The Bush administration is asking both sides in the Israel-Palestine standoff to "bend". It seems like the administration is whispering its advice rather than pushing hard, but the tone is right.

But in a comment today, Tony Snow said that he thought that the UN should not issue a resolution condemning Israel's incursion into Gaza.

Whether the UN should or should not do this is a point I don't care to debate.

However, I will recount elements of a conversation in which I recently participated. I have to protect the people involved -- but suffice it to say that there was a significant diplomatic presence at a small luncheon and most of the diplomats were involved deeply in UN affairs. The guests were from a disparate group of think tanks, as well as representatives from the Congress and the administration.

One of the U.S. government officials present advised the ranking diplomat at the lunch that if there was a strong desire to get the United States in as a member of the Human Rights Council next year, it would "help" if the Council did not disproportionately focus on Israel as compared to other nations where there are far more significant and important human rights abuses underway. In other words, the U.S. official was saying that life would be easier for America and for U.S. participation in the Human Rights Council if other allies could help take some of the heat off of Israel.

Frankly, I don't think that this was such bad advice. There are many human rights abusers in the world that deserve far more attention than Israel, but that said, Israel does deserve the scrutiny of the world for the way it has treated Palestinians during the Occupation. To be fair, I found it fascinating to learn recently -- and quite heartening in fact -- to learn that Palestinians can sue for all sorts of causes in the Israeli Supreme Court and often win their cases. That shows a positive side of Israeli justice that few see, but there is also a harsh and often radicalizing side to Israeli interaction with the Palestinians that is just as often the reality.

But what the U.S. official needs to understand is that America's zealous protection of Israeli interests in the United Nations is not being helped by Israel itself. Tony Snow stated today that the White House is "encouraged" by Israel's decision to hold back a full scale invasion of Northern Gaza. Frankly, the White House should be miffed that Israel has gone to the lengths it has to disrupt the quality of life of tens of thousands of Palestinians in their pursuit of their kidnapped soldier.

The Israeli response in attempting to secure Gilad Shalit has done several things. It has increased the fear among average, innocent Palestinians of Israel and that they will be potentially killed or have their lives disrupted because of such incidents as the kidnapping. This is probably a lesson Israel wanted to teach. But it also increases support and empathy for those fighting Israel -- and further alienates average Palestinians from Israeli communications and objectives. It seems obvious to me that such behavior from Israel is exactly what the most militant factions of Hamas and Islamic Jihad wanted to have happen. Their stock rises when Israel is provoked to fury -- and the innocent middle that Israel needs to somehow reach is crushed.

I realize that this situation is murky. So many have said that the Palestinians have brought this on themselves. There is a silent majority in Palestine that was tired of the corruption of their former government -- a corruption that included many senior members of the Israeli elite. They also yearn for self-determination and an end to Israel's occupation of their homeland.

Israel has gotten very close to working out these problems in the past -- with Rabin in particular. My hunch is that if Ariel Sharon had remained healthy, he might have eventually been pushed towards a negotiated endgame to his unilateral withdrawal plan -- but my view is only speculative and based on some background conversations that are not definitive.

But there is an opportunity to take unstable situations where there is high drama and to pull off a grand, pragmatic bargain. Olmert and Peretz need to get on more strategically adept ground and turn this mess into an opportunity.

The status quo can't stand.

-- Steve Clemons

A group of armed Palestinians, some connected to the militant wing of Hamas, did penetrate Israel's border security and did kidnap a young soldier, Gilad Shalit. Those who defend the action say that it was in response to Israel's killing 7 members of an innocent Palestinian family. It was wrong to kidnap the soldier -- absolutely wrong, and the G-8 leaders have said that; but they have also condemned Israel's perceived disregard for the safety and value of innocent Palestinian lives.

Since then, Israel has been on a rampage and has permitted emotion and knee-jerk, overzealous responses prevail over measured and sober approaches that might not have only helped get the Israeli soldier freed but made some progress in establishing a climate to talk about the bigger picture of an Israeli-Palestinian solution.

Now Israel is not only blowing up bridges and power plants but has arrested dozens of Hamas ministers and lawmakers. Israel is arresting symbols of the Palestinian government -- and edging this situation to potential full-out war. Condi Rice is urging restraint, but Israel seems out of control.

Americans have a lot to be thankful for that they didn't live under this Israeli government during the Cold War because the hot-headed, lack of restraint would have surely led to a nuclear exchange with the Soviets if Israel had been at the helm.

Israel would do well to go reacquaint itself with the USS Liberty, which Israelis fired on killing American servicemen. I have had a discussion with someone who was the former head of the U.S. National Security Agency who has no doubt at all that Israel's attack on the U.S. ship was purposeful and not an accident, as Israelis and Americans eager to cover up the incident have asserted.

America's response was measured and put in context -- whether one agrees with that or not. Israel got a huge pass.

Israel is demonstrating profound immaturity with its behavior, though I support the importance of negotiating and even pursuing its kidnapped soldier. However, despite its regional superpower status, Israel is showing that it tilts too easily towards responses far disproportionate to any sane or reasonable action. While Israel radicalizes Palestininans and many Arabs in the region with this behavior, it needs to know that it is eroding American support for its behavior and position.

Lines must be drawn -- and Israel is way over the line now.

-- Steve Clemons

A small win for the good side.

I wrote last week about Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's personal views on gay people being at odds with an outrageous practice in the Pentagon that still classified homosexuals as "mentally disordered."

A blogger buddy who has been covering this has just learned that the Department of Defense has stopped that practice. It doesn't change the ridiculous policy of "Dont Ask, Don't Tell", but it's progress.

I should be back in the U.S. on Thursday.

-- Steve Clemons

Well, if the home page is visible to you -- post away. Steps are now being taken to move my site to a new host and servers, and the problems the site has been having should be resolved shortly.

I'm still in Muscat, Oman with many thoughtful defense and national security strategists from around the Middle East -- and am watching on the BBC and Al Jazeera the Israeli incursion into Gaza.

Should be pretty lively debate tomorrow at this conference. There is an AIPAC staff member here -- as well as current and former officials and think tank types from Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Yemen, India, Europe, Japan and the U.S.

Open thread. . .

-- Steve Clemons

I have had hundreds of emails asking what was wrong with The Washington Note website. It hasn't been loading properly. Some people get blank pages, partial pages, or notes that the site has been suspended and referring to "accounts payable."

Let me assure everyone that there are no billing problems, but it does seem that my site has outgrown the resources and environment of a very generous host who has helped me build TWNthese last couple of years.

I do not know what has been wrong, and my host who manages the site has not been reachable for reasons I don't understand. We have suspicions that my site has been hitting against some kind of bandwidth limitation in addition to having been the target of a serious spam attack, and has just been growing in terms of readership. There have been spikes in TWN readership that apparently overwhelmed the host server.

In any case, the site will be moving shortly. I apologize to everyone who checks in for the inconvenience involved. I'm just as frustrated -- well more actually.

I'm writing this from Muscat, Oman now where I am speaking this morning at a conference on "The Challenges of Gulf Security" co-organized by the Stanley Foundation and the Institute for Near East & Gulf Military Analysis.

But in between sessions, I am working on getting this web hosting matter resolved.

Thanks again --

Steve Clemons

David Kaplan of US News & World Report has an insightful short piece out on the bureaucracy of U.S. public diplomacy and Karen Hughes' efforts to "win the war of ideas":

U.S. effort on war of ideas draws skepticism. Even as jihadist networks become tougher to combat, the United States still lacks a comprehensive strategy to thwart the ideological forces fueling their growth, say critics. In response, the administration recently launched its latest attempt to coordinate the "war of ideas" against radical Islam: The White House's National Security Council has convened yet another interagency committee to develop a strategy aimed at marginalizing extremists. Dubbed the Policy Coordinating Committee on Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication, the group is headed by the administration's point person on the ideas war: Karen Hughes, the State Department's under secretary for public diplomacy.

Skeptics abound, as this is at least the fourth attempt at coordinating federal efforts on infowar. The NSC began two ill-fated interagency committees in 2002, one on "strategic communication" and another on "information strategy." Both generated more frustration than results, say participants. Their work was succeeded, in part, by the Muslim World Outreach Policy Coordinating Committee in 2004, which drafted a widely praised plan that was never implemented. Now that committee is being replaced by Hughes's new group. "It's the same old people with a new title," says one insider.

Hughes, the president's former counselor, has won points for crafting a Rapid Response Unit, designed to help U.S. officials abroad respond to the day's news. (For a peek at one of its daily Rapid Response sheets, see Official Use Only) But critics say the effort is typical of Hughes's quick-hit, political campaignlike approach to what is a years-long ideological struggle. Former State Department diplomat John Brown, editor of the Public Diplomacy Press Review, calls the administration's efforts "naive, provincial, and evangelical" but says the problem ultimately may lie in the very nature of U.S. government today. "It's so complex, with so many bureaucracies, that to get anybody to agree on a single message is almost impossible."

This kind of public diplomacy is extremely tough to do when few people of import are being held accountable for Abu Ghraib, when Guantanamo is still open, revelations of a mass execution at Haditha are shaking Pentagon, and when America continues to be seen as a reckless occupier that cares little for the value and quality of Muslim lives rather than liberator.

Hughes has a tough job in this environment which was mostly self-created by our President and his team -- but only serious, long-term plays are going to matter if America wants to get serious about a 'war of ideas'.

-- Steve Clemons

Every time I seem to go on a long trip -- this time to Muscat, Oman for a foreign policy conference -- I get stuck in airports and surf the net looking for front organizations that neoconservatives and their fellow-traveling Jesse Helmsian pugnacious nationalists have set up.

I've just found one that gives me over-the-top creeps.

Visit www.FamilySecurityMatters.org -- a site seemingly devoted to convincing a large cross-section of Americans that they must fear terrorism -- really fear it, now -- tomorrow -- and in the many years to come. It's high-fear exploitation of the worst kind candy-coated with slick pictures of mostly white women and their children (though I just found a graphic with an attractive Asian family on the site as well) in front of sparkly white picket fenced homes.

I understand that terrorism is serious, and I think America should deploy a multi-pronged strategy to curb terrorism, protect America and its citizens, and take serious steps to connect with the "audience" -- the global silent majority -- that terrorists are attempting to appeal to by exploiting various grievances held by people around the world. Shutting down terrorists doesn't only require a military response -- but it requires sophisticated and hard-headed diplomacy and outreach to steal from terrorists the applause they are dying for. This site, however, is designed to scare middle class, white, suburban America into accepting the high costs of a national security state.

Interesting commentary at Political Wire from Dick Morris on Lieberman's increasingly gloomy prospects in the Democratic Primary against rival Ned Lamont in Connecticut:

I think Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) will lose the primary and will be so crippled by the defeat and Ned Lamont (D) so empowered, that he will lose the general election as an independent. Sen. Jacob Javits (R-NY), in 1980, could have avoided defeat by not fighting the Republican Primary against Sen. Al D'Amato (R-NY) and running as an independent. But D'Amato was so empowered by the primary win and Javits so disempowered that he won the general election with Javits running a poor third.

Lieberman's correct course of action is to withdraw from the primary and run as an independent. It is the only way he can get re-elected.

-- Steve Clemons

I will be on a plane to Muscat, Oman on Monday -- for a foreign policy/national security conference on the Middle East -- but those of you who can should attend this hearing, which hopefully will air on C-Span.

The Senate Democratic Policy Committee is organizing on Monday a "special oversight hearing" on pre-war intelligence on Iraq. These types of special hearings -- which are not official Congressional hearings but still potentially significant -- should have been used far more frequently by the minority party on matters related to the Iraq War.

Former State Department Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson will hit off first, but other luminaries include former National Intelligence Officer for the Middle East Paul Pillar and former State Department Intelligence & Research (INR) czar Carl Ford.

The entire lineup is impressive:

Lawrence Wilkerson, Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, 2001-2005

Paul Pillar, CIA official responsible for coordinating intelligence on Iraq, 2000-2005

Carl Ford, Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research, 2001-2003

Wayne White, State Department principal Iraq analyst, 2003-2005

Rod Barton, Senior Advisor to the Iraq Survey Group, 2003-2004

Michael Smith, reporter for the Sunday Times of London, and the first to report the existence of the so-called "Downing Street Memo"

Joseph Cirincione, co-author of WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications; Center for American Progress

I look forward to hearing the results of this mock hearing -- which all of you should tune into.

One interesting set of questions to pose to Col. Willkerson, Ford and Pillar is what they know -- in detail -- not only about pre-war intelligence lapses but about Vice President Cheney's views on genuine, hardcore torture.

On Wednesday evening, an event was hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations at the swank screening room of the Motion Picture Association of America for the DVD release of Eugene Jarecki's film, "Why We Fight." The Washington Note helped organize and sponsor the first screening of this film when it first came out which featured a discussion with film director Eugene Jarecki, Lawrence Wilkerson and others.

I was supposed to attend the CFR screening Wednesday but had a bad cold which kept me home -- but the session that followed the screening featured a discussion between Jarecki, Susan Eisenhower, Richard Perle, and Col. Lawrence Wilkerson. From reports of others there back to TWN, Perle criticized the film as being slanted and as making far too much of Cheney's Haliburton linkages and Haliburton's unethical and illegal overcharging the U.S. government for services in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the big moment came in Perle's response to a question about Cheney and torture. Richard Perle stated that those who believed that Vice President Cheney was an advocate of torture were seriously misinformed and wrong. Lawrence Wilkerson in a pointed rebuke of Perle stated that Cheney was an advocate of torture and that Wilkerson had the documents to "prove it".

That is an important exchange -- and I am hopeful that Wilkerson will soon publish a long article and/or book informed by the very important documentation that he has in hand.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

The Pentagon apparently classifes homosexuality as a "disorder' even though the mental health profession abandoned that practice three decades ago.

It is well known that Don Rumsfeld has had numerous gay advisors -- particularly Stephen Herbits whom Rumsfeld has known since 1967 -- and today has a coterie of young men on his staff, running errands, carrying his attache case, doing advance work -- and at minimum, several of these people are gay.

I have spoken to two of them and none report that Rumsfeld is gay -- but they all say that he gives indications of being accepting and gay-friendly. One said that he gives most of the members of his team "big hugs" at his annual Christmas party at his Kalorama street home. The gay guys on his team think beneath that know-it-all, imperious demeanor is an affectionate teddy bear of a guy.

Rumsfeld has a lot on his plate. He seems to have a building number of cases of his soldiers involved in prisoner abuse, torture, and murder.

So, rectifying the "homosexuality is a disorder" problem may be low on his list -- but perhaps it's one of the easiest problems for him to fix, if he has the moral fiber to do so.

-- Steve Clemons

My new colleague at the New America Foundation, Flynt Leverett, has a whopper article in the New York Times today titled "The Race for Iran."

While profiling the various oil asset positions and evolving strategies of Russia, China, and Iran, Leverett finishes with a hard critique of the Bush administration's Iran gaming:

Against this backdrop, the Bush administration's approach to nuclear diplomacy with Iran is strategically shallow. The decision to encourage direct talks with Tehran generated many headlines but was really only a limited tactical adjustment to forestall an embarrassing collapse in coordination with America's key international partners.

By continuing to reject a grand bargain with Tehran, the Bush administration has done nothing to increase the chances that Iran will accept meaningful long-term restraints on its nuclear activities. It has also done nothing to ensure that the United States wins the longer-term struggle for Iran. Such a grand bargain is precisely what is required, not only to forestall Iran's effective nuclearization in the next three to five years, but also to position the United States for continued leadership in the Middle East for the next decade and beyond.

We need to see more Dems and moderate Republicans thinking in these terms -- beyond the binary, on-off, tit-for-tat switches that punctuate the Bush/Cheney swagger but make a mockery of serious strategy and undermine long term U.S. national interests.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a political blog, but the on-again, off-again rivalry and dance between the blogosphere and main stream media intrigues me.

The MSM took a huge dive last night.

Watch this unbelievable Connie Chung segment -- where she has clearly lost it. This was her final segment on her just cancelled MSNBC talk show with Maury Povich.

It's about the only performance I have seen that clearly rivals John Ashcroft's "Let the Eagle Soar".

I won't post crap like this much, but I couldn't help myself this time. Television journalism and punditry clearly does need to worry about quality blogging -- even though they are ridding themselves of the Chungster.

-- Steve Clemons

Hat tip to BDG for sending this really bizarre Connie Chung segment.

Probably not. . .but Jeb has been saying no to a new line of oil wells off the coast.

More like a tool of Florida's tourism industry, but that's fine with me.

-- Steve Clemons

First of all, I had to share this photo above from Vancouver. While my schedule proved to be too unpredictable to meet TWN readers in that city, I did catch up with some of Oakley the Amazing Weimaraner's cousins. These two are Jethro and Ellie May. Great dogs.

This caught my eye. Mary Cheney's book, whose most important line is that President Bush is trying to write discrimination into the Constitution, has only sold 6,000 books. Bad news, I think, for Mary Matalin who helped arrange a $1 million advance.

In other news, "War on Terror" profiteer James Woolsey chastises his church for trying to punish firms involved in the razing of Palestinian homes. Woolsey didn't stop at just saying that such principled stands against indirectly involved companies were often not successful -- he went further to paint the Palestinians as a total lost cause -- the implication being that their homes probably should be razed, or at least that's the way he sounds. The Zionist Organization of America agrees with Woolsey. TWN does not.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Ned Lamont is kicking some serious tail in the Connecticut Senate Democratic primary process and quickly overtaking the iconic Joseph Lieberman who has spent a lot of his time cultivating credentials as a hawkish, neoconservative-leaning almost-Republican.

Some speculate that Lieberman will gather the signatures in Connecticut needed to run as an Independent if he loses his primary race to Lamont. The signatures would have to be filed the day after the primary.

I feel the same way about Lieberman running as an Independent as I did about President Bush appointing John Bolton to the UN via a recess appointment. That's ok. Lieberman has the right to do that -- just as the President has the right to end run the Senate on appointments -- though they can only last through a single Congressional term.

But what is irritating is that other Democrats like Chuck Schumer have the arrogance to act as if politics is a "top-down" arrangement and that those at the helm are really just a stacked deck of leadership annointed personalities.

Schumer hinted at the possibility that if Lamont succeeds in forcing Lieberman out as the carrier of Democratic aspirations in Connecticut, that the DSCC might support Lieberman as an independent.

This is outrageous. Schumer needs to be told in no uncertain terms that if he works to protect the inbred qualities of a Democratic leadership that has been inchoate and thus far unimpressive in its response to Bush-led Republicanism, then he has to go as well. Schumer is trying to stop change inside the Democratic Party, and that is what the party needs most.

Here is what Schumer recently said:

Pointing to the victories of Webb, a Reagan Democrat with a flair for non-traditional Democratic positions, and Jon Tester, who spent half as much as his primary challenger in Montana, Schumer said that party activists had turned to pragmatism and were less inclined to hold candidates to litmus tests.

Schumer said the Dem primary voters want winners and are focused one electability. He couldn't resist adding even "in 2008," which pricked the ears of reporters who thought he was sending a message about the relative electability of Hillary Clinton. (He wasn't, apparently.)

Schumer said that the DSCC "fully supports" Sen. Joe Lieberman in his primary bid, and he refused to rule out continuing that support if Lieberman were to run as an independent.

There were degrees of independence, Schumer said. "You can run as an independent, you can run as an independent Democrat who pledges to vote for Harry Reid as Majority Leader."

Schumer said he had neither sought nor recieved assurances from Lieberman that an independent bid would not ensue if Ned Lamont tightened the noose.

Again, Lieberman like Lamont both have chances to head the Democratic ticket in Connecticut. If Lieberman wants to leave the Democratic Party and run as an Independent, best of luck to him.

But Schumer has to abandon corrupting the ability of Democrats to refresh the cast of people they want carrying their views in Washington.

-- Steve Clemons

In a recent op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, Peter Beinart -- former editor of The New Republic, who has declared that only liberals can win the war on terror (the self-proclaimed subtitle of his new book) -- offers up a weak mea culpa for "mistakenly" backing the Iraq war but lauds President Clinton's "multilateral war to prevent the neo-fascist Slobodan Milosevic from cleansing ethnic Albanians from their homes." What he conveniently ignores is that Clinton's war in the Balkans was no different than the Bush administration's so-called unilateral invasion of Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein. Both were military actions against sovereign states conducted without the formal approval of the UN Security Council and neither represented an imminent threat to U.S. security -- and both were rationalized on humanitarian grounds. As long as liberals like Beinart cannot fathom that liberal internationalism (or what he calls anti-totalitarian liberalism) is fundamentally the same thing as neoconservatism as implemented by the Bush administration, liberals cannot hope to fashion together a policy and strategy to win the war on terror.

Like the neocons and Bushies, Beinart believes the terrorist threat confronting America is a different form of communism or fascism. And he advocates the same cure for the disease: promoting freedom and democracy in the Islamic world. Where Beinart and the Bush administration depart company is the liberals' preference for working with the United Nations and cultivating the support of the international community. But this difference is largely style over substance. It is about how to implement policy (via international institutions and multilateralism), not about policy itself -- the equivalent of John Kerry saying "it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein," but that he "would have done everything differently." The reality is that liberals like Beinart and neoconservatives both arrive at the same end point. The result is an alliance of strange bedfellows brought together by the belief that American security is best served by using military power to spread democracy throughout the world, as evidenced by a January 2005 letter from the Project for the New American Century to the leadership of the U.S. Congress calling for increasing the size of the Army and Marine Corps for "promotion of freedom." The signatories included many of the "usual suspects" of neoconservative ilk -- e.g., Max Boot, Thomas Donnelly, Frank Gaffney, William Kristol, and Danielle Pletka -- as well as many left-leaning luminaries -- e.g., Ivo Daalder, Michele Flournoy, Michael O'Hanlon, and James Steinberg (not surprisingly, all except O'Hanlon served in the Clinton administration).

(Flynt Leverett on the "News Hour with Jim Lehrer")

In August and September, I will be helping to organize two major national policy forums -- one which will take place in Colorado and the other in the U.S. Senate -- roughly titled "Thinking the Unthinkable on Iran".

The premise is that policymakers and average Americans need to think soberly about what the costs and consequences of the two endpoints in the Iran debate are. On one end, there is the prospect of a hot, invasive attack by the U.S. (and potential allies) designed to disable and set back Iran's nuclear program. On the other is Iran with a fully developed and robust reprocessing capacity and nuclear warheads in its possession.

There are many, many possibilities between these two endpoints, but these scenarios are enough to help stir thoughtful debate about who and what will be paid if either of these outcomes come to be reality.

One of the no-nonsense, clear-headed analysts of the Middle East situation who has thought about one of the major costs of an American strike against Iran is Flynt Leverett, who has been based at the Saban Center for Middle East Studies at the Brookings Institution.

Leverett previously served during the first term of the Bush administration as Senior Director for the Middle East Initiative on the National Security Council; was the Middle East and Counterterrorism Expert on the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, and served for ten years as a Senior CIA analyst.

I am pleased to report that Flynt Leverett will become on July 1 my newest colleague in the foreign policy programs at the New America Foundation where he will be Senior Fellow and Director of the Geopolitics and Geoeconomics of Energy Security Project.

Leverett's latest article, co-written with Pierre Noel, in The National Interest, "The New Axis of Oil", is exactly the kind of forward-looking scenario development that Washington's burgeoning industry of hair-trigger "chicken hawks" need to seriously consider.

In this piece, Leverett posits that a strike against Iran will most likely produce a new axis of oil comprising Russia, China, Iran, and other irritated Middle East oil states:

But over the last three years, Russia has also come to see Iran as an important geopolitical partner in its efforts to rollback U.S. influence, not only in Central Asia but in the Caucasus as well. Moscow's recent proposal to resolve the impasse between the Islamic Republic and the West over Iran's nuclear activities by establishing Iranian-Russian joint-venture entities for uranium enrichment was calculated to serve all these interests. Such a scheme would allow Moscow to maintain and even expand an Iranian market for its nuclear technology, while also nurturing its developing strategic partnership with Tehran.

It is also increasingly evident that the current leadership in Moscow views the Iranian nuclear issue as an opportunity to frustrate the Bush Administration's unilateralist inclinations. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov -- formerly Russia's permanent representative to the UN for ten years and a master of Security Council politics and procedure -- and his colleagues anticipate that, in the end, the United States may take unilateral military action against Iran, including the Russian-built reactor at Bushehr. They do not expect to be able to block such action anymore than they could block the invasion of Iraq, but the w1ng prospectively to impose serious costs on the United States for a military strike against Iran by ensuring that Washington lacks international legitimacy for its actions.

For its part, China's approach to the Iranian nuclear issue is directly linked to its assessment of its requirements for energy security. Beijing has already put down a marker, in the form of its opposition to UN sanctions against Sudan, that it will oppose the imposition of multilateral sanctions on an energy-producing state in which Chinese companies operate. In private conversations, senior Chinese diplomats and party officials describe Beijing's policy on the Iranian nuclear issue as seeking to balance a range of interests: a secure supply of oil, nonproliferation and regional stability, the defense of important international norms (including the peaceful resolution of disputes and the sovereign right of states to develop civil nuclear capabilities), securing China's northwest border (meaning Xinjiang province, where there is a significant Muslim population), the development of Chinese-Iranian relations, the development of U. S.-Chinese relations, and the positions of the European Union and Russia. It seems increasingly clear that, in their efforts to balance this set of interests, Chinese officials will remain deeply resistant to the imposition of sanctions on Iran. And as long as Russian opposition provides China with political cover, Chinese officials seem to calculate that they will not have to choose between relations with Iran and relations with the United States.

China's willingness to protect Iran from international pressure would also complicate Western efforts to impose meaningful sanctions on Iran through a "coalition of the willing." Without Chinese participation, a voluntary ban on investment in Iran's energy sector by Western powers would, at this point, be little more than a symbolic gesture, as U.S. companies are already barred from doing business in Iran by U.S. law, and most European IOCs have put potential projects on hold because of the political uncertainties. In recent years, though, Chinese NOCs have committed themselves at least in principle, to substantial investments in Iran's energy sector, thereby mitigating the impact of restrictions on Western investment.
With the Bush Administration having ruled out direct and broad-based strategic discussions with Iran aimed at a "grand bargain" that would include a resolution of the nuclear issue, the United States and its European partners are headed down an ultimately futile path in the Security Council.

The Security Council's failure to deal effectively with the Iranian nuclear issue will confront the United States, during the last two years or so of the Bush Administration's tenure, with the choice of doing nothing as Iran continues to develop its nuclear capabilities or taking unilateral military action in the hope of slowing down that development. Each of these choices is likely to damage American leadership in the world: Doing nothing will highlight U.S. fecklessness, while unilateral action without international legitimacy will further strain America's international standing (and probably not meaningfully impede Iran's nuclear development).

The points Leverett makes in this article are essential to absorb. There are few very good options on Iran -- and some are extremely dangerous. Picking the least harmful course requires thinking through all of the very worst possible outcomes.

What is at stake is not only Iranian nuclear pretensions but possibly a drastically reshuffled geopolitical order in which Americans wake up one day and realize that America is no longer the "essential nation" but has gone the way of Britain, with lofty ambitions and limited influence and means to pursue those ambitions.

-- Steve Clemons

Click here to read the "confidential messaging memo" from House Majority Leader John Boehner on all the good stuff that Republican Congressman should "tout" about America's progress in Iraq.

I guess Texas swagger is back.

Boehner's memo amplifies a "high-fear" drumbeat for the so-called war on terror and suggests that the death of Zarqawi, the completion of appointing Iraq's senior cabinet ministers, and Bush's personal meeting with Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki seal the deal for America achieving victory in its efforts there.

What Boehner doesn't tell his flock is that Zarqawi's team seems dedicated to worsening the violence and that Zarqawi's activities in their entirety were a very small percentage of the overall insurgency in Iraq (some commanders in the field were even trying to get the $25 million bounty on Zarqawi reduced because he was becoming proportionally less of the exploding problems in Iraq). He didn't say that Iraq's Minister of Defense -- only just appointed -- has already threated to resign if America goes on a massive hunt and kill effort through the Al Anbar region of Western Iraq. He didn't say that security in Iraq is still so bad that the meeting between Bush and al-Maliki was put on the Iraq Prime Minister's schedule just five minutes before Bush's arrival. That's not a sign of a stable relationship.

Apparently, Boehner is going to push passage of House Resolution 861 tomorrow declaring the Iraq War as a smashing success and as synonymous with the overused and inappropriate metaphor, "war on terror".

It's a disturbing resolution that recognizes none of the setbacks that we are experiencing and again ratchets up the arrogance and hubris of America's position in Iraq.

To get a flavor, sample the opening: