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 Robert Gibbs may have been the most annoying member of the Obama administration. Arrogant, complacent, shallow, he represented the worst aspects of a White House press secretary. The news that he is departing should create a thousand hosannas across the land.

Former Democratic national chairman Howard Dean got it exactly right when he observed about Obama's departing aides:

The core issue is the contempt, which not just the progressives were treated by but lots of people were treated by, by senior advisers around the president who have been here for 20 years and thought they knew everything and we knew nothing. That is a fundamental flaw in any kind of administration. As they say, "Don't let the door hit you in the you-know-what on the way out."

Who will Obama appoint to replace Gibbs? It's hard to him imagine doing worse. Some candidates might be picked from the numerous Democrats who were defeated in the midterms. A true pick with the ability to talk to blue collar Democrats would be former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, but he lacks the kind of polish that Obama would be looking for. But the odds are that Obama will pick someone from the inside--perhaps Jay Carney, vice-president Joe Biden's spokesman and a former journalist at Time.

The truth is that Obama almost doesn't need a press secretary. He likes to turn his own press conferences into Ivy League seminars for the edification of the press corp and the nation. He is his own press secretary. In other words, he likes to hear himself talk.

Frank Ruggiero, who took over as acting special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan following Richard Holbrooke’s death, is carrying on with his former boss’s engagements. Later this week Ruggiero will head to Afghanistan and Pakistan to meet with government officials and civilian representatives on a trip that Holbrooke had previously scheduled. According to State Department spokesman PJ Crowley, Ruggiero “will focus on preparations for the upcoming U.S.-Afghanistan-Pakistan trilateral meeting scheduled to take place in Washington next month.” Ruggiero will also take part in a meeting this afternoon between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani.

In the Wall Street Journal, Max Boot trumpets the return of covert operations (Special Forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan; the Stuxnet computer worm that has stalled the Iranian nuclear program) after the Clinton administration's "abundance of caution." Boot thinks it would be a shame to waste "recent gains" and urges Washington bring its cloak-and-dagger tactics to bear, not only to halt Tehran's efforts to get the bomb, but to overthrow the Iranian regime (he seems to think doing the latter will automatically lead to the former). After missing a "prime opportunity" in the wake of mass protests over the 2009 reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Boot writes that the United States "must try," even if "toppling" Iran's rulers proves "impossible." (Plus, America's past covert forays into Iranian politics turned out so well.)

In other related news, the crown prince of Iran is dead. Ali Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late shah, committed suicide Tuesday morning at home in Boston. He was forty-four years old. Stephen Kinzer, over at the Daily Beast, recounts his tragic life. You can watch TNI's March 2009 interview with Reza Pahlavi here. 

On Tuesday I spoke to a conference, organized by the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy, with the theme of "The Future of U.S. Foreign Policy: The Revival of Soft Power and Cultural Diplomacy?"  What follows are my remarks to the conference.  

Americans bring some distinctively American perspectives to the employment of different instruments of power, hard and soft. My subject is how some of the relevant perspectives grow out of the history, geography, and other circumstances of the United States, and out of the political culture that those circumstances have nurtured. We see those perspectives manifested in particular policies of particular administrations, but those policies have deeper roots. By “perspectives” I mean not only preferences for using some instruments of national power rather than other ones, but also related perceptions, including difficulties and consequences associated with such use.

The GOP remains in Reagan's shadow. Ever since the 2008 election, when the presidential contenders vied with each other to stake a claim to Reagan, it's been clear that the Gipper remains the dominant figure in the GOP. Next month marks his 100th birthday, a fresh occasion for Reagan worship.

Roll Call and Talking Points Memo report that Reagan will be feted by a gallery of GOP stars. According to Roll Call,

The Illinois Republican Party hopes to host an all-star lineup of potential GOP presidential contenders at a dinner celebrating President Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday next month.

The team has certainly hit the ground running this new year. As the internal debate about Obama administration restructuring presses onward, news has broken that former–Commerce Secretary William Daley is in the running for the chief of staff position vacated by Rahm Emanuel (and for now held by Pete Rouse). Obama of course could still ask Rouse to remain as chief of staff, but he has at least been feeling out other candidates. David Plouffe, though, is a sure add-on to the administration. Obama’s former campaign manager is to become the president’s senior adviser, replacing David Axelrod. And then there’s Larry Summers’ position—director of the National Economic Council. According to the rumor mill, Gene Sperling is emerging as the top candidate for the job (edging out i-banker Roger Altman and Richard Levin, Yale’s president). Sperling is in the administration now, serving as an adviser to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. Plus, he’s already worked in the NEC—during the Clinton years, as deputy director under Robert Rubin and then director.

Reporters are suddenly interested in how the defense industry impacts defense politics, especially think tanks. Here at the Skeptics blog, both Justin Logan and Chris Preble have just written posts touching on the incentives that limit the intellectual independence of think tank analysts. This issue—the intersection of interests and ideas—is a big concern of mine these days, so here’s my (reprised) two cents.

Washington does not produce independent analysis because it isn’t supposed to. Democratic politics means competition among interest and ideological groups. Ideas about policy are weapons in those fights. Think tanks are part of that process, and thus inherently political and non-independent. It’s like the Bob Dylan song: Gotta Serve Somebody. Instead of quixotic struggles to purge non-independent voices from policy debates, we should aim simply to be aware of them.

The New York Times's Lede (and Mediaite) are highlighting a story that broke in November and seemingly got lost in the WikiLeaks frenzy. The Times's Robert Mackey reports the classified cables reveal that Iranian General Mohammad Ali Jafari, chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, slapped President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a meeting in January 2010 as the regime "struggled to contain postelection protests." The Pattonesque physical confrontation was apparently triggered by Ahmadinejad's suggestion that media restrictions be loosened in the wake of demonstrations that had turned violent. (Guess the general thought it was a really bad idea.) Small wonder, then, that the former mayor of Tehran called the WikiLeaks documents "worthless" a few weeks ago.

Americans observe the most recent political maneuvering in Pakistan—a withdrawal from the governing coalition by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), depriving the government of Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani of a parliamentary majority—with perpetual nervousness about this South Asian nation of more than 170 million. The nervousness has intensified over the past couple of years. Clearly the multiple roles that Pakistan is playing in the conflict in Afghanistan are mostly responsible for this. Americans on different sides of the Afghanistan war issue agree that there is a problem of Afghan insurgents finding sanctuary on the Pakistani side of the Durand Line, and that there is a further problem of Pakistani officialdom retaining old ties with the Afghan Taliban.

Then there are Pakistan's nuclear weapons, which are frequently invoked as an even graver source of worry. In fact, the presumed causal relationships in the Af/Pak theater often get flipped around by people who at least tacitly acknowledge that the counterinsurgency in Afghanistan isn't really doing much to put al-Qaeda out of business. Pakistan is the real prize, so it is said; the most important reason we are supposedly in Afghanistan is to prevent instability from spreading across the border and causing Pakistan to shake apart. The specter haunting such discussions is one of mad mullahs getting their hands on those nuclear weapons.

George F. Will is making waves with his comment on ABC's This Week that Sarah Palin and the Republican nominating process would be President Obama's "secret weapon" in 2012. Will sees Palin, widely viewed as the frontrunner in the Republican primaries, as unelectable. His fear is that the Republican base could put her over the top, thereby insuring Obama's reelection.

That is, by and large, the establishment view of Palin. Peggy Noonan and a host of other conservative commentators have made it clear that they violently dislike this Mama Grizzly. According to Noonan,

Conservatives talked a lot about Ronald Reagan this year, but they have to take him more to heart, because his example here is a guide. All this seemed lost last week on Sarah Palin, who called him, on Fox, "an actor." She was defending her form of political celebrity—reality show, "Dancing With the Stars," etc. This is how she did it: "Wasn't Ronald Reagan an actor? Wasn't he in 'Bedtime for Bonzo,' Bozo, something? Ronald Reagan was an actor."

Excuse me, but this was ignorant even for Mrs. Palin. 

She's seen as bad news for the GOP--volatile, rambunctious, nuts. The battle lines were drawn by Barbara Bush a few weeks ago when she said that Palin ought to hunker down in Alaska and not disturb her betters. Palin sniped back with words about "blue bloods" trying to fix the primary.