Some of my readers are writing and saying, "Hey Steve, where are you?? Senator Hagel spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations and called this administration one of the most incompetent in American history! This is your stuff!" They have written, "Hagel had dinner again with Bloomberg! Is he gonna run?"

As regular readers of this blog know, I am a great fan of Senator Hagel's. The Chairman of my Director's Council at the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program, Rita Hauser, participated in the meeting and posed the first question to the Senator, etc. -- so I've been kept up to date.

But the real reason I haven't written more is that the Senator's comments are largely in line with what he has been saying already -- and his talk in New York actually began with his letter to President Bush which The Washington Note first got into the public domain.

But I am enthused by his comments, and I want him to remain engaged not just in public commentary about the administration but in serious efforts to undo the harm that has been done. That takes more than rhetoric. We need a bigger team of people pulling on legislative options to counter the mess in our foreign policy portfolio.

If you scroll down below, I moderated a very successful economic policy forum this morning -- which ran about three and a half hours. The meeting will air on C-Span today and throughout the next week I'm told. I'm in recovery mode now from the exciting but exhausting demands of this meeting.

And quite embarrassingly, while in the men's restroom at the Cosmos Club, I saw a bottle of colored liquid next to some small cups. The cups were clearly meant for mouthwash. The bottle, however, was full of toxic tasting aftershave which I thoroughly gargled with.

Don't try that at home -- I still feel sick from it.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Citizens for Global Solutions just launched an interactive web tool that TWN readers should find interesting. '08 Or Bust is a guide to foreign policy in the 2008 presidential elections. It allows users to compare candidates' direct quotes on some of the most important foreign policy issues with which the next president will have to grapple. Users can contribute quotes, both in text and embedded video format, to the site. Help filling in the blanks is much appreciated.

The coolest feature of the site is the Global Solutions candidate questionnaire. We have aggressively sought out in-depth responses from all candidates to our questions on important global issues. So far, four candidates, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson and Barack Obama, have stated their views for the record. These questionnaires expose some interesting divisions and are well worth a read.

We have spent the past few months trying to get responses from other candidates also. Some campaigns have blown us off, some campaigns are under-resourced and can't commit the time to doing it, and Mitt Romney's campaign refuses to answer because their candidate is "constantly developing new policies."

If a candidate you support (or can't stand) hasn't filled out a questionnaire and you would like to publicize his or her views, you can help us get a response.

Over the next month or so, I'll delve in to some of the more interesting divisions between the candidates who have responded to the questionnaire, issue by issue. For now, enjoy the site.

-- Scott Paul

I'll be moderating a conference focusing on the now and near term of the American economy, the housing bubble, and recession fears today in Washington. Here's the line up.

The entire meeting will be taped by C-Span today -- and broadcast later this afternoon and over the weekend.

The meeting is open to the public -- but it's at the Cosmos Club and guys need to wear ties if you stop in. What can I say? Clubs have rules -- and besides being a beautiful place, the Cosmos Club also has a wall dedicated to members who have been on postage stamps.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Praise where praise is due.

Today, I checked the transcript of Dana Perino's press gaggle held on November 20th -- which discusses some aspects of the planning then for the Annapolis Israel-Palestine Summit as well as mentions a letter that Brent Scowcroft, Lee Hamilton, Carla Hills, Nancy Kassebaum Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski and many others signed with regard to the summit.

Former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft's name was misspelled -- and it created a bit of a stir among some quarters on whether the White House could fix it or not if the questioner misspoke the name -- or whether the failure to fix the name was a sign of the White House's every-once-in-a-while frustration with General Scowcroft's views on national security policy.

I'm happy to report that "Snowcroft" is now "Scowcroft."

That was the right move -- and thanks to the White House press and web team for getting this done.

-- Steve Clemons

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has announced that the new US Envoy for Middle East Security is going to be former NATO Commander Jim Jones.

Here is an item that I posted on my blog from strategist Harlan Ullman and General Jim Jones earlier this year. Jones and Ullman were challenging Krauthammer, and that generally would be a sign of constructive, realist thinking.

-- Steve Clemons

While there have been fifteen U.S. Senators in American history who became President, only Warren Harding and John F. Kennedy went directly to the White House from the Senate.

Americans seem to want to see some kind of executive/management ability in their president typically, and thus all politics and political affiliations aside, candidates like Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Bill Richardson, and Rudy Giuliani have something in their portfolio a bit different than those who vote but don't get the frills and problems of the buck stopping with them -- like Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Edwards, Barack Obama, John McCain, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Dennis Kucinich, Fred Thompson, and Ron Paul.

But for those who were governors or generals, the spotlight will then go to how did they actually perform as chief executives, and were there any shenanigans that raise serious doubts about competence, self-dealing, or blurry ambiguities that simply ought not to be there.

Ben Smith and Politico have discovered under a Freedom of Information Act inquiry some material exposing Rudy Giuliani's bureaucratic technique of hiding and/or billing travel and security expenses incurred during a marital affair within what appear to be inappropriate agencies in New York.

Read the whole article, but here's the core of what's at issue:

As New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons, according to previously undisclosed government records.

The documents, obtained by Politico under New York's Freedom of Information Law, show that the mayoral costs had nothing to do with the functions of the little-known city offices that defrayed his tabs, including agencies responsible for regulating loft apartments, aiding the disabled and providing lawyers for indigent defendants.

At the time, the mayor's office refused to explain the accounting to city auditors, citing "security."

The Hamptons visits resulted in hotel, gas and other costs for Giuliani's New York Police Department security detail.

Giuliani's relationship with Nathan is old news now, and Giuliani regularly asks voters on the campaign trail to forgive his "mistakes."

It's also impossible to know whether the purpose of all the Hamptons trips was to see Nathan. A Giuliani spokeswoman declined to discuss any aspect of this story, which was explained in detail to her earlier this week.

But the practice of transferring the travel expenses of Giuliani's security detail to the accounts of obscure mayoral offices has never been brought to light, despite behind-the-scenes criticism from the city comptroller weeks after Giuliani left office.

The expenses first surfaced as Giuliani's two terms as mayor of New York drew to a close in 2001, when a city auditor stumbled across something unusual: $34,000 worth of travel expenses buried in the accounts of the New York City Loft Board.

When the city's fiscal monitor asked for an explanation, Giuliani's aides refused, citing "security," said Jeff Simmons, a spokesman for the city comptroller.

But American Express bills and travel documents obtained by Politico suggest another reason City Hall may have considered the documents sensitive: They detail three summers of visits to Southampton, the Long Island town where Nathan had an apartment.

Auditors "were unable to verify that these expenses were for legitimate or necessary purposes," City Comptroller William Thompson wrote of the expenses from fiscal year 2000, which covers parts of 1999 and 2000.

The letter, whose existence has not been previously reported, was also obtained under the Freedom of Information Law.

I maintain my view that Romney would be a more formidable candidate for any of the Dems than Giuliani -- though a good number of Dems disagree with me.

However, I think that these kinds of shenanigans during Giuliani's term would help fill in the long, tedious months between February 6, 2008 and election day.

-- Steve Clemons

Earlier today, I wrote about the interesting press gaggle comment by White House spokesperson Dana Perino that Bush was not a "gambler."

When I read the original transcript of the meeting, I saw this line:

Q Is he familiar with the Snowcroft letter, I guess signed by a bunch of other folks, as well, saying basically that if there is either nothing accomplished at this session, or very little accomplished, it risks devastating consequences in the region?

Since I have helped get a great number of the signers for this letter -- and to get it pushed out into the public eye, I know that the questioner meant "Brent Scowcroft," not someone named "Snowcroft."

I don't know if the recorder of the meeting spelled it incorrectly or whether the questioner incorrectly pronounced Scowcroft -- but clearly, the "Scowcroft letter" is what was intended.

When Dana Perino responded though, she didn't call him "Snowcroft" or "Scowcroft"; she referred to him as "the gentleman you mentioned" in response to the questioner.

Since I succeeded yesterday in getting the Smithsonian's Sackler Gallery of Art to fix the spelling of Bartlesville, Oklahoma -- I thought I'd try again on a similar front. I called the White House, informed two different staff of the error and was told that my "concern would be passed on." Tonight nothing has been fixed.

A former senior White House staff person in the Bush administration told me today that they may not be able to fix the spelling if the recording shows that the questioner pronounced it wrong.

But what do they do when Bush mispronounces something? And what did they do when few people actually knew how to pronounce and get the cadence of Ahmadenijad? Did they just go with what flowed verbally?

Or do they still just hold a grudge against Scowcroft -- and don't want to fix his name in the transcript -- just to dig at him a bit?

-- Steve Clemons

(Under Secretary of State Paula Dobriansky will lead the U.S. delegation to the UN climate change conference next month in Bali. White House Environment Czar James Connoughton will also be there for the high-level section, while chief climate obstructionist Harlan Watson will run the day-to-day negotiations)

Next month's conference on climate change in Bali will be the 13th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (which includes the U.S.) and the third Meeting of the Parties (MOP) to the Kyoto Protocol (which excludes the U.S.).

Over the past few years, negotiations have moved at a frighteningly slow pace. I remember at the 11th COP in Montreal, it was considered a great success that countries agreed to establish an "open-ended working group" to discuss the next phase of commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.

These negotiations may be tedious, but they do forge progress over time. While the Bali conference is a crucial moment towards a climate agreement that can take effect after 2012 (when the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol expires), no one should expect anything final to be hammered out next month.

With Australia now fully on board with global climate change efforts and even discussing immediate Kyoto Protocol ratification, the U.S. is more or less alone among industrialized countries in opposing internationally binding emissions limits - though it will, as usual, get some help from Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing states.

Since President Bush took office, there has been some minor evolution in his administration's rhetoric but almost no change in policy (the one notable positive change is its interest in helping communities adapt to the effects of climate change, but it's unclear how exactly the administration intends to move forward on that front). The Bush administration could go one of two ways in the upcoming climate conference.

The U.S. could continue its campaign of "hard obstruction" of the past seven years. This course entails preventing the creation of new binding rules on climate change. In other words, in addition to not participating in global efforts, the U.S. could attempt to block other countries from establishing new mechanisms with teeth. The stated rationale for this is that the U.S. opposes a "one size fits all" approach and believes no country should have to choose between economic development and environmental protection. More likely, the U.S. doesn't want any other agreement to be created that it will be forced to reject. This has been official U.S. policy since the beginning of the Bush administration and it has infuriated friends and foes alike.

Alternatively, the U.S. could try a "soft obstruction." It could state its reservations about international climate agreements but not protest their adoption by others. This would entail no formal turnaround by the Bush administration, but it would leave the door open for the next administration to participate fully in international efforts. From a long-term perspective, ignoring the Bush administration and creating a more durable, ambitious climate framework would probably be the most constructive path for the international community to take.

Both of these approaches are obstructionist. Neither are good. Ideally, President Bush would have a dramatic turnaround and take to international climate agreements with Schwarzenegger-like vigor, but I'm not holding my breath. I'll settle for some soft obstruction and a new administration that understands the importance of global warming and doing our share to solve global problems.

-- Scott Paul

Note: A shout out is due to the members of the SustainUS delegation, who are headed to Bali to represent the concerns of U.S. youth to other delegates. Read dispatches from youth delegates at the COP here and here. If you are a young person, send your message to the delegates here.

No kidding. White House spokesperson Dana Perina yesterday said that despite Bush's big gambles on Iraq, on his 'bring it on' battle against global terrorists, and possibly on Iran, "The President is not a gambler."

Although the next question was about the "Scowcroft Letter" which Daniel Levy, Robert Malley, Henry Siegman, and I have been helping to promulgate, the more appropriate question should have been:

When did the President actually stop gambling?

Here is the exchange on both the President's new aversion to gambling, particularly with regard to Middle East peace, and comments about our Annapolis Summit letter:

MS. PERINO: I would say it's an important initiative. The President is not a gambler. The President wants these parties to come together for the sake of peace and stability and democracy and freedom in the Middle East. He understands there's a root cause here, in that region, and he has dedicated a significant amount of time and resources and effort to bringing them together, and I think that it's well worth it.

Q Is he familiar with the Scowcroft letter, I guess signed by a bunch of other folks, as well, saying basically that if there is either nothing accomplished at this session, or very little accomplished, it risks devastating consequences in the region?

MS. PERINO: We are aware that there has been a lot of posturing and a lot of communication in the walk up to this conference, and there are people that have a lot of experience, like the gentleman you mentioned, who were here before, they've seen the difficulties of trying to establish peace in the Middle East. We recognize that at the Annapolis conference we are not going to have instant results. What you are going to have, however, we hope, is a discussion of the core issues, the substantive issues that can get the Palestinians and the Israelis to a place where they can have negotiations to get to the two-state solution that they say that they both want to get to.

There's a lot of difficult issues that come with that. There's a lot of history, and there's a lot of tension. But I think that the motivations on all sides have been genuine, and we are hopeful that we have a good conference. And I look forward to giving you more information about the President's participation as soon as I can.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

This tidbit just appeared in Robin Wright's recent reporting on the Annapolis Summit in an article titled "Iran: The Uninvited Wildcard in Mideast Talks":

Iran will still have leverage in the event of peace, Arab officials concede. Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said yesterday that any peace agreement would eventually have to include Hamas, since it controls Gaza and half the Palestinian Authority. Moreover, the two major Palestinian parties -- Hamas and Fatah, which controls the West Bank -- would need to join a national unity government, he said.

An agreement signed by Israeli and Palestinian leaders would need ratification by their respective parliaments, and Hamas still controls the Palestinian parliament.

"Unless you bring Hamas in tune with what is happening on the peace side, you are really not fulfilling a basic requirement," Faisal said. "One man cannot make peace; not even half a people can make peace," he told a roundtable of U.S. journalists. "There has to be consensus about peace among the Palestinians for this to go smoothly."

I just thought it worth noting that people ranging from former Secretary of State Colin Powell to former New Jersey Governor and Bush administration cabinet member Christine Todd Whitman (who headed the National Democratic Institute election monitoring mission of the 2005 Palestinian elections) to former US Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki to former National Security Advisors Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft to former Senators Nancy Kassebaum Baker, Gary Hart, Lincoln Chafee, Larry Pressler, Birch Bayh and many others from both sides of the aisle agree with the Saudi Foreign Minister.

-- Steve Clemons

Thanks for the good greetings from many friends and TWN readers who clocked in from China, Australia, Israel, and throughout Europe tonight regarding some comments I made on CNN International about the Annapolis Summit.

Tomorrow, at about 10:20 am, I'll be chatting with Brian Lehrer on WNYC New York Public Radio about Bush's chances of success in Annapolis -- and who loses if the effort fails (just a hint: everyone loses).

Also, here is an interesting tidbit in the New York Sun titled "Has Bloomberg Found his Condoleezza?" about Nancy Soderberg's alleged tutorials of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg who continues to insist he's not going to run for the presidency.

I'm quoted in the piece, suggesting that it makes sense to me that Bloomberg would want a tutor who is progressive but practical, committed to good ends in the world but not in ways that undermine American interests -- sort of along the lines of Richard Holbrooke, whom Soderberg worked closely with. Unfortunately the piece mentions both Soderberg and Holbrooke, but not the strong connection between them, which must have been excised by an over eager editor.

And also greetings to the guys who said hello to me -- mentioning the blog -- on P Street and U Streets. Made my day.

-- Steve Clemons

On the eve of the Annapolis Summit, former U.S. Army Chief of Staff General ERIC SHINSEKI has asked that his name be added to a letter to the President and Secretary of State about the fundamental requirements for a successful Israel-Palestine outcome.

Former New Jersey Governor and Bush Administration EPA Administrator CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN and Rice University James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy Director and former US Ambassador EDWARD DJEREJIAN has also agreed to sign the letter.

The New America Foundation, International Crisis Group, and US/Middle East Project helped draft and promulgate a letter to President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice regarding the Annapolis Peace Summit several weeks ago.

The letter, as first drafted, calls for a process that is inclusive of all parties in the region, a process that has impact on the daily lives of Palestinians and Israelis, and is not a one-shot deal that ends with this Summit.

There are many signers of the letter now, but initial signatories included BRENT SCOWCROFT, ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI, CARLA HILLS, NANCY KASSEBAUM BAKER, LEE HAMILTON, THOMAS PICKERING, THEODORE SORENSEN, and PAUL VOLCKER.

Other signatories in the subsequent weeks have "included" but are not limited to:

US AID Deputy Administrator HARRIET "HATTIE" BABBITT, former USIA Chief JOSEPH DUFFEY, former US Senator GARY HART, former US Senator LINCOLN CHAFEE, RAND Corporation Board Member and New America Foundation/American Strategy Program Chair RITA HAUSER, former Assistant Secretary of State JAMES DOBBINS, former State Department Policy Planning Director MORTON HALPERIN, former Deputy Ambassador to the UN WILLIAM VAN DEN HEUVEL, former Israel Foreign Minister SCHLOMO BEN-AMI. . .

former US Senator BIRCH BAYH, former Congressman and Corning CEO AMO HOUGHTON Jr., former National Intelligence Council Chairman ROBERT HUTCHINGS, Fletcher School Dean and former U.S. Ambassador STEPHEN BOSWORTH, former Assistant Secretary of Defense LAWRENCE KORB, former American Political Science Association President and Columbia University professor ROBERT JERVIS, Kings College Terrorism Chair and New America Foundation Senior Fellow ANATOL LIEVEN, former National Security Agency Director Lt. General WILLIAM ODOM. . .

Committee for the Republic President WILLIAM NITZE, Brookings Visiting Senior Fellow DIANA VILLIERS NEGROPONTE, Former CIA Deputy Director JOHN McLAUGHLIN, former US Ambassador JOHN MALOTT, former EU Commissioner for Foreign Relations CHRISTOPHER PATTEN, former National Intelligence Officer for the Near East PAUL PILLAR, former US Senator LARRY PRESSLER, former US Ambassador FELIX ROHATYN. . .

MIT Center for International Studies Director RICHARD SAMUELS, retired Marine Corps General JOHN J. "JACK" SHEEHAN, Princeton University Woodrow Wilson School Dean ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER, Former Congressman STEPHEN SOLARZ, former First USA Bank CEO and Adagio Partners CEO RICHARD VAGUE, Former US Senator and UN Foundation President TIMOTHY WIRTH, and former US Ambassador and AIG Vice Chairman FRANK WISNER. . .

former New Jersey Governor and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN, Nixon Center President and National Interest Publisher DIMITRI SIMES, former National Security Advisor to Vice President Al Gore LEON FUERTH, Brookings Senior Fellow PHILIP GORDON, former US Ambassador to NATO ROBERT HUNTER, former Malaysia Deputy Prime Minister ANWAR IBRAHIM, former CIA Deputy Director JOHN McLAUGHLIN. . .

former State Department Chief of Staff LAWRENCE WILKERSON, Lehman Brothers Managing Director THEODORE ROOSEVELT IV, former US Ambassador JOSEPH WILSON, former Chief Monitor of the Middle East Roadmap at the Department of State JOHN S. WOLF -- among others.

The Annapolis Summit is actually an extraordinary meeting of global players -- including the foreign ministers of all P-5 nations not to mention a vast number of Arab states -- but more needs to be known on whether something tangible and transmittable to the next US President will emerge from this meeting.

While I have heard through the DC grapevine that the Palestinians are depressed after being cajoled into signing a joint declaration, they are hopeful and semi-confident that Bush's speech on Tuesday at the session will offer some greater specificity on his vision of various "final status" issues.

As one friend of mine close to the process told me today, it is vital that the White House understand that it is not only Ehud Ohlmert who needs to give a victory speech when he goes home -- but also Palestinian Authority President Abbas. If Palestinians on the street don't feel bolstered by the outcome tomorrow, Abbas will be politically crushed -- and Hamas, which is not included in this process, will emerge a victor.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

The counter-neocon crowd really should be taking notes on not only the chutzpah of neoconservatives who helped take this nation on a self-destructive course, but on the tactics and vehicles they use.

I think that David Frum's new book and the forthcoming December 10th Bradley Lecture by Douglas Feith deserve particularly close inspection.

-- Steve Clemons

If you even have a smidgen of interest in Japanese art, an afternoon well done is visiting the "Patterned Feathers and Piercing Eyes Exhibit" of the "Joe and Etsuko Price Collection" at the Smithsonian's Sackler Gallery. It's a great sampling of a huge collection that the Prices have amassed during fifty years of collecting Edo era screens and scrolls.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art Japan Pavilion used to house the collection, but lost it when the Museum decided to turn a scholar study center inside the building into a book store. Price had donated $5 million along with his collection to the Museum, which was matched by a similarly sized donation from the Japanese business community and Japan's Keidanren.

Joe and Etsuko Price were incensed that the Museum would do away with the only part of the institution really dedicated to serious research and revoked the collection and created an independent scholar study center near Newport Beach, California.

I had the privilege of attending the opening of the pavilion when I ran the Japan America Society of Southern California -- and really loved spending time with Joe Price and his family who like my family were from Bartlesville, Oklahoma. For a while, I tried to broker the increasingly tense relationship between the Museum and the Price family, but Joe Price was impressively committed to scholarship more than anything else. One of the interesting things about his collection -- which is not part of the Sackler exhibit -- was his eye for forgeries made in the Edo and post-Edo period of famous Japanese painters. Price bought the originals and then sought the forgeries as well so as to train contemporary students of these artists and their works.

Here is a peek at Joe Price's unusual, mushroom-looking Corona del Mar home and tea house -- which I saw during construction and for which the architect was Bart Prince, a student of Bruce Goff (who was the architect of the LACMA Japan Pavilion), who was a student of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Unfortunately, in a placard at the Sackler Gallery describing the only Frank Lloyd Wright designed skyscraper -- the Price Tower -- in Bartlesville, the museum misspelled the oil town's name as "Bartelsville."

On behalf of my fellow Bartians and Joe & Etsuko Price, I am made an email plea to the Sackler this morning to fix the spelling.

-- Steve Clemons

Update: Good news. The Sackler Gallery emailed today and said that Bartlesville would soon have its spelling corrected in the Price exhibition.

Australia's Shadow Climate Change Minister and former Midnight Oil Singer Peter Garrett

Australia's election that has today elevated the Labor Party to majority status and Kevin Rudd to succeed the conservative John Howard may signal a major shift ahead in America's political order.

In the past, American elections that were the result of large political currents here also were reflected in political outcomes elsewhere. Bill Clinton and the early Tony Blair come to mind. So do George Bush and the now ousted Shinzo Abe.

But political currents elsewhere may also anticipate currents in the U.S. Gordon Brown in the UK and now Kevin Rudd in Australia may be good predictors that the next U.S. president will be a Democrat (or Independent if Bloomberg enters the race). However, Sarkozy's win in France though does pose a counter point, or at least a speedbump, to that prediction.

Beyond ending the lockstep dance between George Bush and John Howard, Kevin Rudd's win also means that Peter Garrett, former lead singer for Midnight Oil, will be Australia's next Climate Change Minister -- and Kim Beazley, former head of the Labor Party, will most likely be the next Australian Ambassador to the United States.

I think Beazley will become a real force in Washington circles and will be welcomed enthusiastically. I know he'll throw great parties.

And on climate change policy, I've never heard anyone more articulate and compelling than Peter Garrett who I met and listened to carefully last September in Melbourne.

-- Steve Clemons

This just in from Bloomberg's Lorraine Woellert:

Presidential candidate Ron Paul said he has raised more than $9 million in the past two months and he predicted his campaign will exceed its $12 million fourth-quarter goal.

Arianna Huffington has linked three interesting graphics in an essay titled "Posterizing the Modern GOP."

I like the poster to the right the best, but the politician roster above is also effective. One change I'd make if I had designed it is to have replaced George Tenet and Richard Armitage with David Addington and Ari Fleischer. Maybe even Elliott Abrams.

There are 17 names on the poster. If the Bush administration had not taken this country on the disastrous course it has, just think about a poster that had names something along the likes of:

GEORGE W. BUSH

COLIN POWELL

BRENT SCOWCROFT

RITA HAUSER

CHUCK HAGEL

ROBERT ZOELLICK

ROBERT KIMMITT

ERIC SHINSEKI

RICHARD ARMITAGE

SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR

CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN

RICHARD HAASS

JOHN BELLINGER

JOSHUA BOLTEN

JOHN DANFORTH

OLYMPIA SNOWE

WILLIAM FALLON

RON PAUL

RICHARD LUGAR

Some of these names -- particularly Richard Armitage's given his involvement in Valerie Plame's outing -- will not thrill progressives and liberals.

But my point is that the Republican Party has had a choice in who its prominent players are -- and has sculpted an image of pugnacious, anti-intellectualism, and anti-internationalism that has betrayed the classic Republican standard.

The Republican Party has options, and in the long run should re-sculpt its dominant features.

It would be interesting for someone to generate some posters that contrast Hillary Clinton's crowd and themes with Barack Obama's, or Edwards', or Dodd's, or Biden's, or Kucinich's, or Ron Paul's. . .

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Next Tuesday, a gaggle of nations will meet for one day in the Maryland City of Annapolis to discuss what it will take to generate a comprehensive solution to the Israel-Palestine standoff.

The Baltimore Sun caught my comment that in 1786 the Annapolis Convention was a mess. The various states of the Confederated States of America were trying to hammer out trade arrangements, and they were getting nowhere. Alexander Hamilton's own colleagues from New York abandoned him at the Convention leaving New York without a vote -- and yet amidst the low expectations and the overall bungling of the conference -- James Madison and Hamilton convinced delegates to exceed their authority and call for a federal convention the following year in Philadelphia. That meeting birthed the Constitution and the establishment of the United States.

I doubt that the Palestine-Israel summit, which shares so many characteristics of the 1786 Convention, can achieve a point of definitive and comprehensive success next week. However, Secretary Rice and President Bush seem ready to gamble what is left of their prestige on this venture.

Failure will hurt the US as well as the other parties involved as it will confirm in the minds of many around the world that America is no longer a superpower in the way it once was. If it fails in this, it will telegraph to many that we cannot achieve the objectives we set out for ourselves.

Doubt, cynicism, and low expectations about the 1786 Annapolis Convention are part of what helped generate the successful environment that it was for hatching the all important Philadelphia Federal Convention.

If Condoleezza Rice can harness doubt as well as the imperative of doing something to resolve this situation, this meeting next Tuesday could be historic.

-- Steve Clemons

Inside sources tell me that the Annapolis Peace Summit to address Israel/Palestine issues will be officially announced tomorrow, and the date will be November 27.

The selection of Annapolis as the site for the upcoming Israel/Palestine Peace Summit makes some sense if one were serious about creating a new reality in the Middle East.

It was in Annapolis in September 1786 that Alexander Hamilton and James Madison teamed up and convinced the state delegates to exceed their designated authority and to approve a Federal Convention in Philadelphia the following year. Amidst dramatically low expectations and much bungling, the critical seeds were planted that led to the creation of a new federal Constitution and a democratic United States of America.

Logic has led me to the low expectations camp as we approach a Middle East summit this month in Annapolis -- but I'm willing to be duped if Secretary Rice can manage something that will lead to a reversal of the "we tried everything we could but the Palestinians were corrupt, self-dealing, and weren't ready" narrative.

My minimum threshold for success this round is that railroad track get set that can be sustained over the next 12 months and picked up immediately by the next administration. By the way, my already low expectations will be dashed if any military engagement with Iran occurs because we will then further "lose the Arab street" in any hot conflict -- and solving the Palestinian problem will not get us back to even with the Arab world, whereas without a conflict with Iran -- we may get back just a bit into the black.

As part of a bipartisan effort to encourage the administration in constructive directions, I have worked with Daniel Levy of the New America Foundation and Century Foundation; Robert Malley of the International Crisis Group, and Henry Siegman of the US/Middle East Project to generate and promulgate a letter signed by a diverse set of wise foreign policy players.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, we will be re-releasing a letter already signed and release last month by Brent Scowcroft, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carla Hills, Nancy Kassebaum Baker, Paul Volcker, Ted Sorensen, Thomas Pickering, and Lee Hamilton.

We have a lot more signatories including:

Former US AID Deputy Administrator HARRIET "HATTIE" BABBITT, former USIA Chief JOSEPH DUFFEY, former US Senator GARY HART, former US Senator LINCOLN CHAFEE, RAND Corporation Board Member and New America Foundation/American Strategy Program Chair RITA HAUSER, former Assistant Secretary of State JAMES DOBBINS, former State Department Policy Planning Director MORTON HALPERIN. . .

former Deputy Ambassador to the UN WILLIAM VAN DEN HEUVEL, former Israel Foreign Minister SCHLOMO BEN-AMI, former US Senator BIRCH BAYH, former Congressman and Corning CEO AMO HOUGHTON Jr., former National Intelligence Council Chairman ROBERT HUTCHINGS, former Assistant Secretary of Defense LAWRENCE KORB, former American Political Science Association President and Columbia University professor ROBERT JERVIS. . .

Kings College Terrorism Chair and New America Foundation Senior Fellow ANATOL LIEVEN, former National Security Agency Director Lt. General WILLIAM ODOM, Committee for the Republic President WILLIAM NITZE, Brookings Visiting Senior Fellow DIANA VILLIERS NEGROPONTE, Former CIA Deputy Director JOHN McLAUGHLIN, former US Ambassador JOHN MALOTT, former EU Commissioner for Foreign Relations CHRISTOPHER PATTEN, former National Intelligence Officer for the Near East PAUL PILLAR. . .

former US Senator LARRY PRESSLER, former US Ambassador FELIX ROHATYN, MIT Center for International Studies Director RICHARD SAMUELS, retired Marine Corps General JOHN J. "JACK" SHEEHAN, Princeton University Woodrow Wilson School Dean ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER, Former Congressman STEPHEN SOLARZ, former First USA Bank CEO and Adagio Partners CEO RICHARD VAGUE, Former US Senator and UN Foundation President TIMOTHY WIRTH, and former US Ambassador and AIG Vice Chairman FRANK WISNER. . .

Rice University James Baker Institute Director and Former US Ambassador to Syria EDWARD DJEREJIAN, former Middle East Road Map Director Ambassador JOHN S. WOLF, Nixon Center President and National Interest Publisher DIMITRI K. SIMES, Lehman Brothers Managing Director (and Teddy Roosevelt great-grandson) THEODORE ROOSEVELT IV -- among others.

I am attaching the latest version of the letter here now in pdf form. It may have a new name or two added tomorrow.

This is a pretty amazing list actually as far as lists go -- and the full roster is even more impressive.

In addition to the release of this letter, the New America Foundation and International Crisis Group are hosting an event that C-Span will air titled "The Annapolis Summit: What (Not) to Expect."

The event takes place at the New America Foundation Tuesday 10 am - 11:30 am and will feature:

Ghaith Al-Omari

Lead Palestinian Drafter, Geneva Initiative; Former International Policy Director and Advisor to the President, Palestinian Authority; Senior Research Associate, American Strategy Program, New America Foundation

Robert Malley

Former Senior Advisor to President Clinton on Middle East Policy Affairs Director, Middle East and North Africa Program, International Crisis Group

Daniel Levy

Lead Israel Drafter, Geneva Initiative; Former Israel Government Negotiator and Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister in numerous peace talks; Senior Fellow & Director, Middle East Policy Initiative, New America Foundation; Senior Fellow, The Century Foundation; Publisher, Prospects for Peace

Steve Clemons

Senior Fellow & Director, American Strategy Program, New America Foundation and Publisher, The Washington Note

Should be a very interesting session that I think will be worth watching for any signs that Annapolis may have something in the water that will help the Summit beat the low expectations most have for the meeting.

-- Steve Clemons

I have just received some surprising news. I'm just back from China as of late last night and have not been in the loop on whether this was expected or not, but President Bush's Adviser on Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Fran Townsend has resigned.

I just received this announcement from the White House:

Over the past four and a half years, Fran Townsend has served my Administration with distinction as Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. Fran has always provided wise counsel on how to best protect the American people from the threat of terrorism. She has been a steady leader in the effort to prevent and disrupt attacks and to better respond to natural disasters.

Fran's remarkable career as a public servant has spanned more than two decades. She has prosecuted violent crimes, narcotics offenses, mafia cases and white collar fraud as an Assistant District Attorney in Brooklyn and as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Manhattan. During her career, Fran worked to protect the American people as the Counsel to the Attorney General for Intelligence Policy, the Assistant Commandant for Intelligence at the U.S. Coast Guard and as the Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism at the National Security Council.

With her extensive experience, intellect and candor, Fran has ably guided the Homeland Security Council. She has played an integral role in the formation of the key strategies and policies my Administration has used to combat terror and protect Americans. She has traveled the world to meet with allies in the Global War on Terror and has partnered extensively with first responders at the state and local level to enhance our preparedness. We are safer today because of her leadership.

Laura and I wish Fran, her husband John, and their two sons, James and Patrick, all the best.

Fran Townsend, in my view, actually did a very good job and was one of the more reasoned advisers that Bush kept close to him. In my estimation, she was an important balance to Vice President Cheney's national security advisor John Hannah.

I recently saw Townsend in the Mayflower Hotel's bar sitting and drinking with Hillary Clinton's Senate spokesman Phillippe Reines. I hope that my disclosure of that meeting -- which I removed from my blog as a courtesy to a journalist who got caught in the crossfire of my revelations -- then did not have any impact on this decision of Bush and Townsend to separate. I can't believe it would have, but then again, I don't know anyone who knew Townsend was stepping down.

If I learn more, I'll post.

-- Steve Clemons

I'm flying back to Washington today from China. Just saw this surname calculator in the New York Times.

My last name, Clemons, has slipped to #1282 from #908 in most common surnames in the country.

How about yours?

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Until Sunday, I am visiting Beijing and staying at the Diaoyutai State Guest House for a conference on US-China relations organized by McKinsey & Company. So far, the meeting has been mostly high end networking, but the substance begins in about 30 minutes.

Among the participants are Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Vice President Chen Jiagui, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Institute of American Studies Director Huang Ping, former Presidential candidate and Hillary Clinton advisor General Wesley Clark, Brookings-Tsinghua Center Director Xiao Geng, Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Elizabeth Economy, former National Security Council East Asia Director and University of Michigan professor Kenneth Lieberthal, National University of Defense/Institute for Strrategic Studies Director Yang Yi, GE Energy Group China President Jack Wen, Department of Energy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Alexander Karsner, Senator Maria Cantwell Chief of Staff Maura O'Neill, former Asia Society President Nicholas Platt, Goldman Sachs Chief US Investment Strategist Abby Joseph Cohen (who told me some great stuff last night but said she'd tell folks I was way too jet-lagged to hear it right if I reported it), BSG Alliance CEO Steve Papermaster, Maverick Capital Analyst Benjamin Silver (who seems pretty apolitical to me but has a brother who was once and may still be liberal but just married Bill Kristol's daughter); and McKinsey & Company Director (and orchestrator of this meeting) Jonathan Woetzel.

Lots of other interesting folks here too, but wanted to share parts of the roster.

-- Steve Clemons

About a month ago, far-right activists pressed hard for Republican candidates for President to take a position on the Law of the Sea. Most of them did.

Senator John McCain was asked about it on a bloggers' conference call. The answer he gave satisfied the bloggers at the time, but if it really does mean he opposes the convention, it is at odds with over a decade of his well-documented leadership in support of U.S. ratification. No matter what his position actually is, the Straight Talk Express has been seriously derailed.

This week, I attended two fascinating briefings on how the American public is thinking about the world. The first was a press conference to unveil research sponsored by the UN Foundation and the second was a small working group organized by the Stanley Foundation.

The major takeaway from both sessions? We're living in a post-Iraq world and looking for a post-Iraq foreign policy as of right now. The post-9/11 era that dominated U.S. opinion and decision-making for the early part of this decade is effectively over, except in the minds of the approximately 25 percent of Americans that represent the Republican base.

This isn't a momentary change, either -- it's a more fundamental change in the way that Americans view the world.

Americans want something different than what we've got now. People want the U.S. to work with other countries, forge global partnerships, and restore our standing in the world. "Go it alone," is a non-starter. Interestingly, Americans view the decline of our reputation as a major problem. The classic conservative mantra "foreign policy isn't a popularity contest" isn't really politically viable anymore.

One disconcerting finding, though, is that there appears to be a new wave of isolationism, represented by folks like Lou Dobbs and Ron Paul. Both would probably object to "isolationist" as an appropriate label for their school of thought, but they do believe fundamentally that neither the U.S. nor the world is well-served when the U.S. is involved in global problem-solving.

This group of citizens -- who are primarily young Kerry voters -- would prefer that the U.S. government focus its attention on domestic problems and worry less about global issues. In part, that's because this group can't conceive of a different form of global engagement other than the Bush foreign policy of pre-emptive military strikes and poorly executed occupation.

Barring a catastrophic, public psyche-shaking event, the American electorate will not accept a candidate who proposes to continue President Bush's arrogant approach and emphasis on unilateral use of the military to solve problems. To satisfy many of these "new isolationists," the next President will have to present a compelling vision of positive American influence based on diplomacy, working with international institutions, and genuine global partnership. That will be hard -- but not impossible.

-- Scott Paul

While Frank Gaffney wrote his first column without any reference to the Law of the Sea in nearly half a year, he probably helped pen the lead editorial on the page opposite his column in the Washington Times.

The Times makes two main claims against the treaty, neither of which has any legs. First, the Times says we should reject the Law of the Sea because Reagan did and argues that Reagan would still reject it. As I've written here, there's little doubt that President Reagan would enthusiastically embrace the Law of the Sea in its current form. After all -- he said so himself.

Then, the Times says the treaty would interfere with John Bolton's Proliferation Security Initiative. None other than John Bolton has put that myth to rest.

Regarding Iraq, the Washington Times has argued strenuously that we should blindly follow the advice of Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Crocker, despite serious disagreements among civilian and military leaders. Those same leaders unanimously favor U.S. accession to the Law of the Sea. The Times would do well to heed its own words.

-- Scott Paul

Joshua Micah Marshall and I teamed up together a couple years ago and had a co-branded "Bolton Watch" website during much of the battle over John Bolton's failed confirmation bid to serve as Ambassador of the United States to the United Nations. We were among those who helped beat Bolton then.

But he's back -- and Josh has a great video clip on Bolton and some of what he's been saying while promoting his new book.

But a reader of TWN just sent a note to Josh Marshall stating:

Your friend Steve Clemons will probably write you to tell you that Bolton's a "pugnacious nationalist in the Jesse Helms mold" rather than a neocon.

I just wanted to commend the reader, BR, who is right on that front -- but am still glad that Josh Marshall is shining a spotlight on the continuing trouble that John Bolton is trying to stir up.

-- Steve Clemons

Russell and Warren sent this from Carson City, Nevada. They are big-time Hillary Clinton supporters and donors (she should do one of her lunches with them) -- and they snapped this picture of a bobcat in their front yard.

-- Steve Clemons

This article is a must-read according to my friend Nir Rosen on what illusory American success in Iraq is based on.

I find these quotes from the piece illuminating:

"The Americans lost hope with an Iraqi government that is both sectarian and dominated by militias, so they are paying for locals to fight al-Qaida. It will create a series of warlords.

It's like someone who brought cats to fight rats, found himself with too many cats and brought dogs to fight the cats. Now they need elephants."

-- Steve Clemons

This was a cool bunch of bloggers and political commentators I was hanging out with for a too quick day earlier this year at YearlyKos.

In the pic are Pam Spaulding, Joe Sudbay, Chris Johnson, Michael Rogers (yes, the Mike Rogers of Larry "Wide Stance" Craig fame) Michelangelo Signorile, and Steve Clemons.

Just sharing for fun. More later.

-- Steve Clemons

This was a nice surprise to wake up to. Eli Lake and I squared off a bit over Pakistan and US foreign policy in general on Robert Wright's fascinating medium, BloggingHeadsTV.

The New York Times front-paged part of our exchange on its opinion page. Our full discussion is here.

-- Steve Clemons

In the last few days, I have posted a lot about Senator Chuck Hagel and his effort to galvanize opinion against reckless, shoot-from-the-hip comments made by President Bush and others about Iran and other foreign policy problems.

Tonight, Hagel will appear on Bloomberg's "Political Capital with Al Hunt." This is from a Bloomberg release:

In an interview that airs tonight on the BLOOMBERG TELEVISION(R) network, Chuck Hagel, Senior Republican Senator and member of the Foreign Relations Committee, tells Al Hunt that presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton are "recklessly irresponsible" and acting like "cowboys" in criticizing rival candidate Barack Obama's call for direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program.

When world leaders "hearing leading presidential candidates talk like cowboys with the lowest common denominator being I can be tougher than you, I'll go to war before you or we aren't going to talk to anybody, that's
recklessly irresponsible," Hagel tells Bloomberg's Hunt.

The interview with Hagel will air tonight at 10 pm ET on Bloomberg's "Political Capital with Al Hunt" program. "Political Capital with Al Hunt" airs every Friday at 10pm ET and is repeated throughout the day Saturday and Sunday.

I'm sharing this news about Hagel's campaign against 'swagger' in tribute to SusanUnPC of No Quarter who mentioned she giggles every time I mention Hagel.

-- Steve Clemons

I have no interest in paying $27 for John Bolton's Surrender is Not an Option, even if he were willing to sign it from me. But I have been enjoying recent reviews of the book.

Mark Goldberg's take, written for the American Prospect, is especially sharp. As a reporter for the Prospect and my fellow co-contributor to the now fortunately defunct Bolton Watch blog, Mark was at the UN following Bolton's diplomatic mishaps from recess appointment to resignation. His review provides important context for the events described in the book.

Granted, anything Mark, Steve, my colleagues at Citizens for Global Solutions or I have to say about John Bolton could be viewed as biased. After all, we actively worked to block his nomination. But if that's true, no one should waste even one second reading "The Courage of Conviction," a review of Surrender in the New York Sun. It was written by none other than Michael Ledeen, Bolton's AEI colleague, co-advisor to JINSA, and Iran war cheerleader extraordinaire.

Any truth to the rumor that Messrs. Ledeen and Bolton co-wrote the review at the AEI company picnic?

Of course not. I just started that rumor. But for those readers expecting an impartial review, Ledeen is way too close to Bolton to deliver.

-- Scott Paul

Mary Matalin, Ken Mehlman, and Vin Weber are going to be hosting a book party for John Bolton on November 19th. But the anti-Bush administration rhetoric now spewing forth from Bolton is shocking a lot of avid Bush supporters and hitting higher and higher decibel levels.

At what point do book parties for Bolton cross that line of disloyalty to Bush? We'd really like to know.

-- Steve Clemons

In discussing Pakistan on a media conference call today, Foreign Relations Chairman Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) advocated a more nuanced policy attuned to the regional contours and contemporary contingencies than the U.S. political and electoral arena will usually allow. Biden described the Pakistani state of national emergency as unsustainable and, without rehashing another democratic sermon on the mount, called on the U.S. to utilize a number of levers at its disposal to move President Musharraf and Pakistan away from this extremely precarious position.

The four part plan he laid out included large, unconditional financial support for non-security projects such as schools, roads, clinics, etc; conditioning of security aid on performance; support for judicial, political, and good government reforms; and finally and increase in public diplomacy and high impact support.

Sen. Biden first correctly linked the current instability to the administration's poor management and near desertion of Afghanistan by early 2002. He downplayed the notion that the rise of terrorism resulted from the absence of a fully functioning liberal democracy in Pakistan, instead arguing that Musharraf saw the U.S. packing up its bags in Afghanistan soon after the invasion (in preparation for Iraq) and responded by hedging against the U.S. departure and cutting other "Faustian bargains." Pakistan had experience being burned by the U.S. in the past. They were left holding the bag and contending with unmanageable militants when the U.S. -- after partnering with Pakistan to foster and back the mujahedeen in the late 80s to counter the Soviet threat -- promptly departed.

A second assessment the senator made concerned the failure of the U.S. to extend engagement to the Pakistani moderate majority. While Musharraf is conveniently being treated as the fall guy who snuffed out democracy in his country, it's important to remember that the U.S. abetted this trend by raising expectations by declaring democracy was on the march and then failing to broaden its engagement in Pakistan and Afghanistan (as they both shared the territory that formed the hotbed of terrorism). This was a result of our policy to deal with al Qaeda on the cheap -- to simply fund the Pakistani military to kill terrorists rather than invest in altering the structures that gave rise to terrorism. A Musharraf policy rather than a Pakistan policy derived from limited U.S. interest and attention span.

The fact is the United States has never demonstrated its commitment to engage the broader Pakistani public for the long haul. Sen. Biden has suggested we do otherwise but he's honest about the front-end costs. While the U.S. needs to move Musharraf away from the unsustainable state of emergency he has declared, it will not be done on the cheap with platitudes of democracy and the quick fix of an election date. It will take, as the senator suggested, an unconditional, long-term investment in economic and political structures that will enfranchise larger parts of the population and signal to the Pakistani people, government, and military the seriousness of our engagement. Only broad, long-term investment will begin to engender confidence amongst civilians to ally with the U.S. and trust within the military and intelligence services to cooperate further and stop hedging against our expected departure.

Senator Chuck Hagel's speech title today, "The U.S. and Iran: At a Dangerous Crossroads" is all wrong.

What his speech should have been called is "WHO IN WASHINGTON LOST THE WORLD?!"

Here is a quick tour de force of grim global realities and America's eroding position from Senator Hagel's comments before a session organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies:

Martial law declared in Pakistan; state of emergency in Georgia; Turkey threatens to invade Iraq; six members of the Afghan parliament along with scores of others killed in one of Afghanistan's largest ever suicide attacks; an escalating drumbeat of U.S.-Iran tensions; seventy six U.S. Senators supported a resolution urging the President to designate an entire branch of Iran's military as a terrorist organization. . .and the President announced unprecedented unilateral sanctions against Iran's forces; and, finally, President Bush warned of World War III unless Iran acts to stop its efforts to develop a nuclear weapons capability.

These events are one frame of a broad confluence of events occurring in the world today. In the Middle East, Iraq is mired in a deep and dangerous civil war, with dim prospects for national political reconciliation. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict festers and worsens, and intra-Palestinian divisions present a pivotal obstacle, creating uncertain prospects for a U.S.-hosted peace conference. Syria is ostracized and insecure. Lebanon is paralyzed by a devastating political deadlock; Iran casts an unpredictable and ominous shadow over the region; and Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia are trapped in this dangerous net.

Globally, our relations with Russia have sunk to a new post-Cold War low. U.S.-Turkey relations are in tatters over our inability to translate Turkey's 21st Century Government and objectives into a relationship of mutual interests that has been the case since World War II. The U.S.-India civil nuclear assistance deal has been set back and is now in a state of uncertainty. Afghanistan continues to lose ground. . .including record-breaking opium production. . .and Al Qaeda has re-emerged stronger than at any time since it was ousted from Afghanistan six years ago. The border between Afghanistan and Pakistan represents the most dangerous zone in the world. . .and we have little control and limited influence over it. Nuclear armed India casts a wary eye on its nuclear armed neighbor to the west.

And, the price of oil edges close to $100 per barrel. Record-breaking energy prices and surging demand are reshaping the global geopolitical economic power landscape. . .from Russia, China and India. . .to Angola, Nigeria, Venezuela, Norway. . .and the United States. The world is witnessing a diffusion of power never seen before that will increasingly be the norm for the 21st century.

Events are overtaking governments as they swirl in wild gyrations around us. All too often, we mistakenly try to compartmentalize and isolate events and issues, and do not stop to consider how a series of events are interconnected and impact the world. No nation can affect these events acting alone. Unless nations work to shape, influence and guide the course of global events, events will shape themselves…and the world, leading to an ever more dangerous planet.

I'm not supposed to post anything until 11 am, but I'm going to cheat just a little with this quip from Hagel's speech addressing President Bush's careless talk about a new world war:

Loose talk of World War III, intimidation, threats, bellicose speeches only heighten the dangers we face in the world. Without offering solutions and building international alliances we only strengthen the hand of those who prey upon and play to a confused, frightened and disorganized world.

I hope that presidential hopefuls in both parties take some notes on what Hagel has to say.

-- Steve Clemons

TWN has a busy day ahead. I will be listening in to Senator Joe Biden's conference call on his "New Strategy for Pakistan" at 11 am. We'll also be covering Senator Hagel's 11 am speech on Iran.

Then at noon, I'll be chairing a meeting with former Nixon foreign policy adviser and Nixon Center President Dimitri Simes who will be speaking both about his new Foreign Affairs article, "Losing Russia: The Costs of Renewed Confrontation," and some new information not yet reported in the media about the content of Russian President Vladimir Putin's conversation with Iran Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

And for those interested, here is a good Raw Story write up on a CNN piece I appeared on dealing with Bush's pretensions about spreading democracy and the problem of dealing with dictators. At the bottom of the piece is a video box that allows you to see the CNN clip.

-- Steve Clemons

The lead editorial in today's Houston Chronicle lauds Senator Hagel's letter to President Bush, which this blog first released.

The editorial starts:

One of the most informed and balanced experts on international relations in the U.S. Senate is Nebraska Republican Chuck Hagel. In a cogent, well-reasoned letter to President Bush, Hagel recently urged a change in U.S policy toward Iran.

Hagel began by reminding the president he has supported American initiatives at the United Nations to apply diplomatic and economic pressure to halt Iran's nuclear development program. However, recent developments have created concern for U.S. allies that the administration is pursuing a policy of regime change in Iran rather than a change in that government's behavior. According to Hagel, the resultant strategy is not only undermining the U.S. position, but also emboldening Tehran, leading it to believe its position has been strengthened.

In recent weeks the United States has imposed unilateral financial sanctions against Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the paramilitary Quds force and some Iranian banks and financial institutions. Few of the countries that supported the invasion of Iraq effort have indicated support for those sanctions. Statements by Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney warning of stronger action have fueled fears that the administration is leaning toward a military solution.

"Unless there is a strategic shift," Hagel argued in his letter, "I believe we will find ourselves in a dangerous and increasingly isolated position in the coming months. . .If this continues, our ability to sustain a united international front will weaken as countries grow uncertain of our motives and unwilling to risk open confrontation with Iran, and we are left with fewer and fewer policy options."

One senator is not enough to turn around an administration that is on the wrong course. There are others lurking who share Hagel's views -- but there need to be more.

Senator Hagel will be speaking today (11 a.m.) at a forum sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies at 11 am at the Capitol Hilton, Federal Ballroom, 1001 16th Street NW, Washington DC. The topic is "The United States and Iran: At a Dangerous Crossroads." The program appears to be free and open to the public.

-- Steve Clemons

. . .the latest in pret-a-lac sportswear for dogs.

-- Steve Clemons

Flynt Leverett previously served as Senior Director for Middle East Affairs on President George W. Bush's National Security Council and is now the Director of the Geopolitics of Energy Initiative at the New America Foundation.

At 2 pm today, he will be offering this testimony, "All or Nothing: The Case for a US-Iranian 'Grand Bargain'" at a hearing before the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs of the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform.

As usual, Leverett is mesmerizing in his sober, serious, analytical take on what needs to be done with Iran and how to correct our course.

From his intro that advocates abandoning incrementalism, with which I fully concur:

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Bush Administration's refusal to pursue comprehensive, strategic engagement with the Islamic Republic of Iran is profoundly misguided, and is imposing real costs on American interests in the Middle East and the war on terror. In recent years, a growing body of politicians, distinguished foreign policy hands, and eminent persons' groups -- including a Council on Foreign Relations Task Force and the Iraq Study Group -- has advocated more sustained U.S. diplomatic engagement with Iran.

In almost all instances, recommendations for diplomatic engagement with Iran take an incremental approach. In this approach, the United States would identify particular areas where American and Iranian interests presumably overlap -- e.g., post-conflict stabilization in Iraq or counter-narcotics initiatives in Afghanistan -- and engage Tehran on those specific issues. Assuming that Washington and Tehran were able to cooperate productively on those issues, establishing a minimum level of "confidence", the range of issues under discussion could be gradually expanded.

This kind of incremental approach seems prudent and relatively uncontroversial -- except to the strategically autistic opponents of any engagement with Iran. Unfortunately, incrementalism will not work to produce sustained improvement in U.S.-Iranian relations. Advocates of incrementalism ignore an almost 20-year history of issue-specific engagement between the United States and the Islamic Republic: regarding Lebanon, Bosnia, and Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks. In each case, as my wife and former NSC colleague Hillary Mann documents in her testimony, it has been the United States which declined to expand tactical cooperation on specific issues to explore possibilities for a broad-based strategic opening between our two countries.

Today, the United States is pursuing extremely tentative issue-specific engagement with Iran regarding Iraq. The Bush Administration has also indicated a highly conditional willingness to engage in multilateral talks with Tehran over Iranian nuclear activities.

However, given the record of U.S.-Iranian tactical engagement since the late 1980s, at this point Iran is unlikely to offer significant cooperation to the United States -- whether with regard to Iraq or on the nuclear issue -- except as part of a broader rapprochement with Washington that addresses Tehran's core concerns. This would require the United States to be willing, as part of an overall settlement, to extend a security guarantee to Iran -- effectively, an American commitment not to use force to change the borders or form of government of the Islamic Republic -- and to bolster such a contingent commitment with the prospect of lifting U.S. unilateral sanctions and normalizing bilateral relations.

The rest is here.

-- Steve Clemons

(General George Washington (played by Dean Malissa) and General Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de LaFayette (played by Benjamin Goldman), toast each other at the beginning of their dialogue Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2007, during the entertainment in the East Room following a dinner in honor of President Nicolas Sarkozy at the White House. White House photo by Chris Greenberg)

I have been a bit negligent in my responsibilities as Director of the Le Cercle Lafayette here in Washington. This has been an extremely busy time in foreign affairs work, but still -- the White House might have checked with me to see if I was available for the "social dinner" honoring French President Nicolas Sarkozy last night. Our group's second meeting was actually a session with Sarkozy last year at Constitution Hall.

But who was there? Interestingly, not a single Senator from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee attended -- not Hagel, not Lugar, not Biden or Dodd, not Kerry, or. . .well, you get the point.

Ross Perot was there. One wonders if that was part of Bush's efforts to show independence from dad who is not found of his third party nemesis.

But also there was Sheldon Adelson, owner of the Las Vegas Sands -- and not a big advocate of Israeli/Palestinian settlement as best I can tell. My friend Ken Weinstein who heads the Hudson Institute made the cut -- probably because he and I haven't cosponsored that many programs together this year.

I know that Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft, Henry Kissinger, and James Baker are all traveling -- but would be interesting to know if they were invited, or even queried about.

Fedex's Fred Smith, a friend of Al Gore's and John McCain's, got in the door, but so did former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson -- who not only served as a member of the Baker/Hamilton Iraq Study Group but has also been working hard to get his Republican Party to take a more enlightened stand on gay issues.

Others who should have been invited were State Department top lawyer John Bellinger who has been working hard on the international law front -- though Philippe Sands and Scott Horton took him to task in recent days.

We know that Bob Gates was in China and couldn't attend -- but DoD Deputy Gordon England should have been there. And I would have invited John Negroponte and Nick Burns who are working most of the issues in the Middle East and need to coordinate with the French, particularly with former French Ambassador to the US and now Diplomatic Advisor to the President Jean-David Levitte (who asked me to head Le Cercle Lafayette and is one the best diplomats on the global scene today).

And where was World Bank President Bob Zoellick? Zoellick is doing a very solid job restoring World Bank morale and purpose -- and doing so in partnership with French interests. And recently minted International Monetary Fund President Dominique Strauss-Kahn was also absent.

For a more fun dinner, I would have invited the leadership of Brookings, Carnegie, CSIS, Heritage, Cato, AEI, the Institute for International Economics, and the New America Foundation. That's respectively Strobe Talbott (but he's been to a ton of these dinners), Jessica Tuchman Mathews, John Hamre, Ed Feulner, Ed Crane, Chris DeMuth, C. Fred Bergston, and Steve Coll. But maybe they'll make the cut in the next administration.

And while lots of corporate people were there -- not a single labor representative. And this was a dinner for the French(?).

-- Steve Clemons

I don't know what Mohammad Ali-Reza does for a living, but I do know that he lives in Tehran and just published a remarkable letter in the Israeli press -- mostly remarkable because it appeared in the Jerusalem Post. I'm not as sanguine as him about what the behavior of Iran with nukes would be -- but his commentary is not illogical. Worth a read. . .and it's in the Jerusalem Post(!).

I continue to be intrigued but not quite addicted (yet) to the social networking of Facebook. Former Congressman Jim Kolbe just 'faced me.' That had such a different meaning when I was in high school. I was out at Washington College the other day and dined with some students and an octogenarian who was in Bill Donovan's OSS and then the CIA. The students encouraged him to get on Facebook which he plans to do. Despite some of the silly stuff that could be time-wasting, there are efficiencies achieved with Facebook I hadn't imagined before.

Sarkozy brought a live blogger with him to DC -- and the blogger apparently went to the dinner I didn't get invited to last night at the White House. More on blogging national security and head of state big shots later. I'll tell you why France is now converging with the British, but not the Germans.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

When Fidel Castro dies, something fascinating will happen in America. The History Channel will run extensive coverage of Castro's life. CNN will air over and over again profiles of Castro and the many American presidents he outwitted and survived. Every major network, even Fox, will be obligated to remind Americans of how big a personality and player Castro was on the world stage.

We will see replays of the Kennedy-Khrushchev standoff over the Cuban missile crisis. People will learn about Batista and the fact that the pre-Castro Cuba was a playground for gambling, drugs, prostitution, and organized crime. They will learn about the failures of Communism, Castro's battles with intellectual and political dissidents -- but they will also learn than Cuba today is not what Cuba was yesterday.

Today, Cuba exports doctors and not arms. Today, there is a Benetton store in downtown Havana, Venezuela and China are Cuba's largest economic partners, and the Cuban economy grew by approximately 10% last year -- with little of that driven by US economic interests.

They will learn a lot about Fidel Castro -- and whether people find him admirable in some ways or despicable -- most young Americans who have no tangible memory of the hottest parts of the Cold War will sense that one of the last giant personalities of the last century just passed.

And then they will learn how a small cabal of Miami-based Cuban-Americans manipulated laws and our institutions to wage a personal war against Castro and sacrificed core American interests in doing so. It is stranger than fiction when one realizes that a grandson of Batista is now on the Florida Supreme Court and has allegedly helped the most extreme, violent Cuban Americans escape indictment. And that two nephews (by former marriage) of Fidel Castro represent their Florida constituents in the US Congress reflects the oligarchical realities of political power in America and in Cuba.

Almost every assessment of US-Cuban relations feels an obligation to mention Fidel, or to mention the dissidents in jail today, or to start with a discussion of whether the current Cuban government will survive a transition to something beyond Fidel Castro or not.

We need to make judgments about the future course of US-Cuban relations according to our parochial interests today -- and to realize that commerce, travel, the exchange of people, ideas, facebook commentary, and money are powerful empowering forces that cannot make the current situation worse than it is. In fact, there is every indication that ending the travel and economic embargo of the United States would open many new positive and constructive possibilities both within Cuba and between Cuba and the United States.

We have been lousy at trying to script a regime strategy for Cuba. We need to stop it -- and stop thinking about it and let Cubans determine their own course, which I think America can softly and positively influence if we stop trying to demean and humiliate that nation.

The Miami Herald in a lead editorial today, "More Remittances, Travel for a Free Cuba -- Our Opinion: US Can Help Break the Isolation Imposed on Cuban People," speaks to this logic:

The U.S. government should do more to break the regime's imposed isolation of the Cuban people. How will civil society grow without outside resources and contacts? How will Cubans, including government and military officials, overcome their fear of change?

More family travel and cultural and academic exchanges would open a world of information and supportive contacts for Cubans on the island. More remittances would help sustain political prisoners as well as Cuban democrats stripped of jobs. This would allow Cubans to compare democracy and free markets to the regime's alternative.

President Bush should take the advice of experts like Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa, who lived the transition to democracy in Eastern Europe, and most Cuban dissidents including hard-liner Martha Beatriz Roque. All push for more openings, travel and contact with Cuba. It is no accident that Cuba and North Korea are the longest-lasting dictatorships left. Both have used isolation to keep people enslaved.

After Fidel Castro dies, Cubans will have a chance to shape their destiny. Opening up to Cuba now will encourage a transition to freedom.

As much as I generally support the objectives and policy targets of the Miami Herald editorial, I do find it odd that the blame for Cuba's isolation is placed on the Cuban government. It is America that has maintained an ineffective embargo.

Last I looked 184 nations voted at the UN against the embargo -- and are taking advantage of America's absence in Cuba's economic life.

-- Steve Clemons

Omar Khadr, the Canadian detainee who has been in lock down at Guantanamo since he was 15 years old is set to be arraigned this Thursday.

His arraignment will be the first military commission hearing since a military appeals court found they had the right to assign the label "unlawful enemy combatants" to detainees last June. A military judge is set to determine whether or not Khadr is in fact an "unlawful enemy combatant" who can be tried by military commissions. This designation is important becuase under the 2006 Military Commissions Act, military commissions at Guantanamo can only prosecute detainees classified as such.

For those not familiar with Omar Khadr's case read Jeff Tietz's The Unending Torture of Omar Khadr in Rolling Stone last year.

Yesterday, Human Rights Watch announced that the US makeshift Military Commissions rules were unfair and that the trial of Omar Khadr should be transferred to Federal Court. Read the full statement here.

I've always supported the kind of civil society and democracy development that comes from "genuinely within" a country -- along the lines of what George Soros has done with the Open Society Institute in Eastern Europe.

However, George Bush's 2nd inaugural address, "There is No Justice Without Freedom," set global expectations so high of what America would and would not accept from allies and partners that now we look as if we are denying our own democratic DNA as we support the power-usurping (again) Pervez Musharraf.

I feel that the problems Musharraf faces inside Pakistan are bigger than his country, and America has a tremendous amount of complicity and responsibility for helping to trigger and antagonize these troublesome currents. But the problem we are facing is not just who lost Pakistan, but who lost the region, and the world?

Tonight, I did a short clip on this issue with CNN correspondent Brian Todd on the Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. Here is the comment I logged:

It's terribly hypocritical to go into the world and talk democracy, as boldly and as robustly as this administration did, and then cozy up to a dictator like Musharraf. President Bush can now no longer give a pro-democracy speech.

Steven Clemons, New America Foundation

The fact is that we have to deal with democrats and dictators around the world. The CNN clip did a good job showing how we had worked with Saddam in the past and other tough self-dealing thugs like Noriega, Marcos, and the Shah. We could get away with that in the Cold War when America was clearly a better overall alternative to the Soviet Union -- but today, there is nothing else for global citizens making choices about their own governments to compare America to.

Our choices define us -- and yes, we still have to deal with some of the world's bad guys. But Bush set up a huge hypocrisy test which he shouldn't have. George W. Bush's pretensions in January 2005 puffed up a democracy bubble that Musharraf has definitively punctured.

-- Steve Clemons

Not gonna say a word -- but I haven't been able to stop laughing/chuckling since I read it.

Thanks to Taylor Marsh for giving my day a pick up.

-- Steve Clemons

This is the second "Weekly Gaff," a feature inspired by Frank Gaffney, who has engineered a campaign of misinformation in the pages of the Washington Times. In last week's edition, we touched on treaty arch-enemy Senator Jim Inhofe's attempt to "retrofit unilateralism" and his concession that the arguments against the treaty aren't actually true.

This week, Gaffney only mentions the Law of the Sea as one of many instances of President Bush's selling out conservatives. He says the Law of the Sea would subject the U.S. to international tribunals, which is demonstrably false. I've explained that briefly here. It is explained further in this Duke University policy brief. And Senator Inhofe even conceded as much here.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration and Senator John Warner, who was the Secretary of Defense's representative for the framework talks on the Law of the Sea, both posted statements yesterday commending the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for favorably voting out the Law of the Sea. Warner is a thoughtful man whom the Senate will miss. While some senators are willing to sacrifice national security and prosperity to pander to the John Bolton and Frank Gaffney types, others, like Senator Warner, are sticking to their principles. His statement is below the fold.

Professor Barry Posen of MIT has received quite a platform in the most recent issue of The American Interest to make "The Case for Restraint" calling for a major rethink and overhaul of American grand strategy. Posen's closing summary reads:

Since the end of the Cold War 16 years ago, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have been running an experiment with U.S. grand strategy. The theory to be tested has been this: Very good intentions, plus very great power, plus action can transform both international politics and the domestic politics of other states in ways that are advantageous to the United States, and at costs it can afford. The evidence is in: The experiment has failed. Transformation is unachievable, and costs are high.

The United States needs now to test a different grand strategy: It should conceive its security interests narrowly, use its military power stingily, pursue its enemies quietly but persistently, share responsibilities and costs more equitably, watch and wait more patiently. Let's do this for 16 years and see if the outcomes aren't better.

Whether people like it or not, Posen's thesis commands attention with some of the biggest names in the foreign policy/international relations racket responding. Some like Francis Fukuyama and Owen Harries offer qualified support for Posen's thesis, while others like Stephen Krasner and John Ikenberry offer some serious challenges to the premises on which Posen builds.

I notice that many of the responses often criticize Posen's strategic propositions on the grounds that they are not politically tenable or try to lay out a corrective path for the tactical errors of the past 16 years.

The trouble with the first type of response is that it does not actually refute the merits of argument, it only ducks them with a neat "politics precludes". The trouble with the second is that it tries to wipe the slate clean and start over, ignoring the fact that the system has reacted and evolved in response (i.e. our brand, be it in the form of security umbrellas or democracy promotion, is tainted) and our options 16 yrs ago are no longer the ones afforded to us. To adjust, we might have to shift the strategic goalposts, which is in some way what Posen proposes.

The shift Posen envisions is a move away from American hyper-activism, which in part results from the conflation of a multiplicity threats and the locating of these in the imminent and existential column. This conflation is no better exemplified than in James Q. Wilson's response where he writes:

Indeed, when we look at the last forty years, America has relentlessly, until the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan, followed a policy of restraint. The Shah was overthrown in Iran, 241 Marines were killed in Lebanon, a CIA station chief was tortured and murdered there, the ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and an American was killed, Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Scotland, a bomb was detonated under the World Trade Center, two of our Embassies were destroyed in Africa, the USS Cole was attacked in Yemen, and American soldiers were murdered in Somalia. When these and other attacks, all carried out by Islamic radicals, occurred, the United States did nothing except occasionally to lob a few cruise missiles into some empty buildings. By 1998, bin Laden had drawn the right conclusion. In an interview, he described the American military as a "paper tiger" who "after a few blows ran in defeat."

It seems the only thing that can't be pinned on the supposed monomaniacal hydra of radical Islam is the mysterious downing of aircrafts over the Bermuda Triangle (but wait, there's time). In fact Wilson manages to conflate al Qaeda with what were (and still largely are today) nationalist movements like Hezbollah and the Palestinian Liberation Front and what was by most accounts a populist revolution in Iran led by bazaari merchants, intellectuals, socialists, women's rights groups, and the clergy (a faction of which eventually co-opted the others). I've heard a number of politicians embrace this conflation for the sake of expediency but I didn't think a serious and respected academic would.

I think an important first step that would fit with under Posen's call for prioritizing threats (which he actually laid out quite presciently in late 2001) would be a disaggregation of the seemingly homogenous "Islamofacist" behemoth.

--Sameer Lalwani

I don't have time to write much now about the weird ups and downs of the DC scene -- and no doubt if I do, I'll trigger a tsunami from my tough love TWN readership.

John Bolton's brand of hard-edged (pugnacious) nationalism is not for me, and I worked hard -- within the rules of American civil society -- with a lot of other political actors to block a Senate vote on his confirmation at US Ambassador to the United Nations.

That said, I listened to Bolton today on a BlogTalk radio interview with Atlas Shrugs blog mistress Pamela Geller. The show mostly focused on his new book, Surrender is Not An Option: Defending America at the United Nations.

I call things as they are -- and whereas I disagree with Bolton vigorously on regime change in Iran and many other substantive issues, I was pleasantly surprised by his tone about diplomacy, his general willingness to acknowledge some importance of the United Nations, and his comment that "James Baker is the best Secretary of State we have ever had."

Geller quickly said about Baker, "I don't like him." Bolton responded, "Well, I think he's one of the best in our nation's history."

That was a surprise -- for what it's worth. Baker wasn't perfect -- but he was one of the best, and he thought carefully about the interconnecting dynamics of economics and security before most.

I even wrote Ambassador Bolton a short, private email commending his salute to Baker, but we'll leave the rest of that note off the record. Maybe I'll get a signed book from him yet.

Now I'm off to moderate a session with former Senators Birch Bayh and Dale Bumpers. Next week's colloquy will feature Senator Richard Lugar.

-- Steve Clemons

Joe Wilson has penned an interesting essay at Huffington Post defending Hillary Clinton's complex stand on Iran and challenging Obama with some soft gloves.

In one section of the piece, Wilson writes:

As one who practiced diplomacy on behalf of our country for decades, including as the acting ambassador in Iraq during Desert Shield, where I personally confronted Saddam Hussein and his henchmen, Senator Obama's approach seems to me to misunderstand diplomacy. Needless to say, profound distrust of Bush and the administration is more than merited. I yield to nobody in my own efforts to bring their lies to public attention. But the Durbin version of Kyl-Lieberman and the November 1 letter are clear in drawing lines in not granting the Bush administration authority it does not have.

The administration has rightly been criticized for its refusal to use the broad array of tools at our disposal other than military action in the conduct of national security. War has been its first, second and final option -- its preferred option -- with disastrous results. Successful policy-making requires the use of complex diplomacy, carrots and sticks -- incentives, such as structured talks, and disincentives, such as sanctions against rogue elements. Coping with the Bush administration should not cause us to ignore at our peril very real adversaries that would do us harm. These clearly include Iran and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

I have a few reactions.

First and foremost, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Richard Durbin, James Webb, and the rest would do the country a great favor by actually 'passing' the Webb-introduced legislation barring monies spent on military action against Iran without explicit Senate consent. A resolution that languishes in the Senate that has Hillary's co-sponsorship but that has not benefited from her ascending political weight does not change the political facts as they are now.

Joe Wilson is correct to note that Hillary Clinton, Durbin, and others have made statements that their support of Kyl-Lieberman do not, in their parochial view, authorize the Bush administration to take military action against Iran.

However, that's not the point. The problem is that the Bush administration exploits opportunities that the Congress gives. The administration manipulates, obfuscates, distorts, seduces, and deceives when it comes to rationalizing controversial actions it wants to take. If the Bush adminstration does bomb Iran, it won't be much help that Durbin and Clinton will hit the airwaves then to accuse the administration of foul play.

30 signatories on a letter to Bush are not enough. The Dems control the Senate and the House. It is time that they won something big in the national security sphere. Senator Hagel is a good trade-off with the war-hugging Joe Lieberman. Make a statement of Senate intent with a majority.

Lastly, I think Hillary Clinton is sincere in her view that designating the IRGC a terrorist entity helps diplomacy. I disagree -- but I get her point. She needs to know that the IRGC, however, is not a small entity within the Iranian military. It essentially is Iran's military -- the former veneer of which is inconsequential today in military or security matters as the IRGC has hollowed Iran's army out.

But while I can agree to disagree with Clinton's intent on the IRGC, I'm surprised that she doesn't see the imbalance in her actions. She tends to always tilt towards the military edge of diplomacy, the get-tough edge.

Why not draft a resolution that suggests the outline of what the Iranians suggested to us in 2003 -- which was recently profiled in Esquire Magazine's profile of Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann? Why not draft a resolution promising an end to regime change policies if Iran took some some kind of constructive steps. Why not draft letters and resolutions that show the Iranian people some constructive face and an outreached hand if they move their government forward -- rather than relying on tactics that primarily bully and humiliate?

Hillary Clinton is looking more and more like the Democratic nominee -- and it is important that she think this imbalance through. It's not enough to rest on either a Kyl-Lieberman vote or a withering Webb resolution. She has a huge Senate staff and campaign staff that should be drafting the legislative outlines for a bigger picture approach -- if in fact it is the full spectrum of diplomacy with that she really supports.

I hope (and sort of think) she does.

-- Steve Clemons

I'm moderating a four part Senate Colloquy series at the 1782 founded liberal arts college in Chestertown, Maryland on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay -- Washington College. All four meetings feature former Senator Birch Bayh (D-IN) who is a Senior Fellow at the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience.

Tonight's meeting is with the oratorically mesmerizing Dale Bumpers (D-AR), who gave one of the most memorable and stirring defenses of both the Constitution and President Bill Clinton during Senate impeachment hearings.

This is one worth the drive if folks in Washington, Philadelphia, Dover, Wilmington, Baltimore or Annapolis are available for. I do plan to ask Senator Bumpers tonight how he would compare the very real impeachment trial of Clinton vs. a hypothetical impeachment effort today against either the President or Vice President.

Read Bumpers' speech given in Senate chambers in 1999. And when he poses the questions about the crime at hand, the seriousness of the vote, and the fear that Hamilton had that justice would be determined along party lines rather than on the merits of the case -- think about the situation today.

I remain skeptical of impeachment because the Dems remain inchoate and unable to maintain discipline when fighting the big fights. Kyl-Lieberman and the Mukasey vote come to mind. I also think impeachment proceedings against Bush would fail, and while they might have more traction against Cheney, such action might move the White House to distract national attention by hatching another debilitating war.

But Dale Bumpers is the former national leader with whom to have this discussion -- which Senator Bayh and I will do tonight at 5 pm EST.

If folks want to attend, here is a website that can help get you to the college and then to Hynson Lounge at Washington College's Hodson Hall.

The first two sessions featured former Senators Gary Hart (D-CO) and Paul Laxalt (R-NV).

Next Monday, 12 November, I will be moderating a discussion between former Senator Bayh and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Richard Lugar.

-- Steve Clemons

Fred Thompson chose the Enlightenment over the Dark Ages in an interview today with Tim Russert.

I heard that the entire interview was excellent -- including the section on Iran which I don't have yet. But on social conservative taboos like gay marriage and the Terry Schiavo case, Thompson sounded ideal.

If I was a registered Republican voting in a primary tomorrow, he'd have my vote for his performance today.

Agree with Thompson or not -- I hope that a lot of other Republican faithful take the time to listen to and think about Thompson's commentary.

-- Steve Clemons

Everyone I know who knew Adlai Stevenson loved him -- but also said that he wasn't savage enough to win the presidency -- or even if he did, to "be" president.

As things look now, Barack Obama is running an Adlai Stevenson campaign. He's smart. He's fresh. He's inspiring to many, including me. But he's also a bit of a triangulator. And he has not yet developed the cold, unsentimental confidence that a leader needs in reserve -- at least I haven't seen that in him yet.

Obama says he wants to differentiate himself from Hillary Clinton now -- but he's doing it in lukewarm, safe ways. He has my whole-hearted support in his views on reframing America's Cuba policy -- but he's still sort of squishy on Iran. He believes in vigorous, aggressive engagement -- but what about doing something real to preclude a war in the next year?

And what about the real issue in the Middle East? Israel and Palestine?

November will be a big month for the Middle East with November 15th being the date of release of Mohammed ElBaradei's next IAEI report on Iran -- and the Israel/Palestine Peace Summit will take place in Annapolis in a few weeks.

Helping to call for an end to the "fake efforts" in establishing Palestine and using his political weight to make the point that the only pro-Israel strategy for this country is not one that forsakes the Arabs in the region, or the Palestinians who have legitimate grievances that must be dealt with.

We'll see if November turns out to be a month in which Obama diverges or generally runs parallel with Hillary Clinton.

And as for Hillary Clinton -- "you" have the heavyweight status in the country now to call for a real solution in the Middle East -- and to move beyond the incrementalism of the Bush administration on Israel, Syria, Iran, Iraq, and the rest. If you want to really leap-frog out of the quagmire America is in today, we need to jump into a new set of bargains that re-establish a regional and global equilibrium.

I think Hillary Clinton actually has the advisors and the vision to engineer a leap-frogging effort out of Bush's nightmarish mess into something better and different -- but she must resist the urge to bandwagon Bush's Iran delusions and must get out of the zero sum game that she has been helping to promulgate when it comes to the balance between Israel and its neighbors.

I hope Obama rises to the challenge of saying what needs to be said about Palestine -- because whether or not he wins, that challenge may move the Clinton camp to realize that they too must get out of Bush's grooves in how the opportunities and constraints in the Middle East are defined.

-- Steve Clemons

Tomorrow, China will have bragging rights to the world's largest firm in terms of market capitalization.

PetroChina is going public on the Shanghai Exchange, and analysts believe that the surge in stock value predicted in tomorrow's trading will clock the firm ahead of Exxon Mobile.

Just another measure of the relative decline of America's push-the-other-guy-around power in the world.

-- Steve Clemons

(John Bolton inspired Halloween attire)

On Halloween, John Bolton had a sprawling screed in the Wall Street Journal on all the reasons the Bush administration should start a few new wars, scrap diplomacy with North Korea on its nukes, further isolate Syria, and the like. Marty Peretz catches the best of it on his blog -- and reminds me of why I dislike Peretz's take on the world so much.

But as a Japan commentator recently told me, John Bolton is a lot like Shintaro Ishihara, Tokyo's jingoistic, right wing nationalist governor who would lead a military crusade against China if he could.

This Foreign Ministry official said that listening to Bolton or Ishihara is like watching a horror movie. Don't do it unless you want to be scared.

The UJA Federation of Greater Toronto will be (tonight) the next to enjoy John Bolton's tirades.

-- Steve Clemons

Don't blame Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf for all of the problems in Pakistan.

The fact is that governance in a region that is ambivalent about America, Europe and the West in general is becoming more complicated everywhere in the Middle East and South Asia. And it is America's failure in Iraq, its unwillingness to deliver on Palestine, and its bellicosity and hubris that are motivating the Muslim street against those perceived to be aligned with American interests.

If America wants to help stabilize Pakistan, then President Bush and Condoleezza Rice have an opportunity to "shock the market" and deliver on Palestine. Such a move would remove one of the core grievances in the Muslim world against us -- and it might spark the beginning of a mutually reinforcing cycle of virtuous events in the region.

Pakistan's problems are connected to all of the other problems in the region -- and Pervez Musharraf is not only a self-confident dictator, he is responding to the forces that are tearing his nation apart. And those tensions are bigger than his country -- and can be shaped by smarter moves on America's part in collaboration with allies.

But it is good to watch what is happening in Pakistan. Because unless there is a "strategic shift" in the region, as Senator Chuck Hagel recently called for, Musharraf's moves could metastasize in Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, and other states in the region.

Todd Gitlin suggests "Who Lost Pakistan?" as a Democratic war cry -- but I'd suggest "Who Lost the Middle East?" or "Who Lost the Whole World (except Israel, Palau, and the Marshall Islands!)?"

-- Steve Clemons

(Colin Powell sings YMCA during 2004 ASEAN summit in Indonesia)

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell was in Cleveland on Friday. And in his remarks, he struck a tone about as opposite from Vice President Cheney as one can imagine.

From a report by Brian Albrecht of the Plain Dealer:

{Powell] then segued into a story about how, as a private citizen, he now has to endure airport security searches, even though he's obviously no terrorist.

As he said he told one wand-wielding guard, "If you know I'm Gen. Powell, why don't you go over there and look for Osama bin Laden?"

Yet in a pattern he would follow for the duration of his remarks, he used humor to transition into something serious. Such as airport security, and how he believes America is paying too steep a price for overly stringent precautions that have discouraged foreign students and people seeking medical care from coming here.

As he said, "What we cannot do, can never do, is change who we are as a people. We are an open, welcoming nation. So let's not be afraid, America. Let's stand tall, welcome the rest of the world, and show terrorism what democracy and freedom is all about."

Powell has also urged Guantanamo to be shuttered. He thinks we need to find vehicles to engage Hamas. If he was Secretary of State in any other administration than this one, I think Powell would be in Tehran, secretly, doing some tough deal-making with Iran's leaders.

And he thinks America must remain an open, welcoming place for the rest of the world -- particularly the Muslim world.

That's a brand of public diplomacy that Karen Hughes never quite mastered.

-- Steve Clemons

In all of the noise about Iraq, Iran, Mukasey, FISA, and the upcoming Annapolis Peace Summit on Israel/Palestine, I neglected to mention that a vote was taken in the UN General Assembly condeming America's embargo against Cuba.

The vote was 184-4. The four were the United States, Israel, Marshall Islands, and Palau. Micronesia didn't even vote with the U.S. and abstained.

Japan voted against us. Germany voted against us. The Philippines voted against us. Poland voted against us. Mexico and Canada voted against us. The UK, Iceland, Brazil, and Singapore voted against us.

And while Israel voted with us, Israeli firms are nonetheless managing citrus groves in Cuba.

Hillary Clinton has unfortunately said that she would continue the Bush administration's policies on Cuba -- and that there are more differences between her and Barack Obama on the family-damaging restrictions on travel and trade than between her and George W. Bush.

We hope that she finds a way to change her mind -- because we need a NEW direction in US foreign policy not hug-sessions with the past, particularly policies that have clearly failed not only recently but over four decades.

-- Steve Clemons

Why did Dems take control of the Senate anyway?

As I predicted below, Schumer did not prove people like me wrong and has decided, along with Senator Dianne Feinstein, to vote in favor of Michael Mukasey's confirmation as Attorney General.

-- Steve Clemons

(Photo Credit: Sam Sherraden)

From Steve Clemons: This is the first guest post from my new deputy director here at the American Strategy Program, Patrick Doherty. Patrick spent more than a decade working at the intersection of conflict and development in the Middle East, Africa, Balkans and Caucasus. More recently he ran the communications shop at the Center for National Policy and before that was national security editor and blogger at TomPaine.com. You'll see more of Patrick soon on the Havana Note, as he'll be directing our new Cuba Initiative.

Sometime in the next month, Annapolis, the quiet colonial capitol of Maryland, will play host to the latest round of negotiations on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No seasoned experts are sanguine about the prospects for a major breakthrough and most are hoping that the episode merely does no harm. But this morning, my colleague Daniel Levy hosted another pre-Annapolis briefing that demonstrates that the problem though extraordinarily complex--is not so much technical as purely political.

Levy introduced Dan Rothem, an Israeli working with the Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation. Rothem, whose trip was sponsored by USIP, has been making the rounds on Capitol Hill and to other policy types around town. His presentation is basic and yet complex: maps. Armed with a Mac laptop and a GIS software package, Rothem has been collecting and generating maps that turn abstract negotiating principles into real lines in the sand.

Click here for an MP3 of the presentation. I'll post the .pdf of the slides as soon as I get them.

The issues to be negotiated are well known. Among the most pressing are, how much land for peace? How to deal with the right of return? What will be the capital of Palestine? How's it going to work economically and who will provide the security guarantees? Dan Rothem's presentation made it clear that once the negotiators agree to broad principles, those broad principles can be turned into reality--or at least a digital version of reality--almost instantly. No longer will presidents, prime ministers, and envoys be standing around a paper map with thick markers and quizzical looks.

It's amazing that what passes for political courage in national politics seems commonsense at the municipal level. New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg told the U.S. Conference of Mayors:

Last spring, as part of our PlaNYC initiative, we proposed a system of congestion pricing based on successful programs in London, Stockholm and Singapore. The plan would charge drivers $8 to enter Manhattan on weekdays from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., which would help us reduce the congestion that is choking our economy, the pollution that has helped produce asthma rates that are twice the national average, and the carbon dioxide that is fueling global warming.

Now, the question is not whether we want to pay, but how do we want to pay. With an increased asthma rate? With more greenhouse gases? Wasted time? Lost business? Higher prices? Or do we charge a modest fee to encourage more people to take mass transit and use that money to expand mass transit service? When you look at it that way, the idea makes a lot of sense, but for the politics, because no one likes the idea of paying more. But being up front and honest about the costs and benefits, we've been able to build a coalition of supporters that includes conservatives and liberals, labor unions and businesses, and community leaders throughout the city.

Additionally, Bloomberg opens a window into his thinking on international affairs. He hasn't had too many opportunities to comment on his big-picture vision of U.S. foreign policy, so this paragraph is especially interesting:

It's time for America to re-establish its leadership on all issues of international importance, including climate change. Because if we are going to remain the world's moral compass -- a role that we played throughout the 20th century, not always perfectly, but pretty darn well -- we need to regain our footing on the world stage. That means ending the "go-it-alone" approach to foreign affairs that has never served America well. It didn't work in the 1920s, when we tried to isolate ourself from the world, and it hasn't work in recent years, when we've tried to stand above it, pretending that vital international treaties can simply be ignored. The fight against global warming is a test of America's leadership -- and not just on the environment.

Bloomberg may not have extensive foreign policy experience, but he is demonstrating excellent instincts here. Hopefully -- whether or not Bloomberg becomes a candidate for higher office -- there will be more where this came from.

-- Scott Paul

I was for confirming Judge Michael Mukasey as Attorney General before his stumbles and somersaults over defining what is and is not torture. The fact is that there are people in the administration -- some still serving and some recently departed -- who can answer the question on water-boarding far more directly than Mukasey did. That alone should be enough for Senator Chuck Schumer to say no to the person he helped recommend to serve as this nation's Attorney General.

On paper, Mukasey was a good choice. But in his performance, he decided to lick and polish the boots of Bush administration torture-meister, Cheney chief-of-staff David Addington. When that happened, Mukasey went to the dark side and abandoned the excellent efforts put forward by other Bush administration anti-torture advocates like Legal Adviser to the Secretary of State John Bellinger, former State Departement Policy Planning Deputy Director Matthew Waxman, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England, and former Counselor to Secretary of State Rice Philip Zelikow.

During the "third" major effort by the administration to get John Bolton confirmed as US Ambassador to the United Nations, one of the shocking parts of that battle was not only trying to get Republicans like former Senator Lincoln Chafee to stand strong against Bolton -- but to undo the damage that Schumer was doing inside the Democratic Caucus.

Two Democratic Senators involved in that part of the Bolton battle -- one on the Foreign Relations Committee and one not -- told me personally that Senator Schumer called them to say "a vote against Bolton is a vote against Israel."

Well, who does Schumer work for? The United States or Israel? And how ridiculous is that statement anyway?! Democrats and Republicans both have been excellent stewards of the US-Israel relationship in the United Nations. To personalize the national security issues between America and the Israelis was a sloppy, reckless mistake by Schumer -- one that he and everyone now involved in this Mukasey matter should remember.

One heavyweight Democratic donor who tried to encourage Schumer to do whatever he needed to do on Bolton but stop lobbying the caucus was so frustrated with Schumer's hyperventilating support for Bolton and enthusiastic conflation of the unconfirmed Ambassador and Israel that the donor told me, "that call just saved me a lot of money" -- meaning he wouldn't deal much with Schumer or his designs any longer.

Fortunately, Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Christopher Dodd undid the damage done by Schumer in a Democratic Caucus Luncheon and Dodd got the Dems to stand strong on Bolton despite Schumer's lobbying against Democratic Party and American national interests.

That allowed Senator Lincoln Chafee -- and behind the scenes Senator Richard Lugar -- to deploy the final coup de grace to the Bolton confirmation effort.

Schumer has a chance to prove people like me wrong -- that he's not soft on pugnacious nationalism of the Jesse Helms and John Bolton sort -- and he's not soft on torture ala David Addington style.

Past experience says he'll support Mukasey and consider this his "profiles in courage moment" where he weighed the country's interests, his party's interests, and screwed both because of his own idiosyncratic involvement with this nominee.

But I hope I'm wrong.

-- Steve Clemons

Congresswoman Jane Harman has been pushing a higher wall on FISA than most of her Democratic colleagues because she doesn't trust the administration's line on why it wants to wiretap without warrant massive numbers of Americans. She got duped by the administration (and admits it) on its intelligence before the Iraq War and thinks now that we should have very, very high standards before giving the administration powers that no presidential administration has had before.

Now, Shane Harris of National Journal has a huge story on the interaction between telecom firm Qwest and the National Security Agency in which the alleged reasons for the government wanting access to massive call records was not to chase down terrorists but to look for individual and foreign government computer network hackers.

Harris' intro to his piece, "NSA Sought Data Before 9/11":

Beginning in February 2001, almost seven months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the government's top electronic eavesdropping organization, the National Security Agency, asked a major U.S. telecommunications carrier for information about its customers and the flow of electronic traffic across its network, according to sources familiar with the request. The carrier, Qwest Communications, refused, believing that the request was illegal unless accompanied by a court order.

After terrorists attacked the United States on September 11, the NSA again asked Qwest, as well as other telecom companies, for similar information to help the agency track suspects with the aim of preventing future attacks, current and former officials have said. The companies responded in various ways, with Qwest being the most reluctant to cooperate. However, in February 2001, the NSA's primary purpose in seeking access to Qwest's network apparently was not to search for terrorists but to watch for computer hackers and foreign-government forces trying to penetrate and compromise U.S. government information systems, particularly within the Defense Department, sources said. Government officials have long feared a "digital Pearl Harbor" if intruders were to seize control of these systems or other key U.S. infrastructures through the Internet.

A former White House official, who at the time was involved in network defense and other intelligence programs, said that the early 2001 NSA proposal to Qwest was, "Can you build a private version of Echelon and tell us what you see?" Echelon refers to a signals intelligence network operated by the NSA and its official counterparts in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

The NSA realized that it was blind to many of the new online threats and to who was using the privately owned telecom networks, and it thought that Qwest was in a position to help. The agency needed better intelligence in the face of a burgeoning Internet, and Qwest was then building a high-speed network for phone and Internet traffic that had caught the attention of senior intelligence officials. The NSA, in effect, wanted Qwest to be the agency's online eyes and ears.

This is even more indication of the Orwellian realities that the Bush administration has foisted on America. I was talking to some conservative Republicans from Oklahoma, Nevada and Nebraska the other day -- and they are deeply ashamed of Bush and the fact that this happened under their own party's watch.

There is no reason why in cases of national security that the NSA could not have secured warrants for their requests from Qwest and other firms. They are engaging in Soviet style impunity.

-- Steve Clemons

My colleague Howard Salter and I had a funny conversation a couple of weeks ago that evolved into this blog post of his, a lost scene of the Godfather acted out by various personalities in Vice President Cheney's office. The title of the post: Who Got to Mukasey?

I smacked myself afterwards for failing to make the obvious connection that should be obvious to all Godfather fans. Judge Michael Mukasey is Frank Pentangeli, the would-be witness against the Corleone crime family who suddenly recants his testimony. In Godfather, Part II, the Corleones fly Pengangeli's brother in to remind him where he came from; Howard jokes something similar may be afoot with the sudden change in tone between days one and two of the Mukasey hearings.

By all accounts, Judge Mukasey is a bright man with a record of independent judgment. However, his unwillingness to identify waterboarding as torture undercuts his credibility completely. The question that must be asked is: can a reasonable, independent-minded jurist conclude that waterboarding might not be torture? The answer, as far as Citizens for Global Solutions is concerned, is no.

Here's the statement of Raj Purohit:

"Citizens for Global Solutions opposes the nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey for United States Attorney General because of his unwillingness to support long-established international legal standards related to torture and interrogation. An individual unable to state on the record that waterboarding is torture cannot be trusted to hold the position of Attorney General. The United States is a nation of laws and our standing in the world has eroded in recent years because the current administration has flouted well-established legal norms. The Senate must prevent a continuation of this negative trend and should reject the nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey."

-- Scott Paul