Tonight, I will be on "The Majority Report" with Sam Seder talking about the big terrorism conference, the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the National Guard, John Bolton and the U.N. Millennium Summit, and other topics.

I am also pleased to report that General Wesley Clark who is one of the terrorism conference's keynote speakers will be on the program also -- talking about his proposal regarding Iraq as well as our mega-conference on America's "next phase" response to terrorism.

Wesley Clark recently published this op-ed in the Washington Post which makes the important point that military and police means alone will never win the struggle against terrorists nor help the U.S. connect to the peoples around the world that terrorism is trying to appeal to.

An excerpt:

On the military side, the vast effort underway to train an army must be matched by efforts to train police and local justices. Canada, France and Germany should be engaged to assist. Neighboring states should also provide observers and technical assistance. In military terms, striking at insurgents and terrorists is necessary but insufficient.

Military and security operations must return primarily to the tried-and-true methods of counterinsurgency: winning the hearts and minds of the populace through civic action, small-scale economic development and positive daily interactions. Ten thousand Arab Americans with full language proficiency should be recruited to assist as interpreters.

A better effort must be made to control jihadist infiltration into the country by a combination of outposts, patrols and reaction forces reinforced by high technology. Over time U.S. forces should be pulled back into reserve roles and phased out.

The growing chorus of voices demanding a pullout should seriously alarm the Bush administration, because President Bush and his team are repeating the failure of Vietnam: failing to craft a realistic and effective policy and instead simply demanding that the American people show resolve. Resolve isn't enough to mend a flawed approach -- or to save the lives of our troops.

If the administration won't adopt a winning strategy, then the American people will be justified in demanding that it bring our troops home.

Makes a lot of sense to me.

I should also mention that General Clark is blogging until September 2nd at "Table for One" at TPM Cafe, my other blog home where I have been AWOL during the planning for this conference.

Start times for the radio show tonight: Steve Clemons on at 8 p.m. Wesley Clark will be on at 8:30 p.m., eastern time.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

The Washington Post's Walter Pincus joined us yesterday for a lunch that the American Strategy Program of the New America Foundation hosted with Richard Clarke and wrote this article which appears today.

Clarke made some excellent points -- but among those not covered in the Pincus article was that "four years is a long time."

Clarke said:

As we approach the 4th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we need to take stock of what we have done that has worked, and not, in our struggle against terrorism. . .Four years is a long time.

In four years, America fought and beat Nazi Germany while simultaneously fighting Imperial Japan -- and at the same time built the nuclear bomb and had the Manhattan Project.

A lot can be done in four years. On the plus side in the last four years, we have liberated Afghanistan. But then the record gets mixed.

Here is an excerpt from the Pincus article which mentions our forthcoming conference:

Richard A. Clarke, the former head of counterterrorism in the White House under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, said yesterday that there were twice as many attacks outside Iraq in the three years after the 2001 attacks as in the three preceding years.

Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda group "are no longer the traditional leaders as they were in the 1990s," Clarke said, adding that the terrorist leader had been building ideological groups from Afghanistan before Sept. 11, 2001, and that they had grown in the past few years into 14 to 16 separate networks.

Clarke said that bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, exercise "symbolic control and provide broad-brush themes" and that most of the networks operate independently, but "there are some signs of cooperation among some."

Clarke, now a corporate security and counterterrorism consultant, delivered his assessment of al Qaeda and the jihadist threat at a news conference at the New America Foundation designed to focus attention on a bipartisan, two-day policy forum set for next week in Washington, titled "Terrorism, Security and America's Purpose."

Clarke left the Bush administration in 2003 and has since alleged the Bush White House reacted slowly to warnings of terrorist attacks in early 2001.

Yesterday, Clarke said that Iraq is drawing a relatively small number of foreign fighters who train there and return home, but "it is unclear to what extent they are drawn by the U.S. presence or how much the U.S. is a magnet." Overall, he said that "there are more people participating [in jihadist networks] outside Iraq because of the U.S. presence" in that country.

-- Steve Clemons

Sorry for being AWOL the last few days. I have been deep in conference-planning messiness and am only now able to surface.

In between calls, I have been following the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina. The National Guard has been called out in New Orleans -- and I would imagine in Mississippi and Alabama.

But do we have much of a National Guard left? It is these kinds of horrific disasters that the National Guard has been trained to respond to. But like our military, which is teetering on the edge of manpower collapse -- so too is the National Guard system breaking down.

In the end, America may manage its domestic crises and flounder forward in Iraq. But can there be any doubt that our power adversaries in the world -- be they potential peer competitors like China or other regional aspiring, wannabe-hegemons like Iran -- don't see America stretched to its limits right now.

This problem needs to be fixed -- and progressives should be calling for a national security vision that squeezes out the Cold War inertia still built into our military structure and get our national security framework back in sustainable condition.

-- Steve Clemons

Just posted this at TPM. For the Bolton-addicted. . .

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

This conference agenda keeps evolving, but TWN readers get the first web-look at the agenda for the conference I am directing, Terrorism, Security and America's Purpose: Towards a More Comprehensive Strategy.

I think that there are probably speakers in this that will both please and tick off just about everyone.

To register for the meeting, go to this website and fill in the on-line forms.

As far as broadcasting the meeting, people around the U.S. and the world can watch over the conference website by high quality, high resolution, real-time web-casting. C-Span hopefully will cover the conference, but we won't learn more until next week. CNN has indicated that it plans to cover much of the conference and to interview a good number of our speakers in CNN's new "Situation Room" show.

This agenda will keep twisting and turning a bit, but here is the absolutely most current draft, updated just two minutes ago at 1:36 a.m. EST.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

Tom Clancy is confirmed to speak in the conference.

This is turning out to be a very fascinating assembly.

-- Steve Clemons

Maybe Bolton is moving fast to consolidate his forces against other contenders in the State Department.

Read here.

-- Steve Clemons

I am guest-blogging this week at Talking Points Memo -- and just posted this piece on John Bolton.

My comments refer to an important document was leaked to me this morning -- and also to Arianna Huffington it seems.

The document linked at TPM provides Bolton's suggested revisions to the Millennium Summit document in September.

I think Bolton is already slipping out of his leash.

-- Steve Clemons

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has confirmed her role as a major speaker at the upcoming September 6-7 Conference on America's "Next Phase" Response to Terrorism.

I can't report just yet the format of her session because it is going to be a bit different than the typical stand-up oratory -- and will be, I think, a fascinating format.

Secretary Albright has important things to say about America's response to terrorism, and she is interested in reading and listening to what our conference produces as well.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

James Steinberg, who currently serves as Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy Programs at Brookings, is heading to Austin to serve as the next Dean of the LBJ School at UT Austin.

Steinberg also served as Bill Clinton's Deputy National Security Advisor and co-wrote a piece with Michael O'Hanlon well more than a year ago in the Washington Post arguing that the "American brand" had become so sullied in our Iraq operation that we lacked the moral standing to achieve our objectives there. He argued that staying in Iraq in those circumstances made no sense and that an alternate plan was needed. His brave article anticipated the debate breaking out now about U.S. operations in Iraq.

Francis Fukuyama, who now heads the "international development" programs at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins Univeristy, ranks on most serious lists as one of the top public intellectuals in the world. Most recently he has written an important book about the importance of state-building capacity and structuring the U.S. government to better anticipate and manage post-conflict situations as we have today in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Fukuyama is also the Chairman of the Editorial Board of the newly-launching American Interest journal

Representative Jane Harman is Ranking Member of the Select Permanent Committee on Intelligence in the U.S. House of Representatives and has been making major news assailing the management of America's most secret secrets -- and questioning how American interests can better be served by the intelligence establishment.

She is deeply informed on matters relating to America's national security posture towards the challenge of terrorism.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

University of Chicago Professor Robert Pape is one of the most sought after public policy intellectuals in the country today -- briefing intelligence and national security officials on what actually drives suicide terrorism.

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

For a thoughtful, provocative interview with Scott McConnell of the American Conservative, read this.

Robert Pape will be speaking in the "Next Phase Response" Terrorism Conference on the morning of September 6th.

-- Steve Clemons

I have little doubt that long term Iran wants a nuclear weapons program. By knocking Iraq out of the equation, America has removed one of the chief 'balancers' of power in the region, and Iran's security and regional pretensions are going to fill that void. Balancing Israel is a long-term strategic objective of Iran.

But certain players in the American policy establishment -- in this case John Bolton (no surprise) -- just play loose and reckless with facts and evidence and undermine American credibility so that when we must marshall a coalition against a state's misbehavior, it is increasingly hard to do.

I am going to post a rather large segment of Linzer's piece in the Post today. It is important and reads just like a replay of our foray into Iraq:

Traces of bomb-grade uranium found two years ago in Iran came from contaminated Pakistani equipment and are not evidence of a clandestine nuclear weapons program, a group of U.S. government experts and other international scientists has determined.

"The biggest smoking gun that everyone was waving is now eliminated with these conclusions," said a senior official who discussed the still-confidential findings on the condition of anonymity.

Scientists from the United States, France, Japan, Britain and Russia met in secret during the past nine months to pore over data collected by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to U.S. and foreign officials. Recently, the group, whose existence had not been previously reported, definitively matched samples of the highly enriched uranium -- a key ingredient for a nuclear weapon -- with centrifuge equipment turned over by the government of Pakistan.

Iran has long contended that the uranium traces were the result of contaminated equipment bought years ago from Pakistan. But the Bush administration had pointed to the material as evidence that Iran was making bomb-grade ingredients.

The conclusions will be shared with IAEA board members in a report due out the first week in September, according to U.S. and European officials who agreed to discuss details of the investigation on the condition of anonymity. The report "will say the contamination issue is resolved," a Western diplomat said.

U.S. officials have privately acknowledged for months that they were losing confidence that the uranium traces would turn out to be evidence of a nuclear weapons program. A recent U.S. intelligence estimate found that Iran is further away from making bomb-grade uranium than previously thought, according to U.S. officials.

The IAEA findings come as European efforts to negotiate with Iran on the future of its nuclear program have faltered, and could complicate a renewed push by the Bush administration to increase international pressure on Tehran.

U.S. officials, eager to move the Iran issue to the U.N. Security Council -- which has the authority to impose sanctions -- have begun a new round of briefings for allies designed to convince them that Iran's real intention is to use its energy program as a cover for bomb building. The briefings will focus on the White House's belief that a country with as much oil as Iran would not need an energy program on the scale it is planning, according to two officials.

France, Britain and Germany have been trying for two years to convince Iran that it could avoid Security Council action if it gives up sensitive aspects of its nuclear energy program that could be diverted for weapons work. Iran has said it has no intention of making nuclear weapons and will not give up its right to nuclear energy. Iran has offered to put the entire program under IAEA monitoring as a way of alleviating international concerns. But European and U.S. officials have rejected that offer because it would still allow Iran access to bomb-making capabilities.

Iran built its nuclear program in secret over 18 years with the help of Abdul Qadeer Khan, a top Pakistani official and nuclear scientist who sold spare parts from his country's own weapons program to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Khan's black-market dealings were uncovered in 2003. He confessed on national television, was swiftly pardoned by Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and is now under house arrest.

Pakistan has denied IAEA inspectors access to Khan and to the country's nuclear facilities, but earlier this year it agreed to share data and some equipment with the inspectors to expedite the Iran investigation. Among the equipment were discarded centrifuge parts that match those Khan sold to Iran.

John R. Bolton, now U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, served as the administration's point man on nuclear issuesduring President Bush's first term. He suggested during congressional testimony in June 2004 that the Iranians were lying about the contamination.

"Another unmistakable indicator of Iran's intentions is the pattern of repeatedly lying to and providing false and incomplete reports to the IAEA," Bolton said. "For example, Iran first denied it had enriched any uranium. Then it said it had not enriched uranium more than 1.2 percent. Later, when evidence of uranium enriched to 36 percent was found, it attributed this to contamination from imported centrifuge parts."

The IAEA, in its third year of an investigation in Iran, has not found proof of a weapons program. But a few serious questions, some connected to Iran's involvement with Khan, remain unanswered. While the investigation has been underway, Iran and the three European countries have been trying to reach a diplomatic accommodation. Their negotiations fell apart this month and Iran resumed some nuclear work it put on hold during the talks.

We need to compel John Bolton and others like him to spend a week in the home of a soldier killed in Iraq...and better yet, send him to Iraq and have him spend a week with one of the families who lost one or more innocent family members because of this conflict. He should get a sense of the "consequences" of the games he and others are playing with evidence.

When we are right, it's one thing; but when are wrong -- lots and lots of innocent people die. It's not what this country is about.

-- Steve Clemons

The line-up for the September 6-7 conference: Terrorism, Security and America's Purpose: Towards a More Comprehensive Strategy continues to strengthen.

Rita Hauser is a well-known international lawyer, leading Republican Party stalwart in New York, a board member of the RAND Corporation, and Chair of the International Peace Academy that works closely with the United Nations.

George Soros is one of the world's most successful fund managers and has written prolifically on international finance, global governance, and on shaping political environments conducive to sustainable democracy and "open societies." He is founder and chairman of the Open Society Institute.

Lee Hamilton, is now President of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, is also the well-respected, long-serving former Chairman of the House International Relations Committee and served as Vice-Chair of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, the "9-11 Commission".

Warren Rudman, former Republican Senator from New Hampshire, also served as Chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, co-chaired with Gary Hart the United States Commission on National Security in the 21st Century, the so-called "Hart-Rudman Commission" which presciently anticipated a major terrorist event on U.S. soil in advance of 9/11.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

This article makes its way beyond most of the thin commentary on the turmoil in Iraq.

There are those close to Sunni insurgents who are offering some common sense advice to the American forces there. Perhaps we should listen.

From the San Francisco Chronicle's Robert Collier:

Surprisingly, however, the Iraqis who might be expected to support such a pullout -- those close to the Sunni Arab militants themselves -- say the focus on a quick exit is misplaced.

"It's impossible for them or us to fix an exact schedule" for troop withdrawal, said Isam al-Rawi, a leader of the Muslim Scholars Association, a group of 3,000 Sunni clerics. "That is not the important thing right now. There are other steps that are much more necessary to calm the situation."

Largely unnoticed amid the U.S. political debate, al-Rawi and other Sunni leaders close to the insurgency have reached tacit consensus over the broad outline of an interim program to reduce the violence, stabilize the country and thus enable the U.S.-led coalition troops to begin a gradual withdrawal. While differences remain on some points, there is wide agreement on these steps:

-- A troop pullout from most urban areas and an end to military checkpoints and raids. "The Americans and British must leave all residential areas," said al-Rawi. "This is very sensitive for our feelings. When they retreat to military bases outside the major cities, the Iraqis will no longer be meeting military tanks and trucks in the streets and highways, and they will no longer be afraid their home will be invaded at night."

-- Overhaul of the Iraqi Army and National Guard. Although the White House and Democrats alike say they want to turn over security duties to the Iraqi Army and National Guard as soon as possible, Sunni Arabs point out that these two institutions are almost completely composed of members of their ethnic enemies -- the Kurdish peshmerga and the Shiite militias. "These people want to humiliate the Sunni," al-Hashimi said. "The Army and National Guard must be professionalized. They cannot be dominated by members of the party militias."

Over the past two years, U.S. officials have alternately recruited and purged Sunni Arab officers and troops. The problem with the Sunni Arabs, the Americans say, is that they are heavily infiltrated by the insurgency, while the Kurds and Shiites are dependably loyal to the U.S.-backed Baghdad government.

-- Release of prisoners. The number of Iraqi prisoners in American military custody has grown rapidly in recent months, with as many as 15,000 Iraqis behind bars, according to U.S. estimates.

Military officials have admitted that many of the prisoners have simply been swept up in neighborhood roundups. Because there is no formal trial process, the process of vetting prisoners and releasing those found innocent is very slow. Military officials have reportedly expressed worry that the sprawling prison camps are serving as recruiting camps for al Qaeda and the most extremist insurgent groups.

"There are many thousands of prisoners and there is no transparency, there is no accusation list," said Wamidh Nadhmi, the leader of the Arab Nationalist Trend, a secularist group that boycotted the January elections.

"Several relatives of mine were imprisoned for months, and there was no evidence. And for people who are arrested by Iraqi police it is worse. They are tortured, all kinds of things are done to them. That makes Iraqis very, very angry."

In Beirut, Lebanon, on July 29, Nadhmi was one of 47 Iraqi leaders and intellectuals who co-signed a statement expressing support for "the valiant armed resistance to the occupation." But the statement indicated divisions in their ranks between former members of the ruling Baath Party and non-Baathists, stating the need for "resolving antagonisms between the patriotic forces through a bold process of criticism and self-criticism with respect to the mistakes of the past."

Nadhmi and other Iraqis interviewed for this article said they did not advocate release of Saddam Hussein or others accused of involvement in killings and torture. "No, it is not necessary to release them," al-Rawi said. "They are bad men. They have committed crimes. But you must release the others. "

-- Amnesty for pro-Baathist, radical Islamist and hard-line nationalist groups, while excluding al Qaeda. Former top officials of the Hussein government chafe under the law that has outlawed membership in -- or even verbal support for -- the Baath Party. "There must be a legal way for all those people opposed to the American presence to be organized legally," said Nadhmi. "Otherwise they will fight."Several top leaders of the Islamic Clerics Association have been arrested by U.S. troops, and several have been killed in mysterious circumstances by gunmen who the association says are Shiite death squads.

-- Negotiations with the "resistance." Sunni leaders have frequently met with U.S. officials in Baghdad to try to coax them to talk with the guerrillas. They draw a line between what they call the "resistance," by which they mean Iraqi fighters who attack only U.S. and Iraqi troops, and the Sunni extremists linked to al Qaeda who have spread terror with car bombs and suicide attacks against Shiite civilians.

More later on the September 6-7 terrorism conference.

-- Steve Clemons

President Bush is planning a rally to stir up support for the war in Iraq.

Senator Hagel, who is speaking at our terrorism conference on September 6th, has cut down near the roots of the White House's effort to keep pumping money and military men and women into Iraq.

Senator Russ Feingold seems to be the highest profile Democrat making the same pitch as Hagel.

Most Republicans and it seems to me that most leading Democrats are still on the side of trying to turn Iraq into some sort of victory. If not a victory, then at least not a complete disaster -- which Peter Beinart has said it would be if America just withdraws.

More on this later.

-- Steve Clemons

I really enjoyed talking with Sam Seder tonight on Air America's The Majority Report.

We spoke about George Bush and the Iraq War, Cindy Sheehan, Ari Berman's excellent article -- The Strategic Class -- in The Nation, and then our upcoming mega-conference on America's "next phase response" to terrorism.

If you tune in now -- which you can over the web -- Arianna Huffington is on talking about Judy Miller.

-- Steve Clemons

Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) has been making major news as he meets with constituents in meetings all around Nebraska this week.

TWN posted a bit earlier regarding the Senator's constructive and provocative comments on America's engagement in Iraq.

He also offered some common sense perspective on the Cindy Sheehan affair in Crawford.

As CNN reports:

Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska and Vietnam war veteran who has been critical of Bush's handling of the war, said Thursday that Sheehan "deserves some consideration, and I think that should have been done right from the beginning."

"I think the wise course of action, the compassionate course of action, the better course of action would have been to immediately invite her in to the ranch," Hagel told CNN.

"It should have been done when this whole thing started. Listen to her."

I am pleased to report that Senator Hagel will be the featured speaker at dinner on Tuesday, September 6th at the forthcoming national policy forum, Terrorism, Security and America's Purpose: Towards a More Comprehensive Strategy, that I am helping to organize in Washington, D.C.

Although the title of the speeech is tentative, I think that his remarks will be titled: "America's Purpose and the Global Struggle Against Terrorism." I think that's broad enough to cover a lot of territory but also a useful platform to critique where America is in its understanding and response to terorrism and where the nation needs to go.

The conference is taking place on September 6th & 7th at the Capital Hilton in Washington.

Information on the conference is available here -- and there will be real-time, high-quality webcast of the entire conference on line.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

There are few in the country whom I think better articulate what is driving the tumult in the Middle East than Juan Cole.

Juan Cole is one of the mega-bloggers in the U.S., publishing the smart "Informed Comment: Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion" blog. During the day, he enlightens very fortunate students who encounter him at the University of Michigan.

Here is a July 28th post by Cole titled: "The War on Terror Over" which thoughtfully deconstructs who many of the terrorists are, what is driving them, and how America could more effectively respond.

Juan Cole will be speaking at the "Next Phase" Terrorism Conference on a panel titled, The Grievance Challenge: Confronting the Political Dimensions of Terrorism at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, September 6th.

Hope you can join us in person or by webcast.

-- Steve Clemons

The schedule is nearly hammered out, but TWN is profiling in advance of release of the roster some of the major speakers at the upcoming terrorism conference I am helping to direct.

Former Congressman Bob Barr who represented Georgia's 7th District in Congress will be joining us and addressing in part the challenge of protecting society from terrorists who want to do harm on one hand and not undermining the liberties of citizens on the other.

Bob Barr occupies the 21st Century Liberties Chair for Freedom and Privacy at the American Conservative Union, and serves as a Board Member of the National Rifle Association. He also consults for the American Civil Liberties Union and CNN.

Barr will be speaking on the afternoon panel, "Norms Under Stress" at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, September 6th.

The conference website is here.

-- Steve Clemons

In Nebraska, Senator Chuck Hagel spent time this past week speaking to constituents -- and America's circumstances in Iraq dominated his meetings.

Here is a clip from a CNN report:

But he said the United States risks losing more public support for the conflict amid a rising cost in blood and money.

"The casualties we're taking, the billion dollars a week we're putting in there, the kind of commitment we've got -- we're not going to be able to sustain it," he said.

Iraq and Vietnam still have more differences than similarities, he said, but "there is a parallel emerging."

"The longer we stay in Iraq, the more similarities will start to develop, meaning essentially that we are getting more and more bogged down, taking more and more casualties, more and more heated dissension and debate in the United States," Hagel said.

Hagel also did not back away from comments he made in June to U.S. News & World Report that "the White House is completely disconnected from reality" and "the reality is that we're losing in Iraq."

"It gives me no great pleasure to have said that and to say that now," he said Thursday.

He said the U.S. death toll has continued to rise "at a very significant rate -- more dead, more wounded, less electricity in Iraq, less oil being pumped in Iraq, more insurgent attacks, more insurgents coming across the border, more corruption in the government."

Hagel also challenged Vice President Cheney's assessment:

Hagel mocked Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion in June that the insurgency in Iraq was in its "last throes," saying the U.S. death toll has risen amid insurgent attacks.

"Maybe the vice president can explain the increase in casualties we're taking," the Nebraskan told CNN.

"If that's winning, then he's got a different definition of winning than I do."

On Thursday, Cheney told a veterans group that "Iraq is a critical front in the war on terror, and victory there is critical to the future security of the U.S."

While I don't have the link, a friend who watches polls religiously reported to me last night that because of the war, President Bush's favorability rating has fallen to 38% in Kentucky.

In most countries of the world, that would be a high rating for a president or prime minister -- but not here.

-- Steve Clemons

As the conference we are working on shapes up, TWN is giving early notice of who the featured speakers and participants will be.

I'm very proud to say that Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr. will be joining us as a featured speaker in the pre-lunch session at 11:45 a.m. on Tuesday, the 6th of September.

General Wesley Clark will be speaking just after at 12:30 p.m. on September 6.

Jon Huntsman is an outstanding public servant whom I have had the pleasure of knowing for years -- long ago when he served as U.S. Ambassador to Singapore. When I moved to Washington, he helped me break into the scene here when he was Vice Chairman of Huntsman Corporation. He later became Deputy U.S. Trade Representative under Bob Zoellick during the current Bush administration -- and we crossed paths frequently on questions related to Japan, Korea, China, and ASEAN.

He is the kind of leader in Republican circles who would have made an outstanding Ambassador to the United Nations. My guess is that he will be Senator of Utah in the not too distant future -- and who knows what next.

He is going to talk about the view of terrorism from the heartland -- and look at the balance between "high fear" and "high trust" that public officials need to work between.

For more information on the conference, check out www.AmericasPurpose.org.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

James Fallows will provide the opening comments and set the "context" at the major terrorism conference we are organizing.

Jim Fallows is National Correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly and former Editor-in-Chief of U.S. News and World Report. He also serves as the Chairman of the Board of the New America Foundation and is reportedly a big fan of The Washington Note.

He won the National Magazine Award in 2003 for his important Atlantic article, "Iraq: The 51st State," and more recently has written widely read pieces relevant to American engagement in the Middle East and to the terrorism challenge including "Success Without Victory" and "Countdown to a Meltdown."

Fallows will be speaking at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, 6 September at the Washington Hilton. More details available here.

-- Steve Clemons

Good for her. Condi Rice has told Israel that it needs to take steps now to begin the post-Gaza process of returning other occupied territories to Palestinian control.

There is no reason that the Israeli-Palestinian standoff should be forever an unresolved, festering ulcer that helps legitimate in the eyes of the Muslim world the horrific crimes by terrorists. This is a complicated, painful problem -- and real lives in Israel and Palestine are severely disrupted by what is going on, but this problem just must be solved.

From the Jerusalem Post:

As Israel struggled Thursday to evacuate the Gush Katif settlements, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it must take further steps.

"Everyone empathizes with what the Israelis are facing," she said in an interview with The New York Times. But, she added, "It cannot be Gaza only."

Rice said this is "really quite a dramatic moment in the history of the Middle East," and praised Sharon for proving himself "enormously courageous."

According to the Times, Rice said that while the withdrawal would take several weeks, Israel must take further steps soon afterward, including loosening travel restrictions in the West Bank and withdrawing from more Palestinian cities.

She also said the Palestinian Authority must disarm Hamas. "That is their obligation under the road map," she said.

-- Steve Clemons

For the next several days, I will be providing regular updates about the themes and issues, as well as speakers, that will be part of a major national policy forum on terrorism that I am helping to organize in Washington on September 6 & 7.

For those of you outside Washington, we will have a high-quality, real time webcast of the two-day event.

I am pleased to report that my discussion this past weekend in the Hamptons with General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and candidate for President of the United States, has led in part to him joining us as one of the featured speakers in the conference. He has some novel and important views to share on U.S. defense policy, terrorism, and our circumstances today in Iraq and with Iran.

He will be appearing at lunch on Tuesday, September 6th.

More later on the rest.

-- Steve Clemons

I was stunned to learn this weekend that subscriptions to The Nation are surging. And while it's not precipitous, TWN has been told that subscriptions to the New Republic are falling.

It seems that The Nation has become the more credible "alternative view" political journal as of late -- and while I wouldn't count TNR out, the pro-Iraq War position of the magazine seems to have taken a toll on readership.

In the foreign policy arena, TNR has moved -- sometimes dramatically -- to the right, where the journalistic space is crowded, and perhaps The Nation has absorbed part of the Bush-frustrated centrists while maintaining its liberal base.

One person involved with The Nation told me this weekend in an off-handed chuckle, "realism has become the new liberal foreign policy ideology."

In any case, i liked this Calvin Trillin piece on John Bolton (one of many he has done in a series:

On President Bush's Recess Appointment of John Bolton as Ambassador to the United Nations

Calvin Trillin

The job's too vital, Bush has said,

To leave unfilled, and so instead

He'll simply stiff the Senate now,

And name John Bolton anyhow.

The problems of the world have grown,

And so we need some tantrums thrown.

Some analysts who haven't skewed

Intelligence remain unscrewed.

But that will change with Bolton there:

The man knows how to overbear.

We need someone to show contempt

For resolutions we'd pre-empt

And show contempt as well for those

Who might oppose what we propose --

Reflecting through contemptuous power

The last remaining superpower.

Those tiny nations need a pasting.

So let's get started. Time's a-wasting.

-- Steve Clemons

Baghdad is boiling. The killing is getting worse, and the fear.

-- Steve Clemons

This comment may be too little, too late from Henry Kissinger last night on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer":

An architect of the U.S. war in Vietnam more than 30 years ago said Sunday that he has "a very uneasy feeling" that some of the same factors that damaged support for the conflict there are re-emerging in the 2-year-old war in Iraq.

"For me, the tragedy of Vietnam was the divisions that occurred in the United States that made it, in the end, impossible to achieve an outcome that was compatible with the sacrifices that had been made," former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer."

Support for the war has dropped in recent polls, and criticism of President Bush's handling of the conflict has grown. The latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, taken Aug. 5-7, found that 54 percent of those surveyed thought the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a mistake.

-- Steve Clemons

A few years ago, I sat at a roundtable book discussion featuring Michael Ledeen and his then new book -- The War Against the Terror Masters: Why it Happened. Where We Are Now. How We'll Win -- hosted by BMW North America in Washington.

These BMW sessions are great -- and have included authors such as John Judis on American democracy, Stephen Hess on American political dynasties, Paul Blustein on the IMF and the East Asia economic crisis, Joel Kotkin on the future of American cities, as well as Sid Blumenthal, Arianna Huffington, Joe Klein, Dana Priest, David Frum (who called me "lunkheaded" on one occasion), Michael Barone, and David Brooks. Jim Pinkerton is the essential ingredient that makes these forums so interesting -- and he along with renaissance-type thinker/politico Craig Helsing gets around the table some of the leading policy practitioners and pontificators in town.

And then one day he had Michael Ledeen and me to lunch with some others.

Ledeen is a character, but so are we all in one way or another -- but Ledeen's eccentricities have not precluded him from significant influence in this administration. He has been very close to Douglas Feith, John Bolton, Scooter Libby, and perhaps most importantly -- Vice President Cheney.

I'm not going to report all that Josh Marshall, Laura Rozen, and others have already reported on Ledeen.

Suffice it to say that he has been on the periphery of nearly all the foreign policy scandals of the administration. He is a business partner of Richard Perle's and yet the Washington Post used him as a talking head in defense of Perle during the Conrad Black scandal without mentioning Perle's business relationship with Ledeen. Ledeen set up some key meetings between arms dealer and Iran-Contra ghost Manucher Ghorbanifar and now-indicted Larry Franklin, Douglas Feith, and Harold Rhodes.

There are rumors now -- strong rumors -- of a classified Italian intelligence report that may implicate Michael Ledeen for alleged complicity in either helping to "generate," "legitimate," and "promulgate" forged documents about Iraq's attempts to secure uranium from Niger. There are some good investigative journalists trying to access this report.

Back to lunch.

Ledeen made very clear during his lunch commentary that he supported Bush's invasion of Iraq only to get to Iran, which was in his view America's and Israel's real enemy. Iraq was a stepping stone to greater things. I have no doubt that Ledeen and many who supported the invasion of Iraq thought it would indeed be a "cake-walk" because they never expected the resource constraints -- manpower and financial -- in following up Iraq with military action against Iran.

While Michael Ledeen sharing with a small number of people his real intentions on Iran does not make an action plan or conspiracy, we do need to be aware that like-minded neoconservatives have been thinking about both Iraq and Iran over lunch and dinner salon sessions for years. They have been very good at recruiting like-minded thinkers and strategists, and opportunistically coaxing parts of the administration to push their agenda around the President.

As a friend told me this weekend, George Bush did not go to war because of Judy Miller. But in my view, Miller's reporting shaped the "public" environment so that Bush could better get away with the sleight-of-hand regarding their intentions and rationale for the Iraq War.

One could similarly argue that (if involved) Michael Ledeen alone could not have created and driven forward the Niger/Uranium claims. There were many complicit hands involved in forging and pushing these documents, and to be fair, no one has yet proven Ledeen's exact role, if any.

If Bush or Israel strike Iran's nuclear facilities, few will say that Michael Ledeen was responsible "alone" for that decision. Of course not.

But privately, around the salon lunch and dinner tables that Michael Ledeen, his close friends, and groupies occupy, I think that there may be a sense of satisfaction that yes, they took America and/or Israel to war against Iran.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

I'm sure that this post will frustrate a number of my friends, but seriously -- $15,000?!

This weekend I stayed with a great couple -- thoughtful people who are public policy intellectuals in their own right -- and they were invited to attend Bill Clinton's mega-event, the "inaugural meeting" of the Clinton Global Initiative. The session takes place September 15-17 in New York, and there is a whopper fee to go -- even for close Clinton pals.

The fee to get in the door is $15,000.00.

I happened to chat with Katrina vanden Heuvel, Editor of The Nation, and she too was asked to pay that price for entry. I was interested in attending, but I don't think that bloggers will be given a break. Maybe I'll give it a try and report on the response.

The roster includes many foreign heads of state who are going to be in New York for the U.N. General Assembly meeting. But there are others, including California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Al Gore, George Soros, Richard Parsons, Rupert Murdoch, etc. (wouldn't it be great if George Soros joined Carl Icahn to buy Time Warner out from under Richard Parsons -- in order to give Rupert Murdoch some competition?!)

I have long been in the event business, even in the mega-event business, and my preference is to make forums as "cost-free" as possible. Even if there is a charge, I work hard to get transcripts or web-based digital recordings out to the public for free.

Public discourse about the policy choices we make should be an inclusive event -- and a $15,000 price tag only reminds me of how market-driven this nation has become at nearly every level.

Remember Bob Kuttner's important and provocative book: Everything for Sale: The Virtues and Limits of Markets?

Perhaps Bob needs to re-release the book. There is a lot I like about Bill Clinton, but this high price tag on a key public forum regarding U.S. foreign policy is not something that can be applauded.

Jimmy Carter builds houses, brokers peace deals, and monitors elections. Bill Clinton has an impressive HIV/AIDS initiative in Africa, has just returned from the African Continent, and has done terrific work in helping to organize relief for tsunami victims.

But it is the $15,000 price tag on a public policy forum that is going to get the attention.

This event rides on the skirt tails of the U.N. General Assembly -- itself sort of a "global commons of world leaders" who are supposed to be working for their respective nation's interests and the common good. To put a price tag on this is a very bad P.R. move for the William J. Clinton Foundation.

Not good.

-- Steve Clemons

P.S. On the fee, the Clinton Global Initiative has posted the following:

The registration fee for the Clinton Global Initiative is $15,000, which will go toward implementing the solutions developed at the conference.

Due to the interactive nature of the Initiative, participants will play a role in deciding on the programs that the Initiative will fund throughout the year, and therefore, see a meaningful return on their investments.

The Clinton Global Initiative is open to invited participants only. If you have been invited, please contact us about registering online. However, if you have not received an invitation and would like to see if you are eligible to attend, please complete this form and a representative of the event will contact you.

Still. . .

-- Steve Clemons

Tom Hayden has an interesting op-ed today in the Los Angeles Times. It's useful because it gets past the thin debate on whether America should stay or leave and posits a way to leave that has a tangible work plan attached.

Hayden suggests:

First, as confidence-building measures, Washington should declare that it has no interest in permanent military bases or the control of Iraqi oil. It must immediately announce goals for ending the occupation and bringing all our troops home -- in months, not years, beginning with an initial gesture by the end of this year.

Second, the U.S. should request that the United Nations, or a body blessed by the U.N., monitor the process of military disengagement and de-escalation, and take the lead in organizing a peaceful reconstruction effort.

Third, the president should appoint a peace envoy, independent of the occupation authorities, to begin an entirely different mission in Iraq. The envoy should encourage and cooperate in peace talks with Iraqi groups opposed to the occupation, including insurgents, to explore a political settlement.

I have a slightly different view, but Hayden's proposal is a good thing to chew on.

First of all, America's obsession with military bases is not only manifested in Iraq -- but throughout the region. While U.S. bases were withdrawn from Saudi Arabia, many new bases were established in the Middle East, Afghanistan, and beyond. Our base in Uzbekistan plays a support role for efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq -- but is also there because of our interests in the Caspian Oil region.

America has a "military base" problem. Whereas Strobe Talbott once stated in a forum that he saw military bases as "anchors of stability in unstable regions," they can also be radicalizing forces that trigger instability.

Thus, committing to withdraw or not to maintain permanent bases in Iraq is one step -- but without rethinking the cost/benefit analysis of long-term base deployments, America will not get this aspect of its national security profile right.

The Iraqis will have little faith in any commentary about U.S. bases there if we remain committed to a creeping base strategy elsewhere in their region.

Secondly, on the issue of who has designs on Iraqi oil. America could be collaborating with other European powers and the Iraqi government in helping to encourage an Iraqi Permanent Fund, transparently managed and designed to distribute on an egalitarian basis oil-tied benefits to every working-age Iraqi citizen. I suggested this in an April 2003 New York Times article that argued that something like an Alaska Permanent Fund for Iraq would do more good for stabilizing our situation there than virtually any other policy course. Here is a link to that article.

Hayden's proposal could be strengthened with some thinking about what we could do to build a class of political/economic winners amidst the chaos we have generated in Iraq.

Lastly, Hayden suggests some kind of American piece envoy to deal with the parts of the Iraqi political establishment that are pushing for a near-term American exit and don't support our presence. Perhaps this is a useful Ambassador to have working the problem -- but first, America has to understand that its "brand" is severely tainted in Iraq. Our moral credibility is in doubt.

What we may need instead is an envoy who knows that America generally has benign intentions -- and generally tries to good things. Despite Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, citations of non-existent WMDs, etc. -- we can find an envoy that knows our better side but who is NOT American.

Perhaps Norway, or the Netherlands, or the Phillipines, or the Danes have a diplomat of impeccable credentials to play this role, as a neutral arbiter in the process who will have greater moral standing than any American emissary but who can still work with America to achieve a stable order upon our exit.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

This just in from Arianna Huffington. John Bolton, who doesn't have time for many other journalists, made some time in his busy schedule to drop in on and chat with jailed New York Times writer Judy Miller.

The Huffington Post reports:

According to a trusted Judy File source, Bolton recently took time out of his busy schedule to pay a jailhouse visit to Judy.

No word on what they talked about.

Maybe they swapped notes on Pat Fitzgerald (Judy: "He really got mad when I wouldn't tell him what he wanted..." Bolton: "...and they say I've got a temper!"(laughter all around))

More on the Terrorism Conference tomorrow, but seriously Mr. Ambassador. . .still trying to leak stuff to Judy Miller?

-- Steve Clemons

On Friday, Al Kamen ran a brief clip reporting on one of John Bolton's first responses to journalists recording and watching his every move.

From yesterday's media stakeout of United Nations Ambassador John R. Bolton :

Reporter: "A question on Iran?"

Bolton: "No."

Perhaps John Bolton is modeling himself on Andrei Gromyko, the famous "Mr. Nyet" who said 'No' more often than anything else starting in 1946 when he went as the Soviet Ambassador to the U.N. followed by nearly three decades as the USSR's Foreign Minister.

Maybe Bolton's calculation is that if he follows the Gromyko model -- disagreeable temperament included -- he may continue to work his way up the political ladder.

Secretary Bolton? Good thing we have a democracy to stop him.

-- Steve Clemons

This is big and presents one of the best opportunities to credibly move forward on one of the fundamental grievances that many in the Middle East have with U.S. policy and Israel.

More later -- but we should all be paying attention to Israel's withdrawal from Gaza.

-- Steve Clemons

Ari Berman's "The Strategic Class" is making its way around the internet circuit, and the verdict on his piece is that it is compelling and pretty much lays out the reality of the Democratic party's national security establishment.

Berman takes on Senators Biden and Clinton, Peter Beinart, Brookings, and many others for adopting somewhat of a "Zell Miller Lite" position on the war and American defense policy.

I respect Joe Biden and think that his take on the war and what to do next are less fixed than Ari Berman may portray, but Berman did not make up Biden's past statements. But introspection and reassessment is what we should want from those Berman targets in order to have the kind of honest debate in the country -- in both parties, and in Democratic circles -- so that we can move in a more sensible foreign policy direction.

To do that, we need to bring the Bidens, Clintons, and others back and hopefully get them to understand that the gamble Bush took on Iraq punctured much of America's mystique and standing in the world.

I happened to be at George Soros's 75th birthday party last night, and saw and spoke with Senator Biden there yesterday evening and again at a Hamptons brunch today. In discussion last night, it was clear to me that Biden does believe Bush has badly misled the nation. It will be interesting to see how he further articulates this as his presidential campaign and aspirations further develop.

General Wes Clark was also there, and while I won't quote him at this point (as I want him to write up our conversation as an op-ed), we had an extensive conversation about Iran and Iraq, and I thought Clark's suggestions on what America should be doing now on both fronts were novel and deserve serious attention. I'm hoping to have General Clark join us at the terrorism conference I am helping to organized on September 6-7 in Washington -- but even if he can't be there -- by way of this blog, I'm encouraging him to get his action plan out into the public.

Here is one selection of Ari Berman's excellent piece:

Biden and Clinton still have more influence than antiwar politicians like Ted Kennedy or Russ Feingold. No one has replaced Holbrooke or Albright. Pollack continues to thrive at Brookings and, despite never visiting the country, has a new book out about Iran. Shortly after the election, Beinart penned a 5,683-word essay calling on hawkish Democrats to repudiate "softs" like MoveOn.org and Michael Moore; the essay won Beinart--already a fellow at Brookings--a $650,000 book deal and high-profile visibility on the Washington ideas circuit.

Subsequently a statement of leading policy apparatchiks on the PPI publication Blueprint challenged fellow Democrats to make fighting Islamic totalitarianism the central organizing principle of the party. Replace the words "Al Qaeda" with "Soviet Union" and the essay seemed straight out of 1947-48; the militarized post-9/11 climate of fear had reincarnated the cold war Democrat.

A number of leading specialists signed a letter by the neoconservative Project for the New American Century asking Congress to boost the defense budget and increase the size of the military by 25,000 troops each year over the next several years. The "Third Way" group of conservative Senate Democrats recently introduced a similar proposal.

"There's an approach which says, 'Let's raise the stakes and call,'" says former Senator Gary Hart, a rare voice of principled opposition in the party today. "That if Republicans want a ten-division Army, let's be for a twelve-division Army. I think that's just nonsense, frankly. It's stupid policy. Trying to get on the other side of the Republicans is folly, both politically and substantively."

If Hart is correct, then why does so much of the Democratic strategic class march in lockstep? There's no simple answer. The insularity of Washington, pressures of careerism, fear of appearing soft and the absence of institutional alternatives all contribute to a limiting of the debate. Bill Clinton's misguided political dictum that the public "would rather have somebody who's strong and wrong than somebody who's weak and right" applies equally to the strategic class.

I think that Americans should deserve more in the way of "deliverables" from the national security establishment for the amount of resources -- lives and money -- that are going into national defense. Throwing more money and more lives at a system that is failing to deliver makes little sense, and many on both sides of the aisle simply see an ever-larger military as the only answer.

It's time that sensible Republicans and Democrats re-assess, learn from the mistakes of this administration, and get out of the trap of thinking that a critique of our policies in Iraq, and frankly a critique of our foreign and defense policies in general, is appeasement. . .or disloyal. . .or a sign of anti-military/peaceniks.

Ari Berman's piece helps move forward the debate that needs to happen among progressives.

-- Steve Clemons

It's hard to know, but I think that Harry Truman would have met Cindy Sheehan. I think that Dwight Eisenhower would have. He knew about military sacrifice -- the horror and complexity of it.

The micro life of a soldier -- or an Iraqi victim -- is lost sometimes against the macro drama, no matter what side of the war people might be on.

I think that Carter would be out there with her. I'm really not sure about Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon -- though a hunch tells me that Johnson would have been out there before Nixon and Kennedy.

Ronald Reagan would have stopped his car, if for no other reason that to hold Cindy Sheehan for a few moments, to express the regrets of a nation that her son was lost, and to thank her -- even though he might not have made her and many of us believers in this war.

Bill Clinton would have had Cindy in to the ranch and made a summit of it.

George Bush drove by. . .on the way to a fundraiser. Shameful.

He should have stopped, made a gesture -- even if she stood on the opposite side of his policies.

-- Steve Clemons

NARAL has just pulled an ad that went overboard in its accusations against Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. Arlen Specter, whom progressives should be courting as an ally in this and future fight regarding justices, wrote NARAL a scathing letter in protest about the piece.

John Roberts should not be given an easy pass to the Supreme Court, but those civil society players who are helping to assure our rights need to pick their battles well.

I sometimes wonder whether institutions -- both on the right and the left -- have to engage in battle to justify the funding they have received from donors even if the target in the battle is perhaps more reasonable than anyone expected.

We are often on auto-pilot in this society. Why did NARAL produce such an ad? Probably because it has a lot of money and needs to be highly visible pounding away on any Bush nominee, no matter who it was.

This is what Karl Rove wants. It makes progressives looks small -- and worse, divides them.

We should be pushing wedge-issues on to the White House breaking away Republican moderates from fanatics.

Enough on this for now. I'm sure many of you disagree -- but Roberts is the wrong fight in my view to spend all of an organization's ad cash. Another judicial fight -- more important -- will be along soon.

-- Steve Clemons

Sorry for being down a day. Lots of stuff going down.

I have returned from my various secret caves and hide-outs around the Mediterranean and have been getting my pace back at work -- and also sorting out what I think about John Bolton's recess appointment, the upcoming Roberts hearings, the mounting daily death tolls in Iraq, Iran's aggressive nuclear pretensions, the Gaza pullout, Cindy Sheehan's heart-wrenching Bush ranch vigil, and even the impact of a "frothy" housing market on America's ability to pay for its extensive international commitments.

On John Bolton, I was going to seek an interview. I might even be able to get one -- but I have since decided not to.

I don't want to mock Mr. Bolton now. He has the job. Do it, John. Show us that you don't need to be "managed" and that you can serve the interests of the President, the Secretary of State and the American people in a way that serves us and the U.N. well.

He will either "change," as Senator Lindsey Graham once told me, or he will be out. John Bolton is being watched like a hawk -- every utterance, every step. TWN will be watching very closely, and reporting -- but this is the time to see whether or not Bolton can move beyond our collective concerns about him.

I suspect that Bolton is going to have some melt-down moments, and one informed observer -- very close to the process -- shared with me that if Bolton stays true to his old form, America's latitude in the U.N. will shrink, and other thoroughfares will skirt right around Bolton to Rice and Zoellick. I'm not so sure as Bolton is a skilled saboteur of other thoroughfares, but it's not something I want to be right about.

We'll see.

On other fronts, I am extremely focused in a team effort to get key policy practitioners to get on a smarter course in thinking about and responding to terrorism.

I have been thinking about this for quite a while now -- and was on Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's side in 2003 when he implied that police and military responses alone may only be assuring a constant stream of terrorists.

The two-day event I am helping to direct will be huge, internationally webcast, and hopefully high-impact. The event is called Terrorism, Security, and America's Purpose: Towards a More Comprehensive Strategy.

Here is the website, conference information (agenda to be posted soon), and registration information. Stay tuned on that.

Lastly, I haven't read this piece yet but know I have at least one zinger quote in this intriguing article, "The Strategic Class," by The Nation's Ari Berman.

I'm going to read it now.

More later. . .seriously.

-- Steve Clemons

Earlier today, both here at TWN and at TPM Cafe, I noted that WTOP was running a poll based on Congressman Henry Bonilla's (R-TX) proposal to rename 16th Street in Washington, DC -- "Ronald Reagan Boulevard."

At the time, those in favor of the change were leading 58% to 40%.

After many of you have weighed in, I see that the figure is now 48% in favor and 51% against.

Good work.

-- Steve Clemons

TWN is thinking of asking for an interview with him.

We will probably get rejected, but I would like to discuss with him -- in a serious way -- what his vision is for the United Nations and how it converges or diverges from those in America who despise the institution. They are the ones -- on the whole -- who supported him. Is he going to abandon his base?

I am grateful for the diverse array of guest-bloggers who, in some cases, did some serious wrestling with TWN readers. But I'm back at the helm -- and look forward to breaking some new ground this week. Thanks in particular to Dave Meyer who handled this process brilliantly.

On another note, I live on 17th Street in the Dupont Circle area of Washington, D.C. 16th Street, which runs toward the White House, is just behind me.

Get a load of this latest silly initiative launched by Republican Congressman Henry Bonilla from Texas. He wants to rename 16th Street "Ronald Reagan Boulevard."

WTOP Radio is running a poll on it and has 58% in favor and 40% opposed.

Hope you all vote.

-- Steve Clemons

So, here's my just-in-time submission that will pick up on a couple themes from recent posts. It was an honor to be asked to contribute to TWN in Steve's absence. I've never blogged before, so I await the potentially well deserved keyboard lashings in response to this rant.

I will start with my recommendation for Peter, "duck and cover." However, before I get rolling, let me simply state that insufficient attention to the threat of nuclear terrorism started with daddy Bush, continued through Clinton, and W is simply a continuation of the trend. Let me, however, point to one major advantage W has that annihilates any excuses for not doing everything, absolutely everything, possible to prevent a reenactment of 9-11 with nukes. With public attention focused on the terrorist threat, W, if he really wanted to, could easily garner support for laser-like focus and a corresponding allocation of resources to address the problem. (Vastly different than the Clinton cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan in August of 1998 that were viewed as a "wag the dog" scenario to detract from the Lewinsky scandal.)

As you all will recall, in the introduction to the 2002 National Security Strategy, President Bush wrote that the greatest threat lies "at the crossroads of radicalism and technology." Now here's the first irony that makes me want to cry. We currently spend roughly $1 billion annually on the Nunn-Lugar programs to address the most likely source of "loose nukes." (As aptly cited in Peter's TNR article, the collapse of a heavily WMD-armed Soviet empire continues to serve as a veritable "Home Depot" for terrorists.) By contrast, the budget request for missile defense in FY2006 alone hovers at $9 billion. A conservative estimate of the total price tag for Iraq and Afghanistan in the first four years is $75-80 billion annually. Per month we're willing to spend $83 million to address the most likely source for terrorist acquisition of nuclear bomb-grade materials (as well as nasty bugs and chemical munitions); $750 million on missile defense; and $5 billion on war operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And another example that's a pet peeve of mine: expenditures for hi tech intelligence gathering hardware as opposed to the language specialists and analysts requisite to decipher the incoming data. In December last year, Senator Rockefeller caused a stir by questioning projected allocations estimated at $9.5 billion for a satellite imaging system that many viewed as largely duplicative of existing capabilities and a questionable allocation of scarce resources in light of today's threat. Meanwhile, the Government Accountability Office has determined [PDF] that the shortfalls in foreign language specialists within our national security apparatus (Army, FBI, State Department, etc.) are as high as 50 percent in some cases. The irony in this example is that technological advances increase the amount of data being collected, thereby increasing the need for foreign language specialists by 30 percent each year. The contrast with respect to long-term investments in human resource needs? Although individual agencies offer training and incentives for recruitment of foreign language specialists, only one federal program, the National Security Education Program, is specifically designed to train and recruit language specialists into our national security agencies, and it is funded at somewhere between $8 and $15 million per year. Now I realize that analyzing satellite images doesn't require foreign language skills. My point here is one of endless investments in hi tech hardware of dubious utility versus the human resource needs to adequately understand and effectively respond to the challenges.

Examples like this abound. A simple look at the trends in our federal budget allocations underscores the point that we do not have a "coherent, national policy that attacks this threat multi-dimensionally." Our current national security investments represent a 13 to 1 ratio in Pentagon spending to the amount spent on everything else we do in the world (our diplomatic corps, contributions to the UN and international financial institutions, bilateral aid, the Millennium Challenge Account, HIV/AIDS, etc.). If there's a political dimension to the GWOT (actually GWIZ is my favorite from the array of catchy acronyms found on this blog), then we need to do some serious retooling of budget allocations to achieve a multi-dimensional response.

This budget profile represents a Cold War hangover intensified by the political sloganeering that allowed W to be a "war president" ad infinitum, but was wildly inaccurate and misleading as to what this struggle really entails. General Richard Myers, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said he "objected to the use of the term 'war on terrorism' because if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as being the solution". According to Myers, future efforts required "all instruments of our national power, all instruments of the international communities' national power". The solution was "more diplomatic, more economic, more political than it is military", he added. Exactly. But four years out, we're no closer to achieving an appropriate balance among our instruments of power. In fact, any hopes of achieving balance look increasingly grim.

This imbalance in our instruments of power is not solely the Administration's doing. The President's FY2006 budget request included a thirteen percent increase for the foreign affairs account – the largest single percentage increase in any of the stovepiped functions that comprise the US federal budget. (You go, Condi. That's the insider advantage for sure.) Problem is that such increases have insufficient support in Congress from right to left. Right-wingers hate it, well, because it's foreign aid, UN contributions, etc. The left won't support it because similar increases are not forthcoming for domestic needs. This is not a guns versus butter thing. It's domestic butter versus international instruments that's currently at issue. (If you think the "soft" security accounts don't matter, just look at Indonesians' attitudes about the United States pre- and post tsunami. A little disaster relief can go a long way in improving a badly tarnished image.) And, true to form, if the House has its way, the foreign affairs account will get slashed back to its rightful place – about a four percent increase from FY2005 allocations.

I'll rely on Karl Rove's own eloquent summary here. "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers." A coherent, multi-dimensional strategy would have done both - prepare for war and understand our attackers. Instead, GWOT gave us a War President, desired increases in the regular Pentagon budget, two wars with insufficient attention to everything that followed "major combat operations", a drain on the national treasury via supplemental requests, and little progress in achieving any coherence. GWOT, in fact, makes for a particularly lousy Grand Strategy [pdf].

I was working for a conservative Senator during September 2001, and I don't remember conservatives "preparing for war." I do recall that on September 12, 2001, we were told it was our patriotic duty to go shopping. As to who is making the sacrifices beyond our decreased tax burden, the following notices from Defense Department flowed into my inbox from late Friday, August 5, to this morning.

Killed in Afghanistan were:

Pvt. 1st Class Damian J. Garza, 19, of Odessa, Texas;
Pvt. John M. Henderson Jr., 21, of Columbus, Ga.

In Iraq:

Pvt. 1st Class Nils G. Thompson, 19, of Confluence, Pa.;
Gunnery Sgt. Theodore Clark Jr., 31, of Emporia, Va.;
Spc. Jerry L. Ganey Jr., 29, of Folkston, Ga.;
Spc. Mathew V. Gibbs, 21, of Ambrose, Ga.;
Sgt. 1st Class Charles H. Warren, 36, of Duluth, Ga.;
Sgt. 1st Class Victor A. Anderson, 39, of Ellaville, Ga.;
Staff Sgt. David R. Jones Sr., 45, of Augusta, Ga.;
Sgt. Ronnie L. Shelley Sr., 34, of Valdosta, Ga.;
Staff Sgt. Chad J. Simon, 32, of Madison, Wis.;

"Conservatives" didn't prepare for war. The KIAs listed above prepared for war. Karl Rove conservatives were busy (re)tooling slogans for posturing and political gains. And, the U.S. public continued to live very comfortable lives, while those paying close attention sought therapy for themselves due to the insanity of it all.

-- Libby

Two separate, unrelated items -- both concerning issues that I know Steve will continue to cover upon his return to active blogging...

The first concerns Iran. (See latest reporting from Reuters...)

I always felt that the EU-3 process had a fatal flaw because in the end, the Europeans had the task of trying to convince two parties -- Iran and the United States -- that they could produce a workable arrangement acceptable to both sides but without the authority to produce concessions. The EU could not give the Iranians the security guarantees they wanted nor guarantee that the US would lift economic sanctions that would allow pipeline projects from Central Asia to go forward (let's face it, the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline doesn't make economic sense to bring Caspian oil to market -- it only is feasible as long as Iran remains closed as an export route). Europe was less interested in some of the thorniest questions that bedevil the Iran-US relationship, such as Iranian support for Hizballah and Hamas -- and wanted to focus largely on the nuclear question without any linkage to other issues.

The real question now is whether the administration will be able to jointly work with the Europeans -- and reach out to the Russians and Chinese -- to forge a common position on Iran's nuclear program. I think that such efforts will stumble because while the EU and Russia agree that they don't want a nuclear-armed Iran, they are less interested in "regime change" in Tehran and will not accept the proposition that to prevent the former you have to endorse the latter. In turn, to gain European, Russian and Chinese support, would the administration risk angering its domestic constituencies by making the same bargain that the president's father made vis-a-vis Iraq in 1991 -- international support for US action in return for a pledge not to depose the existing government?

The second, unrelated matter -- Democrats and national security. Maria Wells, in the comments to my post of August 5, called attention to Wes Clark's plan for Iraq (hosted at WesPAC, which also proclaims its intent to help raise funds to support Democratic candidates). WesPAC is having a fundraising dinner in Washington this week. It will be interesting to see whether or not a national security interest group develops within the Democratic Party beyond Washington think-tankers -- one prepared to invest time, effort and money to support candidates. For those who haven't read it, we published in the Summer issue of The National Interest an interesting essay by Kurt Campbell and Michael O’Hanlon, "The Democrat Armed" (a "free" copy is available at the Brookings site.)

I hope that Steve will offer some of his opinions on what the guests have been saying this past week as he returns to his perch.

-- Nikolas Gvosdev

I have not read all of the posts and commentary made by a roster of diverse and fascinating guest-bloggers, but from a few emails I have been able to quickly glance at, I know that there has been some intense debate -- a good thing.

I am in Munich now and will be back on line tomorrow.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

The PR contortions over shifting the slogan of the anti-terrorist war from GWOT, to GWOE, to GSAVE, to 'what-the-hell-ever' has backfired so badly that it is only reinforcing the perception of administration failure to craft an effective communications campaign to exist side-by-side with its military campaigns. That this problem is self-inflicted is only that much more aggravating to observers who want to see a coherent, national policy that attacks this threat multi-dimensionally.

Instead, we see hackneyed rhetoric uttered as the answer to the failures of past hackneyed rhetoric, when Americans instead are looking for demonstrations of competence from the political leadership. By that I am thinking of President Bush's Fort Bragg speech, which left me fearing that the president can't distinguish rhetorical posturing from actual policy. Or, as Fred Kaplan put it recently:

Does Hadley, and do all our other top officials, really believe this nonsense? Are they so enraptured with PR that they think a slogan and a strategy are the same thing and that retooling the one will transform the other? Have we lapsed into the banality of the mid-'70s, when President Gerald Ford tried to beat back 20-percent price hikes by urging Americans to wear gigantic lapel pins that read "WIN"—for Whip Inflation Now?

Larry Johnson's post indicating that the administration hasn't even gotten this sorted out internally, nearly four years after September 11, is all the more distressing.

The counter terrorism community is abuzz over the President's comments yesterday at a principals meeting of the Homeland Security Council. Bush reportedly said he was not in favor of the new term, Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism (GSAVE). In fact, he said, "no one checked with me". That comment brought an uncomfortable silence to the assembled group of pooh bahs. The President insisted it was still a war as far as he is concerned.

Oh my. Well, let's hope they make lemonade out of that one. In the end, Mr. President, it ought to be about winning; and so which intellectual framework is most conducive to winning? At any rate, Johnson's post transforms another of Fred Kaplan's questions from merely rhetorical to penetratingly pertinent:

It took four years for the president of the United States to realize that fighting terrorism has a political component?

Don't stop counting, Fred. Nadezhda sees this internal confusion as a self-inflicted wound created when the invasion of Iraq was brought so speciously under the GWOT aegis. That Iraq has evolved into a crucial front in the war on terrorism is undoubtable,* but letting it subsequently define the GWOT itself in order to legitimize an invasion post hoc has been a PR disaster. When President Bush seeks to remind Americans that Iraq is a "central front" in the war on terror, remember not only the post hoc character of his argument, but also that his rhetoric did the heavy lifting, centralizing Iraq. Nadezhda:

Jim Hoagland, as the first journalist to report on a Global War on Extremism, clearly has an inside track on discussions/debates within the Admin. After Bush's June speech and the London bombings, Hoagland complained that the President was backsliding on message discipline -- that the Iraq war needs to be disentangled ASAP from the longer-term strategy of countering threats from Islamic extremism.

As I briefly summarized earlier today, the most salient point in this is the need to completely invert Bush's centralization of Iraq within the GWOT; victory in both Iraq and the GWOT may depend on divorcing the two as much as possible -- make that, if possible.

Looking past this single presidency, it is most likely strategically impossible to de-link the centralization of Iraq in the GWOT, as it has become not only a crucible for foreign jihadists, but a propagandistic rallying point for al-Qaeda's global ambitions.

Also, it is perhaps politically and personally impossible for the president himself, as he has labored long under illusions that must now be almost psychologically imperative if over 1800 soldiers' deaths and tens of thousands more casualties are to have been for something greater than himself. However, it only takes one more successful attack on the American homeland for the 'devastation in Iraq = domestic security'-thesis to collapse. This strategic brittleness is very dangerous.

Perhaps one way to start this de-linking is using Fareed Zakaria's latest as a touchstone to identify and focus on the real central front in this war:

What this is about, as Tony Blair has argued, is fanaticism. Radical ideologies of hate and violence have often seduced disaffected young men searching for some great cause. Forty years ago they would have embraced Leninist revolutionary dogma, with Che Guevara as the bin Laden of his day. Today, for Muslims, it is a violent interpretation of Islamic fundamentalism. Born in the Middle East, it has spread like a virus across the Muslim world and into the Islamic diaspora in the West.

The good news is that in the heart of the Muslim world, this ideology is not doing so well. The bombings, increasingly of civilians, are showing Al Qaeda and its ilk in their true light. Arabs are finally denouncing terrorism and also the ideologies that feed it. They need to do much more, and far more forcefully. It's a cliche, but true, that ultimately only Muslims can win this fight.

But Western countries can do more as well. We're fighting a military battle against a phenomenon that is largely nonmilitary. In a battle of ideas, no one bullet will win. We must present a positive vision for Muslim societies, be seen as a friendly and progressive force by them and thus strengthen the moderates and liberals.

Another entrance point may be Richard Clarke's Defeating the Jihadists, which outlines a strategic framework that is coherent, relevant, and -- sadly -- timely, and doesn't bother with bullshitting us about Iraq.

This is not to say that out-and-out warfare somehow can't be countenanced, or isn't legitimate. Rather, military means exist within the broader set of strategic demands placed upon us. They join ideological, legal, economic, and sociological means. These involve long-term coalitional as well as ad hoc unilateral strategies. Above all of this, however, is a political demand on the Bush Administration and, on Americans ourselves more generally, to stop identifying the tit-for-tat devastation in Iraq as representative of broader success or failure in the GWOT. Doing so is to fall into the grip of a classic insurgency strategy of inflicting losses that become increasingly meaningless as our own shifting, reactive political goals become increasingly inscrutable. In fact, we really have no way to assess how the United States is performing strategically either in Iraq or in the GWOT, but the White House's incapacity to prioritize does not bode well.

* On the issue of "fronts": any "central front" cannot be defined geographically as this centerless battle is not only transnational, the central battle itself is non-spatial; as one British Muslim, a critic of extremist violence, put it while pointing to his head, "Al Qaeda is inside." Bush's invocation of Iraq as the "central front" is vacuous in many respects, of course; this respect is perhaps the most disturbing, though.

-- Stygius

OK, I've been sitting on the sidelines watching the fur fly. A new article in the New York Review of Books prompts me to post. Tony Judt takes a very dim view of where things are headed, even to the point of likening, at least implicitly, the U.S. to expired communist regimes, at least in the sense that it's reputation and even behavior are reminiscent of the bad old days, when the Soviet bloc acted as though it espoused a higher morality and could dispense with concerns about its thuggish behavior since it was acting in the name of a higher good. Here's the essence of Judt's argument:

For there is a fundamental truth at the core of the neocon case: the well-being of the United States of America is of inestimable importance to the health of the whole world. If the US hollows out, and becomes a vast military shell without democratic soul or substance, no good can come of it.

Why do I raise this? Because I want to pick a nit with the estimable Peter Scoblic. He ends his TNR piece, which I read this afternoon, on a hortatory note, arguing that the Democrats, in essence, need a narrative to be able to compete with the GOP, and that he's got it. He suggests the danger of nuclear non-proliferation -- a concrete threat that should focus everyone's mind. Will it? I believe the Democrats are going to counter what Peter sees as Bush's grand rodomontade about the war on terror with their own counter-blast, which will take the form of something along the lines that Judt fears may be occurring -- the destruction of the republic. In other words, Steve's chum Chalmers Johnson, who has been advancing this line of argument for some time, is about to go mainstream.

Might the Ohio race for Congress not be a harbinger of the Democrats upping the ante, moving sharply to the left, and denouncing Bush in no uncertain terms as the greatest bungler since, ummm, LBJ? In other words: if you think American politics has been nasty, wait until you see the slugfest that's coming up in 2006.

-- Jacob Heilbrunn

Before he left for his "undisclosed location," Steve had alerted TWN readers about the launch of a new bipartisan initiative, the Partnership for A Secure America. This group had its debut this week (see Jonathan Kaplan's report in The Hill, at ), and Scot Lehigh's op-ed in today's Boston Globe.)

Jim Lobe's write-up in The Asia Times assesses both the strengths and challenges of this new endeavor.

But I think the real test is whether this group will be able to get equal time for its message within both parties. Will the PSA be asked to brief the DNC and RNC? Will a group of moderate Democrats like the DLC embrace it? Will PSA representatives be invited to talk to Grover Norquist's famous weekly Wednesday meeting (after all, he did have George Soros over recently!)

And in the wake of the negative response from the left wing of the Democratic Party to Senator Clinton's decision to chair a DLC-led initiative on revamping the Democrats' policy agenda, how successful will a group of moderate Democrats be in trying to convince other Democrats to reach across the partisan divide? Clinton's spokesman Howard Wolfson, clarifying his boss's stance -- "Her point was simply to say that the goals and issues that divide us are less consequential than are the ones we share in common, and that unity is needed in the face of our shared challenge" -- is nearly identical to Henry Nau's advice to Republicans that what unites them is greater than what divides.

-- Nikolas Gvosdev

The inaugural issue of the Yale Journal of International Affairs contains an interview with David Brooks. I thought it would be interesting to post Brooks' reply to the question, "Do you think the White House has changed its foreign policy posture in President Bush's second term?" in light of the various comments and points that have been made this past week.

Yes, there has been a huge, huge turn. ... Secretary of State Rice told me in an interview that the first term was a war term. There was a constant sense among officials in the administration that they might be killed any day by a terrorist attack, and they felt they had to break things apart because the world could not continue to go the way it was going.

The second term is a peace term, and it is time to build alliances. ... The second term is much less about breaking and defeating bad guys and much more about managing relationships. It’s funny because there has been all this talk about necons and realists, yet these are the same people just acting differently when the situation changes.

-- Nikolas Gvosdev

Steve should be returning to these here parts sometime soon. I thank him for letting me say a few things around here. It's certainly been an interesting group sitting in -- including Bolton-agnostic conservatives such as yours truly and Bolton-supporting war-skeptical conservatives such as the illustrious and always provocative Doug Bandow.

Perhaps it was best that Steve was in parts unknown when US Ambassador to the United Nations (calm down, Washington Note fans -- somebody had to say it) John Bolton participated in his first Security Council meeting on Thursday.

Not surprisingly, his first official words were direct: "We call on all members to meet their obligations to stop the flow of terrorists, terrorist financing and weapons, and particularly on Iran and Syria."

Bolton added after the unanimous resolution condemning the recent violence spike in Iraq: "We think this is very important, obviously, to help bring stability and security to the people of Iraq and to permit the constitutional process to go forward. It's the highest priority for the people and government of Iraq, and for the United States as well."

No kidding.

Bolton's words could hardly be more revealing.

They confirm yesterday's observations of my good friend, the aforementioned Mr. Bandow:

"The deaths of 21 reservists in the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, have dramatically brought home the cost of the Iraq war for anyone who hasn't been paying attention...Although I hate to think of politics when contemplating the deaths of so many sons, brothers, and fathers, imagine if they had died a couple of days earlier. There might have been a different result in the special election in Ohio's 2nd district to replace former congressman and now trade representative Rob Portman."

Exactly.

Those reservists met their fate in the Euphrates Valley battling insurgents and others streaming in over the Syrian border. If Iraq is the central front in the global war on terror global struggle against violent extremism global war on terror, then the Syrian border is now the epicenter. Sure enough, this morning, Operation Quick Strike -- the deployment of 1,000 Marines and Iraqi troops -- was launched in the Euphrates Valley.

Forget about the "Sunni Triangle": Today, imagine an extended "Obtuse Triangle" linking the Iraq-Syria border to Brook Park, Ohio -- the heart of Middle America -- to Our Man at the UN and back to Iraq.

The constitutional process must go forward for there to be some degree of success in the Iraqi exercise. But if the sons and daughter of Middle America continue to die on the Syrian border -- and military and diplomatic attempts to contain it fail, the support at home will falter.

That is why resolving the border problem truly is, "the highest priority for the people and government of Iraq, and for the United States as well."

-- Robert George

I spent 6,000 words last week in search of an explanation for the Bush administration's atrociously lax behavior toward nuclear proliferation, and I concluded that its conservative ideology -- with its insistent focus on the character, rather than the capability, of states -- was the culprit. But perhaps I gave too much weight to the role of ideas in the Bush White House. Bob Joseph, John Bolton's replacement as the nation's top arms control official, recently gave a simpler explanation for the administration's flippancy: they just now realized that nuclear terrorism is a problem.

Here are comments Joseph made last Friday on the merger of the State Department's Arms Control and Nonproliferation bureaus, which, among other things, will entail the creation of a WMD terrorism office:

Let me just elaborate a bit on the WMD Terrorism Office. When I was on the National Security Council staff during the first four years, during the first term of the Administration, it occurred to me during the campaign that there was one point of agreement between the President and Senator Kerry. They disagreed on just about everything; they agreed on one thing. And that one thing was the preeminent threat we face as a nation is a terrorist with a nuclear weapon. I don't know if you remember that debate, but it was one point of consensus. It seems like a pretty important point.

I was on the National Security Council staff at that time. I just decided to do an assessment of how well we were doing in addressing that threat. And I did a personal assessment and that personal assessment led me to believe that we could do a lot more interagency and agency-by-agency. And when I came to the State Department, I looked to see what contribution we were making and what contribution we possibly could make in this critically important area. And I found that not unlike the situation more generally, there were a number of very important initiatives that we were undertaking with others, whether it's port security or detection capabilities, but that we lacked a strategic approach. We were working consequence management issues, all very important capabilities, working with allies, but we lacked a strategic approach.

And what this new office will do is it will provide a strategic approach to dealing with the preeminent threat. It will provide the building blocks for creating a defense in-depth against WMD terrorism, a layered defense because we truly have to work with our friends and our allies in the international community more broadly. It's a very complex threat. It's as complex as it is dangerous. And it's these types of new initiatives that you'll see coming out of this reorganization.

I honestly don't know whether to laugh or cry (or duck and cover). Apparently we have not had a strategic approach to the "preeminent threat" facing the country for four years after the September 11 attacks. Can you picture Joseph -- at the time the NSC's senior director for proliferation strategy, counterproliferation and homeland defense -- watching the debate, which of course took place in late 2004, and saying to himself, "Hmmm, nuclear terrorism, that's something we should look into"? And people say you don't learn anything from presidential debates...

-- Peter Scoblic

Mark Goldberg suggests below that Bolton poses a serious threat to US security interests, because he's likely to pursue his own agenda with regard to Iran and other issues. That's a safe prediction given Bolton's past record, but even if Bolton were suddenly and unexpectedly to turn over a new leaf, he'd still be a lousy representative for US national interests. As Ray Takeyh says in today's Financial Times, if there's a UN confrontation over Iran's nuclear programme, "[t]he American case will be represented by a non-confirmed ambassador who has been accused of distorting intelligence on proliferation issues." Given Bolton's past history of disregard for the facts in pursuit of personal vendettas and his role as a minor player in the yellowcake scam, he's simply not going to have any credibility when he sets out the US position on non-proliferation. It's a mark of the fundamental lack of seriousness of the Bush administration's approach to non-proliferation and to the UN that Bolton, rather than any one of a variety of smart, tough, credible Republicans, was chosen for this job.

-- Henry Farrell

John Bolton once declared "I don't do carrots." To the extent that this is a quite concise distillation of the Bush Doctrine, it should surprise no one that Bolton was on Bush's short-list of people to serve as UN ambassador.

The Bush Doctrine actually goes beyond "all sticks, no carrots"; it includes at least three core prepositions: preemption, democratization, and dominance.

As nicely encapsulated in Robert W. Merry's new book The Sands of Empire, preemption entails "America's declared right to start a war to thwart a suspected attack." But preemption, as practiced by the Bush administration, is more accurately understood as "preventive war." And while preemption of an imminent attack has long been accepted under international law (indeed, the UN high level report reaffirmed the right of preemption as fundamental and authorized under the UN Charter), preventive war, whereby a government chooses to take action before a threat materializes, has typically been shunned. And when leaders have gone that route, it often ends badly.

Preventive war as advocated by the Bush administration ties into the second premise of the Bush doctrine, namely that of spreading democratic values. The decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power went beyond simply eliminating a nuisance or a potential threat. Even more important was the demonstration effect, the shock and awe, that was expected to carry over to other odious regimes: "Do you want this to happen to you?"

The Bush Doctrine is an outright rejection of deterrence. It goes beyond merely discouraging nation-states from attacking the United States. Instead, this is a coercive posture, whereby we deign to convince autocratic rulers to alter their domestic politics, or else they will suffer the fate of Saddam Hussein.

But there's a problem: it doesn't work.

The president continues to make the case that the war waged to remove Hussein from power was instrumental in convincing Libya's Muammar Qaddafi to abandon his nuclear schemes. That may have played a role, but Qaddafi was anxious to escape economic sanctions well before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and even before 9/11. Bush has not, and I would argue he cannot, account for why the leaders in Iran and North Korea have failed to respond as the Bush Doctrine suggests that they would: by capitulating.

A year ago, Justin Logan and I predicted that the neo-conservatives would soon be forced to face reality. Soon has proved not soon enough, as Americans continue to die in Iraq every day with no meaningful exit strategy in sight. More troubling, the continued fighting in Iraq is undermining U.S. security because it has pierced the veil of American dominance.

Another Cato colleague Stanley Kober quoted Machiavelli to make this point:

In his classic work, The Prince, Machiavelli wrote "a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred; because he can endure very well being feared whilst he is not hated." In other words, the best position to be in is to be feared and loved; the next best is to be feared and not hated; and the prince should avoid being hated and feared. Tellingly, Machiavelli did not even consider the possibility of being hated and not feared -- presumably because a prince in that position would not be a prince for very long.

Unfortunately, that seems to be the situation in which the United States now finds itself. Fear of American power is diminishing, while animosity toward U.S. policy is increasing. We are, in short, in the worst situation possible, and as a consequence we can expect further grim challenges ahead.

To be clear, many people still love the United States, and many others still fear us. However, in so far as we are increasingly hated, yet not feared, the Bush Doctrine makes us all less secure chiefly because the third element -- the presumption of America's unchallenged dominance -- cannot be sustained indefinitely. And our enemies know that.

What is the alternative? A better sense of our limitations, and a willingness to abide by them. In other words, humility.

National security policy entails making choices, virtually all of them difficult. I contend that when policy strays from the defense of vital national interests, it becomes harder and harder to differentiate those interventions that are necessary and warranted, from those that are unnecessary and unwise.

One of my favorite American presidents is Dwight David Eisenhower. He was hardly perfect (his views on civil rights were even less enlightened than those of many of his contemporaries), but he had a vision of national security that was shaped by his perception of national interests, interests that were, in turn, shaped by his sense that American power was limited. These limitations necessarily forced policymakers to pick and choose where and when to intervene, and in what fashion. This was particularly the case during the Cold War, when miscalculation risked provoking a global thermonuclear war.

Neoconservatives enamored of America's unipolar moment in the aftermath of the Cold War believed that the constraints were essentially gone. The United States could aspire to global dominance, something it never sought to do during the Cold War, because none could challenge her.

But there are constraints. While some might scorn the American public's reluctance to play the world's policeman, I believe that these attitudes reflect an accurate assessment of the high costs and dubious benefits of military operations that are not directly tied to the protection of U.S. vital interests. Few politicians will be willing to buck the trend if support for a particular overseas mission wanes.

An even more tangible limitation is the U.S. military itself. While our troops are eminently capable of defeating any force foolish enough to engage them on the battlefield, they cannot be everywhere, and they cannot do everything. We should be extremely careful about deploying our forces abroad, and we should be particularly wary of a long-term military presence in foreign lands.

Rather than rush to deploy U.S. forces around the world (and rather than leave in place those from the Cold War-era that were dedicated to fighting a foe that has long since disappeared) we should focus instead on applying all of the means at our disposal --diplomatic, cultural, economic -- that enhance our security. When peaceful measures fail, we must also be prepared to apply military force in an intelligent and judicious manner, at times, and places, of our own choosing. And we must always do so with a clear understanding of the costs and risks of such operations.

If this sounds familiar, it should: that was Eisenhower's preferred approach for dealing with the threat posed by the Soviet Union. Scorned at the time for allowing the Soviets to open a "missile gap" most scholars now credit Eisenhower with resisting the urge to engage in a crash program to match the Soviets. Eisenhower knew that American security could not be measured simply by numbers of missiles; the real strength of our nation, and the source of our long-term prosperity and safety, resides in the entrepreneurial spirit that is often stifled when military spending crowds out private investment. The same reasoning applies today, even as the threat has changed dramatically.

***

Let me close with one more plug for the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy, and with a word of thanks to Steve, whom I have come to know through the Coalition, a group of scholars and interested citizens that I helped to organize over two years ago.

The lively debate at TWN accords very well with the spirit of the Coalition. Other guest bloggers who have signed the Coalition's statement of principles ("The Perils of Empire") include Charlie Kupchan, Leon Hadar and Doug Bandow.

We are an eclectic group, to be sure, but while we disagree on many things, we agree that a foreign policy predicated on empire is not in America's interest, and is not consistent with American traditions and values. We seek to explore alternative foreign policy frameworks in a spirit of mutual understanding and respect. Thanks and congrats to Steve for facilitating this discussion (now if I could only get him to write something for the Coalition web site...).

-- Chris Preble

Since Steve graciously hasn't pulled the plug on me (or Chris), I thought I'd drop a short post. (I don't know if the failure to act reflects Steve's natural good nature and tolerance or his busy search for the best angle of the sun, which has put the plug out of easy reach. But I'll take advantage in any case.)

The deaths of 21 reservists in the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, have dramatically brought home the cost of the Iraq war for anyone who hasn't been paying attention. The incidents should make us worry even more about the future. The insurgents/terrorists are using bigger bombs, one of which killed 14 Marines. The guerrillas also killed six snipers, presumably through close-in combat rather than a roadside bomb. It appears that the bad guys are mixing better intelligence with improved skills, which is a very bad combination.

Although I hate to think of politics when contemplating the deaths of so many sons, brothers, and fathers, imagine if they had died a couple of days earlier. There might have been a different result in the special election in Ohio's 2nd district to replace former congressman and now trade representative Rob Portman. That race featured Paul Hackett, a Democrat who was an Iraq veteran and who vigorously criticized the administration's Iraq policy. As it was he came far closer than anyone expected in the solid Republican district.

One bit of good news: traditional conservatives seem to be growing increasingly uneasy over the policies of this administration and Congress. The GOP really has grabbed the "big spending" mantle from the Democrats. Some on the right also are fretting over the ongoing mess in Iraq.

It wasn't surprising that National Review online would run a piece of mine decrying Republican big-spending. (No entry barrier here--sorry about that with the earlier Salon article.) But I was particularly pleased that Human Events, which has been around for 60 years and was favorite reading for Ronald Reagan, ran my analysis of the London bombings.

I hesitate claiming to see a trend, but conservatives who really believe in limited government and the sort of international "humility" advanced by candidate Bush so long ago will have increasing trouble remaining silent.

Before I go I want to endorse Chris' comments regarding Kosovo. I don't think it is Clinton bashing to point out that President Clinton side-stepped the UN because he knew he could not win Security Council approval. I opposed both the Kosovo and Iraq wars, but in my view at least the latter arguably involved fundamental U.S. security interests, and could be solved by no one else. Kosovo was a tragic civil war, not unlike dozens elsewhere around the globe, but Milosevic was a bit player with no capacity to harm America. And the Europeans were capable of acting if they desired to do so. So the argument for acting without international sanction there was far weaker than in Iraq. (Of course, the ultimate consequences of the Iraq war are proving to be far more deleterious.)

Moreover, I believe that Kosovo was more important than Iraq in encouraging countries like India, Iran, and North Korea to develop or expand nuclear arsenals. It was Kosovo that dramatically demonstrated there were two categories of countries: those which bomb and those which get bombed. If you wanted to get into the first category, developing nukes was your best strategy. The Bush administration's attack on Iraq has reinforced this lesson for any state that might have missed it the first time around.

-- Doug Bandow

He may have been a few miles away from the Bronx, but Bolton was greeted with borough's eponymous cheer on his first day. Check out Crooks and Liars for the coverage.

On a more serious note, I think Chris Preble probably underestimates the danger to American interests that Bolton now poses.

To be sure, he was right to point out yesterday that recent American presidents of both political stripes have shown their disdain for the legal regime that the United Nations represents. That's not going to change.

Fortunately, though, the United Nations does a lot more than provide a forum for American presidents to circumvent when they want to launch a war. From peace keeping, to responding to natural disasters, to trying war criminals, the UN performs important functions that a single nation cannot.

I know Steve, (probably Chris too) tends to be a hard nosed realist when it comes to defining American security interests. But at least since the Clinton administration, those at the helm of American foreign policy have not shared this view, and have waged wars (in my opinion, some of which were justified some not) that have left the US dependent on other nations to clean up after us. Thus, for example, to "exit the Balkan thicket," we needed to convince other countries to take on some responsibilities there - as they have.

Similarly, as Iraq descends further into chaos and quagmire, it will be increasingly clear (if it isn't already) that we need to exit that thicket as well. When that time comes, we'll need all the support we can muster from our allies (and Iran) to make that exit as painless as possible.

The problem with Bolton is that there is nothing about his history that suggests he will not use his influence at the United Nations to pursue his own agenda. And to the extent that he sabotages America's relations with our allies -- and Iran -- in pursuit of that agenda, Ambassador Bolton will have a pernicious effect on American security.

-- Mark Leon Goldberg

Most Americans -- to the extent they are even familiar with Africa -- can't tell the difference between Mauritania and Mauritius. But the coup in Mauritania (a West African Muslim nation that straddles the divide between the Arab Middle East and Subsaharan Africa) will be the first real test for how the Bush Administration deals with reconciling its desire for democracy in the Muslim world with its strategic interests.

President Maaoya Sid Ahmed Taya was overthrown when he was in Saudi Arabia to attend the funeral of King Fahd. The army officers who organized the putsch have organized a provisional "Military Council for Justice and Democracy" (and stated that they will transfer power to open and transparent democratic institutions within two years). So far, so good. Sounds exactly like the type of scenario we would welcome in a number of Islamic states from Uzbekistan to Pakistan

But the rationale for the coup? Taya's "totalitarian practices." Seems that the Islamic establishment in Mauritania has been opposed to the government ever since Taya normalized relations with Israel six years ago (one of only three Arab League governments to do so). Since 9/11, Taya imprisoned a number of Islamist leaders and this past June the Mauritanian government blamed the Algerian "Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat" -- part of the global Al-Qaeda network -- for a raid on a border outpost; the deposed government had been particularly concerned that local Islamists were forming connections to the Algerian organization and even trying to recruit members of the military.

Matthew Clark from the Christian Science Monitor reports in greater detail and also calls attention to U.S. Plans to try and train African militaries to cope with the threat posed by Al-Qaeda.

Nigeria welcomed the coup; the Guardian quotes a spokeswoman for President Olusegun Obasanjo stating, "As far as we are concerned, the days of tolerating military governance in our subregion or anywhere are long gone. We believe in democracy and we insist on democracy."

So what will the United States do if the new Committee, in the name of democracy, breaks off diplomatic relations with Israel or begins releasing people that Washington believes are connected to Al-Qaeda?

Moreover, what is the ripple effect of the Mauritanian coup on other Islamic states where strongmen are engaged in halting managed reform -- Taya, after all, was engaged in some political reform measures? Might Musharraf be deposed for the same legitimate reasons?

Perhaps the impact of Mauritania will be contained -- after all, it is, to paraphrase Chamberlain, a small country far away, on the periphery of the Islamic world. Or maybe not.

-- Nikolas Gvosdev

My baptism-by-fire in the world of political blogs has gone pretty much as I expected. I thought there would be some grudging agreement, some general revulsion, and a few comments like Trip's.

For those of you who agree with Trip's anxious pleas (STEVE! PULL THE PLUG!!) Steve hasn't pulled the plug. Maybe he just can't reach it from his current location. Whatever. You'll have to endure me for at least another day. Or just not read. Which, by the way, is the same advice that I have for people opposed to pornography (don't look at it).

I'm used to being assailed by Bush supporters, given my outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq, so it's a nice change of pace to be feeling heat from the Left.

But I knew that my audience was pretty sophisticated after reading Karl's comments. Thanks for what must be one of the most polite ad hominem attacks I have ever read.

Congratulations to sc for identifying one logical flaw of the "power" argument:

you say that the broader picture is also about power and that the U.S. has it. Define power. Manpower? Umm, the conflicts we're engaged in are depleting our resources there. ... Show me how the U.S. has power.

My point is that the U.S. has sufficient power to engage in a war to remove a tin-pot dictator, and can do so in the face of opposition from other powerful states, including China, Russia, France and Germany.

As for our power to deter other nation-states from attacking us, our nuclear arsenal alone, irrespective of our political and economic power, is sufficient to turn entire nations – or indeed the globe – to glass. I believe that this power has been instrumental in safeguarding U.S. security, particularly since the advent of long-range weapons. Several countries have the capability to attack the United States, but none has done so. I believe that the niceties of international law, and the institution of the United Nations, are not a major factor here.

(For those of you who disagree, I am willing to concede that some nation-states embrace international norms of behavior independent of the threat of military action against them, if you are willing to stipulate that American military power is still very relevant.)

The odd thing is that, despite all this power, Americans feel profoundly insecure. Al Qaeda obviously disdains international law but is equally undeterred by our retaliatory power. Recent events in Iraq and Afghanistan are a telling reminder that America, while powerful, is hardly omnipotent.

For "average Americans" (a term that I positively hate, but perhaps this is who steve duncan is referring to as anyone who is not among "the 2% of the population that reads more than TV Guide.") it is particularly frustrating, after having expended hundreds and hundreds of billions dollars on defense, to feel so insecure.

So while we can lament the lack of interest, or the lack of knowledge, of the other 98 percent, railing against their apathy or ignorance is not a particularly effective political tactic. In other words, you've got to win a few "average Americans" in order to win elections in this country.

But, lets be honest, the "2 percenters" are afflicted of this insecurity complex as well, and we are trying very hard to address these insecurities, not simply as a matter of political calculation, but also because we really, really don't want to get blown up.

The 2 percenters focus on at least two models for the conduct of international relations that are superior to the neo-conservative approach that we're currently on.

A number of individuals affiliated with the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy focus on the relevance of power, but just as importantly on the limitations of American power. Knowing that our power is limited, and that our resources must be deployed in a careful and judicious manner, we look to other countries to provide some of the heavy lifting in the international system. These other countries will do this largely out of self-interest, and that is ok. (More on that tomorrow).

Others in the Coalition favor a different approach, one that many TWN readers share. I am guessing that those of you who were particularly animated by the Bolton fight believe that the United Nations, or a similar institution empowered to enforce international norms of behavior, is the best model for international relations.

But here I come back to the late 1990s. And if this seems like "Clinton bashing" (snookered) then so be it. I have a difficult time finding any fundamental difference between the United States attacking a country that did not threaten us in 1999 (Serbia) and the United States attacking a country that did not threat us in 2003 (Iraq).

If the answer is "Clinton's intentions were good" or "we had more allies in 1999, including France and Germany" that is not going to be a very convincing model for those Americans who believe our intentions are always good, and who aren't happy with France and Germany having veto power over the conduct of foreign policy.

But, even more to the point, it is not going to be a very convincing model for non-Americans, and I therefore am skeptical that it will lead to greater security.

Gen. Brent Scowcroft, a member of a high-level panel appointed by the secretary general to study UN reform, explained during remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations late last year: "In the end…if one of the permanent members of the Security Council or a major state considers something to be in its vital interest, the UN is not going to be able to do anything about it." That, he went on to say, "is [the] imperfect nature of the body that we have."

It shouldn't surprise us, then, that both North Korea and Iran are not content to stake their security on the pledge within Article 2 of the U.N. charter in which all members are instructed to "refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state."

They are busy hedging their bets. And that makes us -- all 100 percent of us -- less secure.

-- Chris Preble

Although Bolton's recess appointment is the talk of the town, let's not overlook another choice appointment. Last Thursday, Bush nominated Roland Arnall to be the U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands. The same day, Ameriquest Capital Corp., of which Arnall is the chairman and sole owner, announced that it had set aside $325 million for potential settlements with 30 states whose regulatory agencies or attorneys general are investigating its lending practices.

Ameriquest, a mortgage company which lends primarily to homeowners with bad credit, has been accused of predatory lending practices. According to the Washington Post, the company "is facing complaints of wrongdoing from coast to coast, with thousands of customers seeking restitution." Doug Heller, executive director of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights in Santa Monica, CA, complained that Arnall's "companies have engaged in unfair and deceptive practices too many times to count." "These executives should be headed to the pen, not some diplomat's mansion."

No one will be surprised to know that Arnall and his wife are top Republican donors.

Enough of Bush's ambassadors. Of more importance is the overall direction of Bush's foreign policy during his second term. And as several of the thoughtful reactions to my posting on Sunday noted, it is no easy task to discern whether we are witnessing a significant course correction or primarily rhetorical fixes that will not affect the general direction of policy.

As I wrote on Sunday, the team of Rice, Zoellick, and Burns do have the capacity to push the administration away from the excesses of the first term. They are in; Wolfowitz and Feith are out. As a result, I think it is fair to surmise that the center of political gravity in the upper echelons of the administration has shifted tentatively from the far right back toward a more realistic center. I do not, however, sense a major ideological shift as much as a course correction driven by pragmatism. Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld are not having epiphanies. Instead, Iraq has made clear to Bush and his team that America cannot run the world on its own and that it needs help on virtually every front. Stay tuned. There will be plenty of ideological and political jockeying in the weeks and ahead, and it is too soon to predict who will have the upper hand.

We also need to keep our eyes on Congress. Pragmatic internationalists are in short supply in the House and Senate. Most are older members, some of whom will soon step down from office. The younger senators and congressmen replacing them lack the internationalist inclinations of the World War II generation. The waning of bipartisan spirit also works against the restoration of the steady coalition of moderate Democrats and Republicans that provided a political foundation for a centrist and pragmatic U.S. foreign policy through much of the Cold War and the 1990s.

Getting Congress to help restore balance and pragmatism to US foreign policy will require lots of leadership and public education – both of which are in short supply.

-- Charlie Kupchan

I'm so depressed.

I learned of yesterday's big news when I picked up the paper this morning. I kept reading, and reading again. Then I actually purchased a different newspaper while at the airport, in the hopes that there could be some positive way to spin what had happened.

How did I miss this story when it broke yesterday? I was traveling across southern Minnesota to visit my wife's family, with two children sleeping (most of the time) in the back seat. I didn't want to wake them, and the radio coverage isn't that good anyway, so I didn't turn it on for most of the day. On the return trip, I listened to the Twins game, but the volume was low, so I didn't hear that much.

When we rolled into our hotel at 10:30 pm, after almost nine hours in the car, I was content to collapse in my room. I turned on the television for a few minutes, but didn't pay much attention.

You can imagine my shock, then, when I saw the lead story in the USA Today with that big color photo. I kept asking myself: How could he do this? How could Rafael Palmeiro have been caught using steroids? How could a player that I have come to adore, the quiet star of my beloved Baltimore Orioles...

What's that?

Oh, that story? You mean the one below the fold, the one about Bush using a recess appointment to get John Bolton into the United Nations?

Well, here's the thing. Notwithstanding the fact that Steve and I agree more than we disagree, and notwithstanding the fact that we have worked together trying to forge a sane consensus on U.S. foreign policy for over two years, Steve has been unable to convince me that John Bolton at the UN posed a threat to U.S. security. (See, for example, "Missing the Point on the Bolton Debate.")

Sure, sure, I know. Bolton does not have the temperament to be UN ambassador. I don't think he should have been confirmed as dog catcher, personally, given his long record of miscalculation and threat exaggeration, and his continued belief that "shaking the stick" is the most effective form of diplomacy. As for his abusive treatment of subordinates, and a general surly disposition, I'm sure that the same could be said for a lot of people in Washington.

I have never been particularly interested in this story, even though I get paid every day to think about foreign policy. But I am in good company. The American public was not particularly interested in this story, for the same reason that many Americans are not particularly supportive of the UN as an institution. (37 percent approval according to Rasmussen; 61 percent in a recent Gallup poll say that the "United Nations is doing a bad job." (Available to Gallup subscribers.)

I think the blame for this lies in large measure at the feet of the people who would wish it otherwise, who believe that the United Nations is and should be a key component of a broader international system, one based on the rule of law and not the rule of the jungle.

Although most Americans have not been following this story very closely, UN aficionados might argue that the public should care, because the alternative is so much, much worse.

Oh, but I do care, passionately, about security. I tremble at the thought of the horrific world that my children may inherit. But I'm just not convinced that an international system loosely based on concepts of international law will be all that more secure than one based on the balance of power.

If you are skeptical, and yet somehow still reading this "tough love" post consider this: saying that Americans should care about the United Nations is a bit like saying that Iran and North Korea should care about compliance with the NPT. International law and treaty constraints work just until a nation feels itself threatened, and then they frequently fly out the window.

And please don't cluck, cluck at me, saying that a Democratic administration would never think about demeaning the prestige of the UN by sending an ambassador who had failed to receive Senate confirmation. The Clinton administration showed its disdain for the institution of the UN when it circumvented the world body twice in a matter of six months, first to launch air strikes against Iraq (Desert Fox) and then to launch a war against Serbia. The Clinton administration never sought a UN resolution because they knew that they would not receive Security Council endorsement of such actions.

Then, as now, the story is about power. With respect to Bolton's nomination, the Republicans have the power. The Democrats don't. We don't have a winner-take-all society here in the United States, and we are blessed with a tradition of liberal government, meaning that the majority doesn't have the right to systematically disenfranchise the people who happened to vote for the other person. But Bush's decision to circumvent the Senate reveals his calculation that he will not pay a political price for having engaged in such behavior.

The broader UN story is also about power. The United States has it. Few other states do, although some are trying to catch up. And those who can't possibly catch up are developing the one true trump card, one stronger than anything that can be deployed in a domestic context: a nuclear weapon.

So those who are appalled by the Bolton recess-appointment (myself included) must persuade our fellow Americans why the foreign policy vision represented by John Bolton and the current administration makes us all less rather than more secure.

More on that tomorrow. (Provided Steve doesn't pull the plug on me after only one day.)

-- Chris Preble

I realize that readers of TWN are still absorbing the impact of John Bolton's recess appointment, but I wanted to shift gears if I might.

I was perusing the August 8, 2005 issue of The New Republic and was flabbergasted by its editorial, "Constitutional Crisis." One of the ongoing topics of discussion on TWN is the search for a "moderate middle" in foreign policy but as a number of contributors have pointed out, there is also an ongoing bi-partisan alliance between Republican neo-conservatives and Democrat "hawks."

The TNR editorial stands in contrast to what will be the editorial statement in the forthcoming Fall 2005 issue of The National Interest, which calls for defining standards for a realistic victory in Iraq:

What do we mean by "realistic victory"? We mean a meaningful success that would be widely interpreted as a victory by traditional international standards, namely, destroying a hostile regime and establishing a reasonably friendly, efficient, and non-tyrannical government that threatens neither the United States nor regional allies like Israel.

But the editors of TNR raise the following point, in discussing the new Constitution for Iraq and its likely emphasis of sharia law: "The idea that 1800 American troops died so that Iraqi women can enjoy the full blessings of religious medievalism ought to disturb the Bush administration and the American public."

When I read that phrase, I can't explain why, but my blood began to boil. Upon reflection, I guess my reaction breaks down as follows:

We're back to the old bait and switch tactics. I thought that American troops lost their lives because Iraq under Saddam Hussein was said to pose an imminent threat to the security of the Middle East and of the United States, possessing weapons of mass destruction that were on the verge of being handed over to terrorists. More recently, I thought that the main rationale for the continued American presence in Iraq was to prevent the country from becoming another Afghanistan -- and for those who are interested, I highly recommend Alexis Debat's reporting on Zarqawi's global ambitions.

But beyond that, the deliberate naivete -- what did you expect from opposition groups that described themselves as a supreme council for the Islamic Revolution? That they were going to be secular Western liberals?

Next, the recommendation -- that the United States use its leverage to influence the writing of the Constitution along lines we support. The problem here is that this leads to one of two outcomes. Either Iraqis will write the most democratic constitution in the whole wide world, one they have no intention of enforcing -- after all, Stalin's 1936 USSR Constitution was, on paper, far more liberal and desirable than the American one. Or the United States will be constantly interfering in Iraq's internal affairs to try and force unwilling compliance with those standards.

(Plus, let's reverse the picture for a moment. Can you imagine the reaction here in Washington if a Chinese magazine were to editorialize that China should use its immense financial leverage via purchase of our treasury bills to encourage the United States to improve its human rights record? After all, the People's Republic duly issues a report every year highlighting what they believe are our shortcomings in the human rights field.)

But TNR does have an important point -- it would be a major step backwards if Iraqi women lost rights that Saddam Hussein's regime guaranteed. Which leads me to another unpopular point to make: that democracy is not always the fruit of regime change.

Let's take Syria. By all accounts, Syria is a repressive dictatorship. It crushed by brutal force an Islamist uprising (by the same means that our ally Egypt and Algeria's generals did). But every observer I've talked to also notes that outside of the sphere of politics life in Syria is pretty tolerable.

Take one example -- visit the website of the Archdiocese of Aleppo. For a Christian minority in a Muslim majority society, they seem to enjoy a good deal of freedom. Plus there seems to be many of the attributes of a flourishing civil society --cultural and educational institutions, youth groups, women's groups, etc. (By the way, there is a reason why Iraq's Christians have been leaving the country, many seeking refuge in Syria, by the way.) Yes, there are real limits -- in one of the photos of an ecumenical gathering in Aleppo, the portrait of al-Asad gazes down -- but within those limits there is also genuine free interaction.

I don't mean this to be an apologia for the Ba'athist regime in Damascus. But I bring this up because we in Washington have tended to be very cavalier in talking about regime change for places like Syria or Uzbekistan. Yes, there are dictatorships in place there. But there are also worse options. And just because they call themselves "democrats" doesn't make it so.

This brings me back, finally, to the question at hand -- hard choices. The United States, at the end of the day, is not omnipotent. Our financial resources are limited; the time and attention of our leaders is limited; the capacity of our institutions (including the White House staff, the military and the State Department) is limited; and our political capital with other governments is limited.

John J. Mearsheimer, in remarks last year and in a short essay for the forthcoming issue of TNI, makes the following point:

Realists are often accused of disliking democracy and even of being anti-democratic. This is a bogus charge. Every realist I know would be thrilled to see Iraq turned into a thriving democracy. Realists, however, are well aware of the difficulty of spreading democracy, especially by military means. They also understand that even if the enterprise is successful, that is no guarantee that peace will break out.

And as one of my colleagues just noted -- we can't have it both ways. Either we are an imperial power who sets the rules and then are prepared to enforce them (and pay the costs) or we allow Iraq's process to go forward -- a process, by the way, that we created -- even if we are displeased with the results.

-- Nikolas Gvosdev

With my expressed written permission, let me engage in some shameless self promotion and cross post the following article I wrote over at the American Prospect Online (www.prospect.org) today.

In it, I do my part to show why John Bolton can no longer be a fifth column at Turtle Bay. (For those monitoring the emerging conventional wisdom about Bolton's recess appointment, the piece comfortably fits in the "why we won" category.)

So with some of my own light editing, here's the article in full:

In June, Steve reprinted a satiric cartoon depicting Bolton's first day at the UN. In the drawing, the political cartoonist Jonah Lobe portrayed a mustachioed Bolton clinging to the underside of a large statue of a .45-caliber revolver with its barrel tied in a knot. As visitors to the UN building in New York know, the statue stands at UN Plaza at Turtle Bay as a peace symbol. The cartoonish Bolton, though, has anything but peaceful intentions as he desperately tries to untie the knot so as to render the revolver operable once again.

Hyperbole aside, the cartoon seemed like an apt representation of what Bolton's influence at the UN might be. After all, Bolton is the proprietor of a bushel of statements that question the value and utility of the United Nations as an instrument of peace and security in the world. Given that history of antagonism to the world body, one wouldn't be too alarmist to think that if left to his own devices, the fox-in-the-henhouse analogies would prove true as soon as Bolton steps foot on First Avenue.

But thanks to the efforts of those who have opposed Bolton from day one, that's not going to happen. To be sure, the recess-appointed ambassador to the United Nations may be setting up his new Microsoft Outlook account as I write. But in his new job, which is guaranteed only until January 2007, Ambassador Bolton can no longer function as Dick Cheney's hard-line proxy, as he did at the State Department for the past four years. Rather, for the first time in his career at the State Department, Bolton will be a limp and neutered steward of his bosses in Foggy Bottom.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has already admitted as much. In the passionate and stinging criticism of Bolton that Ohio Republican Senator George Voinovich delivered during the confirmation hearing, the senator revealed that Rice promised him that Bolton will be "closely supervised," tacitly signaling that Bolton would be canned should he stray from her authority. For their part, deputies and staff assistants at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations are apprehensive of his arrival. As they (and the entire public) know, he's the boss from hell. Worse, many are precisely the kind of career professionals that have historically been on the receiving end of the "kick-down" half of Bolton's management philosophy.

But now that Bolton's been damaged so sorely in the eyes of the public, these staffers should be empowered to stand up to him. If he offends their diplomatic sensibilities by, say, spying on the secretary-general or other members of the Security Council (as the administration was wont to do before the Iraq War), the public will heed their complaints. And the moment that Bolton berates a staffer for, say, kindly suggesting that he not publicly lie about the weapons capabilities of another member state (as he did relating to Cuba's arsenal in 2003), Clemons will collect leaks about the browbeating.

As was the case during the five-month nomination process, information about Bolton's improprieties will flow quickly from that blog to traditional media outlets; it will not take long for The New York Times' Douglas Jehl to learn that Bolton's pinky toe slipped across the line of appropriate diplomatic behavior.

Besides any new controversies that Bolton may or may not stir up in his new post, there's still the problem of his old, unresolved ones. Questions about Bolton's handling of Iraq-related intelligence still dangle like Damocles' sword above his head. Bolton has already lied once to the Senate by failing to disclose that he was interviewed by the State Department's inspector general in an inquiry that was critical of Bolton's role in assessing Iraq intelligence. (In Bolton's defense, a State Department spokesman said that Bolton says he simply "forgot" to mention this when specifically asked by the Senate if he supplied information to any federal investigators in the past five years.) If it emerges in the coming weeks that he's talked to any other federal investigators (not least of all Patrick Fitzgerald, with whom it's rumored Bolton has liaised), he'd have established a demonstrated pattern of lying to the Senate. He'd be toast.

But let's not fool ourselves. Despite the contentious nomination and subsequent recess appointment, there's still a great deal of damage that Bolton could inflict during his stint at the UN. And there's nothing about his personality that suggests he won't. In the coming months, for example, Iran's nuclear ambitions may have to be confronted in the UN, as will managing the perpetually volatile North Korea. But because Democrats and not a few Republicans stood up to the president on this nominee, the damage that Bolton can do to American interests during his term as ambassador have been effectively mitigated.

For if nothing else, he only has a year and a half -- not four -- to work out that knot at the end of the revolver.

Mark Leon Goldberg is a Prospect writing fellow.

Well this certainly didn't take very long. The New York Times reports in Tuesday editions that the major rationale for John Bolton's recess appointment to the United Nations ("to provide clear American leadership for reform," President Bush said this morning) is basically a moot point.

Steven Weisman cites a "senior administration official" as saying "Most of the reforms sought by the United States are well on their way to completion." That "senior administration official," Weisman says, sought anonymity "to avoid undercutting the rationale for the Bolton appointment." Another official told Weisman "because so much had been achieved, there was little concern that Mr. Bolton's combative personality would jeopardize the agenda."

Great. What an excellent reason to name him ambassador: he probably won't jeopardize the agenda. Just think what we could have done with someone who might have been able to advance the cause of reform.

If you can, read Weisman's piece in full.

-- Jeremy Dibbell (Charging RINO)

First of all, the guest bloggers on TWN have been stimulating, provocative, and very much worth reading. Thanks to all during these few days I am away.

But I am away, and the White House as all of you know has appointed someone to the United Nations that Americans don't feel proud of and someone who does not possess the kind of impeccable credentials that America's Ambassador to the United Nations should carrry.

I am sorry that the President thinks it is appropriate and part of his so-called mandate to over-ride the concerns of some in both parties -- yes, both parties -- about John Bolton's "fitness" for this position.

TWN will be watching Mr. Bolton closely, and candidly -- while I don't think that our assessment of John Bolton has been wrong -- I would not mind at all if he has miraculously turned over a leaf and becomes, somehow, a great champion both for our country and the general soundness of the United Nations. I doubt it -- but the burden is not on me, or any of his critics. The burden is ENTIRELY on John Bolton's shoulders.

Prove that you are better than your past, Mr. Bolton.

I can't write more now, but my thanks to guest-bloggers and comment participants for their passionate debate.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

I'm sure Steve will soon offer a post on why Bush should apologize for the Bolton appointment. Although it's a shameless personal plug, Washington Note readers might be interested in my new Salon piece looking at the many other reasons that Bush should apologize. Although Republicans have been busy demanding apologies from Richard Durbin, Howard Dean, and others, they should spend some time looking in the mirror.

-- Doug Bandow

President Bush's decision to appoint Bolton this morning only denies those fighting the nomination closure - but not much else. We may have lost the Bolton battle, but it sure looks like we won the war. The events of the past five months, taken together, represent a big victory for those promoting global solutions to and cooperative efforts on those problems that no nation can solve alone.

In addition, the Bolton battle is a model for future efforts to engage the American people on international issues. Those who challenged the Bush Administration stayed on message, supplied timely information, praised allies at every opportunity and avoided berating or denigrating opponents.

As a result, the movement for a constructive, pro-engagement foreign policy is both stronger and more effective. A lot of folks on both sides of the aisle found their backbones over the course of the past five months, and thus are more likely to stand firm on similar questions in the future. Our opponents, who expended enormous amounts of political capital just to keep the Bolton nomination alive, emerge much, much weaker.

The Bolton battle also has been an inclusive effort, one that has brought many unlikely players into the fray. I can't say enough about the importance of the Steve's efforts and those of our NGO partners, the field organizers, and other friends and advocates who independently contributed their time, energy, and resources to this effort above and beyond their jobs. We have all made a difference. As this blog has demonstrated over the past week, this was a battle that crossed ideological and partisan divides.

Let me sum up by offering a list of heroes, villains, and lessons. Let's start with the heroes:

• Senators Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Barbara Boxer, and the rest of the minority members and staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who refused to let this nomination be the slam-dunk the Administration wanted.

• Senator George Voinovich, who courageously stood up to his party and his President to oppose Mr. Bolton due to his strong belief that Mr. Bolton represented everything America did not need at the UN.

• Senator John Thune, who also bucked partisanship to oppose Mr. Bolton.

• Senator Chuck Hagel who, despite supporting Bolton, made it clear that the issue of making the UN more effective was in now way should be made contingent on said support.

• John Whitehead, Deputy Secretary of State during the Reagan Administration, and Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor during the Ford and first Bush Administrations, who worked quietly behind the scenes to convince Senators of the wrong-headedness of Bush's choice.

• Carl Ford, who stood up to John Bolton both during Bolton's tenure as Undersecretary of State, and during the SFRC hearings.

• And last, but certainly not least our own Steve Clemons, who did much to connect the dots and keep the matter in the press and the public eye.

And a list of heroes wouldn't be complete without a list of those who have lost something:

• President Bush, who expended far too much of his precious second-term political capital on what was originally intended to be a cheap throwaway appointment to please a rabid segment of his base.

• John Bolton, who will not be able to accomplish what he wanted at the UN.

• Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who must now live with the consequences of having Bolton on her team. Now the question is whether she will honor her promise to fire Bolton if he goes off the reservation.

• Senator Lincoln Chafee, who has become a model of craven indecisiveness and inaction in the face of integrity. As one Washington Post report put it, when Sen. Voinovich stood up, Sen. Chaffee looked like he was going to cry.

• Senator Richard Lugar, who seemed to forget his position and authority as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and allowed the White House to strong-arm him into supporting the Bolton nomination in return for... well, to be frank, apparently nothing at all.

• The clearance process within the State Department.

• Any junior Foreign Service officer who has the temerity to challenge or question Amb. Bolton over the next fifteen months.

Let me also suggest some of the key implications of the Bolton battle:

• Amb. Bolton's tenure is half what it would have been without our work. He is so damaged and unpopular in the Senate as to make it highly unlikely that he can ever be confirmed for this or other positions in the future. Furthermore, this administration has not renominated for political positions those to whom it gave recess appointments (see Otto Reich). And the Senate has refused to confirm those renominated for judicial positions after a recess appointment (see William Pryor).

• The controversy over Bolton's misstatements may go away for a while, but it's unlikely to disappear entirely. Should the Inspector General come out with a report that in any way implicates Bolton in the misuse of intelligence, he'll be fair game again and may even be pressured to resign.

• Everyone - the press, the UN, NGOs, even late-night comedy talk show hosts - will be watching everything Bolton says and does. If he becomes inflammatory, screams at people, or makes outrageous statements, it will be noticed.

• Amb. Bolton is damaged goods in ways that the administration can't like - the poster boy for everything we don't want in a diplomat, as George Voinovich put it, and quite literally the new national symbol of what it means to be the boss from hell. And to paraphrase Jon Stewart, he has the most famous "angry moustache" since Yosemite Sam.

• Perhaps most importantly, the American people are reengaged on the issue of the UN in a way that they haven't been for years. And it's clear that a large majority of Americans support a more effective and dynamic UN. If the Administration -- in the person of John Bolton -- screws things up, it will be noticed and it will be controversial.

• And finally, as I noted earlier, Bush had to expend extraordinary amounts of political capital to make this appointment happen - and today he has angered Senators on both sides of the aisle. They'll remember this the next time a controversial international appointment comes, and perhaps vote him or her down. It may even have an impact on the Roberts nomination, as the Administration's refusal to release documents AGAIN means that Bolton offered a test run on the issues of Senatorial access and privilege.

Clearly, the recess appointment was an outcome we did not want, but we should not forget that Bolton's opponents went into this regarding their chances of winning as the longest of long shots. And ultimately, if they (we) didn't get the desired result, they (we) changed the debate in extremely important ways.

So let us not fail to celebrate what we have accomplished. Congratulations and thanks to everyone. It's been a real honor and a privilege.

-- Charles Brown

The reaction is pouring out, with non-Voinovich Republicans tepidly embracing Bush's decisions, and Democrats strongly criticizing it. The Washington Post has a round up.

Senator Biden's statement hits most of the key points:

BIDEN "DEEPLY DISAPPOINTED" IN BOLTON RECESS APPOINTMENT

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Joe Biden (D-DE), the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, today issued the following statement.

"Sending John Bolton to the U.N. behind the Senate's back is a mistake is every respect. The reason John Bolton didn't get a vote in the Senate is because the administration refused to provide information to which no one disputes the Senate is entitled. This is not the intended use of the President's recess power – it's an abuse of that power. A recess appointment is appropriate when the Senate is unable to act, or unwilling to act. It's not appropriate when the administration is acting in bad faith."

"Mr. Bolton does not have the full confidence of the U.S. Senate. This recess appointment will hurt our nation's interests and hinder Mr. Bolton's effectiveness." Since the UN's founding in 1945, the United States has sent 24 ambassadors to the UN. Not one has been recess appointed.

"We know that John Bolton repeatedly tried to stretch intelligence and to remove intelligence analysts who disagreed with him. We know he was not fully forthcoming during the confirmation process." Just last week the State Department admitted that Mr. Bolton failed to disclose key information about having been interviewed by the Inspector General regarding the intelligence failures in Iraq.

"After all we've been through in Iraq with the misuse of intelligence by policymakers, promoting Mr. Bolton sends exactly the wrong message. More than ever, we need someone who can stand up and make the case about North Korea or Iran's nuclear aspirations. We need someone who has credibility with the international community and Americans can trust. That is not John Bolton."

Senator Biden also expressed disappointment in the President's statement today. "Mr. Bolton was not held up by 'partisan delaying tactics by a handful of senators.' 44 senators objected to giving Mr. Bolton a vote until the administration gave the Senate information to which it was entitled -- hardly a handful. One of Mr. Bolton's leading opponents was my Republican colleague, Sen. George Voinovich -- hardly a partisan flame thrower."

Senator Biden strongly disputed the notion that Mr. Bolton is critical to the important effort to reform the UN, noting that just four days after Mr. Bolton's nomination was announced, the administration appointed someone else -- Dr. Shirin Tahir-Kheli -- to do that job.

Senator Biden expressed the hope that when this temporary assignment expires, the President will send the Senate a more credible nominee. The Constitution says that recess appointments shall "expire at the end of" the next congressional session. Therefore, Mr. Bolton's temporary assignment ends the day the 2nd session of the 109th Congress adjourns, which is likely to be October of 2006.

I would like to hear the reaction of Rexon Ryu, Fulton Armstrong, Christian Westermann, Charles Prtichard, Carl Ford, Tom Hubbard, John Wolf, Larry Gershwin... the list goes on.

-- Dave Meyer

Throughout the Bolton battle, it's never been clear exactly why Bush was so dead-set on having Bolton at the United Nations. He doesn't believe in the institution, and clearly won't be interested in "reform" -- and Anne Patterson would have been much better suited to push through a real reform agenda. Bolton's incapable of dealing with any of the crises that loom on the horizon. He can't/won't work with our allies on Iran or North Korea, and he's got no credibility on Uzbekistan or any of the Cetnral Asian flareups. We'd be more likely to get international cooperation on Iraq with a horse's head in Kofi Annan's bed.

So the question remains: why? Is it as simple as stubbornness? Is it merely Cheney free-riding on Bush's ability to abuse constitutional powers? Does Bush genuinely hold our allies in contempt? The Bush administration blew so much credibility and political capital on this appointment that there must be a serious reason, but no morally neutral rationale comes to mind. I'd love to hear people's thoughts.

My best guess: the underlying intelligence scandals that led us into war are going to blow up in the next year, whether through the Fitzgerald investigation or something else. Bush wants to have a loyalist -- someone he knows will always put loyalty to the Bush administration above the loyalty to the country -- in place at the UN. Rice, who deserves some of the praise she's gotten for her work at State, is nonetheless a loyalist above all:

At State Department headquarters, Rice, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick and a core group of a half-dozen senior aides swept aside Powell's team and quickly exerted control of the bureaucracy. More policies are being run from Rice's suite of offices on the seventh floor via "special assistants" and "special envoys."

The arrival of many White House loyalists at State, including Bush adviser Karen Hughes, alarmed career employees. Rice's tight-knit management style, emphasis on "message discipline" and warnings to end media leaks prompted speculation that she would fashion State into a political bullhorn for the White House.

Bush may be protecting himself; Bolton appears to be a big CYA. Unfortunately, it comes at the expense of our international credibility, our ability to effectively work with allies on national security issues, and the little remaining comity between the branches of our government and parties of our politics.

-- Dave Meyer

I'm Henry Farrell, an assistant professor of international relations in the Department of Political Science and Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. I'm a regular member of the academic group-blog Crooked Timber.

There's an interesting three way conversation going on about the role of democracy promotion in US foreign policy. Michael Lind starts the ball rolling, denouncing the claim that the US has always been in the business of democracy promotion. John Ikenberry dissents politely, arguing that US presidents have "tied their visions of postwar peace to a liberal international community led by democracies," with Bush as an exception (he may be interested in democracy promotion, but not in a liberal international community). Finally, Dan Nexon seems to disagree with both, claiming contra Lind that there is a tradition of democracy promotion, but that Bush's policy isn't very different from that of his predecessors. A "crusade" that involves only two countries is hardly a crusade.

It seems to me that Ikenberry's argument is closest to the truth. US foreign policy involved a sporadic, opportunistic, but nonetheless sometimes effective policy of democracy promotion during the Cold War and its aftermath. But there are important differences between democracy promotion as practiced, say, in post World War II Europe, and the kind of democracy 'promotion' that the Bush administration has tried. The former drew a very clear link between an appropriate international order and domestic democratic politics. After WWII, the US used the Marshall plan to promote cooperation among European democracies, and then encouraged the integration process that led to the European Union. It correctly judged that democracy would be more likely to take root at the domestic level if there were appropriate institutions at the regional and international level. Most importantly, it agreed to limit its own future freedom of action in order to reassure its European allies that it wouldn't use its vast power to hurt their interests. This worked beyond anyone's expectations, creating a thriving set of regional institutions. These in turn supported a democratic zone that expanded to absorb recent dictatorships such as Spain, Portugal and Greece in the 1980's, and ten Eastern European countries last year (that this model is now having difficulty in expanding further shouldn't detract from the fact that no-one expected it to expand this far in the first place). Both the EU and the CSCE/OSCE have used human rights norms to promote democracy and more stable international politics. In this era, democracy-building was, by definition, a multilateral process.

In contrast, the current US approach is unilateralist and distrusts international institutions as such. Very obviously, the current administration has little interest in any institutional arrangements that might hamper its freedom of action. It has weakened existing institutions (such as NATO) in favour of ad-hoc, short term "coalitions of the willing." As a result, the US failed to take up the real opportunities that it had post-September 11 to reshape the post-World War II institutional architecture so as better to deal with new security threats, and perhaps help spread democracy to regions of the world where it doesn't exist or is fragile. Indeed, the US is now in a position where it would have difficulty in pursuing such initiatives even if it really wanted to. No-one else trusts it to condition its own behaviour on any institutional commitments that it might make. On those few occasions when the administration has made noises last year about creating OSCE-type institutions for the Middle East, it hasn't been able to garner support from allies. A democracy promotion policy which doesn't pay much attention to how the international environment can be reshaped to support democracies is, at best, half-right.

-- Henry Farrell

This is Asheesh Siddique from the Princeton Progressive Nation. It's a little intimidating to be asked to write alongside such a distinguished group of commentators when you're only going to be a college junior in September. Nevertheless, I'll do my best. I've been a fan of Steve's work here, particularly his smashing investigative reporting on John Bolton, and I'm honored to be asked to help fill in while he takes a very well-deserved break.

Doug Bandow made the important point that the recruiting crisis plaguing our armed forces is the result of bad military strategy working in tandem with an unsustainable foreign policy. While neoconservatives on the Right won't acknowledge their complicity in threatening the sustainability of the all-volunteer army, some on the Left want to compound the problem by calling (misguidedly) for a draft. Neither of these camps have done enough to address the real needs of America's military.

If we're going to be serious about helping our men and women in uniform, we've got to advocate two initiatives. First, we must demand a concrete plan for an expeditious military exit out of Iraq, an issue that's been getting considerable attention lately; and second, we need to pressure their elected representatives to do more for servicepersons and their families, who bear the real financial and emotional stress of the war. As Princeton economist Uwe Reinhardt noted in yesterday's Washington Post, the Bush administration has delivered rhetoric, not results, to America's soldiers. While the President lauds them for their service, the White House tried to worsen the situation for soldiers by proposing cuts to both imminent danger combat pay for troops stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to family separation allowances for the deployed. This should be cause for public outrage; yet it has not been emphasized enough in the public discourse by those of us best positioned to highlight the problem.

We must place the personal needs of soldiers and military families at the front of our challenge to the Bush administration's failed defense policy. To do so, we should pressure our politicians to enact legislation that:

• provides all wounded soldiers complete disability compensation irrespective of how long they have served;

• allow reservists and their families to enroll in the military's TRICARE health insurance program;

• reject proposed cuts to imminent danger combat pay and family separation allowances, and instead propose increases; and,

• set aside funds to allow the children of those serving in Iraq to attend public universities at reduced or no cost.

Such initiatives may not come cheaply, but Congress can fund them by reducing our military presence in Iraq, which costs at least $4 billion per month by the Defense Department's own estimates, and rescinding the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans. Honoring our troops for their service, irrespective of how we feel about the war they fight, isn't a partisan political game; it's a moral priority.

--Asheesh Siddique

The shockingly unscientific, yet still interesting, online polls are running overwhelmingly against the recess appointment. AOL is 66% opposed, 34% in favor. MSNBC is 74% opposed, 26% in favor, with 46014 total votes cast.

-- Dave Meyer

Just perusing some of the headlines this morning...

With regard to North Korea, it is China that has taken the lead in setting the agenda. The EU-3 process with Iran appears to be approaching its crisis point. Sudan's vice-president is dead, and with it possibly the peace deal which tentatively ended the country's long-running civil war. King Fahd is dead, succeeded by a crown prince who is much less likely to continue the close relationship with Washington his brother worked so hard to forge. Uzbekistan has given us our "180 days notice" to clear out of the airbase at Karsi-Khanabad.

My concern, as always, is the extent to which the United States is forced to "outsource" its diplomatic efforts because it is overstretched in Iraq. In May, Congressman Robert Ney, speaking about the EU diplomatic effort with Iran at a joint event between The National Interest and the Eurasia Group, presciently warned about the possibility of failure and said:

This outcome should not be too surprising considering the process that produced it—a process in which one of the most important issues related to US and international security has been delegated to France, Germany, and the UK, without active American participation.
I welcome the Administration's decision to extend American support to the Europeans' negotiations with Iran. It is imperative that all diplomatic options are exhausted; proliferation is an issue of national security and should not be taken lightly.

Simply supporting the negotiations is insufficient: American participation is not only pivotal to achieve the desired result, but also to ensure that the public and international community can have confidence that the diplomatic track was fully and exhaustively explored should the Europeans' talks fail.

Giving diplomacy a chance has never, and should never mean just giving FRENCH diplomacy a chance.

Continue reading this article

-- Dave Meyer

Looks like Bolton's appointment was announced by Bush while I was writing my previous post. Not much more to say, except to point to the New York Times and Washington Post report. WaPo again emphasizes Bolton's plan to stay in DC to keep up his intriguing:

Two months ago, while his confirmation was in trouble, Bolton began efforts to double the office space reserved within the State Department for the ambassador to the United Nations, according to three senior department officials who were involved in handling the request.

Previous ambassadors have kept a small staff in Washington in a modest suite. Bolton told several colleagues he needed more space and a larger staff in Washington because, if confirmed, he intended to spend more time here than his predecessors did. "Bolton isn't going to sit in New York while policy gets made in Washington," the administration source said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the source lacked authorization to discuss this on the record.

Hats off to the activists, bloggers, senators, and everyone else who helped block Bolton's passage in the Senate, sending a signal to the White House that its omnipotence remains thwarted. This was a bi-partisan effort; make no mistake about that. It hints at what a strong center can accomplish in Washington, it will also forever change how the White House calculates its public posturing during the rest of Bush's
term.

During this process, the entire tone and tenor of Washington politics has changed, as the US Senate stood up for itself in the face Bush's disrespect for the separation of powers. In the face of hyperbole and disinformation, an opposition steadily built a case that only grew stronger with each passing day. Now, a humiliated Bolton has a long way to go to prove to the rest of America that he deserves the trust he's been given.

Bolton's confirmation was constantly sold as an inevitable fait accompli given President Bush's enormous post-election mandate. Instead, the process worked; Americans got to know John Bolton during the confirmation process, and they didn't like what they saw.

-- Stygius

President Bush seems poised to appoint John Bolton UN Ambassador on Monday. Read Jeremy's excellent post from last night. While Jeremy's right that Senate opposition to Bolton has lost its momentum (excepting Biden's superb last minute squeeze of the State Department), Dodd makes exactly the right point in calling Bolton "damaged goods. This is a person who lacks credibility." Indeed.

Although there is much talk about "thwarting" Democrats in the media, the real issue is what ought to be the first question on the president's mind before he makes this appointment: Will John Bolton be effective, and able to accomplish my priorities at the United Nations?

We've learned over the past few months that faith in Bolton's "effectiveness" requires an almost surreal suspension of disbelief. Why does Bolton lack the credibility to continue in public service? His appalling record as the undersecretary in charge of proliferation controls is what has energized my opposition to Bolton. In a world where the nuclear threat to an American city has actually grown since the end of the Cold War, Bolton's assault-through-negligence on agreements like Nunn-Lugar has been breathtakingly myopic. But let's review an inexhaustive list of reasons why Bolton's nomination deserves to die with indignity:

• his manipulation of intelligence for political purposes, and subsequent mischaracterizations to the committee
• his indifference to genocide
• his possibly perjurous claim to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Ambassador Hubbard supported Bolton's stupidly inflammatory speech that paralyzed diplomacy on the Korean peninsular for years
• his unsubstantiated claims about other countries used to justify castrating America's agreements like the Biological Weapons Protocol
• his attempts to undermine WMD disarmament talks with Libya, and talks with Iran while alienating the United Kingdom
• his sabotage of US-Russia agreements to dispose tons of weapons-grade plutonium and chemical weapons
• his insubordination at State, including preventing inconvenient intelligence from reaching his bosses
• his involvement in passing off the unsubstantiated Niger-Iraq uranium story that helped propel the country into war
• his neglect of and indifference to the Non Proliferation Treaty
• his evident desire to maintain influence on policy in DC, despite senators being sold the nomination on the grounds that Bolton would no longer be a decision maker
• his glaring "forgetfulness" on his SFRC nomination form

Look, this isn't even an exhaustive list, just what I slapped together in a few minutes. The bullying of intelligence officials exist within this context, not in a vacuum. Any one of these reasons ought to be sufficient to kill this nomination. Put them all together and we see we've got a real problem on our hands.

Can John Bolton possibly be an effective ambassador? I foresee he won't last six months, personally. But when the United Nations is on the brink of serious reform, and there are so many co-existing security demands facing the US, having a loose screw at the UN is the wrong move. While we applaud Secretary Rice for anticipating Bolton's blundering about and ostracizing him from the reform process, why go to such lengths when at a crucial time we need the grownups firmly in charge?

Based on my research of his non-proliferation record, Bolton's actual "effectiveness" is restricted to a narrow range of a few bureaucratic tricks; deliberate negligence, is what I call it. His typical style is not to create and push innovative policy solutions that solve problems, come hell or high water; instead, his gifts are limited to obstruction, obfuscation, policy sabotage, and deliberate paralysis. These skills won't do much good when proactive reform is required.

Undermining from within can be a useful and effective tactic at certain times, but it is not by itself a strategy for change -- something Bolton appears unable to grasp. What Bolton does -- and it appears it is all he can do -- is create the conditions where policies he dislikes erode of their own accord. This creates plausible deniability when strangling, say, a Nunn-Lugar program, Chemical Weapons Convention, Non-Proliferation Treaty, or Biological Weapons Conventions, etc. Deliberate mismanagement probably has a certain cynical appeal to it, but a little bit of cleverness is quite difference from the wisdom required to lead.

Such tactics, in fact, are woefully insufficient in a dynamic, highly public environment like the United Nations. Reform requires imagination and innovation, and Bolton just doesn't appear equipped with them. His particular talents require darkness, and inattention from superiors. Unfortunately, Bolton's learning skills appear somewhat limited, so it's not clear whether he's learned anything from the experience of the past few months, or if he will learn anything up at Turtle Bay (or lurking around Foggy Bottom, if you will). This is a disaster at just the moment a president needs an actual effective hand representing him. Not just a lack of credibility -- in fact, his incredible claims to the SFRC have destroyed any of that -- but his blatant lack of ability will altogether serve to thwart UN reform, especially when fellow diplomats and even his own staff begin to wait out Bolton's tenure.

-- Stygius

According to today's Times, despite previous announced extension, Iraqis are promising to stick to a US-desired Aug. 15 deadline for a working constitution.

"Among the most divisive issues are the rights of women, the role of Islam and the scope and reach of Kurdish self-rule." Oh, is that all?

It was a good idea for Americans to stick to the promised deadlines when it came to the January elections: There, American policy political aims and administration promises -- and and the symbolism of new Iraqi freedom -- needed to overlap. However, when it comes to a governing document, putting an artificial date is asking for trouble -- especially considering this is the process supposed to demonstrate to both Iraqis, the Middle East and the entire world that it is Iraqis and not Americans that are controlling the process. It would be especially terrible if women rights end up getting pushed to the side -- Kurds, one way or another, can take care of themeselves -- in the name of expediency.

Keep in mind, Americans didn't get their governing documents right at first. The Articles of Confederation were an initial stab, which fell apart ten years later. (Notably, the Articles were drafted with the War for Independence still going on.)

The post-war Constitution of the United States of America worked better -- yet also left some of the "most divisive issues" on the table, most notably the status of black Africans/slaves in the colonies. Everyone knows how the inability to resolve that particular issue turned out 70-some years later. Can Iraq really afford to risk such a "resolution" just to get a "working first draft" on the table -- pushed by an outside power? Does anyone think such an awkward compromise could peacefully last even a dozen years?

-- Robert George

The Whitehouse press release is here. The AP story on the appointment doesn't do justice to the severity of Bolton's problems, and doesn't get into the challenges he's now going to face at the UN.

I have mixed feelings. Steve obviously succeeded in drawing a great deal of attention to Bolton's unfitness for the position, and in the process helped to revitalize the bipartisan center in foreign policy. If this administration had any decency -- anything but contempt for the United States Senate, the intelligence community, the United Nations, or the opinions and desires of our allies around the world, what Steve and others did here would have been enough to get a decent diplomat appointed.

-- Dave Meyer