(Photocredit: Lorenzo Bonosi's Photostream)

Suicide bombers from Lebanon, the West Bank, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Chechnya have two things in common: they are Muslim and they live under occupation.

University of Chicago Professor Dr. Robert A. Pape, who has assembled a comprehensive database of every (or nearly every) suicide bombing since 1980, has been the most prominent proponent of the view that it is occupation, not religion, that is the single most important motivating factor for suicide bombers.

As Pape explained at a recent New America Foundation forum,more than 95% of suicide bombers come from countries under occupation.

In today's New York Times, Pape and his colleagues at the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism, ask "What Makes Chechen Women So Dangerous?"

The article pieces together a narrative of Chechnya's recent history that pinpoints the Russian occupation as the proximate reason for Chechen suicide attacks - including Monday's bombings on the Moscow metro.

Pape and his colleagues conclude that

Still, the picture is clear: Chechen suicide terrorism is strongly motivated by both direct military occupation by Russia and by indirect military occupation by pro-Russia Chechen security forces. Building on the more moderate policies of 2005 to 2007 might not end every attack, but it could well reduce violence to a level both sides can live with.

Because the new wave of Chechen separatists see President Kadyrov as a puppet of the Kremlin, any realistic solution must improve the legitimacy of Chechnya's core social institutions. An initial step would be holding free and fair elections. Others would include adopting internationally accepted standards of humane conduct among the security forces and equally distributing the region's oil revenues so that Chechnya's Muslims benefit from their own resources.

No political solution would resolve every issue. But the subway attacks should make clear to Russia that quelling the rebellion with diplomacy is in its security interests. As long as Chechens feel themselves under occupation -- either directly by Russian troops or by their proxies -- the cycle of violence will continue wreaking havoc across Russia.

The full article can be read here.

-- Ben Katcher

(Photo Credit: U.S. Army Photostream)

New America Foundation/Economic Growth Program Policy Director and The American Way of Strategy author Michael Lind has an excellent new column over at Salon that traces the roots of the United States' strategic insolvency.

Lind argues persuasively that the United States suffers from outdated, Cold War-era national security and economic strategies. The "bases for markets" grand bargain - according to which Germany and Japan allow the Untied States to base its forces on their soil in exchange for access to American markets - is no longer tenable from an American perspective.

Lind concludes that

For the time being, however, America's out-of-touch foreign policy establishment continues to favor the policy of expanding America's geopolitical frontiers while allowing our self-interested industrial rivals to hollow out the American economy. Policies that made sense in the early years of the Cold War emergency continue to be followed out of inertia, when their original strategic rationale has long since vanished. In the words of the philosopher George Santayana, "Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim."

The entire piece can be read here.

-- Ben Katcher

Amidst German Chancellor Angela Merkel's visit to Turkey this week, Spiegel Online published a lengthy interview yesterday with Turkey Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan .

The interview touched on most of the familiar subjects - including Iran's nuclear program, the Armenian genocide resolution controversy, and Turkey's ongoing negotiations to join the European Union.

The interview failed, however, to address the status of Prime Minister Erdogan's Justice and Development Party's (AKP) constitutional reform proposal that is scheduled to be presented to Parliament today.

This is not terribly surprising given Turkey's centrality to Europe's foreign policy challenges in the Middle East, but the unfolding constitutional controversy is likely to become a key issue between Brussels and Ankara in the coming months with implications for Turkey's EU membership bid.

Reforming Turkey's anachronistic 1982 constitution - which was written in the aftermath of a military coup - is a key prerequisite for Turkey's admission to the European Union. Europe is concerned that Turkey's powerful judiciary and military be brought under civilian control, and with extending certain liberal freedoms to Turkish citizens.

As Gareth Jenkins explains, the problem is that the AKP proposal contains only some of the EU requirements, and includes several items that have not been demanded by Europe, but are meant to consolidate the party's power.

Thus far, key European Union officials have supported the proposal, with the caveat that they would like to see negotiation and input from Turkey's opposition parties, which are closely aligned with the military and the judiciary and are steadfastly opposed to the proposal.

It is likely that the opposition will refuse to support the constitutional reforms and that Prime Minister Erdogan and his party will be compelled to put their proposal to a popular referendum.

In that case, Europe will be put in a very difficult position. On the one hand, it supports constitutional reform in principle and some elements of the AKP proposal in practice. On the other hand, unilateral, incremental amendments to Turkey's constitution are far from ideal from the European perspective.

If this scenario plays out, the seemingly mundane issue of Turkish constitutional reform may become a very hot topic in Brussels and a defining moment for Turkey's European Union candidacy.

More soon.

-- Ben Katcher

This is a guest note by former John F. Kennedy Special Counsel and Adviser Theodore "Ted" Sorensen.

-- Steve Clemons

Why All the Steam about Obama's Team?

Does the volley of slings and arrows aimed at the Obama White House staff, including Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel - with even wise man Les Gelb calling for "a sweeping staff shakeup" ousting most of the principal players "to save his presidency" - mean that our president selected the worst and dumbest; or is this simply an overreaction in the national press and Democratic Party to the aberrational Senate election in Massachusetts?

I remember all too clearly 48-49 years ago when my colleagues on the Kennedy presidential team, previously called "the best and the brightest," were the target of similar attacks, as most White House staffs in their first two years have been. It is easy to criticize. Mr. Gelb even condemned Obama's "flagrantly foolish rhetoric," making one wonder how he could ever have been elected.

The underlying premise is the claim that Obama's first 15 months were a failure. Failure? The man who stemmed the initial hemorrhage of the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression, who raised our international standing from near zero (due to repeated torture and other violations of international law, and unilateral military interventions as a substitute for multilateral diplomacy) to a renewed level of widespread international respect, who obtained passage by the House of his first dozen or more legislative proposals? A failure? Similar epithets were hurled by pundits and political detractors at Kennedy and his team during and after his first year or two in office, when they asked:

Why is there no 'grand design' for global policy? Why is the president taking on all the international crises inherited from his predecessor? Why are his poll ratings not as high as they were soon after his election? The president is occasionally inconsistent, changing his mind or position; the president has not achieved all of his formidable objectives in one year; the president should not have raised expectations so high; the president is all speeches, no accomplishments, yet calling on us self-appointed experts very rarely; the president is relying more on principle than politics by seeking lofty goals instead of small accomplishments; why can't his staff work more than 24 hours a day to return our calls?

After Kennedy left behind the first step toward arms control in the nuclear age, new success in the conquest of space as he literally reached for the moon, new legislative protection for the minimally paid, the mentally ill and challenged, plus a comprehensive civil rights program reversing centuries of discrimination, plus the Peace Corps, expanded world trade and a host of measures reviving the eroding protective networks of the Roosevelt/Truman New Deal/Fair Deal, no one was asking those questions. I predict they will not be asked about the Obama administration at its close in 2016.

Every staff has its flaws. Kennedy took pride in keeping his professional White House staff unusually lean, too lean to leak, too lean to be mean to each other and too lean to be unclean. I hope Obama's team is not too large. Certainly, it is better than most and it appears, like Kennedy's, to have fewer of the distracting feuds and factions that disrupted so many other presidencies in both parties. Like JFK's "Irish Mafia," Obama's "Chicago crowd" has been singled out for scorn by those who seem unaware that - like Kennedy's Irish-American political advisors - only a small part of the president's team fit this description. Obama, like Kennedy, has earned the loyalty of his staff, defending them at every opportunity, demonstrating the all-too-rare quality of "loyalty down" that was not displayed by those predecessors in the Oval Office who did not hesitate to blame, deceive, and dismiss loyal staffers as handy scapegoats.

Another complaint today familiar to my ears is the demand that, "in order to get things done," young amateurs should be replaced by aging veterans from earlier administrations (including those from earlier administrations noted for not getting things done). More than most of my fellow aging veterans, I know the extent to which the recurrent crises, emergencies, all-night and weekend sessions of White House employment require youthful energy.

Blaming the unprecedented negativity of Republican opposition leaders who prefer to see the nation fall than the president succeed on White House Chief of Staff Emanuel is fatuous. They may as well ask: Why can't Obama, like Kennedy, have a Senate Republican leader like Everett Dirksen who supported Kennedy on big issues like nuclear test limitations and civil rights? It was former General Eisenhower who, as president, set the precedent for chiefs of staff, drawing upon the military command system and empowering Sherman Adams to screen virtually every piece of paper and person (other than the secretary of state and press secretary) entering the Oval Office.

Kennedy knew he needed no such rigorous hierarchy, and appointed himself as his own chief of staff. He once termed me his "chief of staff for ideas," but that was an exaggeration - I had no authority over the national security adviser, press secretary, appointments secretary or congressional liaison team. Former Congressman Emanuel has all the gifts and guts to survive that difficult post; but like most university presidents, his responsibilities exceed his authority. He can no more direct all the many dukes in the White House kingdom (to say nothing of all the fiefdoms in the Cabinet departments) than a university president can control his faculty.

After a few legislative and political victories, once the Republicans have come to their senses, the current staff "punching bags" will look like sudden geniuses.

Complaints will continue. Some Democratic congressmen will still voice surprise that the White House has its own priorities. There will still be Democratic congressmen who think he's been overly accommodating to Republicans on health care, Afghanistan, and the location of terrorist trials.

Some discontented leakers from the departments will grumble that the president is interfering with his government. Some journalists will gripe that their unprecedented access to interview all the leakers is curbed by a "culture of secrecy." Almost all presidents lose ground in polls and House seats in their first two years. But a president and chief of staff criticized from both left and right must be doing something right.

To me, the most absurd of all is that some Obama staff members like David Axelrod are being called "too supportive, lovingly loyal" to the president. For 50 years I have tasted that same criticism, and I am proud of it. Highly placed turncoats in this and other countries over the years who paid more attention to their own agendas, memoirs, and ideologies eventually sank both their countries and their careers.

Since leaving the White House more than 46 years ago, I have observed that the average Washington pundit and New York dinner guest, equipped with hindsight, is always smarter than the president of the United States.

When President Kennedy was warned by a press conference in 1962-63 that his poll ratings had slipped below their former high of 70%, he replied in effect: "If I were still at 70% after a vigorous congressional session, I would feel that I had not been doing my duty." Barack Obama has been doing his duty, and so has every member of his team.

-- Ted Sorensen

Tonight, Charlie Rose spends an hour discussing all things Iran with my colleague Flynt Leverett -- a former senior staff member of the National Security Council, State Department, and CIA and now a member of our team at the NAF American Strategy Program -- and his wife, Hillary Mann Leverett, also a former senior State Department and National Security Council official.

The Leveretts are Washington's leading advocates for a serious negotiations track and diplomacy with Iran. They also publish the blog, Race for Iran.

-- Steve Clemons

One of my former New America Foundation colleagues and great friends, Douglas Rediker, did not need a recess appointment and was sworn in Thursday in the Cash Room of the Department of Treasury.

Rediker, former Director of the New America Foundation's Global Strategic Finance Initiative, is the new Alternative US Executive Director of the International Monetary Fund.

This is important for a number of reasons, particularly Rediker's important work that he has done with his wife, Heidi Crebo-Rediker who now serves as Chief, International Finance and Economics for the majority on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The two of them, both deeply experienced in capital and financial markets work, nonetheless saw the limits of manic neoliberalism in Russia and Eastern Europe. They wrote about the quickly evolving development of "state capitalism", "sovereign wealth funds", and strategic financial competition designed by other countries to challenge American primacy in global finance.

Rediker's swearing-in was supposed to be done by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, but he was delayed on the Hill and instead Deputy Secretary Neal Wolin did the oathing and Rediker the swearing.

For those who track these things, Atlantic Council and former Wall Street Journal Europe chief Frederick Kempe did a great job as master of ceremonies -- and the attendees included Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, White House Social Secretary Julianna Smoot [just on the job for four days], Commodities Future Trading Commission Chair Gary Gensler, former Obama Senate office economic adviser and new US Executive Director to the World Bank Ian Solomon, IMF Deputy Director John Lipsky, Michael Lind and Samuel Sherraden both of the New America Foundation Economic Growth Program, Heidi Crebo-Rediker from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, among others.

Congrats as well to Ian Solomon on his recent confirmation.

Now a question for all the Treasury Department types I met the other day.

Why in the world is the official entrance to Treasury marked by a large statue to Albert Gallatin, the 4th Secretary of Treasury and a pawn of Thomas Jefferson in many anti-Hamilton crusades?

Alexander Hamilton's statue is in the back of the building.

This doesn't make sense. Hamilton was a champion of infrastructure development, infant industry-nurturing industrial policy, and smartly deployed credit.

Those types of policies are what the nation needs today -- and it may be about time to put the FIRST Secretary of Treasury out front.

Congrats again to Douglas Rediker, who has on several occasions been an important guest blogger here at the The Washington Note.

-- Steve Clemons

John Bolton is now formally and appropriately addressed as "Ambassador Bolton" because of the right of the executive branch to make recess appointments in the wake of inaction by Congress on presidential nominations.

Bolton never got a confirmation vote in the Senate. And fast forward a few years, neither have a long list of Obama nominees to key government positions received their votes.

So, President Obama has just announced 15 recess appointments that have been tied up an average of 214 days (that is 30 and a half weeks -- or about 7 and a half months).

Obama's list strangely does not include his nominee for Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs, Lael Brainard -- whom Senator Chuck Grassley seems to be personally committed to ongoing vetting harrassment.

Here is the roster of folks who soon will get their titles:

Jeffrey Goldstein: Nominee for Under Secretary for Domestic Finance, Department of the Treasury

Michael F. Mundaca: Nominee for Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy, Department of the Treasury

Eric L. Hirschhorn: Nominee for Under Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration and head of the Bureau of Industry and Security, Department of Commerce

Michael Punke: Nominee for Deputy Trade Representative - Geneva, Office of the United States Trade Representative

Francisco "Frank" J. Sánchez: Nominee for Under Secretary for International Trade, Department of Commerce

Islam A. Siddiqui: Nominee for Chief Agricultural Negotiator, Office of the U.S. Trade Representative

Alan D. Bersin: Nominee for Commissioner, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security

Jill Long Thompson: Nominee for Member, Farm Credit Administration Board

Rafael Borras: Nominee for Under Secretary for Management , Department of Homeland Security

Craig Becker: Nominee for Board Member, National Labor Relations Board

Mark Pearce: Nominee for Board Member, National Labor Relations Board

Jacqueline A. Berrien, Nominee for Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Chai R. Feldblum: Nominee for Commissioner, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Victoria A. Lipnic: Nominee for Commissioner, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

P. David Lopez: Nominee for General Counsel, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Brainard should be on this list.

-- Steve Clemons

Japan's Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, is having a tough time. The popularity of his cabinet has fallen to the high 30s/low 40s from previously unsustainable, stratospheric heights -- but structural change has costs, and I remain optimistic that Democracy 2.0 is taking over in Japan.

I think that we are seeing serious rewiring of Japan's political system which is essential if Japan's bureaucrat-dominated state is going to become more sensitive not only to voter preferences but also to new realities in the international system.

One rarely sees positive stuff in the American press about Hatoyama -- particularly as he has been tearing off the left hand, middle fingernail of the American Leviathan with an effort to stop an expensive and controversial US Marine air station from moving from one part of Okinawa island to another. Overall, Hatoyama's resistance about the Futenma Base shouldn't be more than a small blip in the overall US-Japan strategic and economic relationship, but it's that middle finger nail -- and Japan's boldness has been ticking off a number of US policymakers.

Another group that is ticked off as their fingernails are pulled back, one by one, are Japan's bureaucrats.

Today, in a terrific piece by the New York Times' Martin Fackler, Hatoyama is portrayed as a potentially historically successful and significant leader.

Fackler writes:

Since ending the Liberal Democrats' nearly unbroken 54-year grip on power in last summer's election, Mr. Hatoyama's Democratic Party has proclaimed its top mission to be changing the way the country is governed by a process that is commonly called "escaping the bureaucracy." The aim is to make Japan's political system more responsive by ending more than a century of de facto rule by elite career bureaucrats at Tokyo's central ministries, and empowering democratically elected politicians instead.

It has already made considerable progress, say political experts, who caution that the battle is far from won. The Hatoyama administration has put teams of lawmakers in charge of daily operations at the ministries, which long ran Japan with backroom decision-making. It has centralized the appointment and promotion of top officials in the prime minister's office, and forced out recalcitrant top officials.

To put its imprint on spending decisions, the government will hold a second high-profile search for hidden waste in ministry budgets next month. The first one, last autumn, which cut some $7 billion in spending, offered an unprecedented public spectacle of Parliament members grilling squirming bureaucrats, turning the tables on the powerful pooh-bahs who had long called the shots.

"The bureaucrats created a very centralized system that has become out of date, and unable to react to the world's changes," Kazuhiro Haraguchi, the minister of internal affairs, said in an interview. "We need a system that serves the people, not the bureaucracy and entrenched interest groups."

I agree that the jury is still out -- but those doubting Hatoyama need to tread carefully because this seems to be a leader and party that clearly recognizes that inertia and incrementalism as policy drivers would be a disaster for Japan. They see this as a time of historical discontinuity -- and Japan really needs to change -- rather than just faking it as it did in the past.

Particularly powerful in this article was Japan expert Karel van Wolferen's assessment:

"What is happening is nothing short of revolutionary," said Karel van Wolferen, a professor of comparative politics at the University of Amsterdam who wrote a 1995 best-selling critique of the Japanese system, "The System That Makes Japanese Unhappy," which zeroed in on the unresponsive elite as a core national problem. A half year of Hatoyama has produced more change than an entire year of Obama."

To be fair to President Obama who also has had an up and down year, securing comprehensive health care reform -- even if not satisfactory to a big slug of Americans -- is a huge accomplishment, putting him in the top tier of all presidents who have tried the same over the last century.

But I understand van Wolferen's essential point: Hatoyama -- with his own shadow shogun Ichiro Ozawa -- is reconfiguring the architecture of the Japanese political order.

-- Steve Clemons

Ed. Note: Hat tip to TWN's favorite newshound Daniel Lippman.

I don't know the figure myself but someone should compute how much of every federal $ committed to non-agricultural, non-nuclear renewable energy sticks inside the U.S. vs. how much leaks out to Germany, China, India, and Scandinavia.

The Washington Post's Steve Mufson -- who once served as the Post's Bureau Chief in Beijing -- has written an important article on a local solar production facility closing.

Mufson opens on the announced closure of BP Solar's Frederick, Maryland manufacuting facility:

BP will close its solar-panel manufacturing plant in Frederick, the final step in moving its solar business out of the United States to facilities in China, India and other countries.

Just 3 1/2 years ago, in an announcement widely hailed by Maryland officials and promoters of "green jobs," BP unveiled a $70 million plan to double output at the facility and erected a building to house the production lines.

But on Friday the company said it would lay off 320 workers and keep only a hundred people involved in research, sales and project development. BP said laid-off employees would receive full pay and benefits for three months, followed by severance packages and job-placement assistance. The company, unable to sell or lease the building, will tear it down.

President Obama and his team talked a lot about creating "green jobs", stimulated by federal partnerships with states, industry, and universities -- but as Leo Hindery has compellingly stated at a recent Center for American Progress/Apollo Alliance forum on renewable energy, green jobs will remain an illusion until the White House adopts a serious national manufacuring strategy that the green sector is part of.

What is happening in the mean time is more hype than real. As New America Foundation Economic Growth Program Policy Associate Samuel Sherraden has written, America has a large and growing "green trade deficit" with other nations that has ballooned in the last five years.

BP Solar's suspension of renewable sector manufacturing in the US is part of an ongoing current of key jobs moving abroad.

The announcement by BP Solar is particularly disheartening as the preceding solar firm in Frederick that BP purchased was one of the stars of the Advanced Technology Program (ATP) of the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) under which it received manufacturing process, technology development and benchmarking support. ATP was killed by the Bush administration in 2007.

I visited this outfit in 1996 and was very impressed with the operation, which despite growing substantially since then is now going to be rolled up.

The closing of BP Solar prompted a debate of sorts between three very smart friends who are ideologically diverse, all committed to an upgrade of America's core infrastructure and to more sensible energy policies.

I have anonymized the exchange but wanted to share their views on the news of BP Solar's closing of the Frederick facility:

Policy Wonk 1 mailing to other Policy Wonks:

I guess free trade is more important than green jobs.

Read this: "BP closing Maryland Solar Manufacturing Plant"

Policy Wonk 2:

That is another reason why we should focus on natural gas and nuclear. They can't be off-shored.

Policy Wonk 3:

All the components of nuclear and natural gas plants, pipes, etc. can be offshored, including steel and concrete, with assembly and construction only in the U.S. Even concrete production is opposed by greens in the US because of the CO2 released from the limestone.

Policy Wonk 2:

Yes but that is true of only a small part of the natural gas and nuclear complex. And what do you mean by a natural gas plant????? You can't offshore the exploration, drilling, and capping of natural gas facilities. And nearly all of the sophisticated drilling and exploration equipment is made in the USA.

Policy Wonk 1:

Right. But it might not be a bad policy to say that important stuff should be made in the US. Period. Before the Chinese steal our drilling technology and underprice on that, too.

The elites would be horrified, and ordinary Americans would cheer.

My view is closest to Leo Hindery's in this case. The White House has not yet assembled a compelling national energy strategy that also creates a net increase in jobs along the lines that President Obama continually speaks about because there is no broad-based strategy yet to build high wage jobs, particularly manufacturing jobs, in the U.S.

-- Steve Clemons

David Frum and many observers think that he was excommunicated from the Cheney-dominated halls at the American Enterprise Institute because of a hard-hitting, honest appraisal of Republican self-delusion and hyperventilation over the health care battle.

If you missed Frum's humdinger of an essay titled "Waterloo", read it here. And here is the GOP empire's response.

This is powerful stuff. But honestly, Frum was far more over the top about Sarah Palin whom he saw as utterly unqualified on any level to serve as President of the United States. Frum basically split then with the neocons and pugnacious nationalists who dominate Republican party politics and committed himself to reviving a healthier, smarter, less nasty, more competitive and visionary Republican Party.

So, his criticism of Republican health care goose-stepping was nothing new.

In fact, Frum was hoping to make AEI the base of his efforts to bring a new set of compelling ideas about America's domestic and international policy portfolios to the GOP's leadership either in 2012, or more likely as a base for a successful presidential run in 2016.

Frum's firing had nothing to do with his article or the WSJ piece, with all due respect to Howard Kurtz.

The truth is hard to, well. . .I feel I have to reveal that the real reason for David Frum being fired is, well, "me".

It all started with dinner and a great dog named "Benson."

Before this mind-stretching dinner hosted by journalist and AT Kearney/Global Business Policy Council chief Martin Walker and Julia Watson, proprietor of the blog EatWashington, all was normal in the universe as Frum and I were on complete opposite ends of practically everything.

He once wrote of me as "lunkheaded" in an erudite Mark Twain-referencing critique [thankfully no longer on the internet] of something I had written about him involving the words "incipient" and "imminent." Long story that's not worth retelling. He wrote a piece once on the "dangers of creeping Scowcroftianism" when I was one of those in Washington responsible for perpetuating a revival of Scowcroftian writing and ideas. When we were on NPR radio shows together, he would be embracing neoconservative messianism to re-engineer the internal guts of other countries while 'd be saying that this was like the Borg in Star Trek. I'd say that the neocons either wanted to assimilate another culture -- and if that didn't work, annihilate it.

Frum's job was safe at AEI when we were on opposite sides.

And then Benson was there, at a great dinner -- and Frum and I are both complete suckers for dogs. Like major suckers.

Before I knew it, David Frum and I were both on the floor together with Benson between us, licking us lavishly together. I sort of felt like a once-divorced spouse of David who had been brought back together by the child. That's the power of dogs.

I did disclose our dog-bond on The Washington Note and feared that Frum would get fired then. In fact, I wrote:

I'm sharing this because I can't keep secret any longer the fact that I had a great time with David Frum, Danielle, and the rest -- and am going to be doing so again tonight.

I regret that David may get roughed up more by Bill Kristol and some of his friends at AEI for this disclosure than I will by my readers. . .or so I hope.

Silliness aside [actually it's all true], David, Danielle Crittenden, Julia Watson, Martin Walker, Moises Naim, and others had such a great evening of debate and discussion about the political scene that Frum and I began tentatively reaching out for more discussion.

I invited him to a few New America Foundation gatherings. He invited me to his holiday party -- and it was there that journalists like Jamie Kirchick and Eli Lake began to see that either David was trying to bring me their direction, or I was working to make Frum a Nixonian Realist-hugger. But for the most part, the journalists there kept mum.

We did a couple of shows together for Reason Magazine with Nick Gillespie -- and then we began to enjoy some high octane policy discussions over the Frum dinner table, in one of the most beautiful rooms I've been to in Washington. And Frum has two amazing yellow labs and a funky spaniel. Dogs!

But then just a few weeks ago, I met Frum in public for coffee at the Starbucks on Dupont Circle. I wanted to get a sense from him of how the neoconservative world was organized -- and how he was going to play a role in that world in the future. My belief is that David Frum and Francis Fukuyama, separately to some degree, are the first serious rebels in the neoconservative church that reject the unprincipled power grabs by their neocon siblings and cousins.

My hunch is that some new neoconservative churches that hearken back to the original thinking, and to some degree policy modesty, of Irving Kristol will emerge and Frum and Fukuyama are potential leaders.

While we were sitting in that crowded, noisy Starbucks, I thought I saw Bill Kristol walk by. There was someone with him who definitely looked right into my eye. Then, I saw his eyes widen to the limit when he saw who my coffee mate was.

They kept walking. But then, Frum tells me "now we need to keep this quiet -- you know us meeting and stuff." I didn't tell him that we were already "out."

And then just a couple of weeks ago -- the two guys who used to be the opposite of each other on virtually everything did a "blogging heads" episode together focused on US-Iran policy options titled "Warm and Fuzzy Edition."

I thought Frum would be fired the next day. A short clip of the session titled "Iran Regime Change?" appeared on the New York Times online oped page, after which a friend of mine at the Wall Street Journal chuckled and said he might frazzle Paul Gigot and even the great Rupert Murdoch with an anonymous email to them of the bloggingheads link.

So, bottom line is that in the world of ideas there are occasions when policy gladiators on opposite sides learn to respect each other, engage, perhaps even modify their views -- and become friends

I remember when Rahm Emmanuel made the following comment to the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza:

The public wants bipartisanship. We just have to try. We don't have to succeed.

In a political/policy context, I think responsible think tank wonks also have a responsibility to reach across the aisle, or attempt to do so -- as well as to 'think' and not rest lazily on ideological laurels.

But in contrast to Rahm's outcome on bipartisanship, Frum and I have been succeeding -- and so too have been other people in his circle and mine.

This is what the future could and should be made of.

It truly is a shame that the American Enterprise Institute didn't realize that it could reinvent its own place and relevance in Washington with the kind of creative bridge-building and policy innovation that Frum was pushing.

I apologize to David for being the real cause of his firing -- but I'm sure he'll be fine.

And the silver lining is that we'll probably have more time for dog dates. Benson!

-- Steve Clemons

Wow. When the unexpected happens in an election, it's a good market test of whether balloting really does serve as a credible system of expressing the public's will.

Incumbents hardly ever lose -- particularly in the Middle East.

Despite Hamas winning the elections in Palestine a few years ago, President George W. Bush nonetheless maintained the mantra that those elections were the fairest and freest yet held in the Middle East. And they were -- though we ended up punishing the victors.

And today, it has just been announced that Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya coalition has won the most seats in Iraq's parliament.

There may be trouble ahead. I don't think al Maliki will step back easily or will be enthused about playing the minority role in a coalition government.

But these election results are surprising as it's rare to see incumbent governments in the Middle East lose, or if they do lose -- to let that loss be actualized.

Watch out Ahmed Chalabi. We hear that Ayad Allawi is not his greatest fan.

More soon. Off to Philadelphia.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a guest note by Ralph Gomory, one of the nation's leading thinkers about technology, innovation, and the productivity health of national economies. Gomory previously served as IBM's Senior Vice President for Science and Technology and subsequently as the immediate past president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

This essay first ran on The Huffington Post.

In the United States, innovation has become almost synonymous with economic competitiveness. Even more remarkable, we often hear that our economic salvation can only be through innovation. We hear that because of low Asian wages we must innovate because we cannot really compete in anything else. Inventive Americans will do the R&D and let the rest of the world, usually China, do the dull work of actually making things. Or we'll do programming design but let the rest of the world, usually India, do low-level programming. This is a totally mistaken belief and one that, if accepted, will consign this nation to second- or third-class status.

The latest offender to advance this line of thought is Thomas Friedman, who has prominently displayed this familiar and entirely incorrect line of thought in the New York Times. Unfortunately, this idea is one that is widely accepted without careful thought about either its truthfulness or its consequences.

Truth and Consequences

Cheap labor abroad is cited as the incurable handicap that explains why the United States cannot compete. But cheap labor doesn't explain the fact that Japan and Germany, both high-wage countries, are successful in the automobile industry. Nor does it explain how semiconductors, a model of a high investment, low-labor content industry, are mainly made in Asia. The premise that the inescapable burden of competing against low wages means failure is simply not correct.

Perhaps even more disturbing than the lack of truthfulness is the fact that we are not addressing the consequences of not competing. There are some inescapable truths about any economic good, be it a manufactured good or a service: (1) you either produce it in your own country, (2) you trade something you do produce for it, (3) you do without it, or (4) you import it and promise to pay later.

We are moving steadily away from producing what we need in this country. We are also moving away from producing on a scale that enables us to trade for what we do need. Rather than do without, we are increasingly importing things with a promise to pay later. This cannot go on. When our trading partners, especially China, no longer want to loan us hundreds of billions of dollars a year to be paid later, we will have little productive capacity left and we will be a poor nation.

Friedman is only the latest to assume that we can avoid this fate by emphasizing designs, ideas, and R&D and trading them for the items we need. This is an attractive idea; we often hear about innovation parks and university research centers and often their work is both exciting and good.

But the chasm-sized flaw in this otherwise alluring proposition is scale. Balancing trade on ideas and R&D simply cannot be done. The most elementary analysis shows that the scale is entirely wrong. As one who spent many years as the head of research of a large corporation, I know how much R&D matters; I also know how small it is. Eight percent is a very large percent of revenue to spend on R&D. Even in manufacturing, which is relatively R&D intensive, 4 to 5 percent is typical. It is really wrong to think that you can scale up R&D to be big enough so we can trade it for the huge quantity of things we need but don't make in this country.

A Strange and Unworkable Strategy

Ignoring the issue of scale, Tom Friedman goes on to quote authoritative Chinese sources who say that by the end of the decade China will be dominating global production of the whole range of power equipment. To Friedman's approving eye this just means that China is going to make clean power technologies cheaper for itself and everyone else. Friedman says that Chinese experts believe it will all happen faster and more effectively if China and America work together with the United States specializing in energy research and innovation, at which, he asserts, China is still weak, while China will specialize in mass production.

It is probably true that all this will happen faster with the specialization Friedman describes, but where will we be at the end of that process? China will be making power equipment cheaply, but the chasm is still there, so what will we have to trade for it? Power equipment will be cheap in China, but if we adopt this approach it may well be unaffordable in the United States.

Meanwhile the Chinese wisely welcome our nascent innovations and turn them into products. They are building plants, making things manufacturable, and adding them to their growing GDP. Friedman's article contains an excellent example of this. He describes a U.S. developer with a new approach to solar-thermal power, whose proposal to the U.S. government asking for small scale support was easily outbid by a Chinese offer that was far larger and was aimed at much larger scale plants.

Specializing in R&D, but sending its fruits on to others is a strange and completely unworkable strategy for a nation.

Other Issues

Thinking of innovation as a standalone activity without production has other major flaws. First, our global corporations, understanding that innovation and production are in fact closely tied, are rapidly moving not only production but also R&D overseas. Intel's CEO made this very clear when he said that the goal of Intel's new plant in China is to support a transition from "manufactured in China" to "innovated in China".

In addition, the standalone innovation approach leaves most Americans entirely out. After all, only a very small portion of Americans are engaged in R&D. At a recent meeting I heard "The only thing that matters is innovative and passionate people." These people do matter, but they are very far from being the only ones. This attitude misses the point that it was all our people, working in many different work settings, that made this country prosper. And all of them will all be needed in any viable future for our country.

What We Must Do - The Role of Trade

We need successful industries and we need to innovate within them to keep them thriving. However, when your trading partner is thinking about GDP rather than profit, and has adopted mercantilist tactics, subsidizing industries, and mispricing its currency, while loaning you the money to buy the underpriced goods, this may simply not be possible.

The ability to compete in a world that is half-mercantilist, half-free is inescapably tied to effective trade policy. Our present policy is to beg. We ask countries like China to stop the subsidies and currency mispricings because they are creating a one-way flow of underpriced goods; goods that are destroying jobs on a large scale in many of the most productive sectors of our economy. But why should they stop? It's working for them.

We must move to balanced trade. With balanced trade every dollar of imports is matched by a dollar of exports of goods or services produced here in the U.S.A. We are fortunate that there are in fact ways to balance trade. One very attractive way is to adopt some version of Warren Buffet's Import Certificates plan, which Buffet has described in a remarkably insightful Fortune article.

We should act now to balance trade. We should not continue to beg while jobs disappear and our productive ability erodes.

What We Must Do - Motivating our Companies

Today our companies are motivated to take innovations abroad, produce there and import the goods into the United States. Increasingly we can expect services also to go overseas. We must produce here in the U.S.A., to employ the people of this country, and we must keep their activities effective by a steady stream of innovations in design and production. While other countries roll out a welcome mat of tax breaks and subsidies for our companies because their common sense tells them that their people being employed in productive work is the road to being a rich country, we provide no incentive for U.S. companies to produce here.

We cannot continue to have our corporations, faithful only to the interests of their shareholders, engage in a one-way flow of jobs, technology, and innovation out of the country. We need to realize that with globalization the interests of our country and of our global corporations have diverged. We can realign the interests of corporations with those of our country by rewarding companies that are productive here. And that can be done in ways that are consistent with our history and with the limited capabilities of our government.

Conclusion

Specializing in innovation is an attractive idea, but a misleading one; an idea that blinds us to what we really need to do.

We need to do more than produce exciting new ideas; we must also be able to compete in large productive industries. This requires us to both balance trade and to motivate our corporations not only to innovate, but also to produce in this country. While this is hard to do, it can be done. Specializing in innovation, though often recommended, is in fact a delusion, an alluring path that in reality will lead us straight downhill.

-- Ralph Gomory

While Sally Quinn and Ben Bradlee were hosting a lot of the top tier Washington Post crowd and others at a dinner saluting Newsweek religion editor Lisa Miller on the publication of Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife, I was hosting a very cool crowd focused on present life in the Middle East with Al Jazeera Director General Wadah Khanfar.

Not sure how much fun the afterlife discussion was at the Quinn-Bradlee household, but Restaurant Nora's guests last night were stirred up by Khanfar with some tough talk on the world Al Jazeera covers.

Khanfar gave a tour de force read of the tectonic realities in the Middle East today. His talk was mostly off the record at the request of the audience who wanted him to go further than what he would have said on the record. I told Khanfar that if he gave a bland, say nothing presentation that he put off the record that we would be finished, kaput, over.

He totally delivered with a provocative, mind-stretching, sometimes uncomfortable survey of Arab world dynamics and analysis of America's engagement in the region.

Attendees last night included former State Department Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson, Congressman Brian Baird (D-WA), Bush administration Counterterrorism Adviser to the President Fran Townsend, the New York Times' James Risen, They Knew They Were Right author and National Interest Senior Editor Jacob Heilbrunn, Economist Washington Bureau Chief Peter David, Former Federal Elections Commission Chairman Trevor Potter, Media Matters' MJ Rosenberg, the Palestine Note's Fadi Elsalameen, former Newsweek Senior Foreign Correspondent and CSIS Global Terrorism expert Arnaud de Borchgrave, the Boston Globe's Farah Stockman, realist Ron Steel of the University of Southern California, former USAID Deputy Administrator Hattie Babbitt, NBC's Janet Donovan, National Public Radio's Marilyn Geewax, Eric Melby of the Scowcroft Group, Kim Ghattas of the BBC, Nell Derick Debevoise of Tomorrow's Youth Organization in Nablus, Palestinian-American business leader Hani Masri, the Washington Post's Garance Franke-Ruta, and others

For those interested, here is a video clip of an excellent presentation that Wadah Khanfar did for the American Strategy Program of the New America Foundation in July 2009.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a guest post by Jonathan Guyer, a program associate at the New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force.

Today at the New America Foundation, Zogby International President and CEO John Zogby will be unveiling an extensive survey of American perceptions with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The numbers suggest a widening partisan split between Democrats and Republicans on settlements, how the U.S. should lead negotiations, and attitudes toward Netanyahu and Israelis.

Yet there is a strong bitpartisan consensus that, "continuation of the conflict has a negative impact on U.S. interests in the Middle East."

Whether or not the squabbles along the way could have been foreseen, the Zogby survey and two other polls of American opinion suggest that the American public is likely to be supportive of President Obama's Middle East peace push.

The organization Avaaz's poll of 1000 Americans exhibited support for getting tough with either party during peace negotiations if necessary. Meanwhile, J Street's poll of American Jews shows that 73 percent support the U.S.'s active role in helping the parties resolve the conflict even when that translates into stating publicly its disagreements with Israelis and Arabs.

The presentation of the new poll's findings will be followed by a conversation with Arab American Institute President Dr. James Zogby, Media Matters Senior Fellow M.J. Rosenberg, and the New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force Co-Director Amjad Atallah. TWN Publisher Steve Clemons will moderate the discussion.

-- Jonathan Guyer

-- cartoon by The Washington Note's Jonathan Guyer

I had an interesting chat a few days ago with George W. Bush Institute Executive Director James Glassman, who served as Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy during the latter part of the G.W. Bush administration. He was also Chair of the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

Glassman occasionally gets heat for a book he co-authored once on where the dow jones index would eventually go. Ultimately, he may be right -- but in this business, ideas entrepreneurs who take risks should be appreciated, not ignored.

James Glassman has been a policy entrepreneur in risk-averse Washington, DC for a long time -- and he and I have become good friends debating each other on quite a number of fronts. But I respect his creativity and integrity.

While at the State Department, Glassman conceived a better mission for his work than what I thought existed before -- focused not on nudging others around the world to like us but rather to express their own views, no matter how critical of the US or passionate about other issues, in ways that were non-violent.

Glassman also helped generate buzz around what he calls "Diplomacy 2.0".

Above is a short clip that I think presents some thoughts on Iran that deserve air time. I would be hesitant to go as far as Jim does in advocating a stronger US appropriations approach for the kind of communications he suggests as I don't want whatever organic movement exists inside Iran to become (any more) tainted by countries outside.

Here is a longer audio version of the event (here is video) held at the New America Foundation.

Try and listen to Glassman's views and if you feel moved, debate the merits or not one way or another in a civil manner. Screeds about Jim's Dow book or conservative credentials are not helpful or interesting.

More later. In Tripoli now. Back to DC tomorrow via Dubai.

-- Steve Clemons

(Photo Credit: Blogs4Brains)

This is a guest note by Anya Landau French, director of the New America Foundation/U.S.-Cuba Policy Initiative. This post originally appeared at The Havana Note.

The Washington Post's Eva Rodriguez, a daughter of Cuban immigrants, served up some tough love to the illegal immigrant community in "The Mexican Flag Has No Place In Immigration March," following yesterday's Washington, DC march for immigration reform.

Did they not choose to come to this country, and did they not know that they either entered illegally or illegally overstayed visas? Of course they did. Do they not appreciate that one of the things that makes this country great is the rule of law -- unlike, sadly, some of the countries we leave behind? If so, undocumented immigrants must take responsibility for their plight.

I don't intend to debate the broader issue of immigration reform here, though clearly, our system is just as Rodriguez calls it: dysfunctional. (We're happy to have illegal immigrants come and - cheaply - move our lawn, clean our homes, wash our dishes, and gut and package our meat and poultry, until they get caught, sent home, and a new batch arrives.)

Rodriguez points out that she knows all too well the desperation that drives illegal immigrants to America - her parents left Castro's Cuba in 1960, and were lucky to be welcomed here in the United States. And that got me thinking about the one group you won't likely see represented at these marches: Cuban Americans. Why? Whereas all other illegal immigrants run from the law as long as they are in the United States, Cubans run to the law.

Thanks to the U.S. 'wet foot, dry foot' policy (and the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act which left the door open to Cubans who arrive by illegal means), as soon as an undocumented Cuban sets foot in the United States, no matter how he arrived, he will be entitled to government-funded adjustment assistance. After one year, he can apply for permanent residency. His path to citizenship was secure from the moment he arrived.

No other illegal immigrant gets that kind of treatment. It's just one of the many ways in which United States policy continues to help distort Cuban reality. Maybe I'm just doling out tough love here, but would it hurt to treat Cuban undocumented immigrants the same as we treat other undocumented immigrants? Yes, it probably would. But maybe that would lead us to face the supreme irony of our policy toward Cuba. When we ban nearly all trade and travel to the island, is it any surprise that tens of thousands of Cubans choose to leave the island for the one country that offers a guaranteed path to citizenship?

-- Anya Landau French

There has been no shortage of hand-wringing about America's current unemployment crisis, which is unprecedented in modern times. But what has been lacking is a set of concrete proposals to address the jobs crisis in concert with other significant problems facing the United States: creaking infrastructure, climate change, and massive current account and fiscal deficits.

To refocus the debate on sustainable economic redevelopment, the New America Foundation, Economists for Peace & Security (EPS) and Bernard Schwartz are hosting "Jobs, Investment and Energy: Meeting President Obama's Challenge," a symposium that will bring together leading politicians, academics, and policy thinkers to offer recommendations for the economic redevelopment of America.

Event details are available here.

I have pasted the full agenda below.

8:30am - Registration & Breakfast

9:00am - Welcoming Remarks

James K. Galbraith
Economists for Peace and Security

Bernard Schwartz
Chairman, BLS Investments
Member of the Board, New America Foundation

9:15 to 9:45am - Keynote Speaker

The Hon. Edward G. Rendell
Governor of Pennsylvania

9:50 to 11:00am - Session One: How to Budget for Jobs & Investments

chair
Allen Sinai
Decision Economics

featured speakers
Marshall Auerback
RAB Capital Plc

Linda Bilmes
John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

James K. Galbraith
Economists for Peace & Security

11:00 to 12:10pm - Session Two: Rebuilding America: How to Do It & How to Pay for It

chair
James K. Galbraith
Economists for Peace & Security

featured speakers
John Alic
Consultant
Pew Center for Global Climate Change

Sherle R. Schwenninger
Director, Economic Growth Program
New America Foundation

John Robert Behrman
Democratic Executive Committeeman
Thirteenth Senate District of Texas

Michael Lind
Policy Director, Economic Growth Program
New America Foundation

12:10pm to 1:30pm - Session Three: Energy and Climate: What is the Program?

chair
Richard Kaufman
Bethesda Research Group

featured speakers
Marcellus Andrews
Barnard College

Kate Gordon
Energy Policy, Center for American Progress

Charles Hall
SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry

Lisa Margonelli
Director, Energy Policy Initiative
New America Foundation

-- Ben Katcher

Assassinations have their costs, and the UK is penalizing Israel for the Mossad's use of British passports in the assassination in Dubai of Hamas military leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.

UK Foreign Minister David Miliband has been particularly incensed by the Mossad's alleged actions and will be addressing Parliament on Tuesday regarding the expulsion.

More here.

-- Steve Clemons

I have only been in Libya a few hours but am intrigued with this place and the people here.

Libyan Leader Muammar al Gaddafi's pictures are everywhere -- but at least they are creative and have some panache compared to what one finds in some other countries with dominant political bosses who have no style.

Gaddafi is working overtime pulling major summits into Libya -- particularly the Arab Summit which will take place here next week. Just last week, he celebrated the 40th anniversary of his takeover of the country's government and giant celebratory posters and placards are all over the city.

Tomorrow, I will be meeting one of Colonel Gaddafi's sons, Seif, who has supported programs that purport to de-radicalize violent Islamists. I'll know more about the program after some meetings tomorrow, but at least Libya figured out a way to seriously confront the reality of political Islam. The U.S., as of now, has no real strategy regarding political Islam -- other than sticking its head in the sand.

I just had an exchange with my friend Arnaud de Borchgrave, one of the world's greatest chroniclers of the Middle East over the last six decades.

De Borchgrave sent an email to me on the occasion of my first trip to Tripoli:

Steve,

I first went there [Tripoli] one month after the Colonel took over Sept 1, 1969 and I've interviewed him at length six times since then.

Alexandra* grew up there as her father was the first US ambassador to Libya after independence in 1952.

She was present at two of my interviews, shooting covers for Newsweek.

He's maintained himself in power since the age of 27! Can't be dismissed as a fruitcake.

-- Arnaud

*[de Borchgrave's wife, Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave]

I was up at the UN General Assembly meeting when Col. Gaddafi was on a bit of a long rant during his time on stage -- and reminded folks on a CNN show that listening to Libya's leader speak for an hour, or two, or three -- was well worth cooperation on other fronts, particularly in Libya suspending its nuclear weapons program.

I also have a hunch and some hope that Gaddafi is going to use the Arab Summit to arm twist the Egyptians and Saudis to stop playing games with Fatah and Hamas and to remove the blocks each of them have had at various points in resecuring a unified Palestinian government, something Ban Ki-Moon also called for in more general terms on Sunday.

As it stands, the Saudis are ready to support a unity government in Palestine -- but the Egyptians, who are allegedly trying to broker a deal between Fatah and Hamas, are according to my sources actually blocking things (in part because of US pressure).

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a guest note by Daniel Mandel. Daniel is a Program Associate for the New America Foundation/Next Social Contract Initiative.

(Photo Credit: Samuel Sherraden)

There has been no shortage of hand-wringing about America's current unemployment crisis, which is unprecedented in modern times. But what has been lacking is a set of concrete proposals to address the jobs crisis in concert with other significant problems facing the United States: creaking infrastructure, climate change, and massive current account and fiscal deficits.

A new paper by New America Foundation/Economic Growth Program Director Sherle Schwenninger and Policy Analyst Samuel Sherraden explains what Washington needs to do to get serious about doubling U.S. exports:

Expanding exports can help offset weak domestic demand caused by household deleveraging, allowing us to work out of debt without a loss in output and a fall in our living standards. But like other Obama administration initiatives, the strategy the president articulated falls short of the goal...Does one really think that the promotional efforts of an Export Promotion Cabinet will result in a $1.6 trillion dollar increase in the sales of U.S. produced goods and services abroad?....

If the Obama administration is serious about its goal of doubling exports over the next five years, it will need 1) a currency policy to ensure a fair and competitive playing field; 2) an international strategy to promote global growth and the rebalancing of the world economy; and 3) a coherent manufacturing strategy to onshore more investment and production so that increased external demand results in increased U.S exports.

To refocus the debate on sustainable economic redevelopment, the New America Foundation, Economists for Peace & Security (EPS) and Bernard Schwartz are hosting "Jobs, Investment and Energy: Meeting President Obama's Challenge," a symposium that will bring together leading politicians, academics, and policy thinkers to offer recommendations for the economic redevelopment of America.

Speakers include Governor Edward G. Rendell of Pennsylvania, EPS Chair and University of Texas-Austin Economist James K. Galbraith, who has outlined a series of innovative job-creation proposals; Lisa Margonelli, Director of the New America Foundation/Energy Policy Initiative; and SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry Professor Charles Hall, a leader in the burgeoning field of biophysical economics.

This event will be held this Tuesday in the Rotunda Room of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center and will STREAM LIVE here at The Washington Note.

Event details are available here.

-- Daniel Mandel

Greetings to readers of The Washington Note from Tripoli, Libya. This is a place I never really thought I'd get to -- but I'm here. And after just an hour, I'm finding all sorts of things of interest.

When I was last in Istanbul and in Beijing, I couldn't get on to YouTube -- and frequently when I travel, I have a tough time accessing Facebook.

Libya passes the Facebook test and YouTube test with flying colors. No blocks that I have run into yet. Twitter works too.

On another front, I just saw that an interview I did with NPR's Michele Kelemen just appeared on line.

Here's the link to the whole transcript and show but also a teaser:

Mr. ROBERT SATLOFF (Washington Institute for Near East Policy): I think the idea that the Israelis somehow have to meet an American test to show their commitment to peace is quite odd and strange in credulity.

KELEMEN: Satloff is hoping that this is just a passing storm, though he does have lingering concerns about a trust deficit in the relationship. The initial AIPAC response didn't say anything about what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could do to restore trust. So, Steve Clemons of the New America Foundation decided as a joke to rewrite to the AIPAC statement for his blog, urging Israel to take immediate steps to diffuse tensions with the U.S.

Mr. STEVEN CLEMONS (New America Foundation): I just kind of did a 180-degree flip, and I actually did it in four minutes. I re-wrote it in four minutes. It got a lot of play on the Internet.

KELEMEN: Clemons says it's time for well-meaning supporters of the U.S.-Israel relationship to encourage more responsible behavior from this Israeli government, particularly on the issue of expanding Jewish settlements.

Mr. CLEMONS: The whole notion that there's no space or no light between the U.S. and Israeli positions is a ridiculous formulation because we're both sovereign governments with interests that often converge and some interests that diverge, and we're going to have to occasionally wrestle over those.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

Anyone watching the health care debate unfold this past year couldn't help but note that it had the feel of a badly run, badly managed sports season in which the President's team nonetheless is going to end up holding the trophy cup.

Some time between 6 pm and midnight eastern, there will be a vote in the House of Representatives that passes health care reform. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is already getting rave reviews in the media for taking a dead health care package and breathing life back into it and beating and kicking the legislation through a very tough crowd in her House of Representatives.

Pelosi deserves the praise.

President Obama is said not to be really turned on to a challenge unless he is being tested and feels like he is losing. It's said -- by chroniclers like Richard Wolffe in his book Renegade: The Making of an American President -- that Obama then decides to get on his game, and change things up on his team and in his approach, and then really pushes hard.

This is exactly what President Obama did on health care -- and he too deserves huge credit.

I am waiting to see what the final package looks like when it comes to women's reproductive rights and some other issues. The kick-in periods for some important pieces of this legislation are years away. I think it is a big mistake not to have a public option out there for people as I don't see how cost containment is achieved without such an option.

But that said, I am for health care reform, not only for the merits of helping Americans deal with pre-existing condition nightmares but because of the massive opportunity costs of this legislation that distracted from so many other key problems the country is facing now.

Obama is already telling folks that he needed health care checked off to be able to move to jobs and immigration, but there's a lot that desperately needs serious attention on the foreign policy plate.

And we hope that the President will take stock pretty soon -- realize he's not doing well on foreign policy, and show the same sort of 'getting his game on' approach there as he has done on health care.

Congratulations President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and others on the White House team for what looks to be a victory tonight -- even Rahm (!).

-- Steve Clemons

Editor's Note: I believe health care reform legislation will pass the House tonight, but I will be on a plane to Tripoli, Libya this evening and won't be able to blog it then. So, I wanted my comments up now. I will be at the AIPAC annual meeting today before the health care vote. Best, Steve Clemons

I thought that President Obama's Nowruz message to Iranians was -- like last year -- excellent. I think that this kind of public diplomacy is enormously important in reaching out for the prospects of change -- even if the Iran government is recalcitrant.

Here is a clip from the transcript:

I said, last year, that the choice for a better future was in the hands of Iran's leaders. That remains true today. Together with the international community, the United States acknowledges your right to peaceful nuclear energy - we insist only that you adhere to the same responsibilities that apply to other nations. We are familiar with your grievances from the past - we have our own grievances as well, but we are prepared to move forward. We know what you're against; now tell us what you're for.

For reasons known only to them, the leaders of Iran have shown themselves unable to answer that question. You have refused good faith proposals from the international community. They have turned their backs on a pathway that would bring more opportunity to all Iranians, and allow a great civilization to take its rightful place in the community of nations. Faced with an extended hand, Iran's leaders have shown only a clenched fist.

Last June, the world watched with admiration, as Iranians sought to exercise their universal right to be heard. But tragically, the aspirations of the Iranian people were also met with a clenched fist, as people marching silently were beaten with batons; political prisoners were rounded up and abused; absurd and false accusations were leveled against the United States and the West; and people everywhere were horrified by the video of a young woman killed in the street.

The United States does not meddle in Iran's internal affairs. Our commitment - our responsibility - is to stand up for those rights that should be universal to all human beings. That includes the right to speak freely, to assemble without fear; the right to the equal administration of justice, and to express your views without facing retribution against you or your families.

I want the Iranian people to know what my country stands for. The United States believes in the dignity of every human being, and an international order that bends the arc of history in the direction of justice - a future where Iranians can exercise their rights, to participate fully in the global economy, and enrich the world through educational and cultural exchanges beyond Iran's borders. That is the future that we seek. That is what America is for.

Interestingly, a report has just surfaced that Neda's fiance, Caspian Makan, who became a voice and face of the opposition movement in Iran has visited Israel and may meet Israeli President Shimon Peres.

Suffice it to say that his stock value as a leader of Iran's opposition has just declined as Iran's government will be able to point to the optics of collaboration and support from Israel. This may just be one of those accidents or errors in judgment that people thrown quickly into the international spotlight experience.

I think we need to work toward a day when Persians, Arabs, Jews, and others can travel freely throughout the region without having to play a shell game about passport stamps and not fear the consequences of people of any persuasion entering any of the countries in the Middle East.

But regrettably, Israel and Iran aren't there yet -- and Caspian's trip to Israel unfortunately taints the optics -- though I don't think the substance -- of the Green Movement's legitimacy.

-- Steve Clemons

According to the Washington Post's Glen Kessler, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a surprising comment to the BBC this week. She said that the recent US-Israel confrontation was "paying off".

This would imply that the public declarations on both sides of the relationship being at historic lows was more John Bolton-like bluster deployed tactically to try and win some leverage rather than a real break. If someone in outer space was feeling really generous toward the Obama administration, one might even consider the tiff a sign of real strategy.

But not on this planet. What has been completely missing from President Obama's Israel-Palestine efforts is serious, deep engagement in the complex challenges there. He has an envoy, George Mitchell, who seems to be groveling for Israeli and Palestinian support.

We've seen systemic irresponsibility on both the Israel and Palestine sides of the equation for a very long time -- and it amazes me that Dennis Ross and other well-informed advisers to the President aren't making it clear that at this point, only a process that actively involves most of the responsible stakeholders in the region will move past the paralysis. That demands an expression of Presidential expectations of what a final status package might look like -- and would make clear what the US, Arab neighbors, Europe, the UN, and Russia would expect Israel and Palestine to abide by.

There has been no sign that the administration is willing to deal with the region as it is - rather than as it might fantasize about. The failure of negotiations under George Mitchell, the failure to get Israel to agree to Obama's cessation of settlement demands, the recent blow up during Biden's visit -- all of these cannot be blamed on the regular pin-up target for problems in the region -- Hamas.

Hamas has been mostly quiet despite the assassination, allegedly by the Mossad, of one of its military leaders. Hamas was negotiating directly with Netanyahu's government over a prisoner exchange, and Hamas has been a credible participant in unity talk efforts brokered by the Egyptians.

The reality behind the scenes with these negotiations is that Netanyahu doesn't want to achieve Shalit's release and secure a deal with Hamas -- both because it will empower Hamas and put him in an odd spot. The Egyptians are both brokering a unity government peace effort in Palestine with one hand and blocking it with the other.

The Egyptians, the Americans, and Netanyahu are the blocks on dealmaking in the region that might lead to a different equilibrium that could be more productive than the mess we have now.

Has the US even noticed the shift in Hamas' behavior? Are we doing anything to test the reality of this shift or to take advantage of it?

I think not as George Mitchell is still chasing a "too much, too late" strategy to shower so-called Palestinian moderates with his attention, US resources, and his 'hopes.' Mitchell also doesn't get that Israel-Palestine is a globally significant fault-line unlike Northern Ireland which could have raged a few hundred more years without having the same global consequences of an unresolved Israel-Palestine conflict.

Whether the US is going to punish Israel for its ongoing settlement misbehavior or appease it doesn't really matter.

What does matter is whether the Secretary of State expresses a sense of vision and direction for the region that rises above Israel's regrettable behavior and moves beyond the fragmentation and incompetence of the Palestinian government. All eyes and ears will be waiting for some sign that the administration has strategic depth during her speech before the annual AIPAC national policy summit on Monday.

If not, she will be reinforcing the sense much of the world has of Obama's lack of seriousness about America's geostrategic position. She will be reinforcing a global profound sense of doubt about America's ability to achieve the objectives it declares itself committed to.

And as Joe Biden warned appropriately during the campaign, President Obama will continue to be tested and tested and tested -- not just by Netanyahu but many other world players who sense lack of resolve, an absence of strategy and weakness on the US side.

It took Kennedy the Cuban Missile Crisis to finally regain his balance and restore American global credibility.

I wonder what crisis Obama will finally have to confront to restore global confidence in him -- and what risks that will entail.

This article first appeared at the Middle East issues blog, the Palestine Note.

-- Steve Clemons

(Photo Credit: Mariurupe's Photostream)

As I have written on this blog before, I think that the debate surrounding H.R. 252 - a non-binding resolution approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee earlier this month that calls the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 "genocide" - is very complicated and offers no simple and easy solutions.

One's position on the issue depends in part on the lens through which the analyst is observing the question. Commemorating tragedy does not always align with the promotion of American national interests.

On balance, I am inclined to oppose the resolution for three basic reasons.

1. The United States' priority today should be to help Turkey and Armenia normalize their relationship and move forward. H.R. 252 will stoke nationalist anger in Turkey and is therefore most likely counterproductive to that goal.

2. Turkey is an extremely important ally of the United States - a country whose cooperation is vital on a range of the United States' most urgent national security challenges in the Middle East. Ominously, U.S. favorable ratings in Turkey are abysmal at a time when Turkey's democratization process is making its politicians more responsive to popular opinion than ever before.

3. We do not have a lot of friends among Muslim nations. We should be doing everything we can to ensure that positive relations with the Middle East's only Muslim democracy remain strong.

Despite my position, I want to share the European Stability Initiative (ESI)'s recent newsletter on this issue, "Turkey's Friends And The International Debate on the Armenian Genocide," which provides some useful background on the issue while arriving at a different conclusion than my own.

I found the following refutations of common Turkish fears particularly noteworthy.

On Turkish fears that the resolution could lead Armenia to make territorial claims on parts of Turkey:

The question of territorial claims is a red herring in the recognition debate. Though it has been on the agenda of a vocal nationalist minority in Armenia (and in the Diaspora) for decades, border revision has never been part of any Armenian government's policy. Armenian nationalists' claims, based on the never-ratified Treaty of Sevres, have not managed to secure any international support. Normalization of ties between Turkey and Armenia, in any case, would put them to rest once and for all. This, in fact, is exactly why some Armenian nationalists have second thoughts about establishing relations with Turkey.

On the question of reparations:

The argument that recognition, be it by countries in the EU or the US, will allow Armenians to sue the Turkish government - is widespread in Turkey. It is also false. The Armenian genocide has been officially recognized by more than 20 countries: if recognition would pave the way towards restitution, these countries' courts must surely be flooded with Armenian lawsuits? In fact, not a single genocide-related claim has successfully been made against the Turkish government anywhere in the world - this, despite genocide resolutions having been passed in countries like France, Germany and Russia....

The jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights in the area of property restitution makes it clear that Armenians could pursue compensation or restitution claims only if the Turkish state were to establish a legal base allowing them to do so. An International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) study in 2002 - is just as unambiguous on the issue. Although the events of 1915 had "all the elements of genocide" ICTJ concluded that "no legal, financial or territorial claim arising out of the Events could successfully be made against any individual or state under the Convention." The European Parliament recognized in an 18 June 1987 resolution "that the present Turkey cannot be held responsible for the tragedy experienced by the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire and stresses that neither political nor legal or material claims against present-day Turkey can be derived from the recognition of this historical event as an act of genocide."

You can read the full newsletter here.

These facts are important, but I am not convinced think that they lead to the conclusion that the United States' Congress should involve itself by passing H.R. 252.

-- Ben Katcher

The Dutch premier newspaper, the NRC Handelsblad, has this past week run a candid interview done by DC Bureau Chief Tom-Jan Meeus with John Bellinger III, who is defending Obama administration attorneys from vicious attacks launched by Liz Cheney.

Bellinger served as Condoleezza Rice's senior counsel at the Department of State and also was the senior lawyer serving at the National Security Council during Rice's tenure there. Bellinger was one of the most active opponents within the Bush administration to the torture-embracing legal culture promulgated by Cheney National Security Adviser and later Chief of Staff David Addington.

Here is the entire interview in English, but I pulled these interesting quotes:

ON RICE

. . .I think that many of the initiatives she took as Secretary of State have been continued by the Obama administration. The big policy changes were implemented on her watch, in Bush' second term. And Obama obviously has the same pragmatic and moderate approach.''

ON THE SIMILARITY OF BUSH' AND OBAMA'S TERROR POLICIES:

Q: The bottom line is that the Bush and Obama terrorism policies are very similar?

JB: Oh, absolutely. The military commissions have been maintained. The policy of renditions has been maintained. The idea of holding people indefinitely under the laws of war and without trials has been maintained. There has been no movement on the Geneva Conventions. The president has said he affirms the conventions but the president has not announced that he holds these people as prisoners of war. So all the policies that soured U.S. relations with Europe during the Bush administration have been continued. There has been more continuity than change.''

ON TRYING KSM ON A MILTARY BASE:

Q: The possibility is raised that Khalid Sheikh Mohamed will not be tried in a civilian court. How do you see that?

JB: I hope it is not true. I think the administration would prefer that not to happen. It will be an embarrassing reversal of their policies. (...) And it is hard to tell at this point where the Obama administration will come out. I think the administration is still trying to do this on a safe facility, perhaps a military base. I know that they explore both the legality and the practicality of establishing a federal court, for a one time purpose, in the middle of a military base.''

I think that John Bellinger is right that Obama's steps thus forward in managing combat detainees have been very similar to the Bush administration. This is regrettable as I think that former White House Counsel Gregory Craig was on the right track in getting GITMO shut down and a better legal process in place before Rahm Emanuel derailed his efforts.

Bellinger is also opposed to a military tribunal solution for KSM's trial -- and essentially rebukes Liz Cheney's campaign against Obama administration Department of Justice lawyers with his comments about the continuity between the Bush and Obama policies.

Interesting read.

-- Steve Clemons

The U.S. economic recovery is in serious need of a course correction.

The policy measures pursued to date have failed to produce a sustainable recovery of demand and investment, have reflated financial assets but at the expense of much needed job creation, and have done little to correct the global imbalances that helped cause the crisis.

The New America Foundation/Economic Growth and Smart Globalization Program is hosting a national economic policy forum today to discuss these issues.

The event will STREAM LIVE here at The Washington Note.

Details below.

New America Foundation National Economic Policy Forum
THE U.S. ECONOMY: PLOTTING A COURSE CORRECTION
New America Foundation -- 1899 L Street NW, 4th Floor; Washington, DC

8:30 to 9:00am - Registration & Coffee

9:00 to 9:05am - Introductory Remarks

STEVE CLEMONS
Director, American Strategy Program
New America Foundation

9:05 to 9:45am
A No-Nonsense Discussion on U.S. Economic Growth and Jobs

THE HON. BYRON DORGAN (D-ND)
Chairman, Democratic Policy Committee
United States Senate

LEO HINDERY, JR.
Chairman, Economic Growth Program/Smart Globalization Initiative
New America Foundation

9:45 to 11:00am - Session 1
Jobs, Public Investment & Infrastructure: Serious vs. Non-Serious Policies

THE HON. BRUCE BRALEY (D-IA-1)
Chairman, House Populist Caucus
U.S. House of Representatives

MICHAEL LIND
Policy Director, Economic Growth Program
New America Foundation

ROBERT KUTTNER
Co-Editor, The American Prospect
Author (forthcoming), A Presidency in Peril: The Inside Story of Obama's Promise, Wall Street's Power and the Struggle to Control our Economic Future

11:00am to 12:15pm - Session 2
Wrestling with Currency, Mercantilism & State Capitalism: Time for a New Plaza Accord?

SHERLE R. SCHWENNINGER
Director, Economic Growth Program
New America Foundation

JOSEPH GAGNON
Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics

THE HONORABLE PAULA STERN
Chairwoman, The Stern Group
Former Chairwoman, International Trade Commission
Former Member, President's Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations

12:15pm - Closing Remarks

-- Ben Katcher

I always have time for entertainment/communications industry CEO Leo Hindery and Senator Byron Dorgan -- and this morning I will be with both of them at a New America Foundation forum on what is needed to chart a credible new course for the US economy.

Both have been important leaders in calling for a policy pivot in the way the Obama administration thinks about high wage job creation, strategic national investments, manufacturing competitiveness, and infrastructure development.

The event will stream live tomorrow morning starting at 9 a.m. eastern -- but I thought I'd share a video clip I did with Hindery a couple of weeks ago on the subject of green jobs -- as well as a Financial Times oped titled "America Needs to Invest in Jobs -- And Fast" that Leo Hindery co-authored with former U.S. Senator Donald Riegle.

If you are in DC, you are welcome to attend. Address information and schedule at this event link.

Congressman Bruce Braley (D-IA-1), among many other interesting policy practitioners, will be with us as well at the meeting just before going to the White House for the signing of the HIRE Act.

More in a few hours.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a guest note exclusive to The Washington Note by Iran expert and well-known diplomatic correspondent Barbara Slavin, author of Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S. and the Twisted Path to Confrontation

What Iran Threw Away

A senior U.S. official Wednesday confirmed that the United States offered the first civilian nuclear cooperation with Iran in three decades under the terms of a deal that Iran walked away from last fall.

Daniel Poneman, Deputy Secretary of Energy, said that had Iran accepted the deal - under which it would have shipped out two thirds of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium for further processing abroad - the U.S. would have inspected a 40-year-old reactor in Tehran to see if it was operating safely.

"We would have been well disposed to be helpful," Poneman said at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "We were willing in support of IAEA efforts ... to help assure that the Tehran research reactor was safe."

Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Ashgar Soltanieh, told reporters after the meetings with Poneman in October that "one of the aspects in addition to the fuel is the control instrumentation and safety equipment of the reactor" and that "we have been informed about the readiness of the United States in a technical project with the IAEA to cooperate in this respect."

A U.S. official said on background that the United States would examine the reactor, provided to Iran in the late 1960s when Lyndon Johnson was president and the Shah ruled Iran. However, Poneman's remark was the first on the record confirmation of this.

This deal sweetener was well received by those close to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and allowed him to cast the package in a positive light.

Iranians much prefer U.S. technology to Russian nuclear knowhow. Some Iranians suggested that U.S. assistance might extend to the Bushehr reactor if a deal could be struck on the LEU. Bushehr, which was begun by the Germans in the Shah's time, is now a "mess," one official told me, a "hodge-podge of technologies" that Iran is afraid to run because it might "blow up."

Ahmadinejad's numerous opponents within Iran's complex political hierarchy attacked the LEU deal as a sell-out -- in large part because he had undercut their efforts to reach a nuclear understanding with the United States in the past.

Poneman said Wednesday that the offer remained on the table. Beyond the U.S. examination of the reactor, Russia and France would further refine 1200 kilograms of Iran's low-enriched uranium and turn it into fuel rods for use in the research reactor, which produces medical isotopes for treatment of cancer and other ailments and is due to run out of fuel by the end of this year.

"It has not been formally withdrawn," Poneman said of the deal. However, he confided later that the U.S. is "not chasing Iran" and that the Iranians know who to call if they are interested in coming back to the table. Otherwise, the United States will keep moving down "the pressure track" to increase the cost to Iran of its nuclear defiance, he said.

-- Barbara Slavin

(photo credit: Kidd Madonny)

First of all, this is NOT a Rahm-related blog post.

This is a five foot long barracuda that I came within inches of swimming into with my hand a few days ago off of St. John's Island in the Caribbean.

I stopped just in time, but the toothy fish might have done a job on me had I not stopped before ramming him, or her.

Internationally popular DJ Kidd Madonny snapped this picture. I appreciate very much his allowing me to post it -- and look forward to eventually discussing barracudas with him in Amsterdam.

-- Steve Clemons

CSIS is about to hold a very valuable meeting on President Obama's foreign policy, which I am going to stream live here at The Washington Note.

The meeting is part of the "Schieffer Series at CSIS" sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and TCU's Schieffer School of Journalism.

The line up includes BOB SCHIEFFER, Chief Washington Correspondent, CBS News; Anchor, CBS News' "Face the Nation", who will moderate.

Panelists are my colleague and friend STEVE COLL, President, New America Foundation; Staff Writer, The New Yorker; THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, Foreign Affairs Columnist, New York Times; and DAVID IGNATIUS, Columnist and Associate Editor, Washington Post.

The meeting will run from 5:30 pm til 6:30 pm (9 minutes from now as I write) eastern time.

-- Steve Clemons

What motivates suicide bombers to sacrifice their lives and kill innocents?

That is one of the most complex and difficult questions that counter-terrorism officials have had to grapple with since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism (CPOST) - headed by University of Chicago Professor of Political Science Robert A. Pape - has assembled a comprehensive database of global suicide attacks from 1981 - 2001.

You can access that database here. Steve Clemons, fearless leader at The Washington Note and a poobah at the New America Foundation really loves Pape's site and spent a lot of his vacation last week addicted to running variable mixes through Pape's data.

Pape is also the author of Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.

To discuss the rise of suicide terrorism and its implications for our policy in Afghanistan, the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program will host a public forum featuring Robert Pape TODAY from 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm eastern time.

Steve Clemons will moderate the event, which will STREAM LIVE here at The Washington Note.

-- Ben Katcher

The New America Foundation/American Strategy Program is hosting an event today with former Bush administration Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy James K. Glassman.

Glassman is now Executive Director of the George W. Bush Institute and previously served as Chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. He was resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for twelve years and also previously served as president of the Atlantic Monthly, publisher of the New Republic and as executive vice president of U.S.News & World Report.

Last year, Glassman explored the arena of social networking and public diplomacy at a New America Foundation forum with Glassman titled "Public Diplomacy 2.0".

He and TWN publisher and American Strategy Program director Steve Clemons will be discussing the role strategic communications can play in helping the United States in Iran.

The event will run from 12:15 pm - 1:45 pm eastern time and will live stream here at The Washington Note.

-- Andrew Lebovich

Late yesterday afternoon, I participated in an hour long Alhurra discussion program with three other Middle East specialists: Edmund Ghareeb of American University, Ori Nir of Americans for Peace Now, and David Schenker who directs the Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The topic was the state of play in US-Israel relations after Vice President Biden's visit and Israel's alleged "insult" during his trip with the announced approval of 1600 new settlements in East Jerusalem.

During one of my times at bat during the interesting show, I suggested that Israel's continued settlement expansion was directly helping Iran and enhancing its pretensions and goals in the region. The Washington Institute's David Schenker responded that he really didn't see a linkage between the settlements and Iran's position. He stated that Iran really wasn't all that welcome throughout the broader Middle East today and that its nuclear activities were making other Arab states nervous.

In part, he is correct about Sunni Arab antipathy towards Iran but neglected to note that officially, all of the other major Arab states are as furious about Israel's settlements creep as the Obama national security team. But that's not the issue that most caught my attention in this exchange.

Schenker, who offered some interesting insights on the show, went on to assert that while he saw no linkage between Israel's settlement expansion and a boost to Iran's regional posture, he suggested there was a linkage between US-Israel relations and getting Obama's health care reform passed.

What?? Play that again.

So, David Schenker sees no linkage between what a huge number of observers see as Israel wrecking chances for a credible two state track -- and the use of this grievance by Iran in its support of transnational Arab networks in the region, but nonetheless sees linkage between President Obama's fragile health care reform position and the state of US-Israel relations?! Schenker's view was that Obama couldn't afford to have a testy, strained relationship with Israel because it would cost him support in Congress for his health care legislation.

If he is right, then the relationship with Israel has gone too far indeed.

The truth is that I believe that Schenker is wrong on both counts.

There is a linkage between Iran's ability to compete for the position as true defender of the Islamic faith and the controversial settlements, and on the other front, there must not be a connection between the fragile coalition Obama is building to try and achieve health care reform and the state of the US-Israel relationship.

Any US Congressperson or Senator who actually explicitly withdrew or withheld support for health care reform because of loyalty first to Israel and its needs would invite serious questions about his or her patriotism and oath to the US Constitution and American people.

I support Israel's right to exist, see it as an important ally, and believe that we should support its security -- but not at the continued expense of Arab interests in the region and certainly not at the expense of core American interests at home. The interests of Arab states and Israel must be balanced and mutually pursued. Not to do so is a false choice for the U.S., but even worse would be the practice of punishing American taxpayers and their pursuit of key social reforms in favor of Israel's interests.

I enjoyed the exchange with David Schenker and others -- but whereas David has every right to assert that he does not see a linkage between settlements and Iran's interests (though I disagree), I think that his second assertion that Obama might lose the health care battle by not keeping the Israel-tilting Members of Congress was hopefully wrong-footed.

If he's accurate, then it's time for political change in Congress again -- but this time with a different filter.

-- Steve Clemons

Update: When I wrote this piece, I tried to confirm that what I heard was heard by others on the program and had general confirmation from one of the other guests on the show. However, to be fair and up front, I also wanted to run this post by David Schenker -- who was perfectly fair and civil on the program and from whom I learned some new things.

David remembers things a bit different -- and we have not yet come up with a video segment or transcript, and I think that his own views on this should also be aired here.

I appreciate his fairness and balance in how he approached my post.

Here are his comments to me today:

Dear Steve:

I was surprised that you implied that I said the crisis with Israel would cause Congressmen or Senators to explicitly withdraw support for health care reform.

I didn't say that. What I did was point out the obvious domestic political implications that Democrats could face-in addition to their current problems-in light of the very public row with Israel, especially one concerning the disposition of Jerusalem. Considerations like the mid-term elections and controversial health care legislation, I said, would likely lead the Administration to try and end the very public spat with Israel sooner rather than later.

The linkage between foreign and domestic policy considerations is well established. (Walt has written, for example, that the escalation in Afghanistan might cost Obama democratic seats in the midterms that would make it more difficult to pass domestic legislation).

Until I read your blog, I thought my comments were uncontroversial.

Best regards,

David Schenker

I appreciate David sending this correction and wanted it posted publicly. Onward and upward.

-- Steve Clemons

I have written the mock press release below partly as farce and partly as hope for the kind of statement that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) might eventually issue in response to the provocative and disconcerting posture of the Israeli government this past week.

-- Steve Clemons

The Netanyahu Government's recent statements and posture regarding major settlement expansion in East Jerusalem and the calloused disregard for the impact of these actions on Israel's relationship with the United States are a matter of serious concern.

AIPAC calls on Prime Minister Netanyahu to take immediate steps to defuse the tension with the U.S. government.

The United States is Israel's closest ally in the Middle East. The foundation of the U.S-Israel relationship is rooted in Israel's fundamental strategic interest, shared democratic values, and a long-time commitment to peace in the region.

Those strategic interests, which most Israelis acknowledge and share with the U.S., extend to every facet of Israeli life and its relationship with the United States.

Unfortunately, a relationship that has generally enjoyed vast bipartisan support in Congress and among the American people is now eroding because of the Israeli government's tendency to allow short term concerns and the incrementalism of its expansion in Occupied Territories to undermine its own long term security interests, its core relations with the US, and the security and safety of American men and women deployed today in the Middle East.

The Netanyahu government should make a conscious effort to immediately move away from actions that would further undermine any prospects for Israel-Palestine peace and a two state solution. While Israel complains about unilateral deadlines directed at the Jewish State, it is time for Israel to ante up on the peace process and demonstrate that it has the maturity to demonstrate that it will cooperate with and not undermine US basic, fundamental, and strategic interests.

The escalated rhetoric of recent days reminds how much substantive work needs to be done -- and how absent the Israeli government has been -- with regard to the urgent issue of Iran's rapid pursuit of nuclear weapons, and the pursuit of peace between Israel and all her Arab neighbors.

Israel's provocative decision and announcement that it will greatly expand East Jerusalem settlements -- followed by revelations of tens of thousands more in process but as yet unannounce -- undermine the chances of securing normalization with Arab neighbors and only add to Iran's growing strength and powers of persuasion in the region.

We strongly urge the Netanyahu government to work closely and privately with the Obama administration, in a manner befitting strategic allies, to address these issues between the two governments.

The strategic patience of the United States is being irresponsibly tested by Israel today, and it is time for all well meaning supporters of this relationship and of global stability and peace to encourage significantly more responsible behavior from the Israeli government in reigning in issues like settlement expansion that make a once seemingly unconditional relationship necessarily "conditional."

As Vice President Biden said last week in Israel,

"The cornerstone of the relationship is our absolute, total, unvarnished commitment to Israel's security." But with this kind of commitment also come mutual responsibilities.

"Bibi, you heard me say before, progress occurs in the Middle East when everyone knows there is simply no space between the United States and Israel. There is no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel's security."

But Bibi, you need to fix the space that is growing -- and fix it now.

It is time for Israel to fill that gap and to join President Obama's efforts to generate a new equilibrium in the Middle East that assures Israel's interests and security and that finally provides for a viable, stable State of Palestine.

One of the most fascinating things to come out of the recent dust-up over the embarrassment of Vice President Biden in Israel is the reasoning offered by many Israelis and supporters of Israel for why Israel needs American support now more than ever: in effect, "don't anger the U.S., we need their help on Iran."

But how, as The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg put it, to "neutralize the Iranian threat"?

In light of what they termed Biden's "debacle" in Israel, Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett once again forcefully advocated strategic realignment and engagement with Iran's leadership, in part to get Israel to act towards pursuing peace. In the meantime, the Obama administration has continued pushing what are likely to be ineffectual sanctions on Iran, in the hopes of containing the country and its burgeoning nuclear program.

Yet as debate on Iran continues to stagnate, there is still the ever-present fear that something will snap in the Middle East, and war could break out in the event that Israel decides to act on Iran, with or without American help. It is in this context that I took another look at former Bush Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy James K. Glassman and Michael Doran's Wall Street Journal op-ed from January, arguing for a "soft-power" solution on Iran, with a combination of sanctions, support for the Green Movement, and strategic communications helping create a situation in Iran that is more favorable to the U.S. and its allies.

While I hesitate to accept this view or advocate for regime change in Iran, whether through force or soft power, Glassman's idea that the U.S. should be using all of its tools on Iran is an important one that deserves more attention.

For those interested in this debate, Glassman will be speaking at the New America Foundation Tuesday, March 16, discussing how he feels strategic communications can help the U.S. in Iran. The event will be moderated by Steve Clemons, and will be from 12:15 pm to 1:45 pm, and will also be webcast live here at The Washington Note.

-- Andrew Lebovich

This post also appears at The Race for Iran.

One of the biggest challenges that those of us proposing strategic rapprochement as a solution to the United States' diplomatic standoff with Iran face is the fact that many Americans cannot imagine how such a rapprochement would actually play out.

Fortunately Georgetown University Professor and Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Charles Kupchan has recently published a new book, How Enemies Become Friends: The Sources of Stable Peace, and an accompanying article in Foreign Affairs that addresses exactly this question: how do enemies become friends?

The Foreign Affairs article provides some useful evidence to support the notion that engagement with the Islamic Republic could work, as well as historical lessons for how best to go about it.

According to Kupchan, reconciliations are normally the product of accommodation, rather than confrontation, and "are usually the product of necessity rather than altruism: facing strategic overcommitment, a state seeks to reduce its burdens by befriending an adversary."

Strategic necessity was certainly the motivating factor for Nixon's opening to China, and Kupchan shows that it was also the case in rapprochements between Norway and Sweden at the turn of the 20th century; Indonesia and Malaysia in the 1960s; and Argentina and Brazil during the 1980s.

The term "strategic overcommitment" could certainly be used to describe the United States position vis-a-vis the Islamic Republic today given Iran's "spoiler" capability on a range of key issues for the United States in the Middle East including stabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan and reaching an equilibrium on the Israeli-Palestinian track.

Next, Kupchan argues that "Washington should be prepared to exchange concessions that are timely and bold enough to send signals of benign intent; otherwise, each party will be unconvinced that the other is sincere in its quest for reconciliation."

The sincerity problem is clearly a key impediment to the Obama administration's engagement to date, and for good reason. President Obama's promises of engagement have been more rhetorical than substantive.

As Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett have pointed out, formally announcing an end to support for opposition groups within Iran, as Nixon told the CIA to stand down in Tibet in the 1970s, would be a good place to start.

One key finding that I found somewhat surprising is that rapprochement is primarily about diplomacy, not economic interdependence. In most cases, it is the former that leads to the latter.

Kupchan includes much more in his article about how the Obama administration should sequence an opening and how to manage the domestic political backlash at home.

You can find Kupchan's article here and the book here.

-- Ben Katcher

(Photo Credit: Jan Paul Yap's Photostream)

This is a guest note by Anya Landau French. French directs the New America Foundation/U.S.-Cuba Policy Initiative. This post originally appeared at The Havana Note.

Two days before the House Agriculture Committee holds a hearing on U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba (you can follow the hearing live today at 1pm), the U.S. Treasury Department has (coincidentally?) issued a rule that some observers have greeted with enthusiasm:

Today OFAC released a reinterpretation that is very favorable for US Cuba trade, specifically US agricultural companies and farmers. In simple terms, OFAC has amended the Cuban Assets Control Regulations that contains a rewording of the term "payment of cash in advance" for US agricultural sales to Cuba.

The new rule, issued by the Treasury Department office responsible for enforcing sanctions (oh, and tracking terrorist funding networks), seemingly gives Congress and the agriculture community a victory over a 2005 Bush Administration rule which dampened U.S. agriculture exports to the island.

And yet - it does no such thing. Why? Because the rule is limited to contracts entered into during fiscal year 2010, after which, the rule snaps back to where it was. And that makes this new rule virtually meaningless.

Since I've lost most readers already at this point in the post, I might as well feel free to "geek out" and explain exactly what this is all about. (If you bore easily, feel free to skip the next couple paragraphs and tune back in to why this all could lead to you booking a ticket to Havana before the year is out.)

Food sales up, food sales down

Back in 2000, Congress passed legislation to limit food export restrictions against any country, including Cuba. Proponents reasoned both that food should never be used as a weapon against a defenseless people, and that the U.S. government should facilitate, not obstruct, U.S. export growth around the world.

For several years, U.S. food sales grew to an average of $300 million per year - until in 2005 the Bush Administration issued a reinterpretation of the law guiding the sales. Congress had mandated that sales to Cuba could either be transacted by cash paid in advance or by foreign letter of credit (U.S. credits - government or private - were expressly prohibited for Cuba sales alone). U.S. exports prospered, many of them sold for cash in advance - of delivery. That is, the goods would be en route to Cuba, or even have arrived in Cuba, but the Cuban buyer could not take possession of the goods until payment had cleared in the U.S.

But the new Bush Administration rule required cash payment in advance of shipment, which Congress and the export community vehemently opposed. If Cuba pays for a cargo hold full of rice while the vessel is still docked in United States jurisdiction, the goods could be considered "Cuban assets" subject to seizure by U.S. courts to satisfy unrelated claims against the Cuban government (I recently wrote about a Florida woman who has twice seized stolen or hijacked Cuban planes landed in the U.S.). Cuban buyers refused to take the risk, and the Bush Administration refused to change the rule, resulting in less market share for American exporters and greater market share for U.S. competitors.

Congress has repeatedly tried to reverse the rule - which many reasoned was designed to halt a warming between the American farm belt and Cuba. Most recently, it passed a provision in the 2010 Omnibus Appropriations Act that would require Treasury to revise the rule at least for the current fiscal year. (So, Treasury complied this week, and nothing more.)

Further dampening U.S. food sales to the island is that in the wake of the global downturn, Cuba has less cash on hand to buy U.S. goods, and has increasingly been buying from Brazil, Vietnam, China and elsewhere on revolving credit - something the United States exporters can't do.

Bipartisan group pushing Cuba ag, travel reforms in Congress

Five years later, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, along with his colleagues, Jerry Moran of Kansas and JoAnn Emerson of Missouri, both Republicans, and Rosa DeLauro, a member of the House Democratic Leadership, has introduced a bill to change not only the cash in advance rule but two other policies that dampen U.S. food exports to Cuba. Peterson, whose committee is holding a Cuba hearing today, aims to let U.S. exporters collect their payments directly from the Cuban buyer, rather than routing payments through a third country financial institution (adding time and cost to the transaction). They also aim to end U.S. travel restrictions to Cuba.

Whereas some in Congress want to end U.S. travel restrictions because they imagine doing so will help open Cuban society for the better, and others simply chafe at U.S. government controlling its citizens movements abroad, Peterson and his colleagues see more direct benefits to their own constituents - namely more exports, and more jobs. The U.S. International Trade Commission estimated last year that U.S. food sales to Cuba could grow to more than $1.2 billion annually if we lift restrictions on the transactions and if we lift the travel ban.

Yet U.S. exports to Cuba have dropped - by fully one quarter - since 2008. Cuba is buying slightly less food, yes. But of greater concern to American exporters, it's turning to allied suppliers who offer credit (which Peterson does not propose for American exports to Cuba). Mr. Peterson hopes that American exporters can still win back the advantage if his bill is passed.

-- Anya Landau French

(Photo Credit: International Monetary Fund Photograph/Stephen Jaffe)

This post is cross-posted at The Race for Iran.

Over at the National Interest, Nikolas K. Gvosdev has a piece on the "BRIC Wall" that is developing in opposition to many U.S. policies, particularly the U.S. drive for further sanctions on Iran.

As Secretary Clinton's unsuccessful visit to Brasilia last week along with recent statements by Turkish officials indicate, the world's rising powers - even those that are democracies - are lining up to oppose U.S. policies that they view as overly confrontational, destabilizing, and threatening to their economic interests.

According to Gvosdev's analysis, the proper analytic distinction is not between democracies and non-democracies, but between established status-quo powers supportive of (American) intervention and emerging nations more keen to support a stricter definition of state sovereignty.

From Gvosdev's piece:

Two years ago, Washington was abuzz once again with the prospects for a "League of Democracies" that would support U.S. global leadership. But in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, which devastated Burma/Myanmar, a very clear rift opened up between the democracies of the advanced north and west, which advocated an intervention on humanitarian grounds, and the democracies of the south and east, which proved to be far more receptive to China's call for defending state sovereignty. In the Doha round of trade talks and in the ongoing climate change negotiations, the leading democracies of the south and east--Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, India and Indonesia among them--have tended to line up with Beijing instead of joining Washington's banner.

The lonely U.S. drive for sanctions on Iran is highlighting these divisions, starkly delineating the limits of American power and laying bare the inefficacy of Washington's anachronistic approach to foreign policy.

-- Ben Katcher

This is a guest note by Kalie Pierce, a research intern at the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program.

The parliamentary elections in Iraq began tragically last Thursday with a series of attacks in Baghdad on security officers. Two suicide bombers and a hidden bomb killed 12 people, including 7 soldiers, and wounded at least 55 other people. The violence continued over the weekend and into Sunday, the day of the vote; the New York Times reported that as many as 100 explosions rocked Baghdad during the early days of the election. The Washington Post reported that at least 38 people were killed and 89 wounded Sunday morning alone.

This rocky affair can be compared with Ukraine's most recent presidential election which took place only a few weeks ago. Like the Iraqi vote, the Ukrainian one was closely watched by international observers and domestic officers. For Ukraine, the elections were peaceful and smooth. International monitors declared the poll clean and observers around the world applauded Viktor Yanukovich's peaceful transition to power, hailing his inauguration on February 25, 2010, as a symbol of Ukraine's strengthening democracy.

However, just as with Iraq, it is difficult to wholeheartedly embrace Ukraine's election. After all, it was Viktor Yanukovich's campaign team, back in 2004, which committed mass electoral fraud in a bid to make him president. Although the 2010 democratic election process itself can be considered a success, it is hard to celebrate democracy, as an institution, when it brings back the man who tried to cheat Ukrainian citizens of their vote only six years ago.

These struggles with democracy remind me of a Freedom House article which summarized the findings of Freedom House's 2009 "Freedom in the World" survey, an annual assessment of human rights and liberty existing in the world. Freedom House's 2009 survey reported that democratic states are decreasing in number while authoritarian states have become not only more numerous, but also more self-aware and more influential. This is hardly surprising, considering the attention authoritarian states have been receiving in the last decade. More and more, countries around the world are taking note that states such as China and Iran have managed to grow economically and exert their power abroad without becoming democracies.

In 2009, even states not typically dubbed authoritarian reduced freedoms. Italians saw increased media concentration under Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Macedonians experienced parliamentary elections distorted by violent harassment of party members. The government of Singapore meddled in the judicial handling of defamation cases. The Vietnamese government repressed political opposition, persecuted human rights advocates, and refused to create an independent judiciary. Although citizens typically value democracy for its principles, governments have long viewed democracy as a means to gaining economic aid and trading partners. In the face of alternative routes to prosperity, countries may now be discarding the democratic model for other systems.

The elections in Ukraine and Iraq are two examples of democracy's struggle to remain dominant in today's world. In Ukraine, the government's inability to produce the needed changes caused a tired Ukrainian public to discard the leaders of the Orange Revolution and return to the politician who provoked the revolution in the first place. This rejection is discouraging because experts and organizations like Freedom House consider the Orange Revolution to be the most enduring of the so-called "color revolutions" that peacefully overturned fraudulent elections in the 2000s. Iraq's election, jolted by bombs, demonstrates the dangers of introducing democracy to a country with still-developing institutions. It could well be that democracy's allure is weakening.

But in a world increasingly darkened by authoritarian regimes, Ukraine's presidential election offers some hope. The run-off demonstrated one of the greatest goods of democracy, an institutionalized, peaceful transition of power. During a time when other countries experience regime crackdowns, sudden disruptions of human rights, and violence in the streets whenever power changes hands, Ukraine's fraud- and violence-free election is, in itself, a strong case for democracy everywhere. Indeed, occurring so soon after a deeply fraudulent and turbulent 2004 election, Ukraine's recent one may give hope to nations such as Iraq still struggling to exercise a peaceful vote.

-- Kalie Pierce

(Photo Credit: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Last week, I referred to the remarkably high level of anti-Americanism in Turkey in the context of H.R. 252 - the House Resolution accusing Turkey of committing genocide against Armenians in 1915 that passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee last Thursday.

The widespread distrust of the United States (14% of Turks view the U.S. favorably according to the latest Pew Global Attitudes Survey) in Turkey is somewhat surprising given the strategic alliance that has bound the two states together since President Truman's pledge in 1947 to protect Greece and Turkey from communist subversion.

The roots of this phenomenon are multifarious, but a new paper by Ioannis Grigoriadis in The Middle East Journal offers some insight into why Turks view the United States so negatively.

Grigoriadas distinguishes among several types of anti-Americanism and concludes that anti-Americanism in Turkey is best understood as the "sovereign-nationalist" variety. This means essentially that Turks disapprove of the United States because of "what we do" in the region rather than the values that make us "who we are."

In other words, Turks object to our foreign policy in the Middle East. More specifically, the 2003 invasion of Iraq was immensely unpopular in Turkey because of its destabilizing impact on the Turkish-Iraqi border and the perception that the invasion exacerbated Turkey's "Kurdish problem." The importance of the Iraq war is underscored by this graph, which shows that the United States' unfavorable numbers rose dramatically from 54% to 83% from 2002-2003 and remain at 69% as of the 2009 survey.

In addition to the unpopularity of American foreign policy, there is a more nuanced but no less important aspect of this phenomenon.

The division in Turkish politics and society between the secular elite composed of the military, judiciary, and bureaucracy and the more religiously-inclined, conservative majority personified by the ruling, "moderately Islamist" Justice and Development Party (AKP) is the defining feature of Turkish politics.

Unfortunately, many Turks on both sides of this divide seem to believe that we are supporting their political rivals. While these claims are exaggerated, the perceptions have real consequences.

On the one hand, the United States' support for Turkey's European Union membership is perceived by many secular Turks as support for political Islam in Turkey and as legitimizing the AKP government. More importantly, circumscribing the military's role in politics is a key element of the European Union accession criteria. Therefore, many secular Turks blame Washington and Brussels for providing political cover for the arrests of scores of high-level military officials over the last several years.

At the same time, many supporters of the ruling AKP government are suspicious of the United States' long-standing ties to the Turkish military. As Grigoriadis points out in his paper, these suspicious were underscored - after the Turkish Parliament voted on March 1, 2003 not to allow the United States to open a northern front along the Turkish-Iraqi border - by this ironic statement from U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who ostensibly supported the invasion of Iraq in order to bring democracy to that country:

Many of the institutions in Turkey that we think of as the traditional strong support...were not as forceful in leading in that direction...particularly the military. I think for whatever reason they did not play the strong leadership role on that issue that we would have expected.

This not-at-all-subtle call for the military to meddle in Turkey's politics was widely perceived as hypocritical and was resented by the government and many of its supporters.

To be fair, managing the internal conflict within the Turkish political system is a supremely difficult task and a dilemma for which there is no quick and easy solution.

However, what Washington can do is refrain from taking steps that will exacerbate the problem. Last week's Foreign Affairs Committee vote on H.R. 252 will likely strengthen anti-American sentiment across the Turkish political spectrum.

-- Ben Katcher

This is a guest post by Lawrence B. Wilkerson exclusive to The Washington Note. Wilkerson is the former Chief of Staff at the Department of State during the tenure of Secretary of State Colin Powell, for whom Wilkerson was a 16 year aide. Wilkerson is a member of the Director's Council of the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program.

David Corn (in Mother Jones, "Rove Protects the Rear") has already responded to Karl Rove's comments reported this week in several places and coming from his new book, Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight. Corn takes Rove to task, as well he should.

The taking-to-task is over Rove's cavalier contention that President Bush likely would not have gone to war in Iraq if he had known that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

"Would the Iraq War have occurred without W.M.D.? I doubt it", Rove writes. Rove then goes on to say that "Congress was very unlikely to have supported the use-of-force resolution without the W.M.D. threat."

According to Karl Rove, then, the intelligence about Iraq's WMD that was cherry-picked, manipulated -"fixed around the policy", as the Downing Street Memo recorded - and otherwise tampered with was thus treated so that Congress would support the war.

Yet I agree with Rove that the President did not lie outright. He, like the vast majority of the members of the U.S. intelligence community led by the cock-sure Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, actually believed Iraq had WMD. As a result, any cherry-picking of, manipulation of, or tampering with the evidence (as Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith's office did daily), was acceptable because once the invasion occurred, WMD would be found. There was simply no doubt about that among this majority or among the President's team.

In fact, there was no doubt about it among the several intelligence communities around the world with whom the U.S. regularly did business, including those of Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, and Britain. This, as in the case with France, despite the contrarian rumblings of certain of their political authorities.

I was at the CIA's headquarters at Langley, Virginia, for five days and nights sequestered with Mr. Tenet and his gang of analysts and had an earful of these different but unanimous intelligence entities around the globe, as well as Mr. Tenet himself and his "WMD experts". After these deliberations, I too believed that Saddam Hussein had WMD.

So the administration - led by Cheney and Rumsfeld - had worldwide support in twisting the truth, exaggerating the findings, and pushing bits and pieces of them without any context.

Today I am even quite certain that, under Vice President Cheney's expert guidance, certain members of agencies of the US Government, or contractors working therefor, tortured people at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere in an attempt to reinforce the already twisted intelligence message with the smoking gun of high-level al-Qai'da testimony that connected Baghdad and the tragedy of 9/11.

And the torture worked - in the only way torture ever works. They got confessions. They got their smoking gun. Of course, like the confessions that torture produces for draconian regimes all over the world, it was all false information.

But it didn't matter then because everyone knew that Saddam Hussein had WMD - Rumsfeld told us that several times and Cheney was utterly dogmatic about it - so what did it matter if the intelligence were manipulated a bit because, in the end, we would invade and find the WMD and all would be right with the world.

It was the same with al-Qa'ida: there just had to be a connection with Baghdad. The expert Cheney knew it. The fact that for the moment the administration had, through torture and otherwise, largely invented such a connection was thus irrelevant; the real connection would be discovered after the invasion.

There are, of course, several problems with this sort of leadership from Washington.

First, as a soldier, I have to object to the cavalier manner in which Mr. Rove dismisses the fact that we went to war for a purpose that was false, whether his boss intentionally made it so or not.

How do we relay this message to the families of the 4,380 dead Americans and the more than 31,000 wounded Americans, some of them horribly scarred for life? How do we convey this message to the families of the allied soldiers who have met similar fates? How do we square this with the deaths of a quarter million Iraqis who have perished and the millions of Iraqi refugees in Syria, Jordan, and elsewhere?

How to couch that message? "You would not have lost your son, daughter, brother, sister, wife, husband - if the intelligence had been right." How terribly comforting!

"You would not be in Jordan now, having expended your life's savings and with no place to go - and be destabilizing Jordan by your presence - if the intelligence had been right."

Mr. Tenet, wherever he is hiding, must feel the burden of nearly all the evil done in the world in the last decade resting upon his shoulders. Mr. Rove has indirectly characterized it so.

This is what happens when the President, and the men and women who advise him, are utterly disconnected from the realities accompanying their fateful decisions to send young men and young women into harm's way for state purposes.

And Mr. Rove wants to burnish his former boss's legacy on such a note?

Second, how do we reconcile Mr. Rove's message with the certain knowledge that the critical national security decisions in the first Bush administration were not being made by the President but by the Vice President?

Cheney's reason for invading Iraq was oil, plain and simple. Yes, he believed there were WMD. Yes, he believed it was time for Saddam to go. But he had believed that for years without advocating an invasion of Iraq by US armed forces.

Cheney changed his mind because of his work with the President's Energy Task Force early-on in the administration. Cheney knew where the price of oil was headed; he knew the growing doubts about Saudi Arabia's ability to continue to do America's work with regard to these oil prices; and Cheney knew how much oil was in Iraq - in proven reserves and in potential. It was oil, and all its many manifestations - to include the many political and financial supporters of Bush and Cheney in the oil community - that drove Cheney to reverse himself and push for Baghdad.

It is clear from just the excerpts of Rove's book that have been revealed that Mr. Rove believes he put Bush in the Oval Office in the election of 2000. And indeed he did - for superficial purposes.

Because the man who was really making the decisions that counted was Cheney.

And it is quite clear that Cheney lied. Not about WMD. Not about connections with al-Qa'ida. These things he only cherry-picked, twisted and manipulated, fully expecting to be vindicated after the invasion, not in the particulars but in the overall picture. Cheney actually believed these things to be true.

What Cheney did lie about was the real reason he decided to invade: oil.

To this day no national security decision document that records President Bush's decision to go to war with Iraq has been found.

That's because there isn't one. He did not make the decision.

-- Lawrence Wilkerson

This article originally appeared at Al Jazeera English.

Joseph Biden, the US vice president, left on Sunday for a head-scratching trip to the Middle East and many are wondering what he is up to.

After all, the vice president has a lot on his plate already.

Biden has been the person behind the White House scenes who has helped nudge forward the tenuous deals between Shia, Sunnis and Kurds which secured Sunday's historic elections in Iraq.

Almost as hard for Biden was brokering a truce between Ray Odierno, the commanding general of US forces in Iraq, and Christopher Hill, the US ambassador to Iraq, who had more than a few turf scuff-ups.

He has also been working hard on the less sexy parts of President Obama's national security vision - tying together key international stakeholder agreements to help contain the spread and actually reduce nuclear weapons materials and other WMD relevant assets globally. Obama will host a summit in April built on work that Biden has done.

Biden and his team have also done a great deal of prep work on the Obama economic plan's jobs and infrastructure components - topics that for the first year were largely ignored by key economic policy architects Timothy Geithner, the treasury secretary, and Lawrence Summers, the national economic advisor.

Biden and his chief economist, Jared Bernstein, have struggled hard on the employment challenge and offered suggestions on small business financing, a variety of hiring incentives for firms, smart grid infrastructure development, high speed rail investments, and have done some very good work advocating a new 21st century, jobs and infrastructure-focused "industrial policy" (two words which seem to be taboo in government now).

Showing face?

Of all Obama's senior level cabinet members and advisers, Biden has exceeded expectations and performed better than virtually any other member of the team in generating ideas and pushing the policy needle.

And now he is off to Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan.

Why is he adding this issue to his plate when there is a specific presidential envoy, George Mitchell, tasked with working to get the Palestinians and Israelis back on a credible negotiating track towards a two state solution?

Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, and Obama tried hard to kick-start an arrangement that would get some sizzle by forcing the Israelis to stop all new settlement construction in the Occupied Territories. That did not work out so well.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, General Jim Jones, the national security adviser, Robert Gates, the defence secretary, and others have been giving the Israel-Palestine portfolio a lot of time and have made many a trip to the region.

Nothing much has happened as of yet - so it makes one wonder whether dispatching Biden to the region is just doubling down and throwing more of America's diminishing credibility at a failed approach.

Is Biden just a big personality to "show face" in the region and to try to assure regional leaders that the US still cares?

Alternatively, Biden may be there to really do something, or at least try.

Biden is emerging as the Obama administration's fixer - the person who can quietly walk into a situation and survey it in a dispassionate, smart way in order to think about a new approach.

As James Traub wrote in a recent New York Times Magazine profile about Biden, quoting this writer in part, Biden straddles two worlds of foreign policy - that of the values-driven idealists, on one hand, who want to do good in the world and who tend to ignore realistic assessments of interests and the costs and benefits in securing those interests; and on the other, the pragmatic, do what it takes approach to foreign policy that focuses on the prioritisation of hard policy choices.

Global fault line

The Israel-Palestine process has broken down. And George Mitchell does not understand that the time he keeps asking for is time the region does not have.

Behind closed doors, Mitchell tells foreign leaders and ministers about his experiences negotiating with the parties in Northern Ireland. What he does not realise is that that terrible conflict could have lasted through a couple more centuries of his patient deal-making and the world would still be getting on.

The Israel-Palestine standoff is a globally consequential fault line that will blow sooner rather than later if the problems and pressures there are not seriously addressed.

Biden gets this. But I have no idea which direction he will go in his discussions during the trip.

Ultimately he knows that resolving the Israel/Palestine situation is a necessary requirement to confronting Iran and robbing Iran of room to run and meddle in the Middle East.

A deal on an Israel/Palestine two track reality is also a vital part of demonstrating to a doubting world that the US can achieve the objectives it sets for itself and is able again to be a sculptor of global affairs.

Obama did not mention much about foreign policy in his State of the Union address this year and did not mention Israel-Palestine at all. We hope that "Biden as fixer" is the mission - rather than using Biden to just put in face time with a region that doubts Obama's commitment as of late.

Hopefully, Biden can help create opportunities and momentum in a region that poses a defining challenge for the US - even though most of his Obama administration colleagues seem for all of their efforts to be out of ideas and out of steam.

-- Steve Clemons

I'm traveling this week, but still paying close attention to Iraq's parliamentary elections, where it seems things are holding fairly steady despite the fears of instability before the election and heinous terrorism up to and on election day itself.

Iraq has a long way to go, and the outcome of the elections for Iraqi and American policy are far from clear. But it is heartening not only to see the determination of the Iraqi people to resist violence in order to make their voices heard, but also the steadfastness of President Obama in refusing outside pressure to change our timeline for withdrawal.

In the coming days, I will be getting much of my news on Iraq from The Middle East Channel, a fantastic and brand new joint venture of the New America Foundation and Foreign Policy magazine.

Managed by my colleagues Daniel Levy and Amjad Atallah in cooperation with scholar, blogger and Middle East expert Marc Lynch, this new venture will provide an important forum for informed, needed comment on Iraq, Iran, Israel/Palestine, and many other issues of vital importance in today's policy debates.

Here's part of Lynch's election analysis from today:

The other main headline of the Iraqi election campaign has to be the overwhelmingly nationalist tone of all major politicians and the marginal American role in the process. The election campaign (as opposed to the results, which we still don't know) showed clearly that Iraqis are determined to seize control of their own future and make their own decisions. The U.S. ability to intervene productively has dramatically receded, as the Obama administration wisely recognizes. The election produced nothing to change the U.S. drawdown schedule, and offered little sign that Iraqis are eager to revise the SOFA or ask the U.S. to keep troops longer. Iraq is in Iraqi hands, and the Obama administration is right both to pay close attention and to resist the incessant calls to "do more." This doesn't mean ignoring Iraq -- the truth is, the Obama administration has been paying a lot more attention to Iraq than the media has over the last year. It means moving to develop a normal, constructive strategic relationship with the new Iraqi government, with the main point of contact the Embassy and the private sector rather than the military, and adhering in every way possible to the SOFA and to the drawdown timeline.

Stay tuned.

-- Steve Clemons

Politico's Laura Rozen paints a disturbing picture of the chain of events that ultimately led the House Foreign Affairs Committee to pass the Armenian "genocide" resolution last Thursday.

Until last week, it appeared that the White House had made a calculated decision not to ask House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman to refrain from bringing the resolution to a vote. Previous administrations have often made such requests in order to prevent damage to the U.S.-Turkey alliance.

The decision to acquiesce to the vote appeared to be motivated by politics and the administration's desire to keep Obama's campaign promise that he would recognize the Armenian genocide.

But, as Rozen details in her piece, the story is more complicated. Secretary of State Clinton called Berman last Wednesday night - the evening before a vote that had been on the legislative calendar for a month - to indicate that the vote could jeopardize U.S-Turkey relations. But it was too late. Berman called the vote and it passed by a single vote.

Rozen's sources suggest that the White House simply dropped the ball. The only other plausible explanation I can conceive is that Clinton's last-minute phone call was a purposefully ineffective ploy designed to persuade the Turks that the administration tried to prevent the vote. If that is the case, it is not working.

It is worth nothing that State Department spokesman Phillip Crowley indicated Saturday that the White House opposes bringing the resolution to a full House vote.

Another aspect of this story that is important to emphasize - and that Center for Strategic and International Studies Turkey Project Director Bulent Aliriza makes toward the end of the clip above - is that the impact of last weeks' vote cannot be found on any one specific issue such as the United States' use of Turkey's Incirlik airbase or Ankara's diplomatic cooperation on Iraq, Iran, or Afghanistan.

Rather, the effect will be broader and more difficult to measure. Votes of this kind will likely strengthen anti-American elements within the Turkish political system and make it more difficult for the Turkish government to undertake unpopular decisions in support of American objectives.

-- Ben Katcher

Jonathan Guyer, who blogs at Mideast by Midwest, is the official toonist for The Washington Note.

The Obama administration's flirtation and probable decision to prosecute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a military tribunal -- which even the military thinks is a bad idea -- has been one of the many issues that has Guyer on the edge of wanting to break up with Obama.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a guest note by Parag Khanna, a Senior Research Fellow at the New America Foundation and author of The Second World: How Emerging Powers are Redefining Global Competition in the 21st Century (Random House, 2009).

Fly American - Unless You Know Better: Geopolitical Humor for the Oscar's

In "Up in the Air," George Clooney portrays uber-frequent flier Ryan Bingham, who reaches ten million American Airlines miles--without ever leaving the United States. American Airlines is portrayed as the grand old silver lady of flying, and that's precisely the problem. It's certainly old, but far from grand. What does Clooney's Oscar hit have to do with U.S. foreign policy?

Most Americans simply don't realize just how "brand America" no longer carries much weight in the world unless you are looking for an iPhone or a Hollywood blockbuster.

Our cars, political system, and economic practices have become a joke, and the Obama glow wore off before his administration's one-year mark. Our ignorance is best captured by the same American Airlines linked Mastercard's apparent policy to block usage of the card as soon as you commit the crime of trying to use it in a foreign country. Yet we still think we're the best because we don't know much about the rest.

American Airlines is a great metaphor for America itself.

A recognizable brand that provides plenty of connections, but whose value and quality of service is greatly diminished. Its 757 planes rattle like roller-coasters, the in-flight entertainment system constantly conks out, and it's so loud in the cabin that Bose noise-cancelling headsets are no match. And try making a booking over the phone or online without the agent's keyboard freezing or system crashing.

Meanwhile, emerging market airlines from the UAE's Emirates and Etihad to India's Jet Airways are providing better services at lower prices. Their flight attendants dress in style, their food is hot, and they arrive on time.

In Europe - yes, the same socialist sclerotic Europe conservatives love to bash - there are twice as many airlines as there are EU member countries. Following on the success of Ireland's Ryan Air, imitators galore have sprung up, driving more connections at lower costs. Most of the price of any flight within Europe is taxes that maintain first-rate infrastructure, not airfare. And you don't have to pay for peanuts.

One year into the Obama administration the very necessary debate about our national competitiveness is taking shape. We are falling behind in educating future innovators, meaning our economic edge is fading fast. In web-tech, we have Google, Amazon, and Twitter, but local preferences are gaining ground in Asia (a fact which lies at the heart of the Google vs. China face-off), where 4G speeds make American mobile operators look like the equivalent of a rotary dial.

In bio-tech, we've ended Bush-era bans on stem-cell research, but new patents are pouring in from India and Korea where researchers are going after mainstream health problems and not just specialty drugs. And in clean-tech, save for some promising pockets of experimentation with electric cars and smart grids, we are the world's dirtiest per capita.

Globalization means that the gap between "Invented in America" and "Made in China" is shrinking rapidly. Technological know-how is spreading faster than ever--multinational corporations have to transfer the latest techniques and skills to foreign managers a condition of setting up shop overseas. It's no surprise that China just debuted the fastest inter-city bullet-train in the world just a few years after German industrial giant Siemens build China its first one.

Feel-good rhetoric can't reverse this greatest shift in geopolitical and geo-economic conditions: Globalization once extended America's edge, now globalization accelerates its undoing. America's share of the global economy is shrinking from close to an unnatural fifty percent at the end of World War II past the steady 25 percent mark held for about a decade towards a far more modest 20 percent.

We are not a big enough market to set global standards--instead we're somewhere between Europe, which raises environmental and industrial quality control regulations, and China which undermines them.

If we want to re-capture global leadership for the sake of our economic competitiveness and national self-esteem, it starts by flying overseas and learning how the world's new markets live: what they drive (smaller and cleaner), what they eat (organic and with trans-fat optional), and what their values are (not church vs. state but rather a community-based politico-economic-spiritual synthesis).

Today there are probably several thousand young and unemployed American MBAs making that trip to the booming Persian Gulf emirates, India, China, Brazil, Turkey, Indonesia and other emerging markets.

Maintaining America's vaunted capacity for self-renewal hinges on them coming back with fresh ideas on how to make in America and sell in the rest of the world. Any American who can afford to should follow their lead.

But start the trip right: don't fly American Airlines -- unless perhaps you are trying to get from Tulsa to Texas.

-- Parag Khanna

The defining personality of the George W. Bush administration was his Vice President, Dick Cheney. And the man who enabled Cheney and built out the architecture of "the dark side" of a nightmarish purgatory beyond American or international law was his chief of staff David Addington.

President Obama, his former White House Counsel Gregory Craig, and others on the Obama national security team promised to dismantle not only the institutions that Cheney and Addington built that are the antithesis of an American commitment to human rights and habeas corpus but to reverse the mindset that got us into Iraq to begin with.

Regrettably, with the news of Rahm Emanuel trying to cut deals with Senator Lindsey Graham resulting in the prosecution of GITMO detainees in military tribunals, we are seeing the affirmation of Addington and Cheney's work, not its dismantlement.

NPR's Don Gonyea captures this in the clip above in which this writer was briefly queried.

-- Steve Clemons

I just did this interesting interview with media investor Leo Hindery who also chairs the Economic Growth/Smart Globalization Initiative at the New America Foundation.

Hindery spoke yesterday at a forum sponsored by the Center for American Progress and Apollo Alliance titled ""Picking a Winner: How to Make the U.S. a Leader in the Clean Energy Economy".

I particularly appreciated Hindery's focus on the need for a much more serious national economic strategy to promote manufacturing jobs as a necessary piece of any real green economy initiative.

-- Steve Clemons

(Photo Credit: Ucumari's Photostream)

Turkey - a country that President Obama visited on his first overseas tour and referred to as a nation with which the United States enjoys a "model partnership" has recalled its Ambassador to Washington Namik Tan after the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed House Resolution 252 labeling Turkey's massacre of Armenian civilians during World War I a "genocide."

This is a significant development in bilateral relations between the United States and one of its most important allies.

Even before the resolution, the United States' popularity in Turkey was dismal. According to the 2009 Pew Global Attitudes Survey, only 14% of Turks view the United States favorably - a remarkable figure for a country that has been a major U.S. ally since the end of the Second World War. That number is sure to go down after today's vote.

Sorting out the historical grievances between Turkey and Armenia is an immensely complicated task - and it is certainly understandable that many Armenians feel that Turkey should do more to atone for what was undoubtedly a major tragedy.

However, it is difficult to fathom how today's developments will help Turkey and Armenia move forward. Rather, today's vote is the triumph of diaspora politics over serious foreign policy.

More soon.

Update: I have pasted the official Turkish Government Statement on H.R. 252 below the fold. I have asked for a statement from the Armenian Embassy and will post if it becomes available.

(Photo Credit: White House Photostream)

This is a guest note by Fadi Elsalameen, Executive Director of The Palestine Note, the website where this post originally appeared.

I have been in the West Bank for the past two weeks meeting with several members of the Palestinian leadership about the peace process, Palestinian state-building, and the role of the United States in moving both peace and independence forward. My conversations with Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, PM Salam Fayyad, Ahmad Qurei, and Mohammad Dahlan were very illuminating.

President Abbas is taking negotiation setbacks in stride. Upon asking the president, "How are you?" he dryly replied: "Not very, very, very bad - just very bad."

Abbas continues to wait for a response from US President Barack Obama. President Abbas says he wants to hear about "[Obama's] vision for our talks with the Israelis. We would like to have more clarity from the Americans on what it is they will support [in our] negotiating with the Israelis. [PA Prime Minister Salam] Fayyad and I have been building Palestinian institutions; I have fulfilled all our obligations for the road map." By the look on his face, it's clear Abbas is disappointed by Washington's inaction.

Hurtles to the peace process - settlement expansion, the Heritage Trail row - demonstrate a considerable challenge, but Abbas made it plain that with all the uncertainties about the future of Palestinian-Israeli peace, one thing is certain: "I will not allow violence, I am committed to peace with Israel."

Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala), former PA chief negotiator, is not as optimistic. Said Qurei: "I am for negotiations, but over what exactly? Over settlements?... Over Jerusalem? How can we [move forward] if the Israelis are building [settlements] as we negotiate? How can we [talk] if Israel is taking more land and building on what we would be negotiating over with them?"

Senior Fatah official Mohammad Dahlan reiterates the need for America to voice clear expectations and parameters for the peace process. "Americans have to give us a clear sense of what it is they can support in negotiations with Israel. We can't just jump into negotiations without knowing what it is we are going to negotiate over. Obama should present something like the Clinton Parameters or the Road Map."

Prime Minister Fayyad looks to the challenges beyond negotiations: "Even if we were to gain political independence, we need to be ready as a state. The political track is important, but it is not the only [avenue we need to focus on]." But the PA's achievements have been many, and Fayyad does not forget to count them: "We completed 1,000 projects in the past year. By 2011, we will complete 2,000 more projects. We are building hospitals, roads, schools, juridical system, forcing rule of law, et cetera... In 2011, we will be ready for a Palestinian state, whether the political track is [set] or not." Fayyad has been lauded as a "technocrat's technocrat" for his focus on statecraft over rhetoric, getting even the Israelis behind him when he spoke at the Herzilya conference. Now all he needs is Obama.

It is crucial that the Obama administration propose its vision for a Palestinian state consistent with Fayyad's game plan as soon as possible, and the US needs to articulate to Israelis and Palestinians the kind of state it will endorse. Obama's public support of Fayyad's road map to statehood will also likely further the peace process, giving both Abbas and Netanyahu a reason to come back to the negotiating table without getting mired in the settlement freeze row.

Obama's endorsement could be the best solution to the deadlock.

-- Fadi Elsalameen

This is a guest note by Sean Kay. Kay is Chair of International Studies and Professor at Ohio Wesleyan University. He is also the author of NATO and the Future of European Security and Global Security in the Twenty-first Century: The Quest for Power and the Search for Peace.

This post was originally published at Stephen Walt's blog at Foreign Policy.

Recently in Washington, D.C., a group of experts met as part of an ongoing review to develop a new "strategic concept" for the NATO allies to approve at a heads-of-state summit to be held in late 2010. Key speeches were presented by the NATO Secretary General Fogh Rassmussen, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. The result, however, has been an exercise in NATO "group think" with little relevance to real strategic thinking about America and its core national security interest.

This NATO review process is failing to account for three fundamental contradictions.

First, NATO Secretary General Rassmussen stated that: "We must face new challenges. Terrorism, proliferation, cyber security or even climate change will oblige us to seek new ways of operating. And in a time of financial and budget constraints, we need to maximize our efficiency within limited resources." However, all of these issues are challenges far better suited for the European Union (EU) and a special US-EU relationship to manage rather than NATO.

Second, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted that: "This Alliance has endured because of the skill of our diplomats, the strength of our soldiers, and - most importantly - the power of its founding principles." Yet, one of NATO's core founding principles was to create a circumstance in which Europe could stand on its own two feet. This is, effectively, NATO's last unfulfilled mission after the Cold War and it is now hindered by an institutional framework allowing Europeans to free-ride on American security provision.

Third, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated: "The demilitarization of Europe - where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it - has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st." The demilitarization of Europe, however, means that NATO has succeeded in its fundamental mission - that Europe no longer fights wars is a good thing. Moreover, Europe has no incentive to contribute to global security missions so long as America takes the lead. Europe has every incentive to free-ride on American power and NATO perpetuates that.

Secretary Gates did provide his audience with a dose of realism, noting that: "Right now, the alliance faces very serious, long-term, systemic problems." What he fails to appreciate, however, is that these problems are not going to be solved by berating European allies for pursuing obvious benefit to their national interests. Rather, the solution is to change the strategic dynamic by beginning to reduce American military commitments overseas and realigning - including cutting - defense spending to reflect new security realities.

Recently, Secretary of State Clinton testified to Congress that: We have to address this deficit and the debt of the U.S. as a matter of national security, not only as a matter of economics." Indeed, the most serious threat to America's geostrategic position in the world is its $12 trillion national debt. Yet, the United States has increased its commitment to Afghanistan, seems unlikely to be able to disengage from Iraq anytime soon, faces a growing confrontation with Iran, and is simultaneously increasing its defense spending. Meanwhile, the American public is in its most isolationist mood in decades. It is in this context that NATO's "group of experts" seeks to add missions to the alliance, rather than rethink the role of the alliance itself.

The Department of Defense recently published its Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) which states rightly that the United States must "increasingly cooperate with key allies and partners if it is to sustain peace and security" (interestingly in a December 2009 draft version of the QDR, the language read "rely" on key allies). Yet the QDR and the new defense budget both show a United States seeking to hold onto a primacy in global security that is no longer sustainable. The QDR notes that the US seeks to prevent and deter conflict by: "Extending a global defense posture comprised of joint, ready forces forward stationed and rotationally deployed to prevail across all domains, prepositioned equipment and overseas facilities, and international agreements." This is not a strategy that reflects wise prioritization by a country $12 trillion in debt.

The QDR typically emphasizes NATO as part of this global presence - and understandably points to Afghanistan as an essential component of this global partnership in a transformed alliance. While it is increasingly said that Afghanistan is a crucial test for NATO - the reality is that NATO has already failed in Afghanistan. In his assessment from summer 2009, General Stanley McChrystal noted that the operational culture of the NATO mission in Afghanistan would have to be fundamentally transformed. This critical step, however, is not happening. While the Europeans are contributing, there is nothing inherent in the ISAF command structure that requires it to be a NATO-engaged coalition. In fact, Brussels currently has very little to do with operations in Afghanistan and Europeans might contribute more if their reputation in Afghanistan was more closely linked to the future of the European Union.

A strategic concept for NATO need not be very complicated. There are basically two missions left for the alliance.

First, NATO should be kept as a reserve capacity built around the traditional Article 5 mission of territorial collective defense as a hedge against future geopolitical rivalry at the global or regional level. This, however, need not require costly new initiatives to keep NATO busy, but rather should be seen as a reserve fund of alliance power - political in nature with operational doctrines available on the shelf. NATO should continue its process of reaching out to engage Russia and abandon its provocative and self-defeating discussion of further enlargement or "global NATO" operations which are not realistic or sustainable but which create strategic costs in the US-Russian relationship.

Second, NATO's staff should be given a clear mandate to work themselves out of a job - with their final mission being to hand over full lead responsibility for regional security to the European Union. The most fundamental missions of NATO are achieved - Europe is integrated, whole, and free. The challenge now is to ensure that this is sustained via the European Union. By jealously hanging onto an irrelevant dominance over European security policy, the United States hinders effective EU security integration and ironically damages America's own interests. If the United States can't hand over lead authority in Europe where can it?

Before committing to a strategic concept driven by NATO groupthink, President Obama should convene a policy review that brings into the process a broader range of strategic thinking than a self-motivated Washington-Brussels network which habitually seeks new missions, new budgets, and continues to drain the United States of scarce resources. Europe is not yet capable of standing alone - and these strategic shifts will not happen overnight. However, they certainly will never happen if the United States does not make the building of the European Union, not NATO, its primary strategic goal in the transatlantic security architecture. A fundamental and lasting alignment of the transatlantic security dynamic can be a vital legacy for President Obama - but it will require a much greater application of realism to the role of NATO than is currently being considered.

-- Sean Kay

(Photo by Anya Landau French, of a Havana art fair where private Cuban entrepreneurs can earn hard currency income selling to foreign tourists)

Anya Landau French directs the New America Foundation/U.S.-Cuba Policy Initiative.This post originally appeared at The Havana Note.

Last Friday, The Washington Post editorial board questioned the value of engaging Cuba, following the death of a hunger-striking Cuban prisoner of conscience last week. In light of Orlando Zapata Tamayo's tragic death, the Post asked advocates of greater contact with Cuba how the ongoing "thaw" with the island nation is working out.

I offered my thoughts to The Washington Post, which published them today:

Why U.S. policy isn't affecting Cuba

The death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo was an avoidable tragedy, one for which the Cuban government alone is accountable.

Yet the Feb. 26 editorial overlooked many Cuban dissidents' views that that U.S. sanctions harm the people, not the government, of Cuba. Even if Congress eases travel and food export restrictions on Cuba, the larger trade embargo will remain among our toughest restrictions against any other country in the world.

The effort to remove U.S. restrictions on travel and food exports to Cuba is not driven by love for Fidel or Raúl Castro but instead by three ideas: the fundamental right of Americans to travel freely without our government's interference, advancing the national interest at a time when America needs job growth and export opportunities, and a belief that we can do far more good in Cuba by reaching out to rather than isolating the people.

Another reader wrote to echo the Post's earlier viewpoint, and called President Obama's "Castro-friendly" approach naïve. But what exactly has been so friendly? Other than easing restrictions on private humanitarian donations and families' travel, allowing U.S. communications providers to try to service the Cuban population, and resuming migration talks held by Presidents Reagan, Clinton and G.W. Bush, what, exactly, has been so friendly toward Castro? (And besides, isn't our policy supposed to be about the Cuban people? The U.S. laser-like focus on the two Castro brothers always seems to come at the expense of 11 million Cubans.)

One year into this Administration, U.S. policy is still far cooler toward Cuba after than anyone expected. (In 2004, Barack Obama called for lifting the entire embargo because, he reasoned, it was harming the innocents in Cuba.)

The President who as a candidate called U.S. policy a failure and said he would be willing to meet Raul Castro is largely running the same Cuba policies he inherited from President Bush. The vast majorities of Americans are still not free to visit Cuba when they wish - and draconian restrictions remain on educational, cultural and professional travel that we encouraged fully a decade ago. And, the United States continues to hamstring food sales to the island in nearly every way imaginable, despite real hardship on the island (does it matter who inflicted it?) and despite a 38% drop in American farm income last year. This more aptly dubbed "South Florida-friendly" policy hardly constitutes tearing down the wall between our two countries.

Those of us who advocate freer contact with the Cuban people do so because we believe it will be good for us and good for the Cuban people. But the fact is, if you can't see measurable results for U.S. engagement with Cuba, that's because it hasn't happened yet. Until we really try engaging Cuba, there's nothing to judge.

-- Anya Landau French

This is a guest note by journalist and Middle East and Islamic issues expert Nir Rosen.

On Sunday, February 28th the New York Times published an outrageous oped by Efraim Karsh full of lies, distortions and mistakes.

Karsh describes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an urgent foreign policy matter for the United States.

It doesn't appear to be urgent. One more American administration has prostrated itself before Israeli arrogance and expansionism. Karsh mentions some sort of "100-year war between Arabs and Jews." There is no 100 year war between Arabs and Jews. There is a 100 year colonial struggle between Zionist Jews and the Palestinian people (and briefly the Lebanese as well).

He hopes that the "Islamic nation can make peace with the idea of Jewish statehood in the House of Islam." Its not about Jewish statehood in the house of Islam.

Its about Zionist Jewish settlers dispossessing the Palestinians and occupying Palestinian land. And killing Palestinians. Its not a religious conflict. Its a territorial one, an anti-colonial one, a national liberation struggle, even if the discourse used these days to describe it is often religious.

"Muslim states threaten Israel's existence not so much out of concern for the Palestinians, but rather as part of a holy war to prevent the loss of a part of the House of Islam," he says. He is lying. Who is he talking about? Iran?

Even if that was a real threat and not merely grandstanding, who else is there? the Saudis, the Turks, the Egyptians, the Jordanians and others all collaborate with Israel. Syria?

Hardly a threat and eager for peace as long as it can regain the occupied Golan heights. And the Israeli police force could conquer Syria in a few hours. Hizballah? Not a state and not trying to destroy Israel but merely protect Lebanese territory.

Hizballah threatens a bloody revenge if Israel attacks Lebanon, but that's it. And he is also lying when he says that Muslim states believe in some kind of holy war to prevent the loss of a part of the house of Islam. Which Muslim state? Nobody talks like this or says these things.

Most Muslim states either collaborate with Israel or just don't care (like Iraq today).

Karsh is a third rate academic who clearly has not visited much of the "Muslim World" about which he writes with generalizations, clichés, racism, Orientalism and a right wing pro Israeli agenda.

He falsely claims that Arabs consider themselves superior to all other Muslims. And he falsely claims that Hijazis regard themselves as the only true Arabs.

This is just not true. There is always the occasional chauvenist but he wouldn't be typical of the views of most "Arabs" or Hijazis.

Karsh claims that Muslims view themselves as part of the House of Islam and the rest of the world as part of the House of War.

I have worked in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Kenya, Bosnia, Turkey, Yemen, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Qatar. I have attended hundreds of sermons in mosques and I watch Arabic satellite television regularly. In the last seven years of working in the Muslim world I have never heard anybody use these terms.

You have to go to obscure websites to find these terms used today. There may be a theological basis for these terms of course but just like most Christians, for most Muslims, religion is but a small part of their identity, and often not the most important part, and Islam is not the main guide to their daily actions.

House of Islam and House of war are not common household terms in the Muslim world and not an honest description of the way the vast majority of Muslims view the world.

These references to Saladin and other early Muslim rulers have very little to do with the lives of most modern Muslims

He falsely claims that Muslim and Arab rulers vilify "infidels." This is also a lie.

Notice Karsh provides no examples. Most Muslim and Arab rulers do not "villify" the "infidels," in fact they cooperate with them regularly and most Muslim and Arab countries are thoroughly integrated with the rest of the world.

While many of their people might resent the West for a variety of reasons, with only a few exceptions, most Muslim and Arab dictators collaborate closely with the West and even often with Israel.

They do not view the world as divided between Muslims and infidels any more than most Christian rulers do. And certainly bringing up Nasser as an example is silly, since he would have been the last Arab ruler to think in these terms. Opposing Western Imperialism is not the same as opposing infidels.

Karsh wants the United States, and (notice he says "us") to take a harder line with Iran.

There is a trend lately of New York Times oped contributors calling for more wars against Muslims. Whether against Iran or most recently calling for less concern over civilian Afghan casualties.

And of course Thomas Friedman has never met a war he didn't support.

Karsh assures us that most Muslim states would not support Iran if more sanctions are imposed or if the United States attacked Iran. So therefore we shouldn't be afraid of going to war. Except that there is also no solid evidence presented that Iran even wants nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile most Muslims and Arabs are probably more concerned about the one nuclear state in the Middle East that does regularly initiate wars of aggression -- Israel.

Karsh refers to "the customary lip service about Western imperialism and "Crusaderism."" He is trapped in the past.

What Muslim government uses these terms? Karsh is taking the statements of extremists like Bin Ladin and claiming that they are made by Muslim rulers. But talk of Crusaders is far removed from the Muslim mainstream.

Karsh reduces everything to religion.

Imagine if all Muslims believed that Pat Robertson or other insane Christian extremists were typical of all Americans and that we all believe that Haitians made a pact with the devil.

Another mistake he makes is conflating the leaders of Muslim countries with the people. Despite the hatred that many Sunni Muslim dictators feel for Iran, their people may have a very different attitude.

Iran and particularly its leadership remain very popular throughout the Muslim and Arab world, among the PEOPLE. Of course they would be helpless to intervene should the United States attack Iran because they are ruled by pro American dictators.

Karsh welcomes what he claims are the "latest changes in the Obama administration's Middle Eastern policy, which combine a tougher stance on Iran's nuclear subterfuge with a less imperious approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict." So far there is no evidence of Iran's nuclear subterfuge and most experts actually dismiss concerns that Iran is seeking to gain nuclear weapons.

And what American administration ever had an "imperious approach to the Arab Israeli conflict"? and given that we are subsidizing and arming the Israelis don't we have the right to make demands of them? Instead Prime Minister Netanyahu humiliated Obama's envoy Mitchell and we just accepted it. Bush, Clinton, Obama, all cravenly bow to Israeli extremism.

"A military strike must remain a serious option: there is no peaceful way to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions, stemming as they do from its imperialist brand of national-Islamism." If Iran is imperialist where has it expanded? It is America and its ally Israel that engage in Imperialism.

Khomeini may have dismissed nationalism, as Karsh says, but it was only rhetorically. Iranians remain extremely nationalistic, even chauvenistic and the regime has had to make many concessions to 'Persian' nationalism and 'Persian' traditions and the regime acts strategically to further its own interests, not those of the Muslim world, so their anti nationalism is nonsense and quoting

Khomeini from nearly 30 years ago is irresponsible when describing the regime of today. Karsh jumps from a minor dispute over whether to go by the "Persian Gulf" to the "Arabian Gulf" into discussing religious conflict, hatred of infidels and support for a war against Iran.

Several years ago I was invited to take part in a conference sponsored by the Department of Defense's Central Command entitled "Rethinking the War on Terror: Developing a Strategy to Counter Extremist Ideologies." The proposed issues to be discussed were: Radical Islamist Ideologies; House of Islam v. House of War; Koran and Jihad; Sectarianism in Islam and the Politicization of Sectarian Identity; Cult of Martyrdom; Temporal Goals (e.g., destruction of Israel, United States out of Iraq, topple Saudi Government, etc.); Countering the Radicals' Arguments, Tools, and Attraction; Individual liberties and the Sharia mindset; Understanding popular grievances and terrorist/insurgent objectives; Engaging failed or failing states to deny sanctuaries to terrorists and non-state actor organizations.

Karsh's silly article reminded me of this conference. At the time I explained that I viewed the entire approach as all wrong.

People don't mind when you tell them that they're wrong about the facts, but when you tell them their very approach is wrong they can get upset. But the very approach these people were using to conceptualize the issues was wrong, and not a single non Orientalist middle east studies academic would agree with these culturalist assumptions.

I didn't even know how to talk to these people because the barrier between us began at the epistemological stage, in the way we approached acquiring knowledge about the middle east.

Their obsession with things like 'dar al islam/dar al harb' and terms like 'jihad' and 'cult of martyrdom' showed how they focused on the exterior shell and fetishized this Orientalist idea of 'Muslim culture.'

They assumed that there was some kind of microchip that makes Muslims tick and once you learn the cultural script, you could understand these people. This stems from the idea of 'varying rationalities,' that Muslims do not think in the same way we do, that you need to understand their own form of rationality and you do that through learning the language, the 'culture' and then you can decode them. But why are 'Muslims' a group to begin with?

This obsession with a term like 'dar al harb,' (house of war) keeps on coming up.

Sometimes I think that more Americans than Muslims know what it means. They assume that a medieval term somehow trickled into the 'Muslim' mentality and decides how they see the world. This assumes that all Muslims understand such a term in the same way, and that the term acts in a specific way not contingent on historic and contemporary conditions, both of which are untrue

This is Orientalism, America is never studied in this way, do we read the Bible to understand American 'culture'?

And this 'cult of martyrdom' business, based on the assumption that Muslims have some kind of reptilian brain, thinking in pre-destined cultural scripts.

People were anti-American when they were secular and nationalistic, they were resisting America as Marxists, and are now resisting it as Islamists, the fight creates the cult, not the other way around, fetishizing it and obsessing with it is just a way to obscure the real grievances. And what is the 'Sharia mindset'?

There is no such thing as Shari`a. It is a very broad term, it means Islamic law, but only one of its schools, Maliki fiqh, alone consists of tens of thousands of pages and interpretation. It is not an 'object' that people can just assimilate

There is this American racist right-wing obsession with the idea of Muslims spreading Sharia in the West. Then people like Karsh or the organizers of the conference I went to pick up these catch-phrases and make them into an object of scientific inquiry

There is no such one thing called Sharia, or Islamic law, it gets interpreted in many different ways, for Saudis it is the religious police, for Iranians it is banks and women driving, for others it is no banks. Sharia can be a political slogan, especially in Egypt, as a sign that separates Muslim from non-muslim rule. It varies greatly and cannot be simplified, it has no clear content.

-- Nir Rosen

I am not a single issue guy -- and despite my differences with Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) on health care and his general applause for the next and next next wars America chooses, he did a great thing by introducing legislation today to repeal the embedded bigotry in our national military forces of Don't Ask Don't Tell. Hopefully some of the Joe Lieberman magic on this issue will pull back Senator McCain to his previous enlightened position. Thank you Senator Lieberman.

Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) is taking respect for American norms and human rights a step further by a powerful reading tonight of the "torture memos" at the Georgtown University Law Center. The meeting is at 7 pm EST and will stream live here. The organizers are the American Civil Liberties Union, PEN American Center, and Georgetown Law's Human Rights Institute and Center on National Security and Law. Thank you Representative Ellison.

Finally, Representative Eric Massa (D-NY) has announced today that he is not seeking reelection. His stated reason is that he has had a cancer recurrence and wants to enjoy the last phase of his life. I have the greatest respect and admiration for Massa, who was first introduced to me a few years ago by General Wesley Clark. I recently saw Eric Massa at the massive J Street policy conference in Washington, DC -- where he was showing his strong support along with many dozens of other US Congressman for the work of the new organization. Thank you Representative Massa for all you have been doing and hopefully will continue to do in the private sector.

-- Steve Clemons

(Photo Credit: Stewf's Photostream)

This post, which originally appeared at The Havana Note, is a guest note by Tom Garofalo, a consultant for the New America Foundation/U.S-Cuba Policy Initiative.

Israel's controversial Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman suggested a not-so-novel approach to the problem of Iran's nuclear ambitions recently. He wants to apply what he calls the Cuban model, in which "the United States alone can do everything in order to stop this (Iranian) program."

There are a few immediate contradictions. For starters, Lieberman believes that the Cuban model works best if it includes an international aspect, such that the United States would "shun foreign firms that continue to do business with Iran." That extraterritorial component was added to our Cuban Embargo in 1996 with the passage of the Helms Burton act. But, perhaps unbeknownst to Lieberman, it has been dutifully waived every six months since, at the behest of our allies.

Mr. Lieberman may also be surprised to know that one of the first countries to suffer the consequences of such a shunning would be Israel, a leading investor in Cuban agriculture. The USDA reports that Israeli capital has driven a reinvigoration of Cuba's citrus sector, to such an extent that an Israeli-Cuban joint venture now produces a third of the total citrus grown on the island. (Well, if they can make the desert bloom, why not Cuba?)

Fortunately, few policy makers -- even among Cuban embargo supporters -- are interested in repeating the fifty-year Cuba embargo experiment in the Middle East. In fact, irony of ironies, the example of Lieberman's own Israel is instructive on this point: When President Bush was doing his best to isolate Syria, the Israelis were conducting talks with them under Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the hope of reaching a peace agreement.

Like Israel, the United States did come around to a different view of things in Syria. As David Broder points out in Congressional Quarterly this week:

By the end of Bush's presidency, it became clear to many in Washington -- both on and off Capiol Hill -- that his policy of isolating Syria had failed. Jeffrey D. Feltman, the assistant secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, notes that French President Nicolas Sarkozy was openly engaging the Syrians, as were the Saudis. Even the Israelis were talking unofficially to the Syrians. "So you ended up at a point when it was no longer Syria being isolated; it was the United States that was being isolated," Feltman told a Washington audience at the conservative Hudson Institute in January.

Last month President Obama named career diplomat Robert Ford to be the first U.S. ambassador in Damascus since 2005, bringing a relatively swift end to an abject policy failure. But at least it is a failure that we learned from, without fifty years of trying it in different ways.

To be sure, our new engagement of Syria has not solved our problems: The previous US ambassador in Syria, Margaret Scobey, was withdrawn after former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated in an operation presumed to have been set in motion in Damascus. Today, blame for that act has still not been officially assigned. And Syria and Israel are unlikely to come to a peace agreement (which would necessarily involve Israel's returning part or all of the Golan Heights) with the kind of right wing government in place that would have the likes of Lieberman in the position of foreign minister.

But even if engagement with Syria won't achieve all our policy goals in the region, there are concrete advantages to sending an ambassador to Damascus. As a Middle East expert points out in the CQ story, Ambassador Ford is now engaged in high-level contact with the Syrian government, which will give us insight into the country that we've lacked. And the fact that our policy is no longer all stick and no carrot can only help us in our effort to be more informed about all the other issues at play there, from Turkey to Afghanistan and beyond.

Lieberman's invocation of Cuba is instructive, though not in the way he probably hoped: it points out the futility of unilateral sanctions, wherever they unfortunately are deployed.

-- Tom Garofalo

Politico's Ben Smith has one of those "Wow, I can't believe this" scoops.

The only problem is that I actually can believe it. I just don't want to.

Smith has just written about and produced a copy of an RNC fundraising document and powerpoint set (pdf) that denigrates RNC donors -- suggesting that the way to move them is by through fear, pugnacious nationalism, personal ego, and tchochkes.

The caricatures of various classifications of RNC donors in the document that Smith was trying to get reaction to have the RNC itself now running scared.

According to Smith, the RNC has been calling donors to beware inquiries from an intrepid reporter.

Smith writes:

The RNC reacted with alarm to a question about it Thursday, emailing major donors to warn them of a reporter's question, and distancing Steele from its contents.

"The document was used for a fundraising presentation Chairman Steele
did not attend, nor had he seen the document," RNC Communications
Director Doug Heye said in an email. "Fundraising documents are often
controversial.

"Obviously, the Chairman disagrees with the language and finds the use
of such imagery to be unacceptable. It will not be used by the
Republican National Committee - in any capacity - in the future," Heye
said.

The most unusual section of the presentation is a set of six slides
headed "RNC Marketing 101." The presentation divides fundraising into
two traditional categories, direct marketing and major donors, and
lays out the details of how to approach each group.

The small donors who are the targets of direct marketing are described
under the heading "Visceral Giving." Their motivations are listed as
"fear;" "Extreme negative feelings toward existing Administration;"
and "Reactionary."

Major donors, by contrast, are treated in a column headed "Calculated Giving."
Their motivations include: "Peer to Peer Pressure"; "access"; and "Ego-Driven."

The slide also allows that donors may have more honorable motives,
including "Patriotic Duty."

A major Republican donor described the state of the RNC's relationship
with major donors as "disastrous," with veteran givers beginning to
abandon the committee, which is becoming increasingly reliant on small
donors.

Good old-fashioned reporting by Politico.

Unbelievable behavior by the Republican National Committee's finance team.

-- Steve Clemons

(An anti-gay, anti-Dem mailer from 2004 election that TWN first publicized)

My occasional blogging heads partner David Frum may have coined the "Axis of Evil" for George Bush to have an easy way to denigrate Iran, Iraq and North Korea -- and thus undermining the possibility of a strategic pivot then in US-Iran relations, but how about an "Axis of Love" given what is happening this week in Washington, DC and Mexico City.

Ottawa has been way ahead on such NAFTA-respecting possibilities.*

Both Washington, DC and Mexico City -- each the capital cities of their respective nations -- will allow same sex marriages to start this week, on succeeding days.

This is progress and great news. I can't remember the last time that some abusive legal provision or pet peeve of a Member of Congress wasn't deployed to prevent progress in the District of Columbia. I refused to celebrate the possibility that same sex marriage might in fact happen - until it happened.

But remarkably, we seem to be there -- and so to in Mexico City, which I now plan to visit much more often. I already go to Ottawa a lot.

I want to commend David Brooks for his New York Times piece long ago and for joining other conservatives such as Andrew Sullivan, David Boaz, Jonathan Rauch, James Pinkerton and others for calling for an end to bigotry on the right. In retrospect, Brooks' work and the writing of these others did make a difference.

-- Steve Clemons

(* Note that I originally noted that same sex marriages were not allowed in Ottawa. This was in error. Not sure why I made this mistake as I once considered going to Canada for such a marriage. Count it a jet lag issue. Thanks for those who sent corrective notes and for your patience!)

Former Washington Post "White House Watch" maven and current DC Huffington Post Bureau Chief Dan Froomkin powerfully deconstructs and pops the Rahm Emanuel bubble that the Washington Post has been puffing up.

The first puff came in a widely read Dana Milbank column. The second appeared on the Post's front page today under the authorship of former New York Observer journalist Jason Horowitz.

I have some points of friendly disagreement with Froomkin who paints Emanuel as an effective anti-idealist manipulator in an increasingly soulless and unprincipled, pragmatic Obama White House. As a former executive director of a public policy center named after Richard Nixon, pragmatic realism appeals -- but it only matters if goals are reached and deals are sealed that move the nation's welfare and circumstances forward. Rahm Emanuel's Machiavellianism, if one can call it that, is a