(Peter Bergen is a Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation).

I have, perhaps, an old-fashioned view of history and just as it is hard to explain why the French were in Moscow in 1812 without Napoleon, and the rise of the Nazi party is inextricably linked to the views and personality of Hitler, its just not possible to understand al Qaeda, what it is and what it has done, without understanding bin Laden. Without him al Qaeda simply would not exist (look at the minutes of the founding meetings of al Qaeda in 1988, for instance). Without him 9/11 would have been one of many harebrained schemes in the head of Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM.) The Al Qaeda organization and bin Laden the man are largely co-terminus, after all it's a rather small organization today and has always been so. The Al Qaeda movement is another matter, though that too takes its strategic cues from OBL.

-- Peter Bergen

This week long terrorism salon will continue to be hosted by The Washington Note and UN Dispatch.

(Matthew Levitt is a Senior fellow and Director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy).

Peter's is an excellent article. I'd submit, however, that it conflates Bin Laden with al Qaeda and I increasingly wonder if perhaps al Qaeda the organization has outgrown Bin Laden the man. After all, a persistent AQ threat does not mean Bin Laden is still calling the shots. Sadly, if it's true that the organization has grown past the man it is another sign of just how successful he and the organization both have been.

-- Matthew Levitt

This week long terrorism salon will continue to be hosted by The Washington Note and UN Dispatch.

(Peter Bergen is a Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation).

Some of the issues in the final discussion I tried to address in a story for TIME earlier this month, so rather than rewriting that story I'm pasting it in below:

Does Osama bin Laden matter anymore? You could be forgiven for thinking he doesn't. In recent months, an impressive cast of terrorism experts and counterterrorism officials around the world has coalesced around the notion that al-Qaeda's leader is no longer an active threat to the West. They point out that he has not been able to strike on U.S. soil since 9/11 or in Europe since the London bombings three summers ago. In Iraq, his most successful franchise operation is on the ropes. Across the Muslim world, opinion polls suggest his popularity has faded, and many of his early supporters -- including prominent jihadi ideologues -- have denounced him. Even his messages on the Internet scarcely merit headlines in the mainstream media. Did you know he posted two audio messages on the Web in May? I didn't think so.

The jihad, some experts contend, has moved beyond bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Dr. Marc Sageman, a former CIA case officer, lays out the view in his new book, Leaderless Jihad, arguing that "the present threat has evolved from a structured group of al-Qaeda masterminds controlling vast resources and issuing commands to a multitude of info rmal groups trying to emulate their predecessors by conceiving and executing operations from the bottom up. These 'homegrown' wannabes form a scattered global network, a leaderless jihad." According to this assessment, two decades since its founding in Peshawar, Pakistan, al-Qaeda remains a source of inspiration for certain extremists around the world. But it's far from clear that bin Laden commands them.

Continue reading this article

-- Steve Clemons

Life long Republican and granddaughter of Ike, Susan Eisenhower, said today on an Obama campaign conference call featuring campaign manager David Plouffe and herself that while she truly regrets it, the direction John McCain has been pressured to go is showing that "the Republican Party is running out of ideas."

She also said that "The world is watching. This is a unique opportunity to restore confidence in the country."

She's right -- and what really interests me is what Eisenhower is calling for is reasonableness, common sense, and leadership -- instead of arrogance, demeaning name calling, attacks on patriotism, and the like.

There is a crowd of frustrated, increasingly dissident Republicans that Obama can easily harvest if he simply reaches out to them and demonstrates that he will be serious about problem solving and achieving common sense results.

-- Steve Clemons

(Paul Cruickshank is a Fellow at the NYU Center on Law and Security).

Although there have undoubtedly been more plots launched by home-grown cells in the West since 9/11 than by Al Qaeda, the evidence suggests that the most dangerous plots, such as the July 2005 London bombings and the 2006 airlines plot, have all been directed by Al Qaeda.

Although Matt Levitt is right to point out that the genesis of the Madrid bombings remains somewhat murky, there is evidence that the attacks were more closely linked to Al Qaeda than was initially thought. The bombing operation itself was carried out by a Spanish based cell of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant group (GICM), an Al Qaeda affiliate, whose leadership built up close personal ties with Al Qaeda in the 1990s in Afghanistan. In the weeks after the Madrid attacks, Belgian police rounded up a GICM cell based in the Flemish town of Maaseik that provided key logistical support for the attacks. One of the leaders of that cell was Lahoussine el Haski, who Belgian authorities believe helped coordinate the launch of Al Qaeda's terrorist campaign in Saudi Arabia in May 2003.

Plots sponsored by terrorist networks such as Al Qaeda, the Moroccan Combatant Group or other substantially sized terrorist groups tend to have more chance of success because cell members can draw on significant financial, technical, and logistical support.

Recently, I hosted Grover Norquist speaking about the Republican party and conservative movement, and indirectly what he saw as the continued constraints on Democrats.

Today, Sidney Blumenthal -- one of the most insiderish of insiders in HillaryLand -- will speak about his new book The Strange Death of Republican America: Chronicles of a Collapsing Party at the New America Foundation from 12:15 pm - 1:45 pm EST. The meeting at New America is titled "Did America Shift Too Far to the Right?"

I will moderate and Michael Lind will offer comments. The meeting will STREAM LIVE over The Washington Note.

As I watched the Patrick Fitzgerald investigation of the White House personalities who outed the covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson's identity and observed Bush's (now seemingly feigned) shock that this happened under his watch -- I became interested in the question of how presidential advisers concoct presidential deniability for key decisions and for knowledge about controversial matters.

Sidney Blumenthal knows this kind of thing -- both about the Republican political operation and perhaps even about his former boss, Bill Clinton. But the real interest I have is how he frames the troubles of the Republican Party today. Feel free to join us.

-- Steve Clemons

Richard Vague is a conservative businessman disgusted with the party he has belonged to for a very long time. He was the Founding CEO of the former First USA Bank which ran at the time the largest credit card operation in the United States. He later started a group called AmericanRespect.com, promoting American internationalism and trying to get the American government to demonstrate respect for other peoples and nations abroad.

He also wrote for me a piece called "Terrorism: A Brief for Americans" which was distributed through the country club and rotary club circuit in America to try and get small and medium sized businessmen to understand the country was on the wrong track. A video presentation on this report can be watched here.

Above, Richard Vague states that the Iraq War is the primary driver of high oil prices. He's got an interesting paper and set of power points that I'll soon be releasing to shore up his argument -- but no amount of offshore drilling is going to change the fact that America's fear-mongering in the world and its convoluted brinskmanship with some countries is driving up energy costs, driving up inflation, and knocking the country's finances into the gutter.

Just read this interesting report excerpt from Department of the Treasury titled "Minutes of the Meeting of the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association":

Director Ramanathan noted that marketable borrowing - i.e. borrowing from the public - is projected to total $555 billion in FY 2008 versus just $134 billion for FY 2007, and that this large increase warranted the Committee's focus.

The potential weakness in receipts as a result of the challenges facing the economy as well as reduced non-marketable debt issuance, large redemptions by the Federal Reserve in conjunction with its various liquidity initiatives, and expedited payments related to the fiscal stimulus package - all within a compressed time period - necessitated the increased issuance of Treasury bills, cash management bills, and shorter dated nominal coupons. Redemptions and outright sales by the Federal Reserve since the beginning of the fiscal year for liquidity purposes have resulted in the Treasury's need to issue over $150 billion in additional bills and coupons. Moreover, state and local government issuance for which net issuance was $58 billion in fiscal year 2007 versus total a net redemption of $10 billion in 2008 fiscal year to date.

Along the same lines as Richard Vague's concerns, this Treasury Department report indicates things are not good and not getting better.

-- Steve Clemons

(Matthew Levitt is a Senior fellow and Director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy).

The either-or nature of the question misses the point. The reality is that we face BOTH a decentralized Al Qaeda manifested by self-radicalized or homegrown "bunches of guys" for whom the al Qaeda name is just a brand or symbol AND a centralized, core al Qaeda group which is still plotting and planning attacks from the Afghan/Pakistan frontier.

As I noted earlier in this discussion thread, the threat today comes from al Qaeda core, al Qaeda affiliates, and local cells. There is much to be said of both Sageman and Hoffman's analyses, but the assumption that the core al Qaeda threat is behind us is simply belied by everything we hear from the intelligence and law enforcement communities. Recognizing the evolution toward a core group that functions as a type of symbolic leadership for a broad and decentralized movement is equally important. To date there is still no clear link between the Madrid bombers and the al Qaeda core. The link between al Qaeda and the London bombers, however, is pretty clear.

But it is also true that part of the successful evolutionary change within al Qaeda has been due to its resilience. Each time we take out an al Qaeda military commander (KSM, al-Libbi, Hamza al-Ribai...) another comes along. These terrorist tacticians, however, are far more important today than Bin Laden himself. Even within the al Qaeda core leadership, it is Ayman al-Zawahiri who is the brains behind the group, as is especially evident looking at the group's media and propaganda efforts. Capturing or killing Bin Laden would be a major psychological blow to al Qaeda (and perhaps more so to the local and independent but like-minded fellow travelers), and it would be a significant accomplishment and morale booster for the Western coalition, but it would do nothing to actually harm, diminish the capabilities of or undercut support for al Qaeda. Al Qaeda today has outgrown Bin Laden.

-- Matthew Levitt

This week long terrorism salon will continue to be hosted by The Washington Note and UN Dispatch.

Last night, Turkey's staunchly secular Constitutional Court decided against throwing out the ruling, moderately Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP). The decision, which cut Prime Minister Erdogan's party's public financing in half and warned it to abide by Turkey's strictly secular constitution, averted a potential political crisis.

Prime Minister Erdogan celebrated the decision, claiming a victory for democracy and stability. Meanwhile, Onur Oymen, the deputy chairman of the secular opposition Republican People's Party, expressed confidence that the court's decision will compel the AKP to respect secular principles.

The European Union, which is considering Turkey for membership, welcomed the ruling, while calling for further political and constitutional reforms to avoid a similar crisis in the future.

Interestingly, the reaction in Washington was more ambivalent. State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack simply said that "the court has rendered an opinion, and we're going to continue to work with this government. We work quite well with them," and encouraged Turkey and the EU to continue their ascension negotiations.

While the State Department's neutral position may be designed to avoid alienating the secular military establishment, it serves to undercut the administration's policy of promoting democracy in the Middle East, given that many of the major political opposition parties in the region have at least some Islamic roots. A key question for the next president will be whether the United States should isolate and marginalize these parties, or whether it should engage them as partners in the democracy promotion process. The Turkish case suggests that Islam can be compatible with both democracy and secularism.

-- Ben Katcher

Is Osama bin Laden still relevant? Or rather, is the threat more from a reconstituted, centralized Al Qaeda, or from more local groups radicalized by preachers or outside forces? (See the recent arguments between Marc Sageman and Bruce Hoffman). Also interesting to consider is how centralized Al Qaeda was before September 11, looking at the scope of its attacks both prior to and after September 11.

Which is more dangerous, a decentralized Al Qaeda operating as a symbol, or a centralized Al Qaeda still ordering attacks from a mountain redoubt?

-- Steve Clemons

This week long terrorism salon will continue to be hosted by The Washington Note and UN Dispatch.

After watching the video interview I did with Palestinian Initiative leader and former Palestinian Authority presidential candidate Mustafa Barghouti on Obama's "World Without Walls" speech, former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote me a note.

He said:

steve --

that discussion with [Barghouti] is humiliating for any decent American who values human rights....

zb

I am posting Dr. Brzezinski's note with his permission -- and also reposting the video.

More people should see this film clip that I hope animates those around Barack Obama (and John McCain) to realize that the walls that need our attention today are not the ones in our past -- but in our present. And they divide Israelis and Palestinians in what is becoming an "Apartheid situation" -- to quote Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Ohlmert.

-- Steve Clemons

"Hi, I'm Mike Bloomberg" said Mike Bloomberg as I stood next to him and another chap at the Lincoln Center's "Mostly Mozart" fundraising benefit last night. The Mozart performance was accompanied by some 'melancholy Mahler', and the evening was terrific.

During the dinner, I sat next to one of the co-founders of C-Span, John Evans, as well as telecom and media dealmaker (and Obama economic advisor) Leo Hindery and also a person who previously served as Deputy Director for Intelligence at the CIA and is now into "sovereign risk analysis" for one of the big financial houses. We were all the guests of Rita and Gustave Hauser -- and we discussed Obama, the war, poetry, Mahler's melancholy, former Governor Cuomo who was also there, and which CIA notables were decent and which made up stories out of "whole cloth". It was a fantastic evening.

But back to Bloomberg. He said hello, which I hoped he might. I told him I was a think tank guy in Washington at the New America Foundation which now had Eric Schmidt of Google as its chair and Steve Coll of the New Yorker as its President. This was friendly name-dropping designed to let him know that we had a decent footprint. I didn't overdo it. Nonetheless, Bloomberg wryly said "great" and proceeded on with the other conversation he was having.

Then I said, "I also write the blog, The Washington Note and have written quit a lot about why the pragmatic center in American politics needs people like you [Bloomberg], Hagel, and others going after the top jobs." I said that I was impressed with what his communications director Kevin Sheekey had pulled off in terms of the "possibility of a Bloomberg run." Bloomberg said, "Even Sheekey couldn't take all the heat and speculation any more so he's left town for a week. Vacation."

And then Bloomberg, who seemed to know The Washington Note more than the New America Foundation said, "Steve, you want me to tell you what you should write about?" Sure, of course, I nodded, sort of stumbling in a kind of affirmative way. . .

"You need to write about how these guys [McCain and Obama] are going to work with Congress. Who cares if they say they are going to sign this or promise that?! Congress authorizes and funds -- and without Congress, their grand plans are nothing. Nothing! How are they going to work with them? No one is drilling into the reality that it's Congress in the end that makes this stuff happen -- and you need to write about this."

So I will. It's an important point because if Obama wins, he'll still need Republican votes to move things -- and on economic policy and on national security strategy, the Dems are seriously divided.

Bloomberg was fun to watch at this dinner of New York heavyweights. He knows he's a rock star and he wears a bit of New York style arrogance because it's expected -- but when one watches how he works a room and interacts with people, there's far more humility in his manner than I expected. He listens too. Surprised me. And he makes his engagement with people matter if they are able to get by the friendly but perfunctory "Hi, I'm Mike Bloomberg."

I was quite impressed with him I must admit.

There's no chance that Obama will take him as a VP -- but having someone with the executive skills of a Bloomberg is one of the other game-changing and game-winning choices Obama could have made. I know he won't -- and I expect a flood of catcalls in response to this, but I do think that America needs problem solvers in federal office today like Bloomberg.

Tom Daschle is a problem solver, pragmatic. So is Chuck Hagel. I also like Biden. Tim Kaine 'seems' like the kind of solutions oriented doer I prefer; I just wish we had more time on the clock with him to see other problems he had solved. I know Birch Bayh is a doer -- but that's the dad.

The son -- the incumbent Senator Evan -- just doesn't have the sizzle or the record of execution that others on this list have. Birch Bayh got two amendments to the Constitution passed -- and nearly passed the Equal Rights Amendment. He's now living out on the Eastern Shore of Maryland working hard on getting states to reform voting rights -- ultimately designed to do away with the electoral college. But I don't think Evan Bayh is involved in any of the interesting, public-minded efforts that the mythical Birch Bayh is undertaking.

More later on this -- but wanted to report on Mozart's night at Lincoln Center and Bloomberg's call for more journalists and bloggers to think through the Congressional dimensions of the next presidential game plan.

-- Steve Clemons

I just read what I think is the single worst op-ed I have ever read in my life -- not at all because I disagree with the substance (which I do) but because it is convoluted beyond anything I've seen in policy commentary before. I can't believe the Washington Times, which actually does run very good pieces on occasion, ran the piece.

The piece is by actor Jon Voight -- who I sort of admired from a far for the last 30 years. I used to see him nearly every morning eating at the Good Earth restaurant in Westwood/Los Angels with two of his movie production and writing pals, and I guess I thought beneath the capable acting there was a smart, lucid guy.

He is estranged from his daughter Angelina Jolie -- and I guess we see a little bit of why. He must think she's a raving socialist given the tenor of the article.

I'd be interested in folks' thoughts on the other really, really bad opeds that have been published. The zingers.

My respect for New York Times oped editor David Shipley -- who did a 'revise and resubmit' on a piece by John McCain -- just went even higher.

-- Steve Clemons

Almost a year ago, my colleague Steve Clemons wrote a controversial piece titled "Why Bush Won't Attack Iran" citing the internal political and bureaucratic constraints that held at bay a deliberate attack on Iranian nuclear facilities (but not an "accidental" provocation and ramp-up of tensions). A recent discussion between Joe Klein and Jeffrey Goldberg triggered in my mind a half-formed, perhaps non-unique, but nevertheless worthwhile examination of the geopolitical constraints Iran faces despite its bluster.

My contention is this: even if Iran were to develop a nuclear capability, and even if Iran developed the sophisticated engineering for weaponization and delivery of a nuclear missile to launch it at Israel, and even if the US nuclear umbrella, let alone Israeli's nuclear arsenal, was insufficient to deter a nuclear attack by Iran, the presence of 1.5 million Israeli Arabs (20% of Israel's population) and 4 million Palestinians in such close proximity in an area the size of Massachusetts could pose quite the effective deterrent and hamstring Iran's nuclear options.

Israeli Arabs are not neatly confined to certain sections of the country such that Iran could avoid them. Targetting population centers for maximum strategic effect means targetting significant numbers of Israeli Arabs as well, whose identities are arguably intertwined with Palestinians based on state treatment and kinship ties. An attack on Jerusalem for instance would easily kill countless thousands of Palestinians, wipe out significant Islamic holy sites, and without impeccable guidance systems (something Iran is hardly close to mastering) risk a direct hit on the West Bank. Even a densely populated target away from the Occupied Territories such as Tel Aviv is still home to over sixteen thousand Israeli Arabs. Multiple targets to deal a crippling blow to the country as some have suggested would require a similar blow to the Arab/Palestinian population.

(Matthew Levitt is a Senior fellow and Director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy).

Gregory offers a thoughtful analysis and has bravely baited the rest of us to respond, so I'll take the bait. First, and just FYI, my "not unrelated" comment was intended to link energy and the economy, not the economy and terrorism.

That said, there is an interesting side note to add here, though it only underlines to my mind how the recent economic downturn in particular and economics in general is mostly unrelated to efforts to combat terrorism (the exception, of course, is the tremendous costs of fighting two wars, especially the war in Iraq, which was never truly part of the poorly phrased war on terror). That is, al Qaeda has been extremely effective at conducting economic warfare -- al Qaeda has expended relatively little treasure to inflict on the U.S. and the West in general exorbitant costs.

Look to senior al Qaeda leaders' statements to underscore that this is part of their strategy. Consider also the recent case in Canada involving Monin Khawaja, who reportedly wrote in a 2003 email, "So we have to come up with a way that we can drain their economy of all its resources, cripple their industries, and bankrupt their systems in place, all so that they are forced to withdraw their troops, so they cannot afford to go to war.... We need constant economic j[ihad], blow after blow, until they cripple and fall, never to rise again." In that, despite the costs we have incurred (some unnecessarily), I submit that have and will continue to fail - but there is that connection in terms of their intent.

(Greg Djerejian is a financial services professional and publishes the popular blog The Belgravia Dispatch)

Before we fall into a consensus that terrorism remains at (or very near) the top of the heap, permit me to play contrarian among these terrorism experts.

Matt advises we face a "three-fold threat", namely: 1) core al-Q, 2) 'franchise' players like al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and 3) a motley gaggle of some 300 groups (most of them Sunni, reportedly) that have "less direct ties to al-Qaeda", per Matt.

Let us take each in turn, if very briefly. Core al Qaeda now sequestered in Pakistan, in the main, hasn't even been able to overturn the Pakistani Government, let alone materially threaten ours, at least not since the traumatic events of 9/11, getting on a decade ago. They threaten important cities like Peshawar in the NWFP, a shocking and worrisome fact, but not yet the central government in Islamabad, despite high profile assassinations like Benazir Bhutto's.

Regional al Qaeda affiliates of late, I'd argue particularly in the Maghreb, are gaining steam. A recent prominent attack on U.N. interests in Algiers is of concern, but again, I fail to see how these groups present a vital threat to these United States. An important one, yes (certainly in the context that they also happen to present a more direct threat to close European allies like Spain and Italy, say), but the primary one? I don't think so.

On Wednesday at 4:15 pm EST until about 5:30 pm, I will be chairing a meeting at the New America Foundation featuring former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and former AT&T Broadband CEO and Obama economic advisor Leo Hindery.

The session will focus on the state of America's health care mess and how rising costs are undermining American economic competitiveness and throwing even more hurdles in the way of America's workers and middle class. In part, Daschle will reflect on his book, Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.

Daschle is rumored to be on the short list of potential candidates being considered by Obama to be his vice-presidential running mate. If the VP slot doesn't work out, Daschle is the front-runner to serve as Barack Obama's chief of staff. Leo Hindery is co-chairing a newly created "Smart Globalization Initiative" at the New America Foundation.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

(Paul Cruickshank is a Fellow at the NYU Center on Law and Security).

I agree with Matt Levitt and others that tackling the threat of Al Qaeda terrorism should remain a top-tier national security priority. In the coming decades more significant challenges will no doubt emerge, most important of which will be managing the rise of China. And in the nearer term the Iran nuclear standoff will continue to loom large.

But Al Qaeda, impossible to deter like Iran, should still top the next President's national security briefings. As others have pointed out, Al Qaeda has regenerated its ability to attack the United States from its training camps in Pakistan. There was no greater demonstration of this than a plot thwarted here in London in August 2006 to bring down up to seven commercial airliners en route to North America. The trial, which I've been attending, has revealed that the alleged plotters were trained in Pakistan in how to make explosive devices, and had assembled all the materials necessary to manufacture bombs that would have been undetectable by airport security.

British officials believe the plan may have been to explode the planes over American cities. Seven 'Lockerbie' type events over New York, Washington DC, San Francisco, Chicago and other densely populated North American metropolises would likely have produced a death toll larger than 9/11. If the plot had been successful, one can only imagine the impact it would have had on the global aviation industry, the U.S. economy, and the international financial system.

Unfortunately as long as Al Qaeda is able to train recruits with relative impunity in north-western Pakistan, it will remain a strategic threat to the United States.

Doha is dead. The "bicycle of global trade" as C. Fred Bergsten often called it has stopped. We have yet to see whether the bike falls over -- but Joseph Stiglitz is already writing the epitaph.

I think that former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin will be the most interesting personality to watch in coming months and years as he clearly became the head of the neoliberal movement.

I think that neoliberalism is not really dead; just tuckered out. I think that global trends and habits will morph in some new directions -- which I hope will be a smarter globalization than that which we have seen.

But that's not a given -- and no one should underestimate the tenaciousness of ideological economists. More on that soon.

But from Stiglitz:

In response to queries as to what Senator Lieberman was doing when agreeing to carry a pardon request to President Bush for an indicted terrorist sent to prison by the FBI, Lieberman spokesman Scott Overland said:

Senator Lieberman does not intervene in criminal proceedings including requests for pardons. . .The correspondence was merely forwarded without any comment, endorsement or support whatsoever.

Fair enough -- if that was all of the story.

Here is what Joe Lieberman said to the spouse of the terrorist:

It's my responsibility, it's my responsibility. I will carry it [the pardon request] back. I will carry it back. Yeah. I feel...I think of you like you were my family.... I'll bring it back. I'll do my best.

Since when is "I think of you like you were my family" not an indication of 'support' or clear bias?

Scott Overland's comment fails to address the clear bias in Senator Lieberman's agreement to carry the letter. Did he not know who she was? Was he uninformed that he was addressing a Bay of Pigs veterans group?

Or did he really not mean what he told Miriam Arocena? Insincerity would be an OK excuse here -- we just want to hear it said.

-- Steve Clemons

(Eric Rosand is a senior fellow at the Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation in New York and a nonresident fellow at New York University's Center on International Cooperation).

Returning to the question of national priorities, I concur with what Matt writesthat the threats are real and potentially catastrophic should AQ or its affiliates get a hold of weapons of mass destruction. The issue for me is less the high priority being placed on countering the threat than the manner in which we are countering it:

1) too much emphasis on and too prominent a role for the military;

2) the tendency to try to impose counterterrorism as a priority in countries (particularly in Africa) where the governments and people are faced with much more pressing threats from HIV/AIDS, poverty, corruption, organized and other forms of crime, and lack of development;

3) the tendency to want to put a "counterterrorism" label on policy initiatives (e.g., related to education, development, the training of law enforcement officials) in countries where doing so may lead to resistance on the ground and thus be counterproductive to actually countering terrorism;

4) the continuing pattern of exaggerating the extent of the al Qaida connections with what may be local insurgencies, for example in Indonesia and the Philippines, and where labeling such insurgencies as al Qaeda-related may magnify the profile of smaller unrelated groups or stifle attempts to address the local grievances that are motivating the insurgencies (See: Amitav Acharya and Arabinda Acharya, "The Myth of the Second Front: Localizing the "War on Terror" in Southeast Asia"); and

5) the failure to build the alliances and strengthen international cooperation with traditional and non-traditional partners around the world.

Thus, what is needed is not a de-emphasis in terrorism relative to other national priorities but a more nuanced and less blunt notion of what we mean by "counter" terrorism, taking into account the five concerns/limitations I have outlined. I am sure I have left out many others that need to be taken into account as well and look forward to others adding to this list!

-- Eric Rosand

This week long terrorism salon will continue to be hosted by The Washington Note and UN Dispatch.

Count me among those that think that this piece by Joe Klein is gutsy and right on target.

I'm in New York tonight -- met Mayor Michael Bloomberg at the opening benefit for "Mostly Mozart" at the Lincoln Center and sat next to one of the really intriguing co-founders of C-Span.

More on all this soon -- but I just wanted to give a shout out to Joe Klein for standing his ground while under attack. Some readers expect journalists (and bloggers) to be cheerleaders for one thing or another -- and engage occasionally in vile attacks on their character or motivation if they don't go with the desired flow. I found this even among Dem circles when I'd raise questions about Hillary Clinton -- or Obama, even before I got to McCain. Some of the hate mail I (and we) get can be pretty intense.

So good for Joe for sticking with his views and what is right.

-- Steve Clemons

(Eric Rosand is a senior fellow at the Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation in New York and a nonresident fellow at New York University's Center on International Cooperation).

Thanks, Matt, for following this thread.

On the definition issue, at risk of stating the obvious, the distinction between "terrorists" and "freedom fighters" is given weight it doesn't deserve because of the inherently political nature of any discussion of who is and who isn't a terrorist. The fact that the US only recently took Nelson Mandela off of its terrorist list is a reminder of this.

I don't think it's realistic to expect one to divorce the politics from the law here, particularly in the context of efforts to reach agreement among the diversity of countries within the UN. It's worth noting that many sitting governments in sub-saharan Africa (and elsewhere) saw themselves as "freedom fighters" (and were often labeled by Western governments as "terrorists") when they fought to "overthrow" the colonial regimes that had been in place.

Thus, to the extent there is any hope to finally reach agreement on a global definition of terrorism, the task can't be left to the lawyers (I was one of them!) to try to resolve the differences in the draft UN comprehensive convention on international terrorism that has been in play for some years now. Instead, high-level political engagement is needed. This needs to come from the UN Secretary-General, the US President, and leaders from key Islamic and African countries. Finding a way to get President Abbas to come to the UN General Assembly and condemn all indiscriminate attacks against civilians carried out for political purposes, even if committed by Palestinian "freedom fighters", for example, would be an important first step.

On Matt's 1267 Committee point, the issue is a bit more complicated. For example, it's worth recalling that the US was one of the loudest critics of the Monitoring Group that was disbanded in 2004. In fact, the US lead the charge in the UNSC to not renew the mandate. Much of the criticism had to do with the occasional failure of the group to stay within it its mandate and back up its often pointed assertions in its reports with the necessary factual support.

As for whether the UNSC should establish an independent panel, this is something that I hope to address in a broader discussion of the UN's role in CT, which I hope will be prompted.

-- Eric Rosand

This week long terrorism salon will continue to be hosted by The Washington Note and UN Dispatch.

(Matthew Levitt is a Senior fellow and Director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy).

Eric raises excellent points. I'll just add that on top of the question of whether the existing treaties do in fact cover the full waterfront on possible terrorist offenses, the lack of a common definition of terrorism has several other implications. Among them:

First, much of the debate over terrorism still focuses on the groups themselves and their underlying grievances or political objectives, not the actual acts of terrorism -- the criminal terrorist offenses -- they carry out. As such, the "terrorism v resistance" argument is given weight it does not deserve since the legal issue at hand is not why one carries out a criminal act of terrorism like a suicide bombing but the fact that such an act was carried out at all.

Second, the 1267 committee is only authorized to deal with al Qaeda and the Taliban, so all other groups -- from Hamas and Hezbollah to FARC and ETA to Kach and Kahane Chai -- can only be designated unilaterally by individual countries or by regional bodies like the EU. This too is a factor of the lack of a common definition of terrorism.

Finally, on a somewhat tangential note, the U.N. should re-establish an independent monitoring group not under the thumb of the Security Council, as my colleague Mike Jacobson has argued. In January 2004, the United Nations replaced the monitoring group with a team with far less autonomy after some member states complained that its reports were too critical. The monitoring team has done excellent work, and should be given full and free reign to accomplish its important mission.

-- Matthew Levitt

This week long terrorism salon will continue to be hosted by The Washington Note and UN Dispatch.

(Eric Rosand is a senior fellow at the Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation in New York and a nonresident fellow at New York University's Center on International Cooperation).

Since one of the questions in the prompt asked whether "our laws -- or international law" [emphasis added] are capable of addressing the threat, I thought I would weigh in the international law side of the question.

The UN and its specialized agencies have helped develop a global counterterrorism legal framework consisting of 16 international treaties that criminalize nearly every imaginable terrorist offense and facilitate international legal cooperation in this area. With these instruments, which have laid important normative foundations in a number of counterterrorism-related fields, the UN system has created a broad framework of international criminal law directly applicable to counterterrorism. It limits the freedom of movement of terrorists who are subject either to being prosecuted or extradited by states parties that find them on their territory. They provide essential tools for extradition and mutual legal assistance (MLA) for national authorities to assist requesting state parties by conducting investigations on their behalf and passing the information, evidence, and possibly even the accused over to that country and help ensure that there are no safe havens from prosecution and extradition. In addition to these treaties, the Security Council has adopted resolutions since 9/11 that impose counterterrorism obligations on all states to adopt laws, strengthen borders, deny safe haven, and improve cross-border information sharing and other forms of cooperation.

Mindy Kotler is director of Asia Policy Point, a Washington research center that provides objective information on East Asia to the policy community.

Among the many obstacles hindering success at the Six-Party Talks to denuclearlize the Korean peninsula are the ingrained animosities between Japan and South Korea. These tensions are never far below the surface and arise at inopportune times. Recently, another row over a group of rocky islets located roughly halfway between South Korea and Japan threatens to undo U.S. efforts with North Korea.

Both Tokyo and Seoul are armed with all sorts of document and treaty evidence supporting their claims on the islets, which the West calls the Liancourt Rocks, while Korea calls them Dokdo and Japan, Takeshima. These barely habitable rocks are surrounded by waters believed to be rich in fishing and undersea resources. Old maps seem to support both country's territorial claims, while old documents are more vague. The rocky islets were annexed by Japan along with the Korean Peninsula in 1910, but Tokyo claims its territorial rights to the islets were declared five years before the start of Japanese colonial rule in 1910 and reaffirmed in the1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty.

The reality is that South Korea has stationed a 50-strong police and Coast Guard contingent since 1953 on Dokdo. They have also built a lighthouse and a dock to help reinforce its ownership. Japan is constitutionally barred from trying to take it back.

From 12:30 pm - 1:45 pm EST today, The Washington Note will be streaming live a New America Foundation discussion cosponsored with the Nixon Center on what a Nixonian re-do of US-Cuba relations might look like.

I will be moderating a meeting featuring Dimitri Simes, President of the Nixon Center and former Foreign Policy Advisor to Richard Nixon; JULIA SWEIG, Rockefeller Senior Fellow & Director Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations; FLYNT LEVERETT, Director of the Geopolitics of Energy Initiative at the New America Foundation and former Senior Director for Middle East Affairs, National Security Council; and Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (ret.), former Chief of Staff at the Department of State and Pamela C. Harriman Professor at the College of William & Mary.

From my perspective, the fact that US-Cuba relations are the only place on the planet where the Cold War actually got colder over the last decade -- even though Cuba has moved from exporting revolution to exporting doctors means that America's strategic calculus regarding the island nation should be changing -- but isn't discernibly.

It's time to seriously review US-Cuba relations not through the prism of America's domestic political scene -- but through the prism of American interests.

-- Steve Clemons

(Matthew Levitt is a Senior fellow and Director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy).

I do not think we are concentrating too much on terrorism, it legitimately belongs at the very top of the list of national security threats we face today. True, the nature of the transnational threats facing the world today is far different than the ones the U.S. and its allies faced on 9/11. But al-Qaeda itself remains a formidable opponent, with a resurgent core in Northwest Pakistan and affiliates and homegrown cells pose a growing threat as well.

Today, the US and its allies face a three fold threat.

The first is from core al Qaeda. While al Qaeda was on its "back foot" from 2004-2007, it has now "regained its equilibrium," according to DHS Undersecretary Charlie Allen. NCTC Director Michael Leiter echoed this, warning that "I regret to say that the Al Qaeda threat still looms large." Deputy DNI Donald Kerr offered a similar assessment, stating that "Al Qaeda remains the preeminent terror threat to the United States at home and abroad." There are several reasons, in Dr. Kerr's view, why core al Qaeda continues to pose such a serious threat to the US.

The group has "retained or regenerated key elements of its capability, including its top leadership, operational lieutenants, and a de facto safe haven in...the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) to train and deploy operatives for attacks in the West." Al Qaeda has successfully expanded its reach with partnerships with other organizations throughout the Middle East and North Africa, which Dailey referred to as the "franchising of al Qaeda." These affiliates include al Qaeda in Iraq, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.

Is there a chance that we are concentrating too much on terrorism? If so, how have some of the policy trade-offs manifested themselves? Should the next president de-emphasize terrorism relative to other national security priorities?

-- Steve Clemons

This week long terrorism salon will continue to be hosted by The Washington Note and UN Dispatch.

Oakley the Amazing Weimaraner checks in from the lake.

-- Steve Clemons

(Yosri Fouda is the Chief Investigative Correspondent and Former London Bureau Chief for Al-Jazeera).

Apologies to all for the late dive in, but I'd like to pick it up from this deceptively simple and much underestimated fact pointed out by Alistair Millar:

No matter how much the US spends militarily or otherwise, America cannot be everywhere at once.

Thus, one priority for the new president, as far as I can see from the other side, will be to acknowledge the major mistakes of the Bush administration's approach to the "war on terror", starting perhaps with this very title.

Two major issues will have to be examined without delay: First, how to retrieve some of the moral high-ground that America has lost miserably and UNNECESSARILY, and second, how to devise a smarter strategy through which we can (seriously this time) isolate terrorists from the rest of a given society and contain "wannabes".

That will be very difficult to accomplish before the new President says sorry for all the dirt of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and the extraordinary rendition program. It won't be easy before he shows sympathy with Palestinians unnecessarily humiliated at check points. It won't be easy before he seriously criticizes corrupt Arab regimes. It won't be easy before he says he can't understand how an Egyptian family of five can live on $50 a month, not because poverty is a disgrace but because they haven't been given an equal opportunity in a global economic system dominated by America.

It won't be easy before he categorically demonstrates that the West has no quarrel with Islam but with some Muslims who will be judged NOT on their intentions but on their deeds. Irrespective of their background, those who kill civilians are criminals and should be treated as such. Declaring that we are "at war" with a terrorist gives him far more privilege than he deserves.

But war or otherwise, moral high-ground is what needs to be restored before we begin to discuss troops. Even if you did not believe in it, restore moral high-ground and you will begin to stand a chance of charming a predominantly oral culture and turn its men into a neutral position if not into troops for you. Not only is it cheaper, it also happens to be the right thing to do.

-- Yosri Fouda

This week long terrorism salon will continue to be hosted by The Washington Note and UN Dispatch.

(Peter Bergen is a Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation).

For what its worth none of the AQ leadership are in urban areas. That was a very costly mistake for them. Since 2004 they are all in the FATA.

No leaders of al Qaeda have been killed or captured in urban areas since 2004. Before that many were -- KSM, al Shibh, Abu Zubayda etc. Since then AQ leaders who have been killed or narrowly avoided being killed have been on the receiving end of Hellfire missiles in the tribal areas.

-- Peter Bergen

This week long terrorism salon will continue to be hosted by The Washington Note and UN Dispatch.

(Stephanie Kaplan is a Visiting Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center).

In regards to Greg's query -- Briefly, I don't assume that Bin Ladin and al-Zawahiri are hiding in urban areas (but, of course, I have no intelligence upon which to base this assumption). So your question underscores my point precisely: the military is not the lead counterterrorism agency in urban areas, where so many segments of the jihadist movement thrive. And that is why the pre-9/11 mindset is a canard.

-- Stephanie Kaplan

This week long terrorism salon will continue to be hosted by The Washington Note and UN Dispatch.

Julia Sweig in one of DC's finest Latin America policy divas -- and she appeared recently on The Colbert Show. It's a great segment.

Two of the highlights were Sweig saying that even "Stephen Colbert in a thong" would not get Venezuela on America's side in addition to her reporting the interesting data point that Hugo Chavez's citizens only pay 12 cents a gallon for gas. . .that's right. . .12 cents.

Julia Sweig is the Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and she'll be speaking at a forum I am chairing on Monday titled "What would Richard Nixon Do on US-Cuba Relations?" at the New America Foundation from 12:15 pm - 1:45 pm EST.

The meeting will STREAM LIVE here at The Washington Note and will also include Nixon Center President Dimitri K. Simes, former National Security Council senior staff member Flynt Leverett and former State Department Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson.

Sweig was senior adviser on a recent Council on Foreign Relations report on Latin America that truly stunned me in how forward looking and sensible its prescriptions were.

Oops. Forgot to mention that she was also featured big time in Cigar Aficionado -- very cool.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

(Peter Bergen is a Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation).

For a detailed snap shot of what Afghans really think take a look at the third yearly survery of Afghan opinion by BBC News and ABC News. If you don't trust polling data no need to read it.

December 2007 poll (ABC News/BBC).

-- Peter Bergen

This week long terrorism salon will continue to be hosted by The Washington Note and UN Dispatch.

(Greg Djerejian is a financial services professional and publishes the popular blog The Belgravia Dispatch)

With all due respect (and I sincerely mean this, not meant just as the requisite boiler-plate), I find Peter a tad too cock-sure in how he portrays more boots on the ground as a total no-brainer ("well, do the math"). I understand the importance of boots on the ground for stability operations, indeed in the pages of my blog urged for supplementing our forces in Iraq back in the day, before the decision was belatedly made on the surge (once finally implemented after the myriad criminal ineptitudes of the Rumsfeld era, I disagreed with the wisdom incidentally, as it was not accompanied by a serious regional diplomatic strategy, so that we were merely forging tactical, localized security improvements but missing the wider strategic lens the situation demanded, and indeed still does today).

This is something of my issue w/ Peter's note below too. Yes more troops equals more stability (at least in the short term), but to what end? Peter says he

...can't get into that strategy as that is a much longer answer unsuitable for a post,

and perhaps so, but if we are involved in nation-building efforts in Afghanistan via 'clear, hold, build' in the wilds of Helmand Province, supposedly to align Pashtun tribes (say the large Alizai Tribe) w/ the Karzai Government--it behooves us to at least define better for what long-term objective we are doing so?

(Peter Bergen is a Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation).

The question about more boots on the ground is a relatively easy one to answer.

None, or few, of those new boots will come from NATO allies and if they do come they will come so freighted with national caveats and domestic political considerations that will make them largely ineffective. So they will have to come from the U.S.

Why are more needed? Well do the math: Afghanistan is a country ideally suited to guerilla warfare with its high mountain ranges and it is a third larger than Iraq and its population is some 6 million or so greater, yet the numbers of soldiers and policemen in Iraq are more than three times larger than in Afghanistan.

Iraq has more than 600,000 Iraqi members of the security services and some 150,000 American soldiers in addition, while Afghanistan has 150,000 local soldiers and police and some 60,000 US and NATO troops. You can't bring security to the country with those low numbers of soldiers and police. And without security you can't have reconstruction. And so what Afghanistan desperately needs is more American Special Forces and other advisors to build up the size of the Afghan army and police which right now are way too small to secure the country.

The New York Police Department numbers some 40,000 cops. Afghanistan right now has 70,000 cops for the whole country, which is wracked by a violent insurgency in all of its eastern and southern provinces and increasingly in its central provinces and is, to boot, the center of the world's heroin trade. So more American soldiers on the ground -- the right kind of soldiers -- and a far better strategy are required. I can't get into that strategy as that is a much a longer answer unsuitable for a post, but part of it, of course, is securing the population, which can't be done right now with the "economy of force" as Admiral Mullen so aptly puts it that is now in place in Afghanistan.

(Greg Djerejian is a financial services professional and publishes the popular blog The Belgravia Dispatch)

I agree with almost everything Peter writes below (particularly his "second" mistake, the clever subtlety he flags in his "third mistake", and then too his last paragraph-to which I'd add the need to effectively engage with Syria too).

A small quibble however. I'm not sure that Zbig Brzezinski's statement that "We are running the risk of repeating the mistake the Soviet Union made... Our strategy is getting in deeper and deeper" means he (or I) are grotesquely misreading history. No one is saying we are employing a brutish, ham-handed Soviet approach to the Afghan campaign. The question is still legitimate (no one on this email list seems to want to take it on, and so we risk missing the forest for the trees on the 'military' prong of the second prompt) whether multi-year (or even possibly decades long) nation building efforts in each of Iraq or Afghanistan are ultimately beneficial to the U.S. national interest, or the GWOT (an increasingly silly phrase, in my view), or whatever supposed strategic objective we are pursuing in the region. I think this is what Brzezinski is really probing around, keeping in mind too Afghan's historic aversion to foreign interlopers and their perhaps less than universal alacrity to comply with the democratic diktats emitting from the soi disant wholly enlightened Karzai government.

(Peter Bergen is a Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation).

I wanted to respond to the idea that somehow we are making the same mistake in Afghanistan that the Soviets did. This is a real misreading of history. The Soviets killed at least 1.5 million Afghans and they turned a third of the population into refugees; some 6 million fled to Iran and Pakistan.

Our policies in Afghanistan are failing and require a complete rethink but no matter how many problems we have encountered there (and in Pakistan) it is not because we are repeating the same mistakes as the Soviets who imposed a brutal, totalitarian war on a population who, in the main, loathed them with a passionate intensity.

We are not repeating history in Afghanistan. We are making our own mistakes, which may be rectifiable.

Regarding the question of military strategy and al Qaeda: Al Qaeda believes it is at war with the United States and her allies and on 9/11 al Qaeda killed thousands of American civilians and attempted to decapitate the government; acts of war by any standard.

We are not, therefore, as some of our European friends would have it, engaged in some sort of global police action against violent jihadists. We are, in fact, in a war with them, but as in all wars, all instruments of state power -- diplomacy, intelligence, propaganda etc.-- are needed to defeat al Qaeda.

(Alistair Millar is the Director of the Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation.)

Has responsibility for counter-terrorism has fallen mainly under the purview of the military? This argument at least in terms of the perception created by the fact that many counterterrorism-related positions in the US Government are held by current and former military officials such as Gen. Michael V. Hayden CIA; retired Navy Vice Adm. J. Michael McConnell (director of national intelligence) and Dell L. Dailey, an Army lieutenant general as the State Department CT Coordinator.

Looking at the budget it is difficult to determine what is being spent specifically on counterterrorism. There is not a single counter-terrorism budget and comparisons across departments with different objectives are not easy to evaluate, especially considering that money spent for example on border security or anti-money laundering programs serves more than just counterterrorism objectives. Just looking at a few departments and programs dealing with CT, in FY 2008 the Pentagon's counterterrorism budget was $142 billion for FY 2008. For the Department of Home Land Security the amount requested was just under $50Billion. For DOJ it was $3.8 billion for the FBI's counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and intelligence programs, including $183 million for "critical national security enhancements". Then there are a host of programs related to counter-terrorism by the Department of State, including its Anti-Terrorism Assistance Program which is around $170 million and its Regional Strategic Initiative, which requested around $100 million dollars in FY2007 has subsequently failed to attract sufficient funding. Public diplomacy programs designed to contribute to the prevention of terrorism are also part of the State Department budget.

Mustafa Barghouti is one of Palestine's real gems -- a former doctor turned political leader who previously ran for the presidency of Palestine. He now heads the Palestinian National Initiative and is an advocate of non-violent resistance against Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.

I interviewed Barghouti in my office yesterday, July 24, and found that while he was and remains an enthusiast for Barack Obama -- his hope is being replaced by 'disappointment.'

This for me was an incredible five minute exchange -- but particularly disturbing was his comment that road blocks and barriers to movement before the Annapolis process started number 521. Today, there are 607. Settlements are growing at a faster pace after Annapolis than before. This is wrong.

These trends are destroying the possibilities of peace in the Middle East -- and they are undermining America's national interests as well as Israel's own security situation.

For those interested, this morning I shared some of my own reactions to Barack Obama's hugely attended Berlin speech and fascinating and important trip to Europe and the Middle East with Democracy Now's Amy Goodman.

-- Steve Clemons

(Greg Djerejian is a financial services professional and publishes the popular blog The Belgravia Dispatch)

In regards to Stephanie's answer to the second prompt, she writes:

It is time to put the myth of the pre-9/11 mindset to rest...

with which I think I mostly concur--save with some reservations about the level of attention both the Clinton and early Bush Administration paid to the growing al-Qaeda threat, but she then nonetheless writes:

For other segments, namely the vanguard in Afghanistan/Pakistan, the military has and will continue to play a leading role in containing and reducing the jihadist threat.

I was curious who the "vanguard" is? Are we speaking of bin Laden and Zawahiri? If so, why would the military necessarily be best positioned to deal with them? I suspect many of the most precious high-value targets (think KSM, who was apprehended in Rawalpindi by the ISI, I believe with some CIA involvement) could well be hiding in major cities like Karachi or Peshawar (perhaps in even more fantastical disguises than Radovan Karadzic's!), rather than the badlands of South Waziristan. And even if there, wouldn't highly focused counter-intelligence efforts--backed up by discrete military action as/if necessary--be the best way to locate and capture these terrorists?

(Stephanie Kaplan is a Visiting Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center).

I agree with Matt that the notion that U.S. counterterrorism policy is largely under the purview of the military is a false one. It relates, I think, to the partisan charge that the Democrats possess a "pre-9/11 mindset" when it comes to counterterrorism. Throughout the past seven years, the military has been the public face of U.S. counterterrorism efforts (the consequences of which merit their own discussion thread). But behind the scenes the same-old, pre-9/11 intelligence and law enforcement efforts have been crucial to foiling plots at home and across the globe. The twenty-or-so jihadist plots that have been rolled up since 9/11 came as a result of time-honored police and intelligence work, the success of which was sometimes predicated upon strong international cooperation. It is time to put the myth of the pre-9/11 mindset to rest.

That we need to use all of the tools in the toolbox is not a new argument. But in the context of this question, I think it is important to emphasize the heterogeneity of the global jihad and what that means for those who accept a multi-faceted approach. The global jihadist movement is not a monolithic, unitary actor that requires the same set of policy prescriptions across the board. A diverse set of actors (the al-Qaeda vanguard, regional groups, start-up cells) reside under its umbrella with varying degrees of cooperation between and among them. For some segments of the movement, the problem is primarily an intelligence and law enforcement issue. For other segments, namely the vanguard in Afghanistan/Pakistan, the military has and will continue to play a leading role in containing and reducing the jihadist threat.

This week long terrorism salon will continue to be hosted by The Washington Note and UN Dispatch.

Karen Hughes finally got a successor in her previous role as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, and it is entrepreneur, writer, and thinker James Glassman who was until recently Chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

Glassman has done much in his DC career, and yes -- he did co-author the market exhuberant book Dow 36,000 with McCain economic advisor Kevin Hassett who is, like Glassman was, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Among his other roles:

- Chairman, Broadcasting Board of Governors, 2007-present
- Editor-in-Chief and Executive Publisher, The American, 2006-2008
- Financial columnist, Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, 2004-present
- Founder and host, TCSDaily.com (technology and public policy), 2000-2006
- Columnist, Scripps Howard News Service, 2004-2006
- Member, Advisory Board on Public Diplomacy in the Arab and Muslim World, 2003
- Syndicated financial columnist, Washington Post (business page), 2001-2004
- Columnist, International Herald Tribune, 1999-2004
- Chief columnist, FOLIOfn, 2001
- Analyst, Left, Right, and Center, KCRW Santa Monica, 2001-2002
- Host, PBS TechnoPolitics, 1995-1999
- Syndicated columnist, Washington Post (opinion and business pages), 1993-1999
- Moderator, CNN Capital Gang Sunday, 1995-1998
- Editor and part-owner, Roll Call, 1987-1993
- Executive vice president, U.S. News & World Report, 1984-1986
- President, Atlantic Monthly, 1984-1986
- Publisher, New Republic, 1981-1984
- Executive editor, Washingtonian, 1979-1981

Glassman will be speaking on "New Approaches to Winning the War of Ideas" between 12:15 and 1:45 pm today EST -- and the meeting will STREAM LIVE here at The Washington Note. (the video is now watchable above)

-- Steve Clemons

(Matthew Levitt is a Senior fellow and Director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy).

The questions is not whether our counter-terrorism strategy should be military or law enforcement centric, but rather how to develop and deploy a truly interagency strategy that employs all elements of national power to defeat a transnational adversary operating in an era of globalization.

The military is actively engaged in counter-terrorism, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq where it is fighting wars against asymmetric enemies, but I would dispute the assumption that counter-terrorism responsibility has fallen mainly under the purview of the military. At the same time, while acts of terrorism are themselves criminal activities, employing a counter-terrorism strategy that sees terrorism as more of a law enforcement issue is also off the mark. Both the military and law enforcement communities plays critical roles in counter-terrorism, but a truly effective counter-terrorism strategy is one that is intelligence-heavy and leverages that intelligence to inform a plan than employs all elements of national power, with a focus on non-kinetic tools and authorities.

Indeed, I think it's safe to say that the effort to combat terrorism at a tactical level is where we are best, employing our military, intelligence and law enforcement agencies to conduct operations, make arrests, raid safe havens, etc. It is at the level of strategic counter-terrorism, that is strategic communication, the battle of ideas, and counter-radicalization, that we are just now making strong strides forward (see our previous discussion chain). For example, highlighting al-Qaeda's bankrupt ideology is now a cornerstone of the U.S. strategic communications message.

It seems that counter-terrorism responsibility has fallen mainly under the purview of the military. Are there advantages, though, of limiting the military's role in counter-terrorism and treating it more as a law enforcement issue? Are our laws--or international law--capable of meeting the challenges posed by international terrorism? Are there specific legal reforms that might benefit law enforcement without sacrificing on civil liberties? And if the military is going to take the lead, how should our service branches reform to meet these new challenges?

-- Steve Clemons

This week long terrorism salon will continue to be hosted by The Washington Note and UN Dispatch.

I think it's terrific that Barack Obama went abroad to connect with leaders and some people in Europe and the Middle East. I think he should have gone to Brussels -- but I can certainly embrace that he emphasized 'engagement' with this trip.

But besides skipping Europe's institutional heart, his speech in Berlin had a few lines that were disappointingly absent from his remarks in Israel -- where he spent more than 30 hours while spending just an hour or so in Ramallah.

He said today in Berlin:

That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another.

The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.

Had he given those remarks in Israel, at any of the checkpoints that have been added since the Annapolis process began, or at the large divididing wall Israel has constructed, or just about anywhere frankly in Israel or Palestine -- it would have been a "game-changing speech."

John F. Kennedy's famous "Ich bin Berliner" remarks in the same city were brave, original, impactful. Obama's speech had high points and deserves applause -- but it's ultimately forgettable because he failed to deliver the most important lines where they most mattered.

One can't be about hope, no walls, and leap-frogging into a different reality than the mess we have today when there's no pressure and nothing on the line. What matters is whether or not that message is as resonant in the context of controversial issues where tough decisons and heavy-lifting are needed.

I will be discussing Obama's fascinating European and Middle East journey with Amy Goodman tomorrow morning (Friday) on Democracy Now! some time after 7:45 am EST.

-- Steve Clemons

I just accomplished a goal that I set over a year ago -- getting a copy of John Bolton's book without paying for it. My good friend in the publishing industry who requested it for me reported happily that she got the impression it was the first such request his publisher had received for it and they were downright excited that someone outside movement conservatism actually wanted to read it. The first thing I noticed, by the way, is that each of the seven critical acclamations for the book is from a known conservative source, including one from John McCain.

A new poll released last week from J Street, the self-proclaimed "pro-Israel, pro-peace" political action committee, contained very promising data regarding American Jews and their views of the Middle East peace process. The poll found that, of 800 American Jews surveyed, 76% believed that Israel should negotiate with its enemies, and that 81% would support any peace deal the Israeli government made with an Arab state.

These numbers are very important in light of Israel's recently begun peace negotiations with Syria (mediated by Turkey), in addition to the invitation of Israel to the French-sponsored conference of Mediterranean nations that convened in Paris this earlier this month, Israel's tenuous cease-fire with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and Israel's recent, painful prisoner exchange with Hezbollah, analyzed wonderfully by the Director of New America's Middles East Initiative, Daniel Levy.

The talks with Syria, in particular, are a sign of progress and also a sign both Israel and Syria recognize the importance of a negotiated peace instead of escalation and war. These negotiations come even after Israel's bombing of s mysterious site in Syria in September of last year, and Israel's summer 2006 war against the Syrian-supported Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Perhaps Senator Joe Lieberman wasn't totally clued in to the crowd he was hanging with, but on July 20th, he agreed to carry to President Bush a "pardon request" for a convicted terrorist that the FBI prosecuted and sent to prison for terror activities aimed against Cuba.

Watch this video (the key part I'm interested in is at about 3 min 30 sec):

What he said was:

It's my responsibility, it's my responsibility. I will carry it [the pardon request] back. I will carry it back. Yeah. I feel...I think of you like you were my family.... I'll bring it back. I'll do my best.

My colleague Patrick Doherty has more -- as does Lexington Institute (and Republican stalwart) Phil Peters who first surfaced this story.

One of the characteristics of real states is that they maintain "a monopoly on the use of force". This is one of our key problems with the Palestinian authority which has been unable to control the variant wings of violent factions within its territories.

But the anti-Castro, violent militias that have set up and trained in Florida over the years for a hoped for invasion of Cuba violate America's responsibilities to maintain control over militant groups based inside the United States. In fact, the U.S. Southern Command has simulated many war games that posit Fidel Castro's death triggering a Cuba-directed invasion flotilla of many hundreds of small craft filled with anti-Castro violent agitants

Lieberman may not care that the FBI prosecuted and jailed the terrorist in question, but the US military that he so often speaks in reverential terms about has its own concerns about the brand of radical extremists Joe Lieberman may want to see pardoned

I don't want to take this criticism of Senator Lieberman too far and want to offer him a chance to recant and take it back. He can't possibly have been endorsing the release of an FBI convicted felon engaged in terrorism!

Or does Joe Lieberman's book allow for this sort of thing?

I still don't believe Lieberman knew what was going on here. I sat next to Lieberman recently at a State Department awards ceremony for Max Kampelman -- who actually is a great American in many ways and deserved his medal -- but I can't imagine for a second that Kampelman would have endorsed the gesture that Lieberman offered in the video.

Here's hoping that Senator Lieberman walks this back.

-- Steve Clemons

Ben Katcher published an interesting post just below that links my meeting tomorrow with Karen Hughes successor as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy James Glassman and our "Terrorism Salon" taking place on the blog now.

I will be streaming LIVE the meeting with Jim Glassman whose skills as a policy and political entrepreneur I find impressive. The screen to watch the event will be posted tomorrow and will be live from 12:15 pm - 1:45 pm EST.

Love your comments -- but stick to issues and policy. . .please.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

(Stephanie Kaplan is a Visiting Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center).

We seem to have reached the consensus that poverty--along with other grievances such as political oppression and cultural alienation--are not reliable indicators of future terrorist activity. Given the prevalence of these conditions throughout the Muslim world, the "root causes" approach overpredicts the level of terrorist activity that we should expect to observe. As Quintan Wiktorowicz notes in Islamic Activism, "[w]hile grievances are ubiquitous, movements are not." The question remains, then, why almost seven years after 9/11, does the root causes debate still shape the counterterrorism discourse?

From a policy perspective, the approach is a seductive one: if we can identify the causes of terrorism, then we can eradicate the conditions that allow terror to take root. At one time or the other, policymakers on both sides of the aisle have found comfort in this formulation. As Peter mentions, this does not mean that global poverty reduction or similar measures shouldn't be a goal of U.S. foreign policy, but the expectation that they will reduce terrorism may be misplaced.

-- Stephanie Kaplan

This week long terrorism salon will continue to be hosted by The Washington Note and UN Dispatch.

One of the central challenges for the next president will be to address the precipitous decline in the United States' popularity throughout the world that has characterized the Bush years. This is in part a result of stepped-up US counterterrorism efforts, which have clashed with once sacrosanct internationalist tenets like sovereignty. While this effort to realign the twin efforts will take many years and involve a host of actors, reforming the State Department's institutions and communications strategy will be an integral part of this effort.

If James Glassman -- recently confirmed as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy -- were weighing in on the ongoing terrorism salon here at The Washington Note, it seems he would lean towards the camp that proffers ideology as the chief animating feature behind terrorism and proposes a vigorous contestation of this ideology to achieve both diplomatic and counterterrorism success.

Glassman emphasized in his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the importance of ideas in the struggle against Islamic extremism and suggested the chief challenge for the United States is to demonstrate the superiority of our democratic ideals. He stated:

The war against Al Qaeda and other extremist threats to peace, freedom, and justice is not only military. It is a war of ideas. Secretary of Defense Gates made just this point when he extolled "soft power" in a lecture at Kansas State University in November.5 As the 9/11 Commission put it: eliminating Al Qaeda requires "prevailing in the longer term over the ideology that gives rise to Islamist terrorism."

If I am confirmed, this will be the main focus of my attention: the war of ideas - perhaps better expressed as global ideological engagement. "Al Qaeda," as Michael Doran, a scholar of Middle East politics at Princeton and now a Pentagon official, has written, "is the ideological organization par excellence." The organization disseminates its messages through mass media and the Internet, and our job is not merely to explain and advocate American values and policies but to counter the disturbingly persuasive ideology of the enemy.

Glassman's emphasis on ideology directly contrast to scholars such as Robert Pape who argue that grievances, humiliation, and nationalism rather than ideology, best explain Islamic terrorism. Pape argues that Islamic terrorists are motivated by specific, material goals, including the desire to expel Western military forces from their homelands.

This will surely be the subject of debate as Under Secretary Glassman will discuss his views on how the United States can use technology to enhance its global strategic communications effort at the New America Foundation tomorrow, Friday, July 25 from 12:15pm - 1:45 pm.

-- Ben Katcher

(Paul Cruickshank is a Fellow at the NYU Center on Law and Security).

I agree with the other panellists that no link can be demonstrated between poverty and terrorism. This is not to say that socio-economic conditions have no relevance whatsoever. The economic success of the American Muslim community (two thirds earn over $50,000) is one of the reasons why American Muslims have become so well integrated into American society. The fact that 22% of young British Muslims are unemployed does contribute towards feelings of alienation.

I'm currently in London looking into violent extremism in the UK. The dynamics over here have direct implications for the national security of the United States. In 2006 authorities thwarted an Al Qaeda plot by British-born Muslims to bring down up to seven airliners leaving Heathrow for North America. The threat has not gone away. Britain probably has more Al Qaeda supporters than any other western country, two thousand of which now pose a security threat according to MI5.

Many British Islamist terrorists have had relatively privileged upbringings. Here are just a few examples: Mohammed Siddique Khan, the ringleader of the July 7, 2005 London bombings earned a decent salary as a primary school teacher; Shehzad Tanweer, another 7/7 bomber use to cruise around in his father's Mercedes; Omar Sheikh, the British militant who orchestrated the murder of Danny Pearl attended LSE; Omar Khan Sharif, the British militant who attacked a nightclub in Tel Aviv in 2003 attended elite British schools; Abdullah Ahmed Ali, the alleged ringleader of the 'Airlines' plot, came from a solidly middle class background. One of his brothers is an IT consultant, another a property developer and a third a probation officer (!) at Britain's Home Office.

The evidence from the UK suggests that political grievances and radical-Islamist indoctrination, not socio-economic conditions, have been key to terrorist recruitment. Youngsters who are more affluent and educated are more likely to be motivated by political arguments. The British Muslims that have joined Al Qaeda have all become convinced that the United States and Britain are at war with Islam and that it is their religious duty to fight back. Here, Matt Levitt is right to point out the importance of 'organized radicalization.' In Britain a number of radical clerics, such as Abu Hamza al Masri and Omar Bakri Mohammed, operated relatively freely until recently, posing as knowledgeable Islamic scholars. The invasion of Iraq in 2003, whatever the rights and wrongs, helped make their arguments resonate more strongly.

-- Paul Cruickshank

This week long terrorism salon will continue to be hosted by The Washington Note and UN Dispatch.

(Peter Bergen is a Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation).

Any serious study of the facts has found that the more relatively educated people are the more likely they are to engage in terrorism, and the more money people have, relative to their peers, the more likely they are to engage in terrorism, defined as violence against civilians by non-state actors.

And so, projects to increase levels of education and income around the world are likely, on average, to create more terrorists, which is not an argument against education or poverty alleviation, but simply one of the rare cases where social "science" can make something of an accurate prediction about future outcomes.

-- Peter Bergen

This week long terrorism salon will continue to be hosted by The Washington Note and UN Dispatch.

(Eric Rosand is a senior fellow at the Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation in New York and a nonresident fellow at New York University's Center on International Cooperation).

There is not much one can usefully add to Matt's excellent contribution, so apologies for any repetition...

I am not aware of any empirical data that shows a causal link between poverty and terrorism. If there was such a link then we would see poor people and communities more involved in committing/planning terrorist attacks than the current data shows. Poverty by itself simply does not have the direct radicalizing effect on individuals.

In fact, the majority of empirical studies on terrorism provides little indication of correlations between socioeconomic factors such as poverty, inequality, and unemployment and the incidence of terrorism. For example, the data in Alan Kruger and David Laitin's global study of the origins and targets of terrorism lend little support to the notion that poverty leads to terrorism, instead suggesting that limited political rights and civil liberties tend to be the most influential in inciting people to terrorism and country-level economic factors such as poverty and high unemployment, tend to be most relevant in determining the targets of terrorism.

(Matthew Levitt is a Senior fellow and Director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy).

Here's my first two cents:

Poverty, in and of itself, does not lead to terrorism. But it can be part of the problem, as the case of disenfranchised Muslim communities in Europe make clear. In the words of one European official I recently interviewed on this issue, "poverty is rarely one of the key radicalizers, but unemployment can be, especially when combined with
engaging in criminal activity and being exposed to a radical narrative."

Radical ideologies are better able to take root when discrimination and the lack of opportunity for economic growth are put in terms of a global narrative that weave personal experiences in the suburbs north of Paris together with the plight of fellow Muslims in Bosnia, Chechnya, Palestine or Iraq to personalize far away conflicts and paint a global, ideological struggle. That global narrative is where foreign policy becomes one part of this larger tapestry as well, especially when presented through a radical ideological lens. To my mind the ideological component is the most critical and overlooked component here.

As several studies have demonstrated, organized radicalization and recruitment (let alone training and the provision of funds and weapons) has long been central to the formation of a terrorist--that is, someone who is not only angry but willing to act on that anger in a violent manner. Today, that organizational function is in some cases carried out more passively via exposure to ideas and, perhaps more critically, a sense of belonging to a group of like-minded followers, on the Internet.

(Greg Djerejian is a financial services professional and publishes the popular blog The Belgravia Dispatch).

I certainly believe there are links between poverty and terrorism, but particularly in terms of the West's so-called Global War on Terror, I believe more important are other variables such as the ones mentioned in the prompt, e.g. perceived humiliation, grievances with U.S. foreign policy, radical ideology etc.

For instance, certain of the key 9/11 hijackers were reasonably middle (or lower-middle class) young adults residing in European cities. And while others in this salon discussion far more knowledgeable than me might correct me, the 15 or so Saudi hijackers (of the 19 total) I don't recall having had hugely impoverished backgrounds, though certainly they were not enjoying the fruits of the petro-dollar gusher as are their local elites.

Still, I'd think, these terrorists were not the hugely impoverished peasants inhabiting the border-lands of South Waziristan and Afghanistan, say. (Incidentally, to mount "A Team"" style sophisticated attacks in the West, almost as a tactical 'gating-item', once must enjoy a modicum of education and 'Westerness' to evade heightened security measures, pointing to those most dangerous potential terrorists not necessarily being those mired in the worst of endemic third world poverty).

Meantime, and putting aside the famous example of Mohammed Atta and Co., one might query too whether the Madrid train bombers (mostly young Moroccans) or the July 7th London attackers (mostly home-grown and by the accounts I'm familiar with not desperately poor either), were primarily driven to action by poverty. I suspect not, but for avoidance of doubt, please note this is not to argue a key part of our overall anti-terror strategy mustn't include economic development initiatives in critical areas like the Maghreb, Pakistan, etc, as doubtless poverty alleviation (not least given the demographic boom through MENA and South Asia of younger citizens) will become an increasingly critical challenge for policy-makers in the coming years/decades. I view poverty therefore as a tremendously unhelpful variable in all of this, but not necessarily a primary cause.

John McCain and I have something in common: we have both tried recently, and failed, to get op-eds picked up by major newspapers. But I daresay McCain's snub from the New York Times two days ago is a bit more important to the average Washington Note reader. The Times refused to run McCain's submission lauding Iraq's progress and criticizing rival Barack Obama, after running a piece on Iraq authored by Obama last week.

The Times' reasons for not running the op-ed were, on the whole, fair. McCain's piece, which can be found here, is essentially an attack piece on Obama, and as such is not a substantive policy statement. Still, there are two parts of the speech that require special attention.

The first is a general observation; throughout the piece, McCain focuses on security. He mentions the role played by American troops and the new counterinsurgency strategy for the drop in violence in Iraq, the "Sons of Iraq" now fighting nominally for Iraq's government against Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the steady but fragile progress of the Iraqi Army, and the continued danger from terrorists and "Shiite extremists" if we leave too early.

Yet McCain devotes only one sentence to political progress, in which he points to a recent US Embassy report saying that Iraq has met 15 of 18 congressional benchmarks, an argument that I have disputed before on this blog. But setting that disagreement aside, the piece shows McCain's focus on security, without paying much attention to the political realm.

To begin the online terrorism salon Mark Goldberg of UN Dispatch offers the first question on the relationship between poverty and terrorism:

On Day One is a social media site sponsored by the United Nations Foundation and the Better World Campaign that asks everyday people to offer their ideas about what the next president should do, figuratively "on day one." In preparation for this discussion, we solicited On Day One users for their ideas on how the next president should take on the threat of global terrorism and a great many people responded by suggesting that if the United States does more to alleviate poverty in the developing world the terrorist threat could be mitigated.

But is terrorism actually linked to poverty? Is it linked to other externalities, like grievances with American foreign policy, perceived humiliation, nationalist political objectives, radical ideology --- or all of the above? Which is most dominant? Which is most underestimated in current approaches to terrorism?

As an aside, a number of my colleagues and I have done video op-eds for On Day One, as I have mentioned here. In fact my colleague Nick Schmidle -- who has written extensively on "Next Gen Taliban" along Pakistan's frontier provinces -- did a video about dropping the "war on terror" language, something I suspect will get debated during the course of this salon.

--Steve Clemons

This week long terrorism salon will continue to be hosted by The Washington Note and UN Dispatch.

Over the course of a week I will be hosting and moderating an online salon discussion on terrorism in conjunction with Mark Goldberg of UN Dispatch. The questions and prompts will cover everything from defining the scope of the threat to root causes to the most effective counterterrorism tactics within a broader strategy. The participants -- though drawn from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines -- have all spent considerable intellectual energy examining these questions and debates for several years and will provide an excellent dialogue. The discussants are:

Peter Bergen, New America Foundation

Paul Cruickshank, NYU Center on Law and Security

Greg Djerejian, The Belgravia Dispatch

Yosri Fouda, Al-Jazeera

Stephanie Kaplan, Woodrow Wilson Center

Matthew Levitt, Washington Institute on Near East Policy

Alastair Millar, Center on Global Counter Terrorism Cooperation

Eric Rosand, Center on Global Counter Terrorism Cooperation

Stay tuned here at TWN over the course of this week and part of next for what is sure to be a high-level and provocative discussion.

The full bios of the particpants appear below the fold and can also be found here at the UN Dispatch Terrorism Salon page.

(Image Courtesy of Warner Bros Pictures. TM & copyright DC Comics)

The Cheney-Batman High Fear World

Spencer Ackerman has written the most insightful review of The Dark Knight I have yet read. His take is that Batman is really Cheney and his gang.

He writes:

In the wake of that statement, Cheney and his allies created an unprecedented architecture of institutionalized abuse. The CIA would possess the power to kidnap suspected terrorists around the world, hold them indefinitely in undisclosed detention facilities -- or hand them over to partner intelligence services that use torture -- and torture them in the name of intelligence gathering. The Pentagon would enter the detentions business at Guantanamo Bay, freed of its obligations to abide by the Geneva Conventions, and would take the leading role in foreign policy by prosecuting "pre-emptive" wars of aggression and occupation. The National Security Agency, in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, would wiretap the communications of U.S. persons without warrants.

Underlying these actions is a certain conception of the danger this is designed to confront. That danger is formless, limitless, uncontainable. Viewing civilization as inherently soft and vulnerable, it seeks to find restraint and punish the restrainer. Its motives, and even its capabilities, are less important than its desires for future disaster. Erring on the side of caution is the surest path to annihilation.

Ackerman compares al Qaeda to The Joker. He writes: "[The Joker] presents an enemy unbounded by any scruple; striking out for no rational reason; hell-bent on causing civilization-threatening destruction, and emboldened by any adversaries' restraint."

In any case, Spencer Ackerman captures I think why so many around the world and in the US are entranced by this movie. It stokes the fears people have about a high-fear world that has already arrived.

Iraq Refugees

The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting has an important blog titled "Iraq: Death of a Nation?" manned by field correspondents David Enders and Richard Rowley.

They have been tracking the circumstances of Iraq's internally and externally displaced refugees who number about five million. Both Jordan and Syria are facing huge burdens as hosts for a million plus each of these homeless victims of the Iraq War.

-- Steve Clemons

Damn! I missed a meeting at the Center for Strategic and International Studies yesterday with three of my favorite national security thinkers -- David Ignatius, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Brent Scowcroft.

Chris Nelson who writes the uber-insider and very tough to get Nelson Report was there and gve me permission to run his own account of the meeting.

But I also have the good news that the New America Foundation and Basic Books are releasing a new book on September 8, 2009 that features David Ignatius provoking Brzezinski and Scowcroft in a conversational format about what it will take to change America's strategic course. The book is titled America and the World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy and you are welcome to pre-order from this Amazon link.

From the Nelson Report:

Adult Supervision on Iran From Brent & Zbig

IRAN...while Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama continues what has, so far, been his very excellent adventure in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East, here in DC there was a most excellent application of Senior Adult Supervision by former National Security Advisors Brent Scowcroft, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, at CSIS.

(We'll look at how Obama is doing in terms of his goals of "looking presidential and a convincing leader on foreign and security policy" later this week.

But when even the arch-conservative Washington Times notes that Iraqi leaders endorsed the Obama position on setting a deadline for US combat troop withdrawal...it hasn't been a good week for Republican nominee John McCain.)

At CSIS today, Republican Scowcroft (who has rather pointedly not endorsed anyone so far this year) and "Zbig", who rather strongly has backed Obama, warned against "militarizing" the Iran nuclear issue by presenting the options as negotiate or fight.

Democrat Brzezinski said he worried that under a McCain Administration, a Secretary of State Lieberman, or Secretary of Defense Giuliani might jump at the use of force against Iran, but that a Secretary of State or Defense Armitage "may be different".

On that, Scowcroft smiled his best enigmatic smile and studied the ceiling tiles...

Brzezinski seemed to go a bit further than Scowcroft in decrying ANY use of force, by either Israel or the US, as a "regional and world catastrophe" for US interests, and perhaps the US itself.

(While certainly agreeing on all of the hazards, Scowcroft has in the past warned that there are certain red lines...N. Korean nuclear proliferation, especially...which might simply be too much to tolerate, so that force became the only rational option.

He didn't repeat that sort of concern explicitly today, but it was noticeable that he didn't always join in Brezinski's very complete denunciations of force, period.)

Perhaps showing his native Poland influence, Zbig also warned that while Russia and China do seem to be sincerely upset with Iran for not being more forthcoming, a cold calculation of interest tells you that Moscow would not be a big loser if things got really bad in the Middle East.

Host/co-moderator David Ignatius of The Washington Post added that "Russia has to be the key", and said that the Russians clearly are "very concerned at the tone" of the Iranian responses in Geneva, and "clearly tried to impress on Iran the need to do something..."

Scowcroft said whether it's Bush, or McCain/Obama next year, the trap of "not taking force off the table" is that it offers "the illusion of a clean solution" to a problem which in fact would only get more dangerous and complex.

The two urged a realistic recognition of Iranian strategic interests as regional players, as Persians in an Arab sea, and as an ancient state with an historic track record of sophisticated appreciation of its real interests.

Don't therefore "empower" President Ahmadinejad by echoing his bellicose rhetoric, especially as that, or pushing to sanctions prematurely, would likely only improve what are currently his diminishing support in elections next year.

However, Scowcroft urged, the US, China, Russia and the European alliance must "show Iran a solid line on sanctions, but give them a way out without losing face. Take them up on their proposition that they don't want nuclear weapons, but do want nuclear power...." preferably using Russian fuel which the US et al would subsidize, all under continued IAEA supervision.

The point, "to make our negotiating position and the incentives for cooperation as appealing as possible to the Iranian people".

More than one member of the audience was heard to murmur, on leaving, "that was further proof that we could use a Council of Elders in this country!"

I'll be coming back to the themes of the new Brzezinski-Scowcroft-Ignatius book frequently in coming weeks.

-- Steve Clemons

UPDATE: Jim Lobe also attended the CSIS meeting and shares his thoughts here on the call by Brzezinski and Scowcroft to drop pre-conditions on Iran negotiations.

Julia Watson has a terrific food and restaurant blog eat Washington that I have been checking up on frequently. I'm not intimidated by much, but I do find that I get nervous thinking about cooking -- and even more rattled actually doing it, particularly when other humans are involved.

So instead, I occasionally read about the 'food scene' via Julia Watson's meanderings. I've been the beneficiary of many a great meal at a home she shares with her journalist husband, Martin Walker.

This week, Julia interviews Nora Pouillon - proprietor of Restaurant Nora, the first certified organic restaurant in America that is the site of many of my New America Foundation salon dinners which the New York Times mentioned a while back.

Just last night, I was hosting and chairing a dinner at Nora's featuring Rob Atkinson of the Internet Technology and Information Foundation speaking about "innovation economics" and how we need a new framework for economic policy that differs from classic Keynesianism, or Supply Side ideology, or Rubinomics. It was an interesting session made better by the incredible food at Nora's and the excellent audience.

I wish I could somehow transport TWN readers into one of these dinners and may figure out a way to do that via video on some next occasion -- perhaps with Senator Chuck Hagel speaking. We'll see.

-- Steve Clemons

Law of the Seas Treaty advocate Caitlyn Antrim took this shot of the Air Force Memorial from her Arlington home at dawn one recent morning.

-- Steve Clemons

I've been offline for a day or so working behind the scenes on a number of fronts that I can't be all that specific about. For Jane Mayer fans, I'm pleased to see that her book is again at #6 on Amazon.

More soon -- promise.

-- Steve Clemons

(U.S. Global Leadership Campaign Director Liz Schrayer and pollster Geoff Garin explain U.S. military leadership attitudes on U.S. national security -- partial video)

Bob Gates sent shockwaves through the national security community last year at Kansas State University when he dared suggest that the non-military instruments of power are under-resourced. Turns out, he's not alone.

Earlier this year, I learned that Rep. Jack Murtha, who chairs the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, worked with Rep. Nita Lowey, who chairs the Foreign Ops. (non-military foreign affairs) Subcommittee to bump up her spending allocation -- a smart and selfless move.

I don't usually plug organizational promotions, but this is just a bit too cool to keep to myself. Hopefully candidates for office -- especially Congressional candidates, who don't have large bureaucracies or pools of advisors to educate them -- will take this quiz and do well. It may seem trivial, but basic knowledge of World Heritage sites (and other historically significant landmarks) is seen as a kind of international common ground and cultural currency that our partners expect us to possess.

-- Scott Paul

I'm in Portland, Maine, heading back through Boston tomorrow to New York on Tuesday. Between apartment hunting, work and traveling, I've finally had a free second to take a peek at the latest of the promising presidential transition-related initiatives, this one launched by the power players at the Connect US Fund.

I know the American Friends Service Committee, among others, have already begun compiling briefing books on security and foreign policy for the incoming administration. In any case, the Connect US transition initiative is noteworthy both because of the influence of its leaders and its role as convener and funder of many pro-multilateralism civil society groups.

Connect US head honcho Eric Schwartz kicks off the initiative with a public call for brainstorming on three policy actions that, taken immediately by the next President, should lay the groundwork for repairing America's standing and increasing global security, stability and sustainability. He offers three principles on which to build, which more or less boil down to: the problems of others are our problems too, our power is tied to our legitimacy, and lead by example. I buy all of these. In response to the Connect US call, here are my initial thoughts on some specifics.

Former Senator and McCain campaign co-chairman Phil Gramm has been a pain in the back end for McCain economic policy chief Douglas Holtz-Eakin for a very long time.

Holtz-Eakin, who served formerly as Congressional Budget Office director and had a stint at the Council on Foreign Relations, is a centrist moderate in his economic positions -- and Phil Gramm was a raging bull ideologue when it came to compulsive-obsessiveness for tax cuts to fix everything.

Gramm's comments that America had become "a nation of whiners" trapped in a "mental recession" got him thrown under McCain's Straight Talk Express.

And in a manner reminiscent of Obama spokesman Bill Burton throwing former Middle East team adviser Rob Malley under the bus and then backing up and making sure he was really whacked for Malley's work with Hamas (Burton stated that not only was Malley no longer advising Obama -- but that he would never advise Obama), Holtz-Eakin told the press that after Gramm's comment, he wouldn't even be talking to John McCain by cell phone. Ouch!

While Rob Malley did not deserve the treatment he got from Obama's team, Phil Gramm certainly did.

But one problem the Obama team will now have with McCain in a post-Gramm campaign is that Holtz-Eakin will have much less disruption in the economic advisory packages he puts before his candidate. My sense is that Obama's economic team remains "complex" to be generous -- but Holtz-Eakin just won his franchise and will be able to stitch together more consistent messaging than the Dems at this point.

-- Steve Clemons

Gavin Sheridan is a great and talented blogger in Ireland. Yesterday, he celebrated his 6th "Blogiversary." He has me beat by two years and some change.

He shared this nice note about a fun evening at my place with blogger Juan Cole:

And then even in Washington in 2005 I met up with Steve Clemons, who's blog continues to grow in leaps and bounds. Steve introduced me to Juan Cole and at the conference Steve organised I got to see George Soros, Wesley Clarke, Francis Fukuyama, Madeleine Albright and many others, live and in person. A truly amazing experience. But it didn't end there. Blogging seems to get you certain places, so after the conference myself and some other people from the New America Foundation went back to Steve's house for beers and music. A brilliant night too, and you could not meet more welcoming people.

Thanks Gavin -- and here's to the next 6!

-- Steve Clemons

Elisabeth Bumiller's New York Times piece yesterday describing the national security and foreign policy advisory network in the Obama campaign has sent off strange shock waves in the blogosphere and in Washington.

This article, I think, is a misfire. Some data show that there are somewhere between 70 and 100 million blogs in the world. Perhaps 20 million of them are active, but only a miniscule portion of them are actually read in any significant numbers.

Similarly, Obama could have 10,000 advisers, 1000 advisers, or his 300, but he'd still be mostly advised by a core network of talent managed by Denis McDonough, Susan Rice, Gregory Craig, Mark Lippert, Anthony Lake, Richard Danzig and a few others.

What she didn't get at is that there is little policy consistency among these 300 advisers -- that there lies lurking among them some potential policy civil wars in an Obama administration. McDonough, of nearly all the advisers listed, and perhaps Mark Lippert -- who served on Obama's Senate staff -- are considered to be the most pragmatic, solutions-oriented type foreign policy thinkers in Obamaland. Many of the rest bring to their policy work a strong ideological bent -- and these bents scattered across "the 300" don't necessarily mesh well. That is the only thing that makes the seemingly high number of sign-on advisers interesting.

During George W. Bush's first campaign, Robert Zoellick -- then head of the Center for Strategic and International Studies -- played a key role in tying together the Washington policy intellectual scene. I was amazed to see how quickly Zoellick turned the Republican think tank crowd into an engine for Bush. John McCain didn't make any substantial efforts on this front in 2000 -- and from my vantage point, Al Gore didn't give it much attention either. But Bush's key spear-carriers at the time did.

Thus, what Bumiller might have said is that Obama himself is colonizing the public intellectuals scene -- rather than focusing on the fact that all of these people are supposedly advising him.

The closer truth is that Obama is colonizing them. And that's politically smart.

-- Steve Clemons

This beautiful pic was sent in from a reader of The Washington Note in Zanzibar.

-- Steve Clemons

Katherine Tiedemann is a Program Associate with the New America Foundation's Nuclear Strategy & Nonproliferation Initiative.

During Jane Mayer's event Tuesday at New America promoting her penetrating new book, The Dark Side, a topic came up during the Q & A that I'd like to expand on--the possibility of establishing a truth commission for the Bush administration's transgressions. The idea has been getting some play recently, both from Nick Kristof in the New York Times and scattered across some blogs (a funny parody here, another suggestion here), and alluded to by Scott Paul. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is generally held up as the model for such bodies, which don't have formal judicial power but instead serve primarily as instruments for the discovery of past wrongdoings by governments.

So far, when each instance of misconduct has been revealed -- from the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes and waterboarding to extraordinary renditions and habeas-corpus-free detention of prisoners at Guantanamo -- individual solutions have been sought and some individual actors have been put forth to be held accountable. But this approach is piecemeal at best and does not get at the connective tissue and the systematization of abuses.

A truth commission, however, would provide a more holistic approach to the violations that have been committed or ordered by individuals and agencies within the government. A commission would serve as an opportunity to look back and expose where the administration started to go wrong in its decision-making process; allow those whose rights have been violated to be heard; and give Americans on the whole a chance to cleanse our national conscience--and our image abroad.

This really cannot be done by journalists alone. Jane Mayer commented that she has "subpoena envy" as a reporter and often has to beg for documents; a truth commission would bypass this poverty of access because it would have the power to subpoena relevant individuals and organizations for their testimonies and records.

And there is still much to be uncovered. Although Mayer's new book and other writings provide important details about the different programs the Bush administration instituted in the panicky atmosphere in the aftermath of September 11, she herself is the first to admit that there is still much that is unknown. Of particular interest to Mayer is the role of physicians and psychiatrists in interrogation -- she recounts instances in her book, and in this interview with Scott Horton of Harper's, of doctors being present or at the ready during the euphemistically titled "harsh interrogations" and wonders, as I do, who these doctors are and should they be permitted the keep their licenses, having flagrantly broken the Hippocratic oath.

Not everyone agrees, of course. One prominent argument against establishing a truth commission for the Bush administration is, according to Mayer, the country's lack of political will to prosecute officials who could claim they were defending Americans against an existential threat. But with Tuesday's release of the first video from Guantanamo added to many previously disclosed examples of prisoner abuse, the time has long come to stop this abhorrent institutionalization of maltreatment of those in our custody. September 11 should not have given the government a carte blanche to warrantless wiretap, reinterpret the Constitution according to David Addington, and expand the powers of the presidency beyond Nixonian levels. Surely a truth commission would go at least part of the way toward righting the laundry list of wrongs that have been carried out in the name of national security over the last seven years.

-- Katherine Tiedemann

Note: This piece has been reposted from The American Strategist.

(Obama Does Brown but Not Brussels)

I'm strongly supportive of Barack Obama's announced plans to spend some quality plane time with Senators Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Jack Reed (D-RI) on a trip to Iraq. They need to help do for Obama what Samantha Power and others have done over the last couple of years on national security issues: tutor him.

But while I think that Obama's raft of advisers -- including folks like Susan Rice, Anthony Lake, Gayle Smith and more -- who are experts on global justice questions, failed state dilemmas in the developing world, and a whole palette of tough, avant-garde 21st century challenges like transnational disease and climate change, Obama also needs some lessons on getting the classic, big state questions right.

That's what European leaders will be trying to discern. Does he have deep insights into the evolving tectonic realities of great state competition, and does he have a plan? or not?

I'm worried. While some have become distracted by a silly discussion inside Germany on whether Obama should speak at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and whether he should defer to Angela Merkel, most seem to have forgotten that Obama's celebrated European trip does not include Brussels.

He's hitting France, Germany, the UK -- and all of that is good.

But Brussels is the capital of Europe. It is the promise of what Europe is struggling to become that makes Brussels a vital stopover point. Obama is visiting some of the key, strategic nodes that give Europe some of its legs -- but the trip looks like an "Old Europe" trip, not a new one.

Perhaps to teach us a lesson, we should have more world leaders visit San Francisco, Houston, Boston, New York, Chicago -- and just skip Washington, D.C. It's not a bad idea come to think of it.

But seriously, for Obama to neglect Brussels and the vital significance of what is going on in the evolving institutional heart of Europe may amplify doubt about him and his strategic template. Long ago, I broke the story that Senator Obama had not chaired any policy hearings of the European Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I thought that this got overplayed by some others -- but still, it raised questions about the status of Europe in Obama's world view.

This trip was and remains an opportunity to show that he has studied up and that he gets the fact that when it comes to Iran, Russia, China, the global economy, oil and energy strategies, and more -- working with Europe behind the scenes and overtly is not optional.

I met with some of Obama's Europe advisers recently and congratulated them for getting the Europe box checked off during the campaign. They told me that they worked hard to lobby for the trip -- and to get him to underscore how vital the transatlantic relationship was to nearly ever classical and newfangled national security challenge the US and Europe were facing.

But while I still applaud his forthcoming journey, I need to underscore that the Europe box is not in fact checked off until he gets to Brussels. We'll consider it half checked off -- sort of like a spare in bowling perhaps.

Bur for now and for much of the rest of Barack Obama's life -- particularly if he wins the presidency -- everything he does will have symbolic significance.

And what he is saying to Europeans, symbolically, is that their capital does not quite rank. Too bad in my book. I hope it's something he can find ways to "symbolically correct."

-- Steve Clemons

It comes as little surprise that Fred Kagan, Kimberly Kagan, and Jack Keane offer a glowing assessment of the political and security progress in Iraq in yesterday's Wall Street Journal op-ed "The New Reality in Iraq." Despite evidence to the contrary, the Keanes and Kagan open by triumphantly proclaiming:

All of the most important objectives of the surge have been accomplished in Iraq. The sectarian civil war is ended; al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) has been dealt a devastating blow; and the Sadrist militia and other Iranian-backed militant groups have been disrupted. Meanwhile, the Iraqi government has accomplished almost all of the legislative benchmarks set by the U.S. Congress and the Bush administration.

This "New Reality" they inhabit must be in a parallel universe because substantial accounts suggest exactly the opposite -- Sadr is consolidating power and the political scene in Iraq is moving towards him; gaping holes devalue claims of political progress, especially with respect to oil laws, professional police forces, and reintegration of Sunnis into security forces; al Qaeda just scored a big hit in Diyala; and US softening towards Iran is in part a recognition of what Steve Clemons describes as "Iran's ability to control the temperature of Iraq."

While these might be points of contention some can wrestle with, the authors remain muted on a major threat to the political stability, security, and purported sectarian calm of Iraq and the surrounding region -- namely the state of Iraq's refugees -- and their silence is deafening.

A number of TWN readers and I recently received an email note from the British Embassy in Washington notifying us that an "embassy blog" was being conceived and wanted to ask us our thoughts on the enterprise. I wrote back right away saying cheers, tally-ho, and all that, great idea, a big bold move forward. You get it.

After all, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband is already blogging (see his latest post on Sudan and Darfur) and the new Ambassador Nigel Sheinwald seems far more entrepreneurial in his political relationship building than some who have preceded him in his grand home. So this could be very cool.

But then a friend wrote to me and said regarding the Embassy note:

Unintential Comedy. Should be read with the accent of John Cleese from Monty Python.

I read that on a plane flying home from China and laughed for about an hour. I couldn't stop.

So read this with Cleese in your ear:

Dear Sir or Madam:

We're in the process of setting up a British Embassy blog. We plan to provide thoughtful analysis of foreign affairs from a British perspective in a concise and plainspoken manner. I'm wondering if you wouldn't mind responding to the following questions in order to make this venture more worthwhile.

~ Are you a blogger?

~ Do you read blogs?

~ If so, which ones?

~ Do you ever comment on a blog?

~ Do you prefer a group blog on many subjects or an individual blog on one subject?

~ Are you interested in reading a British Embassy blog?

~ If so, what topics would you like to see covered?

~ Would you participate by posting comments?

And. . .thank you so much for your help.

So I vote for the Brits to add to their growing blog empire -- but perhaps with at least a little bit of John Cleese video and sound to, you know, sex it up.

-- Steve Clemons

I like the folks at US News & World Report but they just sent me a disconcerting political news swipe at sponsored Congressional travel and the Aspen Institute.

The opener reads:

While many Americans watched their wallets, several dozen members of Congress used the Memorial Day recess to travel overseas to places including Rome, Venice, and Athens without digging into their own. At least 64 lawmakers traveled abroad that week, many with spouses in tow, a U.S. News review found. The largest contingent was 17 members of Congress ensconced for five nights in the $480-a-night Rome Cavalieri Hilton, courtesy of the Aspen Institute, a nonprofit group famous for transporting lawmakers to chic destinations, ranging from the Grand Cayman Islands to Istanbul, for in-depth looks at foreign policy and other issues.

The Aspen Institute brought the lawmakers to Rome for a seminar called "Political Islam: Challenges for U.S. Policy." But it wasn't just the members of Congress who benefited, at no cost to themselves, since all but one brought along a spouse or child. Trips for two soared as high as $20,120, and the bottom line for members and their companions rose to nearly $263,000, according to disclosure reports.

Nine Democrats were on the Rome trip: Sens. Evan Bayh of Indiana and Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico and Reps. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, Rush Holt of New Jersey, Nita Lowey of New York, and Howard Berman, Susan Davis, George Miller, and Henry Waxman, all of California. Eight Republicans also were on board: Sens. Robert Bennett of Utah, Richard Lugar of Indiana, and George Voinovich of Ohio and Reps. Charles Boustany of Louisiana, Geoffrey Davis of Kentucky, John Duncan of Tennessee, Fred Upton of Michigan, and Greg Walden of Oregon.

All but Bingaman brought one relative, most often a spouse; Blumenauer took a son. Three members, Lowey, Miller and Upton, extended the trip to Italy at their own expense. Aspen, which has been holding such conferences for lawmakers since 1983 and now puts on about five a year, marks a milestone in August with its 100th conference in Paris, according to Dick Clark, who directs the Aspen Congressional Program. Those meetings will probe the cultural and ideological aspects of Islam.

Let me play the contrarian here and defend the Members of Congress and the Aspen Institute. We need as many Members out seeing the world as possible -- and if they are at a forum debating political Islam. . .well, fantastic!

Over spring recess, some four dozen Members of Congress went to Israel as guests of AIPAC, and that is their right. But I'd like to see more Members going anywhere in Europe to discuss the latest in Brussels' diplomatic moves with Iran and concerns region wide about Iraq, Palestine/Israel, Syria, the refugee crisis, etc.

Rather than criticizing the amounts involved -- and frankly, I think that the Aspen Conference still sounds low frills compared to some I have seen -- US News & World Report should be asking why there isn't more of this? And who has not been on such a trip? Why haven't we seen more of this being done in Asia and with China -- or with Cuba -- or trips to Syria and Jordan to review the incredible, growing burden of Iraq refugees in those countries?

So, from TWN -- applause, applause, applause for Dick Clark at Aspen and for Walter Isaacson and the Members who went on the trips described in the article.

In no way should Americans think that it is in their interest for Senators and House members to remain at home and ignorant of the world.

-- Steve Clemons