Obama’s Race Speech and the Middle East Posted by Shawn Brimley

A shout-out to fellow Democracy blogger Shadi for an excellent piece in today's Washington Post on Senator Obama's speech on race and what it could mean for the Middle East. Two of many great passages:

"We can call these people enemies and say they are lost to us. It would be easy, because these views are indeed reprehensible. Or we can articulate a new strategy, one which, without condoning violence, acknowledges their grievances and their very real sense of being wronged by history. We can seek to better understand why the Middle East has become a graveyard of shattered hopes and an open wound that threatens world security. And we can work to address the unacceptable fact that, while much of the rest of the world moves forward, many Arab and Muslim populations live in economic misery under brutal autocratic regimes -- many of which the U.S. supports with foreign aid."

"On Tuesday, watching his speech from Jordan, I felt for the first time in a while that we could begin coming to terms with the past and accounting for the injustices committed against those at home, and those abroad, who are waiting to see what America will do next."

Millions of Americans regardless of political affiliation were very impressed by the speech, and congrats to Shadi on explaining how and why what we say to each other here at home can help us abroad.

First U.K. National Security Strategy Posted by Shawn Brimley

Our friends across the pond have published their first ever National Security Strategy, titled "Security in an Interdependent World." While one could easily criticize both the U.K. and American versions for being essentially public relations documents, I believe they are useful as a way to gauge how a government sees itself contributing to the protection of their people.

The U.K. NSS lists a series of "Guiding Principles:"

1. Our approach to national security is clearly grounded in a set of core values;
2. We will be hard-headed about the risks, our aims, and our capabilities;
3. Whenever possible, we will tackle security challenges early;
4. Overseas, we will favor a multilateral approach;
5. At home, we will favor a partnership approach;
6. Inside government, we will develop a more integrated approach;
7. We will retain strong, balanced and flexible capabilities; and
8. We will continue to invest, learn and improve to strengthen our security.

Overall, nothing truly earth-shattering, but an interesting and useful effort.

You can read it here, and a news account from the Guardian here.

Awakening to More Trouble Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

I haven't written much lately about the dangerously deteriorating situation of Sahwa movement.  But here is just another case and point in how unsteady the situation remains.

The success of the US "surge" strategy in Iraq may be under threat as Sunni militia employed by the US to fight al-Qaida are warning of a national strike because they are not being paid regularly.

Leading members of the 80,000-strong Sahwa, or awakening, councils have said they will stop fighting unless payment of their $10 a day (£5) wage is resumed. The fighters are accusing the US military of using them to clear al-Qaida militants from dangerous areas and then abandoning them.

A telephone survey by GuardianFilms for Channel 4 News reveals that out of 49 Sahwa councils four with more than 1,400 men have already quit, 38 are threatening to go on strike and two already have...

But dozens of phone calls to Sahwa leaders reveal bitterness and anger. "We know the Americans are using us to do their dirty work and kill off the resistance for them and then we get nothing for it," said Abu Abdul-Aziz, the head of the council in Abu Ghraib, where 500 men have already quit.

"The Americans got what they wanted. We purged al-Qaida for them and now people are saying why should we have any more deaths for the Americans. They have given us nothing."

In Dora, a southern suburb of Baghdad, the leaders of a Sahwa group of 2,400 men said they were considering strike action because none of the 2,000 applicants they had put forward for jobs with the police and military had been accepted.

The Shia-dominated government of Nouri al-Maliki has found jobs for only a handful of the Sahwa fighters.

You gotta pay them.  You gotta bring them in or this is going to fall apart very quickly. 

In Retrospect Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

There have been a lot of retrospectives this week on the five year anniversary of the War. Many deal with why so many people supported the war in the first place.  But I think the one justification that doesn't make any sense is the "I thought there were weapons of mass destruction" defense. 

Let's say there were WMD in Iraq.  Would Iraq be any better off today?  The answer is obviously no.  It would actually be worse.  Potentially much worse.  It would still be a failed warlord state with multiple unstable ceasefires sort of partially temporarily holding things together.  We would have still had the horrible sectarian violence of 2006 and early 2007, the still intolerable levels of violence today, and the displacement of 4 million Iraqis.   The only difference is that there would also be biological, chemical or nuclear weapons likely on the loose as well. 

Something to think about before we decide to attack Iran. 

Bush's James Bond Scenario Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

Farah Stockman at the Boston Globe wrote a great article yesterday in the Boston Globe about the President's attempt to tie "victory" in Iraq to the economy.  (It's not just excellent because she interviewed me).  So in the all news yesterday about Iraq she pointed out that this particular line from President Bush's speech just didn't get enough attention.

Out of such chaos in Iraq, the terrorist movement could emerge emboldened -- with new recruits, new resources, and an even greater determination to dominate the region and harm America. An emboldened al Qaeda with access to Iraq's oil resources could pursue its ambitions to acquire weapons of mass destruction to attack America and other free nations.

Seriously, this is some outlandish stuff.  First of all, the idea that Al Qaeda would ever come to control all of Iraq is absurd.  Even in the worst worst case scenarios all you'd have is an Al Qaeda safe haven in the Sunni part of the country.  Not AQI control.  Just an AQI safehaven, which is very different.  And even that seems far fetched since most of the Sunni powerbrokers have turned against AQI already.

On top of that all the oil is in the Kurdish North and Shi'a South.  Do you think that Shi'a and the Kurds would just invite Al Qaeda in to take their oil?  Not to mention the difficulty of actually getting oil out of the ground and transporting it.  Iraq has massive reserves but there's a difference between having reserves and actually having the resources and capital to get them out of the ground, and it's very difficult to do that in a country as dangerous and chaotic as Iraq.  That is why Iraq's oil production still has not exceeded prewar levels.

In fact, don't take my word for it.  Ask Neo-Conservative Michael Rubin who was interviewed for the same article and said "the idea of Al Qaeda taking over the oil is stretch."

I think they've been airing too many Tom Clancy political thrillers at the White House.  It seems to have gone to the President's head.

Iraq Conference Call Creates Contentious Clash Posted by Adam Blickstein

Today, the National Security Network hosted a press conference call with Ilan Goldenberg, Jon Soltz of VoteVets.org, and Brian Katulis of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. They were addressing recent comments made by Bush, McCain and Cheney on the 5th Anniversary of the Iraq War.

Our speakers laid out the reasons that John McCain's policies and approaches sound a lot like the continuation of the Bush policies of conflating Iraq with the terrorists who attacked us on 9-11. They addressed that fact that repeated mistakes on serious policy issues (like whether or not a country is aiding terrorists) is not what we need in a commander-in-chief.

When the call turned to Q&A, it got pretty contentious with a clash between the experts and the media over the true nature of McCain's Sunni/Shia conflation.

Listen to the audio for yourself, especially towards the end where things turn into an intense battle over the true intentions and ramifications of McCain's Iraq statements...

Iraq 5 Year Anniversary Conference Call

UPDATE: One of the reporters on the call, The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb, blogs about the call here, describing what most intelligence experts would characterize as black and white as "The Gray Area" of Iran-al Qaeda Connections."  Money-quote (which is so rich it could finance a fleet of wagons for the Right's growing circle):

I was struck by their insistence that Iran wouldn't collaborate
with Sunni extremists, and that they had offered as evidence the
fact that Iran had, at one point, almost gone to war with the Taliban.

100 Years for What? Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

So, I'm piling on but I can't help myself.  I want to second comments made by Max and Michael (As well as Spencer and Matt Duss). 

Here's the thing about McCain's mistake (and let's be clear it was a mistake he repeated it three times in one day.  It's a mistake and a lack of understanding).  This is a man who has staked his ENTIRE CAMPAIGN ON IRAQ.

This is a man who thinks it's OK for us to leave a troop presence in Iraq for 100 years.  He thinks that Iraq is the central struggle of our day.  He thinks that all of our other interests should be subverted to sticking it out in Iraq.  He is running on his foreign policy experience.  Yet he doesn't even understand who we are fighting.  Is this the person we want answering the phone at 3 in the morning?  This fundamental misunderstanding makes you wonder if he is qualified to be commander and chief.  It's quite frankly stunning.

Getting Inside McCain's Head Posted by Michael Cohen

Thanks to Max for flagging John McCain's frankly stunning comments about Sunnis and Shia, but it's worth looking at exactly what he said:

Well, it’s common knowledge and has been reported in the media that Al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran. That’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.

And then there is this

As you know, there are Al Qaeda operatives that are taken back into Iran, given training as leaders, and they’re moving back into Iraq,” Mr. McCain said, according to a transcript posted on the show’s Web site.

This reminds me of the story from George Packer's March 2003 New Yorker article about the run up to war with Iraq and this anecdote:

Bush is a man who has never shown much curiosity about the world. When he met with Makiya and two other Iraqis in January, I was told by someone not present, the exiles spent a good portion of the time explaining to the president that there are two kinds of Arabs in Iraq, Sunnis and Shiites.

Just what we need, another President who can't figure out the difference between a Sunni and Shiite.

Now I can't get into John McCain's head and look around, but it sure seems like McCain is adopting the Bush Administration's argument that everyone fighting US forces in Iraq is a terrorist and thus Al Qaeda. It doesn't matter if they are Shiite and Sunni, apparently for John McCain, every "extremist" looks the same. This is a pretty broad brush way of looking at the "war on terror" and it's pretty damn foolish.

It sort of begs the question, is John McCain just not as smart as we thought he was, or is he silly enough to actually believe anything that comes out of this White House. Either way, as Max suggests, this is kind of a big deal.

McCain's Al Qaeda and Iran confusion is a big big deal Posted by Max Bergmann

Many in the media seem willing to dismiss McCain's statement that Iran is training Al Qaeda as a simple slip of the tongue. This is wrong. McCain did NOT misspeak. If he had simply made the statement once, he could perhaps expect to be given a pass.

But he didn't just say Iran was training Al Qaeda once. He said it in his initial statement (watch it here). He was then asked about it in a follow up question where he repeated it. It is not a simple slip of the tongue if when challenged on the "slip" you then REPEAT IT. [He also repeated it on Hugh Hewitt's radio show]

That is not a gaffe. That is called believing something that isn't true. It is called being confused. And being confused about the differences between Shia and Sunni when claiming that you should be elected president of the United States on your foreign policy knowledge and experience, is simply not okay. This is a big deal.

Obama's Race Speech Posted by Michael Cohen

I've been spending the past hour or so properly trying to digest Barack Obama's speech today on race and religion in America. In a possible sign that my career as a political pundit may be short-lived, I'm at a bit of a loss on what to say.

I've just spent the past year reading and writing more about campaign speechwriting than any sane person should and the one thing about this speech that jumps out at me is the courage and complexity of the man's arguments. One would fully expect that after the incendiary comments of Rev. Jeremiah Wright Obama would throw this man under a bus - but he didn't. He actually tried to explain the racial and religious context of how these assertions materialized.

Whatever you might think of Obama, you can't say he has taken the easy way out with a speech like this - he's taken the time to confront some very unpleasant truths about race in America. And he has done it in a nuanced manner that is pretty much unprecedented for campaign rhetoric.

I've pasted the text below the fold - please take some time to read it and post comments.

Afghanistan is Where the Terrorists Are... Posted by Adam Blickstein

...But Our Troops are in Iraq

In the first of a series of documents the National Security Network is developing on Afghanistan, NSN released a report today examining how the Bush Administration's almost singular focus on Iraq negatively impacts our efforts in Afghanistan. The report can be found here, and below is a chart further fleshing out the disparity in focus from the Administration between Iraq and Afghanistan:

A Responsible Plan for Iraq that Wonks Didn’t Write Posted by Moira Whelan

National Security Wonks, take note: progressives have a plan for ending the war in Iraq, and they’re stealing your thunder.

Yesterday at Take Back America, ten progressive challengers for Congress announced a plan to bring an end to the war in Iraq.

Usually, the idea of candidates announcing plans such as these draw little attention among national security experts. This is because most wonks look through the plans and can identify which wonk the challengers depended upon to draft the plan, or wonks will dismiss the plans outright, based on the notion that obviously people running for Congress could not know the things they know about foreign policy and national security …and therefore it must be pretty weak, targeted only at getting elected and not really…SERIOUS.

Not so with this plan.  Wonks are missing something huge if they don't read this, because while you ignore it, American voters are embracing it as the future of their government.

How George Bush is Like Homer Simpson Posted by Michael Cohen

One of my favorite Simpsons episodes ever is the one where Homer goes back to school to earn his degree in nuclear physics. Not surprisingly, for most of the semester, Homer screws around and doesn't study. But, the night before the final exam, he unveils his plan for getting a passing grade:

During the exam, I'll hide under some coats, and hope that somehow everything will work out.

Apparently President Bush has been watching the Simpsons because this appears to be precisely his strategy for turning the US economy around. This from his recent economic speech in New York City:

I'm coming to you as an optimistic fellow. I've seen what happens when America deals with difficulty. I believe that we're a resilient economy, and I believe that the ingenuity and resolve of the American people is what helps us deal with these issues. And it's going to happen again.

Just in case you found yourself momentarily captivated by the President's optimism, here comes the New York Times, playing the role of Lisa Simpson, to throw a big bucket of water over that one:

Mr. Bush said he was optimistic because the economy’s “foundation is solid” as measured by employment, wages, productivity, exports and the federal deficit. He was wrong on every count. On some, he has been wrong for quite a while.

Mr. Bush boasted about 52 consecutive months of job growth during his presidency. What matters is the magnitude of growth, not ticks on a calendar. The economic expansion under Mr. Bush — which it is safe to assume is now over — produced job growth of 4.2 percent. That is the worst performance over a business cycle since the government started keeping track in 1945.

It really does beg the question; if America had elected Homer Simpson eight years ago - would we be any worse off than we are today?

 

That Wacky, Wacky Kristol Posted by Michael Cohen

As many of you are likely aware, the blogosphere has been in quite a tizzy today over Bill Kristol's more recent feeble dropping on the pages of today's New York Times. And if you think I'm not going to join in on the pile-on . . . . well you just don't me know that well.

To review the basic details, Kristol claimed that Barack Obama was in the pews at Trinity Church on July 22nd 2007, when Rev. Jeremiah Wright "blamed the “arrogance” of the “United States of White America” for much of the world’s suffering, especially the oppression of blacks." Turns out Obama wasn't there and the Times has already posted a correction - which for those of you keeping score at home is Kristol's second major correction in just three and a half months on the job.

None of this should be a huge surprise. It's not just that Bill Kristol is a bad writer, serial misleader and overall political hack, it's that he is not a conservative thinker (which the NYT for some bizarre reason thought it was getting when they hired him) - he is a Republican operative who is basically using the NYT editorial page as a catalyst for spreading the latest GOP talking points. Indeed, the more interesting graf from Kristol's latest missive is below:

The more you learn about him, the more Obama seems to be a conventionally opportunistic politician, impressively smart and disciplined, who has put together a good political career and a terrific presidential campaign. But there’s not much audacity of hope there. There’s the calculation of ambition, and the construction of artifice, mixed in with a dash of deceit — all covered over with the great conceit that this campaign, and this candidate, are different.

Hmm, this sort of sounds familiar; it's pretty much the same GOP attack line that we've heard about not only Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry, but pretty much every major Democratic leader; namely they are unprincipled, deceitful and driven only by political ambition. So here we see Kristol trotting out the same old charge on Obama.

I'm all for having a conservative voice on the editorial page of the Times, but how about someone who has something interesting to say about . . . I don't know, conservatism!

The Times unimaginative selection of Kristol is part and parcel of the phenomenon that Ilan referenced over the weekend with the Times absurd five-year retrospective on Iraq - relying on the same old tired voices to argue over the same old tired talking points. Honestly, does anyone expect Paul Bremer to say a single interesting thing about Iraq? Give Ilan 500 words on the Times editorial page - believe me it would be a hundred times more interesting than anything to come out of the pen of Danielle Pletka or Fred Kagan.

If the mainstream media hopes to stay relevant in the age of digital technology and the rise of the blogosphere, broadening the voices that it highlights on its editorial page would seem like a pretty good place to start - somehow, unfortunately the NYT hasn't gotten the message.

Just to show you how bad things have gotten: the editorial page of Wall Street Journal ran a piece by ME today. Me. Michael A Cohen, author of the soon to be published Live from the Campaign Trail: The Greatest Presidential Campaign Speeches of the 20th Century and How they Shaped Modern America.

Seriously, this is the best they could do. Shame, Shame!

What Do Walt Whitman, Admiral Fallon, and Waterboarding Have in Common? Posted by Heather Hurlburt

Eli Lake and I discuss all of them, as well as censored Iraq reports and other topics, over at bloggingheads.  You can hear Eli try out a number of new potential neo-conservative lines of counter-attack on Iran, Iraq, Israel-Palestine and torture; one very interesting theory on why Fallon was forced out (so Petraeus can have his job; who knows?) and one of the more specious conservative attacks on an interconnected world that I've ever heard ("multilateralism leads to waterboarding").

Closet English majors and my friends who hang out with poets will want to go to the end for the Whitman reference.

We've got five years, My brain hurts a lot Posted by Adam Blickstein

Five years into John McCain's 100 year Iraq War. Today, the Republican nominee and Vice President Cheney surrounded by violence in Baghdad and Karbala. McCain no longer able to push through his favorite Baghdad market, now unsafe for Americans, many mother's surely sighing.  News guys bored with covering the war, no longer weep and tell us the earth was really dying. We've got five years, and all our brain's hurt a lot...

Another way of laying out the data Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

At NSN we've been working on a number of different pieces that are coming out this week to review where we stand after five years in Iraq.  I know that Mike O'Hanlon has his own fancy graphics on Iraq, but I thought this was another way of looking at the data that lays it out pretty starkly.  It's really hard to look at these numbers and not conclude that this war has been both a strategic and humanitarian disaster. 

Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid Posted by Michael Cohen

So last night I was stunned to see that Bear Stearns, got bought for $2 a share, which is one-tenth of the company's value just three days ago.  This is a company that was selling at $170 share a year ago.

Then I wake up this morning to news that world economic markets are in freefall.

It can't get any worse right?

Well then I click over to MSNBC and see this headline:

Bush says administration is 'on top of the situation' in dealing with the economy

Excuse me while I go and crawl into a fetal position.

McCain vs. Petraeus Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

So I’m a bit confused.  On Friday the Washington Post reported this:

Petraeus, who is preparing to testify to Congress next month on the Iraq war, said in an interview that "no one" in the U.S. and Iraqi governments "feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation," or in the provision of basic public services.

No one that is, except for John McCain who, as the Times reminds us this morning, last month stated:

Anybody who believes the surge has not succeeded, militarily, politically and in most other ways, frankly, does not know the facts on the ground.

That’s interesting.  I thought Mr. Straight Talk always tells it like it is.  But here he seems to be contradicting Petraeus.  Is it possible that John McCain is painting an overly positive picture of Iraq because he knows that’s the only way he can win the election?  Couldn’t possibly be that?  It’s not like he has a long history of hyping success in Iraq…Oh wait

The Grey Lady Hides Her Best Posted by Heather Hurlburt

Ilan is right, skip the Times' "Iraq Five Years On" section.  But don't skip veteran correspondent John Burns' "Five Years" memoir in the Outlook section. It is beautifully-written and pulls the reader back instantly to 2003, with a reminder of all that was lost that is in some ways more powerful than any of the fact sheets on what has happened since.  Even more, he posits that journalists -- and others -- bear considerable responsibility for how Iraq was covered prior to 2003 and thus some responsibility for how people, including policymakers, thought the war and its aftermath would unfold.  Braver than I have seen many writers or analysts be.

It's Not the Execution Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

The NY Times has its five year retrospective on the Iraq War and I gotta say I'm not impressed.  There are nine pieces: Bremer, Perle, Slaughter, Pollack, Pletka, Fick, Eaton, Kagan, and Cordesman.  I understand the need to bring in more conservatives for this piece, since they are the ones responsible for the execution.  But out of the nine pieces not one talks about the strategic failure of going in in the first place.

Almost 4,000 American troops have died, approximately 30,000 have been wounded, we've appropriated more than $500 billion with the costs to the actual economy estimated to be well over $1 trillion and possibly heading towards $3 trillion.  For all of this we have gotten a more powerful Al Qaeda, a more powerful Iran, a more unstable Middle East, and an overstretched military.

But all of these pieces talk about the failure of execution and foist blame at various directions as if this could have all worked out if we had just done some things differently. 
Let's face it, the failure was in the initial concept and the fact that the Times feels like it needs to give both Pletka and Kagan a spot, and can't find us a Korb, Graham, or Bacevich to make the strategic failure argument is pathetic.

And for God's sake.  With 9 Pieces about Iraq, perhaps the Times should have had at least one piece by ummm.... perhaps an Iraqi?  But after all who cares what they think.  Fred Kagan and Danielle Pletka tell it like it is.

On the bright side.  No Mike O'Hanlon.