Monday, October 5, 2009 at 1:44AM OP-ED: The View From Pakistan's Spies, By David Ignatius, Washington Post, September 29, 2009
If you want the best, half-full glass argument for trusting the Pakistanis, this is it.
The whopper in the piece--to me at least: Pakistan fears the Pashtun-Taliban rule in Kabul more than we do--or should.
Recent--and distant--history says otherwise.
(Via WPR Media Roundup)
Monday, October 5, 2009 at 1:41AM OP-ED: How to Press the Advantage With Iran, By FLYNT LEVERETT and HILLARY MANN LEVERETT, New York Times, September 28, 2009
These two are always worth reading. The piece was cited in my recent Esquire column.
I agree with the basic premise: the timelines here are all wrong for the comprehensive engagement.
(Via WPR Media Roundup)
Monday, October 5, 2009 at 1:29AM ARTICLE: Iran Agrees to Send Enriched Uranium to Russia, By STEVEN ERLANGER and MARK LANDLER, New York Times, October 1, 2009
The key bit here:
Iran's agreement in principle to export most of its enriched uranium for processing -- if it happens -- would represent a major accomplishment for the West, reducing Iran's ability to make a nuclear weapon quickly and buying more time for negotiations to bear fruit.
If Iran has secret stockpiles of enriched uranium, however, the accomplishment would be hollow, a senior American official conceded.
Naturally, I think Iran has secret stockpiles of enriched uranium--hence the offer.
But the "reduction" argument is valid: I don't think Iran wants a big bomb supply. I think it wants the world to be unclear if it has several and to know for sure that it has the break-out capability much like Japan--an argument of mine that goes back years.
My point: there is nothing irrational regarding Iranian behavior on this subject.
Monday, October 5, 2009 at 1:25AM ARTICLE: In Anbar, U.S.-Allied Tribal Chiefs Feel Deep Sense of Abandonment, By Anthony Shadid, Washington Post, October 3, 2009
We aren't the Brits and never will be, because we don't seek to stay. This means that our patience is naturally limited.
That's the fundamental reality of our foreign policy: we are eager to leave. On that score, we will always compare badly with true imperialists.
Where we truly fail, as I fear Obama will with Afghanistan, is that we view the host-nation dynamic so myopically: we build them up just fast enough to leave but then we're also always unrealistic about who will step in regionally in our wake. We don't contextualize the problem: it's just us and them.
This is why we often speak of America waging the war, but somebody else opportunistically winning the peace.
But it's not that opportunistic: we like to run the war, but we don't like anybody else to run the peace--setting up suboptimal outcomes.
Monday, October 5, 2009 at 1:22AM ARTICLE: White House Eyeing Narrower War Effort, By Scott Wilson and Anne E. Kornblut, Washington Post, October 2, 2009
If I'm the Republicans, I see a winning issue here in 2012: the "good war" reduced to just claiming a victory over al Qaeda won't play well when the Taliban once again rule Afghanistan. If I'm al Qaeda, I feed this assumption (dare I say "myth" like the proverbial White House "senior official"?) that Taliban rule does not equate to a sanctuary for my group. Americans get turned around very quickly: they think one thing today and another in eight months.
On this score, Obama does remind me of Carter, especially the arrogant tone coming out of his White House on this subject.
Monday, October 5, 2009 at 1:19AM ARTICLE: China Celebrates 60 Years of Communist Rule, By MICHAEL WINES and SHARON LaFRANIERE, New York Times, October 1, 2009
What I found interesting about the 60th anniversary celebration in China is how divorced it is from everything that's made China powerful in the last three decades.
Think about it: the PLA has nothing to do with China's rise, and honestly, it wasn't Party leadership that was the key either, but rather how much the Party backed off trying to run everything economically.
A weird disjunction, in my mind.
But Americans love parades, so we're duly impressed.
Still, I watch and I see a celebration of everything that's stood in the way of China's return to growth and prosperity.
But since the Chinese are so paranoid of the subject of the country's coherence, this security-blanket-style thinking won't end for a while.
I await the truly confident China to someday appear.
Monday, October 5, 2009 at 1:16AM ARTICLE: Report Cites Firefight as Lesson on Afghan War, By THOM SHANKER, New York Times, October 2, 2009
An example of Afghanistan-specific learning within the U.S. military.
Our military owns these lessons intensely, because they earned them the hard way.
The danger here: a new administration comes in and has little respect for that learning, because it did not participate in them and therefore does not "own" them.
Monday, October 5, 2009 at 1:13AM ARTICLE: Report Says Iran Has Data to Make a Nuclear Bomb, By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER, New York Times, October 3, 2009
Again, this fits with the model that says Iran is looking for just enough deterrence capability to get itself into the great-power game.
Remember: guns (missiles) are relatively easy, and bullets (bombs) even more so. It's the gunpowder (enriched uranium) that is the hardest. Unless you're really optimistic on the last point, everything points to a break-out capacity being already extant.
Monday, October 5, 2009 at 1:07AM ARTICLE: The Distance Between 'We Must' and 'We Can', By JAMES TRAUB, New York Times, October 3, 2009
Reasoned analysis, but still the usual strategic myopia, only highlighted by citing George Will's quoting of George Kennan on Vietnam.
My point: we face no superpower rivalry here and all the regional great powers--quite frankly--prefer to see us succeed more than to see us fail (even Iran). But we debate the question as if we are a world unto ourselves.
So strange: we condemn Bush for his unilateralism (and we should), but then we're indulging the same instinct with Obama (America and America alone decides to make this effort--or not!).
The SysAdmin function remains more ROW (rest of world) than just USA. A change in administrations does not change that underlying reality. Nothing does.
Monday, October 5, 2009 at 12:58AM OP-ED: Let's Beat the Extremists Like We Beat the Soviets, By Andrew J. Bacevich, Washington Post, September 27, 2009
Bacevich offers the classic containment analogy on Afghanistan. As always, I reject the notion, not because we must lead but because globalization's revolutionary reformatting process won't be denied. I also reject because waiting on the rot to set in (the classic containment notion) is OBE with regard to the truly troublesome Gap locations.
Yes, integration will proceed with or without us. The questions have always been the outcomes and the mass violence involved. You can either deal, in that regard, or be dealt to.
But when you choose to deal, realize who your logical frenemies are in this process.
Monday, October 5, 2009 at 12:50AM OP-ED: The Neocons Make a Comeback, By BRET STEPHENS, Wall Street Journal, SEPTEMBER 28, 2009
I love this piece: every time anything bad happens, we are told the neocons were right and they're coming back!
Very expansive and impressive logic: defining our strategies solely by current events.
You ever watch a dog chase its tail? The WSJ editorial board is giving a good display these recent months.
The neocons' problem wasn't their sensible take on a dangerous world (they can read newspaper headlines with the best of them). Their deficiency was their tendency to always place security at the top of every agenda and tool-kit list. It makes them hammers in search of nails.
Imagine a U.S. currently trying to manage this world by emphasizing military options and hard stances every chance it got. You want a recipe for rapid decline, there is none better.
The neocons will return when our strategic imagination completely runs out--meaning, hopefully never.
(Via WPR Media Roundup)
Monday, October 5, 2009 at 12:34AM ARTICLE: Russia to buy warship from France in first Nato arms deal since Cold War, By Tony Halpin, London Times, October 2, 2009
It is a distinct sign of Russia's decline as a military power that it is now resorting to buying French arms.
(Via WPR Media Roundup)
Monday, October 5, 2009 at 12:06AM ARTICLE: Chinese Premier Wen to Visit North Korea in October, By Bomi Lim, Bloomberg, Sept. 28, 2009
This one is to be watched closely.
Monday, October 5, 2009 at 12:02AM ARTICLE: Rethinking Our Terrorist Fears, By SCOTT SHANE, New York Times, September 26, 2009
Good argument for not throwing in any towels on Af-Pak. America always faces that temptation of withdrawing while the larger victory stares us in the face.
Same story as in the taming of the Wild West: we ponder infinite spaces, our enemies assume infinite time. Both sides vastly overestimate.
(Via WPR Media Roundup)
Sunday, October 4, 2009 at 1:21PM + Darren.Allison linked 10 Reasons Why Sanctions on Iran Won't Work.
+ So did The New Nixon.
+ So did HG's WORLD.
+ For Your Situational Awareness linked For a New Economic Era, We Need New Allies.
+ Evgeny Morozov linked Let a trillion connections bloom, though not really in the way I intended with that headline.
+ Crippled Politics How about we work the actionable problems?
+ SCHotline Blog mentioned Tom.
+ Native embedded the TED talk
+ Off the Map linked More ham-handed Chinese net mismanagement.
+ Super Punch linked Not all missile defense is created equal.
+ Critt Jarvis linked Que est√∫pido!
+ And linked The place for USAID.
Saturday, October 3, 2009 at 6:54AM That unmistakable ache throughout the body.
Struggling to finish my WPR column. Got 500 in yesterday. Trying to drive it home.
Saturday, October 3, 2009 at 2:06AM ARTICLE: U.S. Opens Door To Bilateral Talks With Iranians, By Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, October 1, 2009
To me, it doesn't get much more obvious than this:
The chief Iranian negotiator being dispatched to Geneva, Saeed Jalili, is expected to press for acceptance of an Iranian proposal that would move beyond the nuclear issue and launch talks on a broad range of areas, including Afghanistan and reform of the United Nations. Whereas U.S. officials want to narrow the discussion to nuclear weapons, the Iranians want to broaden the topics on the table in order to test areas of cooperation with the United States.
We'll see how brave Obama wants to be.
Saturday, October 3, 2009 at 2:03AM ARTICLE: Oil, Ideology Keep China From Joining Push Against Iran, By John Pomfret, Washington Post, September 30, 2009
They've existed for quite some time, and frankly, I find them more impressive than Iran's reach for nukes as a sign that Tehran has already broken into the ranks of the untouchable great powers--in terms of kinetic, hard-kill options, that is.
That's why the collective intelligentsia in the U.S. is slowly but inexorably moving toward the soft-kill logic on Iran, made all the more apparent by the democracy movement last summer.
As I have long argued, we are into the Brezhnevian phase of a dead revolution.
Saturday, October 3, 2009 at 1:53AM ARTICLE: Anti-U.S. Wave Imperiling Efforts in Pakistan, Officials Say, By Karen DeYoung and Pamela Constable, Washington Post, September 25, 2009
Hard to see how, over time, if we are to succeed in stabilizing Afghanistan, that we won't be pushed in the direction of isolating Pakistan for its combined inability to police the FATA and unwillingness to let outsiders step in. I just don't see this bilateral relationship surviving--hence my continuing message to choose India first in whatever strategic decisions we make.
Saturday, October 3, 2009 at 1:50AM OP-ED: The power, and threat, of Iran, By Alastair Crooke, Los Angeles Times, October 1, 2009
Excellent analysis:
The crook of the logic:
[Obama] is not facing just the issue of Iran's nuclear program. This program is rolled into a more substantive and sensitive issue, one at the heart of the Iranian approach to negotiations: whether Israel and the U.S. -- nuclear weapons issue apart -- are able to come to terms with an Iran that is, and will be, a preeminent power in the region.
At present, these two issues have been conflated. Iran has signaled on various occasions that the nuclear issue could be resolved, but first it wants to know the answer to the wider issue: Can the U.S. bring Israel to accept Iran as a principal regional power? Can the U.S. accept such an outcome?
All here in the region understand the significance of this question: It is not just the nuclear weapon possibility that concerns Israel; it is the fact of Iranian conventional military power too. Already it is the conventional military power of Iran and its allies that is circumscribing Israeli conventional military freedom of action in the region. What we are dealing with is whether Israel and, by extension, the U.S., can accept that Israel will no longer enjoy its hitherto absolute conventional military dominance in the region.
This is, at bottom, the choice facing Obama: He can pursue a real solution, one that will have to acknowledge painful new realities and accept new forces arising in the region that inevitably will shift strategic balances. Or he can continue to try to contain them and risk a polarized and unstable Middle East.
The U.S. is slowly reducing its options through the Pittsburgh elevation of the nuclear file to an "ultimatum" choice. Perhaps Obama believes that in this way he will relieve pressure from Israel for unilateral military action. Perhaps he sees a powerful, conventionally equipped Iran as a threat to Arab allies.
To insist that Iran abandon altogether the nuclear fuel cycle is now probably unrealistic. Iran already has it. To set as an objective that Iran must never acquire the technology that would allow it to speedily move to weapons capacity at some future point in time is also unrealistic. But to bomb is even less a solution.
It seems, then, that we are heading to increasing sanctions on Iran. But these too are likely to be ineffective, as most specialists already admit. Such a policy will again polarize the region, split it, increase tensions and contribute to further isolating America and Europe in the Muslim world.
Despite the rhetorical stance of some Arab governments, the Arab and Muslim street -- and a number of states faced with Western escalation against Iran -- are more likely to perceive the conflict as one in which the West is seeking to weaken a Muslim rival in order to maintain Israel's military hegemony. Sentiment will turn against the West and Israel.
In short, the U.S. will again be boxed into an ineffective and unpopular policy.
Bingo!
My argument for five years now: Iran has maneuvered itself effectively into this position. We either deal with this reality or pretend the lid can be kept on the box.
But just as important to realize: this is a failed revolution deep into its Brezhnevian funk, with a Solidarnosc-like popular rebellion in the works.
In sum, this is a manageable problem. We've been down this path before. No freaking out, please!
(Via WPR Media Roundup)
