(Photo Credit: Cedricd's Photostream)

International Crisis Group/Turkey/Cyprus Project Research Assistant Didem Akyel has a candid appraisal over at World Politics Review of the Turkish Cypriot elections earlier this month, which resulted in a victory for the hard-line candidate Dervis Eroglu.

This outcome - which is likely to unravel the tepid progress that the incumbent Turkish Cypriot President Mehmet Ali Talat had made with his Greek Cypriot counterparts - is exactly what observers were predicting would happen when I visited the island this past November.

From Akyel's piece:

In a conciliatory speech after the elections, Eroglu promised not to walk away from negotiations with Greek Cypriots that have been ongoing since September 2008, as well as to stick to longstanding U.N. parameters and to "seek a solution based on the realities of the island." Such a solution may be a long time coming, however, as Eroglu wants to re-examine all the issues that Talat and Greek Cypriot President Demetris Christofias have covered in the past two years. He is against some hard-fought, key convergences the two accomplished, such as cross-voting across ethnic lines, and has ruled out allowing Greek Cypriots to reclaim property in the north. Instead of supporting the "single sovereignty" basis for the negotiations, Eroglu is keen on "two sovereign peoples living in separate areas." He has in the past promoted a "velvet divorce," thus fueling worries that his real goal is an internationally recognized, independent Turkish Cypriot state.

For more on the election's likely consequences, Akyel's full analysis can be read here.

-- Ben Katcher

This is a guest note by John McAuliff. McAuliff is Executive Director of the Fund for Reconciliation and Development and a regular blogger at The Havana Note, where this post originally appeared.

Not long ago I participated in the 50th anniversary conference at Shaw University of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and had the honor to meet Taylor Branch, Pulitzer prize winning author of three seminal volumes on the civil rights movement. Our conversation led me to his more recent book, The Clinton Tapes, Wrestling History with the President.

Cuba comes up several times. Following are two excerpts worth careful consideration by the President and Secretary of State:

1993: Spanish prime minister Felipe Gonzales has given him a hard time today over the thirty year US embargo against Fidel Castro's Cuba--calling it illogical, counterproductive, lonely and wrong--but now was not the time to change. (p 92)

1995: The President explained why he had slightly relaxed the thirty-year-old economic embargo against Fidel Castro's regime by allowing Western Union to open offices in Havana. This would facilitate communication for divided families, he said, along with financial transfers to create good-will on the island, but these very benefits infuriated Cuban American leaders in the United States. Representative Bob Menendez of New Jersey, a Democrat, had just called to protest, Clinton disclosed, but this was nothing new. They got along well on every other issue, but Menendez "kicks the s__t out of me every two or three days to be harder on Castro, like clockwork, no matter what I do." To Menendez Clinton always defended his Cuba policies as tougher than either Reagan's or Bush's, but he confided on tape that the embargo was a foolish, pandering failure. It had allowed Castro to demonize the United States for decades, propping up his government with an all-purpose excuse for one-party rule. The president said anybody "with half a brain" could see the embargo was counterproductive. It defied wiser policies of engagement that we had pursued with some Communist countries even at the height of the Cold War. It helped no one, did nothing to open Cuba or prepare the nation for life after Castro, and left Clinton straddling the worst of both worlds. His dead-end policy was hostage to bullet-voting Cuban exiles in two swing states--Florida and New Jersey--and yet he never won them over, anyway, because Republicans always found ways to out-posture him in hostility." (pp 294-5)

Secretary Clinton might reflect on the above as she considers how to respond to the challenge of National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon as reported by AFP.

Clinton told a university audience in Kentucky that the Castros "do not want to see an end to the embargo and do not want to see normalization with the United States because they would then lose all their excuses for what hasn't happened in Cuba in the last 50 years."

Alarcon, speaking to reporters after casting his ballot in municipal elections here, said, "If she really thinks that the blockade benefits the Cuban government -- which she wants to undermine -- the solution is very simple: that they lift it even for a year to see whether it is in our interest or theirs."

Alarcon said there were things Clinton could do "with a stroke of the pen" to improve relations, such as allowing visits by the wives of two of five Cubans serving prison sentences in the United States for espionage.

Cuba can make it easier for the White House to move by overcoming inertia and interest groups stalling action on imprisoned USAID subcontractor Alan Gross. Havana is more likely to take such a step if it believes that Washington is also overcoming inertia and interest groups by allowing freedom of travel and/or ending the counter-factual designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism.

John McAuliff
Fund for Reconciliation and Development

****************
Links and resources

The new poll, confirming old polls, on public support for travel and trade, and the personal interest of 1/3 of Americans to visit Cuba, can be seen here. 58% support reestablishment of full diplomatic relations, 61% favor allowing all US citizens to travel to Cuba, and 57% say American companies should be allowed to do business there.

A fascinating revealing or unfair interview with Yoani Sanchez by Salim Lamrani is now available in English. Read it here, along with Yoani's response.

Corruption: The true counter-revolution? The full text of the critique by Esteban Morales which appeared on the UNEAC website has been posted by Progresso Weekly.

-- John McAuliff

(Photo Credit: Robert Scoble's Photostream)

New America Foundation/Economic Growth Program Policy Analyst Samuel Sherraden has written a compelling, concise analysis of the decline in China's trade surplus during the first quarter of this year.

Sherraden warns that the first quarter numbers should not be misunderstood as evidence of the kind of long-term economic rebalancing necessary to get the global economy on a better course.

From the conclusion of Sherraden's analysis:

China's trade balance has declined because China's stimulus program intensified investment-led growth, increasing demand for commodities and capital goods. Based on our analysis, it is not evident that China has made progress toward rebalancing to a more consumer-oriented economy.

Indeed, there is a danger that if global demand recovers and China continues to neglect the needed structural reforms, China's trade surplus will again increase. A rise in exports from the recovery of global demand could be combined with the withdrawal of the stimulus program that has driven the increase in imports to push China's trade surplus back up to worrying levels. Excessive bank lending since the beginning of 2009 incentivized stockpiling of commodities and materials and the development of spare capacity. A tightening cycle could force enterprises in China to reduce imports and rely on existing commodity stockpiles and excess capacity to increase exports, leading to a rise in the trade surplus.

There is a danger, then, that the recent trade figures will temporarily reduce pressure on China to rebalance its economy. Given the likelihood that China's investment-heavy stimulus will lead to a new surge in China's net exports, it is even more important that the United States develop a strategy to encourage China to undertake structural reforms to rebalance its economy. Revaluation of the yuan, although no substitute for longer term structural changes, would be a good place to start.

You can read the full "Talking Points" here.

-- Ben Katcher

Jonathan Guyer is a program associate at the New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force and the official cartoonist of The Washington Note. He blogs at Mideast by Midwest.

-- Jonathan Guyer

(Photo Credit: Khawaja's Photostream)

Following the 47-nation nuclear security summit in Washington the week before last, the Obama administration is playing host to a much different series of meetings this week as part of its Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship - an effort to deepen ties among business leaders, foundations, and social entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim-majority countries.

I think this is an excellent initiative - and one that has the potential to broaden the United States' relationships with Muslim-majority countries with which we have traditionally enjoyed narrowly-focused bilateral relations focused primarily on security and energy.

Supporting entrepreneurship is particularly important in the Middle East as a way to help facilitate trade and closer ties among the countries of that region.

Here is a snippet from President Obama's remarks at the summit yesterday, explaining the rationale behind the conference:

Entrepreneurship -- because you told us that this was an area where we can learn from each other; where America can share our experience as a society that empowers the inventor and the innovator; where men and women can take a chance on a dream -- taking an idea that starts around a kitchen table or in a garage, and turning it into a new business and even new industries that can change the world.

Entrepreneurship -- because throughout history, the market has been the most powerful force the world has ever known for creating opportunity and lifting people out of poverty.

Entrepreneurship -- because it's in our mutual economic interest. Trade between the United States and Muslim-majority countries has grown. But all this trade, combined, is still only about the same as our trade with one country -- Mexico. So there's so much more we can do together, in partnership, to foster opportunity and prosperity in all our countries.

And social entrepreneurship -- because, as I learned as a community organizer in Chicago, real change comes from the bottom up, from the grassroots, starting with the dreams and passions of single individuals serving their communities.

Obama's full remarks can be read here.

It is also noteworthy that Turkey Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a letter with Deulcom International's CEO Baybars Altuntas offering to host a similar summit in Istanbul next year - an invitation that President Obama has accepted.

These kinds of initiatives are important and represent an opportunity to engage with Muslim-majority societies in a non-confrontational, non-zero-sum way that can lead to quantifiable results.

-- Ben Katcher

(photo credit: V-Man on Flickr)

Failed Suicide Attack against UK Ambassador in Yemen. I just received a press statement from the Washington, DC Embassy Spokesman of the Republic of Yemen (note that it contains disturbing, graphic photo image -- here is pdf). The statement starts:

Earlier this morning the British Ambassador to Yemen, H.E. Mr. Timothy Torlot, escaped, a suicide attack targeting his convoy. The incident occurred 8:00 AM local Sana'a time in front of "The Berlin Garden" in Noqom in the eastern district of the capital, Sana'a. The suicide bomber, dressed in sports gear, strapped his body with explosives and attempted to target the British envoy but fortunately failed. Officials investigating the aftermath found the suicide bombers' body parts scattered across the neighborhood. Aside from the suicide bomber, there were no fatalities and no British nationals were injured.

I was caught off guard by how graphic the release was -- and the inclusion on the lower right hand side of photos of a blown off foot and calf of the bomber. But then again, it's hard to say 'too much' if one compares this to the graphic imagery in HBO's The Pacific. For those interested in the subject of suicide terrorism, check out the new beta site, the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism, supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York under the directorship of the University of Chicago's Robert Pape.

Under Secretary of Treasury for International Affairs Lael Brainard confirmed. One half of the DC power couple of Kurt Campbell and Lael Brainard had been languishing in an awful confirmation process purgatory for more than a year. Kurt Campbell is currently Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and the former CEO of the Center for New American Security and Brainard, who was a senior economic adviser to President Bill Clinton, has finally been confirmed as Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs. TWN had highlighted this dragging confirmation in the past -- and thinks that it was a major mistake for the US Senate not to expedite her confirmation before the G20 Economic Summit in Pittsburgh.

Bergen and Tiedemann Call for Transparency from US Military on Drone Attacks. My New America Foundation colleagues Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann have an interesting oped in the New York Times today advocating that the US military and Pakistan come clean on drone attacks and admit that they are happening and admit that there have been consequences for the families of innocent victims in Pakistan. These victims are currently not compensated by the US government as are victims in Afghanistan. Bergen and Tiedemann have been in a polite scuffle with the Department of Defense over competing and different accounts of the number of innocent victims from drone attacks. They both contribute to the new AfPak Channel at Foreign Policy.

Aram Roston Wins 2010 Daniel Pearl Award for International Investigative Reporting. Did you know that the US funds the Taliban? I didn't until I read the account by Aram Roston revealing how "Pentatgon contractors in Afghanistan routinely pay millions of dollars in bribes to the Taliban to permit logistical operations." Roston's story was a project of The Investigative Fund that appeared originally in The Nation and which is the subject of an ongoing Congressional investigation by the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs.

-- Steve Clemons

Just arrived in Maui after a long trip back from Brasilia through Sao Paulo, Washington Dulles, and Los Angeles. My reward was this magnificent sunset while walking along the main drag in Lahaina.

Will be blogging a bit later on global finance, global governance, and the latest in US-Japan relations.

-- Steve Clemons

Update: If you are into sunrises from Maui, this is a moving video clip with some haunting chanting by regular TWN reader Michael Miles.

The other day I wrote a piece about Senator Schumer's bashing of Rahm Emanuel, Jim Jones and President Obama for their US-Israel policy that questioned whether the Senator realized just how, well, over the line he had gone.

The Financial Times in a piece by Edward Luce and Daniel Dombey captured well the tension between the Senator and the White House on this.

They write:

Robert Gibbs, Barack Obama's spokesman, said on Friday: "I don't think it's a stretch to say we don't agree with what Senator Schumer said."

Schumer, in my view, also went over "the line" a few years ago when he pushed the mantra during a tense battle over whether the US Senate would allow the face of institutionalized Jesse Helms-inspired pugnacious nationalism, John Bolton, to become a confirmed Ambassador of the United States to the United Nations.

I want to make clear that I know that Senator Schumer is a loyal American. The dual loyalty button is a bad one to push -- and I recognize that I came close to that and regret it as I think Schumer does outstanding work in just about every other policy arena but Middle East-related foreign policy. That said, I think that his flamboyance about a single issue blind spot he has deserves some political marketplace reaction. His judgment about what he is willing to deploy his political power to achieve is in question when he engages in such an uninformed, intemperate attack on the President's policies in this complicated issue.

I don't agree with all of AIPAC's stands, but I listen carefully and think about the framing AIPAC offers on occasion to see whether the powerful policy group is pushing a zero sum game approach in the Middle East or one that will eventually concede to a more stable, inclusive, achieved equilibrium in the region resulting in a Palestinian state.

I am one who thinks that neither the Israelis or Palestinians deserve much more time to get on to a credible two track solution. They have both been unbelievably irresponsible with their own security interests and with their presumptions about unconditional support of the US whether or not progress is achieved. I strongly support General Jim Jones' statement recently to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy at its 25th Anniversary Gala that the status quo is unacceptable and that achieving a two state solution to the Israel-Palestine standoff is a high level national security priority of the United States.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice made similar important comments about achieving a viable Palestinian State while not allowing an erosion in Israel's security during her remarks before the 25th Anniversary of the Arab American Institute on the same night as the WINEP gala.

I also agree with much of what Jones said assuring Israelis that their security is also of great import to the U.S. -- and that these two goals are not irreconcilable.

AIPAC itself sent out this past week a roster of statements from Obama administration officials, that showed that much had been done to move the hard edged differences between the administration out of the public and into private channels.

This is an interesting story -- not one of Israel being attacked. I pretty frequently see meteors streak across the night sky and have always been interested in what they look like when they hit.

The one above hit a beach in Bat Yam.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a guest note by Harlan Ullman that reviews President Barack Obama's nuclear summitry. This piece originally ran on UPI.

Harlan Ullman is Senior Advisor at the Atlantic Council and Chairman of the Killowen Group that advises leaders of government and industry.

A NUCLEAR SPRING?
 
The conclusion last week of the Nuclear Security Summit has capped off yet another extraordinary week for President Barack Obama. 

The release of the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR); the signing of the nuclear arms reduction treaty (START) with Russia; and the Nuclear Security conference in which more heads of state were convened by a U.S. president since Franklin Roosevelt proposed the San Francisco conference to establish a United Nations in 1945 were singular accomplishments.  Preparations are well under way to re-connect American leadership to the every five year Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review next month at the United Nations.

All of these coordinated, impressive efforts could lead to a "nuclear spring."

Twenty five or thirty years ago, the threat of nuclear war prompted the prediction of a so-called "nuclear winter," that is an end to civilization as we knew it following thermonuclear war.  A made for television movie graphically depicted the effects of a nuclear winter that turned the United States into a barren and unlivable land.  Fortunately, neither East nor West was reckless or foolish enough to allow that catastrophe to happen. Now, given the past week, the prospect of a "nuclear spring" that reduces or eliminates the likelihood of using any form of nuclear destructive power through international cooperation has taken a large step forward.

The Nuclear Posture Review correctly aimed to align strategy and policy with the realities of today and the uncertainties of tomorrow.  The "right" accused this review of eroding deterrence by not guaranteeing the threat of a U.S. nuclear response against all weapons of mass destruction (WMD) attacks.  The major fear was that Iran or North Korea might provide a nuclear weapon to a third party and thus have plausible deniability after such a device were used against the US or its friends, fears that are decades old and were misapplied to the Soviet Union and Red China. But nuclear materials have definite finger prints and as happened after September 11th and Pearl Harbor, anyone who assumes American passivity is making a profoundly colossal error.

The latest START agreement reduced nuclear warheads to 1550 each as well as downsizing delivery systems -- all headed in the right directions. More importantly and provided the Senate approves this treaty, this agreement is the best example of the famous reset button at work.  More could follow regarding reducing theater or tactical nuclear weapons in Europe and bringing NATO and Russia closer.

The nuclear security conference was premised on the justifiable danger that a terrorist group will manage to obtain either a nuclear device or enough fissile material to carry out a devastating attack.  North Korean and Iranian nuclear weapons programs are part of this danger. The conference meant to discuss preventing such proliferation to reduce the chances of any form of a nuclear attack to as low as possible and potentially to put in place means to limit any likelihood of a conflict between nuclear powers from escalating.

Having held such a conference in the first place will be regarded as a success.  However the test will be moving from a public relations victory to actual progress in preventing nuclear proliferation and gaining greater international cooperation to prevent both the threat and use of these weapons.  Here are three ideas to turn rhetoric into action.

First, the U.S. along with Britain, France, China and Russia ought to convene a conference of nuclear weapons states inviting India and Pakistan (and North Korea, Israel, Iran and South Korea as observers) to discuss means to prevent the use of these weapons as well as to pursue actions to reduce numbers and deal with proliferation.  Should North Korea, Iran and Israel decline to come, then the other nuclear states should still meet to consider these points and begin discussions of a possible strategic nuclear deterrent framework among all nuclear weapons states.

Second, as NATO drafts its Strategic Concept, the role of deterrence and nuclear weapons is crucial.  The U.S. maintains some 200 old theater nuclear weapons at a handful of NATO bases.  The Russians meanwhile have several thousand nuclear weapons stored within striking distance of NATO, a situation that raises great concern among newer members on NATO's eastern border.  Given START, a new modus operandi between NATO and Russia that addresses these weapons and missile defense can be the forum for discussion.

Third, a looming problem is some 300,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel.  Not weapons grade unless reprocessed, this material still is dangerous.  Finding safe and secure storage for this material is important not only for safety reasons.  Over the long term, this can become one way of controlling the fuel cycle making it difficult to impossible for states such as Iran and North Korea from obtaining large quantities of nuclear materials.  Russia already has suggested it might be one place to offer such storage facilities all under IAEA supervision.

The prospect of a nuclear winter largely vanished with the end of the Cold War.  Now the prospect of a nuclear spring is real.  Seize the moment!

-- Harlan Ullman

My colleague and friend, Parag Khanna, who is with me in Brazil right now started the Brazil chapter in his acclaimed book, Second World: How Emerging Powers Are Redefining Global Competition in the Twenty-first Century, with George Bush's first words about the country during his first visit. According to Khanna, Bush said, "Brazil is big!"

And it is. I had much the same reaction -- but it's also fascinating, complex, on the move, and has a confidence about its place in the next global order that should excite anyone who takes the time to observe how Brazil is surfing towards a more globally significant international future.

Ben Katcher, yesterday, wrote about Henry Kissinger's skepticism about the BRICs. I can't wait to test Kissinger's resolve about this -- and whether his understanding of the global order is out of date. Kissinger will be speaking at a major US foreign policy sponsored by the Nixon Center in May -- and I think that he may be missing one of the most interesting shifts in global power in many decades.

In any case, the photo above was taken from my airplane window while landing in Sao Paulo, a city that is larger than many nations. It's just huge.

I then went to Brasilia, the well-organized capital city that is in its design an urban tribute to modernist architecture. Coincidentally, I arrived on the 50th anniversary of the city's birthday and enjoyed hanging out with lots of new Brazilian friends.

I will write more on the plane about an interesting conference I just participated in on the topic of "Global Governance" sponsored by Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and organized by the charismatic Deputy Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota and the paradigm-challenging David Rothkopf.

This was my first trip to Brazil -- and embarrassingly, my first trip to South America. I'll definitely be back.

Now back to DC for a few hours.

-- Steve Clemons

Kosovo did, and the U.S. immediately recognized it.

Now, David Rothkopf has been hearing rumblings that the little-left-to-lose Palestinians may declare independence and the creation of their state, without necessarily having the state's borders in their control.

Rothkopf lays out a plausible scenario that Iran's nuclear pretensions force the U.S. to more closely ally with Arab states in the region, thus finally forcing a deal on Palestine, whether Israel is on board or not.

I still have my doubts that the U.S. is anywhere near that point yet. But the fact remains that when the Palestinians have really lost hope that a peace process will lead to a state for their citizens, they may very well self declare.

From Rothkopf's interesting essay:

In any event, I was thinking about this phrase the other day in light of the on-going concerns regarding Iran's nuclear program. Because indeed, as President Obama acknowledged in a recent interview with the New York Times's David Sanger, were Iran to become "nuclear capable" it would effectively be the same as actually having produced a weapon. Capability is the line you don't want a proliferator to cross ... and were Iran to nudge across that line, it would likely set in motion a wide ranging chain of events that would almost certainly include: heavy incoming rhetorical fireworks, strategic backtracking by countries who resisted sanctions, tactical consternation from the Israelis as they recognize the world is going to do precious little to address what they see as a critical threat and a full scale diplomatic assault from the United States, designed to shape the alliances that will form the containment network/nuclear umbrella club that will be our post-nuclear Iran "strategy."

However, in recent conversations concerning this possible shift in the situation in the Middle East with diplomats from several countries in Asia, the greater Middle East, and Latin America, another perceived consequence emerged: There was a universal sense that Israel is becoming more isolated and the United States is becoming more dependent for its regional strategy on Arab states. Further, as a result of the likely demands those states will make for action by the United States to help move the Israelis along toward a resolution of their conflict with the Palestinians ... and the perception that Obama must make a move in the Muslim world to fulfill the now questioned promise of his Cairo speech ... and due to the view that Israel is more isolated than ever in terms of international support (or lack thereof) ... there was a sense that the evolving situation is having the added effect of emboldening the Palestinians.

The predicted result offered up in three separate conversations: that the Palestinians will declare independence unilaterally. (I'm not recommending this approach -- just reporting what they said.) And, in the words of one diplomat who is in regular contact with the Palestinians, "much sooner than you might think."

It seems plausible. They have been making noises in this vein for a couple years and the volume has been dialed up recently. And the theory among these close observers of the situation is that right now, perhaps more than at any time in recent history, the likelihood of much global pushback seems low.

-- Steve Clemons

(Photo Credit: White House Photostream)

Almost exactly two years ago TWN Publisher Steve Clemons identified on this blog, "The Next Fault Line In Foreign Policy Combat: "The U.S. Matters" Vs. "No, It Really Doesn't."

Clemons then posted alternative points of view from Princeton University Professor of Politics and International Affairs G. John Ikenberry (here), Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy Dean Kishore Mahbubani (here), and current State Department Director of Policy Planning Anne-Marie Slaughter (here) on the trajectory of American power.

Two years later, reversing, in Clemons' words, "a global profound sense of doubt about America's ability to achieve the objectives it declares itself committed to" remains one of the Obama administration's most difficult challenges.

International Relations Scholar Christopher Layne, writing at the American Conservative, is the latest to weigh in on whether we are witnessing America's decline - or if the war in Iraq and the "Great Recession" will eventually be considered mere blips on the radar screen twenty years hence.

Layne concludes that the United States is indeed in serious trouble and his prescription is for Washington to seek a "Graceful Decline" that involves dramatically reducing its legacy commitments from the Cold War period.

From Layne's piece:

The United States will be compelled to overhaul its strategy dramatically, and rather than having this adjustment forced upon it suddenly by a major crisis, the U.S. should get ahead of the curve by shifting its position in a gradual, orderly fashion. A new American global posture would involve strategic retrenchment, burden-shifting, and abandonment of the so-called "global counterinsurgency" being waged in Afghanistan and Iraq.

As a first step, the U.S. will need to pull back from its current security commitments to NATO, Japan, and South Korea. This is not isolationism. The United States undertook the defense of these regions under conditions very different from those prevailing today. In the late 1940s, all were threatened by the Soviet Union--in the case of South Korea and Japan, by China as well--and were too weak to defend themselves. The U.S. did the right thing by extending its security umbrella and "drawing a line in the sand" to contain the Soviet Union. But these commitments were never intended to be permanent. They were meant as a temporary shield to enable Western Europe, Japan, and South Korea to build up their own economic and military strength and assume responsibility for defending themselves.

There are several explanations for why the U.S. did not follow through with this policy. Fundamentally, during the Pax Americana there was no need. As the U.S. declines, however, it will be compelled to return to its original intent. If we remember that an eventual pullback was the goal of U.S. policy, strategic retrenchment in the early 21st century looks less like a radical break than a fulfillment of strategic goals adopted in the late 1940s.

Burden-shifting--not burden-sharing--is the obvious corollary of strategic retrenchment. American policy should seek to compel our allies to assume responsibility for their own security and take the lead role in providing security in their regions. To implement this strategic devolution, the U.S. should disengage gradually from its current commitments in order to give an adequate transition period for its allies to step up to the plate. It should facilitate this transition by providing advanced weapons and military technology to friendly states in Europe and Asia.

With respect to Islamic terrorism, we need to keep our priorities straight. Terrorism is not the most pressing national-security threat facing the United States. Great powers can be defeated only by other great powers--not by nonstate terrorists or by minor powers. The U.S. needs to be careful not to pay more attention to Islamic terrorists than to emerging great powers. Here the Obama administration and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates are getting it wrong.

You can read Layne's full piece here.

-- Ben Katcher

(Photo Credit: Darthdowney's Photostream)

Former Secretary of State and Grand Strategist Par Excellence Henry Kissinger gave an interview to the Christian Science Monitor's Nathan Gardels earlier this week in which he provided a mostly positive assessment of President Obama's foreign policy thus far.

The part of the interview I found most significant was his analysis of the burgeoning political ties among Brazil, Russia, India, and China (known as the BRIC countries), a group which has generated a great deal of interest in recent years as a possible counterweight to American power and American-dominated international institutions.

This article from The Economist, for example, provides a good primer on the bloc's strengths and weaknesses.

Here are Kissinger's comments, which I interpret to constitute a dismissal of the BRICs strategic relevance:

Gardels: For the second year in a row, Brazil, Russia, India, and China - the so-called "BRIC" countries - have held a summit of their heads of state to coordinate diplomatic and economic strategies on a global scale. It is almost as if the BRIC leaders see themselves as a "new nonaligned movement" of countries like we saw in the cold war. How do you view the BRIC initiatives? What role will they play globally?

Kissinger: We've been through this with the nonaligned movement. The question is whether the BRICs can align their policies into a coherent bloc. China and Russia, and, for that matter Brazil, are not candidates for a group that excludes the United States, much less to confront it. They are different from the nonaligned movement of the 1970s and 1980s because they are not really developing countries anymore.

Also, the nonaligned movement was attempting to place itself between the US and the Soviet Union. Between whom and whom are the BRICs situating themselves?

Gardels: They are defining themselves against the United States and the multilateral institutions it dominates, such as the IMF [International Monetary Fund].

Kissinger: This is true more in rhetoric than practice. The BRICs will attempt to be a player on global economic questions. But I would be surprised if they could achieve a coherent political position on the international scene. In any event, the most hopeful prospect is cooperation between the BRIC states and America, not confrontation.

The full interview can be read here.

-- Ben Katcher

Senator Chuck Schumer may have just lost any shot at succeeding Harry Reid as Senate Majority Leader if the Nevada Senator stumbles in the upcoming tough 2010 challenge he is facing.

Politico's Ben Smith shares word of a very harsh critique that Schumer publicly shared with a conservative Jewish show today of Obama's Middle East policy.

Schumer's screed gets to the edge of sounding as if he is more a Senator working in the Knesset than working in the United States Senate.

This is the 2nd time I know of that Schumer has publicly crossed the line when it came to zealously blaming his own government and colleagues in delicate matters of US-Israel-Palestine policy.

During the third of three major efforts of the George W. Bush administration to get the recess appointed US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton confirmed in the US Senate, Senator Schumer launched a passionate personal campaign to help Bolton succeed.

Schumer called many Democratic Senate colleagues and bluntly said, "A vote against John Bolton is a vote against Israel."

Senator Christopher Dodd finally challenged Schumer's advocacy for Bolton and this statement in a meeting of the weekly Democratic Senate Caucus at the time -- and put an end to Schumer's campaign.

What Schumer was distorting was that every administration, Republican and Democrat, had in the past been a good friend of Israel. Bolton represented the face of Jesse Helms-inspired pugnacious American nationalism largely disdainful of international institutions and engagement, and it was well within the latitude of the United States Senate to reject Bolton, or in this case filibuster him, on numerous grounds without having the Israel card pulled.

Schumer has an Israel blind spot.

From Ben Smith's entry today:

New York Senator Chuck Schumer harshly criticized the Obama Administration's attempts to exert pressure on Israel today, making him the highest-ranking Democrat to object to Obama's policies in such blunt terms.

Schumer, along with a majority of members of the House and Senate, signed on to letters politely suggesting the U.S. keep its disagreements with Israel private, a tacit objection to the administration's very public rebuke of the Jewish State over construction in Jerusalem last month.

But Schumer dramatically sharpened his tone on the politically conservative Jewish Nachum Segal Show today, calling the White House stance to date "counter-productive" and describing his own threat to "blast" the Administration had the State Department not backed down from its "terrible" tough talk toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Schumer, a hawkish ally of Israel since his days as a Brooklyn Congressman, described "a battle going on inside the administration" over Middle East policy.

"This has to stop," he said of the administration's policy of publicly pressuring Israel to end construction in Jerusalem.

"I told the President, I told Rahm Emanuel and others in the administration that I thought the policy they took to try to bring about negotiations is counter-productive, because when you give the Palestinians hope that the United States will do its negotiating for them, they are not going to sit down and talk," Schumer told Segal. "Palestinians don't really believe in a state of Israel. They, unlike a majority of Israelis, who have come to the conclusion that they can live with a two-state solution to be determined by the parties, the majority of Palestinians are still very reluctant, and they need to be pushed to get there.

Note to Senator Schumer: you have certainly unloaded a lot of blame on the White House today. I have done a quick lexis and Thomas search and have been unable to find a single instance in which you criticized the behavior of the Israeli government at any time on any issue.

If we are wrong, we would very much like to be corrected. Please let us know.

-- Steve Clemons

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

Today marks 10 years since federal agents stormed the Miami home of the Cuban American relatives of a five year-old Cuban boy named Elián González.

It was in the middle of the Elián saga that I made my first trip to Cuba - which I never imagined would be the first of many.

Over the years, I've gotten to know many Cubans and Cuban Americans. If there is a lesson to be learned from the Elián saga, it is this: ideological differences can split a community, but they should never split up a family.

When I first learned about the little Cuban boy found floating and sunburned in an inner tube off the coast of Florida, I was struck by the miracle of his survival: alone in shark-infested waters for five days, after having to watch his own mother drown. I imagined the despair of Elián's mother's family in Miami at the news of her death. Elián's rescue by two fishermen that day must have given them tremendous comfort, as would the human impulse to give the little boy the best life they could in his mother's absence and on her behalf.

But what I never understood is why they or anyone else paused, for even a moment, when young Elián's father, Juan Miguel González, asked the United States to return his son to Cuba to be with him.

At the time, the Miami family, their friends and their supporters in the community argued that the boy would be better off in the United States, and that it would be wrong to send him back to the very place his mother wished to leave.

Still, with Elián's sole living parent seeking his return to Cuba, the Miami family's decision to petition to keep the little boy in the United States shocked many Americans, myself among them. As it happened, I was scheduled to visit Cuba for an educators' exchange in January 2000. When I got there, Elián's grandmothers had just returned from visiting the little boy and came home empty-handed. I witnessed firsthand how personally the Cuban people took it all. For many, it reinforced the Cuban media's portrayal of a "Miami mafia" that wished their brothers and sisters on the island ill.

Meanwhile in Miami, crowds of more and more family and friends heaped more and more toys, costumes, bicycles and more on the little boy. Elián soon found himself in a new school, with new friends, new clothes in a new neighborhood, in a new country, with neither of his parents by his side, even though one of them was alive and well and asking for him.

The Miami family and their supporters argued that Juan Miguel was under duresse, that he was brainwashed by Fidel Castro. And yet it was the community's insistence on keeping the little boy in Miami that offered Fidel Castro what he loves most, a political football he can run up and down the field - and he did just that.

As Elián's return to his father became more imminent, hundreds of passionate, angry Cuban exiles surrounded the Miami family's house in an effort to keep the authorities from removing the little boy.

Eventually, parental rights prevailed - lamentably, literally at gunpoint one April evening. Five months after Elián lost his mother, he was finally reunited with his father.

Last week, former President Clinton reflected on his decision to return Elián to his father in Cuba:

"If I had said, 'I don't like Cuba and I don't care what the international law is,'" Clinton said, "then not only me but no other American President would have been able to say with a straight face, 'You can't kidnap [American children] and keep [them]'" in other countries.

He was right, of course. Just last year, at the behest of a desperate father, the U.S. insisted that Brazil return a nine-year-old boy, Sean Goldman. And they did.

After Elián returned to Cuba and all the dust cleared, Miami's Cuban community was torn in half. As Tim Padgett, who covered the Elián story ten years ago, recalls in this week's Time Magazine:

[The] Elián fiasco has since sapped that group of much of its political clout -- because on the one hand it made Miami look like a rogue republic in the Everglades, and because on the other hand it so foolishly handed Castro what he was able to sell as a major victory. The only upside is that the drama brought a younger, more moderate Cuban-American cohort to the fore, one that understands how badly Washington's exile-driven policy of non-engagement with Cuba has failed to move the island toward democracy.

Today, more than 60 percent of the community favors changing our approach to Cuba. Over time, the community is becoming more of an economic beachhead than a political refuge for Cuban émigrés. These Cubans are not exiles - they return to Cuba to visit family and friends as often as their incomes allow. President Obama capitalized on this shift in Miami by lifting restrictions on family visits to the island. More than 300,000 Cuban Americans are expected to travel to Cuba this year alone. If anything, the fight over Elián González just brought the Cuban family closer together.

-- Anya Landau French

General Jim Jones is an interesting kind of national security adviser. He doesn't pretend to be an architect of strategic leaps like Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft, or Henry Kissinger -- who had to wrestle with a tense nuclear weapons-edged global Cold War with lots of abounding episodes of heat.

Jones sees himself instead as an architect of a disciplined decision-making framework that has broadened the number of voices and perspectives that fill out policy options offered to President Obama. There are no Cheney-Rumsfeld type cabals in the Obama White House in part because of the way Jones, his deputy Tom Donilon and chief of staff Denis McDonough have structured the sequence and players at the table when national security matters are under review.

History, however, may not let Jones get away with just being a person who behind the scenes revolutionizes national security bureaucracy. He may have to still focus on how to achieve key strategic jumps forward in confronting and neutralizing defining challenges facing the United States.

Tonight, Jones spoke at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy's 25th Anniversary Gala Dinner -- while somewhat coincidentally US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice was speaking at the 25th Anniversary Gala Dinner for the Arab American Institute under the directorship of James Zogby.

Jones' speech is already being pilloried by some on the liberal side of the Israel-Palestine debate for kowtowing too much to a pro-Israel narrative in his speech -- the "unbreakable" bond between the US and Israel, no solutions can be imposed, and you know the rest.

But I disagree. I think it's important to affirm many of the successes of the American Jewish community and to register their fears -- but it's also important to speak some key truths about Israel's long term security needs and about the tattered state of US-Israel relations.

I think General Jones did a good job embedding his interesting talk with key themes -- pushing simultaneously America's challenges with Iran as well as the partner challenge in the region of achieving a negotiated Israel-Palestine two state solution. He said that these hurdles were defining challenges for the US. Jones hit hard on the point that the status quo in the paralyzed Israel-Palestine peace process was not acceptable.

In a way, I have been advocating a 'soft containment' strategy for Iran. To some degree, this is Jones' soft containment speech slightly hemming in Israel, or at least helping to nudge the Jewish State toward a more productive course.

From his speech to WINEP tonight, Jones said:

In our pursuit of a two-state solution, we recognize that peace must be made by the parties and cannot be imposed from the outside. At the same time, we understand that the status quo is not sustainable. It is not sustainable for Israel's identity as a secure, Jewish, and democratic state, because the demographic clock keeps ticking and will not be reversed.

The status quo is not sustainable for Palestinians who have legitimate aspirations for sovereignty and statehood. And the status quo is not sustainable for the region because there is a struggle between those who reject Israel's existence and those who are prepared to coexist with Israel -- and the status quo strengthens the rejectionists and weakens those who would live in peace.

Obviously, we are disappointed that the parties have not begun direct negotiations. The United States stands ready to do whatever is necessary to help the parties bridge their differences and develop the confidence needed to make painful compromises on behalf of peace. As we do so, we will also strongly support the Palestinian Authority's efforts to develop its institutions from the ground up and call on other states, particularly in the region, to do their part to support the Palestinian Authority as well.

We also continue to call on all sides to avoid provocative actions, including Israeli actions in East Jerusalem and Palestinian incitement that fuel suspicion rather than trust.

This is good material for the American-Jewish community to hear. The fuller speech is less compelling than this segment, but to have hard truths be heard, some time they need to be surrounded with a lot of boiler plate that an audience wants to hear.

I can't write as much on this right now as I would like as I'm in Brazil today preparing for an interesting meeting hosted here by Brazil's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on global governance challenges.

But I do think it is important not to write Jim Jones off. He still has the potential to be the kind of national security adviser who helps his President achieve some key strategic leaps -- even if that is not exactly the kind of national security adviser that Jim Jones set out to be.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

Bernard Schwartz Fellow Eyal Press has published an in depth look at the explosive issue of settler religious nationalism in Israel's army in the current issue of the New York Review of Books. "The refuseniks making noise today come from Israel's religious right, and they want to preserve the occupation, not end it," he writes.

Press continues, writing that the make-up of today's IDF, with "30 percent of officers openly orthodox but an estimated 50 percent of soldiers in officer training colleges...now religious," mirrors how Israel itself has changed over the last 63 years.

Wednesday morning from 9:00 am to 10:30 am, the New America Foundation/ Middle East Task Force will host a conversation with Press and Yoram Peri, who directs the Joseph and Alma Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies at the University of Maryland. Task Force Director Daniel Levy will moderate.

Please tune in live to The Washington Note for what promises to be an enlightening discussion on the right-ward shift in Israel, the growing strength of the religious settler movement, how it is being reflected in Israel's security establishment -- and what it means for the prospects of regional peace.

-- Jonathan Guyer

A rather unfortunately titled piece in today's New York Times, "The Search for White Jihadists," seeks to shed light on the growing problem of Al Qaeda seeking out seemingly non-traditional recruits in order to wage small-scale attacks on the United States. There are some pretty glaring problems with this article, but the following stood out. The author writes:

Appeals for nonmembers to carry out small-scale attacks are a departure for Al Qaeda, the global terrorist network headed by Osama bin Laden. It maintained centralized command and training for many years, masterminding the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. After that, it pledged to trump the mass killing with even more spectacular assaults.

As the United States kept up pressure on Qaeda hide-outs in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Qaeda leaders exercised less control over related organizations and have begun to encourage attacks by unaffiliated individuals...

...Enticing "lone-wolf" terrorists is a symptom of the "continued weakening of the core Al Qaeda group," and the "trend toward decentralization," Stratfor, a political-risk consulting company in Austin, Texas, said in a March report.

Atomization of holy war comes at a price, Stratfor added: The would-be killers may be less skillful than trained ones, and less committed.

For one thing, jihadist support for small-scale, loosely-organized terrorist attacks is hardly new. In 2006 a text authored by al Qaeda member Abu Jihad al-Masri, "How to fight alone", circulated widely in jihadist forums, while New America Foundation Counterterrorism Fellow Brian Fishman has written about an al Qaeda recruitment manual released in the summer of 2008 that laid out tactics for recruiting individuals into the organization. And one need only look to Richard Reid to find an example of a terrorist operating alone who did not "fit the mold," way back in December 2001.

But what is more worrisome is the idea that the recruitment of individuals to perpetrate small-scale terrorist attacks necessarily indicates a weakened al Qaeda forced out of necessity to change. While this may very well be true, and increased counterterrorism measures seem to have inhibited the ability of al Qaeda's leadership to operate, there is another explanation for why al Qaeda may shy away from large-scale attacks in the future: smaller attacks do just as much damage.

The failed Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Flight 253 provides the perfect example of the damage even an unsuccessful attack can cause. Despite the limited scope of the plot, Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab's explosive malfunction caused what terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman called this week, "most extensive government review of our terrorism defenses since the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security seven years ago."

Moreover, the increasingly strong rhetoric of some American leaders regarding Abdulmutallab and stark policy changes made by the government in the wake of the attempted bombing did not go unnoticed in extremist circles. As jihadist forum expert Jarret Brachman noted in January, many forum contributors shifted their views of a "successful" attack in the wake of the Abdulmutallab's failure, noting that the outsized reaction of the United States and it's potential impact around the world rendered the attack a success.

By overreacting in the face of an attack, the United States sent the message that we were vulnerable and would expend huge amounts of money and effort, while possibly antagonizing Muslims around the world and at home, to alleviate any risk. And until we ourselves become more resilient in the face of terrorism, that is a lesson al Qaeda will not forget.

-- Andrew Lebovich

(Sterling, VA District Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio checking in with Senator Jeff Sessions)

Eugene Delgaudio is the District Supervisor in Sterling, Virginia. This is -- for certain -- the craziest, most bizarre political letter I have ever read.

And I have read a lot.

But since he is an elected official, a Washington Post reporter ought to kick the tires of his story, which I think is fabricated nonsense.

As a friend and gay rights leader Bob Witeck asked in an email he shared with me, "Where is this printing power house, loading dock, vans and army of long-haired earring-pierced men who are ratcheting up 2 to 3 million pro-homosexual petitions?"

EXCERPT of Delgaudio fundraising appeal letter pasted in full below:

One stormy night I drove to a mailshop hidden deep in a nearly deserted stand of warehouses. I'd heard something was up and wanted to see for myself.

As I rounded the final turn my eyes nearly popped. Tractor-trailers pulled up to loading docks, cars and vans everywhere and long-haired, earring-pierced men scurrying around running forklifts, inserters and huge printing presses.

Trembling with worry I went inside. It was worse than I ever imagined.

Row after row of boxes bulging with pro-homosexual petitions lined the walls, stacked to the ceiling.

My mind reeled as I realized hundreds, maybe thousands, more boxes were already loaded on the tractor-trailers. And still more petitions were flying off the press.

Suddenly a dark-haired man screeched, "Delgaudio what are you doing here?" Dozens of men began moving toward me. I'd been recognized.

As I retreated to my car, the man chortled, "This time Delgaudio we can't lose."

Driving away, my eyes filled with tears as I realized he might be right. This time the Radical Homosexuals could win.

You see, even though homosexuals are just 1% of the population, if every one sent a petition to Congress it would generate a tidal wave of two or three million petitions or more.

Hundreds of thousands of pro-homosexual petitions will soon flood Congress , and my friends in Congress tell me there's virtually nothing on Capitol Hill from the tens of millions of Americans like you who oppose the radical Homosexual Agenda and the Gay Bill of Special Rights.

I made up my mind that night to write to you and as many other patriotic Americans as possible. To stop the Radical Homosexuals and protect traditional marriage there must be an immediate outpouring from folks like you.

Full Delgaudio Fundraising Letter:

Few places in the world have assumed as much importance for the United States and its allies since 2001 as Pakistan's northwestern tribal regions, which have served as a base for the mix of militants seeking to attack the governments, militaries, and civilians of the United States, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and others. In just over half of the serious plots against the West since 2004, alleged militants received training at camps in Pakistan.

Yet eight years the fall of the Taliban and their flight to Pakistan's border areas, we still know little about the regions in which they live, and from which they plan and execute attacks against American forces across the border in Afghanistan.

Today from 10:00 am to 12:15 pm, the New America Foundation/Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative, along with Foreign Policy magazine, is launching a set of papers that provide a unique window into Pakistan and how militants operate there.

Here is the schedule for today's event:

Introduction

Peter Bergen
Co-Director, Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative
New America Foundation
Author, The Osama Bin Laden I Know

Panel 1: Politics and Military Operations in Pakistan's Northwest

Panelists
Hassan Abbas
Quaid-i-Azam Chair Professor, Columbia University, South Asia Institute
Bernard Schwartz Fellow, Asia Society
Author, "Inside Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province: The Political Landscape of the Insurgency"

Sameer Lalwani
Research Fellow, Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative
New America Foundation
PhD Student, Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Author, "Pakistan's COIN Flip: The Recent History of Pakistani Military Counterinsurgency Operations in the NWFP and FATA"

Moderator
Susan Glasser
Executive Editor, Foreign Policy Magazine

Panel 2: The Battle for Pakistan: Militancy and Conflict in the Tribal Regions

Panelists
Imtiaz Ali
Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow
United States Institute of Peace

Brian Fishman
Counterterrorism Research Fellow, New America Foundation
Author, "Militancy and Conflict in the Tribal Regions"
Co-author, "Militancy and Conflict in North Waziristan"

Catherine Collins
Co-Author, The Man From Pakistan (2008)
Co-Author, "Financing the Taliban: Tracing the dollars behind the insurgencies in Afghanistan and Pakistan"

Moderator
Peter Bergen
Co-Director, Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative
New America Foundation
Author, The Osama Bin Laden I Know

-- Katherine Tiedemann

This note is reprinted with permission from a note health care policy blogger Brad Wright sent out. Brad blogs at Wright on Health.

Even TMZ Doesn't Care Anymore. . .

Just saw John Edwards at the food court at Southpoint Mall (Durham, NC) and absolutely nobody cared.

No one spoke to him, and almost no one looked at him, with the exception of the aggressive pushers of free samples of teriyaki chicken at Max Orient.

Even his scandals -- including rumored arson of the Pittsboro courthouse -- are of little concern to anyone anymore.

I felt something like pity for a brief moment, but another bite of Five Guys squelched it.

-- Brad Wright

Acclaimed strategist and Nobel Laureate in Economics Thomas Schelling gave a command performance at this American Strategy Program meeting I had the privilege to chair with Arms Control Wonk publisher and New America Foundation Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Director Jeffrey Lewis.

Schelling made a number of profound, important statements in this discussion in his straightforward, deliberative, carefully crafted comments.

He worries that when he travels the world and runs into nuclear weapons-focused strategists, he sees the British, the French, the Chinese, the Russians but not North Koreans and Iranians. He sees Pakistanis, Indians, and others. He said it is important for strategists with responsibility for thinking about acquiring such weapons to be inculcated with the experiences -- negative and positive -- of other nuclear weapons-experienced thinkers and managers.

Schelling said that for at least fifteen years, the U.S. performed abysmally in nuclear materials stewardship and lockdown. He thinks that Iran probably will achieve the capability of building a nuclear warhead and that achieving and stopping at a "latent potential" would be a better option than full weapons acquisition. I have written about this before at TWN as the 'Japan option'.

Schelling did live up to the "thinking through the thinkable" title that we gave this event. He even discussed various options that terrorists had with regard to using a nuclear weapon if they acquired one. Some of his thinking is a bit scary -- blackmail essentially against countries -- but Schelling points out that such blackmail threats are better than bombs going off.

Schelling also critiqued the recently issued Nuclear Posture Review for deflating what John Foster Dulles once referred to as the "taboo" of using nuclear weapons.

Fascinating lecture from one of the world's master strategic thinkers that no matter your view on Iran, Israel, or nuclear weapons is well worth listening to.

-- Steve Clemons

After my post about King Abdullah II's sobering comments that war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanan may be "imminent" to a group of Congressmen organized by Representative Adam Schiff last week, I received a clarification from the Embassy of Jordan that I am glad to post as an update to the meeting and discussion.

From a Spokesperson of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan:

Please note that what His Majesty discussed with Congressional members was not confined to the Lebanese border.

The King told Congressional leaders that there is lot of tension in the region on a number of fronts; in Gaza, in Jerusalem, and on the Lebanese border given that some Lebanese say war could be imminent.

He added that the lack of progress in Mideast peace talks is likely to trigger another cycle of violence in the region, which, in turn is disastrous for all of us.

I admire King Abdullah II greatly for his constant emphasis that the Israel-Palestine standoff needs to be pushed forward towards a credible two state track. He is passionate about the importance of moving this forward, and one gets the sense from listening to him that at some point Jordan's own national posture and its good relations with the US and its relationship with Israel are jeopardized by perpetuation of the status quo.

I have heard King Abdullah speak on this subject at the Clinton Global Initiative -- after which President Bill Clinton and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan followed up saying that the paralysis on Mideast peace talks is harming everyone's interests and must be kicked back to life.

The video above is from a luncheon I attended at the Center for Strategic and International Studies when Jordan's King offered the same line of argument.

My Congressional sources said that the King was emphatic in the meeting last week that the status quo would not remain stable -- and that the region would soon be consumed in another wave of violence if the Obama administration and other stakeholders did not move quickly to get parties moving forward on peace talks.

-- Steve Clemons

I received a note today reacting to a set of Congressional letters reaffirming US-Israel relations from Sama Adnan, executive director of the new political action committee advocating for Palestinian interests, NewPolicy.org.

He notes that 24 US Senators and 102 House Members did not sign on to the AIPAC-supported letters to Secretary of State Clinton reaffirming the close bonds between Israel and the US and encouraging the Obama administration to move past the current discomfort. (pdf text of Senate letter; pdf text of House letter)

Interestingly, the percentage of holdouts in both chambers of Congress is about 24%. I have no idea why the proportions would be similar, but this perhaps trivial fact jumps out.

These relative support/don't support levels also indicate that AIPAC's sway in Congress and the general grooves of the US-Israel relationship are very solid despite the current controversies. But at the same time, given other AIPAC letters I have seen work through Capitol Hill, one could argue that this is not near their best in terms of recruitment letters.

That said, I don't think AIPAC's powerful operation is getting wobbly, and I found the letter itself constructively nuanced in many places and more cautious than other recent statements that AIPAC has released (admittedly, this is a Congressional letter and not an AIPAC release).

I have respect for what AIPAC has done in Washington as this city is essentially a free-trade zone for people and interest groups pursuing their policy goals in competition with one another. AIPAC has done a great job of doing that, and I work to maintain good and constructive relations with AIPAC as well as with J Street, Americans for Peace Now, the Israel Policy Forum, the American Jewish Committee and others. I want to put that truth in advertising item out there as I think through this interesting Congressional statement.

So, what of the letter itself?

So, without being knee-jerk pro or con on the AIPAC Congressional letter to Hillary Clinton, I decided to annotate it with my own views.

The letter follows below -- as do my comments which have been italicized.

Dear Secretary Clinton:

We are writing to reaffirm our commitment to the unbreakable bond that exists between our country and the State of Israel and to express to you our deep concern over recent tension.

An "unbreakable bond" is flourish here, and not part of the gravity of this world. All bonds are breakable. All relationships have conditions. It is not helpful for legislators in the U.S. to further a fiction that the relationship between the US and Israel is not sensitive to the negative and positive realities in that relationship. Former Senate Majority Leader and US Ambassador to Mike Mansfield was famous for saying that the US-Japan relationship was the most important relationship in the world, "bar none." Mansfield's edict was also more pomp than real, though there were elements of truth to it -- just as I believe the US-Israel relationship is a vital one of great strategic and domestic political importance to the U.S. But the relationship requires good stewardship on both sides.

In every important relationship, there will be occasional misunderstandings and conflicts. The announcement during Vice President Biden's visit was, as Israel's Prime Minister said in an apology to the United States, "a regrettable incident that was done in all innocence and was hurtful, and which certainly should not have occurred." We are reassured that Prime Minister Netanyahu's commitment to put in place new procedures will ensure that such surprises, however unintended, will not recur.

The Israeli government may in fact implement new procedures so that embarrassing expansion of controversial, and many believe illegal, settlements does not occur at important political moments, but what is important to remember is not what was happening in broad public daylight in terms of Vice President Biden getting mugged, purposefully or inadvertently, on his trip -- what was important is that US-Israel relations were historically icy behind the scenes. Israel's leadership has as much if not more responsibility for the paralyzed peace process and the very bad relations with the White House than anyone in Washington. It is important to keep that in mind.

The United States and Israel are close allies whose people share a deep and abiding friendship based on a shared commitment to core values including democracy, human rights and freedom of the press and religion.

This is true, and it should also be said that the US-Israel relationship is not one that should ever be set in a "false choice" mold between Israel's close relations with the US and the importance of close relations between the United States and Arab states and people. Israel's democracy runs the risk of tragically eroding if it continues to divide the Palestinian people away from mainstream Israel without either a strategy for political inclusion in one state or a credible two state plan on the other.

Our two countries are partners in the fight against terrorism and share an important strategic relationship. A strong Israel is an asset to the national security of the United States and brings stability to the Middle East.

The US and Israel are partners -- but not exclusive partners. America's security relationship with Israel is like a New Orleans levy that is still working but year by year eroding. It is important to revision Israel's security in the region in a loose federation of interests with other key Arab states. The US, Europe, the UN, and Russia could be pillars with Israel and other nations of an ASEAN Regional Forum-like approach to Middle East security. But Israel's insistence on a regional massive retaliation, massive superiority of force in the region, is simultaneously helpful and hurtful in moving a new regional security plan forward. Israel will no doubt maintain conventional and nuclear weapons superiority in the region for years -- but it's behavior towards Arabs in the region, and towards Palestinians over which it has responsibilities are helping to generate instability in the region.

We are concerned that the highly publicized tensions in the relationship will not advance the interests the U.S. and Israel share.

I agree with this point from AIPAC. Although I think that the public incident with Biden only revealed what was the very lousy tenor of the relationship in private, punishing Israel or feeding a sense that this is incident was defining is a mistake. What is needed is a vision from the US and other regional stakeholders that pushes the US-Palestine track forward and which makes clear, crystal clear, US expectations of what the track to an end game will look like. That would propel Israel and the US out of the tensions between them now to a more important vision of how Israel's long term security interests can be achieved via resolution of a Palestinian state and normalization of relations with the Arab League.

Above all, we must remain focused on the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear weapons program to Middle East peace and stability.

I agree with this too. I do believe that Iran is on course to either develop a Japan-like, large scale, full fuel cycle capacity that provides a dual use foundation of material either for peaceful energy use or for bombs or wants warheads. But it's important for Israel and its supporters to stop denying the relevance of an unresolved Palestinian conflict to the fuel that feeds a narrative of humiliation and anger around the Middle East. Iran exploits this narrative to help 'legitimate' its realpolitik efforts to rise as a powerful new regional hegemon. There is a linkage between Israel/Palestine and Iran -- and that linkage is based in the importance of robbing Iran of political, military, and psychological running room in the mostly Sunni Arab states whose streets are filled with ongoing anger over Israeli treatment of the land it occupies and the Palestinian people it controls.

From the moment of Israel's creation, successive U.S. administrations have appreciated the special bond between the U.S. and Israel. For decades, strong, bipartisan Congressional support for Israel, including security assistance and other important measures, have been eloquent testimony to our commitment to Israel's security, which remains unswerving.

Yes, but Israel has responsibilities in this relationship as well. Israel has an obligation to work with the United States in securing achievements in its long term national security interests - not allowing short term or reflexive problems undermine core national interests which the US is helping Israel to achieve.

It is the very strength of this relationship that has, in fact, made Arab-Israeli peace agreements possible, both because it convinced those who sought Israel's destruction to abandon any such hope and because it gave successive Israeli governments the confidence to take calculated risks for peace. In its declaration of independence 62 years ago, Israel declared: "We extend our hand to all neighboring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land." In the decades since, despite constantly having to defend itself from attack, Israel has repeatedly made good on that pledge by offering to undertake painful risks to reach peace with its neighbors. Our valuable bilateral relationship with Israel needs and deserves constant reinforcement.

This is an excellent statement in AIPAC's letter. It would be worthwhile for Israel's President and Prime Minister to publicly double down on this statement and its meaning -- and to commit to policies that will take Israel towards normalization with its neighbors. Israel's settlement and border/control point frequent harassment of Palestinians fuels anger and resentment and seems inconsistent with Israel's extended hand and Israeli democracy. I have visited with great awe Israel's Supreme Court and felt that there was an institution struggling with justice in a fair-minded way for Israelis and Palestinians.

The Israeli press is more balanced and full of free-wheeling debate than Washington D.C.'s press debates about Israel. AIPAC and the Israeli government would do well to compel a public reconciliation of the governance behavior of the state and the goals expressed above. I have seen leaders like former Prime Minister Ohlmert and former Deputy Prime Minister Haim Ramon do this -- and it was moving and real. I think that needs to become a part of the framework of Israel's current government.

As the Vice-President said during his recent visit to Israel: "Progress occurs in the Middle East when everyone knows there is simply no space between the U.S. and Israel when it comes to security, none. No space."

I don't believe that there is ever a "no space" situation between Israel and US interests. Just the name of one person should help reasonable supporters of the US-Israel relationship get by this platitude: Jonathan Pollard.

But as far as servicing the important closeness of that relationship, Israel must get away from a policy course driven by incessant incrementalism and inertia in which it does not heed the importance of helping the US to generate a new equilibrium in the Middle East.

Israel's intransigent positions on numerous fronts often appear as support for a two state process when in fact they are designed to undermine the legitimacy and posture of their negotiating partner on the Palestinian side. The world is witnessing America allow Israel to continue to squeeze the Palestinian people and territory, to consolidate what Israel wants into the Israel security orbit, and to offer only crumbs now and then to Palestine's leadership. While Israel may think that this strategy furthers its own interests; this is undermining the American brand and seriously harming American interests. If these trends continue, there will be not only "no space" between Israel and the US but a giant ravine.

Steadfast American backing has helped lead to Israeli peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan. And American involvement continues to be critical to the effort to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

This is very good to acknowledge, and I agree.

We recognize that, despite the extraordinary closeness between our country and Israel, there will be differences over issues both large and small. Our view is that such differences are best resolved quietly, in trust and confidence, as befits longstanding strategic allies. We hope and expect that, with mutual effort and good faith, the United States and Israel will move beyond this disruption quickly, to the lasting benefit of both nations.

I do too. I want this episode to be behind us -- but to get it behind us, Israel and US political leaders must tailor the strategy each is pursuing to be more convergent with a realistic pathway to a two state solution between Israel and Palestine. Israel is good at articulating what can't be done, what can't be given away, or who can't be at the table -- but it is lousy at articulating a constructive course. Israel pretends that it can't offer concessions outright to get to this goal while at the same time demanding that the US not publicly force it towards those goals. In other words, Israel's posture simultaneously requires that a greater power push it and the Palestinians in the right direction while also rejecting and trying to counter through the Congress Executive Branch pressure. This is a game that needs to end.

We believe, as President Obama said, that "Israel's security is paramount" in our
Middle East policy and that "it is in U.S. national security interests to assure that Israel's security as an independent Jewish state is maintained." In that spirit, we look forward to working with you to achieve the common objectives of the U.S. and Israel, especially regional security and peace.

[Members of the US Senate and US House of Representatives]

I am a believer in Israel and view myself as pro-Israeli while at the same time viewing myself as pro-Arab. Israel's security is one of several paramount issues. One of those paramount issues is American security which is being undermined by this unresolved Middle East-roiling ulcer of Palestinian occupation. Another is the paramount goal of achieving a horizon of hope for Palestinians within and outside of Israel.

As Haim Ramon once told me, if this issue of a Palestinian state is not soon resolved, Israel will either have to forfeit its status as a "democracy" or as a "Jewish state."

That sounds like a paramount issue to me.

-- Steve Clemons

The Economist has a lengthy profile of the BRIC bloc of emerging countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China), which appears to be casting itself as an alternative institutional framework to supplement and perhaps counter-balance the wealthy-country-dominated Bretton Woods clubs.

Just days after President Obama's 47-nation nuclear summit in Washington, the BRIC countries are scheduled to meet in Brasillia.

The Economist piece is worth a read because it provides a nuanced picture of the opportunities and constraints that will likely shape the group's sustainability over time.

While acknowledging that the BRICs' interests often diverge from one another, the piece makes a persuasive case that all four countries derive significant benefits from pooling their resources and economic weight.

From the piece:

One reason the BRICs matter is that the world's most important country thinks they do, and is willing to rope them into decision-making. America's means of doing this is the G20. It pushed for the group's expansion to include the BRICs and declared the club the chief forum for dealing with international economic issues. The BRICs and the original group of seven rich countries (G7) form natural blocks within the G20. So far, the clearest expression of a coherent BRIC agenda--for reform of the international financial system and more domestic stimulus programmes--came on the eve of a G20 meeting in 2008.

A second reason why the BRICs matter is that all four giants have reasons for creating a new club of their own. China's leaders know their time has come. They want to enhance their own influence and reduce America's. But at the same time their leaders hew to Deng Xiaoping's dictum that "China should adopt a low profile and never take the lead."

The BRICs, which the Chinese calls jinzhuan siguo, or four golden brick nations, are a way to square that circle. By teaming up with others (which are anyway attractive as raw-materials suppliers), China can hide its national demands behind a multilateral façade. And a meeting of the BRICs looks slightly more like a collection of equals than do most gatherings involving China (though China's economy is still larger than those of the other three combined). China sees climate-change diplomacy as a way of boosting its soft power, and as part of its bilateral relationship with America (its stubborn behaviour in Copenhagen notwithstanding). But it does not want to break with the rest of the developing world on climate issues. Co-ordination with other "emerging" polluters helps it to succeed on all these fronts.

The full article can be read here.

(Photo Credit: World Economic Forums' Photostream)

-- Ben Katcher

The New America Foundation/American Strategy Program is hosting an event TODAY, Friday April 16 featuring Nobel Laureate in Economics Thomas Schelling.

Here is what the Nobel Prize Committee had to say about Schelling's work upon awarding him the prize in 2005:

Against the backdrop of the nuclear arms race in the late 1950s, Thomas Schelling's book The Strategy of Conflict set forth his vision of game theory as a unifying framework for the social sciences. Schelling showed that a party can strengthen its position by overtly worsening its own options, that the capability to retaliate can be more useful than the ability to resist an attack, and that uncertain retaliation is more credible and more efficient than certain retaliation. These insights have proven to be of great relevance for conflict resolution and efforts to avoid war.

Schelling's work prompted new developments in game theory and accelerated its use and application throughout the social sciences. Notably, his analysis of strategic commitments has explained a wide range of phenomena, from the competitive strategies of firms to the delegation of political decision power.

Schelling will address a variety of questions related to Iran's nuclear program and its possible implications for American strategy.

TWN Publisher Steve Clemons will moderate the event and New America Foundation/Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative Jeffrey Lewis will offer remarks as well.

This event will STREAM LIVE here at The Washington Note.

-- Ben Katcher

One of the privileges of working at a think-tank is the opportunity to soak up the intellectual energy that thrives at the crossroads of cutting edge research and policy-making.

Once a month the New America Foundation's fellows and staff gather to hear a presentation from one of our colleagues on a subject related to his or her research.

This weeks' featured speaker is New America Foundation/Economic Growth Program Policy Director and Whitehead Senior Fellow Michael Lind.

As anyone who has met Lind knows, he is remarkably fluent in a variety of subjects ranging from history to philosophy to economics to international relations.

Today's presentation will seek to address the question "Whatever Happened to the Radical Center?"

Just yesterday in the New York Times, Sam Tanenhaus offered a major survey on the conceptual history of Michael Lind and Ted Halstead's construct of a radical center in American politics.

The notion of the "radical center" was a founding idea behind the creation of the New America Foundation and the subject of Lind's book (co-written with New America Foundation Founder Ted Halstead) The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics.

We normally do not publicize these events, but we are pleased to STREAM Lind's presentation LIVE here at The Washington Note today at 12:30pm EST. (Please note that we will only be streaming Mike's presentation - not the Q&A session that will follow.)

-- Ben Katcher

I keep getting lots of emails each day from folks asking me what my TWITTER address is as they can't seem to find me by searching. I can find me by searching, so not sure what is happening.

In any case, here you go:

Note the two C's. Perhaps this will make a google search for my Twitter address easier.

Onward and upward, and as John Bolton says, never surrender.

-- Steve Clemons

I regularly watch the very good work the Steve Kull and his team do at the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland -- and just a few moments ago I got an attention-getting email from his team on Israeli political attitudes.

Kull has done some excellent work lately presented at the New America Foundation both on attitudes inside Iran and also among Americans about Israel/Palestine issues.

Others will have to deal with the research, but the headline is that despite what seems to me to be right-tilting, anti-peace deal trends in Israel, PIPA argues that 3 in 5 Israelis support settlement dismantlement in exchange for a Palestine peace deal.

Here is the intro to the piece:

Israeli Public's Support for Dismantling Most Settlements Has Risen to a Five-Year High

By Alvin Richman

A survey of the Israeli general public and Israeli settlers taken in early March shows three-fifths of the Israeli public (60%) support "dismantling most of the settlements in the territories as part of a peace agreement with the Palestinians." This is eleven points higher than the previous reading (49%) taken in December, 2009, and is the highest level recorded since 2005, during the debate over evacuating the Gaza Strip. Just one-third of the Israeli public (33%) opposes dismantling most settlements, including 13 percent very strongly opposed. This is the lowest level of strong opposition to dismantling settlements recorded by the Truman Institute for the 26 surveys in which this question has been asked since 2001. The survey was conducted by the Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

In contrast to the views of the Israeli public, among Israeli settlers a large majority (69%) oppose dismantling most West Bank settlements. Moreover, a majority of settlers believe most of the Israeli general public shares its opposition to dismantling settlements. This is but one of several major misperceptions regarding the settlements issue revealed by the latest Truman Institute survey.

I tend to be skeptical of surveys and polling -- but it probably is a mistake to write off the large number of Israel citizens who do not subscribe to the rejectionist policies of their leaders at the moment.

-- Steve Clemons

(photo credit: Greg Jaffe of Washington Post; see his photo essay)

Greg Jaffe has a fascinating piece in the Washington Post today highlighting recognition by the US military that it blew it in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley.

The insurgents there were fighting for not some radical cause -- but against American occupation.

This "occupation is the problem" theme is Robert Pape's message about the main dynamic that drives suicide bombing and violent insurgency.

From the Washington Post:

KORENGAL VALLEY, AFGHANISTAN -- It was as if the five years of almost ceaseless firefights and ambushes had been a misunderstanding -- a tragic, bloody misunderstanding.

More than 40 U.S. troops have been killed, and scores more wounded, in helicopter crashes, machine-gun attacks and grenade blasts in the Korengal Valley, a jagged sliver just six miles long and a half-mile wide. The Afghan death toll has been far higher, making the Korengal some of the bloodiest ground in all of Afghanistan, according to American and Afghan officials.

In the pre-dawn hours of Wednesday, the U.S. presence here came to an abrupt end.

A day earlier, Capt. Mark Moretti, the 28-year-old commander of American forces in the valley, walked two dozen Korengali elders around his base and told them that the United States was withdrawing. He showed the elders the battle-scarred barracks, a bullet-ridden crane, wheezing generators and a rubber bladder brimming with 6,000 gallons of fuel.

Moretti, the son of a West Point physics professor, and Shamshir Khan, a valley elder whose son had been jailed for killing two U.S. troops, sat together on a small wall near the base's helicopter pad. In keeping with local custom among friends, they held hands.

Moretti gently reminded Khan of the deal they had reached a few days earlier: If U.S. troops were allowed to leave peacefully, the Americans wouldn't destroy the base, the crane and the fuel. Khan assured him that the valley's fighters would honor the deal.

"I hope that when I am gone, you will do what is best for your valley and the villagers," an almost wistful Moretti said.

"I want you to travel safely to your home, to your family," the 86-year-old elder replied. He gazed at the officer through thick glasses that magnified rheumy brown eyes and beamed.

Over the previous week, hundreds of U.S. Army Rangers and Afghan commandos had pushed into the valley to control the high ground the enemy would need for a big attack on departing troops. Dozens of cargo helicopters hauled off equipment. By Wednesday morning, the last Americans were gone.

For U.S. commanders, the Korengal Valley offers a hard lesson in the limits of American power and goodwill in Afghanistan. The valley's extreme isolation, its axle-breaking terrain and its inhabitants' suspicion of outsiders made it a perfect spot to wage an insurgency against a Western army.

And just keep in mind that at current levels the US is spending more than $100 billion in military expenditures alone in a country with a GDP of just $12 billion.

Money is not buying success in Afghanistan.

-- Steve Clemons

(Photo Credit: usembassylondon's photostream)

This post also appears at The Race for Iran.

As TWN Publisher Steve Clemons noted on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last night and in this post about a New America Foundation/American Strategy Program event tomorrow with Noble Laureate in Economics Thomas Schelling, the question of how to cope with Iran's nuclear program requires a serious, non-dogmatic analysis of what the consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran would likely be and how other states would likely respond.

One of the keys to any successful strategy toward Iran will be to garner the support of regional stakeholders. Turkey, which shares a border with Iran, enjoys friendly diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic, and has a seat at the United Nations Security Council, is undoubtedly one of the key players.

I had the privilege of attending a press conference yesterday at the Turkish Embassy in Washington with Turkey Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who is considered the chief architect of Ankara's increasingly active, forward-leaning foreign policy posture. The Foreign Minister was in town along with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for President Obama's 47-nation nuclear summit this week.

Not surprisingly, the session focused on the challenges posed both by Iran's nuclear program and the American-led drive for sanctions.

Davutoglu's position was very clear. Turkey respects the right of every nation to develop civilian nuclear energy (Turkey is cooperating with Russia on its own fledgling program). At the same time, Turkey opposes nuclear weapons anywhere and everywhere - especially in the volatile region of the Middle East. Therefore Turkey supports Iran's right to a civilian nuclear program, but opposes any effort Iran may make to weaponize its program.

While steadfastly opposing an Iranian nuclear weapon, the foreign minister offered several reasons for Turkey's reservations concerning the American-led drive for sanctions. He noted that Turkey opposes sanctions in principle because they lead to destabilization and increase the likelihood of conflict.

On Iran specifically, Turkey opposes sanctions for four main reasons.

First, Iran is Turkey's second largest supplier of natural gas. Turkey is not blessed with sufficient energy resources to meet its needs and does not have the luxury to cut trade ties with one of its most significant energy partners.

Second, Davutoglu pointed out that the people of Turkey and Iran share a broad cultural and historical relationship. One-third of Iranians are Azeri Turks and Tehran is the second-largest Turkish-speaking city in the world. Turkey is hesitant to support sanctions which will inevitably harm ordinary Iranian people.

Third, Iranian cooperation is key to preventing crises in the region and resolving regional conflicts including Iraq, Afghanistan, and Israel-Palestine.

Fourth, Turkey suffered in a very visceral way from the U.S.-led sanctions on Iraq following the first Gulf War. Turkey's impoverished Southeastern region suffered from the decline in cross-border trade with northern Iraq. This economic instability, in turn, contributed to increased violence between the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Turkish Army.

Instead of sanctions, Turkey supports more diplomacy. The foreign minister said that he continues to talk to the Iranians on a very regular basis and is encouraged by progress on the Iranian position with regard to the TRR "fuel-swap" proposal, though he refused to elaborate on that point.

Davutoglu also refused to comment on whether Turkey might support a sanctions resolution at the Security Council, noting that he could not comment until Turkey is presented with the details.

-- Ben Katcher

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

America does have an Iran challenge.

Senator John McCain is not wrong in thinking that there needs to be a smarter strategy that gets Iran off of what many believe to be a nuclear weapons and/or large-scale full fuel cycle course.

Years ago, I know that Senator McCain was the type of person to pull experts together in his office along with Senators and House Members from both sides of the aisle to think through a tough challenge. Years ago, I was impressed with how Senator McCain approached issues like normalization of relations between the US and Vietnam -- which was hugely controversial at the time -- or worked through cautiously various Vietnam scenarios.

However, he is setting up a false metaphor for dealing with Iran in which he is the Churchill figure -- and just about everyone else except Joe Lieberman and Sarah Paliin is Neville Chamberlain. That's not a way to solve the Iran problem.

Sanctions alone will not move Iran. Bombing will actually have an adverse effect on the long term chances of keeping Iran nuclear weapons free. So, what are the other credible options? I have lots of thoughts -- as do numerous thoughtful policy experts in Washington and around the nation.

It would serve Senator McCain well to convene some of these folks -- and rather than using it as an opportunity to keep talking about a blunt bombing campaign that doesn't consider consequences -- he might turn it in to a learning moment where he tries to consider serious alternatives.

I spoke with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC's Countdown last night about John McCain's "pull the trigger" comments about needing to get to the task of bombing Iran.

-- Steve Clemons

If you are in or near Washington, DC at 12:15 pm on Friday, you should come to the New America Foundation and spend some time absorbing the way Nobel Laureate in Economics Thomas Schelling thinks about states with nuclear weapons -- and potentially a nuclear-armed Iran.

Here is the event info.

If you are NOT in Washington, you should watch the live streaming here on The Washington Note or at the New America Foundation site (or YouTube after the fact). It's must watch stuff.

Thomas Schelling is one of the world's great thinkers, someone whose explications of game theoretic framing of nuclear competition and possibly war may have helped save the world from a Cold War era thermonuclear nightmare.

I first heard Schelling in 1982 at a forum organized by nuclear arms control giant Herbert York at UC San Diego and have been addicted to his work and thinking since. He was a thesis adviser to my colleague, the well known ArmsControlWonk blogger Jeffrey Lewis who will also make comments at Friday's noon time session.

The Nobel Prize Committee had this to say about Schelling's selection in 2005:

Thomas Schelling

Against the backdrop of the nuclear arms race in the late 1950s, Thomas Schelling's book The Strategy of Conflict set forth his vision of game theory as a unifying framework for the social sciences. Schelling showed that a party can strengthen its position by overtly worsening its own options, that the capability to retaliate can be more useful than the ability to resist an attack, and that uncertain retaliation is more credible and more efficient than certain retaliation. These insights have proven to be of great relevance for conflict resolution and efforts to avoid war.

Schelling's work prompted new developments in game theory and accelerated its use and application throughout the social sciences. Notably, his analysis of strategic commitments has explained a wide range of phenomena, from the competitive strategies of firms to the delegation of political decision power.

Jeffrey Lewis and I have asked Schelling to talk to us about the portals through which he looks at nuclear powers, nuclear arms competition and escalation, nuclear caution, nuclear war and what the world looks like if Iran acquires nuclear weapons.

Would a nuclear-armed Iran automatically create a nuclear arms race in the region? What would be the likely impact of a nuclear weapon on Iran's international behavior? Does it matter that Israel has the bomb? What do game theory and the lessons of the Cold War tell us if we end up with a breakout of nuclear weapons proliferation in and around the Middle East?

-- Steve Clemons

Congressman Adam Schiff hosted a "Members Only" meeting of the 'Congressional Friends of Jordan Caucus' in the US House of Representatives this morning in the CVC Congressional Meeting Room with Jordan's King Abdullah II.

According to one attendee in the session, "the King's message was sobering."

King Abdullah seemed significantly concerned that conflict was about to break out again between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

One congressional source told me that the word the King used was 'imminent' with regard to the potential outbreak of war.

On many levels, this is extremely worrisome. Hezbollah is now integrated into Lebanon's parliament and interacting with countries like France at all levels of government. An Israeli-Lebanon War could preempt the normalization track the United States is pursuing with Syria.

There are reports today about American concerns of Syrian supply of SCUD missiles to Hezbollah and/or training to Hezbollah personnel on SCUDs. (also see Laura Rozen's "The Scud Threatening Diplomat's Nomination"; also see Josh Rogin's "Congress Wants to Know: Is Syria Rearming Hezbollah?")

Tomorrow (Thursday), I will be attending the Syria National Day reception at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington where last year I saw many senior State Department officials, CNN's Wolf Blitzer, and several Congressmen.

Hopefully, America's renewed engagement with Syria will not be knocked off track -- but there is no doubt that King Abdullah's warning to Members of Congress is stirring much concern.

-- Steve Clemons

Update: Here is an update with a response from a spokesperson of the Embassy of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in Washington, DC.

Tonight at about 8:20 pm, I'll be back with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC's Countdown discussing Senator John McCain's call on President Obama to "pull the trigger" on bombing Iran.

The jingle could be laughed off. The Senator's remarks today can't be.

Should be an interesting chat -- particularly after President Obama's nuclear summitry is providing the right kind of pressure and opportunity to credibly, potentially change Iran's course.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a guest note by Sarah Stephens, executive director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas.

President Obama, Gloria Estefan, and the US National Interest

In a few hours, President Obama will visit the home of Emilio and Gloria Estefan for a fundraising event that will cost attendees $30,400 per couple.

What could possibly motivate the Estefans and their closest friends and business contacts in South Florida to write such astoundingly large checks? Good government? Financial Reform? Ending the embargo of Cuba?

Let us not be naive.

The Estefans - at the vanguard of Cuban Americans who support the harshest possible line against the government of Cuba -- will use this access "to get Obama's ear on Cuba," just as a columnist in the Miami Herald said on Saturday.

And I am sure that he will get an earful, about Cuba's human rights record, and a whole lot more.

Of course, political conditions on the island should command his concern, as they do all of us. I don't blame the Estefans for exercising their constitutional rights or using their power and wealth to gain this exclusive audience with the president.

But there's a smart and vastly different point of view - one that President Obama will not hear in the Estefans' living room - that says every American interest in democracy and human rights would be better vindicated by ending our current Cuba policy rather than by freezing it, or worse, by making it even tougher.

Just imagine what the President could learn if any of the following luminaries had gotten an invitation to this shindig and had thirty-grand to throw around.

If George Shultz were there, who served as Secretary of State under President Reagan, he could tell the president that continuing the embargo is "insane," as he did on the Charlie Rose Show.

If Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor to President George H.W. Bush bought a ticket, he'd tell Mr. Obama, "In foreign policy, the embargo makes no sense. It doesn't do anything," as he said on tape to Steve Clemons at the New America Foundation .

Legislators like Senator Richard Lugar could repeat for President Obama what he told Senate colleagues last year, "We must recognize the ineffectiveness of our current policy and deal with the Cuban regime in a way that enhances U.S. interests."

John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, could advise the President, "we have a choice: seek solace in old rhetoric, ignore change and resist it, or mold it and channel it into a new policy to help achieve our goals."

If the Vatican were represented, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Pope Benedict XVI's secretary of state, could remind President Obama of what Pope John Paul II said when he visited Cuba; he called U.S. policy "oppressive, unjust and ethically unacceptable."

Nelson Mandela, a fellow recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, could grab the President's arm and prick his conscience by repeating his support of "the right of the Cuban people to determine their own destiny," and by saying "that sanctions which seek to punish them for having decided to do so are anathema to the international order to which we aspire," as he has said in the past.

Independent blogger Yoani Sanchez, a victim of harassment on Cuba for her opposition activities, could pull President Obama aside, thank him for doing an interview for her website, but then advise the President what Cubans of every political stripe on the island know and think: "I believe that these economic restrictions ? an 'embargo' to some and a 'blockade' to others ? represent a blunder in American policy toward Cuba...it has been used to support the maxim, 'in a country under siege, dissent is treason,' which contributes to the lack of freedoms for the Cuban people."

Instead, the President, who to my knowledge has never met at the White House with a broad cross-section of academics, advocates, and activists who share these views, will be told by the Estefans and their guests that he must not make further changes in U.S. policy toward Cuba this year given the human rights conditions on the island. How could they leave the party without asking for such a commitment?

If the President agrees, this will be a huge mistake. He will threaten changes that are moving forward in Congress to end the travel ban for all Americans and remove restrictions on the export of U.S. agricultural goods to the island. That would deny millions of Americans their basic freedom to travel, and kill the prospect of creating tens of thousands of American jobs in the travel and agricultural trade sectors.

But this is about more than dollars and cents; it is about common sense.

After fifty years of failure, we have to try something new.

Keeping the policy in place would put President Obama exactly in the same position as every president who preceded him since Eisenhower - trying to wring results out of a policy that has failed to change Cuba, and ignoring the advice of foreign policy experts, human rights champions, and freedom advocates in Cuba who believe that changing the policy is exactly the right thing to do, if you have the best interests of the Cuban people at heart and you want to advance American ideals.

Oh, for thirty thousand dollars.

-- Sarah Stephens

(Photo Credit: White House Photostream)

Peter Baker has a piece in the New York Times today in which he argues that this week's 47-nation nuclear security summit represents a coming out party of sorts for Obama's foreign policy. After 15 months of kicking the tires and dealing with "legacy issues" left over from the Bush administration, Baker suggests that Obama may be finding his groove.

This line of analysis has been shared by others, including TWN Publisher Steve Clemons, who makes a persuasive case in this Politico piece and this segment with Keith Olbermann that Obama is using the nuclear summit to demonstrate what an America-led order should look like and how the United States can craft creative multilateral solutions to global problems.

This week's nuclear summit is no doubt encouraging, but those prickly "legacy" issues from the Bush administration that Baker refers to in his article - i.e. Iraq and especially Afghanistan - may continue to overshadow Obama's progress on other fronts if they are not handled correctly.

Whether the administration can channel its realpolitik sensibilities and multilateral approach to the challenge of extricating the United States from Afghanistan will in the end determine whether it is Afghanistan, rather than nuclear security and the reorientation of great power relations, that comes to define Obama's presidency.

-- Ben Katcher

Yesterday, I had a terrific exchange with Pete Dominick on his Stand Up with Pete Dominick Show on XM and Sirius Radio on President Obama's nuclear summitry and what it all means.

He actually read a question from one of my commenters, POA (aka "Pissed Off American") about Israel. I responded on the show and do think that Israel's nukes matter and need to be confronted one way or another. Israel's nuclear primacy invites regional balancing -- and the notion that Israel will remain the only nuclear power in its theater is as unlikely in the long run as the US remaining an unchallenged nuclear weapons power at the dawn of the nuclear age.

I agree with President Obama that in the long run, all nations need to become part of a non-proliferation treaty regime, including Israel.

I am impressed with what the Obama White House has been doing with its nuclear summitry and had the lead opinion piece yesterday in Politico on the Nuclear Security Summit.

Here is the intro -- but I hope folks read the whole thing (for the digital reader edition, click here and go to page 27):

Obama's Nuclear Wizardry and the Iran Factor

Sir Francis Bacon once said, "In civil business, what first? Boldness. What second and third? Boldness. And yet boldness is a child of ignorance and baseness."

At the Nuclear Security Summit President Barack Obama is presiding over in a transportation-gridlocked Washington this week, he is achieving a boldness -- but not of bravado. Rather, it is one of calculated subtlety and strategic depth.

Obama has brought together 47 world leaders to get them to commit to safer nuclear materials management practices and prevent trafficking in weapons of mass destruction.

Obama is changing the direction of global gravity. He is also confronting Iran without the shallowness of bombing vs. sanctions vs. public humiliation that his administration has been flirting with. In the past week, and over the next month, Obama is showing what a U.S.-led world order should look like.

This is a huge shift, for the world hasn't had much faith in America's abilities to deliver. For example, in taking on strategic challenges like getting the Israelis and Palestinians on a two-state pathway; or ending the anachronistically simmering Cold War conflict in U.S.-Cuba relations; or persuading Iran to forgo a nuclear weapons track, most of the world has seen an America unable to achieve the objectives it sets out for itself.

In recent years, this has translated into a sense that the United States is a well-branded, globally important but underperforming country, whose influence is weakening -- more like a national version of General Motors than Google.

Now, out of the blue, Obama is changing the game.

More here.

-- Steve Clemons

(Photo Credit: Department of Defense Photostream)

A quick follow-up to yesterday's post on Kyrgyzstan.

Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Richard Weitz has a piece in The Diplomat about the ongoing competition among China, Russia, and the United States in that country.

From the piece:

Russian and Chinese policymakers face conflicting considerations in deciding whether to exploit the new situation in Kyrgyzstan to try to secure a US military withdrawal from Manas. On the one hand, Moscow would enhance its leverage with Washington if the United States were to lose its access to the base and have to rely more heavily on bringing supplies into Central Asia through Russian territory. Denied use of Manas, the United States and other NATO countries would depend on Russian goodwill to continue supporting their Afghan contingents through this northern route. Moscow could threaten to suspend transit through its territory should NATO prove excessively recalcitrant regarding Afghanistan, Georgia, missile defence, or other disputed issues.

On the other hand, NATO might decide to expand use of the South Caucasus as an alternative transit route, which would enhance the leverage of the current Georgian government, which is seeking to join the alliance. Or NATO might curtail its efforts in Afghanistan, which would increase the danger that terrorism and narcotics trafficking would spread to Russia and its Central Asian allies. In any case, a Russian effort to evict NATO from Manas would certainly harm the reset efforts that have produced the New START Treaty and possibly greater cooperation over Iran and Afghanistan.

Beijing appears not yet to have made a formal decision on Manas and Chinese officials may find themselves equally cross-pressured. Manas' location only 200 miles from the China-Kyrgyzstan border, combined with Washington's longstanding military cooperation with Taiwan and Japan as well as its growing security ties with India, invariably has stimulated fears of US encirclement. On the other hand, Chinese leaders thus far have avoided directly challenging the NATO military presence in Kyrgyzstan.

China's ambivalence reflects recognition of the advantages of having the United States heavily involved in suppressing potentially anti-Chinese terrorism in Central Asia. It also results from uncertainties over the ability of China or Russia to manage the consequences of a precipitous NATO military disengagement from the region.

The entire article can be read here.

-- Ben Katcher

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Here are some thoughts that I shared with Keith Olbermann on President Obama's significant Nuclear Security Summit.

More tomorrow.

-- Steve Clemons

Vice President Joe Biden has been quietly carrying the water on tomorrow's Nuclear Summit since Barack Obama got the keys to the White House.

The challenge of convincing major global stakeholders and other key non-aligned nations to work towards tighter nuclear materials controls and to cooperative arrangements to shut down nuclear trafficking is not a sexy topic except for those who think and breathe WMD stuff all the time.

However, after the release of the revised Nuclear Posture Review by the White House, the signing of a new US-Russia START Treaty, the convening of nations this week at a Nuclear Summit -- all leading to restored American engagement in a revitalized Non-Proliferation Treaty review process -- the media and many Americans are now taking stock of the considerable work that has been done behind the scenes.

And today, Vice President Biden may have helped push a new "global social contract" on global security and safety a bit further by hosting personally at his private residence a unique lunch with the presidents, prime ministers, and foreign ministers of twelve significant non-aligned nations.

Countries represented included Algeria, Chile, Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand, and Vietnam. US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice participated as did Biden National Security Adviser Antony Blinken.

The meeting today mostly focused on the NPT review conference to take place in May. Biden made the claim that this was a crucial moment and that global stakeholders will either reinvigorate the NPT or see it further unravel as it started to do in 2005 when Dick Cheney and John Bolton's acolytes were running the show.

From early reports, there was significant receptivity among the delegations represented -- even when it came to some tough talk discussion about strengthening verification and consequences for violations. One attendee reported to me that there was "a very positive and constructive atmosphere."

This is significant -- because some of the nations represented are among those that might be driven to either begin building their own fissile material production capacity, or to acquire WMDs of their own if they don't see a major correction to the eroding global commitment to non-proliferation.

The quid pro quo for support of these key non-aligned nations is not only general security for the global commons, but greater cooperation and more dependable protocols in sharing nuclear technology used for peaceful purposes.

As I write tomorrow in a lead op-ed for Politico, the combined efforts of the President and Vice President, the National Security Adviser, the Secretaries of Defense and State -- standouts like Obama national security confidante and NSC chief of staff Denis McDonough, OSD's Jim Miller, National Security Council Director for Defense Policy Barry Pavel, Under Secretary of State Ellen Tauscher, State Department Deputy Policy Planning Director Derek Chollet -- also the NSC's Gary Samore and Rexon Ryu -- really came together in a way that should be seriously modeled and studied to bring more strategic depth and success to other areas of the national security portfolio that are flagging. Israel/Palestine is a major case in point.

Deputy National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, according to one source, has worked at an "insane" rate to try and pull off this package of nuclear deals and posture statements. A source reports that he facilitated more than 30 Deputies meetings and 12 Principals meetings -- which is huge.

Some think that there is not much in this Summit. I totally disagree. It's the package, the sequencing, the strategic enmeshment of big states and smaller ones -- and the absence of national and personal ego that makes this so important.

This kind of institution building seems to me to be something for more potentially compelling to an Iran or North Korea than bilateral jabs in official speeches, sermons, or sanctions.

-- Steve Clemons

Tonight just after Keith Olbermann opens his show, MSNBC's Countdown, at about 8:05 pm, I will be chatting with him about President Barack Obama's nuclear summitry.

I'm in the "impressed" column with what Obama and his team have been lining up. And what is even better is that when Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice staffed the President when he chaired a historic convening of leaders at the UN Security Council in September 2009, she outlined what the administration was going to do -- get a lockdown of nuke material process underway, get America back into a leadership position promoting the nuclear non-proliferation regime, and create not just costs for those who were outside the NPT but opportunities for those that are in.

The UN Security Council then voted unanimously in favor of the Obama global nuclear controls blueprint -- and now it's happening.

One of the primary causes of the perception other nations have of American weakness has been the seeming inability to achieve the objectives that President Obama himself has committed the nation to.

This has changed.

With the US-Russia START agreement, a new Nuclear Posture Review that makes several key leaps and which reduces the overall footprint of nukes in America's military arsenal, the Nuclear Summit now underway (and paralyzing traffic patterns) in Washington -- all leading up to the once every five years NPT Review Conference next month, Obama is changing the game and accomplishing real results.

I think that this momentum with big stakeholders like Russia, China, Brazil, Europe and so on -- and efforts that Vice President Joe Biden is solidifying with a whole set of non-alligned nations are going to pay off substantially for the country and Obama's legacy.

So, tonight. 8:05 pm Eastern. MSNBC's Countdown.

And tomorrow, check out the lead oped on Politico. If all goes well, you'll see a piece by yours truly on the Obama/Biden team's new nuclear grooves.

-- Steve Clemons

(Photo Credit: DVIDSHUB's Photostream)

Balancing the short-term expediency of working with strategically important states with the ethical issues and long-term costs of supporting repressive regimes is a complicated task that defies simple solutions.

One conclusion that can be made with regard to this conundrum, however, is that the more broadly Washington defines its interests, the more it will find itself compelled to lean on corrupt and illiberal governments for support in faraway places.

An historical example of this is how the United States' support for "anticommunist" dictatorships in Latin America during the Cold War continues to haunt our relations with that continents' people and governments today.

Last week's uprising in Kyrgyzstan raises the question of whether the United States' ongoing campaign in Afghanistan will have a similar effect in Central Asia - a region that will undoubtedly be important to American interests over the long-term on a variety of issues, including energy, terrorism, and managing relations with neighboring Russia and China.

In a pair of articles published in recent days Human Rights Watch Advocacy Director Tom Malinowski and International Crisis Group Central Asia Policy Director Paul Quinn-Judge, writing in Foreign Policy and The New York Times respectively, make a strong case that the United States' Pentagon-driven willingness to deal with autocratic regimes in the so-called "Northern Distribution Network" may have deleterious effects on U.S. interests over the long-term.

Whether worth the price or not, it is fair to add support for illiberal governments in Central Asia to the list of hidden costs of the ongoing war in Afghanistan.

-- Ben Katcher

Former IMF Chief Economist and Harvard University economist Kenneth Rogoff made an interesting point on "economic history" at the Institute for New Economic Thinking conference.

Reflecting on a book he recently co-authored with Carmen Reinhart titled This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Rogoff said that despite there being some superb financial scholars in the field like Barry Eichengreen, Christina Romer and others, there was just too little support for the field. He said that it was very rare to see an appointment of economic historians in university departments.

Rogoff said that in blocking the broader rooting of economic historians, "this may be an area where the inward looking nature, the triumphalism of theoretical macroeconomics, has had a little too much influence. History has had a lot to say...when we look at these very rare events [financial crises], very hard to calibrate them on normal data, even if you have the right. . .perfect model."

I think Rogoff makes an important point here -- and after much other discussion at this INET Conference -- one does sense the tendency of the economics profession to want to avoid scrutiny and historical challenge.

-- Steve Clemons

The evening before last, George Soros offered some remarks at the launch conference of the Institute for New Economic Thinking taking place in the Cambridge University Kings College environs where John Maynard Keynes imagined and drafted an entirely new economic system for that time in global history.

Soros said that appearing at and participating in a conference like this that he had helped fund was difficult because he had intellectual stakes in the game.

Soros said that he viewed himself as a "protagonist of alternative paradigms" particularly in the arenas of "human uncertainty, reflexivity, and fallibility."

Soros acknowledged that many tended to confuse his status as a funder with his role as an intellectual provocateur. He shared a story of trying to launch some new ideas at Brookings and wanted to be challenged and have those ideas seriously debated. But the venture was a failure because the Brookings staff were entirely too nice to him and pulled their punches according to Soros.

Thus, Soros rarely funds ventures in which he really wants to intellectually compete. However, in the launch of the Institute for New Economic Thinking he was setting aside his concerns because he feels both the ideas he is working on now have their own maturity and also that the need for a paradigmatic shake-up in economics is critical and that there are key co-partners willing to be part of the process without biased deference to his own stakes in the debate.

Both the Center for International Governance Innovation and the Stiftung Mercator are now both official strategic partners of INET on this conference and an expansive new economic thinking research agenda.

The intellectual firepower at this conference is outstanding, and in the discussions thus far, when it comes to commenting one way or another on some of George Soros' concepts, people are not pulling their punches.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

Rob Johnson, executive director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, just showed an extraordinary powerpoint slide of which I just snapped a picture (see above).

Johnson who is a former fund manager and former chief economist of the Senate Budget Committee working then for the Republican side of the aisle backed up the talking points above with a set of data sets and slides that showed how the financial performance of portfolios of Members of Congress were outproducing the best funds - even George Soros' Quantum Fund. He showed how there has been a definitive trend in the enrichment of both Members of Congress and regulators over the regulated.

To type out what appears in the slide, Johnson's talking points state:

Money in U.S. Politics

~ Campaign Contributions.

~ Removal of Congressional Staff Pensions.

~ Congressional members rate of return on investment portfolio significantly outperforms the market and even outperforms corporate insiders.

~ The Regulators as employment agencies for the regulated.

As Rob Johnson worked through these points, he said that legislators interests are buoyed by extraordinarily large financial sector political contributions. As a side note, I would note this story that recently appeared about the Blackstone Group's President hosting a "private equity big-wigs" fundraiser for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Johnson also noted that the Reagan administration's suspension of Congressional staff pensions have resulted in post-job directed rent-seeking from the richly endowed interests they help regulate.

Again, Johnson mentioned the staggering profit rates of investment funds holding the assets of Congressional Members.

And like think tanks are often homes for governments in exile, Johnson suggests that there is employment/enrichment collusion between regulated financial institutions and their regulators.

Fascinating. Simon Johnson, author of 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown, is speaking now -- and is brilliant. He finished with a call for another "Theodore Roosevelt moment" to break up the largest banks and financial institutions and to definitively unplug the problem of "banks too big to fail."

More on Simon Johnson talk and more later.

-- Steve Clemons

(photo credit: Steve Clemons, The Washington Note)

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn is "cool under fire", as Central European University President John Shattuck said when introducing him, and didn't break his stride during his interesting presentation to a group convened by the Institute for New Economic Thinking at Kings College, University of Cambridge.

I am sitting in the hall now -- listening to Strauss-Kahn and witnessed the disruption. The above photo was snapped by me a few moments ago.

Those in the hall during Strauss-Kahn's talk and the disruption include George Soros, Financial Services Authority Chief Lord Adair Turner, UT Austin's James K. Galbraith, the American Prospect's Robert Kuttner, Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, financier and writer Marshall Auerback, former IMF chief economist and blog provocateur Simon Johnson, Naked Capitalism blogger Yves Smith, Institute for New Economic Thinking Executive Director Rob Johnson, Economic Policy Institute President Lawrence Mishel, and others.

-- Steve Clemons

This morning at a conference in Cambridge, England titled "The Economic Crisis and the Crisis in Economics" sponsored by the Institute for New Economic Thinking, alerts on the blackberries and iPhones of the various governmental and journalistic representatives here started beeping and vibrating with news that the President of Poland Lech Kaczynski, his wife Maria Kaczynska, and various other key officials of the Polish military, foreign ministry and other departments of government were killed when the President's plane crashed while landing in bad weather in western Russia.

Here is a partial list of those killed in the aircraft disaster.

Poland and Russia were attempting to get beyond the painful historical scars rooted in the execution by the Soviet NKVD of 21,768 senior Polish military officers, government officials and intellectuals. President Kaczynski and his delegation were traveling to Russia to a commemorative service honoring those who had been killed seventy years ago near Katyn in a joint Russia-Poland service.

In October 1989, Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to Jimmy Carter and America's most well-known Polish-American official, visited Katyn at the invitation of then Soviet President Mikael Gorbachev.

Brzezinski commented that:

It isn't a personal pain which has brought me here, as is the case in the majority of these people, but rather recognition of the symbolic nature of Katyn.

Russians and Poles, tortured to death, lie here together. It seems very important to me that the truth should be spoken about what took place, for only with the truth can the new Soviet leadership distance itself from the crimes of Stalin and the NKVD.

Only the truth can serve as the basis of true friendship between the Soviet and the Polish peoples. The truth will make a path for itself. I am convinced of this by the very fact that I was able to travel here.

Brzezinski also stated:

The fact that the Soviet government has enabled me to be here -- and the Soviets know my views -- is symbolic of the breach with Stalinism that perestroika represents.

Clearly, what was meant to be a much more public confession by Russian leaders and acknowledgment and reset opportunity for Poles and Russians together at this memorial service will now be a tragedy squared.

Condolences to Poland's citizens and to the family, friends and colleagues of those killed in this disaster.

-- Steve Clemons

(photo credit: James Mawson)

I didn't take this picture. I think it was taken a few months ago by Cambridge University Kings College senior James Mawson who is studying music at this ancient and interesting foundation of learning.

John Maynard Keynes and Henry VI are the two personalities that basically dominate the scene at Kings.

The internet is slower here than in Havana, Cuba, but I could imagine spending some time in this archetype of college towns.

I have just taken a late night/early morning stroll around the greens of the College -- and there are these great ducks everywhere. They have character -- just like the ones that James Mawson snapped above on the bridge over The Backs channel.

More tomorrow on the conference I am attending.

What I will share as a teaser is that Britain's Financial Services Authority Chair Adair Turner blew all of us away at this conference with an incredibly granular understanding of economic praxis and theory -- and a facility for talking about complex economic challenges that made me feel embarrassed about the intellectual and performance talent deficit among comparable US economic policy elites. He was amazing -- and the organizers are trying to convince him to put this brilliant speech he gave on the record, as opposed to the "after the fact" comment by the moderator that his talk was on Chatham House non-attribution rules.

Many thanks to the two "Toms", James Mawson and others here at Kings College for their kindness and memorable hospitality.

-- Steve Clemons

Jonathan Guyer is a program associate at the New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force and the official cartoonist of The Washington Note. He blogs at Mideast by Midwest.

-- Jonathan Guyer

(Photo Credit: mr_smee44's Photostream)

The International Crisis Group (ICG) published a report earlier this week on "Turkey And The Middle East: Ambitions and Constraints." The paper is an excellent primer on Turkey's growing and complicated role in the region.

The report leads to the conclusion that Turkey's potential to transmit liberal values and economic prosperity can do much more for the region than its high-profile efforts to facilitate dialogue and mediate compromises among its neighbors. The report notes, for example, that Turkey's economy produces the equivalent of half the entire output of the Middle East and North Africa.

As one Turkish diplomat in the Middle East told the Crisis Group:

The priority is not mediation or conflict resolution per se; we are not really achieving many results and that's perhaps not the point anyway. The point is to be visible, to look like a power, to make our neighbors like us, to achieve stability which will help economic growth and to increase trade and investments.

But contributing to stability abroad requires consolidating democracy at home. That means first and foremost achieving an equilibrium between the staunchly secular state and the more religiously inclined government, while remaining committed to the European Union accession process and the liberal reforms it requires.

The government's constitutional amendment proposal presented to Parliament last week is the most recent manifestation of the ongoing struggle for power and ideological preeminence between the state and the government that represents the greatest constraint on Turkey's regional role.

The report also decisively rejects the common misconception in the United States and Europe that Turkey is "turning away from the West" toward the East. In fact, Turkey's reengagement is pragmatic rather than ideological and is meant to compliment rather than replace its Western orientation. This is evidenced, for example, by the fact that Europe still accounts for half of Turkey's international trade.

The full report can be read here.

Readers interested in this topic should also read "A Neighborhood Rediscovered," a recent paper by German Marshall Fund Transatlantic Academy Fellows Kemal Kirisci, Nathalie Tocci, and Joshua Walker.

-- Ben Katcher

Above is a short clip of video from the first session of the Institute for New Economic Thinking conference launch where I am now in Cambridge, England.

I asked the conference organizers to pull out this exchange between Robert Kuttner and Richard Koo -- in which Koo shares that he was trying to get his Lawrence Summers to level with the American people that the financial crisis we are working through is not just a common cold that can be easily shoved aside. As of late, Summers has been suggesting that the economy is approaching take off velocity again and that the largely traditional framework for dealing with recessions worked during the recent economic shock too.

This panel featured the New Yorker's John Cassidy as moderator with presenters Richard Koo, Chief Economist of Nomura Research Institute, and Kenneth Rogoff, who is the former Chief Economist of the International Monetary Fund and now Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economics at Harvard University.

The full session is interesting and should be watched in full. I'll post the entire session as soon as the conference organizers get it posted.

During the meeting, Richard Koo makes a compelling case that Japan's real estate bubble burst tracks nearly identically with America's sub-prime loan triggered crisis, both in the depth and duration of economic trauma. Koo argues that democracies in times of peace have a difficult time maintaining a disciplined fiscal stimulus economic priming strategy as forces of fiscal conservatism often set in before recovery is secure.

Rogoff, in contrast, aligns himself with the fiscally conservative, anti-Keynsian crowd.

The meeting was packed and took place in Keynes Hall at Kings College -- with a distinguished bronze statue of Lord John Maynard Keynes in the room, seemingly absorbing the discussion and scene.

Rogoff, in his opening remarks, refers to a quip from his co-author on his recently published This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly.

He said that Carmen Reinhart often looks at her "watch" in talking about the comparison of the financial crisis in the US to other crises -- in this case Sweden which was largely resolved in a year. Now that the US is going on two years of wrestling with its economic mess, Reinhart says that "the US is not on Nordic time any more -- and policymakers are speaking Japanese without knowing it."

This conference is fascinating -- a mix of serious economic theorists and modelers and policy practitioners.

-- Steve Clemons

On Tuesday, the Washington Note conveyed the news that Af/Pak Envoy Richard Holbrooke's doctor had grounded him pending angiogram tests and was not permitting him to travel to the Afghanistan on a well publicized trip with General David Petraeus this week.

I have learned just an hour ago that the angiogram showed the best possible results. There was no significant obstruction that required intervention.

Richard Holbrooke has been cleared to travel with General Petraeus to Afghanistan.

In fact, Holbrooke spoke to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton directly and she cleared the trip.

I can also report that Holbrooke is in excellent spirits -- though he seemed in excellent spirits when he presided over an all staff meeting Tuesday this week and had not yet informed his team of this potential health challenge.

So good news on the Holbrooke health front.

-- Steve Clemons

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

New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force Director and Middle East Channel Editor Daniel Levy provides an excellent "breaking analysis" of David Igantius' and Helene Cooper's reports yesterday that the Obama administration is considering proposing a comprehensive peace plan for Israel and Palestine.

Levy's analysis is too nuanced to allow me to do it justice by excerpting it, but I will highlight one counter-intuitive point that Levy has been making for awhile: that the settlement fracas has actually pushed Benjamin Netanyahu into an uncomfortable position.

It is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has, inadvertently, confronted the administration with Kurtzer's truisms and helped create a learning curve of what one might call "policy review by painful experience." Netanyahu helped provide a moment of clarity, demonstrating that confidence cannot be built incrementally, that settlements will not be frozen, and that East Jerusalem cannot be ignored. If one is to ascribe strategic foresight to the Obama administration (and that may be merited), then what they have done is to walk the Israeli prime minister down a corridor in which, in part due to his own actions, the exit routes are being sealed and a moment of real choice is approaching.

As I argued here back in September, the Obama settlement-freeze strategy took Netanyahu out of his comfort zone (of interim measures and economic peace). In rejecting the freeze, Netanyahu found himself not only facing but embracing the thing he most abhors -- endgame peace negotiations. The latest round has taken this a step further, now making a discussion of Jerusalem inescapable. The more Netanyahu demands recognition of Israeli neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, the more obvious and unavoidable the flip side becomes -- namely, that Palestinian East Jerusalem and Palestinian neighborhoods will need to be recognized as part of the Palestinian capital and state. He continues to be walked down that corridor.

Levy's article can be read here.

-- Ben Katcher

I just ran into Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, in the run down but historic commons pub of Kings College at Cambridge University

Rogoff is over-the-top accomplished, but just one essay of his made me a fan -- written in 2004, Rogoff authored an oped titled "A Debtor's Empire" that laid out quite clearly that America's superpower credentials were being eroded by a lack of attention to dependencies it was building on other countries to finance its never-ending binge of cheap toys and expensive wars.

Rogoff is speaking in the first session of a star-studded conference opening here at Cambridge University today under the auspices of the new George Soros-initiated Institute for New Economic Thinking. The meeting will start at 10:00 am EST time; 3:00 UK time.

Here is the agenda for the three-day session.

Why Kings College. The reason is simple. It was here where John Maynard Keynes once conceptualized how to change the laws of economic gravity when the world needed it. The drivers behind the Institute for New Economic Thinking believe that the time for revision of economic thinking has again arrived.

Rob Johnson will head INET as its founding executive director. Johson is also Senior Fellow and Director of the Project on Global Finance at the Roosevelt Institute, was previously a managing director at Soros Fund Management where he managed a global currency, bond and equity portfolio specializing in emerging markets. He has also served on the United Nations Commission of Experts on International Monetary Reform under the Chairmanship of Joseph Stiglitz and served in past years as Chief Economist of the US Senate Committee on the Budget.

Other speakers and participants at this meeting include Joseph Stiglitz, George Soros, Richard Koo, Perry Mehrling, Charles Dallara, Adair Turning, Robert Dugger, Simon Johnson, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Gillian Tett among many others.

By special arrangement, the Washington Note will be posting a lot of video takes with speakers at this meeting -- as well as interviews with some of the principals.

-- Steve Clemons

(Photo Credit: Peter Soutza/White House Photostream)

The American Prospect Senior Correspondent and The Washington Independent Senior Reporter Spencer Ackerman has a thoughtful piece on the Obama administration's foreign policy in the current issue of The American Prospect.

Rather than providing a typical rundown of the state of play on key global issues, Ackerman organizes his article around two key themes - the Obama administration's goal of promoting dignity around the world and its effort to reduce the politics of fear here at home.

This style is refreshing and the conclusions are succinct: thumbs up on promoting dignity, thumbs down on lessening the politics of fear. Hopefully that will come later.

In his words:

On dignity promotion, the administration has racked up real successes and set the stage for several more. Obama has proved that the world is prepared for positive-sum American leadership -- whether it's by restructuring U.S. global economic partnerships through the G-20 instead of the more restricted G-8 set of powerful nations; whether it's resetting relationships with great and rising powers like Russia and China over contentious issues like Iran and climate change; whether it's explaining to the Muslim world that America's commitment to its well-being reaches far beyond securing its cooperation in the fight against terrorism. Dignity promotion, a new twist on the very old idea of liberal internationalism, is still taking shape. But the early evidence is that it's working -- for America and for the world.

Where Obama hasn't made nearly as much progress, to the disappointment of his supporters, is on confronting the politics of fear. The first days -- literally -- of the administration were defined by sweeping pledges to end torture, close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, and revise the U.S. approach to terrorism detentions. But that early promise is over. While the administration has taken political risks, revamping interrogations around humane information-gathering methods and charging top terrorism captives in civilian courts, it has lost battle after battle with Congress over Guantánamo. Instead of ending the Bush administration's military commissions, an ad hoc and unsuccessful forum for trying war criminals that the courts have rejected, the Obama administration has merely revamped them. It has reserved the right to hold people it considers dangerous indefinitely without charge, which violates the fundamental spirit of the Constitution. And its plan for closing Guantánamo involves moving the detainees to an Illinois prison, preserving the two key features that have made Gitmo an international symbol of lawlessness -- military commissions and indefinite detention. The most charitable judgment possible is that the administration picks its battles with the politics of fear very carefully.

While I am a bit less excited about the Obama administration's results on issues like Iran and climate change than Ackerman is, I think his piece offers a valuable prism through which to evaluate the administration's first 16 months.

You can read the full article here.

-- Ben Katcher

(Graffiti in Israel: "Where are you, Anat Kam?")

Max Blumenthal is helping to break a huge story in Israel that involves journalists, leaks, accusations of alleged treason, illegal assassinations, house arrests, a Haaretz editor in hiding, and personal conscience.

I thought the John Le Carre era was coming to a close -- but not when there are stories like this one percolating.

The story is complex and needs to be read in full rather than excerpted. Do read "Inside The Media Blackout Scandal in The Middle East's Only Democracy."

-- Steve Clemons

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I had a good exchange with MSNBC Countdown's Keith Olbermann tonight on Barack Obama's substantial achievement in a combined set of nuclear initiatives -- including a revised Nuclear Posture Review parts of which were released today, the signining a new START Treaty with Russia, a nuclear materials lockdown summit next week -- all leading to a major Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference in May.

This is 'Legacy Stuff' for the Obama team. I'm very impressed with the deftness of the details of the Nuclear Posture Review.

I have been frustrated by the Obama team's lack of progress, until now, to achieve the global objectives it has defined for itself.

This is a big win -- and something that can lead to momentum and other strategic accomplishments.

More tomorrow.

-- Steve Clemons

Tonight I'll be joining MSNBC Countdown host Keith Olbermann near the top of the hour, around 8:05 pm EST, for a discussion of President Obama's Nuclear Posture Review.

There is a lot of news today.

The horrific West Virginia disaster at a Massey Energy coal mine run by someone who allegedly spit at sensible regulation is a big deal.

The Comcast win over the Federal Communications Commission on net neutrality is also a big deal.

A serious death threat against Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) because of her support of health care reform legislation when critics like Sarah Palin and others are regularly using gun and marksman symbols for attacking Dems is a big deal.

But Barack Obama and his team have shown that they had a lot going on behind the scenes while the health care deal-making was going on.

This Nuclear Posture Review is a deft piece of work that puts serious pressure on Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty holdouts while at the same time establishing US protocols that make the fear of use of nuclear weapons subside. There is much more to this Nuclear Posture Review that I think is excellent and will get in to later -- but don't put me in the meekly supportive column on this Obama achievement.

And no more RRW (reliable, replaceable warheads) drama for a while.

The Obama NPR is actually, to paraphrase our incumbent Vice President, "a big Fxxking Deal."

-- Steve Clemons

This morning, I spent a couple of hours watching Richard Holbrooke interact with his interagency team before, during and after an all hands SRAP (Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan) meeting at the State Department.

Holbrooke is good to his people -- affirming, serious but on their side. Holbrooke's tenacious focus on results is legend in Washington -- but today and on another occasion when I was given the privilege of sitting in on his team meeting, I saw what few publicly see -- the deployment of warmth that he uses to motivate and build loyalty.

There is a palpable chumminess and sticky glue between these people who have been seconded to SRAP whether they are press and communications types, experts in seed to market farming, or military engineers who know how to build roads and bridges and SMS systems -- in Afghanistan.

I'll be sharing my thoughts on Holbrooke's Af/Pak portfolio -- both form and substance -- later this afternoon (or perhaps tomorrow morning).

But one bit of important, personal news I want to share about this big personality who holds one of the most toxic briefs in Washington.

Yesterday at 2 pm, Richard Holbrooke was told that he may have some clogged heart arteries -- and is going in Thursday for an angiogram and further treatment in New York. He was supposed to travel with Jack Lew, Rajiv Shah and others with General David Petraeus on a major AfPak trip this week, but will have to forego that trip.

Holbrooke assured me that these kinds of things are routine now. He shared the news with Secretary of State Clinton last night -- and was in the process of contacting General Petraeus during our meeting.

When at the end of his staff meeting he conveyed this personal news to the 50 members of his team, he was very low key and laughing about it. There were looks of concern around the room -- but he looked at them in his paternal way paused and said with a wry grin as if he'd never offered this sort of thing to them before "Come talk to me. I want you to share all of your angioplasty stories with me."

And they are -- kind of like watching a long line of medical home movies -- but I hear Holbrooke is smiling through it all.

He said he planned to be back in the office on Monday.

-- Steve Clemons

(Photo Credit: Maxually's Photostream)

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.

You have to hand it to Amb. Roger Noriega, former U.S. Representative to the OAS and former Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere under President G.W. Bush. When our fifty year-old failed Cuba policy is in trouble, he steps up to defend it the best he can.

In Forbes.com last week, Noriega sought to quell business community interest in The Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act (TRREEA), a draft bill offered by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson that would lift the U.S. travel ban and slightly ease certain food export restrictions toward Cuba. Noriega, a former Jesse Helms staffer who helped draft the 1996 Helms-Burton Act - the best known piece of the U.S. embargo of Cuba - offers a little something for everyone.

For foreign policy purists who believe that foreign policy is the sole prerogative of the President, and for preconditioned policy subscribers, Noriega waves the red flag that TRREEA "would take that discretion and diplomatic leverage out of [the President's] hands." Of course, that's more than a little ironic coming from the architect of the most codified (legislatively mandated) foreign policy ever foisted on a U.S. President. Until 1996, much of the U.S. embargo, like most sanctions, was largely based on Presidential declarations and Executive Branch regulations. The Helms-Burton Act turned all of it into law.

For free traders, Noriega's got something for you too. And it's anything but Cuba.

"There are three other trade deals pending in Congress today--with Colombia, Panama and South Korea--that would mean much more for American farmers, workers and consumers. Every day that we fail to act on these accords, our competitors can take those markets away from us."

Now, there's a compelling argument: the competition's going to eat our lunch. Sounds an awful lot like what Scott Fritz of the American Soybean Association told Congress last month when he and a panel full of farm commodity group representatives urged increasing food trade with Cuba, ""We can no longer sit on the sidelines and watch our competitors supply a market where we have a natural advantage."

So, what's the difference then between trade with, say, Colombia, and trade with Cuba? Is it that Colombia would have "free" access to the U.S. market and Cuba would gain no new access? (Well, and Cuba doesn't have any access now.) I'm not against the free trade agreements negotiated with Colombia, Panama or Korea, but keep in mind that free trade isn't always a simple sell to U.S. producers. FTAs offer U.S. producers the hope of increased access to a foreign market in exchange for foreign producers gaining freer access to our market too. Uniquely, the Peterson proposal would only increase U.S. market share in Cuba - as a rancher friend of mine from Montana often says with an urgent glint in his eye, "We're talking about one-way trade here!" (Not that I'm for one-way trade, either. But I'll bet American farmers would take it while it lasts.)

Noriega admits that the Cuba embargo has failed to produce its intended results - yet. But now is not the time to "resuscitate" Castro, he warns. "We can do right by our farmers without compromising our values." Well that sure sounds nice but I wouldn't take it to the bank.

Our current policy violates our freedom to travel, harms the Cuban people more than it harms the Cuban government, and puts U.S. farmers in need of new markets at a disadvantage in a natural market 90 miles away. How many American values are worth treading on for the satisfaction that we didn't give the old man the satisfaction? So long as we continue to stand in the way of free and open travel and food trade to the island, we're not doing right by our farmers or the Cuban people.

-- Anya Landau French

Despite living outside of the Beltway Bubble, Talking Points Memo creator/editor/blogger extraordinaire Josh Marshall has had a profound impact on the DC political scene for the last 10 years.

Marshall has provided key coverage of a number of ground-breaking stories since TPM's founding, including attacks on Social Security, the Bush administration's attorney-firing scandal, and John Bolton's ill-fated nomination to the United Nations.

Perhaps just as importantly, Marshall has helped inspire and support the first generation of policy bloggers.

The New America Foundation/American Strategy Program is pleased to host Marshall tonight, from 5:15 pm until 6:15 pm, for a chat with TWN Publisher Steve Clemons on the role of new media in shaping American politics.

His remarks will STREAM LIVE here on The Washington Note.

-- Andrew Lebovich

The White House has announced that it will delay a Treasury Department report reviewing whether China is manipulating its currency.

This delay is likely tied to three goals of the US.

First, the US wants to stop the slide in US-China relations. After Obama's meeting with the Dalai Lama, Hillary Clinton's swats at China over internet freedom and lack of cooperation on Iran, and some tough wrestling on where "global economic rebalancing" should start, the temperature between both global powers has been getting icier. Obama and team want to turn this around, particularly in light of Hu Jintao's trip to Washington in a week and a half.

Second, the US may hope that the growing tension between the nations combined with the "potential willingness" of the Department of Treasury to enable a spate of China-directed economic penalties may finally move China to float the value of its currency up at a faster pace.

Third, some are suggesting that the US has traded backing off on its currency findings if China demonstrates more support in the UN Security Council for tougher Iran sanctions. We'll see.

Back room deal making with great powers to achieve significant international objectives makes sense -- and Iran is one of those big problems today. I worry though that State Department and White House strategists may not see the difference between tying China into an effective comprehensive plan to change Iran's nuclear track on one hand and roping China into an ineffective sanctions strategy on the other.

So, if the US did trade away its economic interests by holding back on the currency report, or burying it, the price needs to be higher than Chinese support of Iran sanctions.

-- Steve Clemons

Happy Easter everyone.

I've been enjoying the day reading Charles Kupchan's excellent new book titled How Enemies Become Friends: The Sources of Stable Peace. As far as I'm concerned, this is one of the real must reads of this season.

But as I have been sitting on my porch, the robin that I wrote about last year has returned and is again valiantly trying to build a nest where one can't be built -- just on the inside corner of my front porch roof.

She has strewn building materials all over the porch -- and thus I had to go get the rubber duck that so many of you liked last year and put him in the erstwhile nesting spot.

The robin is looking at me this moment with an irritated scowl. Another day, I may actually build a slightly larger platform for her to get the nest safely in place -- but not today.

Hope Spring is working out nicely for everyone.

The robin just pooped on my porch.

-- Steve Clemons

I am catching up on some work today that is keeping me from the blog, but I wanted to share this photo of a striking mural painted by Stevan Dohanos in the Alvaro de Lugo Post Office in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas.

Happy Easter to those into resurrection, coconut cake, rabbits and eggs.

-- Steve Clemons

Today, the Huffington Post sent out a clip of an interesting essay by former IMF Chief Economist Simon Johnson challenging Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's take on financial reform.

The essay also appeared at Johnson's must read personal blog, Baseline Scenario.

Simon Johnson wrote:

Geithner is completely wrong if he thinks the financial reform bill now before Congress "has teeth."

There is simply nothing there that will rein in our largest financial institutions -- and you can see this in the financial markets. And as a symptom of these continuing problems, see the latest round on executive pay at banks -- we're back to cash and other short-term oriented payouts.

This administration recognizes that such incentives are dangerous -- particularly when combined with implicit government guarantees. But they can do nothing -- and will do nothing -- about this or about the deeper underlying issues.

Simon Johnson is almost unique in town because as an intellectual who rose to the highest ranks at one of the world's key institutions promoting global neoliberalism, Johnson is not supposed to engage in such direct assaults on brethren in related institutions -- like the Department of Treasury. Johnson is breath of fresh air in the field, as of course are Joe Stiglitz, Rob Johnson, Desmond Lachman, and some others.

Simon Johnson will be speaking at a notable forum at the University of Cambridge in the UK next week for the launch of the Institute for New Economic Thinking headed by economist Rob Johnson and funded by George Soros.

I recommend that folks get their orders in for Simon Johnson's book that is today at #19 on Amazon titled 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown.

I will be at this Cambridge meeting reporting back for TWN, Foreign Policy magazine, and perhaps some other publications. Much of the program at the several day long conference will stream live here at The Washington Note.

-- Steve Clemons