -- have yielded the international environment we find ourselves in today, and we must get real about this -- and pull out of the tail-spin Bush has us in.

I will be seeing Blumenthal later today in Florence and many other interesting personalities, including the Department of Justice Chief Investigator of Jim Risen and the New York Times on the warrantless wiretap leak investigation. The conference is entirely off the record but will try to share broad themes later.

-- Steve Clemons

(Sorry for AWOL status. I spent yesterday in Athens and have just arrived for a conference in Florence where the internet is out at the hotel and in short supply elsewhere.)

Yesterday, General Michael Hayden's confirmation process to serve as Porter Goss's successor as CIA Director moved out of the Senate Intelligence Committee on a 12-3 vote.

Those voting against were Ron Wyden, Russ Feingold and Evan Bayh.

This is interesting as Feingold rarely votes against a presidential nominee -- though he did so on John Bolton. Feingold sees the duplicity about the warrantless wiretaps as something to really dig in about, and I admit to admiring Feingold's steadfastness.

But this gambit of opposition is not designed to win.

While some have expressed surprise at my general support of Hayden's nomination, others understand what is going on in this Hayden debate.

First, most Democrats and most small-government, classic conservative Republicans have failed these many months to destroy the foundation of the President's assertion that Congress gave him the ability to spy domestically without warrant in the Iraq War resolution. Tom Daschle and many have argued that there was a negotiated path that disallowed the White House from using the word "domestic" in its preferred resolution. But Members of Congress have failed to make that deal stick, and the Presidency has continued to expand its powers wherever the Congress and Judiciary fail to knock it back.

Michael Hayden should be chastised and scrutinized over his role in the warrantless wiretap program, but he is not the problem. A President unchecked by Congress is the problem, and Ron Wyden and Evan Bayh -- though I like both -- have failed to go to the floor and amend every piece of legislation with clarifications that the President has no warrantless domestic spying authority.

Forcing votes over and over on this issue, much like Senator Ted Kennedy has done in the past on minimum wage hikes, is the way to have won this battle -- not hanging responsibility for the program on Michael Hayden.

While I have some issues with Hayden, I do believe that he is one of the last hopes in restoring some order at the CIA and rolling back Donald Rumsfeld's colonization of the nation's national security bureaucracy.

Rumsfeld is my target, and those who see Negroponte, Hayden, and Rumsfeld on the same page are incorrect.

Negroponte will use Hayden to gore Rumsfeld, Stephen Cambone, and William Boykin.

And some in the White House -- a bit frustrated that Rumsfeld is not "removable" at this time, as one staffer told me -- does not mind cultivating a bit of competition among the President's intel rivals. This helps give the President some latitude beyond Rumsfeld and is, in general, a smart move that also may be good for the country.

For Dems and others concerned about national security decisionmaking, learning to turn some of these internal tensions into opportunities -- as I think Russ Feingold sometimes does -- is something that the Democratic Party leadership needs to master to get back into the race.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

On Tuesday, Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will spend some time with President Bush in Washington.

Hopefully, they will engage in some "re-visioning" of what is possible in moving forward on the resolution of Israel's borders in a negotiated process leading to a Palestinian state.

There is great debate about how to get there, but without a negotiated resolution to the Israel-Palestine standoff, America will never move a credible program of public diplomacy in the Middle East forward. They are connected -- and given the quagmire America finds itself in Iraq and quickly boiling tensions with Iran, there are many geostrategic and moral reasons why America (and Europe) should be committing themselves to a pro-Israel/pro-Palestine deal-making process.

More on this later, but for one hopeful view, read Daniel Levy's talking points for the leaders which appeared Sunday in the Boston Globe.

-- Steve Clemons

Expect a post from me this evening.

I'll be traveling today to London for some quick meetings with foreign policy hands.

Tuesday and Wednesday, Athens.

Wednesday night through Saturday, Florence for a major terrorism conference sponsored by the NYU Center on Law and Security.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

Bobby Ray Inman's claims are "BS", claimed one very prominent Washington insider after reading TWN's report on Inman's claim that Richard Armitage would be indicted in the Valerie Plame Wilson outing probe.

Another well-placed insider who has interacted directly with many of the key personalities involved in the investigation wrote this to me:

I'm sure Inman is wrong on Armitage. But I am also sure we'll hear more about Armitage's direct involvement. I am additionally sure we will hear about Armitage as a witness against Rove if he is indicted.

Another person whom I can't identify but has direct knowledge of the direction of Fitzgerald's investigation as it pertains to Armitage and Rove stated that what Inman claims "is not the case". This source offered further that one "would be on 100 percent solid ground" with the claim that Armitage would NOT be indicted.

I can't disclose this source, but I completely trust the veracity of this comment.

That said, I have learned from several other sources that Richard Armitage was neck deep in the Valerie Plame story. According to several insiders, as soon as Armitage realized mistakes he had made, he marched into Colin Powell and laid out "everything" in full detail.

As others have written and reported, Richard Armitage is a major part of the story and engaged in indiscreet discussions regarding Valerie Plame Wilson and her alleged role in the Joe Wilson trip to Niger.

However, unlike what Admiral Inman asserted, Richard Armitage is in no legal jeopardy -- none.

Two sources have reported that Richard Armitage has testified three times before the grand jury and has completely cooperated and has been, as one source reported, "a complete straight-shooter" and "honest about his role and mistakes".

Another person with deep knowledge about this investigation called to say that Fitzgerald seems to have abandoned any interest in securing indictments regarding the "outing" of Plame and has invested his efforts in challenging the "white collar cover-ups" involved. According to this source, the information provided by Richard Armitage is -- more than any other information -- what has put Karl Rove at major risk of indictment.

I felt that these other insider perspectives are important as they are so uniformly consistent that Inman's claims are wrong, that Armitage made mistakes and immediately owned up to them, that Armitage has been completely forthcoming in the investigation, and that Karl Rove remains a prime indictment target for Patrick Fitzgerald.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

(Former NSA Director Bobby Inman speaking at George H.W. Bush Presidential Library)

Michael Hayden's CIA Director confirmation hearings start today in the Senate Intelligence Committee at 9:30 a.m.

I'll be listening.

I will be having a half hour discussion about the Hayden hearings and the NSA eavesdropping controversy on New York Public Radio, WNYC on the "Brian Lehrer Show" with Dafna Linzer of the Washington Post, Kevin Whitelaw of US News & World Report, and Holly Baily of Newsweek at 11:30 a.m.

On other fronts, I spent much of the day yesterday at a conference exploring the rise and fall of liberal internationalism in American foreign policy at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School.

It was one of the more substance-packed meetings I have been to in some time and included such personalities as Princeton University Professor and After Victory author G. John Ikenberry, Woodrow Wilson School Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter, Georgetown Professor and Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Charles Kupchan, author and political provocateur Kevin Phillips, UT Austin LBJ School and former Deputy National Security Advisor James Steinberg, UT Austin Professor Peter Trubowitz, Princeton Professor and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, blogger and professor on the way to Tufts Daniel Drezner, Princeton European Program Director Andrew Moravcsik, Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Walter Russell Mead, New Republic Editor-at-Large and author of the forthcoming The Good Fight Peter Beinart, and many other interesting people.

But one other who was there was former National Security Agency Director Bobby Ray Inman.

Here is where it gets complicated. Inman told many of us a number of interesting things which I am going to treat off the record.

However, he said one very provocative thing about the CIA Valerie Plame outing investigation that I have confirmed that he has stated at other venues, publicly. I don't feel that Admiral Inman was guarded about his comments -- nor did he ask anyone he was speaking to to treat his comments with discretion.

So, I am only reporting this because he said it elsewhere.

But before I get into that, Inman also had some interesting things to say about the NSA domestic spying program at a recent New York Public Library program, the transcript of which is here.

A short report on Inman's comments:

Ex-NSA Head Bobby Ray Inman on the National Security Agency's Domestic Surveillance Program: "This Activity Was Not Authorized"

Admiral Bobby Ray Inman has become the highest-ranking former NSA official to speak out about the domestic spy program. "There clearly was a line in the FISA statutes which says you couldn't do this," said Inman last week in remarks that have received little attention.

On Thursday the Senate Intelligence Committee will open its confirmation hearing for General Michael Hayden to become the next director of the CIA. Hayden is the former head of the National Security Agency who authorized the agency in 2001 to begin monitoring the phone calls of U.S. citizens without legally required court warrants.

While Hayden and the Bush administration have defended the secret domestic surveillance program, it is now being criticized by an unlikely source -- a former director of the NSA. Last week Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, who headed the NSA from 1977 to 1981, spoke in New York at a forum sponsored by the New York Public Library and the Century Foundation. It was part of the library's Live at the NYPL series.

Besides an article at the website Wired News, Inman's statements have received almost no media attention even though he is believed to the highest ranking former NSA official to speak out about the program. At the forum he disputed the Bush administration's claim that Congress authorized the secret spy program when it authorized the president to use force following the Sept. 11 attacks. Inman also said the program clearly contradicts the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which Congress passed in 1978 -- at the time he was head of the National Security Agency.

I think that Admiral Inman's insights into the NSA eavesdropping program are important -- and given his self-admitted penchant for candor, I think that many of his comments on other fronts are fascinating, insightful and informed by his considerable analytical abilities and high quality relationships in America's national security bureaucracy.

But like any of us, he could be wrong.

What Inman shared with some of us -- and this was a repeated assertion from comments that I have confirmed that he made in Austin -- is that the person in Patrick Fitzgerald's bull's eye is Richard Armitage.

I have written about Armitage many times in the past and hope that this rumor is incorrect.

But I do believe that Armitage was possibly a key source for Dana Priest and Mike Allen early in the Plame outing story and wrote such in November 2005. I don't have more information on whether Armitage was Novak's source or not -- and what legal consequences there might be, if any, if that was the case. I always assumed that Armitage was cooperating closely with Fitzgerald and would not be in any legal jeopardy.

After all, Armitage was recently knighted and a new oil firm board member.

But Inman stating this matters.

For those who attended the Princeton meetings who will no doubt read this and who may be surprised by my reporting Inman's comments -- do understand that I have been able to confirm that Admiral Inman made the same comments in other venues.

Inman stating that Richard Armitage is the target of indictment is news and could have some veracity because of who Inman is.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Update: Here is an interesting related post by Dan Drezner who also attended the Princeton meeting which Inman attended.

A job opening in the State Department's Bureau of International Organization Affairs has just been posted.

This would be an ideal spot to watch what the US Mission to the UN is doing and particularly the US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton.

The announcement reads:

The men and women of the US Department of State with their skills, character and commitment to public service, are the backbone of America's diplomacy. Civil Service employees support the foreign policy mission from offices in Washington, DC and across the nation. Join us in helping to shape a freer, more secure and prosperous world as we formulate, represent and implement US foreign policy. Choose from hundreds of career possibilities -- there's something for everyone!

This position is located in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs, Office of UN Political Affairs, which is responsible for developing and coodinating DOS and USG positions on major political issues dealt with at the United Nations, in particular within the Security Council. The Office provides guidance to USUN, and occasionally to US Mission Geneva, on U.S. positions regarding major political issues; maintains close ties with other appropriate DOS bureaus and offices, as well as with the USG interagency community as appropriate, to develop and consider options for advancing U.S. policy at the United Nations.

Here is the full announcement.

Don't tell them I sent you if you apply, but if you get the position, give me a ring.

-- Steve Clemons

I'm up at the Woodrow Wilson School today at Princeton University through tomorrow.

Will post tomorrow morning, but until then -- by popular demand -- another Oakley picture and an open thread.

-- Steve Clemons

Wednesday this week, the Valerie Plame grand jury will assemble again, and that might be the day that Jason Leopold's report on Rove's indictment last Friday either makes global news or fizzles out.

While I haven't been in the position to work my own sources who have been close to the Fitzgerald investigation, one of the nuances of the Rove-watching I have done in the past may be in play here.

A week before the 2004 presidential election, Rove was decidedly despondent. His numbers showed him that John Kerry was likely going to win, but the furor about Teresa Heinz Kerry's comments about Laura Bush as well as a last minute Osama bin Laden video gave momentum to a turn-around that Rove saw unfold in the last few days before the race. According to those around him, his mood turned cheery and upbeat, really rather than falsely up, and TWN reported this.

Likewise, before the Libby indictment -- about a week before -- when Libby had received a letter notifying him of his pending indictment and Rove had not, Rove's mood reportedly shifted from utter despondency to a much more positive mood. And this indicator proved correct and was also reported on TWN before the five count indictment was handed down. Rove missed the bullet that day, and Libby was taken down.

I don't have a good read on Rove's spirits today, but what is suspicious is the degree to which the White House spin machine has gone out of its way to show Rove as calm, in control, witty. . .up.

He was ebullient -- too much so -- in his AEI speech today. And AP is pushing a line that Rove's retainers are in unison divulging how "unfazed" the guy is about the Fitzgerald investigation.

From Deb Reichmann's AP report:

President Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, arrives at the White House every day wearing a jovial smile that masks his boss' political troubles and his own legal woes.

Rove, the man Bush dubbed "the architect" of his re-election, has the arduous task of halting Bush's popularity spiral and keeping Democrats from capturing the House or Senate in November elections - while under the threat of indictment in the CIA leak case.

His friends and colleagues say he's not fazed by his precarious situation.

"Karl's focus is sharper than ever and his spirit is high," said Dan Bartlett, White House counselor, downplaying any claims that Rove is distracted. "He packs more work into one day than most of us get done in a week."

Rove was asked about his legal problems Monday after a speech on the economy at a conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute. He ducked. "Nice try," Rove told the questioner.

If the grand jury weren't in the news, it would be hard to tell that Rove, a deputy White House chief of staff, is waiting to find out if he'll be indicted.

She continues with a bit that Rove thought he'd be off the hook by now:

Rove apparently thought it would be over by now.

In a thank-you note to Israel last December, he predicted a quick end. "In short, he thought he would be cleared," said Israel, who has kept in touch with Rove since leaving Austin in 1999.

Some of Rove's colleagues suspect the president's poor poll ratings and the high-stakes midterm elections are weighing the adviser down more than his legal woes.

"It's not easy, but this is not as tough as 2002 or 2004," said conservative activist Grover Norquist, who doesn't think the threat of indictment is real.

"I saw him at dinner last night. He's fine."

Rove apparently gave a humdinger of a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, and some are clucking that this could be the last word from Bush's "architect".

If indicted, Rove will send Bush's favorability levels to astounding lows for the self-proclaimed "war-time" President. But while distracted by legal matters, Rove will no doubt likely to lurk behind the scenes of Republican grand strategy for some time. He's a real genius when it comes to knowing how to gut the Democratic party and call the issues that get the Republican 'base' to turn out.

Clearly, Rove & Co. are weakened, but those challenging today's status quo -- whether as dissident Republicans or Democrats -- make a major mistake underestimating Rove's strategic political senses -- in or out of the White House.

The best way to beat Rove is to out-Rove him and Bush's fellow travelers, but there is scant evidence that that is happening yet.

-- Steve Clemons

I haven't been able to confirm what Jason Leopold has reported:

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove.

During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 hours to get his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning.

Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, did not return a call for comment. Sources said Fitzgerald was in Washington, DC, Friday and met with Luskin for about 15 hours to go over the charges against Rove, which include perjury and lying to investigators about how and when Rove discovered that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA operative and whether he shared that information with reporters, sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said.

It was still unknown Saturday whether Fitzgerald charged Rove with a more serious obstruction of justice charge. Sources close to the case said Friday that it appeared very likely that an obstruction charge against Rove would be included with charges of perjury and lying to investigators.

An announcement by Fitzgerald is expected to come this week, sources close to the case said. However, the day and time is unknown. Randall Samborn, a spokesman for the special prosecutor was unavailable for comment. In the past, Samborn said he could not comment on the case.

But if he's on target, this is huge news.

-- Steve Clemons

(Pondering a post-Castro Cuba)

I've just spent one day in Mexico City, my first time. Mostly, I was with a group of academics and public intellectuals mostly from ITAM in Mexico City, the University of Texas in Austin, and the University of Havana in Cuba. There was a Canadian from the University of Ottawa and a couple of us from Washington.

The topic of the day was whether or not there are opportunities for e-engagement given the significant constraints that exist not only in the legal and political dimensions of US-Cuban relations but also financial and logistical.

It was interesting and useful to meet Cuban academics to get a sense of what they think is happening inside Cuba and what a post-Castro world might look like.

But I found it remarkable that even in this rather small conference, most of the Cuban academics needed to go through a pro forma articulation of their objections to an imperial America, and on several occasions, Guantanamo surfaced. Though I have my own problems with the detention of enemy combatants by the US at Guantanamo, that subject has little to do with thinking through new contours of policy interaction through the web without violating American or Cuban laws.

It's interesting to note that a meeting of Americans, Mexicans, and Cubans that took place at the Sheraton Hotel in Mexico City in February 2006 -- just down the street from where we were -- was wrecked by American Treasury Department officials who told the Sheraton to expel Cubans who were staying there. The Sheraton did this and threw the Cubans out on to the street because the US-based hotel chain didn't want to be punished for violating laws forbidding commercial exchange with the Cuban government.

There may be details of the case of which I am not aware, but hosting traveling Cubans in a third country is not engaging in financial transactions with the Cuban government. This was a bizarre case of serious American imperial over-extension into Mexico. So, when the Cubans got my dander up by accusing Americans of hyper-imperialism while not balancing with a critique of their own thuggish leader, I bit my tongue and tried to make the case that none of this mattered when it came to thinking whether there were e-engagement possibilities that we had flown to Mexico to consider.

But I have to admit that I was ticked off that the US pushed this extra-territorial sanction on an American hotel in Mexico -- thus convincing Cubans that their critique of America was valid from their view -- and also creating a crisis in Mexico. ITAM in Mexico seemed to always use the Sheraton Hotel for other international meetings and has now decided that it will never do so again. There was a huge debate inside Mexico -- and in Mexican courts -- as to whether the Hotel had violated Mexican law by discriminating against the Cuban visitors and expelling them after their reservations had been accepted. The end result is that in the end the Mexican government did not require that the Hotel be shut down permanently – but it was costly for the Sheraton and costly for the American image in Mexico.

And keep in mind that the US government has said scarce little about the turnover to the Chinese government of electronic data that Yahoo and Google have accumulated which the Chinese government has then used to jail those who think, even in "draft form", about democracy.

American government inconsistency is staggering.

There was an imposition of "off the record" rules on the morning of the meeting I attended, which irritated me -- as reporting some of the comments made by the parties at this session would have been useful in making this eclectic gathering matter beyond the sleepy conference room in which we met.

One of the key constraints on virtual communications between Cubans and Americans is not money or availability of web portals -- though those are factors -- but also internal political controls and harassment. These academics can't fix that problem on their own, but to not acknowledge that free exchange is not only not encouraged in Cuba but also sometimes punished makes any discussion of the political dimensions of this problem surreal.

Likewise, I find it reprehensible that the US Department of the Treasury has included "co-authorship" of academic papers as an actionable offense under the OFAC laws (Office of Foreign Assets Control). Scientists, historians, literature and culture experts, political scientists, and the like are not permitted to co-author papers together, even when there are no remittances involved. America does grant licenses for some American universities to host and even provide limited forms of compensation to visiting Cuban academics, and journalists and others within certain classifications in the cultural, academic, and official government realms can get licenses to legally travel to Cuba from the US.

What various administrations that have been tangling with Fidel Castro for a couple of generations have tried to do is to strangle off his access to hard currency. Despite the fact that Castro has survived the Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, and at least the first term and a half of the G.W. Bush administration, America hasn't revised much its tactics toward Cuba.

I think engagement is what helps the forces of liberalization, but I'm not interested today in a more cosmic comment about the idiocy of maintaining failed decades-long isolation and humiliation strategies that have bolstered Castro more than eroded his support and ability to control his nation.

I am interested that this administration -- or any other Republican or Democratic administration -- isn't promoting robust intellectual exchange, co-authorship of papers, and attempting to inculcate Cuba's academics and universities with the importance of empirical research and the benefits that come from a more empowered civil society -- that must have successful academic institutions as one of the key pillars.

Some who read this post will accuse me of being naive about Cuba in arguing that getting the pipelines for exchange right is very important, particularly in considering post-Castro possibilities.

George Bush will -- any day now -- be issuing a second report from the Cuba Transition Commission, which issued its first report in 2001.

If Bush has a problem with travel and financial remittances, fine. But if Bush wants to lay the groundwork in part for other possibilities, then drop this ridiculous restriction about co-authorship of academic papers. And add a provision that encourages e-exchange, chat room development, and blogger networking and communication. Establish "free spaces" that permit robust debate about the current state of domestic Cuban affairs, US-Cuba relations, and the domestic state of American affairs. After all, America did expel Cubans from a hotel in Mexico and also collects information on nearly every domestic phone call in the United States.

Cubans might have a few things to say about that, and their revulsion (like my own) to unchecked executive power might help empower them to be more critical of their own government.

As one of the commentators in the conference I attended yesterday said -- and I will violate rules to report this -- "America, Cuba, and Mexico, all have dirty laundry, but we must deal with the fact that many of our fellow citizens in Cuba and many in Mexico want to get into America despite its many problems and inconsistencies. We must be honest about this reality."

Well, America needs to use that soft leverage of exchange, which can be handled through bits on the net to begin with, in positive ways that promote big thinking about a post-Castro Cuba.

-- Steve Clemons

Sometimes I just want to write quick-blip reactions to stuff I see out there.

Here are some things that caught my attention on the way back from Mexico City today:

1. Televisa and Bill Gates have announced that they are going to work through his investment arm, Cascade Investment -- along with Bain Capital, the Blackstone Group, Carlyle Group, and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. -- to bid for Univision. There is probably some serious regulatory requirement that mandates such a disclosure, but on another front, it seems anti-competitive for someone of Bill Gates' economic weight to publicly say, "I'm here. My team is big. I want your company -- all others beware."

2. I should have bought gold. Gold passed $727 an ounce on Friday. Richard Fisher, who previously ran for the Senate in Texas and then served as Deputy US Trade Representative in the Clinton administration, is now President & CEO of the Federal Reserve Board of Dallas. Two years ago, Fisher told a small group that he was putting a big chunk of his considerable wealth into gold. When a guy who is a regional Fed Board chairman elects to abandon the dollar and other securities for gold, we should listen have listened.

3. I like Richard Falkenrath who had a piece today in the Washington Post celebrating the NSA national phone call data base project. But this irks me:

There are, of course, strict legal limits on the ability of federal agencies such as the NSA to compel the provision of domestic information or to collect it secretly. The USA Today story, however, alleges that three telecommunications companies -- AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth -- provided it voluntarily. How else could one company (Qwest) decline to provide the information? Since there is no prohibition against federal agencies receiving voluntarily provided business records relating to their responsibilities, it appears that the NSA's alleged receipt and retention of such information is perfectly legal.

But go check out the Quest story. They felt seriously strong-armed by the government to comply. I would even say "threatened". The question to ask AT&T, Verizon and Bell South in the inevitable hearings ahead will be how "voluntary" were their actions? How threatened did they feel?

4. Recently, I screened for a group of 200 people the pre-release of
'Our Brand is Crisis" which looks into the political terrain in Bolivia preceding the rise of Evo Morales. There were a lot of anti-globalist Morales supporters there, and I would imagine that most of them would applaud Morales's May 1st announcement that he would nationalize its gas sector and offer oil firms six months to renegotiate their contracts.

But Morales has gone further and declared that Bolivia may not compensate firms for the assets they hold in Bolivia if nationalized. Brazil is outraged -- particularly if Brazil's Petrobras, the largest foreign investor in Brazil, is not compensated.

Some bad stuff is unfolding in Latin America, and I don't have any sense that Americans are paying much attention. My New America Foundation colleague, Jim Pinkerton agrees.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Recently, I wrote that "if all things remained equal", if Karl Rove was indicted in Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of the Valerie Plame Wilson outing case, Bush's numbers would fall to 28%.

Well, things didn't remain equal and the Bush administration has shot itself in the foot again with the disclosures that it strong-armed all of the nation's leading telecom firms (except Qwest which valiantly held out) into providing entire data bases of ALL calls made domestically inside the United States.

No wonder why the Bush administration evaded the FISA Court and process. There is no way that this kind of surveillance and building of a data base would have been approved.

In the latest Harris interactive poll, Bush's approval rating has fallen to 29%.

I am revising my figures on Bush and Rove.

If Rove is indicted in this environment, Bush's favorability rating will fall to 24%.

Momentum is on the side of those in doubt of Bush as well as his administration's integrity and competency.

-- Steve Clemons

I'm participating in a conference in Mexico City titled "Prospects for US-Mexico-Cuba E-Engagement" sponsored by the LBJ School of Public Affairs at UT Austin, the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, and ITAM.

There are a number of Cubans here, and I can't help but think that George Bush's rationalization for all that he does in terms of national security is an art Fidel Castro perfected long ago as well as lots of other illiberal leaders who talked the talk of democracy, but walked the walk of Orwell's nightmares and saw their citizens as the enemy.

How does George Bush tell American citizens, yet again, "I lied to save you"?

How will Republicans tell their base supporters that their worst fears about a big, unchecked government that intruded deeply into their private lives have come true -- but have come true at the ends of their own party leaders and not Democrats.

I don't see a way.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

(President George Bush and his pal, former CIA Director Porter Goss)

One of the enduring passions of President George H.W. Bush has been the study of national security intelligence and the institutions that support a central intelligence structure inside a liberal democracy.

That is right up there as one of President Bush's dad's biggest hobbies.

But the CIA has been fantastically mismanaged during the tenure of Bush 41's son, our current president.

Sidney Blumenthal writes in Salon:

Acting on the president's charge, Goss in effect purged the CIA. He was even conducting lie detector interrogations of officers to root out the sources of stories leaked to the press -- to the Washington Post, for example, in its Pulitzer Prize-winning expose of CIA "black site" prisons where detainees are jailed without any due process, Red Cross inspection or Geneva Conventions protection. Last month, a CIA agent, Mary McCarthy, was fired for her contact with a reporter. Like others subjected to questioning, she was asked her political affiliation.

But Goss' purging weakened the agency and his own inherent bureaucratic strength in relation to his voracious rivals at the Directorate of National Intelligence and the Pentagon. The more he served as the president's loyalist, the less was his power. By fulfilling his mission, he diminished himself. The butcher's defense of the integrity of the CIA from the directorate and the Pentagon lacked all conviction.

Goss' attempt to run the CIA through his own band of loyalists proved his ultimate undoing. It turned out that the "gosslings," as they were known at Langley (after "quislings"), had unsavory connections that trailed them into the agency. An unintended consequence of Goss' dependence on his team of political hatchet men was that his future was dependent on their past.

As Goss parried with Negroponte and Rumsfeld, federal investigators began to close in on his third-ranked official, in charge of contracting, Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, for possibly granting illegal contracts to Brent Wilkes, the military contractor named as "co-conspirator No. 1" in the indictment of convicted former Republican Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, now serving eight years in prison for accepting $2.4 million in bribes. Wilkes, who gave $630,000 in cash and favors to Cunningham, remains under investigation by prosecutors. Cunningham has confessed to accepting a $100,000 bribe from "co-conspirator No. 1." Wilkes' business associate, Mitchell Wade, has pleaded guilty to bribing Cunningham.

For years, Wilkes hosted "hospitality suites" at the Watergate Hotel for House members and other associates that involved poker games and, allegedly, prostitutes. That, too, is under investigation. Foggo has admitted his presence, but "just for poker." At least six House members, unnamed so far, are alleged to have participated. Goss has denied attending as CIA director, but not as an elected representative. Yet another hand at the poker table has been identified as Brant Bassett, aka "Nine Fingers." Bassett was Goss' staff director on the House Intelligence Committee and was hired as a consultant to the CIA's Directorate of Operations.

Foggo and Wilkes are best friends going back to high school in suburban San Diego. They were roommates at San Diego State, where they were members of the Young Republicans, were best men at each other's weddings, and named their sons after each other. Wilkes pays for a joint wine locker for them at the Capital Grille steakhouse favored by lobbyists and Republican legislators.

The White House announcement of Goss' resignation was incredibly abrupt, without advance warning or a named successor. White House aides frenetically briefed the press that the sole reason was an internecine conflict between Goss and Negroponte. But such an internal controversy could have been managed for a smooth transition. Something else appeared to be at work.

Indeed, in March, the CIA's inspector general had launched an investigation into Foggo's relationship with Wilkes, who had received CIA contracts in Iraq. Three days after Goss left, Foggo quit, too. In a highly unusual development, two days later, on Wednesday, the special agent in charge of the Defense Criminal Investigative Service's investigation in the "Duke" Cunningham case, Rick Gwin, spoke publicly: "This is much bigger and wider than just Randy 'Duke' Cunningham," he told Southern California's North County Times. "All that has just not come out yet, but it won't be much longer and then you will know just how widespread this is."

Former State Department Chief of Staff and retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson has made the point in meetings I've been to with him that Rumsfeld and the President are also "breaking the military."

Other retired generals, General Anthony Zinni most recently at a Council on Foreign Relations dinner Tuesday evening, are pounding on the same point. The military is coming off its wheels.

The American public needs to think about its future and what things are going to look like when American pretensions about its place in the world, its commitments to other allies, and its need to oppose ill-doing thugs and rogue regimes (yes, there are some) are simply unsupportable and crumble because of the missteps, dereliction of responsibility, and arrogance of those now in power.

-- Steve Clemons

I will be getting into Mexico City late tonight and am returning to Washington on Saturday.

I do have TWN readers in Mexico -- quite a number of them -- but don't know where they are located. So email me if interested in a blog politics coffee session either Friday afternoon or Saturday morning.

The International Herald Tribue had a nice piece today on Cem Oezdemir's talk at the New America Foundation yesterday. The work of Cem's so-called "CIA Committee" is important.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Richard Armitage co-chaired with former Secretary of Defense Harold Brown my very first Council on Foreign Relations study group when I moved to Washington in the mid-1990s. He's an interesting man -- tied deeply into Japan affairs. But truth in advertising -- Armitage and I have very different views of Japan's path to normal nationhood.

But Armitage, as I have written before, turns out to have been an element of conscience in the first term of this Bush administration. He was one of the very few inhibitors to a neocon takeover of the foreign policy helm even before 9/11. Among his roster of important deeds was working with Asst. Secretary John Wolf and others to take down and expose the A.Q. Khan network -- something for which many pundits incorrectly give John Bolton credit.

Armitage also worked closely with Paul Wolfowitz (yes, Wolfowitz) in highly tense, complex diplomacy to stop India and Pakistan from dropping nukes on each other. According to insiders, the chances of nuclear war were very high between India and Pakistan and Armitage really saved the day.

Armitage just collected a Knighthood from the Queen of England.

And today, it was announced that Armitage was elected to the board of directors of ConocoPhillips, one of the country's largest oil companies.

Well, I've been working to ask Rich Armitage a few questions about his thoughts on the administration and have had trouble connecting. Perhaps Bartlesville, Oklahoma -- my family's home town -- will be the venue for a productive TWN encounter with the former Deputy Secretary -- and new Knight and oil man.

Phillips Petroleum, which was founded and headquartered until the Conoco merger in Bartlesville, makes up half of the ConocoPhillips empire, and many of the original Oklahoma executives are moving back from Houston (where they moved after the Conoco-Phillips merger) to Bartlesville.

To know this oil company, Armitage will have to visit Bartlesville and perhaps speak at the Tulsa Committee on Foreign Relations where I recently spoke. Good places, both, and very well informed audience in Tulsa.

So, I hope to connect with Sir Richard there and maybe show him some decent fishing spots along the Caney River and the old Johnstone oil well.

But do diplomats turned oil firm board members want prices to go up or to go down? Just as an aside, when you folks see Al Gore's new film -- which is stunningly good and opens June 2nd -- called "An Inconvenient Truth", keep in mind that Al Gore Sr. was a member of Occidental Petroleum's board of directors -- and Gore's dad advocated drilling for oil along the fragile coastline of the Pacific Palisades in California.

That bit wasn't in Gore's otherwise excellent movie, but clearly becoming a board member on a major oil company may have an impact on Armitage's view of the world.

We'll see. More later.

-- Steve Clemons

The Quartet New York meeting, including its commitment to creating a mechanism to re-start Palestinian assistance, could mark the re-emergence of this international foursome (US, EU, Russia, UN) as a force in Middle East peace. A multi-lateral approach, with US, EU and moderate Arab State's partnership at its core, offers hope for kick-starting a new effort at progress on Israel-Palestine. The challenges ahead will revolve around stabilizing the situation in the PA, guaranteeing security, creating a credible option for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, and leaving unilateralism behind. This is where US Administration thinking should be focused as the preparations for Israeli PM Olmert's visit moves into high gear.

The Quartet re-committed themselves to "the principles of partnership and negotiation leading to a two state solution. . . [and] the importance of both parties avoiding unilateral measures which prejudice final status issues." In addition, "the Quartet expressed its willingness to endorse a temporary international mechanism that is limited in scope and duration, operates with full transparency and accountability, and ensures direct delivery of assistance to the Palestinian people. . . The Quartet welcomed the offer of the European Union to develop and propose such a mechanism."

This represents the first concrete, meaningful action item for a Quartet meeting to deliver perhaps since the publication of the Roadmap in spring 2003. The emergence of the Quartet as an active Contact Group on moving Israeli-Palestinian issues would potentially be an extremely positive development. The Quartet invited the Jordanian, Egyptian and Saudi Foreign Ministers for a dialogue -- this is another encouraging sign as their involvement is a key tool in pursuing any Israeli-Palestinian negotiated agreement. On the ground, the need to address the humanitarian-economic situation and institutional collapse in the Palestinian areas is an extremely urgent one.

That will require US cooperation in the new funding mechanism to be established, especially in allowing banks to transfer funds without sanction. It also needs a solution for the transfer of tax monies collected by Israel that belong to the PA -- the new mechanism, to be effective, must also be a channel for these monies. The initial Israeli response seems helpful.

So, the crisis in the PA areas and attendant instability and threat of chaos and violence is the immediate challenge. Deterioration in this regard may take both the unilateral withdrawal and negotiated options off the table. The next task for international, and especially US, efforts should be focused on how to create a negotiated Israeli-Palestinian process towards a permanent status agreement. For this to happen, Palestinian President Abu Mazen will need to concretize, explain and create a context for negotiations on the Palestinian side -- how they would work, and how any outcome would be legitimized and implemented, especially in the context of the new Hamas-led government.

The Hamas policy is in need of a re-think, as I have argued in this Haaretz op-ed. A similar line is advocated by former Mossad Chief and Israel National Security Adviser Efraim Halevy, who calls on Israel to talk with its "deathly enemy." On the Palestinian, and broader Arab and Muslim side, an opportunity to really test what happens when the Muslim Brotherhood are democratically elected and have to assume governance responsibilities is being lost.

It would be a mistake to foreclose the possible prospect of nationalist political Islam being moderated when in office. Efforts to forcibly remove Hamas from power would not only be a blow to democratization processes, but might also undermine nationalist political Islamist movements elsewhere that have chosen the democratic participation path as opposed to the Al-Qaedist post-nationalist Islamist movements revolutionary path (of bring down the capitalist and nation-state system).

Against the political participation of Hamas and other national Muslim Brothers Parties, the Al-Qaedist forces argued that democratic participation was 'kufr' (an abomination to Islam). If they can show that the Western call for democracy was all a game and that if Muslim forces won they would be isolated from the outside and removed from power, then the Al-Qaeda tendency will emerge stronger. Lebanese Daily Star editor Rami Khouri has written convincingly on this.

There is an opportunity today. The new Israeli Government has expressed its preference for negotiations over unilateralism in its Coalition Guidelines -- even if many consider this to be disingenuous, it should be taken at face value and pursued energetically. Unilateralism's flaws are increasingly exposed -- not least that extremists are strengthened, security not improved, and a two-state solution perhaps indefinitely postponed. On the substance of a possible agreement, the Israeli position today is closer than ever to what is commonly considered to be acceptable parameters for a permanent status peace.

The precedent of settlement evacuation has been established and the 'not an inch' ideological right is weakened and in disarray. Polls consistently show a majority of the Israeli public supporting the parameters of Taba, Clinton, Geneva, Ayalon. Unlike in the past, the 'walk the extra mile' adage may actually apply today.

There is majority Palestinian public support for the same permanent status package, even in polling since the Hamas election victory. The formal negotiating partner, the PLO Chair, President Abbas, has practically endorsed these guidelines. Hamas itself seems to contain heterogeneous voices on the subject and Cabinet leaders have been careful not to rule out a negotiated solution, as well as indicating their acceptance of the Abbas authority to lead talks. The unilateralist plan does not meet the minimal Palestinian requirements for viability, sustainability and dignity.

For the US, a sincere effort to promote a negotiated Israeli-Palestinian peace would massively undermine its detractors in the region, boosting its capacity for alliance-building, leadership, and promotion of democratic values. It would be a mistake to relegate the pursuit of Israeli-Palestinian peace to number 3 or even 5 priority in the region (after Iraq, Iran, and perhaps Afghanistan and Darfur), as the continued conflict has region-wide implications for all of the above, in addition to its impact on the "war on terror".

So when Israeli PM Olmert, arrives in Washington in 10 days, how about this for a message:

Mr. Prime Minister, you have been courageous in explaining to your people the need for further withdrawal from the West Bank, and even in addressing Palestinian areas in East Jerusalem. At home you received a mandate for your courageous ideas and here in Washington your courage is appreciated and applauded. We have noted your preference for a negotiated peace agreement as best guaranteeing Israeli security.

We are committed in the coming months to making this negotiated agreement a possibility and reality. Walking the extra mile will bring great benefits to your country and we will work to ensure that those benefits are maximized. We will pursue this negotiation option in full coordination with you, Mr. Prime Minister, along with our Quartet partners, our allies in the region and of course your Palestinian interlocutor President Abbas.

-- Daniel Levy was an advisor in the Prime Minister's Office, a member of the official Israeli negotiating team at the Oslo B and Taba talks and the lead Israeli drafter of the Geneva Initiative.

(European Parliament Member Cem Oezdemir)

Recently, I wrote about an important interim report that was issued by a Temporary Committee of the European Parliament investigating the complicity of European governments in illegally collaborating and cooperating with the CIA on secret enemy combatant detention centers and clandestine rendition-related flight traffic.

Cem Oezdemir, who is a Member of the European Parliament from Germany and a former Memer of the German Bundestag, is Vice President of the European Parliament's Temporary Committee on the Alleged Use of European Countries by the CIA for the Secret Transport and Illegal Detention of Prisoners.

When last I wrote about this report, only a short roster of talking points was available in English. The Interim Report is now fully translated and is available in English here.

Today, I am hosting Cem Oezdemir at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C. to discuss this report. The meeting starts at 1 p.m. and will end at 2:15 p.m. for those nearby who want to stop in. Quite a lot of media are coming.

-- Steve Clemons

House Speaker Dennis Hastert is seriously confused about who scores gains and who loses if Michael Hayden is confirmed as successor to Porter Goss as Director of Central Intelligence.

In a short article that just appeared on Roll Call's website, Hastert lashes out as Negroponte for Goss's firing, calling it a "power grab" by John Negroponte.

Oddly, Hastert also thinks that elevating Hayden will give too much influence over intelligence to the Pentagon. Hellooo?

John Bresnahan writes:

Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) has come out against the nomination of Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden to head the CIA, calling the ousting of former Rep. Porter Goss (R-Fla.) from the agency's top post "a power grab" by John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence.

Hastert's opposition to Hayden is not based on any personal reservations about the nominee. Rather, Hastert is concerned that installing a top-ranking military official at the "CIA would give too much influence over the U.S. intelligence community to the Pentagon."

"I don't know anything about him. He has never darkened my doorstep," Hastert told reporters on Monday in Aurora, Ill., when asked about Hayden. "I don't think a military guy should be head of CIA, frankly."

Hastert added: "I don't oppose him, I don't know anything about him." Hayden has been serving as Negroponte's deputy following a six-year stint as head of the National Security Agency.

Hastert's aides later expanded on his comments. "The Speaker does not believe that a military person should be leading the CIA, a civilian agency," said Ron Bonjean, Hastert's spokesman.

Hastert also said Negroponte stopped by his office Wednesday and made no mention of the fact that Goss, who served in the House with Hastert for 16 years, would be stepping down as CIA director two days later.

"It looks like a power grab by Mr. Negroponte," said Hastert.

The reason Negroponte wants Michael Hayden is to check the Pentagon's colonization of the national intelligence bureaucracy. To do that, Negroponte wants a loyal player who knows how the military dimensions of the national intelligence establishment is structured and what Rumsfeld's imperious intentions are.

I'm not an apologist for Michael Hayden, whom I think played 'loyal soldier' a bit too much on the warrantless wiretap front -- but the opposition to him regarding his military credentials is silly.

The balls to keep the eye on are DONALD RUMSFELD and the religious crusading defense spy chief, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Lt. General WILLIAM BOYKIN.

Hastert and his colleagues need to wake up, study the gaming going on, and understand that while they may not like Hayden -- something needs to be done to balance the deck between Negroponte and Rumsfeld.

I think it's smart to have General Hayden in place to shut down General Boykin and his team.

-- Steve Clemons

On May 9, 1950, French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman suggested the banding together and rationalization of Western European coal and steel production. This was the spark of the incremental intertwining of sovereignty, currencies, and aspiration into what is now the European Union.

The 9th of May is now memorialized as "Europe Day".

Tonight, I'll be going to the "Europe Day" celebration at the home of the Ambassador of the European Delegation to the U.S., former Prime Minister of Ireland John Bruton.

Javier Solana has been booked as the entertainment.

Interestingly, the White House has been completely silent in any recognition of "Europe Day". A quick scan of White House press releases shows that the President recently made remarks or issued statements commemorating Cinco de Mayo and National Prayer Day. Maybe we don't extend comments on other nation's special days -- but seems like it would be easy "feel good" diplomacy to do so.

But for those Europhiles out there, you should take a look at this interesting new brief on Europe done by my friend Jakob von Weizsaecker at the impressive new European think tank, Bruegel.

His piece starts with an opener that shares similar sentiments as my and Michael Lind's recent New York Times op-ed "How to Lose the Brain Race":

Many more people would like to migrate to the EU than the EU is ready to absorb. But who should be allowed to enter and who should not? The economic effects of high-skilled immigration are generally positive for the receiving country while low-skilled migration has more ambiguous effects. The economic and political complexity of low-skilled migration must not be used as an excuse for procrastination. The EU has already fallen behind in attracting high-skilled migrants.

By contrast, Australia, Canada and Switzerland are particularly successful in attracting foreign graduates through "points" based immigration systems. Europe should follow suit to position itself in the global competition for talent.

The entire report is worth reading and would be a great item to add to any course syllabus for those teaching about European politics and social trends.

-- Steve Clemons

(President George W. Bush and Lt. General Michael Hayden)

The crack team that puts out the American Progress Action Fund's "Progress Report" has its Mike Hayden review out, and its predictably critical.

But they get the Michael Hayden picture half-wrong. Hayden -- and now the super spy Steve Kappes who was fired by Goss and who will be the new CIA Deputy -- may become the best hope of knocking back Don Rumsfeld's imperialism over the national intelligence capacity of the country.

They write:

INTELLIGENCE -- General Discontent With Hayden

On Friday, Porter Goss unexpectedly resigned as head of the CIA, leaving behind an "utterly irresponsible" 18-month tenure at the agency and unanswered questions about his hurried departure. Today, the White House nominated deputy director of national intelligence Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden as Goss's successor. "Bottom line, I believe he's the wrong person, the wrong place, at the wrong time. We should not have a military person leading a civilian agency at this time," said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) yesterday on Fox News Sunday, voicing the bipartisan concerns of lawmakers. Hayden has demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the Constitution and has misled Congress under oath. His close ties to Vice Presidency Cheney, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, and the Department of Defense have led many members of Congress to conclude he is wrong man to gain the trust of the intelligence community and clean up the CIA after the "chaos" left by Goss.

'UNDER THE SWAY' OF RUMSFELD: Over the weekend, a bipartisan group of lawmakers spoke out opposing the nomination of a military officer to a civilian agency. If Hayden is confirmed, "military officers would run all the major spy agencies, from the ultra-secret National Security Agency to the Defense Intelligence Agency." One former intelligence official said, "It seems to me the Pentagon grows even stronger now. . . . Every time there's a change, it moves in that direction." "I think...putting a general in charge is going to send the wrong signal through the agency here in Washington, but also to our agents in the field around the world," said Hoekstra yesterday, who also added that there will "be the perception in the CIA" that Hayden would be under the sway of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. One of Goss's largest challenges at the CIA was gaining the trust of career officers, who resented that he brought in a group of his unqualified aides -- called "the Gosslings" by CIA insiders -- and appointed them to top positions. Even if Hayden retires from the military, he is unlikely to be trusted as the committed independent advocate that the CIA needs. "Now, just resigning commission and moving on, putting on a striped suit, a pinstriped suit versus an air force uniform, I don't think makes much difference," said Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA). Senate Intelligence Committee Pat Roberts (R-KS), who in 2005 called Hayden "outstanding," yesterday refused to offer his endorsement of the administration's nominee: "I'm not in a position to say that I am for General Hayden and will vote for him."

But I have a different take on Hayden than what the majority of pundits are floating.

The "Progress Report" on the left as well as many on the right are gut-slugging Hayden for his role in overseeing and defending the warrantless wire tap program. I think that this criticism is wholly deserved, and if anything, those Republican and Democratic Congressman should be ashamed of themselves for not adding riders, amendments, and pushing bills and holding hearings to make it clear to the president that the Congressional authorization that the administration sites as its legal source of power for the warrantless wiretaps did not include domestic, unsupervised and extra-judicial wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping authority.

Congress has done virtually nothing on this. So, Hayden deserves the criticism, but Congress deserves more.

But set aside the wiretap issue for the moment.

What is interesting is that nearly all the pundits or politicos who have a problem with Hayden, an Air Force General, are asserting that his appointment would consolidate Rumsfeld's efforts to establish comprehensive military dominance over the nation's national security intelligence bureaucracy.

This is probably wrong in my view.

Hayden going to head CIA is John Negroponte's effort to wrest some of the ground back from Rumsfeld in the intelligence wars underway. Hayden directed the National Security Agency before joining Negroponte as his Deputy. Hayden will still report to Negroponte -- and Hayden's familiary and expertise with the military dimensions of intelligence will help Negroponte set Rumsfeld back a few squares.

Poter Goss -- whether he was knocked out of the position for potentially embarrassing issues (HookerGate) involving his staff (or himself) or for legitimate reasons of managerial differences with Negroponte -- was never up to the bureaucratic battles with the Pentagon that he needed to fight to fend of Rumsfeld's national intelligence control ambitions.

Most intelligence insiders know that Negroponte has been losing power and leverage to Rumsfeld. Some even think that Negroponte has accepted this fate and acquiesced to Rumsfeldian dominance of his operation.

But this move of Hayden says that the game is not over. Negroponte is not putting at the CIA a Rumsfeld-henchman. He's putting in someone who -- despite the duplicity about the warrantless wiretaps -- many military officials respect and trust, and someone who understands the intel world in ways that Goss will never be able to.

Michael Hayden represents a next round of internal battles between Negroponte and Rumsfeld.

And given the incredible damage that Rumsfeld is doing to this nation's national security -- I'll keep my own powder dry on Negroponte and Hayden. I think that what they may be doing now is important and potentially constructive in constraining the Rumsfeld/Cheney cabal.

-- Steve Clemons

UPDATE: This hotline just out from ABC News:

Turmoil continues at the CIA: No. 3 official Dusty Foggo expected to resign, according to Brian Ross and ABC's Investigative Team.

Look like the sex scandal called HookerGate is taking its toll.

Update TWO: The Porter Goss-fired Super Spy Steve Kappes is Returning as Hayden's Deputy at CIA

Negroponte and Hayden are serious.

They are attempting to restore order and morale at a beleaguered CIA and knock back Rumsfeld's intel imperialism that has been a thorn in Hayden's and Negroponte's side this last year.

Hayden plans to bring back Steve Kappes, who was an early casualty of Porter Goss's tenure.

-- Steve Clemons

Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is pulling a slick and interesting move in US-Iran diplomacy by sending President Bush the first letter from an Iranian President to a U.S. President in 27 years.

This is clever.

The Europeans have been our interlocutors with Iran, but that hasn't been enough. Republican Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Luger has been calling for the U.S. to negotiate directly with Iran. Democrat Joe Biden has been calling for the same. Last September at a conference I helped organize, General Wesley Clark began the drumbeat calling for direct contact with Iran. It seemed the least we could do before unleashing a wave of bombers.

In 2003, the Iranians -- through the Swiss who are America's custodians of diplomatic necessities in Iran -- sent the Bush administration a one page fax suggesting a "dialogue of great civilizations." According to one former intelligence and White House official, that fax included a roster of issues and realities on both the American and Iran side that the Iranians suggested be part of this dialogue.

Included on Iran's list was its nuclear energy interests, its support for activities of groups like Hezbollah and other dicey issues.

We don't know yet what is in the Ahmadinejad-Bush letter, but Ahmadinejad is calling himself for serious bilateral negotiations.

If Bush responds, perhaps we have a stunning breakthrough in the style if not the substance of interaction between the U.S. and Iran.

Bush, however, finds Ahmadinejad and Iran's ruling mullahs repugnant. He doesn't want to extend them legitimacy with serious engagement from his government. Bush wants regime change in Iran, but what he wants and what is possible are radically different.

If Bush responds to the Iran letter positively, there could be some serious progress in the relaxation of tensions with Iran. If he fails to respond, Ahmadinejad will win global points for creative diplomacy, and American foreign policy will continue on a clunky, self-defeating track.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may be continuing some of the anti-Israel bile in some of his earlier comments, but he may also know that he needs to send a signal to the President that his government is ready to deal.

One eery thought though is that Ahmadinejad may be using this letter as his "hotline" to Bush.

When tensions got to hyper-serious levels with the old Soviet Union, one of the most important crisis-management tools that both sides embedded during the Cold War was a hotline between the national leaders of the US and USSR.

We had no such hotline with Saddam Hussein. He tried to use Dan Rather in that famous pre-invasion interview to communicate directly with Bush.

Ahmadinejad may know something we don't. He may suspect that Bush is serious in some insane way about launching those bombers in the near term and is making sure the world sees his creative diplomacy.

We need to know the contents of the letter.

We also need to be wary of public comment from the White House -- and realize that there is hopefully a secret dance, a side process going on, that is not publicly visible.

While I have no evidence, this Ahmadinejad letter may be something that was building on an earlier Kissinger-type diplomacy involving visa-less Mohammad Nahavandian about which I wrote recently.

Stay tuned.

-- Steve Clemons

Tony Blair is demoting British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to serve as Leader of Parliament's Lower House. Margaret Becket, who has been serving as Secretary of State for the Environment, will succeed Straw.

Straw is taking the same path of the late Robin Cook when he was demoted from the Foreign Secretary portfolio.

Straw has adamently opposed a strike against Iran, under current conditions, and has stated forcefully that it would be an "illegal act." Blair seems to want to keep his Iran attack options open.

On the DC front, Porter Goss has resigned. It will be interesting to see if this rumor that has been milling about that Goss's name was among those of several House members, including the indicted Duke Cunningham, involved in a Watergate Hotel prostitution ring.

Still north of Lisbon on Portugal's coast here -- but the big news is still reaching us.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

As mentioned, I'm off to Lisbon to think through American and European approaches to and grand strategy regarding Iraq, Iran, Israel/Palestine, and beyond.

I should be on line, but the thread is now open.

And many of you have been asking for more Oakley pics. Here he is as D.C.'s watchdog.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

A quick note on schedule. This morning, I am hosting a delegation of the International Women's Commission comprised of Israel, Palestinian and international women calling for final status negotiations between Israel and Palestine as opposed to the imposition of a unilaterally decided border.

This Commission issued a release last night, and I know that I'm their first meeting today as I'm arranging the bagels.

I think that what they are doing is important and will offer more reactions later, but here is the press release.

Later today, I am rushing off to Lisbon, Portugal to drive out to a retreat at the Arrabida Monastery.

The theme of discussion for the weekend are the growing, overlapping arcs of instability and crisis on the Eurasian continent.

Participants include European Parliament Member Cem Oezdemir, Georgetown University Professor and Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Charles Kupchan, Geneva Initiative co-drafter Daniel Levy, Acusis CEO Bill Benter, Peace & Security Initiative Director Deepti Choubey, Brookings Senior Fellow Flynt Leverett, International Policy Director in the Palestinian President's Office Ghaith Al-Omari (still tentative), Princeton professor G. John Ikenberry, UPI Editor Emeritus Martin Walker, New America Foundation Fellow and fast-rising terrorism journalist Nir Rosen, World Policy Institute Senior Fellow Sherle Schwenninger, Al Hayat Diplomatic Correspondent Raghida Dergham, University of Chicago professor and author Robert Pape, Middle East Policy Institute fellow Trita Parsi, former Senator Gary Hart, IPRI-Lisbon scholar Carlos Gaspar, and others.

I will try to report from Lisbon about the general focus of these discussions.

-- Steve Clemons

This is very cool.

Last January, John Aravosis of AmericaBlog went out and bought General Wesley Clark's phone records for $89.95.

When I had Wesley Clark speak for the New America Foundation's "Real State of the Union" conference in February, I was tempted to ask him if had purchased John Aravosis's records just to even the score.

But what Aravosis was doing was making a profound statement about the fiction of digital privacy and essentially called for an end to the perverse practice of marketing and selling an individual's private telephone records.

Today, the Federal Trade Commission filed suit against several phone record profiteers.

So, congrats to John Aravosis for pushing Wesley Clark's buttons and getting this effort going.

-- Steve Clemons

America and the Europeans have co-drafted a UN Security Council Resolution with some teeth and have written into the resolution the trigger for economic sanctions against Iran if it fails to cease its nuclear program.

This is serious.

Previously, all John Bolton and Nick Burns had been able to push out of the Security Council was a declaration, which was not binding.

On the military front, Sy Hersh's sources tell him that we are planning for an invasive hot strike against Iran. My sources do not confirm the Hersh assertion that a strike against Iran will occur this summer but do suggest that there is a great deal of operations/logistics planning underway. My sources also say that if a large scale operation against Iran looked likely, we would see scores of generals in the military elect to resign rather than participate.

Resigning generals may be the canary in the cave if a real Iran strike is genuinely on course.

But let's just suggest for the moment that there are some serious players in the Bush administration who see the military option as the right course, and others who don't. At this point, it seems clear that the military option is not one behind which there is consensus in the Bush White House.

That doesn't leave many options -- but it does leave "diplomacy", or what Bush would call "talk".

On the diplomatic front, Burns and Bolton are pushing for the imposition of sanctions against Iran -- as a way to further isolate Iran in the hope that some players in the Iranian political scene will see that they might tie an end to sanctions as well as potentially normalized relations with and security guarantee from the U.S. to standing down on Iran's nuclear program.

The problem with the sanctions track is that China and Russia are opposing, and though Europe has drafted the resolution with the U.S., many believe that Japan and Europe will be highly porous in economic flows to Iran. Thus, any sanctions regime has serious implementation flaws, and America may once again find itself (with or without Europe) mostly isolated in an effort to impose unilateral sanctions.

The toxic mix is that Iran believes that America is weak right now and will wilt when oil prices shoot higher, while on the other hand, George Bush intends to make sure that Iran and other nations don't underestimate American strength and resolve, tilting towards force when he can afford it to demonstrate power.

This mess is looking increasingly like 1914 -- when nations fell into war because of ego, attitude, poorly thought strategies regarding basic strategic interests, and miscalculation.

I will write more on this later, but what is clear is that America has a "teeth problem" in its tough diplomacy with Iran. It is using the hype and puffery of potential military action and the new moves in the UN Security Council to help transmit "resolve", but it's not enough.

As the prominent foreign minister I sat next to Sunday night said, the economic sanctions path is quite risky because it's unlikely given our track record with sanctions that we can make them work, particularly against a nation of 70 million people in addition to China and Russia opposing sanctions and high levels of direct investment in Iran from other major economies like Europe and Japan.

The risk, of course, is that if we fail to make sanctions work or fail to scare Iran off its perch using military saber-rattling, then it will see these threats as weak ones -- and this may embolden a brinksmanship-prone Iran to advance its pretensions in the region and in world affairs even more aggressively.

But Burns and Bolton are laying track -- no doubt about it -- and that track may take us back to a military option in the end, and that option, if triggered, could punctuate the end of American primacy in global affairs, particularly if outraged Middle East oil states band together, even in part, with China and Russia in a new, global stand-off regarding global rules, global finance, and the control and management of global strategic resources.

That is what is being gambled here, and it's important that Bolton and Burns -- and their employers -- recognize this.

-- Steve Clemons

Last night, I sat next to a former foreign minister of a major nation at a small dinner and discussion which focused heavily on Iran and Middle East issues.

This foreign minister stated that Iran's Supreme Religious Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei believed that western democracies would not tolerate $140 a barrel for oil -- and that would be the probable price level if Iran was attacked. This belief combined with Iran's perception of American weakness right now is driving much of Iran's brinkmanship.

The foreign minster responded to Khamenei that he underestimated what democracies were willing to endure if pushed. And that Americans paying $8 or $9 per gallon at the pump could be absorbed, painful as it would be.

Energy Secretary Sam Bodman is saying that it will take three years for Americans to see gas prices fall again.

But that's if we don't bomb Iran, don't create an axis of oil states allied with Russia and China against America, and don't somehow disrupt oil flow from Venezuela.

What I learned from this foreign minister last night and a room full of extremely smart people is that there are forces escalating America's and Iran's tensions -- and a single serious miscalculation could dramatically alter America's position in the world -- and yet miscalculations are already abounding.

-- Steve Clemons