The Taliban "Impostor" and Political Reconciliation in Afghanistan Posted by Michael Cohen

Today's revelation in the New York Times that one of the Taliban officials with whom the Afghan government was meeting in peace talks with was actually an impostor is the proverbial hanging curve ball of Afghan-related snark.

Sure I could write a post about how this goes to show that the US and NATO - even after 9 years of war - has little understanding of the enemy with whom it's fighting. Even more directly, I could write a post about how this goes to show that the Petraeus/ISAF supposition that kinetic action was bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table was bunk.

As Josh Foust sums up the situation well, "the leadership of ISAF doesn't seem to have any idea what it's doing, who it's talking to, and (probably) who it is really killing."

This story is yet one more reason to conclude that the time has come for the United States to trim its sails in Afghanistan, more toward military de-escalation and lay the groundwork for a long-term political settlement. Indeed, this excellent new report from the folks at CAP makes precisely this point - it's the best report I've seen to date about an alternative course for the war in Afghanistan. 

The problem, however, it that this conclusion may seem a bit counter-intuitive. After all, isn't the obvious response to the "impostor" story that it just shows the folly of trying to negotiate with the Taliban - or even identify moderate elements within the movement? 

Actually yes! But that doesn't mean political reconciliation is the wrong course. It means the way we are going about it is all wrong.

Instead of relying on ISAF to move political negotiations forward or reach out to Taliban moderates (as it is they seem far more geared toward sowing discontent rather than laying the groundwork for reconciliation) this incident speaks to the need for an outside and independent mediator to facilitate talks, a political framework that acknowledges the legitimate aspirations of the Taliban insurgency and above all the centrality of a political, not military solution, for ending the war in Afghanistan.

It seems that the entire ISAF political strategy (and it's hard to even use those words) is predicated on not finding a workable political solution, but dividing and conquering the enemy or pounding them into submission. In short, negotiations are just another way to "win" in Afghanistan. The conflict is still seen by top policymakers as a black and white struggle between good guys and bad guys.

What is lacking is a recognition that the Taliban (who are certainly bad guys) will likely have a long-term role to play in Afghanistan's future - and that this is something that all sides in the conflict, particularly the US, are going to have to accept.  Now in an ideal world, the Taliban wouldn't play much of any role in Afghanistan's future - but we don't live in an ideal world and we are far past the point where it's even possible for the US to dictate the terms of Afghanistan's future. We have neither the time nor the resources nor the inclination nor the knowledge to do such a thing.

So instead of trying to use only sticks to bring the Taliban to the table the US and NATO may have to utilize a few carrots; namely confidence-building measures like releasing Taliban prisoners, seeking out local cease fires and ending JSOC assassinations of Taliban commanders. These moves will have to be reciprocated in some measure by the Taliban; but these measures can hopefully begin to seed the groundwork for actual political negotiations and the process of reconciliation.

Again, I don't consider this an ideal solution, but it seems more clear than ever that the US and NATO is flailing around for a solution to this war without any clear sense of what they want to achieve and even if they did, how they might get here. Ad hoc and under the radar screen political negotiations are not the way to go here; formalized talks with a non-American mediator very well might be.

Afghanistan demands a political solution - and American interests are not served by continued conflict. This latest incident will likely lead some to the conclusion that there is no hope for reconciliation. But that view is dangerous and wrong. There is only one path to the exit ramp for the United States; and it won't be found down the barrel of a gun.

The Second Dumbest Thing You Will Read About the War In Afghanistan Posted by Michael Cohen

This one comes from Mark Sedwill who is the Senior Civilian Representative with NATO in Afghanistan and the former British Ambassador to the country. According to Sedwill:

In Kabul and the other big cities actually there are very few of these bombs. The children are probably safer here than they would be in London, New York or Glasgow or many other cities. It's a very family-orientated society. So it is a little bit like a city of villages.

Truly the mind reels. It's really a wonder that Sedwill forces his own daughter to live in London, rather than her reside in a safer city like Kabul. When I was Kabul recently I couldn't travel anywhere but in an armored vehicle with body armor and I regularly saw police and military checkpoints dotting major roads. I'll be honest; I haven't seen many of those in New York recently (although in fairness I haven't been to London in a few years).

And as Justin Forsyth of Save the Children notes, "Afghanistan is the worst place on Earth to be born a child -- one in four children living there will die before they reach the age of 5." 

It seems these days that US and NATO officials are in a race to see who can make the dumbest, most incoherent argument about the situation in Afghanistan today. At least the Americans are smart enough to go off the record.

The Dumbest Thing You Will Read About the War In Afghanistan Posted by Michael Cohen

The week after the Tet Offensive, in February 1968, reporter Peter Arnett recorded a conversation with a US military officer in which he described the destruction of the provincial capital of Ben Tre as necessary because "We had to destroy the village in order to save it."

It was a quote that came to symbolize the degree to which the US war in Vietnam had become increasingly divorced from reality. Well it seems the war in Afghanistan has produced an anonymous quote that matches it.

"In another recent operation in the Zhari district, U.S. soldiers fired more than a dozen mine-clearing line charges in a day. Each one creates a clear path that is 100 yards long and wide enough for a truck. Anything that is in the way - trees, crops, huts - is demolished.

"Why do you have to blow up so many of our fields and homes?" a farmer from the Arghandab district asked a top NATO general at a recent community meeting.

Although military officials are apologetic in public, they maintain privately that the tactic has a benefit beyond the elimination of insurgent bombs. By making people travel to the district governor's office to submit a claim for damaged property, "in effect, you're connecting the government to the people," the senior officer said.

Yes, it seems a foolproof way to connect the Afghan people to their own government - blow up their houses and fields and then force them to seek redress. What could wrong there? This is not even to mention the fact that, let's say said Afghan civilian whose house has been destroyed by American bombs travels to see the district governor to demand compensation. Does anyone expect that said district governor will provide the sort of diligent and responsive public service that we are so used to here in the United States - or in one of the world's most corrupt country will demand nothing in return for this good deed except the knowledge that an ordinary Afghan feels increased confidence in their government and its public servants?

Jackson Diehl Meet Jon Kyl; Jon Kyl Meet Jackson Diehl Posted by Michael Cohen

Jackson Diehl has a particularly strange op-ed in the Washington Post today that complains President Obama's foreign policy is stuck in the past because he currently seems focused on two issues that were fairly prominent in 1983 - the Middle East Peace Process and international arms control (namely the New START treaty).

Let's dispense with the obvious point - this is a silly argument. Did Jackson Diehl miss that whole war going on in Afghanistan or that President Obama just traveled to the NATO Summit in Lisbon to discuss said war? For Diehl to argue that the Arab Israeli conflict or arms control are front and center in Obama's foreign policy. Honestly what planet is Diehl living on?

But this isn't even the worst part of Diehl's argument. This is:

That doesn't mean the START treaty is worthless. The Senate ought to approve it if only to ensure the continued monitoring of Russian missiles. But does it merit dispatching the vice president and the secretaries of state and defense to Capitol Hill for a desperate (and uphill) lobbying offensive? It's hard to see why.

"It's hard to see why?" Really? It's hard for Jackson Diehl to understand why the Administration has had to expend serious political capital to pass the START treaty? How about the fact that a treaty, which is fairly uncontroversial, is being stridently opposed by the Republican Party? Has Diehl just missed the whole drama where Republicans, led by Jon Kyl, have threatened to weaken US national security by failing to pass an agreement that is essential to improving US-Russian relations and critical to the President's non-proliferation agenda. For example, Diehl could read in his own paper about just this obstructionism: here and here. Or he could read here about how our European Allies are increasingly concerned that failure to pass START will harm efforts to put pressure on Iran or negotiate deals with Russia to curb shorter range missiles. 

You know, THAT might even make a good topic for an op-ed.

Honestly, it is so much to ask for the leading foreign policy columnist of the Washington Post to actually read his own paper?

 

Sunday Summary: The New START Debate Posted by Kelsey Hartigan

With the substantive debate over New START concluded some time ago, the only question left to answer is whether or not the Republican party will sacrifice American national security for cheap political points.

 

Mary Beth Sheridan, Washington Post:  An unusual split has opened between conservative Republicans and the American military leadership over the U.S.-Russia nuclear treaty, with current and former generals urging swift passage but politicians expressing far more skepticism.  Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has called the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) "essential to our future security." 

But five Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said in a recent report that New START was "a bad deal." They added that U.S. military leaders had made assumptions about the pact - including that Russia will honor it - that are "optimistic in the extreme."  Meanwhile, the conservative Heritage Foundation's grass-roots lobbying arm is targeting Republican senators with mailings warning that the treaty "benefits Russia's interests, not ours."

Retired Lt. Gen. Dirk Jameson, the former deputy commander of U.S. nuclear forces, said Friday that it was "quite puzzling to me why all of this support [for New START]… is ignored. I don't know what that says about the trust that people have and the confidence they have in our military."

 

Leslie H. Gelb, President Emeritus of the Council for Foreign Relations:  Cast aside any doubts. There seems to be nothing Republicans won’t do to deny President Obama a political success at home—even if it means jeopardizing U.S. national security.

 Senatorial Republicans would do well to remember that old and quaint phrase: The National Interest.

 

Getting Schooled on the Future Posted by David Shorr

If you need to replenish your optimism about America's future, then you need to talk to high school students. I spent last Wednesday with students from across Eastern Pennsylvania and Western Ohio, and it did me a world of good. The occasion was the 40th annual World Affairs Institute of the Pittsburgh World Affairs Council and Rotary International, with the theme of "Forecasting Global Trends: Your World in 2020 and Beyond." 

What a smart and impressive bunch. For instance, if you asked me to name a topic that would really captivate teenagers, even smart ones, I probably wouldn't pick global demographic trends. Now, all due credit to my fellow guest speaker Phillip Longman of New America Foundation, who shared a lot of fascinating findings and implications (many of them outlined in his recent Foreign Policy cover story). But even more credit to the students in the audience for their excellent questions; they were deeply engaged and curious.

 

Central and Eastern European Young Leaders Encouraged by New Relationship with United States Posted by The Editors

This guest post by Timothy Westmyer, M.A. candidate in Security Studies at Georgetown University.

The United States and Central and Eastern European (CCE) relationship is evolving into robust and strong partnership based on a common understanding of 21^st century security needs. Earlier this month, I had the privilege of seeing this forward thinking first hand as a participant of the Young Leaders Dialogue with America conference in Prague. However, I left the Czech Republic with an entirely more enthusiastic impression of how my trans-Atlantic colleagues saw President Barack Obama’s outreach to CEE than that expressed by a recent blog post by the Heritage Foundation.

During the conference, I moderated a panel discussion on the New START treaty and the role of Russia and Europe in the global nonproliferation agenda. As one would expect, the conversation turned to the Obama administration’s decision last year to shift toward a more mobile missile defense network in Europe. President George W. Bush spent the better part of his administration creating an artificial premise that the lynchpin of U.S.-CCE relations must be the construction of a land-based missile defense system with various elements stations in the Czech Republic and Poland. 

After a thorough review of these plans, it was clear that technological advancements and expected delays in the Bush administration version made the decision to revamp the missile defense system the right choice for U.S. and European security. The previous system had not yet even begun its initial testing phases and would have left Bulgaria and Romania unprotected, a precarious situation that did not sit well with my colleagues from those countries. The Obama missile defense platform on the other hand, focused on the most pressing threat of short-and medium-range ballistic missiles and could be deployed to protect all of Europe by approximately 2018. That is why NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen characterized this move as "a positive first step." 

Even al-Qaeda's Politics Are Local Posted by Eric Martin

Gregory Johnsen, who is reliably informative on all-things-Yemen, takes issue with an NPR story on the al-Qaeda branch based in Yemen (AQAP).  The thrust of the NPR piece is that AQAP has a particular anti-American tilt due to the fact that many of its senior leaders, or their siblings, have spent time imprisoned at the Guantanamo Bay facility.

After correcting the article's errors in terms of properly identifying AQAP's senior leaders (many of whom have no such Gitmo connection), Johnsen makes several very salient points regarding the objectives and outlook of the organization itself: 

AQAP has done much more in the past year besides launching two attacks at the US.

Of course those two attacks have gained the organization a great deal of press in the west, but are they really the organization's raison d'etre?

The answer, at least in my opinion, is a strong no. AQAP does want to attack the west - US and Europe as well - but it is also very much focused on the local scene, and this is what makes them so dangerous. In their Arabic material, AQAP spends much, much more time attacking President Salih and the Saudi royal family than they do the US.

They have launched many more attacks against Saudi and Yemeni government than they have against the US - these just tend not to get the press in the US that they do in the Middle East. In fact, I would say (again based on my reading of AQAP's materials in Arabic) that the number one enemy of AQAP is Muhammad bin Nayyif, Saudi Arabia's Deputy Minister of the Interior and the kingdom's counterterrorism chief.

The Ronald Reagan "Smackdown" Posted by Kelsey Hartigan

In case you missed it, Rachel Maddow on New START, The Party of No and the aburdity of what's happening right now in the U.S. Senate.   

Trust, but verify. Trust, but verify. That idea, that approach not only reduced the number of nuclear weapons that we had pointing at each other on hair trigger alerts, it reduced that number by about 17,000 over the past 40 years. It did that through essentially political consensus in washington. When these kinds of treaties that we have with russia get voted on in the senate, they pass by margins like 93-6, by margins like 95-0. but this year, right now in washington, things are different.

This is the year that the republican plan on air pollution, that's called cap and trade became something that republicans are now against. This is the year that the republican plan is an individual mandate of health insurance became something that the republicans are against. This is the year that the republican plan for a bipartisan deficit commission became something the republicans are now against. This year in washington, under this president, there is no idea that is too republican for republicans to be against it. If they think that being against it will hurt barack obama.

 

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

 

Has the conservative movement STARTed eating its own? Posted by The Editors

With strong military and bipartisan support, Dick Lugar and a team of neocon intellectuals came out swinging today – against their own party. 

"At the moment, the Republican caucus is tied up in a situation where people don't want to make choices," Lugar told reporters in the hallway of the Capitol building Wednesday.

"I'm advising that the treaty should come on the floor so people will have to vote aye or nay [even if there's no deal]," he said. "I think when it finally comes down to it, we have sufficient number or senators who do have a sense of our national security. This is the time, this is the priority. Do it."

"There are still thousands of missiles out there. You better get that through your heads," he said, directing his comments to members of his own party.

This move reminded us of a zombie football movie.  Lugar is the star player on Team Ratify, backed by strong players from the neocon bench --  Max Boot and Bob Kagan.

On the other side, angry coach Heritage Foundation is yelling from the sidelines. Neocons John Yoo and John Bolton are the sassy cheerleaders, rooting on Father of the Fringe Jim DeMint and Bushie Paula Desutter as they throw blocks for Jon Kyl, who just went from being the QB to the football. 

Team Ratify has the entire US military on its side -- and will emerge victorious, but not without a few missing limbs come the next fight.  We're ready for the sequel: Defense Spending: GOP Zombies' Revenge.

Brought to you by Heather Hurlburt, Sara DuBois and Kelsey Hartigan.

How the junior senator from AZ just ensured the Senate will ratify New START Posted by Kelsey Hartigan

In a failed attempt to kick the can further down the road and delay ratification of the New START Treaty, Sen. Kyl just ensured that New START will be ratified during the lame duck session of the 111th Congress.  Kyl’s stunt yesterday pissed off and mobilized a lot of people, namely, Harry Reid. 

Reid just issued a biting statement, confirming that “the Senate will be in session after Thanksgiving and will have time to consider and ratify” New START.  Frankly, absent Kyl's cheap, political stunt, there might not have been as much friendly pressure on Reid to find the floor time.  As Max Bergmann wrote this morning, Kyl actually managed to make himself less relevant-- shifting the attention instead, to Harry Reid and the White House.  Well, here's Reid's answer:

“It is vitally important to America’s national security for the Senate to ratify the new START treaty before Congress adjourns this year.  We need our inspectors back on the ground and the critical information they can provide about Russia’s nuclear capabilities.  Ratification of this treaty would accomplish both.

“This treaty has strong bipartisan consensus in the Senate.  It has been endorsed by the U.S. military, our diplomatic leadership, and scores of former Republican and Democratic national security officials.  So I am puzzled by Senator Kyl’s announcement that he is not prepared to move forward on the new START treaty. 

“The Administration has made it clear it is prepared to work with all Senators to resolve any outstanding concerns, and I appreciate in particular their efforts to reach out to Senator Kyl.   I assure Senator Kyl and others concerned about the fate of this treaty that the Senate will be in session after Thanksgiving and will have time to consider and ratify it.

Containment 2.0 Posted by Eric Martin

Joshua Foust's piece on the increasingly public wrangling over the future of Afghanistan policy ahead of the upcoming review this December is as witty as it is insightful.  He tells of competing camps within the national security establishment jockeying  to shape perceptions and public opinion in order to bend the arc of Afghanistan policy toward their respective desired policy imperatives: with some pushing to prolong the conflict indefinitely, while others stress the need to commence the disengagement/withdrawal process.

Despite this apparent tension, or maybe because of it, it is certainly possible that the Obama administration, again, decides upon a little from column A and a little from column B.

Nevertheless, against this contested backdrop, Obama is poised to make several key replacements of some of his most senior national security personnel including, not least, Robert Gates and Admiral Michael Mullen.  With these parallel processes unfolding in near unison, the battle for control of Afghan policy might serve as an indication of which direction the Obama administration foreign policy will tack in the larger sense.  Or at least, it could. 

In that sense, Patrick Porter's call for a shift to a newly conceived "containment" policy vis-a-vis al-Qaeda is well timed to address both the micro- and macrocosm of Obama's foreign policy crossroads: 

At its best, it is a practical idea. It holds that, without exhausting or overextending ourselves, we can bound a threat and curtail its ability to operate, then wait patiently for it to wither into an irrelevance or nuisance. It works well with a self-defeating enemy, be it the Soviet Union with its doomed Marxist-Leninist system and imperial overstretch, or al-Qaida, a movement that habitually alienates the very Muslims it claims to represent. Containment is not only about outlasting the enemy, but about keeping costs down and avoiding self-defeating behaviour. [...]

Steve Benen skewers Kyl on START Posted by Jacob Stokes

Steve Benen at Political Animal with some righteous rage for Sen. Kyl on his moving the goalposts on START (bold is mine):

The issues that Kyl describes as "unresolved" have, in fact, been resolved -- leading administration officials have met with Kyl privately, and mapped out in detail how they're prepared to do exactly what he wants them to do. Even Jon Kyl, with his limited intellect, should be able to understand when someone says "yes" to his demands.

Under the circumstances, it appears that Kyl is opposing the treaty simply because he can. By all indications, Kyl simply cares more about defeating a key priority for President Obama than advancing the nation's interests. I wish that weren't true, but I'm hard pressed to come to any other conclusion.

Benen goes on to say:

The administration reached out to Kyl in good faith, and gave him what he wanted. Kyl's response isn't just a betrayal of the White House; it's a betrayal of all of our interests. It's as shameful a moment for Kyl as at any point in his career -- and he doesn't even realize it.

The last line is the only place where I'd take issue with Steve's analysis. Kyl might not think his actions are shameful, but he's way too savvy to not know exactly what he's doing with regard to the merits of the treaty and the politics. And that makes Kyl's actions even more disgraceful.

What if Muslims don't want to become "liberals"? Posted by Shadi Hamid

It's easy to make fun of those who overhype the supposedly impending imposition of sharia law within the United States. The Muslims are not taking over, at least not anytime soon. There’s, um, like, 1 percent of us in the United States. At the same time, though, we shouldn’t pretend that there aren’t tensions or tradeoffs. There are. There was the recent case of Muslim students asking for female-only swim hours at the George Washington swimming pool. Not the end of the world. But my friend Evan Hill raised concerns about the precedent and said so on twitter. What ensued was an interesting foray into the tensions, both real and imagined, between the practice of Islam and the norms of an ostensibly secular society (The tensions between freedom, liberalism, and democracy is a challenging one to have over twitter).

What if there was a Muslim-majority district in the US and Muslims asked that the local beach be closed off for a couple hours every week to allow observant Muslim women to swim? There are other hypotheticals, most of them unlikely, but some perhaps plausible. All other things being equal, Muslims seem somewhat different than Christians and Jews. At this point in time, Muslims, for a complex set of reasons, seem to be somewhat immune to the sort of secularization that so many Western liberals (and, oddly, Christian conservatives) seem to want for them.

In Europe, there will come a time when cities like Berlin become plurality or majority Muslim. Well, then, what if you have a majority in the local council of a German town who want to restrict alcohol licensing for religious reasons? These tensions are more evident in Muslim-majority countries, where we seem unable to consistently support democracy, precisely out of fear that more democracy will bring with it less liberalism (and more opposition to American foreign policy). This might be a trite way of putting it, but what if Muslims don’t want to become “liberals”?

I’ve always felt that this was the best definition of a “democrats” (small-d) – those willing to support democratic elections even, or particularly, when they’re sure people they really, really don’t like will win. At least as far as foreign policy is concerned, this is a test that many – too many – Americans have failed. 

Five Reasons To Take Hamid Karzai's Latest Rant Seriously Posted by Michael Cohen

Over at the Swampland Blog, occasional international travel partner, former Brooklyn hipster and all-around good egg Michael Crowley has raised an excellent point about my take on the latest Karzai/Petraeus dust-up:

Though genuinely difficult in all sorts of ways, Karzai has always played something of a two-step, publicly bashing American military tactics in ways that are popular with his people--he called for an end to U.S. air strikes more than a year ago--while privately maintaining good relations with our military leaders. 

So it may be that Karzai is playing to his base, so to speak. (The same may be true of his unrealistic demand that all foreign contractors leave the country, under a deadline that he has already extended.) Because I find it hard to believe that the Afghan leader really wants the bulk of America's forces out of his country anytime soon. Protected only by his own government's security forces, Karzai's days would be numbered. For the moment, Karzai needs us as much as we need him.

This is a pretty compelling point - and Crowley might be right here - but I think there are several other factors to consider and this gives me an opportunity to flesh out some of the arguments that I groggily made yesterday.

1) Don't Mess With My Junk . . .

I too find it hard to believe that Karzai wants American troops to leave the country anytime soon; after all I'm sure he's seen the pictures of a murdered Najibullah with his you-know-what no more and would prefer to avoid that fate.

But if you read Karzai's comments closely he's not lobbying for US troops to leave; instead he seems to be suggesting that the large US military footprint - and the newly aggressive US military approach - needs to be reduced. That doesn't seem like an unreasonable argument - and I'm at a complete loss as to why that wouldn't be acceptable to an overwhelming majority of Americans, including the President of the United States. Seriously, the Afghan President wants to reduce the number of US troops in Afghanistan . . . where do I sign on the dotted line for that one?

It's the economy, stupid: AfPak edition Posted by Jacob Stokes

Reading CFR’s new task force report on “U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan,” I couldn’t help but notice how much emphasis was (rightfully) put on the economic aspects of a regional strategy. I’ve pulled three portions from the report below that illustrate essential parts of that strategy that are missing right now. All of these things should play into a comprehensive strategy for security for the region; none of them get talked about enough. (Instead, they’re often lost in the daily melee about whose metrics on insurgent momentum you believe.)

On the need for growth and jobs to prevent backsliding among militants:

Afghanistan lacks the economic growth that would permit it to sustain government revenues and reduce the appeals of illicit activities, like narcotics and smuggling. (26)

Unless Afghan and international businesspeople take a long-term interest in Afghanistan, Kabul will never expand its revenue stream, and there will never be enough jobs for ex-militia members. In that case, whatever near-term stability the surge might deliver would soon be washed away by renewed violence. (63)

On the need to build an ANSF that can be maintained with a combination of Afghan government revenue and realistic (read: low) amounts of funding that are likely to come from Congress and the international community down the road (read again: once Americans aren’t fighting and dying there):

So far, the United States has spent more than $26 billion to build the ANSF, and current plans would require $6 billion per year through 2015. (41)

Much Sensible Talk on Iran Nuke Talks Posted by David Shorr

In the run-up to the resumption of P5+1 nuclear negotiations with Iran, Ray Takeyh, Meir Javedanfar, and Trita Parsi and Reza Marashi (dunno what I'd do without RealClearWorld) have offered sound advice to the Obama administration as well as the Republican opposition.

The message to Republicans comes from Javedanfar, an Iranian-Israeli strategic analyst based in Tel Aviv, writing in The Diplomat. He sees the effort to keep Iran from getting the bomb as a quintessentially bipartisan issue and says Republicans should support President Obama's policy. I start with Javedanfar not just because he throws down a gauntlet for supporting the right policy rather than seeking partisan advantage -- though that has an undeniable appeal -- but because he pinpoints the essence of the policy. Warning Republicans not to reject or dismiss Iran's interest in resumed talks, he explains:

Why? Not because the talks are likely to produce any sudden change in heart on the part of the regime. Quite the contrary—with each offer of talks, and each conference held, the Iranian government has done a better and better job of convincing the West and the international community that it isn’t willing to undertake meaningful compromise. Obama, on the other hand, has been.

More love, money pour in for New START Posted by Kelsey Hartigan

Over the weekend, President Obama said that prompt Senate ratification of New START is a "top priority" of his administration.  Last Friday, Admiral Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a group at Stanford University, "I believe, and the rest of the military leadership in this country believes, that this treaty is essential to our future security," and that "I hope the Senate will ratify it quickly."

Today, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Senators to ratify New START “before this session of Congress ends,” saying, “Our national security depends on it.”

The momentum has clearly carried over to the Hill.  While the treaty is unlikely to come to the floor before Thanksgiving, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) said last week during a conference call that Sen. Reid (D-NV), the Senate Majority Leader, is committed to finding the floor time.  “I’ve had a conversation with Sen. Reid and I believe he wants to get this done,” Sen. Kerry stated.  Jim Manley, a spokesman for Reid further confirmed, “Now that the election is over, hopefully the White House and Senate Republicans can reach an agreement that will allow us to ratify the treaty by the end of the year,” Manley said.

Let's Just Make Afghanistan the 51st State and Call It a Day Posted by Michael Cohen

Last week, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai gave another in his series of "helpful" and instructive interviews criticizing the current US military strategy in Afghanistan. Every time he does this it's only further evidence of the disconnect between the Afghan government and the United States on long-term objectives in Afghanistan.

But today's article in the Washington Post recounting General David Petraeus's reaction to Karzai's words, is simply stupefying:

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the coalition military commander in Afghanistan, warned Afghan officials Sunday that President Hamid Karzai's latest public criticism of U.S. strategy threatens to seriously undermine progress in the war and risks making Petraeus's own position "untenable," according to Afghan and U.S. officials.

Officials said Petraeus expressed "astonishment and disappointment" with Karzai's call, in a Saturday interview with The Washington Post, to "reduce military operations" and end U.S. Special Operations raids in southern Afghanistan that coalition officials said have killed or captured hundreds of Taliban commanders in recent months.

In a meeting Sunday morning with Ashraf Ghani, who leads the Afghan government's planning on transition, Petraeus made what several officials described as "hypothetical" references to an inability to continue U.S. operations in the face of Karzai's remarks.

Officials discounted early reports Sunday that Petraeus had threatened to resign. But "for [Karzai] to go this way, and at that particular stage, is really undermining [Petraeus's] endeavors," one foreign diplomat in Kabul said

Forgive for me asking, but who exactly is in charge in Afghanistan - the President of the country or the commander of US and NATO forces? Maybe we should change General Petraeus's name to Proconsul Petraeus?

Seriously, why go through the exercise of having an election, or pretending that Afghanistan is a democracy or maintaining the fiction that somehow the Afghan government is in charge of or even contributing to the war being fought in its name? What you have Petraeus saying here is basically that when it comes to determining Afghanistan's future, the judgment of David Petraeus should trump that of Hamid Karzai.

Repeating the Same Mistakes in Kandahar Posted by Eric Martin

Anand Gopal has recently authored an insightful report on the history of the of the Afghanistan War as it played out in the province of Kandahar, where a significant portion of the Taliban's senior leadership hails from (see, also, this excerpt of Gopal's full report).  In particular, Gopal examines the failure to seize the opportunities that arose immediately after the toppling of the Taliban government, when many Taliban leaders were willing to abandon the fight, accept the Karzai government and withdraw from political life.

Rather than taking advantage of those fortuitous conditions and granting clemency, the Karzai administration, the local warlords and allies that replaced local Taliban leadership and US forces instead harassed, persecuted, targeted and alienated former Taliban officials, forcing many to flee to Pakistan in fear of their lives, giving others impetus to fight and generally breathing life into an insurgency that, in its current form, could have been largely avoided.  From the summary of Gopal's piece:

The Taliban’s resurgence in Kandahar post-2001 was not inevitable or preordained. The Taliban—from senior leadership levels down to the rank and file—by and large surrendered to the new government and retired to their homes. But in the early years after 2001, there was a lack of a genuine, broad-based reconciliation process in which the Taliban leadership would be allowed to surrender in exchange for amnesty and protection from persecution. Rather, foreign forces and their proxies pursued an unrelenting drive against former regime members, driving many of them to flee to Pakistan and launch an insurgency.

...The weakness of the judiciary and police forced many to turn to the Taliban’s provision of law and order, while widespread torture and abuse at the hands of pro-government strongmen eroded government support. At the same time, the heavy-handed tactics of U.S. forces turned many against the foreign presence.

While Everyone's Focused on China, What About Germany? Posted by David Shorr

SEOUL-- My nomination for underplayed story of the G-20 is Germany's posture. Embedded in German Chancellor Angela Merkel's stance on the hot-button issues of currency exchange rates and fiscal deficits is a veiled but potentially more significant deflection of -- if not defection from -- one of the G-20's major agenda items. 

At the Pittsburgh summit a year ago, the G-20 leaders issued their "framework for strong, sustainable and balanced growth." Vague sounding jargon for a really important issue. The basic idea is that when some major economies are selling things rather than buying, and others are buying rather than selling, the buyers will eventually reach there limit, and the global economy will go haywire. (The Council on Foreign Relations has a good report explaining the issue, but apparently doesn't let you download a PDF.) This is why President Obama talks about the global economy mustn't rely on the American consumer, whose spending accounts for two-thirds of our economy. In the Pittsburgh framework, G-20 leaders acknowledged this problem and pledged to rebalance -- which basically means increasing domestic consumption in the export-oriented economies, the economies that sell a lot and don't buy much. Yet the major struggle for the G-20 has been to move from defining the problem to a framework that nudges countries to start actually rebalancing, and in a few hours we'll see what this summit came up with. 

Germany is one of those countries that sells stuff rather than buying. Here's the point about Chancellor Merkel's statements: she talks a lot about Germany's exports as a a success of their competitiveness and not very much about needing Germans to buy more. As with China, Germany is quite happy to chug along with export-led growth, thankyouverymuch. This begs the question -- if Americans become less profligate (and households have already shown they can reduce consumer debt -- then who will pick up consumer demand where we left off? 

QE 2 and the G-2 Posted by David Shorr

Seoul--  I've come to Seoul for the G-20 summit, where the aim is to find a modus vivendi between the major exporting and consuming economies, but all the talk is about currency wars. In particular, Fed Chairman Bernanke's injection of hundreds of billions into the US economy ("quantitative easing" or "QE2" in wonkspeak) has drawn charges that Washington is abusing its monetary advantage. One interesting angle on the debate is to view it within varying concepts of the US-China relationship. How you view the so-called "G-2" of course casts the situation in a different light. Are the United States and China geopolitical rivals, business partners, or leading lights of the community of nations?

Strategic Rivals. The hard-core nationalist perspective would say the heck with China's distaste for US policy (or anyone else's, for that matter). If it's good for us and bad for them, then good. And if they don't like it, they can...

What I always wonder, with respect to the unilateralist view, is whether interdependence or international credibility ever factor into the equation. Can things that are bad for others become bad for us, even if they seemed good for us at the outset? Does America ever need to base its policy on a need to replenish its moral authority or do its bit for the global common good?

Business Partners. China's accumulation of treasury bonds is sometimes portrayed as classic financing by a merchant of its customer. It's just like J.C. Penney (did they give us a 10% discount on our initial purchases when we signed up for an account?). Or you can look at it like an investment. In this light, the Fed's move threatens not only to weaken the dollar and strengthen the Chinese yuan, it also reduces the value of all the debt / investment China has built up. One can imagine China saying, "what are doing to us here; you're killing us. Is this any way to treat an investor?"

Then there is the third image of the G-2, a personal favorite...

Dangerous and Corrosive Posted by Kelsey Hartigan

Last Friday, a memo about New START Treaty was circulated to Republican Senate offices.  The memo, which ignored the fact that New START has the unanimous support of America’s military leadership and wide bipartisan support, declared that it was “NOT time for the Senate to vote” on New START.  Filled with skepticism, this memo is indicative of a “very dangerous and corrosive” trend, which Ambassador Richard Burt, chief negotiator of START 1 under George HW Bush, identified yesterday:  the real problem isn’t the treaty; it’s that some of these Republicans just don’t trust the commander in chief.

Speaking at the ACA/ Heinrich Böll event yesterday, Ambassador Burt explained:

But there is a deeper and more difficult problem here… As people describe it to me, Kyl is part of a number of Republican members of the Senate that are more worried about Obama.  And this almost kind of reminds you of some of the rhetoric you’ve heard over the last two years. And the argument is this:

Yes the treaty has some problems, but they’re not big problems, and under normal circumstances we could support it.  But you know this guy Obama has talked about eliminating all nuclear weapons. And I don’t know if we could support a treaty when Barack Obama is president.  ‘Cuz we don’t know where he is going in the long term on nuclear arms control.

And that’s a tough one it seems to me.  Because what you’re really saying there is you’re not so much interested in the details of the treaty— what it constrains, it doesn’t constrain.  You don’t trust the commander in chief.  And that is sort of the argument you’re beginning to hear.  And what I’m worried about is if that argument gets traction, particularly if the treaty isn’t ratified in a lame duck session, I think some of the new Republicans who are coming into the Senate could buy into that argument—that it’s not the treaty. It’s the president. 

And that I think would be very dangerous and very corrosive. 
[Bold face mine.]

 

Not a Cost Posted by James Lamond

Yesterday, the Sunday shows previewed another clip from tonight's Matt Lauer interview with President Bush on his memoir, Decision Points.  Lauer reads an excerpt from the book about 9/11, the president's commitment to preventing another attack, and the "costs" of security:

LAUER: “I can never forget what happened to America that day. I would pour my heart and soul into protecting this country, whatever it took.”

BUSH: Yeah.

LAUER: It took thousands of lives, American lives, billions of dollars; you could say it took Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib…

BUSH: Yeah.

LAUER: And government eavesdropping and waterboarding. Did it take too much?

BUSH: We didn’t have an attack. 3000 people died on September the 11th and I vowed that I would do my duty to protect the American people and uhm…they didn’t get hit again.

The problem here is that, Lauer is presenting the question as if it is Guantanamo Abu Ghraib, and the Iraq War were unfortunate and tragic, but that they were simply the "costs" of protecting America from a future attack.  In the interview, Bush's doubled down on this concept, clearly stating:

"I knew that an interrogation program this sensitive and controversial would one day become public... When it did, we would open ourselves up to criticism that America had compromised its moral values. I would have preferred that we get the information another way. But the choice between security and values was real."

Time for Foreign Policy to Get Small Posted by David Shorr

Time to downsize our foreign policy aims, apparently. But wait, Greg Scoblete sees a problematic contradiction with the Obama administration's core principles:

Unfortunately, the administration can't "go small" (in Miller's words) if it continues to endorse the idea that only America stands between an orderly world and Hobbesian chaos.

Greg isn't so off-base about the premises of the current FP approach. I couldn't help noticing, though, the undertone of American leadership as self-flattery (nothing gets by me). So what about this threat of chaos? Overdramatic fantasy? Is all this talk about a "just and sustainable international order" really just national security strategy-speak for appointing ourselves as global saviors?

I don't think so. Check my logic here:

1. The biggest items on the agenda -- disequilibrium in the global economy, climate change, and nuclear proliferation -- are on a negative trend line, stemming directly for a shortfall in international cooperation.
2. These items are high on the agenda because the stakes are high and the consequences dire.