Alexander Litvinenko, on his deathbed, accused Vladimir Putin of orchestrating his murder.

Having ranted a few times on this blog about the current state of U.S.-Russia relations, I should say that I was pleased to see that Presidents Bush and Putin are planning to meet in early July.

The State Department is finally striking the right tone. It's about time, considering the Secretary of State is a Sovietologist by training.

"The Russians still remain a very important partner, despite the tensions that may arise over various issues," White House press secretary Tony Snow told reporters after announcing the meeting yesterday. "We're going to make all our concerns known, but on the other hand, we're going to continue working to work ahead."

I'm glad the meeting is taking place in Kennebunkport, at the ol' Bush family homestead in Maine. The invitation is intended to reflect a desire for closer relations and intimacy.

Some in the Bush Administration have tried to push Russia to the fringes of the agenda and pretend Russia - its insecure nuclear arsenal and anti-democratic wave and all - is irrelevant. Others, like Sen. McCain, have suggested that the U.S. should push Russia out of the G8 and create some distance.

At this critical juncture, I'm hoping there's enough "Baker/Bush 41 realism" still in the Kennebunkport air to keep President Bush away from both of these dangerous detours. The right path is still careful engagement, holding our partner accountable, but emphasizing mutual respect, cooperation, and a common agenda.

Everyone interested in the subject should also have noted with interest two important developments recently. First, British prosecutors have accused Andrei Lugovoi of having murdered Putin critic Alexander Litvinenko. Litvinenko, on his deathbed, accused Putin of ordering his murder.

Lugovoi is probably thinking two things right now:

1.) I really shouldn't have been so colossally dumb as to have chosen polonium-210, a rare, radioactive material, as my poison of choice. It makes it really easy to trace the murder back to me.

2.) I'd better figure out a convincing alternative theory and stick to it - not because I'm afraid of being extradited or convicted, mind you, but because I need to make abundantly clear that I'm not going to rat out my silovki bosses so they don't make me next on their list.

This second thought is apparently where Lugovoi's mind is currently, considering he told the press that Litvinenko was an MI6 agent and was killed by the British government. It's not a very good alternative story (even in the off chance that Litvinenko is in fact affiliated with MI6) and won't fly outside the Kremlin, but, as we've learned in other instances, it doesn't need to. It just needs to be good enough to help him avoid extradition to the UK or state-ordered murder in Russia, and it probably is.

The other important development is the posthumous release of Anna Politkovskaya's book, For What.

As headlines indicated, Mikhail Gorbachev spoke at the official release and called the book important (hidden in the final paragraphs of some stories is Gorbachev's ironic praise of Putin). Frankly, with respect to Mr. Gorbachev, have to question the wisdom of the invitation. To the surprise of most Americans, polls show that Gorbachev is among the most despised leaders in Russian history.

Gorbachev is badly misunderstood, both in the West and in Russia. In the West, Gorbachev mostly symbolizes reform, peace, and courage. In Russia, he's associated with long bread lines and declining influence. Much has been made of the book's publication in Politkovskaya's native Russian, but Gorbachev's role in the book launch makes me wonder if its intended audience was Western audiences instead of Russians.

Anyway, it seems there are a few small rays of hope in some very dark times.

--Scott Paul

After Zimbabwe won its election to Chair the Commission on Sustainable Development and Paul Wolfowitz held the World Bank hostage last month, international institutions were due for a boost.

The month wasn't all bad - after all, human rights groups did manage to help defeat Belarus in its bid for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council. Still, more good news was badly needed.

Fortunately, this has been a week of good news.

Bob Zoellick will be the World Bank President. For the reasons Steve outlines, this is a great pick.

The International Criminal Court's prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, is investigating mass rape in the Central African Republic. His record to this point has been careful, measured, lawyerly (in the best sense of the word), and steadfastly apolitical. The extremely counterproductive U.S. policy on the ICC is looking more and more ridiculous.

The U.N. Security Council approved the establishment of a tribunal to investigate the assasination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. This is precisely the kind of thing that the Security Council is supposed to be doing.

B'nai B'rith International sponsored a "U.N. recruitment seminar" in Israel, a small, but notably positive step in the effort to diffuse Israel-U.N. tensions.

The U.N. told troop contributing nations that they would have to adhere to formal, strict disciplinary standards, which should hopefully go a long way toward improving the conduct of U.N. peacekeepers and the U.N.'s reputation, too.

The World Health Organization urged all countries to make indoor buildings smoke-free. If you've ever spent an afternoon in the Vienna Cafe at U.N. headquarters gasping for air, you can understand how big of a leap this is.

And that's just the big stuff. The security and humanitarian deliverables that international institutions provide for very little money goes under the radar all the time. Good on them for stealing the headlines in a positive way this week.

-- Scott Paul

p.s: It can't all be good news. President Bush's announcement on a new climate agreement today was a major slap in the face to the G8, the U.N. Framekwork Convention on Climate Change, and, well, pretty much everyone else. My colleague Rebecca Brown gets it right at the Citizens for Global Solutions blog.

Last week, McCain and Obama traded barbs over the Iraq war. McCain first derided Obama for voting against the war supplemental, then Obama called out McCain for his farcical pronouncement that Baghdad is secure, and McCain finally ended the exchange by smugly correcting the Obama team's spelling of "fla[c]k jacket."

Mitt Romney's campaign just sent out an e-mail comparing his agenda with Barack Obama's. The obvious question is, why? Does Obama really engender greater anger or fear with the Republican base than Hillary Clinton?

This would seem to be a big boost for Obama, who, as far as I can tell, has done nothing in the past two weeks to so suddenly become the Democratic foil of choice.

The easy answer is that Both Romney and Obama published articles in Foreign Affairs this month, but Romney could just have easily compared his article with the policy speeches of others had he wanted to.

And interestingly, most of the excerpts of Obama's article that the Romney campaign highlights in its e-mail aren't particularly controversial, except with a very small part of the Republican base. In fact, what Romney points out in Obama's piece seems moderate, sensible, and, to put it bluntly, not particularly far-reaching.

Needless to say, in the middle of the Democratic primary, the attention from Republicans bodes well for the Obama campaign.

I've copied the e-mail below. I do plan to read the articles and reflect on anything I see as notable in either one.

-- Scott Paul

Continue reading this article

-- Scott Paul

Daniel Levy is one of a handful of people who really could move the Palestinians and Israelis (and Americans, and Europeans, and Russians, and UN bureaucrats, and Saudis, Syrians, and Jordanians) towards a negotiated comprehensive deal establishing a Palestinian state that doesn't undermine Israel's national security.

He is a great friend and colleague of mine at the New America Foundation and Century Foundation and has just launched his own personal blog, Prospects for Peace. The title isn't my style. I'm more of an edgy and dark Beyond War type and find that I'm at my most cynical when I hear flowery stuff -- but Levy is a visionary who does see in his head and politically a different Middle East arrangement that is more stable -- but he has strong currents of realism in him as well.

The new blog is a gusher when it comes to informed commentary on Israel/Palestine affairs, and I recommend it highly.

-- Steve Clemons

(Richard Vague and blogger Juan Cole speak at New America Foundation/American Strategy Program dinner for Zbigniew Brzezinski)

I have become a fan of a daily email and blog site, DelanceyPlace.com, that is published by businessman Richard Vague.

Vague is the founding Chairman and former CEO of First USA Bank which he sold before becoming the head of Barclays' American credit card operations at Juniper Financial. He has now moved on from that and is planning a new foray in the energy sector.

Vague wrote his own critique of Geoge Bush's so-called global war on terror in a set of collected essays titled "Terrorism: A Brief for Americans" which I have helped distribute. I think that it's a clear-headed, honest, and classically conservative take on America's deteriorating global position.

His essays are well worth reading. One of the fascinating things to see is the widespread interest in Richard Vague's brief at Rotary and Lion's Club groups across the U.S. And reaching small business owners and other general conservatives frustrated with our current national security course has been hard to do, but Vague has been doing it.

But separate from the heavy stuff, I also recommend if you have the patience for another email list the roster of his daily missives that derive from the extensive reading he does. Today's hit is a snippet of Robert Caro's Master of the Senate. There is always some fascinating tidbit that he sends out -- to a list of now more than 11,000 people.

And here is his important entry of May 17th on Israel's nuclear weapons program:

In today's encore excerpt -- in the 1950s, Israel becomes one of a now-growing list of countries that have made an unauthorized, clandestine entry into the world of nuclear armaments:

"The Israeli program is nearly as old as the state itself. [David] Ben-Gurion authorized it in 1952. . . . [Benjamin Netanyahu] told me that if the survival of the country was at stake, the Israelis would use it and worry about the consequences later. . .

"In the 1950s, with French assistance, the Israelis had begun to construct a large reactor in the Negev and a facility for processing the fuel rods needed to make plutonium. Then, in 1959, De Gaulle became president of France and said French assistance could continue only if Ben-Gurion gave public assurance that the reactor would be used solely for peaceful purposes.

This he did, while knowing full well that the reactor was going to be used to make plutonium for nuclear weapons. The reactor was completed in 1963. During this time the Israelis and the Americans engaged in a kind of theater of the absurd. The Americans demanded inspections and the Israelis came up with one ingenious maneuver after another to avoid them. For example, the Americans were informed that the nuclear complex at Dimona was a textile factory. . .What brought an end to this farce was the testimony of an immigrant Moroccan Jew named Mordechai Vanunu.

"In 1977. . .Vanunu got a job as a manager in the graveyard shift at the nuclear plant. . .Vanunu's clearance gave him access to all levels of secure sites at the plant.. . . He went to London with his story of Israel's nuclear program and photographs to back it up.

These were published in the London Sunday Times and created a sensation. Vanunu was lured to Rome by a young woman, an Israeli agent, and kidnapped by the Mossad [Israel's intelligence agency]; he was taken back to Israel where he spent seventeen years in prison, partly in harsh solitary confinement. He is now living under tight security in Israel. It was clear from what he revealed. . .that Israel. . .has a very considerable and varied nuclear arsenal."

Jeremy Bernstein, "The Secrets of the Bomb", The New York Review of Books, May 25, 2006, pp. 42-3

I'm so busy reading a mound of other foreign policy and national security related materials that the remarkably diverse daily selections from Richard Vague keep me semi-balanced.

Off to New York today.

-- Steve Clemons

Update: For those with further interest, here is a short speech that Vague presented on May 24, 2007 to the Wilmington Rotary Club titled "A Solution to Terrorism."

-- Steve Clemons

There are only 10 cabins left -- and I am soooo tempted to go on this Alaska National Review cruise. I'd be civil, of course, but would hold my ground on my views and otherwise enjoy the scenery and the celebrity of being a token independent progressive on the ship.

John Bolton is one of the recently added headliners -- and I do wish him a good cruise.

A number of close friends of mine have interviewed Bolton lately, and apparently he did not read the high road, tip-of-the-hat commentary I offered him when the battle over his confirmation as US Ambassador to the UN came to a close.

I have chatted recently with one of his former staff and hear that he's still pretty hot at this blog. It would be good to move on though -- BUT a debate that pitted me making the case for enlightened American internationalism vs. John Bolton defending a more Jesse Helms-inspired pugnacious nationalism might just sell those last few cabins.

If not on the Alaska cruise -- then maybe we could do something like that at one of Margaret Carlson's galas for The Week. Just a thought. . .

-- Steve Clemons

Tonight on Charlie Rose will appear outgoing World Bank President and former Bush administration Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.

Should be a fascinating show. As a note to Charlie, some of the points of advice I have given publicly to incoming World Bank President Bob Zoellick may make interesting points for discussion with Wolfowitz.

And stay tuned for a great Charlie Rose discussion with Zbigniew Brzezinski on June 13th. That should be a quite stimulating exchange.

-- Steve Clemons

In just about 90 minutes, President Bush is going to speak to the "international development agenda" of his administration and announce his support for Robert Zoellick as President of the World Bank.

Both Bob Zoellick and current Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Robert Kimmitt were at the top of my list to succeed the embattled and self-destructive Paul Wolfowitz as CEO of one of the world's most important financial institutions.

We were all very lucky that the thin-skinned former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist withdrew from contention. I have liked Frist from time to time -- mostly because he believes in science and rationality -- but recently had an odd personal battle with him that exemplified why the former Tennessee senator would have been a personnel disaster at the Bank.

Zoellick -- who has served as US Trade Representative and as Deputy Secretary of State in this Bush administration -- is a walking hyper-synthesis of geostrategic and geoeconomic thinking. He is one of the few people I know -- beyond Bob Kimmitt and a few others -- who understands the economic dimensions of national interest as well as the classic military realities of national security and pulls them together brilliantly and articulately.

He also is a coalition-builder who can work beyond the parochial dimensions of America's needs and wants and help meld collaborative international efforts to handle big challenges. He has done this sort of international bridge-building many times, though his perch at the World Bank will now give him his largest platform.

Getting the "developing nation problem right" is important to Zoellick -- and more importantly, the Europeans trust him in large part because of his famous friendship with former EU Trade Commissioner and World Trade Organization Director General Pascal Lamy. But to be fair, former US Ambassador to Germany Robert Kimmitt has similar levels of trust -- which is important in healing a bank that has lost confidence in itself, its mission, and leadership.

Many in the Bank do not trust Zoellick like I do. I have known and observed Bob Zoellick for a very long time and nearly worked closely with him at CSIS in a role in which he was trying to make a large organization more dynamic and more -- well, "21st century." I didn't join Bob there, though I nearly did -- and instead helped set up and build the New America Foundation.

But here is some friendly advice to Bob Zoellick from a blogger who considers himself a friend of the new nominee:

1. Quickly establish and communicate a plan for international economic development efforts that has benchmarks, clear strategic goals, and that highlights pilot efforts as part of a continual R&D effort that is empirical and not tethered to ideological assumptions.

Wolfowitz never established a plan -- and everything from his African anti-poverty projects anti-corruption efforts seemed ad hoc, reactive, and part of a constantly changing calculus on his part that few understood. Even his friend and one of Wolfowitz's political appointees at the Bank, Karl Jackson, kept saying about Wolfowitz, "he has no plan."

2. "Listen, listen, listen" to your senior World Bank staff. You may disagree with them, but listen to their views and counsel.

Wolfowitz failed to listen and thus at the end of his painful struggle at the Bank meekly offered "listening sessions." Get this right up front. Make sure that your staff know that you value excellence (which I know you do) and while you will want to put your own mark on the direction of the bank and its interests, try your best to make them stakeholders in your decisions.

3. Break out of the ideological game. Ignore those who will want to pitch your efforts one way or the other as promoting free trade or protectionism. You are doing neither. You are building capacity and trying to get large multiplier effects from Bank programs.

Former Under Secretary of Commerce for International Affairs Grant Aldonas is writing a book now on global economic development and posed the question recently at an economic forum I helped organize, "If we gave a damn about international economic development, what would we negotiate for?! Not what we are negotiating for now." Aldonas has a point. Meet with him. Figure out how to benchmark World Bank project decisions and constituency building around a theme -- like "building a global middle class" for example.

4. Curb the tendency to tell the "Zoellick story" through the prism of your role in the George W. Bush administration. You have many facets. You helped orchestrate the reunification of Germany. You are known as one of James Baker's leading acolytes. You kept providing Bush the younger with platforms to discuss trade and international economic policy during a war -- when most of the Cabinet disparaged trade and didn't believe in economic policy. The Zoellick story is one that is far larger and more impressive than the George W. Bush administration roles you have played.

For some reason, Wolfowitz focused all too much on his links to and allies within the Bush administration than either his credentials as a policy intellectual or his former service as Ambassador in Indonesia and the Philippines.

5. Get Japan back on board with the Bank -- and with you personally. While you were U.S. Trade Representative, to say that your relationship with Japan was "rocky" is a bit of an understatement -- where you took relations with Europe to new highs despite the broader pugnaciousness towards Europe in the Bush administration. But you need Japan and its strong involvement in the Bank.

6. Continue to cultivate China and Chinese collaboration with Bank efforts -- even if informal. You were the conceptualizer of the "stakeholder" notion regarding Chinese international engagement and were the ONLY person in the Bush administration when you were there thinking strategically about China and its importance. That is a strong suit here because Chinese economic activity in the developing world -- while mostly mercantile -- is generating a larger footprint than either American or European activity.

7. This is the time to become a soft Republican, a more pragmatic Republican -- veering toward an "independent." Your tenure at the Bank needs to survive political transition in the country -- and won't work if you play a hand one way or another in the upcoming presidential race. Keep your eye on the international economic agenda.

These may be self-evident, but it's important that the U.S. get the World Bank in better shape. I have confidence in Bob Zoellick to do the job, but many inside the Bank do not and are emailing me mountains of email expressing doubts and uncertainty.

But he is a smart, capable guy whose ego is large enough for this massive responsibility but not so large that he can't welcome critique, introspection, and robust collaboration with other smart, effective people.

-- Steve Clemons

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has noted that convicted former Cheney chief-of-staff Scooter Libby has shown no remorse for his role in obstructing the investigation of the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson's covert responsibilities for the CIA and has asked for a 30 to 37 month jail sentence for Libby.

Here is the 18 page sentencing document (a pdf) filed by Fitzgerald.

We also ought not to forget former Senator and potential presidential candidate Fred Thompson's significant enthusiasm for Scooter Libby's legal defense and ask him whether Libby-like obstruction of justice would be tolerated in his potential administration.

This is from the front page of the Scooter Libby Legal Defense Fund homepage:

Former Senator Fred Thompson, a member of the Advisory Committee for the Libby Legal Defense Trust has graciously offered to host another fundraiser for the Libby Legal Defense Trust.

Well, as one wealthy conservative political donor just told me by phone, knowing Fred Thompson's role in this "just saved me a whole heck of a lot of money." (i.e., he ain't giving. . .)

-- Steve Clemons

In case you're wondering why I've taken issue with so many officials who rail against dependence on imports of foreign oil, wonder no more.

The NY Times published a story today on the fight over coal-to-liquid fuels in Congress. Advocates of "energy independence" and "reducing dependence on foreign oil" say ramping up coal-to-liquid production will get us closer to our energy goals.

Edmund Andrews writes in the NYT:

"[The conflict over coal-to-liquid] reflects a tension, which many lawmakers gloss over, between slowing global warming and reducing dependence on foreign oil."

Of the two, slowing global warming is clearly the right policy goal. The ultimate goal should be even more broad and ambitious: shifting the global energy economy to reliance on abundant sources of clean and sustainable energy that are climate-neutral, pro-development, and cannot be used as geopolitical leverage. I'm still working on the bumper sticker, I guess.

With sequestration and coal burning technologies being where they are, the climate impacts of coal-to-liquid fuels would be at least as detrimental as those of oil. Plus, subsidizing these fuels in the U.S. would do nothing to address the oil addiction from we're suffering from, which is global. No matter where the U.S. gets its energy, the global energy market - and U.S. energy prices - will continue to ebb and flow with the price of oil.

Calling out politicians who casually mention "reliance on foreign oil" and "energy independence" because they're catchy and politically popular may seem nitpicky to some. But these terms are handcuffing a critically important policy debate.

-- Scott Paul

While I was camping over the weekend I missed the release by Greenpeace of a leaked U.S. memo to Germany regarding the G8 text on climate change.

In past years, when I've returned from meetings of the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) or the Conference of Parties (COP) to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, I have done my best to explain how out of step with its allies the U.S. is on climate change and the great lengths U.S. negotiators will go to obstruct international progress on the issue. To my great frustration, I usually feel unable to capture it.

The leaked memo shows illustrates precisely how the U.S. approaches these meetings.

But the G8 is different than the CSD and the COP, for one simple reason: people notice the G8. The G8 guarantees at least two and as many as four days of front-page news coverage. Being isolated diplomatically at the CSD or the COP can go under the radar screen, but not at the G8 Summit.

Angela Merkel and Co. will be under great pressure to cave in to U.S. objections and approve a weak document that the U.S. can agree to. She shouldn't.

That's what Tony Blair did during his presidency of the G8 in 2005, which was focused on poverty and climate change. Blair thought that after his loyalty and message discipline on Iraq that he could exact concessions from President Bush on other issues.

But Bush didn't give an inch. Blair wanted the Gleneagles Summit to be the moment where he reclaimed his status as an equal in the so-called "special relationship." Instead, Gleneagles serves to highlight Blair's seeming acceptance of a lesser role for his country compared to the United States.

There's a lesson to draw from Blair's experience, and Merkel should see it clearly: the Bush Administration does not reward its friends for compromise.

If the U.S. insists on staking out a position that so clearly opposes sound science and the views of its G8 colleagues, Merkel should keep the document strong and force the U.S. to dissociate from the G8 position.

There's nothing to be gained from compromise here, and given the spotlight that will be on the G8 Summit, there is much to be gained from exposing the Bush administration's intransigence.

-- Scott Paul

For those of you in the neighborhood, I will be hanging around Chestertown, Maryland and enjoying the annual "Chestertown Tea Party" festivities. The boat race (see pic above) across the Chester River at 2:30 pm today is worth hanging out for.

For the rest, I'll be talking about Vice President Cheney, Iran, and "end run" strategies at 2 pm EST on "Ian Masters' Background Briefing" and then at 5 pm EST on the new "Sam Seder Show."

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

(Lawrence Wilkerson and his regular Thursday students. These are not the ones in the audience referred to below.)

Jeff Stein of Congressional Quarterly has a great recap of what former Pentagon spy-master Pat Lang and former State Department Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson had to say at a University of District of Columbia forum on May 7th.

Here's some Feith fun from Pat Lang:

Patrick Lang told a hilarious story the other night, for example, about a job interview he had with Douglas Feith, a key architect of the invasion of Iraq.

It was at the beginning of the first Bush term. Lang had been in charge of the Middle East, South Asia and terrorism for the Defense Intelligence Agency in the 1990s. Later he ran the Pentagon's worldwide spying operations.

In early 2001, his name was put forward as somebody who would be good at running the Pentagon's office of special operations and low-intensity warfare, i.e., counterinsurgency. Lang had also been a Green Beret, with three tours in South Vietnam.

One of the people he had to impress was Feith, the Defense Department's number three official and a leading player in the clique of neoconservatives who had taken over the government's national security apparatus.

Lang went to see him, he recalled during a May 7 panel discussion at the University of the District of Columbia.

"He was sitting there munching a sandwich while he was talking to me," Lang recalled, "which I thought was remarkable in itself, but he also had these briefing papers -- they always had briefing papers, you know -- about me.

"He's looking at this stuff, and he says, 'I've heard of you. I heard of you.'

"He says, 'Is it really true that you really know the Arabs this well, and that you speak Arabic this well? Is that really true? Is that really true?'

"And I said, 'Yeah, that's really true.'

"That's too bad," Feith said.

The audience howled.

"That was the end of the interview," Lang said. "I'm not quite sure what he meant, but you can work it out."

Feith, of course, like the administration's other Israel-connected hawks, didn't want "Arabists" like Lang muddying the road to Baghdad, from where -- according to the Bush administration theory -- overthrowing Saddam Hussein would ignite mass demands for Western-style, pro-U.S. democracies across the entire Middle East.

And some Lang on Wolfowitz:

"I remember talking to [Paul] Wolfowitz, in his office, in the Pentagon, and telling him -- this was after the propaganda build up had started, before the war. I said, 'You know, these guys are not going to welcome you.'

"He said, 'Why?' I said, 'For one thing, these guys detest foreigners, and the few who really like you are the least representative of the various breeds of people there. They're going to fight you, then, if you occupy the place there's going to be a massive insurgency.'"

"He said, 'No, no, they'll be glad to see us,'" Lang continued. "This will start the process of revolution around the Middle East that will transform everything.'

No, Lang told Wolfowitz, "that's not gonna happen. It's just an impossibility. They're not like that. They don't want to be us."

Not everyone agrees with all of Lang's views about the Arab world, but on this issue he was prescient, of course, as were almost all experts on the region outside of the neocon faithful.

How come we learned so much of this dispute only after the war?

And Lawrence Wilkerson on Tenet and "Curveball":

Wilkerson provides a damning clue.

In February 2003, Powell's top aide relates, he "spent five of the most intimate days of my life, and five nights, without sleeping, as did my team, staring into . . . the face" of George Tenet, Tenet's deputy John McLaughlin, and other top CIA officials working on Iraq, at the agency's headquarters at Langley.

It was the eve of Powell's now infamous speech at the United Nations detailing Iraq's alleged biological, chemical and nuclear programs.

"One of the things Secretary Powell and I told Mr. Tenet and Mr. McLaughlin at the outset of our frenetic five or six days, trying to get ready for the U.N., was 'multiple sources.' We will not take anything and put it in this presentation, unless there are multiple, independently corroborated sources for the items we're putting in the testimony," Wilkerson said.

"That was the going-in position."

Subsequently, he learned that there was but "a single source for the mobile biological laboratories; that his code name was Curveball; and that there were several very key dissents as to this individual's testimony, during or before the preparation of the secretary of State."

Curveball, an Iraqi refugee, turned out to be a liar.

"None of that, ladies and gentlemen, none of that was revealed to the secretary of State, or to me, or to any member of my team, by either John McLaughlin or George Tenet," Wilkerson said.

Tenet says in his memoir that he never heard of any serious questions about Curveball.

As readers of this column know , however, Tenet's chief of European operations, Tyler Drumheller, insists he sent a flurry of warnings about Curveball to Tenet's deputies.

Both can't be right.

"Either George Tenet is lying through his teeth, or Tyler Drumheller is lying through his teeth," Wilkerson says, "with regard to one of the most important pillars of Secretary Powell's presentation at the United Nations: the mobile biological laboratories."

We're waiting now for a third CIA official to come forth with an answer.

Lots of people are dying because of the errors and idiocy perpetrated by Feith, Wolfowitz and yes, Tenet too.

-- Steve Clemons

(Joe Klein; photo credit: Online News Hour with Jim Lehrer)

Joe Klein adds some important contextual material to the question of what Cheney may be cooking up on Iran on Time's Swampland blog.

Klein links to my post and writes in "Cheney's Iran Fantasy":

I can confirm, through military and intelligence sources, part of Steve Clemons' account of Cheney's crazed bellicosity regarding Iran. In fact, having just received a second-source confirmation of the following story, I was intending to post it today:

Last December, as Rumsfeld was leaving, President Bush met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in "The Tank," the secure room in the Pentagon where the Joint Chiefs discuss classified matters of national security. Bush asked the Chiefs about the wisdom of a troop "surge" in Iraq. They were unanimously opposed. Then Bush asked about the possibility of a successful attack on Iran's nuclear capability.

He was told that the U.S. could launch a devastating air attack on Iran's government and military, wiping out the Iranian air force, the command and control structure and some of the more obvious nuclear facilities. But the Chiefs were -- once again -- unanimously opposed to taking that course of action.

Why? Because our intelligence inside Iran is very sketchy. There was no way to be sure that we could take out all of Iran's nuclear facilities. Furthermore, the Chiefs warned, the Iranian response in Iraq and, quite possibly, in terrorist attacks on the U.S. could be devastating. Bush apparently took this advice to heart and went to Plan B - - a covert destabilization campaign reported earlier this week by ABC News.

If Clemons is right, and I'm pretty sure he is, Cheney is still pushing Plan A.

On the blog, Sic Semper Tyrannis, Col. Pat Lang shares his thoughts on Cheney's team and the games underway.

Many have asked me if I think that Israel is that easy for Cheney and his team to animate. If one reads the Winograd report carefully on the Lebanon-Israel war, my answer would be "no." It's clear that Israeli Foreign Minister Livni and Prime Minister Olmert told Bush NSC official Elliott Abrams a firm "no" when he suggested that the theater of operations be expanded to include Syria.

But that doesn't mean that one can shrug off Cheney's aide's commentary. In tense times, only a small match or trigger is needed to get a dangerous escalation going.

But the bigger issue remains Cheney's alleged effort to constrain his boss, George W. Bush. if Cheney's aide is lying to the people he is speaking to -- then he should be dismissed or sidelined. If Cheney is animating his spear-carrier's views and comments, then Bush should and must clip Cheney's wings.

-- Steve Clemons

There is a race currently underway between different flanks of the administration to determine the future course of US-Iran policy.

On one flank are the diplomats, and on the other is Vice President Cheney's team and acolytes -- who populate quite a wide swath throughout the American national security bureaucracy.

The Pentagon and the intelligence establishment are providing support to add muscle and nuance to the diplomatic effort led by Condi Rice, her deputy John Negroponte, Under Secretary of State R. Nicholas Burns, and Legal Adviser John Bellinger. The support that Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and CIA Director Michael Hayden are providing Rice's efforts are a complete, 180 degree contrast to the dysfunction that characterized relations between these institutions before the recent reshuffle of top personnel.

However, the Department of Defense and national intelligence sector are also preparing for hot conflict. They believe that they need to in order to convince Iran's various power centers that the military option does exist.

But this is worrisome. The person in the Bush administration who most wants a hot conflict with Iran is Vice President Cheney. The person in Iran who most wants a conflict is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Quds Force would be big winners in a conflict as well -- as the political support that both have inside Iran has been flagging.

Multiple sources have reported that a senior aide on Vice President Cheney's national security team has been meeting with policy hands of the American Enterprise Institute, one other think tank, and more than one national security consulting house and explicitly stating that Vice President Cheney does not support President Bush's tack towards Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic efforts and fears that the President is taking diplomacy with Iran too seriously.

This White House official has stated to several Washington insiders that Cheney is planning to deploy an "end run strategy" around the President if he and his team lose the policy argument.

The thinking on Cheney's team is to collude with Israel, nudging Israel at some key moment in the ongoing standoff between Iran's nuclear activities and international frustration over this to mount a small-scale conventional strike against Natanz using cruise missiles (i.e., not ballistic missiles).

This strategy would sidestep controversies over bomber aircraft and overflight rights over other Middle East nations and could be expected to trigger a sufficient Iranian counter-strike against US forces in the Gulf -- which just became significantly larger -- as to compel Bush to forgo the diplomatic track that the administration realists are advocating and engage in another war.

There are many other components of the complex game plan that this Cheney official has been kicking around Washington. The official has offered this commentary to senior staff at AEI and in lunch and dinner gatherings which were to be considered strictly off-the-record, but there can be little doubt that the official actually hopes that hawkish conservatives and neoconservatives share this information and then rally to this point of view. This official is beating the brush and doing what Joshua Muravchik has previously suggested -- which is to help establish the policy and political pathway to bombing Iran.

The zinger of this information is the admission by this Cheney aide that Cheney himself is frustrated with President Bush and believes, much like Richard Perle, that Bush is making a disastrous mistake by aligning himself with the policy course that Condoleezza Rice, Bob Gates, Michael Hayden and McConnell have sculpted.

According to this official, Cheney believes that Bush can not be counted on to make the "right decision" when it comes to dealing with Iran and thus Cheney believes that he must tie the President's hands.

On Tuesday evening, i spoke with a former top national intelligence official in this Bush administration who told me that what I was investigating and planned to report on regarding Cheney and the commentary of his aide was "potentially criminal insubordination" against the President. I don't believe that the White House would take official action against Cheney for this agenda-mongering around Washington -- but I do believe that the White House must either shut Cheney and his team down and give them all garden view offices so that they can spend their days staring out their windows with not much to do or expect some to begin to think that Bush has no control over his Vice President.

It is not that Cheney wants to bomb Iran and Bush doesn't, it is that Cheney is saying that Bush is making a mistake and thus needs to have the choices before him narrowed.

-- Steve Clemons

(Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson and China Vice Premier Wu Yi perform the US-China hit, Strained Smiles.)

Wow. Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson just about did everything wrong but spit on Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi today at the premature wrap-up of the Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) meeting in Washington.

Chris Nelson's Nelson Report -- which I've attached in full below -- has a scathing critique of the Treasury Secretary's performance today.

Now maybe Paulson had a reasonable beef with what was happening behind closed doors in the sessions attempting to coordinate broad strategic economic policy -- particularly currencies -- between the rapidly rising China and the U.S. But Paulson should know that you don't just let the world know that you can barely stand being in the same room with your negotiating partner.

Before all this, Paulson wanted to be "Mr. China" in the Bush administration and take over the responsibility for serious management of the China portfolio from the only other person in the administration who gave much attention to US-China affairs, former Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick. He got the game -- but today, he seems not to have played well.

After more than 70 trips to China during his life, Paulson can't really get away with an "I was tired" or "I didn't understand that anyone would be upset that I began my formal statement when Wu Yi hadn't even walked in the room yet." He knows China too well. He understands the importance of nuance.

But again -- maybe Paulson was just pissed off by something really, really big.

But HELLLLOOOOOO -- was it as big as our brewing trouble with Iranian and North Korean nuclear pretensions?

In an arena that truly does matter, Iran's and North Korea's nuclear gaming, we desperately need China and Russia to maintain their collaboration with us. And to engage in gratuitous tit-for-tat rudeness is exactly the kind of posture that loses America the support it needs when it really has important priorities.

Chris Nelson's Nelson Report has a
great treatment of this meeting. Others have already confirmed his take:

Continue reading this article

-- Steve Clemons

Jim Lobe, one of the best international affairs correspondents who has resisted the trend towards homogenization in his sector's coverage, has launched a blog, and he has a cool expose on a neocon retreat being planned for the Bahamas on May 30.

The conference is titled "Confronting The Iranian Threat: The Way Forward." Perhaps they'll all get burned CDs of McCain singing "Bomb Bomb Bomb -- Bomb Bomb Iran" as conference favors.

Take a look at the reported list of attendees -- but be sure to distinguish between invited and confirmed. I don't believe that US Ambassador to the UN Zal Khalilzad would dare attend this meeting.

Forget the token liberal at the party? Where is the token realist?

Stay tuned for a short expose on one of Vice President Cheney's staff who is actively engaged in trying to trigger a hot war with Iran.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

Steve hosted a really interesting reception last night on the USS Sequoia for people interested in U.S.-Cuba policy.

I managed to get past my characteristic awkwardness in DC-style networking situations and it paid off, as I met some very smart and passionate individuals. There was a palpable sense of optimism at the event: many believe that the current U.S. policy toward Cuba, a cold war relic whose life has been extended by small-minded politics, is on its last legs.

The stories about the history of the Sequoia, the former Presidential yacht, probably would have made the night worthwhile on their own.

No time to dwell on sentiment, though. It appears the Bush Administration is getting ready to scrap an extremely effective arms control regime and replace it with something much skinnier. The rationale? From Reuters:

In the post-Cold war era, many provisions of the 1991 START accord, which mandated deep nuclear weapons cuts, "are no longer necessary. We don't believe we're in a place where we need have to have the detailed lists (of weapons) and verification measures," added [Asst. Secretary of State Paula] DeSutter, who handles arms control and verification issues.

Russia wants something binding, like the current START agreement. That seems like the right way to go.

Even if all were well in the U.S.-Russia relationship, going ahead without a binding arms control regime of this kind would still be an ill-advised move. The START agreement has greatly enhanced U.S., Russian, and international security during its lifespan.

Besides, all is not well in the U.S.-Russia relationship. A few years ago, the U.S. had an opportunity to stop the anti-democratic regression in Russia as a powerful friend and respected example. Now, its image tarnished and its influence damaged, the Bush Administration seems content to trade barbs with Russia from afar. The result of this gross negligence? Russia is growing less democratic and more hostile to the U.S. by the day.

It doesn't help that the U.S. is pushing missile defense systems in Europe. Russia withdrew from a key arms control treaty last month for precisely this reason.

Obviously, President Bush is no fan of multilateral treaties (the Law of the Sea is a notable and worthy exception). That's the big problem.

But there are "local considerations," too. The direction of the U.S.-Russia relationship is largely in American hands, and agreeing to a new arms control regime to replace START would be a step in the right direction.

-- Scott Paul

For days, I have been intending to write a longer note about the objections to Michael Baroody that some have had about his appointment by President Bush to serve as head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

I am only now getting beyond my intention to write this short piece as I have been tied up with a number of serious work-related efforts that had hard deadlines and have just been buried in work. That said though, just as I have begun to write what I know of Baroody, I have now received a statement from Senator Barack Obama stating:

Mr. Baroody made the right decision to withdraw his name from consideration. His nomination highlights yet again the need to slow a revolving door that creates conflicts of interest between government officials and the industries they're supposed to be overseeing. I hope the President will appoint someone to this important position who has a demonstrated commitment to protecting the public from dangerous consumer products.

This post on TWN probably would not have been significant one way or the other in Mr. Baroody's decision to remain in play or to withdraw his name, but I nonetheless feel compelled to make a statement about him that runs counter to the critiques that have been advertised. I also say this with the admission that I have been vigorously engaged in keeping some political nominees from getting confirmed -- and actually in helping to dislodge other high profile pols from their positions. John Bolton and Paul Wolfowitz come to mind.

I also want to admit the fact that my blog had ads running on it that strongly opposed Michael Baroody's appointment. I don't really believe in censoring ads one way or the other, but I was uncomfortable with the victimization of Baroody and the way in which the "fox" image was used. Interestingly, after I posted my own critique of the Baroody ad, the ad changed its photo to one of President Bush.

But here's the deal. Those who want to suggest that there may be an apparent conflict of interest between someone that comes from a commercial organization oriented towards the policy preferences of producers and manufacturers who then ends up as the head of consumer safety have a legitimate point. But the personal attacks on Baroody are just simply at odds with what I know about the person.

At least, Baroody deserved a fair hearing to test whether someone with one set of professional responsibilities could be trusted to deal with the interests of players on the other side of the equation. For example, in the 1920s Joseph Kennedy took millions out of the stock markets through all sorts of schemes and then helped establish and run the Securities and Exchange Commission to plug those holes.

Because I was interested in these attacks on Baroody, I dug into what some others thought of Baroody's level of integrity (which I believe to be quite high for reasons I will explain shortly). I came by a letter of April 23, 2007 of two well-respected Labor officials who worked under Republicans and Democrats who wrote admirably of Baroody's qualities but were shocked as well by the sliminess of the attack on him and his integrity. They write in one paragraph after some extensive commentary on his achievements as Assistant Secretary of Policy in the Department of Labor:

We are confident that the views of we two are shared by numerous career civil servants who served at the Department of Labor during these times. Like us, they must be puzzled by some of what has been written about Baroody's nomination. The fair-minded and intellectually honest man we know is unrecognizable to us in the reported depictions of him by some of his critics. In a recent column, Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post did get one thing right in our view, however, conceding that "Perhaps Baroody would be a great Chairman. . ."

This is just a letter of support of two careerists who worked under a political appointee years ago, but the authors of the letter -- Roland G. Droitsch and James D. Henry -- are reported by people I know on the Hill as well-respected straight-shooters.

But my primary interest in Baroody comes from the fact that he and his father showed considerable integrity when it must have been tough for them and when it was personally costly to oppose strong currents in the Republican circles they were in. I just read a progressive commentary on the Baroody family that is so defamatory that I don't want to post it or to accept responsibility in debunking it. But people engaged in this attack have, in part, misread the Baroody AEI history and have done shoddy research in my view on Michael Baroody's work.

First of all, as I have written before and writers like John Judis have memorialized, Baroody's father helped create and run the American Enterprise Institute as a legitimate think tank that because of his concern of doing something inappropriate and over the line of what was acceptable according to IRS regulations would not issue policy studies on issues until the votes had already occurred in Congress. It was the principled stance to be educational rather than advocacy oriented that drove the funders and instigators of the Heritage Foundation to break away from AEI. Baroody's father was the principled player.

And secondly, when I was researching John Bolton's various responsibilities, I became amazed by this story and how a non-profit, the National Policy Forum, that Haley Barbour had established and which John Bolton was once hired to run had its non-profit status withdrawn. Michael Baroody had also been hired to run this outfit but resigned when he saw the extremely high level and probably illegal level of partisan work the organization was doing. When this organization was investigated, Baroody was a key witness and clearly made a set of ethical calls regarding his own involvement.

We all have strengths and weaknesses, and clearly Washington is a rough and tumble town. I'm part of that arena here and am also tough-minded in my critiques. However, I believe in taking the high road for the most part and think that it is unfortunate in this case that Baroody withdrew. I would have liked to see how conflict of interest concerns between his current role and nominated position might have stood against other testaments -- in part that I have found on my own -- about his sense of integrity and public responsibility.

It would have been a fruitful discussion -- whether or not Baroody would have succeeded in securing confirmation. But there was more to the Baroody story that was positive and impressive than was making its way into public discourse.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

To no one's surprise, Bill Richardson is officially a candidate for President.

Richardson is showing well right now in Iowa, though some people doubt he can break through to the supposed "top tier" of candidates. I think he certainly has the potential; whether or not his candidacy really takes off remains to be seen.

But enough punditry. Richardson is hitting exactly the right mark on some important policy issues, which should (albeit rarely) serve as the meat and potatoes of campaigns.

Richardson's ideas may lack the grassrootsy populism of Edwards's, the boldness of Kucinich's, or the worldly sophistication of Obama's, but they are very well thought out. His foreign policy is clear-headed and coherent, and his energy policy is uniquely on point.

Richardson recognizes the impacts of oil dependence on foreign policy, he the humanitarian and geopolitical consequences of climate change, and he avoids the farcical notion that the U.S. can somehow cut itself off from the global energy marketplace.

There's a lot more to like about Richardson's energy plan, too. Specifically:

I think we need the same sort of strong and focused diplomacy with friend and foe to adapt our foreign policy to the global nature of energy.

As he lays it out, the plan involves drastically cutting oil consumption, enhancing Western hemispheric energy cooperation, and setting up a multilateral system to protect the Persian Gulf in the post-oil economy in place of an American troop presence.

Oh, and he delivered his energy speech at an oil and gas conference, a nice plus.

I'm still digesting some of the specifics, but the broad brushstrokes of Bill Richardson's energy policy are notably different. Sure, distracting political slogans like "energy independence" pop up here and there. Fortunately - and this is rare, the slogans are worked into the policy, not vice versa.

Many candidates have discussed in vague terms integrating energy policy with foreign policy. Here's hoping they follow Richardson's lead.

-- Scott Paul

Yesterday, Belarus ran for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council - and lost badly.

A few weeks ago, a Belarussian victory was seen as inevitable. Thanks to some great work by a few human rights groups and engaged governments, the tables have been turned.

The performance of the Human Rights Council over the past year has left much to be desired, but Belarus's bodes well for the Council's future. With a little attention - and perhaps a Special Envoy - the U.S. can help bring credibility to the Human Rights Council.

-- Scott Paul

Ron Paul and I have very few things in common besides our last name. We agree on very little, and we defend those few policy positions we happen to share on very different ideological and philosophical grounds.

My namesake and I agree on one thing, though: Ron Paul has every right to participate in the Republican primary debates.

Saul Azunis, the Chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, wants Paul out of the GOP debates simply because he finds Paul's ideas objectionable. Here's the direct quote:

"I think he would have felt much more comfortable on the stage with the Democrats in what he said last night and I think that he is a distraction in the Republican primary and he does not represent the base and he does not represent the party."

What nerve.

If candidates should ever be excluded from debates - and I leave that as an open question - it should be based on measured levels of support, simply so voters can get better acquainted with the more viable candidates. Interestingly, since Paul commented that the 9/11 attacks were motivated by U.S. military activity in the Middle East, interest in his candidacy has gone through the roof.

Clearly, the campaign to exclude Paul isn't based on his waning support or viability. This effort to exclude him on the basis of his ideas is more than absurd - it's an affront to democratic principles.

And if you'll permit me to idealistically invoke John Stuart Mill here, shouldn't Paul's kooky thoughts - some far more kooky than his most recent controversial remark - be exposed in the marketplace of ideas for all to see and reject?

I would think so.

This whole fiasco makes me all the more grateful to have a forum where I can ask my own kooky questions and pose my own challenging ideas.

-- Scott Paul

Paul Wolfowitz has all but conceded that he is leaving his perch as CEO of the World Bank. The only question that remains is what gets scribbled in the last paragraph of the story on whether the "blame" for his departure is shared -- and whether he resigned under his own steam or was actually, formally fired.

What is odd about this entire encounter is that "Wolfowitz the strategist" seems to be missing -- and that may have been the problem all along.

Many officials in the Bank did not like Wolfowitz because of his central role in designing, planning and launching the Iraq War. But had the former Deputy Secretary of Defense come into the Bank with a compelling plan for global economic development that built on the strengths and addressed some of the weaknesses of the Bank's relative skill sets, a relationship of mutual trust and respect, even if grudging, would have taken root.

Even one of Wolfowitz's closest friends and the not-often discussed third political appointee (the other two were the more controversial Kevin Kellems and Robin Cleveland) brought in by Wolfowitz, Karl Jackson, has reportedly told numerous World Bank and diplomatic pals of his that "Paul has no plan. Everything is ad hoc, reactive -- first we go this way, then we go that." If his friends are saying that, imagine what Wolfowitz's enemies think.

And in this sad public battle over whether Wolfowitz acted appropriately or not regarding the employment options, compensation, and performance evaluations of his girlfriend, Wolfowitz also seemed to operate in exactly the mode Jackson describes -- without a plan, reactive, ad hoc, first this way and then that.

After the revelations of the stellar pay raises Shaha Riza, Wolfowitz acknowledged serious misjudgment and the mistake he had made. He apologized. But I guess people are getting sick of apologies with little other price being paid and little commitment to resolution of underlying problems.

So the problem continued and Wolfowitz and his big-gun lawyer Robert Bennett attacked his critics for launching from their perspective a vicious "smear campaign" against a now innocent and wrongly besmirched Wolfowitz.

Wolfowitz proceeded to blame the Bank's Board and Ethics Committee for "giving him no choice" but what he did. He also blamed his girlfriend. He practically blamed everyone for his problems but himself.

Then he insisted he wanted his job and would not leave. The Bank in response was compelled to go through a formal, transparent process of reviewing all the circumstances involved -- including his perspective and proffered evidence. And now Wolfowitz has heard the verdict -- doesn't like it -- and wants to cut a new deal that if the Bank officially disavows its formally developed position, he will now leave.

If Wolfowitz had resigned expeditiously, not gotten ugly with the Bank's executive directors, and arranged some form of elegant departure, the Bank Directors would have been glad to work out a deal, give him some handsome severance package, and not push hard on the actual reasons for his resignation. The investigative review that the Bank was formally committed to would have been shut down for the most part.

So Wolfowitz -- the man with the ten year invasion plan for Iraq, who whether he got it right in the Iraq War or not, who is considered to be a strategist and mathematical wizard -- failed to offer any serious strategy when he came into the Bank and failed to deploy a rational strategy when being forced out.

Whichever way the Bank's board goes today in either allowing him honor as he exits, or just leaving things messy and not nicely packaged, Wolfowitz is done.

-- Steve Clemons

Editor's Note: I am blogging about Paul Wolfowitz and doing some media interviews on the World Bank controversy this morning down near Muir Beach, California and am at the rustic Pelican Inn. I'm here to spend some time talking foreign policy issues with some fascinating people here for a philanthropic board retreat.

Standing at the bar yesterday, I heard from the shadows, "Aren't you Steve Clemons?" This was not a blog reader of mine but was my friend Jim Repath who is the bar manager here and who I used to run with. We have not seen each other or had contact in 24 years. If anyone has been out to the Pelican Inn, which I highly recommend, you might understand why the small world thing doesn't quite capture it. Anyway, just a nice encounter I wanted to note.

-- Steve Clemons

In case you're completely up to date on Wolfowitz's imminent exit from the World Bank and the new push on the Law of the Sea, some other interesting things worth a read:

First, private citizen John Bolton says the U.S. should attack Iran soon.

Citizens for Global Solutions, the organization where I work, launched a blog this month. Some recent highlights include an open letter from Charles Brown, our President & CEO, to Fred Thompson; a comment on Republicans and torture; a word on a Darfuri refugee activist; and a power couple who will soon supervise nearly 300,000 troops and police between them.

A very close friend of mine - and probably the best writer I know - is writing a blog on his experience as a Japanese-American, Yankee journalist in the South. He writes without the cliches and condescending tone that characterizes so much writing about the American South and its politics, yet manages to keep his writings lively and enlightening. His latest is on gun violence.

The Global Interdependence Initiative also launched a blog last month that should be of interest to many readers.

Elections for the U.N. Human Rights Council will commence shortly. Even if Belarus is elected - which would seriously damage the Council's credibility - the U.S. needs to redouble its efforts to make it work. To this point, the Bush administration has done very little to get the Council on the right track.

And apparently, Republicans running for President are rich. This is news?

-- Scott Paul

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz pleaded for a second chance and offered to dump his gaggle of advisers who followed him to the Bank from the Bush administration.

But senior officials report to me that the damage is too deep at this point and that there is no conceivable strategy of helping the Bank return to a credible position without a complete shift in management.

Every account I have thus far from those close to Bank Executive Directors report that a deal is now being negotiated for Wolfowitz to resign, but in a "face-saving way." The deal should be completed by this evening.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

John Ashcroft has been a governor, a minister, a senator, and Attorney General of the United States. His colleagues at his private consulting firm, call him "General" now -- as a nickname and honorific.

He doesn't place highly in progressive circles as someone to whom to pay tribute, although he did appear on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He spoke at a large terrorism conference I organized in September 2005 and defended the administration's actions since 9/11 with a lot of vigor. It was interesting to see him get combative with questions posed to him not by liberals but by conservatives like Grover Norquist and former chief counsel to UN Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick Allan Gerson.

But read this. Ashcroft would not let then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales get away with a hospital bed-solicited authorization for secret domestic electronic spying.

So, today the "General" deserves a salute and has my respect for this. I have some other problems with his views, but he deserves credit for stopping the White House, even if for a bit, on this kind of illegality.

I'm flying to San Francisco today -- then down to San Jose -- and then this evening and tomorrow in Mill Valley.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

President Bush has teed it up. All Senator Biden has to do now is swing for the fences.

If he does, U.S. ocean policy and foreign policy will be considerably stronger. And a handful of out of touch, ultra-conservative Senators will look much, much weaker.

I don't get to say this often, but President Bush is doing the right thing. Here's the statement:

I urge the Senate to act favorably on U.S. accession to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea during this session of Congress. Joining will serve the national security interests of the United States, including the maritime mobility of our armed forces worldwide. It will secure U.S. sovereign rights over extensive marine areas, including the valuable natural resources they contain. Accession will promote U.S. interests in the environmental health of the oceans. And it will give the United States a seat at the table when the rights that are vital to our interests are debated and interpreted.

-- Scott Paul

I just want to acknowledge he is gone.

The 2008 political race will be easier for me to stomach without Falwell's meddling.

-- Steve Clemons

Dick Lugar just hit one out of the park on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

The former Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee made a noble effort to get UNCLOS through the Senate three years ago, only to be blocked by Senators Frist and Inhofe. Lugar issued a statement today that gracefully deconstructs some of the more hideous mischaracterizations of the treaty and makes a powerful case for U.S. accession.

The President is expected to make a statement on UNCLOS very soon, so stay tuned. When he does, it will set in motion a process that will be extremely embarrassing for the 10-20 out of touch senators who oppose the Law of the Sea.

The zinger quote:

We've been a free rider on this treaty for too long. At a time when the United States is being criticized by friends and foes alike as either a Lone Ranger or worse, an arrogant bully, we can demonstrate that we believe international cooperation, done right, can serve America's interests. By embracing a treaty that we championed and that improves our national security, we can help counter the prejudices that America is an unreliable partner or a threat to world order.

The full statement is below the fold.

Lugar should be applauded for his leadership here, as well as three years ago, when he nearly got UNCLOS passed without a presidential statement and in the face of an energized opposition within his own party. In comparison, it's clear sailing for Senator Biden now. There will be no excuse for missing this golden opportunity.

I'm headed to a Law of the Sea strategy session later today, so I should have more soon.

-- Scott Paul

Continue reading this article

-- Scott Paul

I've met Paul Wolfowitz on many occasions and used to see him quite a lot over at the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He has always been cordial to me and to others when I have seen him in public.

But as with many of us, there tend to be parts of ourselves that we keep a bit covered. With Wolfowitz, it may be his anger and his zest for revenge -- something that may have animated much of his leading role in taking America into the Iraq War and taking down Saddam Hussein.

But just ponder these words from the World Bank CEO as reported by The Guardian:

Sounding more like a cast member of the Sopranos than an international leader, in testimony by one key witness Mr Wolfowitz declares: "If they fuck with me or Shaha, I have enough on them to fuck them too."

This can't be put back together. Wolfowitz has lost whatever ability to lead the Bank he may have once had.

What is happening now in the ongoing statements of support from Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Vice President Cheney and the President himself is a "negotiation."

If Wolfowitz does resign or is fired this week, Bush wants the price for this to be high and wants to extract concessions from the Europeans on other priorities Bush has. This is all deal-making, but still, Wolfowitz's prospects look bleaker by the hour.

-- Steve Clemons

Or any of our sons? or daughters? on any side of this incredibly reckless escapade in Iraq?

Boston University Professor Andrew J. Bacevich is a brave, thoughtful public intellectual who has tried -- in reserved, serious terms -- to challenge the legitimacy of the Iraq War. He has been one of the most articulate leading thinkers among military-policy dissident conservatives who have exposed the inanity of this war and the damage it has done. He authored the critically-acclaimed book, The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War.

Now his son by the same name who was serving in Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom is dead -- announced today by the Department of Defense:

DoD Identifies Army Casualty

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

1st Lt. Andrew J. Bacevich, 27, of Walpole, Mass., died May 13 in Balad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his unit during combat patrol operations in Salah Ad Din Province, Iraq.He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

To get some insight into the pain Professor Bacevich, who teaches at Boston University, must now feel, read this clip from a moving and important article he wrote titled "What's an Iraqi Life Worth?" [Washington Post, 9 July 2006]:

As the war enters its fourth year, how many innocent Iraqis have died at American hands, not as a result of Haditha-like massacres but because of accidents and errors? The military doesn't know and, until recently, has publicly professed no interest in knowing. Estimates range considerably, but the number almost certainly runs in the tens of thousands. Even granting the common antiwar bias of those who track the Iraqi death toll -- and granting, too, that the insurgents have far more blood on their hands -- there is no question that the number of Iraqi noncombatants killed by U.S. forces exceeds by an order of magnitude the number of U.S. troops killed in hostile action, which is now more than 2,000.

Who bears responsibility for these Iraqi deaths? The young soldiers pulling the triggers? The commanders who establish rules of engagement that privilege "force protection" over any obligation to protect innocent life? The intellectually bankrupt policymakers who sent U.S. forces into Iraq in the first place and now see no choice but to press on? The culture that, to put it mildly, has sought neither to understand nor to empathize with people in the Arab or Islamic worlds?

There are no easy answers, but one at least ought to acknowledge that in launching a war advertised as a high-minded expression of U.S. idealism, we have waded into a swamp of moral ambiguity. To assert that "stuff happens," as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is wont to do whenever events go awry, simply does not suffice.

Moral questions aside, the toll of Iraqi noncombatant casualties has widespread political implications. Misdirected violence alienates those we are claiming to protect. It plays into the hands of the insurgents, advancing their cause and undercutting our own. It fatally undermines the campaign to win hearts and minds, suggesting to Iraqis and Americans alike that Iraqi civilians -- and perhaps Arabs and Muslims more generally -- are expendable. Certainly, Nahiba Husayif Jassim's death helped clarify her brother's perspective on the war. "God take revenge on the Americans and those who brought them here," he declared after the incident. "They have no regard for our lives."

He was being unfair, of course. It's not that we have no regard for Iraqi lives; it's just that we have much less regard for them. The current reparations policy -- the payment offered in those instances in which U.S. forces do own up to killing an Iraq civilian -- makes the point. The insurance payout to the beneficiaries of an American soldier who dies in the line of duty is $400,000, while in the eyes of the U.S. government, a dead Iraqi civilian is reportedly worth up to $2,500 in condolence payments -- about the price of a decent plasma-screen TV.

For all the talk of Iraq being a sovereign nation, foreign occupiers are the ones deciding what an Iraqi life is worth. And although President Bush has remarked in a different context that "every human life is a precious gift of matchless value," our actions in Iraq continue to convey the impression that civilian lives aren't worth all that much.

That impression urgently needs to change. To start, the Pentagon must get over its aversion to counting all bodies. It needs to measure in painstaking detail -- and publicly -- the mayhem we are causing as a byproduct of what we call liberation. To do otherwise, to shrug off the death of Nahiba Husayif Jassim as just one of those things that happens in war, only reinforces the impression that Americans view Iraqis as less than fully human. Unless we demonstrate by our actions that we value their lives as much as the lives of our own troops, our failure is certain.

Now we must add to the count of this tragic conflict another American son -- and of course, more Iraqi sons and daughters and American daughters.

I had the pleasure of meeting Andy Bacevich at the home of former Congressman Dave McCurdy this last holiday season. We spoke for a bit about the Iraq war as well as the absence of American strategy and dearth of strategists in government today. I had no idea his son was serving until now.

But this young man did serve his nation -- but his death is so incredibly tragic, like the others -- but his even more because his well-respected father has been working hard to end this horrible, self-damaging crusade. It's incredibly sad.

To answer my own question above. Andrew Bacevich's son's life was precious -- and his life and his untimely death matter greatly for just waking up and realizing we are achieving nothing in Iraq today and that responsibility must be borne by the perpetrators of this mess.

My sincere condolences to the Bacevich family.

-- Steve Clemons

It looks like George W. Bush is going to finish what his father started.

In 1982, negotiations concluded on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS for short). President Reagan instructed the U.S. to accept and comply with the treaty, except for provisions in Part XI, which deals with deep seabed mining. A little over fifteen years ago, under President George H.W. Bush, U.S. negotiators successfully amended Part XI, satisfying all of President Reagan's concerns with UNCLOS.

Last week, President George W. Bush outraged the most extreme conservative leaders, telling them that he will publicly call on the Senate to ratify UNCLOS. The administration has supported the treaty for years, but President Bush has never personally weighed in.

The Senate has had the votes to approve UNCLOS for over a decade, but it's never gotten through. Jesse Helms, as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was responsible for holding it up for the better part of that period. Senator Dick Lugar took over as Chairman and got the Committee to approve the treaty unanimously (19-0) in 2004, only to be thwarted by Sens. Bill Frist and Jim Inhofe, who refused to allow a floor vote.

A Bush statement would be a big victory for a number of government agencies and military branches that have been long underwhelmed by the political capital the White House has been willing to spend on UNCLOS. In particular, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and Legal Advisor John Bellinger come out the big winners in the administration. Senator Lugar, who made UNCLOS a personal cause, will be elated. Senator Inhofe and conservative leaders Frank Gaffney and Phyllis Shlafly, who have fought this tooth and nail for years, emerge as the big losers.

I recently heard a story about a meeting between Bellinger and a group of high-level European diplomats that got me really fired up about UNCLOS. Bellinger promised the Europeans that the Bush Administration wanted to cooperate more closely and take a more multilateral approach in its foreign policy. The Europeans responded that so long as the U.S. refuses to join the Law of the Sea - the most common-sense international agreement on the map - they will view these promises with a great deal of skepticism (for me, it'd take more than just UNCLOS to convince me of this supposed change of heart).

Full disclosure: I've been working quietly over the past four months to pull together a coalition and get the Senate moving on UNCLOS. The diversity of the treaty's supporters is nothing short of incredible.

Amazingly, to get UNCLOS passed, peace organizations are sitting side by side with veterans and national security specialists. Environmental groups and representatives of the oil and gas industry are working hand in hand. The coalition behind the Law of the Sea takes "strange bedfellows" to a new level.

In addition to the Navy, environmental groups, and a major, Congressionally-mandated oceans commission, every major ocean industry - from oil and gas to fishing to marine manufacturing to shipping - strongly supports U.S. participation in UNCLOS.

For an explanation of why this is important for the U.S., plus some more information, see here.

If President Bush comes out with a statement as he says he will - and I'm hearing it could be as early as tomorrow (Tuesday) - Senator Biden will hold hearings and move UNCLOS swiftly towards a floor vote.

That will be a huge embarrassment to the 15 or so senators who plan to vote against the treaty, as well as the likes of Gaffney and Schlafly. Their fundamental and irrational fear or international institutions will show how out of touch they are with an American public that is angry with the recent unilateralism and clamoring for greater international cooperation.

Or, to put it more bluntly, there are a few senators up for re-election who have still not decided how to vote. Voting against the treaty would make these senators part of an extreme out-of-touch minority whose distrust of multilateralism outweighs U.S. economic and national security interests, not to mention global environmental protection. UNCLOS may not be a high-profile political issue, but opposing it will have electoral consequences.

-- Scott Paul

This will be the big week in finally sorting out the Paul Wolfowitz mess at the World Bank. If Wolfowitz resigns, the Bank will have to initiate a period of healing and reorganization to assure its supporters and clients that it is going to expend its energies trying to help the developing world rather than on internal politics.

If Wolfowitz somehow survives, the Bank will start hemorrhaging staff -- from the senior levels to entry level -- and will likely lose needed European financial support for the next round of development capital needed to infuse World Bank resources.

Some have allegedly found evidence that Wolfowitz knew he was crossing appropriate lines in over-directing Shaha Riza's compensation and performance evaluation "package." At minimum, Wolfowitz has made this battle about himself rather than the survival and reputation of the Bank he heads -- and for that enough, he should go as Sebastian Mallaby writes.

I have been in touch with staff from the World Bank this morning who inform me that many in the place will engage in serious internal civil disobedience if Wolfowitz does not resign or is not fired. Blue ribbons worn openly to protest Wolfowitz's continued tenure are being worn throughout the Bank. Tensions are seriously rising.

I have been reminded by many that perhaps wrecking the Bank is what some supporters of Wolfowitz hope to achieve. This could be true, but I'm not that cynical yet.

I think that Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson and his Deputy at Treasury Robert Kimmitt and other important political and economic personalities around President Bush realize that this vanity play that Wolfowitz is making will cost the U.S. significantly from its dwindling pool of global political capital.

To many Europeans, Wolfowitz's tenaciousness in fighting for a job he can't really ever have back resurrects for many the feeling of watching America embrace unilateralism as its preference with equal disdain for its allies and other key stakeholders in the international system.

The Wolfowitz fight is a fight over unilateralism all over again.

For those who follow Warren Olney's excellent KCRW show, "To the Point," which airs between 12 pm and 1 pm Pacific time and is on at 3 pm EST on the local Natioinal Public Radio affiliated WAMU station in Washington, DC, I will be on talking about Wolfowitz and the World Bank -- along with Krishna Guha of the Financial Times, Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and others.

-- Steve Clemons

(Annie -- Oakley the Amazing Weimaraner's sister -- running in the Congressional Cemetery; taken with cell phone camera)

The Boston Globe has a fascinating long expose on Rose Kennedy's life and letters. The most hilarious part of it though is on the third page in which she counsels her Senator son, Ted Kennedy, how to pronounce a word our incumbent president never quite manages.

From the piece:

She [Rose Kennedy] offered maternal advice long after her children had grown to adulthood. She told Jack to speak more slowly during his presidential campaign, as his Boston accent was hard for others to decipher. She told Bobby to get his hair cut during his 1968 campaign. In 1969, she sent her senator son Ted a letter that Barbara Bush apparently never sent her son.

"Dear Ted," Rose wrote, "I wish you would check the pronunciation of the word 'nuclear.' You pronounce it as though it were spelled 'nucular,' but I believe it should be pronounced 'nu-cle-ar.'"

My New America Foundation colleague Nir Rosen's New York Times Magazine cover story, "Exodus: The Flight from Iraq" is up on the web now and well worth a read.

On Friday, we organized a fascinating array of speakers in a set of conversations on the future of the American and global economies. The question posed was "Will the Sky Fall?" and the general provocation of the meeting was that some progressives are beginning to take another look at whether or not we are measuring our economy correctly -- inputs, outputs, tangibles, intangibles -- and whether we should grab the next set of years as an opportunity to rebuild America's public infrastructure -- including educational system, physical infrastructure, broadband architecture, and R&D base.

The meeting was covered in full by C-Span, but the influential young blogger and a leading general among the "netroots" Matt Stoller offers some YouTube commentary and a short essay here. Matt and I will differ a bit here and there, but his take on the culture of elites discussing these issues is fascinating on its own -- and his seeming dismissal of the "doom and gloomism" of those who want to strangle entitlements down is impressive, particularly since he doesn't follow economic policy closely. His review is honest and something to note.

Last item before I go take Oakley & Annie for a walk is that this fellow, Dal LaMagna, has just bought my friends' home across the street from me. Apparently, Cindy Sheehan stayed there the entire week week before last. I had no idea. But it's prompted me to check him out -- and he's a powerhouse progressive activist that owns a firm, Tweezerman, that seems like it really believes in a socially responsible business model. He also seems to be involved in publishing the progressive magazine, Yes!.

I suspect we will get along -- until I mention the many reasons I like Chuck Hagel.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

MTV has been doing outreach with some blogs to find environmental activists for its True Life reality show.

Apparently, though, they're not interested in profiling people doing the quiet, hard work of creating change and winning hearts and minds. They only want to feature the small group of activists who regularly carry out confrontational, radical stunts.

Here's the casting call from MTV:

True Life: I'm Stopping Global Warming

Are you an activist involved in a fight to protect your local environment in some way? Maybe you're taking legal action against a polluter in your area? Perhaps you're challenging your local government to become more green? If your eco-activism is helping to stop global warming, we'd love to hear your story.

If you appear to be between the ages of 17 and 28, and are an eco-activist, email us at: ecoactivist@mtvstaff.com with all of the details of your story.

Please be sure to include your name, location, phone number and a photo, if possible.

Seems pretty inclusive, right? Well, my good friend Josh Tulkin works for Chesapeake Climate Action Network and has dedicated his life to stopping global warming. He spends his days raising awareness of climate change among citizens of Maryland, D.C., and Virginia, and organizing them to demand substantial policy changes.

A mutual friend nominated Josh, but MTV responded that they were looking for someone more "on the front lines." For me, Josh embodies the qualities of an eco-activist making change in his community. In my view, there is no one who is more "on the front lines" than he is.

After our friend sought clarification, the MTV recruiter responded:

"It sounds like Josh is active by being a speaker and spreading the word. What MTV wants is someone who is going to climb up a smoke stack and stick a banner up there for a couple of days and get there [sic] voices heard."

Olivia Zaleski, a blogger at TreeHugger, investigated. Here's what she heard:

""We want to inspire kids and students to take action," said MTV's casting researcher. "We're looking for those kids sleeping in the woods so the endangered forest doesn't get cut down."

...

"When asked for examples of "inspiring eco-activists," MTV described those who might chain themselves to a company's headquarters, or make a pile of dead animals to illustrate what "catalogues do to nature.""

I'm copying below a letter that I sent to the MTV casting agent. If it moves you, feel free to copy as much as you'd like and send it to ecoactivist@mtvstaff.com.

To Whom It May Concern:

I was extremely disappointed to learn that MTV's casting call for eco-activists on True Life was intended solely for the small minority of activists engaged in confrontational direct action. While I appreciate your effort to engage young people in activism on climate change, I fear this casting call will produce a sensationalized and unrepresentative picture of today's environmental movement that will hurt more than it will help.

The vast majority of environmentalists are not angry, confrontational, or outside of the mainstream, which seems to be the image you hope to capture. Many are involved in business, engineering, research, and design, just to name a few of the many fields where environmental activism is making a difference. Most environmentalists do their part simply by making smart choices as consumers and educating each other. And the environmentalists who are actively working to change corporate and government policies usually prefer quiet consensus-building to militant demonstrations.

The current casting call makes MTV seem more interested in reinforcing stereotypes than documenting the hard work that many are doing to create change. True, these stereotypes may inspire some young people to action. Confrontational activism, however, will seem both inaccessible and outside of the mainstream to most American viewers. If spotlighted on MTV, it will serve to demonstrate that environmental concerns are disconnected from and indifferent to the concerns of Main Street America. For those of us working to weave environmental values further into the fabric of the United States, that would be a tragedy.

I do not doubt your good intentions. I am well aware of MTV's longstanding commitment to civic involvement and action on climate change. For that reason, I hope you will immediately reconsider your concept for eco-activism on True Life in the service of our shared goals.

Sincerely,

Scott T. Paul
www.thewashingtonnote.com

-- Scott Paul

My colleague Nir Rosen will have the cover story of the New York Times Magazine this Sunday in a major article titled "The Exodus: An Account of the Iraq Refugee Crisis."

For interested folks in or around Washington, I will be hosting a brown bag lunch session with Nir Rosen this Monday, May 14 from 12:15 to 1:45 at the New America Foundation in Washington. The public is invited, but do let us know at Steve@TheWashingtonNote.com if you can join.

A couple of data points to consider. Nearly 2 million Iraqis have fled Iraq for neighboring countries and another 1.9 million Iraqis have been internally displaced, amounting to roughly 15% of the Iraqi population.

Most of the external refugees have made their way into Syria and Jordan, and according to new UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes -- who I recently spoke to at length at a dinner hosted by the UN Foundation -- this situation is creating serious hardships that are tough for Syria and Jordan to manage without considerable international support.

In contrast, the United States has granted only 466 visas during the Iraq War. According to both outgoing Asst. Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Barry Lowenkron and Asst. Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration Ellen Sauerbrey -- who both attended the UN Foundation dinner -- while the U.S. has made way for roughly 7,200 visa acceptances this next year -- and more than 2,000 have been cleared through a UN High Commission for Refugees process that the State Department requires -- not a single visa, not one from this group -- has been cleared by the Department of Homeland Security.

Even people inside the Bush administration who recognize that fixing this problem of the US not opening to any refugees is fundamental in repairing America's image in the world can't do it because DHS is manically focused on building a "fortress America." And that is actually undoing what America is and means for many in the world.

Read Nir Rosen's article. There are bits of an interview he did with John Bolton that are remarkable. Bolton goes even further insisting that the United States has no further responsibilities for the situation in Iraq, for displaced persons, or for any other dilemma that may be connected to this war.

We will have a recording on the New America website of Nir Rosen's presentation.

-- Steve Clemons

For those checking in on the blog now, I'll be talking about Wolfowitz and the state of play now at 6:30 pm EST on The Rachel Maddow Show.

It's been quiet today -- but Tuesday is the new deadline for Wolfowitz to make his case. And Wednesday is thought by most to be the day to watch for fireworks.

Reuters has just reported that more than half of the World Bank's board wants Wolfowitz out.

Can you imagine what a purge of personnel there will be and how much recrimination and vengeful acts will be pursued if the effort to oust Wolfowitz fails? Everyone in this battle is playing for keeps.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

If you can excuse the acronym-speak in the title of this post, I hope you'll share my disappointment that the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) is falling on hard times. The CSD is an innovative forum that allows stakeholder groups, like women, youth, labor, farmers, indigenous groups, and others, to participate alongside governments and share their views on the most critical environment, development, and economic problems that the world is facing.

I spent a few years at the CSD, as have many hard-working government and citizen diplomats. I was sad to find out today from a friend at the negotiations that the forum may soon be going the way of the dodo bird and the woolly mammoth.

This year's CSD is tasked with forging agreement on four topics: energy for sustainable development, industrial development, air pollution, and climate change. Negotiators were up 'till 3 a.m. last night and, of the four topics, are only close to agreement on air pollution.

The deadlock is so great that some delegates - including the civil society participants who are often the most reluctant to give up hope - are suggesting that the CSD be scrapped, its work reorganized and streamlined into another U.N. agency.

Some countries are pushing to strengthen the United Nations Environment Programme. Unless the CSD work migrates there - and its unique participatory format is preserved - the recent developments are very bad news.

To add insult to injury, pending objections from the European Union, Zimbabwe is poised to chair the CSD. All its U.N. Ambassador could muster in response to critics of the election was: "What has sustainable development to do with human rights?" That's extremely disconcerting.

SustainUS, the organization that sends U.S. youth to participate in U.N. negotiations, is maintaining a CSD blog that is well worth a read.

Here's hoping that the CSD can be rescued - or at least thoroughly reincarnated.

-- Scott Paul

Update, 10 p.m - Zimbabwe has been officially announced as Chair of the CSD.

Greetings folks -- a lot going on today. First, by close of business today, we will know the broader character and substance of World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz's defense. I will post on that this afternoon. I also have some comments about this Posada trial fiasco that will be up later today.

I addition, I like foxes. I have a healthy, happy, goodlooking red fox living in the woods down from me -- but that "fox ad" that appears on my site just does terrible injustice to the fox population. I also think it is not an accurate reflection of Michael Baroody who the trial lawyers paying for that ad are going after. The ad is technically on my site -- and I have allegedly been compensated for it -- but I don't agree with the substance of the ad and will explain why in a post about Baroody later. If you want a preview, just search under Baroody's name on my site and you'll see some of the reasons that I admire his character.

Finally, I have helped organize a major economic policy conference today titled: "Will the Economic Sky Fall? A National Policy Forum on the Future of the American and Global Economies" taking place in the Hart Senate Office Building, Room 902. It takes place from 10:45 am until 2:00 pm and lunch will be provided. It's free and open to the public -- if you tell them that you are "a guest of The Washington Note."

I have organized this event which I will attach below with former Senator Bob Kerrey and the New School. If you click to "read more," you can see the conference outline -- and yes, it will be taped for C-Span.

Continue reading this article

-- Steve Clemons

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz has to present his defense to the Bank board by close of business tomorrow [Friday]. He may resign (or be told he's effectively fired) then or late that evening (sneaking past the news cycle). . .or may just decide to do nothing and leave town for a bit.

Reports are that he still plans to fly to Slovenia on Wednesday, May 17th to present an essay competition prize.

Guess the topic.

That's right. . .Anti-corruption!

-- Steve Clemons

Ed. Note: I really, really, really liked this quick game snapshot of players and their views in the Wolfowitz Battle that started with a question from Martin Wolf and led Brad DeLong to pen a clever response.

I've been digging into some of the novel policy ideas that various presidential camps have been putting out for public viewing. It will take a while to work through these and kick the tires of proposals that I think might appeal to pragmatists and have some chance of of a policy and legislative life.

But as I look under the hood of Obama's policy shop and see what Obama policy guru Karen Korbluh, former Clinton NEC official Dan Tarullo, and former Treasury Department chief-of-staff Michael Froman have been orchestrating, I'm very impressed.

Also part of the semi-close ring of Obama econ advisers are labor economist Jared Bernstein and Wolfowitz-critic and former World Bank Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz.

I'm going to be writing more on the blog soon about Obama's "health-care-for-hybrids plan" that I referenced the other day. I've learned much more about the proposal since my first reactions to Barack's interesting speech.

But this piece by Richard Miller and Matthew Benjamin on Obama's economic wonks is worth a full read.

-- Steve Clemons

Tony Blair has informed his Queen and his Cabinet that he is stepping down as Prime Minister.

Americans tend to look at other country's heads-of-state through the prism of their own president -- but Blair even more so.

Blair used to seem a lot like Clinton. Now sadly, he looks a lot like Bush.

Here is a piece I have written for The Guardian and the opener:

Americans used to love Tony Blair.

When Bill Clinton's presidency ended, a vast majority of Americans - despite a sex scandal and impeachment - preferred him to remain in office over either Al Gore or George Bush. For many Americans, Tony Blair - perceived to be a protege of Clinton - was their chance to see Clinton's charisma and Third Way style of problem-solving idealism carry on in the work and deeds of Britain's youthful and globally energetic prime minister. Blair, for a time, became for many "America's hope".

Now, Blair is telling the Queen that he's calling it quits - and leaving after ten years at the helm of Britain. And he and his acolytes are grasping for straws of legacy - trying to make sure that all know his key role in helping to settle centuries-old tensions in Northern Ireland and trying to remind his constituents of the massive economic gains the UK made after reforms led by "New Labour".

But the bottom line today is that Blair's potentially considerable legacy has been almost entirely blacked out by his close association with another American president and an ineptly conducted war and occupation that George Bush and Blair hatched together.

Now it will be interesting to see which President -- Hillary, Barack, McCain, Rudy, Mitt -- we choose to see Gordon Brown through.

-- Steve Clemons

Rep. Tom Allen kicked off his campaign to oust Maine Republican Susan Collins from the Senate by declaring the invasion of Iraq "the worst foreign policy mistake in our nation's history."

Allen is generally on the right track. The invasion of Iraq certainly ranks among the worst foreign policy blunders in our history (whether it's numero uno or somewhere else near the top would make for an interesting debate).

And the residual anger over that mistake is creating political shockwaves that are rightly putting some of the individuals responsible for it in serious electoral jeopardy. Tom Allen and others who made the right choice are rightly holding the individuals responsible for the invasion accountable.

This is all good news, but my contrarian instincts won't let me leave well enough alone.

So what's the problem? Most of the current Iraq debate is over troop redeployment - not the original decision to invade, which is far more strategically significant.

The decision to redeploy troops or increase troop levels is a very important tactical decision, and one of the most important issues facing people in government today. But let's be clear: it's nowhere near as consequential as the decision to invade in the first place.

Troop withdrawal is taking up a lot of space on the campaign trail - too much, in my opinion. Make no mistake, it's an issue that will get many people who support a more enlightened foreign policy elected, so I can't find too much fault with those bloggers, activists, and groups who focus on it because they are "all about winning."

But the debate over troops in Iraq is not a proxy for foreign policy - no tactical question ever is, though some are better than others. John Bolton's nomination had a high proxy value, which was part of why organizations like mine and individuals like Steve and I worked so hard against it.

The way current candidates for office approached the original vote to authorize war in Iraq says a lot how they each see the world, making it a reasonably good proxy. For example, based on that vote, we can learn how candidates feel about preventive war, the importance of multilateralism and international legitimacy, the latitude that should (or should not) be granted to the President, the feasibility of regime change and democratization by force, and the proper role for the military - just to name a few major questions that will come up again and again. The question of withdrawal versus surge, while important, is far less illuminating.

It's hard to fault with candidates for speaking to this issue, especially those who support redeployment. After all, poll after poll shows that Americans want withdrawal, they want it now, and they care about it a lot.

The challenge for people running for office - especially those seeking the presidency - will be to articulate a position on Iraq clearly and within the framework of a broader vision for America's role in the world and while answering the big questions, some of which I mentioned above. Barack Obama wins points for doing this in his first big foreign policy speech, and I'm sure he won't be the last to get it right.

-- Scott Paul

Ambassador Khalilzad's first speech before the U.N. General Assembly is pasted below the fold. Bush administration policy hasn't substantially changed over the past five months, but, with the switch from John Bolton, the tone has. And at the United Nations, tone matters.

I was especially pleased to see repeated references to "working together," and discussing common challenges we face with the rest of the world. It will help. Compare this to Bolton's first public statement in the Security Council, during which he accused many countries of being in a "state of denial," and accepting "business as usual."

Read Khalilzad's statement. The difference is striking.

-- Scott Paul

Continue reading this article

-- Scott Paul

In international finance circles, Michael Mussa is a legendary figure who used to work at the thin air levels at the International Monetary Fund. For those interested, Mussa's story is in one of the few real page-turners on international finance I have read, The Chastening: Inside the Crisis that Rocked the Global Financial System and Humbled the IMF by Paul Blustein.

Mussa is judicious, non-partisan, and seriously respected. He articulated yesterday what most think about World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz's situation -- whether they blame him or not for various misdeeds.

From Bloomberg:

"The way he can make the strongest contribution to the bank is by resigning," said Michael Mussa, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and now a fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. "When you get to that stage, it doesn't matter how you got to that situation."

I have no inside information on whether Wolfowitz will resign tomorrow or Friday -- but nearly everyone engaged in this game thinks Wolfowitz can't win at this point -- particularly after the White House essentially washed its hands of his fate yesterday.

If I were advising Wolfowitz -- since his press advisor Kevin Kellems is on his way out -- I'd encourage a late in the day resignation on Friday just to sidestep much of the news cycle and catch the weekend shows off guard. That's not what I want -- but a smart player would play a bad hand that way.

-- Steve Clemons

Barack Obama's policy shop is kicking out some good stuff.

I find this proposal reported by Bloomberg of his to help American automobile manufacturers offset retiree health care costs for gains in cutting carbon emissions intriguing. Of course, there are flaws like in most great ideas, but it's an interesting and commendable gesture that gets away from the nasty, destructive battles in the past between automakers and progressive environmentalists.

Obama is linking progress on two major social problems so that one leverages gains in the other.

The flaw in Obama's plan is that he may not need to offset the auto sector's health care burden for retiree because the auto sector has decided to heavily lean green.

Dave McCurdy -- a former Democratic Congressman from Oklahoma and almost presidential candidate who nominated Bill Clinton at the 1992 Democratic convention -- is the new president of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. He is getting the leadership and staff of the organization as well as the lobbying shops of the key auto government affairs offices to realize that the auto sector just can't be against progress on the environment. They have to be for something. And he's got everyone learning about cap and trade systems, the science of global warming, the realities and challenges of carbon sequestration.

He's made the entire shop at the Automobile Manufacturers Alliance essentially go to school to learn about this debate -- and what they need to achieve to help shore up the needs and interests of the auto manufacturing sector in ways that will benefit the environment.

So, Obama may not need to dole out incentives to the auto sector to do what the manufacturers already feel is in its interest.

The other flaw in the Obama proposal is that changing the behavior of the auto sector alone just doesn't get us very far with a comprehensive approach that improves our energy and climate change circumstances. Where are the public utilities in the plan? Where are the other energy and water consumers in the system?

And what about the cow problem? During the lifetime of a car that goes for 150,000 miles -- that car generates 57 metric tons of carbon emissions. A cow, in its lifetime generates 6 metric tons. There are no quick fixes here -- but one quickly sees that a single sector alone -- autos or any other -- is not enough to really dent the energy and climate change realities we are facing.

But all in all, the kind of thinking Obama is doing is exactly the sort of creative and pragmatic policy work that we need more of.

But think "comprehensively." It's the only way America will change it's energy use patterns.

-- Steve Clemons

One of the unwritten but hard as concrete rules in the governance of the world's two most important transnational financial institutions is that a European heads the International Monetary Fund and an American heads the World Bank. . .always.

But the Wolfowitz scandal is testing that norm and threatening to pull the supporting thread far enough on Wolfowitz and America's implicit right to name his successor that serious repercussions could ensue in many other backroom arrangements between nation-state stakeholders over power and positions held in other international organizations.

Tonight, the New York Times reports that if the U.S. manages Wolfowitz's exit expeditiously, Europe will continue to respect the status quo in American selection of the World Bank's CEO.

This action is further indication that Wolfowitz's tenure is probably going to be snipped to an early end soon -- and other players are already being looked over. Some have reported that former Afghanistan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani is high on the list. While some reporters have noted that he would be the first non-American to head the World Bank if selected, some prominent journalists have told me that Ghani actually holds American citizenship. I don't know which of these views is accurate.

Others who are being considered include Goldman Sachs Senior Adviser and former US Trade Representative and Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, incumbent Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and former US Ambassador to Germany Robert Kimmitt, and incumbent Israel Central Bank Governor and former First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund Stanley Fischer.

-- Steve Clemons

Kevin Kellems, who previously worked as spokesman for Vice President Cheney and then became a senior adviser to Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank, has announced he is resigning his position.

He is the first to fall in Wolfowitz's camp after the turmoil triggered by allegations of nepotism and mismanagement by Wolfowitz at the Bank. These allegations are not new on the whole and have been revitalized after revelations that Wolfowitz arranged abnormally large, automatic pay raises for his girlfriend.

A special committee established by the World Bank Board has concluded formally that Wolfowitz broke World Bank rules.

Kellems allegedly conducted hard-hitting crusades inside the Bank aimed at staffers not deemed loyal enough to Wolfowitz's leadership. Many in the Bank who have remained neutral on whether Wolfowitz should stay or go have confided to this blogger that much of the Wolfowitz-Riza scandal is a proxy war for other serious misjudgments by the former Deputy Secretary of Defense and key architect of the Iraq War.

Several key journalists tell me that Thursday and Friday will be the next key dates in determining whether Wolfowitz stays in some crippled condition at the Bank, or departs.

-- Steve Clemons

Worldwatch researcher Michael Renner's chapter in the 2005 edition of State of the World is probably the best summary of the intersection between environment and security out there. He also co-authored a great chapter on disaster management as a peacebuilding opportunity with my good friend Zoe Chafe in last year's State of the World. I don't know him, but Zoe gave a great window into their thinking process and I've gained a great deal of respect for his opinion on these matters.

So last week, when Renner wrote a cautionary note about the recent attention being paid to the security dimension of climate change, I read with interest.

I was excited when I learned that the Security Council took up climate change last month at the U.K.'s insistence.

Sens. Durbin and Hagel are calling for greater attention to the national security risks of climate change, and Senator Biden is holding a hearing on the subject this Wednesday. This is all good news.

Still, the crux of Renner's response, as I read it, is critically important and must be heeded:

Many nations worry that the Security Council - a club dominated by five unelected ("permanent") members - will set the terms of the debate.

A key question is how governments will address climate insecurity. Will prevention, in the form of radically different energy policies or other such responses, be key? Or might powerful governments one day be tempted to use the specter of environmental threats as an excuse for intervention - say, coercing others to mothball polluting industries or to stop cutting down forests in the name of climate stabilization?

...

Yet when the worst crises come, rich nations may respond not with offers of support, but by turning their backs on populations hit hard by climate change. Rather than helping the displaced, they may shut their borders in the face of an "onslaught" of migrants and refugees from countries collapsing due to environmental calamity.

We should read Renner's comment in the spirit in which it is offered.

I don't think Renner is suggesting that climate change not be addressed as a security problem, for it surely is one. And the new attention being paid to climate security is important and needed.

But, as Renner points out, there are pitfalls. Should this flurry of interest produce mostly unilateral climate security policies, the world's poor - who are already suffering from the effects of climate change - will be hit even harder.

--Scott Paul

I agree with Scott Paul that John Bolton's co-mingling during his Bradley Prize acceptance speech of Senator Chris Dodd and and former Senator Lincoln Chafee with prominent citizens of Pyongyang, Havana, Damascus and Tehran was at first glance disconcerting.

But now that I've had the day to think about it, there are sensible "prominent citizens" in Havana who I recently met -- and with whom we should be charting new possibilities for US-Cuba relations. Bolton seems to relish the derision of broad swaths of people even when it undermines the interest of his own nation, President and fellow citizens.

I still remember John Bolton's shocking views on the moral inferiority of killed Lebanese innocents when compared to lost Israeli lives -- a passage in Senate Foreign Relations Committee testimony that apparently got struck out at the last moment by some sensible, alert pragmatists in the State Department just before Bolton began reading his speech.

Then there are those citizens in Pyongyang, Damascus and Tehran. . .

Thanks to Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic team -- strengthened enormously by some key departures and addition of new talent -- we are talking to "prominent citizens" from all these cities.

It's useful to note that none of this would have been possible without the departure of John Bolton, followed by the exit of Robert Joseph -- who at least was honorable in his decision to resign because he couldn't support the direction of America's dealmaking with North Korea.

In contrast, John Bolton had to be pushed out and preempted by withholding Senate confirmation before he began his barrage of criticism against his fellow Bush administration colleagues and the President himself.

Condi Rice has a decent team today, and they are on a bit of a good roll. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, Legal Adviser John Bellinger -- and even Counselor Eliot Cohen (protecting her right flank from Cheney's minions) -- are all part of this leadership team and are making some important and constructive things happen on the world stage. There are clear, positive, tangible gains on a great number of complex diplomatic fronts.

Policy Planning Director Stephen Krasner has now officially departed for Stanford -- and "Acting Director Matthew Waxman" is in place.

Waxman is an ideas entrepreneur with character (he is one of the real insider heroes who while at DoD fought against the erosion of the Geneva Conventions on torture). He also gets strategy and knows that water wars, transnational disease transmission, environmental challenges posed by climate change dynamics, massive refugee crises, and other non-traditional problems must be dealt with as well as thinking through how a superpower manages its interests in a world where other superpowers -- and even not so super powers -- aren't the overriding security challenge.

State has yet to find the person that they would like to have as their own version of Andy Marshall, who heads "Net Assessments" at the Pentagon and who is brilliant, old, and sort of "yoda-like." In fact, he is nicknamed "Yoda".

But perhaps State should remove the "acting" from Matthew Waxman's title and roll the dice on someone who appears to many to be a 21st century "young Yoda." Waxman, who I have met on occasion, reminds me of a hybrid of strategic wunderkind Paul Nitze and Eisenhower acolyte Andy Goodpaster.

One senior State Department official believes that Condi Rice "wants a name" heading Policy Planning -- someone "with more stature." But this is a pivotal time in American history and foreign policy. Not a lot of what we did yesterday will be that helpful in thinking through what we need to do tomorrow. Everything needs to be rethought. Lots of "unthinkables" need to be worked on.

Fresh thinking and working to benchmark the complexities of deploying diplomacy as well as hard power in the 21st century are what a nimble mind like Waxman's may be better equipped to do than those who are regular Foreign Affairs groupies.

Hopefully this blog post won't sink Waxman's chances to succeed Krasner, but someone out in civil society had to point out that there is incredible talent embedded in our current government and that it has been the "big names" like Cheney, Rumsfeld, and John Bolton who have caused the worst problems for American foreign policy and who, in many cases, have taken the country in very troublesome directions.

It may be time to try something new.

Many of us would applaud it.

-- Steve Clemons

...or cry, I'm not sure which.

Why did it occur to me to post this today? Well, it turns out John Bolton won a Bradley Prize yesterday. His acceptance speech was a brief rant on the importance of fighting liberal government bureaucracies as a conservative political appointee. In other words, be a headache for your liberal colleagues and, in Bolton's particular case, push back against the instructions of your quasi-internationalist Secretary of State.

And why should one do that? In essence, according to John Bolton, because some higher-level political appointees have "gone native," adopted the culture of their bureaucracies, and are ignoring their legitimate democratic mandate to govern conservatively.

My favorite part of the speech, though? It had to be his grouping Sens. Lincoln Chafee and Chris Dodd together with Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and Syria:

There are, of course, many other people I should mention. For example, I should note Senators Lincoln Chafee and Chris Dodd, who did so much to help make me eligible for this Prize. Prominent citizens of Pyongyang, Havana, Damascus, Tehran and elsewhere also pitched in, simply by being themselves.

Mr. Bolton is a private citizen and his views are mostly irrelevant at this point, so I won't take up too much space on this blog dealing with his latest. But this one was just too good to pass up.

-- Scott Paul

Today at 12:30 pm EST, I will be moderating a meeting with my colleague Daniel Levy -- Director of the New America Foundation's Middle East Policy Initiative and a Senior Fellow at both the New America Foundation and Century Foundation -- titled "The Report into Israel's Lebanon War: Strategic and Political Implications".

This meeting will air live on C-Span today. I believe it will be on C-Span's main channel.

-- Steve Clemons

SustainUS, the U.S. youth network for sustainable development, sends delegations of young people to U.N. sustainable development meetings every year to meet with governments and discover the connections between global challenges and the problems they face in their communities every day. My own experience with SustainUS was incredibly formative and gave me my first real insight into the world of international affairs.

I highly recommend the blog written by the SustainUS delegation to the 2007 Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD). It's fascinating to read each of their perspectives as they experience the unique mix of hope and frustration in international negotiations. It was an incredible growth experience for me as I'm sure it will be for this year's SustainUS delegates.

Yesterday, the Financial Times reported that Zimbabwe is the presumptive African candidate to chair the CSD, and it's Africa's turn. Under "President" Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean strategy is apparently to accumulate posts like the CSD chair to demonstrate their regional support and humiliate the U.S. and EU, its harshest critics.

Most of the CSD talks are usually conducted by mid-level negotiators, but since the FT article yesterday, the CSD election is now being taken up at the U.N. Missions at higher levels. A well-placed source tells me that the EU, presumably pushed by Great Britain, is working hard to stop Zimbabwe's election. Tanzania is rumored to be an alternative candidate.

The U.S. delegation to the CSD has been unusually quiet, possibly in part because of the recent departure of longtime delegation leader Jonathan Margolis. The delegation is usually an extremely cohesive, effective unit - sometimes frustratingly so - and includes some very dedicated and well-intentioned career civil servants.

The State Department has rightly made Zimbabwean human rights and political abuses a top-tier issue (below Iraq and Iran, above most other regional problems). That means the CSD election now presents a critical diplomatic test for new Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.

Zimbabwe's election as the CSD chair was all but assured a day ago. Can Khalilzad help turn the tide? Or will the Europeans have to fight this battle alone?

I'll be digging around and I'll post again if I find anything.

-- Scott Paul

Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist who criticized Vladimir Putin's goverment - and specifically, its prosecution of the war in Chechnya - was posthumously awarded the U.N. World Press Freedom Prize. Posthumously, of course, because she was shot last October, presumably for some completely unrelated reason.

As I've written here before, this is no isolated incident. I hope this award brings the problem into clearer focus, as Russia is now the second most dangerous country in the world for journalists (Iraq is the first).

If you're interested, take a look at the BBC page on this story. The comment thread, just picking up now, is particularly interesting - it features journalists from all over the world discussing press freedom and intimidation in the countries where they live.

-- Scott Paul

John McCain yesterday called for the establishment of a new international organization, a League of Democracies. The organization McCain envisions would not supplement the United Nations, but "act where the UN fails to act."

What McCain may not know is that this so-called "League of Democracies" was dreamed up as a Trojan horse by John Bolton, Anne Bayefsky, Claudia Rosett, and others who wish to retire the United Nations. A United Democratic Nations, they have reasoned, would advance American priorities and thus run the United Nations, an institution they view as an obstacle to the uniltateral exercise of power, out of business.

Bayefsky's argument for a United Democratic Nations appeared last year in the New York Sun. To state the obvious, such an organization is doomed to fail for a number of reasons.

First, the universal membership of the United Nations gives it a unique legitimacy among international actors. When it acts or speaks as one, it does so with a power that cannot be matched by any other institution - a power that, according to the RAND Corporation, makes it the most effective nation-building organization in the world. A new organization may be more efficient and take collective action more readily, but it will be viewed with suspicion by outsiders and cannot possibly succeed.

Second, splitting the democracies from the non-democracies is the surest way to increase the rift between the two camps. At the United Nations, countries have to care about all global problems. That's a big reason why rich countries are starting to pay more attention to global poverty and poor countries are starting to pay attention to global terrorism.

Finally - and this is McCain's major mistake, too - Bayefsky and company somehow think that the United States is capable of shaping a new world order all on its own. Even in the nascent Community of Democracies, an up-and-coming organization dedicated to helping build democratic institutions, the U.S. must tread lightly to get what it wants.

McCain should know that the "American brand" is far too damaged to pull off something like this effectively. If the U.S. were to found a League of Democracies or a United Democratic Nations tomorrow, no more than a few nations would sign up.

For what it's worth, I think McCain is frustrated with the U.N., but does not want to shut its doors as Bolton, Rosett, and Bayefsky do.

I think McCain is looking for a way to speak to his traditional supporters in the multilateral wing of the Republican Party, satisfy conservatives who hate the U.N., and project himself as a visionary all at once.

McCain has bitten off more than he can chew here. The thinking behind this idea is incredibly sloppy, and it makes a campaign that is struggling for a foothold seem even more desperate.

Democracies should be cooperating more. The Bush administration - and John Bolton at the U.N., in particular - has splintered democratic coalitions. Aren't consolidating the U.N. Democracy Caucus, strengthening into the Community of Democracies, and making the U.N. stronger and more effective ambitious enough goals already?

-- Scott Paul

Ken Rogoff, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, has poked some fun at Paul Wolfowitz's teetering tenure as President of the World Bank.

Rogoff has spoof-written a Wolfowitz memo to his staff to not get caught betting on one of the on-line gambling sites which has contracts available on whether he will resign or not. It opens:

Dear Staff:

As long as I remain Bank President, I intend to continue enforcing my signature anti-corruption initiative at the world's most important international development agency. My past life as Deputy Secretary of Defense under Donald Rumsfeld has taught me the importance of carrying out a plan with unwavering certainty.

In that regard, I am writing to you with a stern warning. It has come to my attention that many of you are turning your internet browsers to TradeSports.com, where there is an active market in "Paul Wolfowitz resignation" contracts for 2007. (For those of you who don’t know, this is a website where you can take bets on a variety of political events.)

I hope you understand that any attempt by World Bank Staff to buy or sell these contracts will be considered insider trading in clear violation of my anti-corruption guidelines. Your knowledge of normal World Bank personnel procedures gives you a clear information advantage in predicting whether I will be forced to resign. You must not abuse it. Please note: the Bank's prohibition on insider trading applies not only to immediate family but also to significant others (e.g., girlfriends).

Some of you have already queried my office about whether it would still be insider trading if, when you buy "Paul Wolfowitz resignation" contracts (betting that I will leave before 2008), you also sell short "Alberto Gonzalez resignation" contracts. (This is a bet that my friend, the U.S. Attorney General, will hang on through end 2007.) My emphatic answer is no! Long Wolfowitz, short Gonzalez is only a "relative value play" that hedges out the value of loyalty to President Bush. You would still be guilty of insider trading on your Bank-specific knowledge. (And who says I don't know enough about finance for this job!)

I was watching this gambling site for a while actually. I used to check the huge swings on the "John Bolton resignation" contracts long ago -- and ever since Rogoff's article got posted, the volume on Wolfowitz contracts has surged.

I have a friend who does well in the betting world, and he believes that we all ought to be better trained in mathematical probability theory. It would help get us out of the win-lose, binary choice on the Iraq War trap we are currently in, and help us to understand that probabilities are, well, probabilities.

And the probability that Wolfowitz is out is growing -- but has no doubt grown even larger when someone of Ken Rogoff's reputation and prestige as the former Chief Economist of the World Bank's sister institution -- jests at Wolfowitz's increasingly dismal chances of surviving this mess.

-- Steve Clemons