TWN has secured testimony being offered by former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski tomorrow morning in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at 9:30 a.m.

Brzezinski will be paired with former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft who will testify about their views on the strategic context of America's actions in Iraq.

This may be covered by C-Span but will also be available in full at CNN's Pipeline:

SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITEE TESTIMONY -- ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI

February 1, 2007

Mr. Chairman:

Your hearings come at a critical juncture in the U.S. war of choice in Iraq, and I commend you and Senator Lugar for scheduling them.

It is time for the White House to come to terms with two central realities:

1. The war in Iraq is a historic, strategic, and moral calamity. Undertaken under false assumptions, it is undermining America's global legitimacy. Its collateral civilian casualties as well as some abuses are tarnishing America's moral credentials. Driven by Manichean impulses and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional instability.

2. Only a political strategy that is historically relevant rather than reminiscent of colonial tutelage can provide the needed framework for a tolerable resolution of both the war in Iraq and the intensifying regional tensions.

If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a "defensive" U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

A mythical historical narrative to justify the case for such a protracted and potentially expanding war is already being articulated. Initially justified by false claims about WMD's in Iraq, the war is now being redefined as the "decisive ideological struggle" of our time, reminiscent of the earlier collisions with Nazism and Stalinism. In that context, Islamist extremism and al Qaeda are presented as the equivalents of the threat posed by Nazi Germany and then Soviet Russia, and 9/11 as the equivalent of the Pearl Harbor attack which precipitated America's involvement in World War II.

This simplistic and demagogic narrative overlooks the fact that Nazism was based on the military power of the industrially most advanced European state; and that Stalinism was able to mobilize not only the resources of the victorious and militarily powerful Soviet Union but also had worldwide appeal through its Marxist doctrine. In contrast, most Muslims are not embracing Islamic fundamentalism; al Qaeda is an isolated fundamentalist Islamist aberration; most Iraqis are engaged in strife because the American occupation of Iraq destroyed the Iraqi state; while Iran -- though gaining in regional influence -- is itself politically divided, economically and militarily weak. To argue that America is already at war in the region with a wider Islamic threat, of which Iran is the epicenter, is to promote a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Deplorably, the Administration's foreign policy in the Middle East region has lately relied almost entirely on such sloganeering. Vague and inflammatory talk about "a new strategic context" which is based on "clarity" and which prompts "the birth pangs of a new Middle East" is breeding intensifying anti-Americanism and is increasing the danger of a long-term collision between the United States and the Islamic world. Those in charge of U.S. diplomacy have also adopted a posture of moralistic self-ostracism toward Iran strongly reminiscent of John Foster Dulles's attitude of the early 1950's toward Chinese Communist leaders (resulting among other things in the well-known episode of the refused handshake). It took some two decades and a half before another Republican president was finally able to undo that legacy.

One should note here also that practically no country in the world shares the Manichean delusions that the Administration so passionately articulates. The result is growing political isolation of, and pervasive popular antagonism toward the U.S. global posture.

It is obvious by now that the American national interest calls for a significant change of direction. There is in fact a dominant consensus in favor of a change: American public opinion now holds that the war was a mistake; that it should not be escalated, that a regional political process should be explored; and that an Israeli-Palestinian accommodation is an essential element of the needed policy alteration and should be actively pursued. It is noteworthy that profound reservations regarding the Administration's policy have been voiced by a number of leading Republicans. One need only invoke here the expressed views of the much admired President Gerald Ford, former Secretary of State James Baker, former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and several leading Republican senators, John Warner, Chuck Hagel, and Gordon Smith among others.

The urgent need today is for a strategy that seeks to create a political framework for a resolution of the problems posed both by the US occupation of Iraq and by the ensuing civil and sectarian conflict. Ending the occupation and shaping a regional security dialogue should be the mutually reinforcing goals of such a strategy, but both goals will take time and require a genuinely serious U.S. commitment.

The quest for a political solution for the growing chaos in Iraq should involve four steps:

1. The United States should reaffirm explicitly and unambiguously its determination to leave Iraq in a reasonably short period of time.

Ambiguity regarding the duration of the occupation in fact encourages unwillingness to compromise and intensifies the on-going civil strife. Moreover, such a public declaration is needed to allay fears in the Middle East of a new and enduring American imperial hegemony. Right or wrong, many view the establishment of such a hegemony as the primary reason for the American intervention in a region only recently free of colonial domination. That perception should be discredited from the highest U.S. level. Perhaps the U.S. Congress could do so by a joint resolution.

2. The United States should announce that it is undertaking talks with the Iraqi leaders to jointly set with them a date by which U.S. military disengagement should be completed, and the resulting setting of such a date should be announced as a joint decision. In the meantime, the U.S. should avoid military escalation.

It is necessary to engage all Iraqi leaders -- including those who do not reside within "the Green Zone" -- in a serious discussion regarding the proposed and jointly defined date for U.S. military disengagement because the very dialogue itself will help identify the authentic Iraqi leaders with the self-confidence and capacity to stand on their own legs without U.S. military protection. Only Iraqi leaders who can exercise real power beyond "the Green Zone" can eventually reach a genuine Iraqi accommodation. The painful reality is that much of the current Iraqi regime, characterized by the Bush administration as "representative of the Iraqi people," defines itself largely by its physical location: the 4 sq. miles-large U.S. fortress within Baghdad, protected by a wall in places 15 feet thick, manned by heavily armed U.S. military, popularly known as "the Green Zone."

3. The United States should issue jointly with appropriate Iraqi leaders, or perhaps let the Iraqi leaders issue, an invitation to all neighbors of Iraq (and perhaps some other Muslim countries such as Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, and Pakistan) to engage in a dialogue regarding how best to enhance stability in Iraq in conjunction with U.S. military disengagement and to participate eventually in a conference regarding regional stability.

The United States and the Iraqi leadership need to engage Iraq's neighbors in serious discussion regarding the region's security problems, but such discussions cannot be undertaken while the U.S. is perceived as an occupier for an indefinite duration. Iran and Syria have no reason to help the United States consolidate a permanent regional hegemony. It is ironic, however, that both Iran and Syria have lately called for a regional dialogue, exploiting thereby the self-defeating character of the largely passive -- and mainly sloganeering -- U.S. diplomacy.

A serious regional dialogue, promoted directly or indirectly by the U.S., could be buttressed at some point by a wider circle of consultations involving other powers with a stake in the region's stability, such as the EU, China, Japan, India, and Russia. Members of this Committee might consider exploring informally with the states mentioned their potential interest in such a wider dialogue.

4. Concurrently, the United States should activate a credible and energetic effort to finally reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace, making it clear in the process as to what the basic parameters of such a final accommodation ought to involve.

The United States needs to convince the region that the U.S. is committed both to Israel's enduring security and to fairness for the Palestinians who have waited for more than forty years now for their own separate state. Only an external and activist intervention can promote the long-delayed settlement for the record shows that the Israelis and the Palestinians will never do so on their own. Without such a settlement, both nationalist and fundamentalist passions in the region will in the longer run doom any Arab regime which is perceived as supportive of U.S. regional hegemony.

After World War II, the United States prevailed in the defense of democracy in Europe because it successfully pursued a long-term political strategy of uniting its friends and dividing its enemies, of soberly deterring aggression without initiating hostilities, all the while also exploring the possibility of negotiated arrangements. Today, America's global leadership is being tested in the Middle East. A similarly wise strategy of genuinely constructive political engagement is now urgently needed.

It is also time for the Congress to assert itself.

The President of the United States and Secretary of State would restore some of their lost luster by making some combination of James Baker, Lee Hamilton, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Brent Scowcroft co-Middle East Envoys to help take this penultimate quagmire we are in a direction that might start a virtuous cycle of possibilities rather than the disaster that is unfolding.

-- Steve Clemons

I just received an email from Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden that tomorrow he is announcing formally his intention to run for President of the United States.

Here is candidate Biden's campaign website.

Biden is a powerful ideas guy and gets points from me for being brazen, smart, and ready to dump political correctness. Biden is often intellectually ahead of his colleagues and can be flamboyant (well, I can be too). But lately, he's really been pulling the pieces together carefully and in a team manner on how to challenge the President's approach to the Iraq War and broader Middle East challenges.

He has asked the public to email him questions which he hopes to respond to on Thursday. I bet that he and his staff do their darndest given that they need to reach a lot of folks out there fast.

The email address for your questions is: ASKJOE@JOEBIDEN.COM

But here are mine -- and they are not soft balls:

Senator Biden, do you think that the invasion of Iraq was justified given what we know today about all of the reasons made for invading?

If you don't think that this was a just war, where now does the line of American accountability for outcomes in the Middle East end? What kind of war would you as a Democratic president endorse?

What would be the requirements for you to authorize an invasion? How would you approach this responsibility differently than President Bush?

I will email him also and see about posting the response I receive.

It would be a mistake of other contenders to underestimate Biden's political punch.

-- Steve Clemons

(Syrian Ambassador to the United States Imad Moustapha)

Remember that snappy Eminem song that pushed a kind of edgy vulgarity that seemed, still, like it couldn't be deleted or ignored, Without Me?

These lyrics came to mind this morning when I learned that Syria's Ambassador to Washington Imad Moustapha was not among those Arab Ambassadors meeting with Members of Congress today, in about an hour:

Without Me by Eminem

I know that you got a job Ms. Cheney but your husbands heart problem's complicating

So the FCC wont let me be or let me be me so let me see

they tried to shut me down on MTV but it feels so empty without me. . .

Now this looks like a job for me so everybody just follow me

cuz we need a little controversy, cuz it feels so empty without me

Today at 2:30 pm, one hour from now, a "Members Only" meeting will be held with a group of Ambassadors from Middle Eastern states:

Ambassador Turki al-Faisal (Saudi Arabia)

Ambassador Zaid Bin Rad (Jordan)

Ambassador Nabil Fahmy (Egypt)

Ambassador Nabi Sensoy (Turkey)

Ambassador Salem al-Sabah (Kuwait)

Congressmen John Dingell (D-MI), Darrell Issa (R-CA), and Nick Rahall (D-WV) are hosting the meeting in 2322 Rayburn House Office Building.

I am glad that any meeting like this is going on, but seriously, Syria -- which does in fact have a diplomatic mission to the United States -- should be included in this kind of Congressional fact-finding session. I think that all of the invited Ambassadors would in fact agree that Ambassador Moustapha should be there.

Four Senators have recently visited Syria -- including John Kerry (D-MA), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Arlen Specter (R-PA), and Christopher Dodd (D-CT).

While the White House may not want to chat with Syria, there is absolutely nothing keeping Congress from doing so.

Syria is in a completely different situation regarding open communications from Iran which does not have a diplomatic mission operating in Washington.

-- Steve Clemons

I found that this piece in the Economist captures well the fragility of Lebanon's current political order. I recommend reading it.

Here's a section I found compelling:

Such conundrums point up the peculiar make-up and intractability of the opposing forces. Mr Siniora's coalition includes Druze and Christian warlords, much of the business elite and the bulk of Sunni Muslims, including extreme fundamentalist groups that see more menace in Shias than in an alliance with America. Hizbullah, aligned with and armed by Syria and Iran, and doctrinally loyal to the latter, has found allies in old-time leftists, Arab nationalists, Syrian-backed feudal lords and the Peronist-style Christian populists of Michel Aoun, a former general who led a bloody and quixotic revolt against Syrian forces during the civil war.

What is missing is a leader who might rise above the mudslinging. Mr Siniora has valiantly tried to stay calm under pressure and has offered compromises just short of his opponents' maximal demands. But he has failed to project a grand vision that would have to include, for example, fresh elections under a fairer system.

Some weary Lebanese now pin hopes on foreign mediation, with much interest stirred by a flurry of talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the region's main Shia and Sunni powers respectively. But a sense of disillusion is all the more sharply felt because it is less than two years since a massive, peaceful and joyous movement promised a better deal for all, following the exit of Syrian troops from the country.

It's remarkable that we aren't talking to the Syrians. We need to.

There is no way that Lebanese stability can be preserved or a viable Palestinian state established without engaging Syria and moving it out of the international dog-house on a Libya-like track.

It's just nighmarish what a tinder box the Middle East is right now -- and the White House and leadership in Tehran seem to be provoking each other into which side will light a match.

For another interesting take on Lebanon and Hezbollah, go back and read my friend and colleague Nir Rosen's piece from last October, "Hizb Allah, Party of God."

-- Steve Clemons

President Bush probably chuckled when Colin Powell left the room after advising the President about the "Pottery Barn Rule" -- "you break it, you own it." (yes, I know Pottery Barn doesn't make you pay. . .but you get the point. . .)

Bush probably said, "Well, if I break it -- I can get away with it." And that's what he's been trying to do.

What I didn't realize is that the U.S. has been a worse fortress than I imagined to the innocent victims of Iraq who have been displaced by the invasion, occupation, and brewing civil war.

America has only allowed U.S. entry to 466 Iraqis since the beginning of this war -- while the UN reports that nearly 3.4 million have fled Iraq to escape the violence and are refugees practically everywhere except the United States.

Adam Goodheart, Director of the Starr Center for the American Experience at Washington College, and blogger John R. Bohrer have a great piece out this morning in USA Today comparing the refugee crisis of the Vietnam War to the current Iraq mess. It's a terrific piece.

And the zinger is this:

Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey said that her department wishes it could allow as many as 20,000 Iraqis to seek asylum here. Yet she admitted that the difficulty of setting up asylum application centers in Iraq might make it impossible.

Baghdad in January 2007 has still not reached the point of Saigon in April 1975. If the Ford administration could quickly save 130,000 people amid the tidal wave of a full-scale military defeat, surely the Bush administration can save 20,000, or more, from Iraq.

Compared with occupation costs of about $300 million per day, the money Sauerbrey spoke of allotting to the refugee crisis seems laughable. She boasted that in 2006, the U.S. provided $400,000 to support U.N. refugee resettlement efforts, a figure it proposes to increase to $500,000 this year. (If you divide $500,000 by the 3.4 million Iraqi refugees, you get a commitment of about 14 cents per refugee.)

Efforts for increasing the flow of Iraqi immigrants also have been stymied by post-9/11 counterterrorism laws that make it difficult for anyone from the Middle East to enter the USA. That's an especially cruel irony, since the refugees in greatest peril are those who have put their lives on the line for what President Bush has declared is a war against terrorism.

America is spending 14 cents per refugee in this war of choice?

This kind of bugetary ugliness is exactly what makes sure we lose the battle for hearts and minds in the Middle East.

-- Steve Clemons

Ari Fleischer was told "days earlier" than anyone previously knew by Cheney Chief of Staff Scooter Libby that Valerie Plame was not only Joe Wilson's wife but that she worked in the CIA's counter-proliferation division.

Fleisher also indicated that Libby said this info was on "the QT."

Here is a bit of Newsweek journalist Mike Isikoff's take on this huge revelation, via Raw Story:

It is probably the most significant testimony in the case to date. Ari Fleischer testified that he had this lunch with Scooter Libby, passed along the information about Valerie Plame -- few days before the conversation with Tim Russert where Libby says he first learned it. Russert, of course, denies that he ever had such a conversation with Libby.

What's significant is the detail that Fleischer provided. He said that Libby told him not just that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA, but that she worked at the counter-proliferations division. That was a particular detail that is significant to people who know about the CIA. The counter-proliferations division is in the Director of Operations. That's the secret arm of the CIA. It's the most sensitive arm of the CIA. Something that Libby and his boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, very well knew. They knew the CIA like the back of their hands.

In addition, Fleischer said, that he believed that Libby provided her name, Valerie Plame. That's a detail we have not heard before. And of course, Fleischer said "hush, hush," "the QT" and Fleischer took it to be newsworthy -- something that people would want to know.

This will blow open a whole new set of questions about who knew what when. And it undermines Libby's position magnificently.

-- Steve Clemons

Former Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) has settled in at his new fellowship perch at Brown University's Watson Institute -- and is speaking out in the press about America's foreign policy mess nearly as much as former Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton.

Here is what Senator Chafee had to say about President Bush's speech recently:

Reflecting on Bush's speech afterward at the Institute, Chafee noted that: "To me, what the President seems to be ignoring is the recommendation that we have a better relationship with Iraq's neighbors. He didn't mention one word in his speech about a better relationship with the Iranians and the Syrians, in particular, but also Iraq's other neighbors -- the Turks, the Saudis, the Jordanians, and the Kuwaitis."

On a more personal note, Chafee added that "I can't help but deplore the daily horrors coming from what we grew up studying as the cradle of civilization, the Valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, where human beings first learned the rule of law and an alphabet."

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Not entirely. . .but pretty close.

According to a piece that has just appeared in the International Herald Tribune:

Former U.S. envoy to the United Nations John Bolton said in an interview published in France that the United States has "no strategic interest" in a united Iraq. . .

Bolton suggested in the interview that the United States shouldn't necessarily keep Iraq from splitting up. The Bush administration and the Iraqi government have said they don't want Iraq divided.

"The United States has no strategic interest in the fact that there's one Iraq, or three Iraqs," he was quoted as saying. "We have a strategic interest in the fact of ensuring that what emerges is not a state in complete collapse, which could become a refuge for terrorists or a terrorist state."

The Biden-Gelb plan actually posits a central government federation of largely autonomous regions -- rather than Bolton's "3 Iraqs Plan".

However, it is interesting to see that even people like John Bolton who is tapped deeply into the Cheney national security team would be publicly advocating a strategy so at odds with what the President is saying.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Last August, Dan Froomkin published this interesting visual of the real West Wing floor plan -- and a roster of who sits most closely to the President of the United States on a daily basis.

Influencing the President is what much of us in the policy business try to do -- legally of course and according to rules requiring transparency and such. I don't have much to add right now, but I thought that the graphic depiction of what the immediate network around the Oval Office looks like is interesting.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Ahmed Chalabi has surfaced after a long period of silence in Iraq. He appeared at a news conference to announce that some of those "purged" from government positions have been allowed back into Iraqi government staff jobs. This is a couple of years too late in my view -- but it's a start.

What is odd is that Chalabi was a top tier advocate of extreme de-Baathification. Her is the clip:

Also on Wednesday, Ahmed Chalabi, the former exile who helped the United States build the case for invading Iraq and who heads a committee on de-Baathification, appeared at a rare outdoor news conference in the Green Zone to announce that more than 700 Baathists have returned to their old government jobs. Smiling grandly behind a bank of television microphones as bombs and gunfire interrupted his speech, Chalabi said the government's roster of rehired workers will continue to grow.

In Japan, most of the early beneficiaries of an extensive purge against Japanese war-related leaders in business, government, education, and other sectors of Japanese society were Communists and Socialists. After the very early outlines of the coming Cold War became evident, John Foster Dulles and others directed the purge authorizations at these far-left political players in Japan and actually resurrected many of Japan's top tier conservatives, some of whom had served in senior Japanese government positions.

The difference we are seeing between the Japanese example and Iraq is that this is "too little, too late." One can't easily back up and re-brand purged Baathists and re-inject them into a society and political system that has already organized to prevent their return.

But Chalabi -- who is a great, perhaps the greatest, villain of the Iraq War -- impresses this blogger with his ability to attempt reinvention.

But we are watching and paying attention. Ahmed Chalabi will never have a stress-free trip to Washington, D.C. again for what he has helped to do both America and Iraq.

-- Steve Clemons

Congratulations to Charles Ferguson and Alex Gibney -- whose extraordinary important new film, No End in Sight was among those recognized with a prize at the closing festivities of the Sundance Film Festival.

From the release:

The Documentary Jury presented a Special Jury Prize to NO END IN SIGHT, directed by Charles Ferguson, "in recognition of the film as timely work that clearly illuminates the misguided policy decisions that have led to the catastrophic quagmire of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq."

This film is important to see and folks who have seen it are raving about it. It includes important new footage of interviews with Jay Garner, Richard Armitage, Lawrence Wilkerson and others on how America stumbled and blundered into "a war of choice" that has cost the nation so much and destabilized forces that threaten to destabilize the global equilibrium for a long time.

As the production process for this film was underway, I had several discussions with Charles Ferguson and Alex Gibney who were hopeful to including former State Department Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson -- who was very pleased to be included in the documentary. I was pleased to play a modest role as bridge to an important voice who saw a lot of the inside Bush administration action as we built up to the Iraq invasion.

But what impressed me with Ferguson was that he told me he would do whatever it took to bring this story to the American public.

Charles H. Ferguson is a broadband policy genius who also happened to make some money in the real world founding the internet firm Vermeer which was later sold to Microsoft for some big dollars. He hired top talent like Alex Gibney who is a prize-winning documentary producer and brought together an array of folks who have exposed the decision making that led us into this catastrophic mess. Ferguson has put his own wealth and prestige on the line to document important history for Americans -- and this is a winner for him and the country.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

A close friend of mine, Nobuo Tanaka, is the Executive Director-elect of the International Energy Agency. I didn't know much about the agency until I flipped through its website and found quite a number of useful resources on global energy use and climate change related data.

I'll be meeting him tonight for dinner in Washington and will pass on what I learn about the agency's role on the energy/climate change policy front. Perhaps others want to post comments on what they know of the IEA and its international role.

For those who follow internal politics of the Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry in Japan, Nobuo Tanaka's ascendancy to this position -- even though it is outside the Japanese government -- is a clear win for the modernist/reformist faction inside METI, which had lost many of its champions. There are still serious struggles inside the Ministry over both the broad policy questions of economic reform in Japan as well as reform of the bureaucracy they work in. Tanaka is one of the few willing to stir things up and to shake up the internal dynamics at METI.

When at the METI think tank, the Research Institute of Economy Trade and Industry, Tanaka borrowed not only the "brown bag lunch" format of meetings I was hosting at the New America Foundation -- and was an early fan of our institution -- but he brought the "free-wheeling style" of these BBLs to Tokyo. When he departed for the OECD, however, the anti-reform METI "habatsu" (faction) undermined the program by adding layers of protocol and political correctness to the environment. The seminars are still going on, but the conservatization of topics and style has pretty much stifled them.

He's a very good guy. It will be interesting to see what he does at and to the International Energy Agency.

-- Steve Clemons

The Gulf States with Saudi Arabia in the lead are scrambling to figure out what to do if American power in the Middle East continues to dissipate. One of the tools in their tool kit is to quietly over-supply crude oil into the global market and knock prices down.

This would not only make Iran worry about its income shortfalls and the domestic political impact of that -- but also takes some of the flamboyance out of Russian and Venezuelan behavior lately.

The Saudis are now publicly talking about maintaining oil at $50/barrel. However, other Gulf region strategists tell me that they think that the real target is $40.

Bad for Iran. Bad for Russia. Good for American SUV drivers. Bad for the enviros and climate change activists -- which is ultimately bad for life on this planet.

Given Bush's authorization to troops to kill Iranians in Iraq (and perhaps a Presidential "finding" to kill Iranians in Iran), dropping the price of oil may come too late to affect the behavior either of Iran or the U.S.

-- Steve Clemons

A friend sent me this interesting Los Angeles Times article on Barack Obama's ability to bridge right and left when he ascended to the editorship of the Harvard Law Review.

But then I went to Obama's pre-campaign site and then looked at Hillary's pre-campaign site. These are technically "exploratory committee" websites.

Hillary's is stunning in its complexity and seamlessness. She clearly has hired top talent to dominate much of the web-based political game.

Obama has a choice it seems to me. He could play the "anti-slick" card and try to do what McCain did in 2000 with a bus and a straight-talk-express-style, low frills campaign, or he needs to out-slick Hillary.

Obama, even when he's sincere and connecting with folks, has a slickness in his DNA that is going to make a grunge-style campaign look out of place.

He's probably got to take the slick route -- and that means he better start spending money now to colonize a lot of the web space, political donors and activists, and just get with it.

Just a couple of clicks through his website leaves me concerned.

-- Steve Clemons

(Bushehr Nuclear Reactor facility)

Over the last two years, Iran has played a shrewd diplomatic hand. It has negotiated with the Europeans and continued to do business deals with China and Russia. It has not done as much harm as it might have done inside Iraq, or even as a key sponsor of Hezbollah and Hamas.

While it's not comfortable for critics of Iran to hear this, Iran could have been a far worse actor on the international stage than it has been. There are real limits to this logic, but the key question is whether Iran's behavior can be steered away from being an international trouble-maker bent on exclusive domination of the Middle East, or whether Iran, America, and other key players are going to be drawn into what could evolve into a world war that alters the geopolitical terrain permanently.

Iran is now competing with George Bush as a champion of counter-productive, idiotic moves that undermine any international acceptance and legitimacy of its position.

Iran is now calling for the removal of the UN's top Iran-focused nuclear inspector, Chris Charlier, and has banned 38 other UN inspectors from entering the country.

What should America's next move be?

George Bush and Condi Rice need to embrace a diplomatic offensive now -- and get on a plane to Moscow and Beijing. Bring Russia and China into this and make them stakeholders in this game. They can't tolerate what Iran is doing -- but currently are free-riding on America being the chief interlocutor (without even having real negotiations).

Iran has made a key mistake here -- but only if smart strategists here in Washington and around the world quickly rally around this and demonstrate to Iran that the price to be paid for flipping off the United Nations weapons inspectors -- winners of the Nobel Peace Prize -- is not economic sanctions or a fleet of B-2 bombers, but serious brow-beating, scolding, and humiliation at the highest levels from players like Hu Jintao and Vladimir Putin.

That would be the smart move.

-- Steve Clemons

I haven't posted a follow up piece on the broader parts of the President's State of the Union Address -- beyond this foreign policy essay -- and I haven't posted on Senator Chuck Hagel's impressive and courageous leadership on the Iraq War Resolution this week, as well as Senator Biden's leadership -- because I have just been seriously depressed and distracted by an encounter I had the night of the State of the Union speech.

We all have personal stories. We know people who are sick, who die, who need a helping hand. But in Washington, we deal with the macro-dimensions of policy and we rarely think about the individuals involved. That's why I don't think Barbara Boxer was out of line in any way at all by admitting that both she and Condi Rice were a step removed from the real costs and consequences of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the President does get to "point up at the gallery" in the Chamber of the House of Representatives on the night of the State of the Union address and point to heroes who did something significant and who can possibly inspire others. Hillary Clinton can pick names and questions from tens of thousands she received in her "Conversations with Americans" and "humanize" an interaction that is nonetheless symbolic and can't really be more than a macro-level encounter with the millions of people who have to consider voting for her or someone else.

But on the night of the President's State of the Union, I met a young man whose situation is probably like many Americans -- too many -- and whose story needs to be revealed and considered.

Like some the President noted Wednesday night, this young man really deserves to be pointed to in a gallery in the House of Representatives or Senate.

In fact, Speaker Pelosi or Senator Reid should invite this young man to sit in the Gallery during a Congressional Session -- and they should speak to him, recognize the burdens he is carrying on behalf of his family and how the environment for working families in this country is hell for some. His story is tragic, and yet this kid is a hero in my mind for what he is doing -- and someone, or many of us, should be trying to help him and others like him.

So, I'm going to point at the Gallery, my own gallery, for a moment -- and I hope that Speaker Pelosi or Majority Leader Reid consider my proposal about this guy and his situation, or others like him.

Until they do offer to invite him to the House or Senate, I am going to keep his identity concealed as far as the blog goes, but if they do want to do something extraordinary for an impressive person then I will reveal who he is in some way that does not damage his current work situation.

I do want people to help him.

I attended Wednesday night a quite splashy State of the Union pre-party sponsored by the Atlantic Monthly. One interesting thing I noticed about the attendees this year as opposed to earlier years is that the Republicans were there in force. John Boehner and Roy Blunt hovered a long time in the spectacular reception foyer of the Thomas Jefferson Building. Some Dems were there -- but last year, there were many more. An indication of change.

At 7:30 pm, Al Jazeera had arranged for me to be picked up by a town car and driven to their studio so that I could do an evening of political commentary, along with a Republican party strategist, on the State of the Union. But when I got outside, the Capitol had become like the Green Zone in Baghdad with a curfew.

Police were everywhere. There was absolutely no vehicle traffic around the entire Congressional complex, including the Capitol and all of the House and Senate office buildings. So, I had to walk from the Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building to Louisiana and D Streets -- pretty far for a guy who had thrown his back over the weekend.

By the time I got there, a military or police guy dressed in black with an M-16 was seriously hassling the driver of the car I was supposed to get into -- and the fact that he was a 22 year old Afghan-American sent off a number of red flags that made the security folks think there was something was up. They searched him, made him open the trunk and searched the car as he waited for me -- but the guy tenaciously waited until I got there and then drove me to the studio at 16th & K.

I do a lot of TV work, more lately, and most of the studios -- CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and Al Jazeera -- send town cars to drive their talking head talent to and from their offices or homes. I know many of the drivers, and most of them are middle-aged, know the city unbelievably well, and have an odd kind of confidence that comes from driving around people like James Woolsey, Mike Isikoff, Richard Perle and others and eavesdropping discreetly on their cell phone calls that they make in the car. These drivers know a lot -- and are great sources of interesting gossip.

This kid was new, and it was obvious. This is also the first time that he had had an encounter with an M-16 carrying Capitol policeman who didn't do anything inappropriate perhaps but who probably thought that a young, clean cut guy who has dark Middle Eastern/South Asian features parking a black town car near the Capitol on State of the Union night was exactly what he was trained to disrupt.

I talk to people -- all sorts of folks. It's how I learn things, particularly people who work on the periphery and sometimes right in the chambers of powerful political players. But I just wanted to calm this guy down and help him get me to the studio as I was already late.

I asked him questions -- and as I asked more, our exchange got quickly beyond the bland, impersonal banter of most town car talk. I want to emphasize that this young man did not set out to reveal his personal story to me. I want his employers to know -- in case they read this -- that he was the epitome of a professional. I pushed him, tactfully, to answer my line of questions -- some of which I sort of boldly put to him and which perhaps because of his youth and inexperience he answered honestly and without guile or shading.

This young man is a 22 year old American of Afghan descent, born and raised in Fairfax, Virginia. He is sharp-looking and personable, but innocent of politics and how the sharks and barracudas of Washington that he's driving around really operate.

He has been driving for just two months and has been logging 100 to 120 hours a week. He starts driving at about 11 am, or earlier and works until 4 am in the morning, every day of the week.

There are only 168 hours in a week, and I validated by drivers at the town car service today that he is in fact working the number of hours he reported.

What he is doing is unsustainable, and as I pressed him on why he seemed to be engaged in this desperate-sounding work pace, his voice quivered and told me that he had to support his family because his father and mother had both become ill.

He was the kind of guy who just doesn't talk much, but it was clear that he wasn't going to refuse to answer my questions -- and I pried, perhaps inappropriately.

His 43-year old father had male breast cancer which has now evolved into bone cancer. His father was some kind of techician or engineer, and his father had no health insurance. His mother also has some kind of throat ailment that he could not define for me very well, but she is also unable to work.

He has three younger sisters -- and after his father fell ill, this driver had to withdraw from the ITT Technical Institute where he was two semesters away from getting an MIS degree (Management Information Systems) in business technology. The college tried to work with him given the tragic nature of what has happened to his father and organize a morning set of course that he could work through at 8 am, but he could not do it because he was getting just no sleep.

Wow. This is the nicest young man you could imagine -- born in this county in an immigrant family that has worked hard to get ahead -- and like any family, or perhaps many families, something unexpected has torpedoes the family's ability to stay afloat. I felt that I could sense how close his family was because it was clear to me that this person was not yet street-smart, had been sheltered by close parents and family and now was just trying to figure out things in a world that was moving very fast, and in which he felt like he was losing his grip.

Knowing that the President was going to address health care issues that very night, I asked if his dad had gone right away to get treated when he knew he was ill with the first round of health care. He responded that his dad avoided going because he didn't have health care but that also tried at various times to go anyway -- and that the doctors didn't want to see him or treat him because he had no coverage.

He had no coverage. The doctors did not want to treat him.

The breast cancer worsened and I think (as I don't know health patterns of this sort well) metastasized into bone cancer.

The driver's father is now receiving some kind of chemotherapy, but to me -- the situation sounds bleak.

As he drove me down K Street, he said that he had driven a couple of people who knew about these health realities and asked them what he might do that he wasn't doing, and as he told me that a couple had said that the chances for his father were dim, and that his dad "probably wouldn't make it," tears welled up in this kid's eyes.

And then I had to go hear the President talk about health care and that he was going to create a new category of deductions for the poor to deduct some health insurance costs from their taxes:

And so tonight, I propose two new initiatives to help more Americans afford their own insurance. First, I propose a standard t