Integrating the Sunnis Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

This is not very promising. 

Iraq's Shi'ite-led government declared yesterday that after restive areas are calmed, it will disband Sunni groups battling Islamic extremists because it does not want them to become a separate military force.

The statement from Defense Minister Abdul-Qadir al-Obaidi was the government's most explicit declaration yet of its intent to eventually dismantle the groups backed and funded by the United States as a vital tool for reducing violence.

The militias, more than 70,000 strong and often made up of former insurgents, are known as Awakening Councils, or Concerned Local Citizens.

"We completely, absolutely reject [the militias] becoming a third military organization," Obaidi said at a news conference.

He added that the groups would also not be allowed to have any infrastructure, such as a headquarters building, that would give them longterm legitimacy. "We absolutely reject that," Obaidi said.

The government has pledged to absorb about a quarter of the men into the predominantly Shi'ite-controlled security services and military, and provide vocational training so that the rest can find civilian jobs

Basically, the Shi'a central government, which has in the past supported systematic sectarian cleansing of Sunnis, expects the Sunni tribal leaders to unilateraly disarm.  Somehow I can't see the Sunnis going for that.  These are exactly the types of statements that make me very skeptical of the Anbar Strategy.

That Wacky, Wacky Krauthammer Posted by Michael Cohen

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the wackiest of them all? Krauthammer, Krauthammer, Krauthammer!

In today's installment of That Wacky, Wacky, Krauthammer, our old friend Charles judges the President's success in dealing with the three members of the "axis of evil." Predictably,  Chuck thinks the President has done a pretty good job - and in the one place where he's failed . . . well it really isn't his fault.  Last week Krauthammer had a brief flirtation with sanity, which almost caused me to write a blog post titled "That (Not So) Wacky, Wacky, Krauthammer. But luckily the dalliance was brief because this week CK is back to his exaggerating, misleading and lying ways.

In today's piece, there is a lion's share of dubious arguments, but one truly does merit great consideration. In judging Bush's record on North Korea a draw, Krauthammer argues:

We did get Kim Jong Il to disable his plutonium-producing program.  . . Disabling the plutonium reactor is an achievement, and we do gain badly needed intelligence by simply being there on the ground to inspect. There is, however, no hope of North Korea giving up its existing nuclear weapons stockpile and little assurance that we will find, let alone disable, any clandestine programs. But lacking sticks, we take what we can.

This is just a bald-faced misrepresentation of the truth it practically takes your breath away.  What Krauthammer fails to mention here is that North Korea's plutonium-producing program lay dormant, under lock and key and IAEA inspection, during the Clinton Administration, only to be re-started under the Bush Administration.

In 2001, the White House pulled out of the Clinton negotiated Agreed Framework, which had stopped North Korea's plutonium processing program and ended all negotiations with the North Korean regime. Then in 2002, after confronting the North Korean with evidence that they were enriching uranium, Bush took no action when North Korea kicked out international inspectors unlocked its fuel rods and began reprocessing them. This stood in stark contrast to the Clinton Administration, which not only threatened military action when North Korea too similar action in 1994, but opened a back-channel diplomatic effort that led to the Agreed Framework.

Indeed, the North Korean bomb that was exploded in 2006 was likely a plutonium bomb and this most likely produced during the Bush Administration - and most scandalously after Bush labeled the nation a member of the Axis of Evil. To give Bush credit today for stopping a plutonium producing program that he allowed to begin and which produced a fully functional nuclear weapon is not only absurd, it's disingenuous to the nth degree. In a career full of exaggerations and misstatements, this has to be in the Krauthammer top ten hall of shame. (See Fred Kaplan's piece here for more detail on the Bush Administration's failure in North Korea)

Foreign Policy IS Domestic Policy Now Posted by Heather Hurlburt

The debate Ilan referenced yesterday among Ezra, Dana Goldstein and others about whether the elections will and/or should turn on foreign or domestic policy kinda misses the point.  National security policy -- especially Iraq, but also much that comes wrapped up in terrorism, homeland security and energy -- are now domestic political issues.  Viz. the Democrats' primary fight over Iraq, and why it has turned on past votes and allegations about attitude, instead of details of policy positions (ok, candidates, where would you redeploy the Iraq troops and why?  2 minutes each.)

The candidates who win the primaries -- and definitely the one who wins the general -- will be the ones who come up with narratives about what the heck happened, and what is going to happen next, that the broad middle of the public finds acceptable and in some way reassuring.

The really interesting question for us wonky types is as much how we can fill any one of those narratives with specific policies as what it turns out to be.

I'm just beginning to hash this through in my own mind -- and am off to debate it with Eli Lake on bloggingheads.tv, so maybe we can start to see whether it holds for Republicans too.  But the main point is that you can't actually pivot away from national security completely anymore -- it's in the back of voters' minds all the time -- and it's a mistake to try.

Who cares about Iraq? Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

I was seething after reading Dana Goldstein's piece about how Iraq won't matter in this election cycle.  Fortunately, I found Ezra Klein's post and it made me feel much better.  I will have much more to say on this over the holidays, but I think it would be the height of stupidity for Dems to deemphasize foreign policy and national security in the next election.   If the economy keeps going the way it is, then it might be more important than Iraq by November 2008.  But contrary to our desperate attempts to explain elections as being about one thing, they never are.   Elections are about many things and to think that somehow Iraq won't play an important role is absurd.  It still polls as most important or second most important everywhere I've seen, and Dems have such an advantage on Iraq that it would be folly not to make it a central part of the campaign.

Et Tu Kevin? Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

Kevin Drum writes about an email he got from a VSP in good standing.

One thing you might write about — if only because nobody else has, I think — is how that whole dust-up over the O'Hanlon/Pollack op-ed looks in retrospect. I mean, clearly they were on to something — the relative quieting down of stuff that has taken place in Iraq over the last several months, etc. Completely debatable whether that was due to the surge, or is sustainable, or is deeply significant, etc. etc., but it's not like the caricature of them put forth in the blogosphere at the time — as paid lobbyists for the Bushies, reporting back what they were told to after checking out a Potemkin village — holds up, does it?

Kevin's reaction?

But basically they reported two things: (a) violence is down and security has improved, and (b) the economy, police force, political leadership, and infrastructure are still disaster areas. And actually, um, that pretty much seems to be true, doesn't it?

I disagree and I think Kevin should probably take a closer look at the debate that took place at the time.  I went through an old post of mine to see what I and others had written and here's what I found.  I was clearly wrong about the reduction in violence (And I'm happy I was), but that was actually my fourth and last point.   The main critiques still stand and Kevin and this emailer's analysis mischaracterize the argument. 

The single biggest complaint in the blogosphere was that in their op-ed Pollack and O'Hanlon represented themselves as "two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq.”  In other words as war critics.  This is what made the piece such big news.  It's true that they complained about certain strategies and tactics but ultimately they were strong supporters of the war and this representation was a stretch at best.  But that's not how it got covered and the Bush Administration picked it up and ran with it.  A lot of that had to do with the fact that Pollack and O'Hanlon continued to represent themselves as critics.  You know who else falls into that category?  John McCain. 

Second, Kevin says that Pollack and O'Hanlon were basically saying that violence is getting better but the politics are still pretty bad.  But this is all a matter of emphasis.  In their op-ed in the Times they spent the entire article talking about security improvements.  Only in the last couple of paragraphs did they finally acknowledge that the politics weren't going anywhere.  If the assessment was really as Kevin described it, they should have spent half the article on the lack of progress on politics.  Kevin seems to be making this assessment based on their report a month later, in which they offer a more balanced approach, after they'd gotten blasted.  But nobody read the report.  Everyone read the op-ed.

Finally, I wrote this about the Pollack-O'Hanlon op-ed on August 1 and I have yet to see anything that would cause me to change my mind. 

Meanwhile, much of the progress on security has come on the backs of questionable alliances with forces who aren’t necessarily friendly to the United States.  The enemy of my enemy is my friend has historically proven to be a dubious proposition.  Working with Sunni tribes that have previously attacked American troops doesn’t seem like too much progress.  Especially since it has caused Prime Minister Maliki to threaten to further arm Shi’a militias.  Why?  Because Maliki understands that while Sunni tribes might be useful in fighting Al Qaeda, what we are essentially doing is arming the Sunnis against the Shi’a for the inevitable outbreak of more sectarian hostilities.  This whole concept was tried in Afghanistan in the 1980s.  Didn’t work out too well….

These were the main critiques, at least as far as I saw it and I still think they all stand.

Who is Sending Militants to Iraq? Hint, Initials are SA Posted by Lorelei Kelly

Late last year, the Counter Terrorism Center at West Point received over 600 records from the Special Operations Command. This information about foreign fighters entering Iraq via Syria is known as the Sinjar Records, and was captured in the far North of Iraq near Syria. West Point authors Brian Fishman and Joseph Felter have taken the first step in analyzing the data dump from this cache in the report "Al Qaida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq"

The biographical information is jaw dropping in its banality: demographic clues like militant age ranging from 16-54, home phone numbers, job listings from doctors, engineers, students and teachers to massage therapist (!) hometowns in Morocco, Libya and Saudi Arabia. To truly understand the meaning of asymmetric threat is how many filled in the description of "role" as "suicide bomber".

This initial analysis reveals that Saudis made up the largest contingent of foreign fighters entering Iraq. (um, thanks again you guys!) Libyans were second (first if measured in percapita terms) and Syrians a distant third. In fact, after reading the report, Syria seems more like an opportunistic and thuggish travel agent than anything else.

The report highlights some key distinctions that organizations like TRACC have long pointed out, that criminal networks have different motivations, some are led by greed and others by blind ideology. Further, that detecting, monitoring, and probing the nexus of transnational criminal and terrorist operations can provide opportunities to disrupt global criminal activities and pre-empt terrorist operations. So we might be able to pick off the greedy ones and get some good information from them to boot; that the religious fundamentalists linked with Al Qaida can't deliver the practical needs of disgruntled citizens (like Iraqis) and one possible strategic advantage for us is to step in and fill the vacuum in basic services and human security when disllusionment sets in; that dealing with supply chain management is an important part of thwarting violent jihadists--because countries like Libya gladly ship their heavy breathing militants to Iraq just to get rid of them at home. So, we should be working with those countries and cooperating to the extent possible to help them address internal violence and promote rule of law (note: preventive and cooperative aid, including fresh and different kinds of security assistance is a huge albeit unheralded trend in policy circles in the DC defense wonk world..) The other striking result was the prevalence of students, and groups of students from the same hometowns...meaning that they are likely recruited together.

Per my earlier post on the defense budget. To me, this report is just another sign that we need to put everything on the budget table and do a thorough vetting of ends and means for our national security. (The House Armed Services Committee is requiring the armed services to do a roles and missions review this coming year, which is a good start, but don't expect revolutionary change to come from within the Pentagon) Civilians, are you listening? Anybody?....Anybody?

The Des Moines Register...for Obama Posted by Moira Whelan

An interesting piece today by Rekha Basu in the Des Moines Register talking about why she likes Obama. It demonstrates to me that even when these newspaper endorsements go out, those of us watching from outside the beltway should be careful to take that as a wholesale endorsement of the whole state.

Basu directly addresses the "experience" question that seemed to be the deciding factor for the editors of the Register.

UPDATE:

I've gotten three emails from other real Iowan's telling me to read this post by soothsayer David Yepsen. Obama gave another speech yesterday in Iowa, and this one seems to be having a bit of a ripple effect...and it's on foreign policy! Obama took the stage with former Clinton Administration officials Tony Lake and Susan Rice. Folks in the room said they thought Obama struck the perfect note between the "experience" and "judgement" questions--and got them abuzzing enough to send out an email to that effect, so it must be a bit different than what they usually hear from candidates.

Yepsen has some excerpts/comments about the speech:

“When I’m the Democratic nominee, I will offer a clear choice,” he said. “My opponent won’t be able to say that I ever supported the war in Iraq, or that I don’t support a clear timetable to bring our troops home. He won’t be able to say that I voted to use our troops in Iraq to counter Iran, or that I support the Bush-Cheney diplomacy of not talking to leaders we don’t like. And he won’t be able to say that I wavered on something as fundamental as whether or not it is ok for America to torture –because it is never ok.”

Obama added:  “This isn’t about drawing contrasts – it’s about a change in our foreign policy that you can believe in. So when you consider who to caucus for, I ask you to consider my judgment and vision for new American leadership.”

It must be working.  Obama’s narrow lead widened to 9 points in the last poll taken in Iowa, a fact that has both Clinton and Edwards feeling a little jittery.

Now, I'm not suggesting that all smart people in Iowa support Obama, but I am suggesting that the smart people I know in Iowa were pretty impressed with this event in particular. These are people who've listened to all the candidates, and heard from Obama a few times. At this point, I take notice when Iowans are impressed, as I'm sure at this point, nothing surprises them. Obama wasn't saying anything different, but the mood, the vibe and the presence of Lake and Rice in the room changed the mood, clearly. I think they'd notice if he looked anything less than presidential.

Back to our previously scheduled blog post after the jump...

Geopolitics Strikes Back Posted by Heather Hurlburt

So Putin is Time's Man of the Year.

What does he symbolize?

1.  The ability to buck both the American vision of aggressive democratization, and the EU vision of corporatist democratization -- indeed, not just to buck but to threaten both in the way they operate at home and as exportable visions.

2.  The promise that autocracy, or "command democracy," is not just tenable but effective in the 21st century.

3.  The extent to which petro-products still matter.

4.  The extent to which the US does not master the universe (see point 1-3 above), however much the only superpower we may be.

5.  The colossal failure of US public diplomacy, and disastrous devaluing of the idea of America, if this guy is the foil the world raises up -- and it works for him.

All worth considering over your eggnog.

Iowa is Smarter Than You Think It Is. Posted by Moira Whelan

If you haven’t had time to keep up with the horserace(s) in Iowa and need a quick catch up, make sure to listen to Taylor Marsh’s latest podcast on her Foreign Policy Tuesday broadcast.

NSN works with Taylor every week to link up our folks with her witty and informative show.

This week, it was Damon Terrill—a real live Iowan!!! In addition to being an outstanding professional with tremendous international background, Damon is a native Iowan and worked with other fantastic folks to run our candidate forum out in Iowa. NSN was proud to link up with the Iowa City Foreign Relations Committee to host 5 of the Democratic candidates (note: all candidates of both persuasions were invited) in candidate Q&As on security and foreign policy issues. We’re pretty proud we were able to work with people to put candidates on the hot seat, and you can hear more about it, and more about Damon’s take on the world in Taylor’s broadcast.

As a fellow midwesterner, I gotta say, I'm proud of these Iowans. We folk from the fly over states are often accused of being dumb and average. That's why Iowa is the home of retail politics, right? Shaking babies and kissing hands is what really counts, it's not so much what you think, right? HA! Well, if Iowans are "Joe Beer Can"  than Joe  deeply understands global challenges and won't settle for fluffy answers.  To me, the most rewarding part of the '08 process is that questions about Iraq, Iran, non-proliferation, America's global image, and the rest, aren't coming from the VSPs...they're coming from voters.  To all you East Coast Ivy Leaguers: ...yeah...hicks made that happen, after all your years of talking about it, midwesterners just did it. Nothing changes I suppose.

So I digress, but don’t miss Taylor's discussion with Hillary Mann Leverett on Iran last week, and make sure to tune in to Taylor Marsh…you’ll be hard pressed to find someone who can ask better questions than she on the issues DA readers love to chat about. Taylor's listeners have also heard from Rosa Brooks, Brian Katulis, and of course Rand Beers on previous shows (and they probably didn't know they were being interviewed by a <gasp> midwesterner ...but they love her just the same!).   

PS, I've been pretty bad about cross-posting Taylor's shows, but I promise, it's my New Year's Resolution!

A Very Bad Bill Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

Via Andy Grotto we find out that Senator Ensign (R-NV) is trying to introduce a bill  this week that would create a commission to look into the Iran NIE. 

The draft legislation is reportedly a cut-and-paste job from the the so-called Rumsfeld Commission that the Congress established in 1998 to undermine a 1995 NIE on ballistic missiles — with one, telling alteration.

Predictably, the Rumsfeld Commission condemned the ’95 NIE. Conservatives then used the Rumsfeld Commission’s findings to bolster the case for withdrawing from the ABM Treaty and pouring resources into development of a national missile defense.

The second this bill is introduced, or if it passes, it automatically undermines the credibility of the NIE and the intelligence community.  Inevitably this commission probably won't end up reporting until after 2008 and in the meantime the consistent conservative talking point will be "well, the intelligence isn't solid and we don't know if Iran is developing nuclear weapons because we have a bipartisan commission working on that."  Even a floor debate on the commission would automatically generate stories questioning the intelligence.

The reality is that we really don't need a public commission to restudy the conclusions of the Intelligence Community.  As I've written before, that's been tried by conservatives in the past and consistently these Team B exercises get it wrong and result in bad policy decisions (See Team B, Rumsfeld Commission and Office of Special Plans). 

This bill is a blatant attempt to undermine the intelligence community.  It needs to go away.