There is informal discussion among some in the military set -- and increasingly among some pols -- that General David Petraeus could be an interesting presidential prospect on the Republican side of the line a few years from now.

This is all speculation -- very little grounded in anything serious -- but the prospects of a "draft Petraeus" plan, though embryonic, triggered a Chatham House rules discussion today that I participated in in Chicago after I brought up Bill Gertz's "Draft Tommy Franks for VP in 2008" article that appeared today.

To get a sense of how "not" viable the Gertz proposal is, re-read Spencer Ackerman's article on General Franks from August 2004 titled "Vision Impaired."

But the same is not true of US Commander in Iraq David Petraeus -- no matter what the outcome of his testimony before Congress in September on the results of the surge or the long-term outcome of the Iraq War.

In fact, Petraeus may actually be helped in any hidden presidential aspirations he may hold if things continue to deteriorate in Iraq and the Dems take the White House in November 2008.

The scenario runs something like this.

Petraeus -- who both Dems and Republicans liked when he was perceived to be a highly competent, underappreciated expert on counter-insurgency and who was punished by Rumsfeld and exiled far from the front line action to do his work in Leavenworth, Kansas -- won't be blamed for the deteriorating mess in Iraq.

Things continue to go badly. Petraeus holds his finger in the dyke preventing total breakdown in Iraq and convulsing violence, but the Dems win the White House in 2008. Let's just say Hillary Clinton wins, but I think the scenario holds for either Edwards or Obama.

Hillary Clinton and two chambers of Congress are now fully responsible for unwinding the Iraq War and managing America's position in the Middle East. No matter how one looks at the problem, there is no silver bullet solution to preserve America's interests where they were. There will be costs. Some Sunni governments in the region could fall. A regional conflagration could begin to heat up. A high-level assassination of a moderate Sunni Arab leader in Jordan, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia could start a raging new regional, if not global, war.

But not even considering the more nasty, sensational scenarios -- Clinton or Obama or Edwards and their Democratic partners in Congress are going to have a terrible mess that will likely deteriorate further before some equilibrium is found.

There will be "plenty" by that time to blame on Hillary and the Dems in the Middle East -- and thus, a new balanced, more pragmatic and judicious voice is needed -- someone who understands how to deploy power and understands the evolving contours of non-state, radicalized, Islamic extremist violence.

He may be earning his political chits with Bush and company now.

Petraeus would be the Republican's version of a Wesley Clark -- a new Eisenhower. . .perhaps (though one senior retired military friend of mine nearly tossed it up when the comparison to Eisenhower whom he admires came up).

There are lots of problems with this scenario, but some folks are beginning to chew on it. Watch for David Petraeus in 2012. And watch for him to tell reporters who ask him about this, "I have no intentions to run for president at this time. . . "

-- Steve Clemons

(photo credit: Jay Westcott, Washington Examiner)

I'm going to out myself. I have friends -- lots of them -- inside the American Enterprise Institute. Some of them I can't mention here as they used to work at AEI and then went to work for political players that this blog has been at cross-purposes with. Need to protect those folks.

But I have worked well and collaboratively with Norm Ornstein, James Glassman, Claude Barfield and others there -- even Jeffrey Gedmin and Radek Sikorski, both who would be in the neoconservative camp, but both of whom I respect and get along well with personally. (Though I just couldn't remain quiet during an effort by John Bolton to hire Jeffrey Gedmin as his deputy at the United Nations.)

The American Enterprise Institute is a success story in many ways that other institutions should study. But there are some real tensions inside AEI that should be noted.

Norm Ornstein does this for me in large part in an interesting essay, "My Neocon Problem," he has just published in the September 10 edition of the New Republic's Washington Diarist.

Ornstein has wrongly been labeled a neocon because of his AEI affiliation. He writes:

A blog called WurstWisdom, railing against the neoconservative domination of the planet, recently contained the following passage: "There are other Neocons or Neocon facilitators you may not have heard of because they are seldom in the public eye, the better to wield behind-the-scenes power. These include Grover Norquist, Richard Viguerie, John Bolton, Elliot Abrams, Norman Ornstein. . ."

This is rich -- and unfortunately wrong (as the blog itself is interesting) -- because Grover Norquist is about as anti-neocon a right-winger as you can get, to paraphrase Tucker Carlson the other day who admitted to being the most "pro-gay right winger you can imagine." Norquist is a libertarian realist who sees big government and high taxes as the results of the neocon agenda.

Elliott Abrams is a neocon for sure.

John Bolton is not. Bolton has allied with the neocons and often is not distinguishable from the movement, but he's a Jesse Helms-revering, pugnacious nationalist. Bolton, in many ways is admirable in his consistency, if not for his irascible nature, but he's patriotic without awareness that his brand of patriotism is highly damaging to the country.

Norm Ornstein is a dedicated moderate who understands the ins-and-outs of the American political system as well as anyone. He's empirical and not ideological. He'll probably be punished at AEI for this (well, he says in his piece that he's never pressured), but his pal around buddies are often the center-left Brookings guru on good governance Tom Mann and liberal-with-lots-of-conscience (much more than AEI would prefer) E.J. Dionne.

Ornstein continues:

It was extremely disappointing to have my cover blown in this fashion. I had considered my weekly columns in Roll Call inveighing on behalf of campaign finance reform an excellent camouflage for my nefarious stealth machinations. But, alas, my identification with the neocon conspiracy has now become a commonplace "fact" in certain quarters -- many of them, strangely, in Iowa.

A blogger for The Des Moines Register, for instance, has declared me "a neoconservative Washington Insider." An Iowan novelist with a blog called Is this Heaven? recently referred to me as a "far-right ... flak." This is quite a turnabout for my reputation. My career as a congressional analyst has steadfastly avoided partisan politics.

In fact, I'm one of those Jurassic-era Washingtonians who believes in the virtues of centrism and bipartisanship. I have worked closely with both John McCain and Russ Feingold on campaign finance reform and with Barack Obama and Fred Thompson on congressional and civil service reform. As for my enemies, they span the spectrum: My writings have enraged Tom DeLay and Dennis Hastert, as well as the chairmen of the black and Hispanic congressional caucuses.

So why am I now somehow a dangerous neocon? Without a doubt, it is because of my perch as a scholar at the now infamous American Enterprise Institute (AEI). I joined AEI as an adjunct in 1978, while I was teaching political science at Washington's Catholic University, before converting to a full time think-tanker six years later. It is true that AEI is a bastion of conservative thought, having a long relationship with the self-proclaimed godfather of the neoconservative movement, Irving Kristol.

And it is also true that some of my AEI colleagues were early and enthusiastic supporters of war with Iraq. They helped provide the intellectual framework for it and contributed to the crafting of the surge strategy. Of course, this recent history accounts for the think tank's popular image -- not to mention the urge of various blogging naifs and ignoramuses to cram me into the wrong ideological box.

But Ornstein's dilemma should raise some red flags for AEI. If its staff members are getting tagged for the work and keep-us-in-permanent-war campaigns of Bill Kristol and friends, then not only bloggers will confuse the players but "funders" may begin asking questions about how their money is being directed -- and whether they are the financial lifeline paying for the chief ideologues of the Iraq War. Jim Lobe has been getting at this in a series of articles at his LobeLog. See in particular Lobe's "AEI: Caught Between Its Likudist Heart and Its Corporate Head."

In a different arena with relevance to the subject, I won't soon forget being a guest of Intel Corporation at AEI's gargantuan annual black tie dinner. Michael Novak was honored -- and during his speech, if my memory serves me well, he railed on a bit against abortion and a woman's right to choose. He actually said "A house cannot remain half-slave, half-free (and I must add today, half pro-life, half pro-death). Either it will go all for slavery, or all for liberty. No man can properly will slavery (or abortion) for himself; hence, not for any other."

This was strange because there were hundreds of professional, corporate women at this dinner. The wife of a prominent national print and television journalist and then senior telecom exec sitting near me but at a different table, just inhaled and held her breath and looked as if she were biting her lip when Novak was speaking.

Around the room were the blue chip firms of industrial America as well as the new high flyers then, like AOL, Cisco, Intel, and many others. All of these multinationals are light years ahead of AEI's Novak on issues of abortion and tolerant workplaces that include benefits for same sex partners and all that. And yet they continue to give to AEI (I've asked them) because they respect what Norm Ornstein calls "an intellectual openness and lack of orthodoxy at AEI exceeds what I have seen on any college campus."

Ornstein's prose on this needs to be replayed here, as its zesty and probably true:

I'm not, by nature, an outspoken company man. But the fusillades lobbed at AEI have got me thinking about my long-time intellectual home. And here's what I can tell you: I spent 13 years teaching full-time in university settings. Since then, I have regularly visited campuses. I can say flatly that the intellectual openness and lack of orthodoxy at AEI exceeds what I have seen on any college campus -- and without faculty meetings.

I have many pro-choice colleagues, along with a number of pro-life ones. There are many libertarians on issues like same-sex relationships. And, even though my writings have frequently ticked off conservative ideologues and business interests -- especially my deep involvement in campaign finance reform -- I have never once been told, "You can't say that" or "You better be careful."

I have been able to pursue my interests in a completely unfettered way. I know that this is hard for people to understand, especially given the widespread desire to believe that a tight-knit cabal that convenes in a mysterious think tank is driving Bush administration policy. And I know that this flies in the face of a widespread desire to characterize all conservatives as intellectually intransigent. But life in Washington, thank goodness, is more complicated than that. I have many colleagues with strong opinions who are willing to listen to the opinions of those who disagree with them. And that fact gives me a sliver of hope.

With many urgent issues, from global warming to subprime mortgage loans to health policy to pensions, there is plenty of sensible middle ground.

There is sensible middle ground, but Norm's problem is that while AEI is diverse, it is best known today as being the headquarters for those who laid the intellectual and political groundwork for the invasion of Iraq which has had devastating consequences for the country in my view. They are again doing all that they can to instigate a war with Iran.

I used to wonder when pictures would pop up of the coffins of American soldiers who have been on the front-line of this massive military and foreign policy debacle by the Bush/Cheney administration and its neoconservative fellow-travelers, if someone would put a logo of Intel over the flag-draped coffin graphic titled "Intel Inside?" to raise concerns about Intel's funding the public policy institution that gave sanctuary to the architects of this damaging war.

It hasn't happened yet -- and just for the record, I have no idea whether Intel is a major funder of AEI or not. I just sat at an Intel sponsored table at a fundraising dinner for AEI. Intel, or any of these firms, might think that they are helping to fund what Chris DeMuth, AEI's President, was famous for -- deregulation policy work. But over time, people connect dots, even if it's unfair in the eyes of Ornstein or his moderate colleagues.

That seems to be happening to the neocons as well -- as it is nearly impossible to fathom an AEI foreign policy department article arguing against sanctions against Iran appearing in the Washington Post. But one did, by Danielle Pletka. I take her at her word that she may believe what she has written, but I think that she'd have to agree that the piece is not "continuous" with much of her other writing. It's rather a remarkable article on many levels.

Did some donors get self-interested and indicate to AEI -- even informally -- that pushing on sanctions damaging to their interests was over the line? I have no idea but some speculate that's the case. If this did occur, it's too bad these firms had to wait for a clear financial hit before communicating their concerns and didn't make that call either when moral calls were being made from AEI that were at serious odds with their liberal political culture -- or when they saw the bodies of soldiers coming home and thought through AEI's unique role with the Bush administration and the set of wars we are engaged in.

But the bottom line of this essay is that I can attest fully that Norman Ornstein is NOT a neoconservative and is a great guy who works with a diverse set of public intellectuals at AEI. I just wish they got more bandwidth than the neocons there.

-- Steve Clemons

Here is some thinking I have written up about America's ongoing neocon problem and the threat that that movement represents over at Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish.

And for those in Chicago or at APSA, I'm blogging away in the fantastic lounge of the Sheraton Hotel on the Chicago River.

-- Steve Clemons

David Corn has gotten hold of a secret report -- still in draft form -- outlining the concerns that the US military and foreign service have about a "norm of corruption" in the current Iraqi government.

One wonders how holier-than-thou Americans can be here given the rampant corruption we have allowed in no-bid contracting in Iraq and even around the billions in recovery funding for the Katrina tragedy.

Corn writes:

As Congress prepares to receive reports on Iraq from General David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and readies for a debate on George W. Bush's latest funding request of $50 billion for the Iraq war, the performance of the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has become a central and contentious issue.

But according to the working draft of a secret document prepared by the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, the Maliki government has failed in one significant area: corruption. Maliki's government is "not capable of even rudimentary enforcement of anticorruption laws," the report says, and, perhaps worse, the report notes that Maliki's office has impeded investigations of fraud and crime within the government.

The draft -- over 70 pages long -- was obtained by The Nation, and it reviews the work (or attempted work) of the Commission on Public Integrity (CPI), an independent Iraqi institution, and other anticorruption agencies within the Iraqi government. Labeled "SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED/Not for distribution to personnel outside of the US Embassy in Baghdad," the study details a situation in which there is little, if any, prosecution of government theft and sleaze.

Moreover, it concludes that corruption is "the norm in many ministries."

A couple of quick thoughts.

First, in an environment in which there is a second economy of influence or money, the cause is usually that there is no trust in the first economy. Rules and contracts are not enforceable in Iraq, and self-dealing becomes highly rational and important for survival when everyone else is doing it -- and when there is a sense that the whole enterprise may collapse at any moment. That is certainly true of Iraq.

So, corruption occurs -- and in some circumstances, rational self-dealing can be useful because it helps to influence and sway the behavior of major stakeholders in Iraq's political system. We can hem and haw about the morality of corrupt government officials, but the more efficacious tactic would be to bribe them ourselves if we care about what they do.

But that requires us to be able to set clear objectives of what we are trying to do, apply resources to the effort, and see it through. America does not seem to have that ability -- and seems to insist on operating with the delusion that we are dealing with good guys who actually care about the Iraqi nation.

We are not. Those in Iraq, at the helm now, are self-dealers on the whole -- who care about power among their clan and sectarian identity.

And we are only realizing now that they are corrupt? I had thought we were bribing them all along but just weren't very good at it. We need to get out.

-- Steve Clemons

Here is a pdf copy of the "Restricted Distribution" report by IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, "Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran."

These concluding clips from the Summary underscore that ElBaradei sees Iran moving in a positive direction and setting its nuclear program up for high level transparency that had not been previously the case:

22. The Agency is able to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran. Iran has been providing the Agency with access to declared nuclear material, and has provided the required nuclear material accountancy reports in connection with declared nuclear material and facilities. However, the Agency remains unable to verify certain aspects relevant to the scope and nature of Iran's nuclear programme.

It should be noted that since early 2006, the Agency has not received the type of information that Iran had previously been providing, including pursuant to the Additional Protocol, for example information relevant to ongoing advanced centrifuge research.

23. The work plan is a significant step forward. If Iran finally addresses the long outstanding verification issues, the Agency should be in a position to reconstruct the history of Iran's nuclear programme. Naturally, the key to successful implementation of the agreed work plan is Iran's full and active cooperation with the Agency, and its provision to the Agency of all relevant information and access to all relevant documentation and individuals to enable the Agency to resolve all outstanding issues.

To this end, the Agency considers it essential that Iran adheres to the time line defined therein and implements all the necessary safeguards and transparency measures, including the measures provided for in the Additional Protocol.

24. Once Iran's past nuclear programme has been clarified, Iran would need to continue to build confidence about the scope and nature of its present and future nuclear programme. Confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear programme requires that the Agency be able to provide assurances not only regarding declared nuclear material, but, equally important, regarding the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, through the implementation of the Additional Protocol. The Director General therefore again urges Iran to ratify and bring into force the Additional Protocol at the earliest possible date, as requested by the Board of Governors and the Security Council.

This last section, however, is what the United States and France are crying foul over and which remains a major obstacle to more political progress:

25. Contrary to the decisions of the Security Council, Iran has not suspended its enrichment related activities, having continued with the operation of PFEP, and with the construction and operation of FEP. Iran is also continuing with its construction of the IR-40 reactor and operation of the Heavy Water Production Plant.

What is happening now is that there are now at least three, if not more, divergent international tracks in confronting Iran on its nuclear program.

The IAEA track -- which the Iranians themselves have now just applauded (which does raise questions actually) -- is citing enough progress on transparency and possible cooperation with international nuclear protocols that the IAEA is at odds with the third round of economic sanctions that the U.S. and France are trying to rally against Iran.

Then inside American and some European circles, Iran's failure to suspend its enrichment program requires toughened sanctions, each round of which becomes tighter -- harming both Iran as well as firms in nations applying the sanctions.

And third, the neoconservative crowd simply wants to suspend all negotiations and begin bombing.

At a minimum, ElBaradei's report probably stalls somewhat the neoconservative effort to start yet another war -- but I think that the sanctions noose that Under Secretary of State R. Nicholas Burns is feverishly working on will continue.

And if there was a God that had ElBaradei working on one side of the process and Burns on the other -- with the neocons somewhere very, very hot -- I'd think that that was a brilliant good cop/bad cop strategy.

Unfortunately, I don't think that such order and design exist in our universe.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Update:

Paul Kerr has an excellent run down of the key questions that the IAEA is working through with Iran. Kerr notes that the line of work is leading to Iranian admissions relating to its current enrichment related R&D. His site is full of excellent material on Iran's nuclear developments. Also see Jeffrey Lewis' Arms Control Wonk.

Marc Perelman, writing for The Forward, has just released an important summary of the diplomatic back-and-forth currently in progress between major American Jewish organizations and the governments of Turkey, Israel, and the United States. What I've been hearing privately jives pretty well with what Perelman has published.

I've long been amazed by the position taken by the organized American Jewish community on the Armenian genocide. While a legal case for genocide would not be completely guaranteed of success (genocide is amazingly difficult to establish legally - for reference, the UN couldn't do it in Darfur), it can and should be properly applied to the events of 1915-1917 given the spirit and popular meaning of the word.

I should say at the outset that I am not writing this post as an employee of Citizens for Global Solutions, which is generally more concerned with contemporary global problems than regional disputes; I am writing as a concerned Jew and citizen.

The most recent minor shake-up on this issue began when Andrew Tarsy, the Anti-Defamation League's New England Regional Director, made reference to the Armenian genocide. His firing prompted a public outcry and caused Abe Foxman, its director, to rehire Tarsy and, after extensive consultations, to describe the atrocities as "tantamount to genocide."

The ADL is the only one of the major establishment Jewish orgs. to make any reference to genocide of Armenians. And still, the ADL, as well as most major Jewish organizations, opposes Congressional action.

Yet, the positions of these organizations seem to be very much in flux. The American Jewish Committee, which had lobbied heavily against the Armenian genocide resolution in Congress, has not devoted extensive resources to opposition this year. AIPAC is the subject of mixed reports: Perelman says they have lobbied heavily against the resolution with help from Dick Gephardt, Bob Livingston, and Steve Solarz, while an AIPAC spokesman tells Ynet News, "...AIPAC is not - and I can say this unequivocally - not lobbying on this issue at all." Like Perelman, I had heard that AIPAC was involved.

The Forward, which published Perelman's piece, also published an editorial - against recognition. It reads:

There's no doubt that collisions between fighting genocide and defending Israel cut the heart of Jewish identity in the post-Holocaust era. What, we may ask, is the point of fighting for a Jewish state if it will not act in a Jewish manner - that is, serve as a beacon to us and the world?

AJC Executive Director David Harris - an old personal and family friend of mine - tries to articulate a middle ground on the Jerusalem Post blog. Harris identifies this correctly as a choice for Jews between principle and pragmatism, and then almost brings himself to choose principle. It's a valiant effort and an important step forward, but with due respect to my friend, still not good enough yet in my view. Either way, it's worth a read.

Some Jews will find the most persuasive argument for accepting the Armenian genocide the possibility that if we do not, our calls of outrage with Holocaust denial will ring hollow - a very real possibility. There's a better reason: it's the right thing to do and it's consistent with Jewish ethics.

All of the Jews I know who are engaged in this debate feel sincere compassion for the relatives of murdered and displaced Armenians. Their good intentions are not at issue. And, for that matter, no one should deny the implications of recognizing the Armenian genocide for Turkish and Israeli Jews.

However, the consequences of obscuring historical realities and disregarding fundamentally Jewish ethical principles - to the meaning of being Jewish - are far greater. It's time to end this controversy, even if it is 90 years too late.

-- Scott Paul

Toles (c) 2007 The Washington Post. Used by permission of Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved.

I'll be lurking at the American Political Science Association annual gathering in Chicago from Thursday (tomorrow) through Sunday. Nothing like YearlyKos, but still -- you learn stuff from academics. . .and tons of them are reading this and other blogs.

I'll be downtown and don't know my schedule fully. As usual though, I'd be happy to set up a coffee meeting with those who want it. The first to suggest a decent time and place gets to set the stage. I'll be at the Hyatt Regency.

-- Steve Clemons

A note from Tucker Carlson:

Let me be clear about an incident I referred to on MSNBC last night: In the mid-1980s, while I was a high school student, a man physically grabbed me in a men's room in Washington, DC. I yelled, pulled away from him and ran out of the room.

Twenty-five minutes later, a friend of mine and I returned to the men's room. The man was still there, presumably waiting to do to someone else what he had done to me. My friend and I seized the man and held him until a security guard arrived.

Several bloggers have characterized this is a sort of gay bashing. That's absurd, and an insult to anybody who has fought back against an unsolicited sexual attack. I wasn't angry with the man because he was gay. I was angry because he assaulted me.

Sorry Tucker -- guess I misunderstood the exact dialogue here:

ABRAMS: Tucker, what did you do, by the way? What did you do when he did that? We got to know.

CARLSON: I went back with someone I knew and grabbed the guy by the -- you know, and grabbed him, and -- and --

ABRAMS: And did what?

CARLSON: Hit him against the stall with his head, actually!

[laughter]

CARLSON: And then the cops came and arrested him. But let me say that I'm the least anti-gay right-winger you'll ever meet --

Tucker -- use your fame and opportunity for influence more wisely.  You conflate your views toward gays with a bad bathroom experience with someone who came on to you.  What lessons do you think you convey in your banter with Scarborough and Abrams?  Vigilanteism is cool. Gays lurk in bathrooms -- watch out! It's OK to assault someone after they have done something inappropriate.

I'm sure you were shocked by the experience, but you turned your opportunity to educate Americans as the "least anti-gay right winger" into frat boy banter.  But thanks for the clarification.

-- Steve Clemons

I will avoid today discussion of the reasons why so many men chose to look for sex partners in public bathrooms, gyms, and the like over the last few decades.  Most engaged in this kind of sex would probably have preferred socially supported venues for relationship and sexual development -- in the clubs, restaurants, public places galore that the heterosexual world has to walk together, to talk, to hug, to kiss, and to 'do it.'

Andrew Sullivan has much better dexterity with this subject than I do -- but it is disgusting that while so many are now cringing at the thought of gay man having tearoom sex that they are at the same time so obsessive about trying to stop same sex marriage between committed individuals.

Tucker Carlson brought this home in an interview he did yesterday in which he got "bothered" in a public restroom when he was in high school and then got a buddy and went back to beat up the guy before he was arrested.  To be fair to Carlson, we haven't yet heard whether the "botherer" grabbed Tucker's crotch or just tapped his foot under the stall. 

But Carlson's comment that he chose to beat up the trespasser "after the fact" in a vigilante action says much.

This from Media Matters:

On the August 28 edition of MSBNC Live, hosted by MSNBC general manager Dan Abrams, Tucker Carlson, host of MSNBC's Tucker, asserted, "Having sex in a public men's room is outrageous.

It's also really common. I've been bothered in men's rooms." Carlson continued, "I've been bothered in Georgetown Park," in Washington, D.C., "when I was in high school."

When Abrams asked how Carlson responded to being "bothered," Carlson asserted, "I went back with someone I knew and grabbed the guy by the -- you know, and grabbed him, and ... hit him against the stall with his head, actually."

Read the full transcript (or watch the video clip) which is pretty disgusting, not just because Tucker Carlson, self-described as "the least anti-gay right-winger you'll ever meet", admits to beating up someone trolling for sex in a public bathroom -- but because Dan Abrams and Joe Scarborough just laugh.

Someone should go look for evidence of the arrest that Tucker Carlson mentions.

-- Steve Clemons

A new, interesting blog -- Wonkosphere -- monitors how much 'buzz' is flying around the blogosphere on the various presidential candidates.

Interestingly, Ron Paul places second at the moment behind front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Obama is third.

Chris Dodd runs in seventh place but beats Giuliani, Huckabee, McCain, Brownback, and Kucinich. Gravel is not on the list -- and oddly, neither is Joe Biden.

But one must guess that Chris Dodd's "Wonkosphere Ranking" will probably surge given the just announced endorsement of him by the International Associaton of Firefighters.

The most recent analysis of the Dodd endorsement came to me from an observer of unions and politics who has given me permission to quote his comments from a private listserv:

My theory [on the Dodd endorsement]? It's a case of the Althusserian "absent center" with Dodd as the donut hole. The Firefighters don't want to make the "wrong" choice between the three candidate that can win -- Clinton, Obama, and Edwards.

They like Edwards like the rest of the movement but don't think he's going to win, and don't want to piss off the Hillary machine. But they also don't want to seem paralyzed and ineffectual. They want to be players. So they pseudo-aggressively endorse someone, but don't piss off any of the big three by picking one of them against the other two.

After Dodd drops out following Iowa or New Hampshire, they see the lay of the land and jump to the likely winner.

Sounds very plausible to me.

-- Steve Clemons

NATIONAL HARDWOOD LUMBER ASSOCIATION PAC INC
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I'm sorry. I can't help it today -- and as regular TWN readers know, I'm almost never funny.

Congratulations to Mike Rogers who launched the outing of Larry Craig in October 2006 because of his hypocrisy in the so-called culture wars.

Just for the record, Mike Rogers spoke to me in 2006 about the information he had just come by on Senator Craig. I had worked with the Senator and his staff on numerous issues -- ranging from Asia trade questions to semiconductor policy. Most recently, Senator Craig had become an ally in a more progressive stance on US-Cuba trade relations.

Rogers worked through what he had cautiously, carefully, judiciously. He sat on the information that had come to him over months and worked on making sure that his source was rock solid.

Rogers got almost zero support from the established gay network or those out there who were trying to promote greater tolerance in the corridors of political power. Rogers was alone -- just like Lane Hudson was alone when he brought forth the instant messages between former Congressman Mark Foley and a too-young male intern.

Mike Rogers and Lane Hudson have generated what are clearly some of the largest power-toppling shockwaves in our national politics -- and virtually on no budget with scant support. That really needs to change.

Just to be clear, they didn't "invent" this news. They just used the blogosphere to pursue what is in the common sense, common good. If you feel like supporting the work of Lane Hudson and Michael Rogers, here's your link.

But that said, those who exploit the dark side of American insecurity about diversity and promote intolerance towards others -- like Senator Larry Craig -- need to be challenged, and Rogers has a sure fire track record.

David Dreier, a pretty good guy in my book, is the next on Mike Rogers' list who has not squared his private life with his public votes.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Americans want a good impeachment, but the will is just not there yet to seriously go after the President or Vice President.

But what about Haley Barbour?

Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour -- former Chairman of the Republican National Committee -- would be a great exercise in impeachment for the numerous Katrina-related ethics violations and beyond that he has been party to. Here is the impeachment clause from the Constitution of the State of Mississippi.

Bloomberg's Timothy Burger deserves a Pulitzer for all that he is digging up in the muck of the Haley Barbour administration's contracting decisions in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Burger writes on August 15th:

Many Mississippians have benefited from Governor Haley Barbour's efforts to rebuild the state's devastated Gulf Coast in the two years since Hurricane Katrina. The $15 billion or more in federal aid the former Republican national chairman attracted has reopened casinos and helped residents move to new or repaired homes.

Among the beneficiaries are Barbour's own family and friends, who have earned hundreds of thousands of dollars from hurricane-related business. A nephew, one of two who are lobbyists, saw his fees more than double in the year after his uncle appointed him to a special reconstruction panel. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in June raided a company owned by the wife of a third nephew, which maintained federal emergency-management trailers.

Meanwhile, the governor's own former lobbying firm, which he says is still making payments to him, has represented at least four clients with business linked to the recovery.

To take Barbour's ethics blurriness a few notches further, it appears that Barbour has had a Bill Frist like problem of not being blind about what was inside his blind trust. According to Burger in an article just out today:

When Haley Barbour was sworn in as governor of Mississippi in 2004, he set up a blind trust to avoid conflicts of interest and said he had severed ties with the Washington lobbying firm he co-founded.

The blind trust document he signed about six weeks later says that on Jan. 13, 2004, the day he took office, Barbour still had a stake worth $786,666 in the publicly traded parent company of Barbour Griffith & Rogers Inc., as well as pension and profit-sharing plan benefits from the lobby firm.

A copy of the notarized trust agreement, obtained from an individual who requested anonymity, says Barbour receives $25,000 per month, or $300,000 a year, from it. He lists the trust in his annual Mississippi ethics filing as his only source of income outside his $122,160 salary as governor.

Barbour, 59, a former Republican National Committee chairman, has refused to discuss his personal finances. His attorney, Ed Brunini Jr., said in a statement yesterday that "the provisions of his blind trust are fully appropriate and legal under Mississippi law." Brunini alleged that the disclosure of the information was unlawful. Barbour spokesman Pete Smith said Brunini's statement would have the governor's approval.

It couldn't be learned what, if any, interest Barbour had in Barbour Griffith when the members of the firm lobbied the state last year in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina two years ago. The minimal disclosure required by Mississippi law contrasts with federal executive-branch rules that individuals who set up blind trusts report publicly their initial holdings and what they are worth, within ranges.

What we have here is that some times Barbour has made statements that he did hold an equity position in the parent company of Barbour, Griffith and Rogers -- now very much in the news for its representation of the Iraq political ambitions of former Iraq Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi -- and at other times he said he had severed all ties to the firm but was getting a "retirement payment."

As former head of the firm, he must have known that there was no retirement from BGR, but that he was receiving a kick-out, or dividend, of $25,000/month from his so-called blind trust that was coming out of the growth, gains and principal of whatever equity positions his trust held.

This is important because there is already enough in the public domain to show that Governor Barbour knew that he had an ongoing stake in the work of his former lobbying firm -- which "cleaned up" along with many of his family members in the Washington-provided recovery funds after Katrina.

Haley Barbour has flown over the public ethics line in the past as well. The case I am most familiar with and which was investigated by Congressman Henry Waxman's Government Oversight committee involved Barbour setting up in 1993 a non-profit 501(c)3 organization called the National Policy Forum (NPF).

Barbour allegedly used NPF as a vehicle for funnelling $800,000 in foreign money into the 1996 election cycle after having used NPF as the same kind of vehicle in 1994 congressional races.

The Internal Revenue Service eventually ruled that the NPF was a subsidiary of the Republican National Committee and not entitled ot tax-exempt status. Barbour's partner in this enterprise when Barbour was serving as Chairman was John Bolton who became president of NPF in 1995.

Barbour, whether as Chairman of the Republican National Committee; Chairman of the National Policy Forum; Chairman and Proprietor of the lobbying firm Barbour Griffith & Rogers; or now Governor of Mississippi, has demonstrated obsessive disregard for the line between public ethics and private gain.

Mississippians should impeach him because he's undermined the interests of their state -- and many around the country should help.

Iraq is an ongoing tragedy -- but so is Katrina. Impeaching Haley Barbour could start a healthy trend.

-- Steve Clemons

The US State Department recently outlined a new strategy a few weeks ago in anticipation of the UN's announcement of the continued growth of Afghan poppy -- up by 17% percent from last years record crop and rising to account for 93% of the world's supply. But for the most part, the proposal offers more of the same failed efforts that have placed eradication at its center. There's even veiled hints of pursuing aerial chemical spraying, a move Afghan and European governments rightly oppose for fear it would further alienate Afghans and consolidate the Taliban's support.

Barnett Rubin, writing at a Middle East/South Asia experts blog (stemming from Juan Cole's Informed Comment), describes the follies of the new strategy -- it misses the forest for the trees by focusing on poppy rather than drug money, which is the real strategic and governance problem hobbling American interests in Afghanistan:

On pages 13-14, the US Strategy ("Defining the Problem") correctly diagnoses the problem as "drug money," which "weakens key institutions and strengthens the Taliban." But this diagnosis has consequences that the Strategy does not draw. A strategy to lessen the flow of drug money into corruption and insurgency is not identical to a strategy to reduce the quantity of addictive substances produced and exported. Once the US Strategy accurately diagnoses the problem as "drug money," it then reverts to a nearly exclusive focus on drugs themselves, and not even on heroin, which produces much more drug money, but on poppy cultivation, which accounts for at most 20 percent of the drug economy in Afghanistan but has become the photogenic Paris Hilton of Afghan narcotics policy. This analytical flaw is the root cause of most of what I believe is wrong with this strategy.

The focus on flowers rather than drug money has led to a false comparison between northern and southern Afghanistan. U.S. officials now imply that political elites in northern Afghanistan are engaging in successful counter-narcotics, while the southern drug economy expands. This depiction has obvious ethnic implications, to the point that one government (not the U.S.) asked me to comment on whether different ethnic groups have different cultural attitudes toward opium.

The basis for these generalizations is that poppy cultivation spread into Afghanistan mainly through the Pashtun areas and that in the last year poppy cultivation has decreased in the mainly northern provinces (see the UNODC Rapid Assessment Survey map). The main reason that the drug economy expanded the most in the Pashtun areas is that traffickers shifted the cultivation to Afghanistan from Pakistan when Islamabad started to suppress it in the 1980s, and the government collapsed in Afghanistan. As a trans-border people, Pashtuns are well-organized for smuggling, whether of opium, weapons, or spare parts for trucks.

But most importantly, the map shows only the flowers. The U.S. Strategy nowhere claims, discusses, or even mentions whether "drug money" has decreased in northern Afghanistan. It has not. Balkh may be poppy-free, but its center, Mazar-i Sharif, is awash in drug money. The commanders who control Northern Afghanistan today are playing the same shell game that the Taliban did in 2000-2001. Some have suppressed cultivation (in Ghor and Bamiyan cultivation is hardly worthwhile anyway, the yields are so poor) but none have moved against trafficking. Most of them continue to profit from it, if only through what in the U.S. we would call "political contributions."

Some of the same officials who today get credit for counter-narcotics efforts are generally believed to have become millionaires directly or indirectly from drug trafficking. Recently the nephew and right-hand man of the chief of the border police in a province colored a hopeful green in the map above was caught driving a car full of heroin north through Kabul. Why? Because there is still plenty of trafficking going through the North, and trafficking, not cultivation, is where the money is. An Afghan friend (and official of the Afghan government) told me that when he was in Bamyan recently, the north-south road by the lake at Band-i Amir was crowded like a highway with trucks taking the opium and heroin of Helmand northwards. (This is the same road that the mujahidin used to transport arms from Pakistan to northern Afghanistan in the 1980s.) The same traffic goes through Ghor, to the west. The arms traffic goes in the other direction, as northern commanders sell their Iranian weapons to dealers who re-sell them to the Taliban.

In a subsequent post, Rubin likens the administration's counter-narcotics approach to the "shock-therapy" treatment applied to Russia and other post-Communist states after the breakup of the USSR. The analogy is actually quite fitting though the policy is not:

A counter-narcotics strategy that serves our security goals would win over the farmers and many others involved in the industry, while we and the Afghan government help them adjust to the shock of being subject to international rules, while isolating the few who wish to use illicit revenue to fund insurgency and terrorism. Instead, the administration has adopted the Afghan equivalent of "shock treatment" in the former USSR: a "War on Drugs" approach, as if it is trying to end drug addiction in the West by attacking Afghan farmers.

The comparison to post-Communist shock treatment may seem strange. But what has happened to Afghanistan is not just drugs and terrorism: for the first time in history, the Afghan peasantry has started producing a cash crop for the international market. The peasantries of other countries faced this challenge under colonialism, when they produced (or lost their land to plantations that produced) rubber, tea, coffee, indigo, sugar, cotton, tobacco, and many other products. Caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol (in the form of rum) all came to the consumers of the developed world through the same kind of transformation that is now bringing them cannabis, opiates, and cocaine, except that the latter are now considered to be illegal. Just as sudden integration with the international finance and product markets required a shocking readjustment in the former Communist countries, the move from an illicit form of export mono-culture to a licit economy requires an immense upheaval in Afghanistan. Both transitions can destroy the economic security of millions and provoke the type of backlash we now see in Russia, but with even more dangerous consequences in Afghanistan, given the presence of al-Qaida. Avoiding this backlash should dictate the pace that crop eradication plays in counter-narcotics strategy.

Despite Rubin's sage advice, and it has been offered to the US government a number of times via Congressional testimony (see here, here, and here), the State Department's new strategy seems to betting the house on one a one-legged horse: eradication.

The strategy paper reminds me of a Dave Chapelle show episode where the character Dylan (pronounced "Die-lawn") poses the following question, "Who are the five best rappers of all time?" and unabashedly answers "Dylan...Dylan...Dylan, Dylan, and Dylan."

In the State Department's case, they repeatedly come up with eradication as the answer to the Afghan opium trade problem. The recently released US Counternarcotics Strategy for Afghanistan states:

For 2008, one of our main objectives should be to achieve a net reduction in total opium poppy cultivation in Helmand. To achieve this, we must make immediate progress in the following five areas:

1. Make Eradication a Counternarcotics Priority

2. Encourage the GOA to Set Eradication Goals for 2008

3. Encourage the GOA to Employ Non-Negotiated Methods of Forced Eradication

--Encourage the GOA to consider the use of force-protected GBS eradication in 2008, particularly in insecure areas.

--Make available to the GOA the tremendous amount of research done on health, safety, and environmental concerns about glyphosate.

But wait, there's so much more:

4. Improve the Good Performers Initiative (GPI)

--To date, rewards under the Good Performers Initiative have only been disbursed to poppy-free provinces, which have each received $500,000 for achieving poppy-free status as defined by a confirmed crop of less than 100 vestigial hectares. To incentivize poppy reduction in high-concern provinces such as Helmand, the USG and GOA will announce an expanded Good Performers Initiative before the 2007 planting season that will reward poppy reduction in all provinces, and offer special performance incentives for high-concern provinces that stabilize or reverse cultivation trends through aggressive governor-led action.

[Translation: The program will incent well-heeled governors to pursue poppy eradication at the expense of farmers but do nothing to stop trafficking which is far more profitable.]

5. Improve CN-COIN Public Information

--The USG will develop and implement an action plan to improve coordination of message delivery on the CN-COIN nexus in Afghanistan.

[Translation: We'll borrow Karen Hughes to convince farmers that eradication of poppy--often their only means of subsistence--is actually in their best interest.]

Over the past three years Afghan poppy cultivation and its share of the opium trade continue to rise and each year US officials promise increased eradication efforts will mop up the problem. But with three years of failure and a wealth of research by narco-terrorism experts like Vanda Felbab-Brown revealing the consistent, empirical failure of the eradication-first strategy, I think it's more likely that Dylan is the best rapper of all time.

--Sameer Lalwani