At first glance I thought it was Mark Twain, though some know him as Samuel Clemens.

But sure enough, the Cheney button (though misspelled -- not Bolton's fault he told me) and the resume gave it away.

Happy Halloween.

-- Steve Clemons

100 Americans dead in Iraq this month and there is another day left.

I wonder how many Iraqis are dying each month now. That statistic should be required reporting.

I jogged by and paused at the Vietnam Memorial the other day and could only think what the Iraq War Memorial will look like and how they will list the thousands of Americans who should not have died in this war -- and the many tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who probably won't be remembered in our or even their country.

-- Steve Clemons

Paul Krugman will be headlining a conference I have helped organize titled "Back to the Economy: Confronting America's Growth Challenges" that will take place at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington from 9:30 am until 2:00 pm.

Paul Krugman, less his professorship, is a pretty good target of what I want to be when I grow up. He is one of the world's most influential writers and thinkers, who speaks truth to power every time he writes. He has one of the most coveted perches in political and economic journalism in his regular column in the New York Times. I have a long way to go.

If you haven't read The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century, you must make time to do so. It's been out since the end of 2003 -- but it is still whoppingly relevant, more so in fact.

When last I saw Paul it was at Princeton University where he is a professor of economics -- and where he was speaking at a conference on the decline of liberal internationalism in American foreign policy. The meeting was organized by Charles Kupchan, G. John Ikenberry, Peter Trubowitz, and Anne-Marie Slaughter. While I was mesmerized by Krugman's comments, which were the best and most insightful in the conference, I also enjoyed learning that he reads TWN.

But if you are free and wake up early enough to join us, hearing Paul Krugman's views of the American and global economy -- and the sorry state of political realities that undergird these -- is an excellent way to spend any Monday morning.

The rest of the conference is intriguing as well. I will be moderating the Krugman session and much of the rest of the program along with my colleagues Bruce Stokes and Sherle Schwenninger.

Just drop my name at the door if you would like to attend the meeting. There is no charge (and we are actually serving lunch!)

The meeting will not be taped by C-Span which really wanted to record this but simply has too many cameras in the field. So, we will have a high quality recording posted (on this blog) late in the day.

-- Steve Clemons

Update: Read Paul Krugman's piece this morning in the New York Times, "Bursting Bubble Blues," about the pain on American citizens from the bursting housing bubble.

The next two years are going to be politically bloody and difficult ones for the nation and the world. There is a somewhat understandable, yet naive, hope that Democratic success in the coming election will somehow corner President Bush and his team into a more rational national security posture.

To some degree this is true. Democratic political strength in the nation is palpable, and virtually everyone sees the House of Representatives changing management, though the Senate is far less certain. Senator John Warner, Bush family "fixer" James Baker III, and others see this change in course coming -- and are trying to develop fig leaves for Bush to tack a different course on Iraq and US foreign policy in general.

But this view of change misses some key detail and parts of the political picture that need to be factored in.

First, Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team and new Committee chairs will not be able to hold back the calls for investigation, testimony under oath, and "public hangings" for those responsible for the corrupt practices with firms like Halliburton, the politicization of intelligence driven by Douglas Feith and friends; and the management failures that led to Abu Ghraib, Haditha, Guantanamo, and the lack of body armor for American soldiers.

In fact, Pelosi should not hold back. A public spotlight must be focused on those who took this nation in to the Iraq War -- and in particular, hearings along the lines of those that Harry Truman called in the Senate in 1940 to expose war profiteers should be quickly assembled and legal investigations of the structural corruption behind this war launched.

This blog has highlighted both the weaknesses and strengths of Senator Lincoln Chafee -- occasionally in very strong terms.

When Chafee himself articulated the many reasons to oppose John Bolton's confirmation as America's Ambassador to the United Nations and then voted in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to support him, I wrote a scathing critique of his decision at that time. Chafee made a couple of miscalculations at the time -- but so did many of the Republicans and Democrats involved in the Bolton battle.

Chafee believed that Bolton was too obscure a bureaucrat going for a position that Americans would not be up-in-arms about given the many other controversies of the day. Senators pick their battles, and Bolton seemed too insignificant to spend political capital on during the Spring and Summer of 2005. This blog disagreed, but people of civil mind and good intention -- even if they disagree -- move on.

But my criticism aside, Chafee did articulate precisely the concerns that mattered most about Bolton, the vapid state of American foreign policy, and the harm that the White House had done to undermine a potentially more fruitful course with North Korea than the result today, as well as other enormous mistakes of the administration -- particularly in failing miserably in curbing the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Chafee's confidence has grown enormously this year, and while it would have been easy for him to just stay where he had been on Bolton, he actually changed direction. Lincoln Chafee replaced Voinovich as a key no vote on Bolton -- but in contrast to Voinovich, Chafee would not vote in favor of sending Bolton's nomination to the floor of the Senate. This was an admirable stand, but more importantly, Chafee went further. Chafee then attached his opposition to Bolton to the miserable and worsening state of American foreign policy in the Middle East.

Chafee has been arguing something that others like Richard Lugar and Chuck Hagel have been lobbying for in Republcan foreign policy circles: a new push on establishing a viable, contiguous Palestinian state. This might help spark a virtuous cycle for American foreign policy in the region, rather than the deteriorating situation now.

Chafee was bold in other areas as well. He supported Chief Justice John Roberts -- which this blog did as well -- and he opposed strongly Samuel Alito, also consistent with the position of this blog.

He worked hard in deals with the White House to maintain Rhode Island's important naval base infrastructure, which had been on the chopping block of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission. Last year, Rhode Island had the smallest number of closures in the country. Rhode Island constituents should remember that.

Right now, polls show former Rhode Island Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse as leading Chafee in the forthcoming Senate race. Polls can be deceptive, and I don't think that Chafee is anywhere near out of the race. One of my disappointments in the Whitehouse campaign is that there is nothing more than cosmetic commentary on Iraq as the entirety of his commentary on foreign policy.

But while many progressives are focused on supporting Democrats everywhere, that's not what this blog is about. I have already received near apoplectic emails from some political commentators about the strongly positive commentary I offered about Chafee at the time of his primary race.

This blog is about promoting healty discourse and new policy ideas along with principled leadership. I have nothing against Whitehouse's candidacy -- and if proves victorious, TWN plans to help encourage him to take the kind of enlightened foreign policy positions that Lincoln Chafee has been articulating. My understanding is that Whitehouse is a very decent and smart guy. Chafee is as well.

But I'm in favor of Chafee winning his race.

I agree with Zbigniew Brzezinski that America's engagement in the Middle East is the defining challenge for this nation in this century.

Chafee is one of the few Senators of either political party who has articulated a workable vision for American engagement in the Middle East, and I think that he could be the kind of key bridge politically in attempting to restart a new positive cycle in foreign policy -- particularly after the 2008 elections.

Chafee opposed John Bolton. Chafee promoted an enlightened new course in the Middle East. Chafee challenged the Bush administration for dropping the ball on North Korea over the last several years. Chafee opposed Samuel Alito's appointment to the Supreme Court. Chafee did what needed to be done on behalf of constituents concerned with base closures -- and succeeded.

I do hope that the Dems do well in the next race and support their taking the House and the Senate, but particularly the House -- so as to undo the power dynamics that Tom DeLay built which have kept the Congress from defending its prerogatives in our system of checks and balances.

But I do support Chafee in this upcoming race. We need to support moderates who are willing to stand up to extremists. I think Chafee is such a sensible and thoughtful moderate.

If he wins, we hope he'll stay on the course he has been bravely taking. If he loses, we hope he won't leave public life and will find a way to work on American foreign policy in the Middle East. And in that case, Sheldon Whitehouse would be wise to stay on the track that Chafee has laid.

-- Steve Clemons

Bill Hartung exposes America's obsession with selling light weapons and small arms and standing out as "the only nation" to oppose even thinking about regulating small arms trade, which Hartung refers to as "weapons of mass destruction in slow motion."

Well worth reading if you want to be angry at yet another dimension of current administration policy.

-- Steve Clemons

Vice President Cheney was off in Missouri yesterday (coincidence?) at a rally for the B-2 bomber forces at Whiteman Air Force Base.

As usual, Cheney's remarks reinforce mistaken notions about terrorism. He suggests to the bomber forces that only taking the fight to terrorists can turn the tide.

Cheney doesn't talk about stealing the audience from terrorists or robbing from them the ability to exploit grievances that many in the Middle East feel.

Terrorists are performers on a stage -- attempting to look legitimate in the eyes of people throughout the Middle East. If the grievances were reversed, terrorists would be marginalized. If America and Europe did more to connect to the aspirations of the broad public in the Middle East, then at least there would be real competition for legitimacy -- and the acts of terrorists could be morally undermined in the eyes of Muslims.

One wonders if Cheney ever gives this sort of talk to the many NGOs who are in the Middle East trying to help people in the region construct better societies -- or whether this plays only for the folks whose job it is to bomb.

Cheney stated in his speech at Whiteman Air Force Base (not yet posted on the White House website):

In this new era, Americans have learned that oceans do not protect us, and threats that gather thousands of miles away can now find us here at home. We have learned that there is a certain kind of enemy whose ambitions have no limits, whose cruelty is only fed by the grief of others. These enemies don't assemble standing armies or navies to confront us. Instead they operate in small cells; they dwell in the shadows; and they hide in caves on the other side of the world. And yet they are driven by an ideology of violence, and they are absolutely determined to cause great harm to the United States of America.

The terrorists hate this country and everything we stand for -- human freedom, democratic government, respect for life. They seek ever deadlier weapons, and they would use those weapons against us without hesitation. With the terrorists, there can be no negotiations, or appeals to reason or conscience. We have only one option, and that's to take the fight to the enemy.

A sensible, enlightened treatment of what drives terrorism and how to confront it was written by Zbigniew Brzezinski in September 2002 in the New York Times, "Confronting Anti-American Grievances." It's worth reading every few months just as a benchmark of how poorly the Bush administration has done in curbing terrorists and their violence.

Here is a teaser from the Brzezinski essay, but read the whole thing:

Missing from much of the public debate is discussion of the simple fact that lurking behind every terroristic act is a specific political antecedent. That does not justify either the perpetrator or his political cause. Nonetheless, the fact is that almost all terrorist activity originates from some political conflict and is sustained by it as well. That is true of the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland, the Basques in Spain, the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, the Muslims in Kashmir and so forth.

In the case of Sept. 11, it does not require deep analysis to note -- given the identity of the perpetrators -- that the Middle East's political history has something to do with the hatred of Middle Eastern terrorists for America. The specifics of the region's political history need not be dissected too closely because terrorists presumably do not delve deeply into archival research before embarking on a terrorist career. Rather, it is the emotional context of felt, observed or historically recounted political grievances that shapes the fanatical pathology of terrorists and eventually triggers their murderous actions.

American involvement in the Middle East is clearly the main impulse of the hatred that has been directed at America. There is no escaping the fact that Arab political emotions have been shaped by the region's encounter with French and British colonialism, by the defeat of the Arab effort to prevent the existence of Israel and by the subsequent American support for Israel and its treatment of the Palestinians, as well as by the direct injection of American power into the region.

While there is a place for a military response to those who engage in violent attacks against innocent people, that alone worsens the problem -- particularly when other innocent people are killed in the response.

But what Brzezinski reveals is the requirement of incorporating into any anti-terrorism strategy the operating methodologies behind terrorism.

Cheney's pound the chest and thump the podium strategy alone assures that America will face more, not less, terrorism and insurgency problems in the future.

-- Steve Clemons

I have been working with my colleagues on a significant economic policy event that is taking place on Monday, 30 October 2006 at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington.

The schedule is here.

Paul Krugman is opening the show and should be terrific.

This meeting is free and open to the public, but you must RSVP.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

This letter is interesting.

Not sure that I'm on the same page as the American Foreign Service Association which has a beef that a new senior post created by Condi did not go to a career foreign service officer -- but the nature of the public letter is provocative.

I am flying to DC from Germany today. Have just had four fascinating days -- speaking in the Bundestag in Berlin as well as speaking to groups in Halle, Bremen, and Hamburg.

I don't know how much coverage there has been in the U.S. of "Germany's Abu Ghraib" scandal (well, that is what they are calling it here) -- but essentially I heard personally Angela Merkel's comments of outrage on Wednesday regarding a bunch of pictures of German soldiers posing with and abusing a human skull. One of the pics that ran in The Bild shows a soldier with his penis out -- and the skull posed as if giving the soldier a blow job.

A friend of mine who is a high ranking Bundestag member in the Free Democrats said that just this one photo by some young idiot destroys the good will of building hundreds of schools or hospitals, of people exchanges, and so on designed to get public diplomacy on a good track.

-- Steve Clemons

This morning, I am training it from Hamburg to Berlin where I'm going to have some meetings with senior German political and policy leaders today. Last night I spoke about the coming elections and US foreign policy at the University of Hamburg.

But if you are in Washington, the New America Foundation Middle East Policy Initiative is co-hosting a meeting with the Center for American Progress a session with former Mossad Deputy Head David Kimche. Kimche was also Director General of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is now President of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations.

For those interested, read Kimche's intriguing piece in the Jerusalem Post, "Pry Syria Away from Iran."

I've met David Kimche in Israel, and his enlightened views on the region and why Israel needs to move expeditiously in deal-making with the Palestinians and Syrians is important to hear. My colleague Daniel Levy will chair the session.

Last night, New America hosted David Kimche and Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi for a private dinner salon that was on the record. I have not heard the results of the meeting yet and will hopefully be back with any key policy nuggets tossed out.

It's at 9 a.m. at the Center for American Progress, today -- Tuesday. Just go if you'd like to attend.

-- Steve Clemons

Senator Barack Obama has been pretty giddy about the speculation that he might run for President. He is an exciting political force and seems fresh, somewhat innoncent, inspiring.

But behind the energetic spontaneity exists a cautious calculator. He knows that he is vastly out-gunned by Hillary Clinton as things stand -- and though she may be telling the truth to her New York constituents that she has made "no decisions" about running for the Presidency, everyone around her has decided (essentially) that she will run.

Obama, despite the feverish speculation, is RUNNING FOR VICE PRESIDENT.

I was in Senator Jay Rockefeller's office the day that Joe Lieberman lambasted on the Senate floor President Clinton for his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Rockefeller was furious with Lieberman and roared that Lieberman had just issued his first salvo in a quest to be Gore's VP running mate.

The Lieberman speech happened way before anyone thought he had a chance at the VP slot -- all except Rockefeller, and Lieberman himself.

My hunch is that Obama is setting himself up to be Hillary's running mate. Probably more likely with Hillary than John Edwards.

Clinton and Obama would actually be a pretty impressive ticket.

-- Steve Clemons

A rumor has come my way that seems too delicious not to report. Since the source of the rumor is acquainted with Vice President Cheney's neighbor, I believe it has veracity.

Both Cheney and Don Rumsfeld have get-away homes in St. Michaels on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. They live near each other -- but in between them is a Democrat.

Party identification not withstanding, Dick Cheney invited his neighbor and spouse out to dinner with the Donald and Joyce Rumsfeld and some other friends -- just a sort of get to know the neighborhood kind of gathering.

The neighbor and his wife obliged and showed up at a local high-end restaurant and were greeted by the Defense Secretary who told him that Cheney had been kept back at work -- you know, being Vice President and all and having the affairs of the nation to tend to. But Rumsfeld said that they all ought to proceed with dinner.

Then the check arrived.

And the check languished on the table. . .and it just sat there. . .for a painfully long time.

No one reached to pay the bill. Rumsfeld just ignored it.

Finally, the Dem who lives sandwiched between the Vice President and Defense Secretary paid the dinner bill. I was told that there were seven people there.

And to this day, Cheney never called to apologize for missing the dinner -- or to express thanks that the Dem picked up the tab.

Pretty cheesy (and cheap) behavior by the cabal.

-- Steve Clemons

I will be appearing on the BBC News live at 3:00 pm EST and discussing some of the issues raised in an article, "The Genteel Revolt that is Remaking US Policy on Iraq," by DC Bureau Chief of The Guardian Julian Borger.

The focus will be the "Iraq Study Group" co-chaired by James Baker III and Lee Hamilton and the impact on the Bush administration's Middle East policy.

-- Steve Clemons

(Who will get former Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick's job?)

The real answer to this question is that R. Nicholas Burns should be. If not Burns, then the person Condi should nominate is US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad.

I tried to distance myself from Burns some time ago and gave him some tongue-in-cheek critique on his performance as a way to boost his credentials for the Cheney wing of the White House, but too many people got confused by my silly attempt at reverse psychology.

I had been told that if this blog -- which is read by many in the State Department and White House -- was too friendly to Burns that it would hurt him politically. But too many people thought I really didn't like him and that's no good.

I do like Nick Burns. I think that he is the best diplomat that we have working for the government right now, and he is working in crappy circumstances, trying to make the most out of the fact that the White House for whom it works is better at destroying nations than constructing stable national and regional order.

Condi Rice needs a Deputy Secretary of State -- not only to help manage the sprawling needs of the Department but also to be another high-level persona working out deals with areas of the world that are in crisis. The fact is that Rice is too high profile to be the micro-level problem solver. A Deputy can get into the grit of problems and work them out. Richard Armitage did this frequently, and by many accounts, brilliantly -- when he wasn't occupied gossiping to reporters about Valerie Plame (needed to get this in).

Rice now has two super high level fronts open that she needs to confront -- one is North Korea and the other is Iran. Then of course, there is the nearly boiling over mess in Iraq, the destabilization of Afghanistan, the empowerment of Hezbollah and destabilization of Lebanon, the ulcerous standoff beween Israel and Palestine. This doesn't even get to Darfur, the Congo, Sierra Leone, and many other problems around the world -- including the czarification of Putin's administration in Russia.

She needs a Deputy, fully empowered to get American foreign policy back into a "proactive" position and out of the "reactive" mode America finds itself in now.

So, who are the candidates?

They have been:

1. R. Nicholas Burns

Burns and Kimmitt were reportedly Condi Rice's top personal choices for the Deputy job. Burns has been stymied by whisper campaigns from the John Bolton camp and the mistrust of the Cheney wing of the foreign policy establishment. Some think that Condi is just waiting until after the election and until "all other possibilities" have been exhausted before making a push to resolve the vacancy and use her political capital to elevate Burns.

2. Robert Kimmitt

Bob Kimmitt is currently Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and has one of the most impressive resumes of international service among those in government. He is a realist and is (or was) high on Condi's list. He had some interest in moving to State as well as Kimmitt's background helped fill out the capacity and skill set at Treasury when the more domestically focused John Snow was Treasury Secretary. Now that former Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson has the Hamilton perch in government, Kimmitt's skills and interests are redundant and trumped by the boss. He also would be grilled on the Dubai Ports deal complicating confirmation.

3. Philip Zelikow

Zelikow is very close to Condi Rice and serves as her Counselor. He is brainy and often perceived to be arrogant. I have worked with him in the past in Atlantic Council study groups, though not closely, He ran the 9/11 Commission and is a real player in the foreign policy arena. While Condi Rice allegedly would be "fine" with Zelikow shifting to the Deputy slot, the rank and file of the State Department have let her know that there could be mass unrest within the bureaucracy as Zelikow is not "appreciated" in the Department as an advocate of the department's interests. While I don't have a problem with Zelikow and appreciate his intellect, I don't see him as the kind of problem solver and deal maker that the Deputy slot needs.

4. Eric Edelman

Edelman is the dark horse candidate for the job. He's not particularly well known but those who do know him like him and respect his management ability. Edelman is reportedly favored by the Cheney wing of the foreign policy establishment but is also someone Condi Rice likes and can work with. This kind of compromise candidate may be what defines the eventual holder of the position -- but its unclear what Edelman's policy focus or approach to the job might be. Edelman is currently Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and former US Ambassador to Turkey. He also has some Scooter Libby-related baggage that could aggravate confirmation.

I don't know if there have been others on a short list -- but the one I have not seen but who should be on the list is Zalmay Khalilzad, our current Ambassador to Iraq and just prior to that, Afghanistan.

As one former senior diplomat told me last night about Khalilzad, "he is not known for his management abilities." But that is not why one would want Khalilzad.

We need deal-makers who know how to constructively wrestle with Iran, which Khalilzad did when Ambassador to Afghanistan and when Iran was collaborating with us behind the scenes to arm and train the Afghan army.

Khalilzad knows all of the major clerics and tribal chieftains in Iraq and Afghanistan and is well acquainted with the factional chiefs in Iran. He knows the Syrian leadership and has a better sense of nearly anyone else in the administration what is happening inside Lebanon.

His relationships with the more moderate Sunni led governments in the region are excellent, and he has legitimacy in their eyes as a fair broker of interests, understands the constraints and realities of creating legitimacy in the eyes of publics, is aware that America has a rap of playing to heavy a hand in the region -- and as a Muslim, is trusted to be fair-minded in any Israel-Palestine effort.

Khalilzad also has his own relationship with Bush and often meets with the President alone when he comes back to Washington. This has apparently produced some "testiness" with Condi Rice -- who has had some friction with Khalilzad in the past.

But Rice needs a bigger team of people she largely trusts to give her more edge in the policy development and implementation process -- and Khalilzad has those networks and capabilities.

As an original PNAC member, Khalilzad is also appreciated by some neocons, though he is really much more of a pragmatist in his thinking and writing.

Here is one piece of his titled "Ten Lessons for Nation Building" that was derived from an article, "How to Nation-Build" in the Summer 2005 issue of National Interest.

I think our State Department would be well-served by Nick Burns.

But if that just isn't going to work out, Zalmay Khalilzad adds capacity in many areas -- particularly public diplomacy in the Muslim world -- that call for him to be appointed to this job.

-- Steve Clemons

P.S. I had confirmation today from a high level source in the Department of State that sees the Bolton Battle "as basically finished." So, if Khalilzad has too complicated a relationship with Condi to move into the Deputy Sec State role, then send Khalilzad to the United Nations.

After November 7th, when it is appearing more and more likely that the Dems will take the House of Representatives, George W. Bush loses one of his (until now) free hands to do what he pleases. The House will be sure to slow, redirect, and condition funding for the Iraq War and other missions in the Middle East. The House is also likely to begin using its power to call hearings, conduct investigations, and subpoena appearances of government officials under oath.

Many Republicans, particularly Senator John Warner of Virginia, see this coming and have signalled to the President that the course has to change in Iraq -- that the pursuit of "victory" is now folly.

The vehicle many see that gives the White House some cover in changing direction is an Iraq Study Group co-chaired by James Baker III and Lee Hamilton. The work of the group has been profiled prominently by Robert Dreyfuss in the Washington Monthly so best to get the quick picture by reading his piece.

A consensus among the DC senior journalist crowd is that Baker's report will suggest a comprehensive strategy that requires deal-making both within and around Iraq. Baker-Hamilton won't criticize how we got where we are but they will probably argue that America's position will continue to deteriorate until we establish a new equilibrium of interests in the region -- and that requires deal-making that moves the Israel-Palestine standoff forward; that involves curbing Pakistan's efforts to undermine the Karzai government in Afghanistan; that may involve a "Libya-like" get out of the dog house opportunity for Syria; and even some collaboration with Iran regarding Iraqi and Afghanistan stabilization.

These points are all speculative, but they are part of the roster of topics many senior foreign policy hands think may be in the Baker-Hamilton report.

I spoke with someone close to Senator John Warner last night who confirmed that the Senator has not been misunderstood by the media. He is determined to compel the White House to change course in Iraq if the Oval Office doesn't do it on its own.

The problem with the Baker-Hamilton Report is that it doesn't solve the internal policy management and implementation problems inside the White House. Baker becomes just another voice of other contending voices -- and even if elevated to be the President's Special Envoy for the Middle East, it's not clear that the deep dysfunction that exists now and which paralyzes the inter-agency process will be fixed.

Cheney's team must be neutralized and set to the side of the policy process -- clearly demoted and moved out of the way for any Baker type plan to succeed in shaping an alternative direction.

Many see Rumsfeld's days now being really, really, really numbered -- and that he'll be gone soon. But that is not enough.

Cheney controls the interagency process through his minions. They need to be identified, demoted, moved to desks with good views of the garden, and kept away from this next round of policy work, coordination, and implementation.

Cheney remains the key road block for a Baker plan to have any chance of succceeding.

-- Steve Clemons

China must have pounded Kim Jong Il in private meetings to get the kind of confession of error he was reported to have made.

North Korea needs a deal -- and so does the United States. The North Korea nuclear problem will require a high price to resolve, but it's worth it. And if America fails to resolve the North Korea matter through a combination of diplomacy and potential coercion, then Iran will be emboldened to press harder against perceived American impotence.

A collapse in North Korea will be devastating for the region -- so the best outcome would be a slow, incremental take-over of the governing order in North Korea by potential profiteers around Kim. We need a "Nixon Goes to China" approach for North Korea.

Shinzo Abe did his Nixonian trip to China. Now, America needs something like that with North Korea -- maybe send the Bush family problem fixer James Baker -- as soon as he finishes his Iraq work.

-- Steve Clemons

When I left Japan on Tuesday, I had breakfast in the Orchid Room at the Okura Hotel, still the Beverly Hills Hotel Polo Lounge equivalent for power breakfasts in Japan.

I saw Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Christopher Hill dining with quite a group of Americans and Japanese -- no doubt laying the groundwork for further coordination with Japan on our collective response to North Korea's nuclear tests and for Condi Rice's arrival.

She arrived a day later than I thought she had originally planned, and I joked with George Soros that it might be that it was because he didn't check out of the hotel until Tuesday. Soros then went off to Seoul.

In any case, Chris Hill knows what he is doing. At the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan speech I gave, I encouraged reporters to query Hill on why it has been so hard to get a Bush administration consensus behind his views of what needs to be done. It probably won't make him happy to point out that there are serious divisions inside the Bush administration about how to proceed with North Korea -- and that Chris Hill heads the more enlightened faction -- but these are just the facts.

More on that later.

Consider this an open thread. I have some deadlines today on some material I need to write on Cuba, a comprehensive national energy strategy, and on Think Tankism and policy entrepreneurship abroad.

All quality commentary on these three subjects or other matters most welcome.

-- Steve Clemons

Joe Lieberman knows the ways of the Senate.

He knows that there are votes that matter -- and votes that don't.

There are cheap ways to mug a President of one's own party, much like House Democrats did to Bill Clinton during his presidency rejecting "fast track trade authority" because they were ticked off about welfare reform and wanted to send Clinton a message on a bill that wasn't all that popular anyway.

However, there are also cheap ways to applaud a President and to deceive a public.

Along these lines, Senator Lieberman decided to play "fluffer" for the Republican leadership and Bush with his statement today in the New York Daily News that he has flip-flopped on Bolton and would now support his confirmation as US Ambassador to the UN.

Lieberman knows that after the next election, when there is a lame duck session of Congress called, all of the controls on party discipline come off.

Some Senators will be on their way out -- some will be planning to move in. While Lieberman might vote for Bolton in a new game plan, several Republican Senators are so irritated by the confirmation that has been kicked to near death twice that they won't save it and may even kick it to definitive death to help reach out to progressives they may need to "kiss and make up to" after the election.

Lieberman just used a false stilt to prop himself up before some of Connecticut's pugnacious isolationist Republicans.

What Lieberman doesn't understand is that Bolton's confirmation has been killed twice by Republicans -- not just by Voinovich, Thune, and Chafee but by many behind the scenes. Bolton represents a wing of anti-internationalist Republicans and that's all. And this wing is small.

Most Connecticut Republicans are MODERATES and are decent people who want confident and admirable stewardship of American interests at the United Nations. Lieberman hopefully just ticked off a whole lot of them.

I have hesitated pounding too hard on Senator Lieberman who has been a great advocate of advanced technology development in this country and has been (until the Iraq war) a generally sensible voice on national security issues -- particularly at home. But to quote George Soros, "Lieberman has gone off the rails."

Soros said in a public speech in Tokyo this Monday at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan that "now that Lieberman is out of the picture, he'd support any Democratic candidate for President -- just to get balance back into the system."

This snuggle-snuggle with John Bolton by the newly Indepent Joseph Lieberman really is something that deserves to be put under a big spotlight.

Moving into the pro-Bolton camp is a desperate move and places Lieberman no longer in the "Zell Miller-lite caucus" but rather with the "Neocon-heavy cabal."

-- Steve Clemons