North Korea - Will Bush Fess Up to Failure? Posted by Suzanne Nossel

This week I will be guest blogging on Dan Drezner's blog, along with my husband, David Greenberg.  This way I can foist my views on a whole bunch of unsuspecting conservatives.  I will also try to hold up my end of things here, though my fellow arsenalists will be pitching in a bit more than usual too (and may strut some of their stuff Drezner-side as well).  My first post is up so check it out.

Daily Debacles Posted by Suzanne Nossel

I have often wished I had the time to document the daily missteps and hypocrisies of conservative foreign policy, each linked to a larger thematic critique (partly because I know that if progressives ever get back in power, we can be sure conservatives will make the time to chronicle ours in minute detail).   Since my baby is taking a blissful early morning nap, I'll put down a few from today's headlines.  Here's what you get combing through just the NYT front section on a slow news day (virtually the entire front page is devoted to domestic stuff:

Gratuitous and unprompted insults toward Russia - While visiting Latvia the President has chosen to provoke Putin by reopening disputes of interpretation over the post-World War II occupation of the Baltics.    In doing so he egged on the Latvian President to accuse the Russians of lying "through their teeth." Our relationship with Russia is sensitive enough.  Although I don't minimize the importance of setting historical records straight, the current furor between China and Japan suggests how pointless and needlessly antagonizing it can be for politicians to take the lead in doing so.  The U.S. is already extremely popular in Eastern Europe and the Baltics.   File under:  flatfooted diplomacy.

- Nowhere on nuclear plant security - Almost four years after 9/11 and President Bush having made the fight against terror and for homeland security his highest priority, it appears that little progress has been made on securing our nuclear facilities.  File under:  failure to deliver on professed priorities.

- Credible evidence of Bolton's interfering with the provision of unbiased intelligence - Former CIA #2 John McLaughlin has testified to the SFRC that John Bolton attempted to oust an analysis who objected to Bolton's making statements at odds with the best intelligence available on Cuban military capabilities.  McLaughlin described this as the the only time in his 32 years in intelligence that such a request was made from a policymaker.  Despite claiming to be committed to reforming intelligence and ridding it of biased political meddling, the White House sees nothing in Bolton's conduct that raises concern about his nomination.  File under:  hypocrisy; intolerance of criticism/dissent.

- Administration fails to come to grips with mis-treatment of detainees - The U.S. has submitted a report to the UN's Committee against torture in which it affirms its unequivocal opposition to torture under all circumstances.  But the report overlooks the situation of so-called "ghost detainees" kept incommunicado and unregulated.  Nor does it address any of the cultural issues that led to abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, nor the fact that the senior officers responsible have - well - not been held responsible.  It also leaves out the practice of sending terrorist suspects to countries where torture is practiced.  File under:  Erosion of the U.S.'s status as human rights standard-bearer

- Administration retaliates against FBI translator for revealing flaws in intelligence gathering - An appeals court has upheld the firing of an FBI translator who blew the whistle on slipshod translations and the blocking of translations of materials relating to terrorism on personal and political ground.   The Administration is invoking a "state secret" privilege (don't think we studied that one in law school . . .") to block her suit to recover her job.  The translator plans to appeal to the Supreme Court.  File under:  intolerance of criticism/dissent.

The reviled head of Los Alamos is appointed to a Pentagon post - The head of Los Alamos has prompted open rebellion among the staff of the nuclear weapons lab because of his high-handed style.   The lab finally got rid of him, but he's getting a position at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.  File under:  failing upward.

Now there are some items that could be pointed to as wins on the other side:  despite British outrage over the lies en route to Iraq, Blair holds onto power, thus avoiding becoming another Aznar paying the price for fealty to Bush;  the Iraqis are a little closer to forming a Cabinet (though another 26 have died due to the insurgency). 

Luckily the front section is short today -- baby's up and keeping track of this stuff is exhausting. 

Sudan and What We Stand For Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Holocaust remembrance day seems like as good a moment as any to reflect on why the Administration seems to have abandoned the effort to curb genocide in Darfur. Darfur has posed a difficult problem for a long time. Brad Plumer, writing for MotherJones.com has a good description of why every option for action is problematic. 

So what is the Administration doing? Essentially, nothing. Nearly eight months after calling the mass killings in the Darfur region genocide and doing the heavy lifting on a resolution to get the UN involved, the Administration seems to have backed away from that term, and from any sustained effort to address the crisis. As Mark Goldberg has reported in The American Prospect, Bush has also been blocking passage of the Darfur Accountability Act, a measure sponsored by Brownback and Corzine that is aimed accelerating and expanding the intervention of African Union and UN troops and imposing sanctions and a no-fly zone in Sudan.

The consensus on why is the turnabout has occurred is that the Sudanese government is providing useful support in the fight against terror, a story first reported in the LA Times last week. Sudan used to be al Qaeda’s headquarters, and it seems a number of terrorist groups retain close ties there. The Sudanese government is apparently credited with preventing terrorist attacks against the U.S. by detaining suspects. The intelligence officials leading the cooperation are reportedly the very people who could but won’t clamp down on the atrocities in Darfur. A letter sent by Condi Rice to the Sudanese last month urged an end to the conflict in Darfur but also said the administration hoped to establish a "fruitful relationship" with Sudan and looked forward to continued "close cooperation" on terrorism.

People like Phil Carter at Intel Dump have been thinking about whether the decision to allow the crackdown on terror to prevail over the imperative against genocide is the right one. He concludes as follows:

In the final analysis, I think that the U.S. government has made the right decision there to work with the Khartoum regime to get intelligence about Al Qaeda. But I'm very uncertain about that judgment. We know that genocide itself can breed instability and terrorism, just as failed states like Sudan can. And we also know that many, many more have perished in Darfur than from all of the terror attacks in the last 100 years combined. Should this effort bear no fruit, I will likely question my judgment that this policy is prudent, and lament the lost opportunity to save the victims of genocide in Darfur.

Here at Democracy Arsenal we tend to hold fairly hard-headed views on international affairs questions. We recognize that U.S. foreign policy must be guided by national interests and, above all, national security considerations. So I can’t simply dismiss the tangible help we’ve evidently been receiving from the Sudanese. But I still think its inexcusable for this to stand in the way of acting against genocide (I am going to leave aside for tonight what we ought to do, and instead address only whether the cooperation we are receiving is grounds to refrain from measures – like those in the Accountability Act – that we might otherwise undertake).

Part of this comes down to gut feeling and moral considerations that are hard to articulate, but here’s a meandering stab at some of why:

Bush has always articulated the struggle against terror in moral terms, as good against evil. The slaughter in Darfur is, more than anything else at this moment in history, a emblem of evil recognized all over the world. To calculate that the benefit of Sudan’s cooperate outweighs the harm of their continued abuses undercuts the moral force of the American quest against terror, hollowing out our claims of righteousness.

Does this matter? I think so. When it rallied to America’s side after September 11 and when attacked Afghanistan the world was imbued with a sense of moral outrage. Its hard to know if that sense of outrage would reemerge if there was another terrorist attack, but I think we all have the sense that, given the events of the last four years, the world’s reaction may well be different. 

Foreign policy will never be pure. There will always be unseemly trade-offs. The U.S. will always be vulnerable to criticism for self-interestedness and for picking and choosing how to apply our principles. Political considerations, resource constraints, and conflicting interests combine to ensure this. Those who believe American policy can or should be 100% consistent probably belong on the outside commenting and criticizing, rather than in government trying to get things done.

$100 Million Gone in Iraq -- Now What? Posted by Michael Signer

My normal day to post is Friday, but I'm off to my buddy Matt's wedding in Seattle at the butt-crack of dawn tomorrow, so I'm going to have to do this a day early...

So, there are a lot of things I'd like to talk about, from the weirdly Byzantine Florida murder mystery reported in Sunday's Washington Post to which Tom DeLay has tangential, but disturbing, links; to Kenny Baer's stellar reporting on why the British elections matter to us here in the colonies; to the powerful work by Sojourners on Darfur and the intriguing opening I think it represents for an emerging movement of progressives-of-faith.

But I'm going to write instead about Thursday's WaPo revelation that a criminal investigation is afoot into why the Administration has lost almost $100 million in Iraq so far.

I kind of caught it on the chin from some of you last week for my posting on how progressives should stand for probity as a first principle in politics. (This alliteration is actually accidental). 

I think my answers will be a little more effective in light of this incredible story confirming my original point that the other side is corrupt, and we shouldn't be:

Investigators have opened a criminal inquiry into millions of dollars missing in Iraq after auditors uncovered indications of fraud in nearly $100 million in reconstruction spending that could not be properly accounted for.

The money had been intended for rebuilding projects in south-central Iraq. But auditors with the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction found that of $119.9 million allocated, $7.2 million could not be accounted for at all, and $89.4 million in reported spending could not be backed up with sufficient documentation, according to a report released yesterday.

Last fall, the Kerry campaign only really got traction when the Senator honed in on this message (the only one that, Mr. Shrum, worked):  incompetence in Iraq.  And that's because the American people sensed all the mistakes stemmed from deeper flaws in this Administration's basic theory of governance:  a deferral to the will of large, energy-based corporations; a zeal to effect grudges through contracting policies; a wild-eyed belief that privatization is always more efficient.  All of which were dead wrong -- and demand a reform-based response.

Wargaming for peace Posted by Lorelei Kelly

Democrat of the Week:  Representative David Price (NC) who introduced a bill late Thursday that would require the federal government to give better guidance to private military contactors and to collect information on cost, personnel, and casualties. These requirements address concerns raised by the contractors themselves, and they were highlighted in a GAO report that Congressman Price also requested.

This past Monday, I had the pleasure of teaching a class at the Army War College Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute. My charge was to lead a discussion about national security decision making in the US Congress. With the 300 billion dollar costs of  Iraq and Afghanistan serving as a backdrop, the most consistent theme of the discussion was Congress’ inability to perform a central duty: oversight on matters of  budget and national security.   Through our discussion one theme stood out: the GWOT (global war on terror) is both over-militarized and under-resourced.

Military doctrine points to four instruments of national power: DImE.  This stands for  Diplomacy, Information, military and Economics.  The military is not capitalized to make a point: it is always supposed to be the tool of last resort—after the other instruments have been exhausted.   A typical federal budget funds the military at sixteen times the rate of all other foreign policy tools combined. Indeed, today’s defense budget, adjusted for inflation, is 12% larger than typical Cold War era budgets. This serious and worsening imbalance between our national instruments of power is not lost on the Army. In fact, there is increasing realization that in order to relieve itself of some of the burdens of both war and post-conflict peacemaking, the military may have to go to bat for other agencies when budget time rolls around.  This would be astounding. It also might be the only way to turn the tide of what Andrew Bacevich calls the new American militarism.

This week the War College also happened to be hosting a wargame called “Unified Quest 05” so I sat in on one of the overview briefings.  I actually played in Unified Quest two years ago, so I was encouraged to see that many of the lessons of past years were deliberately inserted into this year’s gameplan.

The Army has progressed light-years since the 1990’s when the National Training Center was still playing blue on red (US versus USSR) maneuver warfare. (for example, vast mechanized forces meeting on the plains of Poland).  This year’s game highlighted three areas of focus: conflict prevention and deterrence, stability operations, and irregular warfare. Now, major areas of investigation include governance, humanitarian crisis and consequence management.  Achieving political success is another important factor—which leads to perhaps the most important innovation in today’s wargame: a separate assessment team that is neither red nor blue—that focuses on the civilian populations of either side.  This is significant:  It helps close the gap between military action and political consequence (i.e. flatten Fallujah and set yourself back months on the "hearts and minds" campaign). Definitely not touchy-feely, but a sure sign of the Army’s emotional intelligence. They are becoming aware of the fact that lasting, meaningful relationships are keys to success.

A large portion of the officers attending the War College these days have served in either Iraq or Afghanistan and so they increasingly bring ground-truth perspectives to these discussions.   Progressives need to encourage this kind of forward-thinking by the military by re-claiming democracy arguments—chief among them conflict prevention.  The big challenge is how we take the raw knowledge and momentum that is currently preoccupied with post-conflict reconstruction and use it to make the case for preventive action. After all, if good governance is important after pre-emptive war, why not avoid the war altogether and focus on institutions and democracy as part of a balanced DImE?

Both civilian and military organizations have, for years, asked the question: how do we make prevention operational? During the 1990’s the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict invested considerable resources in parsing apart the dilemmas of prevention. Since the end of the Cold War, the military has taken some creative initiatives: During the 1990’s the National Defense Panel outlined a strategy of “shaping stability”. Former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry co-authored a book on Preventive Defense and the Naval War College initiated a study on Formative Engagement to cite just three examples.

How this issue is framed will be vital.  The progressive perspective must include long-term considerations, where actions have implications over time and  therefore values leaders who understand the importance of relationships and context. The raw material is all over the place.  The progressive task is not one of documentation, but packaging.

When I taught conflict resolution classes many years ago, we distinguished between two types of power: Power as forceful dominance versus Power as the ability to influence change.   Therein lies the difference between pre-emptive war and a progressive democracy policy.

AID to Democracy NGOs: Mend it Don't End It Posted by Suzanne Nossel

There’s some interesting discussion at washingtonmonthly about the role of aid to NGOs and other civil society organs in the promotion of democracy.

Dan Drezner and Marc Lynch suggest that such aid is being over-emphasized in light of the problems associated with it. The problems include: that aid recipients get too closely associated with the U.S. which taints them and can undercut their relationships to local constituencies; that the wrong NGOs get funded; that its hard to know who to fund; and that local groups can wind up bending their agendas to suit funders, rather than the other way around.

The implication of their analysis is that NGO support should play only a bit part in efforts to promote democracy. The corollary is that there’s nothing wrong with the fact that Bush’s steamroll into Iraq was buttressed by only paltry efforts to build an infrastructure to support the democracy he claims to be trying to spread.

Its important to raise questions about how well ideas that sound great on paper actually work on practice.  But the better answer is not to scale back work to build civil society, but rather to rethink how we do it. I was very involved with a number of NGOs in South Africa in the early 1990s, a time when the civil society sector had taken over many of the functions of government –dispute resolution, law and order, city planning, economic development - filling the gap left when the apartheid state had been totally discredited, but elections to replace it had not taken place.

Virtually all the pitfalls Drezner and Lynch cite were manifest, albeit maybe not as deep as they are in the Middle East. But none of that negated the importance and value of support for local NGOs. The solutions are not simple, but how about looking at these for starters:

• funnel money through organizations that are seen as more independent and less controlling than the USG (for example, the American Bar Association, which has done a huge amount of valuable work of this sort, mainly in Eastern Europe, relying overwhelmingly on US government funding);
  
  
• set up a division of labor whereby the U.S. funds schools and businesses and the Scandinavians and others with less baggage focus on the NGOs;
  
  

• hire locals and those with language proficiency to conduct the program evaluations so that groups don’t feel they must over-cater to the West.

That there are problems with the way this work is done today means that we need to problem-solve, not that we should turn away from programs that are indispensable if the democracies the U.S. wants to claim a role in creating are to last.

ContortBolton.com Posted by Suzanne Nossel

I sometimes think we spend too much time in these forums arguing amongst ourselves, and not enough doing battle with those who truly hold opposing views.  Tonight Laura Rozen alerted me to a new piece published on confirmbolton.com.  I pulled up from my sprawled position on the couch, ready to go toe-to-toe with the other side.

The lead piece on confirmbolton.com was written by someone named Joel Mowbray, who also published it in the Washington Examiner (a freebie funded by a conservative Denver millionaire).  Mowbray argues that:

No better example exists of Democrats’ hypocrisy on the Bolton nomination than their treatment of Clinton’s last appointment to the very same position, Richard Holbrooke . . . . Despite substantial evidence [of possible ethical violations] being uncovered, Holbrooke got off with a slap on the wrist–and then Democrats didn’t even voice a whisper of concern about Holbrooke’s alleged “behavior.”

Mowbray claims that:

The divergent paths for each — Richard Holbrooke and John Bolton — reveal Democrats’ rabid partisanship and belies claims they oppose John Bolton on the grounds that “character matters.”

I was about to leap to google for a refresher on Holbrooke's confirmation battle, when I read on and realized I might not need to. 

Mowbray admits that Holbrooke was found guilty of no crime, yet maintains that his alleged ethical lapses far outweigh the allegations against Bolton and ought to have been taken more seriously. 

But his argument collapses of its own weight right out of the starting box.  So why didn't Holbrooke's nomination founder?  While Mowbray blames the Democrats for "hypocrisy" and "rabid partisanship" he admits that the GOP-led hearings turned into a "love fest" for Holbrooke.  He reports that Holbrooke's one critic, Jesse Helms, "appeared to bond" with the incoming Ambassador over stories of childhood visits to the UN.  He notes that Senators Daniel Moynihan (D-NY) and John Warner (R-VA) "lavished praise" on Holbrooke and that there was "nary a witness with any harsh words" for the nominee. 

He contrasts this to Bolton's hearings where Democrats have shown antipathy and Republicans "apathy."  He notes that Lugar seems "far more enthusiastic about Clinton's choice than Bush's." 

And your point is?  Democrats and Republicans agreed that because of his eminent qualifications and capabilities, there was little question that Holbrooke merited confirmation (it nonetheless took Holbrooke more than a year to get confirmed, though partly due to reasons having everything to do with unrelated to his own candidacy).   Now Democrats and some Republicans agree that based on his track record, there are serious grounds to believe Bolton should not be confirmed.   Let's see, Holbrooke helped end a genocidal war in Bosnia . . . John Bolton has helped end a bunch of arms control agreements.

Mowbray laments that no one seemed to take the charges against Holbrooke seriously enough.  He doesn't volunteer why Jesse Helms, not one known to back away from a fight with a Democrat, would have looked the other way had he seen anything approaching grounds to sink the nomination.

Mowbray kindly made my argument for me.  The reason there was bi-partisan consensus in favor of Holbrooke is that, politics aside, everyone agreed he was the right man for the job.  The reason Bolton is on the ropes is that, politics aside, serious people on both sides of the aisle have grave misgivings about how Bolton will perform in a critical role. 

Christopher Dodd has pointed out that he voted to confirm John Tower and John Ashcroft, much to the chagrin of fellow Democrats.    While Chuck Hagel and Lincoln Chafee are known as moderate Republicans and their skepticism toward Bolton does not come as a big surprise, the same is not true for George Voinovich and Lisa Murkowski. 

No one can claim that politics does not play a role here, but with the Democrats in the minority, Bolton would be entertaining in the Ambassador's suite at the Waldorf right now if partisanship were all that was at stake.

Conservatives are trying to keep up with the relentless drumbeat of Steve Clemons at theWashingtonNote.com and others who have marshalled argument after argument and fact after fact explaining why John Bolton is not the man we need in New York.  But given the case Mowbray lays out on confirmbolton.com he might as well have been writing for confirmbolton.org

Compassionate Conservatism Lite Posted by Michael Signer

In the C'mon-You've-Got-To-Be-Kidding category, a new report by the General Accounting Office on the Administration's Millenium Challenge Account, revealing that the Administration has obligated only 2% of the funds of the initiative to reduce poverty in the developing world. 

As Byron Dorgan's Democratic Policy Committee reports, the GAO shows the Administration's commitment to this crucial draining-the-swamp enterprise to be the peeling, plastic band-aid it is.  Their report:

Bush Administration has failed to deliver on its promise of "a major new commitment" to the developing world. On March 14, 2002, President Bush announced his proposal for the MCA, a major new initiative to provide foreign assistance to the developing world. The President promised "a major new commitment by the United States to bring hope and opportunity to the world's poorest people," and announced, "I carry this commitment in my soul." Three years after his promise, however, and two years after Congress passed the MCA into law, President Bush has yet to deliver on his promise. The MCA has not contributed a single dollar of foreign assistance to a developing nation. Furthermore, the President has not requested the $5 billion per year he promised for the account in any of the four budgets he has submitted to Congress after he announced the initiative.

In two years, the Bush Administration has obligated only two percent of MCA funds. The developing world is facing a series of destabilizing crises, including the AIDS pandemic, intractable poverty, floods of migrants and refugees, that not only cripple development efforts, but also represent threats to the security of the U.S. and the world. MCA funds could be a critical tool in confronting these crises; however, the Bush Administration has failed to get these funds into the areas of the world where they are needed most. The GAO reports that the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), the agency responsible for implementing the MCA, has only signed an agreement with one nation, Madagascar, worth only $110 million. Worse still, this $110 million will be made available over four years, meaning that only $55 million - two percent of the $2.5 billion appropriated through two years by Congress - has been obligated for the MCA's first two years.

It might be said that shamelessness makes for good politics, and I've always felt that the Bush team's utter unabashed willingness to do politics for politics' sake has been the key to their greater political victories.  (The "Mission Accomplished" Affair being the most delightful instance of the approach backfiring). 

But even in a shameless politics, there should still be a line.  It's like if ESPN only showed quarterbacks throwing passes, not receivers catching them.  The lack of follow-through on the MCA follows a series of foreign affairs maneuvers where the inattention of the press can only be blamed for aggravating the Administration's already-egregious approach.

The recent "energy policy" -- which aims to build new refineries on military bases -- is the best example.  Two years ago, fighting off John Kerry, President Bush told us in his State of the Union address that energy independence through alternative energy was the way to go.  Even some conservatives wondered whether he'd "gone green".

Days later, his announced budget reduced funds for alternative energy projects.  Today, of course, we've all forgotten the original pump-fake.  The new energy policy aims to make us energy independent by "expanding capacity" domestically -- a reverse strategy from alternative energy, and one that would still enchain the domestic population to craven domestic energy policy. 

The election's over, his supporters are calling in chits, and the media's memory is again short-term.  Game on -- now cut to commercials. 

US Checkmated in the OAS Posted by Suzanne Nossel

For the first time in the body's history, the Organization of American States has elected a President who was not the U.S.'s preferred candidate.  The OAS is hardly the world's most influential multilateral organ, and the U.S. - as the forum's largest contributor and Member State - will not lose its say.  But still, this points to some larger phenomena we've been discussing here, including the waning of American influence in our own backyard, the need for a clear progressive agenda directed at Latin American, and the deterioration of our multilateral relationships and influence.  The U.S. put a lot into trying to get its candidates elected to the post, but the rest of the region opted to assert its preferences instead.    The Administration is going to pains to play up Rice's role in brokering the ultimate compromise that led to the election of Chilean Interior Minister Jose Miguel Isuza, but the development is still being widely reported as a signal of waning American clout in the region.  Not a good sign.

Debating Democracy Posted by Suzanne Nossel

There’s an interesting debate underway at the Washington Monthly about how much credit Bush deserves for the spread of democracy in the Middle East, a topic that has raised some passions here as well.  Our very own Heather Hurlburt contributed a great piece to their series.

One premise needs to be clear before embarking on this debate.

We should completely separate the question of whether the Iraq invasion was motivated by the desire to spread democracy from our evaluation of whether or not the war has had that effect.

Most of the contributors to the Monthly don't directly touch on the run-up to the war. But many of them reveal a perceptible expectation that the two sets of events will ultimately be judged together.

Nancy Soderberg, for example, tries to draw a sharp line between the policies that led up to the Iraq war and the agenda the Bush Administration is pursuing post-reelection, arguing that it is the latter that is bearing fruit. Just three months into Bush's second term, and with the signs of a policy turnabout ambiguous at best (see, e.g. the nomination of John Bolton) a diplomat as skilled and savvy as Nancy knows that its at best too early to make that case.

There seems to be an inclination to believe that if the positive developments in the Middle East are linked to Bush, this ipso facto legitimizes the war, notwithstanding the false pretenses under which it was waged.  Jonathan Clarke faces up to this in his piece, writing that if it is true that raw American power percipitated democratic transformation in the Middle East:

those of us who had opposed the invasion of Iraq will feel like chumps, though we will rightly remind ourselves that the debate over whether to bomb Baghdad was always about means, not ends.

In fact, the two issues are totally separate. For anyone who is not convinced, Kevin Drum offers clear statements by Bush’s top aides making clear that the justifications for the war were manifold, but had little to do with spreading freedom.

Bush turned to the rhetoric of democracy promotion only once all other rationales for the Iraq action had disintegrated. By the end of 2004 the immediacy and terror of 9/11 had also begun to fade, requiring that Bush pivot away from his appeal to fear and offer a more uplifting foreign policy message. The spread of democracy fit the bill perfectly, and so Bush forcefully appropriated a set of ideas that traditionally belonged to progressives.

One element (its by no means the only element, though it is the only one I'll deal with tonight) progressives hesitation to link the steps forward in the region and U.S. action in Iraq is an understandable fear that doing so will validate the way Bush went to war.  We don’t want to ratify unilateral action, the alienation of allies and foreign populations, reliance on spurious intelligence, deception, or poor planning.

We suspect that if Bush is credited with progress in the Middle East, the misdeeds that seem to have already been forgiven by the American public (note the remarkable contrast to the political weight still accorded to issues like truthfulness en route to Iraq in Britain) may wind up offering a template for future foreign misadventures.

That Iraqis may ultimately be better off for being rid of Saddam Hussein and even on its way to democracy does not excuse the betrayal of the trust leading into the Iraq War or the fact that American lives were sacrificed under misleading pretenses. The spread of democracy elsewhere in the region will likewise do nothing to redeem this betrayal. There is nothing inconsistent about cheering the emergence of a more accountable and legitimate government in Iraq, and decrying the erosion of accountability and legitimacy back home.

The counter-argument, of course, is that even though the American public should separate these things, they won't.   Bush's shenanigans in building the case for war barely moved the needle in the 2004 elections. There's something very American in the bland, unpenetrating optimism of an "all's well that ends well" outlook. 

The only way this distinction will be preserved and that in the public mind is to link Bush's duplicity, high-handedness, and crisis of delivery in Iraq to a much larger pattern of behavior, one that cuts across Cherif Bassiouni, Tom DeLay, the nuclear option, John Bolton, and PBS, just to list out a few of this week's outrages.  It will be up to progressives to draw that link persuasively.

More on these important topics later in the week.

Non-Pro Non-Policy Posted by Derek Chollet

The past few days have seen a confluence of disturbing events on what I believe, hands-down, is the greatest security threat to the America: the spread of WMD.

Let’s begin with the conference in New York that begins this week to review the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT).  Last convened 5 years ago, this month-long arms control conclave will be the first opportunity to formally discuss the NPT since 9/11 – and since we made new discoveries about the limits of the current non-pro regime, from Iran and North Korea to Libya and the A.Q. Khan network.

One would think that given all this – and given the obvious flaws in the NPT that allow states to acquire the technologies needed to produce nuclear weapons capabilities legally– the United States would be heading into this important meeting with an ambitious, bold agenda to reform and strengthen the NPT for the 21st century.

Nope. 

Instead, it appears that the Administration wants to use the conference to defend its failing policies toward North Korea and Iran.  Who is leading the U.S. delegation to these talks?  Stephen Rademaker, the State Department’s senior non-proliferation official and, more importantly, one of John Bolton’s protégés and closest allies (and apparently one of the only friends he had in the Powell State Department).

If one is wondering why some month-long arms control conference might seem important, consider the stunning admission last week by Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lowell Jacoby that North Korea has the capability not just to produce a nuclear weapon (that we already knew), but to put that weapon atop a missile and launch it.  Hillary Clinton deserves credit for flushing this out of Jacoby during a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Remember folks, it was North Korea’s missile test in August 1998 that sent the Clinton Administration scrambling to design a missile defense system – an effort that the Bush Administration has pumped with steroids for the past five years, without much to show for it.   The concern then was that North Korea might someday be able to arm such missiles with nuclear warheads – well, at least now according to DIA, that day has arrived.

We might have consoled ourselves that North Korea’s missile program had for some reason gone dormant, but unfortunately Pyongyang’s missile test last Sunday was an in-your-face reminder that the threat is real.  And added to all this, there is growing concern – and apparently mounting evidence -- that North Korea will actually test a nuclear weapon sometime soon. 

So what’s the Bush team doing about this?  Well, the usual: a lot of talk but not much action.  Last week it sent Chris Hill – the senior State Department hand for Asia – to make the rounds in Asia, but he did not have any luck making lemonade out of the lemon of a policy he carried.  When asked for an “optimistic closing line” for the trip, Hill responded with characteristic candor: “give me a week and I will come up with one.”

The problem is not that our diplomats are weenies – Chris Hill cut his teeth dealing with Slobodan Milosevic.  The problem is that the Administration at the highest levels is either too internally divided – or it has no idea altogether – what our policy should be.  For an Administration that is usually criticized for not doing enough with other countries, in the case of North Korea, it is leaving everything up to others.

Now I’m not about to suggest that there is some magically easy answer to the North Korea problem.  It’s true that North Korea might not ever agree a deal that will require it to give up its weapons verifiably, but how will we know if we refuse to test them?  Even trying and failing would move the ball forward by giving us even more leverage to work with others to increase the pressure on Pyongyang.  For a more detailed set of ideas of how the U.S. could approach this problem, check out chapter 6 of this recent Carnegie Endowment study.

It’s bad enough that the Bush team lacks either the will or the way to deal with specific WMD threats like North Korea -- its broader approach to non-proliferation is uninspired and unimaginative.  And who is going to pay the price?  Us.   

To sum up, I can’t put it any better than one of the true leaders of non-proliferation efforts, former Georgia Senator (and now head of the indispensable organization, the Nuclear Threat Initiative), Sam Nunn: “With so much at stake, our citizens have every right to ask: ‘Are we doing all we can to prevent a nuclear attack?’  My emphatic answer is ‘no, we are not.’”

Weekly Top 10 List: Top 10 Things at Stake in the Bolton Nomination Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Top 10 Things At Stake in the Fight to Defeat the Bolton Nomination – I don’t want to overstate this because I think there’s something to the notion that had Cheney won out in his quest to name Bolton Deputy Secretary of State, the influence of both the man and the hard-line flank he represents would have been far greater than it will be at the UN. But there is more at stake here than one man with a mustache. There’s a reason why this fight has consumed so many of us for months, garnering the UN Ambassadorship more attention than its had in a long time, maybe ever. He’s a stab at some of the larger reasons why this matters.

1. The U.S. Relationship To the UN – We are at a cross-roads as the UN’s supporters and detractors both know. The road to the Iraq war alienated the U.S. from the UN and vis-versa to a degree never before seen. Neither John Negroponte nor John Danforth had the mettle or the mandate to repair the relationship. Bolton, with his avowed “America first” perspective (see the last line of today’s NYT profile) seems inclined to widen rather than bridge the rift.

2. The Prospects for UN Reform – It is high noon for the UN when it comes to reform. But judging from his past, John Bolton’s concept of reform consists of punishing the world organization when it doesn’t hew to American interests. Condi Rice, her principal reform adviser Shirin Tahir-Kheli and other State Department officials appear to be advancing a reform agenda not unlike that of Secretary General Kofi Annan. Rice’s decision to appoint Tahir-Kehli to a newly created reform post within days of Bolton’s nomination was announced suggests that, despite deafening protests to the contrary, she too has misgivings about reform Bolton-style.

3. The Choice of a Successor to Kofi Annan – Annan’s term ends at the end of 2006. According to the UN’s rotation system, his successor should be from Asia. While current handicapping favors Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai, its far to early to call the race. Iran has proposed its President, Mohammad Khatami, as a candidate. In recent years the U.S. has had a strong hand in trying to sway the selection of UN leaders’ that have our trust. But if the next ambassador fails to repair U.S. relations at the UN, we may lose influence over the choice.

4. The U.S.’s Commitment to Intelligence Reform – I have made this point before, but given the credible accounts of Bolton’s efforts to retaliate against intelligence analysts for refusing to kow-tow to his worldview, I don’t see how Bush can credibly claim to be fighting to reform intelligence while elevating Bolton. Failure to take adequate account of dissent in the ranks was one of the premier intelligence failings cited by the 9/11 and Silberman-Robb Commissions. Confirming Bolton would sanction such behavior.

5. The U.S.’s Position in the Multilateral Order – Bolton’s candidacy has evolved into a kind of referendum on the U.S. approach to multilateralism, going beyond the UN itself. At the start of Bush’s second term, a series of trips and statements seemed to signal rapprochement. In choosing Bolton, Bush seemed to shift into reverse. The world took it as a sign that hardliners indifferent to world opinion and prospects for cooperation were still very much in charge. Bolton’s appointment suggests that Bush may drift even further away from allies and agreements during his second term. Meanwhile, institutions like the ICC and Kyoto Protocol move on without us.