Obama, Japan is a sleepy Japanese fishing port that went nuts for Obama -- cheering him on and dancing for him in March 2008 when "his winning steak in the U.S. presidential primaries stalled." And above, Obama village dwellers sing "O-B-A-M-A! Obama!" as a tribute to Barack.

But strangely and shockingly, in another part of Japan this past weekend, I ran into this "blackface" sign (pictured to the left) for the Savoiya Restaurant in Izu Kogen.

Blackface is considered by most to be racially derogatory and unacceptable.

I remember years ago when NPR and Fox news commentator Juan Williams visited Japan as the guest of the Hitachi Foundation to try and build better relations between Japanese and the African-American community -- in part an attempt to roll back the influence of Japanese publishing and advertising purveyors of then proliferating blackface signs and other anti-black racially charged commentary.

Izu didn't get the message.

It's just a single restaurant and Izu and its hot springs are well worth the trip.

But Barack Obama might want to stop by this spot in Izu Kogen and glare a bit at the sign before ordering a pizza there. I bet there would be quick change.

-- Steve Clemons

Over the last day and a half, I've been seeing as much as possible of the area around the Izu Peninsula in Japan.

For those who want to venture out and see scenery like that above, Hana Fubuki is a great place to stay with seven different, private natural hot springs baths. This ryokan in Izu Kogen is fantastic. Only flaw is that they didn't have sandals to fit size 15 feet. I hobbled along anyway.

William "Miura Anjin" Adams, the British Sailor memorialized by James Clavell's Shogun, spent a lot of time in Izu after washing up on Japan's shores in 1600 and eventually becoming friend and foreign policy adviser to Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu -- sort of like Denis McDonough is to Barack Obama (without the washing up on the shore).

I am back to Washington, DC tomorrow.

-- Steve Clemons

(Patrick Doherty directs the New America Foundation/U.S.-Cuba 21st Centry Policy Initiative.)

With the Organization of American States diplomatic maneuvering around the exclusion of Cuba hitting the Washington Post today, it seems like a good time to cut through all the inside baseball and get right to the real important message:

Latin America has made Cuba its cause celebre, and the analogy is to Palestine.

In other words, if the United States wants to do business with the region and to lead the region, it is time for the Obama administration to deliver change they can believe in and the threshold is set high: ending the embargo on Cuba.

The Palestine analogy is early, but we have three very good data points on which to base it. First, in December 2008 at a meeting of the Rio Group of Latin American heads of state, one of the only issues the summit was able to agree on was that the incoming Obama administration needs to end its embargo of Cuba.

Second, in Trinidad at the Summit of the Americas, while Cuba was not on the formal agenda, Cuba was the major topic of conversation both at the summit and in the media. As my colleauge Phil Peters points out, Trinidad was really a Cuba summit.

The third data point is this diplomatic full court press in the run up to the Honduras Ministerial of the Organization of American States, in which multiple sub-groupings of states have submitted a variety of proposals for repealing the act which expelled Cuba from the organization in 1962.

All three point to one clear message: the price of a new relationship with Latin America is ending the dysfunctional legacy of our old ones, in particular, the indiscriminate and disproportionate economic embargo the United States maintains on Cuba. That's pretty close to the formula that the Arab world has used for at least two decades with Palestine: don't think we are going to help you move your regional agenda forward until you help us out on getting a Palestinian peace deal done.

The test, of course, will be whether the individual nations of the Hemisphere decide to subordinate their bi-lateral relationships with the United States to this agenda. Again, my sense is that this will look like the Palestinian issue in the Arab world: relationships will remain multi-dimensional but in the aggregate, to the extent the Cuba issue remains an open sore, U.S. interests in the region will suffer from excessive friction and, in some cases, outright resistance.

We need to be clear, however, that this sentiment is not something led by Hugo Chavez, though he and his Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America group of nations are certainly enjoying this drama and stand to benefit from any outcome that further isolates the United States from the other countries of the Hemisphere. Rather, this is something larger, hemispheric, about righting the relationship between the United States and our near abroad and in so doing, closing the chapter on coercive American intervention in Latin America for good.

But one must be realistic and ask whether this diplomatic theater will even register on Mr. Obama's radar screen. Given his plate of global issues, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, the financial crisis and climate change and his incremental, issue-by-issue approach to them, right now the answer is probably not. It has registered on the Secretary of State's radar but that is not good enough to get a resolution. Mrs. Clinton can only manage a bad hand without a strategic decision from her boss. And if this sore is left to fester for too long, when the Obama administration does turn to Latin America it may find out that we have no OAS, we have no trust, and that China, Europe and other powers have left little space for the U.S. to pursue even our shared interests.

-- Patrick Doherty

I took this picture this morning at Shibuya station in Tokyo, watching a real mob of people pack themselves in a 12-person thick long line entry into the Ginza line subway where train cars arrive every two minutes.

It's quite hard to imagine after seeing this mad morning rush that on paper Japan's economy has been contracting at a staggering rate -- at least until recently.

There are new industrial output figures that were just released here that show a jump higher than any other in the last 56 years.

Likewise, in China -- I saw and heard much anecdotal evidence that China's economic growth may be picking up some speed again and that even exports are moving slightly up from their lows.

Some will take this as good news. However, I worry that America has achieved no fundamental restructuring of its economy -- that the American domestic social contract between labor and firms and government and the financial sector has not been re-imagined during this crisis.

Chinese business and government authorities are obsessed with getting workers back on the job -- whether they are satisfying the appetite of global buyers or fulfilling growing domestic demand which really is growing.

But in the US, there is a huge jobs creation deficit that the nation is not really addressing.

The world's big surplus economies seem to be bouncing back to some degree -- and have the expectation that the U.S. will continue to be the kind of consumer it has been in the last decade.

Regrettably, Barack Obama has not done much of late to change the "jobless recovery" course America is on.

-- Steve Clemons

After spending some time in China recently listening to the stories of Chinese officials and others on what roles they played or in what circumstances they or their families suffered during the Cultural Revolution, I can easily imagine twenty or thirty years from now similar historic reflections in the form of special lectures, movies, even Broadway theater productions on the topic of "The Gitmo Boys."

The Gitmo boys are the terrorists and suspected (but not proven) terrorists that America and its allies are holding and have held in extra-legal limbo at the US-controlled Guantanamo detention facilities in Cuba.

Today, there are big concerns about what happens if America's legal system proves unable to process some of those detained -- and judges eventually order them either transferred to their countries of home origin or just released.

My New America Foundation colleagues Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann have just published an important New York Times piece suggesting that the Pentagon may be engaged in hyping the recidivism rate of released GITMO detainees.

What has always bothered me about GITMO is the sloppiness and imprecision involved in US authorities making a clear case against the most violent and most extreme cases there versus detaining young boys, octogenarians, other "suspected" but unproven criminals, or even innocents. In my view, the sloppy management of GITMO detainees has undermined security and American national interests by actually creating the conditions by which the worst cases can't easily be processed in our judicial system or even in the courts of our allies.

This was a huge mistake. Read the Bergen/Tiedemann article though which I find quite sober and balanced -- and implicitly critical of the threat-hyping that DoD is engaged in.

-- Steve Clemons

(Steve Clemons and Shanghai Municipal Government official Cao Yang at the Shanghai Museum; photo credit: Peter Pi)

This past week, TWN's Steve Clemons has been in Beijing, Shanghai, Wuxi, and Shenzhen.

Today, we are flying to Tokyo.

Monday will be DC.

Tuesday and Wednesday -- Bonn, Germany.

Thursday and Friday -- Dallas, Texas.

I have a great deal of material to share in the coming days and weeks about observations on the political, economic, environmental, even the religious circumstances in China.

So, stay tuned.

-- Steve Clemons

Among the Obama administration's many promised changes to the United States' strategic posture is an intention to "press the reset button" on U.S.-Russian relations.

Many Russia analysts have argued that while a strategic partnership may be impossible, Washington and Moscow have enough mutual interests to develop, in Nikolas Gvosdev's words, "a relationship characterized by a major pragmatic approach to resolving issues and preventing disagreements from flaring up into full-scale crises."

Similarly, Dmitri Simes, Thomas Graham and the Committee on U.S. Policy Toward Russia separately argue (here, here, and here) that Moscow and Washington share a number of interests - the most important of which include non-proliferation, counter-terrorism, and preventing a nuclear Iran.

The key, according to this view, is to elevate these issues to the top of the bilateral agenda and engage in sustained, high-level negotiations.

The corollary to this position is that the deterioration of relations can be blamed in part on the Bush administration's failure to accommodate Russian interests on issues that are of vital national interest to Moscow, but of less import to Washington. American interests would be better served if Washington stopped lecturing Moscow about democracy, encouraging Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO, and attempting to install missile defense sites in Eastern Europe.

The Obama administration seems to agree that this kind of horse trading and agenda-setting can lead to productive compromise and cooperation. The first evidence of this was President Obama's secret letter to Moscow in February, which hinted that he would be willing to suspend missile defense deployments in Eastern Europe in exchange for cooperation on the Iranian nuclear issue.

But the jury is still out on whether a more pragmatic, interest-based relationship is possible.

Obama's overture has been unsuccessful thus far, as evidenced most recently by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's response to a question on this subject at a recent forum at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

Lavrov questioned the connection between the missile defense installations and the Iranian nuclear threat and said that "[Missile defense bases in Poland and Czech Republic]...would have nothing to do with Iranian potential threat [sic] but would have [a] very immediate effect on the Russian strategic arsenals in the European part of the Russian Federation."

Council on Foreign Relations scholar Stephen Sestanovich, writing in Foreign Affairs, argues essentially that Washington cannot achieve better relations with the government in Moscow because Moscow believes that "Russia's relations with the United States (and the West in general) [are] inherently unequal and conflictual and that Russia would better serve its interests if it followed its own course."

According to this view, Russia defines its national security strategy primarily as anti-American and in zero-sum terms, thereby precluding meaningful cooperation.

For instance, Russia may have an interest in preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons - but will not work with Washington to prevent that outcome because it is more threatened by a U.S.-Iranian rapprochement that would limit Russian influence in Tehran and threaten Moscow's energy security strategy.

Writing in the Moscow Times after returning from a recent trip to Moscow, Amitai Etzioni also questions whether pressing the reset button is possible due to Russia and the United States' vastly different priorities.

Clearly the Obama administration is willing to talk nicely toward Moscow - but whether it will be able to achieve significant policy breakthroughs remains an open question.

-- Ben Katcher

Jonathan Guyer is a Program Associate at the New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force.

-- Jonathan Guyer

Oakley the Amazing Weimaraner gives me this look when he's had it.

"China, China, China. . . All you talk about is China. Enough." (in Weimaranerese of course)

On the other hand, he didn't think that the fashionable Camp Doha-inspired reflector collars (suggested by regular reader POA) were such a bad idea.

I'm off to Tokyo tomorrow.

-- Steve Clemons

Most national security analysts see the provocative second nuclear test by North Korea as a direct "poke" at Barack Obama -- testing his resolve in a high stakes international stand-off and demanding senior level US attention.

These analysts are partly correct, but the other part of the equation is that North Korea's nuclear gaming and short range missile launches today are embarrassing for the leadership in Beijing. According to one Chinese international security expert once affiliated with Peking University's International Studies Institute, China's tools for influencing North Korea are pretty minimal -- and the illusion of that influence just collapsed in front of the entire world.

According to another high level former Chinese government official, after North Korea's March 2009 missile launch, China President Hu Jintao conveyed in "the strongest personal terms" his frustration and anger about North Korea's recent saber-rattling behavior. Both China and Russia have been counseling America to be patient with North Korea for the time being and to continue to work towards a return to the Six Party Talks, which the Chinese felt the North Koreans would eventually accept again.

But a nuclear test and missile launches are obvious escalations of North Korean trouble-making, and the question today is whether there is a "patience 2.0" option available -- or whether Barack Obama and the US have to find a way to harshly 'punish' North Korea or face a credibility collapse at home.

One can already imagine a spate of articles coming from the pens of John Bolton, Charles Krauthammer, former Vice President Cheney, and others that Barack Obama should he fail to ratchet up the Pacific-based war machine is really just an "appeaser in chief."

The fact is that the Chinese and Russians are mostly right about the need for more patience and are calling on the White House privately not to get in a tit-for-tat escalation with North Koreans -- particularly when there may be a serious leadership crisis underway to succeed the ailing Kim Jong Il.

China, Russia, and South Korea (even the conservative-led government in South Korea) have a primary interest in "stability" in addition to blocking potential North Korean proliferation of WMD technology and materials.

Japan, because of the emotionally sensitive "abductee issue", has morphed its animus against North Korea about a unique national grievance with a more legitimate national security concern about the missiles and nukes North Korea is brandishing. Regrettably, Japan has been too immature in the Six Party Talks and has allowed an understandable (on one level) but lower-order emotional obsession to derail strategic rationality.

Americans are schizophrenic on North Korea. During the end of Clinton II, there was an enormous amount of attention focused on North Korea -- capped off by a visit by then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and had Monica Lewinsky not appeared on Bill Clinton's docket, many believe that Bill Clinton would have gone to North Korea before the end of his term.

Colin Powell tried to engineer continuity between Clinton and the first George W. Bush term but was quickly mugged by President Bush who wanted to derail the course US-North Korea relations were on. North Korea envoy Jack Pritchard and then Under Secretary of State John Bolton engaged in a highly public feud over North Korea policy -- though both worked, theoretically, for the same Secretary of State.

The anti-progress hawks won the day until the second George W. Bush term when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill brought the worsening North Korean situation around to something with new, constructive possibilities and made the Six Party Talks something serious.

Now Barack Obama's plate is full with Iran, the AfPak mess, Israel/Palestine, Russia, the domestic and international economic crises, Cuba, Somali pirates and more -- and while not wanting to overreact to North Korea, Obama has also probably been underreacting to them as well.

The North Koreans want to know they matter to the new President of the United States -- and they are wreaking havoc in the international system until they get that attention.

But actually, attention is a pretty cheap commodity and doesn't necessarily mean that North Korea's extortionist demands for resources should be met. Giving North Korea the kind of attention that Christopher Hill managed to do on behalf of Rice and Bush is one of the things that the Obama White House should be doing.

North Korea may simply be unstable while uncertainties about political succession stew in the muck of Pyongyang's opaque political scene, but at the same time -- America does not have a "Chris Hill" in Christopher Hill's old position.

Waiting patiently and quietly in line is the highly capable Kurt Campbell who should be on this problem now -- but he has not been confirmed, and the Obama team needs to fix this -- and needed to yesterday.

North Korea's provocations are reckless but while going higher up the ladder of naughtiness, they do not meet the standard for invasion or attack -- and a tougher "sanctions regime" may give the bad guys in North Korea's unstable political order exactly what they want.

America cannot do nothing. Obama can't be a sitting duck for the attack that will predictably come from John Bolton and fellow travelers. But there are simply few real options.

Making patience look like the smart strategy, even the tough strategy, would be wise. A meeting between the foreign ministers of Russia, China and the US (I'd leave South Korea and Japan home for this one -- hate mail already piling up. . .) for non-public discussions on North Korea scenarios would also be optically tough-looking.

And then there is always the possibility of an out-of-the-box play by Barack Obama that he always seem to deploy so skilfully in unbalancing the Republican Party. I'm not sure exactly how he'd do it -- but to co-opt North Korea in some way, some gesture that is not the expected hostile or angry move -- something similar in a North Korea context to getting Republican Governor and possible presidential candidate Jon Huntsman to be Obama's Ambassador to China -- might be the kind of move that gives Kim Jong Il the attention and respect he craves and at the same time stabilize things. . .at least for a while.

Alternatively, perhaps Hillary Clinton or Bob Gates or someone closer to Obama like Mark Lippert or Denis McDonough could accidentally bump into key North Korean officials around the world and engage in some stress-relieving "chats", or something more creative than I can imagine at the moment.

What needs to be avoided is a hot escalation of words and deeds during a probable leadership crisis. America needs to do all it can to avoid an attack on the Korean peninsula that will not only be devastating for all parties in the region but do incalculable damage to the highly important US-China relationship.

Obama needs to make patience look like the right, and the tough, course -- and he needs to find a way to co-opt the North Koreans into a new dance.

President Obama needs to give this some personal time -- and he needs Kurt Campbell as the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia on the job NOW.

-- Steve Clemons

This is my incredible view of Shanghai from a Le Royal Meridien hotel room. Just arrived. If you stay here, ask for Elisa from the Starwood team -- who is an incredible bundle of smart energy for arriving weary guests.

One of the pleasant surprises I had on this trip was meeting again a young man named "Andy" who took a course from Shelton Williams at the DC operation of the Osgood Center for International Studies.

Andy, whose last name I will leave off the blog, is a graduate student in international affairs in Guanzhou.

"Andy" has been regularly translating The Washington Note into Chinese! All the stuff on Cheney, all the stuff by Lawrence Wilkerson, all the stuff going after the neocons, all the stuff by my TWN teammates on all sorts of political and foreign policy issues. . .

I had no idea that he was doing this.

So, check it out. In China, it's called The DC Note.

Whether you speak Chinese or not, go there and click a lot. Andy deserves the support.

-- Steve Clemons

(Washington Note blogger Steve Clemons at BYD Auto Headquarters in Shenzhen, China; photo credit: Peter Pi)

A few months ago, I joined an unusual meeting sponsored in part by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

Don't have a heart attack (particularly POA), but it included Richard Perle, Clifford May, James Woolsey, Charles Krauthammer and other leading lights of the "next war, please" crowd. This is not the group of Wasingtonians I typically hang out with, but believe it or not, we found common ground.

All of us want to have a federal tax on gasoline that drives the price to levels higher than $4.00 a gallon. At price levels higher than this point, Americans just stop their frivolous driving, highway-related deaths plummet, and the economics of alternative energy development become significantly enhanced.

I think that some of those I mentioned above genuinely want to detach America's interests from the Middle East -- which I don't think is realistic. On the other hand, I think that there is no climate change remediation strategy that can be shoved on to China or the world when the United States continues to pump out cheap gas and oil to its consumers.

Yesterday at the BYD battery and automotive plant in Shenzhen, China I saw first hand the economic and political cost of America's cheap energy strategy. Neither the US nor even Japan hold a secure lead in mass market electric car development.

Fisker makes a very expensive, very high end electric car -- but in a different strategic approach, battery manufacturing powerhouse BYD has gotten into the mass market car business selling 200,000 cars domestically in China last year and planning this year to sell 400,000 cars. Most of these are small, cheap, efficient gas cars -- but BYD has now put out to market the F3, which is an electric hybrid with a one-liter engine that plugs in to the wall socket.

BYD's E6, however, is the car that reminds me of the 21st century version of the Toyota Corolla -- the car that first took advantage of the 1970s energy crisis and clobbered American rivals in the US market.

The E6, which is targeted in xpart for California and plans to launch there in 2011, is fully electric -- and has a 400 km/250 mile range and goes up to 160 km/100 miles per hour.

I drove one yesterday, and it's a great vehicle.

Warren Buffett thinks the same -- and is now in the process of buying 10% of the company.

I used to listen to American auto executives say that battery cars would never really be developed, that there would be too much static in the engine, that there would be tort liability issues that would preempt development and production.

Well -- surprise, surprise -- China now has one that will sell for roughly $22,000 and is preparing for mass market sales.

America is addicted to the narcotic of overly subsidized gas and needs to set up new incentives to develop the energy and transportation technologies that are needed for this next century. We just aren't doing it -- and China is.

Thanks to my hosts at BYD for a peek into the future and the test drive -- but to my friends in the Obama administration, America will never really move forward on energy alternatives when we are able to get a quick fix on our current addiction to overly cheap gas.

-- Steve Clemons

Lieutenant General James Lovelace may only have the safety of his soldiers in mind at Camp Doha -- but quite a bunch of these soldiers don't feel much love for him because of the obsessive compulsion he has to see all of his military lads wear "reflective attire" as they walk from one point to another on the base, inside the security fence.

To be fair, my hunch is that with military vehicles moving around the compound, Lovelace wants his soldiers to stand out and be seen at night. But according to authoritative sources, there can be zero cars out and yet a soldier caught out not wearing his attractive orange reflector belt (as pictured to the left) is up for some big time trouble.

Of course, I wonder if the General has considered that while helping the drivers on base see his soldiers, he's also helping those just outside of Camp Doha see them too -- folks that might see these soldiers as targets.

We have heard rumors that General Lovelace, who may be a great guy, is headed out soon as commander of Camp Doha and will take on a new assignment -- and most hope that the next commander will be a little less fixated on making sure that military fashion is accompanied by stylish reflector belts.

I know a lot of folks in the Logan Circle area of DC who would love them though and am making arrangements to arrange some fashion transfers.

-- Steve Clemons

The United States is engaged in too many wars at the same time and is convincing too many other nation states that it cannot achieve the ends it sets out for itself.

The military limits America has exposed in its Iraq and Afghanistan engagements; the moral mistakes the US military and Bush administration made in Bagram, Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib; and the audacity of American structural corruption that resulted in the export of toxic financial products to the rest of the world have generated doubt in the minds of allies that America can realistically support them -- and have animated the ambitions of foes.

North Korea is testing America -- just like Joe Biden said would happen.

One of the great thinkers about the implosion of American power in the world is Boston University defense thinker Andrew Bacevich whose book The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism is a should read.

His son, Andrew Bacevich Jr. (pictured to the left) was killed in Iraq, one of our current wars that I believe has undermined America's place in the world and its global leverage -- not increased it.

But I want to remember Bacevich and the many who have sacrificed for the country. I have friends in the military deployed in the Middle East now -- and I wish they were back home. These soldiers do deserve our respect -- but like Bacevich Jr.'s father, I believe that our current conflicts are doing the nation great harm.

Memorial Day does not mean embracing wars and conflicts that set back the interests of the nation in some shallow gesture of patriotism -- but Memorial Day should mean paying respect to those who have sacrificed greatly for the nation, even if that sacrifice should not have been demanded by our leaders.

-- Steve Clemons

(Former Foreign Minister of China Li Zhaoxing and Washington Note blogger Steve Clemons; photo credit: Peter Pi)

The above picture was taken in Beijing with Li Zhaoxing, who served as former Ambassador of China to the US and then served as China's Foreign Minister.

Li now serves as Honorary President of the Chinese Peoples' Institute of Foreign Affairs -- and is one of the most fascinating people I have met over here. I may write more about his unique style and perspective on China's strategic course when I get a bit more time -- but it's pretty interesting to know that he speaks some Swahili and essentially missed the years of the Cultural Revolution serving in China's Embassy in Kenya -- a country that has attracted great interest among Americans because of Barack Obama's Kenyan lineage.

Today, I'm in Wuxi, a Chinese second tier city in Jiangsu Province about 128 kilometers from Shanghai and 180 kilometers from Nanjing. This afternoon, I fly to Shenzhen down south.

Wuxi is an export powerhouse with about 80 of the Fortune 500 firms based here. I saw many of them yesterday including Astra Zeneca, Coca-Coa, NEC, Mizuho, Accor, Fedex, Sony, Caterpillar, Toyota, Sharp, Itochu, Jabil, Valeo.

But the region has been whacked by the economic crisis with a decline in exports the last quarter of 30% compared to last year.

But get this -- Wuxi subsidizes firms to offer retraining packages for their employees if they don't lay them off. And the region works hard to increase services to manufacturing firms based here to help them through the crisis -- and more importantly, to assist workers -- both those registered in this province and those who are migrants (i.e. unregistered).

And on top of that, the central government has greenlighted three large scale transportation related projects that it had previously rejected -- including the building of Wuxi's first subway system and a new passenger hub terminal for an express train stop on a line being built both from Shanghai to Nanjing as well as Shanghai to Beijing.

The focus here on keeping people working, on correcting obvious environmental problems, on getting large scale public works infrastructure immediately underway is incredibly impressive -- and makes me even more frustrated with the absence of this kind of focus in the U.S.

We talk about jobs, talk about Smart Grid and new express railway systems, talk about public infrastructure, talk about keeping people in their homes -- but we seem to do more talking than doing in the United States.

This place is "doing" -- and doing so quite impressively at the local level.

-- Steve Clemons

(Washington Note publisher Steve Clemons with State Council Information Office Vice Minister Qian Xiaoquian)

As of the end of 2008, China claimed 298 million "netizens" -- or regular users of the internet.

At that same benchmark in time, China had 162 million blog sites and 117 million mobile internet users.

By the end of June 2009, Chinese authorities predict a 20% growth jump in all these figures.

Like all American journalists or public policy hands who visit China, I have been interested in what sites one could not get on to. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are the perennial blocked sites (though Chinese authorities permitted access to most these sites during the Olympic Games). However, to be quite honest, many of the sites -- particularly news and information sites that I could not access a year ago when i was in Beijing -- are available.

I have been checking news and policy websites in the UK, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, Canada, Poland, Brazil, Indonesia, Japan, and others to see significant blocks -- but the only newspaper I have not been able to get that I wanted to get was the Philadelphia Inquirer -- which a young person here showed me how to reach through a back channel site.

In fact, this young person walking through internet access issues with me said that Chinese young people can essentially access anything that the government might try and does block. This person who works in international affairs says that the ability of the Chinese government to significantly control access to web-based content is quickly eroding.

And as a result of very interesting and candid discussions with the Vice Minister of the State Council Information Office, Qian Xiaoqian, I believe that many Chinese government officials know that the practice of blocking this site or that is undergoing significant change or reform. According to Vice Minister Qian, Chinese authorities restrict access to sites based on four principal criteria: the incitement of hatred between ethnic groups, racial discrimination, pornography, and violence. He said that since China's reform process started 30 years ago, the State and China's citizens have moved into a mode of significant tolerance of criticism and dissent but that the government still objected and would intervene to "oppose fabrication of stories."

I'm sure that many will continue to argue for some time that the Chinese government plays an oppressive force when it comes to internet management and monitoring.

But I disagree.

There is simply just too much internet use. Terminals are everywhere. The newspapers are actually full of stories about people critiquing government officials, standards, building and infrastructure quality. It's fascinating -- not perfect. I do get the sense that political entrepreneurship is mostly a non-starter here, but even on that front, I have found several key cases where even that form of self-censorship is changing for the better.

As the State Council Information Office official told me, all of this could not be happening if the Chinese government didn't view the expansion and deployment of the internet "positively."

In my exchange with the Vice Minister, I mentioned that Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Richard Lugar's office had sent me an email that morning about an exchange that Senator Lugar had had with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The email from Lugar was not "text" but rather a hyperlink to Richard Lugar's YouTube site, which archives a lot of video recorded exchanges between Senator Lugar with the world's leading foreign policy personalities.

I conveyed to Vice Minister Qian that YouTube was not available and was one of the blocked sites -- most likely because of concerns over "fabrication" of things which the Chinese government deems to be untrue or of serious national security consequence.

Vice Minister Qian was not defensive -- and made no claims that he would get YouTube unblocked (he didn't realize it was blocked) but said that by my description of the site and of Lugar's use of the YouTube medium, it may be something that Qian should look into using for his office's own work in public diplomacy. Pretty surprising and refreshing answer.

Some may see the practice of filtering sites to be disturbing and to be 'the story' that needs to be told.

But I have to say that even with my skeptic's eye, the trends in China are very positive when it comes to public inquiry over the net and when it comes to the forward-leaning, more enlightened stance of many government officials who are incrementally liberalizing access. That I think is the real story.

It will be interesting to see if access to YouTube is restored before my next visit to China.

In Wuxi today seeing a solar panel maker and to Shenzhen tomorrow.

-- Steve Clemons

(Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics)

Just a quick follow up on Steve's post from yesterday on China's obsession with creating jobs - and the disturbing lack of such an obsession here in Washington.

I recommend reading this speech delivered by InterMedia Partners Managing Partner and New America Foundation/Smart Globalization Initiative Chairman Leo Hindery.

Hindery lays out a bold, game-changing vision of the new economic foundation that President Obama has said that we need - but that Washington's collective intellectual hangover from Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush manic neo-liberalism seems to be working to prevent.

-- Ben Katcher

This is just a brief note checking in from China. I am currently in Beijing and heading to Wuxi City today.

The above picture was taken with some fantastic Mongolian Chinese singers and performers at a restaurant I loved.

As somewhat of an Asia hand, I am surprised at how much I have learned on this trip to China and how much I need to readjust some of my views of what China is doing to redirect its economy, environmental footprint, and strategic goals. More on that later. Need some more time to sort out what I have been absorbing.

But I must add that every Chinese leader I have met and with whom I have discussed economic issues knows that their job is to get folks employed and to create jobs. It's an overwhelming focus of the government right now -- and sadly, one just does not get that sense from American policymakers about American workers.

Increasingly, I am hearing rumblings that America is headed for a "GDP recovery" that is essentially jobless.

-- Steve Clemons

Dick Cheney's post-office media tour has reached an unprecedented level. Today the American Enterprise Institute hosted the suddenly chatty former vice-president for a speech on national security. This was conveniently scheduled to air immediately after President Obama's national security speech at the Archives. While this face-off was interesting and clearly presented both sides of the complicated national security discussion, I'd give anything to see a real Cheney-Obama debate. But, of course, the President has more important things to do than go back and forth with the former vice president on the merit of his national security policies.

Rarely known to mince words, Cheney targeted his speech at specific actions and political enemies with laser-like precision. He took on Obama, Nancy Pelosi - though not by name, the New York Times, and just about every anti-torture argument of recent months. I would like to call special attention to the assertion Cheney made today which has become a mantra amongst those seeking to defend the Bush legacy.

Technically the gist of this statement is correct. There has not been another attack on US soil since September 11th 2001, but to say that al-Qaeda has not "hit" us since that fateful day is just plain wrong. Al-Qaeda and various like-minded organizations have killed just under 5,000 US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is nearly double the number of casualties we suffered in the attacks of 9/11. Most American citizens would consider this a substantial hit. Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations no longer need to board a plane or work their way through customs and border patrol to attack American citizens. Elaborate plans have been abandoned for teenage recruits with suicide jackets.

The loss of civilian life in Iraq and Afghanistan is also alarmingly high. An estimated 100,000 civilians have died in Iraq since the launch of Operation Iraqi Freedom. And around 2,000 civilians are killed each year in Afghanistan as a side effect of Operation Enduring Freedom. While the responsibility of these civilian deaths is not to be laid squarely on the United States, I think these innocent victims are another "hit" to the U.S. that Cheney has conveniently overlooked.

-- Faith Smith

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

The reactions, commentary and analysis of Obama's meeting with Netanyahu have varied widely in their assessments of Obama's performance. David Ignatius believes that Obama took a positive first step forward in the peace process, while Martin Indyk went so far as to say that Obama got "suckered," by Netanyahu.

Of course, the truth is probably less exciting than either analysis suggests. Stephen Walt points out that neither leader had much incentive to clash with the other and that general statements and vague answers to questions reigned the day.

There was some substance, however, to take away from the meeting.

First, Obama made it clear that Israel must honor its commitment to freeze settlement growth if it is to be taken seriously as a partner in the peace process (note: it would have been nice if a reporter could have put this question to Netanyahu in front of Obama, rather than harping on Iran for most of the half hour-long Q&A).

Second, while he did not set a specific deadline, Obama did lay out a rough metric for diplomatic efforts with Iran by identifying the end of the year as a point of assessment.

Third, and probably the only mild surprise, we later learned that Netanyahu and Obama set up a US-Israel working group on Iran, although it is unclear what exactly this amounts to.

Fourth, Obama intends to take a broader regional approach to the peace process, hoping to be able to offer the normalization of relations with moderate Arab regimes as an incentive for Netanyahu to engage his government in the process.

With regards to the last point, in the past many administrations have tried the regional approach and failed - but this does not mean it is a mistake to try again. A sustainable equilibrium is possible only if all of the major regional stakeholders are on board.

This point was emphasized by Zbigniew Brzezinski at a recent national policy forum on US-Saudi Relations hosted by the New America Foundation and the Committee for International Trade. Brzezinski explained that over the last 30 years we have seen clearly that this conflict cannot be resolved by the Israelis and Palestinians alone. He argued that "there is an urgent need for an American - Saudi Arabian genuine alliance for peace in the Middle East."

David Ignatius seems to think that Obama is heeding Brzezinski's advice. He describes Obama's strategy in the following way:

The Obama strategy over the next few months will be to create a regional framework for peace negotiations that's enticing enough to draw in the wary Netanyahu. To give Israel some quick tangible benefits, the United States wants the Arabs to begin normalizing relations with the Jewish state. Jordan's King Abdullah describes this promise of recognition by the Arab League nations as a "23-state solution."

The key to this front-loading strategy is Saudi Arabia. But the Saudis warn privately that they won't normalize anything unless Israel makes some dramatic moves -- such as freezing settlements in the occupied West Bank -- that demonstrate its commitment to the 2003 "road map" for peace.

Now the question is whether the United States can provide the leadership and trust necessary for all sides to make the painful concessions necessary to move forward.

-- Win Monroe

Nader Mousavizadeh, a former special assistant to Kofi Annan, provides a fresh, critical perspective on the Obama administration's policy toward Iran in an op-ed in today's Washington Post.

According to Mousavizadeh, the Obama administration needs to focus on Iran's intentions rather than its capabilities. We need to identify what Iran wants and find a way to come to a reasonable accommodation that can be accepted by all of the major stakeholders in the region. This is the only way to prevent our conflict with Iran from continuing to simmer until it eventually explodes.

Here are the key graphs:

By focusing on the means of Iran's ascendancy -- its pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability and its support for Hezbollah and Hamas -- we are avoiding the vital question of ends. Concentrating on capabilities instead of intentions, we are missing the far more consequential opportunity to challenge the Iranian regime to a real debate about the country's legitimate place in the regional security architecture and the deeply illegitimate ways Tehran seeks to achieve it....

...We need to reverse our starting point in engagement -- away from the bomb and Iran's sponsorship of Hezbollah and Hamas -- and discard the notion that bigger sticks and bigger carrots will alter Tehran's strategic calculus. Our goal should be a new geostrategic environment in the Persian Gulf, in which Iran has fewer reasons to pursue overt nuclear weapons status, and in which it won't trigger a cascade of conflict if it nonetheless decides to do so. Rather than allow capabilities over which we have little control to force our hand, we should seek a new framework of intentions in our diplomacy with Iran.

This means opening direct bilateral talks without preconditions, focused on the many areas of common urgent concern, beginning with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. By building trust through joint efforts in arenas where Iranian and U.S. interests greatly coincide, we can move toward candid acknowledgment of each side's legitimate interests.

For more on the nuts and bolts of how to restructure our relationship with Iran, I encourage you to read, "Time For a U.S. Iranian Grand Bargain," by New America Foundation/Geopolitics of Energy Initiative Director Flynt Leverett with STRATEGA Chairman Hillary Mann Leverett.

-- Ben Katcher

I suspect that the number of issues on which Condi Rice, Henry Kissinger, Bob Rubin, Paul Volcker, Tony Lake and James Baker all agree is small. But earlier this week, they and eight others of similar stature signed a letter to congressional leaders urging support for additional US funding for the International Monetary Fund.

These former leaders from State, Treasury, the Federal Reserve and the National Security Council argued that the severe impact of the global financial crisis on developing countries has endangered America's own hopes for an end to the recession and that a "stronger and more responsive IMF is essential to the restoration of confidence in the global economy and financial system and thus to our own economic recovery."

And yet, in spite of this unambiguous, high profile, bipartisan support, congressional approval remains uncertain.

Those who oppose increased IMF funding argue that it costs too much, it unfairly benefits other countries on the back of the US taxpayer and the funding process is opaque. Others simply hate the IMF.

It is important to understand the nature of the funding being sought, how it is being accounted for and the crucial role that the IMF plays in today's fragile global economy -- a role that benefits not only recipient countries to which the IMF provides financing, but also to the US.

First, in spite of arguments about how much IMF participation costs the US, in fact, we make money from our stake in the fund. According to the US Treasury, over the past five years, the direct financial benefit of US participation in the IMF to the US taxpayer has exceeded $1.5 billion. That's because the IMF is a monetary agency - not a special interest, charity or even a development bank. As such, the US benefits directly from both the payment of interest and from increases in the valuation of its share of IMF reserve assets.

The current request before Congress calls for $108 billion in additional funding for the IMF, but this is actually misleading. Given the fact that, as noted above, these funds have proven to be more like profitable investments than traditional budgetary outlays, there is a credible argument that they should not be counted as anything more than an exchange of assets with one of the most creditworthy entities in the world.

The majority of the current funding request is for what is known as the IMF's "New Arrangements to Borrow," or the NAB. The NAB acts as an emergency contingency fund and is only tapped when all other IMF resources are exhausted. If the increased US commitment to the NAB is actually utilized, the US would receive an IMF issued interest bearing security in return.

That's why the current request for over $100 billion in authorization is being ascribed a "score" of $5 billion in the budget. While critics howl that allocating $100 billion while accounting for it as only $5 billion is financial trickery and obfuscation, the reality is that even this number is probably too conservative. For the US to actually lose money on the funding, the IMF would need to default. I can't imagine a scenario where the global financial system had been so decimated that even the IMF, backed by virtually every sovereign around the globe, could not repay its biggest lenders.

Far more important than the outright profit the US makes from the IMF or the way Congress and the OMB decide to account for it, is the very necessary role that the IMF plays in providing a safety net for developing countries. Not only does that provide security benefits to the US by lessening the risk of creating failed states, but it also provides enormous economic benefits, primarily by creating more demand for US goods. It also provides surplus countries an alternative to hoarding vast amounts of precautionary reserves.

A sustainable economic recovery depends on greater demand for US exports. The US Treasury estimates that for every one percent increase in foreign output, US GDP grows by between 0.25 and 0.35%.

Exports accounted for almost 70% of US economic growth in 2008, but as demand from the emerging world fell last autumn and the dollar strengthened, American exports have fallen steadily. First quarter real exports this year were 23% lower than the year earlier.

If exports were to remain at that depressed level over the full year, our GDP would decrease by around 2.75%. That means that even if the stimulus package passed by Congress earlier this year does everything it was intended to do and stimulates domestic demand, unless exports bounce back as well, we are not likely to see any real impact on overall economic growth and job creation here at home.

The US has been working closely with many other countries to try to coordinate our responses to the crisis and spur global demand and growth. But it has been the emerging market economies, which were previously the drivers of strongest growth in US exports, that are suffering the worst of this crisis. Last year, 51% of all merchandise exports and 65% of all farm exports from the US went to emerging markets and developing countries. Their economic health is vitally important to the US economy.

Unlike the US and other developed nations, the financial crisis that originated in the US and in Europe has dramatically limited developing countries' ability to access traditional sources of funding needed to keep themselves afloat. It is precisely in these cases that the IMF is of crucial importance as a provider of financial stability and as the lender of last resort. It is a role that they have already played with great skill and speed in Pakistan, Hungary, Ukraine and elsewhere.

When President Obama attended his first G-20 Leaders Summit in London last month, the world's economic picture was even more clouded than it is today. After two days of meetings, the announcement of increased funding for the IMF caused a collective sigh of relief around the world, both for its size -- which was even more than many had hoped for -- and for the leadership that President Obama showed in driving the effort for the IMF increase.

By that act, the president showed that he understood the global nature of the crisis and the yearning for big, bold steps on the part of the US to address the needs of those countries most at risk of failure.

While the IMF has not always been popular, or even successful in all of its previous endeavors, during this crisis, it has shown itself to be creative, flexible and forward looking. In particular, the creation of a new flexible credit line earlier this year was announced just in time to provide a boost to countries like Poland, Colombia and Mexico -- before they actually needed it.

In seeking additional funds for the IMF, President Obama has shown that he recognizes its importance and the stabilizing role that it plays. It is crucial that Congress approve the IMF funding authorization. Failure to do so would send a terrible signal across the globe that the US can't be counted on to lead in a time of crisis. It would significantly weaken President Obama's (and the US) claim to global leadership and could well spark another round of uncertainty in emerging markets, just as they are beginning to show signs of stability. Besides, not only is funding the IMF something that even political opposites like Bob Rubin and Henry Kissinger can agree to, we might even make a profit.

-- Douglas Rediker

Well, I'm in Beijing -- and Deborah Cameron's big morning radio show is in Sydney and can be listened to here on Wednesday morning's Asia time -- or Tuesday evenings back where I usually am in Washington.

I will be on air in a few minutes -- as I am every week in Sydney, Australia -- discussing American politics.

This week, one of the big topics of discussion will be Barack Obama's appointment as US Ambassador to China Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr.

I generally think that this is a good move -- but on the other hand, the Chinese I am meeting this week have joked about how unusual it is for them to be receiving a person who can get them connected with the highest levels of the REPUBLICAN party during a DEMOCRATIC administration. And they joke that China's one-child policy will certainly get its share of implied criticism from Huntsman's 7 children -- and they note he got his Mandarin language training as a religious missionary.

All that aside, they are looking forward to working with Ambassador Huntsman.

-- Steve Clemons

Helene Cooper's scoop that former US Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad is working to arrange a deal with Afghan President Hamid Karzai to serve as "CEO" of Afghanistan is fascinating -- but also troubling.

I like Khalilzad, who was potentially a candidate for the presidency of Afghanistan but missed a recent filing deadline for the race and who also repeatedly denied to others and me that he would pursue this course. However, when I interviewed Khalilzad in January of this year, he said he was working on something that would involve him in Afghanistan's future.

Now we know what sort of deal he was thinking about.

It's not clear how a President and a CEO, that is unaccountable to any part of the elected Afghan government, would function -- but Cooper's New York Times report implies that both President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton have 'not objected' to the idea and have not expressed concerns other than saying that this needs to be a decision made by Karzai.

Khalilzad brings considerable deal-making strengths and has a good understanding of both the downsides and upsides of serious nation-building efforts.

Obviously, the downside of Khalilzad's potential next job is that it further undermines the "democracy narrative" that many want to cling to as a justification for America's deep engagement in Afghanistan. Such a move to create a national CEO -- that is rife with potential political challenges and uncertainties as to how it would work -- is nonetheless not really part of a larger democratic governance message.

But count me as one intrigued and cautiously optimistic.

Khalilzad's role in Afghanistan could benefit from having a foot in the US political system, a foot in the Afghan system, and a foot in the world of transnational diplomatic and aid institutions.

That's three feet, but Khalilzad has managed three-footedness before.

For those interested, a short interview and discussion I had with Zalmay Khalilzad in January of this year is here:

A longer version of a New America Foundation discussion I had with him in January 2009 is here.

-- Steve Clemons

I found this clip by Stephen Walt interesting in which he notes the New America Foundation as one of the few islands in the policy establishment that believes we need a more restrained approach to America's foreign policy commitments.

Here are the last grafs:

By the way, I won't be offended if you toss in public policy programs like John Hopkins' School for Advanced International Studies, Tuft's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School, or my own employer, the Harvard Kennedy School. These institutions are dedicated to various forms of social engineering at home and abroad, and to preparing students for careers of public service. I'm all for that, because there are in fact plenty of big problems out there and I'd rather they were addressed by people who were trained to do so. But no matter how well we train our students to weigh alternatives carefully, the raison d'etre of these programs reinforces the same message: don't just sit there, DO SOMETHING!

By contrast, there are at most a handful of institutions whose core mission is to get the United States to take a slightly smaller role on the world stage. There is the CATO Institute (where Preble works) and maybe a few people at the Center for American Progress and the New America Foundation. And there are plenty of peace groups out there with an anti-interventionist agenda. But these groups are hardly a match for the array of forces on the other side. And apart from Steve Chapman at the Chicago Tribune, I can't think of a major mainstream columnist or media commentator who is a consistent voice for a more restrained foreign policy. Lots of pundits want a smarter foreign policy (though they often disagree about what that would be), and most of them have a pet issue or two that they like to flog, but how many have been arguing for doing somewhat less as a general rule?

In short, what I'm suggesting here is that America's role in the world today is shaped by two imbalances of power, not just one. The first is the gap between U.S. capabilities and everyone else's, a situation that has some desirable features (especially for us) but one that also encourages the United States to do too much and allows others to do either too little or too many of the wrong things. The second imbalance is between organized interests whose core mission is constantly pushing the U.S. government to do more and in more places, and the far-weaker groups who think we might be better off showing a bit more restraint.

It is coincidental that I'm traveling with Stephen Chapman of the Chicago Tribune in China now -- along with Bruce Stokes of National Journal and Tom Omestad of US News & World Report.

-- Steve Clemons

(Photo Credit: Los Angeles Times)

Nicholas Schmidle is a Fellow at the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program.

The Pakistani military is apparently pounding the Taliban in the Swat Valley right now. Since the operation began on May 7 - the day President Asif Ali Zardari was in Washington - the army has released daily reports detailing the number of militants killed. On Friday, they claimed to have taken out 55 Talibs in the previous 24 hours.

That's a very bad metric of success.

This is not a war to be won with body counts. As Nawaz Sharif, the two-time former prime minister, told me in an email exchange earlier this week, "It's also a battle of ideas about future visions for the society." (You can read more of my conversation with Sharif in the latest issue of The New Republic.) So how is the battle for hearts and minds and visions going, you might wonder? Not well.

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees reported on Friday that more than 834,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) have been registered so far. Many of them are confined to camps in areas south of Swat, scrambling for food, shelter and water.

At an event last Tuesday at the New America Foundation (parts one and two), Steve Coll and I discussed the situation in the camps, and I suggested that the Pakistani government - backed by the United States - had a golden opportunity to be visible in the camps, doing everything possible to reassure the refugees that Islamabad's policies towards the Taliban had changed and that they were serious about protecting the population.

In other words, to restore lost confidence in the state. Because after a few more weeks of bombardment, the Pakistani military will probably retake the city of Mingora, clear the roads of Taliban checkpoints (another misleading measure of success), declare victory, and tell the refugees to return home. And they will, only to find that the army has returned to their bases and that the Taliban haven't been defeated - but merely taken to the hills.

Imagine my surprise then, when I read last week that 2,000 members of the Falah-i-Insaniat ("Welfare of the People") Foundation are running around the camps providing services. Falah-i-Insaniat is the new name of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the front organization for Lashkar-e-Tayyaba. You've heard of them, right? They were the ones suspected of being behind the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last November that left almost 200 people dead.

So to re-cap: the government writ collapses in Swat and the Taliban move in; the government attempts to re-establish control in Swat and flushes hundreds of thousands of refugees into camps; due to a lack of planning and capacity, government writ in the camps is tenuous, and banned jihadi organizations pick up the slack.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that you can read all about Swat, the Taliban, and the paranoia and schizophrenia of the state in my new book, To Live or to Perish Forever: Two Tumultuous Years in Pakistan. The book is a first-hand account of contemporary Pakistan, based on the two years (2006-2008) I spent there as a fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs.

In January 2008, I was deported as a result of a piece I wrote in the New York Times Magazine called "Next-Gen Taliban." The story argued that a new generation of militants - headed by firebrands like Maulana Fazlullah in Swat - had escaped control of Pakistan's intelligence agencies, Islamist parties, and traditional authority structures such as tribes, making the insurgency increasingly unmanageable.

The book describes this split at greater length through the lens of my personal experiences in Swat and throughout Taliban-affected parts of the North West Frontier Province. If you get to the end, you can read about how I went back to Pakistan in August 2008, seven months after being deported, only to this time read news items about my own kidnapping, which I took as a hint to get out.

I'll be updating my personal website and my Facebook page often; I invite you to follow the book's progress there. In the meantime, you can watch recent appearances on C-SPAN and listen on NPR here and here.

-- Nicholas Schmidle

One area in which the Obama administration has arguably fallen short of expectations is in its ability to persuade European countries to support its policies in the greater Middle East - and particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

As George Friedman has argued, the Obama administration has succeeded in changing the optics of the transatlantic relationship, but has failed for the most part to achieve real substantial policy shifts.

The Europeans - and the Germans in particular - declined to provide the levels of economic stimulus that the United States wanted to combat the global economic crisis and refused the Obama administration's request to send substantially more troops to Afghanistan.

To offer a German perspective on how to tackle our common challenges in the Middle East, Ruprecht Polenz, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the German Bundestag, will speak at the New America Foundation TODAY from 12:15 - 1:45pm.

The event will stream live here at The Washington Note.

-- Ben Katcher

(Credit: Jonathan Guyer)

Jonathan Guyer is a Program Associate at the New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force.

Two weeks ago, Jordanian King Abdullah's visit to the White House brought President Obama's announcement that the Egyptian, Israeli, and Palestinian premiers would make field trips to Washington.

Since then, some analysts have suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit tomorrow may bring a confrontation between the hawkish Prime Minister and an Obama administration eager to distance itself from Israel.

Those who predict a row or showdown point to significant differences between the two leaders on Iran, settlements, and Palestinian statehood. But an early confrontation between the leaders - because of Netanyahu's reluctance to say "two-states" or commit to limiting settlement activity in the occupied West Bank - would be a mistake.

During a White House press conference with the Jordanian monarch last month, Obama hinted at the role he thinks the US should take in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

Unfortunately, right now what we've seen not just in Israel but within the Palestinian Territories, among the Arab states, worldwide, is a profound cynicism about the possibility of any progress being made whatsoever.

What we want to do is to step back from the abyss; to say, as hard as it is, as difficult as it may be, the prospect of peace still exists -- but it's going to require some hard choices, it's going to require resolution on the part of all the actors involved, and it's going to require that we create some concrete steps that all parties can take that are evidence of that resolution. And the United States is going to deeply engage in this process to see if we can make progress.

Re-engaging in the peace process will take more than stepping away from the 'abyss.' Obama's recipe for Middle East peace cannot only be the anti-Bush doctrine; it will need original thinking and sustained American leadership.

There are plenty of details Obama and Netanyahu could squabble over, but the priority should be to get the ball rolling on a comprehensive peace deal - an "everything for everything" scenario that normalizes Arab-Israeli relations.

President Obama is in a strong position. As United States Institute of Peace Associate Scott Lasenky says, "There is no incentive in Israeli politics to foster or sustain disagreements with Washington. Quite the opposite; Israeli leaders will go to great lengths to ensure smooth and tranquil ties."

Rather than coming to blows with Netanyahu, Obama should take advantage of his strong position to provide a clear and simple message to Israel - 'let's make this deal deliver.'

-- Jonathan Guyer

Among other firsts, President Obama is undoubtedly our first "New Media" president. The Obama team came into power through its revolutionary internet fundraising success and clearly intends to find new ways to use the internet to advance its agenda.

The most obvious indications of this are the Obama administration's revamped White House website, its well-organized and comprehensive YouTube channel, and Obama's now famous Al-Arabiya interview.

But as Steve Clemons has pointed out on this blog, political leaders are only beginning to learn how to use new media to advance their public diplomacy and political agendas.

In the clip above (at about 29:15), British Foreign Secretary and blogger David Miliband tells the story of a former British ambassador to Afghanistan who used his camera phone to educate citizens of his home country about the legacy of Soviet occupation.

It will be interesting to see how far the United States and other governments will go to empower their foreign servants and international development workers to tell stories like this - and how the benefits and risks of these kinds of public diplomacy will be managed.

Those interested in this topic might also want to check out this interview with Facebook Vice President of Global Communications, and Public Diplomacy Elliot Schrage.

-- Ben Katcher

In the last week and a half, we spent time in the Gulf region, speaking at a conference in Doha, Qatar and then a few days ago spoke about global economic issues in Berlin. So that checks off the Gulf and Germany in the roster of leading surplus accounts in the international economy.

Today, I am flying to Beijing and will follow up with a stopover in Japan.

For those who read TWN, I will be in Beijing from Monday this week through Friday, 22 May. That Friday, I will visit Wuxi until Sunday when I will depart for Shenzhen. On Tuesday, May 26, I will move to Shanghai.

On Thursday, May 28, I am off to Tokyo and will return to Washington on June 2nd.

This is nice timing given the announcement of Barack Obama's just chosen US Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman -- a choice I totally support.

More when I land.

-- Steve Clemons

Recently at a Congressional Quarterly breakfast, Political Wire blogger Taegan Goddard said that Barack Obama excels at keeping his political opposition wobbly and off balance.

Goddard is right - and Barack Obama has just pulled off another blow to the Republican party's steadiness.

Obama has just chosen Jon Huntsman Jr. -- heir to the powerful Huntsman chemical conglomerate, former Deputy US Trade Representative and Ambassador to Singapore, and incumbent Governor of Utah -- to serve as US Ambassador to China.

Years ago, former Senate Majority Leader and then US Ambassador to Japan Mike Mansfield said that "the US-Japan relationship is America's most important bilateral relationship - bar none."

That is no longer true.

America's relationship with China is the single most important bilateral relationship it has in its foreign policy and economic portfolios -- and Barack Obama just selected as his lead point person a rising star in Republican circles who co-chaired John McCain's presidential campaign.

I have had the privilege of knowing Jon Huntsman since 1994 and have always been impressed with his pragmatism and rejection of ideological fundamentalism.

Huntsman is a great choice for this key post. He's smart on Asia, understands business, and has a real understanding of the complexities of China's ascension on the global power ladder.

One of the potential personal downsides for Jon Huntsman is that I had always hoped that he might one day run for the presidency as a balanced, sensible Republican pragmatist. I think that his appointment as an Obama ambassador probably undermines that possibility.

Congrats to Jon -- and this simply is just a really terrific choice for which Barack Obama deserves applause.

-- Steve Clemons

Folks, I am traveling today and without my principal computer. I have learned that no one has been able to post comments over the last 21 hours.

We had a spam attack going on that was attaching "cialis" items to any Facebook uploads from my site -- so our web guru adjusted some things on the site, and this has created some unintended results -- including apparently blocking comments.

We are working on it -- and I hope it's fixed soon.

-- Steve Clemons

Tom Kutsch is a Program Associate at the New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington on Monday represents the Obama administration's first opportunity to implement a new American strategy for achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace.

President Obama and many in his administration have already made it clear that its goal is to end the conflict with a peace agreement - not only between Israel and a new independent Palestine - but also with all 22 Arab states (and perhaps every Muslim state as well).

As Netanyahu's visit approaches (along with the visits of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak), New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force Co-Directors Daniel Levy and Amjad Atallah sat down to discuss some ways in which American policy might realize its stated ambition.

Some points they suggested to keep in mind:

1. Do not expect a show-down between Obama and Netanyahu - but do look for the Obama administration to change its tone and reposition itself among the parties.

2. The U.S. should escape the Annapolis logic of bilateral negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians alone in favor of direct, robust American involvement. The US must be a leader in this process - not a mere facilitator.

3. Refrain from repackaging endless 'peace processing' and going after non-implementable solutions (an example of which is the futile attempt to condition de-occupation on Palestinian capacity and institution building).

These suggestions echoed a broader point that Jonathan Freedland made in a column in Tuesday's Guardian:

This conflict will not be solved by simply implementing the old Bush approach with more skill. Obama mustn't be Obama on the outside and Bush on the inside. The approach itself has to change and change radically.

As Atallah and Levy note above, the alternative to initiating a U-turn vis a vis American efforts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to become trapped in a policy cul-de-sac.

-- Tom Kutsch

Don't expect seriousness in this post. I was just chuckling when I got an email moments ago from the Council on Foreign Relations announcing the shortlist for the 2009 Arthur Ross Book Award.

What caught my eye was not the distinguished group of books up for consideration -- but rather two members of the jury: Stephen Walt and Robert Kagan.

I don't have time to go into why I think that this would be one of the tickets of the decade to get if one could eavesdrop on any in-person debate -- but I can't wait to read whatever Stephen Walt will or won't blog about his engagement with Kagan about which books to push and which to bury.

The books under review on the shortlist are:

Gareth Evans for The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and For All (Brookings Institution Press)

Dexter Filkins for The Forever War (Knopf Publishing Group)

Philip Pan for Out of Mao's Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China (Simon & Schuster)

Kevin Phillips for Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism (Penguin Group)

Ahmed Rashid for Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia (Penguin Group)

Jeremy Salt for The Unmaking of the Middle East: A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands (University of California Press)

And the Arthur Ross Book Award jury is:

Stanley Hoffmann, Paul & Catherine Buttenwieser University Professor, Harvard University

James F. Hoge Jr. (Chairman), Peter G. Peterson Chair and Editor, Foreign Affairs

Robert W. Kagan, Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Miles Kahler, Rohr Professor of Pacific International Relations, University of California, San Diego

Mary Sarotte, Professor of International Relations, University of Southern California

Stephen M. Walt, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

I wonder if Peter Peterson might fund a reality TV series with the realists and neocons trying to whack each other on non-profit boards.

-- Steve Clemons

When I first saw how the Obama campaign team was taking the Joe Trippi-fashioned IT architecture of political outreach a few notches higher, I was really pleased. I saw that Obama was building a much larger political pie of constituents engaged in American politics and policy and that sensible progressives were going to own a larger chunk of it.

To some degree, what Joe Rospars -- of course along with David Axelrod and David Plouffe -- did is to do the internet based version of the 20th century social network machine that Ralph Reed built out in the form of the Christian Coalition.

I remember being quite impressed that in late 2007, one could already see Barack Obama's web-based political muscles in action by looking at Facebook and many other social network sites oriented to different ethnic-American communities. On Facebook, Obama had then about 80,000 Facebookitizens linking to his "fan page" (compared to 6,271,125 today). Hillary Clinton had roughly 40,000 fans -- but led him in all the polls. John Edwards had 20,000.

On the Republican side of the ledger, John McCain had about 20,000 fans; Mitt Romney was at 15,000; Huckabee at 10,000. Somewhat as a standout in the Republican field, Ron Paul had 22,000 fans -- and later, Paul really built out his internet-based network.

The trends were clear way back then on Facebook.

And what this internet based outreach in a lot of different mediums has created is the reality that Barack Obama -- and really the entire Democratic political machine -- can now chase the $5.00 donor at a scale that is effective and nearly cost-free, whereas just a few years ago, chasing the $5.00 donor was practically impossible.

But what has come along with this new Obama-driven network is the constant spam of the $5.00 request -- promising dinner with the Obamas, or a seat at a major speech by the President, or a grin-and-grip photo op with the President -- if that person's donation is selected among the millions of other donors to receive the reward of Barack Obama's personal attention and smile.

This is the Evita approach to politics. The winners of the lottery will have fortune rain down upon them. Evita. Evita.

Today, I received the note from Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) promising Obama-time for a select few picked from those who kick in five bucks to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Evita. Evita. Evita.

Senator Menendez writes:

Dear Steve,

Meet President Obama! Contribute $5 today and be automatically entered to win! [Click here.]

This June, the DSCC is holding a dinner to celebrate the promise of Barack Obama's new presidency and recommit ourselves to giving him an overwhelming Senate majority.

It's going to be a one-of-a-kind event for Democrats everywhere. You've been a huge part of our success over the last two election cycles, and I want to make sure you're a part of this historic night.

If you make a contribution to the DSCC today, you will be automatically entered into a contest that could win you and a guest a trip to Washington (airfare and hotel included) for our special dinner with President Obama. You'll even get your photo taken with the President to commemorate what promises to be an extraordinary night.

Click here to make a contribution of $5 or more to the DSCC, and you will automatically be entered to win dinner and a photo with President Obama. For each additional contribution, you will get another chance to win.

When you make a contribution today, you're not only earning a chance to win, you're also helping the DSCC give President Obama everything he needs to pass his visionary agenda for change - an expanded Senate majority that can't be blocked by Republican filibusters.

Senate Republicans have made it plain that they will force us to find 60 votes for each and every aspect of our agenda. They'll do everything in their power to obstruct, delay, and deny the change we desperately need.

That's why expanding our majority in 2010 is so critical. That's why we urgently need your help to build the foundation for victory.

Click here to make a contribution right now, and you'll be automatically entered to win. Dinner and a photo with President Obama is a memory that will last a lifetime.

Finally, I know it's said a lot, but it's the truth. We cannot succeed without you.

Thank you for all your support.

Sincerely,

Bob Menendez

I may be overstating things here because of my own bias against lotteries -- which I have always felt in the state level education sham were more like extra taxes imposed on the poor to support institutions catering largely to the children of folks who didn't buy lottery tickets.

But at some point, someone is going to say we've reached a point of diminishing returns on the asks for $5.00 -- and need to do something different and less Evita-ish with this amazing new network of outreach and political mobilization that the Obama team has constructed.

-- Steve Clemons

Steve Clemons is on the road today, but is really fascinated by the important new book by Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars.

Steve Coll will be moderating a discussion with Haass on this new book today at 12:30pm at the New America Foundation - and the event will stream live here at The Washington Note.

-- Ben Katcher

This morning, I did my second ever stint on "The Seed Show," a progressive radio program that runs between 8 and 9 am EST and anchored by South Carolina lawyer and political activist Tom Turnipseed.

Apparently, the show is not archived for later listening -- at least I can't find the archive, but the program is excellent.

This morning, I spoke with Turnipseed and his co-host Arnold Karr on the program about Don't Ask Don't Tell, about Obama's flip-flop on releasing detainee abuse photos, and about health care.

Turnipseed's radio character deploys an intense Southern twang and a folksy, aw shucks approach in laying out political issues for his audience -- and it's just a great show that I wanted to bring to your attention.

And a small nudge to these folks I like so much in the Turnipseed media empire, it would be great to get the digital archives of your excellent program posted on your website. I'm sure that there is a student nearby who would like extra credit at school for showing how to get all this set up. Would be a great public service.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a guest post exclusive to The Washington Note by Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, who is former chief of staff of the Department of State during the term of Secretary of State Colin Powell. Lawrence Wilkerson is also Pamela Harriman Visiting Professor at the College of William & Mary.

Last night I was on Rachel Maddow's show on MSNBC at the top of the hour. But before I came on, through the earpiece I listened to the five minutes that Rachel sketched as a lead-in. Most of it was videotape from the last few days of former Vice President Dick Cheney extolling the virtues of harsh interrogation, torture, and his leadership. I had heard some of it earlier of course but not all of it and not in such a tightly-packed package.

Let's just say that five minutes of the Sith Lord was stunningly inaccurate.

So, when I got home last night, I thought long and hard about what I knew at this point in my investigations with respect to the former VP's office. Here it is.

First, more Americans were killed by terrorists on Cheney's watch than on any other leader's watch in US history. So his constant claim that no Americans were killed in the "seven and a half years" after 9/11 of his vice presidency takes on a new texture when one considers that fact. And it is a fact.

There was absolutely no policy priority attributed to al-Qa'ida by the Cheney-Bush administration in the months before 9/11. Counterterrorism czar Dick Clarke's position was downgraded, al-Qa'ida was put in the background so as to emphasize Iraq, and the policy priorities were lowering taxes, abrogating the ABM Treaty and building ballistic missile defenses.

Second, the fact no attack has occurred on U.S. soil since 9/11--much touted by Cheney--is due almost entirely to the nation's having deployed over 200,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and not to "the Cheney method of interrogation."

Those troops have kept al-Qa'ida at bay, killed many of them, and certainly "fixed" them, as we say in military jargon. Plus, sadly enough, those 200,000 troops present a far more lucrative and close proximity target for al-Qa'ida than the United States homeland. Testimony to that fact is clear: almost 5,000 American troops have died, more Americans than died on 9/11. Of course, they are the type of Americans for whom Cheney hasn't much use as he declared rather dramatically when he achieved no less than five draft deferments during the Vietnam War.

Third--and here comes the blistering fact--when Cheney claims that if President Obama stops "the Cheney method of interrogation and torture", the nation will be in danger, he is perverting the facts once again. But in a very ironic way.

My investigations have revealed to me--vividly and clearly--that once the Abu Ghraib photographs were made public in the Spring of 2004, the CIA, its contractors, and everyone else involved in administering "the Cheney methods of interrogation", simply shut down. Nada. Nothing. No torture or harsh techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator. Period. People were too frightened by what might happen to them if they continued.

What I am saying is that no torture or harsh interrogation techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator for the entire second term of Cheney-Bush, 2005-2009. So, if we are to believe the protestations of Dick Cheney, that Obama's having shut down the "Cheney interrogation methods" will endanger the nation, what are we to say to Dick Cheney for having endangered the nation for the last four years of his vice presidency?

Likewise, what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002--well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion--its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa'ida.

So furious was this effort that on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney's office that their detainee "was compliant" (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP's office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa'ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, "revealed" such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop.

There in fact were no such contacts. (Incidentally, al-Libi just "committed suicide" in Libya. Interestingly, several U.S. lawyers working with tortured detainees were attempting to get the Libyan government to allow them to interview al-Libi....)

Less important but still busting my chops as a Republican, is the damage that the Sith Lord Cheney is doing to my political party.

He and Rush Limbaugh seem to be its leaders now. Lindsay Graham, John McCain, John Boehner, and all other Republicans of note seem to be either so enamored of Cheney-Limbaugh (or fearful of them?) or, on the other hand, so appalled by them, that the cat has their tongues. And meanwhile fewer Americans identify as Republicans than at any time since WWII. We're at 21% and falling--right in line with the number of cranks, reprobates, and loonies in the country.

When will we hear from those in my party who give a damn about their country and about the party of Lincoln?

When will someone of stature tell Dick Cheney that enough is enough? Go home. Spend your 70 million. Luxuriate in your Eastern Shore mansion. Shoot quail with your friends--and your friends.

Stay out of our way as we try to repair the extensive damage you've done--to the country and to its Republican Party.

-- Lawrence Wilkerson

Today between 11 am and noon EST, Steve Coll and I will be moderating a transatlantic new media roundtable discussion with UK Foreign Minister David Miliband.

Steve Coll -- who just won the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction for his book The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century -- will be doing his part from Washington with a room full of interesting writers, bloggers, and mostly new media types -- though some who ought to be in new media who aren't quite there yet -- will also be joining us.

I will be weighing in from Berlin, Germany -- over Skype.

I have a great deal of respect for Miliband who has done more perhaps than any other senior level international diplomat to reach out to bloggers and stakeholders in the new media political and policy scene.

A couple of years ago, I was a beneficiary of Miliband's and the UN Foundation's efforts to get serious policy bloggers credentialed for the UN General Assembly. Miliband is a blogging foreign minister (and perhaps future blogging prime minister) -- and has connected with The Washington Note a number of times.

The fact that David Miliband takes blogging seriously himself and constantly works to connect with younger, new opinion leaders and policy hands who are working hard to evade the cartels of official journalism has set the gold standard among all foreign ministers.

There will be a number of bloggers and new media types who will be sending questions in from wherever they are around the world. I will be on Skype and commenting here and there -- and then among those joining us are:

LAURA ROZEN of Foreign Policy's "The Cable"; DAVID CORN who 'bureau chiefs' for Mother Jones and also blogs; MIKE GOLDFARB who is editor The Weekly Standard's The Blog; JAMES JOYNER who blogs at "Outside the Beltway" and at The Atlantic Council; GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS of ABC's This Week; ROBERT SCHLESINGER who blogs at US News & World Report. . . and Taylor Marsh of TaylorMarsh.com; JOE KLEIN of TIME's Swampland; MARK SCHMITT of The American Prospect and New America Foundation; HENRY FARRELL of Crooked Timber; DAYO OLOPADE of Madayo.com; TOBY HARNDEN who blogs at The Daily Telegraph. . .

and LANE HUDSON who blogs at Huffington Post; MJ ROSENBERG of the Israel Policy Forum and TPMCafe; BRIAN YOUNG who is directing the new media makeover of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. . .

and British Ambassador to the US NIGEL SHEINWALD who is himself blogging now will also be with us.

So too wil be the New Republic's MICHAEL CROWLEY -- who will be in New York; Newsweek's MARK HOSENBALL, and AP's DESMOND BUTLER. And more. . .

Should be a very interesting session -- including discussion themes of how new media is affecting diplomacy, US and UK perspectives on the AfPak mess, whether the global democracy project is indefinitely suspended, and other issues.

Watch the live streaming here at The Washington Note at 11 a.m. DC time (or 5 p.m. if you happen, like me, to be in Berlin).

-- Steve Clemons

Iraq's central government appears likely to begin allowing the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) that controls northern Iraq to begin exporting oil through Iraq's main pipeline, in the latest unexpected consequence of the global economic crisis.

A year ago, this kind of decision would have been unthinkable in the absence of a comprehensive national hydrocarbons law.

The reason for Baghdad's policy shift is simple. The price of oil is under $60 - down from more than $150 last summer.

As Liz Sly details in today's Los Angeles Times, the Iraqi central government - which depends on oil revenues for 90% of its income - is in serious financial trouble.

Absent a substantial increase in the price of oil, Baghdad is going to suffer from huge deficits and will have to persuade gun-shy foreigners to provide capital or beg the IMF for a rescue package.

Baghdad apparently feels so desperate for revenue that it is going to allow the KRG to export its oil to Turkey's port in Ceyhan, the revenue from which will flow to the central government.

As this International Crisis Group report explains (see esp. pp. 15-19), there are two important reasons that Baghdad has historically objected to the KRG exporting its oil.

First, Baghdad wants to prevent the KRG from increasing its economic independence from Baghdad, which would help it to consolidate political control over its territory and increase its leverage vis a vis Baghdad.

Second, Baghdad is afraid that allowing the KRG to enter into binding legal agreements with foreign firms and to exercise effective control over its natural resources will strengthen any future claims of sovereignty or independence that government might make and broaden its international support.

If Baghdad does in fact allow the KRG to export oil through its pipelines, this is a significant indication of Baghdad's economic weakness that deserves to be watched closely.

(Photo credit: jamesdale10's photostream)

-- Ben Katcher

The clip above features New America Foundation President & CEO Steve Coll and NBC News' Andrea Mitchell, who offer a frightening portrait of the profound weaknesses' of both Afghanistan's and Pakistan's leaders.

You may also want to read Max Hastings' op-ed in today's Financial Times, which stands out for its lucid description of NATO's strategic challenges in the region.

First, Hastings points out that while the Obama administration focuses on redeploying troops to achieve ill-defined goals in Afghanistan, it is in Pakistan that Al-Qaeda poses the greatest threat both to the United States and to the region.

Second, the Obama administration has made a number of tactical decisions - including sending an additional 21,000 troops to Afghanistan - without articulating clear, identifiable, and achievable goals.

Third, Hastings explores the rifts within NATO - particularly those between the United States and the United Kingdom - posed by the continued deployment of coalition troops in Afghanistan.

-- Ben Katcher

Today at 11:45 am EST, we will stream an event titled "The Middle East Comes to Town -- Expectations for Obama's Visits with Netanyahu, Abbas, and Mubarak" taking place at the New America Foundation. It will end at approximately 1:30 pm.

The event is billed with this hopeful bit:

On the eve of the trips to Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, the Obama administration will begin to articulate and get into the weeds on a new Middle East peace policy.

We'll see.

New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force Directors Daniel Levy and Amjad Atallah will be joined by Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, and Rob Malley, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the International Crisis Group.

Elise Labott, State Department Producer for CNN, will moderate the session.

I will be watching it from Berlin -- perhaps live -- but at least later when the video is posted online.

-- Steve Clemons

I am about to fly off to Germany and had to miss the celebrity-edged White House Correspondents Association dinner last night because of commitments out of town -- but sounded like a lot of fun.

Obama's comments about his relationship with Hillary and the "shoot friends and interrogate people" Dick Cheney would have been worth donning a tux in DC's humid heat.

But I have a serious query -- and I really don't know the answer.

I was just told that many major news conglomerates "pay" many of the celebrities to attend the dinner and sit at their tables.

This is news to me. I thought most were there because they had an inner policy wonk driving them to the big night gala with DC's top press corps and President Obama.

But are they paid? Is this really the case? I want to know.

It makes the practice of news organizations scrambling after high-ranking Obama officials to sit with allegedly high-paid move stars something that the nanny-gate censors should be looking at.

Regarding the adjoining pic, I know Colin Powell isn't paid to attend the WHCA dinner -- but not so sure about Martha.

Some of these folks are really paid? This is pretty gross if true.

-- Steve Clemons

Second Lietenant Sandy Tsao is being discharged from the military for informing her chain of command that she is gay. She wrote in a letter to President Obama that she could not live according to one of the "seven army values" of personal integrity and not be truthful about the issue -- even though a legal provision of the military, passed by Congress, and signed by President Clinton promotes and protects a safer choice for gay military staff: duplicity.

Remarkably, Sandy Tsao received the letter from Obama above.

Handwritten, Barack Obama's letter reads:

Sandy - Thanks for the wonderful and thoughtful letter. It is because of outstanding Americans like you that I committed to changing our current policy. Although it will take some time to complete (partly because it needs Congressional action) I intend to fulfill my commitment. -- Barack Obama

Obama's administration has been silent on the expansion of same sex marriage -- and his White House team has in an Orwellian, image-shifting way softened the language on the president's website about Don't Ask Don't Tell. The Rick Warren inaugural invocation still rankles.

But we have the private letter to Sandy Tsao -- who despite Barack Obama's own views is about to lose her job. Dan Choi is too.

I hope that David Geffen gets on the phone to the President and to Rahm Emanuel and tells them that this is not an issue that they can leave way back in the White House closet.

-- Steve Clemons

The Washington Note's publisher will not be at the WHCA Dinner this year as he'll be traveling, but the blog will be represented by others in the field.

But I just got a bit of an odd first. TIME Magazine has just sent out a promo email saying that it has secured Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg as a guest at TIME's table.

With an administration so picky about lobbying relationships and other potentially compromising relationships that might taint someone's public work and responsibilities (unless of course you are one of the many in the administration who worked for Goldman Sachs), it seems odd that some key Obama administration officials would agree to be part of a corporate promo effort. (yes, I know that they didn't agree -- and probably didn't know about the email -- but the White House screeners have been looking at every little perk the insiders get. . .even from think tanks.)

I suppose it's all part of the sizzle -- but still. . .it doesn't feel right. Administration officials do need to be hosted by someone -- but given the way that some corporate offices for publications are using this for marketing, I find it far more disconcerting than many of the nanny-gate and limo-gate controversies we've really had recently.

James Steinberg and others on the list though deserve an excellent night -- and I think that on the whole the team has many of the right foreign policy balls in the air.

Perhaps what is needed in this case is a little "reserve" about who is at what table.

TIME's table list includes:

Nancy-Ann DeParle, Counselor to the President and Director of the White House Office of Health Reform; Adam Frankel, Speechwriter; Kevin Johnson, Mayor of Sacramento, CA; Alyssa Mastromonaco, White House Director of Scheduling and Advance; Kal Penn; Michelle Rhee, Chancellor of the D.C. Public Schools system; Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw; James B. Steinberg, Deputy Secretary of State

Fortune's roster is:

Glenn Close; George Lucas; Mellody Hobson

Still, these would be interesting tables and would love to hear from Steinberg whether the administration is going to finally set parameters for an Israel-Palestine horizon, or whether we are going to move incrementally along as we have in the past eight years - confined by the misbehavior of players on both side of the divide.

-- Steve Clemons

I am planning visits to all of the "surplus countries" in the next couple of weeks.

On Monday and Tuesday, I will be in Berlin speaking at one of the sessions of the "online forums" of the Transatlantic Dialogue sponsored by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.

And then on May 18th, I'll be in Beijing. On the 23rd, in Shanghai.

On May 28th, I'll be in Tokyo -- which still matters.

On June 1st, I'll be going for a run in the late afternoon on the Mall between the Lincoln Memorial and the US Capitol in DC.

I'll be blogging and checking in the entire time.

-- Steve Clemons

Barack Obama has appointed a hyperactive director of faith-based initiatives, Josh DuBois, and sees little problem continuing the blurring of church and state that George W. Bush and Bill Clinton initiated in their terms. I remain very uncomfortable with evangelicals and other preachers -- many of whom have narrow and bigoted views of America's 21st century civil rights challenges.

That said, I realize that faith-based initiatives are here and part of the scene. I get it.

But there needs to be equal time for some of the victims of this cozy relationship between the oval office and anti-gay religious adherents.

Same sex marriages are now a real part of the scene too -- something allowed in the enormous state of California for a short time until the day that Barack Obama himself was elected nationally and won the California vote.

Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, and Iowa are the five leading states that endorse and provide for same sex marriages. New York and Washington DC (at least for 30 days) recognize these marriages. And New Hampshire is likely to be the sixth state to provide for same sex marriages.

Eventually, California will be back in the same sex marriage column.

This is happening as the weeks unfold -- and President Barack Obama has said NOTHING.

Yesterday, White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs had an exchange with ABC's Jake Tapper:

"No, I think the president's position on same-sex marriage is -- has been talked about and discussed," Gibbs curtly replied.

"He opposes same-sex marriage?" Tapper asked.

"He supports civil unions," Gibbs said, not really answering the question.

Obama is basically ducking the issue for the time being -- voting the proverbial "present" without indicating support or opposition as he basks in Oval Office power -- present, there, watching -- but doing nothing.

For him, it's a states rights issue -- not a civil rights issue at the federal level.

I can't quite believe that our first African-American President is sitting this one out -- but I do get the politics of it, to a point. What I don't get is his withdrawal from other key gay community issues.

What is directly in Obama's purview -- as not only a federal issue but one directly linked to the office he holds -- is the "don't ask, don't tell" order regarding discrimination against gays in the US military. Obama promised during his campaign to end this hypocrisy that leads to the expulsion of a full brigade a year from the armed services. Those thrown out are qualified men and women who are replaced in part by those needing criminal file "moral waivers."

In fact, Aaron Belkin points out that Obama is about to preside as Commander-in-Chief over his national security bureacracy's first firing of a gay Arab linguist.

Obama's position of total silence on this fast and historic expansion of gay marriage rights could be offset if he finally asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff to conduct a new impact study of what gays in the military (and they are in the military if anyone cared to look -- in very, very large numbers) would do to "morale."

General Colin Powell has said that it is time to review this issue -- and is keeping his powder dry until such a review by the Joint Chiefs is done. Former Senator Sam Nunn -- who fired two of his own personal national security policy staff in the 1990s for being gay -- has also said that "times have changed" and that it is time to review the policy.

And yet. . .what did President Obama do?

As John Aravosis recently shared, Obama's transparent presidency significantly weakend the Don't Ask/Don't Tell commitment and policy position from the White House website.

This is unacceptable. I don't like but do understand the internal debate inside the White House on the issue of "civil union" vs. "marriages". Obama's view is now behind the times as many states leap frog forward into the 21st century in a way that Obama is not doing.

But there is no excuse at all -- none -- for allowing the bigotry and harassment of gays and lesbians in the armed forces to stand. Gays populate the armed services now.

Obama's silence is disturbing and wrong. While he may not be able for political reasons to move on marriages, to do nothing on the military front -- which is in his portfolio -- deserves serious criticism.

-- Steve Clemons

Washington has been stuck in a free trade agreement rut for some time now, and the situation has been exacerbated by the economic crisis and fears that further trade liberalization will mean sending taxpayer stimulus dollars overseas.

To discuss the free trade agreement impasse, Lori Wallach and Todd Tucker of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch will discuss their new book, The Rise and Fall of Fast Track Trade Authority, TODAY at the New America Foundation from 12:15pm - 1:45pm. New America Foundation Senior Fellow Barry Lynn will moderate the discussion.

-- Ben Katcher

That most famous and frustrating of oceans treaties looks to be back on the Senate agenda. Again.

The momentum is building. Scott Borgeson at the Council on Foreign Relations released a report last week that comprehensively makes the case for U.S. accession to the Law of the Sea Convention. I confess I've only given it a quick skim, but I did notice it hits on all the key points.

Sen. Kerry said last week that he's "gotta get that done." I'm hearing he'd like to start Committee work in June (presumably, the goal would be to have the whole thing wrapped up by August). Joining the Convention could not happen a moment too soon.

President Obama and Hilary Clinton watched the treaty languish in the Senate even though there were more than enough votes to get it through. They have to know that passive support from the President is not enough to move a major multilateral treaty. Obama is going to need to really dig in to make this happen.

Fortunately, there's no reason why he shouldn't or won't. The Convention fits nicely into his agenda of reestablishing America's commitment to a balanced national security strategy and the rule of law. Republicans, for their part, will see their caucus splintered over the Convention if they decide to hold it up. The conservative wing of their party cannot afford another loss that highlights its commitment to dead dogma over the national interest.

Since this is much more interesting than my law school finals, I'm going to be watching this closely as it moves forward and I'll be sure to update. I'm also keeping an eye on the Koh confirmation process (if you want to follow it closely, Charlie Brown's been doing yeoman's work tracking the story thus far). One last thing: I'm doing some work for the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC) this summer on a campaign to get warring parties to compensate civilians for the harm they've caused. It's a lot more legalese and a lot less "grand strategy" than readers here are used to, but internalizing the human costs of war is a pretty humane and commonsense step that states should take at a pretty low cost.

More on all this soon.

-- Scott Paul

Note: Greenwire is tracking Kerry's Law of the Sea plans too. More there.

(Photo Credit: BBC)

Katherine Tiedemann is a Program Associate at the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program.

Ahmed Rashid, a venerable Pakistani journalist, has an op-ed in today's Washington Post in which he argues that the United States should remove its conditions from the 5 year, $7.5 billion aid package we have proposed giving to Pakistan. The clumsily named "Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act" put forth by Senators Kerry and Lugar would triple current levels of non-military aid to the country, with an emphasis on economic growth and development. A new version was introduced yesterday.

President Obama called for the Senate to pass this bill, previous iterations of which have been floating around Congress since last year, during the March roll-out of his Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy review.

What is not debatable is that the security situation in Pakistan is deteriorating, as the Taliban advances in Buner and hundreds of thousands of refugees flee their homes in Swat valley and nearby areas. Ahmed Rashid argues that because the situation on the ground is so ghastly and the political consequences in Pakistan would be too severe, the United States should offer the Kerry-Lugar aid without conditions, at least for the first year.

While it is true that it would be difficult for Pakistan's military to accept some of the proposed conditions, what Rashid doesn't address is the fact that the United States can't even politically offer the aid without conditions.

The United States has given nearly eleven billion dollars in military aid to Pakistan since 2001, and the security situation in Pakistan during that time frame has only gone from bad to worse. The Bush administration did not demand accounting for the funds, and it's been an open joke in Washington that US investment in Pakistan has not paid off.

Since 2001, Pakistan has served as a re-basing point for al Qaeda, which merged ideologically and tactically with the Taliban. Suicide attacks and insurgent attacks in Pakistan have risen drastically, and views of the US -- never very high to begin with -- are now down in the teens. Almost all, if not all, of the major terrorist attacks against the West in the last seven years have some connection to the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Anthony Cordesman highlights troubling security trends in Pakistan here.

Some of the conditions in the previous incarnations of the Kerry-Lugar bill - that Pakistan certify there is no activity taking place against India, for example - have already been eased out of the bill, long before the aid is ever distributed. Shuja Nawaz, a longtime Pakistan analyst, dourly pointed out that even if Pakistan checked the India box, "does it actually have enough control to prevent another Mumbai type of attacks?"

Most of the remaining conditions are very sensible - to certify that the security forces of Pakistan are true partners in the fights against al Qaeda and the Taliban, for instance, should be a reasonable promise to make.

And so, with this week's DC trilateral summit between Afghan president Hamid Karzai, Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari, and President Obama upon us, hopefully the presidents will be able to agree upon at least a few conditions acceptable to both the US and Pakistan. It would be a mistake to continue Bush's policy of asking for no accountability from Pakistan--but it would also be a mistake to attach so many strings such that Pakistan's leaders, too tangled in domestic politics, cannot accept the aid they need. We need to reach a solution quickly.

After all, the lives and livelihoods of more than half a million Pakistani civilians in the Swat Valley--plus millions more across Pakistan--hang in the balance.

-- Katherine Tiedemann

Quite a number of serious and informed observers predict a spike in mass casualty violence hitting this week in Pakistan. President Obama is about to have both collective and separate meetings with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari -- and many believe that Taliban insurgents will be attempting to send the message that both leaders are weak and that the place to discuss the future of the region is not in Washington, but in the region with Taliban leaders.

Others think that some of the violence will be orchestrated by forces loyal to President Zardari and/or related to the military in order to extract military assistance and aid concessions from Obama and his team.

The mounting tensions in Pakistan were brought home to me personally when I learned that the United States Central Command has rejected on security grounds the visit of Patrick Cronin to Pakistan today. Cronin is Director of the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University and Senior Adviser and former Director of Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and also served as Director of Studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

To be clear, although Cronin had received clearance for the Pakistan visit from those in command in Pakistan, his visit was yesterday rejected because "facts on the ground had changed" and CENTCOM refused to override. The fact is that it easier today to visit Baghdad than Pakistan.

Cronin's visit to Pakistan was important not only for his own assessment of what is taking place in Pakistan -- but his relations with key parts of the Pakistan military and intelligence establishment and his ability to speak with the lesser known parts of these security bureaucracies as a policy intellectual and to some degree an American national security bureaucrat. Cronin is respected by both Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. and is known to be a useful source of counsel to the operations run by Robert Gates, Dennis Blair, Mike Mullen, Richard Holbrooke, and David Petraeus.

From my vantage point these last couple of days in Qatar, one can readily sense the gap in tension and concern between serious policy players in the Middle East who are concerned about trends in Afghanistan and Pakistan and those in Washington, who despite the increased reportage on the region, seem to be buffered from the make-or-break realities immediately upon the US and its allies.

Cronin was traveling to Pakistan with support and backing of U.S. Central Command -- and when I arrived with Patrick Cronin on Sunday night in Doha, he said to me that the U.S. military authorities who were organizing part of his trip refused to allow him to stay in a hotel and were insisting he stay on the military compound. In other words, the intelligence in hand at Central Command fears an uptick in suicide bombings over the next week directly targeting hotels and high population centers where foreigners populate.

Another former senior US government official at the conference I am attending in Doha told me that Obama and Petraeus may be pushing over the next week or two a hard core push by the Pakistan military in the Swat region. Zardari and the military are resisting -- and believe that the deal signed and ratified with the Taliban now running Swat can't be undone -- but word is that the US is insisting that this deal with the Taliban not stand. The price for action if Zardari concedes will be massively increased aid and lots of "helicopter gun ships" which the Pakistan military thrives on.

Another issue that is vigorously percolating right now is the controversial use of drone attacks to attack the minor and mid-level operations leadership of al Qaeda and Taliban insurgent groups. Some like National Defense University military expert Patrick Cronin believe that the tactical US military success of knocking out Taliban and related insurgents and disrupting operations that they have planned is blinding General Petraeus and other senior Obama administration officials from the fact that these drone attacks are fueling the growth and popularity of the insurgency -- and that the tactical is undermining the strategic.

In other words, some believe that we are potentially on the verge of seeing the Pakistan government collapse and run a serious risk of Taliban/al Qaeda takeover of the Pakistani government because of the corrosive results of drone attacks.

Cronin reported to me that these drone attacks should only be used in the most extreme cases -- preferably when either al Zawahiri or bin Laden are in their sites -- or those at the very highest echelon of American targets. The rank and file should not be, in his view, the primary casus belli for unrelenting drone attacks -- which have killed too many other innocent victims. The Taliban, in response, have been able to successfully combine the public outrage over the drone attacks with an anti-American nationalism that is appealing to a broader array of Pakistani citizens.

Regional envoy Richard Holbrooke is working to get the pieces of a sensible Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy together -- but he must get the U.S. military operations that are undermining key strategic interests under control. Holbrooke does not yet have an arrangement with Petraeus that subordinates the military operation entirely to the course that Holbrooke is crafting with Obama's confidence and support.

One other scary issue that is lurking the more that Obama and others publicly state that they have high confidence in the locked down state and security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal is what Pakistan's working doctrine is when Pakistan goes on "high alert."

Such "high alert" status can be triggered in an escalation with India or if the Pakistan military fears that the Taliban have made too many inroads and must be shut down -- and declares martial law.

In such a case, Pakistan's nuclear doctrine states that their nukes go mobile -- and are moved "on trucks," according to one knowledgeable source.

This person said to me, "what roads do you think would be safe in Pakistan?"

So, while President Obama is correct to say that the nuclear stockpile is secure for now, any one wanting to give Taliban insurgents a helping move could trigger another Mumbai-like terrorist attack, or create other sorts of high casualty incidents to goad the military alert level to move up.

And then what was secure no longer will be -- as a matter of deeply embedded security doctrine.

One other interesting tidbit here in Qatar is that many Arabs who have moved in and around Pakistan believe that President Zardari is no longer "Mr 10%."

They call him "Mr. 20%."

-- Steve Clemons

Kevin Nealer was a Fulbright professor of trade law & policy and is Guest Lecturer at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business.

Markets generally take a "Stop them before they kill again!" approach to Democrats and trade policy. This is true even though Smoot, Hawley, and Hoover were Republicans, and Ronald Reagan holds the record for dollar value of restrictions imposed on American imports.

Certainly the anxiety level about Team Obama's approach to trade rose as the Senate and House results showed significant Democratic gains on November 4. Editorial boards quickly picked up the theme of protectionist risk, and it was amplified in Asia and Europe. The November 2008 G-20 communique anticipated the threat of an activist Democratic trade agenda.

In truth, the greatest trade-related danger facing the new team was an unscripted fight over Treasury's report on currency manipulation that might have triggered a Sino-U.S. trade war.

The decision two weeks ago not to name China as a manipulator seemed to reflect a deliberate Administration choice. By that action, it avoids hollow accusations that might spark trade retaliation and complicate the macroeconomic challenge overwhelming everything now.

Instead, Team Obama elected to reinvent expectations of how the U.S. and China must cooperate in a changed world economy, with results counting for more than recrimination. A drop of over 30% in the U.S. trade deficit with China helped make the decision politically palatable. The "next things" on the U.S.-China trade and currency agenda become the Strategic & Economic Dialogue in July, and ongoing conversation about imbalances.

The other genuine trade policy risk came in the stimulus legislation. President Obama's insistence that "Buy America" provisions of the law be WTO-compliant signaled a major rebuke to those in both parties who wanted to close U.S. markets, while it preserved the option for states to support local suppliers.

Actions may speak louder than words in the rest of the country, but these two consequential choices on trade policy passed with hardly a mention in the press or among opinion-leading elites. These decisions didn't fit the trade theologians' story line.
These may be only two data points, but that's enough to start graphing a new set of expectations about trade.

Last month, President Obama's trade team quietly acknowledged (in a lengthy report on trade barriers) that the Administration would: (a) work for passage of a free trade deal with Panama; and (b) seek "benchmarks" (unspecified) that would allow trade deals with Colombia and South Korea to move forward. The President's trip to the Summit of the Americas mentioned both Latin bilateral deals. Bipartisan Congressional support for the South Korea pact, in the form of Senate letter this week, could revive that agreement as well.

Obama still lacks "fast track" trade negotiating authority, and he has made no effort yet to claim time for it in the crowded legislative calendar. That makes sense when every instinct to activism is condemned as doing too much. Still, actions to date indicate that protectionist risk from Congress is declining, and President Obama's ability to manage it increases. The Administration is on record as supporting a revivified Doha Round -- a floor for expectations about global trade liberalization.

Whatever the Obama Administration and Congressional leadership do on trade liberalization, it won't be enough to placate trade purists. But the reality is that, facing historic contractions in trade growth, the Team Obama hasn't flinched from a belief in America's ability to compete in open markets. This will become increasing difficult as unemployment's lag effects shadow a nascent recovery.

It remains to be seen whether the Administration can develop a new trade narrative that rekindles the bargain giving Americans faith in the virtue of trade. But in the meantime, they deserve credit for taking risks that, so far, have gone remarkably unrecognized.

-- Kevin Nealer

(Photo Credit: Clfhcks' PhotoStream)

Congratulations to Patrick Cockburn, whose award-winning articles for the London Review of Books and The Independent provide an excellent primer on the political situation in Baghdad.

Cockburn manages to explain the trajectory of events in Iraq without getting lost in the weeds of the complex and fluid situation there.

I found two articles from last year - Who Rules in Baghdad? and America Concedes - to be particularly helpful in understanding the SOFA agreement and how that document reflects Washington's diminished influence in Baghdad.

I hope you enjoy his articles as much as I did.

-- Ben Katcher

I'm still in Doha, and Dennis Ross was here in Qatar yesterday meeting government officials and discussing America's course on Iran.

Now, there are denials from the Iranian press that Dennis Ross and two other senior government officials, including Puneet Talwar of the National Security Council, are planning a journey to Tehran.

Denials of this type frequently mean the opposite.

I have no further information, other than the world on the street in Doha, but it seems to me that denials from the Iranian press mean that something is afoot and we may be tilting towards Ross and others on the Obama team heading over.

Fascinating times.

-- Steve Clemons

Universities, think tanks, defense contractors, insurgent groups and new media operations all seem to be leaning towards Doha.

Part of George Patton's own 3rd Army Division is based near Doha. Al Jazeera is headquartered in Doha. Until recently, there was an Israeli trade mission open in Doha and there is even an Israeli Embassy in Doha. On the other side of the coin, the Qatar government, of which Doha is capital, provides funding lifelines both to Hezbollah and Hamas.

Doha and its masters seem to be in every pocket and part of all sides in the Middle East. The small Gulf state is creating leverage points in the Middle East that few other players have been able to generate and is modernizing, liberalizing and creating engagement between the most reformist as well as the most conservative parts of the Islamic world.

Brookings has a Doha Center. So does RAND Corporation. And then there is Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Texas A&M, Georgetown, and Northwestern.

And even The Washington Note is headed to Doha as its publisher (that would be me) is participating in a major forum organized by UCLA Center for Middle East Development Director Steven Spiegel.

The meeting titled "Enriching The Middle East's Economic Future III Conference" will keep me busy until Wednesday -- but I'll be weighing in frequently about goings on abroad and reactions to the panel I will be chairing titled "Obama's America."

Some of the headliners of the meeting are the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, former French President Jacques Chirac, Finland Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, Sir David Frost (yes. . .that David Frost), former Congressman Mel Levine, former Omama and John Edwards campaign economic advisor Leo Hindery, former UK Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd, former Obama campain Middle East adviser Daniel Kurtzer, and a whole lot of other interesting folks.

I'll be weighing in with more when I land. Now I have to run off to the gate!

-- Steve Clemons

Jonathan Guyer is a Program Associate at the New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force.

Although some pundits see the green collar revolution as too good to be true, there are plenty of concrete ways to plant the seeds of a green economy... and Obama isn't doing that shabby so far.

-- Jonathan Guyer

Of all the evaluations of President Obama's first one hundred days, I found this analysis by Stratfor CEO George Friedman to be the most compelling.

Friedman argues convincingly that the Obama administration has succeeded in changing the optics and atmospherics surrounding American foreign policy - but that the only substantial strategic shift has been in its engagement of Turkey.

But I think that Friedman misses one key point.

As German Federal Minister for the Environment Sigmar Gabriel makes clear in the clip above, the Obama administration, unlike the Bush administration before it, is committed to developing and implementing a serious post-Kyoto carbon emissions regime.

Environmentalists have been starving for American leadership on climate change - and those engaged in the weeds of this issue are already noticing a much more cooperative posture from the Obama team.

-- Ben Katcher

Joe Klein has written one of the best 100 day nutshell reviews of the Obama administration's performance I have read.

Klein's take squares almost perfectly with a piece I have coming out in the next few days in World Politics Review -- not there yet though.

One of the portfolio downside risks that Obama currently owns is an undefined agenda in the Middle East, and Klein frames this around a sharp jab from former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski:

The second big foreign policy challenge is the natural conflict between the demure slog of diplomacy and the need for the American President to be a strong leader who sets the international agenda.

"The one thing Obama hasn't done in the first 100 days," says Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser, "is the big Middle East speech where he says, 'This is the settlement. This is what we're for.' If he doesn't do that soon, [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is going to set the agenda, not us - and that will be a disaster. If we don't act now, any chance of a two-state solution will be gone. If he does act now, every government in the world will stand with him." Except, perhaps, the Israelis and their American supporters in the Jewish and Evangelical communities. Obama's willingness to override domestic politics for the greater good will be a major test.

In a way, Brzezinski's stark choice is emblematic of the problem that Obama faces now that his first 100 days is nearly complete. There are those who mistake his quiet, deliberative style for softness.

There is the fear that he won't have the strength to stand up to the Israelis (or the Iranians) or to the left wing of his party on health care or to the porkers on the defense budget. On the other hand, there are three dead Somali pirates who attest to this President's ability to make tough decisions in a timely fashion.

Obama won't stand up to everyone, always; he is, after all, a politician. But the quality of fights he does choose will determine whether he builds his legacy on rock or sand. He has had a brilliant time announcing his intentions, but the real game of governing is about to begin.

I agree with Klein and Brzezinski -- and think that there are defining challenges that the President must confront in order to restore global confidence in the ability of the United States to achieve the outcomes it has set for itself.

Many of these challenges are in the Middle East today -- and a new equilibrium and new opportunities are not possible in the region -- without some very tough love sessions with Israel's leadership.

-- Steve Clemons

Joseph Margulies in the Los Angeles Times offers anyone who wants to defend the Bush administration's embrace of torture a chilling retort.

His bottom line: the administration sold out the values Americans cherish most to torture not a kingpin in the al Qaeda network, but a clerk.

Margulies writes:

First, they beat him. As authorized by the Justice Department and confirmed by the Red Cross, they wrapped a collar around his neck and smashed him over and over against a wall. They forced his body into a tiny, pitch-dark box and left him for hours. They stripped him naked and suspended him from hooks in the ceiling. They kept him awake for days.

And they strapped him to an inverted board and poured water over his covered nose and mouth to "produce the sensation of suffocation and incipient panic." Eighty-three times. I leave it to others to debate whether we should call this torture. I am content with the self-evident truth that it was wrong.

Second, his treatment was motivated by the bane of our post-9/11 world: rotten intel. The beat him because they believed he was evil. Not long after his arrest, President Bush described him as "one of the top three leaders" in Al Qaeda and "Al Qaeda's chief of operations." In fact, the CIA brass at Langley, Va., ordered his interrogators to keep at it long after the latter warned that he had been wrung dry.

But Abu Zubaydah, we now understand, was nothing like what the president believed. He was never Al Qaeda. The journalist Ron Suskind was the first to ask the right questions. In his 2006 book, "The One Percent Doctrine," he described Abu Zubaydah as a minor logistics man, a travel agent.

Later and more detailed reporting in the Washington Post, quoting Justice Department officials, said he provided "above-ground support. ... To make him the mastermind of anything is ridiculous." More recently, the New York Times, relying on current and former intelligence officers, said the initial assessment was "highly inflated" and reflected "a profound misunderstanding" of Abu Zubaydah. Far from a leader, he was "a personnel clerk."

-- Steve Clemons