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 tax deduction for health insurance that will be like the standard tax deduction for dependents.

Families with health insurance will pay no income on payroll tax -- or payroll taxes on $15,000 of their income. Single Americans with health insurance will pay no income or payroll taxes on $7,500 of their income. With this reform, more than 100 million men, women, and children who are now covered by employer-provided insurance will benefit from lower tax bills.

At the same time, this reform will level the playing field for those who do not get health insurance through their job. For Americans who now purchase health insurance on their own, this proposal would mean a substantial tax savings -- $4,500 for a family of four making $60,000 a year. And for the millions of other Americans who have no health insurance at all, this deduction would help put a basic private health insurance plan within their reach. Changing the tax code is a vital and necessary step to making health care affordable for more Americans. (Applause.)

My second proposal is to help the states that are coming up with innovative ways to cover the uninsured. States that make basic private health insurance available to all their citizens should receive federal funds to help them provide this coverage to the poor and the sick. I have asked the Secretary of Health and Human Services to work with Congress to take existing federal funds and use them to create "Affordable Choices" grants. These grants would give our nation's governors more money and more flexibility to get private health insurance to those most in need.

I'm not going to take a pot shot at the President's plan and say that it's just not fixing the problems of the guy I met Wednesday night. The President or anyone working at the highest level of political discourse in health care can't get lost in the weeds of individual problems.

But i was hearing and looking at a weed that just needs some kind of attention.

And when I heard the President point into the Gallery -- as all Presidents do -- to salute a guy who risked his life for someone in the New York subway, or made a lot of money as an entrepreneur working in child education products, or threw himself into harm's way in a gun fight to protect someone and kept fighting despite some serious wounds -- I think that this young town car driver I met is just as much a hero in trying to take on something at 22 years of age -- no degree -- and work an insane number of hours that very few of us watching the President or sitting in the Congressional Chamber or enjoying our crab dip and pork fiesta at the State of the Union/Atlantic Monthly pre-party gala could handle.

This kid needs help or he's going to collapse. And there are no doubt many others out there like him who need help too. We have to get health care realities changed in this country -- and what the President suggests just does not do it. But I'll leave that policy debate for another day.

This kid needs a break from someone with resources. He needs to finish his last two semesters at ITT and to do that he either needs an offset from a job that is more rational that helps him pay the costs for his family and allow the school to again put together the arrangement so that he can both manage work and his courses.

He is not well-trained, and he doesn't have much experience -- but he really does need to be given a chance by someone. Interview him if you are in the area and you have something a sharp, young guy without a degree but who seems hard-working, dependable and trainable might be able to do.

Another way to help him for those well-heeled types who are constantly in town cars in Washington, DC is to request his car which is encouraged. I will convey his "driver number" and the name of the car to credible people who contact me via email if they wish to help him. The drivers of these cars receive about 30% of the income and the limo service from which they rent the cars for their shifts take about 70%. Just something to know about.

My email address is steve@thewashingtonnote.com.

Another way to help this kid is to contribute to him. I don't know any slick ways to do that. But people can send him checks if they like -- and I would be happy to provide contact information so that can be done. This would not be a deductible charity. It's just helping someone out with some funds to offset his time so that he can finish his school.

There is no way that this young man can make his situation work the way he is going.

Folks can send money to "The Washington Note/Qaiss Fund" if you like at:

The Washington Note

1630 Connecticut Avenue, NW, 7th Floor

Washington, DC 20009

I will then just transfer these funds to him. And I guess paypal can work as well -- but I would need donors to specify in their paypal request that the donation was intended for this young man and his family. Just label it "Qaiss".

I rarely do this. It feels awkward now. I'm going to post this in a couple of places including my own blog, Huffington Post, and TPM Cafe.

And as I said, I know this is long, rambling, and a "pointing at the Gallery" exercise. But this guy -- and others -- deserve to be pointed to and supported. I really was inspired by this young man's commitment to his family and his selflessness.

What I know though is that he just can't survive his situation he's in, and he and his family will be in even worse dire circumstances than they are now when he collapses.

And at the root of this is a family who has and had no health care. Just like millions of others, and increasingly more each year.

-- Steve Clemons

President Bush 41 has given a number of speeches this past year -- one recently at the Germany Embassy -- but in lots of other places where he goes out of his way to praise the team of people he had around him, particularly Brent Scowcroft, James Baker, and a few others.

He says that these people fought for their policy views freely and openly around him and compelled him to think through every last option and to consider the costs, consequences, and opportunities behind every national security action and foreign policy decision. the elder Bush embraced complexity and understood that decisions could not be made in a vacuum and that there were linkages to be considered between things.

It's one of the reasons why George W. Bush's father decided not to topple Saddam and invade Iraq after the first Gulf War.

This decision-making discipline and approach seems to be a stark contrast to what we are seeing today among Bush 43's retainers where self-censorship is rampant and complex decisionmaking isn't allowed in the door.

This week I posed a set of questions to Senator Hillary Clinton who began her webcast "Conversations with Americans" earlier this week. I think that the format she chose to have an exchange with Americans about tough issues was brilliant -- and showed what a different "model" for a State of the Union Address might one day look like.

Senator Clinton answered one of my questions about whether she wanted to have staff that challenged her views or who essentially became believers in her infallibility -- something that we have seen too much of under President Bush 43.

Here is the exchange:

CRYSTAL PATTERSON: We are going to take a break from the live questions to respond to Steve Clemons who posted the following on the Huffington Post blog. Would you be the kind of president who gave your staff license to challenge you, to force consideration of every last policy action, to put bad news before good news? Or do you like your team to validate your views and not challenge you?

HILLARY CLINTON: Steve, I think you can ask anybody who works for me that I like people who challenge me. I like people with expertise and experience and strong opinions. Now, I may push back because I also have my opinions, but I want that kind of give and take and debate. I don't think any one person -- and certainly no president in these difficult and complex times -- have all the answers. And I don't think you find answers from an ideological starting point. I believe in looking at the facts and the evidence, trying to understand what you're trying to achieve in terms of the values that you have and the objectives that you're setting forth in order to get results.

What we've seen in the last six years is exactly the opposite. It is as though there is a little echo chamber where everybody is saying the same thing where the president, from what we've been told, is rarely challenged or confronted. That is not the kind of office that I run today. That is certainly not the kind of White House that I would want.

Another thing, I would like to get a broad cross-section of people. I don't want people who already agree with me. I want honest, experienced, hard-working patriotic people who want to be part of a team, the American team, in order to understand what we have to do to meet the challenges of today.

So I hope that if you ever run across anybody who works for me, you will probably hear that I have got high standards because there is a lot at stake. I want people to work to the best of their ability and I want them to be part of a team, even if the other members of the team disagree. I think through that process you can come to better conclusions.

And I'm always open to new evidence, new ways of looking at things, asking those hard questions about the direction we're headed. I think it leads to better decision-making. And sometimes it is a little messy because you're trying to get to a point after hearing all sides and you want to keep searching for the very best outcome, the consensus that's going to stand the test. But that, to me, is a better way of making decisions than this kind of top-down, intimidatory style where you have to tell them what they want to hear. That's been a disaster and I certainly hope we can get beyond that.

These conversations she's been having are a great way to cover lots of ground with folks and have what appears to be an interactive process.

I articulated some of my own policy differences with Senator Clinton in my first post about these conversations -- but I do think that the model she is using is highly effective, and I was thrilled actually that she answered one of the questions I pushed her way.

-- Steve Clemons

This was a nice surprise yesterday.

The Washington Note received a terrific write-up in the new Hill newspaper, Politico that has hired so many high-powered DC political writers away from the Washington Post and other publications -- including John Harris and Jim VandeHei.

Here is a fun excerpt:

"The Washington Note is one of the better blogs coming out of the Capital right now," e-mailed Helene Cooper, who covers the State Department for The New York Times. "Steve has been first to report a number of scoops, particularly on the diplomatic beat, where he seems to know just about everybody."

The blog started getting hits in early 2005 when President Bush nominated Bolton -- a move Clemons called everything but boneheaded.

"You can't forgive President Bush for nominating John Bolton when John Bolton is so hostile towards alliances," said Clemons, describing the former ambassador as a "turbo-charged Jesse Helms.''

And he urged readers to telephone Sen. Dick Lugar, the Indiana Republican who was then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. More than 3,000 did, and the senator postponed what had appeared to be a rushed hearing.

"All the people reading my blog looked at this as a big victory,'' explained Clemons. "Nobody had won against President Bush on any foreign policy issue. I mean even a meeting date. It was just remarkable.''

Many of Clemons' blog readers, though, are adoring fans.

"He's kind of like obsessed with Bolton,'' said Eli Lake, a reporter for The New York Sun whom Clemons calls his "intellectual opponent.''

Lake, who covers international security, said that during the Bolton issue he checked Clemons' blog daily, labeling it "the headquarters of the lynch Bolton central command."

Still, the self-described "foreign policy nerd" said TheWashingtonNote.com is on his list of "political blog favorites.''

And Lake isn't the only one taking note. At a Senate hearing on Bolton, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., congratulated Clemons on his online success.

Clemons even succeeded in getting Senate Democratic Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., to release a statement saying, "John Bolton is not the diplomat for the job. Americans deserve someone they can be proud of acting in this capacity."

More later -- but for those immediately around Dupont Circle in Washington, come join me for a lunch discussion in one hour (at 12:30 pm) (and we are providing the lunch -- very rare) at the New America Foundation with the Chair for Foreign Policy of the Free Democratic Party in Germany, Werner Hoyer, who will be discussing with me and others whether given what we are seeing at play in the Middle East and the missteps of the U.S., whether the "West" is now in precipitous decline.

-- Steve Clemons

Keith Ellison (D-MN-5) is the first Muslim Member of the U.S. House of Representatives -- and last night, I was impressed with some commentary he offered on the Al Jazeera English Satellite Channel. Ellison spoke level-headedly about American national interests and what needed to be done to get this country's foreign policy portfolio back in shape. (I imagine he gave interviews for CNN, MSNBC, Fox, CBS, ABC as well -- I just happened to be in Al Jazeera's studio.)

I am pretty easy-going on religious matters as long as they don't undermine tolerance and don't muck up the kind of secularism that has made this country work and which has offered religiously neutral space for many different political, ethnic, cultural, and religious complexions to fit together -- though it has been and continues to be a rocky process.

But I just got a copy of this interesting invitation from "Covenant Alliances" for a reception in the Rayburn House Office Building on February 14, 2007 to celebrate the newly established "Congressional Israel Allies Caucus of the United States Congress" and to "discuss the future direction of this body in cooperation with the Knesset Christian Allies Caucus of the Israeli Parliament."

OK. . .I know this is perhaps unfair, but aren't we pretty well stacked on Israel caucuses and short with the broader Arab region? What about a caucus that includes the Arab states and Israel -- tough I know, but it would be a good goal for the Congressmen chairing these groups.

I think that Congressional exchanges are important -- and even exchanges that cluster conservatives and liberals or libertarians, even across lines of religion and ethnicity. But I'm not a Black-American and I've been invited to Black Caucus meetings. I'm not Jewish but I have been invited to numerous Jewish-American meetings and am invited each year to AIPAC's annual conference.

But I wonder if Keith Ellison was invited to this gathering? I have tried to call "Covenant Alliances" and have not been able to connect by phone with their operation.

I wonder if they would invite our Muslim nominee to serve as US Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad?

I hope they would -- and I hope Ellison and Khalilzad would consider attending because these sorts of clusters with pretty loaded political agendas (see below) should be permeable to all Americans and certainly all Members of Congress.

Congressmen Dave Weldon, MD (R-FL) and Eliot Engel (D-NY) co-chair this new caucus and banded together in August 2006 for a statement of strong support for Israel in light of Hezbollah's incursion into Israel.

I have briefly met both of these Congressmen and like both generally from the very limited encounters I have had and was largely unaware of their deep involvement in this sort of cross-religions bridge-building. I don't want to criticize them for what they are doing, but I do want to provide some unsolicited counsel.

These are tough times for the U.S. in the world, and it's important that bridgebuilding on religious grounds -- which can be a good thing -- ought to be inclusive of others as well -- not exclusive. This kind of activity comes awfully close to questions about inappropriately mixing affairs of church and state, at least in my book.

But when it comes to the tough deal-making ahead on establishing a viable Palestinian state, there is going to be a need for tough-minded negotiations where parties involved give and take to create something stable, workable, and acceptable to the majority in Israel and Palestine.

These three pillars of the Covenant Alliances organization don't seem to provide the kind of political flexibility that comes near to what will be needed in the coming negotiations:

1. In accordance with the provisions of the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 enacted by the U.S. Congress, build a new embassy in Jerusalem within two years, in acknowledgment of the eternal truth that an undivided Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, the homeland of the Jewish people.

2. Vigorously work for the resettlement of the Palestinian refugees to the lands of their Arab kinsmen in order to rescue them from the purgatory of refugee status and restore to them the hope of a better future.

3. Demand the Palestinian Authority disarm the terrorists in their midst, and halt all violence, propaganda, and incitement against the people of Israel, failing which the Oslo Agreements shall be null and void.

Point two and three I get -- though I don't believe that this crowd can declare any international agreement 'null and void', but the first is really loaded and simply won't work. There must be some kind of joint administration. There has been before, and there needs to be again.

Congrssman Keith Ellison really ought to drop by -- just to make sure that there is a "big tent" approach to our problems.

-- Steve Clemons

The National Interest Online asked for a quick response from me about the foreign policy dimensions of President Bush's State of the Union address last night.

Here is a short article, "Bush's Kitchen Sink Address" that was published this morning. I will have a longer and more complete take on the President's speech up here shortly.

Here are some other pieces in the set -- and there should be more posted during the day -- Nikolas Gvosdev, "A Speech for 2002"; Paul Saunders, "Hot Air on Energy"; and Alexis Debat, "Too Much Music".

I hope to see the reactions of Joe Biden, William Odom, Ali Allawi and others up there in a bit.

-- Steve Clemons

Just in from the White House media team:

The 2007 State of the Union Policy Initiatives book including all of the State of the Union fact sheets is now available here in pdf form.

The State of the Union fact sheets are also available individually by topic in HTML format:

OVERVIEW FACT SHEET: The 2007 State Of The Union Address

ENERGY: Twenty In Ten: Strengthening America's Energy Security

HEALTH CARE: Affordable, Accessible, And Flexible Health Coverage

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND: Building On Results: A Blueprint For Strengthening NCLB

IMMIGRATION: President Bush's Plan For Comprehensive Immigration Reform

HIV/AIDS: Leading The Worldwide Fight Against HIV/AIDS

MALARIA: The President's Malaria Initiative Is Saving Lives

STRENGTHENING OUR MILITARY: Strengthening Our Military

SPENDING REFORMS: Reforms To Spend Tax Dollars Wisely

This material should be useful to those who want to dig deeper into the detail of the President's plans.

-- Steve Clemons

Early tomorrow morning, National Interest Online will feature an interesting line-up of fast action respondents to the foreign policy dimensions of the President's speech tonight.

The line-up thus far is:

Ali Allawi, former Iraqi Minister of Defense

Senator Joseph Biden, Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee

General William Odom, former Director, National Security Agency

Nikolas K. Gvosdev, Editor, The National Interest

Alexis Debat, Senior Fellow, Nixon Center and counter-terrorism consultant, ABC News

Geoffrey Kemp, Director/Regional Strategic Programs, Nixon Center and former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan for the Middle East, National Security Council

Steven Clemons, Director, American Strategy Program, New America Foundation and publisher, TheWashingtonNote.com

Each of these folks -- including this blogger -- is committed to a 'to the point' 200-word missive by 8 am tomorrow morning.

-- Steve Clemons

Wow. This just from MSNBC news alert:

WASHINGTON -- Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald used his opening statement in the CIA leak trial Tuesday to allege that Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff lied about Cheney's early involvement in the disclosure of a spy's identity.

Fitzgerald said Cheney told his chief of staff, "Scooter" Libby, in 2003 that the wife of Iraq critic and former ambassador Joseph Wilson worked for the CIA, and that Libby spread that information to reporters. When that information got out, it triggered a federal investigation.

"But when the FBI and grand jury asked about what the defendant did," Fitzgerald said, "he made up a story."

Fitzgerald also alleged that Libby in September 2003 "wiped out" a Cheney note just before Libby's first FBI interview when he said he learned about Wilson and his wife, CIA operative Valerie Plame, from reporters, not the vice president.

It was not clear if Fitzgerald meant that an attempt was made to destroy the note or that Libby had forgotten about it. In any case, the note was recovered and is part of the evidence.

During last year's State of the Union address, President Bush had newly confirmed Supreme Court Associate Justice Sam Alito smiling in the front row. Alito's presence was an ornament showing that Bush was back and had shaken off Democratic party resistance.

Tonight, Cheney won't be an ornament of success -- but rather a ball and chain dragging him down and reminding Americans about Iraq, the Valerie Plame affair, cherry-picking of intelligence, and official duplicity and corruption.

Wow. Patrick Fitzgerald is back.

-- Steve Clemons

Last night, I watched Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's first "Conversation" with Americans over the internet. There are three more sessions -- one tonight at 7 pm just before the President's State of the Union address (ouch!) and then on January 23rd and 24th, all 30 minutes long.

I have to admit that while I could quibble with some of the substance of her remarks, the whole thing just blew me away.

Hillary Clinton has just created the new model for the State of the Union address -- and made the format we are going to see tonight look as stiff, unimpressive, and anachronistic as an old vacuum tube television.

Preempting President Bush, Clinton was able last night to touch on her concerns about the President's absence of clear-headed strategy in Iraq and still underscore her security concerns about al Qaeda and Iran; talk about New Orleans and what she would do to help get that city kick-started again; address America's energy dependency problems with a massive new effort she has titled a "Strategic Energy Fund" as well as comment on other alternatives such as "all kinds of ethanol," hydrogen, and the like. She talke about education, health care, trying to get ahead in a convulsive, unkind, and turbo-charged economy that is harsh on those at the lower end of the economic ladder.

Hillary told someone to "keep dreaming big dreams" and to "have hope". She endorsed talking to "bad guys" abroad and working through these problems rather than trying to act like they aren't there. Global warming and climate change got a lot of attention from her. She talked about shoring up America's shoddy and dilapidated alliances abroad.

She even said that her three favorite movies were Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, and Out of Africa. She did all of this in less than 30 minutes and even asked someone in upstate New York to work on her campaign.

She, in essence, gave a State of the Union address to the nation in a novel new style that was "interactive".

President Bush tonight is going to go through exactly the same routine that Presidents have followed nearly every year and strut, and glad-hand, smile, wave, at Members of Congress -- our representatives -- and then proceed to give Americans his read of what has gone right and wrong in America's portfolio of challenges.

Senator James Webb will get to respond after -- but that's it! Well, there will be pundits out there offering views on the President's remark and the Democratic Party response. But President Bush won't respond to Webb; no one will respond to the pundits (I'll be doing coverage tonight for a couple of networks).

I lost count but Hillary dealt with a good dozen or so questions, fielded by a smart looking young lady who was drawn into the camera's view now and then to give us the idea that she was randomly picking these questions as they popped over the internet wire. Excuse me if I am a bit skeptical about that; nothing happens randomly -- well few things -- in this kind of high-octane politicking.

Nonetheless, it was impressive.

What was not impressive was that while Hillary Clinton bemoaned our situation in Iraq and told Americans that we still have a lot to worry about from a reconstituting al Qaeda network and from Iran and its nuclear weapons pretensions, she didn't really give us any ideas how to move forward. While she embraced diplomacy and talking to bad guys, she should have stated her commitment to the kind of "New Diplomatic Offensive" that the Baker-Hamilton Study Group recommended in the Middle East.

While mentioning Israel specifically as a potential victim of Iran's growing power in the region, she should have mentioned moderate Sunni regimes that also could be at risk. She had an opportunity to change the narrative that broad progress in the Middle East and the establishment of a "new equilibrium of interests" does not have to mean a net zero-sum loss for Israel. She stayed on the same old foreign policy/national security grooves that the President is on -- and many others who haven't thought deeply about how to leap frog over the current mess.

She could have read one of Senator Hagel's recent speeches to understand that we can't afford a false choice in our relations with Arab states and Israel. She failed to articulate that -- and she didn't leave open the door that we may in fact be misreading the situation with Iran and its nuclear weapons ambitions. I happen to be one that thinks that Iran is on a long-term nuclear weapons course unless we collectively agree to modify that course, involving Iran's agreement. But my mind is open on that and given our past intelligence failures on this front, we should maintain humility in our prescriptions.

I tried to lob three questions at Senator Clinton:

1. Who would she appoint to the United Nations as our Ambassador? or what kind of person would she select to represent American interests at the UN? Her fellow Senator from New York Chuck Schumer was just fine with John Bolton? Would she be?

2. Would she be the kind of President who gave her staff license to challenge her? to force consideration of every last policy option? to put bad news before good news? Or does she like her team to validate her views and not challenge her? How would she deal with Brent Scowcroft-style or Lawrence Wilkerson-style public commentary differently than President Bush has?

3. What does she think about Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and their political leadership. Should we be engineering regime change and democractic political reform in these states as a high priority? or would she opt for stability in the near to mid term and reform/democratization later?

None of my questions got picked up -- but I hope that they might still be in the queue for tonight.

Regrettably, I will have to record her performance this evening as I will be up at the Library of Congress for the annual "State of the Union" bash that the Atlantic Monthly throws with lots of Members strolling through before they head over to the U.S. Capitol.

While they go to mingle, shake hands, and either sit quietly or vociferously applaud President Bush's spin on the past year, I'll be offering some of my own views on the President's address compared to the style and substance of Hillary's presentation last night.

-- Steve Clemons

(Senator Prescott Bush -- father of President George H.W. Bush; grandfather of President George W. Bush and Governor Jeb Bush)

Let's just say that in 1992, you or someone you know and care about was eight years old. Although my first political memory occurred when I was between four and five years old, I think most kids start remembering presidents when they are eight -- but that's just a guess.

Given current trends in the Bush-Clinton dynastic rivalries, we could conceivably see four and a half decades of political memory spread between just two families.

If Hillary Clinton won the next presidential challenge and held the White House for two terms, that would take us quite a number of decades of Bush-Clinton all on its own. But on Sunday in the Washington Post, S.V. Date speculates in "What Would Jeb Do?" that 43's brother and 41's son could run in 2016, 2012, or even this next time in 2008.

Let's chart this out:

8 years -- Age at first "Political Memory" (1980-1988)

4 years -- George H.W. Bush administration (1989-1992)

8 years -- Bill Clinton administration (1993-2000)

8 years -- George W. Bush administration (2001-2008)

8 years -- Hillary Rodham Clinton administration (2009-2016) -- potentially

8 years -- Jeb Bush administration (2017-2024) -- potentially

I think that the "dynasty" question is something that the Clinton campaign must have already prepared well in advance to answer -- because people in three coffee shops I ventured into today were buzzing about this exact issue. They don't like dynasties.

But the fact is, America has always had them -- and there is a bit of contradiction in despising familial succession and then looking at what Americans have produced in their electoral history. A good book about this is Stephen Hess's America's Political Dynasties.

Another DC political anecdote came Thursday evening this last week when I bumped into Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL-18), a member of the House of Representatives representing Florida's 18th District. Five minutes later, his brother and fellow U.S. House of Representatives Member Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL-25), joined us for a brief chat at a reception in the Cannon House Office Building Caucus Room.

Lincoln Diaz-Balart began to lobby House International Relations Committee Chairman Tom Lantos (D-CA-12) to take note of the new opportunities that surround Fidel Castro's precipitously collapsing health condition. Diaz-Balart thought that the House International Relations Committee might issue a resolution to be voted on by the full House protesting any "automatic succession" from Fidel Castro to Raul Castro, his brother.

I guess the key term here is "automatic" -- and that is important, as I am opposed to "automatic succession" as well. I just don't know if we Americans are so pure on the subject -- though we do invest more in political cosmetics.

But it is interesting to note that the Diaz-Balart brothers, who I enjoyed speaking to and discussing what was happening in Latin America to the problem of an ongoing embargo of Cuba (the conversation changed quickly when I mentioned that), are sons of the former Majority Leader in the Cuban House of Representatives, Rafael Diaz-Balart -- who himself was once brother-in-law to Fidel Castro.

In Japan, Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is the son of the late Japan Foreign Minister Shintaro Abe. One of his LDP rivals, Taro Aso, who is currently Foreign Minister is the grandson of the well-known Japan Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida.

And of course, Kim Jong Il in North Korea succeeded his father Kim Il Sung in a Communist state.

China seems to frown on dynastic succession. Hu Jintao and most around him got where they are by their own wits, for the most part.

So, critiquing the Bush and Clinton dynasties is hard to do given our own political history and the realities of similar behavior elsewhere in the world -- particularly in democracies.

But it's still fun to think and argue about.

-- Steve Clemons

Just about every day I get an email from the Department of Defense identifying casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.

President Bush is going to be speaking about the "State of the Union" tomorrow night -- and we should remember that a lot of our fellow citizens will not be around to hear his thoughts on the matter.

Here is the latest notice from the Pentagon on troop deaths:

DoD Identifies Marine Casualties -- 22 January 2007

The Department of Defense announced today the death of two Marines who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Cpl. Jacob H. Neal, 23, of San Marcos, Texas, died Jan. 19 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq. Neal was assigned to Marine Forces Reserve's 1st Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Grand Rapids, Mich.

Lance Cpl. Luis J. Castillo, 20, of Lawton, Mich., died Jan. 20 from wounds received while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq. Castillo was assigned to Marine Forces Reserve's 1st Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Lansing, Mich.

America is in a "slow bleed" in Iraq -- and that is not a tolerable strategy.

-- Steve Clemons

Is it just a plain old conference -- or is there other stuff going on at this hyper-well attended assembly organized this week in Herziliya?

Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times reports in his blog that the following mix of Luke Skywalkers and Darth Vaders (many more Darth Vaders) attended a meeting at a coastal resort near Tel Aviv:

Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (well, he's local)

Likud Leader Benjamin Netanyahu (he's local too)

Defense Minister Amir Peretz (another local)

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni (another local)

Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England (replaced Wolfowitz)

Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns (has been acting simultaneously as Condi's Deputy, Counselor, and UN Ambassador lately)

Presidential Candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney

Presidential Candidate and U.S. Senator John McCain (via satellite)

Presidential Candidate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani

Presidential Candidate and former U.S. Senator John Edwards (via satellite)

Richard Perle (needs no qualifiers)

Former CIA Director and Committee on the Present Danger Chairman R. James Woolsey

Former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar (probably the only European neocon)

Read Gideon's good piece. The conference sounds a lot like a war party -- and if not that at least a cheerleading party for the idea of militarily confronting Iran.

-- Steve Clemons

I don't know how many of you subscribe to Think Progress, a political newsletter affiliated with the Center for American Progress, but it does an extraordinary job of building a wave beneath hard-hitting political research and getting it out into the media and blogosphere.

The material that the Think Progress comes up with just blows away the competition -- and Judd Legum, the editor, is one of the reasons this operation has run so well.

Word reached me today that Think Progress's (and John Podesta's) loss is Hillary Clinton's gain as Legum will be the new research director for Hillary's campaign. I think Legum is the best in that business -- so this will be one arena hard for the competitors to match.

-- Steve Clemons

Henry Kissinger has disclosed today in his important Washington Post op-ed, "Stability in Iraq and Beyond," that he believes America should engage in discussions with Syria and Iran.

This is a big leap beyond the wrong-headed advice that Kissinger reportedly gave Bush and Cheney on Iraq, as reported by Bob Woodward, that "victory is the only exit."

Although there are nuanced difference in Kissinger's essay today and the proposals of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group, they are remarkably close. And both essentially call for a "new diplomatic offensive."

Kissinger writes:

Two levels of diplomatic effort are necessary:

~ A contact group should be created, assembling neighboring countries whose interests are directly affected and which rely on American support. This group should include Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. Its function should be to advise on ending the internal conflict and to create a united front against outside domination.

~ Parallel negotiations should be conducted with Syria and Iran, which now appear as adversaries, to give them an opportunity to participate in a peaceful regional order. Both categories of consultations should lead to an international conference including all countries that have to play a stabilizing role in the outcome, specifically the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council as well as such countries as Indonesia, India and Pakistan.

Too much of the current discussion focuses on the procedural aspect of starting a dialogue with adversaries. In fact, a balance of risks and opportunities needs to be created so that Iran is obliged to choose between a significant but not dominant role or riding the crest of Shiite fundamentalism.

In the latter case, it must pay a serious, not rhetorical, price for choosing the militant option. An outcome in which Iran is approaching nuclear status because of hesitant and timid nonproliferation policies in the Security Council, coupled with a political vacuum in the region, must lead to catastrophic consequences.

This is progress.

Kissinger allegedly sees the President and Vice President more than any other external adviser on foreign policy and national security matters -- and I hope that he gives them a copy of this essay, or at least the last few paragraphs.

-- Steve Clemons

This was a nice surprise.

TWN scored in the top 10 blogs on Capitol Hill. There were 17 who made the list because of ties in the rankings.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

I really wish New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson would remain the globe-spanning international problem fixer that he has been for many years. New Mexicans seem to like their Governor-Diplomat, and Richardson seems not to be in any trouble for expanding his job responsibilities to include many things beyond New Mexico's water wars with Texas and the issue that New Mexico ranks 47th in the nation in terms of per capita income.

But Bill Richardson has announced that he is in, too. And so we have yet another presidential candidate who probably has little chance of actually winning the nod of Democratic Party primary voters.

Senator Hillary Clinton's Legislative Director, Laurie Rubiner, is mentioned prominently today in the Los Angeles Times. Such mention is long overdue for the work she did as the Health Program Director at the New America Foundation.

Rubiner incubated and hatched a "universal health care proposal" that many on the libertarian right as well as among moderate conservatives and the liberal left -- and now the radical center with Arnold Schwarzenegger -- have embraced as a sensible plan to actually reverse the disturbing trend of more and more Americans forgoing health care coverage. Rubiner developed the plan as health policy advisor to the late Senator John Chafee (R-RI). She brought the idea to the New America Foundation, and her mantle was picked up by Len Nichols who has helped move both Massachusetts and California politics to adopt the Rubiner health care plan.

It is a testament to Hillary Clinton that she has some extraordinary staff -- like Rubiner, but also including others like Andrew Shapiro managing foreign policy and national security issues and Tamara Luzzatto as her chief of staff. Luzzatto was chief of staff for Senator Jay Rockefeller before joining Clinton.

But Clinton also has other arenas of advisors -- a rumored five "super advisors" on the deep inside -- who are the only ones who know the finite, gritty details of Hillary's plans, strategy, and views. But then there is another ring of advisors, many of whom look like the somewhat drab advisors who have animated other Democratic campaigns. Perhaps Hillary Clinton and her inner circle have those "Democratic politburo" members in place to keep them from working elsewhere -- and perhaps their bad advice will be gently overlooked while Clinton follows either better counsel or her own instincts.

But there will be tension around Clinton -- and this kind of unresolved tension between excellent policy thinking, excellent political counsel and those who think that they have been around the block so many times they don't need to learn anything more -- is something that strangled Al Gore's first phase presidential candidacy.

And guess what? The same tensions brought down John Kerry.

Hillary Clinton has a very smart policy team on her personal Senate staff. Hillary needs to remember that as she rolls forward because every previously "friend of Bill" is going to be knocking on her door, and many of them perhaps need to be greeted but then sent on their way.

-- Steve Clemons

Hillary Clinton will be announcing she is running for President today.

A good chance to see her in presidential mode will be at the New America Foundation's "10 Big Ideas" event -- which oddly is not posted yet on New America's website -- on 31 January 2007 at the Hyatt Regency on Capital Hill. I think the time of the event runs from 11 am until 2:30 p.m.

For info, contact Elizabeth Wu at wu@newamerica.net.

The meeting will feature major speeches by Hillary Clinton and Lindsey Graham and a number of New America Foundation fellows and program directors on big "domestic policy ideas" that they are promoting -- in the 'expected absence' of much of this discussion in the President's State of the Union speech.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

Senator Chuck Hagel is on the verge of an announcement that he will reportedly make some time during the next two weeks -- perhaps sooner rather than later -- in which he will indicate whether he will run for President of the United States and whether he will run again to keep his seat as Senator from Nebraska.

I would like to see him run for President, but sources close to him indicate that that is increasingly unlikely. In my view, his views on how to better manage America's deteriorating national security portfolio are vital for the country -- and whomever runs with the policy template articulated by Chuck Hagel is likely to be the next President of the United States, whether Republican or Democrat.

But if Hagel elects not to run for President, it's even more important that he remain an active national security and US foreign policy voice in the US Senate. But there too, Hagel is considering calling it a day and ending his tenure.

I think that this would be an enormous loss for the country at exactly the time when Americans need to hear from Members of Congress who will speak candidly and honestly with citizens about what really needs to be done to not only extract ourselves from a worsening situation in the Middle East -- but who also has a vision of what we need to do to get America and its foreign policy on a constructive track.

I want Chuck Hagel to run for President. But if he doesn't, America (and Nebraska) need him to run for the Senate again in 2008. This is really serious -- because his voice inside the Republican Party is one of the most important in getting America back on a track of principled American engagement in global affairs that is both ethically inspired and focused clearly on American national interests.

I don't often encourage readers to get on the phone or send letters, though I did in the John Bolton battle.

But Hagel stepping down would be a colossal loss for those who are trying to organize a recovery strategy to deal with America's precipitous decline in global military and polical affairs.

Call him or write to him. . .really, please.

Tell him "Don't Quit the Senate."

If you feel inclined, tell him to run for President. I used to think Hagel and McCain had a "look" on national security policy that overlapped too much -- but not any more. They are in completely different spaces, and Hagel's vision is one that sensible Americans concerned with our crappy foreign policy condition -- Republicans, Democrats, and Independents -- could support.

Here is the contact information and page for sending Senator Hagel your comment that he ought not quit the Senate:

Senator Chuck Hagel
U.S. Senate
248 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Tel: (202) 224-4224
Fax: (202) 224-5213

Here is a page to send him a note directly over the Internet. I just sent mine:

http://hagel.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Home

Many thanks for taking time to do this.

-- Steve Clemons

Chris Nelson has some great stuff on Iran tonight. I had not heard until tonight that Iran failed to bring its centrifuges on line and that the 50 they assembled blew up.

Every time I post something from Chris Nelson's Nelson Report, I get besieged by requests for it. People want to know how they can get it -- or what the web links are.

There simply is no easy way. It's not on the web. Nelson created his own email version of a daily blog -- filled with gossip, policy analysis, and the most addictive kind of DC intrigue -- before blogs were really on line. He does this for a living and is a consultant for numerous political players, but they pay him big bucks. He doesn't do Google ads.

If folks are interested in paying in the low five-figure range for his high quality daily reports, I'll link you up.

The good news is that Chris Nelson has given me permission to re-post his excellent material on occasion. The bad news is that the salivary glands of a lot of folks out there get too hyperactive. I can't get you on his list. Sorry.

But back to substance. Chris wrote up this exchange below regarding Iran and the quality of its nuclear energy enterprise and the recent change in tone in the administration:

The Nelson Report, 16 January 2007

IRAN. . .recent news stories out of the Middle East seem to be generating a sense that Iran is closer to a successful nuclear weapons capability than had previously been thought, and that the risk to Israel is rising to the point where Israel is moving closer to a decision to "take out" the Iranian nuclear weapons facilities.

Balderdash, our informed sources continue to maintain.

Yes, it does seem to be true that Iran has accelerated its program to bring on line the 3,000 centrifuges required to generate nuclear fuel. . .but it also seems true (and not Iranian disinformation) that of the 50 centrifuges recently hooked up, all 50 blew up.

An informed friend speculates:

Could be sabotage. Or it just could be the temperamental character of the devices. Especially if they're rushing production. Supposedly they solved an earlier problem by making technicians wear gloves when assembling the devices. The grease on their fingerprints was apparently causing the rotors to tip and crash once they got spinning in earnest. That is how sensitive these things are.

OK, but what about all the neo-con noises here in the US about meeting militarily the "accelerating threat" from Iran? Our source offers this perspective:

The change is in atmospherics. So far as I know, the technical developments are correctly described here.

The real story is that Iran is going to go right ahead defying the UN, the Russians will protect them from being squeezed too hard, the Israelis will fret, the Sunday Times of London will make up alarming tales, the State Dept will temporize, and despite all this, the Iranians will not have the wherewithal for a Bomb until the next Administration takes office.

By then, they will be closer, of course. Nobody knows what's going to happen when they get there, including whether they will try to take advantage of having the wherewithal. It's an unwelcome development, but it's going to happen, subject only to the identity and inclinations of the next president of the U.S.

So don't panic. There's no point.

Last but not least for tonite, what's the strategic implication of the recent US Navy carrier deployment announcements to all this? Obviously, as we have been reporting, the professionals have been warning the White House and associated neo-cons that any actual military action against Iran itself runs a huge risk of effective Iranian retaliation against US interests, allied shipping, and oil.

We asked a friend out on the West Coast for his assessment of the new deployments, which confirms the actions ARE aimed at Iran, but in a balanced way, all things considered. For something really "up", he warns, watch to see a change in deploying the Nimitz:

Carrier USS John C. Stennis today (16 Jan 07) departs home port Bremerton, Washington, en route to San Diego to pick up its carrier air wing before sailing west to the Persian Gulf.

There, the Stennis strike group will join the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower strike group. The Eisenhower recently has been operating off Somalia.

(Stennis strike group had been scheduled to cover routinely for USS Kitty Hawk in the western Pacific this spring while the Yokohama-based carrier underwent repairs. The Pentagon announced 20 Dec 2006 that Stennis strike group would sail early, deploying instead to the Gulf. The Pentagon announced 11 Jan 07 USS Ronald Reagan would skip normal work-up phases and deploy within several weeks to provide the routine coverage in western Pacific during Kitty Hawk's repairs.)

Last week the Pentagon also announced deployment to the Persian Gulf region of a Patriot battalion of the 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, which is primarily suited for defense against short-range ballistic missile attack. The primary ballistic missile threat in theater is Iran. UK will contribute two minesweepers and a frigate.

OK...so what does this mean?

The deployments are aimed primarily at Iran. USG cites Iranian material support for attacks on US personnel and states concern that Iran and other opponents may view U.S. as vulnerable. As the new strategy unfolds to clear and hold Baghdad neighborhoods, protecting both Shi'a and Sunni populations while jump-starting economic and political recovery, and as US clears Iranian networks providing material support for attacks on US forces, USG is rational to have theoretical concern for possible retaliatory strikes.

This concern is amplified at the margins by tensions over Iran's nuclear program. Scenarios could include opposition strikes on US assets and Persian Gulf shipping.

Isn't this going to spur on the crazies in the Amadinejad camp?

This deployment is carefully calibrated. It could have been larger. Increasing to two carrier strike groups in the AOR serves as a firm signal and deterrent, reminding everyone US has bench strength; the US also still can "reach out and touch someone."

Along with announced deployments of two UK minesweepers and the Patriot battery, it is also an actual contingency force that has significant defensive and offensive capability (e.g. ., could initiate heavy 24 hour air ops if necessary).

OK. . .what to watch for if the US really thinks bad things are about to happen?

On the other hand, increasing to three carrier strike groups would be noticeably more 'robust', belligerent and suggestive of intending or anticipating attack. The difference between two and three strike groups is huge. Two ='s strong and capable, but existing offensive intent is less probable; three ='s 'we don't care about provocation, we're preparing to fight in this new dimension'.

(An indicator would be to watch for announcements about Nimitz strike group; Nimitz reportedly has completed the routine pre-deployment work-up and is in San Diego.)

50 hooked up centrifuges blew up? That seems to me to be material.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a guest post by Daniel Levy, Senior Fellow and Director of the Middle East Policy Initiative at the New America Foundation as well as Senior Fellow at the Century Foundation

An Informal Diplomatic Surge: Draft Israeli-Syrian Peace Deal Revealed

As Secretary Rice continues her swing through the Middle East, pointedly avoiding Damascus, journalist Akiva Eldar today revealed that two years of informal meetings have produced a draft text for an Israeli-Syrian peace agreement.

The full text can be read here and the story here.

While neither is as detailed nor dramatic as the Geneva Initiative model Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty, the new text exposed in Haaretz goes another step in demystifying the parameters of a comprehensive Israeli-Arab peace.

Also this week, former officials and negotiators from Israel, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, the Gulf, the US and Europe met in Madrid to mark the 15th anniversary of the conference convened by Jim Baker and the grown up Bush after the first Iraq war. So the vacuum created by the administration's dogged insistence on military escalation combined with diplomatic docility continues to be filled by unofficial peace initiatives.

Eldar's piece in Haaretz details a series of meetings between the former Director-General of Israel's Foreign Ministry and ex-Ambassador Alon Liel and US-based associate of the Syrian leadership, Ibrahim Suleiman, mediated and hosted by European government officials.

The talks took place between January 2004 and the summer of 2006. The governments in both Damascus and Jerusalem have denied that the talks received any official blessing. It does seem that this was an exploratory back channel that probably got closer to leadership circles on the Syrian than the Israeli side.

The talks themselves dealt with the four pillars that would need to be addressed in any future Israeli-Syrian negotiation: security, water, normalization and borders.

The main innovation in the draft text is the idea of establishing a "park" adjacent to the Lake of Tiberias on what would be the new (old) Syrian side of the border. The park area would guarantee continued Israeli freedom of access to what is the most disputed territorial component of any future border arrangement.

Other than that, the paper outlines a border demarcation based on the 1967 lines, the establishment of demilitarized and reduced military presence zones, provisions for early warning stations and international security oversight, water use arrangements, and a timetable for full withdrawal and full peace.

The Israeli media has been abuzz all day with speculation regarding this new peace plan as it follows a period of intense debate on whether Israel should continue to adhere to the American veto of engaging with Damascus or whether Israel should explore the negotiation option that Syrian President Assad has been suggesting.

Several senior Israeli ministers have argued in favor of the latter.

Re-engaging on the Israeli-Syrian track would of course be in line with the US "New Diplomatic Offensive" recommended by the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group. President Bush's rejection of a diplomatic surge almost guarantees the failure of the American mission in Iraq and further undermines US credibility and capacity to lead and build alliances in the broader Middle East.

We have just marked the seventh anniversary since the last Israeli-Syrian political negotiations, hosted by President Clinton at Shepherdstown.

Four senators (Dodd, Kerry, Nelson, Specter) recently visited Damascus and heard firsthand of the Syrian willingness to constructively engage on the Iraqi, Lebanese and Palestinian issues. But President Bush seems determined to escalate on the Syrian front, as elsewhere, and to forego diplomatic solutions.

If the serious thoughtful diplomatic recommendations of the ISG wise elders and the cautioning of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee against escalation and in favor of diplomacy are in a language that the President does not understand, then maybe he should turn to his own preferred sources -- even in the Bible, seven lean years were enough.

-- Daniel Levy

Just FYI, the Prince William County Democratic Committee (in Virginia) has put this really cool cook book together.

I have a recipe in it that I highlighted at TWN a while back, the "Preparing for the Daily John Bolton Battle Smoothie."

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

David Sanger, White House Correspondent of the New York Times, and I helped kick off a week-long run of policy lectures and discussion organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies for a group of prominent, quickly ascending Japanese Ministry of Foreign officials yesterday.

During my comments, I compared Japan's struggle to become "a normal nation" with a kind of challenge now facing America -- which is how to transition from being a globally dominant superpower to a "normal great power."

Given the dynamics unleashed with the end of the Cold War, America most likely would have made this transtion anyway -- but the George W. Bush administration seems to have quickly sped up history and America's collapsing position in global affairs.

Along this line, I want to recommend that people read Paul Starobin's December article, "Beyond Hegemony," that ran in National Journal. Starobin won praise from David Brooks for the piece and received a "Sidney Award" as having produced one of the best essays of the year.

I'm a little bummed about it actually as Paul worked hard to reach me to include some of my thoughts in the piece, but I was in a travel storm at that time and lagged too slowly in my return calls. But he nailed it I think -- or at least got the right questions in place about what follows for America given the puncturing of American mystique by our failing adventure in the Middle East.

Let me share the last bit with you -- but I the whole article is a real tour d'force of thinking in the foreign policy establishment:

For America, the chief consequence of no longer being the hegemon could be as much psychological as material. "In reality, the only truly exceptional feature of the U.S.A. is her belief in her exceptionalism," the historian Bernard Porter writes in his new book Empire and Superempire. That belief, or myth, would be dealt a death blow by the end of hegemony. And because America's superempire "exceeds any previous empires the world has ever seen," as Porter notes, the fall could be all the harder.

In mentioning the possibility of an age of post-U.S. dominance, Bill Clinton, in his speech at Yale, was not saying that it would arrive any time soon. Indeed, a fair argument can be made that, appearances of imperial overstretch notwithstanding, the sun is nowhere close to setting on the American Century. Consider just one rather amazing statistic: America, all by itself, accounts for more than 40 percent of the world's total spending on research and development. Demographics? With its population now more than 300 million, the United States is not reduced to offering cash subsidies to women to have babies, as is ex-superpower Russia. And, as much as some critics are bothered by this, as a magnet for immigrants America has no peer.

It could be that the current anxiety over whether America has "peaked" is just another spasm in a regularly occurring cycle. In 1970, with the United States bogged down in Vietnam, President Nixon worried that America looked like "a pitiful, helpless giant." Seventeen years later, in the wake of the Ronald Reagan revival of a big-stick America, Paul Kennedy came out with his ominous-sounding book. Now, like clockwork, amid concerns that George W. Bush has overstretched the imperial fabric, the baying is again heard that America's "primacy" days are drawing to a close. Call it the 17-year angst.

And yet, unless one believes that America is not subject to the laws of history, its global supremacy will be, at some point, no more. Clinton's real point is that it is the better part of wisdom for America to keep this in mind, to act now with the foreknowledge that the U.S. will not, for all time, be top dog. It's the sort of advice a political party can profit from when it wins an election. The pace of change in geopolitics may often seem glacial compared with the vicissitudes of electoral politics, but the same lesson applies, as it does in all parts of life: What goes around comes around.

I think history has proceeded even faster since the December 1 release date of this article, and the handwriting is on the wall. America is not the power it used to be and probably won't bounce back to be the undisputed rule-maker and rule-enforcer we may have once been.

It's time for a "real" new strategy.

-- Steve Clemons

. . .or real ones anyway.

Senator Chuck Hagel is a real Republican. So is former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft. I know darn well how hard core a Republican Nixon Center President Dimitri Simes is. Former Senator Alan Simpson might be a true artist at making Democrats feel at home around him, but he's a hard core Republican -- or was until recently perhaps.

George Will's Republicanism has already been designated "high crimes insubordination" by some in the White House.

But now, the hardest of the hard William F. Buckley -- founding editor of National Review -- is on his way off of the President's Christmas Card list.

In a sober piece, titled "Yes or No to Bush?", the conservative scion Buckley salutes and says "see you later, George."

Here is the kicker:

A geographical division of Iraq is inevitable. The major players are obvious. It isn't plain how America, as an outside party, could play an effective role, let alone one that was decisive, in that national redefinition. And America would do well to encourage non-American agents to act as brokers -- people with names like Ban Ki-moon.

On the basis of this analysis I will vote against supplementary American involvement in Iraq.

Ban Ki-moon is speaking today at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Despite Buckley's sound thinking on Iraq opposing escalation, it is also fascinating to see National Review mention the United Nations in a slightly positive tone.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

(Iraq Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and Newsweek International Editor Fareed Zakaria)

Now, this is a fine mess.

The U.S. raided a Consulate like facility and detained five Iranian nationals in northern Iraq. U.S. intelligence apparently worried that the five Iranians were aiding insurgents inside Iraq.

Iraq's Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, has now confirmed the diplomatic status of these detainees and the mission in Northern Iraq and called for their release.

This should be an interesting test of the reality of Iraqi sovereignty -- and will no doubt cause a number of ulcers among U.S. military now ordered to disrupt and attack Iranian operations inside Iraq -- and perhaps beyond.

-- Steve Clemons

Some read this blog for political discussion, reactions to America's Middle East mess, or to check up on my pups.

Annie and her bro are doing well as you can see.

-- Steve Clemons

I suspect that we will soon see more collisions between US military squads and Special Force operations against suspected Syrian and Iranian convoys and personnel -- civilian and military -- inside Iraq as well as more border interdiction. At some point, these units will go into Syria and Iran to accomplish their "disruption" missions.

At that point, Syria and Iran will make a calculation as to whether they should respond with proportionate military force against US military assets -- or whether they respond in lateral ways against other players in the region -- like American allies in Afghanistan or Iraq, or Israel. Alternatively, Iran could pump up the sophistication of weaponry it is supplying to Shiite groups and design and organize higher profile assaults on the Sunni population and American and British forces -- operating through proxies.

Despite Vice President Cheney's desire to see Iran directly fire a few missiles at our troops in response to provocations from the U.S. -- thus firmly establishing a casus belli for a full-fledged American attack against Iran -- Iran will probably be craftier than that and will respond in fuzzy, indirect, but highly disruptive ways -- through Hezbollah, Shiite militia, and other agents.

Also, expect to see Iran's top tier diplomats, theocrats and political elite make "mutual interest" trips to Moscow and Beijing. Iran will offer highly lucrative "energy arrangements" that major powers focused on further global ascension won't be able to resist. Unless America is willing to figure out and pay the diplomatic price desired by China and Russia for uniform action against Iran, then Iran will cultivate these two rising peer competitors and balancers against American power.

Given Japan's and Europe's direct dependence on Iranian oil exports, as the heat in the region rises and direct military collisions occur, Japanese and European diplomats will attempt to wedge themselves between the conflicting parties.

America may again find itself diplomatically isolated as it wages a subtle war against Iran -- which despite Iranian funding of destabilizing non-state forces in many parts of the Middle East -- may find that it has a diplomatic edge because America never engaged in credible diplomatic engagement with Iran over its nuclear program and about its regional misbehavior.

Just to be clear, I feel that a significant portion of the Iranian political elite wants Iran to develop nuclear weapons -- mostly as a shield to protect itself from perceived threats. I don't buy the "peaceful use" line fully -- but there are ways to make the "peaceful use" option work. The problem is we aren't really trying. With Iran, we are perceiving its program as an "all or nothing" event. That kind of Manichean view of this problem by the United States is something that most other global powers won't accept and which will further erode America's leverage in this process.

Ahmadinejad wants an attack on Iran nearly as much as Cheney does. An American or Israeli bombing of its nuclear facilities and the killing of 6,000 of its top engineering talent (and the many tens of thousands who happen to be near them at the time of the bombing) will consolidate his power inside the country -- something he is no where close to at this point.

The nightmare scenario -- as if this was not bad enough -- is that Iranian-backed agents in the region roll out disruption plans across moderate Sunni regimes -- particularly Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.

Many I have spoken to from the defense and foreign affairs sectors from various Middle East states worry about well-disguised yet successful assassination attempts against Saudi or Jordanian leaders -- throwing the Sunni regimes into turmoil and igniting national and regional rage that they feel will ultimately be anti-American, anti-occupation, anti-colonial, and of course, anti-Israel.

This is the course we seem to be on now. And it doesn't need to be this way. There are alternatives -- but nearly all of them require a creative, bold approach that might enable us to leap-frog over our massive failures in the region.

We need to consider an alternative plan, and I'll be posting my thoughts on that soon -- but we need to have squarely in our mind how nasty and brutish the results of our current policy course are to help muster the consensus needed to make the President and Congress uniformly change course. . .and change course for real.

-- Steve Clemons

Playboy Magazine has a very useful, long article out titled "Lockheed Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" that does a great job of exposing the power of informal networks in Washington and how such informal networks are moving billions of dollars around and teeing up military conflicts like Iraq.

(New America Foundation Senior Fellow and Geopolitics of Energy Initiative Director Flynt Leverett: photo credit: NewsHour with Jim Lehrer)

I asked former CIA and Bush administration National Security Council senior official Flynt Leverett for a quick summary of his thoughts on President Bush's Address to the Nation.

Here is Flynt Leverett's response to The Washington Note:

The most important things that President Bush said last night dealt with Iran, not Iraq:

According to the President, the Iranians are providing "material support" to attacks on U.S. forces. That is a casus belli. It fits in with the administration's escalating campaign -- encompassing rhetoric and detentions of Iranian officials in Iraq -- to blame Iran for a strategically significant part of the ongoing instability and violence in Iraq.

In the context of describing the deployment of additional U.S. forces to Iraq, the President also noted the importance of securing Iraq's borders. I suspect that at least some of the additional U.S. soldiers going to Iraq will end up on the border with Iran.

Moreover, the President strongly implied that the U.S. military would start going after targets in countries neighboring Iraq to disrupt supply networks for insurgents and militias.

The deployment of a second carrier strike group to the theater -- confirmed in the speech -- is clearly directed against Iran. Since, in contrast to previous U.S. air campaigns in the Gulf, military planners developing contingencies for striking target sets in Iran must assume that the United States would not be able to use land-based air assets in theater (because of political opposition in the region), they are surely positing a force posture of at least two, and possible three carrier strike groups to provide the necessary numbers and variety of tactical aircraft.

Similarly, the President's announcement that additional Patriot batteries would go to the Gulf is clearly directed against Iran. We have previously deployed Patriot batteries to the region to deal with the Iraqi SCUD threat. Today, the only missile threat in the region for the Patriot to address is posed, at least theoretically, by Iran's Shihab-3.

In sum, the administration is laying the rhetorical and operational foundations for implementing a presidential decision to initiate military operations against Iran. No wonder the White House wants Hillary* and me to shut up.

(*Hillary is Hillary Mann Leverett, a former State Department official who also served on President George W. Bush's National Security Council staff. She is married to Flynt Leverett)

Leverett's views are consistent with many others I have spoken to over the last day. He has also been in a battle with National Security Council staff who have insinuated themselves in the "secrets clearing process" managed by the CIA Publications Review Board.

Here is Flynt Leverett's and HIllary Mann Leverett's recent op-ed in the New York Times that was published with the CIA's "blacked out"/redacted lines.

-- Steve Clemons

Update: Eason Jordan has a useful graph by graph analysis of the Bush speech up at IraqSlogger. He is on same page as TWN on "hints" of attacks against Iran and Syria.

Also, Senator Hagel's exchange with Condi Rice yesterday is getting a lot of play -- but here is his formal statement reacting to President Bush's speech. Worth reading a few times.

-- Steve Clemons

Washington intelligence, military and foreign policy circles are abuzz today with speculation that the President, yesterday or in recent days, sent a secret Executive Order to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director of the CIA to launch military operations against Syria and Iran.

The President may have started a new secret, informal war against Syria and Iran without the consent of Congress or any broad discussion with the country.

The bare outlines of that order may have appeared in President Bush's Address to the Nation last night outlining his new course on Iraq:

Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.

We're also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region. We will expand intelligence-sharing and deploy Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies. We will work with the governments of Turkey and Iraq to help them resolve problems along their border. And we will work with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region.

Adding fuel to the speculation is that U.S. forces today raided an Iranian Consulate in Arbil, Iraq and detained five Iranian staff members. Given that Iran showed little deference to the political sanctity of the US Embassy in Tehran 29 years ago, it would be ironic for Iran to hyperventilate much about the raid.

But what is disconcerting is that some are speculating that Bush has decided to heat up military engagement with Iran and Syria -- taking possible action within their borders, not just within Iraq.

Some are suggesting that the Consulate raid may have been designed to try and prompt a military response from Iran -- to generate a casus belli for further American action.

If this is the case, the debate about adding four brigades to Iraq is pathetic. The situation will get even hotter than it now is, worsening the American position and exposing the fact that to fight Iran both within the borders of Iraq and into Iranian territory, there are not enough troops in the theatre.

Bush may really have pushed the escalation pedal more than any of us realize.

-- Steve Clemons

UPDATE: This exchange today in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee between Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden and Senator Chuck Hagel with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is full of non-denial denials and evasive answers to Biden's query about the President's ability to authorize military operations against forces within Iran and Syria:

SEN. BIDEN: Last night, the president said, and I quote, "Succeeding in Iraq requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges, and that begins with addressing Iran and Syria." He went on to say, "We will interrupt the flow of support for Iran and Syria, and we will seek out and destroy networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."

Does that mean the president has plans to cross the Syrian and/or Iranian border to pursue those persons or individuals or governments providing that help?

SEC. RICE: Mr. Chairman, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs was just asked this question, and I think he perhaps said it best. He talked about what we're really trying to do here which is to protect our forces and that we are doing that by seeking out these networks that we know are operating in Iraq. We are doing it through intelligence. We are then able, as we did on the 21st of December, to go after these groups where we find them. In that case, we then asked the Iraqi government to declare them persona non grata and expel them from the country because they were holding diplomatic passports.

But the -- what is really being contemplated here in terms of these networks is that we believe we can do what we need to do inside Iraq. Obviously, the president isn't going to rule anything out to protect our troops, but the plan is to take down these networks in Iraq.

The broader point is that we do have and we have always had as a country very strong interests and allies in the Gulf Region, and we do need to work with our allies to make certain that they have the defense capacity that they need against growing Iranian military build-up, that they fell that we are going to be a presence in the Persian Gulf Region as we have been, and that we establish confidence with the states with which we have long alliances, that we will help defend their interests. And that's what the president had in mind.

SEN. BIDEN: Secretary Rice, do you believe the president has the constitutional authority to pursue across the border into Iraq (sic/Iran) or Syria, the networks in those countries?

SEC. RICE: Well, Mr. Chairman, I think I would not like to speculate on the president's constitutional authority or to try and say anything that certainly would abridge his constitutional authority, which is broad as commander in chief.

I do think that everyone will understand that -- the American people and I assume the Congress expect the president to do what is necessary to protect our forces.

SEN. BIDEN: Madame Secretary, I just want to make it clear, speaking for myself, that if the president concluded he had to invade Iran or Iraq in pursuit of these -- or Syria -- in pursuit of these networks, I believe the present authorization granted the president to use force in Iraq does not cover that, and he does need congressional authority to do that. I just want to set that marker.

SEN. HAGEL: I want to comment briefly on the president's speech last night, as he presented to America and the world his new strategy for Iraq, and then I want to ask you a couple of questions.

I'm going to note one of the points that the president made last night at the conclusion of his speech. When he said, quote, "We mourn the loss of every fallen American, and we owe it to them to build a future worthy of their sacrifice" -- and I don't think there is a question that we all in this country agree with that -- but I would even begin with this evaluation; that we owe the military and their families a policy, a policy worthy of their sacrifices, and I don't believe, Dr. Rice, we have that policy today.

I think what the president said last night -- and I listened carefully and read through it again this morning -- is all about a broadened American involvement, escalation in Iraq and the Middle East. I do not agree with that escalation, and I would further note that when you say, as you have here this morning, that we need to address and help the Iraqis and pay attention to the fact that Iraqis are being killed, Madame Secretary, Iraqis are killing Iraqis. We are in a civil war. This is sectarian violence out of control -- Iraqi on Iraqi. Worse, it is inter-sectarian violence -- Shi'a killing Shi'a.

To ask our young men and women to sacrifice their lives, to be put in the middle of a civil war is wrong.

It's, first of all, in my opinion, morally wrong. It's tactically, strategically, militarily wrong. We will not win a war of attrition in the Middle East.

And I further note that you talk about skepticism and pessimism of the American people and some in Congress. That is not some kind of a subjective analysis, that is because, Madame Secretary, we've been there almost four years, and there's a reason for that skepticism and pessimism, and that is based on the facts on the ground, the reality of the dynamics.

And so I have been one, as you know, who have believed that the appropriate focus is not to escalate, but to try to find a broader incorporation of a framework. And it will have to be, certainly, regional, as many of us have been saying for a long time. That should not be new to anyone. But it has to be more than regional, it is going to have to be internally sponsored, and that's going to include Iran and Syria.

When you were engaging Chairman Biden on this issue, on the specific question -- will our troops go into Iran or Syria in pursuit, based on what the president said last night -- you cannot sit here today -- not because you're dishonest or you don't understand, but no one in our government can sit here today and tell Americans that we won't engage the Iranians and the Syrians cross-border.

Some of us remember 1970, Madame Secretary, and that was Cambodia, and when our government lied to the American people and said we didn't cross the border going into Cambodia. In fact we did. I happen to know something about that, as do some on this committee.

So, Madame Secretary, when you set in motion the kind of policy that the president is talking about here, it's very, very dangerous. Matter of fact, I have to say, Madame Secretary, that I think this speech given last night by this president represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam, if it's carried out. I will resist it -- (interrupted by applause.)

Worrisome.

-- Steve Clemons

Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has in the past tried to "out-tough" President Bush in discussion of America's Middle East challenges, really nails it in her rejection of the President's escalation proposal last night:

Statement of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on the President's Speech on Iraq

"Based on the President's speech tonight, I cannot support his proposed escalation of the war in Iraq.

The President's Iraq policy has been marred by incompetence and arrogance as his Administration has refused to recognize the military and political reality on the ground. American troops continue to serve and sacrifice in Iraq, performing magnificently and bravely. But as our commanders have said repeatedly, Iraq requires a political solution, not a purely military one, and we did not hear such a proposed solution tonight.

The President simply has not gotten the message sent loudly and clearly by the American people, that we desperately need a new course. The President has not offered a new direction, instead he will continue to take us down the wrong road -- only faster. The President's speech failed to adequately address the political situation in Iraq, rising sectarian violence, mounting strain on our military, growing Iranian influence, and festering divides over how to distribute oil revenues.

As I have said, as the American people have demanded, and as the facts on the ground require, we need a new course and an end to the current failed policy. I continue to urge a strategy that places pressure on the Iraqi government to resolve the political crisis through phased redeployment of U.S. troops, establishes an Iraqi Oil Trust to end the stalemate over oil, and pursues an aggressive diplomatic strategy including an international conference of the regional parties to further the task of Iraq's stability."

This is a solid statement that hits the right notes.

-- Steve Clemons

President Bush is planning to pull troops out of Afghanistan to deploy to Iraq.

From the Baltimore Sun:

As a last-ditch effort, President Bush is expected to announce this week the dispatch of thousands of additional troops to Iraq as a stopgap measure, an order that Pentagon officials say would strain the Army and Marine Corps as they struggle to man both wars.

Already, a U.S. Army infantry battalion fighting in a critical area of eastern Afghanistan is due to be withdrawn within weeks in order to deploy to Iraq.

According to Army Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Tata and other senior U.S. commanders here, that will happen just as the Taliban is expected to unleash a major campaign to cut the vital road between Kabul and Kandahar. The official said the Taliban intend to seize Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city and the place where the group was organized in the 1990s.

"We anticipate significant events there next spring," said Tata.

You would have thought he would have learned what a mistake this was after Tora Bora.

More soon -- flying to DC tonight.

-- Steve Clemons

There is a lot of criticism on the political right and left of the Iraq Study Group report -- but all in all, the report does a very good job suggesting that Iraq's internal problems cannot be addressed without addressing the absence of regional equilibrium.

And while there is debate about what formula might work to address the internal dynamics inside Iraq, the fact is that the American presence is one of the primary drivers of the Sunni insurgency.

Bush will offer a billion dollar jobs plan Wednesday night -- small change actually given the employment problem in Iraq -- in addition to an escalation of America's troop presence focused on stabilizing Baghdad. And he has all sorts of glitzy personnel changes to announce that are really just shuffling chairs around on a sinking ship.

In this short piece that appeared in the Financial Times, Trita Parsi makes clear why it's important to start negotiations with Iran before things fly further out of control. I don't agree with everything in Parsi's short essay -- but his articulation of an Iran-Saudi Arabia proxy war in Iraq is chilling, and possible.

My sense so far is that the Bush plan continues to neglect the political realities in the region -- and inside Iraq. And by firing General John Abizaid, he is continuing the Rumsfeld practice of elevating and rewarding those generals who agree with him and will support his broken strategy -- and fire those who have been privately telling him the truth that America needs out of this mess.

For the zinger op-ed advocating a "diplomacy surge," read General Wesley Clark's superb piece in the Washington Post. I need to get him to do a guest blog here.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

For those who are frequent visitors to The Washington Note, you'd know that my Apple G4 turbo-charged powerbook went on the fritz last week, and I hope to be back up and running with a new hard disk on Thursday this week.

But combine massive computer failure with a trip to mountainous, rural Hawaii at a retreat with no car, almost no connectivity and just one news channel -- and you either have heaven or hell. Well, the news channel is Fox News, so you take your pick.

I did see John Bolton give his first "on the record" television interview today, and he and I both seem to be in agreement that Zalmay Khalilzad is a good choice to succeed him at the United Nations. Bolton has to say that probably -- just for protocol reasons. But I think that having someone of Khalilzad's experience and deal-making capacity at the UN is a strong plus for the United States.

But to get a sense of John Bolton's less-polished views, you ought to listen to this audio file (if it is still up!) of an "off the record" briefing that John Bolton did for AIPAC last week. The interview and large portions of the transcript were posted by a serious Bolton-fan stalker at the blog, Atlas Shrugs.

Someone who must go unnamed in the AIPAC network was kind enough to share with me this material.

While Atlas Shrugs has since removed the transcript from its site, the link to the "audio file" was still working as of this morning. Can't promise it will be there for long.

But the real weird thing on Fox News this morning, following Condi's nomination of Khalilzad for the US Mission to the UN post and Ryan Crocker's strategic redeployment from Pakistan to serve as US Ambassador to Iraq, and Bolton's reaction -- was a graphic viciously attacking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for already breaking a campaign promise and taking Monday off for football games.

Fox News rattled on that after just taking the reigns of the House of Representatives, Pelosi -- who had promised five day work weeks -- was already feathering her nest and making things more comfortable by taking off Monday for football.

Fox didn't stop there. They also had some talking heads on board, of whom National Review's Rich Lowry was one, to further lampoon Speaker Pelosi for this take a day off slip.

Well, Fox owes Pelosi a prime time apology -- and maybe a panel of experts on following to discuss why Fox uses the "Drudge Report" as a primary new source and didn't run the traps on a story it was giving huge profile to -- and on which it organized a panel of Pelosi-bashing pundits.

Drudge broke the story Sunday evening after seeing a House release noting that there would be "no business" on Monday. Then he let his imagination take over and started the attack on Pelosi and House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer.

But as Raw Story has reported, the request for the day off came from Republican Minority Leader John Boehner:

Contrary to an Internet report, Republicans in the House of Representatives appear to have asked for a day off less than one week into the 110th Congress, RAW STORY has learned. The Democratic leadership consented, and no action is scheduled on the House floor today.

Congress will not meet today to begin the official "100 hours" agenda of the Democratic Members due to a request put in to the Democratic Leadership by Rep. John Boehner, the Republican Minority Leader in the House of Representatives.

"Mr. Boehner made this request, and in the interest of comity, Democrats granted it," a senior Democratic aide told RAW STORY.

So, what is the story now, Fox?

Pelosi abandons campaign pledge to help out Republicans obsessed by football?

Doesn't seem to fly quite as well.

Fox really owes her an apology -- Hoyer too for that matter. And I want to be on that panel of talking heads analyzing this.

My hell with Fox News all the time ends tomorrow. In Honolulu on Wednesday and Washington Thursday morning.

-- Steve Clemons

This report is disturbing.

I met former General Zvi Shtauber last year at Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies and sensed that he was more of a quick hit hawk than a complex strategist. During the same trip, however, I met numerous Iran-watchers inside the Mossad and inside Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs who felt that the last thing that America and Israel should do was to over-hype Ahmadinejad or the Iranian regional threat. Doing so, in their view, would lead to an environment that incrementally legitimated the most reactionary parts of the Iranian political environment rather than undermined them.

Serious Israeli strategists know that the best way to hinder Iran is to (1) work to reduce the price of oil to undermine the economic basis of Iran's growing pretensions; (2) to work covertly to "stir up trouble" inside Iran among its own interest groups -- much like Iran is doing to the U.S. inside Iraq; and (3) to find ways to tacitly work with and recognize other power centers inside Iran rather than the relatively weak but hyperbolic President Ahmadinejad.

What Shtauber and other recent Israeli advocates of a strike against Iran are not discussing is that such a military strike is NOT against concrete and mortar facilities and warehouses storing centrifuges.

The strike would attempt to kill 5,000 to 6,000 of Iran's top tier nuclear engineer talent. To kill those approximately 6,000 people, many more will be injured and killed -- and that human nightmare will agitate huge cross sections of Iranian society far beyond any of the limited groups that have thus far supported Ahmadinejad.

A military strike of this sort would allow a total consolidation of power behind Ahmadinejad and rip power away from all other power centers inside Iraq.

What it would also do is create a massive "terrorist super-highway" stretching from Iran through Iraq, into Syria and permeating Jordan, overrunning Lebanon -- up to the edge of Israel.

Israel has smart people with substantial intelligence resources inside Iran. American and Israeli officials need to listen to them and think this through.

Bombing Iran could easily trigger the worst potential outcomes. There are other choices. The Saudis and Gulf states have suggested some ways to bring Iran down a notch.

The binary choice on Iran simply is not good enough -- but Bush & Co. don't seem to be doing anything substantial to generate an option other than acquiescing to Iran or bombing it.

-- Steve Clemons

Chris Nelson's Nelson Report of Friday, 5 January, does a great job of capturing the competing games going on around the President's "surge proposal." The President will be outlining his plan Wednesday at 9 pm Eastern and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will be testifying tomorrow in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Here is the Nelson Report take:

5 January 2007 -- The Nelson Report

The new chair and the former chair of Senate Foreign Relations, Joe Biden and Dick Lugar, today jointly announced nearly a month of hearings on Iraq, starting Tuesday morning with a classified briefing. Secretary of State Rice will defend the new Administration plan on Thursday, at 10 am, following what is now expected to be a Wednesday night speech by the President.

The calculated bipartisanship of the announcement of the hearings, which may carry over into February, sent a clear signal that the President faces as much scrutiny, if not more, from fellow Republicans, as from the Democrats. And from what chairman Biden (D-Del.) has been saying of late, he and the Dems are loaded for bear.

The November election results confirmed what some commentators had long been warning the White House. . .that loss of faith and support from Republican Members had become a major obstacle for Bush policy, since politicians running for re-election have little interest in defending a "Bush legacy" which amounts to a lead weight around their necks.

With Bush expected to outline and explain an apparent "surge option" for Iraq, in his big speech Wednesday, the politics of Iraq will get even rougher. Democratic candidate John Edwards has already cleverly branded the surge idea "the McCain option", to dramatize Republican candidate John McCain's risky championing of one big final push.

McCain, of course, will try to argue that any numbers sent were not big enough, and that "if only my advice had been followed things would have been different."

One of the more interesting "on background" discussions is the degree of opposition within the professional military, especially the Army and Marine Corps, to the "surge" notion. As we've been reporting for months, the military establishment has been increasingly "open" in expressing its dismay at the Bush/Rumsfeld war management, using retired generals and anonymous quotes to journalists.

While the surprise selection of Adm. Fallon as the new CENTCOM is being well-received by those familiar with his extraordinary record at PACOM, especially his extensive and probing outreach to planners and theorists involved in all aspects of "GWOT". . .the Global War on Terrorism. . ."you have to suspect that a Navy man was picked, because they couldn't find a competent general who wanted the job if it involved the surge", an observer comments.

A journalism comrade reports that in fact, "the President contacted Fallon before Christmas, and they had had a long lunch together in Honolulu after the President's trip to APEC. The President has a good relationship with Fallon." This source adds, "an official told me the President wants 'a clean sweep' in Iraq. . .'fresh eyes'."

(Us Asia types, of course, are very interested in who replaces Fallon. Informed gossip today: "The PACFLT Commander Adm. Gary Roughead is mentioned most often. Sen. Inouye is reported to have said he was the guy at a luncheon yesterday. LTG Karl Eikenberry, the current Commander in Afghanistan, is mentioned as an out of the box possibility. He is a former attache in China and was the PACOM J5 until last year".)

In any event, the new Democratic congressional leaders, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, today both came out against sending any more troops to Iraq; Pelosi yesterday reiterated her #1 goal would be stopping the Iraq war and bringing the troops home as quickly as possible.

Among other concerns, they know that if the new Bush policies can buy enough of a "decent interval" before the US is forced to leave (for whatever the reason) then the new (and, they hope, Democratic) President in 2009 may "inherit" the end game in Iraq war. . .an "end" no one today, outside of die-hard neo-con circles, thinks will be a happy one.

But it isn't just the Dems applying political pressure. The Administration must soon send an Iraq war supplemental budget request to Congress, with estimates ranging from slightly less than $100-billion, to a great deal more. . .and Dems will have to find a way to approve the money, or face charges that they aren't supporting the troops now at risk, and thus being blamed for any disasters which may ensue prior to November, 2008.

The "price" for that money will be intense scrutiny. The Foreign Relations hearings are just the start. We have yet to hear from Senate Armed Services, where Chairman Carl Levin is clearly getting ready to enter the debate; and given the House Leadership's radical critique of the war, House Armed Services will likely be just as rough on the details, past and present, as Lugar-Biden, and Levin.

In stepping back to survey the situation in Iraq. . .and not just US politics. . .you can see that for whatever set of reasons you chose to credit, the Administration now appears trapped in a classic "Catch 22" situation: in order to reach the political resolution needed to restore military stability, military stability is needed; but it can't get military stability until it has a real political solution in action.

You can see how a properly applied "surge" may seem the only option now available which could break this deadlock. It's this horrible dilemma the President will be trying to find a formula to resolve, starting with one dramatic final throw of the dice, next week. And Congress will be right behind him. . .second guessing, judging, and making sure that whatever happens, everyone knows whose fault it is.

Biden-Lugar tentative witness lists include current officials, military and civilian experts (some real, some in their own minds) from all sides of the political spectrum, and also the Baker-Hamiltion Commission, with a planned grand finale of former Secretary of States, including Kissinger and Albright.

It's all good background to have. . .

More later. Back in Washington, hopefully with fixed hard disk, Thursday.

-- Steve Clemons

We still need to hear what the President's speech specifically includes regarding a new strategy for Iraq, but the key question will be whether there are any clear, undisputed benchmarks by which the public can measure the relative success or failure of the President's plan.

My hunch is that Bush will continue to avoid putting forward benchmarks by which he can be measured and that his strategy is "doubling up" -- putting more lives and dollars on the line in what has been a losing strategy, hoping for an eventual win.

Unlike blackjack where one can win enough money to cover losses if that win eventually comes, the lives lost and dollars spent will never come back -- and that holds true for both sides of this terrible conflict.

American prestige and the perception of military power can't be won back this way either.

The President has not explained why he did "not hear" the call from his field commanders for more troops in the field far beyond the point where we find ourselves now in Iraq. Why was Shinseki ignored and pushed out? Why did the President and his team create an elaborate charade with Rumsfeld's complicity and that of the top generals in the uniformed services that more troops were NOT needed in Iraq? Someone should pay for this. Firing Rumsfeld is not enough.

Now, the President wants more troops in Iraq. Guess one of those field commanders finally got a secret note to Bush through the screeners at the White House and Pentagon.

But thinking about this without bias for a moment -- though I think that this war and all that we have poured into it have been a monumental mistake -- the President is now escalating the conflict in a way that is nearly identical to the kind of escalations we saw in Vietnam. More troops, more advisors, more trainers -- no strategy.

If the President wanted to be taken seriously by skeptics, he would propose a bifurcated set of strategies for resolving matters inside Iraq as well as regionally in the Middle East. And he is not doing this.

And candidly, beyond the absence of strategy there is another problem that the figure of 20,000 additional troops is minor. It represents an ebbing up of U.S. forces. This is again, military deployment on the cheap. If Bush was serious, we would be sending several hundred thousand troops to quell the violence and to help reorder Iraqi society -- but that is not going to happen.

There is no "Nixon goes to China" bravery or resolve in the President's plan as I see it thus far. And without strategy, no troops should be there now -- let alone an increase of any kind in troop levels.

-- Steve Clemons

While the book exposed a lot of the systemic rot in the Bush administration's Iraq-related decision-making process, there were several things wrong with Bob Woodward's State of Denial.

To discuss one of these, Woodward was duped about the diminishing power of Vice President Cheney and his team. Woodward clearly spent a lot of time with Defense, State, and intelligence officials, but he failed to see the forest for the trees in his analysis of who was driving and influencing America's national security portfolio.

Clearly, the President is important and calls a lot of the shots, but the key question that Woodward never gets to is who really controls the national security bureaucracy. As former State Department Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson so clearly put it on October 16, 2005, a "Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal" hijacked the national security decision-making process. Woodward puts most of the responsibility for failure on Rumsfeld with a weak President and national security team too frequently acquiescing to Rumsfeld's outrageous behavior.

But what Woodward completely misses is that Dick Cheney is the only figure in this presidential administration who has followers -- or what one might otherwise call disciples and acolytes.

The President has no followers -- or very few. They just don't know what his "world view" is. Some are loyal to the persona of George W. Bush, but that is different than knowing what the President would think about some policy or situation. Rice has few followers in the administration. Hadley none. Rumsfeld was despised, and his brilliant "snowflake" strategy helped keep everyone on edge and also helped him evade accountability at every turn. Such types don't generate "followings."

George Tenet, John Negroponte, and others in the intelligence community never cultivated a crowd dedicated to institutionalizing and pursuing their policy prerogatives.

The closest anyone came to challenging Cheney's many followers was Colin Powell who with Richard Armitage and Lawrence Wilkerson at his side tried to breed "sensibility" and "caution" among those who made national security policy -- but at the end of the day, Powell and his team tended to matter when they were in the room and didn't matter when they weren't. Any followers he had dissipated with his departure from the Bush administration.

But Cheney's followers populate the entire national security bureaucracy. He has allies, spies, and fellow travelers in State, Defense, the CIA, the NSA, the DNI, the DIA, all of the uniformed services, and throughout the government. They know his world view and don't need instructions on what to do or what he might think. They know it. They know he wants a war with Iran -- and his team of followers are doing what they can to move us in that direction.

There are many inside the Bush administration who do not want what Cheney and his followers prescribe -- but they are poorly organized and don't have the bureaucratic muscle to compete with Cheney's machine.

Some friends in the blogosphere like Brad DeLong contest my view and argue "that they all work for the czar" -- meaning that George Bush is much more in control of matters than my model would suggest. That may be the case -- but still, within the bureaucracy it is the paradigm that Cheney has established which has tied together a network of like-minded adherents. Bush may ultimately be driving that franchise, but Cheney's frame is still the dominant structure that followers connect to.

Woodward's book -- which is excellent on a vast number of fronts -- totally misses the Cheney machine and underestimates what Cheney has done and continues to do to wrestle the course of national security policy the way he wants it to go.

-- Steve Clemons

It has become a sad cliche that Americans deserve better from their leadership than they are getting.

The President and some Members of Congress are calling for an increase in troop levels in Iraq to attempt to keep implementing the same domestic security and training plan for Iraqi police and militia units that America has had in place all along.

The plan has not changed -- just the call, finally, for more forces. But it’s too late for 20,000 -- 30,000 -- or even 40,000 -- troops to matter.

I'm not sure that several hundred thousand troops would make a difference, but all bias aside, Iraq and the sectarian civil war that is erupting calls for a much bolder, bigger action than a simple "surge" in U.S. troops.

Solving Iraq, if it can be solved, now means getting real about and engaging in a broad range of Middle East dealmaking between internal groups inside Iraq as well as among its neighbors.

It means working to establish the State of Palestine in a manner that maintains the viability and security of both Israel and Palestine. It means offering Syria a Libya-like arrangement out of the international doghouse. It means massaging Iran's ego in the region without handing the entire Middle East over on a golden platter -- which America seems to be doing with its counterproductive strategy. It means figuring out what China and Russia want most in their foreign policy objectives and doing what we can to trade their needs for our own.

This all means that we must have an end to diplomacy on the cheap -- and national security on the cheap. And a surge in troop levels without a plan, without the other component parts of a credible and believable grand strategy -- is sending more soldiers off to die unnecessarily -- or to kill Iraqis, many who are absolutely innocent in all this mess and who will no doubt hate the United States for a long time ahead.

I cannot attend tomorrow as I am traveling, but there is a picket action that is taking place on Friday at noon in Washington at 1150 Seventeenth Street (near 17th and M Streets) to protest the campaign that Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman are launching tomorrow to support President Bush's call for more troops in Iraq.

This peaceful picket action is called "No Iraq Escalation" and folks will have colorful signs and other material to carry around if you wish.

I know both Senator McCain and Lieberman -- and I know that both think that this "surge" is something that they have to support. My response to them -- if I was discussing the matter privately -- is that they are not asking the tough questions of the President and of our nation's top strategists. They are not thinking this through well enough or fully enough and are calling for an "escalation" of an already terrible situation.

They need to hear some alternative voices out there. That's what our democracy is about.

Feel free to send this post to others in the DC area, or to other blogs, or email lists.

I hope that those of you who can will share your views tomorrow at 1150 17th Street and give our elected representatives a sense that Americans are sick of being asked to send young men and women into a war that has gone way off the rails.

Bush is cherry-picking the Iraq Study Group report -- cherry-picking what he wants to continue a failed four year plan. But without the big deal and the other important parts of the ISG Report, Bush -- and enabling Senators -- are making America's situation even worse.

-- Steve Clemons

I do think that this is a good move.

Khalilzad, who has been both Ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan, may have signed a number of PNAC letters, but he is a realist. The situation has deteriorated around him in Iraq -- but he knows how to deal in the region.

And a Muslim reprepesenting us at the United Nations is good -- and long overdue given our current Middle East mess.

-- Steve Clemons

Some things make sense about Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte's move to serve as Condi's Deputy at the State Department -- and others don't.

As I have written before, there has been a long-term, subterranean war between Negroponte and CIA Director Michael Hayden on one side and Don Rumsfeld and Defense Department Under Secretary Stephen Cambone on the other.

While the Director of National Intelligence had significant legislatively drawn authority to govern the nation's intelligence portfolio, the defense department had the lion's share of actual resources.

With someone as bureaucratically skilled and as self-focused as Donald Rumsfeld, anyone would have difficulty working out an arrangement on intelligence bureaucracy management with him -- even Negroponte. But Rumsfeld and Cambone are out.

Mike Hayden, former Director of the National Security Agency and Deputy Director of National Intelligence and now Director of Central Intelligence, was a key ally of Negroponte in trying to wrestle back from DoD control of the intelligence machinery that were legally to work at the direction of the Directorate of National Intelligence.

In the rivalry between quietly feuding camps around Bush, Negroponte was informally close to Condi Rice and was part of the anti-Cheney/Rumfeld camp.

What does make sense about Negroponte's appointment to succeed Robert Zoellick as Deputy Secretary of State is that he is a valuable bureaucratic manipulator. And Condi needs someone to give her both foreign policy intellectual heft as well as "bureaucratic power" heft. Negroponte -- who is a long time foreign service officer who also served as US Ambassador to the United Nations and was our first post-Bremer Ambassador to Iraq before becoming the nation’s Intel Czar -- adds enormous power to Condi's force projection in White House circles.

That said, what does not make sense about the appointment is that with Condoleezza Rice at State, some allies at the NSC, Michael Hayden at CIA, Robert Gates at Defense, and Negroponte as DNI, the correlation of forces in place to check the considerable embedded bureaucratic power of Vice President Cheney and his acolytes was formidable.

The government has moved chairs around and now has to fill the DNI role, perhaps with Michael Hayden -- though rumors abound that McConnell may be up. But this also leaves open the chance that a neocon hardliner or fellow traveler could now be appointed to this post. Someone like Elliott Abrams comes to mind, and that would be a disaster.

So in helping her own hand, Rice may have actually weakened, somewhat, the overall ability of those who know a new kind of diplomacy is needed in the Middle East to take back the helm of Bush administration foreign policy.

I wish Negroponte success -- and Condi's team -- particularly if they wise up about their counter-productive resistance to building Syria and Iran negotiations into their next round of Middle East negotiations.

But when I saw Negroponte recently at the home of the British Ambassador and told him as I departed that I hoped he had some new ideas to help solve our Iraq mess, he responded, "Don't hold your breath."

-- Steve Clemons

On December 31st, my colleague and friend Nir Rosen posted on Iraq Slogger what I think are the first English language translations of the banter around Saddam Hussein's hanging.

The manner of Saddam's death -- the secret recording by cell phone, the sectarian insults, the struggles at the end, and Saddam's own poise as a head-of-state thug with poise caught in and part of America's missteps in the Middle East -- will become the subject of many episodes of theatre, written and performed, in the future.

Although I know that this subject has already broken into the mainstream, I wanted to highlight Nir's first account:

The Americans often equated Saddam with the Sunni resistance to the occupation. By killing Saddam they were killing what they believed was the symbol of the Sunni resistance, expecting them to realize their cause was hopeless. Sunnis could perceive the execution, and its timing, as a message to them: "We are killing you." But Saddam's death might now liberate the Sunni resistance from association with Saddam and the Baathists. They can now more plausibly claim that they are fighting for national liberation and not out of support for the former regime as their American and Iraqi government opponents have so often claimed. A lack of a hood (victims normally do not have a choice to wear a hood) a scarf to prevent rope burn for the soon to be distributed photo, a hallmark of US "We Got Him" psyops tactics. Even the US plane that flew him to his final resting spot seems to indicate US management.

The unofficial video of the execution, filmed on the mobile cell phone of one of the officials present is sure to further inflame sectarianism, because it is clearly a Shia execution. Men are heard talking, one of them is called Ali. As the executioners argue over how to best position the rope on his neck Saddam calls out to god, saying, "ya Allah." Referring to Shias, one official says "those who pray for Muhamad and the family of Muhamad have won!" Others triumphantly respond in the Shia chant: "Our God prays for Muhamad and the family of Muhamad." Others then add the part chanted by supporters of Muqtada al Sadr: "And speed his (the Mahdi's) return! And damn his enemies! And make his son victorious! Muqtada! Muqtada! Muqtada!"

Saddam then smiles and says something mocking about Muqtada. "Muqtada! It is this..." but the rest is blocked by the voices of officials saying "ila jahanam," or "go to Hell." Saddam looks down and says "Is this your manhood...?" As the rope is put around Saddam's neck somebody shouts "long live Muhamad Baqir al Sadr!" referring to an important Shia cleric who founded the Dawa Party and was also Muqtada's relative. Baqir al Sadr was executed by Saddam in 1980. He is venerated by all three major Shia movements in Iraq, the Dawa, the Sadrists and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Others insult Saddam. One man asks them to stop: "I beg you, I beg you, the man is being executed!" Saddam then says the Shahada, or testimony, that there is no god but Allah and Muhamad is his prophet. When he tries to say it again the trap door opens and he falls through to be hung. One man then shouts that "the tyranny has ended!" and others call out triumphal Shia chants. Somebody wants to remove the rope from his neck but is told to wait eight minutes.

The Sunni Islamo-nationalist website Islam Memo claimed that the Safavids (Persians, meaning Shias) burned Saddam's Quran after they killed him. They also said that Saddam exchanged insults with the witnesses to his execution and cursed one of them, saying "God damn you, Persian midget." The same website also claimed that Ayatolla Ali Sistani blessed Saddam's execution and that the Iraqi government refused to provide Saddam with a Sunni cleric to pray for him before the execution. Finally, they asserted that Saddam said "Palestine is Arab" and then recited the Muslim Shahada, testifying that there is no god but Allah and Muhamad is his prophet, and then he was executed. The website claimed that following his death Saddam's body was abused.

Although the Shia dominated Iraqi media claimed Saddam was terrified prior to his execution and fought with his hangmen, Saddam's on screen visage was one of aplomb, for he was conscious of the image he was displaying and wanted to go down as the grand historic leader he believed himself to be.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

P.S. -- I am at a rural retreat site in the Pacific -- and my hard disk just crashed -- yes, on my cherished Apple G4 Powerbook. I will be back as much as I can but essentially on the road through January 10th and computer-challenged until I get to see one of those Apple geniuses.

-- Steve Clemons

Annie the Amazing Weimaraner's resolution is to get even better at catching that tennis ball.

Oakley's is to catch a squirrel. But he also thinks a duck would do. Just to be friends of course.

I have a few. Mine are to do what I can to redirect American's foreign policy and international economic policy courses. To finally write a book on the grit and real politics of foreign policy. And to draw a lot more people into strategic activism.

I'm also planning to do a lot more running this year. And good blogging.

Happy New Year! I'll be hanging out in Lahaina today for those in the neighborhood.

-- Steve Clemons