I have just secured a private letter -- not yet publicly released -- from Senator Chuck Hagel to President Bush and copied to Condoleezza Rice, Robert Gates, and Stephen Hadley. I should add that I did not receive this letter from Senator Hagel but from other sources.

The letter urges the President to pursue "direct, unconditional, and comprehensive talks with the Government of Iran."

In the letter, both attached (Hagel letter pdf) and reprinted in full below, Hagel warns that "unless there is a strategic shift [from the current situation], I believe we will find ourselves in a dangerous and increasingly isolated position in the coming months." Hagel continues, "I do not see how the collective actions that we are now taking will produce the results that we seek."

Senator Hagel encourages President Bush to take the bold strategic step of offering a completely different course for US-Iran relations. He writes about direct unconditional talks:

An approach such as this would strengthen our ability across the board to deal with Iran. Our friends and allies would be more confident to stand with us if we seek to increase pressure, including tougher sanctions on Iran. It could create a historic new dynamic in US-Iran relations, in part forcing the Iranians to react to the possibility of better relations with the West. We should be prepared that any dialogue process with Iran will take time, and we should continue all efforts, as you have, to engage Iran from a position of strength.

We should not wait to consider the option of bilateral talks until all other diplomatic options are exhausted. At that point, it could well be too late.

This letter is a call for serious, level-headed rationality from one of the Senate's most stalwart "classic conservatives."

I have since learned that the letter somehow made its way to US Central Command Commander William Fallon, perhaps through Defense Secretary Gates or other avenues, and Fallon allegedly communicated with the Senator that serious articulations of American interests and consideration of the options Hagel recommends are much needed in this current political and policy environment.

I need to also report that while I am in complete agreement with the content of Senator Hagel's letter and had the privilege of moderating a dinner discussion with him yesterday evening, the content of this letter came via other sources to me -- and I trust the Senator and his staff will respect the fact that I felt it important to bring this letter to public attention and have not violated any trust with any person in his office.

Full Text of Letter from Senator Chuck Hagel to President George W. Bush on US-Iran Policy, 17 October 2007:

October 17, 2007

The President

The White House

Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

I write to urge you to consider pursuing direct, unconditional and comprehensive talks with the Government of Iran.

In the last two years, the United States has worked closely with the permanent members of the UN Security Council, Germany, Japan, and other key states as well as the UN Secretary General and the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency to pursue a diplomatic strategy regarding Iran's nuclear program. I have supported your efforts. Maintaining a cohesive and united international front remains one of our most effective levers on Iran.

In the last year, you have also authorized our Ambassador in Iraq, Ryan Crocker, to hold bilateral talks with Iranian officials regarding the situation in Iraq. I have also supported this effort. Although Iran has continued dangerous actions in Iraq, this channel for dialogue is important.

I am increasingly concerned, however, that this diplomatic strategy is stalling. There are growing differences with our international partners. Concerns remain that the United States' actual objectives is regime change in Iran, not a change in Iran's behavior. Prospects for further action in the UN Security Council have grown dim, and we appear increasingly reliant on a single-track effort to expand financial pressure on Iran outside of the UN Security Council. Iran's actions, both on its nuclear program and in Iraq, are unchanged. Iran's leaders appear increasingly confident in their positions vis-a-vis the United States.

Unless there is a strategic shift, I believe we will find ourselves in a dangerous and increasingly isolated position in the coming months. I do not see how the collective actions that we are now taking will produce the results that we seek. If this continues, our ability to sustain a united international front will weaken as countries grow uncertain over our motives and unwilling to risk open confrontation with Iran, and we are left with fewer and fewer policy options.

Now is the time for the United States to active consider when and how to offer direct, unconditional, and comprehensive talks with Iran. The offer should be made even as we continue to work with our allies on financial pressure, in the UN Security Council on a third sanctions resolution, and in the region to support those Middle East countries who share our concerns with Iran. The November report by IAEA Director General ElBaradei to the IAEA Board of Governors could provide an opportunity to advance the offer of bilateral talks.

An approach such as this would strengthen our ability across the board to deal with Iran. Our friends and allies would be more confident to stand with us if we seek to increase pressure, including tougher sanctions on Iran. It could create a historic new dynamic in US-Iran relations, in part forcing the Iranians to react to the possibility of better relations with the West. We should be prepared that any dialogue process with Iran will take time, and we should continue all efforts, as you have, to engage Iran from a position of strength.

We should not wait to consider the option of bilateral talks until all other diplomatic options are exhausted. At that point, it could well be too late.

I urge you to consider pursing direct, unconditional and comprehensive talks with the Government of Iran.

Thank you for considering my views.

Best wishes.

Sincerely,

Chuck H.

Chuck Hagel
United States Senator

cc: Condoleezza Rice

Robert M. Gates

Stephen J. Hadley

This is a letter benchmarking the views of one of the most grounded, foreign policy savvy, common sense thinkers about the eroding state of America's military and national security portfolio. And he's a Midwestern American Republican who served in the United States Military.

Senator Hagel will be speaking for the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Thursday, 8 November, at the Capital Hilton at 11 am on the subject of America's Iran policy -- and no doubt this letter that I have secured will be among the topics of discussion.

-- Steve Clemons

Steve Clemons will be on the Rachel Maddow Show this evening discussing Karen Hughes's departure from the State Department. You can listen to it live here at 6:30 pm EST.

Also, for those ocularcentric types who have moved on to television as the news medium of choice, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (Ret.) will be on the Colbert Report tonight at 11:30pm EST. Lately, Col. Wilkerson has been quite critical of US-Cuba policy and has not held back on his assessments. And after the administration's Cuba policy speech last week, I'd look out for some zingers on tonight's show.

--Sameer Lalwani

I just got back from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee business meeting on the Law of the Sea. The final vote was 17-4 in favor of consideration by the full Senate.

The New York Times editorialized on the subject this morning:

Today, the treaty will face yet another critical moment in its long and troubled life when the Foreign Relations Committee votes on whether to send it to the floor. The vote is expected to favor the treaty. But the task facing the Democratic chairman, Joseph Biden of Delaware, and the ranking Republican member, Richard Lugar of Indiana, is to produce not just a favorable vote but an overwhelming vote sufficient to persuade the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, to finally move on ratification.

The Washington Post and the Orlando Sentinel got in a word, too. Both are worth a read, as is Senator Biden's statement supporting the convention, now up at Taylor Marsh's site.

Of the "no" votes, the biggest surprise was Coleman, who voted in favor of the treaty in 2004. What's more, during today's business meeting, Coleman acknowledged that there "have not been any significant changes since 2004 [to the treaty]."

But substance means little to Coleman, who was John Bolton's strongest supporter in confirmation hearings during the last Congress. What has changed since 2004 are the politics. In an election year, the judgments of Bolton and Frank Gaffney apparently hold more sway than those of the Navy, Coast Guard, President, Joint Chiefs, and State Department -- not to mention his own politically independent judgment three years ago.

Interestingly, Coleman raised points specifically debunked yesterday by treaty opponent numero uno, Senator Jim Inhofe. And the one opponent Coleman quoted during his brief remarks is Jeremy Rabkin, the George Mason University professor who said earlier this year:

"The Senate won't ratify the Convention if it is controversial, and I'm doing everything I can to make a controversy."

Those running against Coleman for Senate could have a field day with this. For now, it's time supporters of responsible global engagement to celebrate a little.

Below the fold is the full roll call vote.

-- Scott Paul

Update: Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer is the first of Coleman's challengers out of the gate to point out this massive and as-yet-unexplained flip flop. He may not be the last.

Nelson-Pallmeyer's release:

Nelson-Pallmeyer Condemns Coleman's Caving to the Far
Right in Flip-Flop Vote Against Law of the Sea Treaty

Today Sen. Norm Coleman voted in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to kill the Law of the Sea Convention, a UN agreement supported by environmentalists, business associations, oil, shipping, and fishing companies, and the military. He was one of only four Senators on the committee to oppose the measure. It passed the committee by a vote of 17-4.

Coleman voted for the legislation in 2004 and admitted that the legislation he voted against today is essentially the same. His flip-flop was apparently in response to a chorus of far-right voices, including John Bolton and Frank Gaffney.

The Navy and Air Force support the Law of the Sea Convention as a strong legal foundation for their navigation and over-flight rights, as well as for their Proliferation Security Initiative program to intercept illicit shipments of weapons material. The Coast Guard supports it as a critical tool to enhance port security. Environmental organizations support it as a means to strengthen global efforts to protect the marine ecosystem. The oil and gas industry supports it for defining a reserves area larger than the continental United States. Membership in the treaty would give US firms legal certainty to compete with foreign firms for marine resources.

"Norm Coleman is so deeply in the pocket of the far right that he is willing to flip-flop and break faith with our men and women in the Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard and vote against the treaty," said Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer. "By Coleman's own admission, nothing has changed since 2004 -- when he voted in favor of the treaty -- except politics. Senator Coleman seems more concerned with placating the far right than protecting our environment, restoring our international leadership role, keeping us safe, or helping our economy."

(Senator Chuck Hagel, Steve Clemons, and International Peace Academy Chair Rita Hauser)

Yesterday evening, I helped organize a private salon dinner with Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE). I'll be posting more on the event later today -- along with some other interesting news.

But I spoke during the day with someone else deeply involved with trying to carve out a course with Iran that is neither "appeasement" or "war."

This person believes that Senator Hagel's criticism of the administration's current course on Iran does not encompass the reality (in this person's view) that everything the Bush team is doing on Iran from tightened sanctions to the increasingly bellicose rhetoric are part of a "diplomatic strategy."

I think that the "third option" team in the administration has a tough job -- not only because any reasonable benchmarks of their work do not seem to be producing the kind of tangible results needed to keep the "nuke 'em now and get it over with crowd" around Vice President Cheney at bay but because there are Iranian government interests as well as White House colleagues trying to undermine their work.

Hagel's frustration with the White House is an important measure of how a sensible, grounded, informed American sees the potentially catastrophic results of the administration's current course.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee votes tomorrow on the Law of the Sea. The Committee is likely to approve the treaty, as it should.

Frank Gaffney publishes a weekly column in the Washington Times. For the last three months or so, his column has targeted the Law of the Sea week in, week out. I have a general policy against repeating opposing arguments, but I do plan from now on to rebut Gaffney's weekly diatribe. I'll call it "The Weekly Gaff."

"But that will have to wait one more week. Before I even found Gaffney's column today, which is a predictable rehash of the old misinformation, I found Jim Inhofe's Law of the Sea op-ed. Amazingly, Inhofe confesses that the opposition arguments are completely unfounded. Many critics are saying that U.S. military activities could be subject to "lawfare," but Inhofe responds:

"Part of the [Navy's] endorsement stems from the fact that the Navy is highly supportive of the aforementioned rules of navigation. The Navy also argues, and textually it is true, that military activities are exempted."

What about the myth that the Law of the Sea could subject the U.S. to foreign courts? Inhofe:

"It is important to note that no foreign or international entity could actually force the United States into any international court."

Senator Inhofe then explains why he really believes we shouldn't ratify the Law of the Sea:

"The United States could go on about its business as if everyone else in the world is misinterpreting the treaty -- but our standing in the world would suffer because of this.

No matter how right we may be in our conduct on the high seas, this treaty will give our enemies the opportunity to stand in front of the United Nations and criticize the United States for its unwillingness to fulfill its treaty obligations. We do not need a treaty that puts our standing in the world in this predicament."

The argument seems extremely defensive -- almost as if Inhofe woke up this morning, realized that Americans care about world opinion of the U.S. and tried to retrofit his foreign policy to this "new reality."Andrew Rice could have a field day with this.

I certainly do hope tomorrow's Committee vote is decided in part based on how the Law of the Sea might affect U.S. standing. If it's decided on any basis other than irrational fear of international institutions, we should be in for a big win.

-- Scott Paul

We will have this program recorded digitally and posted as an update on this blog post, but for those of you in Washington, this will be an interesting meeting. It takes place from 1 pm - 2:30 pm today.

The session is titled "The View from a Divided Palestine" and will feature:

Rita Hauser
Chair, International Peace Academy
Advisory Board Chair, International Crisis Group
Former Member, President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board

The Honorable Mustafa Barghouti
Secretary General, Palestinian National Initiative
MP, Palestinian Legislative Council

Daniel Levy
Director, Middle East Policy Initiative
New America Foundation
Publisher, Prospects for Peace

Steve Clemons
Director, American Strategy Program, New America Foundation
Publisher, The Washington Note

The event is free and open to the public. We provide sodas -- you bring your brown bag lunch.

-- Steve Clemons

A loyal TWN reader informed me this morning that Oakley the Amazing Weimaraner now comes up as the "2nd image" when image googling the word "Weimaraner."

It's just a proud family moment we wanted to share.

-- Steve Clemons

Ed. Note: Thanks to David B. for the head's up!

(But for how much longer?)

I have to give credit to Senator John Sununu. He showed up at the Arab American Institute's National Leadership Conference in Dearborn, Michigan this weekend and openly talked about his search for his Palestinian grandfather's home in old Jerusalem.

Sununu also talked about his attempts to hold back the loss of civil liberties -- to a large degree aimed at Arabs and Arab Americans -- embedded in the Patriot Act.

And then Sununu talked about his work on a Senate Resolution calling for firm resolve in achieving a two-state solution in the Israel-Palestine stand off and said explicitly that America must help engineer the conditions that will lead to the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state.

Sununu was saying things before the 600-plus audience that I couldn't imagine any Republican presidential contenders saying -- with the sole exception of Ron Paul who also spoke at the conference (though I was still flying back from India and missed his comments). But I couldn't really imagine most of the Dems saying what he said as boldly either. Perhaps I'm wrong on that -- but I got a quick sample in Hillary Clinton's "videotaped" message to the Arab American summit.

Hillary seemed genuinely interested in the importance of Arab Americans and sent one of her National Campaign Co-Chairs Lebanese-American William Shaheen (husband of Jeanne and a legend in New Hampshire Democratic politics) to represent her at the conference.

Shaheen was great and connected with the audience and did a great job trying to assure the Arab Americans there that she really does care about the rights of Palestinians and the value of Arab and Arab-American lives as much as she does about Israeli security.

But odd thing about Hillary's commentary -- unlike Sununu, Hillary just did not say "Palestine" or "Palestinian state" in her taped message.

(Huene Island, pictured above, part of the Carteret Island chain, has literally been cut in two by rising sea levels)

Papua New Guinea's Mission to the United Nations recently announced that it would evacuate the Carteret Islands, a horseshoe-shaped group of islands in the South Pacific. 2,000 Carteret Islanders slanders will receive funding to resettle on Bougainville Island, which is a four-hour boat ride away.

The Carteret Islanders are not the world's first climate refugees, but since they have all been displaced together, they may become some of the best known. Meanwhile, people like Jim Inhofe insist that we sit on our hands.

Below is the press release from the Papua New Guinea Mission to the United Nations (I'd link to it, but as you can see, the PNG Mission web site isn't quite up and running).

Frankly there's not a whole lot new here to comment on -- they're feuding over the recent bombings, IAEA inspectors, terrorism, and democracy. Expect plenty more through January. But I did want to highlight some fantastic acrylic paintings created by my friend over at Chapati Mystery.

An old roommate of mine had an Andy Warhol painting of Mao in his room that really offended a defense policy researcher from AEI, who was over for a dinner party and simply could not embrace the irony.

For those who can appreciate "the search" in the art, definitely take a look at some of the other paintings which can be found here ("To Us" is also quite priceless) or at the blog Chapati Mystery.

--Sameer Lalwani

An underreported story that is finally getting some ink in the US mainstream press is the redirection of Saudi Arabia's oil wealth to new, dare I say progressive, ventures. Most pundits are racing to catch up with the latest intellectual fads by decrying the "oil curse" that few have time to contemplate how the latest oil boom might actually provide the conditions for a new positive direction in Saudi Arabia.

But that is what appears to be happening according to the dean of a Saudi women's college quoted in today's cover article in the New York Times:

Suhair el-Qurashi, dean of the private all-female Dar Al Hekma College, often attacked as "bad" and "liberal," said a vigorous example of free-thinking at the university would embolden the many Saudis who back the king's quest to reform long-stagnant higher education.

"The king knows he will face some backlash and bad publicity," Ms. Qurashi said. "I think the system is moving in the right direction."

Sens. John Sununu, Norm Coleman, and George Voinovich all voted for the Law of the Sea in 2004. According to sources in the Senate, all are now reconsidering their votes under heavy pressure from the likes of John Bolton, Frank Gaffney, and their most vocal black helicopter-fearing constituents. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will vote on the convention next week.

If you want to learn more about these opponents, by the way, read Elena Schor's news analysis piece in the Guardian, published yesterday.

The Law of the Sea convention should be a no-brainer. What's more, it should be an opportunity for moderate and old-school conservative Republicans to slam down those in their party who think that the threat of force alone can advance U.S. interests. The votes are still there to pass it on the floor, but now it is becoming a real fight.

These three senators, in particular, need to understand that there are consequences for so transparently choosing politics over principle. Men and women in the Navy and Coast Guard, shipbuilders, fishermen, and others are counting on them to do the right thing. I still think they each will -- but the fact that they are even on the fence speaks to how deeply misinformation about the treaty is taking hold.

It's time for progressives to stand up. We've complied with the treaty's rules since President Reagan insisted that we do so 25 years ago. Joining entails zero sacrifice.

At some point, we'll actually care about working internationally that entails some measure of give-and-take, be it on climate change, nuclear diplomacy, or something else. If we let John Bolton and Frank Gaffney dictate the Senate's foreign policy on this one, we won't be able to stop them on the next one.

Yes, this is a rant, but I'm not apologizing. Call senators now.

-- Scott Paul

Update: Matt Stoller and Taylor Marsh weigh in.

I feel bad. I've now bumped Jennifer Buntman's first post on this blog down two notches. Not bad enough to hold back my post, but bad enough to urge you to read it here. Please, help assuage my guilt.

Mitch McConnell and Trent Lott announced yesterday that they would oppose the Law of the Sea in the Senate. They didn't get a whole lot of mileage on the announcement, though. Aside from E&E News, a subscription service, and a bunch of conservative online forums, not a single media outlet picked up on the announcement. My colleague Don Kraus sounded off on it this morning.

This does make the fight a little bit tougher, but Lott's prediction that the 67 votes aren't there rings hollow; finding 67 votes on the Senate floor will not be much of a problem. What we should be worried about is the will of Harry Reid and Dick Durbin to spend floor time on this issue. This is a good time to pick up the phone and let them know that this matters.

In the end, going up against the White House, environmentalists, the military, oil and gas, and every other ocean industry is going to leave Lott, McConnell, and the rest of their troupe looking way out of touch with U.S. interests.

-- Scott Paul

The National Democratic Institute hosted a terrific (and huge and really long) lunch yesterday honoring the Fifty Fifty Group in Sierra Leone and Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.

The work that Fifty Fifty has done to bring women into politics in Sierra Leone is very impressive. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, whose term as President has gotten off to a promising start, seems to be focused on development and democracy from the right perspective -- that is, she believes both must be built from the bottom up.

It was fitting that the event took place on UN Day. Sierra Leone and Liberia are two rarely acknowledged success stories for the world body. Without UN help, neither country would have likely emerged from vicious civil conflict, and neither country would have successfully held legitimate elections. Plus, Johnson-Sirleaf herself is a former UNDP regional bureau administrator.

The NDI lunch also offered a healthy dose of measured idealism. The U.S. does have a role in promoting democracy internationally, just so long as it's done peacefully, with sense of humility, and with an acknowledgment of the shortcomings of our own process.

Bush, Cheney & Co view democracy as a silver bullet. NDI has the right idea: promoting democracy is celebrating imperfection. Democracy is messy -- and that's nothing to be ashamed of.

-- Scott Paul

Speaking at the Center on Law and Security at NYU Law School last Friday, New York State Governor Spitzer announced the endorsement from Richard Clarke for his plan to start providing illegal aliens with driver's licenses from. Spitzer's last minute decision to ask NYU to play host was likely because the Center's Executive Director, Karen Greenberg served as co-chair to Spitzer's Homeland Security transition committee. Given the year Spitzer has had, he needs all the friends and support he can find.

Spitzer does not seem fazed that 70% of New York State voters reject his proposal. He has the support of most Democrats in the NY State Assembly but faces harsh criticism and opposition from the majority of Republicans in the Assembly. This week the State Senate passed a vote (39-17) that would overturn Spitzer's policy.

Spitzer has asked Democrats and Republicans to "set aside the demagoguery surrounding the national immigration debate and pragmatically evaluate this important policy for its impact on the safety and security of New Yorkers." But Spitzer must surely recognize that immigration is one of the most divisive political issues and intrinsically tied to security. Why would he think it necessary to announce endorsements of the plan so publicly when he knows that the majority of people are already so opposed to it?

Jennifer is a masters candidate at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. Prior to this she worked at NYU's Center on Law and Security and before that she worked at the New America Foundation and helped to launch the American Strategy Program and its first mega-conference "Terrorism, Security and America's Purpose".

If you ever want to discuss any of her posts, you might find her at Sherman Cafe in Union Square or the B Side Lounge. She could also teach you a thing or two about how to wield a tennis racket.

--Steve Clemons

Doug Rediker is Co-Director, along with Heidi Crebo-Rediker, of the New America Foundation's newly launched Global Strategic Finance Initiative

Between mouthfuls of canapes, business card exchanges and polite toasts, my prime take-aways from this past weekend's G7, IMF and World Bank meetings here in Washington were, first, how yesterday's poor third world countries have become, almost overnight, today's wealthy investment banking target clients, and second, the increased disconnect between the official and unofficial (private sector) events.

In particular, in dealing with Sovereign Wealth Funds (foreign government-controlled investment funds with assets approaching $3 trillion), this year, the divergence between the considered deliberations of the finance ministers and the goings-on in the simultaneous gatherings of the investment bankers, asset managers and their clients seemed even starker than usual.

The public face of these annual meetings is that of a group of august ministers presenting considered approaches to today's esoteric global financial issues. This year, the G7 ministers soberly pondered, among other things, how to address the rise of SWFs and the risks they may pose. Apparently, when Norway was the poster child for SWFs no one gave them a second thought. But with China, Russia and even Libya flush with cash - and looking to use it -- suddenly the issue takes on a more ominous tone.

Conservatives are asking What Would Reagan Do on the Law of the Sea. Personally, I don't care all that much and would defer to the unanimous judgment of today's national security, business, and environmental leadership. But some conservatives do care.

The answer to WWRD? Ratify. It's not even close. All living Chiefs of Naval Operations, all living State Department Legal Advisors, and both of Reagan's Secretaries of State say that his objections were solely related to deep seabed mining. They agree that Reagan would have approved of the most recent version of the treaty.

All that notwithstanding, opponents have maintained that Reagan was fundamentally opposed to the Law of the Sea. They cite an entry in The Reagan Diaries from June 29, 1982:

"Decided in [National Security Council] meeting - will not sign 'Law of the Sea' treaty even without seabed mining provisions."

So, WWRD? On January 29, 1982, Reagan said:

"Last March, I announced that my administration would undertake a thorough review of the current draft and the degree to which it met United States interests in the navigation, overflight, fisheries, environmental, deep seabed mining, and other areas covered by that convention. Our review has concluded that while most provisions of the draft convention are acceptable and consistent with the United States interests, some major elements of the deep seabed mining regime are not acceptable. I am announcing today that the United States will return to those negotiations and work with other countries to achieve an acceptable treaty."

"The United States remains committed to the multilateral treaty process for reaching agreement on Law of the Sea. If working together at the Conference we can find ways to fulfill these key objectives, my administration will support ratification."

-- Scott Paul

Note: If you haven't seen it yet, Kate Sheppard has a great piece on Law of the Sea for the American Prospect. In the National Journal, Corine Hegland has an entire piece on the Reagan dispute that gets to the heart of the matter.

Though unable to attend the event with Leonard Weinglass, attorney for the Cuban Five, which Steve Clemons had mentioned over a month ago, I did take some time to watch a part of his lecture. After viewing a few minutes of this talk, it's abundantly clear why Weinglass is regarded as a formidable trial lawyer -- his narrative style is simply captivating. In this clip (above), he contrasts the plight of the Cuban Five with that of Luis Posada Carriles.

Former Ambassador Wayne Smith wrote an article in The National Interest Online this summer debunking the retention of Cuba on the State Department's list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. As if we weren't doing enough to discredit our counterterrorism efforts with our selective definitions in other regional theaters (for instance, our courtship of the MEK in Iran), the protection of Posada Carriles undercuts our global efforts by compromising potential cooperation and intelligence sharing.

On a related note, the President will deliver a speech today on freedom, democracy and the future of Cuba (China, of course, will be conspicuously absent from the discussion). An outline of what he will say can be read here. But you can read further analysis and commentary of the speech and US-Cuba policy at The Havana Note including Sarah Stephens and Peter Kornbluh on the Posada case, Philip Peters on Cuban reforms, and Lawrence Wilkerson on the embargo.

--Sameer Lalwani

Rachel Morris has a superb piece just out in the Washington Monthly titled "Rudy Awakening" that exposes that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney may be small time aggrandizers of executive power compared to the former New York mayor.

This piece, which you should read in full, underscores even further why the Dems need to run against Giuliani. In one clip, Morris writes:

Many Giuliani watchers already understand that Rudy is a hothead and a grandstander, even a bit of a dictator at times. These qualities have dominated the story of his mayoralty that most people know. As that drama was unfolding, however, so was a quieter story, driven by Giuliani's instinct and capacity for manipulating the levers of government.

His methods, like those of the current White House, included appointments of yes-men, aggressive tests of legal limits, strategic lawbreaking, resistance to oversight, and obsessive secrecy.

As was also the case with the White House, the events of 9/11 solidified the mindset underlying his worst tendencies. Embedded in his operating style is a belief that rules don't apply to him, and a ruthless gift for exploiting the intrinsic weaknesses in the system of checks and balances.

That's why, of all the presidential candidates, Giuliani is most likely to take the expansions of the executive branch made by the Bush administration and push them further still. The blueprint can be found in the often-overlooked corners of his mayoralty.

Here's a question for the Democratic contenders for the White House. . .

What executive powers and privileges have the Bush/Cheney administration taken on or expanded that you would forfeit if President?

Someone needs to pose that in the upcoming debates.

-- Steve Clemons

Just arrived in Mumbai a few hours ago and am near the famous Gateway of India pictured above.

I'm having tea with some TWN folks at noon here at the Hotel Taj Mahal Palace & Tower. If others see this in time, you are welcome to join. Just email me at steve@thewashingtonnote.com to let me know you are coming.

Tonight and tomorrow I'll be participating in a set of meetings with Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Martin Walker, David Hale, Paul Laudicina and others in the A.T. Kearney-Wharton India CEO Forum. And then I'll be back in D.C.

Some of my readers tell me that Ron Paul is really surging. I'll have to kick the tires of that. I don't see the genuinely straight-talking Ron Paul getting out ahead yet, but I've been wrong before.

-- Steve Clemons

Bloomberg and the Los Angeles Times just released a new poll showing Hillary leads Barack Obama by 31 points among likely voters -- and as things stand right now has her beating all likely Republicans in the general election.

Giuliani continues to poll strongly pulling 32% of all likely Republican voters. In my book, this is good. I'd like to see Giuliani and Clinton square off because she can beat him given how narrowly he is defining his candidacy. And the fact that David Frum, Norman Podhoretz, and Daniel Pipes are advisors to Giuliani makes folks like me salivate.

Whether the Republican Party knows it or not, a Romney/Hagel ticket or Romney/Huckabee ticket would be much harder for Hillary Clinton to tackle.

-- Steve Clemons

On October 13, New York Times correspondents David Sanger and Mark Mazzetti co-authored one of the most intriguing whodunit stories in recent memory. Really, it was a whydunit story and focused on the September air attack by Israel of a Syrian military site.

This incident has been shrouded in the thickest of secrecy, and there has been much exploitation of the absence of information about the incident by various parties -- most visibly by John Bolton. Bolton was among the first to publicly assert that the North Koreans were proliferating nuclear weapons related materials and technology to Syria and that this should raise concerns to levels that should preempt proceeding with the Six Party negotiations and a deal with North Korea.

Sanger and Mazzetti reported:

Israel's air attack on Syria last month was directed against a site that Israeli and American intelligence analysts judged was a partly constructed nuclear reactor, apparently modeled on one North Korea has used to create its stockpile of nuclear weapons fuel, according to American and foreign officials with access to the intelligence reports.

When it came out, I wrote a short response piece questioning it -- and even speculated about whether they may have been getting "Judith Miller'd".

I really shouldn't have used such a term as I think Judith Miller was often eager to run with material from the administration that she had not thoroughly checked out. I actually know that this is not true in the case of Sanger and Mazzetti who have been receiving materials from the administration but who also are working a huge machinery of other sources. I have learned this from sources other than these two reporters and know that they are leading in the reporting.

On Tuesday, November 13, I'm going to be on a plane to Beijing, so I can't attend the American Enterprise Institute book event featuring the recess-appointed former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton speaking on his new memoir, Surrender is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations.

Committee on the Present Danger Honorary Co-Chairs and Senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) will serve as the "discussants". I would have thought that someone like Lincoln Chafee, Chuck Hagel, Richard Lugar, or even George Voinovich would have made for a more interesting event, but I have to give credit to AEI for lining up two incumbent Senators as the Ambassador's back up chorus.

Theoretically, Bolton should have thanked me in the acknowledgments of his book for helping to build up his brand name. When I first approached a couple of Senators about blocking his confirmation, the response I got was "John Bolton is an obscure bureaucrat going for a job no one cares about. Before we can do anything, there has to be political space for it. You need to turn Bolton into a household name to do this and win."

I think Bolton was always better known than early skeptics of this battle thought, but those of us opposed to his confirmation for the United Nations post did play by the rules of our democracy in stopping him and in the process did elevate his profile -- and now his book sales as well.

But I can't be there -- but I'd love a signed copy of the book.

If anyone goes and has the temerity to ask Ambassador Bolton to sign a book to "Steve Clemons", I'd be most grateful and am happy to reimburse. I hope that he's diplomatic enough to chuckle about the request -- but then again, he may slam the book and throw it across the room.

Actually I think he'll chuckle. But whatever may happen, be respectful if acting on my behalf.

-- Steve Clemons

Ed. Note: Thanks to 007 for the alert about the AEI event.

A lot of folks sent their good wishes after the oral surgery I had a week ago. Many thanks to all of you. The pain proved to be pretty tough to shake -- and thus I really couldn't blog much the last few days. My apologies. Instead, I submersed myself in the evolving world of Facebook.

While I thought it was going to be something static and time-consuming like Friendster, Facebook is far more interesting. What's most interesting is that lots of my journalist friends and IT friends are on Facebook. And then a ton of young people. My generation is largely absent -- but it's rather cool to find people like Nir Rosen, James Fallows, David Ignatius, Anya Schiffrin, David Baerwald, Esther Dyson, Helene Cooper, and Nancy Pelosi in the network. Fun -- and it lessened the pain in my jaw.

A friend of mine who writes for a Spanish newspaper actually did an interview with me via Facebook messaging. Anyway. . .I'm not an I-phone guy yet but facebook has me hooked.

This evening, 5-7 pm, I'll be moderating a chat between Ronald Reagan's best friend in the Senate, Paul Laxalt, and former Senator Birch Bayh (D-IN). Laxalt (R-NV) was former Governor of Nevada as well as its Senator. Join us if you are in the neighborhood.

Then I'm rushing to the airport to catch a flight to Mumbai, India to participate in the A.T. Kearney-Wharton India CEO Forum at the Hotel Taj Mahal Palace & Towers. Local Mumbai blog readers drop me a line at steve@thewashingtonnote.com and we can set a time to meet at the hotel. Georgetown's international telecom policy guru, J.P. Singh, reads the blog and is already setting up some fun meetings to benefit TWN.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

Ali Larijani has essentially been fired by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is not letting Larijani leave the negotiating scene yet.

Despite Larijani's blurry status, Iran has announced the "joint will" of Ahmadinejad and Khamenei that Iran's top nuclear negotiator attend talks on Tuesday in Rome with Javier Solana.

Larijani, who has tried to resign on several occasions (one of which after the kidnapping and detainment by the IRGC of fifteen British sailors), reportedly cannot stand working with the reckless Ahmadinejad -- though is on very good terms with Khamenei.

But with the firing, which Larijani learned through news reports rather than directly, Ahmadinejad is challenging Khamenei's authority over Iranian state matters. Ahmadinejad knows that Larijani is an agent of those who actually want to resolve Iran's nuclear situation in a constructive way while Ahmadinejad benefits from the crisis and tension with the US and Europe.

There has been a lot of movement in recent days on Iran's nuclear program. Days after Defense Secretary Bob Gates met with Vladimir Putin, Putin is in Tehran meeting with Khamenei. And in the midst of these meetings, Gates states that a new course in Iran's nuclear plans that might move its nuclear reprocessing requirements into Russia would curtail the need, possibly, for the US to deploy intermediate range missiles is Europe.

There has been fragile but real deal making going on -- and it is progress on this front that Larijani wanted to have the government announce -- but Ahmadinejad refused.

More on this soap opera later -- but the big story here is that Ahmadinejad is challenging Khamenei directly and openly with Ali Larijani's firing. It will be interesting to see if Khamenei turns the other cheek or further undermines the "Dick Cheney of Iran" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

-- Steve Clemons

(Andrew Rice, left, is running for Senate against Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma)

Matt Stoller posted this gem last night and Taylor Marsh knocked one out of the park this morning. These two are well ahead of the curve, but there will be lots more progressive advocacy on the Law of the Sea before all is said and done.

The Law of the Sea is picking up attention outside the blogosphere, too. Taylor points out that State Sen. Andrew Rice, who is looking to send Jim "Black Helicopoter" Inhofe back to Oklahoma (or at least to K Street), fired a warning shot today:"

"As a U.S. Senator who constantly portrays himself as a pro-national security public servant, Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe is now choosing to ignore the pleas of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of the Navy, among other military leaders, when they ask for Senate approval of UNCLOS. American military leaders have made it clear that participation in UNCLOS will enhance our national security and that changes have been made in UNCLOS provisions to explicitly protect American interests. And yet Jim Inhofe and a very small minority are working against our nation's best interests, simply because it might hurt the special interests he puts before the needs of Oklahomans again and again. Inhofe is clearly out of step with our national security needs."

Inhofe is well entrenched, but then again, so one was Conrad Burns. Rice is off to an extremely promising start.

As for Frank Gaffney's weekly Law of the Sea rant in the Washington Times...well...Mr. Gaffney is nothing if not consistent.

Gaffney uses the Medellin brouhaha to make a sweeping statement that international tribunals are stacked against the United States. He then suggests that, if we join, we will be subject to the jurisdiction of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.

One problem with that -- the U.S. will never be subject to that tribunal. Every country gets to choose its preferred method of dispute resolution under the treaty. The U.S. chose arbitration. If countries don't agree, the default method is arbitration. That means, no matter what, any dispute resolution will take place in..arbitration.

Gaffney knows this. He even conceded the point when he testified earlier this month before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. That means this isn't misinformation; it's a lie.

This is the kind of thing that Jeremy Rabkin must have meant when he said:

"The Senate won't ratify the Convention if it is controversial, and I'm doing everything I can to make a controversy."

-- Scott Paul

About 20 people, a long table, a backyard under a fall night sky, carved pumpkins and gourds, candles flickering everywhere, pomegranate margaritas, a magnificent meal (some of which also arrived in personal pumpkins) -- and the equally uber-connected and delightful Margaret Carlson and Judith Czelusniak as co-hostesses.

This was how I spent yesterday evening when I decided that pain from my oral surgery would be more easily distracted by Carlson and friends -- than Bob Gates speaking at the annual dinner for the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs which I had originally planned to 'engage.'

It was just about one of the most hip dinners I've been to in Washington -- next to an equally fabulous night that came with a lightning and rain storm that made an evening hosted by the New York Times' Helene Cooper, AP's Anne Gearan, and CNN's Elisa Abbot seem like something magnificent but other-worldly out of Witches of Eastwick.

Margaret Carlson is, of course, political columnist for Bloomberg News, appears on CNN's "Capital Gang" and is Washington Editor for The Week while Judith Czelusniak heads public relations for Bloomberg in New York and controls the guest list for the big Bloomberg bash after the White House Correspondents' Dinner. The guest included Bob Bennett (yep, the one who defended Bill Clinton, Judith Miller, has a great voice, and a brother named Bill), Andy Card brother-in-law and Romney supporter Ron Kaufman, Inside Washington host Gordon Peterson, Anne Schroeder of Politico, Patrick Gavin of the Washington Examiner, political wunderkind Michael Allen of Politico's "Playbook," Qorvis PR Managing Director David Bass, a really into-his-new-role (and impressively informed) Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Center for Amerian Progress General Counsel Debbie Fine, Washington Post editorial writer and gay debates co-anchor Jonathan Capehart, and the political and smart energizer bunny of this party, MSNBC's Tammy Haddad.

This is one of those great parties that you sort of see on TV and wonder if they really happen. There were other folks there but perhaps none who had three and half hours of oral surgery the same day and completely forgot the pain because of the mesmerizing discussions.

Tammy Haddad was the first to sense how excited I was getting about the fact that just about everyone was saying something that would be top paragraph in an Al Kamen column but no one had said "off the record." She's been a blogger I've since learned -- and yelled out, "wait! wait! consipiracist blogger in the room -- it's all off the record."

So, it will have to stay that way -- with two exceptions. Everyone went around the table and prognosticated on who would win the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations -- and who their respective running mates would be. First of all, not a single person picked Obama. Amazing.

Lots like Huckabee as Vice President. A couple liked Biden. I was surprised by that. Someone said Hillary would pick Bob Graham as her VP running mate. Many who saw Giuliani winning the nomination saw him picking McCain as his VP -- and then they'd have a hearty laugh.

I said that as things looked to me at that moment in my heavy advil and pomegranate margarita state, Hillary Clinton looked like she'd win the nomination. I said she might pick Evan Bayh or even a Wes Clark as a running mate. Someone yelled out Richardson -- and a gaggle of voices said "no way." Someone then yelled Vilsack, and folks went silent, pondering that.

I then predicted Romney would beat Giuliani -- and he'd pick Hagel if the war was really, really bad and worsening and if he needed to distance himself further from the Cheney gang -- most of whom are joining the Giuliani bandwagon anyway. But realistically, if the economy is in bad shape and Romney wanted to lure some semi-alienated fervent non-Mormon Christians to his camp, he'd pick Huckabee.

One lad suggested that Romney needed someone from the Midwest rather than the South, but then said that there wasn't anyone in the Midwest that came to mind. . .and Hagel didn't count according to this person.

The second thing I can drag into the record was said by super lawyer Bob Bennett. He said that "I will not support any Democrat who stands on the platform with Al Sharpton, and you can quote me on that."

So I have.

Judith Czelusniak and Margaret Carlson are just amazing hosts -- so my recommendation to you is if you ever are double booked and have a dinner elsewhere planned and one or the other calls you, choose them.

More later -- I need some more advil now.

-- Steve Clemons

Tomorrow, two interesting books will be hitting the newsstands. I know both authors but have not read their books. My hunch though is that they fill in key pieces of the Iraq and Iran stories that readers will want to know about.

The first is Curveball: The Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War by Los Angeles Times correspondent Bob Drogin. At first glance, looks very good.

Secondly is USA Today Diplomatic Correspondent Barbara Slavin's book, Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the US and the Twisted Path to Confrontation.

Chris Nelson of The Nelson Report asked Slavin to share some of the key findings of her book that are relevant to America's current posture towards Iran.

Barbara Slavin writes:

The first Bush administration, according to Brent Scowcroft, was eager for contacts with Iran. "We're happy to do it," Scowcroft told me he told various intermediaries. "We could have it official, public or private citizen to private citizen, any way you want it." The two sides got as far in 1990 as agreeing to meet in Switzerland, but "at the last minute the Iranians pulled the plug," Scowcroft said.

Under Clinton, relations took several steps back because of 'dual containment' -- the effort to sanction and isolate both Iran and Iraq. After Mohammad Khatami was elected Iranian president in 1997, a warming trend ensued but the Clinton administration made a fatal error -- since continued by George W. Bush.

It sought to distinguish between the parts of the Iranian regime it liked -- namely Khatami -- and the parts it didn't -- namely supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iran's military and intelligence establishment. Clinton went so far as to name a delegation to meet with the Khatami government, a team consisting of Bruce Riedel, his top NSC Mideast adviser, then undersecretary of State Tom Pickering and deputy assistant secretary David Welch. But the Iranians wouldn't bite.

Enter George W. Bush. He had the best chance to patch up relations after 9-11 and he blew it. The U.S. and Iran both opposed the Taliban and Iran believed Bush and Cheney, as ex-oilmen, would lift sanctions. Unknown to many, the U.S. and Iran held secret, one-on-one high-level talks in Paris and Geneva from the fall of 2001 through May 2003, talks led on the U.S. side by Ryan Crocker and Zalmay Khalilzad.

In early May 2003, through Swiss intermediaries, the Iranians also presented an offer for comprehensive negotiations (reprinted in the annex to my book). Bush, full of hubris over Iraq, did not even give the Iranians the courtesy of a reply. The Europe talks ended, meanwhile, after yours truly wrote about them on the front page of USA TODAY and al-Qaeda bombings took place in Saudi Arabia that the White House said were linked to al-Qaeda detainees in Iran.

The Iranians did not give up, however. In late 2005 and through the spring of 2006, Ali Larijani, their new national security adviser, sought backchannel talks with Steve Hadley. Larijani went so far as to publicly accept a prior U.S. offer of talks on Iraq in March 2006. Supreme leader Khamenei publicly endorsed the talks, something he had never done before. Again, Bush sawed off the limb. The upshot: Larijani was weakened, Khamenei humiliated and Iran accelerated its nuclear program and its intervention in Iraq.

There is much more, including an intelligence assessment in early 2003 that invading Iraq would spur the two members of the Axis of Evil with real nuclear programs -- Iran and North Korea -- to intensify their efforts. Also the fact that the White House did not even ask the intelligence community for an assessment of the regional impact of toppling Saddam before invading.

It simply assumed that all would go well and that Tehran would be the next evildoer to fall. Instead of dividing our enemies by negotiating with Iran, the Bush administration has united them. And now -- like the child who shot his parents and complains he's an orphan -- the White House blames Iran for taking advantage of the strategic opportunities the United States has provided.

It's useful though quite troubling to be reminded that our current problems with Iran were entirely self-inflicted by this administration.

-- Steve Clemons

I'm not kidding.

Vatican Monsignor says he was "pretending to be gay" to help wayward youth.

From AP:

"It's all false; it was a trap. I was a victim of my own attempts to contribute to cleaning up the church with my psychoanalyst work," La Repubblica quoted Stenico as saying.

Stenico said he had met with the young man and pretended to talk about homosexuality "to better understand this mysterious and faraway world which, by the fault of a few people -- among them some priests -- is doing so much harm to the church," La Repubblica quoted him as saying.

I've just had oral surgery -- and am in a bad mood -- but this did make me chuckle.

-- Steve Clemons

Annie and Oakley the Amazing Weimaraners send their best. I know, it's blurry.

I'm going to have some oral surgery this morning -- please be nice while I'm away and nice knowing all of you if it doesn't go well.

If I'm not ticked off at the world, I'm scheduled to hear James Fallows speak on China at lunch at a forum hosted by The Atlantic -- and the later to hear Bob Gates at the annual JINSA dinner. Yep, I'll be there. . .listening.

-- Steve Clemons

While I think that post-Fidel Cuba is going to look a lot like Fidel's Cuba unless the US opens the spigots to travel and trade, Jimmy Carter's perspective on US-Cuba relations is useful to read. He thinks that we have undermined any chance of organic democratic movements taking hold inside Cuba.

Perhaps -- but I think that the complete and utter failure of decades long American sanctions are harming our interests -- regardless of how liberal or illiberal the Cuban government is.

Compare it to what Robert Hutchings has recently said on Cuba. Hutchings is former Chairman of the National Intelligence Council in this Bush administration and is now Diplomat-in-Residence at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School.

First, Carter's thoughts as shared with the Wall Street Journal:

(Steve Clemons and future TWN blogger)

OK. . .it's a great morning in Washington, DC -- and I've been spending it at the newly refurbished 17th Street Cafe in Dupont Circle. I used to hang out at the old cafe -- CyperStop (where Al Gore stopped once during his 2000 campaign to show he was internet savvy) because of the free wireless and tolerable coffee -- but it always felt as if it was about to structurally implode. This place is fantastic now.

I've just made my way into the "Facebook" world -- and linked up with pals Josh Marshall, Dave Meyer, Matt Stoller, Garance Franke-Ruta, Arianna Huffington, Eli Pariser, and a few dozen others. I'm sort of airport pals with Wes Clark -- but his facebook entry has too many connections and the system won't allow him to connect with any more folks. This is a really interesting network I've been slow to get into. I even have a few blog readers who have booked me. I like the interactivity.

I love Jacob Heilbrunn's new book that I have just ripped through. I have galleys -- not the real book which neocon junkies should definitely buy. It's titlted They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons. It's a superbly done treatment of the deep roots of this movement, and the consequence of its rise.

But what is also interesting is the fairness of Heilbrunn's acknowledgments. In about a page and a quarter of not gushing but thoughtful appreciation to various personalities, he thanks Chris Buckley, William F. Buckley Jr., Norman Podhoretz, Midge Decter, Kenneth Adelman, Douglas Feith, Peter Rodman, Walter Berns, Mark Blitz, and Kenneth Weinstein. He continues with Jeane Kirkpatrick (the late Ambassador), John Bolton -- about whom Heilbrunn said was "affabile, witty, and direct discussing his career" -- Gary Rosen, Nicholas Gvosdev, Kukula Glastris, Joan Wohlstetter, Peter Berkowitz, William Kristol, Melvin Lasky, Daniel Bell, Steven Clemons, Michael Lind, Jonathan Rauch, Lawrence F. Kaplan, Adam Bellow (yes. . .Saul's son), and in-laws John and Gina Despres, and his brilliant Henry Waxman-staffing significant other, Sarah Despres. Oh yes, and child Oscar.

The book is great -- but there will probably not often be a list of such names -- given who they are -- that hangs together with such comfort and poise. This is an interesting book that draws from interesting people.

I sent in a blurb for the book this morning, which will most likely be edited (or perhaps rejected as i was late getting it in) -- but here it is:

America's first steps into 21st century foreign policy will forever be marked by the stunning rise to power of a small group of utopia-by-force idealists called neoconservatives. Jacob Heilbrunn's They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons is not only the essential primer to the origins, the rise, and the not yet fallen of the neocon movement, but it's the story of America's own evolution as a self-sure, do-good nation that wants to assist other peoples to look like us -- or if that proves complicated, wipe them out or wall them off. Heilbrunn has written the most important and revealing profile of the deep roots of neoconservatism available today.

On other fronts, David Sanger's and Mark Mazzetti's piece on Syrian nuclear plant activities does disturb. Mostly because I don't buy it. . .at least not yet. My intel sources don't concur that this was a nuclear plant -- but rather that it was a machine tool operation to modernize Syrian scud missiles with air burst capacity warheads. Such warheads could 'eventually' be outfitted with some nasty kinds of things -- including chemical, bio, and nuke warheads.

I hate to be at odds with Sanger and Mazzetti as I admire them both a great deal -- but they need to make sure that they are not being "Judith Miller'd". I leave open the door that my sources could be wrong, but bombing a nuke site as opposed to a machine operation to raise the level of potential terror that Syria could rain on Israel (far more cheaply) are vastly different in scale.

Daniel Levy sent me this piece this morning as a bit of a counter point to the Sanger/Mazzetti article. My one difference with the "War in Context" piece is that while I also doubt that Syria is stockloading a lot of chem weapons (in the broadest sense) -- it is awash in napalm (which is designated chemical) and which Israel has a zillion vats of as well.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

That's what former top US Commander in Iraq Ricardo Sanchez calls our current situation there.

It's also the name of a must see, Sundance Special Grand Jury Prize winning movie. No End in Sight was produced by internet guru and concerned American citizen Charles Ferguson.

New America's own Nir Rosen shot much of the Baghdad footage in the film -- and people like Paul Hughes who used to be in the Coalitional Provisional Authority, Walter Slocombe who was a Senior Adviser to the the operation, Lawrence Wilkerson, Jay Garner, Richard Armitage and others paint a picture of what went on in the early days of our Iraq stewardship that make Sanchez's comments rather old hat.

But still -- the trend continues to disturb. Ferguson is now writing a book that tracks some of the film but has secured a great deal more information about Bush's role (or non-role) in the management decisions on Iraq.

-- Steve Clemons

I have received quite a number of emails today about the very cool looking Mountain Goat we met this August up in the Cascade Mountains. Some want it as a screen saver.

I was going to load them on site in larger form so that folks could download them for their computers, but the files are too large I guess. So, if you want an email of the large file for either the Cascades Mountain Goat -- or the blogger above fishing Spectacle Lake in the Cascades, send me an email at steve@TheWashingtonNote.com.

-- Steve Clemons

Generals don't seem to be able to speak their minds when in uniform.

Well, with the exception of Eric Shinseki -- and very possibly David Petraeus who seems to be driving his own machinery on Iraq spin.

But now -- out of uniform -- former top Iraq commander (during Abu Ghraib watch) Ricardo Sanchez shared his views in public. Here are some clips from David Cloud:

~ In a sweeping indictment of the four-year effort in Iraq, the former top American commander called the Bush administration's handling of the war incompetent and warned that the United States was "living a nightmare with no end in sight."

~ "After more than fours years of fighting, America continues its desperate struggle in Iraq without any concerted effort to devise a strategy that will achieve victory in that war-torn country or in the greater conflict against extremism," Mr. Sanchez said, at a gathering here of military reporters and editors.

~ "There was been a glaring and unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders," he said, adding later in his remarks that civilian officials have been "derelict in their duties" and guilty of a "lust for power."

Note to Generals today -- it would help us to know your real views about attacking Iran NOW -- rather than after the fact if we go that direction.

-- Steve Clemons

I really did mean every word in my tribute earlier today to former Vice President Al Gore. Emails from campaigns, Senate and House press operations, the White House, NGOs, and even some in corporate America have been streaming into my email box congratulating him. I can't imagine what Gore's own email inbox looks like.

Hillary Clinton's campaign site posted a big banner here:

But Jim Lobe called today and asked what the political implications of the Gore Nobel Peace Prize win (shared win, of course) are. I gave him an earful of thoughts -- but the thing most folks have not thought about is what tension this creates for the next President of the United States.

With Scott Paul, Steve Clemons, and Mindy Kotler already weighing in, I'd like to add my two cents into the mix on this latest Armenian genocide resolution -- first, to reference the extent of our strategic interdependency so we do not take Turkey's backlash lightly; and second, to offer some perspective on confronting a nation that has yet to confront its own past. I just noticed the New York Times had a couple good pieces on this today (on security and historical memory) but I figured I'd post some of my own thoughts.

On the issue of a strategic relations, I doubt Turkey was accorded the weight it deserved when the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted on this resolution, just as I think most European countries have undervalued Turkey's potential entrance as an EU member. This is most articulately expressed by Rajan Menon and S. Enders Wimbush in a recent security studies journal piece:

(Los Desatres de la Guerra by Francisco Goya , 1810)

Mindy L. Kotler is director of Asia Policy Point, a nonprofit research center providing objective information and scholarship on Northeast Asia to the American policy community.

Steve Clemons is right that comparing the U.S. House of Representatives Resolution 121 (passed July 30th), the Comfort Women Resolution (CW), to H. Res. 106, the Armenian Genocide Resolution (AG) that was passed out the House Foreign Affairs Committee on October 10th is both wrong and dangerous. There is also little similarity in style, substance, and intent between these two human rights resolutions.

Among the many differences between the resolutions, a critical one is that the Armenian Resolution has no endgame other than to condemn Turkey. There is no suggestion for a solution, support for those who are trying to do the right thing in Turkey, or even understanding of how its passage can affect U.S. foreign policy interests in the region.

Silvia Wilheim of La Noche Se Mueve, 1210 AM in Miami, scored an interesting radio interview with former State Department Chief of Staff and Pamela Harriman Visiting Scholar at the College of William & Mary Lawrence B. Wilkerson.

You have to work through a bilingual discussion with Wilkerson in English and then translation -- but it's an excellent summary of why our current posture towards Cuba is badly in need of a makeover.

To listen, click on "Jueves" for Thursday.

(Rev. Richard Cizik, Vice President for Governmental Affairs at the National Evangelical Association)

I didn't notice until just now, but apparently Ban-Ki Moon was invited to speak at a dinner meeting hosted by the National Evangelical Association. Rev. Rich Cizik extended the invitation. Dana Milbank at the Washington Post caught it and Josh Weissburg at the Switchblog brought it to my attention.

Rev. Cizik is a thoughtful man who understands he is in a very difficult position. In urging action on climate change, torture, poverty, and international cooperation, he feels he is on solid religious ground. At the same time, though, folks like Pat Robertson, James Dobson, and the late Jerry Falwell have done their best to make his political situation uncomfortable. I'm staunchly opposed to much of the evangelical agenda, but Rev. Cizik and his constituents are becoming key, constructive players on some important international issues. They are welcome allies.

Here's his extremely ambitious proclamation, taken from the NAE press release:

"Evangelicals are the 'new internationalists' with a record of legislative successes and expect to shape U.S. foreign policy in ways unimaginable even a year ago. What remains to be seen is whether we'll rise to the challenge of partnership being articulated by our brothers and sisters in the Global South."

-- Scott Paul

I think many people read this blog not for my sometimes verbose commentary but also for the scathing criticism that some of my most devout readers direct at me (as well as the TWN NoteTakers Scott Paul and Sameer Lalwani). They are well-meaning folks, most of them.

But do know that I also appreciate the friendly, civilized, thoughtful comments that often come more by email than on the blog (!).

One of my commenters -- POA (short for "Pissed Off American") -- has pushed me to the edge a couple of times, and each time, we've been able to hammer out an 'understanding' regarding how high his cries of outrage can go. There are several government officials from countries like Iran, Syria, and Cuba who occasionally email me asking if I need a refuge to escape from my well-meaning attackers. . .seriously. But for POA's reasonableness after we 'chat', I thank him.

That said, he's been harassing me for a couple of weeks now about my inability to distinguish elephants from gophers. I disagree, but perhaps he knows that I'm more tuned into Weimaraners and mountain goats.

This piece by David Brooks today, "The Hamiltonian Ground," should be essential reading for all the campaigns.

Brooks has hit on why the Republican Party doesn't seem too Republican anymore -- but it also credits Hillary Clinton from already stealing the middle away from just about all of the contenders. And that means she is doing things that respond to Middle Class concerns.

I think Edwards and Obama have both been doing more than Brooks give them credit for -- which speaks to what looks like a systemic repositioning of the Democratic Party (on domestic matters). But I think he reads the problems on the Republican side perfectly.

-- Steve Clemons

Ed Note: Thanks to RET for highlighting this for me and sending.

Mark Goldberg and I had a funny conversation this morning about Ollie North's rant on the Law of the Sea over at Human Events. I won't be responding to every ridiculous opposing argument (that would take up far too much time), just the ones that strike the funny bone with special force.

North calls the International Seabed Authority "a bloated, multinational bureaucracy" and suggests it's going to tax Americans. Quick background on the ISA: it's a small outfit whose sole purpose is to administer mining companies' claims to sites in the deep seabed. And since deep seabed mining is mostly an issue for the future, there isn't even a whole lot for it to do right now.

Mark strikes back at UN Dispatch:

For the record, the International Seabed Authority has a budget of $5.8 million a year and about 40 employees. Human Events, by contrast, has a larger staff. Also, contra North, the International Seabed Authority does not have the authority to tax American citizens -- even so, that would require more employees!

Just another day in anti-LOS land.

-- Scott Paul

Back and forth political tides in America are part of the once globally envied system of checks and balances in our democracy (though there are days I really don't feel like we are anywhere near the democratic standards we used to boast in our pre-9/11 history).

While it is well known that I would have strongly supported Chuck Hagel for President, I am also convinced that a Democratic President would be healthy for the nation -- as long as that Democratic President put an end to many of the most self-destructive trends initiated by the Bush administration. I don't unconditionally support any Democrat, and also for the record, there is much in Mitt Romney's profile (his old profile) that I could support.

But let's roll ahead and be politically incorrect for a moment and speculate on winners and losers. No offense to any of the candidates!!

A couple of cool things have come our way today.

First, I just discovered Ben Lando's Iraq Oil Report which has at the top of the blog a story about Hunt Oil coordinating with the US State Department before signing an oil exploration and development agreement with the Kurdistan Regional Government. Big can of worms here -- until Iraq can figure out whether it's a strong nation with weak states or a weak nation with strong states. We know the answer of course, but formalizing deals is where things get rocky.

Next, Scott Horton at Harper's "No Comment" Blog had a delicious treatment of trends in political media that built off of Hedrik Hertzberg's comments on blogs and the MSM in Radar. And thanks very much to Hertzberg for the shout out to The Washington Note.

Third, I just got a galley copy of Jacob Heilbrunn's They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons by Doubleday. It's really brilliant -- and has so much detail for any junkies who need to know about the rise and not yet fallen neoconservative movement. I'm going to do a blurb for it shortly, but I want to say here that this is a great, fascinating book that should be on the must read list of any TWN reader.

-- Steve Clemons

Armand Hammer always wanted a Nobel Peace Prize -- and so did Japan shipbuilding and auto racing tycoon Ryoichi Sasakawa. They tried to buy it and brow beat for it.

I'm always amused at some level that when I was helping to fight Armand Hammer who had bought off most of the Democratic members of the then Los Angeles City Council (he already had the Republican ones) to get approved oil drilling leases for sites off of the Pacific Palisades in Southern California, Al Gore Sr. was on the Occidental Petroleum board of directors.

Al Gore the son has come around a long way to co-share a Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Here is a very nicely written note from Al Gore's blog.

I want to congratulate him for raising international consciousness about climate change.

Now with all due respect to the many good people calling for Al Gore to run for President, let's spend our efforts on the climate change policy challenges rather than the higher sizzle but less satisfactory gaming on whether he will run or not. He won't.

Now, let's look at ways to price carbon.

-- Steve Clemons

John Edwards has made a statement denying rumors of an extramarital liaison with any other woman -- though not mentioning Rielle Hunter.

I'm going to turn off my cynical gene for a moment and fully accept John Edwards statement at face value. We all probably should.

However, after having done some wrestling with John Bolton, Scooter Libby, the Bush administration -- and yes, even the Clinton administration that would parse words, meanings and statements into their finest legal nuance -- it is frustrating when a pro like John Edwards leaves open any door that can be manipulated as a loophole in his statement. Washington is flush with non-denial denials, and Edwards and Hunter issued that kind of statement, not the definitive one that I think would have slammed the lid down hard on this slimy allegation.

And. . .although he may be moving in that direction, I've heard no demand by Hunter or Edwards for a retraction of the story -- and no threat of legal action if the retraction is not immediately made.

He really should shut down those promulgating this stuff.

-- Steve Clemons

(House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Tom Lantos)

When I lived in Los Angeles, I was riding my bike westward on Wilshire Boulevard just past the Los Angeles Country Club when I saw in the distance a car speed up the curb, over the sidewalk, and into a tree. As it turned out, Kemal Arikan, the Consul General of Turkey in Los Angeles had just been assassinated by an Armenian activist.

History matters for many. I supported the Comfort Women Resolution in the Congress because historical memory battles in Asia are becoming geostrategically consequential -- and in my view, the irresponsibility of some leaders in Asia is enabled by the military buffer that we provide. If American forces were not present in Japan and Korea, then the leaders in Japan, Korea, and China might in fact be less prone to stoke historical fires of strident nationalism with decades old grievances. Today with no real chance of military confrontation, they can get away with irresponsible comments.

But I don't agree with Scott Paul that the Armenian Genocide Resolution passed yesterday in the House Foreign Relations Committee meets the same standard -- and given where we are in the Middle East today, the passage of that Resolution undermines "real time" American interests. Chairman Tom Lantos was wrong to allow Congress to legislate history in this case, at this time.

According to a former senior intelligence official I met with recently, Defense Secretary Bob Gates, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, and CIA Director Michael Hayden were all in the intel game when the Jonathan Pollard case came to light. They all felt "gamed by Israeli intelligence" back then, according to my source.

This is one of several reasons that this Intel Triumvirate (since Gates is holding DoD's intel portfolio close to himself) has been skeptical of Israeli conclusions that Syria was on a nuclear weapons track. According to my source, "all of them were chastened by the Jonathan Pollard affair" and thus have some "healthy resistence" to intel that is circumstantial rather than definitive.

MyDD's Jerome Armstrong has secured a statement from Rielle Hunter, the woman with whom John Edwards has been accused of having an affair.

From MyDD's site:

"The innuendoes and lies that have appeared on the internet and in the National Enquirer concerning John Edwards are not true, completely unfounded and ridiculous.

My video production company was hired by the Edwards camp on a 6 month contract, which we completed December 31, 2006.

When working for the Edwards camp, my conduct as well as the conduct of my entire team was completely professional.

This concocted story is just dirty politics and I want no part of it."

Technically, I wish Hunter had said flatly: "I had no sexual affair of any kind with John Edwards." Some on the right will read her statement as a non-denial denial.

But at least someone has said something in defense of Edwards as he has been quiet. If the veracity of Hunter's denial is solid, then Edwards and/or Hunter should demand a retraction from the National Enquirer and sue if they don't get it.

-- Steve Clemons

Pam Spaulding has an excellent piece referencing some of the Blackwater questions I posted below.

And a TWN reader who also happens to be one of America's most distinguished former Ambassadors raised questions about the applicability of international law to the Blackwater case:

Excellent questions. In particular, on what basis would a contractor be exempted from the normal requirement for non-discriminatory employment practices? I can't see any legal basis for applying "don't-ask-don"t-tell" to private employers.

I also don't see any basis in international law for exempting privately employed individuals from the application of the law, including the laws prohibiting crimes against humanity, regardless of what Jerry Bremer may have decreed when ruling Iraq. If the Iraqis won't prosecute them for murder, reckless mayhem, and related crimes, I imagine the international criminal court could do so.

Makes sense to me.

-- Steve Clemons

The lesson that some people are taking away from the Iraq boondoggle is that values-driven foreign policy should be rejected. Since prominent neoconservatives plotted a course according to values and not interests, they say, we need to get back to pursuing interests.

The general neoconservative story could be summed up as follows: there are good guys and bad guys in the world; empower the good guys (when it's convenient) and take out the bad guys.

Realists like Bill Richardson, Steve Clemons, and Anatol Lieven, have rightly countered that the good guy/bad guy dichotomy is at the root of a very serious problem in U.S. foreign policy.

This is either true -- or it's a lie. If part of a dirty tricks operation, it's odd that John Edwards would be the target.

I like and respect Huffington Post's Sam Stein who wrote the first thoughtful inquiry into what might be going on. Others have rushed to judgment, perhaps wrongly.

But given the tailwind this is getting in the blogosphere -- even among the left end -- Edwards will either have to zap hard those promulgating this extramarital drama and disavow her (as well as explain the $114,461 that went for some pretty lousy campaign videos), or he'll have to do his best at pulling an Alexander Hamilton, something Bill Clinton should have done regarding Monica Lewinsky.

More on Hamilton's confessions about adultery and denial of corruption here.

-- Steve Clemons

I did an interview today with National Public Radio Congressional Correspondent David Welna for All Things Considered on what may have been behind Hillary Clinton's decision and rationalization to vote for the Kyl-Lieberman Resolution calling for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to be designated a terrorist organization.

I also discuss her decision to support Senator Webb's Resolution, that if passed, would disallow funding for any American military operations against Iran without explicit Congressional approval.

This will be on this afternoon -- locally on WAMU 88.5 some time between 4 pm and 6 pm EST -- but check the NPR All Things Considered site for local broadcast times.

-- Steve Clemons

(Blackwater USA CEO Erik Prince)

A while back, I got interested in the fact that the Pentagon has issued more than 125,000 "moral waivers" to recruits in order to continue to meet manpower requirements. While issuing these waivers for various kinds of felonies -- including theft and assault -- the military under its highly righteous most senior general, Joint Chiefs Commander Pete Pace, continued to legally harrass and expel discovered homosexuals in its ranks.

This raises the questions about norms in private military contractors -- like Blackwater.

(Syrian Ambassador to the US Imad Moustapha and President George W. Bush)

New York University professor Alon Ben-Meir has written an eloquent and compelling essay on why Syria's role in any Israel-Palestine negotiation is central, not peripheral, to a serious Middle East peace negotiation.

He writes:

Regardless of the reality or the merits of American grievances against Syria, none can be settled by public recriminations and accusations. The agreement with North Korea regarding its nuclear weapons program should be a telling lesson to the administration. Only when it conceded to the North Korean demand for face-to-face negotiations was an agreement finally hammered out with Pyongyang, an agreement which could have been achieved five years ago and certainly before North Korea got to the point of conducting an actual nuclear test.

Inviting Syria to the peace conference is not a reward to Damascus for its alleged mischievous behavior; it is a matter of real necessity dictated by the prevailing turmoil in the Middle East to which the Bush administration has contributed so largely. The Middle- East conference offers the Bush administration an opportunity to change course toward Syria without loosing face not to speak of preventing a colossal failure.

Today, a group of bipartisan foreign policy heavyweights -- Brent Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Lee Hamilton, Nancy Kassebaum Baker, Theodore Sorensen, Paul Volcker, Thomas Pickering and Carla Hills -- sent President Bush a letter calling for serious engagement with Syria in the Israel-Palestine peace process and an end to the isolation of Hamas.

In the letter sent to Bush today by this roster of luminaries, however, they "welcome" the administration's overtures toward Syria.

But these overtures, as far as Syria is concerned are insubstantial and largely fake.

Syria has NOT been formally invited to the Annapolis meetings in a direct sense. Syria has been invited as a member of the Arab League. And this sleight-of-hand, sloppy manner of inviting Syria to the table is not inspiring serious consideration.

Neither is the absence of coordination between the US government and other stakeholder governments -- like the Russian Federation.

-- Steve Clemons

A source has told me that Senator Chuck Hagel had a recent meeting with Russian Federation Ambassador to the U.S. Yuri Ushakov who confessed that the Russians are frustrated and nearly furious with the Bush administration over the lack of coordination and preparation before the upcoming November Middle East Peace Summit scheduled to take place in Annapolis.

Ambassador Ushakov allegedly told Hagel that he's never seen anything like this. He said there are normally side agreements orchestrated, diplomatic understandings, and significant coordination efforts. Most Middle East summits attempted before involved enormous heavy-lifting before the meeting. However, according to a significant source, absolutely nothing of import is happening between White House officials and key stakeholder governments in the region -- including Russia which is one of the Middle East Quartet members.

This is interesting because the State Department is packed with pros -- particularly people like Assistant Secretary of State David Welch. They must know that there is little if any nemawashi -- or "planting the roots" as Japanese would say -- going on.

-- Steve Clemons

My colleagues at the New America Foundation's HigherEdWatch -- the same people who broke a whopper of a story in April on student loan officers receiving kickbacks from banks, which generated a national media firestorm, Congressional inquiries and legal settlements with many state attorney generals -- have broken some more news on predatory student lending.

Late last month, student loan giant Sallie Mae filed a New York Freedom of Information Law request asking community colleges in the State University of New York (SUNY) system to provide the company with the names, telephone numbers, and home mailing and e-mail addresses of "all admitted and enrolled students for academic year 2007-2008." The request, which came from the company's Direct Marketing division, also asked the schools to identify the age, graduating class, and major of each student listed.

Such requests from direct-to-consumer private student loan companies are raising alarms among college financial aid administrators, who worry that the companies are trying to lure their students to take on unnecessarily high levels of debt. They have also caught the attention of the Education Department. ...

Some lenders have used open record requests to try to get colleges to provide them with lists of students who are in financial distress. ...

Sallie Mae appears to have carefully crafted its New York Freedom of Information Law request to ensure that the information it was seeking -- all of which could be classified as "directory information" -- was FERPA proof.

Nevertheless, SUNY officials are expected to reject Sallie Mae's request, arguing that the New York statute allows state agencies to deny access to lists of names and addresses that have been sought for commercial purposes, as no public purpose is served by such a disclosure.

While it remains the subject of heated debate, I think there's at least a defensible case to be made that some transgressions of privacy for national security purposes serve a public good. After reading some of Richard Betts's new book Enemies of Intelligence (a fascinating examination of the inherent tensions within the intelligence process that I hope to write more on soon), I've become increasingly convinced that Americans may have to grapple with some tough, perhaps unsavory choices.

But it seems Sallie Mae and other companies engaged in predatory student lending practices invade students' privacy without providing a public good in exchange. In fact, trying to use freedom of information laws for their commercial purposes defaces a public good.

--Sameer Lalwani

This article by Bob Barr today was a breath of fresh air in the debates about Iran.

I don't agree with all of it -- but clearly this former Member of Congress grasps the reality of the situation.

-- Steve Clemons

I've had something of a one-track mind these past few months, as regular readers of this blog might have noticed. The Law of the Sea has been the subject of at least half of my recent posts and an even greater percentage of my advocacy focus.

The case for the Law of the Sea was essentially made by Matt Stoller's post and Steve's response last week, though neither mentioned it by name. Steve writes:

"What is needed is more strategic thinking in progressive circles about what battles are worth having in order to achieve more systemic success. I think that consensus is impossible in the left -- and thus we need the Matt Stollers of the world to find some like-minded associates and begin hatching the campaigns that matter, and ignoring the ones that don't."

I couldn't agree more and I think the example that Steve offers - the opposition to the Bolton nomination - was a battle well chosen. It was very important on its merits: it successfully weakened and then partially removed an extremely negative element from the administration. But just as important was its execution. Thanks to some smart group decisions on strategy and message, the Bolton campaign is making current battles against pugnacious nationalism more winnable than before.

The effort to ratify the Law of the Sea convention is a campaign that matters for similar reasons. Yes, the Law of the Sea is compelling on its face. The armed forces rightly wants its navigational and overflight rights protected. Environmentalists rightly want the U.S. to join and add to global ocean stewardship efforts. And U.S. companies should have a chance to compete with foreign firms for offshore resources. For some background info on the convention, click here.

All of these are good reasons for the U.S. to accede to the Law of the Sea, but none of them alone or even in combination would necessarily make it important for the progressive agenda.

So why is the Law of the Sea significant? Simple: our absence from the Law of the Sea is the outer wall of Fortress America. Winning the ratification battle would seriously de-fang the same pugnacious nationalists who are on the opposite side of almost every important foreign policy issue facing the U.S.

The opposition to the Law of the Sea is based entirely on a visceral hatred for multilateral cooperation. Its champions detest all forms of international organization and believe the purpose of international law is to constrain U.S. behavior. They believe the U.S. should rely on the threat of force to advance its goals and should not be constrained by any rules, even if they rules that tilt the playing field in our favor.

This opposition is serious, even if its arguments are not. Take a peek at this ridiculous ad that people paid good money to get on MSNBC:

I'm not even going to bother debunking this ad, which, as Senator Lugar recently pointed out, does not contain a single true statement. What should be immediately clear, though, is that the opposition to the Law of the Sea is as determined to fight as it is radical.

I'll be the first to admit that the Law of the Sea doesn't stir passions as does the war in Iraq, healthcare, or education. But I'm still disappointed that the left blogosphere and left-center commentators have mostly ignored the Law of the Sea so far this year. Why? Because the debate on the Law of the Sea effectively isolates the most rabid anti-internationalists. It pits the far, far, far-right against everybody else.

The more high-profile this debate becomes, the more credibility people like Frank Gaffney, Jim DeMint, Jim Inhofe, and David Vitter will lose. And on the flip side, those of us who support adhering to international norms and participating in international agreements will look more credible, powerful, and rational.

In short, this is the kind of campaign that progressives should be betting the house on.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will probably vote on the convention in the next couple of weeks. After that, whether or not it comes to the floor will depend on the enthusiasm of progressives.

If the Law of the Sea does come to the Senate floor, something amazing will happen: Republicans will eat their young. We already saw a preview in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where Dick Lugar called out a few Republican hypocrites, who say everyone should suspend their own judgments and defer to Petraeus and Crocker even as they rejected the unanimous and consistent recommendation of our national security leadership that the convention is a helpful tool to our military. Ted Stevens and John Warner, perhaps the treaty's two strongest supporters besides Lugar, will similarly take their fellow Republicans to task for setting U.S. interests back in the service of zany ideological goals. If a final floor vote occurs, the treaty will pass easily and its few opponents will look marginalized and weak.

The message that is likely to emerge from this campaign, should it succeed, is that all forms of international engagement - be they treaties, international organizations, or specific policies - should be debated on their merits. It will also come out that multilateralism usually benefits the United States and helps solve global problems in a commonsense way. And we will serve notice that no proposal is a non-starter simply because it has "UN" in the title.

U.S. negotiators got everything they wanted in the Law of the Sea. PIPA polls regularly show that Americans want their government to endorse policies made collectively by the international community, even if those policies don't represent our first choice - in short, Americans want their government to be a team player. Joining the Law of the Sea won't get us there, but it will get us closer. At the least, it would discredit those who want to reject international law even when it gives us everything we want.

We need to be spending more time and attention on this. The conventional wisdom is that multilateral treaties are dead on arrival in the Senate. If we're interested in promoting the International Criminal Court, a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, or the Conventions on women's rights, children's rights, landmines, or biological diversity, we've got to get the Law of the Sea done.

My colleague Don Kraus sums it up:

"Think about it. If a Senate with a Democratic majority can not muster the 66 votes to pass a treaty supported by a Republican president, what is the possibility of doing so under a potential Democratic president who will face much stiffer Republican opposition?

"If the U.S, cannot join an agreement supported by environmental groups, petroleum trade associations, peace groups, the Coast Guard, Navy, departments of State, Commerce, and the Interior (just to name a few) -- what is the chance that we engage on other agreements?

"One senate staffer I talked to recently has been yelling at groups coming to talk with him about climate change. He's been telling them that he doesn't want to talk to them unless the first words out of their mouth are "Law of the Sea," because "if we can't get this one through, none of the other agreements are going to get through."

This is precisely the kind of issue that smart progressives who pick their battles carefully should be taking on right now.

-- Scott Paul

It's tough being a Republican multilateralist, but in my view, World Bank President Robert Zoellick is pulling it off. Bob Davis at the Wall Street Journal seems to agree.

Today, is Zoellick's 100th day since succeeding his embattled predecessor and now AEI Visiting Scholar Paul Wolfowitz. Zoellick will be giving his sense of what has been accomplished and what challenges lie ahead in a major speech today at noon EST at the National Press Club. I'll be there.

Some of his critics -- particularly the economic purists who have zero sense of the benefits of an effective multilateral system -- fail to get that an effective World Bank and international financial architecture can not only span the interests of the rising developing powers like China and India -- as well as the developed nations -- and the poorest nations -- but also build economic structures that are mutually supportive and help move struggling countries up the development ladder.

As Bush's former US Trade Representative, Zoellick knows that the political-economic challenge of the World Bank is to deploy a strategy that incorporates developed, middle income, and the poorest nations. From an interview I did with him recently at the Clinton Global Initiative -- and which I will soon post -- I know that Zoellick believes this is the case for the World Trade Organization as well.

As one senior international finance official said to me:

Developing an economic strategy that ties together the common interests of developed, developing and the poorest nations is what Zoellick is trying to do -- but the Meltzers of the world never took the course on creating a multilateral system after World War II and the Stiglitz's are too preoccupied with their self-appointed status as tribunes of the plebes.

I'll report back more after the Zoellick speech.

-- Steve Clemons

(Senator Gary Hart and Steve Clemons at Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley's official residence in Annapolis)

During October and November, Washington College's C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience will host five former and current U.S. Senators in a series called "A Bipartisan Conversation on Politics and History."

Former Senator Birch Bayh (D-IN), who is a Senior Fellow at Washington College's Starr Center (and father of one of those on the short VP list of all the leading Dem White House contenders), will participate in all four separate evening colloquia. Starr Center Director and a prolific writer on culture and history Adam Goodheart hatched and developed this series -- and asked Steve Clemons (yours truly) to moderate the series.

Imagine me as the Ed McMahon of the meetings to Birch Bayh's Johnny Carson. Just kidding.

Actually, the series will look at the important, often lofty, ideals that animate many in the Senate -- and then the hard core political realities they face when trying to actually shape the legislative realities of the country.

Former Senator and presidential contender Gary Hart (D-CO) will participate in the first colloquium on Wedneday, 17 October. Did you know that Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley was a Hart advance man and used to drive the Senator around on the campaign trail in a beat-up, yellow convertible El Dorado? Also see Senator Hart's July 2009 interview with former Vice President Richard Cheney.

Former Senator and Nevada Governor Paul Laxalt (R-NV) will join the conversation on Monday, 22 October. Laxalt was considered to be Ronald Reagan's best friend in Washington, and his daughter once dated none other than former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton.

Former Senator and Arkansas Governor Dale Bumpers (D-AR) will travel to Washington College on Monday, 5 November. Remember his amazing speech at the Senate Clinton impeachment proceedings?

Finally, Ranking Member and former Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Richard Lugar (R-IN) will join the discussion on Monday, 12 November. Of course, Lugar will be speaking just before the late November planned Israel-Palestine "Peace Summit" taking place in Annapolis. Lugar is also one heck of a runner -- and I hope he stays over so that we can run along the Chester River the next morning.

These should be fascinating sessions. They are open to the public and are free. All sessions will take place in the Hynson Lounge at 5 pm and conclude by 7 pm.

More information is available here.

-- Steve Clemons

Later today (Wednesday), an interesting letter that I will post at 2 pm will be sent to President Bush outlining key requirements necessary to secure any real success in the November Israel-Palestine Peace Summit that President Bush and Condoleezza Rice will orchestrate in Annapolis.

The signers of the letter are diverse and will send a powerful, provocative message to President Bush.

Signers include former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, former US Trade Representative Carla Hills, Former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs and US Ambassador to Russia Thomas Pickering, former Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker, former House International Relations Committee Chiarman Lee Hamilton, former Counselor to President Kennedy Theodore Sorensen, and former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volcker.

The letter essentially makes the point that America -- in addition to the Israelis and Palestinians -- can ill afford yet another staged "epic effort designed to fail'. In the past, America could earnestly attempt to negotiate solutions in this unresolved Middle East mess but still could 'afford to fail'.

Today, when as Zbigniew Brzezinski has said, America's engagement in the Middle East is the defining challenge it faces in this era -- another failure will come at the very high cost of further eroding American credibility internationally.

What may be the most remarkable thing about this bipartisan statement is not only who is saying it but what they are prepared to say.

In the letter to Bush, beyond calling on the US and the parties to focus on the outlines of a final status settlement, the co-signatories defy the administration's views by calling for an end to the policy of isolating Hamas and for a shift in policy toward Syria -- including both US/Syria engagement and renewal of Syrian/Israeli negotiations.

Colin Powell -- who is not (yet) a signatory -- has also called for communication with Hamas, and the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group called for engaging Syria. This letter makes the point even more strongly.

Journalists and bloggers interested in participating on the conference call can contact me before 1:30 pm Eastern time -- and I will have my colleagues get you information to listen in to a call with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Nancy Kassebaum Baker, and Lee Hamilton.

The conference call will take place at 2 p.m. -- when I will post their letter to President Bush.

This effort has been jointly organized by the US/Middle East Project Inc., the International Crisis Group, and the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program. (My pal and colleague Daniel Levy has been the lead on pulling this together for the New America Foundation.)

-- Steve Clemons

While former Ambassador John Bolton aided and abetted neo-con inspired foreign policy efforts while serving in the administration, as Steve Clemons has pointed out in the past Bolton is mistakenly lumped into the tribe of neo-conservatives. Clemons has described him as a Helmsian pugnacious nationalist, apart from Elliott Abrams and others, and Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times has recently come to the same conclusion:

The first thing that struck me is that it is a mistake to call Bolton a neo-con. He is an American nationalist, who is interested in power - and has none of the neo-con interest in namby-pamby concepts like human rights and democratisation. His take on Iraq is that America had accomplished its mission, the moment Saddam Hussein was killed. All attempts at "nation-building" were futile and counter-productive. Bolton is not in favour of a rapid American withdrawal from Iraq. But his reasons are purely strategic. He wants to block the rising power of Iran. And he is pretty openly in favour of bombing Iranian nuclear facilities.

By contrast, Bolton is opposed to humanitarian intervention in Darfur - let alone, Zimbabwe. The reason is simple. There is no American national interest at stake.

While it is at least conceivable that neo-cons might be brought around to constructive foreign policy engagements through a re-appropriation and re-deployment of their own rhetoric on democratization and ostensible support for human rights (though they have thus far disavowed the consequences that can accompony such moral campaigns), it is evident from Clemons's and Rachman's assessments that Bolton cares little for such moral crusades that depart from his narrow notion of US interests.

A more nuanced understanding of Bolton would have been useful back in early 2006 when Bolton was tasked with negotiating the Human Rights Council and then opposed it with the backing of some surprising allies (see here, here, and here). While the Human Rights Council may have fallen short of our expectations, because of the conflation of Bolton with neo-con conceits of human rights, only a few were able to discern that the fault lay in Bolton's disingenuous negotiations and his attempt to effectively undermine a deal in the first place.

--Sameer Lalwani

I was with Bill Kristol and much of the rest of the world on the legitimacy and crucial need to invade Afghanistan and to crush al Qaeda.

But at the time, the Kristols and Cheneys and Podhoretzes of the world felt that Osama bin Laden was too ephemeral a villain for the American public to remain exercised about for very long. So, the legitimate mission was broadened into an illegitimate one -- the toppling of a classic thug, Saddam Hussein, because of non-existent WMDs and historical chips on the shoulder left over from the first Gulf War.

The US invasion and occupation of Iraq has been a disaster for Iraq and America and has the region on the precipice of a potential sectarian convulsion that could undermine the interests of all players.

But as Juan Williams told Bill Kristol last year:

. . .you just want war, war, war, and you want us in more war.

You wanted us in Iraq. Now you want us in Iran.

Yes, Kristol wants to bomb Iran. He wouldn't mind taking out Syria in the process. But like John Bolton, Bill Kristol seems ready and willing to propose any number of new wars.

Now, he wants America to attack Burma. This creates a false dichotomy that should be speared to death.

Kristol writes in yesterday's Washington Post:

What about limited military actions, overt or covert, against the regime's infrastructure -- its military headquarters, its intelligence apparatus, its rulers' lavish palaces? Couldn't such actions have a deterrent effect, or might not they help open up fissures in the regime? Have we really done all we can to avert the disaster that is unfolding?

What Kristol is trying to do is set up a foil where those willing to invade and conquer with no regard for consequences and in the name of freedom are life's true heroes -- and those who suggest that there are better pathways to achieving American interests and the expansion of self-determination abroad are immoral and violate the ethics of what America is about.

While I think that all of these challenges are more nuanced and should not be stuck in silly, binary structures -- the general opposite of what Kristol suggests is true.

Besides, isn't it time for Bill Kristol and friends to step back and ask themselves how they could have been so wrong on Iraq and that its time for some serious re-tooling of both tactics and strategic objectives?

I'm with James Fallows on this who writes:

. . .If I had been vociferously, prominently, moralistically, and disastrously wrong on the major foreign-policy issue of the time -- that is, if I had been all-out in favor of invading Iraq and had been withering in my dismissal of those not man enough to support that step or who said "what's the rush?" -- then I might, conceivably, be a little hesitant before striking similar cocksure poses about new issues as they came up.

But apparently this is just me. Because there is an emerging overlap between those who were 100% sure about the need to invade Iraq, and the certain success of that endeavor, and those who are 100% sure about the need to teach China a lesson about its coddling of the Burmese junta, and the moral righteousness of getting tough with the Chinese.

Warmonger is taking on a new meaning in this new 21st century of ours.

-- Steve Clemons

James Fallows crossed swords with Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt earlier this week in a short essay charghing Hiatt and his co-editors with recklessness in their reporting both about China recently and about Iraq before the invasion.

I agree with Fallows that:

The tone of the Post's editorials was not the major factor, but was a factor, in cowing people in DC who might have objected to the rush to war [with Iraq].

I've got nothing against Hiatt personally, whom I like; but I do have something against his page's pro-war tone in those days. I mention it because, again, I think there is a similarity in the "don't bother me with details, goddammit" tone.

Being against the Iraq War did not require one to be a pacifist. It was reckless on a great number of levels -- including one consequence that we are dealing with today. Throwing off the equilibrium between Iraq and Iran meant that Iran's pretensions would grow in the region once Saddam's power structure was toppled.

Fallows goes after Hiatt because of this statement, what Fallows terms a "hollow threat", from a Hiatt authored oped titled "What We Owe the Burmese":

And here's something else I would do: Tell China that, as far as the United States is concerned, it can have its Olympic Games or it can have its regime in Burma. It can't have both.

In a show I did with him on CNN's Crossfire, Richard Perle in unison with numerous neoconservatives offered the same prescription of taking away China's hopes of hosting the Olympic Games in April 2001 after the US-China EP-3 spy plane incident.

Boycotting the Olympics today or trying to preempt China's hosting the games as Perle suggested in 2001 are hollow threats that perpetuate the mistaken notion that America is in a serious position to isolate China.

It is China that is "out multilateral-ing" the United States today. As we have been distracted in Iraq, China has rolled out aid and development programs globally, helped institute yet another Asian multilateral effort in its "East Asian Community" initiative, launched a multilateral security organization in the "Shanghai Cooperation Organization", and was the key factor in the recent negotiating successes with North Korea over its nuclear program. As State Department Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and chief negotiator with North Korea Christopher Hill has said, "China has become the first stop for any American diplomacy."

While much of the world perceives -- at best -- America as a status quo power but more realistically as a superpower in decline that will eventually look something like a well-endowed military state and more as an ordinary great power -- that same world looks at China as an ascending power. China's weight gains in global affairs matters.

Fred Hiatt and other commentators inflate America's ability to kick China this way and that. If anything, China is demonstrating an interest in playing more of the "stakeholder" like role former Deputy Secretary of State and current World Bank President Robert Zoellick described a few years ago.

But that does not mean that China will simply be America's puppet and will solve all of the problems we see in Burma, Darfur, and other parts of the globe because we have pressured it into doing so. China is a shrewd calculator of its interests. So too the United States used to be.

Today, if the key global points of instability are in Pakistan and Iran, one would think that we would try to build a collaborative set of interests with China on these fronts, discern and deliver on the key diplomatic and security objectives China might want from us, and we secure support from them. To the degree that the Darfur Crisis and the showdown in Burma weigh in to these factors, all the better -- but they are not the forefront of America's current security challenges today.

I very much hope that China does use influence that it can bring to bear on Sudan and the Burmese junta. But kicking China into doing it with the kind of bravado that seems divorced from the realities of America's situation today is, like Fallows said, reminiscent of the "consequences be damned" style of those cheerleading for the invasion of Iraq.

I think that the trend of China playing a more responsible role in global affairs is strongly positive, but America has made this a pretty easy process by its absence from the economic, social and political challenges that Latin America, Africa, and South Asia have been confronting. China is active in all of these places.

My comments on China's new global role are reflected in today's New York Times article, "China Calling: Look Who's Mr. Fixit in a Fraught Age" by Steven Lee Myers. Here is a section of the Myers article that includes some of my commentary:

Nevertheless, Steven Clemons of the New America Foundation, a bipartisan research organization in Washington, said that while some Americans express frustration at what they see as Chinese unwillingness to press Iran, China has already played an active role in trying to resolve tensions that could lead to another military conflict in the Persian Gulf.

He credited what he said were quiet Chinese efforts to win the release of four Iranian-Americans jailed by the authorities in Iran this summer.

With the North Koreans, China's support proved more crucial than anything else. China, which for decades acted as North Korea’s protector, responded to the North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's nuclear test last year by cutting off military aid and joining the Bush administration's efforts to choke off the country's bank accounts abroad.

A senior administration official said in an interview that China's diplomatic push began even before the test, after Mr. Bush assured President Hu Jintao that he wanted a peaceful resolution with North Korea during an outwardly disastrous White House visit in April 2006 in which a protester infiltrated their joint news conference.

Mr. Hu dispatched State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan that week for unannounced talks in North Korea that, after some ups and downs, laid the foundation for last week's deal, the official said. "What changed was not them," the official said of the North Koreans, "but the Chinese attitude."

China, by virtue of its permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, has always been an important diplomatic player. But its importance to the Bush administration has grown for two reasons: it has become more assertive around the globe and the administration has exhausted a lot of its options.

"I think we need China almost everywhere in the world because we've disengaged from the rest of the world," Mr. Clemons said, criticizing the administration's initial disdain for concerted international diplomacy and citing its preoccupation with Iraq.

Meanwhile, China has steadily expanded its diplomatic and economic ties far beyond Asia. Mr. Clemons suggested that that has caused a subtle tectonic shift in how nations view it and, conversely, the United States. "They see China as an ascending power," Mr. Clemons added, "and they don't see us that way any more."

Finally, I want to share the interesting revelation that Conde Nast Portfolio Washington Bureau Chief Matt Cooper made on his blog some time ago. He went to Uruguay to speak on "journalistic ethics" at a meeting organized by the Organization of American States (OAS).

He stated that there were no American government officials in attendance -- at all. The Open Society Institute folks were there -- and so were the Chinese. In fact, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs helped finance the conference along with George Soros.

America is not solidly engaged in world problems. And frankly, just a serious and steady new commitment to global engagement will go pretty far in getting America somewhat back in the world's good graces. But we can't bounce back completely because the world has moved on -- and nations like China aren't just going to forgo the gains they've made globally.

So, folks can pine on about America boycotting the 2008 Olympics -- or they can get back to the "serious" problem that America isn't taken all that seriously anymore, and China is.

-- Steve Clemons

Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish has a neat feature on his blog where he features photos taken by his readers and sent to him. He selects his favorite and titles it "The View From Your Window."

Well, the above is the view from my window (taken on my cell phone camera) here at the "Bearister's Den" in Bigfork, Montana.

That's the Swan River.

I'm here for the marriage of Tara Allen and Peter Hoveland. Not to expose too much into their personal details, but I just met Peter's biological father, Maurice Zeck, who teaches culinary arts at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.

Peter did not have any memory or real contact with his interesting father until two years ago. But their mannerisms, way of speaking, posturing, and just being are uncannily similar -- nearly identical. And both are great chefs.

If I were into the genetics vs. environment debate, I'd be profiling these two.

-- Steve Clemons

Matt Stoller, one of the most significant emerging leaders of the new political left in this country, has just written a fascinating essay that I think is a real breakthrough in his thinking and hopefully in the strategic thinking of the netroots crowd in general.

Stoller's piece is smart Trotsky. I mean this as a compliment to Stoller who is trying to weave together the incongruities of passion, earnestness, and purity of motive on the left with a shrewder, calculating, appreciation of domino effects on the political right.

The essay is cerebral and cites a comment I made recently and have been making from time to time: "one of the characteristics of modern global politics is how organized minority factions are able to overwhelm majority views."

If Bill Richardson is right and most Americans think that the war in Iraq is against their interests and want the troops to come home, then it's clear that our political structure and the influence of a well-organized minority have been able to shrug off this strong public opinion.

In Israel, if the majorities of both Israel and Palestine want a negotiated peace settlement that has many of the features of the Geneva Accord (but without the name "Geneva"), then one has to wonder why the majority interest can be so successfully ignored for some time.

Some time ago, I began to think through whether there were "killer aps" that progressives could deploy to better win the big picture objectives they wanted to pursue. For instance, in my view the John Bolton battle was never about Bolton; it was about rejecting the pugnacious nationalism and anti-internationalism of the Bush administration. Removing Bolton, or stopping his confirmation as US Ambassador to the United Nations, was the first successful foreign policy hit of progressives against the Bush machine. Karl Rove was in shock and couldn't believe that a civil society group had successfully assembled Democrats and certain key Republicans to tell the White House "no."

The fact that the Bolton battle was not about Bolton but about taking ground back in the foreign policy community from Cheney's neocons and young Jesse Helms crowd is important for future students of this episode to remember.

Likewise, while I still have a problem with Congress's self-inflicted weakness vis-a-vis the Executive Branch, there is no doubt that Congress is returning to some healthy patterns of oversight over the White House -- and is kicking the wannabe monarch in the shin now and then (though not enough). But this return to semi checks and balances didn't just start with Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid taking over the management of their respective chambers in Congress, this began to happen when Tom DeLay was run out of town.

I used to tell environmental groups, progressive foreign policy groups, gay rights groups, feminist groups and other global justice/civil society groups that I had occasion to meet or speak to that while their individual, parochial concerns were quite important -- if they would just pool their money and resources to sue Tom DeLay into political insignificance, ALL progressive policy issues would get an uptick just by removing him.

DeLay was finally moved out -- but many years too late.

The tactics that the Right has been using are not off limits to the left.

The Netroots world is doing a good job working to get people elected that represent a new and different political calculus in Washington. But that should only be part of the organizing schema.

Working to achieve tangible victories in key battles does not always mean fighting to reflect the interests of the majority of Americans. That's good for some to pursue -- but one is never going to be able to achieve the interests of all Americans on all good causes all of the time.

What is needed is more strategic thinking in progressive circles about what battles are worth having in order to achieve more systemic success. I think that consensus is impossible in the left -- and thus we need the Matt Stollers of the world to find some like-minded associates and begin hatching the campaigns that matter, and ignoring the ones that don't. Well-organized, focused minority efforts really don't spend a lot of time at war with the less ideologically committed in their own group -- they just work to beat their real opponents, or to secure their real objectives.

The political left has been too easily distracted by causes that in my mind didn't matter -- tackling journalists they felt were too biased, or challenging negative characterizations of the netroots, or trying to impose ideological conformity on other progressives who may be slightly out of step with prevailing currents.

Rush Limbaugh goes to work every day to tickle a strain of virulent, misguided nationalism that keeps his machine going. That's how he views what to applaud and what to spit at. And he and his followers are shrewd and connected.

That kind of strong focus on the battles that matter, that can give some ability to a minority left to secure better outcomes for the majority than they are getting today would be a giant leap for the progressive blogosphere that Matt Stoller has played a strong role in building.

-- Steve Clemons

The pups haven't said hello to their TWN fans lately and wanted to say howdy, though they are pretty tuckered in this shot.

I'm blogging this morning from Bigfork, Montana and will be meeting a reader or two at Nan's Cafe this morning on Electric Avenue if any others might be hanging around Kalispell, Whitefish, Bigfork, or the Flathead Lake Area.

For fans of Oakley the Amazing Weimaraner and his little sister, Annie, here is a larger pop-up version of their picture, which many of you have requested.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

Critics of the administration have recently turned to take up the cause of Iraqi refugees as an instantiation of US moral failure in the region, to which Steve Clemons and Nir Rosen among others have drawn attention. But even as politicians rhetorically adopt this position, little is actually being done to attend to the needs of what now amounts to nearly 5 million refugees.

Angelina Jolie -- after visiting the region and making a moving and compelling plea about Iraqi refugees while in conversation with Nick Kristof at the Clinton Global Initiative last week -- has put her money where her mouth is, commiting substantial resources to assist children of conflict. But based on US actions alone, it appears the US government has not suffered the same moral compunctions.

Leave aside the accounts of translators who served with US soldiers and are now being hung out to dry -- caught between tribal militias who have threatened their lives and the department of homeland security that denies most of them access to a country they served -- there has been very little beyond lip service and a pittance of funds. Bill Frelick of Human Rights Watch wrote in the Wall Street Journal in May:

How many Iraqi refugees did the U.S. resettle in 2006? It settled 202. The State Department said it would resettle 7,000 this fiscal year. Halfway through, it has admitted 68. (...)

Whether the U.S. resettles 70 or 7,000, it amounts to a drop in the ocean of Iraqi refugees -- 700,000 in Jordan; more than a million in Syria. Iraq's neighbors are inundated and they need meaningful international support to keep their borders open. Ms. Dobriansky says that "the U.S. has funded 30% of UNHCR's $60 million Iraq appeal" this year. That's $18 million. She says the U.S. "intends" to provide $100 million more. Meanwhile, the U.S. is spending $2 billion per week to wage the war that directly or indirectly has caused four million Iraqis to be forced from their homes.

Unlike the pace of "political reconciliation" in Baghdad, the status, treatment, and resettlement also appears to be something we can wield far more control over if we actually attempt to devise a policy. Senators Smith (R-OR) and Kennedy (D-MA) have been working on legislation for the translators but that still sidesteps the plight of millions of innocent civilians fleeing the scene.

Nir Rosen, who's been drawing more attention to the complications of the Iraqi refugees than some would like, writes in a new piece:

The crisis in Iraq has the entire region on edge waiting to see if Iraq will come to them. While Sunni leaders in the region, whether in Egypt, Jordan, or Saudi Arabia, have had to pay lip service to anti-imperialism and Arab nationalism by calling for an end to the occupation, the truth is that off the record nothing frightens them more than an American withdrawal from Iraq.

Fear of successive waves of Iraqi refugees resonates throughout the Middle East, and no discussion of Arab governments' reluctance to acknowledge their plight can begin without reference to the Palestinian experience. ... The presence of the Palestinians also contributed to the destabilization of several countries, while in places like Lebanon they were preyed upon by more powerful militias, which slaughtered many of them. Today radical groups based in Palestinian refugee camps are exporting fighters to Iraq.

Unable to return home, running out of savings, carrying with them sectarian grudges and many with military experience, Iraqi refugees may yet destabilize much of the region.

Supporters of the war and now the surge ought to be forced to defend their position by addressing these critical moral and strategic questions -- Is it not our moral obligation to attend to the plight of the millions of refugees we created through this war? And is it not our strategic interest to help resettle refugees to prevent our allied Arab states from buckling and collapsing under the weight of the flood of refugees?

By the same token, an implication of Rosen's argument is that advocates of withdrawal need to be pressed on the same questions. Most Sunni governments expect a second exodus should the US withdraw and, even if it turns out to be in our broader strategic interest to do so, advocates of various paths of withdrawal have to formulate a policy to contend with these regional and ethical concerns.

Rosen's concluding thoughts about our direct ownership of this refugee crisis ought to weigh heavily on all lawmakers seeking to slough off the responsibility:

It has become popular with former supporters of the war to blame the Iraqis for the Americans' failure. The Iraqis did not choose democracy or the Iraqis did not choose freedom, Americans like to say, or the Iraqis have to decide to stop killing each other or Iraqis have to "step up." But such complaints misplace the blame. Sunni and Shia Iraqis protested the American occupation as soon as it began, and demanded elections and sovereignty. The U.S. ignored their demands and instead imposed a dictator on them, Paul Bremer, hoping he would pave the way for an Iraqi strongman to rule in our stead. Other former supporters of the war, echoing the simplistic sentiments heard during the Balkan wars, now blame the alleged "ancient hatred" between Sunnis and Shias, who have been fighting each other for "thousands of years." But Iraq had no history of civil war or sectarian violence even approaching this scale until the Americans arrived. Iraq is not Rwanda, where Hutus and Tutsis slaughtered each other and America could pretend it had no role. We did this to Iraq. And it is time the U.S and the international community "step up" to the resulting humanitarian nightmare.

--Sameer Lalwani

I've just taken a quick look at the latest release from the Pew Global Attitudes Project which has examined public opinion in 47 countries with more than 45,000 interviews conducted. The Pew report will be posted at noon today.

These surveys are invaluable in getting a sense of the global temperature on such matters as globalization, immigration, democratization, and views toward religiosity, gender equity, morality, the Internet, and the like. Most importantly, it gives us insight into the divides between the developed world and developing, and between those embracing and fearful of modernity.

This huge study delivers the message that the kind of "high trust globalization" that perhaps existed before 9/11 has given way to a "higher fear globalization" in which the public wants thicker borders, more protection from inbound immigration, and in which incoming ideas and Western norms are embraced or rejected in a more ad hoc fashion. Enthusiasm for economic opportunity via global economic integration remains significant, but is waning in much of the world, according to the survey.

Here is a short clip from a Pew press release on the survey focusing on the tensions in the Middle East:

~ At least a third of all Muslims in a majority of the countries with large Muslim populations -- including more than half in Lebanon and Turkey -- sees a struggle between Islamic fundamentalists and those who want to modernize their countries.

~ While most publics agree that religion and politics do not mix, the trend is moving in opposite direction in two major Muslim countries that are key allies of the United States. Support for strict separation between religion and government is growing in Pakistan, while in Turkey support for separation has declined significantly in the past five years.

~ Majorities in every Latin American, Eastern European, and African country surveyed say women should choose their own husbands, but publics in South Asia and in most Arab countries say a woman’s family should choose whom she marries or that both should have a say.

Here is the report in pdf.

-- Steve Clemons

Yesterday, the New America Foundation hosted and I chaired a meeting with Washington Post Diplomatic Correspondent Glenn Kessler on his new book, The Confidante: Condoleezza Rice and Creation of the Bush Legacy. One of the questions asked about the state of Rice's efforts in "transformational diplomacy."

Frankly, the first time I heard that term -- I was astonished and figured that the Bush administration might be doing a somersault and was going to embrace the work and efforts of George Soros. Soros is the world's most accomplished purveyor of transformational diplomacy. He and his Open Society Institute under the direction of Aryeh Neier have done more to cultivate civil society and the norms of self-determination, justice, and personal liberty inside previous and current totalitarian regimes than any amalgamation of governments -- and certainly far more than this administration.

I was wrong though -- Soros did not represent the kind of transformational diplomacy the Bush administration wanted to embrace. They still seem taken with regime change by external shock, Chalabi-style.

This is a long preamble to an announcement by New York University that George Soros and New York Times columnist Frank Rich will together deliver the 2007 Daniel Patick Moynihan Lecture on November 5th at NYU's Glucksman Ireland House.

Frank Rich is not only mesmerizing, he's one of the few writers left in serious journalism who is willing to challenge power and try to hold it accountable -- rather than allowing power and privilege to seduce and corrupt him.

I can't wait to hear what both of them have to say about the former Ambassador to India and formidable Senator from New York, Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

One of Moynihan's senior Senate staffers once told me when I was working in the Senate that Moynihan woke up each morning and after rubbing his eyes began to grin and chuckle about ways in which he might be able "to make sure Bill Clinton had a bad day." I had the opportunity to confirm this directly with Moynihan in a personal conversation Michael Lind and I had with him when Moynihan was giving the annual Lionel Trilling Lecture at Columbia University. Moynihan loved his policy work, loved gaming others, loved thinking -- particularly about how to engineer real justice, and loved poking Bill Clinton.

I don't know if I will be able to make it to this lecture or not, but I think that one can't really go wrong spending an evening with George Soros and Frank Rich.

Just don't ask Soros about the shape of the American economy. His answer will depress you.

-- Steve Clemons

Bill Gertz of the Washington Times is pouring mud all over the Bain & Co. acquisition of network equipment firm 3Com because it involves Huawei Technologies becoming a minority partner in the deal.

Huawei Technologies, according to Bill Gertz's article is "a Chinese company with ties to Beijing's military and past links to Saddam Hussein's army in Iraq and the Taliban." Much of the same could be said about a good number of US defense firms.

I'm not going to weigh into the veracity of Bill Gertz's depiction of Huawei and its role in the acquisition -- but his claim that this is a "merger" seems a stretch for me.

What does interest me though among those concerned about the vulnerability of America's economic and technological base is why they aren't worried about this every day. America's overconsumption and use of Chinese financing of US debt -- which in a sense is Chinese financing of America's Iraq War and expansion of spending by the Pentagon -- makes America dependent on infusions of Chinese investment into this country.

Perhaps the 3Com acquisition is something to worry about (though it's a yawner to me) -- but in the ad hoc way that America considers such investments amidst America's systemic dependence on financing from sovereign wealth funds in China, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere is not a strategy. When there is no broad strategic plan that looks at the long term health and sustainability of America's technology and manufacturing sectors, then focusing on a single acquisition is irresponsible and pandering to populist, anti-internationalist sectors in the country.

When we can move to a serious discussion of how to really focus the productive chips of technology, training, manufacturing, and investment in this country -- recognizing some of the fundamental realities of dispersion within a global context -- then we can weigh whether sale of a 3Com type firm helps or hinders American interests. Until then, this is reckless alarmism.

3Com is a Massachusetts firms. I wonder if Mitt Romney agrees with me or Bill Gertz.

-- Steve Clemons

We will be discussing Iran, the bleak binary choice, and whether or not there is a third (or fourth, or fifth) option.

-- Steve Clemons

There is breaking news via Taylor Marsh that Hillary Clinton will support Senator Webb's Resolution demanding that the President seek Congressional approval before any military action against Iran and prohibiting the use of funds for military operations in Iran.

This is significant news because while Hillary Clinton did support the Kyl-Lieberman Resolution calling for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to be formally labeled a terrorist organization -- and thus providing the President with a potential back door Congressional authorization for yet another war in the Middle East -- her opposition to White House military action against Iran without Congress's sign off cuts a different and healthy direction.

It is essential that the Senate pass a resolution that claws back its Congressional prerogatives to declare war (or not) from the White House and not allow the Executive Branch the ability to further expand the current horrific mess in the Middle East.

Hillary Clinton needs to apply her ascending political weight to the passage of the Webb resolution. It is not enough to just support a resolution and watch it languish. This is a measure that needs to be passed and sent to the White House to rob legitimacy from any conflict Cheney and his followers might engineer in the waning days of this administration.

As Clinton works to pass the Webb resolution, she needs to articulate what mix of incentives and disincentives should be on the table in the kind of direct US-Iran negotiations she has called for.

Thus far, George Bush is the executive force in these narratives -- while Senators just vote one way or another without real responsibility for outcomes.

Hillary Clinton needs to perform like an executive and call together her team to secure Webb's Resolution as a benchmark of her abilities -- and then needs to put on the table for Americans and Iranians to see a policy track that differs from the course the Bush and Ahmadinejad factions have set us on.

-- Steve Clemons