Foreign Policy Advisory Index
by The National Interest
02.05.2010
In the Foreign Policy Advisory Index, The National Interest online tracks top links and new info on Barack Obama's foreign-policy team.
Friday, February 5
Some of Obama’s advisers are going to miss out on the big DC storm this weekend. Maybe they’ll get some snow in Germany. The Munich Security Conference kicks off today with National Security Adviser James Jones heading up the U.S. delegation. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be sitting this one out. The conference is supposed to focus on transatlantic security, as it traditionally does, but horizons are broadening this year, with delegates touching on the themes of climate change and energy security. There has also been a push to include Asia in the fold. Tellingly, the opening address will be given by China’s foreign minister.
Gates didn’t totally forget out transatlantic allies. He said that the United States will be selling equipment to NATO’s forces in Afghanistan that will help protect them against roadside bombs. The vehicles will be coming from Iraq, where they’re no longer needed by U.S. troops.
Yesterday, an appeals court in Iraq decided to allow the blacklisted accused Baath Party candidates to run in March’s parliamentary elections. The United States lauded the court for its decision. Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki responded by flexing his muscles bit. He said the government wasn’t necessarily bound by the court’s decision and that he called Parliament to emergency session to discuss the matter. He also made it clear that Baghdad isn’t going to bow to pressure from U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill when it comes to the ban. And the clock continues to tick.
Further good news on the strategic-arms front. The United States is still optimistic about finishing up negotiations “fairly quickly.” State Department spokesman PJ Crowley declined to impose any timelines on the completion of talks.
Thursday, February 4
Over the weekend Washington explained that it plans to beef up its missile defenses in the Gulf by doing things like installing upgraded Patriot missiles and increasing the amount of Navy ships capable of shooting down missiles. This has made Iran very angry. And while Iran has gone on the verbal attack, Obama administration officials, like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, are busy defending the choice. Bahrain’s foreign minister, who was meeting with Clinton yesterday, also said that the buildup wasn’t meant to provoke Tehran. Meanwhile, General David Petraeus struck a more cautious tone. He said that a strike could potentially be “used to play to nationalist tendencies” and actually strengthen the government and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which has already seen its role amplified after the recent elections. His statement comes amid ongoing speculation that Israel may attempt a strike on Iran.
George Mitchell must be breathing a sigh of relief. At long last, it looks like peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians will start up again. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that he thinks talks will begin very soon: “I have reasons to believe, realistically, that we will resume the peace process with the Palestinians, without prior conditions, in the coming weeks.” Details are hard to come by, but both sides seem to have responded favorably to Mitchell’s most recent proposals, which were supposed to “create an atmosphere” favorable to the restart of negotiations.
Wednesday, February 3
As predicted, Robert Gates and Mike Mullen both told Congress yesterday that it’s time to end the military’s don’t ask, don’t tell policy. Gates got behind Obama, saying “I fully support the president's decision,” while Mullen struck a personal note: “For me, personally, it comes down to integrity—theirs as individuals and ours as an institution.” He explained further, “I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.” Gates has the Pentagon conducting a yearlong study into revamping the policy but is open to more short-term fixes to make the ban more tolerable. In the end of course change it comes down to Congress.
Moving to another topic, Mullen also told Congress it should approve the $33 billion supplemental President Obama wants for the war in Afghanistan. Without the money, Mullen says the strategy for heading off the growing influence of the Taliban won’t work.
And commander of forces in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, was in Turkey yesterday to talk about Kurdish rebels. He’s hoping Washington can work with Ankara and Baghdad to help do away with PKK violence. The group uses northern Iraq as a base to launch many of its attacks into Turkey, something which Ankara is naturally unhappy about.
Washington and Moscow have made headway in negotiating a new nuclear-arms-reduction treaty. The two sides have managed to address all of the important issues on the table, and though “there may be some finessing and fine-tuning,” at least an “agreement in principle” has been reached. President Obama even had a chat with Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev last week during which they approved the rough draft. National Security Adviser Jim Jones and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, deserve much of the credit for the agreement. According to the White House, the two really got things going when they visited Moscow a couple weeks a go to work on verification and inspection sticking points. We’ll see if the devil ends up being in the details.
George Mitchell is getting help from an odd place. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi wrote a letter to the Haaretz newspaper in Israel ahead of his visit to the country. He said that Israel’s settlement policy is “an obstacle to peace.” Let’s see if Berlusconi has the magic words to jumpstart the gridlocked peace process. If Haaretz’s coverage of the letter is any indication, Berlusconi probably won’t make that much of a difference.
Tuesday, February 2
Parliamentary elections in Iraq are a little over a month away, and U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill is as usual hard at work. Seems Hill is most worried about the aftermath of the vote—making sure that everyone accepts the vote and that the losers calmly accept their defeat. As Hill put it: “What will help determine whether these elections are successful or not is not the behavior of the winners, but rather how the losers accept the elections.” That’s not to say the lead-up to the vote has been or will be a cakewalk. Iraqi political leaders are still fighting about 450 candidates accused of being loyal to the Baath Party of Saddam Hussein. The candidates have been barred from participating in the vote. Hill thinks the government will clarify why each person was banned, which could help smooth things over a bit. But the ballot purge could lead to disputes about the election results, which will delay things even longer (the vote has already been delayed because the government couldn’t get its act together in time for a January election). And that could lead to insurgent violence and so on and so forth.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen will head to the Hill today to testify before a Senate committee about the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Their trip to the Hill comes after President Obama announced in his State of the Union address that he’d “work with Congress” to get rid of the ban on gay Americans in the military: “This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are. It’s the right thing to do.” Mullen and Gates will outline their plans for ending the policy if it were repealed by Congress and announce an internal review about the Pentagon of the logistics of repealing the ban. Gates thinks Congress should move slowly, but it’s unclear whether Congress would support overturning don’t ask, don’t tell at all.
Meanwhile, Gates is trying to calm China down. Beijing is very angry about Washington’s $6.4 billion arms package for Taiwan. According to a U.S. missile defense review, China’s growing military might and the increase in the number of Chinese missiles aimed at Taiwan is of concern. Gates hopes the current “downturn” in U.S.-China relations will only be a temporary one.
Monday, February 1
For months the Beltway has been abuzz trying to figure out exactly what the new Quadrennial Defense Review will say, and today’s the day the report will finally be released. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will present the QDR to the world today. Thanks to a draft released in December, everyone has already figured out that the document will call for a restructuring of the U.S. military to face more modern threats, including buying more drones. But we’ll also be focusing on the defense of cyberspace and the threat of antisatellite weapons alongside the more traditional worries about terrorist groups and nuclear-weapons proliferation. President Obama also sent a $3.8 trillion budget to Congress today for review.
Discussions about what to do with Iran are pushing forward. While the P5 and Germany talk about sanctions, Israel and the United States are keeping in close communication about Tehran. According to National Security Adviser James Jones, “we’re working very closely with” Israel to form Iran policy. Jones also responded that “our Israeli partners are very responsible” when he was asked during an interview whether Israel would try to use military force to put a halt to Iran’s nuclear-weapons program. On Friday, Jones also surmised that Iran would potentially try to distract the international community from its nuclear program by stirring up proxy trouble, encouraging its surrogates Hezbollah and Hamas to launch attacks on Israel. As Jones said, “as pressure on the regime in Tehran builds over its nuclear program, there is a heightened risk of further attacks against Israel.”
Friday, January 29
Hillary Clinton seems pleased about her recent chat with China’s foreign minister, Yang Jiechi. She broached the topic of Google and Internet censorship with her counterpart yesterday, and says that the two “had a very positive exchange.” Not that that means they got anything done. The secretary of state said that they agreed to “continue this conversation in the context of our ongoing dialogue.”
And what’s this? China wants to help with Iran too? Though she didn’t offer up any specifics, Clinton said Beijing is “very much engaged” with the issue of punishments for Iran. White House spokesman Bill Burton also took on Tehran for its execution of two Iranians who were involved with the postelection protests. Clinton, meanwhile, is in Paris today to deliver a speech on European security.
The head of policy planning for Colin Powell and almost-Obama-team-member Richard Haass has gotten people talking about our approach to Iran. In Newsweek piece, Haass says he didn’t agree with Bush’s approach to regime change and preferred Obama’s engagement approach. Until now. He’s had enough, thinks the nuclear talks won’t do anything and says the time has come for a nonviolent effort to bring the regime down, including tough sanctions and condemnations of Iran’s human-rights abuses.
Thursday, January 28
Seems like Hillary Clinton is intent on solving all of the world’s problems in one visit to London. On top of meetings about Yemen and Afghanistan and chatting with China about its Internet-freedom issues, the secretary of state has been talking to some of her counterparts about Iran. After the meetings on Yemen yesterday, Clinton told the press that Washington believes “there is a growing understanding in the international community that Iran should face consequences for its defiance of international obligations.” Clinton has been trying to convince foreign ministers from all over—Germany, France, Britain, Russia, China, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia—to consider tougher sanctions on Iran. China has been the main holdout. We’ll soon know how her attempt to reprimand Beijing about transparency while persuading them to help with Iran works out.
The UN has decided on a replacement for Kai Eide. Staffan di Mistura will take over as Ban Ki-moon’s envoy to Afghanistan on March 1. The Obama administration’s special envoy to the region Richard Holbrooke is quite happy with the choice, and apparently General David Petraeus is also a big fan. Holbrooke is hopeful that di Mistura’s appointment, and the upcoming appointments of a NATO civil-military coordinator and an EU coordinator will make the whole operation run a bit more smoothly, and nicely complement General Stanley McChrystal’s beefed up military effort.
On other military fronts, Yemen is getting a hand from U.S. Special Forces, the CIA and the NSA. We’re providing the Yemeni government with lots of covert information, like satellite imagery and intercepted communications, to help them take on al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. General Petraeus already mentioned that Yemen would get double the amount of military assistance originally allocated for the country, but looks like there will be more assistance on top of that. And yesterday, al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for Monday’s suicide bombings in Baghdad. General Ray Odierno had mentioned to the press on Tuesday that it looked like an al-Qaeda-run operation. The number of attacks launched by al-Qaeda in Iraq might not be that great, but Odierno noted that might just be a change in tactics—“they are trying to get the most attention they can, do the most damage they can so that people question the government.”
Wednesday, January 27
Tonight’s the big night. President Obama will deliver his very first State of the Union address, and those close to him are predicting he will take responsibility for the slowly progressing change of course. But don’t expect him to cave in to criticism and completely ditch his agenda. The president spent yesterday meeting with top advisers and trying to fine-tune his speech.
At least one adviser won’t be able to witness the speech live and in person, other than the one not in attendance for security reasons of course. Hillary Clinton is in London for a meeting today on Yemen and one tomorrow on Afghanistan. Ok, so that’s a good excuse to miss the boss’s big night. The president and the staffs of the State Department and the National Security Council all agreed that the secretary of state should be at the meetings.
Clinton’s not going to waste her time away from home. She’ll also meet with the Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi tomorrow to turn the Internet-freedom screws a bit. She probably won’t mention Google by name, but the censorship and transparency issues its ongoing scuttle with China have dredged up won’t be avoided.
And the fallout from the release of U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry’s cables was swift in coming. Hamid Karzai had some words of his own for Eikenberry. The Afghan president, at a regional meeting in Turkey, reminded everyone that “Afghanistan is on the frontline of the war on terror.” And fighting on those frontlines has meant the country has suffered “massive casualties.” And, getting in a jab, he added that “If partnership means submission to the American will, then, of course, it’s not going to be the case.” But if it actually “means cooperation between two sovereign countries” then Afghanistan is in. What a great start to tomorrow’s conference.
Tuesday, January 26
A few months ago, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry made headlines because of some cables he penned about the leadership in Kabul, namely Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s inadequacies. Well, he’s back on the front page because the New York Times has managed to get a hold of the full text of the cables. Eikenberry certainly doesn’t mince his words, writing that Karzai “continues to shun responsibility for any sovereign burden, whether defense, governance or development. He and much of his circle do not want the U.S. to leave and are only too happy to see us invest further.” Eikenberry rebuts General Stanley McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy, to put it mildly, outlining the not-so-rosy risks that come along with sending more troops into the country, like the skyrocketing financial costs of the new deployment and the potential to make the Karzai government depend too much on American firepower. He also doubts the ability of Afghanistan’s own military and police force to take over once Americans depart in addition to Karzai’s ruling abilities.
Yet the troop increases stay on course. Germany has pledged an additional 500 troops to help train Afghan forces and protect civilians. U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke said the contribution is a “vital, indispensable part” of the fight.
And the calls for Pakistan’s help continue. Yesterday James Jones called on Pakistan to pick up the pace a bit, saying the United States would do everything it could to “convince them of the urgency of the moment, not just for Afghanistan, but for Pakistan and the region itself.”
Elsewhere, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is trying to mitigate some PR fallout at the Haiti donors meeting in Montreal. Members of the international community are unhappy with the way the relief effort in Haiti is going. The United States has some 20,000 troops in the country and is being criticized for a lack of leadership and direction. Venezuela and Bolivia think Washington is more concerned with occupation than aid. The medical journal The Lancet also criticized the self-interested motives of some aid efforts. Clinton reminded everyone how difficult aid coordination is in Haiti even when there isn’t a colossal natural disaster to deal with, and asked for suggestions on how to improve matters.
And President Obama will keep to himself today in preparation for tomorrow’s State of the Union address. He’ll meet with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and other advisers but has no public events on the books.
Monday, January 25
As part of Washington’s ongoing effort to get the Pakistani military on its side in the fight against insurgents, Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Islamabad last week. But the trip doesn’t seem to have turned out as expected. Gates landed as the spokesman for Pakistan’s military, Major General Athar Abbas, announced that the army doesn’t plan to launch any new offensives for at least the next six months. That statement came after Washington announced that it would provide drones to Pakistan. Then, during a press conference, Gates implied that the U.S. government has been using the services of the private security company that we all know as Blackwater in Pakistan. Washington has spent a long time denying that very thing, so you can imagine how quickly that story took off. There were even stories floating around Pakistan that Blackwater’s employees are working as spies for the U.S. government. On top of that, Gates faced some harsh critics during a closed-door question-and-answer session with the military. One audience member apparently asked the secretary of defense “Are you with us or against us?” Gates spent some of his time in Pakistan apologizing for the degradation of U.S.-Pakistan ties since the Afghan-Soviet war and reaffirming Washington’s commitment to Pakistan’s sovereignty, all in the lead-up to Thursday’s sixty-country-strong conference on Afghanistan.
Vice President Joe Biden made a trip to Baghdad on Friday. The visit had been planned for a while, but its timing is convenient. The country is experiencing some more election-related turmoil, as an Iraqi government commission has decided to ban some five hundred or so candidates from the upcoming vote because of their links to Saddam Hussein’s now-outlawed Baath Party. Anthony Blinken, the vice president’s national-security adviser, said Biden wasn’t planning to offer any specific resolutions but rather that he would simply stress the administration’s dedication to a transparent election.
Will there be progress on the Israeli-Palestinian-peace front? George Mitchell spent some time last week conducting shuttle diplomacy around the region, proposing lower-level talks between the countries instead of all-out negotiations. Senior Palestinian and Israeli ministers would meet to discuss a range of issues instead of the highest level officials. PA President Mahmoud Abbas is reviewing the proposal, and Israeli officials said that Israel is ready to take part in U.S.-mediated talks.
Russia and the United States have agreed to begin new strategic-arms-reduction talks at the beginning of February. National Security Adviser James Jones and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen were in Moscow for two days of talks, and both sides say they’re happy with the progress made and ready to work out the details when they meet again in a couple weeks.
Friday, January 22
Our embassy in Iraq has hit Facebook, and U.S. Ambassador Chris Hill has a starring role in the debut. The intent is to “reach out to Iraqis.” By encouraging fans to stop by to learn more about American culture and what those folks at the embassy are up to. They’ll also be able to access handy features like an “English-language corner” where Iraqis can learn “useful grammar and vocabulary hints.” Aren’t we supposed to be leaving Iraq soon? Hill cleared that up for any of the confused viewers out there: “There's gonna be less military, more civilians.” The focus is now on culture and outreach, and Facebook is, apparently, a tool of choice.
Iraq isn’t the only place Washington has been revealing its touchy-feely side. Advisers have been hard at work trying to mend fences with the Pakistani military. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen has made some headway in his relationship with General Ashfaq Kayani, the elusive head of Pakistan’s army. Mullen apparently does a lot of listening, more often providing a friendly ear than a helpful drone, only providing military assistance when Kayani asks for it. And now Defense Secretary Robert Gates is lending a hand. He got to Pakistan yesterday and is hoping during his visit “to provide reassurances that we are in this for the long haul and intend to continue to be a partner of theirs for far into the future.” Wonder how Zardari is doing.
Hillary Clinton has angered the dragon. In her speech this week about Internet freedom, the secretary of state’s direct references to China weren’t all that scathing, but she had some more general statements that might have hit home: “Countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of Internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century.” One Chinese editorial said that Clinton’s speech was “a disguised attempt to impose its values on other cultures in the name of democracy.” And the spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged Washington to “respect the facts, and to stop using the so-called Internet freedom issue to make groundless charges against China.” Almost as bad as Axelrod and Rove.
George Mitchell keeps going strong, but he’s facing what seems to be an even-rougher road. He met with PA President Mahmoud Abbas today after spending yesterday talking to officials from Syria, Lebanon and Israel. The list of preconditions for talks isn’t getting any shorter. In fact, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced this week that Israel now intends to maintain a permanent presence in the Jordan Valley. On top of all of this, President Obama, in an article in Time, says his team may have expected too much and underestimated the political roadblocks. Oops.
Thursday, January 21
Four hearings about the Christmas Day plot were held yesterday on Capitol Hill. And boy were they long ones. Testimony was heard from the likes of the director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter, and the homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano. All accepted blame for the failures leading up to the attempted attack, while also noting how the Bush administration opted more tightly restrict who went on the terror watch lists in order to deal with complaints about their length .
George Mitchell has a slightly different plan of attack during this round of Middle East diplomacy. He’s starting out with Damascus, discussing a restart of peace talks between Syria and Israel. The U.S. Middle East envoy met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad yesterday, highlighting Syria’s important role in the region. He’s looking “forward to making tangible progress on our efforts toward peace and on the bilateral relations between the United States and Syria.”
In other news, the Rove v. Axelrod showdown continues. In the Wall Street Journal today, Karl Rove responds to David Axelrod’s Washington Post op-ed. They’re still playing the blame game, arguing about who is at fault for the current state of our financial system. Rove writes: “In going after Mr. Bush's fiscal record, Mr. Axelrod unwittingly revealed why Democrats are losing. Mr. Obama and congressional Democrats have made a mess of the nation's finances and are desperate to pin the blame on someone else.” You get the gist.
Wednesday, January 20
Last week Google got into a bit of a scuffle with China. The company said that Beijing launched attacks on Google’s Chinese website to get to email accounts of human-rights activists. Google said it would stop censoring search results and could pull out of the country altogether. And now the State Department is getting involved with a formal protest. Details are hard to come by, but the U.S. envoy for East Asia, Kurt Campbell, commented that China has said it was not responsible for the cyberattacks. Ok, so that’s not surprising. Maybe Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will have more to say when she gives her address tomorrow on internet freedom, which should include announcing some new U.S. initiatives and a little bit of China prodding.
Robert Gates is keeping himself busy during his trip to India. The secretary of defense warned that al-Qaeda was hard at work trying to destabilize the region and that the group would really like to set off a war between India and Pakistan. Al-Qaeda, Gates said, has cozied up with the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba that was responsible for the 2008 Mumbai bombings. No wonder Gates wants to talk to Indian officials about military cooperation.
Remember START? The treaty governing strategic arms reduction that faded into oblivion in December. Well, the United States and Russia haven’t forgotten about it. National Security Adviser James Jones and Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will head to Moscow to at the end of the week to talk about the next step. Jones has already been hard at work on the treaty, heading to Russia in October and early December to try to negotiate a successor treaty.
U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice is praising the Security Council’s move on Yemen. The body has placed tough sanctions on two leaders of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the group that claimed responsibility for the attempted Christmas Day bombing. It was formed when al-Qaeda’s wings in Saudi Arabia and Yemen merged. The two leaders should now theoretically face asset freezes and bans on travel.
Tuesday, January 19
U.S. special envoy to AfPak Richard Holbrooke put things matter-of-factly yesterday after the Taliban launched a series of coordinated, deadly attacks in Kabul just as President Hamid Karzai was swearing in his cabinet. He called the perpetrators “ruthless” and said “The people who are doing this certainly will not survive the attack, nor will they succeed. But we can expect this sort of thing on a regular basis.” Holbrooke left Afghanistan’s capital for India just a few hours before the attacks were launched. He’s been busy laying the groundwork for this month’s Afghanistan conference, which will take place in London.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates took some time to praise Hamid Karzai’s efforts to win over the Taliban by offering incentives to lay down arms. He stressed that reconciliation is “critical” to bringing an end to the war in Afghanistan, even though it came with caveats: “It's our view that until the Taliban leadership sees a change in the momentum and begins to see that they are not going to win, the likelihood of reconciliation at senior levels is not terribly great.”
Gates is starting a two-day visit to India to talk about regional security. In preparation for his trip, he published an op-ed in the Times of India calling for closer military cooperation between the United States and India. He also lauded New Delhi for the $1.3 billion worth of development aid it has pledged to Afghanistan. And that will likely be one of the key focuses of Gates’s trip—he’ll be sure to bring up the ways in which India can help with security and counterterrorism in Afghanistan.
Looks like Stephen Bosworth will have a lot to discuss with South Korea’s head nuclear envoy. Wi Sung-lac will be in the United States this week to meet with officials, including Bosworth, to talk about North Korea’s nuclear program. The envoy’s overseas trip comes on the heels of a four-hour-long heart-to-heart between Pyongyang and Seoul in which the neighbors discussed a joint industrial venture. And all of that is happening despite the North’s threats that it could potentially attack the South and Pyongyang’s calls for international sanctions to be lifted.
George Mitchell kicks off his Middle East tour in Beirut today. He’ll meet with the Lebanese president, prime minister, foreign minister and a host of other top government officials as part of a new attempt to restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. This latest effort will also take Mitchell to Israel, the Palestinian territories and Syria.
Friday, January 15
The whole team has come out in support of the Haiti relief effort. Yesterday President Obama pledged $100 million to help Haiti recover from the devastating earthquake that struck earlier in the week. Before the announcement he met with his national-security team in the Oval Office. And all hands were on deck for the official aid statement—he was joined by Joe Biden, Robert Gates, Hillary Clinton, Janet Napolitano, Susan Rice, Mike Mullen and USAID head Rajiv Shah. The secretary of state and her husband Bill Clinton spent yesterday heading up a fund drive. She also spent a good part of her day on TV asking for donations. Bill Clinton and George Bush have been recruited by President Obama to help rally the private sector around the Haiti cause.
Meanwhile, David Axelrod ison the warpath. The top White House adviser has an op-ed out in the Washington Post. It’s about debt and the influence George Bush had on it while in office, and it’s about Karl Rove. See, on Sunday, Rove happened to offer up some advice, also in the Post, to all Democrats out there who cared to listen: “. . . the Democratic establishment is counting on Wall Street to finance the election. Here's the thing, though: All the corporate cash in the world can't make up for a disillusioned base and a tarnished brand.” Axelrod, clearly, disagrees. He spends some time correcting Rove’s facts about the deficit, casually mentioning that “given the backhanded advice he offered, I'm not sure he was all that eager to help” and oh so politely telling him to shut it: “There's an old saying that everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts. The next time Karl Rove would like to offer us some advice, I'd urge him to take that to heart.”
And back to business, National-Security Adviser James Jones met with Palestinian and Israeli leaders. He did focus on the peace process after all, though Jones didn’t speak to reporters during his trip to the region to discuss the talks himself. So far it just seems like more of the same. Jones told PA President Mahmoud Abbas that Washington was really working hard to get both parties back to the negotiating table.
Thursday, January 14
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s trip to the Asia-Pacific region was put on hold. Instead of heading to Papua New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand after finishing up in Hawaii, Clinton will head back to the United States to help run Haiti relief efforts. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has also canceled his trip to Australia so he can lend a hand. Gates and Clinton were supposed to meet with Australia’s leaders, and will be rescheduling the face-to-face.
The secretary of state has already hit the airwaves, giving interviews about U.S. efforts in Haiti to NBC’s Today show as well as CNN. She was especially candid when speaking to reporters about the earthquake, a disaster that has clearly had an effect on her. Washington has been working with Haiti to help build up the poverty-stricken country. As Clinton said, “We had a good plan, we were feeling positive about how we could implement that plan.” But adding to four hurricanes the country suffered last year, she said, “along comes Mother Nature and just flattens the whole place.”
But before she completely turned her sights on Haiti, Clinton took on China’s Google problems. Google announced on Tuesday that it would no longer censor results on its Chinese search engine. And the company talked to the State Department about potentially ending operations in China. Clinton returned to her openness concerns, saying “The ability to operate with confidence in cyberspace is critical in a modern society and economy.” She’ll also be giving a speech next week on Internet freedom.
Elsewhere, seems to be a good thing that National Security Adviser Jim Jones plans to focus on Iran more than the Israeli-Palestinian peace process during his trip to the region. He was scheduled to meet with PA President Mahmoud Abbas today, after Abbas made it clear that he’s ready to stand up to American pressure to restart talks. He reiterated the Palestinians will only go to the table if there is a complete settlement freeze.
Wednesday, January 13
You can add $33 billion to the 2010 Defense Department budget for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Most of that extra funding will go toward ramped-up efforts in Afghanistan. The Pentagon will have to run this number by Congress at the same time they submit a $708 billion request for 2011. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are slated to help defend the expenditures. They’ll likely go to Congress in February to testify about the administration’s Quadrennial Defense Review, which projects the military’s goals and spending through 2015. The QDR has made drone programs in Afghanistan and Pakistan a key focus, along with efforts to improve cyber security and bolster special ops forces.
National Security Adviser James Jones has made it to the Middle East. He’ll be in Israel through Thursday to meet with a range of officials, from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu through Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Apparently though Iran will be the focus of most of the discussions, not the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Yesterday, PA President Mahmoud Abbas restated his call for a complete settlement freeze before the Palestinians go back to the negotiating table. And there wasn’t any budging on the other side either. Netanyahu said yesterday that he hasn’t become soft on the prospect of east Jerusalem being the capital of a Palestinian state, despite rumors that he expressed a degree of flexibility during meetings with the Egyptians. Not sure what’s harder to deal with, an intransigent Tehran or a stalled peace process. George Mitchell will make his way to the region next week to try to sort this out.
And if the fact that Hillary Clinton was only visiting a handful of Pacific Island nations made the American Samoa delegate to Congress mad, the fact that the her statements about China are making the headlines will probably ruffle his feathers even more. In Hawaii yesterday, Clinton said the United States is committed to its relationship with China, but she nudged that perhaps the Chinese might consider opening up their society a bit: “We hope that there will be an opportunity for more of the Chinese people to exercise the full range of human rights and freedom.”
Tuesday, January 12
The secretary of state has begun her Asian tour. Today Hillary Clinton is in Hawaii meeting with Japan’s foreign minister. She’ll be dealing with a topic that has been a sticking point in U.S.-Japan relations for a few years now. Washington is set to shuffle around the location of some of its military bases, and Tokyo doesn’t like the idea. Though less vocal than when first taking office, Japan’s government is still wants to take a hard look at the agreement. She’ll also head to New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia on her trip.
And at least one member of Congress isn’t happy with Clinton’s plans. Eni Faleomavaega, of American Samoa, said the fact that the secretary of state isn’t heading to more Pacific Island nations “shows a lack of sensitivity for the region.” Ok, so Clinton is on a tight schedule, maybe it’s not a slight, just a lack of time. But Faleomavaega went for the jugular regardless: “China takes the time to meet with heads of state from small Pacific Island nations. . . [They] deserve something better than fly-by diplomacy.”
National Security Adviser James Jones will head to the Middle East in an attempt to bolster the administration’s latest effort to broker Israeli-Palestinian peace. He’ll speak to top officials in Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Palestinian territories. George Mitchell is continuing his efforts as well, while the Obama administration tries to clarify something he said the other day. After Mitchell’s mention of withdrawing loan guarantees got Israel up in arms, the State Department said the special envoy was merely making a historical reference. “Just to clarify this, he wasn’t signaling any you know, particular course of action,” said PJ Crowley, State Department spokesman. Mitchell was instead just making it known that financial sticks are “something that we have in our toolbox.”
Monday, January 11
Iran is unhappy with General David Petraeus. The head of CENTCOM said on Sunday that Iran “certainly can be bombed.” He went on to clarify: “It would be almost literally irresponsible if Centcom were not to have been thinking about the various ‘what ifs’ and to make plans for a whole variety of different contingencies.” But the interesting thing is, Iran doesn’t seem to have gotten all that mad, at least in comparison to statements that have emerged from Tehran in the past. Instead, the spokesman for Iran’s foreign ministry reprimanded the general, saying Petraeus “made thoughtless comments” and that “it is better that any statement made in this regard take a constructive approach.” Maybe the looming threat of the Massive Ordnance Penetrator had an impact. The thirty-thousand-pound weapon can burrow its way two hundred feet below ground, only then exploding.
Washington is bringing out some sticks to try to move the Israeli-Palestinian peace process forward. Last week, U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell hinted that Washington might just withhold loan guarantees if Israel doesn’t stop settlement construction. Problem is, Israel doesn’t really need the loans it gets form the United States, as Israel’s finance minister pointed out on Sunday. Plus, when the Bush administration tried to take this course, it did nothing more than strain U.S.-Israeli relations.
And the standoff between Washington and Pyongyang is becoming more and more entrenched. North Korea reiterated today that it wants to sign a peace treaty with the United States that official ends the Korean War before it will talk about its nuclear program. It also wants the UN to remove sanctions before it returns to the six-party negotiations. On his visit to Pyongyang, U.S. special envoy Stephen Bosworth said Washington was willing to talk about a peace treaty, after the North Korean regime came back to the negotiating table. Preconditions sure do make things difficult.
It’s not all about Karzai, says Richard Holbrooke. After all, any government, not just the one in Kabul, is about more than its president. Plus, Afghanistan has a huge corruption problem. It doesn’t make sense for us to focus so much on just one man when the issue runs system-wide. And what’s more, “Historically Afghanistan, even in peacetime conditions, was not governed centrally.” And, Holbrooke added, he has a “great respect” for the Afghan president. The special envoy is still trying to get away from those election-time reports of strained relations.
Friday, January 8
President Obama finally faced the music and spoke to the public yesterday about the intelligence situation surrounding the attempted Christmas Day bombing. Among a laundry list of changes to the current national-security structure, he wants to install more high-tech scanners in airports and increase communication and information sharing between the many U.S. intelligence agencies. Addressing his most vocal critics head-on, Obama said “We are at war” but said the administration wouldn’t “succumb to a siege mentality.” Obama’s counterterrorism chief John Brennan conducted the report, which came down hard on two agencies in particular—the National Counter Terrorism Center and the CIA. And as the search for a scapegoat continues, Brennan came to the defense of the director of the counterterrorism center Michael Leiter. Leiter went on vacation after the attempted attack. Brennan said it was his responsibility because he gave Leither the OK. Meanwhile, Obama took responsibility for it all: “The buck stops with me.”
The national-security team will be back in public action again on January 20, the date set for testimony before the U.S. Homeland Security Committee. Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence, and Michael Leiter will all make appearances before the panel, which will review the intelligence reforms that have been made since 2004 to see if they’re actually working, given the Fort Hood attack and the Christmas Day happenings.
Was Kai Eide trying to make nice with Richard Holbrooke or just sounding the final alarm bells when he cancelled his appointments in New York to visit Washington yesterday? Eide addressed the UN Security Council on Wednesday and offered a stinging rebuke of the way strategy in Afghanistan is going. He warned that the “civilian components of the transition strategy” need to be taken as seriously as the military ones. If they aren’t, “then we will fail.” Ominous.
Fast approaching Obama’s one-year anniversary, the administration seems to be right where it started when it comes to the peace process. Washington hasn’t even been able to secure terms for negotiations, with Israel refusing to freeze all settlement activity, and the Palestinians refusing to budge on the settlement-freeze precondition. But the administration is still hopeful that official negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians will start up in February or March. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. special envoy for the Middle East George Mitchell will meet today with the Egyptian and Jordanian foreign ministers to try to move things along. Mitchell will also head to Europe and the Middle East to try to drum up support for the peace process, and financial support for Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority.
In other news, Hillary Clinton will be in Hawaii on Tuesday to meet with Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada. The two are expected to focus on that oh-so-problematic military base on Okinawa. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Kurt Campbell said Washington is hoping Tokyo will make clear that the Japanese government has “the desire to continue to work closely with us.” And though Defense Secretary Robert Gates isn’t all that happy Major General Michael Flynn decided to publish his critique of intelligence in Afghanistan with a private organization, he, according to a spokesman, “found the analysis ‘brilliant’ and the findings ‘spot on.’”
Thursday, January 7
We haven’t been doing very well lately on the national-security front. Even National Security Adviser James Jones is going public about the recent slipups. In an interview with USA Today, Jones said that thanks to the missed clues and failures to act leading up to the Fort Hood shooting and the attempted Christmas Day bombing, there are now “two strikes” on the record. And of course no one wants a third strike, but the report, which will be released today, chronicling the botched intelligence handling before Christmas Day plot unfurled may just strike the final blow anyway. A measured Jones said that the U.S. public will experience “a certain shock” when they hear about what really happened. Wasn’t everyone shocked already?
Obama isn’t wasting any time. The president and Admiral Mike Mullen are both concerned about copycat attackers following in the footsteps of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The administration is pressing for tighter airline security measures. And this time it really means business. Mullen said that Obama is “not patient about this at all. These changes have to be made immediately.” President Obama will make a TV appearance at 1 pm today to release a statement about the report. John Brennan and Janet Napolitano will follow, fielding questions from reporters.
Meanwhile, Yemen is trying to track down the militant leader that claimed responsibility for the attempted attack. And the United States is content to let the Yemenis take the point. Admiral Mike Mullen said the United States doesn’t plan to launch any direct military action inside of Yemen, opting instead to fund and train Yemenis. The scars of Iraq and Afghanistan are a bit too fresh.
Special envoy Richard Holbrooke has emerged from a few weeks in the shadows. He has been in London preparing for the upcoming January 28 international conference on Afghanistan. Next week, he’ll head to Abu Dhabi to do more of the same. Then it’s on to AfPak to do some more preparing. In his meeting with Karzai he’ll probably mention that sticky subject of building up Afghanistan’s security forces, and will hopefully not make things worse in the currently tense U.S.-Pakistan relationship.
Wednesday, January 6
A few months ago, when McChrystal’s Afghanistan reports were under review, the general was criticized for forgetting the chain of command and speaking to the public about his grand strategy. But he isn’t the only military official to be rebuked for speaking out of line. The Pentagon is a bit taken aback by the way in which the deputy chief of staff for intelligence in Afghanistan has decided to air his concerns about U.S. spy agencies. In a report released by the Center for New American Security, Major General Michael Flynn wrote intelligence in Afghanistan was too focused on going after insurgents. A copy was sent to the Pentagon, which called the whole situation “an unusual and irregular way to publish a document of this nature.”
But wait, there’s more. The intelligence community is still under the microscope for its failures in the lead-up to the attempted Christmas Day bombing. And President Obama has joined in the criticism. Yesterday, Obama said: “The system has failed in a potentially disastrous way.” How exactly did the government fail? Well, Obama put it best: “The bottom line is this: The U.S. government had sufficient information to have uncovered this plot and potentially disrupt the Christmas Day attack.” Except the intelligence community didn’t “connect those dots.” In an eerily familiar critique, the president said the failure was not in the intelligence gathering, but in the intelligence integration. It sure is taking a long time to turn this ship around.
The intelligence community is of course not the only government branch having trouble with change. Over the past year or so, the military has been trying to build up a new officer corps made up of experts, the best of the best, to fight the Afghan war. This is part of an effort to confront the continuity problem Washington faces in fighting the war. But it’s been tough going. Apparently the best of the best officers don’t want to join the program for fear that it will hurt their career advancement. A few weeks ago Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, criticized the heads of the armed services for not providing the best people for the job. General Stanley McChrystal has also said the program is “understaffed.” Sure, it takes time to change the military, and as McChrystal noted, “we’ve literally got to break systems to do this,” but only 172 people have signed up for the corps so far. The military hopes the program will be full—912-members strong—by the summer of 2011. Curious . . . isn’t that when the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan was supposed to begin?
Tuesday, January 5
President Obama has dusted off the multiple-meeting approach to problem solving that he used to tackle the Afghanistan-strategy issue, this time to figure out what went wrong on Christmas Day and how to fix it. Yesterday he chatted with National Security Adviser James Jones, Jones’s deputy Tom Donilon and counterterrorism point man John Brennan to get ready to meet with the whole national-security team today. A round of presentations are expected, with FBI Director Robert Mueller talking about smuggling explosives, Attorney General Eric Holder on the prosecution of Abdulmutallab and Janet Napolitano, the homeland-security secretary, on our detection capabilities. This week, after the meetings, we should expect to hear about policy changes made to patch up the “systemic” holes that led to the almost-bombing.
Hillary Clinton is disappointed in Iran. Why, oh why won’t Tehran get on board with the UN nuclear-fuel deal? The secretary of state said the international community has started to talk about new sanctions. Seriously this time. Washington wants to go after Iran’s leadership and Revolutionary Guard Corps with targeted sanctions. But the Obama administration wants to put pressure on Tehran without increasing Iranians’ “suffering.” Clinton also went after Tehran’s treatment of its people, calling the government’s crackdown on protests a sign “of ruthless repression.”
General David Petraeus jumped the gun on Friday when he talked about military aid to Yemen. In a Q&A last week, Petraeus said we gave Yemen $70 million in 2009 to help with security, and that that figure “will more than double this coming year.” The Pentagon clarified yesterday that the exact amount of military aid hasn’t yet been decided.
Monday, January 4
The New Year is providing few surprises for Obama and his advisers. In its New Year’s message, the government in Pyongyang expressed a desire to give up nuclear weapons once a peace treaty with Washington is signed. Problem is, the United States has been working hard to get North Korea to stop building nuclear weapons as a precondition for a peace treaty to end the Korean War. Stephen Bosworth and other U.S. officials are trying to get Pyongyang back to the six-party table to talk about nuclear disarmament.
Officials in Egypt say the United States is proposing a peace deal that would involve the formation of a Palestinian state in 2012. But the Israeli foreign minister quickly shot down the play, saying it is “not a realistic goal.” Guess U.S. envoy George Mitchell is in for another long round of shuttle diplomacy in 2010. He’s expected in the region soon.
There is a curious link between a Somali man who was shot by police on Friday after he broke into the home of Kurt Westergaard, a Danish man whose cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad caused an uproar in 2005, and the U.S. secretary of state. It looks like that same Somali man was planning attacks on a hotel and bus station in Nairobi when Hillary Clinton was in Kenya in August. The man is reported to be tied to al-Shabaab, an Islamist terrorist organization based in southern Somalia with links to al-Qaeda.
And last week, the GOP kept its focus on Obama’s handling of the attempted bombing on Christmas. And they’re bringing out the big guns. Former–Vice President Dick Cheney questioned the president’s dedication to the war on terror in a statement issued to Politico: “We are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe.” Obama’s advisers flocked to his side. Senior White House Adviser David Axelrod and White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer both criticized Cheney and the GOP for politicizing the issue. But, in the midst of all the fighting, there are some heart-warming moments as well. Some Republican senators and former members of the Bush administration came to the aid of Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano over the weekend. Senator Joe Lieberman and Michael Chertoff, the head of homeland security under Bush, both said they had confidence in Napolitano’s abilities, despite her verbal blunders.
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02.05.10
Greece’s problems reveal the absurdity of the Continental currency.
02.04.10
Obama doesn’t care about Europe. Someone should tell the Europeans.
11.19.09
09.09.09
Ken Pollack, in an interview with TNI, discusses whether we would’ve been better off with Saddam Hussein, if the American military is on the brink of being kicked out of Baghdad and what the Iraq War was about in the first place. Click here to see the video.
07.27.09
David Keene discusses the future of the Republican Party and whether (and how) the GOP can be resuscitated.
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07.16.09
Bruce Riedel discusses just how close Islamabad is to collapse and why we shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking the situation is getting better there.
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