Headlining the July/August issue of Foreign Policy magazine is their always-fascinating "Failed States Index" measuring stability around the world.

In partnership with Foreign Policy, the New America Foundation will host a discussion TODAY from 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm of this year's index and the causes of this insecurity in different parts of the globe. The event will feature New York Times and Foreign Policy contributor James Traub, The Fund for Peace President Pauline H. Baker, and -- skyping in live from the Waldorf Astoria in New York -- TWN publisher Steve Clemons. Foreign Policy's Editor in Chief Susan Glasser will moderate what should be an eye-opening conversation. The event will live stream here at TWN.

-- Andrew Lebovich

In recent days, i attended an off the record discussion with several senior Obama administration officials involved in international "stuff" -- some foreign policy, some commerce, some defense and intelligence sector deal-making.

One of the most interesting comments made to a question I posed probing the administration's strategy in Asia, was "Steve, don't watch the hand!"

What this person was saying was 'don't get lost in everything going on at the surface' in US-China relations or US-Japan relations, but rather look at the other many bits and pieces of America's engagement in the Asia Pacific that are enhancing US leverage and generating a greater sense among Pacific Rim countries that America is there, engaged, and preempting China from enjoying monopoly status.

This is interesting framing -- but this also means that America is adopting more of a piecemeal strategy in Asia, driven more by deals like a US-South Korea free trade arrangement or arms sales to some countries than by reconstructing the U.S. as an unignorable, consequential heavyweight.

I recently spoke at a forum organized by the US Embassy in Japan and Department of State in cooperation with Aoyama Gakuin University and Sophia University in which some very capable international affairs students from Japanese universities all around the country participated in forums on the US-Japan security relationship, on immigration issues, climate change, terrorism, and other issues.

In my session, we polled the 27 students in our group on certain key questions -- and their answers seem to underscore the broad doubts about America's staying power and profile in the region.

Here were the questions and responses:

1. In order to assess how much confidence you have as Japanese citizens in Japan, do you think that Japan should be a permanent member of the UN Security Council?

16 yes -- 11 no

2. Can you, without any hesitation, proclaim that you are pro-United States?

20 no -- 7 yes

3. Even though you may not have thought former Prime Minister Hatoyama did his job effectively, do you sympathize with Hatoyama's overall goals [particularly in adjusting US-Japan relations and moving Futenma out of Okinawa]?

18 yes -- 9 no

4. In Japan's diplomacy, do you think that Japan should maintain an equal distance between the United States and China?

8 yes -- 19 no

5. In the current US-Japan alliance, do you think the relationship is lopsided and should be changed [with more empowerment of Japan in the alliance]?

23 yes -- 4 no

Toshihiro Nakayama, a professor at Aoyama Gakuin University and fellow at the Japan Institute for International Affairs, was my partner in this program and organized these excellent questions.

The candor of the students was refreshing. While clearly concerned about too much of a tilt toward China, they too felt heavily burdened on some fronts by Japan's relationship with the U.S.

These questions are just a snapshot of a small group -- but they indicate the importance of America reinventing its engagement in the region and demonstrating more flexibility than previously shown about what a partnership with Japan actually means.

So, while we may not want to be too distracted by "the hand", it's important that the moves the United States is making on other fronts in the region include renegotiating our social and security contract between Japanese citizens and the security architecture we are clinging to.

-- Steve Clemons

Wow. Thanks to Dan Fletcher and the team at Time who picked The Washington Note as one of their favorite blogs of the year.

We are really honored -- and caught off guard by the salute from Time.

Blogs are interesting enterprises and with TWN, I try to keep learning and thinking about political, economic and foreign policy topics that I find interesting and which we hope matter to many of you.

Thanks so much to all of you for spending part of your days and weeks here with us.

-- Steve Clemons

(Photo Credit: White House Photostream)

Joshua Walker has a good piece at Foreign Policy that takes a broad view of U.S.-Turkey relations and arrives at largely positive conclusions about the long-term prospects for the alliance.

Walker is part of a team of scholars at the German Marshall Fund's Transatlantic Academy who recently wrote "Getting To Zero: Turkey, Its Neighbors, And The West," a comprehensive examination of Turkey's rapidly expanding role in regional and global politics. (The title alludes to Turkey's so-called "Zero Problems with Neighbors" foreign policy.)

Walker's article can be interpreted as a response to the flurry of Beltway criticism aimed at Turkey in recent weeks given its opposition to the United States' push for sanctions against Iran and its blusterous response to the Flotilla incident.

Walker concludes that

Turkish policies can complement the United States' if framed within a broader and longer-term perspective of the transatlantic alliance that shares common goals and values even if the short-term means differ. What is needed now is not an emotional and reactional appraisal of Turkish rhetoric but one that recognizes that contributions to American and European goals may come in a new, and perhaps unfamiliar, guise that requires more, not less engagement.

Encouraging Ankara's newfound assertiveness and diplomatic initiatives, rather than demonizing it for tactical differences, will ensure that Turkey remains a constructive transatlantic partner and committed U.S. ally in the long run. The fact is that Turkey is a rising power on the international scene as a G-20 founding member, with a European seat on the UN Security Council, and head of the Organization of Islamic Conference in one of the most critical geographies in the world. Turkey has arrived and is not going anywhere, regardless of Washington's rhetoric about "Who lost Turkey?" Or "Where is Turkey going?" Therefore, despite all of its bluster and rhetoric, Turkey remains America's most crucial ally in region.

I agree with Walker's analysis and would add an additional point.

Of the two crises, Turkey's behavior on the Iran issue has drawn the ire of official Washington more than its response to the Flotilla incident. This is somewhat ironic given that Turkey's diplomatic engagement with Tehran was supported by Washington. The United States has more to gain from Turkey if it is trusted in Tehran and can serve as an interlocutor and the disagreements between Ankara and Washington on Iran's nuclear program relate to means rather than ends.

On the other hand, no matter what one thinks of Israel's blockade of Gaza, Turkey's over-the-top response to the Flotilla incident is indicative of a worrying anti-Israel populism that is unhealthy for Turkey and may permanently jeopardize Ankara's capacity to serve as a mediator between Israel and its enemies with real strategic consequences for both Turkey and the United States.

-- Ben Katcher

Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) has died at 92.

I had the privilege of speaking with Senator Byrd on many occasions but the most memorable was after his vote against the Iraq War Resolution. He was frustrated with his colleagues and compared the moment to Roman Senators forfeiting their own responsibilities and handing too much power to Caesar.

But Senator Byrd has also been the single US Senator most opposed to change in the Senate chamber -- preventing modification of arcane internal rules that make any majority effort in the Senate wobbly and fragile.

His passing will certainly bring on a survey of the Senate machinery and start a process of updating and streamlining -- which may in fact not be good with regard to minority political rights.

But without Byrd there, it's highly unlikely anyone will emerge to be the defender of the institution to the degree he was.

-- Steve Clemons

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan may not be everyone's cup of tea. I have no issues with her and think that she is a disciplined, fair-minded, creative thinker who will add a lot to the highest court in the land.

That said, I just learned that the Senate Judiciary Committee is calling none other than the God-connected, crusade-obsessed saber rattler retired Lt. General William G. "Jerry" Boykin as one of four military witnesses raising questions about Kagan's policy of making it tough for the military to recruit at Harvard when there was a conflict over the Pentagon's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policies.

I think DADT is a relic that should be tossed out -- but reasonable people can disagree and debate.

But Boykin? If this party is engaged in such self-destructive theatrics, why can't the White House do a better job of dividing up the Republicans into smart and not-so-smart factions.

I know that I hang out with a good number of Republicans in the smarter faction -- but no one is forcing a wedge between they and those with whom they'd rather not be hanging.

This has to be uncomfortable for many in the GOP.

-- Steve Clemons

On Monday Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, announced the launch of a new counter-terrorism initiative, a hotline for members of radical Islamists groups to call where they can get advice for leaving the group. The idea, based on long-running programs for Germans leaving neo-Nazi groups, has gotten relatively favorable coverage from wire services and news sites. German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière described it as a "valuable preventive effort" in helping counteract the threat of domestic radicalization.

For the last few years German officials have expressed increasing concerns about radicalization, first of German Muslims from immigrant backgrounds and more recently from German converts to Islam. Germany reportedly monitors 29 different Islamist organizations, and estimates that roughly 36,000 members of these organizations pose potential security risks. The 2007 Sauerland cell arrests raised the specter of terrorism against German and American targets, and more recently anecdotal evidence suggests a small but steady flow of young Muslims and converts (estimated to be about 40 per year) to conflict zones such as the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. The death of wanted militant Eric Breininger and the publication of his jihadist memoirs/travelogue soon after shone a spotlight on this phenomenon, and brought new attention to the persistent rumors of a "German colony" of jihadists in Pakistan.

Religious and potentially violent extremism is thus a clear problem in Germany, as in other European countries, but a jihadist recovery hotline hardly qualifies as de-radicalization. And while not a bad idea at all, this idea is neither preventive nor likely to be particularly effective.

On the one hand, many factors have to converge for someone to even use this hotline; an individual, having joined a radical organization, would have to have come to the decision not only to leave an organization with likely tight-knit members, but also overcome the very real fear of retribution as well as accept the possible arrest of friends and associates in the group as a result of their return from an extremist environment. This is a small group of people, though by all means governments should provide them the support they can.

Yet the real problem lies not in getting through the social and security pressures placed on militant group members, but letting the process radicalization get that far in the first place. In a 2009 report the Muslim Public Affairs Council attempted to lay out the complex and ill-understood manner in which an individual progresses from a so-called "normal" life, to possessing radical ideas, and perhaps to action. The report lays out a variety of factors (economic, political, social/cultural and personal) as well as steps that generally occur as someone grows more radical.

While radicalization is different for each person, the report helps demonstrate that a long process precedes the act of joining an activist or militant group, whether the seeds for this progression are sown in a mosque, amongst a circle of friends, or on the internet. Waiting for someone to join, lose taste for, and summon the courage to leave a militant organization is not preventive, it is reactive. And it means that for every person who goes through all of these steps, many more undergo radicalization unabated.

I do not doubt that German officials understand the threat posed by radicalization. And thankfully the threat from domestic terrorism, whether in Europe or the United States, remains low. But the fight against terrorism requires continuous effort to understand and treat the causes of radicalization, rather than dealing with symptoms as they appear.

-- Andrew Lebovich

The news of former ISAF commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal's and his staff's comments about senior administration officials and the President, followed by McChrystal's sacking this morning, have sucked up much of the news about Afghanistan in the last few days.

But while the war effort faces difficulty and certain questioning as Gen. David Petraeus takes over (temporarily), one success in Afghanistan is the export of soft power, in the form of radio. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, originally founded in 1949 to send America's message to the communist world, now runs the most popular radio station in the country, Radio Azadi. RFE/RL also started an Pashto-language station targeting the Afghan-Pakistan border region, Radio Mashaal, in January of this year.

TODAY from 3:30 pm to 5:00 pm, RFE/RL's President Jeffrey Gedmin, who has just returned from a reporting trip to Pakistan and travels frequently to the region, will be at the New America Foundation for a conversation with TWN publisher Steve Clemons about his time in South Asia and soft power on the Durand Line. The event will livestream here at TWN, RSVP here if you are in Washington and would like to attend.

-- Andrew Lebovich

When groups start buying full page ads in Politico or any of the other leading political papers like The Hill or Roll Call, it's a sure sign that folks see a policy battle ahead.

The bipartisan Partnership for a Secure America has today purchased a page in Politico calling for the Senate to ratify the newly negotiated START Treaty. (here is pdf)

This begs the question of the consequences of not ratifying this treaty. I'm expecting former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton and his fellow travelers to be the most hyperbolic opponents to the Treaty. Sarah Palin will probably offer her own softer version of Ann Coulter demonization of the treaty.

But seriously, the world becomes a much more dangerous place -- on lots of levels -- if this treaty is not ratified. Most important I think would be a collapse of confidence by China and Russia in the ability of the US to lead in creating and revitalizing the institutions that help make the global system safer than would otherwise be the case.

The progress Obama has made in getting broad international commitment to getting nuclear materials under lock and key and better controlled would come undone if this Treaty does not pass.

Here are the signers of the PSA letter published today:

Madeleine Albright Secretary of State 1997-2001
Howard Baker US Senator (R-TN) 1967-85
Samuel Berger National Security Advisor 1997-2001
Linton Brooks Administrator, National Nuclear Security Administration, 2002-07
Harold Brown Secretary of Defense 1977-81
Frank Carlucci Secretary of Defense 1987-89
Warren Christopher Secretary of State 1993-97
William Cohen Secretary of Defense 1997-2001
John C. Danforth US Senator (R-MO) 1977-95
Kenneth M. Duberstein White House Chief of Staff 1988-89
Chuck Hagel US Senator (R-NE) 1997-2009
Lee Hamilton US Congressman (D-IN) 1965-99; Co-Chair, PSA Advisory Board
Gary Hart US Senator (D-CO) 1975-87
Rita E. Hauser Chair, International Peace Institute
Carla Hills US Trade Representative 1989-93
Nancy Kassebaum-Baker US Senator (R-KS) 1978-97
Thomas Kean Governor (R-NJ) 1982-90; 9/11 Commission Chair
Richard Leone President, The Century Foundation
Donald McHenry US Ambassador to the UN 1979-81
Sam Nunn US Senator (D-GA) 1972-96
William Perry Secretary of Defense 1994-97
Thomas Pickering Under Secretary of State 1997-2000
Colin L. Powell Secretary of State 2001- 05
Warren Rudman US Senator (R-NH) 1980-92; Co-Chair, PSA Advisory Board
Alan Simpson US Senator (R-WY) 1979-97
George Shultz Secretary of State 1982-89
Theodore Sorensen White House Special Counsel 1961-63
John Whitehead Deputy Secretary of State 1985-88
Timothy E. Wirth US Senator (D-CO) 1987-93
Frank Wisner Under Secretary of State 1992-93

-- Steve Clemons

This is just a week of regime change, even if those going out and those coming in look very similar in overall perspective.

General Stanley McChrystal has been replaced by counter-insurgency uber-guru General David Petraeus. Bottom line: No policy change in Afghanistan.

And yesterday, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was dethroned inside his own party which then affixed its hopes to the dynamic Julia Gillard.

I have to admit liking Kevin Rudd as much as Barack Obama. Many may not know that when it came to their overall views of the world and their personal temperament, Obama and Rudd were two of the closest leaders in the global community. They genuinely like each other.

Because of the enormous foundation of high octane relationship building that now Australian Consul General in New York Phil Scanlan has engineered between Americans and Australians in the Australian American Leadership Dialogue, I have had the opportunity to meet many of Australia's leading political figures -- including John Howard, Kevin Rudd, Kim Beazley, Julia Gillard and others.

Gillard impresses and may be able to push reset on some of the key policy targets Rudd had set but had trouble accomplishing.

One note of commendation, however, to the U.S. State Department Visitors Program. Years ago, when the New America Foundation was just still in its early formative years, I received a visit from a prominent but very young Aussie politician named Julia Gillard -- and we had a terrific exchange about the Bush administration's foreign policy and national security vision (and errors) as well as about think tanks.

The State Department Visitors Program provides a vital bridge between many of the leaders the world will yet see in the years ahead and American political leaders and policy experts.

Congrats to Julia -- and here too is President Obama's statement today:

President Obama offers his congratulations to Julia Gillard on her assumption of the position of Prime Minister of Australia and on the historic step of becoming Australia's first female prime minister. The United States and Australia enjoy a special and productive relationship and alliance that will continue to prosper under her leadership.

The President looks forward to working with Prime Minister Gillard across the broad range of issues on which the United States and Australia currently enjoy strong and deep cooperation and looks forward to speaking with her soon. The President also wishes to extend his thanks and best wishes to former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who remains a great friend of America.

-- Steve Clemons

General Stanley McChrystal has more staff, more strategists, more financing, and more clout in the field than Richard Holbrooke, Karl Eikenberry, General Jim Jones, Vice President Biden and the NATO allies that he and his allies disparaged.

He created a culture of disdain for civilian leadership and showed intolerance for views that differed from his own - even though he was king of the hill as far as the Afghanistan surge. What McChrystal has done is to challenge not the President directly or even the chain of command -- but rather he and his command staff have undermined the very foundation of public trust in the White House's legitimacy and leadership.

McChrystal was the only one whose job was 'not' in danger over Afghanistan. While Holbrooke, Jones and Eikenberry scuffled -- McChrystal sat comfortably with a near monopoly of resources, a handful of strategists and press staff, and the certainty that he had the confidence of Barack Obama. He has now -- all on his own -- thrown his own legacy and America's operation in Afghanistan into chaos. Tens of thousands of American men and women serving under his command deserve better leadership and also vitally need someone who can partner with other key players in the US government.

Barack Obama has to use this mistake by McChrystal as a learning moment -- reminding the nation that the President is the Commander in Chief and reminding the US military that pugnacious disdain for diplomats, civil society builders, for strategists, Vice Presidents, and ISAF allies with whom they may have differences is something that they must learn to deal with responsibly and respectably.

-- Steve Clemons

Editor's Note: This short essay was first solicited by the Huffington Post.

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

-- Steve Clemons

Barack Obama has an easy choice to make: fire a general who has established a culture of insubordination and indifference toward civilian leaders and partners in government or defer yet again to a general who acquires power like medals every time he outwits or outmaneuvers the White House.

General Stanley McChrystal went over clear lines in the debate about the surge into Afghanistan with freelance comments he made in London. Recently, McChrystal stated that the move into Kandahar would slow and threw into doubt confidence in a July 2011 drawdown start date. He didn't consult with anyone before a public redesign of US strategy.

And now in this Rolling Stone report, "The Runaway General" (pdf), McChrystal and his team are reported ridiculing Joe Biden, Richard Holbrooke, Jim Jones, just about everyone not in their groove on strategy.

McChrystal has gone over too many lines.

Obama needs to fire him. If he doesn't, McChrystal's brand will be validated and the environment of insubordination and unprofessional conduct will be reinforced.

If McChrystal survives his White House encounter, then Obama will be diminished.

That is what this has come to.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a guest note by former U.S. Senator Ernest F. "Fritz" Hollings (D-SC).

MONEY

Reading Michael Hager in The Washington Post last Friday (18 June), "Congress needs a mediation tool to dissolve gridlock," notes that we are going to extremes to solve simple problems. Hager recommends "A political neutral service for legislative mediation" like the Congressional Budget Office. I don't know where Hager got the idea that CBO settles anything. But the problem is money.

As Chairman of the Commerce, Space Science, Transportation Committee of the United States Senate, I had learned in World War II that if you look out for your men, they'll look out for you. I followed this rule until the Republicans had a fundraiser for my opponent in my race for re-election, and all the Republicans attended save Ted Stevens. Stevens already was my hero and his non-attendance confirmed it. But I became immediately "partisan" as concerned the other Republicans. They wanted to get rid of me, and this made me feel likewise.

Money has not only destroyed bi-partisanship but corrupted the Senate. Not the Senators, but the system. In 1966 when I came to the Senate, Mike Mansfield, the leader, had a roll call every Monday morning at 9:00 o'clock in order to be assured of a quorum to do business. And he kept us in until 5:00 o'clock Friday so that we got a week's work in. That meant you weren't chasing money on the weekends, but stayed around Washington, partying with Senators that differed with you during the week. Today, there's no real work on Mondays and Fridays, but we fly out to California early Friday morning for a luncheon fundraiser, a Friday evening fundraiser, making individual money appointments on Saturday and a fundraising breakfast on Monday morning, flying back for perhaps a roll call Monday evening. This persists for six years.

In my last race in 1998 to be elected the seventh time to the United States Senate, I had to raise $8.5 million. That factors out to $30,000 a week, each week, every week, for six years. You don't start collecting money the year before your re-election date. Rather, you are in constant fundraise mode. There's no way to raise $8.5 million in little South Carolina, so I had to go to friends all over the country. That meant arranging trips during the week to travel the country on the weekend. And $8.5 million also means that you have to depend on the Democratic or Republican Campaign Finance Committee. These Campaign Committees in the Senate guarantee partisanship. We have party lunches every Tuesday, which is to help the party members that are up for re-election the coming, or that year. All members are constantly raising money for the other members, traveling, making talks, so that you can get help from the Committee when your time comes around. I always admired Bob Kerrey, the Senator from Nebraska, who was a Medal of Honor winner. But when he helped me with a million dollars as Chairman of the Campaign Committee in my last race, I learned to love him. I hear he is taking Jack Valenti's place with the Motion Picture Association, and I wish him well.

But back to the money. Schedules have been changed for money. On Washington's Birthday, a junior member would take the floor and read Washington's farewell address, but the United States Senate was in session. Now, we've merged Lincoln's Birthday with Washington's Birthday for a ten-day break to fundraise. And on St. Patrick's Day in March, another break to fundraise. Easter in April - fundraise. Memorial Day break - fundraise. Fourth of July break - fundraise. Month of August off - fundraise. Labor Day - fundraise. Columbus Day break - fundraise. I've even had a fundraiser on Friday after Thanksgiving.

And we cancel policy committee lunches on Thursday to go over to the Democratic headquarters to fundraise. Two little ladies keep you biting a sandwich or your tongue, calling on the phone: "We've got to take back the Senate." My tally showed that I raised $611 thousand on these Thursday calls for Inez Tenenbaum, South Carolina's candidate for the Senate in 2004.

Money is the reason filibusters work. Both Republicans and Democrats go along with filibuster threats. They never really bring out the cots and require all night speaking. One Republican holds the floor for his side and one Democrat for his side, and the rest of the Senators can go to New York or California to fundraise.

Nineteen ninety-eight was twelve years ago. It takes more money now. I told aspirants against Jim DeMint this year that they have to raise $4 million to $5 million before they get help from Washington. The Republicans will easily put $15 million in the campaign to keep DeMint's seat. And what was an $8.5 million race in 1998, has now become a $12 million to $15 million race.

Today, the campaign committees in Washington look for a candidate not with ideas or experience, but with money. I think one in California has just spent $80 million in the primary. I remember Russell Long instituting the dollar check-off on your income tax so as to finance "any mother's son to run for president." Now public finance has become passé. Obama's classmates went to Wall Street instead of law offices, and with the internet and his classmates, he raised more money than Chris Dodd, the Chairman of the Wall Street Committee.

The need for money goes up and up, and the very corruption that we tried to prohibit in 1971 and 1974 has been corrupted by the Supreme Court.

In 1971 and 1974 the Congress limited spending in campaigns so that no one could buy the office. Maurice Stans' "cash and carry" campaign for Richard Nixon alarmed us. We legislated a limit for so-much per registered voter for the office in each state. I took the position that the Supreme Court corrupted the freedom of speech by overruling the '74 act. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court held that Congress could limit contributors in campaigns but not the candidates. We intended to limit both, but our main concern was a candidate buying the office.

To justify the decision, the Court equated spending in campaigns with free speech. I know Madison never intended his first amendment to the Constitution for freedom of speech to be measured by money. Even The Wall Street Journal agrees with me. Editorializing against an exemption for the National Rifle Association on a campaign finance measure, The Wall Street Journal writes: "But the First Amendment wasn't written to allow tiers of political speech, with some speaker more protected than others." Madison never intended the rich complete protection in politics with the poor limited.

Now in the Citizens case, allowing corporations freedom of speech, and the Arizona case adulterating public financing, the Court has guaranteed corruption. We'll have to go to my joint resolution to amend the Constitution permitting Congress to limit spending in federal campaigns. We politicians in Congress that ran for office - not pristine judges that had never run for public office - knew the corruption that needed to be eliminated.

I wanted to return to Madison's original intent. Buckley amended the first amendment, and my amendment would return the first amendment to Madison's original intent. I got a majority vote, but never the two-thirds necessary for a joint resolution. Public financing doesn't prevent the rich from buying the office, and only a limit on spending will stop the partisanship and put the Congress back to work for the country rather than the campaign.

The Congress has been playing games with the Supreme Court on campaign finance for thirty years. We can stop the gamesmanship and "play marbles for keeps" with the Constitutional amendment. The amendment is popular. The Governors' Conference called me immediately to limit spending in state elections. Contributors are tired of contributing, and office holders are tired of fundraising.

When spending is limited in campaigning, those in Congress will have time for the country rather than the campaign. They can stay in Washington and spend time on the nation's business. Filibusters will be limited. Lobbyists will be limited. Corporations will be limited. Partisanship will be limited, and we'll be returning the first amendment to its original intent. This is what Congress intended in '71 and '74, signed into law by Richard Nixon, and Congress can do it again if it wants to take care of the country instead of the campaign.

-- Fritz Hollings

(Photo Credit: State Department Photo by Michael Gross)

George Washington University Middle East Studies Program Director and Foreign Policy Middle East Channel Editor Marc Lynch has an excellent post up on the legacy of a counter-productive Bush administration narrative.

Responding to Elliot Abrams' latest column in the Weekly Standard, Lynch identifies one of the key problems with the Obama administration's Middle East policies: the United States' decision to spin a simplistic narrative of the Middle East that depicts (U.S. supported) moderates on one side versus radicals and their patrons on the other.

This false dichotomy has reinforced anti-Americanism in the region, therefore paradoxically compelling the United States' autocratic allies to repress their populations even further.

From Lynch's piece:

The Arab core has been hollowed out in large part because of, not in spite of, its role in American foreign policy.

The Bush administration sought to polarize the Middle East into an axis of "moderates" -- grouping Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and other like-minded Sunni autocrats with Israel -- against "radicals" such as Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas. The Arab leaders on which the U.S. relied mostly went along, cooperating to a considerable degree in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and siding against Hezbollah in the 2006 Israeli war with Lebanon and against Hamas during the 2008 Israeli attack on Gaza. But Arab public opinion was largely on the other side, with broad majorities of the population in most of those Arab countries angrily denouncing both the Israeli wars and their own leaders for the positions they took in line with American preferences. To contain this popular anger and to continue to help American policies (such as Egypt's enforcing the blockade of Gaza), those Arab regimes became increasingly repressive. It is not an accident that after all the Bush administration's rhetoric about democracy promotion, it almost completely abandoned such efforts by early 2006 after the electoral victory by Hamas, and its legacy was a Middle East considerably less democratic than when it took office.

It is also not an accident that the two most vital, energetic forces in the region today, Qatar and Turkey, are the two countries which have tried the hardest to break away from the Bush administration's polarized world view.

Lynch's post calls to mind Stephen Kinzer's new book, Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America's Future.

Relying on similar themes, Kinzer makes a compelling argument that the United States' strategic interests require it to realign its relations in the Middle East away from two of its principal allies - Israel and Saudi Arabia - and toward Iran and Turkey.

Kinzer argues that "for different reasons, neither Saudi Arabai nor Israel is able to articulate or promote policies that serve its own long-term interests." The United States should instead make every effort to engage with Iran and Turkey, both of which have significant democratic traditions and offer the United States' greater strategic opportunities going forward.

Kinzer's argument in favor of a strategic shift is persuasive, but his suggestions regarding how to get from here to there are less fleshed out.

-- Ben Katcher

This was my wake up view this morning. Oakley continues to make good progress.

-- Steve Clemons

Oakley has pulled through the worst of this stomach-turning nightmare, his as well as ours.

Those of us who are attached to this pup thank everyone for their effusive, really wonderful and thoughtful notes that have come to us in large waves.

I have been cautious about posting updates because as we saw progress, we were warned by the vet that he was far from being out of the woods.

But his IV is now out -- and his heart rate and blood pressure have finally stabilized. I will post some other pics of him soon.

The pic above is Oakley with one of his several uncles.

Oakley the Amazing Weimaraner looks even better now.

Thanks in particular to those of you who knew a lot about the details of why dog's stomachs turn -- and what the consequences of this are.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

I'm flying across country today, on my way to Reno, Nevada -- where from a dingy hotel according to Jonathan Alter's fascinating new book, The Promise: President Obama, Year One, then candidate Barack Obama triggered the start of a serious White House transition plan.

I just received this White House statement on Gaza which I will post in full in the few minutes I have in Denver:

Office of the Press Secretary

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 20, 2010

Statement by the Press Secretary on Israel's announcement on Gaza

The President has described the situation in Gaza as unsustainable and has made clear that it demands fundamental change. On June 9, he announced that the United States was moving forward with $400 million in initiatives and commitments for the West Bank and Gaza. The President described these projects as a down payment on the U.S. commitment to the people of Gaza, who deserve a chance to take part in building a viable, independent state of Palestine, together with those who live in the West Bank. These announcements resulted from consultations with the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

Today, the United States welcomes the new policy towards Gaza announced by the Government of Israel, which responds to the calls of many in the international community. Once implemented, we believe these arrangements should significantly improve conditions for Palestinians in Gaza, while preventing the entry of weapons. We will work with Israel, the Palestinian Authority, the Quartet, and other international partners to ensure these arrangements are implemented as quickly and effectively as possible and to explore additional ways to improve the situation in Gaza, including greater freedom of movement and commerce between Gaza and the West Bank. There is more to be done, and the President looks forward to discussing this new policy, and additional steps, with Prime Minister Netanyahu during his visit to Washington on July 6.

We strongly re-affirm Israel's right to self-defense, and our commitment to work with Israel and our international partners to prevent the illicit trafficking of arms and ammunition into Gaza. As we approach the fourth anniversary of the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, we call again for his immediate release, and condemn the inhumane conditions of his detention.

We believe that the implementation of the policy announced by the Government of Israel today should improve life for the people of Gaza, and we will continue to support that effort going forward. We urge all those wishing to deliver goods to do so through established channels so that their cargo can be inspected and transferred via land crossings into Gaza. There is no need for unnecessary confrontations, and we call on all parties to act responsibly in meeting the needs of the people of Gaza.

-- Steve Clemons

I was honored last night to be invited to a small showing of the movie Budrus, a documentary about one town in the West Bank that successfully and non-violently resisted Israeli efforts in 2003 to build the separation barrier in a way that would have encircled the town, cutting the residents off from their land and uprooting precious olive trees.

I went to the screening knowing that I would have to write about it, and when thinking about it after seeing the movie I immediately became uneasy. I thought about broad issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the constant arguing, and the seemingly inescapable cycle of rhetoric and violence, provocation and response, and no longer wanted to write this review.

When I told a friend at the screening about my dread of writing about the movie because I didn't want to write about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, his response was, "well then don't write about the conflict. Write about the land."

And that is the heart of the movie, the land. Budrus mostly follows one man, Ayed Arrar, a Palestinian nationalist and activist who organized the protests over 10-months that lead to Israel's eventual decision to build the wall close to the 1967 border, allowing the town of Budrus to keep 95% of its land. The movie follows others through filmed scenes and extensive interviews, including with Arrar's wife and daughter, a Hamas activist, an Israeli Army spokesman, an Israeli border patrol officer, and Israeli activists who protested with the residents of Budrus.

The movie has a clear purpose, to show the injustice of Israeli construction that would have cut off the town from its fields and livelihood, and even cut the town's cemetery in half. But regardless of the justifications or arguments against the security barrier, the thing that struck me most about the movie was that there seems to have been simply no reason for the decision to draw the fence line around Budrus - instead of simply hewing to or close to the green line, the army chose to pursue a more complicated route, one that involved turning the area around a town into a closed military zone, deploying border police day after day to push back protesters, all for no gain. After all, no Israelis were set to move into the land, no one would make use of Budrus' olive groves, they were simply upended, to be replaced with concrete and concertina wire.

And so I have to ask, what makes more sense for Israel? Two states with defensible borders, or constant haggling over land, incremental change, and soldiers permanently deployed in town after town, forced to fight back a hostile majority for little foreseeable gain.

No matter how you feel about Israelis or Palestinians, Budrus is a beautiful piece of work that tells a stirring story and will make you look at this issue with fresh eyes. In Washington you can see Budrus at the Silverdocs film festival June 24 and 26, for other cities check the film's website for information.

-- Andrew Lebovich

I just received the press announcement from Bruce Stokes and Andrew Kohut at the Pew Research Center on the just released Pew Global Attitudes Survey.

Fascinating stuff -- and disturbing.

49% of Nigerians have a "favorable" view of al Qaeda, and a majority of Pakistanis "favor" an Iran nuclear weapons program.

The report also shows that President Obama is more favorable abroad than in the United States.

From the release:

The new survey by the Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project, conducted among more than 24,000 people in 22 nations April 7 to May 8, provides an in-depth look at attitudes toward major powers and world leaders; the global economic situation from free trade to financial regulation; Islamic extremism; and international problems such as climate change. Key findings include:

· America's Image - U.S. favorability has improved markedly in Russia, China and Japan. It has fallen in India, but remains high - dipping from 76% in 2009 to 66% in 2010. America's image is highly positive in South Korea (79% favorable), Poland (74%) and Brazil (62%).

· The Arizona Effect: U.S. favorability in Mexico has tumbled in the wake of Arizona's new immigration law - from 62% in polling conducted before the law's enactment to 44% afterward.

· European Leaders: German Chancellor Angela Merkel is well regarded in Britain and Spain, and gets higher ratings for her handling of international affairs in France than in Germany itself. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, similarly, gets better ratings in Germany than in France, but the French leader is less well-regarded in Britain and Spain. Confidence about Russian President Dmitri Medvedev is on the rise, with ratings up in all five EU member nations surveyed.

· China on the Rise: A growing portion of global publics sees China, rather than the U.S, as the world's leading economic power. China itself is the most self-satisfied nation in the survey. Roughly nine-in-ten Chinese are happy with the direction of the country (87%), its economic conditions (91%), and optimistic about its economic future (87%).

· Islamic Extremism: There is no predominantly Muslim nation polled in which a majority of Muslims endorse suicide bombing, al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden. But in Nigeria, a significant minority of Muslims express extremist views -- 49% express a favorable view of al Qaeda.

· Isolationism: Americans are no more isolationist than Europeans. When asked whether their country should deal with its own problems and let others take care of themselves, nearly half of Americans (46%), Germans (44%) and British (49%) agree. The French are the most isolationist, with 65% opposing helping other nations cope with their challenges.

· Environment: Substantial majorities in most countries see global climate change as a serious problem, but global opinion is more divided when it comes to paying increased prices to combat climate change. Willingness to pay higher prices is nearly universal in China and majorities express support in India, South Korea, Japan, Turkey and Germany. Views about paying higher prices are mixed in Spain, Britain and Brazil, while majorities express opposition in the U.S., France, Russia and many less affluent nations surveyed.

· Iran and Nuclear Weapons: Majorities in nearly every country surveyed, including predominantly Muslim nations, express opposition to a nuclear-armed Iran. A notable exception is Pakistan, the only nation surveyed in which a majority (58%) favor Iran's nuclear weapons program. Among global publics who oppose a nuclear-armed Iran, substantial support exists for applying tougher international economic sanctions against Iran. Less widespread, but still significant, support exists for considering the use of military force to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

-- Steve Clemons

One of my couple of north stars in my life is, in part, a pup named "Oakley the Amazing Weimaraner."

Two days from tonight on June 18th, Oakley will be eight years old.

Tonight, he is recovering from surgery -- and hopefully can pull through. Life today hit him hard-- which is a lot like what the fictional dog in "Marley and Me" had.

He's fighting for his life. I'm sure he will be OK. He will. My friends and I need to believe and say that.

But I'm also very frightened for him. He is "our" dog, "our" child, and some very close family and friends and have been on the frailest of edges all day, not for ourselve, but for Oakley.

I'm sure many of you have amazing and wonderful pets who help fulfill who and what you are. Oakley has been that for me, and us.

Say a prayer for him if you feel so inclined. This amazing, wonderful pup needs all of the positive energy he can get tonight.

So many of the readers of TWN have written to me about Oakley -- and his wonderful siblings, Annie and Buddy, that I hope you will embrace them in your thoughts.

Hopefully he will be OK. Please.

-- Steve Clemons

Update: Oakley's "stomach turned" which is a terrible thing for dogs. Through herculean work by the vet, a complicated surgery, and Oak's on passionate desire to keep chasing rabbits, squirrels and deer, he is still with us. He's perking up, but still not out of the woods. But that is better than I thought things would be as of yesterday afternoon. Thanks to everyone for your thoughtful notes.

How many of you knew that Robert Guest writes (but soon won't as he is sadly returning to mother England) Lexington's Notebook for the Economist? And before him, Adrian Wooldridge?

Probably not many of you. These talented, wonderfully snarky political junkies make these iconic columns work, but we don't often know anything other than the symbolic byline.

Now, a friend of mine with whom I once got incredibly drunk in Jerusalem -- apologies to all on whatever lines you may be -- has re-launched on the web the "Johnson" page of the Economist.

Named after essayist and person of letters, Samuel Johnson, the original "Johnson page" was about language.

As its new advocate reports about Johnson, the blog:

In its 21st-century incarnation, Johnson will be about language spoken and written, English and not, good, bad, weird and ugly.

The postings so far already feature the Hebrew commandments, the German insult for "wet behind the ears", half-baked attempts to set up an English Academy, Barack Obama's use of "ass", why the New York Times won't let its correspondents use the verb "tweet", and even our belated realization that our own blog name recalls, in some puerile minds, the American slang for the male member.

Johnson, did you know that while the Washington Post will allow its writers to use the word "Skype" as a noun or a verb, the Post will not allow any of its staff to actually install Skype on firm computers?

Should be fun. The writer behind the scenes on this one is Lane Greene.

Last time I'll tell you though.

-- Steve Clemons

Above, former Deputy Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage lays out his views about the Futenma US Marine Air Corps Station fiasco at a CSIS Pacific Forum conference earlier this year.

Armitage accepts blame on behalf of the elites who basically run US-Japan relations for "not explaining" deterrence well enough to Japanese citizens to help them understand how important Futenma is. But his comments are essentially a defensive ongoing articulation -- offered on 19 January 2010 -- of why Futenma was important to the U.S.

Armitage, who then thought that the Democratic Party of Japan leadership would not yield to the US, called for a "Plan B" regarding Futenma.

Well, Hatoyama did cave -- and then resigned.

But my hunch is that the drama over Okinawa and Futenma is not over.

So, first question to Rich Armitage at the CNAS-sponsored conference on US-Japan security relations is what was the "Plan B" that he and his team developed after calling for it last January?

-- Steve Clemons

George Soros said this week in Vienna, "We have just entered Act Two of the drama... when the financial markets started losing confidence in the credibility of sovereign debt."

Soros once told a meeting organized at the New America Foundation in Washington, DC that there was a test of sorts underway challenging his own economic views and principles.

Soros said that what had burst in September 2008 was a "super bubble" -- not just an ordinary asset bubble. This one had different characteristics and thus had to be approached in a different way, according to the billionaire investor.

He told me during discussion that White House National Economic Adviser Lawrence Summers was using normal tools as if the U.S. and global economies had experienced a sizeable, but normal, recession. Soros said, "If I am right, their approach will fail."

And given jittery markets worried about sovereign debt defaults and new asset bubbles as well as credit-deleveraging consumers and other potential economic shocks, Soros looks more "right" than the Obama team.

As reported by CNBC's Barbara Stcherbatcheff, Soros also stated:

We find ourselves in a situation eerily reminiscent of the 1930s. Keynes has taught us budget deficits are essential for counter-cyclical policies, yet many governments have to reduce them under pressure from financial markets. This is liable to push the global economy into a double-dip.

-- Steve Clemons

(Congressman Ike Skelton pays his respects at Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi Memorial, 18 February 2009.)

Maybe in this comparison I'm being way too unkind to Helen Thomas whose racially charged comments that Israel's Israelis should go back to Germany, Poland and the United States were indefensible -- but House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton's bigotry as the decade younger, much more incumbent Democratic Party lawmaker in the House of Representatives deserve the spotlight today.

I'm sure that there is a great deal of distinguished leadership in Ike Skelton's record of political accomplishments, but that doesn't excuse the crassness of his latest comments about gays serving honorably and open in the U.S. military. They are there now Congressman -- and you are asking them, indeed compelling them to lie.

While Skelton has shown great respect to the military services as in the photo above, paying tribute to those who fell at Iwo Jima, I would only add that a quick read of Gore Vidal's Palimpsest: A Memoir will give Skelton a glimpse into the personal, searing pain of loss of a gay soldier dying there, one of probably many -- in this case, Vidal's first love.

As reported by The Cable's Josh Rogin, Skelton said about opposing the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell:

"What do mommas and daddies say to a seven-year-old child about this issue? I don't know," Skelton said. "I think it would be a family issue that would concern me the most ... What they might see in their discussions among the kids."

Read Rogin's entire piece, but Skelton seems to be leaving the door ajar in case Obama wants to possibly trade F-35 figher engine development for Sklelton giving Don't Ask Don't Tell a pass.

That's something that the kids -- and their parents -- ought to be a lot more disgusted by.

One would hope that politicians representing the American South might find it possible -- eventually -- to get ahead on some civil rights issue. Given the unacceptable, behavior this week of Representative Bob Etheridge, another Democratic Party opponent of Don't Ask Don't Repeal, in which Etheridge accosts a student on the street, I don't have much hope of that.

Democrats need to realize that they have lurking in their own party disturbing tendencies that need to be rebuffed and checked -- not respected.

-- Steve Clemons

(Photo Credit: The U.S. Army's Photostream)

Blake Hounshell has a must-read piece in Foreign Policy that raises some serious questions about the timing and accuracy of today's article by James Risen in the New York Times, which claims that the United States has discovered $1 trillion worth of precious metals in Afghanistan.

From his piece:

Wow! Talk about a game changer. The story goes on to outline Afghanistan's apparently vast underground resources, which include large copper and iron reserves as well as hitherto undiscovered reserves lithium and other rare minerals.

Read a little more carefully, though, and you realize that there's less to this scoop than meets the eye. For one thing, the findings on which the story was based are online and have been since 2007, courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey. More information is available on the Afghan mining ministry's website, including a report by the British Geological Survey (and there's more here). You can also take a look at the USGS's documentation of the airborne part of the survey here, including the full set of aerial photographs.

Nowhere have I found that $1 trillion figure mentioned, which Risen suggests was generated by a Pentagon task force seeking to help the Afghan government develop its resources (looking at the chart accompanying the article, though, it appears to be a straightforward tabulation of the total reserve figures for each mineral times current the current market price). According to Risen, that task force has begun prepping the mining ministry to start soliciting bids for mineral rights in the fall.

Don't get me wrong. This could be a great thing for Afghanistan, which certainly deserves a lucky break after the hell it's been through over the last three decades.

But I'm (a) skeptical of that $1 trillion figure; (b) skeptical of the timing of this story, given the bad news cycle, and (c) skeptical that Afghanistan can really figure out a way to develop these resources in a useful way. It's also worth noting, as Risen does, that it will take years to get any of this stuff out of the ground, not to mention enormous capital investment.

In light of Hounshell's analysis, this follow-up story published in the Times this afternoon suggests that the U.S. government estimate may have the unintended effect of dramatically raising expectations in Afghanistan.

-- Ben Katcher

There are some very high powered US-Japan events taking place this next week in Washington, the most prominent of which is titled "150 Years of Amity and 50 Years of Alliance: Adopting an Enhanced Agenda for US-Japan Partnership" co-sponsored by the Center for New American Security, the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, and the Ocean Policy Research Foundation.

The assembled great and good of US-Japan relations will be spending a lot of time talking about Futenma US Marine Air Corps Station, which may have brought down Japan's Obamaesque Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. Most of the voices will state that Hatoyama and his No. 2, Ichiro Ozawa, were flawed leaders and that the US and Japan have an opportunity to push reset with Naoto Kan and the new leadership of the Democratic Party of Japan.

I will be attending this conference as well -- but it's clear that the voices of a "status quo" US-Japan security relationship will get the most air time at this meeting.

People there will try to convince themselves that the U.S. did not push too hard for Futenma, did not help collapse a government, and that there is nothing too serious lurking beneath the political surface among regular Japanese about the Futenma incident. All will be well. All will be well.

After having spent some time in Tokyo and Okinawa this past week with journalist James Fallows and other leading political writers and thinkers in Japan, I don't believe that this confidence in the "status quo" is very wise. Many Japanese feel throttled by their American ally and feel that they have less and less choice in the security relationship -- constrained both by regional realities and an American overlord that doesn't understand how serious the strain of Futenma is on those Japanese who live near it -- and how serious a psychological issue Futenma remains to many Japanese on other islands who used to never give a moment's thought to the downside costs of the US-Japan security relationship and are now vividly aware given the palace intrigue of late in US-Japan relations.

The chart to the left depicts responses from all of Okinawa's mayors to the decision by Prime Minister Hatoyama on 23 May 2010 to relocate the primary functions of Futenma Air Station to Henoko. The Ryukyu Shimpo newspaper conducted the survey.

The first column indicates whether they accept or reject Hatoyama's stated plan. The second column asks whether they support or not if special conditions (unspecified) are met. The third column asks their views about the Hatoyama agreement with the U.S. in light of the American claim that Futenma helps provide an anchor of "deterrence" against North Korean aggression against Japan. Here is a larger version of the chart as a pdf.

There is overwhelming resistance on Okinawa to the bases there. "N+" means an emphatic no.

While Okinawa is only populated by 1.5 million people compared to Japan's entire population of 128 million, the level of empathy between Japanese residents on the main islands with those on Okinawa is very high.

I think that for the conference coming up in Washington, it's important that someone reference the views and frustration of Okinawans -- as they are part of the equation -- if not a part of the conference.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a guest note by Fadi Elsalameen, Executive Director of The Palestine Note. This piece originally appeared in Haaretz.

Israel's deadly attack on the "Freedom Flotilla" is proof of how Gaza continues to give Israel a taste of its own medicine. Intended to help solve Israel's problems with Hamas, the three-year-old siege of Gaza is developing into a siege of Israel, while it causes tremendous damage to the country's image around the world.

It should be clear to both Israel and the United States by now that the siege of Gaza has failed to accomplish its goals. Israel has failed to weaken Hamas, free Gilad Shalit or even put an end to arms smuggling.

To Israel's dismay, Hamas has succeeded in putting the spotlight on Gaza and directing world attention to the country's irrational policies toward not only the Palestinians, but also its own citizens.

From outside, the situation in Gaza may appear unsustainable for Hamas, but in fact the Islamic movement and its supporters are content to wait it out, calling Israel's bluff on the blockade. Indeed some cynics believe the current status quo is the best situation the Palestinians have enjoyed in a long time.

Late last month, at the fifth annual Al Jazeera forum in Doha, Osama Hamdan of Hamas and Ibrahim el-Moussaoui of Hezbollah applauded and shook hands with Abdel Bari Atwan, the editor of Al-Quds Al-Arabi, a widely circulated pan-Arabist newspaper, when he said: "I have good news: There is a Palestinian split. Things have never been better before. One camp is with the Americans, the Israelis and seculars, and the other camp is with Iran and Islamists. So, if one side loses, the other is bound to win, and this has been the best and safest situation for the Palestinians in a long time."

Atwan is known to favor the latter camp, and from his "good news," one can surmise that he is betting it is on its way to winning - clearly with tremendous help from the siege of Gaza.
What is even more unsettling from the point of view of peace-loving Palestinians is the fact that Israel's top politicians are aware of the implications of their damaging policies, even as they refuse to change them.

After meeting with Defense Minister Ehud Barak two months ago at his office in Tel Aviv, I walked away believing he understood that unless Israel changes its policies vis-a-vis my people, sooner or later the world will see those policies for what they are: apartheid. I believe the deadly attack on the flotilla, and the worldwide reactions that followed, are confirming Barak's fears - and sooner, rather than later. Israel's policies are no longer acceptable to the world community, and a change in policy is crucial.

The day after the Mavi Marmara incident, the head of the Mossad, Meir Dagan, bluntly told the Knesset: "Israel is becoming more of a liability and less of an asset for the United States."

The siege of Gaza has been going on for nearly three years, and strategically speaking, so far, Israel and its allies have been the biggest losers. The reaction from both the world's governments and its peoples to last week's attack shows not only the growing intolerance of Israel's policies, but an urgent need for Israel to rethink its long-term goals. Is it to exist as a democracy, and in peace with its neighbors, or will it continue to be the Palestinians' landlords?

If Israel's goal is to be a permanent landlord, then its future in the region is clear: More and more disgruntled Arab and Muslim youth will continue to join the lines of resistance against the apartheid in the territories and will continue to threaten the stability of the already weak neighboring Arab regimes. It is important to note that a large number of the people on the ships bound for Gaza were young Arabs from almost every country in the region. Today they may come on ships with peace activists, tomorrow they will storm the borders with jihadist movements. Then, it will not only be Israel facing them. Their own regimes and the United States will also have to face the consequences.

The fact that Turkey and Iran are sending aid to the Palestinians and criticizing Israel's policies will not only undermine the legitimacy of the nearby Arab regimes, which are already seen as helpless and ineffective, but will also lead their populations to draw inspiration from those two countries.

Egypt, realizing that its regime is weak and unstable, has already felt the heat and immediately opened the Rafah crossing with Gaza, which it intends to leave open.

So, is Israel ready to think seriously about long-term solutions, or does it intend to simply continue to impose a siege on itself?

Israel's leaders - with the help of the United States and the international community - must redefine their country's long-term vision and goals, and allow a Palestinian state to exist by its side. If Israel's goal is to live in a democracy and in peace with the Palestinians, then its path should be clear: Lift the siege on Gaza, encourage a unity government, and let the Palestinians build their own democracy.

-- Fadi Elsalameen

While conflicts in the Middle East tend to breed polemics and shallow analysis, reactions to Israel's deadly boarding of the Mavi Marmara may have set a record for polarization. While some offered balanced analysis and thorough coverage of the incident, it seems that a stark divide emerged swiftly, with some going as far as to suggest that the incident might break NATO, while others went to furious (and spurious) lengths to justify Israel's conduct.

Amidst the back and forth, it was refreshing this past Wednesday to see a beautifully-written, clear and thoughtful piece from the tirelessly prolific Tony Judt in the New York Times trying to put to rest some of the cliches so often used when talking about Israeli-Palestinian issues. Judt has run into controversy for his views on Israel before, but this article is admirable for its honesty, and is a must-read regardless of political orientation.

While the entire piece is valuable, I find his most compelling thoughts emerge while debunking his final cliche, "Criticism of Israel is/is not linked to anti-Semitism." Judt writes:

Anti-Semitism is hatred of Jews, and Israel is a Jewish state, so of course some criticism of it is malevolently motivated. There have been occasions in the recent past (notably in the Soviet Union and its satellites) when "anti-Zionism" was a convenient surrogate for official anti-Semitism. Understandably, many Jews and Israelis have not forgotten this.

But criticism of Israel, increasingly from non-Israeli Jews, is not predominantly motivated by anti-Semitism. The same is true of contemporary anti-Zionism: Zionism itself has moved a long way from the ideology of its "founding fathers" -- today it presses territorial claims, religious exclusivity and political extremism. One can acknowledge Israel's right to exist and still be an anti-Zionist (or "post-Zionist"). Indeed, given the emphasis in Zionism on the need for the Jews to establish a "normal state" for themselves, today's insistence on Israel's right to act in "abnormal" ways because it is a Jewish state suggests that Zionism has failed.

We should beware the excessive invocation of "anti-Semitism." A younger generation in the United States, not to mention worldwide, is growing skeptical. "If criticism of the Israeli blockade of Gaza is potentially 'anti-Semitic,' why take seriously other instances of the prejudice?" they ask, and "What if the Holocaust has become just another excuse for Israeli bad behavior?" The risks that Jews run by encouraging this conflation should not be dismissed...The time has come to cut through the clichés surrounding it, treat Israel like a "normal" state and sever the umbilical cord.

-- Andrew Lebovich

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

Seventy four of Cuba's best known advocates of democracy released a letter today to "the Honorable Members of the United States Congress" expressing their full and unequivocal support for the Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act (H.R. 4645).

The signatories, including Guillermo Fariñas, Oscar Espinosa Chepe, Yoani Sánchez, Dagoberto Valdés and other leading advocates for democracy in Cuba, wrote:

We believe...that if the citizens of the United States, like those of the rest of the world, increased their presence on our streets, visited the families of the political prisoners and other members of the nascent Cuban civil society they could: first, serve as witnesses to the suffering of the Cuban people; second, be even more sensitized to the need for changes in Cuba; and third, offer solidarity and a bridge to facilitate the transition we Cubans so greatly desire.

The supportive presence of American citizens, their direct help, and the many opportunities for exchange, used effectively and in the desired direction, would not be an abandonment of Cuban civil society but rather a force to strengthen it. Similarly, to further facilitate the sale of agricultural products would help alleviate the food shortages we now suffer.

See below for the entire text of the letter including signers:

Letter from Members of Cuba's Civil Society to the U.S. Congress

June 9th, 2010 - Honorable Representatives:

We the members of Cuban civil society, who are signing this letter as individuals, have learned that you are currently considering the Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act (H.R. 4645), to end travel restrictions on all Americans to Cuba and to remove obstacles to legal sales of United States agricultural commodities to Cuba.

We understand that this bill has the support of Republicans and Democrats in the Congress of the United States. We also know that for this bill to be considered by the full House of Representatives, it must first be passed through the House Committee on Agriculture.

We know that major non-governmental organizations support this bill, including, to name only a few: The United States Chamber of Commerce, the American Farm Bureau Federation, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Cuba Study Group and many other human rights organizations.

We share the opinion that the isolation of the people of Cuba benefits the most inflexible interests of its government, while any opening serves to inform and empower the Cuban people and helps to further strengthen our civil society.

We value the experience of all the western countries, including the United States, who favored opening and trade with all the countries of the former Eastern Europe. We are sure that isolation does not foster relationships of respect and support for people and groups around the world who are in favor of democratic changes in Cuba.

We would like to recall the memorable words of Pope John Paul II who, in his own life, had experienced a totalitarian and closed system: "Let Cuba open itself to the world and the world will open itself to Cuba."

Over time we have seen that the Cuban regime does not open itself fully to the world, nor to its own citizens, because what it fears most is an opening, of free trade and of free enterprise, and the direct flow of information and communication between peoples.

Those who oppose H.R. 4645 argue that lifting these restrictions would be a concession to the Cuban regime and a source of foreign income that could be used to repress the Cuban people. They also argue that given the ongoing violations of human rights and the repeated acts of repression, lifting these prohibitions would be an abandonment of Cuban civil society.

It is true that repression and systematic violations of Human Rights have recently increased in a cruel and public way. It is true that these funds could also be used to support and even worsen repression.

We believe, however, that if the citizens of the United States, like those of the rest of the world, increased their presence on our streets, visited the families of the political prisoners and other members of the nascent Cuban civil society they could: first, serve as witnesses to the suffering of the Cuban people; second, be even more sensitized to the need for changes in Cuba; and third, offer solidarity and a bridge to facilitate the transition we Cubans so greatly desire.

The supportive presence of American citizens, their direct help, and the many opportunities for exchange, used effectively and in the desired direction, would not be an abandonment of Cuban civil society but rather a force to strengthen it. Similarly, to further facilitate the sale of agricultural products would help alleviate the food shortages we now suffer.

Above all, we believe that defending each and every Human Right for all people must be an absolute priority, ahead of any political or economic consideration, and that no restriction of these rights can be justified on economic, political or social grounds. We believe that rights are protected with rights.

Because the ability to travel freely is the right of every human being, we support this bill. The current Cuban government has always violated this right and in recent years has justified its actions with the fact that the government of the United States also restricts its citizens' freedom to travel. The passage of this bill would remove this spurious justification.

Finally, Honorable Representatives, we strongly believe that the problems of Cuba and its path to freedom and democracy are a responsibility and a labor that belongs to all Cubans, those of us who live on the Island as well as those who suffer in exile in the Diaspora, who also love this nation we all share.

In the world today, all peoples of the earth are interconnected, even when their decisions are their sovereign right. These principles - of responsibility for our beloved country and of universal fraternity - encourage us to respectfully communicate our views to you with regards to this bill, because although it is the responsibility of Americans, it affects the Cuban people.

Thank you for your attention and respect.

1. Juan Juan Almeida García 2. José Alberto Álvarez Bravo 3. Silvio Benítez Márquez 4. Juan Carmelo Bermúdez Rosabal 5. Servando Blanco Martínez 6. Félix Bonne Carcassés 7. Luis Cáceres Piñero 8. Claudia Cadelo de Nevis 9. Leonardo Calvo Cárdenas 10. Eleanor Calvo Martínez 11. Marcelo Cano Rodríguez 12. Cecilio Dimas Castellanos Martí 13. Miriam Celaya González 14. Francisco Chaviano González 15. Hortensia Cires Díaz 16. Martha Cortizas Jiménez 17. Manuel Cuesta Morúa 18. Roberto De Miranda Hernández 19. Gisela Delgado Sablón 20. Reinaldo Escobar Casas 21. Oscar Espinosa Chepe 22. Guillermo Fariñas Hernández 23. Guedy Carlos Fernández Morejón 24. Juan Carlos Fernández Hernández 25. Karina Gálvez Chiu 26. Livia Gálvez Chiu 27. Margarita Gálvez Martínez 28. Julio César Gálvez Rodríguez 29. Joisy García Martínez 30. José Luis García Paneque 31. Juan del Pilar Goberna 32. Ricardo González Alfonso 33. Iván Hernández Carrillo 34. Maikel Iglesias Rodríguez 35. Irene Jerez Castillo 36. Yusnaymi Jorge Soca 37. Eugenio Leal García 38. Miriam Leiva 39. Gloria Llopis Prendes 40. Olga Lidia López Lazo 41. Yasnay Losada Castañeda 42. Luis Ricardo Luaces 43. Juan A. Madrazo Luna 44. Ainí Martínez Valero 45. Katia Sonia Martínez Véliz 46. Ricardo Santiago Medina Salabarría, presbítero 47. Manuel Alberto Morejón Soler, presbítero 48. Félix Navarro Rodríguez 49. Jorge Olivera Castillo 50. Pablo Pacheco Ávila 51. Leonardo Padrón Comptiz 52. Héctor Palacios Ruíz 53. Gustavo Pardo Valdés 54. Yisel Peña Rodríguez 55. Ana Margarita Perdigón 56. Arturo Pérez de Alejo 57. Juana Yamilia Pérez Estrella 58. Tomás Ramos Rodríguez 59. Soledad Rivas Verdecia 60. José Conrado Rodríguez Alegre, presbítero 61. María Esperanza Rodríguez Bernal 62. Lázaro Rosales Rojas 63. Elena Rosito Yaruk 64. Yoani Sánchez Cordero 65. Fernando Sánchez López 66. Elizardo Sánchez Santa Cruz 67. Mayra Sánchez Soria 68. Pedro Antonio Scull 69. Sergio Abel Suárez García 70. Virgilio Toledo López 71. Dagoberto Valdés Hernández 72. Wilfredo Vallín Almeida 73. Alida Viso Bello 74. Liset Zamora

-- Tom Garofalo

PIMCO's Bill Gross calls the U.S. economy the "least dirty shirt." To borrow from a Flight of the Concords song, you might say that the U.S. is The Most Beautiful Girl in the Room. By virtue of every other economy in the room looking worse and worse, the United States is looking better and better.

European economies are struggling with austerity measures and will for months and years ahead. A Greek crisis has turned into an EU sovereign debt crisis, which threatens the very existence of the monetary union. Japan is stuck in deflationary territory.

By comparison, it appears the U.S. has played its cards right. We implemented a massive fiscal stimulus package and poured money from the Federal Reserve into the global economy. But, these measures look temporary and unsustainable. Policy to boost consumption was based on the flawed assumption that households would be able to resume consumption once the recession ended. But, the reality of the post-bubble economy is that Americans without jobs who have lost home equity and access to credit may have to permanently change behavior. A recovery in financial assets has helped repair the balance sheets of those at the high end and Wall Street banks, but has left the vast American middle dependent on government income support.

Tune in in about an hour as Steve Clemons moderates a discussion with Simon Johnson, author of 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown and Robert Kuttner, author of A Presidency in Peril. I would bet these authors have something to say on the "least dirty shirt" thesis. We may be the least dirty shirt today, but there is no telling that we are not sowing the seeds of the next financial crisis or relying too heavily on a recovery in financial assets at the expense of job creation and sustainable growth.

-- Samuel Sherraden

A friend of mine wrote to me about the piece below, released yesterday by Brookings, wondering when Brookings Energy Security Initiative Director Charles Ebinger will be spending time with Helen Thomas.

We hope Ebinger stays gainfully busy at Brookings -- but wow.

This came from Brookings!? Very interesting, and an important sign of the times.

It's a powerful, blunt piece that reaches back to Israel's attack on the USS Liberty, as he writes "the only maritime incident in U.S. history where our military forces were killed that was never investigated by Congress."

Here is the Brookings piece, "The Attack on the USS Liberty: Lessons for U.S. National Security":

The Attack on the USS Liberty: Lessons for U.S. National Security

Charles K. Ebinger, Director, Energy Security Initiative

The Brookings Institution -- June 08, 2010

It is ironic that the Israeli Defense forces attacked a flotilla of relief ships bound from Europe to Gaza in international waters in a manner all too similar to its assault against the USS Liberty also in international waters on June 8 forty-three years ago. It is even more tragic and a national disgrace that in the immediate aftermath of Memorial Day there is scant remembrance of the 34 crew members comprising naval officers, seamen, two marines and a civilian who were killed in the attack along with the 171 crew members who were wounded. While the official inquiries by both nations found the attack to be a case of mistaken identity of the Liberty, to this day there is a long record of distinguished officers and journalists who take strong exception to this view believing that the attack was deliberate. Indeed the attack on the Liberty is the only maritime incident in U.S. history where our military forces were killed that was never investigated by the Congress.

While few would dispute that the United States and Israel share vital strategic interests, all too often it has been Israeli intransigent policies rather than U.S. interests which have dominated our bilateral relationships. As a global superpower, the U.S. has strategic interests in the Middle East that go far beyond our bilateral relations with Israel--regional political stability, access to oil, control of sea lanes, etc. However so lopsided have our bilateral relations become that even after scandals such as the Pollard spying case in the 1980s came to light, high level officials and lobbyists in both Washington and Israel went out of their way to downplay the significance of the information Pollard passed to both Israeli and Russian intelligence (in order to keep Jewish immigration to Israel alive), despite testimony by four retired admirals who had served as Directors of National Intelligence that Pollard's revelations had been devastating to U.S. national security and that any premature release would be "irresponsible."

Again in 1973, it was the decision by the United States to resupply Israel's military following the outbreak of war that led to the OAPEC oil embargo transforming the Geopolitics of Oil as the world's economy was sent reeling owing to the spike in the price of oil. The 1973-1974 war by changing the geographical contours of the Middle East set the stage for the growing radicalization of the Middle East as increasingly young men and women grew resentful of their leaders' inability to change the political and social status quo both in their own countries and in their nations' relations with Israel. The second oil shock in 1979 and 1980, following the overthrow of the Shah and the coming to power of Ayatollah Khomeini, led to a further radicalization of the region which further inflamed relations among Iran/Iraq, Shites/Sunnis, Christains/Druze/Palestinians in Lebanon and Iran and Iraq in their bilateral relations with various governments throughout the region. At the same time, accelerated settlements by Jewish immigrants in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem created a growing crescendo of radicalism. Then in 1982 the ill-conceived invasion of Lebanon in response to provocations by Palestinians and other radical forces led to the massacres of Palestinian and allied groups men, women and children at Sabra and Shatila by the Christian Phalanges while the IDF stood on the sidelines losing all pretense of a higher moral ground.

Since that time there have been provocations by both the Israelis and the Palestinians and their affiliated allies throughout the Middle East. There have been lost diplomatic opportunities, ill tempered rhetoric by leaders on both sides and a tragic loss of life. Indeed there is plenty of blame to go around on both sides and reasons for each side to be wary of any overture by the other. However, what has been lost during these decades throughout the Islamic world is the view of the man and woman on the street and children in the madrasahs that United States is an honest broker for peace. Having worked throughout the Islamic world for over 35 years, it is a tragedy that this has occurred, but when successive Presidents and other high ranking officials ask Israel not to expand settlements yet hardly voice a "public squeak" of opprobrium let alone some real expression of disapproval (such as a curtailment of military assistance, rescinding favorable trade provisions, etc.) when Israel continues to do so, what is the Islamic World to think about the even handedness of U.S. policy?

Nowhere was the failure of the U.S. to take strong action more visibly demonstrated than during Vice President's Biden's visit to Israel when Israel gave the green light for 1,600 new homes for Jewish settlers in annexed East Jerusalem in flagrant violation of international law. In response, both the Vice President and Secretary of State Clinton labeled the action "insulting" to the United States and destructive to the peace process while at the same time doing nothing visible to make Israel pay a price for such actions against the second highest official of our nation.

America, it is time to wake up and listen to the very few of our leaders such as General Petraeus, who even before the Vice President's visit warned that the stalled Middle East peace process is a direct threat to U.S. interests and prestige in the region and that the lack of progress in Palestine foments anti-Americanism, undermines Arab regimes, limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships, increases the influence of Iran, projects an image of U.S. weakness and serves as a potent recruiting tool for Al Qaeda. General Petraeus and his briefing team went on to say that the ongoing Israeli/Palestinian peace stalemate undermines the prospects for success in Afghanistan.

As we approach the anniversary of the attack on the Liberty, let us take a few minutes to reflect soberly on whether the time has not come to once again be a honest broker, to call our Israeli friends to account when necessary with sanctions that hurt and to make clear to one and all that acts such as the attack on the flotilla of humanitarian ships bound to alleviate the suffering of the men, women and children of Gaza will not occur with impunity.

I'm in agreement with Ebinger that the failure to move forward on Israel-Palestine peace is undermining American national security interests in a way far more consequential than whatever actually transpires between Palestinians and Israelis. It is becoming an increasingly tense fault line in geostrategic affairs.

I myself would not go back to the USS Liberty as a driver in this debate, but I understand that Ebinger is trying to illustrate that there are fundamental differences in strategy and objectives between Israel and the US that can't be papered over by speeches and rhetoric that "there is no daylight" between the countries. Of course, there is daylight between them -- and has been always.

Good luck to Ebinger in holding back the storm that no doubt will hit him inside Brookings and out.

-- Steve Clemons

Politico's Laura Rozen posted a hilarious exchange of notes between the Communication Czars at the UK Embassy in DC and the US Embassy in the UK.

Apparently, US Ambassador to the Court of St. James's Louis Susman (boy he looks glum in his official photo) and UK Ambassador to the US Nigel Sheinwald have a "steak dinner" bet on the outcome of the British-American soccer hookup in South Africa.

Best line came from Sheinwald's PR director in response to his American counterpart in London:

Incidentally, you should know that the Ambassador [Sheinwald] takes his steak like American soccer victories - somewhat rare.

These soccer things really do get folks riled up it seems (I don't understand it), but after having just flown from DC to Doha to Tokyo -- and now back to DC, a lot of my Japanese acquaintances kept reciting how Japan lost its national honor in Doha. In fact, they call their qualification match loss to an Iraq team "The Agony of Doha."

We'll see whether the Brits or Americans get their own version of the agony

From Rozen's report:

From: Philip Breeden, US Embassy London To: Martin Longden, British Embassy Washington DC Subject: World Cup Bet

Mr. Longden,

It has not escaped our attention that a certain sporting event is fast approaching, and that our respective nations will soon be meeting on the fields of South Africa. My Ambassador has asked me to see if your Ambassador might be interested in a small wager? We will understand if you decline, given the outcome of the last such encounter.

Sincerely, Philip Breeden, U.S. Embassy, London
________________________________

From: Martin Longden, British Embassy Washington DC
To: Philip Breeden, US Embassy London
Subject: Re: World Cup Bet

Mr. Breeden,

Even for such an exceptionally optimistic nation as the United States, I am struck by the confidence with which your Ambassador proposes this wager. It is testament, I assume, to the generosity of your great nation - since the British Ambassador does not anticipate paying out.

Your email does not specify the exact terms of the wager. May I suggest that, in the event of an England victory, the US Ambassador agrees to entertain the British Ambassador at a steak-house of his choosing in downtown DC? And in the event that the United States is able to engineer a fortuitous win over England, then my man will entertain yours at a London pub of his choosing. Loser pays.

Your reference to a previous sporting encounter between our two countries puzzles me. Since the history of English football is long and extensive, in contradistinction to US soccer, I regret that I cannot immediately recall the encounter to which you refer. No doubt it is remembered fondly on these shores; we have quite forgotten it, however.

Are you sure you want to do this?

Yours sincerely,

Martin Longden

British Embassy Washington DC
________________________________

From: Philip Breeden, US Embassy London
To: Martin Longden, British Embassy Washington DC
Subject: Re: World Cup Bet

Mr. Longden,

It is with great pleasure, and no small measure of anticipation, that the U.S. Ambassador accepts the terms of the wager. I am surprised, given the well known love of the British for history, that you have forgotten what happened the last time the "special relationship" was tested on the pitch. Of course, given the result, you are to be forgiven for having misplaced that particular episode in your memory banks. I refer of course to the victory of the U.S. over England in the 1950 World Cup.

It is true that our soccer (a fine English word we have kindly preserved for you) history is not as long and illustrious as yours. However, as your generals noted during WWII, we have a unique capability for quickly identifying and advancing talent.

Game on!

Sincerely, Philip Breeden
________________________________

From: Martin Longden, British Embassy Washington DC
To: Philip Breeden, US Embassy London
Subject: Re: World Cup Bet

Mr. Breeden,

Very well; it's a bet!

Incidentally, you should know that the Ambassador takes his steak like American soccer victories - somewhat rare.

Sincerely,

Martin Longden

While this was fun, don't count on too much soccer coverage at The Washington Note.

-- Steve Clemons

Editor's Note: hat tip to Daniel Lippman.

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

In the aftermath of the Flotilla crisis, many U.S. commentators have suggested that the United States needs to make clear to Israel that there are limits to the kinds of behavior that Washington can accept.

For instance, Center for Strategic and International Studies Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy Anthony H. Cordesman wrote earlier this week that:

It is time Israel realized that it has obligations to the United States, as well as the United States to Israel, and that it become far more careful about the extent to which it test the limits of U.S. patience and exploits the support of American Jews. This does not mean taking a single action that undercuts Israeli security, but it does mean realizing that Israel should show enough discretion to reflect the fact that it is a tertiary U.S. strategic interest in a complex and demanding world.

TWN Publisher Steve Clemons has made similar arguments.

Most states' actions are limited not by their allies, but by their adversaries. Implicit in Cordesman's argument is an assumption that Israel's adversaries have little capacity to restrict Israel's freedom of action.

Stratfor's George Friedman published an interesting piece today in which he explains the internal divisions among Israel's foes that prevent them from effectively restricting Israeli behavior in the region.

From his piece:

Nations base their actions on risks and rewards. The configuration of the Palestinians and Arabs rewards Israeli assertiveness and provides few rewards for caution. The Israelis do not see global hostility toward Israel translating into a meaningful threat because the Arab reality cancels it out. Therefore, relieving pressure on Hamas makes no sense to the Israelis. Doing so would be as likely to alienate Fatah and Egypt as it would to satisfy the Swedes, for example. As Israel has less interest in the Swedes than in Egypt and Fatah, it proceeds as it has.

A single point sums up the story of Israel and the Gaza blockade-runners: Not one Egyptian aircraft threatened the Israeli naval vessels, nor did any Syrian warship approach the intercept point. The Israelis could be certain of complete command of the sea and air without challenge. And this underscores how the Arab countries no longer have a military force that can challenge the Israelis, nor the will nor interest to acquire one. Where Egyptian and Syrian forces posed a profound threat to Israeli forces in 1973, no such threat exists now. Israel has a completely free hand in the region militarily; it does not have to take into account military counteraction. The threat posed by intifada, suicide bombers, rockets from Lebanon and Gaza, and Hezbollah fighters is real, but it does not threaten the survival of Israel the way the threat from Egypt and Syria once did (and the Israelis see actions like the Gaza blockade as actually reducing the threat of intifada, suicide bombers and rockets). Non-state actors simply lack the force needed to reach this threshold. When we search for the reasons behind Israeli actions, it is this singular military fact that explains Israeli decision-making.

Friedman's entire article can be read here.

-- Ben Katcher

(an aerial view of Futenma U.S. Marine Corps Air Station, Okinawa)

Chris Nelson blogged before blogs -- and his daily take on US foreign policy and political affairs, The Nelson Report, with a zealous slant towards all things Asia -- is only available to high end consulting clients and his pals (by fax and email).

With permission, I offer some of the zingers he puts together -- the latest on some action-packed public comments offered yesterday at the Stimson Center on US-Japan relations offered by Obama adviser and National Security Director for Asia Jeffrey Bader.

I should note that I am writing this from Okinawa, Japan at the moment -- about a half hour down the road from the controversial Futenma U.S. Marine Air Station in Ginowan, Okinawa.

From THE NELSON REPORT -- 7 June 2010

BADER-JAPAN...NSC senior director for Asia Jeff Bader has been on the front lines of the difficulties between the Obama Administration and Japan since Day One of the Administration, and it's well to remember that the Obama/Hatoyama disconnect was not the beginning of problems, but, rather, a continuation of several years of US officials' frustration.

It was the LDP which had determined to end the Indian Ocean refueling part of Japan's Af/Pak war support, a decision the DPJ ratified; and it was the LDP which failed to implement the 2006 Futenma agreement which Hatoyama's government so dramatically tried to roll-back.

So Obama relations with and confidence in the LDP/Aso government which preceded the dramatic shift to a DPJ take-over last Fall was difficult and frustrating for many of the same bottom line reasons in the more recent headlines...promise vs performance, and demands for status regardless.

We mention this as an "introduction" to Bader today, and a useful reminder that the Hatoyama administration inherited a "difficult" situation, but then unfortunately, if presumably inadvertently, made things a lot worse.

Among many interesting points made Bader frankly said a major cause of the Hatoyama/Obama disconnect was that for the first several months, US Amb. John Roos was the "only line of communication".

This was NOT a criticism of the yeoman work done by Roos, but a rueful comment on problems exacerbated because there was no coherent DPJ outreach to officials back here in DC.

That situation began to improve in April, Bader said, and since then there has been "some coherence" in the back-channel dialogue or conversation which is so critical to international relations and policy-making.

Bader thus rather frankly noted the problem many of us in the "Japan business" had fretted over since the Fall.

Instead, Hatoyama and his ministers seemed OK with a steady procession of DPJ politicians who might have been freelancing, or might have been semi-official, but who in any event systematically boycotted any cooperation with the Gaimusho and the professional bureaucracy which stood ready to perform their staffing responsibilities.

The result was that the White House, State, DOD et all were under a constant drumbeat of requests for private meetings with DPJ politicians who might or might not be speaking on behalf of the Government...and who in any event had very little, if any, coherence to their presentations.

So even before it got to the point of an Obama/Hatoyama disconnect and questions of "trust", there was a fundamental problem of lack of confidence back here that the DPJ had any idea what it was trying to do, or how to do it.

Bader frankly said that often, DPJ thinking on critical foreign policy issues was "very messy" and "painfully transparent" because of the problem with trying to decide who was speaking for whom.

Bader carefully noted three specific causes of White House concern with the DPJ:

First, the statements from Hatoyama, Ozawa et al that Japan wanted to "rebalance" between the US and China; second, the "East Asia Community", perhaps with, or perhaps not with US participation; third, the Indian Ocean re-fueling cancellation, but then no coherent suggestions on how to reaffirm the alliance.

Bader was also very frank in why the White House began to lose faith (our words) in Hatoyama, calling the Prime Minister's initial "promise" to decide on Futenma by the end of December, then the shift to an end-of-May "deadline" a big mistake.

The result, said Bader, was that Obama continued to be "patient but skeptical". Bader wryly noted that the President was firmly advised to be tough on Futenma, and firmly advised to be patient and understanding.

In practice, Bader said, the Administration "tried to be both", but Bader was surprisingly frank, or critical, in blaming whomever it was for "leaking" the early confrontation between DOD Secretary Gates and Foreign Minister Okada...thus implying that the subsequent negative atmosphere was unintentional, and not deliberate US "gaiatsu".

And on gaiatsu itself, whatever you may think of its recent use, Bader said gaiatsu is "finished" as a result of the Futenma hassle, an event he welcomed, and that the Futenma agreement now is important, because it reflects real policy changes in Japan.

There was some interesting stuff in the Q&A's on China, but it's late, and we want to get home to hear how daughter Margo's first day at work was!

More later, meanwhile, here's our selection of good quotes from Bader's official working notes:

-- This conference is timely, not least because of the events last week in Tokyo. I prepared my remarks before the resignation of PM Hatoyama. Others in this conference I am sure will speak about the impact of Naoto Kan's assumption of the Prime Ministership.

-- The fact that President Obama telephoned Kan so quickly after the vote in the Diet - well before Kan official takes up his position - and the fact that they held a warm and very substantive conversation, is indicative of the Obama Administration's attitude towards Japan.

-- President Obama's approach to Japan since beginning of Administration shows the importance he attached to the relationship.

1) First visitor to Oval Office was PM Aso. Not a statement of personal support for him, but for Japan relationship. 2) First step on foreign soil by Secretary Clinton was in Japan, in February 2009. Europeans and others have remarked that they saw our early approach as putting Asia first. Certainly was intended to signal increased attention to Asia, though not to downgrade other areas vital to US interests. 3) President's trip to Asia in his first year, and his first stop was in Japan.

-- Secretary Gates visited Japan in October and made clear that the FRF remained the best option, that walking away from it would damage the alliance. There was criticism of Secretary Gates' so-called "confrontational" approach. In fact, someone on the Japanese side chose to leak virtually the entire transcript of Gates' first meeting with FM Okada to Kyodo News, giving the appearance that Gates was seeking a public confrontation when he was in fact speaking frankly in a private meeting.

-- As we all know, PM Hatoyama decided in December Japan would not implement the FRF as agreed upon. He said Japan would reach agreement with us on a new proposal by the end of May and made clear his preference was to relocate the MCAS Futenma off Okinawa - if not off Japan altogether. - We thought this was a mistake, for various reasons. We made clear our disagreement to the Japanese government. At the same time, we did not reject Hatoyama's proposal to talk. We would have preferred to stay with the option so arduously negotiated over 15 years, and continued to say it was the "best" option, but we did not insist that it was the "only" option. Rather, we showed respect and understanding of the politics of Japan and the needs of the new government. We were frankly skeptical that delay would produce more positive results. But, that is how allies should treat each other, particularly in the "alliance of equals" about which Hatoyama spoke and which President Obama has accepted.

-- The President has always believed that US-Japan relations are much larger than a single base issue. We did not want relations to be overshadowed by this matter. But we couldn't ignore it. It came to be seen as an indicator of how the Japanese government viewed the security relationship and its own national security.

-- So this agreement is important, not only in its own right but in terms of what it reflects about political change in Japan. First of all, it shows that the old model of "gaiatsu" - the-Americans-made-me-do-it - is finished. We welcome its demise since that is simply not the way that President Obama does business. In its place, the DPJ leadership introduced a very messy and very public rethinking of Japan's security interests and the meaning of the U.S.-Japan Alliance. The outcome of their review of the options on the FRF is significant because Japan's leadership reached their own conclusion through an inclusive and (painfully) transparent process. This was not a handful of Japanese national security policy experts making a backroom deal and then selling it as something Japan is obligated to do for Washington. The agreement reflects Japanese public mainstream views about its own best interests. Lastly, this outcome reflects in my view, a maturation of the DPJ's understanding of the stakes and national security implications of the alliance.

-- Within hours of the vote to make him Prime Minister, Kan held a news conference making clear his intent to implement the Futenma agreement.

-- The sinking of the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan by North Korea served as a dramatic reminder that NE Asia is still a dangerous neighborhood. The Japanese government also experienced some difficulties in a relationship with China in which it had invested a considerable amount. The DPJ has come to understand with increasingly clarity that others in the region were watching closely the US-Japan alliance, and Japan could not afford the impression of a rift to gain traction. It turns out that all politics is not 100% local, as it had been seen in Japan for some months before then.

-- Japan has strongly backed the ROK in the face of aggression from the North in the wake of the Cheonan incident. Its solidarity with the ROK has been firm and public. Japan has sought trilateral cooperation with the US and ROK and taken a leading role in fashioning a UN Security Council response.

-- As a member of the UN Security Council, Japan is strongly supporting the US-led draft of UNSC sanctions resolution on Iran. Mr. Kan indeed reiterated that support in his first conversation with President Obama this past weekend.

-- Japan's leadership has made clear recently that it favors US participation in any eventual East Asian Community, a change from the position taken by the DPJ leadership last fall. - Japan strongly supported President Obama's initiatives at the April Nuclear Security Summit in Washington and worked closely with the U.S. delegation at the NPT Review Conference in May.

-- So 9 months after the DPJ's electoral victory, the scorecard from the US perspective is positive, and improving.

-- There has been lots of attention to what a rough ride it has been, to the drama of Hatoyama's resignation, to the difficulties of the DPJ government in getting its feet solidly under it. I'll leave to experts on Japan the analysis of these.

-- But from the viewpoint of the US the much larger issue and conclusion is this: Japan has gone through the single most dramatic political change after 50 years of stasis in party rule and the US-Japan alliance has emerged in sound condition, having been scrutinized and ultimately validated by the new political leadership.

-- This is in one sense not surprising, since 80% of all Japanese in polling support the alliance. That is the indispensable foundation for the alliance.

-- On the other hand, one shouldn't take for granted that in a 2 party or multi-party system our alliances are immune from trauma when parties lose power.

-- So this last year has been historic in affirming the support of overwhelming majority of the Japanese people and all the major parties in Japan for the U.S.-Japan alliance. This year has given us the answer to the question of what would happen if the "guardian" of the security relationship, the LDP, lost power and has demonstrated that the alliance is a bond between the people of our two nations,.

-- I believe this is good news for Japan, for the US, and for Asia...

I like Jeff Bader and respect his take on Asia, but there is a lot of 'wishful thinking' and perhaps unintentional fabrication in his talking points.

First of all, there was clearly "gaiatsu" or foreign pressure applied to Hatoyama and Japan's political leadership over Futenma. Go talk to folks in the DPJ, in Japanese journalism circles -- from the Asahi, Yomiuri, Nikkei, Tokyo Shimbun, TV Asahi -- and there is widespread agreement that the Obama team pushed hard on Futenma.

Secondly, US Ambassador to Japan John Roos was the only conduit for communications because the U.S. did little to help the incoming Hatoyama government, which represented an enormous pivot in Japanese politics, to construct an alternative structure of elite-level communication that stepped away from the old structure that had been dominated by US-Japan personalities on both sides that had been there for many years. Hatoyama didn't trust these channels of communication, and the Obama White House should have had more foresight about that.

Bader is not plugged in if he thinks that the US and Japan will be able to get by the Futenma problem and move forward now. Many Japanese students I spoke to in Tokyo feel as if they are subordinates of the United States and have no control over their national destiny. Not healthy. When it comes to military affairs, most Japanese I have spoken to feel that Japan is still a "vassal state" of the US and that this needs to change.

In Okinawa, the Ryukyu Shimpo just did a poll of every mayor on the island -- and 100% of those voted said that they believed the Hatoyama deal with the US on moving Futenma from one part of the island to another should be rejected.

Bader may not like some of the things the Hatoyama did, but the bottom line remains that many think that the single-minded, obsessive focus of the administration in not yielding anything substantial on the Futenma issue has undermined confidence and trust for many Japanese citizens and politicians in the long term US-Japan security relationship.

Even inadvertently contributing to circumstances that brought down a Japanese prime minister who was the first to seriously undo the structural hold the Liberal Democratic Party had in Japan was an enormous mistake -- and there will likely be consequences that Bader seems unwilling to acknowledge and accept.

Bader's dismissal of the notion that the US did anything out of line in the dance around Futenma and the resulting resignation of Prime Minister Hatoyama is an ominous sign on the 50th anniversary to the day of the signing of the US-Japan Security Treaty.

-- Steve Clemons

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Director Jeffrey Gedmin has just authored a disconcerting brief on his recent observations of Pakistan's political and social scene for the journal World Affairs that I encourage folks to read.

Nations that block Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are from my perspective on the wrong side of history and don't get that efficient social network building -- while scary to some countries who fear their own people -- are also dynamic sources of power and innovation that can greatly benefit those nations.

Turkey and China block YouTube. When I was in Saudi Arabia, I had access to all three -- twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, and the same was true in Qatar and UAE.

Gedmin reports that Pakistan has now shut down access to Facebook along with 1,000 other websites including YouTube. So much for modernity getting a chance in a country to which we are sending $1.5 billion a year.

But Gedmin has an extremely important passage that has nothing to do with social media and everything to do with the rich terrain of what is unfolding in the arena of "political Islam."

Gedmin writes:

I visited the home of the deputy head of Pakistan's version of the Muslim Brotherhood, a member of the parliament who also directs a prominent think tank. Khurshid Ahmad counts as a moderate in Pakistani politics. He rejects the Taliban vision for Pakistan, condemns suicide bombings (at least in conversation with me) and says the September 11 attacks were a crime. He also blames America for many of his country's ills, sympathizes with the plight of Iranian mullahs and wants a Pakistan where religious leaders play an active role in governing. For the foreseeable future the real battle for Pakistan's soul remains a struggle not between liberals and jihadists but between Islamists of different stripes.

Gedmin is exactly right -- and this is something very few Americans realize or acknowledge. I'm impressed with Jeffrey Gedmin's openness on this as he is a serious thinker in the neoconservative establishment and was the institution builder behind what was once the dynamic "New Atlantic Initiative" at the American Enterprise Institute.

The kind of debate Gedmin got a peek at between members of the Muslim Brotherhood, themselves quite different in focus and objective depending on which nation they call home, and either Taliban representatives or Selafist groups is going on throughout the Arab and South Asia regions.

I saw this ferment on full public display at the recent Wadah Khanfar-orchestrated 5th Aljazeera Forum in which some Muslim Brotherhood adherents were publicly rebuking both the Taliban on one hand and then Iraq's more secular Ayad Allawi on the other.

I'm really pleased that someone with Gedmin's stature and network "gets this" as we need to begin to figure out strategies to deal with political Islam in a way that doesn't stupidly and inappropriately relegate all of them to al Qaeda-like status.

I'm hoping to encourage Jeffrey Gedmin to speak to the New America Foundation and do an interview for The Washington Note next time he is in Washington and over from Prague.

-- Steve Clemons

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

In yesterday's New York Times, White House Correspondent Helene Cooper addresses one of the difficult questions that the recent Flotilla row between Israel and Turkey poses to American officials: what to do about the fact that Israeli policies seem to be having increasingly negative consequences for the United States' standing in the region?

Drawing on an article by Center for Strategic and International Studies Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy Anthony H. Cordesman called "Israel as a Strategic Liability?", Cooper suggests that the pressure in Washington is mounting for the United States to distance itself from Israeli policies and make clear that there are limits to what Washington can tolerate. (Cordesman's article was reprinted here at The Washington Note.)

Cooper quotes New America Foundation/Middle East Task Force Director Daniel Levy, who asserts that:

America has three choices. Either say, it's politically too hot a potato to touch, and just pay the consequences in the rest of the world. Or try to force through a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians, so that the Palestinian grievance issue is no longer a driving force or problem. [The third choice] is for America to say, we can't solve it, but we can't pay the consequences, so we will distance ourselves from Israel. That way America would no longer be seen, as it has been this week, as the enabler of excesses of Israeli misbehavior.

Cooper then reports that "Unsurprisingly, Mr. Levy advocates the second choice. But he warns that the third may become more palatable to Americans if Mr. Netanyahu's government stays on its present course."

Essentially, Levy appears to be suggesting that doubling down on Middle East peace is the only viable option for American policy in the region over the long-term.

Cooper's full article can be read here.

-- Ben Katcher

RabbiLive got a provocative comment from the iconic White House correspondent Helen Thomas -- sort of the Max Blumenthalesque treatment of the Israel-Palestine issue from the other side of the coin.

Helen Thomas, in my view, is right to talk about the problems of Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. She is clearly passionate about that.

But then arguing that Israelis should "go home" and go back to "Poland, Germany, America, and everywhere else" is just way over the line.

Responsible commentators on the Israeli and Palestinian/Arab/Muslim side of the equation need to really get beyond the hyberbole. Israel is not going anywhere and shouldn't. Helping to secure a new equilibrium in its own long term political and security interests, Israel should do much more to facilitate the creation of a Palestinian state on its border.

But Helen Thomas, who I mostly admire, was wrong on this one.

-- Steve Clemons

George W. Bush said both before and after the Palestine elections of 2006 that they were the fairest and most well run elections held in the Middle East outside of Israel.

"The people made their choice," Bush said.

Now, Liz Cheney -- who was a senior official at the Department of State at the time of those elections -- is saying that the Palestinians weren't ready for the elections and that they were a mistake.

She revealed this in a testy exchange with Arianna Huffington.

I guess elections are only good if one gets the stacked deck outcome that neocons want.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a guest note by Anthony H. Cordesman, holder of the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. This piece first appeared as a CSIS brief and is reprinted here with permission.

Israel as a Strategic Liability?

America's ties to Israel are not based primarily on U.S. strategic interests. At the best of times, an Israeli government that pursues the path to peace provides some intelligence, some minor advances in military technology, and a potential source of stabilizing military power that could help Arab states like Jordan. Even then, however, any actual Israeli military intervention in an Arab state could prove as destabilizing as beneficial.

The fact is that the real motives behind America's commitment to Israel are moral and ethical. They are a reaction to the horrors of the Holocaust, to the entire history of Western anti-Semitism, and to the United States' failure to help German and European Jews during the period before it entered World War II. They are a product of the fact that Israel is a democracy that shares virtually all of the same values as the United States.

The U.S. commitment to Israel is not one that will be abandoned. The United States has made this repeatedly clear since it first recognized Israel as a state, and it has steadily strengthened the scale of its commitments since 1967. The United States has provided Israel with massive amounts of economic aid and still provides enough military assistance to preserve Israel's military superiority over its neighbors. The United States has made it clear that any U.S. support for Arab-Israeli peace efforts must be based on options that preserve Israel's security, and its recent announcements that it will consider "extended regional deterrence" are code words for a U.S. commitment that could guard Israel, as well as its neighbors, against an Iranian nuclear threat.

At the same time, the depth of America's moral commitment does not justify or excuse actions by an Israeli government that unnecessarily make Israel a strategic liability when it should remain an asset. It does not mean that the United States should extend support to an Israeli government when that government fails to credibly pursue peace with its neighbors. It does not mean that the United States has the slightest interest in supporting Israeli settlements in the West Bank, or that the United States should take a hard-line position on Jerusalem that would effectively make it a Jewish rather than a mixed city.

It does not mean that the United States should be passive when Israel makes a series of major strategic blunders--such as persisting in the strategic bombing of Lebanon during the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, escalating its attack on Gaza long after it had achieved its key objectives, embarrassing the U.S. president by announcing the expansion of Israeli building programs in east Jerusalem at a critical moment in U.S. efforts to put Israeli-Palestinian peace talks back on track, or sending commandos to seize a Turkish ship in a horribly mismanaged effort to halt the "peace flotilla" going to Gaza.

It is time Israel realized that it has obligations to the United States, as well as the United States to Israel, and that it become far more careful about the extent to which it test the limits of U.S. patience and exploits the support of American Jews. This does not mean taking a single action that undercuts Israeli security, but it does mean realizing that Israel should show enough discretion to reflect the fact that it is a tertiary U.S. strategic interest in a complex and demanding world.

Israel's government should act on the understanding that the long-term nature of the U.S.-Israel strategic relationship will depend on Israel clearly and actively seeking peace with the Palestinians--the kind of peace that is in Israel's own strategic interests. Israelis should understand that the United States opposes expansion and retention of its settlements and its efforts to push Palestinians out of greater Jerusalem.

Israeli governments should plan Israeli military actions that make it clear that Israel will use force only to the level actually required, that carefully consider humanitarian issues from the start, and that have a clear post-combat plan of action to limit the political and strategic impact of its use of force. And Israel should not conduct a high-risk attack on Iran in the face of the clear U.S. "red light" from both the Bush and Obama administrations. Israel should be sensitive to the fact that its actions directly affect U.S. strategic interests in the Arab and Muslim worlds, and it must be as sensitive to U.S. strategic concerns as the United States is to those of Israel.

The United States does not need unnecessary problems in one of the most troubled parts of the world, particularly when Israeli actions take a form that does not serve Israel's own strategic interests.

This Israeli government in particular needs to realize that as strong as U.S.-Israel ties may be, it is time to return to the kind of strategic realism exemplified by leaders like Yitzhak Rabin. No aspect of what happened this week off the coast of Gaza can be blamed on Israeli commandos or the Israel Defense Forces. Israel's prime minister and defense minister had full warning about the situation, and they knew the flotilla was deliberately designed as a political provocation to capture the attention of the world's media in the most negative way possible.

They personally are responsible for what happened, and they need to show far more care and pragmatism in the future.

-- Anthony H. Cordesman

© 2010 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved.

For a few more hours, this is generally my view from the Intercontinental ANA Hotel in Tokyo.

The white house there in the middle is the home of Obama California campaign finance chair and now US Ambassador to Japan John Roos, who I had the privilege to meet and chat with the evening before last. Roos is impressively approachable and knowledgeable and has been active in Democratic party politics for a long time. A person close to him tells me he has a photo of former Senator Bill Bradley, for whom he was a late in the campaign debate coach, saying something along the lines "If we had started together earlier on this stuff, we'd both be in different places."

The Hotel Okura is just behind the Ambassador's residence.

Roos, who now has a lot of Japan experience, but hadn't been to Japan before he traveled here for the first time as U.S. Ambassador also has a knack for remembering details -- and the names of authors of things he has read, like this piece.

When I met him at the home of Deputy Chief of Mission Jim Zumwalt, Ambassador Roos was saying hi to folks -- and I eagerly said hi as knowing the US Ambassador over here is still a cool thing. But he moved his head right down to my name tag and said, "hmm...I think I just read something of yours. What was it?" he asked. "Maybe something on the resignation of Hatoyama," I responded. "That's right -- the Prime Minister President Obama 'took out'. I don't quite agree with that. . ."

It was an interesting moment -- and to his credit, Ambassador Roos wasn't brittle about the piece at all and talked about the issues involved and who played what role with informed ease.

And then later in the reception, James Fallows, with whom I am on this trip along with others as guests of the Department of State to speak before and have exchanges with about 140 college students from all over Japan about various dimensions of US-Japan relations, asked one of the close advisers to Ambassador Roos how they were going to deal with the impression that the Obama administration undermined Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.

With me standing there, this person said, "Well, there is just beginning to appear in the press other rationales for why Hatoyama resigned than the issue of Futenma and American pressure. There was some early writing and press on this that we have been trying to deal with." Jim Fallows then pointed at me laughingly and said, "have you met Steve Clemons? He started it. . ."

One of the really impressive things about this trip sponsored by the Embassy and Department of State was that there was zero -- absolutely no pressure to promote a line or particular view on the US-Japan security relationship. The Ambassador, the DCM, their advisers and public policy teams were completely comfortable talking about the Futenma controversy and the broader issue of where US-Japan relations needed to go. I tend to be a critic of the tight Futenma-hugging that the US did but am very impressed with Obama's National Security Strategy, which I talked a lot about during the two days of meetings.

And the Embassy staff were of diverse minds on all of this as well. The students, whose views were reasoned and impressively articulate, were also diverse -- on everything from immigration questions, to the depth and importance of the US-Japan security relationship and what the fall of Hatoyama was caused by.

I'm going to write more soon on some votes that the Japanese students took on five interesting questions -- but for the time being, I wanted to post this and thank the Embassy, Ambassador Roos and his team, Aoyama Gakuin University, and Sophia University for an impressive experience here.

Now I'm off to Naha in Okinawa. And yes, that is where Futenma US Marine Air Station is. I can't believe the timing of this trip -- which was planned months ago...

-- Steve Clemons

New Republic Literary Editor Leon Wieseltier is one of America's chief gatekeepers on Jewish experience, culture and politics and has recently been one of those who has led in American journalistic circles in rebuking uncomfortable arguments by Peter Beinart and Andrew Sullivan about Israel's self-destructive behavior.

But Wieseltier is now, partially, joining the ranks of Israel's critics -- stating the obvious -- but this removes him from those who offer knee-jerk defenses of the IDF tactics in confronting the Gaza-bound Turkish flotilla.

Read the entire essay, but he starts:

Israel does not need enemies: it has itself. Or more precisely: it has its government. The Netanyahu-Barak government has somehow found a way to lose the moral high ground, the all-important war for symbols and meanings, to Hamas. That is quite an accomplishment. Operation Make the World Hate Us, it might have been called.

I leave it to others to make the operational criticisms of the Israeli action, and will say only that even my amateurish understanding of the tactical challenge posed by the interdiction of the boats suffices to suggest that there were other ways to do this. I also will not pretend to a perfect grasp of what happened on board the Mavi Marmara. I have pondered the videos that both sides have released, and concluded that the Israeli soldiers sliding down that rope had no intention of attacking the people on board and that the people on board had no way of being confident of this. I cannot expect Palestinians and their supporters to believe the best about the Israeli army. (This is what Israeli hardliners call "the restoration of deterrence.") I do not doubt that some of the activists on the ship welcomed a confrontation with Israel, but the Israelis should not have obliged them. In any event, what took place on that deck looks to me like a tragic misunderstanding. Yet there was no reason to think that anything else would have transpired.

The important point is that the killing of civilians on the Mavi Marmara--I understand that they were "armed" with metal bars and a knife, but still they were civilians, and soldiers are trained to respond unlethally to the recklessness of a mob--cannot be extenuated by reference to "asymmetrical warfare" and Israel's right to defend itself. This was not warfare, at least of the physical sort. Israel was not under attack.

-- Steve Clemons

(original clip -- video released by the IDF on May 31)

Max Blumenthal has been working over time to challenge the Israeli government claims and releases on what happened during the clash between IDF forces and the Turkish flotilla bound for Gaza.

Blumenthal has already successfully gotten the Israel Foreign Ministry to back off its original claims that the flotilla was connected to al Qaeda terrorist affiliates.

(doctored clip -- released on June 4)

Now Blumenthal has discovered doctoring of the radio exchanges between the defense forces and the Turkish ships. The Israeli government is distributing the altered/doctored versions of these clips -- and this undermines the legitimacy of any effort by the Israeli government to investigate the incident even if unbiased, dispassionate players in Israel's political establishment really wanted to know what happened.

Read this material and watch these clips from Max Blumenthal.

-- Steve Clemons

Update: More from the Palestine Note.

I don't understand the Israeli government defense of the 'shoot to kill' behavior of commandos that stormed the Turkish flotilla going toward Gaza.

The protesters used primitive weapons -- bats, slingshots, etc. Even if it is true that the activists brutally attacked the ship-raiding commandos, shooting to stop people, to deter them, or to disable them, is not shooting to kill.

This use of disproportionate force is something we have seen in Israel's military profile over and over again -- but particularly under the tenure of Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

This in from Reuters:

Autopsy results showed the men were hit mostly with 9mm bullets, many fired at close range, the Guardian said, quoting Yalcin Buyuk, vice-chairman of the Turkish council of forensic medicine which carried out the autopsies on Friday.

Israeli commandos stormed a flotilla of aid ships planning to break the Israeli sea blockade of Gaza on Monday. The deaths, which all took place on one ship, the Mavi Marmara, drew widespread condemnation.

Israel said the marines who rappelled onto the Mavi Marmara fired in self-defense after activists attacked them with clubs and knives as well as two pistols snatched from the commandos.

The autopsy results showed that a 60-year-old man, Ibrahim Bilgen, was shot four times in the temple, chest, hip and back, the Guardian said.

A 19-year-old, named as Fulkan Dogan, who also has U.S. citizenship, was shot five times from less than 45 cm (18 inches) away, in the face, the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back, it said.

Two other men were shot four times. Five of those killed were shot either in the back of the head or in the back, the Guardian quoted Buyuk as saying.

In addition to those killed, 48 others suffered gunshot wounds and six activists were still missing, he added.

Israel said the multiple gunshot wounds did not mean the shots were fired other than in self defense.

Even those who support the Israel government's right to board the ships and enforce the Gaza blockade have to ask themselves what the far more powerful and better armed IDF soldiers were thinking unloading so many bullets into the skulls of primitively armed activists.

This is really outrageous - and Vice President Joe Biden's comments that Israel conduct an investigation into this incident was out of line. Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has backed off its original hyperbolic claims that the flotilla was connected to al Qaeda affiliates, and there are significant discrepancies in what IDF soldiers are reporting to the media and what various Israeli government embassies and consulates are publicly stating.

Truth is pretty slippery in this case -- and an outside group needs to look into what really happened and why.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a guest note by Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson (USA, ret) who for sixteen years was assistant to General Colin Powell and who served as Chief of Staff of the Department of State during Powell's tenure as Secretary of State. Wilkerson now teaches as the Pamela Harriman Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the College of William & Mary and also chairs the 21st Century US-Cuba Policy Initiative at the New America Foundation.

(I am particularly indebted to Col. Wilkerson who upon hearing the words of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace that homosexuality was "immoral" while we were traveling together to Havana, Cuba in March 2007 brought a bottle of rum over and apologized to me for Pace's behavior and the entire Dont' Ask Don't Tell policy. -- Steve Clemons)

The Time Has Come

In early 1993 Colin Powell and I had an intriguing conversation. In the midst of the controversy President Clinton had started about gays and lesbians serving openly in the military, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and I talked about the Companions.

The Companions were Alexander the Great's praetorian guard, his extra special troops, his "shock and awe" cavalry. About 300 men at any given time in the Royal Squadron, they were the very best warriors this thirty-year old, world-conquering Greek soldier-king had at his side, always.

History tells us--or at least those historians such as Plutarch, Mary Renault, and Robin Lane Fox whom we trust--these Companions were sworn to Alexander's protection and that they never faltered. As did Alexander himself, they often rode directly into the teeth of a battle and fought like wildcats.

Many of these stalwart soldiers were gay. I dare say--again, if history's recorders are to be trusted--that many were bisexual, as apparently was Alexander himself, but to a man they probably had had at one time or another sexual relations with other men. As the Thebans, another Greek outfit of enormous prowess, used to theorize, perhaps these relationships even made them fiercer warriors.

Now, it could be argued that most Republicans and Tea Party members are not like Powell and me; that is they have never read a history book. Their actions routinely seem to corroborate this fact. Moreover, many of those who flock to this issue of opposing gays and lesbians serving openly in the Armed Forces--like that hero of heroes, Rush Limbaugh--have never served in the armed forces themselves and so could be called anything but fierce. Devious, manipulating, power-hungry, corrupt, unchristian, and a host of other epithets, but not fierce.

So, is it jealousy or envy that causes them to be do dead-set against gays and lesbians serving openly in the Armed Forces? It could hardly be anything else given the example of Alexander and his Companions. Or, for that matter, the example of the many gays and lesbians who have served honorably and well in the U.S. Armed Forces since our Revolutionary War, however covertly.

As to lesbians in particular, in those days of Powell's chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I--and I assume he as well since he had access to the same research data as did I--had even more reason to believe they would make fine soldiers.

In fact, our records demonstrated that if you categorized soldiers by sexual inclination and then checked all the factors of good soldiership against those categories, the very best peacetime soldier was a female who was a lesbian. Fewer absences-without-leave, fewer disciplinary actions in general, faster riser in the ranks, and totally dedicated to the job.

Oh yes, and incidentally, she was more apt to stay with the same partner over time than even a heterosexual soldier who was married. How interesting, we thought at the time.
In his office that day, as Powell and I concluded our early 1993 conversation about Alexander the Great and his Companions, I asked the Chairman if he thought President Clinton would win out in his attempt to allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the Armed Forces.

Powell thought for a moment and then turned to me and said: "No, the Congress probably won't allow it."

Knowing that there were members of the Senate Armed Services Committee who were almost violently opposed to such service, I didn't choose to pursue the matter with Powell any further and turned to leave his office.

He wasn't finished with me yet however.

He sat back at his desk and said to me: "Some day, though, perhaps 10 or 20 years from now, it won't even be an issue."

It has been 17 years since that conversation in the office of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and it is high time that we did the right thing and let gays and lesbians continue to serve honorably and now openly in the Armed Forces of the United States of America.

-- Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson (USA, ret)

Recently I had the opportunity to connect with some national security wonks and Obama team members in the White House Roosevelt Room. I was invited to meet some "senior administration officials" regarding the contours of the recently released "National Security Strategy" by the President.

While there I chatted with someone not to be named about whether the White House was caught off guard by Defense Secretary Robert Gates stating that he did not want to see legislation on Don't Ask Don't Tell until after the completion of an internal military review.

The short answer was "yes." Gates was cornering the President on Don't Ask Don't Tell.

But then to their credit, Senators Carl Levin and Joseph Lieberman as well as House Member Patrick Murphy refused to allow the Pentagon to drag its heals on the biggest civil rights agenda item of the day -- and pushed through legislation building in a repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell pending the military review.

A lot of gay community leaders got indigestion over this approach -- but the legislative maneuvering by this Congressional threesome robbed Gates of the ability to political squash progress on DADT who may have also hoped that if he stalled things that a Congress less supportive of repeal would keep this from every moving forward.

The DADT legislation makes it much, much tougher for Gates, Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen, or any holder of their positions when that review is done to sidestep their Commander in Chief's desire to repeal DADT.

But now, impressively, the President's team has made this a campaign. First, OMB czar Peter Orszag states that it is the position of the White House that Don't Ask Don't Tell be repealed, issuing support as well for the Levin/Lieberman/Murphy legislation. Gates and Mullen bristle -- but are being confronted strongly and pushed to the edge of the ring by Obama's inside team.

And now the Democratic National Committee and Obama's own "Organizing for America" are calling for Americans to line up in support of repeal, to sign petitions, and to kick up dust. Obama is now lining up support from his "outside team."

I support strongly what the President wants to do -- not the deference that Bob Gates wants to give the generals.

You may not agree with this policy issue -- some of my friends don't. But those of you who do would be sending a strong message if you sent the President an indication of the importance of moving forward here and signing this petition on the President's "Organizing for America" site.

It's time that civilians in this country remind the military command who they work for -- and that the social and moral gap that the military thinks it can maintain between itself and the rest of American society needs to be diminished, not widened.

-- Steve Clemons

For a few days I am in Tokyo, the home of the world's coolest ads.

But this one for McDonald's, which is airing in France, ranks really well.

-- Steve Clemons

This from Dan Froomkin at Huffington Post:

George W. Bush's casual acknowledgment Wednesday that he had Khalid Sheikh Mohammed waterboarded -- and would do it again -- has horrified some former military and intelligence officials who argue that the former president doesn't seem to understand the gravity of what he is admitting. Waterboarding, a form of controlled drowning, is "unequivocably torture", said retired Brigadier General David R. Irvine, a former strategic intelligence officer who taught prisoner of war interrogation and military law for 18 years. "As a nation, we have historically prosecuted it as such, going back to the time of the Spanish-American War," Irvine said. "Moreover, it cannot be demonstrated that any use of waterboarding by U.S. personnel in recent years has saved a single American life." Irvine told the Huffington Post that Bush seems not to understand how much harm his countenancing of torture has done to his country. [...]

James P. Cullen, a retired brigadier general in the United States Army Reserve Judge Advocate General's Corps, told HuffPost that the net effect of Bush's remarks -- and former Vice President Cheney's before him -- is "to establish a precedent where it will be permissible to our enemies to use waterboarding on our servicemen in future wars." ... "This is not the last war we're going to fight," Cullen said. "Americans not yet born are going to be prisoners of war in those conflicts. And our enemies are going to be able to point back to President Bush and Vice President Cheney saying that waterboarding is OK. "It's just shocking to me how he can be so flip about something that is so serious," Cullen said.

Matthew Alexander, the pseudonymous former Air Force interrogator and author of "How To Break A Terrorist" e-mailed HuffPost that Bush's statement "is de facto approval of the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of American soldiers in Iraq who were killed by foreign fighters that Al Qaida recruited based on the President's policy of torture and abuse of detainees. "At least now we know where the blame for those soldiers' deaths squarely belongs. President Bush's decision broke with a military tradition dating back to General George Washington during the Revolutionary War and the consequences are clear: Al Qaida is stronger and our country is less safe."

-- Steve Clemons

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

Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Steven Cook, writing in Foreign Policy, suggests that the Flotilla incident is the latest evidence that dreams of a "model partnership" between the United States and Turkey are mere fantasy. Cook suggests conceiving of Turkey as something closer to a "strategic competitor" with interests that sometimes converge but often diverge from those of Washington, particularly in the Middle East.

Cook says:

The Obama administration has yet to grapple with the ways the structural changes in the international system have affected U.S.-Turkey relations. All the talk about strategic cooperation, model partnership, and strategic importance cannot mask the fundamental shift at hand. The stark reality is that while Turkey and the United States are not enemies in the Middle East, they are fast becoming competitors. Whereas the United States seeks to remain the predominant power in the region and, as such, wants to maintain a political order that makes it easier for Washington to achieve its goals, Turkey clearly sees things differently. The Turks are willing to bend the regional rules of the game to serve Ankara's own interests. If the resulting policies serve U.S. goals at the same time, good. If not, so be it...

Given the mythology that surrounds the relationship, the divergence between Washington and Ankara has proved difficult to accept. Once policymakers recognize what is really happening, Washington and Ankara can get on with the job of managing the decline in ties with the least possible damage. Obama's goal should be to develop relations with Turkey along the same lines the United States has with Brazil or Thailand or Malaysia. Those relations are strong in some areas, but fall short of strategic alliances. "Frenemy" might be too harsh a term for such an arrangment, but surely "model partnership" is a vast overstatement. It's time to recognize reality.

I agree with much of Cook's analysis. He is certainly correct that Turkey and the United States are on opposing sides in the Israel-Palestine issue. The United States remains steadfastly committed to Israel, while Turkey under Prime Minister Erdogan has clearly distanced itself from the Jewish state and embraced the Palestinian cause. I also can see how disagreements between Washington and Ankara over Syria are likely to widen in the event of another conflict along Israel's northern border.

On the other hand, there are areas of significant cooperation including, most significantly, in Iraq. Ankara's influence there is widely considered constructive.

On Iran, yes there are differences between the Turkish and American positions, particularly in light of the recent uranium fuel-swap agreement. But Turkey can be forgiven for seeking to chart its own path given that U.S. policy toward Iran has failed for decades. I think Turkey is sincere that it does not want Iran to have a nuclear weapon and time will tell whether there is, in fact, less distance between the Turkish and American positions than may appear at the moment.

Cook's full article can be read here.

-- Ben Katcher

Many people believe that beneath the jitters surrounding the European debt crisis and geopolitical unrest, economic fundamentals are strong and the economy is on a path to a sustainable recovery. But, there are worrying signs that the recovery is fragile and based on temporary government support to consumption and a reflation of some asset markets. Once consumption-oriented stimulus fades, there is a risk that the economy will face a double-dip recession.

Last week, I shared our economic outlook with some folks at the semi-annual conference of the Hardwood, Plywood, and Veneer Association, a trade group that represents the vast majority of the plywood and hardwood industry in North America. Their businesses face long-run challenges of maintaining competitiveness in a country with no coherent industrial policy and short-run challenges of a housing dip and low demand for wood products.

It was a Main Street crowd and they had a better comprehension of the risks to the recovery than many politicians in Washington or analysts on Wall Street. They were painfully aware of problems of high unemployment, state and local government cutbacks, the uncertain tax and regulatory environment, and the risk of a relapse in housing prices.

To view a slideshow that outlines our economic outlook, click here.

-- Samuel Sherraden

Japan Prime Minister and Democratic Party of Japan leader Yukio Hatoyama, whose amazing electoral victory last year unseating the long dominant Liberal Democratic Party, has announced that he is stepping down from his position for failing to deliver on a key campaign promise to the Japanese people about moving the US Marine Futenma Air Station off of Okinawa.

I will be arriving in Tokyo tomorrow (on Thursday) and will be in Naha, Okinawa this next Monday.

Hatoyama could not withstand the pressure from Obama -- who gave Hatoyama the kind of icy treatment that the White House has also been trying to give Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The problem is Hatoyama wilted, and Netanyahu seems to be thriving.

I recently wrote a piece on the odd dynamic between President Obama and two different Prime Ministers -- Netanyahu and Hatoyama -- for the Kyodo News Service. It has already run in Japanese, but I post the entire English language version here:

Of Presidents & Prime Ministers in the Age of Obama
by Steve Clemons

Jan ken pon. Scissors cut paper. Paper covers Rock. Rock smashes scissors. There is an interesting drama playing out between several world leaders today that reminds of this game.

President Barack Obama seems to be smashing the political fortunes of Japan Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. On the other hand, Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been rebuffing and constraining Obama. Obama and China's Hu Jintao seem to be stalemated, playing jan ken pon over and over and over again.

"Defining challenges" for leaders and nations are those that represent the highest stakes wins and potential losses. The United States, for example, invested enormous blood and treasure in triggering change in Iraq and the broader Middle East and thus the Middle East today is a self-chosen defining challenge for the country. For Barack Obama, there were other defining challenges that he promised to stand by - including closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, "stopping" climate change, ending the war in Iraq, achieving Israel-Palestine peace and delivering the opportunity of universal health care coverage to American citizens.

Yukio Hatoyama also articulated his own defining challenges - including ending bureaucratic control of government and restoring genuine political leadership, opening up Japan's official records of secret deals done with the U.S., enhancing the quality of life for average Japanese citizens, closing the Futenma Marine Corps Air Station in Okinawa, improving Japan's position and sovereignty within the US-Japan Security Relationship andbuilding stronger relations with China among other challenges.

For Netanyahu, the defining challenge has been to simultaneously protect Israel's security interests and expansion in the Occupied Territories while rallying support to thwart Iran's nuclear pretensions. For Hu Jintao, it has been to incrementally increase China's global economic and geostrategic position while maintaining high economic growth and not destabilizing the country or creating new costly burdens and responsibilities for China.

The interactions between these leaders show how power is deployed and measured, created and destroyed. Netanyahu and Hu Jintao have played their hands best. Obama has been beaten, constrained, but still has global leverage, and Yukio Hatoyama seems to be on the constantly losing end of jan ken pon.

While the United States and China have been testing each other from the earliest days of the Obama White House, with the relationship moving from global economic crisis-focused harmony to tensions recently over the Dalai Lama, Taiwan arms sales, and how to deal with Iran, fundamentally the US and China have moved into a de facto G2 arrangement that doesn't necessarily mean that the US and China run the world but does mean that nearly every major global challenge requires consultation and policy coordination between these two global behemoths. China can veto America's global efforts and the US can veto China's. So far, there is general stalemate - jan ken pon, jan ken pon - as they sort out the realities of emerging Chinese power in an international system over which the US is not willing to forfeit control.

Obama and Hu Jintao are for the moment, tied - which historically speaking, represents a substantial moving up in the ranks for China and diminished power for the U.S.

When it comes to US-Israel relations, Barack Obama started out strong, appointed distinguished former US Senator and Northern Ireland peacemaker George Mitchell to go to work on achieving the same between Israelis and Palestinians, and indicated that Arab states would kick in some normalization-tilting gestures with Israel if Israel would cease all settlement expansion.

Obama's equation for moving Middle East peace forward was just too quaint and simple. Even though Israel is completely dependent on American security guarantees and aid and is genuinely a client state of the United States, the pugnacious prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, flamboyantly rebuffed Obama's call to stop settlements. Obama, with some twisting and modification of his position, has essentially forfeited the match to Netanyahu.

During the early part of the John F. Kennedy administration, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev beat Kennedy in similar challenges and began to doubt Kennedy's resolve and strategic temperament - leading to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Today, Netanyahu has become the Khrushchev of the Obama administration - and one wonders if a crisis lies ahead in which Obama will have to reassert his primacy lest the world think that Israel runs the United States and the Obama presidency.

But while the Israeli Prime Minister is beating Obama, Obama is clearly smashing the legacy and political position of Japan Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.

Hatoyama is conceding on a key campaign promise to move Futenma Marine Air Station off of the heavily US-base covered island of Okinawa. Now, some minor functions of Futenma will be transferred off island, but the bulk of the facility will simply be moved to another section of Okinawa.

Barack Obama put huge pressure on Hatoyama, asking him "Can I trust you?" He has maintained an icy posture towards Hatoyama, hardly communicating with him or agreeing to meetings - making the Prime Minister "lose face." Contrasting this with the invitation to former Prime Minister Taro Aso to be the first official head of government to visit the White House and Secetary of State Hillary Clinton's decision to make Tokyo her first foreign destination, one can see that while America seems unable to muster pressure to achieve a "win" with Israel, it is more than able to do so with the leader of a rich nation of 128 million people.

Hatoyama may survive this rebuke of the United States and this policy reversal that has made him appear weak and indecisive before Japan's citizens, but Obama has been unfair in this standoff with Japan's prime minister.

Obama himself promised to close Guantanamo Bay within one year of his presidency. This was a major commitment, and the administration failed to achieve it. But the US is not a parliamentary democracy where executive leadership can rise and fall over a single issue at any time. Presidents get a time period to stack up their wins and their losses so that when re-election comes around, they are measured on a combination of issues. But Hatoyama's government could fall over just this issue - and Obama did little to help the new Prime Minister stack up some wins with the US and the international system before crushing him on Futenma.

Japan, despite all of its considerable strengths and what could have been exciting, visionary new leadership from Hatoyama and his Democratic Party colleagues, is still a vassal of the United States - whereas the United States appears more and more a vassal of Israel's interest - and on China, we'll just have to wait and see how history tilts.

-- Steve Clemons directs the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation and publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note

Update: Just read this superb short piece by Nathan Gardels on Huffington Post on the tremors in the geostrategic order. Gardels succinctly refutes the notion that there "is no space" between the US and Israel on security issues by referencing the recent nuclear non-proliferation treaty resolution. He also illustrates how China is disavowing an unconditional relationship with North Korea. The world is in flux -- fascinating.

A couple of friends and I recently participated in a study group session discussing Afghanistan and Pakistan with former Afghanistan-deployed US foreign service officer and former Marine Matthew Hoh. In passing he posed the question "What's the most dangerous job in the Middle East?"

Hoh's answer: "Being the Number 3 leader in al-Qaeda."

Now al-Qaeda has announced that its No. 3 leader, Said al-Masri, has been killed, most likely by a drone attack. I have the same concerns that General Stanley McChrystal has about drone attacks -- they kill too many innocent people.

But when a senior member of al Qaeda is struck, one could arguably count this as a big plus in the use of drones.

To some degree, even those who have the greatest doubts about America's current military deployment to Afghanistan probably understand that any real exit strategy must be accompanied by the death or capture of al-Qaeda's No. 1 & No. 2, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.

In an email exchange with Matthew Hoh about his prescience about al-Qaeda's No. 3, he sent me the following sobering, and definitively contrarian discussion points about both the death of al-Masri and of the efficacy of drones:

From Matthew Hoh:

~ I agree with Steve that we should be focused on al-Qaeda and its associated movements (with more emphasis on its associated movements), as that is who poses an actual threat to the US and its interests (although by no means is this an existential threat).

~ While al-Masri seems to be a senior member of AQ, having gotten in on the ground floor with OBL in Afghanistan and with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood dating to Sadat's assassination and so ties to al-Zawahiri, he was identified by AQ as being their operational leader in Afghanistan.

With less than 100 AQ members in Afghanistan (my belief is it is a good deal fewer) and with their operations limited to joint suicide attacks with the Haqqani network on targets in Kabul and eastern Afghanistan, attacks that are counter-productive as they distance the Haqqani Taliban sect and AQ from the Afghan people, was al-Masri that important of a target and was he really the #3 guy for the organization if he was solely focused on Afghan operations which are pretty limited and fairly inconsequential?

No doubt he was important due to his seniority and, for our collective thoughts and emotions, his ties to the 9/11 operation, but does this really change anything?

~ Al-Masri was supposedly killed ten days ago (May 22 according to a Pak intel source). He's already been replaced and it doesn't appear his death has any effect on AQ or TB operations in eastern Afghanistan. We didn't even know he was dead until AQ told us. If he was important, either because of command of operations or because of his figurative leadership, I don't believe AQ would have announced his death until his replacement was fully in control and operations had resumed.

If killing these guys had the effect it does in Tom Clancy novels or the TV show "24" on a terrorist organization's operations, then we would have "won" this thing several years ago.

~ The fact that we didn't announce his death when it occurred or shortly after (which we have done on other occasions) begs the question: was he the actual target or was this luck (luck, or what used to be called Fortune, always having a preeminent role in warfare)? At the very least, it demonstrates that we don't have the human intelligence assets to conduct post-strike assessments and questions our pre-strike intelligence and targeting.

~ Supposedly we killed 5 women and 2 children. No dispute from the US on that; and while it is war and civilians will be killed, attempts to regain our moral authority on the world stage, let alone in Pakistan (and not just the tribal areas) take a step back every time women and children are killed.

Similarly, how the US looks hypocritical and petty when it decries the Iranian elections as fraudulent, but then backs the Afghan elections with not just diplomatic support, but with 30,000 more troops and billions more US dollars; the US loses popular support, trust and opinion when women and children are killed by machines (that we deny exist or provide no comment on) and has a hard time arguing against as criminal the actions of the Afghan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban and AQ-AM.

~ While the drones are terrific pieces of technological weaponry, providing a wonderful tactical advantage, they by themselves are by no means capable of providing strategic success. The Ft. Hood attack and attempted Christmas Day and Times Square attacks, how were they affected by the drone strikes?

If anything, the drone strikes seem to be the recruitment tool that leads these individuals to AQ (I think we are seeing much more passive recruitment efforts by AQ, recruits come to them, they don't have to actively recruit).

Not saying we shouldn't conduct such operations and go after AQ leadership (I'm still upset we have not killed bin-Laden and Zawahiri), but we shouldn't think that such tactical operations will bring us "victory" over AQ and terrorism.

~ Additionally, much like our response in the Gulf to protect the shoreline by deploying surface booms to combat a subsurface spill, are we mis-identfying and mis-interpreting the threat, and how it exists and operates, and engaging in strategy and operations that are dictated and defined by the tools we have at hand rather than by a proper and actual understanding of the total nature and essence of the enemy?

Sobering, smart analysis.

-- Steve Clemons

Above is a video taken by Israeli Defense Force personnel of the beatings and violence unleashed as IDF seals boarded the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara. The IDF should not have boarded the vessels -- and the activists should not have engaged in such violence.

This is a video of Israeli citizens celebrating the Israeli attack on the Turkish ship in front of the Turkish Embassy in Tel Aviv. There is no sense of remorse at all for those who died -- no matter what the reasons. This video will further inflame the anger throughout the Middle East and in much of the rest of the world at Israel's choice of violence in these tests of its resolve.

This kind of behavior and hubris is exactly the kind of thing that turns the stomachs of those tasked with national security policy work in the White House. Even Dennis Ross on the National Security Council staff would be repulsed by what this video depicts. Someone should ask him.

-- Steve Clemons

President Obama's team just issued the "read out" of the President's conversation with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan regarding the Israel Defense Force clash with what many describe as a humanitarian flotilla on its way to Gaza (see below).

From a distance, what seems to be happening is that Israel is ratcheting up its test of what it can do in the confines of the US-Israel relationship. It is testing to see whether there exist any limits or conditionality on Israeli behavior at all. Israel believes that the Obama team is weak -- and is pushing aggressively to compel the US to tolerate anything the State of Israel does as a signal to the rest of the Middle East that is itself clamoring for any sign that the Obama administration is willing to put some muscle and substantive action behind the President's Cairo speech and other comments to the governments and people in the Arab world.

The flotilla may have been populated by peace activists who really did want to get humanitarian supplies to Gaza -- but the leadership of this flotilla was trying to expose the "false choice" contradiction that the US and other powers were making between Israel's interests and the interests of the rest of the Middle East.

This was a strategic flotilla -- designed to elicit exactly the response that Israel gave. This flotilla knew which button to push to animate Israel's military response. It is not dissimilar from what al Qaeda did by attacking New York and Washington and drawing the US military to intervene in the Middle East.

Israel, like the United States, showed itself incapable of nuance and of outmaneuvering this flotilla by resorting to means that would not have helped the activists succeed in their objectives. At the Doha Forum, I am speaking to Arabs, Jews and Christians who represent senior governmental and non-governmental organizations in their home countries -- and no one here that I have found thinks that the Israeli government responded to the flotilla sensibly -- even if one buys the argument that the blockade of Gaza is justified.

The U.S. really can't afford to make the choice of Israel over the Arab world. There will be enormous geopolitical and geoeconomic consequences if it does.

Increasingly, the balance and ambiguity that the Obama administration has been trying to maintain during what has been a mostly behind the scenes political crisis with Israel is not working. George Mitchell is not working out. The Arab states have deep structural doubts in the ability of the US to deliver on what it says it wants in the region. And Israel is compelling choices about its security and future that are actually both undermining its own security and the national interests and national security of the United States.

Obama needs to replace George Mitchell as that escapade has become a farce and do the kind of serious strategic review of the Israel/Palestine mess that he did on Afghanistan. He needs to realize that the standoff in the Middle East, the paralyzed progress on a unity government in Palestine, and the increasingly brazen behavior of Israel are sucking down American power.

It's time for Obama to use a strategic review to justify an inclusive strategy that builds in Hamas in the discussion on the future of the region -- and to clarify much more clearly and directly what American and Quartet expectations of what an Israel-Palestine deal should and will look like.

This is not to "reward" Hamas -- but it is the way to pull the key players and key issues into one arena to seriously discuss. The irresponsibility of all parties in the region must be stopped. Otherwise, whether terrorist rockets undo stability or harrassment of Palestinian at check points destabilizes, or "peace flotillas" trigger exchanges in which people die, minorities that elicit violence will impede progress for the majority that want peace and want two states.

Then Obama should call a global leaders summit, like Bush did, to focus on the Middle East peace challenge -- but rather than having nothing on the table, a defined plan needs to be on the table.

Here is the Obama/Erdogan exchange:

Readout of the President's Call with Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey

The President spoke today with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan to express his deep condolences for the loss of life and injuries resulting from the Israeli military operation against the Turkish-flagged ship bound for Gaza. The President told Prime Minister Erdogan that the United States is working in close consultation with Israel to help achieve the release of the passengers, including those deceased and wounded, and the ships themselves. He also affirmed the United States position in support of a credible, impartial, and transparent investigation of the facts surrounding this tragedy. The President affirmed the importance of finding better ways to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza without undermining Israel's security. He underscored the importance of a comprehensive peace agreement which establishes an independent, contiguous, and viable Palestinian state as the way to resolve the overall situation and the United States' continuing commitment to achieving that goal by working closely with Turkey, Israel, and others with a stake in a more stable and secure Middle East.

-- Steve Clemons

New America Foundation fellow and Daily Beast columnist Peter Beinart has received overwhelming attention recently for his controversial and vitally important piece on American Jews, Jewish organizations and Israel. But he is also the author of a new and wide-ranging book, The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris.

In the book Beinart traces the belief that Americans can bring broad, sweeping change to the world through three conflicts where it hit a brick wall: World War One, Vietnam, and Iraq. But instead of focusing only on the limits of American power, Beinart also takes time to show how other American leaders have realized the failures of hubris, and deployed realistic policies to move America forward in the wake of struggles and setbacks.

Beinart will be presenting his book at the New America Foundation TODAY from 12:15 pm - 1:45 pm. New York Times Op-Ed columnist David Brooks will respond, and New America Foundation President Steve Coll will moderate the subsequent discussion. The event will livestream here at The Washington Note.

-- Andrew Lebovich