The Gates Dilemma

The LA Times recently reported on the ongoing budget battle between Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the DoD bureaucracy. With a nation confronting budget shortfalls and a military confronting the challenges of modernization while fighting two wars, Gates will certainly have his hands full.

In Obama's administration, Gates will face two primary issues: how the Pentagon buys weapons and which weapons it chooses to buy. Gates has been a critic of both. …Gates acknowledges the need for strategic bombers and billion-dollar ships. But he has questioned whether the most sophisticated weapons can best counter low-intensity threats. During his first two years at the Pentagon, Gates pushed the bureaucracy to field specialized equipment in Iraq, such as mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles, or MRAPs, that have helped reduce the number of casualties from roadside bombs.

Gates believes that the Pentagon must improve its ability to develop cheaper and low-tech weaponry for counterinsurgency missions, such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the military services remain focused on big weapons programs -- ships, planes and new generations of tanks and troop transports, officials argue.

While Gates may have initially planned to push some of these tough decisions to the next Administration, they are now squarely back in his lap.

For months, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has criticized the Pentagon's spending priorities but has done little to change them, choosing instead to leave the most difficult decisions to the next administration. With the announcement by President-elect Barack Obama last week that Gates will remain in his job in the new administration, the Defense chief has been given broad new power to reshape how the Pentagon selects, designs and builds new weapons systems.

…Gates explained his decision to remain at the Pentagon last week by citing acquisition reform and military modernization as crucial challenges. Pentagon officials, meanwhile, are bracing to see how Gates translates his words into action. Many officials believe that, under President Bush, Gates "punted" on key decisions such as the competition to build a new refueling tanker and whether to halt production of the F-22.

"Now he is going to be the recipient of those punts, and he won't be calling a fair catch," said Geoff Morrell, Pentagon press secretary. "He is prepared to deal with them head-on."

The Obama Team

With General Shinseki’s recent nomination as Secretary of Veterans Affairs, it’s becoming more and more apparent that Barack Obama is not only bringing a new cast of characters into the highest echelons of government but that, probably more importantly, he’s bringing a vastly different approach to governing. For a nation that remains largely divided, it’s critical. Instead of the political hacks and “loyal Bushies” of the past eight years, Obama’s Cabinet, particularly his national security team, are proof that he seeks good judgement and results, not complete deference to the boss, and that he rewards competence over loyalty. If true change is on the horizon, our nation will need serious people to lead us through serious times. In that regard, Obama is off to a good start.

The Times on the Obama national security team:

After years of watching American leadership crumble under the weight of bad decisions made in a White House shuttered to all debate, President-elect Barack Obama’s national security team is a relief. Starting with the selection of Hillary Rodham Clinton, his former rival, as secretary of state, the president-elect has displayed his usual self-confidence. Declaring that he prizes “strong personalities and strong opinions,” Mr. Obama, who has limited foreign-policy experience, showed that he wants advisers with real authority who will not be afraid to disagree with him — two traits disastrously lacking in President Bush’s team.

…Both the selection of Mr. Gates and the appointment of General Jones should ease Mr. Obama’s early relations with the Pentagon. The military’s leaders tend to lean Republican and often mistrust presidents who do not have any military service, as they initially did with Mr. Clinton. When the United States is fighting two wars, good ties with the military are crucial. Mr. Obama seems to have already scored points by reaching out to important commanders, like Gen. David Petraeus. There is no underestimating the challenges facing Mr. Obama, and he will need a strong team to help him. [His choices thus far] are a strong start.

The Post:

Barack Obama’s announcement of his national security team immediately prompted questions about whether he had created a "team of rivals" who would spend as much time feuding as formulating policy. That strikes us as unlikely. True, Secretary of State-designate Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates are Washington heavyweights with their own strong views about foreign policy and national defense, while incoming national security adviser Gen. James L. Jones has been NATO commander. If Susan E. Rice, nominated as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has a relatively lighter résumé, she compensates by having the closest personal relationship with the president-elect, whom she served during the campaign.

…Mr. Gates, Ms. Clinton and Gen. Jones have also all questioned Mr. Obama's 16-month timetable for withdrawing from Iraq and underlined the need to end the war without touching off a surge of violence in the country. Mr. Obama appears to be tacking toward their position: While he reaffirmed his 16-month timeline yesterday, he also said his "number-one priority is making sure that our troops remain safe in this transition phase and that the Iraqi people are well served by a government that is taking on increased responsibility for its own security." While it's possible those priorities could be upheld during a 16-month withdrawal, most likely Mr. Obama's own team will press him for greater flexibility.

The president-elect said yesterday that he favors "strong personalities and strong opinions" around him in part because this prevents "groupthink." But groupthink may still be a danger on this team. Eager to correct the perceived errors of the Bush administration, Mr. Obama and his appointees are heavily invested in the notion that better diplomacy can answer Iran's drive for a nuclear weapon, ease the threat of terrorism from Pakistan and maybe even solve the Arab-Israeli conflict. We hope they are right. If they are wrong, particularly about Iran, someone in this group will need to speak up.

Former Bush speechwriter, Michael Gerson, offers his thoughts on Obama's "Team of Centrists:"

It is a lineup generous in its moderation, astonishing for its continuity, startling for its stability. A defense secretary, Robert Gates, who once headed the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M. A secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, who supported the invasion of Iraq, voted to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization and called direct, unconditional talks with Iran "irresponsible and frankly naive." A national security adviser, retired Gen. James Jones, most recently employed at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who served as a special adviser to the Bush administration on the Middle East. A Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, who is one of Henry Paulson's closest allies outside the administration. A head of the Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer, whose writings and research seem to favor low tax rates, stable money and free trade.

It is tempting for conservatives to crow -- or liberals to lament -- that Barack Obama's victory has somehow produced John McCain's administration. But this partisan reaction trivializes some developments that, while early and tentative, are significant. First, these appointments add evidence to a debate about the political character of the president-elect himself. Conservatives have generally feared that Obama is a closet radical. He has uniformly voted with liberal interests and done nothing to justify a reputation for centrism.

Until now. Obama's appointments reveal not just moderation but maturity -- magnanimity to past opponents, a concern for continuity in a time of war and economic crisis, a self-confidence that allows him to fill gaps in his own experience with outsize personalities, and a serious commitment to incarnate his rhetoric of unity. …Whatever the caveats, Obama is doing something marvelously right: He is disappointing the ideologues. This is more than many of us hoped -- and it is causing some of us to raise our hopes in Obama again.

Even Henry Kissinger is getting into the act, providing his thoughts on the “Team of Heavyweights:”

President-elect Barack Obama has appointed an extraordinary team for national security policy. On its face, it violates certain maxims of conventional wisdom: that appointing to the Cabinet individuals with an autonomous constituency, and who therefore are difficult to fire, circumscribes presidential control; that appointing as national security adviser, secretary of state and secretary of defense individuals with established policy views may absorb the president's energies in settling disputes among strong-willed advisers.

It took courage for the president-elect to choose this constellation and no little inner assurance -- both qualities essential for dealing with the challenge of distilling order out of a fragmenting international system. In these circumstances, ignoring conventional wisdom may prove to have been the precondition for creativity. Both Obama and the secretary of state-designate, Sen. Hillary Clinton, must have concluded that the country and their commitment to public service require their cooperation.

…No one has ever been appointed national security adviser who had the command experience of retired Gen. James L. Jones, the former head of the Marine Corps and NATO commander. Inevitably, the facilitating function of the security adviser will be accompanied by a role in policymaking based on a vast, almost unique, experience.

...The continuation in office of Robert Gates as secretary of defense is an important balancing element in that process. Alone among the key players, he is at the end, not the beginning, of his policy contribution. Having agreed to stay on in a transitional role, he cannot be interested in the jockeying that accompanies all new administrations. The incoming administration must have appointed him with the awareness that he would not reverse his previous convictions. He must make the difficult adjustment from one administration to another -- a tribute to the nonpartisan nature of the conduct of his office in the Bush administration. He is a guarantor of continuity but also the shepherd of necessary innovation.

Process is no substitute for substance, of course. But even with this caveat, the new national security team encourages the hope that America is moving beyond its divisions to its opportunities.

A Wartime Transition

The NY Times recently solicited op-ed contributions from a number of national security experts. They provide interesting perspectives on the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and the many challenges and opportunities awaiting President-elect Obama.

Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, discusses the two-front war confronting the Obama Presidency.

He has less than two months to go from broad rhetoric to concrete day-to-day action. On Jan. 20, he will take over at a pivotal point in negotiating Iraq’s status of force agreement with the United States, in the middle of a winter military campaign in Afghanistan, and during a political, security and economic crisis in Pakistan. None of these issues will wait for America to deal with its financial problems. And no one involved believes that the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s northern territories can be fully won, or even transferred to Afghan and Pakistani hands, by even the end of President Obama’s first term. For at least the next two to three years, the war will intensify, and virtually all of the additional burden will be borne by the United States.
Leaks of a new National Intelligence Estimate have shown that we are now losing the war for several reasons: a lack of Afghan competence; a half-hearted Pakistani commitment to the fight; a shortage of American, NATO and International Security Assistance Force troops; too few aid workers; and nation-building programs that were designed for peacetime and are rife with inefficiency and fraud. This is why Gen. David McKiernan, the top commander in Afghanistan, and other military leaders have called for 20,000 to 25,000 more troops and warned that even those reinforcements may not be adequate.

Even with a potential drawdown in Iraq, the military is being stretched ever thinner. The Army already extends the deployment of troops beyond their commitments, and it and the Marine Corps may well find it impossible to meet their goals for shortening deployment cycles. As things stand, it will almost certainly take until 2011 to bring enough military advisers into Afghanistan to train its army and police forces to the level where locals can replace international troops. And with increasing terrorist attacks on non-governmental groups, many aid workers are being forced to leave the country.

…Even if the United States fully withdraws from Iraq in 2011, as Mr. Obama and the Iraqi government say they would like, we will remain on something very like a war footing there throughout the next presidency. While the combat burden on our forces will decline, withdrawal will be as costly as fighting. It will take large amounts of luck (and patient American prodding) for the Iraqi government to move toward real political accommodation while avoiding new explosions of ethnic and sectarian violence.

Even with progress on those fronts, we will have to withdraw while still helping to win a war, contain internal violence, limit Iranian influence and counter its nuclear program, create effective Iraqi security forces, and help Iraq improve its governance. Not a full war perhaps, but at least a quarter war in terms of continuing strains on our military and budget. ...In spite of recent progress under Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Mr. Rumsfeld’s inability to manage any key aspect of defense modernization has left the Obama administration a legacy of unfunded and expensive new trade-offs between replacing combat-worn equipment, repairing and rehabilitating huge amounts of weapons and equipment, and supplying our forces with new, improved equipment.

At best, President Obama will have to conduct the equivalent of one-and-a-quarter wars throughout his first term. At worst? The outside chance of war with Iran as well.

Fred Kagan, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, insists that we must capitalize on the common interests we share with Iraq vis-à-vis Iran.

Iraqis want to remain independent of Tehran, as they have now demonstrated by signing the agreement with the United States over Iran’s vigorous objections. They want to avoid military conflict with Iran, and so does America. Iraqis share our fear that Iran may acquire nuclear weapons, which would threaten their independence. And they resent Iran’s efforts to maintain insurgent and terrorist cells that undermine their government. Of course, the Iraqis recognize, as we do, that Iraq and Iran are natural trading partners and have a religious bond as majority Shiite. This may be to our benefit: the millions of Iranian pilgrims who will visit Iraqi holy sites at Najaf and Karbala over the coming years will take home a vision of a flourishing, peaceful, secular, religiously tolerant and democratic Muslim state.

The reintegration of Iraq into the Arab world is also under way. Many Arab states have already begun to open embassies in Baghdad. We should keep in mind that Iraq also shares interests with America regarding Saudi Arabia and Syria. Increasingly, Iraqi leaders speak quietly of replacing the Saudi kingdom as the dominant Arab state. Iraq also knows that Syria has allowed Al Qaeda fighters free passage across their common border for years, and has served as a staging base for Iranian support to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Washington and Baghdad have a common interest in persuading the Syrian regime to abandon its support of terror groups.

America will withdraw its forces from patrolling in Iraq and will significantly reduce the number of soldiers there over the coming years — that is not and never has been in question. The timing and nature of that withdrawal, however, is extremely delicate. It is vital that we help see Iraq through during its year of elections, and avoid the temptation to “front-load” the withdrawal in 2009. It is equally vital that we develop a broader strategic relationship with Iraq using all elements of our national power in tandem with Iraq’s to pursue our common interests. President Obama has the chance to do more in Iraq than win the war. He can win the peace.

Peter Mansoor, former executive officer to General David Petraeus, discusses an appropriate American withdrawal from Iraq that will leave that country intact.

Barack Obama has the opportunity to recast American policy toward Iraq in a meaningful way, by providing much-needed support to its political center. His administration should view the new status of forces agreement between Washington and Baghdad as a means to shape the withdrawal of our combat forces while maintaining enough leverage to guide Iraq toward a more stable future.

…The key now is to sustain the momentum toward reconciliation, even while combat forces are withdrawn — a delicate balancing act. Although insurgent attacks have been appreciably reduced and Al Qaeda in Iraq is devastated, considerable distrust remains among various ethnic factions and religious sects and within the Iraqi government. As honest brokers, American forces keep the peace in key areas. Yet it is possible that we can complete their departure over three years, as envisioned in the status of forces agreement, assuming that the Iraqi Army has matured enough to take on added responsibilities.

Up to four brigades and their associated support — 20,000 to 25,000 troops — could be withdrawn in 2009, which would provide reinforcements for the war in Afghanistan. Withdrawals should then accelerate, as the division of power and resources is cemented locally across Iraq, with half the remaining combat forces and their associated support withdrawn in each of the following two years. By the end of 2011 — subject to Iraqi concurrence, of course — some 20,000 to 40,000 troops would remain for an extended period. These would be mainly military advisers, counterterrorist units, combat aircraft crews and support, and intelligence and logistical personnel.

Much of the stability in Iraq stems from a patchwork of agreements across the country between local leaders and the American military or the Iraqi government. To make sure that these agreements endure, the Iraqi government needs to prove to its people that it represents their interests in these ways: by ensuring adequate representation in political life of all sects and ethnicities in the political life; by incorporating a significant number of the Sons of Iraq (Sunnis who have supported the counterinsurgency) into the police forces and other government jobs; by providing tangible incentives for the return of Iraqi refugees from abroad; and by equitably distributing government funds and services to all areas of Iraq.

…Even as we pull troops out, the United States is not without significant leverage. We provide the Iraqi armed forces needed assets, from intelligence and logistics to air support and advisers; our civilian advisers are helping to improve the efficiency of the Iraqi government; our global diplomatic leverage can help Iraq in a number of ways; and Washington can encourage business investment in Iraq, particularly in its dilapidated oil industry.

To nudge the Iraqi government in the right direction, the new administration must let it know, quietly but firmly, that the blank check given by the Bush administration is no longer in force. It should make clear that we, too, want to see the expeditious withdrawal of American combat forces, but only in a manner that ensures Iraq will not again dissolve into chaos and civil war. Long-term American diplomatic, economic and military support should be contingent on a comprehensive political solution with a fair division of power. The alternative — a sectarian Shiite government that marginalizes other sects and ethnicities and is perhaps aligned with Iran as well — is
unacceptable.

Retaining Gates

The decision by Barack Obama to retain Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense is being met with mixed reviews. As reported in the NY Times:

President-elect Barack Obama has decided to keep Defense Secretary Robert M.Gates in his post, a show of bipartisan continuity in a time of war that will be the first time a Pentagon chief has been carried over from a president of a different party, Democrats close to the transition said Tuesday. …The move will give the new president a defense secretary with support on both sides of the aisle in Congress, as well as experience with foreign leaders around the world and respect among the senior military officer corps. But two years after President Bush picked him to lead the armed forces, Mr. Gates will now have to pivot from serving the commander in chief who started the Iraq war to serving one who has promised to end it.

In deciding to ask Mr. Gates to stay, Mr. Obama put aside concerns that he would send a jarring signal after a political campaign in which he made opposition to the war his signature issue in the early days. Some Democrats who have advised his campaign quietly complained that he was undercutting his own message and risked alienating war critics who formed his initial base of support, especially after tapping his primary rival, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, for secretary of state.

But advisers argued that Mr. Gates was a practical public servant who was also interested in drawing down troops in Iraq when conditions allow. “From our point of view, it looks pretty damn good because of continuity and stability,” said an Obama adviser, who insisted on anonymity to discuss confidential deliberations. “And I don’t think there are any ideological problems.” Associates said Mr. Gates was torn between a desire to retire to a home in Washington State and a sense of duty as the military faces the daunting challenges of reducing forces in Iraq and increasing them in Afghanistan.

… Mr. Gates, who served as C.I.A. director under the first President Bush, would not have to be reconfirmed by the Senate. The prospect of retaining him generated praise from the military establishment and Capitol Hill, where he is viewed as a pragmatist who turned the Pentagon around after the tumultuous tenure of Donald H. Rumsfeld.

…The developments came as Mr. Obama prepared to begin unveiling his national security team after the long Thanksgiving weekend. Besides formally announcing his nomination of Mrs. Clinton as secretary of state, Mr. Obama was expected to appoint Gen. James L. Jones, a retired Marine commandant and NATO supreme commander, as his national security adviser. …The team is shaping up as one of experience more than change, figures with long résumés but at times conflicting backgrounds. Nothing reflects that more than keeping a Republican-appointed defense secretary. Although Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Gerald R. Ford made no change at the top of the Pentagon when they took office, no president has kept a defense secretary from a predecessor in another party, Donald Ritchie, a Senate historian, said.

Some Democrats have viewed the selection of Gates with more skepticism -- arguing that it lends further credence to the faulty assertion that Democrats are weak on defense and tend to rely upon Republicans as Secretary of Defense. As noted on Kos, “if Gates stays the full four years, it would mean that from 1953-2013, a Republican will have held the SecDef post for 5.5 of 60 years. A list of Secretaries of Defense and party affiliation beginning with the Eisenhower years:

Charles E. Wilson - Republican (1953-57)
Neil H. McElroy - Republican (1953-59)
Thomas S. Gates - Republican (1959-61)
Robert S. McNamara - Republican (1961-1968)
Clark M. Clifford - Democrat (1968-1969)
Melvin R. Laird - Republican (1969-1973)
Elliot L. Richardson - Republican (1973)
James R. Schlesinger - Republican (1973-1975)
Donald H. Rumsfeld - Republican (1975-1977)
Harold Brown - Democrat (1977-1981)
Caspar W. Weinberger - Republican (1981-1987)
Frank C. Carlucci - Republican (1987-1989)
Richard B. Cheney - Republican (1989-1993)
Les Aspin - Democrat (1993-1994)
William J. Perry - Democrat (1994-1997)
William S. Cohen - Republican (1997-2001)
Donald H. Rumsfeld - Republican (2001-2006)
Robert Gates - Republican (2006-Present)-

And as reported, not everyone in the Obama camp is thrilled about the choice.

The speculation over Gates' tenure has been most intense inside the Obama transition team. The team received a request from Gates that, were he to stay, he would want to retain some of his top civilian assistants. The request led to concerns among the Obama transition staff: "Gates is not a neo-con or even a hardcore Republican," a person close to the process noted, "but the people around him sure as hell are." A former Bill Clinton administration official who has been deployed by Obama to conduct a series of "meet and greets" with top officials at the Pentagon scoffed at the notion of a continuation of Gates' tenure: "The [presidential] election was a clean sweep," he says, "and that includes Bob Gates. It's called a change in government."

But others inside Obama's close-knit group of advisors think that a continuation of Gates' tenure can provide Obama with a bridge to the nation's military leadership - essential, they say, because of US troop commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. These advisors point out that Richard Danzig, a former secretary of the navy and reputed front runner for the Pentagon post ("always the smartest man in the room", as retired four-star US Marine Corps General Joe Hoar describes him), supports a continuation in Gates' tenure. Then too, Gates is apparently admired by Obama himself, who has been in close touch with a number of Gates' former colleagues (dubbed "graybacks"), like Brent Scowcroft, from the first George W. Bush administration. "The graybacks have weighed in, and they're all for Bob," a defense official says.

Shuffling Priorities

In August, at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, Barack Obama laid out several of his foreign policy priorities in a speech titled “The War We Need to Win.” In that speech, he spoke of the increasing violence in Afghanistan, the resurgence of the Taliban, and the lawless sanctuaries in Pakistan that have devolved into safe-havens for al-Qaeda and into launching points from which militants attack U.S. forces.

"Let me make this clear: There are terrorists holed up in those mountains, that murdered 3,000 Americans. If we have actionable intelligence about high-valued terrorist targets and if President Musharraf will not act, we will."

Obama was quickly ridiculed and criticized for his 'naïve recklessness'. Hillary Clinton: “I don’t think it was a particularly wise position to take” because “he basically threatened to bomb Pakistan.” John McCain, who told crowds at every campaign stop that he would follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of Hell, asked "Will we risk the confused leadership of an inexperienced candidate who once suggested bombing our ally, Pakistan?"

In the end, was Barack Obama really so naïve? As reported today:

President George W. Bush secretly approved U.S. military raids inside Pakistan against alleged terrorist targets, according to a former intelligence official with recent access to the Bush administration's debate about how to fight al-Qaida and the Taliban inside the lawless tribal border area.

The Times:

President Bush secretly approved orders in July that for the first time allow American Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani government, according to senior American officials. The classified orders signal a watershed for the Bush administration after nearly seven years of trying to work with Pakistan to combat the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and after months of high-level stalemate about how to challenge the militants’ increasingly secure base in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

American officials say that they will notify Pakistan when they conduct limited ground attacks like the Special Operations raid last Wednesday in a Pakistani village near the Afghanistan border, but that they will not ask for its permission. “The situation in the tribal areas is not tolerable,” said a senior American official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of the missions. “We have to be more assertive. Orders have been issued.”

The new orders reflect concern about safe havens for Al Qaeda and the Taliban inside Pakistan, as well as an American view that Pakistan lacks the will and ability to combat militants. They also illustrate lingering distrust of the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies and a belief that some American operations had been compromised once Pakistanis were advised of the details.

In the words of Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

Afghanistan and Pakistan "are inextricably linked in a common insurgency that crosses the border between them. Until we work more closely with the Pakistani government to eliminate the safe havens from which they operate, the enemy will only keep coming."

To highlight the direness of the situation, he issued an even more blunt statement: “I’m not convinced we’re winning in Afghanistan. [But] I am convinced we can.” To that end, he has ordered a comprehensive military strategy to better address the growing threat from the border region. The Post elaborates:

On the day after President Bush announced he will cut troops in Iraq and bolster them in Afghanistan between now and early 2009, Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates also signaled that they would give increasing priority to the Afghan war and the expanding insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan. "The war on terror started in this region. It must end there," Gates told the committee.

Violence has mounted for more than two years in Afghanistan from an increasingly sophisticated and brazen insurgency, one fueled by havens in Pakistan. As a result, the war is exacting a worsening toll on coalition forces, with the number of U.S. troop deaths projected to surpass last year's high of 117. So far this year, 109 troops have died. U.S. and NATO troops remain hampered by manpower shortages, a lack of helicopters and a disjointed chain of command.

"Frankly, we are running out of time," Mullen said, adding that not sending U.S. reinforcements to Afghanistan is "too great a risk to ignore."

He said the new influx of U.S. forces into Afghanistan that Bush announced Tuesday -- an Army brigade and Marine battalion with a total of about 4,500 troops -- does not meet the demands of commanders there, but is "a good start." Already, total U.S. forces in Afghanistan have grown from 21,000 troops in 2006 to nearly 31,000 today.

Preparing the Battlefield

According to the Administration, the two primary reasons for the continued presence of over 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq is the ability to respond to the presence of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and to provide leverage against the growing threats posed by Iran. The irony of this policy seems completely lost on its proponents, who would like to forget that al-Qaeda was never in Iraq prior to the onset of the March 2003 invasion and that, as a consequence of that invasion, Iran now holds significantly more sway in not only Iraq but in the entire region (chiefly because the two historic checks on Iranian influence – Iraq and Afghanistan – have been substantially weakened).

The President and Vice President have long-vowed that through their tough actions (not their words because speaking to our enemies is a sign of weakness) they would curb the Iranian nuclear threat. In reality, Iran is much more powerful than it was when the President was inaugurated and it is much closer to realistically securing nuclear weapons than it was at that time. However, assuming that a reckless Administration doesn’t do anything drastic, and absent an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, the “Iranian question” appears left unsolved for the next President.

But according to information recently reported by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker, our current clandestine military and intelligence activities within Iran may be far more substantial than we thought.

Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.

Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature.

Under federal law, a Presidential Finding, which is highly classified, must be issued when a covert intelligence operation gets under way and, at a minimum, must be made known to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and the Senate and to the ranking members of their respective intelligence committees - the so-called Gang of Eight.

But not everyone in the Administration is on the same page and many are leery that these operations could precipitate an American military strike and an enlargement of hostilities.

Military and civilian leaders in the Pentagon share the White House’s concern about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but there is disagreement about whether a military strike is the right solution. Some Pentagon officials believe, as they have let Congress and the media know, that bombing Iran is not a viable response to the nuclear-proliferation issue, and that more diplomacy is necessary.

A Democratic senator told me that, late last year, in an off-the-record lunch meeting, Secretary of Defense Gates met with the Democratic caucus in the Senate. (Such meetings are held regularly.) Gates warned of the consequences if the Bush Administration staged a preemptive strike on Iran, saying, as the senator recalled, “We’ll create generations of jihadists, and our grandchildren will be battling our enemies here in America.” Gates’s comments stunned the Democrats at the lunch, and another senator asked whether Gates was speaking for Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. Gates’s answer, the senator told me, was “Let’s just say that I’m here speaking for myself.” (A spokesman for Gates confirmed that he discussed the consequences of a strike at the meeting, but would not address what he said, other than to dispute the senator’s characterization.)

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose chairman is Admiral Mike Mullen, were “pushing back very hard” against White House pressure to undertake a military strike against Iran, the person familiar with the Finding told me. Similarly, a Pentagon consultant who is involved in the war on terror said that “at least ten senior flag and general officers, including combatant commanders”- the four-star officers who direct military operations around the world - “have weighed in on that issue.”

The most outspoken of those officers is Admiral William Fallon, who until recently was the head of U.S. Central Command, and thus in charge of American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. In March, Fallon resigned under pressure, after giving a series of interviews stating his reservations about an armed attack on Iran. For example, late last year he told the Financial Times that the “real objective” of U.S. policy was to change the Iranians’ behavior, and that “attacking them as a means to get to that spot strikes me as being not the first choice.”

In what has become common practice for this Administration on national security issues, it stretches the bounds of executive authority at each and every step of the way – whether that means dismissing any legal checks or oversight of its decision-making power or conveniently bypassing the standard chain of command. Its engagement in Iran is no different.

The Democratic leadership’s agreement to commit hundreds of millions of dollars for more secret operations in Iran was remarkable, given the general concerns of officials like Gates, Fallon, and many others. “The oversight process has not kept pace - it’s been coopted” by the Administration, the person familiar with the contents of the Finding said. “The process is broken, and this is dangerous stuff we’re authorizing.” Senior Democrats in Congress told me that they had concerns about the possibility that their understanding of what the new operations entail differs from the White House’s.

Under the Bush Administration’s interpretation of the law, clandestine military activities, unlike covert C.I.A. operations, do not need to be depicted in a Finding, because the President has a constitutional right to command combat forces in the field without congressional interference. But the borders between operations are not always clear: in Iran, C.I.A. agents and regional assets have the language skills and the local knowledge to make contacts for the JSOC operatives, and have been working with them to direct personnel, material, and money into Iran from an obscure base in western Afghanistan. As a result, Congress has been given only a partial view of how the money it authorized may be used. One of JSOC’s task-force missions, the pursuit of “high-value targets,” was not directly addressed in the Finding. There is a growing realization among some legislators that the Bush Administration, in recent years, has conflated what is an intelligence operation and what is a military one in order to avoid fully informing Congress about what it is doing.

“This is a big deal,” the person familiar with the Finding said. “The C.I.A. needed the Finding to do its traditional stuff, but the Finding does not apply to JSOC. The President signed an Executive Order after September 11th giving the Pentagon license to do things that it had never been able to do before without notifying Congress. The claim was that the military was ‘preparing the battle space,’ and by using that term they were able to circumvent congressional oversight. Everything is justified in terms of fighting the global war on terror.” He added, “The Administration has been fuzzing the lines; there used to be a shade of gray”- between operations that had to be briefed to the senior congressional leadership and those which did not - “but now it’s a shade of mush.”

[The 1986 Defense Reorganization Act (Goldwater-Nichols)] defined the chain of command from the President to the Secretary of Defense, through the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and on to the various combatant commanders, who were put in charge of all aspects of military operations, including joint training and logistics. That authority, the act stated, was not to be shared with other echelons of command. But the Bush Administration, as part of its global war on terror, instituted new policies that undercut regional commanders-in-chief; for example, it gave Special Operations teams, at military commands around the world, the highest priority in terms of securing support and equipment. The degradation of the traditional chain of command in the past few years has been a point of tension between the White House and the uniformed military.

“The coherence of military strategy is being eroded because of undue civilian influence and direction of nonconventional military operations,” Sheehan said. “If you have small groups planning and conducting military operations outside the knowledge and control of the combatant commander, by default you can’t have a coherent military strategy. You end up with a disaster, like the reconstruction efforts in Iraq.”

The results of increased American clandestine activities appear more and more obvious to those inside and outside of Iran but, not surprisingly, they may not be inspiring the long-term affects ultimately intended by the Administration.

In recent months, according to the Iranian media, there has been a surge in violence in Iran; it is impossible at this early stage, however, to credit JSOC or C.I.A. activities, or to assess their impact on the Iranian leadership. The Iranian press reports are being carefully monitored by retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner, who has taught strategy at the National War College and now conducts war games centered on Iran for the federal government, think tanks, and universities. The Iranian press “is very open in describing the killings going on inside the country,” Gardiner said. It is, he said, “a controlled press, which makes it more important that it publishes these things. We begin to see inside the government.” He added, “Hardly a day goes by now we don’t see a clash somewhere. There were three or four incidents over a recent weekend, and the Iranians are even naming the Revolutionary Guard officers who have been killed.”

Earlier this year, a militant Ahwazi group claimed to have assassinated a Revolutionary Guard colonel, and the Iranian government acknowledged that an explosion in a cultural center in Shiraz, in the southern part of the country, which killed at least twelve people and injured more than two hundred, had been a terrorist act and not, as it earlier insisted, an accident. It could not be learned whether there has been American involvement in any specific incident in Iran, but, according to Gardiner, the Iranians have begun publicly blaming the U.S., Great Britain, and, more recently, the C.I.A. for some incidents. The agency was involved in a coup in Iran in 1953, and its support for the unpopular regime of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi - who was overthrown in 1979 - was condemned for years by the ruling mullahs in Tehran, to great effect. “This is the ultimate for the Iranians—to blame the C.I.A.,” Gardiner said. “This is new, and it’s an escalation - a ratcheting up of tensions. It rallies support for the regime and shows the people that there is a continuing threat from the ‘Great Satan.’ ” In Gardiner’s view, the violence, rather than weakening Iran’s religious government, may generate support for it.

Perhaps the most dangerous and most perplexing aspect of these operations is the list of groups within Iran, mostly extremist terrorist groups, whom the U.S. has been funding and working in cooperation with. For an Administration hell-bent on labels and a world of black and white (good versus evil, you’re with us or you’re against us), it’s an interesting course to follow in waging a so-called “war on terrorism.”

Many of the activities may be being carried out by dissidents in Iran, and not by Americans in the field. One problem with “passing money” (to use the term of the person familiar with the Finding) in a covert setting is that it is hard to control where the money goes and whom it benefits. Nonetheless, the former senior intelligence official said, “We’ve got exposure, because of the transfer of our weapons and our communications gear. The Iranians will be able to make the argument that the opposition was inspired by the Americans. How many times have we tried this without asking the right questions? Is the risk worth it?” One possible consequence of these operations would be a violent Iranian crackdown on one of the dissident groups, which could give the Bush Administration a reason to intervene.

A strategy of using ethnic minorities to undermine Iran is flawed, according to Vali Nasr, who teaches international politics at Tufts University and is also a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Just because Lebanon, Iraq, and Pakistan have ethnic problems, it does not mean that Iran is suffering from the same issue,” Nasr told me. “Iran is an old country - like France and Germany - and its citizens are just as nationalistic. The U.S. is overestimating ethnic tension in Iran.” The minority groups that the U.S. is reaching out to are either well integrated or small and marginal, without much influence on the government or much ability to present a political challenge, Nasr said. “You can always find some activist groups that will go and kill a policeman, but working with the minorities will backfire, and alienate the majority of the population.”

The Administration may have been willing to rely on dissident organizations in Iran even when there was reason to believe that the groups had operated against American interests in the past. The use of Baluchi elements, for example, is problematic, Robert Baer, a former C.I.A. clandestine officer who worked for nearly two decades in South Asia and the Middle East, told me. “The Baluchis are Sunni fundamentalists who hate the regime in Tehran, but you can also describe them as Al Qaeda,” Baer told me. “These are guys who cut off the heads of nonbelievers—in this case, it’s Shiite Iranians. The irony is that we’re once again working with Sunni fundamentalists, just as we did in Afghanistan in the nineteen-eighties.” Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is considered one of the leading planners of the September 11th attacks, are Baluchi Sunni fundamentalists.

One of the most active and violent anti-regime groups in Iran today is the Jundallah, also known as the Iranian People’s Resistance Movement, which describes itself as a resistance force fighting for the rights of Sunnis in Iran. “This is a vicious Salafi organization whose followers attended the same madrassas as the Taliban and Pakistani extremists,” Nasr told me. “They are suspected of having links to Al Qaeda and they are also thought to be tied to the drug culture.” The Jundallah took responsibility for the bombing of a busload of Revolutionary Guard soldiers in February, 2007. At least eleven Guard members were killed. According to Baer and to press reports, the Jundallah is among the groups in Iran that are benefiting from U.S. support.

Team of Rivals

In TIME, Joe Klein points out the many Lincoln comparisons invoked by Barack Obama, the chief of which is his insistence on governing like the ‘Great Emancipator.’ To do so, he would undoubtedly have to recruit many of his rivals and ideological adversaries into his cabinet. In particular, the inclusion of Defense Secretary Robert Gates would an interesting first step. Klein elaborates:

Obama said he'd be particularly interested in having high-ranking Republicans advising him on defense and national security. "I really admire the way the elder Bush negotiated the end of the Cold War — with discipline, tough diplomacy and restraint ... and I'd be very interested in having those sorts of Republicans in my Administration, especially people who can expedite a responsible and orderly conclusion to the Iraq war — and who know how to keep the hammer down on al-Qaeda."

When I asked him specifically if he would want to retain Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense, Obama said, "I'm not going to let you pin me down ... but I'd certainly be interested in the sort of people who served in the first Bush Administration." Gates was George H.W. Bush's CIA director — and he has been a superb Secretary of Defense, as good in that post as his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, was awful.

No doubt, partisan Democrats who equate bipartisan government with namby-pamby policymaking are horrified by the thought that Republicans might keep control of the Pentagon. But Gates has been neither ideological nor namby-pamby. He has demanded accountability. He fired the Secretary of the Army after the Walter Reed hospital scandal and the Secretary of the Air Force for lax stewardship of the nuclear arsenal. Early on, Gates encouraged the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq; he has been one of the few Bush officials open to negotiations with Iran.

He has called for a larger budget for diplomacy — "which makes him far more popular than SecDefs usually are around here," a State Department official told me. He has clearly sided with the Army reformers against the Old Guard, and even called David Petraeus back to Washington to preside over a promotion board when it became clear that Petraeus-style officers — the bold and creative proponents of counterinsurgency strategy — were being blocked. (Petraeus apparently succeeded in getting several of his protégés promoted to general.)

Gates has been cagey about his future. He told CNN he would "never say never," but said staying on in the job was "inconceivable." However, with two wars in progress and the difficulty in getting new Cabinet (and staff) members confirmed quickly, there is a strong desire in the military community for continuity in the civilian leadership of the Pentagon. Associates say Gates might stay if he believed the security of the troops was at stake. The political rationale for a "team of rivals" government is compelling for Obama — it would be the freshest way to turn the page after the ideological myopia of the Bush debacle, a decisive step away from the partisan ugliness Americans claim to hate, the best way to build a decisive governing coalition. There are other worthy Republicans and military officers that Obama might turn to, people like Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel or retired General James Jones, who would make an excellent National Security Adviser. But it is no small irony that if Obama really wants to make a clean break from his predecessor, he should start by retaining George W. Bush's Secretary of Defense.

The Politics of Diplomacy

In the current issue of Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria responds to the Bush-McCain assertion that diplomacy is akin to appeasement and isolation is a show of strength.

President Bush chose an odd place and time to claim that talking to "terrorists and radicals" in the Middle East is like appeasing Hitler in the 1930s. As Bush was speaking in Israel, his preferred strategy against such adversaries was collapsing next door in Lebanon. The Bush administration's strategy against Hizbullah has consisted of a mix of isolation, belligerence and military pressure. It refuses to talk to the group or its supporters in Tehran and Damascus. Two years ago, Washington unquestioningly supported Israeli Prime Minister's Ehud Olmert's decision to attack southern Lebanon, Hizbullah's stronghold. The United States provides the Lebanese government and Army with aid and has responded to the current crisis by promising to speed up delivery of weapons. Yet today Hizbullah is stronger in Lebanon, Iran is more influential in the region, and the United States and its ally, Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, have been marginalized.

…It's not just Hizbullah. In dealing with many such groups—Hamas, the Taliban—the Bush administration has adopted a macho, exclusively military approach. All three of these groups have a political base in their societies that is deep and enduring. Denouncing them as evil and promising to destroy them will not change that; in fact, doing so only adds to their mystique of resistance and struggle. What we need is a political strategy to combat, contest and weaken the appeal of these groups or to marginalize their violent factions. Such a policy would naturally involve some contact with their leaders, but as part of a much broader effort to engage all groups in these societies politically.

We are trying to handle Lebanon with one hand tied behind our back. We will not make contact with the Syrians or the Iranians to find out if their interests are identical, or to discern the contours of a deal. We have little political leverage and we refuse to engage in a process that might give us some. "It's a much broader regional problem," says Norton. "When I was advising the Iraq Study Group I noticed that though the members disagreed on many things, the one on which there was unanimous support was the need to make contact with Iran." One of the group's members, Bush's own Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, made precisely this argument last week.

Perhaps Gates noticed that violence has declined in Iraq largely because the United States decided to engage with Sunni militants whom it had regarded for years as sworn enemies, giving cash to those whom we called terrorists only a few months earlier. In fact, this administration's few successes have come when it's agreed to talk with its adversaries. Bush authorized negotiations with Libya and North Korea—both of which he regarded as terrorist states and one of which he placed in the Axis of Evil. As for Iran, we've talked with Iranian officials on several occasions over issues relating to Afghanistan and Iraq.

James Dobbins, the administration's representative in the 2002 talks to form the government in Afghanistan, described the Iranians as "straightforward, reliable and helpful. They were critical to our success." President Bush's remarks on the solemn occasion of Israel's 60th anniversary may have been political. But much worse, they were dishonest.

Bush-McCain Politics as Usual

The President’s sudden interest in the Middle East peace process last year was clearly nothing more than a desperate political ploy to allow him to say, like many Presidents before him, that he tried. It was naïve, it was contrary to his previous seven years of indifference to the issue, and it was obviously far too little, far too late. But before the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel, surely the President would use the opportunity to speak of healing old wounds and bringing opposing sides together in the name of peace. Far from it.

Instead, he chose to engage in fear-mongering, to create divisions back home, and to discredit an American presidential candidate in the eyes of a foreign government. In doing so, he inexcusably took a political shot at Barack Obama by not only insinuating that he was naïve and weak but by also calling him as an appeaser, not unlike those who allowed the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany. That's right, he engaged in partisan domestic politics while addressing a foreign government, and, in criticizing his political opponent, made a Hitler analogy in the heart of Israel. So much for “politics stops at the water’s edge!”

Washington Post: It is bad enough that Republicans use the politics of personal destruction here at home, but to deploy that kind of political weapon at an occasion as solemn as an American president addressing the parliament of a friendly government marks a new low.

Despite the absurdity and inappropriateness of the President’s comments, it may actually benefit Barack Obama. After all, the Democrats should take every opportunity they can to talk about the failed Bush-McCain foreign policy of the last 7 years because it’s an important distinction in this election. It’s the Bush policy that has emboldened Iran and it is the Bush approach to foreign policy and other issues that has polarized the country. McCain offers more of the same while Obama, agree or disagree with his policy, offers a new approach that is sorely needed.

On this issue, Obama's approach and mindset are reflective of Presidential foreign policy luminaries such as Kennedy (“We should never negotiate out of fear, but we should never fear to negotiate”), Nixon (see China), and Regan (see Soviet Union), and are supported by most foreign policy experts and many in the President’s own administration, including the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense. The President's rhetoric highlights the past flaws and current missteps of Bush-McCain Republicans and highlights the vastly different way they approach the issues of our time. Americans are ready to move on.

President Bush: "Some seem to believe we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

Barack Obama: "It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the 6Oth anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political attack. It is time to turn the page on eight years of policies that have strengthened Iran and failed to secure America or our ally Israel. Instead of tough talk and no action, we need to do what Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan did and use all elements of American power - including tough, principled, and direct diplomacy - to pressure countries like Iran and Syria. George Bush knows that I have never supported engagement with terrorists, and the President's extraordinary politicization of foreign policy and the politics of fear do nothing to secure the American people or our stalwart ally Israel."

Senator Joe Biden’s informal statement: “This is bullshit. This is malarkey. This is outrageous. Outrageous for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, sit in the Knesset…and make this kind of ridiculous statement. He’s the guy who’s weakened us. He’s the guy that’s increased the number of terrorists in the world. His policies have produced this vulnerability the United States has. His intelligence community pointed that out not me. The NIE has pointed that out and what are you talking about, is he going to fire Condi Rice? Condi Rice has talked about the need to sit down. So his first two appeasers are Rice and Gates. I hope he comes home and does something.”

Senator Joe Biden’s formal statement: “There is an emerging, ugly pattern in this campaign that is deeply disturbing and also terribly damaging to our national security. Three weeks ago, the presumptive Republican nominee for President said: “I think it's very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States. So apparently has Danny Ortega and several others… If Senator Obama is favored by Hamas, I think people can make judgments accordingly.”

In recent days, his surrogates have repeated that outrageous statement. And now, today, the President of the United States, speaking in the Israeli Knesset, had this to say: “Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along… We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American Senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

White House aides told reporters on background that the President’s remarks are a reference to calls by Senator Obama and other Democrats for the U.S. president to engage countries like Iran. This kind of political attack rhetoric masquerading as policy is exactly why we’re in such trouble around the world, why we’re less secure and our adversaries are stronger. Instead of trying to fool the American people and demonize Democrats, the President should be spending his time trying to get us out of the hole he’s dug.

I try to refrain from criticizing a President when he’s traveling. But for the President to leave the country and unleash a political attack on Barack Obama and Democrats cannot go unanswered. We are not going to tolerate long distance swift boating. The President said that a willingness to talk to adversaries like Iran is a ‘foolish delusion’ and alleged that those who advocate engagement offer ‘the false comfort of appeasement.’ If the President really believes that, I assume that the first thing he will do when he gets home is to fire his cabinet. His own Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State favor negotiations with Iran.

For example, Secretary Gates said just yesterday: “We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage… and then sit down and talk with them. If there is going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can’t go to a discussion and be completely the demander, with them not feeling they need anything from us.”

Secretary Rice last year repeatedly called for negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program:

February 25, 2007: “We’re leaving open the track of negotiations because the best way to resolve this would be for Iran to come to the table.”

October 12, 2007: “The whole purpose… is to convince Iran that the best way to achieve its stated goal of civil nuclear power is to engage in negotiations… the United States has made it clear that [if Iran suspends enrichment] we would reverse 28 years of American policy and engage fully in discussions with Iran… about anything Iran wants to put on the table. I would close by saying I think the question is not, as I’ve been asked sometimes, ‘why will the United States not talk to Iran?’ The question really is: ‘why will Iran not talk to the United States?”

And of course, this is a President who made a deal with Libya’s leader Qadafi and writes polite letters to Kim Jong Il in North Korea. Under George Bush’s watch, it’s Iran, not freedom that has been on the march: Iran is much closer to the bomb now than it was seven years ago; Iran’s influence in Iraq has gone from zero to sixty because this President’s misguided war gave Shi’ite religious parties inspired and nurtured by Iran a path to power and opened the door to Tehran. When Iran’s President goes to Iraq, our ally there, Prime Minister Maliki, embraces him on both cheeks. Whose policy produced that?; Iran’s terrorist proxy Hezbollah is ascendant.

And beyond Iran, the world has become a much more dangerous place for America because of the failures of this administration’s foreign policy. According to our own intelligence services, Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan – the people who actually attacked us on 09-11 – is stronger now than at any time since 9-11 and planning new attacks. Around the world, terrorist recruitment is on the rise and there were more attacks in 2007 than in 2006, and more attacks in 2006 than in 2005.Hamas – which came to power in elections the administration insisted take place -- controls Gaza and launches rockets at Israel every day. Lebanon is on the verge of civil war.

And of course, 140,000 American troops remain stuck in Iraq with no end in sight. In short, under George Bush, the entire Middle East has become more dangerous and the United States and our allies, including Israel, less secure. His policy has been an abject failure. So for him to call those who rightly see the need for change ‘appeasers’ is truly delusional. For him to do it abroad is disgraceful. I believe that as we rally our allies and Russia and China to increase pressure on Iran to end its dangerous nuclear program, we also have to do much more to reach out to Iran – including through direct talks. That’s the best way to exploit cracks within the ruling elite and between Iran’s rulers and its people, who are struggling economically and stifled politically.

The Iranian people need to know that their government, not the United States, is choosing confrontation over cooperation. The President’s saber rattling is the most self-defeating policy imaginable. It forces Iranians who despise the regime to rally behind their leaders and spurs instability in the Middle East, which adds to the price of oil, with the proceeds going right into Tehran’s pockets. The worst nightmare for a regime that thrives on isolation and tension is an America ready, willing and able to engage. And by the way, since when has talking removed the word “no” from our vocabulary? It’s amazing how little faith this administration has in the power of America’s ideas and ideals.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: "We have a protocol . . . around here that we don't criticize the president when he is on foreign soil. One would think that that would apply to the president, that he would not criticize Americans when he is on foreign soil. I think what the president did in that regard is beneath the dignity of the office of president and unworthy of our representation at that observance in Israel."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: “Not surprisingly, the engineer of the worst foreign policy in our nation’s history has fired yet another reckless and reprehensible round. More than seven years into his Presidency and in the sixth year of the directionless Iraq war, President Bush has yet to learn that his brand of divisive partisan rhetoric is precisely what has made America and our allies less secure. And for the President to make this statement before the government of our closest ally as it celebrates a remarkable milestone demeans this historic moment with partisan politics.

“President Bush’s own actions demonstrate that he believes negotiations – at the right moment, under the right conditions and with the right leaders – can both show strength and produce results. He has relied on negotiations with North Korea and Libya, two state sponsors of terror. And by conducting discussions with Russia, China, Libya, North Korea and Iran in recent years, President Bush has demonstrated his belief that negotiations can be a tool to advance America and Israel’s national security interests. I call on the President to explain the inconsistency between his Administration’s actions and his words today.”

"The belief that somehow communications and positions and willingness to sit down and have serious negotiations need to be done in a face to face fashion as Senator Obama wants to do, which then enhances the prestige of a nation that's a sponsor of terrorists and is directly responsible for the deaths of brave young Americans, I think is an unacceptable position, and shows that Senator Obama does not have the knowledge, the experience, the background to make the kind of judgments that are necessary to preserve this nation's security."

John McCain in 2008: "Yes, there have been appeasers in the past. The president is absolutely right." Asked whether he thought Obama was one of them, he said he didn't know. He didn't know!

John McCain in 2006: When asked "Do you think that American diplomats should be operating the way they have in the past, working with the Palestinian government if Hamas is now in charge?" McCain answered: "They're the government; sooner or later we are going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I understand why this administration and previous administrations had such antipathy towards Hamas because of their dedication to violence and the things that they not only espouse but practice, so . . . but it's a new reality in the Middle East. I think the lesson is people want security and a decent life and decent future, that they want democracy. Fatah was not giving them that."

Given that exchange, the new John McCain might say that Hamas should be rooting for the old John McCain to win the presidential election. The old John McCain, it appears, was ready to do business with a Hamas-led government, while both Clinton and Obama have said that Hamas must change its policies toward Israel and terrorism before it can have diplomatic relations with the United States. Even if McCain had not favored doing business with Hamas two years ago, he had no business smearing Barack Obama. But given his stated position then, it is either the height of hypocrisy or a case of political amnesia for McCain to inject Hamas into the American election.

Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA): "The president swallows the microphone every time he opens his mouth."

As the Times reports:

Thursday was not the first time the term “appeasement” has cropped up in the Bush administration lexicon. In 2006, in advance of the midterm elections, Vice President Dick Cheney and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld invoked the analogy as a line of attack against critics of the war in Iraq. Then, as now, it was controversial.

Random Thoughts: Half-Truths

The recent Congressional testimony of General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker about the "proper" way forward in Iraq didn't offer anything unexpected. Essentially, it served only to provide a platform for both sides of the Iraq debate to argue the merits of their position. A major reason for the lack of a substantial discussion was the President's refusal, despite the urging of Congressional leaders, to allow the Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen, to join Petraeus and Crocker at the witness stand. Their exclusion was a deliberate move to stifle the debate and it is a point that, in the conversation of Iraq, is not being raised nearly enough.

For a seemingly resolute President who has no qualms gambling away that which our nation holds most sacred on the successes and failures of a corrupt and incompetent foreign government, it could very well be a sign that he realizes the futility of his broader Iraq policy.

Let me explain.

Regardless of your beliefs on how the Iraq war is being waged, there are two undisputed truisms to take away from the Petraeus/Crocker testimony. One, both Petraeus (the military counter-insurgency expert who has become the most respected and high-profile General of his generation) and Crocker (our nation's most skilled and experienced Middle Eastern diplomat) are, without question, true public servants and patriots doing their duty. They are undoubtedly trying to help steer our nation toward what they see as a just conclusion to our significant involvement in this conflict.

Two, the testimony and perspective of both was provided solely through the prism of Iraq - not through the larger prism of our overall national security interests. After all, the Petraeus/Crocker sphere of responsibility and influence resides solely in the military, economic and political progress made in Iraq. So when repeatedly confronted with legitimate concerns and important questions about the enormous costs (both economic and human costs) of this war, the strain being placed on our military, and the undermining of our ability to address other contingencies (including our greatest security threat - a reconstituted Taliban and al-Qaeda), all Petraeus and Crocker could do was shrug their shoulders and say it wasn't their job to answer those questions. No, it was the job of Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen. We never heard their answers over the course of those two days of testimony because their Commander in Chief wanted headlines written a certain way and he wanted to prop up a military poster boy with four stars who, in his mind, would provide the only testimony worth hearing about our military policy in Iraq. It’s too bad because the times are too grave and the stakes are too high to perpetuate a debate of half-truths.

Don't get me wrong - within the realm of Iraq-specific policy, there are critical questions to be answered and there are crucial strategies to be debated. However, to remove the entire context from which these judgments should be derived, to take away the larger picture perspective, is dangerous and foolhardy. And while, over the past five years, the President has acted as if there were an unlimited amount of lives, resources, and taxpayer dollars at his disposal, the reality is that when we focus an inordinate amount of attention and resources in one area, it takes away our ability to focus on another area. It is the job of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker to do everything they can, and ask for everything they need, to complete their mission in Iraq regardless of competing priorities elsewhere. It is the job of Admiral Mullen and Secretary Gates to balance these priorities in a manner consistent with our broader national security interests. That is why it is dangerous to blindly follow the path advocated by Petraeus and Crocker without any consideration of the broader implications of doing so.

So when the President tells the world that he will give Petraeus “all the time he needs”, it means not only that we will have an open-ended commitment of at least 130,000-140,000 troops in Iraq but it means much more. It means that our hands will be tied while our true enemies grow stronger. It means that we will be less able to address the deteriorating security conditions in Afghanistan. It means that we will be less able to hunt down those who attacked us on 9/11 while they recruit, plot future attacks, and hide in the mountains along the Pakistani border. It means that we will be less able to use force as a credible deterrent against dangerous enemies such as North Korea and Iran or to stop the genocide in Darfur. It means that our forces, particularly Army and Marine Corps, will continue to shoulder an unsustainable strain that could take decades to repair. It means that dwell time for troops between deployments will remain dangerously inadequate and continue to cause undue hardships for service-members and their families, and contribute to their growing susceptibility to post-combat mental health problems. It means that the Pentagon, in a desperate attempt to meet recruitment and retention goals, will continue providing billions in bonus payments and continue lowering enlistment standards through moral waivers - thereby endangering the long-term integrity of the force. It means that, as Iraqi surpluses sky-rocket due to the high price of oil, American taxpayers suffering through a recession will continue to subsidize them by providing the billions necessary to rebuild their country, provide basic services to their people, and train their security forces – all at the expense of investing in our own country, in priorities such as education, health care, and economic development.

In short, America’s security needs, our economic well-being, and the future of our military will continue to be held hostage by a reckless President and the actions or inactions of the Iraqi government. The loss of 4,000 American lives, 30,000 wounded, and hundreds of billions of dollars demands that we have a legitimate debate about our future involvement in Iraq. It is a debate that needs to be fully aired and it is a debate that, out of respect for those who have sacrificed so much, deserves to be about more than half-truths.

The Professional

In the Times this weekend, Fred Kaplan provides a must-read profile of Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

“Here’s another lesson I’ve learned. Two of the presidents I’ve worked for got into trouble because of foreign policy: Carter and Reagan. And in both cases” - Carter with the hostage crisis in Tehran, Reagan with illegal arms shipments to raise money for the Nicaraguan contras - “they got into trouble over Iran.” He half-smiled and cocked his eyebrows.

It was a classic display of the traits that distinguish Gates from his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld: caution as opposed to brashness, attention more to particulars than to grand theory and a view of history as a set of warning bells, not an outmoded mind-set to be transcended. Gates is clearly aware of the comparison. “My favorite cartoon from my confirmation hearings,” he said with a laugh, “shows me holding up my hand and saying, I swear that I am not now, and have never been, Donald Rumsfeld.”

Follow-Up: A Fracturing Alliance

Responding to the controversy ignited by his recent comments regarding NATO allies fighting in Afghanistan (captured in a previous post), Secretary Gates is quickly back-tracking.

U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates lauded NATO's mission in Afghanistan and heaped praise on Canada and other members of the alliance in a bid to stem the controversy he sparked with critical comments about the allies' ability to fight a counterinsurgency war against the Taliban. Mr. Gates told the Los Angeles Times in an interview published Wednesday that Canadian, Dutch and British troops are ill-suited for the fierce counterinsurgency war they are waging in southern Afghanistan, setting off international anger and a full-blown, damage-control exercise by the Pentagon.

Gates now claims it was a matter of semantics and that he wasn't singling out any nation.

“We have to acknowledge the reality that the alliance as a whole has not trained for a counterinsurgency operation, even though individual countries have considerable expertise at and success in this arena. Our allies, including the Canadians, the British, the Dutch the Australians and others, are suffering losses as they demonstrate valour and skill in combat."

Gates' ill-advised comments were dangerously provocative and came at a most inconvenient time. While he should be commended for recognizing his misstep (something his predecessor would have refused), he must not further complicate the already tremendous burden of fighting two wars with a military at its breaking point. It is because of this burden that we need our allies more than ever. And to publicly castigate those who sacrifice alongside American troops can only serve as a disincentive for others to join the fight.

A Fracturing Alliance

While the Taliban is undoubtedly experiencing a resurgence in Afghanistan and now operates virtually unmolested in the tribal areas of Pakistan, NATO forces appear to be splintering amid US criticisms of the fortitude and effectiveness of non-US forces. These criticisms have sprung from American frustrations over the growing violence in Afghanistan and a reluctance by NATO allies to deploy more forces or take on a greater combat role. To counter an expected offensive by the Taliban this Spring, the Administration recently chose to deploy an additional 3,200 Marines to southern Afghanistan. A move they hope will reassure allies who have questioned our commitment, and increase the likelihood those allies will follow suit.

The Post reports: The U.S. plan to send an additional 3,200 Marines to troubled southern Afghanistan this spring reflects the Pentagon's belief that if it can't bully its recalcitrant NATO allies into sending more troops to the Afghan front, perhaps it can shame them into doing so.

According to the Pentagon Spokesperson, Geoff Morrell: "It is our hope that our allies in NATO and other partners . . . in Afghanistan will see what more they can do to add forces to bring down the shortfall that will exist even after we deploy these additional Marines.” This would include, "at the very least," sending forces to replace the Marines when they leave at the end of this year.”

But this is where American diplomacy gets interesting and a bit wayward… In one breath, US officials castigate our allies for a lack of commitment in Afghanistan. In the next, they publicly criticize the abilities and performance of allies with troops on the ground who are fighting and suffering significant casualties.

The Post reports: What's more, Mr. Gates and other senior Pentagon officials seem to have concluded that the three NATO countries that have been willing to operate in the south -- Britain, Canada and the Netherlands -- have been relatively ineffective. Mr. Gates told the Los Angeles Times this week that "most of the European forces, NATO forces, are not trained in counterinsurgency"; the Pentagon believes they are too averse to casualties, too reluctant to patrol and too dependent on artillery and airstrikes. The Post's Karen DeYoung reported that U.S. commanders criticize British troops for failing to retain control over areas taken from the Taliban and for advancing a "colonial" strategy of backing local militias rather than working with the national Afghan army.

European diplomats and NATO's defenders furiously respond that the American complaints are unfounded. Almost all of the alliance's members have increased their commitment to Afghanistan in the past year, they point out, helping to raise the troop level under NATO command from 33,000 to 41,000. The troubles in the south, they say, are the result of NATO forces penetrating an area that U.S. commanders had neglected, allowing the Taliban to flourish. British officials say their strategy in Helmand province is comparable to the successful U.S. alliances with Sunni militias in Iraq.

This new American diplomatic approach is viewed with increasing disdain by a world community (including many high-ranking US military officials) that believes the US invasion of Iraq was the turning point in the war in Afghanistan – the ultimate contributor to the rising violence and the growing influence of the Taliban. With bin Laden on the ropes, Al-Qaeda in shambles, and the Taliban all but out of business, US military might, attention, and resources were siphoned away from Afghanistan at a time when they were most needed. The ensuing events shouldn’t have come as a big surprise.

“After more than six years of coalition warfare in Afghanistan, NATO is a bundle of frayed nerves and tension over nearly every aspect of the conflict, including troop levels and missions, reconstruction, anti-narcotics efforts, and even counterinsurgency strategy. Stress has grown along with casualties, domestic pressures and a sense that the war is not improving.”

Despite the daunting challenges, our troops continue to perform admirably in Afghanistan. For once, it would be nice if our civilian leadership and diplomatic efforts were more worthy of their sacrifice.

Dereliction of Duty

In difficult times, particularly during a war, the American people should seek and find reassurance from a President who speaks to their heart and provides them a vision of a better tomorrow. Sadly, we are far from that ideal today. While our brave young men and women continue to die on the streets of Iraq, we turn to the White House for answers and leadership. All we get in return is political posturing and a level of incompetence that borders on criminal. How else could you describe a so-called policy that flies in the face of the realities on the ground and results in over 100 American dead each and every month? The words of George McGovern ring true almost 40 years after they were first spoken: “I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.”

Most recently, it appears that the President and Joint Chiefs are at odds over the troop levels in Iraq. This latest debate within the Administration is particularly significant because it illustrates how isolated and misguided the President truly is. When the Joint Chiefs wanted the additional troops necessary to secure the country after Baghdad had fallen, the President refused because of the political implications. The Administration wanted to win the war quickly and on the cheap, and an increase in troops would have sent the wrong message….particularly with a Presidential election around the corner. Now, the President is on the flip side of that argument, potentially changing course over the objections of a military establishment who has made it clear that he simply waited too long to do so.

At regular interagency meetings and in briefing President Bush last week, the Pentagon has warned that any short-term mission may only set up the United States for bigger problems when it ends. The service chiefs have warned that a short-term mission could give an enormous edge to virtually all the armed factions in Iraq -- including al-Qaeda's foreign fighters, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias -- without giving an enduring boost to the U.S military mission or to the Iraqi army, the officials said.

The Pentagon has cautioned that a modest surge could lead to more attacks by al-Qaeda, provide more targets for Sunni insurgents and fuel the jihadist appeal for more foreign fighters to flock to Iraq to attack U.S. troops, the officials said.

The informal but well-armed Shiite militias, the Joint Chiefs have also warned, may simply melt back into society during a U.S. surge and wait until the troops are withdrawn -- then reemerge and retake the streets of Baghdad and other cities. Even the announcement of a time frame and mission -- such as for six months to try to secure volatile Baghdad -- could play to armed factions by allowing them to game out the new U.S. strategy, the chiefs have warned the White House.

The fact that this is a public topic of conversation is encouraging in itself considering the role played by the Joint Chiefs in the lead up to the war. That role was nothing less than a severe dereliction of duty and a subjugation of authority, perpetuated because of the overbearing personality of a Secretary of Defense who placed the personal consolidation of power over the integrity of the uniformed services. Instead of providing military advice directly to the President as dictated by law, their advice was filtered (and often co-opted) by Rumsfeld. As a result, they fiddled while Iraq burned….Rumsfeld ruled the Pentagon with a complicent Joint Chiefs lurking in the shadows, silently nodding in agreement.

It’s been said that the morale of the uniformed personnel in the Pentagon skyrocketed the moment Secretary Gates assumed office. Hopefully it’s a sign of what’s to come. We should also be hopeful that the trip by Gates to Iraq this week is an indication that he will be the engaged and independent presence that this debate (and this White House) desperately needs.