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

Just back to Washington after a long trip back from Tokyo.

Our plane got diverted for an emergency landing to Anchorage, Alaska after a person on board was felled by a serious stroke.

My bags were lost -- but I did meet behind the baggage counter a friend I have not seen in nearly 20 years.

That followed running around the Imperial Palace yesterday morning at 6:00 a.m. and having a Japanese guy walk up to me after my run while I was looking at the koi in the Imperial moat wondering whether I was "that blogger who writes 'The Note.' Gratifying -- but now exhausted.

Lots to report -- tomorrow.

-- Steve Clemons

Thanks to Steve for giving me a chance to blog about (flog?) my new book The American Way of Strategy -- which, if you're interested, I'll be discussing with Lou Dobbs this evening on "Lou Dobbs Tonight" on CNN, 6 pm EST.

At the moment there's an avalanche of books trying to name a new "ism" in foreign policy. I think that's a parlor game. Instead of reinventing the wheel, I argue for renovating the version of American liberal internationalism that took shape between World War I and the Cold War. To oversimplify a complicated subject, the liberal internationalism identified most closely with FDR sought to end the cycle of great-power wars by enshrining national self-determination as the basic norm of world politics and by promoting a concert of great powers including the U.S. to deter or punish aggressive states.

The church of Rooseveltian liberal internationalism has faced two heresies since the Cold War ended. One is the heresy of "hegemonism" -- the idea that a hegemonic U.S. will effectively police the world on its own (even if it disguises this by acting through multilateral institutions). The other liberal internationalist heresy is "democratism" -- the idea that only democratic states are legitimate and that the U.S. should work directly or indirectly to subvert or topple all nondemocratic regimes. In the 1950s that great liberal internationalist Dean Acheson used the phrase "messianic globaloney" to dismiss similar utopian ideas. The alternative is not a revival of Morgenthau/Kissinger-style Germanic Realpolitik, but the vision of the two Roosevelts, Wilson, Lansing, House, Acheson and Nitze of a post-imperial world secured by cooperating great powers.

Next time: the truth about "rogue states."

-- Michael Lind

I have been learning a lot of behind the scenes stuff on this Japan trip. I realize that many TWN readers are not into the soap opera that is Japanese politics, but I used to be a real addict and find myself easily sucked in to the complex intrigue here.

A couple of quick things.

First, I am speaking at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan tomorrow morning at 8:30 am. Non-members of the Club can attend my talk for 2,500 yen -- but I need name and phone number emailed to me in advance (and don't flake), and you must give the "cash" to the member sponsoring your entry tomorrow morning. Let me know at steve@thewashingtonnote.com.

I will be talking about Japan's Historical Amnesia Problem and a bit about think tanks and why Japan really, really needs them.

Next, I will be blogging George Soros' today at the FCCJ -- so check in later for that.

And another thing, lots of people over here know about the exchange I have had with the Sankei Shimbun's Yoshihisa Komori. I have gotten word on his next alleged target for editorial attack.

More on that later today.

Lastly, some folks want a coffee session like I have done in other cities. Can anyone suggest something for tomorrow mid-morning, or at lunch time in either the Yurakucho area or around the Hotel Okura -- or even Tokyo Station. If someone can set up a time after 10 am tomorrow and before 2, we can set this up.

-- Steve Clemons

We needed to see it for ourselves.

Today, George Soros, a few others, and I visited Yasukuni Shrine -- both the war memorial and the adjacent museum.

The museum seemed to me to be a spectacularly done exercise in historical denial about the matters that led up to World War II -- and to Japan's conduct during that war. What is presented is a heavily loaded version of history that casts Japan as a hapless victim.

More on Yasukuni and the controversies it represents in Asia another time.

I just wanted to let folks know that Soros felt it important to get a sense of the shrine and treatment of history -- and he publicly acknowledged his visit in interviews today.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

George Soros met me in Japan last night, and we had a fascinating dinner with Tadashi Yamamoto, President of the Japan Center for International Exchange.

The dinner discussion was off the record, but one of the interesting things that I can write is that Soros, Yamamoto, and others like former Prime Minister of Japan Yoshiro Mori and Mort Halperin have been allies in getting strong public sector/private sector support in Japan and the United States for the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

This is an area where the activities of progressives like Soros and conservatives of the Bush administration sort are allied together -- and the same liberal-conservative alliances exist in Japan.

George Soros and I are both speaking at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan. The Soros event is Monday at noon at the FCCJ and has more than 250 people coming.

He is in Japan to meet a number of political, business and media leaders and to discuss global conditions ranging from the recent North Korea nuclear test to current (and future?) wars in the Middle East. He is also here for the release of the Japanese edition of his book, The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror.

Interestingly, Soros has not been to Japan in five years -- and was last in Tokyo the week before 9/11. I learned from him that he was in Beijing when the 9/11 tragedy occurred. His son called him when the first plane hit, and George turned on CNN and saw the second plane crash into the World Trade Center towers.

One of the leading contenders for the now awarded (to Bangladeshi microcredit pioneer Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank) Nobel Peace Prize, former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, actually said that Soros was someone who should actually receive the Nobel. Soros is controversial in many quarters, but it is interesting to note that in much of the world's eyes, to use Condeeleezza Rice's framing, Soros was and is the original "transformational diplomat".

Ahtisaari stated:

"I wish my good friend George Soros would receive the prize at some point," Ahtisaari said on Finnish television.

"He has promoted open democratic society in the world and used lots of his own money and energy for it, and he still does," said Ahtisaari, Finland's president in 1994-2000.

Soros, the Hungarian-born financier, has given away billions of dollars through his network of foundations and the Open Society Institute to promote democracy and human rights, especially in ex-communist eastern Europe.

Soros, also known as "The Man Who Broke the Pound" for betting against sterling in 1992 until Britain pulled out of the currency grid that preceded the euro, has been a vocal critic of President George W. Bush and the U.S. engagement in Iraq.

My event is Tuesday morning, 17 October at 8:30 a.m. I'll be discussing how to construct an ecosystem of policy entrepreneurship via think tanks -- but also reflecting on my views about Japan's growing debate between healthy and pugnacious nationalists.

For those TWN readers who want to go to hear my presentation at the FCCJ, one of the members has graciously agreed to sponsor you for the meeting so that you can get in -- but the cost is 2,500 yen -- which would have to be paid to this FCCJ member on site as there is no billing system or credit card system available.

If you would like to attend, email me as soon as possible at steve@thewashingtonnote.com.

More on Soros in Tokyo later.

-- Steve Clemons

Wow...my room is still rolling. Just felt a pretty sizeable earthquake in Tokyo...30 seconds ago.

-- Steve Clemons

This post is just a fun one -- nothing serious. I am over in Japan right now, up at a really, really early hour from jet lag and had a humorous exchange I want to share.

A Time Magazine friend of mine suggested we meet up for drinks and catch up. Just fyi, he wrote this great piece on a barbecue he went to at Mark Foley's. . .

My colleague at the New America Foundation Sameer Lalwani tried to line up dates and times for drinks -- but he called it "putting hurt on the corn".

I really thought in this era of Foleyisms that he had just sent a prominent Time journalist an inappropriate and potentially pornographic message.

But I was wrong it seems, my friend Barry Lynn -- author of End of the Line: The Rise and Coming Fall of the Global Corporation and this interesting piece, "Breaking the Chain: The Anti-Trust Case Against Wal-Mart" in Harpers seems to be good with re-crafting words and launching them to start new catch phrases.

Here is how Sameer defines Barry Lynn's "Putting Hurt on the Corn":

Steve:

It's a barry lynn phrase --

"putting hurt" -- to deal with soundly and effectively

"On" -- a preposition, difficult to define

"The corn" -- going out on a limb here but a -- dare I say -- southern expression for grain alcohol, perhaps distilled by rubes on their local premises

I'm beginning to understand a bit of how cockney developed now.

More later from Tokyo.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a bit of a disappointment as Warner would have given any Senate-based challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination a real fight.

In Tokyo, some folks are already asking what this means for Hillary and John McCain.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

I'm off to Tokyo for a few days of meetings. I will have much to report.

George Soros will be there with me -- and I will be blogging about some of the meetings we have planned about the evolving debate on competing variants of nationalism and what this means for the health of Japanese internationalism.

Play nice.

-- Steve Clemons

Fareed Zakaria captures clearly the consequences that have been wrought from America's misguided adventure.

Zakaria writes:

Iraq is now in a civil war.

Thirty thousand Iraqis have died there in the past three years, more than in many other conflicts widely recognized as civil wars. The number of internal refugees, mostly Sunni victims of ethnic cleansing, has exploded over the past few months, and now exceeds a quarter of a million people. (The Iraqi government says 240,000, but this doesn't include Iraqis who have fled abroad or who may not have registered their move with the government.)

The number of attacks on Shiite mosques increases every week: there have been 69 such attacks since February, compared with 80 in the previous two and a half years. And the war is being fought on gruesome new fronts. CBS News's Lara Logan has filed astonishing reports on the Health Ministry, which is run by supporters of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

According to Logan, hospitals in Baghdad and Karbala are systematically killing Sunni patients and then dumping their bodies in mass graves.

This Iraq crusade has been so harmful to so many, and America's ability to do great things in the world has been crippled by the likes of Wolfowitz, Feith, Cheney, Bolton, Rumsfeld and others.

It sickens me that the 'Axis of Evil' man himself, David Frum, who is also one of the people who helped diminish the stature and power of the United States is able to so freely warmonger for more.

-- Steve Clemons

Just a quick TWN alert. I will be talking about North Korea and Northeast Asian security issues on Air America's Al Franken Show tomorrow (Tuesday) at 1 p.m.

On Wednesday morning, I'm flying to Chicago for a brief meeting and then to Tokyo -- arriving Thursday afternoon in Japan and staying until the following Tuesday.

I'll be doing a lot of blogging, writing, commentary, and scandalmongering on Japan's new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, North Korea's nukes, and China's disbelief that America is making its rise in the world so easy.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

The Federal Advisory Committee Act was enacted to formalize disclosure requirements and make transparent those who advise on federal government policy.

Vice President Cheney was in a substantial tug-of-war with the Legislative Branch and the Supreme Court for a while about not submitting to FACA and disclosing participants in an important advisory session he convened on national energy policy. But his refusal to submit did not make FACA disappear.

It seems to me that the secret advisory meeting called by Paul Wolfowitz on November 29, 2001 that brought various public intellectuals together to help marshall the best arguments for an Iraq invasion was possibly a violation of FACA.

This secret meeting was disclosed in Bob Woodward's new book State of Denial. No one has yet raised the question of whether this meeting was a violation of FACA rules.

The New York Times' Julie Bosman writes:

It was the kind of shadowy, secret Washington meeting that Bob Woodward is fond of describing in detail. In his new book, "State of Denial," he writes that on Nov. 29, 2001, a dozen policy makers, Middle East experts and members of influential policy research organizations gathered in Virginia at the request of Paul D. Wolfowitz, then the deputy secretary of defense. Their objective was to produce a report for President Bush and his cabinet outlining a strategy for dealing with Afghanistan and the Middle East in the aftermath of 9/11.

What was more unusual, Mr. Woodward reveals, was the presence of journalists at the meeting. . .Robert D. Kaplan, now a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, attended the meeting and, according to Mr. Kaplan, signed confidentiality agreements not to discuss what happened.

While members of policy research groups often dispense advice to administration officials, journalists do not typically attend secret meetings or help compile government reports. Indeed, many Washington journalists complain that the current administration keeps them at an unhealthy distance.

I am not a fan of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, as written and enforced, because it some how has been interpreted to allow the sort of secret sessions that Cheney held -- but acts as a huge inhibitor of normal, useful, and mulitiple interactions between policy entrepreneurs and practitioners with government officials.

That said, however, after reading the contents of FACA, I cannot find an exception for the kind of meeting that Paul Wolfowitz convened.

What makes it worse is that Julie Bosman notes that a report was produced, with the names of all 12 participants, and that the report influenced President Bush. This is exactly the kind of influential meeting that FACA was designed to make transparent.

Truth in disclosure.

I am friends and well-acquainted with both Robert Kaplan and other reported attendees at this meeting and hold none of them accountable for enforcement of the FACA legal guidelines. There may be other issues with which they need to deal, but FACA was the responsibility of the government officials involved.

But this incident does, perhaps, demonstrate another case of serious disregard for America's system of checks and balances by Paul Wolfowitz and other of his administration fellow travelers.

-- Steve Clemons

This exchange between Rep. Ray Lahood and Bob Schieffer is just lovely (posted at Crooks and Liars):

Lahood: Look at, I give Speaker Hastert high marks for strong leadership.

He took care of Tom DeLay, his best friend. When Tom was having ethical problems, the speaker went to him and asked him to leave.

When he appointed Duke Cunningham to the intelligence committee, he went to Duke and made sure he wasn't on the intelligence committee after it was disclosed he took 2.3 million dollars.

And when Bob Ney was appointed chairman of the House administration committee, he was appointed by Speaker Hastert. Speaker Hastert went to him and told him to step down from that committee after the Abramoff disclosures.

Hastert has the ability to take on these big ethical challenges that our party has faced. . .

Bob: But, but. . ."chuckle". . . what you're saying when you list all these Congressman is that he did appoint some of these people who turned out to be crooks.

So doesn't he have something to answer for there?

Gold star for Bob Schieffer today.

-- Steve Clemons

I don't know Gideon Levy, but his piece today in Haaretz reads like highly effective paint remover, sheering the shabby veneer of the Bush administration's absence of strategy in the Middle East. It is one of the most sensible takes on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's trip that I have read -- and this ran in Tel Aviv.

While Levy is considered by some to be too close to Palestinian players, it does impress me that his views are being aired in a robust public debate inside Israel.

One wonders if such an article about the state of the Israel-Palestine ulcer could run in Washington. Perhaps soon, but until then -- read Gideon Levy's entire essay.

Here is a teaser:

It happens once every few months. Like a periodic visit by an especially annoying relative from overseas, Condoleezza Rice was here again. The same declarations, the same texts devoid of content, the same sycophancy, the same official aircraft heading back to where it came from. The results were also the same: Israel promised in December, after a stormy night of discussions, to open the "safe passage" between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. This time, in what was considered the "achievement" of the current visit, Israel also promised to open the Karni crossing. Karni will be open, one can assume, only slightly more than the "safe passage," which never opened following the previous futile visit.

Rice has been here six times in the course of a year and a half, and what has come of it? Has anyone asked her about this? Does she ask herself?

It is hard to understand how the secretary of state allows herself to be so humiliated. It is even harder to understand how the superpower she represents allows itself to act in such a hollow and useless way. The mystery of America remains unsolved: How is it that the United States is doing nothing to advance a solution to the most dangerous and lengthiest conflict in our world? How is it that the world's only superpower, which has the power to quickly facilitate a solution, does not lift a finger to promote it?

For the record, I'm less critical of Rice's efforts. I think she knows, to some degree, what needs to be done in the Middle East and does not have the leverage at 1600 Pennsylvania to pull off her own road map.

I think that her trip to the Middle East may have been as much about getting outside petitions for action as anything else -- and she may be using these petitions of America-friendly Arab states to try and balance Cheney's and Elliott Abrams' reluctance to move forward on any plan.

-- Steve Clemons

See no Evil. Hear no Evil. . .

The fact that Republicans in senior leadership positions knew about former Congressman Mark Foley's interest in under-age Congressional pages and did not encourage him to get counseling or to investigate the content of electronic communications between Foley and these youths shows that the "values agenda" that Karl Rove unleashed during the last election cycle is and was bankrupt.

Hastert failed at a moment when leadership was required. He side-stepped a moral decision of importance.

This story is not going away soon, and I wish it would.

I don't like to see Democrats winning on the cheap, and the Foley affair makes this battle feel like one that is being fought in gutter slime. But the Republican leadership brought this on itself; it wasn't inflicted by Democrats.

Hastert and his close pals in the know on Foley deserve the shame, ridicule, and ultimately the disinterest in voting from their own constituents.

And just to remind all -- Hastert, Foley and the rest would have deserved this siege whether Foley was talking to underage boys -- or girls, something the Family Research Council has neglected to comment on.

-- Steve Clemons

North Korea has been wanting attention. Now, it seems like it will get some.

The President will speak to the nation about North Korea's nuclear test at 9:45 a.m. this morning.

-- Steve Clemons

Stephen Handelman has an insightful article on Ban Ki Moon this morning in the Globe and Mail -- and not because he quotes some of my blog commentary on Ban.

Handelman writes:

"I may look soft from the outside," he has said. "But I have inner strength when it's really necessary."

The 62-year-old diplomat pointed to his participation in the tense six-party talks over the de-nuclearization of the Korean peninsula as proof of that fortitude.

Critics, however, carp that Mr. Ban's apparent willingness to overlook North Korea's human-rights abuses in the interests of diplomacy -- a reflection of his government's ambiguous approach -- suggests he is willing to sacrifice principle in the name of compromise. Nevertheless, that purposeful, low-profile approach has endeared him to the United States, not to mention China. That is one reason why several other leading Asian candidates for the UN job found it expedient to withdraw.

Washington, as the UN's most powerful player and its biggest critic, clearly sees the propaganda benefit of having a secretary-general who represents one of Asia's rags-to-riches success stories.

South Korea rose from wartime devastation to become the world's 11th-largest economy, and as one of the earliest beneficiaries of UN peacekeeping, it remains an object lesson in conflict management.

Just as important is the prospect of a managerial leader who is almost certain not to make geopolitical waves while grappling with the problems of the UN's bureaucracy, still recovering from the Iraq oil-for-food scandal.

Can Mr. Ban bring the UN back to its 1990s level of credibility, while playing the role of international mediator among nations that do not always appreciate being mediated?

Ban may be showing the stripes of a realist here -- particularly in sorting out the new growing tensions between China, Japan, and North Korea. The fact that he is not a purist on North Korea human rights violations, which are outrageous, nonetheless give some hope that the North Koreans will agree to dance with Ban Ki Moon.

Ban's biggest problem will be Kim Jong Il's jealousy that someone south of the DMZ is now helping to run the world. This fact can't be hidden from North Korea's beleaguered citizens -- who will see in Ban Ki Moon hope for their own situation and pride that "a Korean" is the world's most important civil servant.

The vote in the UN Security Council -- planned for today -- on Ban Ki Moon's ascension to Kofi Annan's job may indeed have been one of the more important drivers of North Korea's decision to test a nuclear weapon today.

-- Steve Clemons

Well, the North Koreans have had their test.

John Bolton has a lot of new fuel for his bluster at the UN, but I hope one of these days, folks take a step back and ask how this happened. How can America and its allies so badly fail to secure their political and security objectives -- which used to be, in part, to prevent North Korea from acquiring nukes and conducting tests?

Bolton failed when he was Under Secretary of State for International Security and Arms Control to set back North Korea's nuclear program. In fact, his behavior and a counter-productive 31 July 2003 speech probably hardened North Korea's intentions. As Ambassador to the United Nations, he has deployed a package of bluster, name-calling, and highly ineffective diplomacy that has distanced rather than brought closer Chinese collaboration with the U.S. to contain North Korea.

It's a whole new game now.

Watch Japan. It will take a while, but my bet is that Japan is outgrowing its nuclear allergy.

-- Steve Clemons

So much for those "Mission Accomplished" and "Victory" speeches.

Things are tilting very bad directions in Afghanistan.

-- Steve Clemons

The North Korea problem needs management. . .now.

While this may sound like a modest incident, it's very scary. Miscommunication, misunderstanding, escalation, and violence in an already tense situation given North Korea's seeming determination to hold a nuclear test are possible triggers for a regional conflagration in Northeast Asia.

According to the Washington Post:

South Korean soldiers fired about 40 shots as a warning after five North Korean soldiers crossed a boundary in the Demilitarized Zone separating the two country's forces, South Korean military officials said.

It was unclear whether the North Korean advance was intended as a provocation, or was rather an attempt to go fishing at a nearby stream, an official at South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said on condition of anonymity, citing official policy.

Five guys might have wanted to go fishing? Or perhaps they were trying to penetrate South Korea's defenses. In either case, this is far too fragile and America is doing little on its side to steady matters.

-- Steve Clemons

Yesterday, I hosted a meeting with European Parliament Member Alexander Graf Lambsdorff (and Deputy Chairman of the Free Democracts in the European Parliament) who gave a talk titled: "Europe's Evolving Stakes in the Middle East."

The meeting was assembled by the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.

Lambsdorff outlined a sensible strategy for Europe in the Middle East, that still "hoped for" enlightened American engagement in the problems there. But he was skeptical of the ability or desire of this particular White House to move in positive directions. This was an important set of public remarks that should be read in full.

Vice President Cheney's disregard for America's system of checks and balances and his huff-and-puff advocacy of unilateral military responses to complex national security challenges has really harmed America's portfolio of interests.

He should be challenged every time and every where he speaks. He should get no easy passes, and Americans should stop giving him laudatory back-drops and applause when he deigns to walk in public view -- like he did recently in Denver.

According to this report, a man walking his young son walked over to Cheney who was glad-handing and said, "I think your policies in Iraq are reprehensible." He walked on. Ten minutes later, he was handcuffed and arrested under orders from the Secret Service.

Hmmm.....OK, no more inappropriate analogies with official, well-dressed thugs in nations leading up to World War II. Let's just settle for a lighter, more cuddly version of the KGB.

IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WE DON'T HARRASS AND ARREST PEOPLE FOR SPEAKING THEIR MIND IN PUBLIC -- AND CHALLENGING POLITICAL LEADERS!

Someone please tell that to the Secret Service -- and to Cheney's combustible chief-of-staff, David Addington. (read Jane Mayer's excellent piece on this evangelist for torture techniques. . .again).

Here is a bit more of this disturbing report by Charlie Brennan in the Rocky Mountain News:

A Denver-area man filed a lawsuit today against a member of the Secret Service for causing him to be arrested after he approached Vice President Dick Cheney in Beaver Creek this summer and criticized him for his policies concerning Iraq.

Attorney David Lane said that on June 16, Steve Howards was walking his 7-year-old son to a piano practice, when he saw Cheney surrounded by a group of people in an outdoor mall area, shaking hands and posing for pictures with several people.

According to the lawsuit filed at U.S. District Court in Denver, Howards and his son walked to about two-to-three feet from where Cheney was standing, and said to the vice president, "I think your policies in Iraq are reprehensible," or words to that effect, then walked on.

Ten minutes later, according to Howards' lawsuit, he and his son were walking back through the same area, when they were approached by Secret Service agent Virgil D. "Gus" Reichle Jr., who asked Howards if he had "assaulted" the vice president. Howards denied doing so, but was nonetheless placed in handcuffs and taken to the Eagle County Jail.

I can't believe that this has to be reported.

-- Steve Clemons

The unilateral thing is failing -- so time to consider alternative options.

Michael Lind, in his new book The American Way of Strategy puts a proposal out that international stability and prosperity will best be pursued in the future through regional concerts of power.

Here is an excellent summary of the book. I will be writing more about this in the coming weeks, but this primer seemed important to get out to folks.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Extra: For a substantive, well-informed review of The American Way of Strategy, Max Frankel gives the book strong, grudging praise.

(FEMA Director Michael Brown, President George W. Bush, and Florida Congressman Mark Foley)

What was it about a picture being better than a thousand words?

One wonders if Scooter Libby, Paul Bremer, and Don Rumsfeld have been cropped out of the shot.

-- Steve Clemons

Kremlinology may be anachronistic, but observing and interpreting Bush-world has taken its place as one of my extra-curricular activities.

I can hardly believe that George Bush 41 throttled his son so harshly in a speech he gave last night at the home of the German Ambassador to the U.S. on the 'Day of German National Unity.'

OK -- it may not sound like hard core throttling, but in the world of president to president nuance, this is about as rough a critique as one can expect.

Bush the father stated:

Such celebratory occasions are necessarily marked by gratitude; and here at home, I think first of my predecessor, Ronald Reagan, who met the Soviet challenge head-on and gave me a unique chance to work so closely with the players who would come to shape Europe's destiny.

I also think of a very fine White House foreign policy team, who debated freely and forcefully [emphasis added] -- and who served with great honor. Their names are well know to most of you, but let history record that Gen. Brent Scowcroft, Jim Baker, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, Bob Gates, Bill Webster, and so many others earned their nation's thanks -- and their President's -- for a job well-done.

In the curmudgeonly, cryptic way that Bush senior speaks, this is a powerful statement of criticism regarding his son's myopic, buffered from reality management style of the national security portfolio of the nation.

-- Steve Clemons

Congressman Mark Foley once commented that he was dismayed and disheartened by the tainting of the Presidency by Bill Clinton's "sexual addiction problem." What comes around. . .

I have not commented much on the blog about this growing scandal about who knew what when in the Mark Foley/Congressional page imbroglio.

But Hastert needs to be pursued more vigorously by the press. He keeps stating that he "never read" the emails or instant message chains.

A lot of pro-John Bolton pundits and followers as well as many in the network of people and institutions opposed to Bolton's confirmation are in a tizzy about a small gossip item that ran on an on-line conservative weekly magazine, Human Events.

The piece argues something that I posted a couple of weeks ago: the administration is considering an avant-garde type of second recess appointment for Bolton.

The item reads:

The Bolton Plan:

If Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R.-R.I.) continues thwarting a Senate vote to confirm John Bolton as the permanent U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the White House plans to make a second recess appointment of the embattled diplomat.

According to an administration source who requested anonymity, if the Senate does not vote on Bolton before his current recess appointment expires December 18, the President will again name Bolton to the post during Congress' post-election recess.

In order for Bolton to be paid, however, he would also have to be appointed to a different position while his formal title would have to be changed. "Obviously, we would prefer a Senate vote and the almost-certain confirmation for John Bolton," said the source.

There are many things wrong with this debate about John Bolton's possibility for a recess appointment -- but let me take on the Human Events gossip piece first.

My colleague and friend Nir Rosen has been working his way through some of the more interesting sites and scenes in Lebanon -- and trailing along with many Nasrallah groupies to get a fix on the Hezbollah leader's rise and on the evolving shape of Lebanese politics and identity.

Nir Rosen has just published this provocative and provocative essay, "Hizballah, Party of God."

I have to say that I find myself standing across the aisle on this one. While I think that everything that Rosen writes about Nasrallah's popularity and big-tent approach to power-building is accurate, I am worried about it -- and Rosen is not.

(photo credit: Matthew Winters)

For all of the TWN supporters who have sent notes to help assuage the pain I am still in from some seriously deep dental work, thanks much.

I'm in Chestertown, Maryland -- trying to get over jaw shock.

But this pic of Oakley the Amazing Weimaraner on the Chester River calms me a bit -- though the local ducks and migrating Canada geese are not too pleased with Oakley's efforts to catch them. . .to be friends.

"Oakley saying hello to his Duck Friends" is my new screen-saver.

-- Steve Clemons

North Korea has announced that it will conduct a nuclear test, and few doubt its resolve to do so.

To some degree, the escalating temper-tantrum that North Korea is engaged in has to do with its irritation that the United States is not talking to the failed communist state. Kim Jong Il and his government seem willing to ratchet up the threat of regional conflict if it doesn't get America back across the table.

But this nuclear brinksmanship is also about Ban Ki Moon, South Korea's former Foreign Minister, who is on the verge of ascending to the Secretary Generalship of the United Nations.

Ban Ki Moon's likely appointment as Kofi Annan's successor will represent the most serious legitimacy crisis for the North Korean leadership -- perhaps since the ascension of Kim Il Sung's son to the premiership, and perhaps even greater than that transition.

For a senior member of the South Korean diplomatic elite to be "elected" to a position that really does help run the world, many average North Korean citizens (i.e., victims of their own thug-ridden government) will feel pride in Ban Ki Moon.

In addition, Moon will have to wrestle with North Korean nuclear misbehavior in his UN role -- and the reality of collision between the UN and North Korea is very high.

America should be talking to North Korea and trying to assemble a strategic game plan that provides the North Korea leadership a way to back out of its current lunacy. Frankly, we should be doing all we can to embrace the North Korean people with economic opportunity and the chance to improve their lives. We should be helping to fragment the North Korean governing elite by making some rich and others jealous.

But just waiting for a cataclysmic collapse or sitting by while all sides prepare for armed conflict in Northeast Asia would be disastrous for the U.S.

We need to talk with North Korea -- and then we need to plot a strategy that really undermines the internal and external legitimacy of Kim Jong Il. Right now, we seem to be doing the things that add to his power and control of the state.

-- Steve Clemons

This strikes me as an effort that could just as easily swing towards the brave -- or the reckless.

Verizon has launched a new policy blog called PoliBlog. In the first post, former Congressman and senior Verizon executive Tom Tauke states:

Before I get hit with a blogswarm, I want you to know that we understand that the blogosphere is naturally dubious of a blog with a corporate pedigree. While this may seem a bit counterintuitive, PoliBlog is not intended as a "corporate" blog. Instead, it is our effort to find a place in the universal town square. We are players in the communications and broadband worlds. What we do or don't do has real impact. So we think we should offer our perspectives and positions on issues and subject them to scrutiny, comment, and debate. It's good for us. And it's healthy for the policymaking process.

It's my hope that PoliBlog will be most focused on the emerging issues that policy makers and consumers and businesses must start dealing with now to ensure the future of converged communications and broadband deployment. Those issues include privacy and security, data rights management and intellectual property protection, and access to broadband networks. And there are whole new perspectives and opportunities that the widespread deployment of broadband will bring to other important challenges facing our society, including the delivery of health care, education, and government services. None of these topics are out of bounds on PoliBlog.

Broadband debates can be very intense, and corporate personalities working through these debates often see their positions shift or evolve. Hopefully, Verizon won't penalize bloggers on PoliBlog who lay out a view and then find themselves on the wrong side of corporate policy at some point.

But for now, TWN offers slightly skeptical praise for this initiative -- and encourages Tom Tauke to make sure that the blog remains an "open space" for ideas and debate and just not another flack operation.

-- Steve Clemons

A friend sent me this picture which captures the concern of many Bush 41 administration realists with the decisions and driving of the country by Bush 43.

-- Steve Clemons

Some are critiquing Senator Bill Frist's comments that "people who call themselves Taliban" should be brought into the Afghan government.

If Frist actually made these comments, the rationale is exactly the same that many have argued about Hamas and Hezbollah. So, on some level, Frist articulating the need for "political" solutions to some of the more vexing standoffs in the region can be considered progress.

The problem, however, is that the Taliban are not Hamas or Hezbollah and that these latter two political entities have not become popular in their states by terrorizing their own people. Hamas and Hezbollah's legiitimacy has several prongs -- helping to enhance the quality of life of their constituents, delivering various public services, rallying against Israel and perceived grievances about occupied lands and displaced Muslims, and an Islamist religious ethic.

However, to my knowledge, neither Hamas nor Hezbollah have created a tyranny over their own people of the sort that the Taliban clearly did. Also, neither Hamas nor Hezbollah provided the incubation chamber and helped hatch bin Laden's brand of radical transnational terrorism directed at Western nations and ruling regimes in the Middle East. Some will counter that the Muslim Brotherhood is the link here and that the Brotherhood has indeed tried to destabilize the governments in Egypt, Jordan, and even Syria -- but their efforts have had none of the potency of what bin Laden allied with the Taliban created.

So, what is Bill Frist thinking?

Although I think that Senate Majority Leader Frist would be an awkward choice to reflect a new course in the Bush administration's thinking, there is the small chance that Bill Frist is sending signals to the Taliban that America wants to "deal."

Such a deal would no doubt involve coughing up bin Laden and his operations. The deal would also probably involve some assistance if America decides to attack Iran.

I have thought for a while that the dearth of options for diplomacy with Iran required an arena for confidence building in some area not directly between America and Iran, but on the side. One of these would be Iran coming back to help the Karzai government stabilize Afghanistan and to find a way to co-opt or neutralize recalcitrant Afghan tribal chiefs and to curb and roll back expanding Taliban influence. Such assistance from Iran would not only be in Iran's strategic interests -- but would be in ours as well and could provide some node of embryonic trust from which other negotiations might be possible.

However, if such an accomodation with Iran is not worth pursuing, then allying with strong parties in Afghanistan might make sense -- even if as disagreeable as the Taliban.

I don't endorse this strategy, if it is such. And I have my doubts that Bill Frist really wanted to offer an olive branch to the Taliban and its adherents.

It could be he just misspoke. But if he stands by his comments, Frist's words have big implications for Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas -- in different ways.

Stay tuned.

-- Steve Clemons

Update:

I have written previously about the important lesson my briliant, humanistic Japanese politics professor Hans Baerwald taught me: one just can't really know the norms of a political system, or any system, unless observing that system under stress.

Today, Senator Christopher Dodd had an enlightening op-ed in the Los Angeles Times reminding us of how America acted during the Nuremberg trials -- when America arguably was still under significant stress from the wars it had to fight on opposite sides of the planet.

Dodd writes:

SIXTY YEARS AGO today, at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany, the verdicts were read in a trial that will forever define the punishment of war criminals. One by one, the 22 top surviving Nazi officers of Adolf Hitler were sentenced. By the time the gavel sounded, three had been acquitted, seven sent to prison and 12 condemned to death.

One of the people in court that day was my father, 38-year-old attorney Thomas Dodd, who was the No. 2 prosecutor for the United States behind Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson. My father always considered Nuremberg to be the most meaningful experience of his life.

My father wrote more than 400 letters to my mother from Nuremberg. Many are devoted to how much he missed his wife and children; others to the Nazis he had met.

But some of his harshest words were reserved for the Russians, who had little interest in a fair trial. In one letter, he tells the story of a toast offered by a visiting Soviet dignitary, who raised a glass and said: "May the road for these war criminals from the courthouse to the grave be a very short one."

"I winced," my father wrote, "and I could see that Judge [John J.] Parker, the American alternative, was certainly embarrassed."

But of course, a quick trial that led to quick executions was the temptation. The world had seen a monstrous regime try to conquer the world. It had seen them take the lives of more than tens of millions of men, women and children.

Why not just give in to vengeance? Why not just shoot them, as Winston Churchill wanted to do? Why not just succumb to the law of power politics and impose our will without any regard to principle? Why not just give in to violence, which was certainly within our ability and, many argued, within our right?

Why not? Because the United States has always stood for something more.

I did applaud President Bush for emptying the secret prisons and black sites around the world of "darkness at noon" detainees. But that's not enough.

Cheney-lite does not reflect what America stands for.

I have more to write on this subject -- on another day.

-- Steve Clemons

Monday morning, 10:05 am, I'll be chatting for about half an hour on New York public radio's "Brian Lehrer Show."

Much to discuss.

Gas prices may be plummeting just in time for the elections. I paid $1.91 a gallon on the way back from Williamsburg and Yorktown today -- but the Mark Foley affair is grabbing the headlines and may topple the Speaker.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons