Foreign Policy Advisory Index
by The National Interest
11.20.2009
In the Foreign Policy Advisory Index, The National Interest online tracks top links and new info on Barack Obama's foreign-policy team.
Friday, November 20
So far, so good. Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s inauguration speech yesterday made U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton happy: “I was personally pleased to see the president set an ambitious goal for the training of the Afghan national security forces.” Karzai said he is “determined that within the next five years the Afghan forces” would be able on their own to make sure the country is stable and secure. Clinton of course pledged greater U.S. assistance in the effort. The secretary of state has been trying hard to stay positive yet firm in public, but who knows what’s going on behind closed doors. And President Obama is trying hard to make it work in Afghanistan. On Wednesday he swore he’d end the Afghan war before the end of his term in office.
As we’ve all learned, key to fighting the war in Afghanistan is getting a handle on things in Pakistan. And there’s an administration official working up to this point quietly on getting things moving. Head of the CIA Leon Panetta was in Pakistan today totalk intelligence with Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. The prime minister’s office said Panetta and Gilani mostly talked about Washington’s Afghanistan strategy review. It was Panetta’s second trip to the country since he started on the job. Clinton and U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones both made their first visits to Pakistan within the last few weeks.
Apparently Obama’s trip to the Korean peninsula left him with nukes on the brain. Or maybe it was just the Iranian foreign minister’s rejection of the most recent iteration of the agreement that would have Tehran ship its uranium abroad for enrichment. When Obama arrived back in the United States yesterday after his tour of Asia, he said the international community was discussing new penalties for Iran because of the country’s intransigence when it comes to its nuclear program. While in South Korea this week, Obama also made U.S. special envoy Stephen Bosworth’s trip to North Korea official. He’ll head to Pyongyang on December 8 to try to bring the regime back to disarmament talks.
Thursday, November 19
The United States has been raising the hackles of Afghan President Hamid Karzai over the past few weeks by reiterating that Washington is in Afghanistan to fight al-Qaeda, not build a nation. The latest from President Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will probably make that situation worse. The two want to make sure there is an end in sight before deciding on a new Afghan strategy. The Defense Department swore that the administration wasn’t looking for “a hard-and-fast timetable for withdrawal” but some goals might be nice. This has some policy makers in DC up in arms, like the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Representative Ike Skelton. He says this will only make the Taliban “wait us out.” But it sure will make the strategy easier to sell to the American public.
Just when we thought everything was finally on track in the Iraq-elections process, Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi vetoes the law officials like U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill toiled over for weeks. The vice president had threatened a veto, but no one honestly expected him to follow through. But Hashemi let the world know yesterday that he had vetoed the law the night before because of a clause that gave just 5 percent of parliamentary seats to minorities and Iraqi refugees abroad. This infuriated Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who questioned the constitutionality of the move. Hashemi swore the problem could be fixed quickly—“Parliament could amend this law in a day”—but there are serious doubts about that possibility. The law was held up in the first place due to a debate over the status of Kirkuk and the share of parliamentary seats given to Kurds. Kurdish leaders have even threatened to boycott the elections if they didn’t get what they wanted. So the 5 percent allocation of seats that Hashemi is worried about will certainly not be the only issue the Iraqi government needs to revisit in order to get the law passed again.
The United Nations didn’t hide its opinion on the subject. The head of the UN’s effort in Iraq said elections would have to be delayed. Up until this point the UN has acknowledged the difficulties ahead but remained positive about being ready for the January vote. The veto also throws into question U.S. troop-withdrawal plans. But the U.S. commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, is “very confident that we don’t have to make any decision until late spring.” So in theory that gives the Iraqis an extra few months to get this election issue sorted out. The way things have gone so far, it might be very dangerous to allow for that much wiggle room.
Wednesday, November 18
Unsurprisingly, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is a bit angry about the leaks in the administration. Last week he told the world that he was “appalled by the amount of leaking that has been going on” in the Afghanistan strategy-review process. He’s confident some of the information is coming from the DOD and he has no qualms about ending the career of the leak. Getting even more heated, Gates commented on the Ft. Hood leaks, saying “Everybody ought to just shut up.” And you thought that was bad. Now President Obama is weighing in, and—if you can believe it coming from a man that rarely betrays any kind of emotion—he thinks he is “angrier than Bob Gates” about the Afghanistan leaks. And the offender should “absolutely” be fired. But come on, someone has to throw the pundits some kind of bone, right?
And just when we thought no one else could possibly have something to say about the AfPak debate, another country was heard from. Well, not technically another country, but Alaska is pretty close to Russia. Sarah Palin thinks Obama should listen to McChrystal, “the appointee that President Obama asked for, the advice from.” She’s also not happy about Obama’s “dithering around with the decision in Afghanistan.” Moving west a bit, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs issued a statement yesterday expressing the administration’s “dismay” over Israel’s settlement construction in Gilo. The United States was joined by the Palestinians, Europe and the United Nations. But not Sarah Palin: “I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow.” By the way, in case you hadn’t heard, her book hit stores yesterday.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for one, is unfazed by Palin’s reach for the spotlight. She was in Beijing yesterday, having a nice steak dinner with Chinese President Hu Jintao, President Obama and the rest of the American delegation. Wednesday night she dined with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul after meeting with U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry and General Stanley McChrystal. Despite all of her strong words for Karzai over the past few weeks, Clinton will stand by the president as she attends his second inauguration tomorrow. It’s her first trip to Afghanistan since she entered the administration. Not quite sure how sleep fits into all of this.
Tuesday, November 17
The government in Baghdad is hurriedly preparing for elections in January, but that doesn’t mean Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki can’t keep dreaming of bigger and better things. At a conference on Monday organized with USAID, Maliki called for massive state and institutional reforms to help fight corruption, build Iraq’s economy and stop the brain drain. U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill is pleased with the development, but the tasks ahead are difficult. Saddam may be gone, but some of the corrupt practices of old seem hard to shake. These days, 60 percent of all jobs are in the public sector, and many of those spots have been filled thanks to nepotism or simply as a way to keep people from turning to insurgency. Iraq’s vice president likened the salaries Baghdad pays civil servants to unemployment benefits. Hill noted that such a setup doesn’t really inspire confidence and respect among the Iraqi people.
Earlier in the year, the United States managed to secure an Israeli freeze on settlement construction. But as we’ve seen, that freeze was incomplete. For example, Israel never agreed to restrain new growth in the areas it annexed to Jerusalem. So George Mitchell’s recent request that the Israeli government block approvals to build settlements at Gilo, which falls under the rubric of annexed-to-Jerusalem, was rejected: “Prime Minister Netanyahu, in order to get the peace process back on track, is willing to adopt the policy of the greatest possible restraint concerning growth in the West Bank -- but this applies to the West Bank.” Better luck next time.
And at last, perhaps some progress. It would seem the long-awaited day is finally in sight. Yes, the new Afghan war strategy is due out before Thanksgiving. Of course the United States is still pressing both Afghanistan and Pakistan for serious commitments. Washington is hoping Karzai’s inauguration speech on Thursday will signal a firm change of direction and dedication to the anti-corruption and anti-extremist measures the Obama administration has asked for. Overseas they’re already talking about how to hand power over to Kabul. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown offered to host a conference in January to talk about a transition.
Monday, November 16
The administration has been trying to restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process since Obama took office back in January. And despite multiple advisers' cajoling both sides—from special envoy George Mitchell to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UN Ambassador Susan Rice—the two camps are as entrenched as ever. Palestinian frustrations have taken on a new face in recent days, with officials floating the idea of asking the UN Security Council to formally recognize a Palestinian state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s response was that “Every unilateral path will only unravel the framework of agreements between us” and Washington is expected to be equally unsupportive.
Hillary Clinton is keeping the pressure on the Karzai government. She reiterated that the United States is serious about seeing progress—if Kabul wants civilian aid, the government is going to have to work on the corruption problem by setting up a major crimes tribunal and an anti-corruption commission. Washington wants to make sure its aid money is actually used for aid and not to line the pockets of any officials. And something that might make the Kabul government a little less than willing to cooperate, Clinton said that the United States has “no long term stake” in Afghanistan. It’s Washington’s job to fight al-Qaeda, not build up an Afghan state. Last week on NewsHour the Afghan president bemoaned the fact that the West wasn’t there “primarily for the sake of Afghanistan.”
While Clinton was talking tough on Afghanistan, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, was in Europe, making the rounds of our NATO allies. He’s on his way to President Karzai’s November 19 inauguration and is reportedly trying to ease the minds of some of our allies about the war in AfPak. There is a growing discontent with the war across the Continent. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner put it most publicly, saying that the joint mission in Afghanistan is “not working at all.” He’s also not happy that Washington has been mum as of late while the Obama administration tries to figure out its Afghanistan strategy. Hopefully Holbrooke can use some of his Bosnian War–era charm to make the Europeans feel a little less excluded.
Meanwhile, U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones is filling in for the special envoy in Pakistan. He was in the country on Friday for talks with the head of Pakistan’s army, General Ashfaq Kayani, and a number of civilian and military leaders. Jones’s task was to explain how key it is to American strategy in the region for Islamabad to go after extremists using Pakistan as a safe haven from which to launch attacks into Afghanistan. The administration is going all-out.
Friday, November 13
With Obama’s trip to Asia, the advisers behind the president are surfacing. Jeffrey Bader is the one most often with the president’s ear. As senior Asia director at the NSC, Bader is Obama’s right-hand man. But Bader’s former Brookings Institution colleague, James Steinberg, is making the calls behind the scenes. The now Deputy Secretary of State Steinberg has been a key force in crafting the Obama administration’s approach to Asia. Steinberg is staying in Washington, but also from the State Department, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell will be by Obama’s side during his trip East.
The president hit the ground running when he landed in Tokyo today. His first order of business was to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama to try to sort out what has been a strained relationship of late. Since its most recent election, Tokyo has consistently said and demonstrated that it wants to bring more balance to its relationship with Washington, for example announcing it would cease refueling warships in the Indian Ocean that are used to support U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The result of the talks was a bit of a concession by the American side. Obama agreed to reopen discussions about the Marine base in Okinawa. The Bush administration made plans to move the base to a less populated area of Japan and to move many of those stationed there to Guam. Obama will be in Singapore in a couple days for the APEC summit conference, and will then head to Shanghai, Beijing and Seoul.
White House counsel Greg Craig won’t be part of the team anymore after December 31. After repeatedly denying that he would be leaving his post, Craig announced his resignation today. This news isn’t exactly surprising. Craig has been on the outs for a while now. He played a major part in the executive order that Obama signed back in January to close Guantanamo within a year. It’s quite clear that won’t happen, and Craig has caught some serious flack for the slip. And it didn’t help that he was also painted as responsible for the release of the torture memos and the release then the reversal of the release of detainee photographs. Word on the street is Craig didn’t want the job in the first place. He wanted to do foreign policy, but having jumped the Clinton-camp ship during the primaries to side with Obama, he wasn’t necessarily in the good graces of the secretary of state. He’ll be replaced by President Obama’s attorney, Bob Bauer, who hopefully actually wants the job.
And speaking after the story about Karl Eikenberry’s fears of a too-fast and too-big troop buildup in Afghanistan, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said Obama is leaning toward a best-of-both-worlds kind of strategy. Gates said the president is walking a very tight rope between dedication to the mission and the need to eventually get out of the country. Gates said the national-security team is trying to figure out how to “combine some of the best features of several of the options to maximum good effect.” And then there is that whole Karzai corruption problem.
Thursday, November 12
Yesterday we learned that the opinions of a few of Obama’s advisers seemed to be coalescing around a midlevel troop deployment to Afghanistan. But at least one person that is pretty close to the conflict is a bit concerned about a large troop buildup. U.S. envoy to Afghanistan Ambassador Karl Eikenberry doesn’t think enough resources are reserved for development and reconstruction, and he fears adding so many more U.S. troops to the mix would only make Kabul more dependent on Washington. Eikenberry expressed these frustrations and his concerns about Afghan President Hamid Karzai in two classified cables sent over the past week. And it seems the administration would tend to agree with Eikenberry. In the statement released after the national-security team’s meeting yesterday, the administration stressed that its “commitment is not open-ended.” Karzai hasn’t been doing much to help the situation. During a NewsHour appearance, the Afghan president said that the West wasn’t really interested in helping Afghanistan, just in fighting terrorism. If playing up the nation building doesn’t work at home, and focusing on cold-hearted extremist fighting hurts relationships in the region, this seems to be a lose-lose situation, PR-wise at least.
A few weeks ago, after U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones chatted with Russian officials about disarmament, everything looked perfect. Compromises were made and the two countries seemed on track to agree on a new treaty before START expires in early December. But there’s trouble in paradise. Apparently the United States wants to carry a provision over that would allow for monitoring of Russia’s mobile ICBMs. The treaty provision, the Russians say, is being unilaterally imposed because the United States doesn’t have a mobile ground-based ICBM force. Moscow also doesn’t quite see eye to eye with Washington about the number of nuclear-warhead carriers each country should have. And the clock keeps ticking.
The Iraqi government may have passed its election law, but that doesn’t mean they’ve overcome all obstacles. In fact, potentially the hardest part is still ahead—making sure the elections actually happen. The UN’s envoy in Iraq put it succinctly: “There are less than 10 weeks available to organize these elections, which is truly a Herculean task.” The elections are set to take place on January 21, and the UN is still confident they can be pulled off. And while the UN is preparing for the vote, the United States will be proceeding with its troop withdrawal. Plans to remove combat troops from the country by August 2010 will now proceed as scheduled according to U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill.
Wednesday, November 11
It's a big day for Obama and his stalwart national-security team—they’re meeting to discuss the four final strategic options for Afghanistan. And the administration is finally giving the chattering classes a bit of detail about what the proposals entail. Three of the options cover a range of additional troops, from low (20,000–25,000) to high (40,000), plus a mystery late entry that made its way onto the scene just a few days ago. They also differ on the ultimate goal (like how much control to hand over Afghan forces) and timeframe. And a few of Obama’s key advisers—Robert Gates, Admiral Mike Mullen and Secretary Hillary Clinton—are getting behind the medium-size troop-deployment choice, the 30,000-soldier-strong option. President Obama is meanwhile focused on a bigger-picture concern. He’s wary about launching any kind of beefed-up counterinsurgency strategy when it’s not altogether clear that the leadership in Afghanistan, or Pakistan for that matter, is able or willing to take on extremist forces in the region. Obama is expected to think about his choices during his weeklong trip to Asia, but UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown seems to think things might move a bit more quickly than the administration has been letting on. He announced today that he expects the U.S. president to let the world know about his plans for Afghanistan troop deployments “in a few days.”
A somewhat tired-looking secretary of state was at the APEC ministerial meetings in Singapore today. She used her time in Asia to announce that Stephen Bosworth will be heading to Pyongyang before year’s end. And that the shots exchanged between North and South Korea, Clinton said, do “not in any way affect our decision to send Ambassador Bosworth.” As the administration has hinted at before, the visit is not a bilateral negotiation but an attempt to get Pyongyang back to the six-party table.
Tuesday, November 10
The enrichment saga continues. According to Hillary Clinton, President Obama has been engaging in some private diplomacy, attempting to sway Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Obama told the supreme leader that nuclear weapons are not in Iran’s best interests and that Washington hopes to have a “civil, diplomatic relationship” with Tehran. Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has had about enough of the United States. Hopeful, rhetorically at least, after Obama’s election, Ahmadinejad is now asking what Obama has managed to change: “Is the Guantanamo camp closed? Has U.S. support for Zionism changed? Is there any policy to relieve the Palestinians? Is there any change of policy in Afghanistan, in Iraq?” Iran hasn’t done much changing either, still claiming its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes and still refusing to give up its right to enrich uranium.
Clinton had some words for Afghanistan too. Apparently the United States isn’t going to settle for promises when it comes to ending corruption, they want clear action from President Hamid Karzai. And Washington plans on giving the Afghan government a hand, in the form of some guidelines: “We are going to present to the government of Afghanistan, President Karzai, a clear set of expectations and of accountability measures so there can be no doubt as to what we expect from this relationship.” Sounds eerily familiar. Maybe a congressional bill is next and we can see if Afghanistan reacts the same way Pakistan did.
In fact, quite a few people had something to say about Afghanistan yesterday. CBS news reported that Obama will be sending “most, if not all” of the troops General Stanley McChrystal requested to Afghanistan. National Security Adviser James Jones jumped all over that: “Reports that President Obama has made a decision about Afghanistan are absolutely false. . . . Any reports to the contrary are completely untrue and come from uninformed sources.” Oops.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak were in Washington yesterday. In a statement before he met with President Obama, Netanyahu stressed that “Israel is willing to make great concessions for peace” and asked Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to start talks immediately. There was nothing especially new in the speech. Netanyahu didn’t announce a change in settlement policy or any new terms. And the Palestinians weren’t impressed. Their response: “Palestinians still find it difficult to resume negotiating the end of the occupation while the other party is busy consolidating this occupation by expanding settlements.”
There are at least some signs of progress elsewhere in the Middle East. Christopher Hill, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, is thrilled Iraq finally passed its election law: “As someone who’s seen a lot these things over the course of my career, it was kind of nice, kind of gratifying to see this real effort at democratic procedure.” The ultimate solution was to let the stickiest issue, the status of Kirkuk, remain unsolved. That’s something for the UN to help take care of over the coming months.
Monday, November 9
Even though Richard Holbrooke has been trying to convince everyone that his relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai is doing alright, even writing a letter to the Washington Post last week, people are still whispering that the U.S. envoy may be on the outs. In fact, some former aides to Holbrooke in Kabul reportedly said that he “needlessly antagonized” President Karzai. And that’s part of the reason why John Kerry had to swoop in and save the day, apparently.
The army’s chief of staff, General George Casey, has come out in favor of a troop increase in Afghanistan. This is an interesting case because Casey has in the past expressed concerns about the damage repeated deployments can do to the military’s readiness and was particularly wary about the surge in Iraq. In the ongoing final-decision game, it looks like the strategy review will continue after Obama returns from next week’s trip to Asia.
Last week the OK was given to trying accused 9/11 terrorists in civilian courts. Next week, maybe as early as November 16, we should learn which detainees will actually stand trial in U.S. courts. It’s unclear whether any of the accused 9/11 terrorists will actually be tried in civilian courts, but the administration is at least happy to have the option. All of this is being done in preparation for the planned January close of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility. Currently more than two hundred detainees need to be tried, returned home or sent to third countries. Attorney General Eric Holder skirted the question of whether the administration would make the January deadline by saying “I will make one thing very clear: We will close the facility at Guantanamo.”
Friday, November 6
Richard Holbrooke has evidently had enough of the talk about his strained relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. He wrote a short letter to the Washington Post to clarify some things they said about him in a November 3 article. After correcting a few facts, Holbrooke said his relations with Karzai are “cordial, correct and respectful.” Not quite the same level of championship we see from, say, John Kerry.
The relationship with Karzai may be stabilizing, but confidence in other areas of the Afghan system is definitely on the wane. Another curve ball in the Afghan strategy review, the prospects for Afghanistan’s military and police force are grim. Officials that are responsible for training and overseeing the Afghan forces have produced a series of internal reviews that reveal corrupt and incompetent domestic Afghan forces. As you can imagine, that’s a bit of a problem. A key point of General Stanley McChrystal’s strategic recommendations is beefing up the Afghan army as quickly as possible. Cue the choruses of voices arguing for a withdrawal from Afghanistan. Apparently McChrystal knew about these assessments when he drew up his own, but that hasn’t made critics soften their stances at all. Why this whole strategic review process is taking so long is beginning to make sense.
As we saw earlier in the week, the Senate has been discussing proposals to bar inmates charged with involvement in the 9/11 attacks from trial in U.S. civilian courts. “Discussing” might be putting it a bit too mildly; this topics seems to have really struck a chord. Some vehemently argued that the September 11 attacks were acts of war, so perpetrators should not have the same constitutional rights as a common U.S. criminal and should be tried in military courts. Others say the decision about where to hold the trials is best made by the Pentagon and the Justice departments, not the Congress. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Attorney General Eric Holder had already weighed in, coming out against the proposal put forward by Senators Lindsey Graham, John McCain and Joe Lieberman because, they argued, such limits would be too restrictive.
Thursday, November 5
We haven’t heard much about U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill lately, apparently for good reason. True, he’s still taking an active role, trying to broker some sort of deal about the status of Kirkuk, but U.S. officials overall are taking off the training wheels in the lead-up to Iraq’s January elections. They are letting Iraqi officials sort out problems on their own, and there hasn’t been much by way of success so far. The Iraqis were supposed to have passed a new election law three weeks ago, but the deadline came and went. And every day that passes makes it less likely that the planned January 16 elections will happen. Interestingly enough, some of the Iraqi politicians most loudly calling for American intervention are those that previously criticized American interference. One Sunni lawmaker’s reasoning: “We want them to intervene for the sake of Iraq. We want more commitment by America because it’s an occupying power.”
One of the major issues that was supposed to confront President Obama next week when he visited China has absolutely nothing to do military buildup or Taiwan or North Korea. The U.S. administration has been worried first and foremost about sorting out a pavilion at a fair. A fair you say? Well, it’s not just any fair. The largest trade fair in history is set to take place in Shanghai from May to October 2010, and the Unite States was not scheduled to have a pavilion. This was the first issue the Chinese brought to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s attention when she visited back in February. So she raised—well, her people did, she’s not allowed to do any of the fundraising herself—$61 million in private funds (because public funds aren’t allowed to be spent on global trade fairs) to get the United States its pavilion.
And Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen seems to be OK with the time the White House is spending on its Afghanistan strategy review. In particular, he thinks that the “depth of the discussion” is good. Mullen thinks the official decision will come in a few weeks.
Wednesday, November 4
Hillary Clinton is keeping with the theme of settlement freezes as her visit to the Middle East comes to an end. After her meeting with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, Clinton reiterated that it isn’t enough for Israel to slow settlement construction; the United States still wants to see a complete halt to activity. But she doesn’t think a complete settlement freeze should be a precondition for negotiations. With Israel unwilling to heed the calls for a complete end to settlement activity, the secretary of state again pointed to the compromise Netanyahu has already made and called for parties to get to the negotiating table. According to Clinton, “getting into final status negotiations will allow us to bring an end to settlement activity.” U.S. envoy George Mitchell accompanied Clinton and both stressed their dedication to the peace process.
Of course Arab and Palestinian leaders have repeatedly said negotiations cannot begin until Israel agrees to a complete freeze. Round and round we go. Maybe the Egyptian president can help. Clinton met with Egypt’s leaders in part to try to find a way to restart the peace talks. She labeled Egypt “an essential partner” in the path toward peace. Egypt may be an essential partner, but that doesn’t mean the country agrees with everything Washington has to say. But at least Egyptian officials made an effort to explain to Clinton exactly what the Arab world thinks is wrong with the U.S. position. The Egyptian foreign minister said in a press conference that Cairo thinks Israel “is hindering the process” by refusing to bring a complete stop to settlement construction, and that the American delegation and the Egyptians discussed all of “this very clearly and very candidly.” But will it actually make an impact on the peace process?
Clinton may be making the most news, but she of course isn’t the only Obama adviser working on difficult issues. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Attorney General Eric Holder have both come out against an attempt by Senators Lindsey Graham, John McCain and Joe Lieberman to bar Gitmo detainees from trial in U.S. civilian courts. And North Korea’s statement on Tuesday that it has finished reprocessing spent-fuel rods, a big step on the path to weapons-grade plutonium, is putting pressure on its neighbors and U.S. envoy Stephen Bosworth. Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry is intent on continuing its path toward nuclear weapons unless the United States agrees to bilateral talks. There has been speculation that Bosworth might head to North Korea at the end of this month or the beginning of the next in an attempt to bring Pyongyang back to the six-party table.
Tuesday, November 3
Hillary Clinton had some strong words for Tehran. Iran has been stalling a proposed international agreement under which the country would send its uranium overseas to be enriched to nuclear-fuel quality. Then Tehran could use it to power a research reactor back at home. But Iran has said it won’t give up its right to enrich the uranium on its own soil. Clinton will have none of that: “We urge Iran to accept the agreement as proposed. Because we are not altering it.” The deal is a bellwether of sorts. If Iran refuses to accept the deal, that would be a strong signal to the international community that Tehran doesn’t intend to use its uranium for peaceful purposes.
The secretary of state made the remarks about Tehran while in Morocco at a meeting of Arab leaders, where she was also taken to task for the statement she made over the weekend about Israeli settlements. Many leaders in the Arab world criticized Clinton for ostensibly praising the Israeli offer to slow settlements and playing down the need to halt them altogether. She clarified that Washington’s position hasn’t actually changed; “we do not believe that settlements are legitimate, we have said that repeatedly and we have made that clear to the Israelis, the Arabs, the Palestinians and the world.” So there’s no harm in acknowledging that Israel has sort of met the preconditions to negotiations and maybe its time to sit down for talks, even though the United States really wants the Israelis to do a lot more before everyone gets to the negotiating table…right? Clinton heads to Egypt on Wednesday.
And President Obama didn’t mince words yesterday in his congratulatory call to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who won the country’s top seat after his main opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, dropped out of the runoff election. Obama’s hoping that Karzai will take on the country’s corruption and drug-trade problems, for real this time. The international community is more concerned with Karzai’s actions than words, and many are hoping he’ll arrest some of the most corrupt officials and establish a new anticorruption commission that will keep an eye of the government. But don’t get your hopes up that this resolution of the runoff will speed up the Afghan strategy review. The White House press secretary said finalization of the new strategy is still weeks away.
Monday, November 2
The secretary of state became the latest administration official to attempt to bring about some sort of compromise between Israelis and Palestinians. But she seems to have stumbled a bit. On Saturday Hillary Clinton called for talks to resume even though Israel is refusing to halt settlement construction. That bolstered the longstanding Israeli position that talks can only be held without preconditions. There was an immediate reaction across Arab nations, and the Palestinians accused the United States of “back-pedaling” on settlements—Washington had previously called for Israel to completely cease settlement construction before going into negotiations with the Palestinians. Clinton responded on Monday by calling on Israel to do more to help restart peace talks. True, the Israelis are doing as much as Washington would like, but at least it’s something: “The Israelis have responded to the call of the U.S., the Palestinians and the Arab world to stop settlement activity by expressing a willingness to restrain settlement activity.” The secretary of state is in Morocco today to meet with Arab foreign ministers and is not likely to have an easy time. The Arab League has said that the Arab states’ position is the same as the Palestinians’—talks can only begin once a full settlement freeze goes into effect. Time for Clinton to tap out?
With the economy slowly climbing out of recession, Lawrence Summers, the White House’s economic adviser, is holding a meeting today to discuss the state of things. All sorts of Cabinet officials will be in attendance; national-security adviser James Jones will even make an appearance. President Obama will meet with his own outside panel of economic experts at another date.
And Senator John Kerry is still keeping close tabs on Hamid Karzai. He spoke with the Afghan president on Friday, and met with CIA Director Leon Panetta on Thursday. He doesn’t think that Karzai’s brother had a “direct relationship” with the CIA, and he said the president himself is happy to make changes to his Cabinet to help increase the legitimacy of his government in the eyes of the United States.
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11.20.09
Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s trial in a New York civilian court is already a farce.
11.20.09
Why are American newspapers so bad at explaining foreign-policy issues?
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.
Click here to see the video.
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.
Click here to see the video.