My friend and New America Foundation colleague Nicholas Schmidle has just published an extensive profile of Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari titled "The Black Widower".

The piece got me thinking about what a successful strategic shift in our eroding situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan would look like. I'm not convinced Zardari matters in the overall equation of achieving a strategic shift in the future.

While most realists -- even Bob Gates -- have been saying that there is no military solution to the AfPak problem, it seems that most of what is being deployed there are military approaches, including the deployment of a new 17,000 U.S. troops -- this before the "strategic review" that Obama has requested has been completed.

A former top strategic adviser to an American president told me that our engagement in Afghanistan has more complexity than the Soviet invasion, which didn't set one combat foot into Pakistan. He told me that ultimately the U.S. has a very, very difficult choice to make in Pakistan regarding Afghanistan, its regional neighbors, and our other allies.

He said that one possible way to stabilize both countries is to make a deal with the devil and engineer a very strong, close military alliance with the Pakistan military and its intelligence operation. That means we choose Pakistan over its other regional rivals -- and that we cede Afghanistan to satellite status under Pakistan.

The implications of this course would be profound and potentially disrupt our improving relationship with India. I haven't thought through other implications of this strategy and am not convinced such a plan would even work.

But what is missing in much of our discussion about the AfPak mess is a discussion of serious alternatives and a clear-headed comparison of hard choice scenarios.

This may be one of them.

-- Steve Clemons

Very interesting speech by Obama today on bringing the Iraq War to a close.

Obama stated moments ago that troop levels in Iraq will be brought down to 50,000 by August 2010 -- and then all forces will be removed by the end of 2011.

America's financial crisis is driving much of this. There is just no way that Obama can keep his fiscal accounts in order with a high-cost, permanent expansion of America's empire of military basing.

I was bothered by Obama's commitment to increase the size of the Pentagon. He really should be waiting for a comprehensive review of America's global commitments and basing. Adding more to an already well-resourced part of America's global stability tool box is wrongheaded.

He mentioned Dennis Ross' name right in line with envoys George Mitchell and Richard Holbrooke -- making a kremlinological assessment of Ross' real strength on the Obama team even more complex.

His commitment to deep diplomatic engagement on a comprehensive basis in the Middle East is exactly the right track.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a guest post by James K. Glassman, former Chairman of Public Broadcasting and former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy. Glassman was also editor of Roll Call and was founding editor of The American, and is now president of the World Growth Institute.

Steve Clemons agrees that the risks of serious moral hazard and corruption are quite high with the level of public sector money runnning into private sector hands, but there may be little choice at this point. Clemons also believes that there is an undeveloped debate yet to be had about the manner and template of re-aligning the interests of private sector multinationals with the interests of taxpayers if they are taking bailout money. This realignment has to happen, but at the same time, there are serious downside probabilities about the very performance of these firms.

Remember the House Bank

Banks that are owned by governments will be run to benefit politicians.

As the federal government moves closer to nationalizing more of America's largest financial institutions, including Citigroup, it's time to recall the history of federal ownership of commercial banks.

Certainly, the record of the Second Bank of the United States (1816-41) should give us pause. The bank was 80 percent privately owned but effectively controlled by the president and Congress. It was riddled with fraud and corruption and eventually went bankrupt.

The most recent admonitory example is the House Bank. I know it well. In September 1991, when I was editor of the newspaper Roll Call, our reporter Timothy Burger, now at Bloomberg News, broke the story that led to the exposure by the Ethics Committee of 269 House members who had abused the bank with significant overdrafts. In the end, many of them, including Rep. Stephen Solarz of New York, were defeated in 1992 re-election bids.

It is not difficult to imagine the argument that, if taxpayers own a bank, its branches should serve all Americans and not be concentrated in certain states or neighborhoods.
"The House Bank," said a Sept. 19, 1991, report by the General Accounting Office, "is a private bank subject only to regulations established by the House of Representatives."

The House ran its own bank in a way that resulted, in six months alone, in 4,325 overdrafts--an annualized average of 20 per House member. Some 134 members (about one-third of the House) kited a total of 581 checks amounting to $1,000 or more each--again in just six months.

If this sounds like an inappropriate comparison, it is not. Banks that are owned by governments will, very naturally, be run to benefit the politicians who serve as agents for the taxpayer-owners and who directly provide the funding and the oversight.

In the case of a nationalized bank, perhaps the politicians will not benefit personally, as they did with the House Bank--although, based on the track record of recent years, we can expect some chicanery of that sort. The main concern, however, is that the banks will be subject to management by political objective.

Even under current circumstances, where the U.S. government is the largest shareholder in several large banks but owns less than 10 percent of the stock, those banks are now subject to federal laws that prescribe how their managers are to be compensated.

The federal government now owns more than 75 percent of AIG, the giant insurer, and industry executives say that politically inspired limitations on AIG's conferences (which the company uses both as incentives to its own sales people and to drum up more business from key customers) are hurting businesses. The company has cancelled 160 such conferences this year.

It is not difficult to imagine the argument that, if taxpayers own a bank, its branches should serve all Americans and not be concentrated in certain states or neighborhoods. Or that the bank should have properly diversified employees and suppliers. Or that it should lend broadly and democratically. Or that it must not "overcharge" consumers on credit cards.

Certainly, all of these political pressures on financial institutions already exist, but one can imagine them being sharply intensified with government ownership. Devising the right policy to deal with banks whose losses have brought them to the brink of insolvency is no doubt difficult.

But before rushing to nationalize, Americans should recall the experience of the House Bank--an institution with only $1.5 million in assets. Imagine the temptation of running banks with assets in the trillions.

-- James K. Glassman

UT Austin/LBJ School of Public Policy economist James K. Galbraith is testifying this morning at 10 am EST for the House Financial Services Committee. He will be joined by economists John Taylor and Alan Blinder. Galbraith, a fervent Obama supporter, is not much impressed by the early moves of President Obama's economic team.

In the video above, he offers a methodic critique of the financial sector bailout and the stimulus package.

And in National Journal yesterday, Galbraith takes on Obama's understanding of the financial system arguing that "CREDIT IS NOT A FLOW."

Obama: "The flow of credit is the lifeblood of our economy. The ability to get a loan is how you finance the purchase of everything from a home to a car to a college education, how stores stock their shelves, farms buy equipment, and businesses make payroll. But credit has stopped flowing the way it should."

James K. Galbraith, Professor of Economics, University of Texas: "A remarkable speech, full of good sense and pragmatic determination. But the analysis of the banking crisis relies on a defective metaphor - restoring the "flow of credit." Credit is not a flow. Banks are not short of funds. (They never are.) They are not blocked up. Adding funds to banks does not make them more willing to lend.

"Credit is a contract. The collapse of values has left the banks short of good borrowers. There are not enough customers with profitable projects. There are not enough customers with stable incomes. There are not enough customers with adequate collateral. Banks will not lend until there is profit in it. And customers will not borrow, until they see more opportunity than risk, and until they have assets they can borrow against.

"Guaranteeing bad assets will not stabilize the price of housing. It will not stabilize incomes and profit opportunities in the economy. Therefore it will not solve the credit problem.

"Meanwhile the guarantees will support incumbent management and shareholders. They will add vast sums to the public debt - directly or contingently - making achievement of the president's other priorities more difficult. And they will distort the distribution of wealth, by guaranteeing the financial position of an elite group while that of so many others is collapsing.

"Keeping the existing management in place means that we will not arrive at clean and trustworthy audits of the banks. Therefore no one will know to what degree they actually are, or actually are not insolvent. No one will know just how bad the bad assets are, and most will (prudently) suspect the worst. This collapse of trust means that lending to the banks, including by other banks, will continue to be impaired.

"As of tonight, the president and his team are committed to finding an actual solution to the banking crisis. To get to that solution, they need to come to grips with the problem. And for that, they need, first of all, to escape from the prison of a facile metaphor."

Galbraith's outline seems sensible to me -- and as I see it today, we have a lot of taxpayer money chasing the wrong challenges in the wrong way.

America should begin a major, long-term make-over of all of its core infrastructure. This will help generate jobs, demand, and create an investment that makes sense and that can generate recurring returns to the economy over the very long term.

-- Steve Clemons

Laura Rozen has done a really great piece of reporting on Dennis Ross' new appointment as "Special Advisor on the Gulf and Southwest Asia" to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Very much worth reading in full to get a Kremlinological fix on Ross' seemingly reduced role.

No matter what his current situation and portfolio, Dennis Ross surely fared better than Anthony Zinni -- and in my book, Dennis is quite a fair trade for Chas Freeman.

Sources tell me that Freeman will most likely be on the job as the new Chairman of the National Intelligence Council -- essentially the think tank for the CIA and Directorate of National Intelligence -- in about 30 days.

Some in the hard line AIPAC crowd, though not formally AIPAC itself, are going after Freeman for having been a financial beneficiary from Saudi relationships.

The FBI-targeted former AIPAC policy director Steve Rosen has been out working over time to try and do Freeman in -- but Rosen has been having a tough time finding handles and levers to pull in Washington.

For a non-confirmed position that doesn't rely on Congress except perhaps for winks and nods, Steve Rosen's influence is lessened -- and of course, the things he is accusing Freeman of in his private business life are pretty much the same that George W. Bush and many twigs on the Bush family have enjoyed for decades.

On top of that, Rosen may be trying to set up a litmus test on funding and business relationships with other governments that are allied with the United States that may raise many similar questions about Israel government sponsorship of American policy hands.

This is a dangerous slippery slope for the Israel-Zero-Sum crowd to push.

But that said, if they throw all they have at Freeman and lose, that may not be such a bad thing. It's kind of like Obama winning Florida and not owing the most hardline of anti-Castro fanatics a thing for his win.

I think it's increasingly clear that Barack Obama is pushing a very full spectrum range of talent and perspective into his Middle East policy team, and if Rosen and the other Israel-hardliners are going to prove anything in the campaign against Freeman, it will be their general impotence in challenging Barack Obama as flagrantly and as crudely as they are doing now.

I may not like everything Obama and his Middle East team are up to every moment, but I do think it's exceedingly clear that he's not going into this arena with the traditional biases and the traditional "false choice" approach that many others before him have taken.

For that, kudos to Obama, Jim Jones, Robert Gates, Denis McDonough, Mark Lippert, Hillary Clinton, Bill Burns, Jim Steinberg, Dennis Blair, Mara Rudman, George Mitchell and others.

I think Steve Rosen's chances of flipping Chas Freeman are pretty much nil.

-- Steve Clemons

About a year and a half ago, I attended a very nice reception in New York in honor of German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Lots of Germans there and many top tier German, European, and American media from Washington, New York, and Berlin. A number of Ambassadors stopped by including then US Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad.

I was introduced to Deputy Permanent Representative of Germany to the UN Martin Ney who was quite a nice fellow -- even when he told me I was definitively not invited to join other American, European and German journalists in a follow-on rooftop reception with the Foreign Minister.

He made it clear to me that there was nothing personal in his encouragement to me to move on but that I wasn't a real journalist and was "only a blogger" -- and that after all, he said, "I understood the difference."

DC bureau chiefs and international correspondents of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Der Tagesspiegel, Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, Stern Magazine and others put up a mild protest but the German diplomat held his ground -- and I went off to hang out with diplomats connected to the blogger/British Foreign Minister David Miliband.

Despite my vivid memory of all of this, it wasn't all that big a deal -- but it did imprint on my mind the different stances that countries take towards new media and bloggers -- particularly serious political and policy bloggers who run in a lot of the same circles as the mainstream types.

Barack Obama just called on my good friend and Huffington Post White House correspondent Sam Stein at his first White House press conference -- which will go a long way toward legitimating policy and political bloggers as a legitimate part of the fourth estate.

Allison Silver, former editor of the Washington Independent, has successfully agitated for new media enterprises and journoblogging (aka "online only reporting") to be considered within the realm of the Pulitzer Prize awards.

The Washington Note was just recognized by the Sunday Times of London as one of the most significant leading international affairs blogs in the world.

But plaudits aside, it is interesting to take a cursory look at how some Embassies are dealing with new media, using or ignoring the tools that online video and blogging can provide, particularly with the anti-blog bias that Deputy German Ambassador to the UN carried with him about 18 months ago.

First of all, with regard to the German side of the equation -- I do want to note that the CDU-connected Konrad Adenauer Foundation invited me to Germany to help various government and party officials think through the new world of "framing" -- along the lines of a Frank Luntz or George Lakoff and spent a great deal of time absorbing what I could share about the rapidly evolving world of online political organizing, fundraising, cluster-building, blogging, YouTube posts, and more. I was really impressed with how much these folks already knew about this world and how little of it they could use given their sense of constraints in the German political system.

Two of the more interesting exchanges I had about new media and politics with German officials were with North-Rhine Westphalia's federal state Prime Minister Juergen Ruettgers and on a separate occasion Petra Roth, Mayor of Frankfurt and President of the German Association of Cities. Both of these interesting politicians were deeply engaged and peppering me with questions about how to create an innovative ecosystem that would encourage more political participation via new media. I told both that the first thing they should do is get on Facebook. Hasn't happened yet -- but it may soon.

And of course, German Free Democratic Party Chairman Guido Westerwelle, a good friend who may end up as Germany's next Foreign Minister, is extremely comfortable with new media -- some say almost too comfortable. . .but those who are watching him now see both his and his party's popularity surging in the polls. The Friedrich Naumann Foundation (closely affiliated with the FDP) is also getting into the new media craze and investigating how to bring some of the methodology and vehicles to the German scene.

The Greens are also very innovative in the new media space. In fact, Cem Oezdemir and Reinhard Buetikofer, the new and former Green Party Chairmen, are both into blogs, new media, really good video work, and Facebook. The Boell Foundation's chief Ralf Fuecks is also a new media maven now.

So the German story has improved over the last 18 months -- and the German Ambassador to the US Klaus Scharioth, while not himself blogging (yet) and not heavily into new media if the Embassy website is any sign, nonetheless has a nice video commentary posted in the lower right hand 'corner' of what is called the "Ambassador's Corner."

On the British front, I have been very impressed with David Miliband's commitment to blogging and to using the net as a way to engage in high quality public diplomacy. As mentioned above when I was excused from the Frank-Walter Steinmeier gathering for not being "real", Miliband at the same UN General Assembly session was actively seeking out bloggers to connect with. The UN Dispatch's Mark Goldberg hosted a meeting of about 15 bloggers with Miliband at that General Assembly, and the United Nations itself accredited all of us there as journalists.

Miliband's leadership has been telegraphed out to many Embassies -- and now UK Ambassador to the US Nigel Sheinwald, who has been one of the most significant foreign policy sculptors in Britain during Tony Blair's years as Prime Minister and now doing much to animate and advise Gordon Brown, is a blogger along with many of his other colleagues. I still want them to get John Cleese to help give an intro to their blogs -- asking in Cleesian form whether the reader blogs, reads blogs, likes blogs, or just despises blogs and prefers to watch TV. . .something along those lines. I'm also trying to get the Brits to use action shots in their profiles rather than the too stiff mugs they are using now.

The British Embassy's blog in Zimbabwe was just recognized as one of the best in the world by the Sunday Times of London, though I'd rather not go into why. You can read that yourself here.

And now finally the French.

Last year, when President Nicolas Sarkozy came to town, he brought his own personal blogger, Loic Le Meur. The blogger got to attend the State Dinner, and it was a real breakthrough.

Jean-David Levitte, former French Ambassador to the US and National Security Advisor to the French President, did on occasion read The Washington Note -- though mostly when I sent him a clip. But he did read it, or pretended well.

And now in an 'adjustment' to tradition, Ambassador of France to the United States Pierre Vimont is going to begin regular meetings with bloggers, much like he has with other news media. They will be off the record -- BUT, they are happening. . .and until I get expelled, I plan to be there.

If one ventures to the French Embassy website, it is packed with impressive video clips. On the front page, there is a nice clip with Finance Minister Christine Lagarde -- but the Ambassador's clips provide a rich collage of commentary from him, and show him responding to questions at meetings that weren't contrived or overly scripted.

Engaging bloggers and new media does involve some risk. The patterns, habits, and norms differ from mainstream media -- not completely but just enough different to give some who are worried about "control" a lot to pause over and worry about.

Eighteen months is a long time in terms of the blogosphere and the internet. I imagine that when potential Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle is hosting a reception in New York, the blogger types may even get the first shout out.

The great thing is to see progress in the diplomatic corps representing the three capitals and states Obama visited during his campaign trip to Europe -- London, Paris, and Berlin.

But with a friendly nudge to my friends in the German Embassy, a bit more video please -- and perhaps even a blog note now and then from Ambassador Scharioth's team would be a welcome addition to the "diplo-blogosphere".

-- Steve Clemons

Last night, President Obama said in his remarks to a joint meeting of Congress:

To seek progress toward a secure and lasting peace between Israel and her neighbours, we have appointed an envoy to sustain our effort.

I dislike the word "sustain" here. I'd rather have seen "reinvent", "revitalize", "accomplish results" -- something other than a commitment to keeping the "Middle East Peace Business" sustained. But perhaps I'm too cynical and should read less into the President's words.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be traveling next to the Middle East -- and we look forward to what framing she will give our challenges there. Given Condoleezza Rice's many trips to Israel and the region, Secretary Clinton will no doubt be there often. She set a great pace and framed things just right (for the most part) in Asia -- and I expect she'll do well in the Middle East as well.

To help discuss various scenarios on the future of the Middle East peace process, I have been asked by a new meetings forum called "The Agenda" to moderate a meeting at the City Club of Washington at 555, 13th St. NW in Washington, D.C.

Please note that at the time I write this, I don't see the venue listed on the website -- but it is CITY CLUB OF WASHINGTON. The event is free and open to the public -- and TWN readers are invited to join the interesting session.

You must RSVP at this page.

This is taking place on Monday, 2 March from 3 to 5 pm.

Panelists will be Boston Globe foreign policy correspondent Farah Stockman, New America Foundation Middle East Task Force Director Amjad Atallah, Israel Policy Forum Policy Analysis Director M.J. Rosenberg, and Al Jazeera Washington Bureau Chief Abderrahim Foukara (check out Foukara on The Daily Show)

Join us if you are able. I don't know if this will be recorded -- but if it is I will get it posted on TWN.

-- Steve Clemons

I have just some very quick reactions to the Obama speech tonight as I've been on Al Jazeera English Network tonight talking for more than three hours on it and don't want to really repeat the general patter of many other commentators and bloggers.

First, I thought that Obama's comments on the economy foreshadow some tough judgment calls that are going to be embedded in his budgetary request that will come out two days from now. I wasn't surprised by much in the speech -- except perhaps that any speech delivered by Barack Obama ends up far better listened to than read. I was a bit astonished that he included a carbon cap and trade request in his remarks. I think that given the state of the American economy right now, this may be a negotiations move and something he will probably scale back to win some greater goods -- but still impressive and surprising.

In walking Americans through the detail of the heart attack America's financial sector is going through, he did a good thing. He helped explain why huge resources must go into creating a baseline of solvency for the system and a commitment to renewed lending and down the road growth.

But I think he failed to really frame what a new social contract between government, the nation's firms, capital, workers, families and other stakeholders in our society might look like. He got pieces of it right -- and did zero in on his three big priorities: energy, education and health care.

But as with so much of what Obama's team has been doing, details were light, enthusiasm and hope were high, reaching out to all sides is part of the new shtick, and lots was left on the editing room floor.

I thought Obama didn't speak as fully as he should have to the need to really rebuild America's core infrastructure. He waved a wand over the fact that in the renewable energy sector, most of the related production jobs are overseas -- and just said that those jobs need to be here without really talking about how the ecosystem for job creation in these emergent sectors will be incentivized inside the United States.

He mentioned China -- not as a place where so many American manufacturing jobs have been outsourced to -- but as a clearly emerging giant in the renewable energy field.

I found it odd that he didn't reflect on his meeting this week with Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso -- and didn't mention his recent meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper or upcoming meeting next week with UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Most of these meetings have focused on what needs to be done to stabilize the global economic system.

And to a great degree Obama's chances of achieving the kind of micro successes he outlined in his speech tonight depends on getting China, Japan and Germany to derive less of their growth from external export-led growth and more from domestic, internal consumption. That is key and Obama should have referenced this. It was part of the missing picture in the speech, left on the cutting room floor.

I wasn't pleased by Obama's talk about increasing the size of the military. More money. More men and women deployed to causes that we aren't sure we should be fighting in this day and age. Obama is allowing incrementalism drive a lot of his thinking on the Pentagon's role and place in America's global engagement -- and it is that overall picture that needs "a full policy review" before committing even more resources to what has been a very bad result on security deliverables.

And yes, foreign policy was a sideshow in this speech. Besides China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Israel were mentioned. Not much of the world pie.

And some in the Arab world are already really ticked off by the yet again use of Israel as the portal through which the Middle East is viewed. The term was "Israel and its neighbors."

Many of my friends think that Palestine should have been mentioned. After all, Bush mentioned Palestine -- a first for a US President.

I'm going to be more generous to Obama in my assessment. I think that the crafting of the term "Israel and its neighbors" gives Senator and Special Envoy George Mitchell the framing he needs to carve out a deal between Israel and its Arab neighbors -- though I think that the deal really is between the United States and Israel's Arab neighbors given the complete inability of Israelis and Palestinians to achieve peace.

So, I can live with the framing this time -- though I hope that Obama realizes that overuse of this portal into Middle East affairs will undermine his credibility with the 22 Arab League states that he is hoping to bring to a deal with Israel.

Also, what's up with the phrasing "sustaining our efforts" in trying to achieve peace between Israel and its neighbors. We need less sustaining and more of a results oriented strategy. Sustaining a process that has not and will not work is worth nothing and does damage. Engaging in a revitalized process that will achieve a deal that the Israelis, Palestinians and their mutual stakeholders will have to implement is what Obama needs to do.

All in all, this speech was better than I imagined it would be. It was serious in parts, had energy, talked to Americans, reached across the aisle -- all good. It still lacked overall coherence, lacked vision on what America's next social contract could and should look like. It went light on making the case that America needs a revitalized infrastructure to take it into the future - and where he addressed education and other forms of infrastructure, the gap between his rhetoric and the on the ground realities in the United States generate more disbelief than belief.

But again, not a bad show -- just not the definitive, historical, brilliantly framed talk that simultaneously encourages American to wrestle with the grit of tough times while clearly projecting a horizon of opportunity that the nation can jump towards. That was what would have been great to hear -- but this was not that speech.

I will check for typos in the morning. Good night.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a guest post for The Washington Note by UC Berkeley cognitive linguistics professor George Lakoff, author of The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain and Don't Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate--The Essential Guide for Progressives. To listen to a talk recently given by George Lakoff at the New America Foundation, click here.

Berkeley, CA. February 24, 2009

The Obama Code

As President Obama prepares to address a joint session of Congress, what can we expect to hear?

The pundits will stress the nuts-and-bolts policy issues: the banking system, education, energy, health care. But beyond policy, there will be a vision of America--a moral vision and a view of unity that the pundits often miss.

What they miss is the Obama Code.

For the sake of unity, the President tends to express his moral vision indirectly. Like other self-aware and highly articulate speakers, he connects with his audience using what cognitive scientists call the "cognitive unconscious." Speaking naturally, he lets his deepest ideas simply structure what he is saying. If you follow him, the deep ideas are communicated unconsciously and automatically. The Code is his most effective way to bring the country together around fundamental American values.

For supporters of the President, it is crucial to understand the Code in order to talk overtly about the old values our new president is communicating. It is necessary because tens of millions of Americans--both conservatives and progressives--don't yet perceive the vital sea change that Obama is bringing about.

The word "code" can refer to a system of either communication or morality. President Obama has integrated the two. The Obama Code is both moral and linguistic at once. The President is using his enormous skills as a communicator to express a moral system. As he has said, budgets are moral documents. His economic program is tied to his moral system and is discussed in the Code, as are just about all of his other policies.

Tonight, State Department Acting Spokesman Robert Wood issued a statement that Dennis Ross was now officially "Special Advisor for The Gulf and Southwest Asia."

This is amazing news given early world and rumor from quite solid sources that Ambassador Ross, a very distinguished diplomat who promotes a hawkish posture on Iran, was going to be not only the President's special envoy to Iran but also basically a super envoy ranking above others for the entire Middle East region.

Without going into deep detail, this came "undone".

Zbigniew Brzezinski and I have both been suggesting that Ross, who served as Bill Clinton's deal maker in a number of rounds of Middle East peace efforts, not be made envoy on Iran as it would provide too much fodder for the populist campaign of President Ahmadinejad who is up for election in June and be seen by Iran as a sign that Obama was not serious about a strategic leap out of the current US-Iran relations mess into a different arrangement.

Brzezinski and I both suggested that Ross would make an excellent envoy to Israel. But being "special advisor" to Hillary on Iran and the region is nearly as good and should not be read by Iran as a provocative mood.

This is a measured and balanced way to keep Dennis Ross in the equation without doing much harm. In fact, Dennis is very smart and can help. He knows every nook and cranny of the Middle East Peace Business. I just wish he worked harder to put that business out of business instead of helping it to continues as a thriving franchise.

AIPAC will not be overjoyed with the seeming demotion of Dennis Ross' position -- but they also like the fact that he did get an appointment inside the tent.

I consider this pretty much a fair trade for the rumored and likely appointment of former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Chas Freeman as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council.

Freeman, who has an incredibly diverse record of national service ranging from Latin America to Russia to China to the Middle East approaches most national security issues as an unsentimental realist -- without ideology and bias -- which threatens some who want to make sure that the "basic tilt" of an Israel-leaning preference are part of the decision making DNA of American national security officials.

Freeman, like former Senator Chuck Hagel, doesn't believe in false choices -- which will be unnerving for some in the AIPAC crowd. M.J. Rosenberg has more on AIPAC's heartburn.

All in all, the appointment of both Ross and Freeman -- intellectual rivals for sure -- assures that the decision-making process on Iran will be broad and include a full scope of views.

This is good for the country and President Obama.

Below follows the statement by Robert Wood about Dennis Ross' appointment:

STATEMENT BY ROBERT A. WOOD, ACTING SPOKESMAN

Appointment of Dennis Ross as Special Advisor for The Gulf and Southwest Asia

The Secretary is pleased to announce the appointment of Dennis B. Ross to the position of Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for The Gulf and Southwest Asia. This is a region in which America is fighting two wars and facing challenges of ongoing conflict, terror, proliferation, access to energy, economic development and strengthening democracy and the rule of law. In this area, we must strive to build support for U.S. goals and policies. To be successful, we will need to be able to integrate our policy development and implementation across a broad range of offices and senior officials in the State Department, and, in his role as Special Advisor to the Secretary, Ambassador Ross will be asked to play that role.

Specifically, as Special Advisor, he will provide to the Secretary and senior State Department officials strategic advice and perspective on the region; offer assessments and also act to ensure effective policy integration throughout the region; coordinate with senior officials in the development and formulation of new policy approaches; and participate, at the request of the Secretary, in inter-agency activities related to the region.

Ambassador Ross brings a wealth of experience not just to issues within the region but also to larger political-military challenges that flow from the area and have an impact outside of the Gulf and Southwest Asia, and the Secretary looks forward to drawing on that experience and diplomatic perspective.

-- Steve Clemons

Jackie Northam, national security correspondent for NPR, has a great piece up on Senator Richard Lugar's moves on US-Cuba relations that will air this evening.

But here is the beginning of the "text" that can be read in full as well. But the opener:

The senior Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee says U.S. policy toward Cuba has not worked to bring democracy to the island and he is recommending an overhaul.

In a report due to be distributed this week, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) says recent leadership changes in both countries have created an opportunity to rethink a complicated relationship, which he says is marked by misunderstanding and suspicion.

One of the key policy overhauls Lugar's report calls for is lifting tight restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba that were imposed by the Bush administration in 2003.

Embargo As Excuse

But Steve Clemons, with the New America Foundation, says Lugar's report is a sharp indictment of nearly five decades of failure in trying to shift Havana's behavior through sanctions and embargoes.

"I think the ... thing about the Lugar report is he said 47 years of failure, that embargos can work in some cases as they did in apartheid in South Africa, but there's no one who can look at the U.S.-Cuba relationship and say this has succeeded in any way, shape or form," Clemons says.

Lugar is not recommending lifting the embargo, but he does say the embargo gives Cuba a convenient "scapegoat" for its economic problems. He notes that the replacement of President Fidel Castro with his brother, Raul, a year ago sparked a new discussion about U.S. policy toward the island.

Clemons says it is a prime moment for the U.S. to redefine its relationship with Cuba.

"You ... see in Cuba, I think, a more pragmatic and realist leadership there that seems to be moving forward," Clemons says.

He says there is also a new leadership in the United States.

"The question is can we take advantage of pivot points in history, or do we stand back and let them go by and do nothing?" Clemons asks.

Changes In Cuba

Carl Meacham, Lugar's senior staffer, researched and wrote the report. He says there have been some positive developments recently in Cuba. In particular, he notes what he calls "modest reforms" such as allowing citizens to be able to own cell phones and computers and stay at hotels previously reserved for foreigners -- though the vast majority of the population can't afford to take advantage of these reforms.

"These changes shouldn't be mistaken as being structural reforms, that they really have not changed the way the government works in Cuba," Meacham says. "Nevertheless, they're working on the edges a little bit because people are dissatisfied, mainly with economic issues."

This is real progress. Republican Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) is a naysayer using an old smattering of "evil regime" stuff to argue against change.

I'd really love someone to send me a note if they have Senator Martinez's travel outside the United States to other countries.

What other "evil regimes" may Senator Martinez have ventured into if he wants to preempt national interest-driven terms of engagement with Cuba?

-- Steve Clemons

Douglas Rediker is Director of the New America Foundation/Global Strategic Finance Initiative. Rediker is a capital markets expert who has been focused on the emergence of "state capitalism" as a key feature of the new international economic order. He has now become a regular contributor to The Washington Note.

Playing Ukrainian Dominoes

It's not often that I can be found arguing that the US should be looking to Austria for guidance on foreign policy, but Austria's take on the current situation in Ukraine makes this one of those times.

Last week, Austria's Finance Minister, Josef Proll, warned of economic and political catastrophe if Ukraine's rapidly deteriorating economic situation is left unaddressed by the West. As he noted "Ukraine is a very important keystone country and we must avoid a domino effect inside the EU, if there is economic and political catastrophe in such a huge neighboring country." Actually, he was likely understating what's at risk.

First, here's what's happening in Ukraine - its currency, the hryvna, lost roughly half its value since the economic crisis began. Its main stock market fell 75 percent.

Last week's data showed industrial output fell by more than a third in January. Three banks have already failed. Credit default swaps - contracts that provide a window into the broad market's assessment of the likelihood of a default by the sovereign - rose to 3500 basis points. The country's finance minister resigned, warning that "Ukraine's economic situation is the worst in the world".

Meanwhile, the President and Prime Minister throw political barbs at one another, each alleging the other presides over a corrupt system, blames the other for the crisis, and both look warily over their shoulders at their next door neighbor, Russia. Get the picture?

There are two big reasons to be worried about Ukraine.

First, many Western European banks have large exposures to Ukraine. A default by Ukraine means that those banks will take a serious hit to their balance sheets at the time they can least afford it. Should these banks get hit, it is likely that the direct and indirect effects will cascade throughout Central and Eastern Europe, as Western European banks withdraw to their home markets, thereby almost ensuring that the crisis widens and spreads across the region. Financial protectionism may, at that point, become a fait accomplis.

Second, when a country is looking over the cliff, it is likely to turn to anyone it can find to save it from falling over. Witness Iceland's attempts to save itself last autumn by negotiating with Russia for a bilateral loan. At the time, Iceland's Prime Minister noted that his emergency pleas to NATO allies had gone unanswered, so when his country did not receive support from its friends, it was forced to look for new friends.

Ukraine, which maintains a $16.5 billion stand-by loan facility with the IMF, came away empty-handed last week when the IMF refused to disburse some $1.84 billion in loans to the crisis-stricken government because it doesn't approve of its proposed budget for 2009. The Ukrainians have proffered a budget with a 3% deficit, while the IMF apparently insists that its budget be balanced and contain a freeze on social spending.

With disaster looming, Prime Minister Tymoshenko announced that her government had sent letters requesting emergency bilateral assistance to the U.S., EU, China, Japan and Russia. Apparently, Russia is the only one (so far) to have responded favorably to the request, as talks were evidently held in Moscow recently regarding the terms of a potential $5 billion bilateral rescue.

What bothers me most about this situation is that I fear that many in Washington don't recognize what is at stake here. Should Ukraine's economy be allowed to fail, it will likely be forced into the arms of its Russian neighbor. All those feel-good stories about elections, democracy and the Orange Revolution will become little more than a historical footnote.

And other countries in Russia's neighborhood will quickly see the writing on the wall and make note of who they can and can't count on in their time of need.

I am also concerned about the failure of the IMF - which effectively represents the "Washington Consensus" - to have come to Ukraine's aid. I am not privy to the negotiations, and I am sure that there are very good reasons for them to have walked away and potentially lose a democratic ally to the warm embrace of the Russian bear, but, if press reports of the reasons why are true, then I believe that they ought to re-think their position immediately.

If it is true that the Ukrainian budget being criticized calls for a deficit of 3%, then all one needs to do is flip to the front page of yesterday's Washington Post and read about President Obama's proposed budget, which projects a budget deficit of 8.3% - before the effects of the stimulus package are included in the figures. Read on to find that, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag argues that, if all goes well and spending cuts are tax hikes are implemented, and the economy doesn't go into a total tailspin, then the hoped for best case for the US is that our own budget deficit will be compressed by 2013 to a "manageable" - you guessed it - 3%.

So, it appears that the US will be allowed to run deficits of historic proportions for years to come, but Ukraine is being told that our best case in four years isn't good enough to help them out of a very big pinch right now. Something's not right.

The current global crisis isn't just economic - it's also geo-political. Ukraine is a major transit country for Russian gas to Europe and it plays a central role in European-Russian pipeline politics. As recently as a few weeks ago a Russian-Ukrainian dispute effectively cut off supplies of natural gas to many countries in Europe in the dead of winter. Similarly, just this past week, as Ukrainian officials met with their Russian counterparts in Moscow to negotiate the terms of potential emergency financial assistance, NATO defense ministers met in Krakow to discuss how to keep Ukraine on track for ultimate NATO membership in spite of strong Russian opposition.

If the US, EU, IMF and others don't pay a lot more attention to this crisis soon, then Ukraine's ultimate choice will likely boil down to either letting its economy collapse and bringing down a lot of European banks and economies, or reluctantly falling four-square into Russia's sphere of influence - at which point NATO discussions and EU-Russian relations will be changed forever.

As the US considers how to deal with the loss of the Manas airbase on the back of Russian financial assistance to Kyrgyzstan, one can only ask, with Ukraine's economic future at risk - is anyone paying attention?

-- Douglas Rediker

This evening at about 5:30 pm EST, I will be discussing Senator Richard Lugar's important new Senate Foreign Relations Committee report titled "Changing Cuba Relations: In the United States National Interest" (pdf here) with Jackie Northam on All Things Considered.

From Lugar's opening letter with the new US-Cuba "committee print":

"The debate [over U.S. sanctions on Cuba] is important because it has implications for security interests in the Straits of Florida, broader U.S.- Latin American relations, and global perceptions of U.S. foreign policy. Despite uncertainty about Cuba's mid-term political future, it is clear that the recent leadership changes have created an opportunity for the United States to reevaluate a complex relationship marked by misunderstanding, suspicion, and open hostility.

"Economic sanctions are a legitimate tool of U.S. foreign policy and they have sometimes achieved their aims, as in the case of apartheid in South Africa. After 47 years, however, the unilateral embargo on Cuba has failed to achieve its stated purpose of 'bringing democracy to the Cuban people,' while it may have been used as a foil by the regime to demand further sacrifices from Cuba's impoverished population. The current U.S. policy has many passionate defenders, and their criticism of the Castro regime is justified. Nevertheless, we must recognize the ineffectiveness of our current policy and deal with the Cuban regime in a way that enhances U.S. interests."

More here.

-- Steve Clemons

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Richard Lugar, a long time realist and serious strategic thinker about America's national security challenges, has just popped the bubble of those who have used Cuba for decades in their ineffective ideological crusades.

Lugar's team is releasing on Monday a new 'committee print' titled "CHANGING CUBA POLICY -- IN THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL INTEREST." (pdf here)

For US-Cuba policy junkies, the report is pretty breathtaking in its indictment of decades of American failure in trying to adjust Cuba's national government's behavior via sanctions and an embargo.

In his opening missive in the document, Senator Lugar states:

Economic sanctions are a legitimate tool of U.S. foreign policy, and they have sometimes achieved their aims, as in the case of apartheid South Africa.

After 47 years, however, the unilateral embargo on Cuba has failed to achieve its stated purpose of "bringing democracy to the Cuban people," while it may have been used as a foil by the regime to demand further sacrifices from Cuba's impoverished population.

The current U.S. policy has many passionate defenders, and their criticism of the Castro regime is justified. Nevertheless, we must recognize the ineffectiveness of our current policy and deal with the Cuban regime in a way that enhances U.S. interests.

This report is important because it builds on questions that Richard Lugar asked in writing of Hillary Clinton during her Senate confirmation hearings. I noted then that buried in the many questions submitted by Lugar was an implied message to the administration that he would not accept any more illusions that the status quo in the relationship was working.

In response, Hillary Clinton promised a full administration review of US-Cuba policy which Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemispheric Affairs Tom Shannon is leading now. What is also interesting is that someone close to Shannon and those potentially contributing to this policy review told me it would be important for the administration "to hear from Congress."

Lugar has now provided much ammunition in his powerful commentary on the need for US-Cuba policy to change, using what was essentially a trip report by Senate Foreign Relations Committee senior staff member Carl Meacham as a vehicle to convey his views. Meacham traveled to Cuba as part of a staff delegation in January 2009, organized by the non-partisan Lexington Institute.

Key findings of the report include that the Cuban regime has become fully institutionalized; positive developments are occurring in Cuba but should not be mistaken as structural reform; that popular dissatisfaction with Cuba's economic situation is the regime's vulnerability; and the regime appears to be open to some bilateral dialogue and cooperation.

The report endorses the rather minimal steps already promised by Obama on relaxing restrictions on "Cuban-American" travel and financial remittances to family members -- but then pushes forward on many other fronts with a sopisticated and methodical review of other steps the administration should consider, most of which are possible even within the confines of the Congressionally-imposed embargo.

This is a brilliant piece of policy and political craftsmanship.

I call it the "slippery slope strategy" in which Lugar is shining a big spotlight on the inadequacy and failure of US-Cuba policy that for too long has been held in place by domestic constituencies who were working at odds with the American national interest. Lugar is pushing buttons and nudging Obama's team into put itself forward constructively -- and with these steps, it becomes easier to see the broader embargo as a serious anachronism and a mistake that needs remedy.

US-Cuba policy is the only place in the world where the nearly extinct Cold War actually got colder -- and it's time this relationship thawed.

In her piece on this not yet released report today, Washington Post national security correspondent Karen DeYoung finishes with:

In his letter to senators, Lugar noted that Obama's election and the replacement of President Fidel Castro with his brother Raúl have generated debate important to U.S. security interests, "broader U.S.-Latin-American relations, and global perceptions of U.S. foreign policy."

"Despite uncertainty about Cuba's mid-term political future," Lugar wrote, "it is clear that the recent leadership changes have created an opportunity for the United States to reevaluate a complex relationship marked by misunderstanding, suspicion, and open hostility."

Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel once told me at a cocktail party that we were working together to make "realism the new liberal ideology."

It has been working, and Richard Lugar has just done his team on the Minority side -- as well as his colleagues Committee Chairman John Kerry and Senator Christopher Dodd, who has long set the "gold standard" in US-Cuba policy legislation and proposals -- a great favor by pushing this report into our national debate.

It's time that we stopped letting other national leaders, like Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, colonize the affections and interests of Cuban citizens who are actually interested -- like the rest of the world -- in whether Obama has the guts and vision to generate some meaningful strategic shifts for the United States.

Cuba is the lowest hanging ripe fruit on America's tree of foreign policy options. Change is easy there -- and overdue.

-- Steve Clemons

Ed. Note: Photo above on the right side is of former Senator Birch Bayh, Senator Richard Lugar, New America Foundation/American Strategy Program Director Steve Clemons, and Washington College C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience Director Adam Goodheart at a November 12, 2007 Senatorial Colloquy at Washington College. The top photo of Senator Lugar was also taken at the same Washington College Senate Colloquy.

Win Monroe is a research intern at the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program.

Yesterday, Krygystan President Kurmanbek Bakiyev signed a bill ordering the closure of the US air base in Manas. The base, which helps transport 15,000 personnel and 500 tons of cargo a month for the war in Afghanistan, is the United States' last major air base in Central Asia.

Krygstan's decision to evict the United States coincides with the announcement of a massive Russian aid package to the country, though Russia denies any connection between the two events.

Just how important is the base to US operations in Afghanistan? An embassy inspection report from last year available on the State Department's website explains:

At best, it would be much more expensive to support coalition operations from another venue. The conclusion: the annual infusion of circa $150 million of U.S. funding for programs in Kyrgyzstan (equivalent to almost five percent of Kyrgyzstan's gross national product) is money well spent.

The report continues:

At present, all U.S. military forces moving in and out of Afghanistan transit through Manas, as does a significant amount of materiel. The presence of the base and the continuation of the conflict in Afghanistan are the essence of Kyrgyzstan's strategic importance to the United States.

The timing couldn't be worse. On Tuesday President Obama ordered 17,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates maintains that negotiations are still open with the Kyrgyzstan government, but a deal appears increasingly unlikely. Agreements have been made with Uzbekistan and Tajikstan for the transpiration of non-military NATO cargo, but not U.S. military personnel.

The Kyrgyzstan bill requires the withdrawal to be completed within 180 days. With few alternatives and the count down beginning, the future of the war in Afghanistan depends on the US finding a solution.

--Win Monroe

Off to Pittsburgh. Any TWN readers who might be at the great "Cole Porter" party this evening, let me know. . .

-- Steve Clemons

Acting Chief of Staff to Senator Roland Burris, Darrel Thompson, has resigned his position, according to senior staffers in the US Senate.

Darrel Thompson, a former Senior Adviser to Senator Harry Reid, had been dispatched by Senator Reid to assist incoming Senator Burris in helping to fill senior staff positions in the office, develop a legislative strategy for the Senator's policy priorities, and build out constituent services.

Darrel Thompson has just released this statement:

Three weeks ago I was temporarily detailed to serve as Chief of Staff to Senator Roland W. Burris. Though my tenure was relatively brief, I enjoyed and valued my time with Senator Burris, his entire staff and his other advisors.

As of today, my role as Interim Chief of Staff to Senator Burris will end. I will resume, in full, my duties as Senior Advisor to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

I wish Senator Burris and his family the best.

Sincerely,

Darrel Thompson

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

Senator Chris Dodd may have just pulled a Hillary Clinton. . .

Like Clinton who just sent the media into a tizzy by referring to North Korea's leadership succession struggles and thus prompting a mad dash to understand whether she was now looking beyond Kim Jong Il or encouraging a coup, Senator Dodd has caused ripple effects with his comments about possibly nationalizing Citibank and Bank of America.

This from a Bloomberg report on Dodd's interview with Al Hunt:

Christopher Dodd said it may be necessary to nationalize some banks for a short time as Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. tumbled today on concern the U.S. may take over both banks.

"I don't welcome that at all, but I could see how it's possible it may happen," Dodd said in an interview on Bloomberg Television's "Political Capital with Al Hunt" to be broadcast later today. "I'm concerned that we may end up having to do that, at least for a short time."

I just withdrew some cash from Citibank and plopped it into my credit union account. I'm under the FDIC insurance limits, but still, do I really want a lot of assets caught up in a bank about to be nationalized?

No. And I should have withdrawn the money anyway when I saw that Robert Rubin had received more than $100 million for "consulting."

As I write this, Citibank is at $1.68 a share, down 30%.

Bank of America is at $2.53, down 35%.

If Hillary Clinton wants a coup in North Korea or hopes to derail the Six Party Talks, then her comments were on target.

But if Chris Dodd, an otherwise great guy, wants to help stabilize markets and build confidence in whatever it is the administration is trying to do, he should either just nationalize the banks -- or not.

But don't publicly flirt with the idea of doing so.

-- Steve Clemons

It appears increasingly likely that the Kurdish cause will be the latest American casualty in Iraq.

Kurdistan, an autonomous region in Iraq's northeast, is governed by the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG). Whether Kurdistan remains viable as an autonomous region depends on whether it can incorporate the oil-rich city of Kirkuk as its capital. The Kurds likely constitute a plurality of the city's population, but the Arabs and Turkmen each claim the city as their own.

According to Article 140 of the 2005 Constitution, a referendum to decide Kirkuk's status was supposed to be held by December 31, 2007. That deadline and others have passed because the city's Arabs and Turkmen have resisted, afraid that a vote would result in a Kurdish victory.

Neither the central government in Baghdad nor the KRG can compromise on Kirkuk. The KRG needs the power base that Kirkuk provides to maintain its autonomy and the government in Baghdad "could [not] give Kirkuk to the Kurds and hope to survive, in view of broad popular opposition in Arab Iraq," according to the International Crisis Group.

Over the past several months, Prime Minister al-Maliki has sent "support councils" (read: government militias) into Kurdish areas. The councils are clearly meant to challenge the KRGs security forces, known as the peshmerga. Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani has pleaded with the United States to intervene to avoid what could become a civil war.

But despite its earlier support, the U.S. government has made clear that it will not become involved. Back in October, the military commander responsible for Kirkuk and the Kurdish regions, Brig. Gen. Raymond A. Thomas III, told the New York Times that If the Kurdish and Iraqi government forces fight, the American military will "step aside," rather than "have United States servicemen get killed trying to play peacemaker."

State Department Spokesman Robert Wood struck the same note earlier this week. He said that Iraqi citizens have to rely on the country's democratic system to work out their differences, not the United States. "There are ways for people in Iraq to bring the concerns that they have to the levers of power. It's a democracy, and it's not really up to the United States to reassure anyone."

Every occupying force chooses winners and losers on its way out. And while questions remain as to who the "winners" in Iraq will be, it is becoming clear that the Kurds, the world's largest ethnic group without a state to call their own, will again find themselves among the losers.

--Ben Katcher

My blogger friend Gavin Sheridan has hit some good milestones -- and wanted to give a good shout out. He has a great blog and launched another a while back that is up for best blogs in Ireland.

Good show Gavin.

-- Steve Clemons

The New America Foundation is organizing a major forum in March, and yours truly is deeply involved.

Financial Times chief economics editor Martin Wolf will be appearing at the meeting which will be titled "What will Replace the American Consumer?"

Wolf replied to the conference title immediately:

Of course the answer to your question is "nothing". We are in for a big slump.

-- Steve Clemons

3:30 pm EST today, I am hosting journalist and author Ron Suskind who will discuss his book, The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism.

It will stream live in the box above.

-- Steve Clemons

Before reading this bit about a sobering set of messages offered at a very nice Financial Times reception, the must read assignment first is Martin Wolf's "Japan's Lessons for a World of Balance-Sheet Recession."

Now you can proceed. . .

The Financial Times held a swanky, A-crowd party last night at Georgetown's intimidatingly large, old but modernly redone Halcyon House.

Across the wall well above the stage was a projected image of script reading "we live in financial times. . ." The host for the evening was the uber-connected and politically ambidextrous Chrystia Freeland, US Managing Editor for the FT. And the featured draw for the night was General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt, who today just announced that he is waiving about $12 million in bonuses he could otherwise draw on.

His sober message last evening about the state of the economy and our challenges ahead -- and the conversation that newsletter pamphleteer Chris Nelson, MSNBC's Chris Matthews and I had with Immelt after his talk -- might have had some effect on his decision to make this symbolic, but costly, move -- though given the press releases that were out early this a.m. on the waved bonus, we were probably all irrelevant.

Despite the dazzle of the affair and an oyster shucker who shucked an incredible number of oysters for those who couldn't stay away from his table, Chrystia Freeland set a tone for the evening that was pretty no-nonsense. She told it as it was and that the United States in all its parts, businesses, workers, finance, and thus who work in the public policy sector have a huge struggle ahead given the lack of traction the Obama team has gotten so far with its early economy-salvaging moves.

Jeff Immelt went a step further than Freeland and said that in the 1990s, "anyone could have run GE and done well." Someone call Jack Welch. He went even a step further and said "not only could anyone have run GE in the 1990s, his dog could have run a GE, a German Shepherd could have run GE. . ." But he said that today, this is a different game. Immelt emphasized that what lies ahead "will be really, really, really hard."

Immelt told the crowd that he thought America had to direct its resources and energies to focus on big leaps in "clean energy, health care, and education" and that we had to reintroduce a commitment to manufacturing and technological innovation and investment. He said that if we did not put these agenda items front and forward, then there would be no stomach for globalization among Americans.

Revealing the not surprising fact that he was a Republican who believed in globalization and trade, he said if "I went out with a globalization agenda today in this climate, globalization would lose 70-30." Immelt said that we have to change the facts on the ground for Americans and reinvest in this economy in real ways -- "particularly in technology, particularly in manufacturing" -- before we can shove more globalization at our workers and citizens.

Among those in the crowd were the Washington Post's Bob Woodward, Bloomberg and The Week's Margaret Carlson, former chief MSNBC election coverage producer Tamara Haddad, investor Mark Ein, New America Foundation Middle East Task Force Director Daniel Levy, Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf (with a piece out today that says that the American economy is today where Japan was in 1991), National Journal publisher John Fox Sullivan, MSNBC's Chris Matthews, Republican anti-tax strategist Grover Norquist, financial markets expert and New America Foundation Global Strategic Finance Initiative Director Douglas Rediker, poll guru and Cook Report proprietor Charlie Cook, Financial Times writers Edward Luce, Daniel Dombey, Demetri Sevastupolu, Jurek Martin, Krishna Guha, Tom Brathwaite, and others.

Kudos to Chrystia Freeland, Edward Luce and their teams in DC and NY for first rate journalism -- which I hope they are able to smartly sustain during grinding economic conditions.

-- Steve Clemons

Tomorrow night at about 9:30 pm EST, Rachel Maddow will air an interview on her MSNBC show that she has done with former Guantanamo guard Army Pvt. Brandon Neely about his experiences with prisoners at the Cuba-based detention facility.

From an unfortunately not too shocking Associated Press report:

Army Pvt. Brandon Neely was scared when he took Guantanamo's first shackled detainees off a bus. Told to expect vicious terrorists, he grabbed a trembling, elderly detainee and ground his face into the cement -- the first of a range of humiliations he says he participated in and witnessed as the prison was opening for business.

This reminds me of some of the important interviews that Academy Award-winning director Alex Gibney secured in his film Taxi to the Dark Side. I did an interview with one of the Bagram prison guards, Damien Corsetti (excuse the darkness of the video clip), and one of the FBI interrogators Jack Cloonan on the subject of abuse, humiliation and torture.

Very powerful clip -- and I'm sure that Rachel Maddow's engagement with this young soldier will hit some of the same notes.

What is clear from Gibney's interviews and many others who have commented is the degree to which higher echelons of authority seemed to want to give the guards no formal guidance on what they should and should not do.

It's really outrageous that young guards are the ones confessing when the blame really rests with many much further up in command.

-- Steve Clemons

I just ran across some of my notes from a conference organized by the Japan Institute of International Affairs in Hakone, Japan from March 12-13, 1999.

I was about to toss these scribbles until I glanced through them and found so many gems they should probably go to the National Diet archives.

Keep in mind that today the Japanese government announced that its economy had contracted at jaw-dropping annualized pace of 12.7 percent in the three months through December, the worst fall in the past 35 years. How does one treat national hypothermia on such a scale?

I may print and post all of my notes at a later time, but here are some of my March 1999 scribbles:

1. George Soros -- has reform ideas -- Particularly International Credit Insurance Fund (or Corp). Missing issue -- not enough interest in international community to generate real reform. [Soros was not at conference but wrote this at time and was reference at JIIA Conference.]

2. Former Japan Ambassador to the US and JIIA Chairman Nobuo Matsunaga stated: "On U.S. economy -- Met Greenspan, who was bullish on U.S. economy, except modest concern about overheated capital markets." Matsunaga recognizes overwhelming dependence of world growth on U.S. economy.

3. China's Central Bank Governor -- "China will maintain present current value of currency."

4. Naston (from Indonesia) -- a. short term debt build up high -- borrowers highly leveraged; b. banking system weak -- corrupt -- weak oversight structures. . .

5. Koichi Haraguchi -- former Deputy Foreign Minister and Ambassador of Japan to the United Nations: "Let's dscuss an Asian Monetary Fund."

6. Barbara McDougall -- "When it comes to contagion and short-term capital flows, what will the Asian Monetary Fund do that the IMF won't? What national agendas will be in play?

My notes are extensive, but this is fascinating and captures the collision of perspectives between some leading American economic thinkers and Asian foreign policy and economic elites.

Matsunaga, for instance, saw ten years ago that the world was too dependent on the American economy for growth. China was uninterested in properly adjusting the weight of its currency -- a hot topic of debate even a decade ago. George Soros was calling for economic reform back then but couldn't muster enough support from the international community to pay attention. The Indonesians and Thais reported openly about the lack of oversight of their financial system -- and America became like they used to be. Barbara McDougall from Canada didn't believe that the 1997-98 East Asian Economic Shocks justified any new Asia-directed financial institution building, and the Japanese and most other leading Asian economic thinkers did believe something was necessary.

We know the results today. Asian economies that could built up huge currency reserves as shock absorbers in case of future crises. To some degree, this aggravated an already bad global imbalance of savings and consumption between the American economy and those it did business with in Asia -- particularly Japan and China.

I took with me to this conference a 4 March 1999 Financial Times article written by my then boss Clyde Prestowitz, President of the Economic Strategy Institute, titled "The Japan that Can Say Yes." He wrote:

There have indeed been rumblings on the right from such figures as Shintaro Ishihara, conservative politician and novelist (co-author of The Japan That Can Say No) who argues that the whole economic crisis is nothing more than an American plot to undermine Asia's heretofore rising influence. But these dissonant tones have not so far resonated with the Japanese public of mainstream policy makers. Nor are they likely to do so.

There has been a long-running debate as to whether the peculiarities of the Japanese economy that came to be characterized as Japan Inc. were cultural and thus largely immutable or matters of policy and convenience that might change to adjust to new circumstances.

Although always questionable from the point of view of long-run economic efficiency as well as international comity, Japan's adoption of policies that excluded foreign participation in its economy and emphasized national champions in key industries was understandable as part of its attempt to rebuild a national identity and reassert sovereignty in the aftermath of defeat. When these policies succeeded beyond all expectations, they were cloaked in the mantle of culture -- thereby giving them an aura of uniqueness and permanency.

What strikes me given Japan's near term memories of a decade ago -- and shocks in the 1970s as well is that it may continue to evolve in new and different directions as it copes with current circumstances.

But as I think about how the US is responding -- and how we are building national champion firms and cloaking our national policy decisions in the cloak of culture past and culture yet to come, we are sounding a lot like the Japanese were when they were trying to remain insulated from outside pressures.

The bottom line for me though is that this is deja vu all over again. We saw an over-dependence on the American consumer and American economic growth driving Japanese and Chinese economic behavior -- and no one did a thing about it. This is tantamount to global fraud by all of those economic elites in Japan, the U.S, and China. The global imbalances have always mattered, though we have been seduced over the years to believe they did not. Keynes believed structural imbalances were important -- but even he has been conveniently reinterpreted or pushed into the closet.

Truth be told, the Chinese have been understandably eager to grow as fast as possible to achieve social transformation. I don't hold the Chinese as complicit in our current circumstances as I do Bob Rubin, Lawrence Summers, and Alan Greenspan -- who were the high priests of the economic order we built and in which Japan played eager geisha.

But today China can't pretend ignorance and has become complicit -- and must do something to save both us and itself. Japan's financial leaders, in contrast, have understood for a long time that the equation that they had helped construct with American political elites was unhealthy and unsustainable.

-- Steve Clemons

I encourage you to watch this 15 minute analysis of the Israeli elections from Fareed Zakaria's GPS. Former Palestinian Presidential candidate Mustafa Barghouti, Shalem Center Senior Fellow Yossi Klein Halevi, and American University Professor Yoram Peri offer a bleak assessment of the Israeli elections and the prospects for a peace agreement.

I think this kind of back and forth supports the view that Steve Clemons and others have taken - that the Israelis and Palestinians are incapable of solving their problems on their own - and the United States must engage regional and international stakeholders before the facts on the ground become even worse.

--Ben Katcher

I like a lot of movies, but my bar for "like" is probably pretty low. I could probably make a long list of films I liked if I had a long list to choose from, but off the top of my head, some of my favorites include Henry and June, Chariots of Fire, Milk, Jaws, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Juno, Into the Wild, Gladiator, Clockwork Orange, Dr. Strangelove, Slumdog Millionaire, Being John Malkovich, Home at the End of the World, Amelie, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, My Dinner with Andre, The Dark Knight, War Child, All the King's Men, Casablanca, Rising Sun (as I was in it -- and spoke), Kinsey, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I think that like Andrew Sullivan though, one of my all time favorites was Team America, World Police.

I actually won a baby grand piano at Team America because I signed up for the Regal Cinema popcorn club -- which also turned out to be a sweepstakes that I didn't know about. (%&#@ yeah! Inside joke)

The films I like are probably pretty conventional with an odd twist here and there. But this list probably says something about me, though I'll leave that to others to interpret.

For some time, I have been hanging out with a number of other movie hounds whose personal interests and foibles are probably recognizable in the films they most like.

Every couple of months, Margaret Carlson, Washington editor-at-large of The Week magazine and regular Bloomberg political columnist, hosts a dinner and movie event under the banner of The Week with Phillips Collection Chairman and former AOL Chief Counsel George Vradenburg.

These are great events. They bring a very nice mix of Washington insider types to a movie event where the topics of the evening are really focused on the great art on the walls, the personalities who were asked to pick the film of the night, and the quirkiness or profundity of the film itself. I know some folks who read this blog and recoil when I admit enjoying hanging out with insider types -- but not only are these events revealing for some of the personalities there but I learn a great deal about what is happening in Obama Land, in Congress, the Pentagon and DC in general by going and mixing.

This last week, iconic CBS journalist and presidential debate host Bob Schieffer was honorary host for the evening and picked the movie Being There.

Scieffer said that he had seen the film every three years or so since it originally came out in 1979. Originally, he saw it as "satire" and now saw Being There as more "documentary". Schieffer said that he saw the film as a "perfect example of when we all get carried away in Washington, when we see what we want to see and hear what we want to hear. . ."

I think that Schieffer's movie pick was pretty brave -- and I watched it in the Phillips Collection theater sitting next to Senator Lindsey Graham.

Lindsey Graham had his movie night a couple of years ago at the Motion Picture Association of America theater -- and his selection was Seven Days in May which despite pretty Medieval depiction of women was a very provocative film at the time. In fact, in his opening testimonial about the film, Senator Graham said that today like in the 1950s, we needed to beware the "demogogery of military leaders and national security experts" who would take America in directions it should not go. I was on my feet (in my mind) giving Graham a standing ovation for that introduction.

Other of these movie night honorary hosts were Representative Jane Harman and Senator Susan Collins who picked Thelma and Louise; Chris Matthews -- who was surprisingly deeply moved by Renoir's "Boating Party" at the Phillips -- picked Dave. Matthews also made a cameo appearance in the film. Former Senator John Sununu picked Dr. Strangelove, and Senator Christopher Dodd chose A Man for All Seasons -- what some say was probably the "safest" film for a public official to decide on. Congressman Ed Markey's favorite film selected for one of these nights was The Candidate. . .but of course it was.

Others that watched Being There with Bob Schieffer, Lindsey Graham, Margaret Carlson and me included Alan Greenspan and his wife Andrea Mitchell, Susan Rice speechwriter Warren Bass, attorney Bob Bennett, Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, journalists John Dickerson, Doyle McManus, Matt Cooper, John Harris, Walter Pincus, Dana Milbank, Mike Allen, Margaret Warner, and others. Smith Bagley of the progressive ARCA Foundation was there as was investor Mark Ein and Julia Chang Bloch.

For those who regularly post, it would be interesting to hear what your favorite film is in the comments section.

Recently at a dinner party at DC's well-known Cafe Milano in honor of Bloomberg's uber-connected PR diva Judith Czelusniak, I asked each of the guests what their favorite film was, what they thought the cheesiest film was they had ever seen, and the "most perfect" film whether they liked it or not. Many said Citizen Kane to that last query. Of course.

But I'll share those responses another time. What I will say is that Being There was a good choice for DC types -- because Schieffer is right that many here "see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear."

Look forward to your lists.

-- Steve Clemons

My New America Foundation colleagues Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann have secured a full page in today's Outlook Section of the Washington Post in a special graphic depiction full of useful data sets titled "Obama's War."

For a full sized pdf, click here. For more information, go to the "Obama's War" section of the New America Foundation site.

Read through the data -- which is pretty bleak all around.

~~~

In other news, The Washington Note made the list of Bryan Appleyard's Top 100 blogs in the Sunday Times today. Appleyard picked just six "world affairs" blogs for his roster and wrote about them:

www.normblog.typepad.com Based in Britain, Norman Geras offers an indispensable window on the world, culling items from newspapers and blogs from around the globe so you get a regular focus on what's caught his eye, as well as his intellectual, humane comments on what he's found.

willwilkinson.net/flybottle
The blog of a high-grade Washington policy wonk, this works well as a hub -- providing links to good articles elsewhere -- but also as the thoughts and brief essays of a very smart man. A superb way into the mind of America.

andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com
Andrew Sullivan's blog, like Wilkinson's, is both a hub and a personal testament. The assumption is that you are on the journey with Sullivan, that you read him every day, as indeed millions do.

kausfiles.com
Part of Slate magazine, Mickey Kaus's blog is a good stop for witty and non-PC politics.

thewashingtonnote.com
Informed comment from Steve Clemons, of the New America Foundation, on DC politics and US foreign policy.

truthdig.com
A feisty, left-leaning American news and comment blog that promises it will be "drilling behind the headlines". Anything is game, but it naturally has its bead on the new American administration's performance to date.

blogs.fco.gov.uk/roller/harare
An extraordinary blog maintained by the staff of the British Embassy in Harare. It must be unique in the annals of British diplomacy -- embassy officials saying what they really think (and describing the perils of going to a Zimbabwean toilet while they're at it).

Very cool. Thank you Bryan -- and I'll offer gentle encouragement to my blogger friends at the British Embassy here in DC to begin trying to emulate their colleagues in Zimbabwe.

~~~

And for those interested, I have a piece coming out in the Daily Yomiuri about Hillary Clinton's trip to Asia -- with specific reference to Japan and what she needs to accomplish on the trip.

The paper gave it the headline: "CLINTON'S VISIT TO JAPAN / Japan must receive attention it deserves."

But I wish it had read "Japan Needs to Work Harder to Justify American Attention it Deserves Anyway".

My bottom line is that Japan is a globally significant stakeholder nation in world affairs and neglecting it is very wrong-headed, but Japan has to come out of its shell as well -- and stop "flying beneath the radar screen" as one former Japanese Ambassador to the US told me Japan was doing on most policy matters with the US after the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

Though it sometimes frustrates friends, one of my core beliefs is to engage those who disagree with my views -- and also to give credit when and where credit is due.

When I saw that the right-anchored Jerusalem Post was running an interview of Elliott Abrams with Ruthie Blum Leibowitz, I expected the worst. Leibowitz is the daughter of Norman Podhoretz, essentially co-founder with Irving Kristol of the neoconservative movement, and is brother of John Podhoretz and sister of Elliott Abrams' wife, Rachel Decter.

I think Leibowitz pulls no punches and asks all of the questions that a frustrated believer in a Greater Israel zero-sum strategy in the region would ask. And to be honest, she asks many of the questions I would have asked. Some of these were:

When Bush made that June 24 speech, Israelis cheered, because what it indicated was that he was putting the Palestinian-Israeli conflict into a wider context of a global war between Islamic terrorists and democracy. Has that American view of the world begun to revert to its previous, more narrow one, according to which the Palestinian issue is not only separate, but key to solving the region's problems?

There is a point of contention in this country over the question of which was the chicken, so to speak, and which the egg, regarding the disengagement initiative. Some maintain that Bush, being the friendliest US president Israel ever had, would have gone along with anything Sharon deemed beneficial to Israel's security. Others argue that it was precisely because of Sharon's willingness to withdraw from territory that the administration in Washington was so supportive. Which is it?

At the time, it was said that Bush and Sharon had a special - albeit unlikely - rapport. And it is now being said by certain critics that Binyamin Netanyahu, if he indeed becomes prime minister, will not be able to have that with Obama. How much does chemistry between heads of state actually affect international relations?

Speaking of factors which determine policy, in his second term, Bush moved his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to the State Department. In her new capacity as secretary of state, her policies seemed to move to the left. Was this a function of her change of address? Why is there usually a difference between the way the White House and the State Department view the Middle East?

Did you believe that Bush was going to bomb Iran before the end of his presidency?

Do you agree with critics who say that Bush invaded the wrong country, and that he should have gone after Iran first?

There were two pardons Bush conspicuously did not make before leaving office, to the great disappointment of many people on both sides of the Atlantic - Scooter Libby [charged with having leaked classified information about former CIA agent Valerie Plame to New York Times reporter Judith Miller and then covering it up] and Jonathan Pollard. To what can either be attributed? Did Olmert's government make any attempt at securing Pollard's release?

All fascinating questions -- and even more on Darfur and other matters in the entire interview. I would have asked them from perhaps a different perspective and starting point, but knowing Abrams' views on these fronts helps us understand quite a bit about where he was in the policy process and how he viewed his allies and competitors in the White House.

Elliott Abrams is remarkably straightforward with his sister-in-law.

Three things in his responses stood out for me, although the entire narrative should be read to get an understanding of how Bush looked at the Middle East -- and why he and Abrams, in my view, were wrong.

First of all, Abrams' final comments on President Bush's decision not to pardon Scooter Libby are important. Abrams says:

As for Scooter, I really don't know. I think it was a serious mistake on the president's part not to have pardoned him. As for Pollard: There are details of his case that have always made his release problematic, and that's all I'm going to say about it. But I can assure you with absolute certainty that Olmert - like all of his predecessors - did attempt to secure his release.

Most of Washington thought that Scooter Libby was going to be pardoned. The political left had practically given up fighting it, all except those most loyal to Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame (which would include this writer) -- expecting that there were few incentives for Bush not to pardon Libby.

The evening before the Inauguration, I got an alert on Michael Isikoff's scoop that Bush was not going to pardon Libby while sitting in the Kennedy Center's Eisenhower Theatre for the "Let Freedom Swing" concert featuring Wynton Marsalis and former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor comparing America's democratic institutions to jazz. During one of the breaks, I leaned back and shared the news with Bill Clinton's former national security advisor Sandy Berger, who himself had some run-ins with investigators a while back, and both of us were really surprised by the news.

First, this shows that Bush was not a pawn of neoconservative interests -- and as I have argued many times over the last several years, that has probably been rarely true. But this would have been an easy gift from Bush to the neocon and Israel first-and-only-crowd.

Secondly, Elliott Abrams intimates knowledge about the Jonathan Pollard case in the comment above that is also very important. He says that "there are details of his case that have always made his release problematic." Those details -- probably highly classified -- are what keep Israeli prime ministers and American presidents from coming to a point of agreement on Pollard's future.

Abrams does not give Pollard the support in this statement that he gave in blanket terms to Scooter Libby. Thus, even a leading neoconservative like Elliott Abrams, in this case, showed a loyalty to American national security interests that trumps his support of Israel's national interests.

I realize that this is a nuance -- and many of Abrams' critics would disagree -- but the difference in the way Abrams spoke about Pollard and Libby is quite positive in my book.

This was the second item in the Abrams interview that is so important to understand as it conveys Sharon's attitude towards diplomatic engagement with Palestine:

So, when Sharon came to visit Bush's ranch in Crawford, the president asked him about it. Now, obviously, what politicians and statesmen tell each other is not necessarily exactly what they think. But Sharon's answer, as I recall, was that, after the defeat of the intifada, a vacuum was left in the Israeli-Palestinian front. And it was being filled with many, very energetic diplomatic proposals - mostly emanating from Europe - that were all damaging to Israel, all saying that now was the time for final-status negotiations.

"Let's have a conference," they were saying. "Let's reconvene Madrid."

And some Israelis and Palestinians came up with the Geneva Initiative, which Sharon hated. According to Sharon, these bad ideas were growing in importance, and he needed something to fill the vacuum that would be good, rather than bad, for Israel. Disengagement was it.

I met with Sharon spokesman Ra'anan "Dani" Gissin as well as several other key advisers to and stakeholders in the Sharon political machine literally days after Sharon's stroke -- and they conveyed to my group that while Sharon did "hate" Geneva, as Abrams states, Sharon recognized that Geneva and the terms of a two-state deal that the parties involved negotiated were going to be close to what any American-European brokered deal would look like.

Sharon struck back at the most likely terms of a new deal that would establish a new Israel-Palestine equilibrium with a "unilateral" withdrawal from Gaza that solved none of the on-the-ground issues that moderate Palestinian negotiators had been struggling to achieve with Israel. Thus, Sharon gave Hamas an edge -- making it appear in the minds of many Palestinians that violence and rockets produced dramatic moves from Israel, not negotiations.

The honesty and bluntness of Elliott Abram's commentary is important here -- as well as the acknowledgment that the Bush team was fully supportive of Ariel Sharon's flipping of the finger to Palestinian moderates.

And third, I found the following bit on Bush's White House decision making process important. It's a long clip, but important to read in full:

Now, this all changed when Condi - Bush's closest adviser - became secretary of state. The role of the State Department then became much more important, though it depended on the issue. For example, when it came to Iraq, the State Department was far less important, because Iraq policy was really being made by the president, the vice president, the secretary of defense and the joint chiefs. But there were other areas of policy in which the State Department was very directly and deeply involved. Palestinian-Israeli affairs was one of them. The other was North Korea. In both cases, policy was essentially made in the State Department.

In this area, you have a kind of organizational problem. You want the president - any president - to get a variety of opinions and to make choices based on them. And when the secretary of state is by far his closest foreign policy adviser, you sometimes don't get the full panoply of advice. In the Reagan and Bush administrations, there was the view - it will be interesting to see whether it will be so in the Obama administration, as well - that policy disputes should be ironed out at the level of cabinet principals: the national security adviser, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, the chairman of the joint chiefs, the head of the CIA, etc. The idea was that you don't go to the president with these fights; you go to the president with a solution, with a policy proposal that reflects a consensus.

This has always seemed to me to be a gigantic mistake. When people of that rank and office have policy disagreements, the president should hear them, and be allowed to choose among the options that are being debated. He should not be presented with a homogenized, consensus, compromised position. There's an old story told about the way the State Department works: There are always three options, one of which is so weak, another of which is so over-the-top strong, that it's obvious the middle one is the one you're going to choose. And it's true! Well, it's a mistake, and presidents should not permit that kind of thing. And I think that in the case of Middle East policy, it happened all too often.

So I was the resident skeptic. We were hearing, both from secretary Rice and from prime minister Olmert that there was a very good chance of concluding a final-status agreement. I never believed this, neither before Annapolis nor after. So I was always like a little black cloud in all these meetings, saying, "I don't think this is going to happen."

All bias aside, I find it fascinating that Elliott Abrams was as put off by the decision-making structure in the White House as Brent Scowcroft was.

My impression had always been that from 9/11/2001 forward until just before Bush's second term, the neoconservatives had dominated the decision-making architecture and were not allowing alternative views in to the stove-piped process of weaving intelligence and objectives into self-damaging national foreign policy moves.

I had previously written about some on Dick Cheney's national security team being frustrated in Bush's second term that they "were losing the policy deliberation process in the White House." The New York Times later outed this individual as David Wurmser, whose views coincide I think with much of what Elliott Abrams shared in this interesting interview. For those interested, the last chapter of Barton Gellman's book, The Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency, deals with this frustration that the Cheney team is being cut out, excluded, and not "read in" to various Bush national security decisions.

Abrams, I think, was never fully cut out -- but many of his ideological fellow-travelers in the White House seem to have been.

Elliott Abrams will soon be on staff at the Council on Foreign Relations, and we'll have time and opportunity to further discuss his views on America's national security portfolio and why the Bush White House failed to leave that portfolio in better condition than it inherited.

Fascinating interview -- and important on many levels. Kudos to the Jerusalem Post.

-- Steve Clemons

Editor's Note: Thanks to "Joe M" for bringing this interview to my attention.

Former US Senator Tim Wirth (D-CO) who for many years has served as president of the United Nations Foundation hosted a very nice welcoming reception at the Metropolitan Club for incoming Colorado Senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennet.

The best back and forth joke of the evening was that Tim Wirth had told both Senators that he had gone to see the Senate historian to make sure that the Udall-Bennet duo was properly noted as the least senior team from any state in US history.

Mark Udall was sworn in with the incoming class of freshman Senators in the 111th Congress. And then Bennet, appointed by Colorado's governor to succeed new Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, was sworn in five days later.

When Senator Udall spoke, he poked some fun at Tim Wirth -- stating that Wirth had slyly gone to plead with Senator Judd Gregg not to resign his seat in favor of becoming Commerce Secretary (Gregg had pulled out of Barack Obama's Commerce appointment just a couple of hours before) because that would steal from Colorado the record of being the most un-senior team and then give it to New Hampshire's Jeanne Shaheen and whoever got appointed to succeed Gregg.

I found it really funny. But then again, I'm not all that good at humor.

Michael Bennet, who has a kind of endearing, bumbly style, told the story of how when he was prepping for his "interview" with Colorado Governor Bill Ritter, he ought to check in with his wife Susan Daggett on what she had been up to in her professional work.

Daggett, who was clearly better known to the assembled crowd of enviro-activists and Colorado green elite types as the former lead attorney for EarthJustice and has worked for both the Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club, gave according to Bennet a two hour run down of some very high-powered work on her Colorado-related and global environmental advocacy.

Bennet then told her, "Maybe you should go see the Governor for an interview [for the Senate seat]."

Lots of folks laughed -- and then said, you know -- she might be a pretty great Senator.

Other notables besides former Senator Tim Wirth and his wife Wren were former Senators Chuck Robb and Don Riegle. SEIU's Andy Stern was there as was Council for a Livable World Executive Director John Isaacs and former US AID Deputy Administrator and presidential candidate spouse Hattie Babbitt. Also met up with Atlantic Monthly editor and brother to the Senate's least senior member James Bennet.

I like that Susan Dagett has two t's in the name. Hattie Babbitt has two pairs of two t's.

But what's up with Michael Bennet. Did someone add an "n" to Benet? or drop the "t" in Bennett?

-- Steve Clemons

The Department of Treasury has a whole lot on its hands -- like keeping the financial sector from cratering further, keeping Citibank management from sneaking another private jet into their own stimulus plans, and convincing the rest of the world that Americans really do know how to run a capitalist economy (if in fact we have one any longer).

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was off doing photo-ops in Rome with other of the world's leading financial secretaries, and I received this note from Treasury regarding the photo to the left:

Treasury Releases Photo from Geithner, Kudrin G-7 Bilateral Meeting

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner met today with Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin in Rome, Italy

Oops!

Wrong Guy. That's Peer Steinbrueck.

I just checked -- and Treasury just got this fixed. Now the link goes to:

Washington, DC - U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner met today with German Finance Minister Peer Steinbruck in Rome, Italy, the site of the G-7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting.

Glad it's fixed. (they still forgot the umlaut! or they can add an "e" after the "u" in his last name). The U.S. needs some cooperation from Germany and Russia nowadays -- and this was an easy way to get two important noses out of whack -- unless of course that is what we were trying to do?

-- Steve Clemons

Inter-Press' Jim Lobe, who also writes the LobeLog blog, has a good piece of analysis out about the impact of the recent elections in Israel on the Middle East peace process.

Lobe interviews Marc Ginsberg, Aaron David Miller, M.J. Rosenberg and me. Miller is the most pessimistic. Ginsberg, who I ran into last night at the Metropolitan Club at a party with Colorado Senators Michael Bennet and Mark Udall, made it clear to me that there is still an opportunity to nudge the key parties together to get a credible process going.

Both M.J. Rosenberg and I think that having Netanyahu in charge actually presents more opportunities than obstacles in that it removes the gauze of believing in moderation from the Israeli side -- and gives Obama's team the opportunity to play tackle ball.

I realize that there are many who disagree with my take -- but I think that Israel-Palestine issues are fundamental to any broad resolution in the Middle East, and that we can't afford for the Middle East peace business to produce and preside over more failure.

Here are some of the perspectives that Lobe wove into his essay:

"I think it's going to be really tough, because in addition to a ...divided Palestinian national movement ...you now have to add to that, although the crisis isn't the same order of magnitude an Israeli divided house," according to Aaron Miller, a veteran U.S. Mideast peace negotiator now with the Woodrow Wilson Centre here. "And broken houses in the Middle East don't lead to bold and historic decisions."

"George Mitchell is an extraordinary negotiator, a talented man. I have profound respect for him," Miller told public television's Newshour. "But the Obama administration is all dressed up, but there's nowhere right now for them to go."

Marc Ginzburg, a former ambassador to Morocco, agreed, writing in the Huffington Post that "both Israelis and Palestinians are increasingly caught in a vortex of radicalism that is marginalizing the so-called silent majorities on both sides who recognise there is no hope for peace without a two-state solution. That is why the dynamics of the equation must change, and can only change with creative, persistence diplomacy, and, yes, new approaches that require hard choices."

Some analysts, however, believe the dynamics could indeed change, particularly if Netanyahu forms a solidly right-wing government, and Obama is willing to take him on, much as former President George H.W. Bush took on former Likud Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

"It will be easier for President Obama to deal with Netanyahu than with the almost equally hawkish Livni because... her seeming moderation is a nice cover," wrote the IPF's M.J. Goldberg. "A Netanyahu government would have no such cover, (and) any acts of sabotage to the peace process or new misery inflicted on the Palestinians would likely be strongly opposed by the United States. Israel's most slavish 'friends' in Congress - almost all Democrats - would find it hard, although far from impossible, to choose Netanyahu (who is very close to Republicans) over Obama."

"I think the best path towards peace would be for Netanyahu to form a right-wing government because it will make clear that the Israelis and Palestinians can't make peace by themselves," said Steve Clemons, head of the American Strategy programme at the New America Foundation.

"A right-wing government in Israel will show that the only way to purge what has become an increasingly destructive geo-strategic ulcer is for the United States, Europe, the U.N., Russia, and key Arab stakeholders to coalesce around a two-state solution whose outlines are already well known, and impose it."

"The U.S. and the much of the rest of the world simply can't afford the recklessness, immaturity and sheer stupidity of leadership on all sides of the conflict to continue," he added.

-- Steve Clemons

Patrick Doherty is Director of the New America Foundation/U.S.-Cuba 21st Century Policy Initiative. This post first appeared on The Havana Note.

This fascinating story from U.S. News and World Report is the first public signal to the government in Havana that Washington is listening to the messages the Cuban government is sending.

It's good timing. The Cuba policy space has been very quiet on official U.S. statements--and actions--since the election. While it is clear that the administration and Congress have a lot of other issues to keep them busy and a keen observer can clearly hear the wheels of change turning, visible movement has simply not yet materialized. That can be misinterpreted.

The speaker, though cloaked in anonymity, made two important points with this short article. First, the official said that the new administration in Washington has heard the various statements in recent weeks from the brothers Castro, saying, "I think the statements are important. They've registered." The translation from the original diplomatic is, "we're serious about diplomatic engagement but we're a bit swamped right now." That is a positive, important assurance to Havana.

But there is a second message embedded in the U.S. News article. Here's how the reporter, Thomas Omestad concluded the article:

The State Department official's comments also offer a sense of how Cuba's modest economic reforms--in agriculture and consumer purchasing--are being perceived in official Washington. "The steps have been very small. They've been very controlled," said the official. "They're looking for ways to signal they're capable of economic change."

On the internal scene in Cuba, the official spoke of a "significant desire, and even pressure, on them [Cuban officials] for social and economic reform." The official added, "The Cuban government has to respond in some fashion."

What is remarkable about this second quote is that the official never made a segue from economic reform to political reform. That says volumes. Under President Bush, the analysis of the economic reforms would have been to trivialize them and then change the subject to human rights. This speaker did not. Instead, the official said that the Cuban people will be putting pressure on the government to effect social and economic reforms, which tracks much closer to reality than what we've heard out of the White House since....well since the Brothers to the Rescue shootdown sank the Clinton administration efforts at dialogue.

Taken together, it looks to me that we've got an administration that will stick to its word and engage the Cuba issue seriously.

--Patrick Doherty

This is a guest post for The Washington Note by al Qaeda and Islamist terrorism expert Paul Cruickshank. Cruickshank is a Fellow at the NYU Center on Law and Security.

I have a story out this week in the new issue of Marie Claire on Malika el Aroud, a Belgian woman who wore short skirts and hung out in Brussels' nightclubs before becoming an icon of the Global Jihadist Movement.

It's quite a tale... You can also see the story on CNN. A half hour documentary on Malika, which I produced, is airing all this week on CNN International. The first segment is posted above. (Parts two and three are watchable on line and can be accessed here just below the box of the first segment.)

Malika, now behind bars, and described by Belgian authorities as an "Al Qaeda Living Legend" told me when I interviewed her for CNN that she loved Osama bin Laden even though he sent her soul mate to his death. Her former husband Abdessattar Dahmane had helped assassinate Ahmed Shah Massoud the head of the Northern Alliance two days before 9/11. Malika appeared to be keeping his flame alive when we met her. She showed us how she administered a website supporting Bin Laden's Jihad.

In an extraordinary twist to her story, CNN reveals that Malika once again has a man in her life connected to the very top echelons of Al Qaeda. Malika's new husband, whom I met three years ago, has now forged ties in the Pakistani tribal areas with one of the terrorist masterminds behind the 2006 "Airline Plot," widely recognized as Al Qaeda's biggest plot since 9/11.

You can watch the full CNN Documentary "One Woman's War", presented by CNN's Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson, here , and read our in-depth CNN investigation here.

-- Paul Cruickshank

Last Friday, New America Foundation Whitehead Senior Fellow Michael Lind moderated a discussion featuring three international relations heavyweights: Princeton's G. John Ikenberry, Johns Hopkins' Daniel Deudney, and Nixon Center President Dimitri Simes.

The four discussed Ikenberry and Deudney's article in Foreign Affairs, "The Myth of the Autocratic Revival: Why Liberal Democracy Will Endure."

Deudney and Ikenberry provided an excellent presentation of their Foreign Affairs thesis - and Dimitri Simes' offered a remarkably insightful interpretation of rising powers and their implications for the United States.

I suggest you have a watch below.

--Ben Katcher

Former Palestinian presidential candidate (and likely future candidate) Mustafa Barghouti stopped by my office today for a short discussion on his impressions of what is possible and what is not in the aftermath of yesterday's national elections in Israel.

As usual, Barghouti paints a compelling picture of limited options and stark realities.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a guest post by Amjad Atallah, Co-Director of the New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force.

The Israeli elections are not really over. In one sense they are just beginning, as Israel's multiple winners and multiple losers begin horse-trading on their conditions for joining a coalition government that will "govern" Israel over the next several months in the loosest sense of the word. One thing both Livni and Netanyahu will likely agree on - the need to continue colonizing the West Bank with settlements while urging the United States to confront Iran. What we won't hear is any real talk about a game changing end of conflict that would bring security and acceptance to Israel and freedom and dignity to Palestinians.

That is a tragedy on a number of levels, but especially because the United States is compiling the best possible team we could have at this time to deal with the threat to our national interests posed by a continuation of the Israeli-Arab conflict. President Barack Obama is, by all accounts, as intellectually engaged with the complexities of the region and how they impact American interests as as any president since Eisenhower. He has compiled a team at the State Department and the National Security Council of hard headed realists committed to promoting US interests in the Middle East who recognize many of the linkages between ending Israel's occupations, a successful US withdrawal from Iraq, a successful negotiation of our relationship with Iran, our wars in Afghanistan/Pakistan, and bringing al-Qaeda to justice.

But on the Israeli-Palestinian front, this A-Team is coming in at the worst possible time. Both the Israeli and Palestinian political systems are fractured. Some 65 seats in Israel's 120 Knesset now are held by parties either explicitly opposed to a two-state solution or who interpret it in such a racist way that it would be unconscionable for the US to support. On the other side of the Green Line, Israel's destruction of Gaza has made Hamas more popular than ever in the West Bank and broadened their appeal internationally. Eight years of Bush policy have strengthened the most recalcitrant elements on both sides of the border.

To secure our interests now, we not only need a diplomatic A-Team, but a drastic and creative new policy that works with the reality that we can't expect the Israelis and Palestinians to end this conflict on their own.

For more, you can listen to this discussion between Aaron Miller, and Yossi Klein Halevi, and me on the Diane Rehm show.

--Amjad Atallah

Today at 2:30 pm, there is a very interesting forum, or I should say a "roundtable", that Committee Chairman John Kerry and his staff have organized on the national security and foreign policy implications of the financial crisis.

This follows the course I recently scribbled about in which both the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the State Department are quite intent on fudging up the borders between classic geostrategic issues and economic ones -- or as State Department Deputy Secretary James Steinberg said, they'll be getting into "NEC issues" as much as "traditional NSC issues."

Those speaking at the forum are former State Department Policy Planning Staff Director and National Intelligence Council Vice Chairman David Gordon. He's well worth the time. He knows the future big game is with China.

Niall Ferguson who is mesmerizing will be fun, though he pines a bit too much for Americans to embrace empire the way Britain once did. Niall is dramatic but often wrong.

Douglas Rediker, a colleague of mine who directs the Global Strategic Finance Initiative at the New America Foundation, is a leading expert on the emergence of sovereign wealth funds and "state capitalism." Worth listening to.

Sebastian Mallaby who is the 900 lb. (but thin in real life) economic brain at the Council on Foreign Relations and wrote a revealing, excellent book on World Bank President James Wolfensohn, and who also writes as an editorial writer for the Washington Post will have great insights on what is going on in the global economy -- and my hunch is that most of his comments will address the coming trauma for developing nations, particularly Africa.

And lastly, there is Desmond Lachman from the American Enterprise Institute. I want to head Lachman's fan club as he has been among the most accurate and straightforward of economic analysts to outline and predict the housing collapse and its broader ramifications.

I invited Lachman to speak at the New America Foundation in November 2007 on the future of the global economy -- and everything he outlined has happened in proportion to his expectations. Too bad Dick Cheney didn't listen to Lachman; he might have then seen this crisis coming.

Good panel and worth attending if you can. 2:30 pm EST. Dirksen Senate Office Building, room 419.

-- Steve Clemons

The Atlantic Council is an organization whose energy and impact have largely followed the trajectory of the transatlantic relationship. For many years, when that relationship was driven by the clarity and purpose of the Cold War, the Atlantic Council was strong, active, and had significant impact. When the transatlantic relationship seemed loss, somewhat purposeless, and defined by little more than inertia, the organization floundered.

But both with the relatively new leadership there under former Wall Street Journal Europe chief Frederick Kempe and because transatlantic relations are humming again as Europe and the US struggle through a great array of challenges, the organization is hitting its stride and doing great things.

And punctuating its revival is the news today in a scoop by Politico's Mike Allen that former Senator Chuck Hagel will replace General Jim Jones, who is now Obama's National Security Adviser, as Chairman of the Atlantic Council.

Hagel is the perfect choice, and the Atlantic Council will give Hagel the right platform to continue to nudge and critique the nation's foreign policy course.

From my perspective, Hagel should have been Secretary of State. There are other jobs he would fill out well in the administration as well -- but State was what I think he would have been best at. And depending on how things go these next couple of years, Hagel is in an ideal spot to bide his time and be actively engaged in the civil society side of policy debate.

-- Steve Clemons

Just found this site, FinancialStability.gov.

Suffice it to say that the Obama art crowd hasn't gotten to work on this site yet. . .but if you didn't get enough of Tim Geithner's market-disappointing speech today, you can read or watch it again here.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

That's Buddy on the roof. It's warmer there. Oakley the Amazing Weimaraner is on the left and Annie the kid sis is on the right.

They all think it's really cool that 10 year-old "Stump" the Sussex spaniel won "Best in Show" on Tuesday at the 133rd Annual Westminster Kennel Club show at Madison Square Garden. Stump is the oldest pup to win the award.

Linda F, who just celebrated her 70th birthday and is a regular TWN reader and contributor, sent this story of elder success our way.

-- Steve Clemons

Tonight, I toasted Senator Frank Lautenberg when I learned that he had sent President Barack Obama a letter asking that the media no longer be blocked from greeting, reporting on, and photographing the returning flag-draped caskets of American service men and women killed in combat abroad. (here is pdf of letter)

The Bush administration, trying to control the temperature of public reaction to caskets arriving at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware cut off media access.

Lautenberg, who deserves our thanks for this, wrote to Obama:

I respectfully urge you to work to bring an end to the misguided policies of the past that seek to hide the sacrifice of our soldiers and the public recognition and pride that should accompany it.

We agree.

-- Steve Clemons

My New America Foundation colleague Daniel Levy, who is in Tel Aviv and voted today, is quoted in the segment below and offers two take-aways from the results of Israel's elections, the winner of which is still being sorted out and will be disputed no matter the outcome.

Levy suggests that whether Livni or Netanyahu leads the next government, either coalition will be more fragile than what we have had under Kadima-led coalition these last several years. Avigdor Lieberman's party which wants to racially disaggregate Arabs and Jews is a considerable factor.

And that progress on Israel-Palestine talks can no longer rest with divided Israelis and divided Palestinians but depends on the heavy engagement of the U.S. and other key regional stakeholders.

From Jonathan Freedland's coverage in The Guardian:

A clearer winner is surely Avigdor Lieberman, the ultra-nationalist who leads Israel's third largest party. At a victory celebration he said he held "the key" to Israel's next government. And he does. Last night both Netanyahu and Livni put in calls to Lieberman, confirming his status as the kingmaker - one who will try to extract a high price. He suggested his priorities would be the release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held by Hamas, and the "toppling" of Hamas in Gaza.

As neither Livni nor Bibi can rule without him - unless they create a unity government excluding him - he may get what he wants.

The losers are easier to count. Labour was once Israel's natural party of government, ruling from 1948 to 1977. Yesterday, it trailed in fourth, Ehud Barak - once prime minister - barely polling ahead of the sectarian religious parties. The dovish, civil rights party Meretz was reduced to a handful of seats.

But there are more substantial losers. First, the Israeli political system is confirmed as dysfunctional. When a ruling party cannot muster a quarter of the seats in parliament, something has gone badly wrong. It means any government will be formed only after protracted horse-trading. Strikingly, all the main leaders - including Lieberman - spoke of the need to reform the political system.

The second serious loser is the Middle East peace process. According to Daniel Levy, analyst at the New America Foundation: "We will now have a weak, unstable government in Israel to join the weak governments in the Palestinian territories. They are not going to be able to make progress by themselves." With both sides hobbled, they will simply lack the strength, says Levy. "It will have to be driven from the outside." And that means Washington.

. . .That means Washington -- and London, Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Madrid, Moscow, Riyadh, Cairo, and Amman.

-- Steve Clemons

In June 2008, I asked Flynt Leverett -- former top Middle East analyst and policy practitioner at the CIA, State Department and George W. Bush's National Security Council -- what he thought the next President of the United States should do "on day one" when it came to the nation's foreign policy priorities.

I was inspired to do this by the good work of the "On Day One" project sponsored by the UN Foundation's Better World Campaign.

Leverett said directly that the first priority should be. . ."getting his relationship with the Saudis off to a good start."

In my book, Barack Obama gets a "B-" so far for how he has dealt with the Saudis.

Obama should get credit for responding via his first formal press interview with Al Arabiya to former Saudi Ambassador to the US Prince Turki Al-Faisal's Financial Times article. Prince Turki said in his piece that patience in the Arab world was growing thin with Israel's flamboyant military actions in Gaza and that the 2002 Arab Peace proposal made by Saudi King Abdullah that would normalize relations between 22 Arab nations and Israel if they reverted back to 1967 borders would be removed from the table if Americans didn't seriously reengage parties and shove them towards serious negotiations that could yield a viable Palestinian state.

But what Obama doesn't get points for is the rather shallow process of selecting Ambassadors to represent his interests in US embassies.

The process is still very much underway for all embassies and appointing the general-scholar Karl Eikenberry to head America's Embassy in Kabul is an example of what is probably a very good choice.

But what we saw in the mismanagement of and eruption over the offer to General Anthony Zinni to head the Embassy in Baghdad (which will now go to former Asst. Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs Christopher Hill) was a seemingly casual disregard for Saudi Arabia.

Reportedly, when Zinni was unloading a small portion of his anger about the confusion related to his appointment, National Security Advisor James Jones asked whether he'd "want to be ambassador to Saudi Arabia."

Zinni could make a great Ambassador to Riyadh. He is respected, has the on the ground experience with major players in the Middle East, and has a good vision of the strategic leaps America needs to make in the Middle East if it wants to have leverage and impact on any of the key issues there.

But Jones' offer to Zinni of Saudi Arabia was as casual as was Zinni's appointment to Baghdad falling on to the editing room floor and no one letting Zinni know that he had been cut from the Obama foreign policy movie.

Saudi Arabia should not be approached "casually." Zinni might have been great there -- but the person interacting with King Abdullah and Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal must be someone who can interact with this important ally in a way that can manage the US-Saudi relationship with care while also recognizing that the most important opportunity for a "Nixon Goes to China" moment for Obama and his team is making the Arab Peace Initiative offered by King Abdullah in 2002 a reality.

I recently spoke to a leading member of Saudi Arabia's royal family who stated that they welcome the opportunity down the road for a time when Jews from Israel can travel throughout the region safely and with the protection of law throughout the Arab region -- and vice versa. This person said it was time for Israel and the Arabs to grow up and to move along a different track.

Flynt Leverett, my colleague at the New America Foundation who directs the Geopolitics of Energy Initiative, was on the National Security Council staff when George W. Bush became the first US President to utter the word "Palestine" in reference to a future viable, contiguous Palestinian state. Leverett is well regarded in Saudi Arabia and would make a fantastic Ambassadorial appointment.

Another is outgoing ExxonMobil Vice President for Government Affairs Dan Nelson, who was a close friend and supporter of former Senator Chuck Hagel. Nelson once led ExxonMobil's operations in Saudi Arabia and regularly interacted with all levels of Saudi society but has the respect and trust of the Royal tier of that nation in particular.

Both Dan Nelson and Flynt Leverett would make excellent choices for appointment to Riyadh -- and would both help Obama achieve his "change agenda" in the region.

Neither would come off as a casual choice.

So, let's wait and see who Barack Obama, Jim Jones, and Hillary Clinton finally decide on.

-- Steve Clemons

I spent about 20 minutes with Neal Conan on NPR's "Talk of the Nation" today discussing Israel's elections and why I'm ready for Netanyahu to lead Israel's government -- either because he'll find his mature, Nixonian, do-a-deal, makeover side -- or because he'll be so flamboyantly destructive of Israel's and America's interests that he'll finally get the kind of attention from the US public that will change the course of things in Israel Palestine negotiations.

Am I naive? Perhaps? But with my typical flood of email telling me that I'm nuts - I've had suprising support from leading Americans who think that there is something to what I've proposed.

Here is the clip which you can listen to at your leisure.

-- Steve Clemons

It's always wise to read up on what one's supposed global and ideological rivals are writing and thinking.

Along this line, for example, I think that reading Karim Sadjadpour's fascinating expose on Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is essential reading. Sadjadpour guides us through and gives us context for things that Khamenei has actually said and written himself.

And then there are Fidel Castro's ruminations which I often find provocative, intriguingly complex, sometimes wandering, but still interesting to see a leader that has survived ten American presidents wrestling with ideas and sending his missives out to the public.

I received this morning Fidel Castro's reflections on "Rahm Emanuel" which the former Cuban president drafted on February 8th.

I won't set any context -- other than to say that I find his positive reference of economist John Kenneth Galbraith intriguing. Galbraith's son, a colleague of the next Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg at UT Austin, is author of the critically acclaimed and well-selling Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Liberals Should Too.

Castro's comments on the contradictions of capitalism are not particularly new -- just this time he might be on to something. That's perhaps how the law of averages works.

I will post a link to the Spanish -- but then reprint the English translation here:

At 3:40 pm EST, I will be chatting live with Neal Conan and his callers on National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation" regarding the upcoming Israel elections and what impact they might have on the Obama administration's choices in the Middle East.

In particular, I think we will be discussing this piece of mine, "Give Us Netanyahu. Please."

I just read this piece by Haaretz's Gideon Levy who is in substantial agreement with me on Netanyahu.

I will also be taping a show today on the same subject with Scott Horton of AntiWar Radio.

-- Steve Clemons

Now I know why John Podesta is so unique -- and how and why skillful princes use him. . .

New America Foundation/American Strategy Program research associate Sameer Lalwani and TWN blogger sent this to me this morning:

The search for an impartial and neutral tool to mitigate the disruptive effect of factionalism was an important feature of political life in Italian city republics.

As Waley (1991) maintains, the political scene in medieval Italy was characterized by factionalism fueled by intense competition for political office. The citizens were driven by an ardent desire to obtain the "honors and benefits" of office (Manin 1995).

To overcome factional strife, most Italian communes adopted the institution of podesta, a foreigner endowed with judicial and administrative powers.

The podesta was usually hired for a year and played the role of military leader, judge, and administrator. An important attribute of the podesta was that he had to be a foreigner so that he could be neutral to the internal "discords and conspiracies" (Waley 1991, 37).

-- from Wantchekon, Leonard, "The Paradox of "Warlord" Democracy: A Theoretical Investigation," American Political Science Review, Volume 98

John Podesta did an outstanding job leading the Obama transition team and is now back to heading the Center for American Progress. But I have no doubt he'll be called on again when factionalism around President Obama becomes dangerously heated.

-- Steve Clemons

Toles (c) 2009 The Washington Post. Used by permission of Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved.

I think it's our responsibility as American citizens to critique and applaud government's moves as we see fit. I try to do my part at The Washington Note with words, with video, with meetings, and yes -- even in my policy chatter at DC's more fun cocktail parties.

And Tom Toles does it with drawings -- and his band Suspicious Package.

Barack Obama may get a lot wrong in these coming years -- but I still think America got something quite right in electing him.

This is a powerful cartoon -- and I just noticed that folks can order it if they like here, in all different sizes and at quite reasonable prices. (And if you want an original limited edition with Tom Toles' signature on it, here's the higher priced version.)

-- Steve Clemons

This month, the Japan Society of New York, one of America's leading platforms for Japan-related cultural, political, and economic programming announced that its next president would not be an American citizen -- which has always been the case -- but would rather be a Japanese citizen, and no ordinary Japanese citizen at that.

Ambassador Motoatsu Sakurai, former President of Mitsubishi Corporation's American operation and also most recently Consul General of New York which carries with the position Ambassadorial status, will assume the duties as CEO of the Japan Society in April of this year.

I know Ambassador Sakurai as an acquaintance and admire his past leadership and service to US-Japan relations -- but with all due respect, the Japan Society has made a substantial error in this leadership decision.

The Japan Society -- which hawks itself a little too triumphantly as "North America's single major producer of high-quality content on Japan for an English-speaking audience" -- is nonetheless a top tier New York-based organization established in 1907 by Americans to promote contact and greater understanding between Japanese and Americans. The involvement of the Rockefeller clan in the 1950s and over generations since produced an infusion of resources and prime real estate that helped anchor the Japan Society as "one of" America's anchor Japan-related institutions.

I used to run the 1909-founded Japan Society of Southern California (JASSC) from 1987-1993, and while our cash in hand could not rival the Japan society, our scrappy outfit numbered more than 7,000 members and produced approximately 300 programs of cultural, economic, and public affairs import between San Diego, Long Beach, Orange County, Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and the San Fernando Valley. We were not the Rockefeller-endowed institution the Japan Society was -- but we were 'then' on the cutting edge of the US-Japan relationship at that time when Southern California was the beachhead for a massive level of inward bound investment into the US from Japan. Regrettably, I believe that is no longer the case on any level, particularly when it comes to public affairs discussions.

The Los Angeles-based Japanese American Cultural and Community Center, I would argue, also rivals the Japan Society in many aspects of original and high quality cultural programming that it brings to America. And the Japan Pavilion at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art that was in part established by generous grants from Joe & Etsuko Price (from my family's home town of Bartlesville, Oklahoma) and Keidanren while then under the directorship of Earl A. "Rusty" Powell III who now directs Washington's National Gallery of Art, is a national leader in organizing world class art exhibitions and certainly does not view the Japan Society "as North America's single major producer of high-quality content on Japan."

Despite the Japan Society's traditional excellence, that self-indulgent line really needs to be removed from its website and branding.

When I ran the JASSC, I was appalled by how irrelevant the organization had then become to US-Japan relations. In 1987, there were great debates in the country about Japanese firms buying premier American golf courses, movie production houses, top tier real estate -- eventually even ARCO Plaza in Los Angeles and the Rockefeller Center in New York. Americans were debating the treatment of women and minorities in Japanese firms that were basing their American operations in Southern California frequently and which were exporting with their investment Japanese management practices that too frequently were discriminatory towards non-caucasian, non-males. Rice trade politics were big. Energy activist T. Boone Pickens single-handedly introduced the term "keiretsu" (or networked family of Japanese corporations) into our business and political lexicon in Congressional testimony he gave at that time.

But the Japan America Society I ran was part of none of it -- and I decided that if I couldn't get our programs on to the front page of the Los Angeles Times, then we weren't relevant to the relationship and weren't doing our job.

Many Japan Society organizations around the United States acted as culture boutiques and were essentially run by the local consulates general of Japan. These organizations were American, non-profit corporations, but essentially most acted like mini-embassies and as political arms for Japan.

I rejected that course -- and while I certainly entertained dinners with Japan's prime ministers and top end business elite, some of the leading US-Japan revisionists first appeared at the Japan America Society of Southern California -- including Pat Choate, James Fallows, Chalmers Johnson, Clyde Prestowitz, Murray Sayle, R. Taggart Murphy, Glen Fukushima, and Karel van Wolferen. Michael Crichton, author of the then provocative Rising Sun even did much of his research for that book while a member of JASSC during my tenure. I asked T. Boone to speak. I then invited the head of Toyota to come and offer an alternative view. We didn't run from controversy. I held one of the key forums on California-Japan rice trade that broke the logjam at that time over Japanese imports of California rice.

A Los Angeles-based Consul General at that time who later went to New York and held the same post that Sakurai now holds once called me and said "are you trying to start World War III" after I had organized a consecutive set of meetings on rice trade and then Japanese corporate treatment of women and ethnic minority Americans.

I responded that it was in Japan's interest to have fair and rigorous debate on these issues -- and he grudgingly acquiesced over time.

The key was to provide fair, quality, civil debate. My Japanese members, on the whole, loved it -- and knew that the more relevant the organization was to the big political debates of the day, the better it was for them and for our relevance to mainstream US-Japan affairs in the country. And with increased Japanese interest came top level American business, academic, and political interest in the organization.

Our level of credibility rose, at that time, with both the elite Japanese and American communities in Southern California -- and grew without the censorship and the pulling of punches that so many others in these organizations engaged in so as to "please" Japanese counterparts.

Now, the premier Japan Society of New York has allowed itself to be taken over not just by a leading former Japanese business leader -- but also by an incumbent Japanese Ambassador.

Whether intended to or not, this leadership transition appears to be the Japanese government's acquisition of America's top tier Japan organization -- and this is quite regrettable and ultimately harmful to US-Japan relations.

Again, I appreciate the service of Ambassador Sakurai and generally like him -- but the symbolism of his ascendancy to lead the Japan Society of New York is very destructive to broad US-Japan relations and sends the signals that (1) no Americans care enough to lead the organization any more and thus "Japan Passing" has finally reached a very mature course, and (2) that the kind of robust debate that is needed to revitalize and challenge many anachronistic aspects of US-Japan relations may not happen in fear of offending either the Japanese government or the Japanese business community which each have stakes in Motatsu Sakurai.

I do not know details of the "dissension and upheaval" since October 2006 at the Japan Society that this New York Times article refers to, but the board of directors of the Japan Society have in my view failed in their duty to assure solid American leadership of that organization.

The Japan Society should be a manifestation of American interests in Japan -- because of our respect for and our need to connect to things and culture and people Japanese. We ought not to be deferring in our end of the US-Japan relationship to Japanese management of that requirement.

Perhaps no one else would stand up to the plate and Sakurai in a moment of weakness said yes.

But it's wrong and those who believe in strengthening US-Japan relations must begin to work more vigorously to make such organizations as the Japan Society an American priority -- and make the institution relevant to the world we are living in today -- just as some of us did in the Japan America Society of Southern California 22 years ago.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a guest post for The Washington Note by Tal Schneider, Washington DC Correspondent for the Israel daily newspaper Maariv.

There is an ever clearer, consistent political trend in Israel: prime ministers go through a decade long ritual of rising to the top, failing miserably and then climbing slowly up for a second chance given by the Israeli voters.

It might be too soon to tell, but Binyamin Netanyahu (Bibi) appears on the verge of being reelected this week.

Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon, Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak -- all tried (and are still trying) to get a second flight as prime minister.

Rabin and Sharon made fabulous comebacks, intellectually and politically matured in their later terms only to depart the world stage at the height of popularity in tragic endings. Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish opponent to the peace process on Nov 1995 while Ariel Sharon suffered a major hemorrhagic stroke a few months following his bold evacuation of Gaza. Sharon has not waken from his debilitating coma since January 2006.

Will Bibi's second round be more successful than the first?

Ehud Barak, whose first term as Prime Minister ended just 20 months after he swept the polls in 1999, has been trying to make a comeback since then. No luck for him yet.

Tzipi Livni, the youngest of possible nominees (50 years old) probably still has to go through proverbial political hell. If she will be elected (the latest polls showed she was closing in on Bibi) we can foresee from historical patterns a short, disastrous term, followed by predictable public bashing after which she will enter the comeback-club, and be entitled for a fresh start.

Perhaps following Israel's rise-and-fall-and-rise rule, incumbent Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is off to the political desert (on corruption charges) just for a while. The Israeli public will no doubt forgive him, miss him, and want him back soon enough.

Why are the Israeli voters so indecisive? Why crown a leader and hurry to dump him (or her)?

How can one explain common enthusiasm in watching a leader fall only to embrace him back with the "he learned his lessons and changed so much" spin?

Ariel Sharon's comeback was the most dramatic of all. In his first ascendancy, he was "just" a Defense Minister that had practically usurped the political helm and led the country to the first Lebanon War. After he was declared "unfit for command" by a judicial committee investigating the war, Sharon was banned from the political scene.

Nobody touched Sharon or associated with him. He spent almost two decades in solitary wandering in political wilderness. When he started to plan his comeback, people defensively declared that they would leave the country if he was elected.

Well, no one left the country when Sharon won a landslide victory in 2001. He became immensely popular according to public polls -- and it seemed as if his war-related wrongdoing had become both insignificant and perhaps even part of his mystique.

As sociopathic as it may seem, Israel's citizens may need to feel loathing for their leader before making them Kosher once again, and then pining for their return.

Bibi has been there, done that. He is ready to be back and the public may be ready for that as well.

During the campaign, Bibi made conspicuous efforts to dial down the extreme and the obstreperous, making sure the Israeli public got the message: he is not the same Bibi from 1996.

Netanyahu did not pop-up in front of TV cameras recklessly and remained largely silent though supportive of Israel's offensive during the Gaza war, as if being 'apolitical' now equals Bibi.

But can Bibi "B" (meaning the second Bibi) deliver on his implied promise of change to Israel's fickle crowd? Has he matured? Can he make sound decisions on Israel's security and stir the country towards calm and long term stability in the region?

The answer will be evident soon.

-- Tal Schneider

This video above was sent to me this morning in a note from the Washington Post's Tom Ricks who said "I particularly like the video they did on one captain's counterinsurgency campaign."

I agree with Ricks that Captain Samuel Cook and his Crazyhorse Troop showed remarkable sense in changing what were failing heavy-handed counterinsurgency methods into something far more effective. The opposite of this strategy can easily be seen in two award-winning films that benchmark what was going on before officers like Captain Cook and another favorite of mine, Captain Jon Powers (who recently ran and lost in a Democratic primary for a New York House seat), began changing the game on the front line of contact with Iraq's civilians. One of these was Michael Tucker's Gunner Palace and the other Alex Gibney's Taxi to the Dark Side.

The Surge is still controversial, and I look forward to reading Tom Ricks' assessment of it -- and why the surge, per se, mattered so much. One of the questions I look forward to exploring is why a "change in tactics" (i.e., using any of the sensible tactics Captain Samuel Cook used in the video above) required a greater deployment of troops.

I'm hoping that Ricks breaks down the numbers game and distinguishes it from the change in approach to achieving counter-insurgency objectives.

A two-day, multi-part installment starts today in the Washington Post titled "The Generals' Insurgency: The Story Behind the U.S. Troop Surge in Iraq" that derive from Tom Ricks' new book The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008.

-- Steve Clemons

Peter Berkowitz's essay in the latest issue of the Weekly Standard provides good insight into what I think is the strategic irresponsibility of those in Israel's leadership who think that they can hold steady on a course that justifies failure on an a Palestine-Israel deal using Hamas and Iran as excuses.

As things look today, the Likud Party and its chief, Benjamin Netanyahu, look like they are about to be given a stronger hand in the coming elections. And Netanyahu is pro-settlement, and in my view the continued expansion of settlements is the most toxic activity that is undermining the negotiations process and actually, in the long term, will assure a deterioration in America's support for Israel.

Berkowitz points out:

The major difference between the candidates went unaddressed at Herzliya. It concerns the future of Israeli settlements, the towns and cities built and populated by Israel in the territories it gained control over in 1967 in the Six Day War. While he almost certainly would not build new settlements, Netanyahu remains unlikely, without pressure from the United States, to freeze the natural growth of existing settlements. In contrast, both Livni and Barak would probably impose a freeze on all new building beyond the Green Line. Livni and Barak recognize, however, along with Netanyahu, that the settlements are far from the fundamental obstacle to peace with the Palestinians.

Indeed, the journalists, political analysts, and current and former national security officials to whom I spoke were in striking agreement that Livni and Barak as well as Netanyahu all see that the fundamental obstacle to progress in resolving the conflict with the Palestinians is Iran. Indeed, the case for Iran's centrality is convincing.

I respect Peter Berkowitz but disagree with his take on things -- and find the perspective of many he is interacting with strikingly narrow when it comes to a serious strategy that will secure Israeli democracy and security in the coming years.

I share Zbigniew Brzezinski's view that both sides of the Israel-Palestine divide have proven themselves completely unable to solve an arrangement on their own. A Palestinian state is still possible -- and Israel democracy without apartheid within its borders is also still possible.

However, it is time to move negotiations out of the weeds and re-engage various stakeholders on all sides of the equation - including the U.S., Europe, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Iran, Syria, and the United Nations.

Israel's bravado over Gaza and the massively disproportionate deployment of force in which so many innocents were killed or injured -- and lives seriously disrupted on so many levels -- is the type of potentially transformative act that can either radicalize a great many more Arabs against the current equations of power in the region or more optimistically, could transform the perspective of the White House to finally realize that Israel's zero-sum game approach in the region is something that needs to be curtailed and changed.

Folks in the U.S. are hoping for centrists, reasonable, rational negotiators to emerge. Some on Obama's National Security Council team think that if they only can now. . .finally. . .make Abbas and Fatah the winners in the eyes of Palestinians by showering on them goodies to deliver to their constituents, all will be well. This is well meaning "earnestness." But it is flawed sentimentalism. Taking this approach with Abbas is "too much, too late." I think that despite recent drama, Tzipi Livni falls into this "earnestness" hope -- though she has a class of detractors larger than Maureen Dowd has.

But "earnestness" in trying to move the Rubik's Cube of the region into alignment is flawed. Israel and Palestine together don't work. They can't come to a responsible deal on their own.

It doesn't matter if Livni is Prime Minister, or Ehud Barak -- who I think is the most monstrous of recent Israeli political players for his role in tightening the noose around Palestinian mobility and movement after the Annapolis process started. And yes, I said monstrous - to borrow a term from Samantha Power. And it doesn't matter if Netanyahu is PM.

Likewise, Mahmoud Abbas is essentially irrelevant at this point -- and all leaders in Palestine are with the exception of those who might be able to think strategically in a Gandhi-esque way and match the flamboyant absolutism and inhumanity of Israel's occuptation behaviors with non-violent civil disobedience on a communications scale that Gandhi achieved. Mustafa Barghouti comes to mind. . .possibly.

In fact, the more irresponsible both sides are about their situation, the more achievable a "new equilibrium arrangement" may be -- because the US and other regional stakeholders simply can't afford for the recklessness, immaturity, and sheer stupidity of leadership on all sides of the conflict to continue.

Given that. Give us Netanyahu. Please.

His re-ascension will help Americans realize that the false choice approach the Bush administration has been taking in Israel-Palestine affairs was flawed -- and that Obama's team must change the game or face a serious rebuke from Middle East watchers in the US and around the world.

-- Steve Clemons

I have not yet dabbled with Kindle and reading books, papers, and blogs through a Kindle reader -- but a friend is and just found that The Washington Note is available through Kindle.

Who knew? I didn't. But I am pleased that it's there and am assuming that I'm somehow getting a cut of the subscription rate that someone else is charging. I have no idea if that's the case.

But my interest is that folks have access to the blog. So check it out.

-- Steve Clemons

This is one of the more clever posts on economic theory I have seen in a while.

Read the entire list of 21 economic models as told through "cows". . .

But here are some I particularly enjoyed:

SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away...

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.

VENTURE CAPITALISM - AN ICELANDIC CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by
your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated
general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island
Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven
cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows,
with an option on one more. You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States,
leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release. The public then
buys your bull.

A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty
times the milk. You then create a clever cow cartoon image called 'Cowkimon' and market it worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don't know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.

-- Steve Clemons

Live Streaming by Ustream.TV

My good friend and colleague Mark Schmitt, a senior fellow here at the New America Foundation and also the Executive Editor of the American Prospect, will be moderating a live discussion today with Michael Lux, President & CEO of Progressive Strategies and author of The Progressive Revolution: How the Best in America Came to Be.

I unfortunately am going to have to sit this one out because of a bad cold - but I encourage you to watch what will be an impressive presentation from President Obama's transition outreach liaison to the progressive community.

The discussion will center around Lux's book, which follows the trajectory of the progressive movement from the Revolution to the present - and then looks forward to the progressive "what's next" list.

--Steve Clemons

My colleague Michael Lind will be hosting a live panel discussion at 12:30 pm EST with Princeton University/Woodrow Wilson Institute Professor G. John Ikenberry, John Hopkins Professor Daniel Deudney, and Nixon Center President Dimitri Simes on Ikenberry and Deudney's article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, "The Myth of the Autocratic Revival: Why Liberal Democracy Will Prevail."

I was supposed to moderate this event, but had to pull out this morning because I have a turbo-charged zinger of a cold and have lost my voice.

I encourage you to watch what promises to be a terrific discussion featuring some of the sharpest minds looking at Robert Kagan's thesis that the next big divide is between absolutists and authoritarian autocrats on one side and liberal, democratic governmetns on the other.

--Steve Clemons

Rumors are flying that Yale Law School Dean Harold Hongju Koh is under consideration to be State Department Legal Advisor. That would be a welcome development.

The Office of the Legal Advisor, or "L," as the bureau is known at State, is unique in its charge to promote the development of international law and compliance of U.S. policy with international law. John Bellinger did yeoman's work as Legal Advisor during the latter part of the Bush Administration and managed incremental policy shifts regarding the International Criminal Court, the Law of the Sea Convention and other issues (though the Cheney wing flustered this movement on a number of occasions).

Koh's appointment would make a powerful statement. On a symbolic level, appointing one of the country's most highly regarded legal minds to this post would signal the Obama Administration's seriousness regarding its recommitment to international law. And Koh, who is keenly focused on restoring America's standing in general -- and commitment to the rule of law in particular -- has the intellectual firepower and -- at least by reputation -- the competitive fire to fight the good fight.

-- Scott Paul

Win Monroe is a research intern at the New America Foundation.

Leaders from both Russia and China had harsh words for American-style capitalism at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos.

But, as energy prices collapse and demand for exports fall, the legitimacy of these autocratic state capitalists is also being called into question. The contract these governments signed with their citizens - which promised prosperity in return for loyalty - is showing strain on both sides.

As the crisis unfolds, Russian citizens increasingly object to the Kremlin's handling of economic policy. Despite the cold weather, this has led to a marked increase of demonstrations and political activism, including a rally in Moscow that resulted in police beatings and 61 arrests.

Meanwhile, the financial crisis has also sent China's economy reeling due to the sharp decrease in global demand as consumers reign in spending. As factories slow down production, they have already laid off more than 20 million migrant workers who have flooded the cities for jobs or have returned to the countryside. This is likely history's largest reverse migration and its political consequences have yet to play out.

As the recession deepens, both China and Russia face mounting unrest.

On December 4th Russian police raided a human rights organization in St. Petersburg which had been collecting Soviet records and ten days later the government announced that it was expanding the definition of treason.

China has all together stopped publishing numbers regarding demonstrations and riots. And in the third week of December the Chinese government began to block websites from outside the mainland - including the New York Times - although many have been restored now.

The rapid shifts in global events since this summer raise questions as to whether Russia and China really do offer an alternative development model that can compete with liberal democracy over the long-term.

To examine and debate this question, the New America Foundation will host discussion TOMORROW, Friday, February 6 from 12:30pm - 2:00pm EST with G. John Ikenberry and Daniel Deudney, co-authors of "The Myth of the Autocratic Revival: Why Liberal Democracy Will Prevail," which appears in the current issue of Foreign Affairs. Dimitri Simes, president of The Nixon Center and publisher of The National Interest, will offer his thoughts as well.

For those who cannot attend in person, the discussion will stream live on The Washington Note.

--Win Monroe

The much respected and very tough to get Nelson Report thinks Daschle had to go. In contrast, I think Daschle's departure signals the likely death of any near term comprehensive health care reform. Too many other dominoes will now crash down with Daschle's withdrawal -- and the Republicans will score this as a victory and want more. . .

But in the spirit of offering views that differ from my own from folks I respect, here is Chris Nelson's take -- and watch the video above and chuckle:

NELSON REPORT, 3 February 2009

DASCHLE...this may seem "inside baseball" to many, but increasingly one could sense the tide turning against former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, and, we argue, it was for solid policy considerations, not just "saving face".

If you had a "meter" to measure Obama's willingness to take the damage required to force-through Daschle's Cabinet confirmation...well, you could sense the needle dropping yesterday.

Mainly it was the matter of $100,000+ in back taxes and, god help us, failure to pay Medicaid contributions for a private driver he thought was a non-taxable "gift" from a business pal...coming after Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's tax problems, and the advisor who quit this morning because of "nanny tax"...probably that was enough to doom Daschle.

Public and chattering class opinion increasingly was asking "how come these Obama people think they are so special they don't have to pay taxes like the rest of us?"

A certain tone or atmosphere of privilege risked being "institutionalized" by Daschle, seeming to be part of a series, leading to "who's next?" doubts about Obama's ability to properly "vet" his senior associates, and even to questions about his basic values.

The failed Richardson candidacy for Secretary of Commerce, the Geithner and Daschle "tax cheat" problems, the "sin of lobbying" being "waived" to protect the choice for Deputy Secretary of Defense...all this risked looking like a pattern of not just neglect, but hypocrisy.

Obviously the decision was not easy...this morning's Washington Post, for example, editorialized its way through a litany of criticisms of Daschle's conduct and business activities, before concluding that basically he's a great guy and should be confirmed.

The New York Times made the same analysis and nasty remarks, before concluding Daschle should step-down.

As indicated, we think there was also larger issue looming, and was the back breaker for this very able, still very popular, and, sadly, likely to have been very effective advocate and broker for rational solutions to the health care crisis.

He also inadvertently pulled down the curtain so the country and the world could see how "K Street" throws riches at the politically connected.

Daschle collected something like $5-million in salary, consulting and speaking fees since being defeated for re-election 5 years ago, and only by Wall Street's appalling standards is this chump change.

If Obama had stayed with Daschle, he ran an increasing risk of the media and the public starting to say, hey, Daschle made all that money by being far more deeply involved in lobbying, and special interest activities, than the country was led to believe (by Candidate Obama) would ever be tolerated in his Administration.

Parenthetically, we always thought the "no lobbyists allowed" mantra was naive and stupid. Journalists are always shocked, shocked to discover that America is a capitalist democracy...and unfortunately, the "pay to play" scandals of Richardson, and in Illinois, shows that there ARE limits which need to be policed.

But you expect Obama above all to be supremely "rational", as per his waiver demand for the DOD Deputy.

The Daschle mess meant "what gives, have you guys no shame?" would increasingly have been a cancerous risk for Obama's moral mandate, undermining elite and popular belief that he and his Administration really DO represent a genuine break from the past, and "business as usual" in Washington.

One of Obama's greatest appeals as a leader is that he makes us want to be better than we are...that's an almost unique asset which you don't carelessly spend at any time, and which may yet be the key to persuading Congress to quickly pass the Stimulus Package (not to mention national health care reform, at some point down the road).

-- Steve Clemons

During the battle over John Bolton's Senate confirmation to serve as US Ambassador to the United Nations, a post that Bolton ultimately achieved through presidential recess appointment rather than by Senate vote, I noticed a peculiar difference between leading Democrats and leading Republicans.

On the Sunday morning talk shows, leading Democrats kept saying that while they weren't big John Bolton fans, ultimately the President would win the fight over the confirmation of America's leading pugnacious nationalist. At various times during the 21-month long struggle, then Senator Joseph Biden, Senator Chuck Schumer, Senator Richard Durbin, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, and Senator Patrick Leahy all said on political shows that Bolton would get confirmed. To his credit, Durbin actually withdrew his statement and issued a release through this blog commending those working hard to stop Bolton's confirmation.

Dems were conceding before they needed to -- and the Republicans, through the entire battle, were declaring victory even though there was dissension in their own ranks and they were losing the confirmation war.

Obama seems to be replicating the pattern -- conceding defeat on Tom Daschle, one of the people most responsible for actually creating the Obama political machine -- and on the very same day yielding a senior cabinet position at the Department of Commerce not to a leading business official or Democratic Congressman or Governor -- but rather giving it to Judd Gregg who voted 14 years ago to abolish the Commerce Department.

People will be parsing for some time Tom Daschle's missteps with his taxes, and why he wasn't vetted more by the Obama team, and whether Rahm Emanuel was part of the game knifing Daschle from behind, and what the political upper crust in Washington sees as "normal" when they leave office -- but what this was mostly about was the opposing team taking down one of Obama's most important chess pieces.

This was all about Obama, about humbling him, about dividing progressives over whether to support or oppose Daschle.

What we see are two interesting things. First, we see that the divisions between the political franchises inside the Obama camp are fraught with tension and anger now. Many of Daschle's camp are quite furious with Obama's chief of staff.

And the Republican opposition, which has appeared of late to be weak and inchoate. . .isn't.

-- Steve Clemons

I have my doubts whether Obama can simultaneously pull off any kind of serious reform of the military services while also trying to engineer a few "Nixon Goes to China" moments in our national security policies.

He needs the generals and admirals to help him achieve strategic change -- and doesn't want to fight them right now on their internal arrangements and spending. In fact, during the campaign, Obama supports an increase in the size of the military by 92,000 soldiers.

This is a guest post by Brian Young, the new webmaster for the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations chaired by Senator John Kerry. I recently wrote a post about the sorry state of the Foreign Relations Committee's website threatening to create a "One Million Strong Against Senate Foreign Relations Committee Website" on Facebook unless the Committee communicated that it had a plan underway to increase the utility of what should be the best website in Congress. The Committee responded. . .

Brian Young in the note below has asked for public recommendations that could help the site planners. Please be constructive in your commentary.

Delay that Facebook group! We know, we know. . .

As Steve Clemons astutely pointed out last week, the website for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is, er. . .it's kind of, uh -- well, let's just say it needs updating..

And we know that. As we told Steve, we're already in the process of redoing the site.

But it's not an instant process.

Because we're not just looking to spruce up the website, drag it into the 21st century with links to press releases, video of hearings, etc, etc. We want to do more than that; we want to create a website worthy of the Committee. Of all Committees in Congress, this is the one most suited for a powerful, interactive website.

This is a priority for Senator Kerry. He hired me with this in mind. He wants a site that creates a portal into the foreign policy deliberations this nation needs to have to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

This site will be designed to involve people in a conversation about the future of this country's foreign policy.

And, since the Internet knows no borders, it can be a worldwide conversation - a conversation across and between cultures - as we deal with the great threats and challenges facing us now: terrorism, economic upheaval, climate disruption, nuclear proliferation, Middle East peace, disease, poverty -- the whole spectrum of worldwide issues.

And, in a way, we're lucky in the current design of the site. Itís pretty sparse; we've got a blank canvas to paint on..

And we want the conversation to begin now, as we make the basic decisions about what this site should be.

I'm here to get your input on that, on what functionality it should have, on how we can create this ongoing conversation.

Obviously, we won't be able to take every idea; this is a collaborative process, and many of my ideas have already been tossed aside in our internal conversations.

But, since you read this blog, I'm sure you are interested in foreign policy and are active online, so you'll have some great ideas on what we can do with this site.

I've always found that opening up the process and experimenting with new ideas are the keys to real innovation.

-- Brian Young

Starting today on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a new staffer joined the team.

She is my former New America Foundation colleague Heidi Crebo-Rediker, a brilliant financial markets expert, who in recent years worked in Moscow and London and who has been concerned about the global rise of "state capitalism" in other parts of the world -- and America's seeming lack of concern about government-directed strategic financial moves that other states are making.

Crebo-Rediker will head the portfolio for economics, markets and finance on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for Senator John Kerry -- who told me he is greatly impressed by Crebo-Rediker's work and approach to international finance.

America's global economic position is very much on Senator Kerry's mind -- evidenced in part by the Washington Post's snippet that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman was in deep conversation about the economy with Ben Affleck at an Inaugural party.

This trend of Foreign Relations/National Security parts of the government "going economic" has been happening for a long time on an incremental basis.

During the Clinton administration for instance, Joshua Gotbaum served both as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Economic Security and as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy. At that time, DoD was stretching into economic policy questions with the post that Gotbaum first held.

However, there seems to be more of a punctuation point around recent institutional moves like at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- that America's national security and foreign policy can no longer be neatly siloed away from its economic circumstances.

The Department of State is going through similar adjustments of its policy turf.

At the Senate confirmation hearing of Deputy Secretary of State for Policy James Steinberg, Senator Jeanne Shaheen asked Steinberg what role the State Department would play as compared to the Departments of Commerce and the Department of Treasury in dealing with America's international economic policy position.

Steinberg responded:

It is critical that the State Department play a central role in this. (emphasis added)

James Steinberg went on to say that while there are obviously a lot of resources spread across the government that deal with economic policy, it was important to develop a more "integrated approach." He said that we needed an integrated approach that included relationships with key countries and allies and dealt with the realities of integrated markets as well as the impact of this policy on other countries and on Americans.

Steinberg said that otherwise -- without an integrated approach with the State Department playing a central role -- the government would otherwise end up with a stovepiped approach, with different agencies pursuing different work.

Steinberg punctuated this graphically by suggesting:

The State Department will play an active role not only in the traditional NSC World -- but also the NEC World.

For the uninitiated, the NSC is the National Security Council in the White House -- and NEC is the National Economic Council.

Steinberg's logic makes sense -- and so does John Kerry's decision to bring someone in with real world expertise in financial markets.

It is long overdue for the lines that demarcated geostrategic issues from geo-economic ones to be blurred and fudged up.

But still. . .expect some turf wars from Treasury, Commerce, and some in the National Economic Council who don't yet fully sign on to Jim Steinberg's sensible vision.

And it will be interesting to see if the Senate Finance Committee tries to either acquire Heidi Crebo-Rediker from John Kerry's stable, or just ignores the expansion of economic staff capacity on the Foreign Relations Committee, or works collaboratively with it.

-- Steve Clemons