Nobel Peace Prize-Worthy

Who got these two longtime enemies together?

Armenia and Turkey signed a landmark agreement Saturday to establish diplomatic ties, after a dramatic last-minute intervention by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to keep the event from falling apart.

The accord, aimed at ending a century of hostility stemming from Ottoman Era massacres, was brokered by the Swiss over the past two years, with the help of French, Russian and U.S. officials. Clinton had been in frequent contact with the two sides in recent months to help seal the deal.

But just as she arrived at the University of Zurich for the signing at about 5 p.m. Saturday, Clinton heard that the Armenian side was objecting to a Turkish statement prepared for the ceremony, officials said. Clinton's motorcade made a U-turn and raced back to the hotel, where a U.S. diplomat was talking to the Armenians.

In the hotel parking lot, Clinton sat in her black BMW sedan in a soft rain for about an hour, talking on one phone to the Armenian foreign minister and on another to the Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. Finally, she went into the hotel to invite the Armenian foreign minister, Edward Nalbandian, to drive with her to the university, where his Turkish counterpart was waiting.

Once there, further hours of negotiating ensued with a broader group of international diplomats, including Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, before the documents were signed. In an apparent compromise, neither the Turks nor the Armenians made a statement at the ceremony.

Could we see two in a row for the Obama Administration? (Probably not, the principals themselves are probably more deserving; this excerpt is written in an American paper for an American audience.)

Actually, some Armenians and their representatives in Washington are upset that the accord puts off the question of whether Turkey committed genocide against the Armenian people to a "committee of historical experts" for study. They want an immediate acknowledgement based on the known facts. Armenians throughout the world are not entirely pleased with the document. But the Armenian people will likely by helped innumerably by the opening of borders and normalization of relations with their most powerful neighbor.

Let's hope we see more agreements like this soon.

Trying To Exit

Andrew Sullivan, 15 years after the fact, kinda sorta apologizes for Betsy McCaughey but not really, calling it not his finest hour but saying that he was somehow roped into publishing it:

I do not think it's professional to air the specifics of internal battles after the fact, and I take full responsibility for being the editor of the magazine that published the piece. I accepted an award for it. I stood behind it. In my view, it had many interesting points and as an intellectual exercize in contemplating the full possible consequences of Hillary Clinton's proposal, it was provocative and well worth running. But its premise that these potential consequences were indisputably in the bill in that kind of detail was simply wrong; and I failed to correct that, although all I can say is that I tried. One key paragraph - critical to framing the piece so it was not a declaration of fact but an assertion of what might happen if worst came to worst - became a battlefield with her for days; and all I can say is, I lost. I guess I could have quit. Maybe I should have. I decided I would run the piece but follow it with as much dissent and criticism as possible. I did discover that she was completely resistant to rational give-and-take. It was her way or the highway [...]

Again, I take responsibility.

This is taking responsibility? Who else but the editor of the magazine should be responsible for its content? Who was Sullivan fighting with, as the editor of the magazine, that forced him to label the piece as fact instead of as one woman's opinion? Martin Peretz? Betsy McCaughey herself, as he seems to intimate here? Who was in charge? As Kevin Drum says, he surely owes us the rest of this story. As much as Sullivan tries to discount it, the piece was crucial to killing health reform:

But look: it was one piece in a magazine. It's being treated as if it were a turning point in history. Please. There's one reason the Clinton healthcare bill failed and it isn't Betsy McCaughey. It's Hillary Clinton.

Sullivan is offering the "innocent bystander" theory of journalism, where journalists have no effect on public opinion. In this case, it's mixed in with his visceral hatred of Hillary Clinton, which is nonsense. But the original "No Exit" had huge implications for the health care debate in 1994, not least of which because of its impact on OTHER JOURNALISTS. They figured that McCaughey had some kind of authority and took her claims as important ones, which they subsequently disseminated across the media. That's how opinion leaders get their information, and that dribbles down into the public at large. There is no question that the article hurt health care reform, and Sullivan doesn't want the responsibility, so he tries to wriggle off the hook. In fact, he was defending the article a couple years ago before McCaughey resurfaced. Sullivan's mistake actually has affected the health care debate TODAY, 15 years later, by making McCaughey's claims viable, at least to conservatives who knew how to use them. And he doesn't come out of this exchange looking good.

When an editor publishes something that he admits that he knew at the time to be false--"[McCaughey's] premise that these potential consequences were indisputably in the bill in that kind of detail was simply wrong; and I failed to correct that, although all I can say is that I tried"--there should be consequences.

And I think there should be consequences for the Atlantic Monthly, and for other publications that continue to employ Andrew Sullivan.

As Ezra Klein says, that Sullivan won't defend McCaughey anymore shows how toxic she is, though she still manages to get on the teevee at will. But this is a very weak effort to bury the past.

Crazy Dana

Probably because it's so unsuccessful, the Washington Post has kept throwing money at this horrific "Mouthpiece Theater" gossip show they do with Dana Milbank and Chris Cillizza while having to massively cut costs to return to profitability. Their investment in Milbank's comedy stylings yielded this gem today.

If I were on the board of directors of the Kaplan test prep company, and discovered that the people running a money-losing Kaplan subsidiary (better known as the Washington Post) had greenlighted a feature called "Mouthpiece Theater," I would demand that either they be fired, or that the Post itself be liquidated.

In today's episode, Dana Milbank suggests Hillary Clinton should drink "Mad Bitch" beer.

The episode starts with an ad for BP. So, is it time to boycott them and tell them the reason?

I've seen open mike nights with more comedy talent than Mouthpiece Theater.

...And WaPo takes down the clip. You can see it here.

Slow Creep Back To The Bargaining Table

North Korea has consistently preferred bilateral talks with the United States over the six-party talks that have become the current framework. Now they have again asked for a one-on-one dialogue, this time as the only available diplomacy.

North Korea has again insisted it will not return to six-party talks aimed at ending its nuclear weapons programme.

But it hinted it was still open to "a specific and reserved form of dialogue", state media quoted a foreign ministry statement.

The statement did not elaborate on what form any new dialogue could take but Pyongyang has previously said it was open to direct talks with the US.

The US has said it will hold talks with the North within the six-party format.

Some analysts are seeing the statement as a sign that after a series of provocations to the international community, North Korea may now be ready to find a way to ease tension.

Hillary Clinton brushed this off on Meet The Press yesterday. But it does represent a step forward, of a kind, because earlier this year the DPRK would not agree to talks of any kind. So we're getting somewhere.

They want the respect of bilateral talks on an equal footing with the United States. If that means the release of political prisoners like Euna Lee and Laura Ling, and an equitable swap of ending the nuclear program for humanitarian aid and diplomatic relations, I don't really see the holdup.

Does North Korea Really Have Nuclear Weapons?

In her Asia trip, Hillary Clinton called for an end to North Korea's nuclear program and threatened increasing isolation and pressure. She said that the world basically agrees and that the rogue state has no friends left. North Korea responded by criticizing Hillary's appearance. Because Kim Jong-il is such a stunner.

But I've said before that the proper way to react to a country as desperate for attention as North Korea is not seriousness. It's mockery. And the mockery is well-earned, especially because that vaunted nuclear program may not be so vaunted:

Let us suppose, for the moment, that the DPRK actually did explode 2,500 tons of TNT instead of a nuclear device. How could they load a tunnel with so much conventional explosive and not be detected by the West’s satellites? This was the real reason I was so sure it had been a nuclear explosion. I was convinced, unfortunately before doing a very simple calculation, that the trucks filled with high explosive (HE) would be detected.

However, it is not all that much HE. If TNT was used, as opposed to a higher density explosive like RDX, North Korea would only have to excavate a cavity 12 meters on a side and fill it with high explosives.

If four 10-ton trucks delivered their load each night (with a fifth truck coming every 10th day) they could drop off all the HE within two months. Using RDX, or some other higher density explosive, could significantly decrease this time. That seems quite doable and to be potentially undetectable by the West.

I don't really believe that North Korean scientists have developed what they claim to have developed. And if someone high-up in the United States government called their bluff, while keeping with the sanctions and demands for inspectors, the entire facade could crumble. We need more intelligence, but it's worth exploring whether the boasts match reality.

Coup De Grace

I remember seeing "Our Brand Is Crisis," with all the Clintonite campaign types using American-style techniques to get the dull neoliberal technocrat Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada (nicknamed "Goni") elected in Bolivia through an image makeover and sophisticated polling. Eventually this led to riots in the streets after Goni tries to open their markets and after the corporations extracting the country's natural resources simply fleece the poor. Eventually, the populist Evo Morales rose to power.

It's fun to see the same kind of Clintonite defend a military coup to keep at bay the same kind of populist leader in Honduras:

Honduran business leaders are turning to Washington lobbyists to convince Congress that it should support rather than oppose the military removal of President Manuel Zelaya from office.

The Honduran branch of CEAL, the Latin American equivalent of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has hired Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe to make the case to U.S. lawmakers and foreign diplomats.

And leading the lobbying effort for the firm is partner Lanny Davis, the former special counsel to President Bill Clinton and well-known supporter of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton when she ran for president in 2008. (Davis is also a contributor to The Hill’s Pundits Blog.) [...]

Davis said he has not called Clinton to set up a meeting between her and Honduran government officials and does not plan to do so.

Davis said the business group wants to restore order to Honduras, which has been in upheaval since the country’s military ousted Zelaya on June 28 after he tried to alter the constitution.

“This is about the rule of law. That is the only message we have,” Davis said, adding that Zelaya “was acting unconstitutionally and illegally” when he pushed for a voter referendum to change presidential term limits. The Central American nation’s other branches of government opposed his move, and his decision to ignore them led to his ouster.

I certainly believe Lanny Davis would probably have been inside the government in some capacity in a Hillary Clinton Administration, and I'm glad he's instead on the outside agitating for military coups. Also of note - that the "rule of law" includes rousting an elected President out of bed in his pajamas and putting him on a plane. The overall story is more complex than that, but there's hardly a world where that happened that can be accurately termed as acting under the rule of law. Not even Bush-era right-wing judicial nominee Miguel Estrada can escape from that fact.

Neogtiations In Honduras

Some better news out of Honduras. After a meeting between ousted President Mel Zelaya and Secretary of State Clinton today, a diplomatic agreement has been brokered, though I don't think it will be entirely smooth.

Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya on Tuesday accepted a U.S.-backed effort by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias to mediate an end to the political crisis in Honduras and said talks with his rivals would begin on Thursday.

"Our first meeting is set for Thursday, in Costa Rica," Zelaya, told Honduran radio from Washington, saying he would meet the "protagonists" of the June 28 coup that ousted him.

But Arias, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, faces mediating between sharply opposed positions.

Zelaya said that his reinstatement as president was "nonnegotiable," adding of the talks, "What this is is not a negotiation, this is the planning of the exit of the coup leaders."

In Honduras, Roberto Micheletti, who was appointed president by Honduran lawmakers after the coup, also said he accepted Arias as a mediator, but added his government maintained his position that Zelaya could not return.

If you can squint and sort of see the outlines of any deal, let me know. But dialogue can bear fruit if given enough time and backing. You could see some sort of deal where Zelaya gets to serve out his term (which has less than a year left) in exchange for a vow not to change Presidential term limits. And then the people of Honduras get their elected leader and can choose another one. Obama made a good statement:

"America supports now the restoration of the democratically-elected president of Honduras, even though he has strongly opposed American policies," Obama said in a speech in Russia.

"We do so not because we agree with him. We do so because we respect the universal principle that people should choose their own leaders, whether they are leaders we agree with or not," he added.

Sounds reasonable to me, which is why he'll get endlessly attacked for "siding with Castro and Chavez."

Honduras' Coup/Not-Coup

The first day after the coup in Honduras included riot police turning hoses on protestors and angry denunciations from the President of the United States, in a break from past tradition when Presidents offered tacit support to Latin American coups (or overt support, as in the Bushies' reaction to the attempted coup of Hugo Chavez in 2002). Questions still dogged the White House, however.

The United States has a history of backing rival political factions and instigating coups in the region, and administration officials have found themselves on the defensive in recent days, dismissing repeated allegations by President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela that the C.I.A. may have had a hand in the president’s removal.

Obama administration officials said that they were surprised by the coup on Sunday. But they also said that they had been working for several weeks to try to head off a political crisis in Honduras as the confrontation between Mr. Zelaya and the military over his efforts to lift presidential term limits escalated.

The United States has long had strong ties to the Honduras military and helps train Honduran military forces. Those close ties have put the Obama administration in a difficult position, opening it up to accusations that it may have turned a blind eye to the pending coup. Administration officials strongly deny the charges, and Mr. Obama’s quick response to the Honduran president’s removal has differed sharply from the actions of the Bush administration, which in 2002 offered a rapid, tacit endorsement of a short-lived coup against Mr. Chávez.

As if to rebut the past support for military overthrows in the region, Obama began with a sharp statement and built on it at a press avail with Colombia's Alvaro Uribe:

All of us have great concerns about what's taken place there. President Zelaya was democratically elected. He had not yet completed his term. We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the President of Honduras, the democratically elected President there. In that we have joined all the countries in the region, including Colombia and the Organization of American States.

I think it's -- it would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition rather than democratic elections. The region has made enormous progress over the last 20 years in establishing democratic traditions in Central America and Latin America. We don't want to go back to a dark past. The United States has not always stood as it should with some of these fledgling democracies, but over the last several years, I think both Republicans and Democrats in the United States have recognized that we always want to stand with democracy, even if the results don't always mean that the leaders of those countries are favorable towards the United States. And that is a tradition that we want to continue.

So we are very clear about the fact that President Zelaya is the democratically elected President, and we will work with the regional organizations like OAS and with other international institutions to see if we can resolve this in a peaceful way.

Zelaya, according to his critics, was attempting to rewrite the constitution to run for re-election (Honduras has a seemingly constricting one-term Presidential limit), but he actually
was attempting to put a nonbinding resolution on the ballot about convening a constitutional assembly, something so tyrannical and anti-democratic that it could be DEFEATED AT THE BALLOT BOX. As an unnamed official said in the Times story, “On the one instance, we’re talking about conducting a survey, a nonbinding survey; in the other instance, we’re talking about the forcible removal of a president from a country.”

Significantly, Hillary Clinton refused to call the action a coup, "which would trigger a cutoff of millions of dollars in aid to the impoverished Central American country." Obama certainly called it a coup in his remarks, so I don't see the distinction. But that signals a preparation to live with this consequence while offering stern rebukes. Zelaya plans to return home on Thursday, and who knows what that will spark. Quite the mess.

Strong Words

I'm very gratified that the Obama Administration, and the Democratic leadership generally, are going to the mats with Israel over settlement construction.

Rebuffing Israel on a key Mideast negotiating issue, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that the Obama administration wants a complete halt in the growth of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory, with no exceptions.

President Obama "wants to see a stop to settlements -- not some settlements, not outposts, not natural-growth exceptions," Clinton said.

Growth in settlements built in the West Bank has become a key point of disagreement between the United States and Israel as the administration assembles its plan to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.

U.S. officials believe that a complete Israeli halt to settlement growth could lead to early concessions from moderate Arab nations and put new momentum behind the peace effort.

That's an extremely strong statement, and much further that I would guess anyone would have suspected that Democrats were willing to go. And not only that, but Martin Indyk, of all people, is telling the truth:

On Netanyahu: "Bibi suffers from the fact that many people in the administration know him too well."

On Israel's taking risks to achieve peace: "All these years, the US has been strengthening you precisely for this purpose -- so that you can take the risk of making peace. How exactly can the Palestinians destroy you? The real existential danger is that you will not succeed in parting from them."

The settlements violate international law. A fanatical far-right minority uses them to stand in the way of peace. And Bibi Netanyahu has simply been caught out. He can pretend that his survival isn't dependent on a strong ally in the United States, or he can lose his Prime Minister position. Period.

What Election?

I'm watching Hillary Clinton school a bunch of wingnuts in the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Particularly, she responded to Mike Pence, who put on his very serious voice to denounce that devastating smile and handshake between President Obama and Hugo Chavez. The Secretary of State responded that, and I'm paraphrasing, we tried to isolate enemies for eight years, and where did it get us? President Obama won an election, and won a primary against me, offering a different vision, and the people agreed with his approach.

The Republican Party and its allies, simply put, act as if there was no election in November. In some cases they quite literally act that way, trying to stall Democratic victories. But that's the overall tenor as well. Washington remains wired for Republicans, and the focus continues to be on either relentlessly trivial issues or the fundamentally conservative slant on those issues, and thus the key questions never get asked.

Meanwhile, I haven't seen any reporter ask Cheney or his staff what seems like an obvious question: If there exist documents that prove that torture prevented attacks on the US, and those documents can be released without jeopardizing national security, why didn't the Bush administration release them before leaving office?

It isn't like it's a surprise that the Obama administration has made some changes in Bush administration torture policy; Cheney and Bush had to know that was a possibility. So why didn't they release this evidence that supposedly proves that torture is a necessary national security tool? (If the answer is that they feared releasing the documents would jeopardize national security, there's an obvious follow-up: Why does Cheney want them released now?)

But of course the election has been essentially disappeared. That "accountability moment," as George W. Bush once famously called it, where the public considered the options and made their will known, didn't happen. And the likely loss of the bare minimum seats to sustain a filibuster, which even the man running the Senate races has acknowledged, doesn't impact this outlook, either. They have bought the Kool-Aid that they have a silent, non-voting (apparently) majority and refuse to be moved by public opinion but to retrench. It's actually quite remarkable and ahistorical:

After losing ground in 2006, you might have expected Republicans to start distancing themselves from the hugely unpopular president and his failed conservative policies. Instead, the caucus held remarkably firm behind Bush’s agenda. And then they lost a bunch of additional seats in 2008. At this point you again might have expected them to start acting conciliatory. But they haven’t been. Which might lead you to suspect that they have some kind of secret master plan to explain why this makes sense. But, clearly, they don’t—Cornyn acknowledges that his side is likely to lose more seats.

I've heard this called the Republican death spiral, as the rump Southern contingent gathers more and more power inside the party while eroding the party throughout the rest of the country. That the Republican Party is now less popular than Venezuela makes no difference. They have become less a political concern than a weird theater group obsessed over slights toward Miss California or Presidential public gestures than the clear expressed will of the public.

And wait until they get a load of this. Hissy fit alert!

Egyptians are cautiously rejoicing over the recent appointment of a veiled Egyptian American Muslim woman as an advisor to President Obama.

Dalia Mogahed, senior analyst and executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, was appointed this month to Obama's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

...This was good too.



"I don't consider (Dick Cheney) a particularly reliable source."

Rejoining The World Community

With the glaring exception of Af-Pak policy, which is admittedly fraught with tough choices, I have appreciated the Obama Administration's work in foreign policy to this point. They have moved in a number of additional directions today.

First, they decided to join the UN Human Rights Council, after George Bush pulled the US off of it.

"Human rights are an essential element of American global foreign policy," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement. "With others, we will engage in the work of improving the U.N. human rights system. . . . We believe every nation must live by and help shape global rules that ensure people enjoy the right to live freely and participate fully in their societies."

The United States announced it would participate in elections in May for one of three seats on the 47-member council, joining a slate that includes Belgium and Norway.

Bush's removal from the Council was entirely based on right-wing demonization of the UN. And this made John Bolton sputter with rage, which is always fun.

Next, US and Iranian officials took part in a cordial meeting today at a conference on Afghanistan.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - In a cautious first step toward unlocking 30 years of tense relations, senior U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke had a brief but cordial meeting with Iran's deputy foreign minister Tuesday at an international conference on Afghanistan.

The rare diplomatic approach was the first official face-to-face interplay between the Obama administration and the Iranian regime. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton cautioned that the brief talks between Holbrooke and Iranian diplomat Mehdi Akhundzadeh were cordial but not "substantive."

"They agreed to stay in touch," Clinton said at the close of a one-day conference on Afghan security and development that was designed partly to allow the diplomatic turn with Iran. She told NBC News, "We think there is room for more engagement with Iran going forward." [...]

The face-to-face pleasantries, along with a diplomatic letter hand-delivered to the Iranian delegation by a U.S. official, were carefully calibrated overtures from the Obama administration aimed at testing the clerical regime's willingness to take larger steps.

This is especially encouraging in light of new Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu's messianic rantings about how Obama must stop Iran "or I will." Here on Planet Earth, in the post-Bush era we engage with enemies and exhaust diplomatic avenues instead of the failed neocon policy of belligerence and unilateralism. Israel doesn't have the resources to carry out an attack on Iran, and are only left with bluster. Obama's words of engagement toward Iran mean much more.

Finally, Secretary of State Clinton acknowledged at the same conference in The Hague that the United States no longer uses the phrase "war on terror."

"The administration has stopped using the phrase, and I think that speaks for itself," Mrs. Clinton told reporters as she traveled here for a United Nations-led conference on Afghanistan.

The phrase has been criticized as having inflammatory connotations in the Muslim world. Some Democratic officials believe it is better to describe more specifically whom the U.S. is fighting, such as al Qaeda or the Taliban.

Mrs. Clinton made her remarks in response to reporters' questions. Asked whether there was a specific policy decision on the terminology, she said: "I haven't gotten any directive about using it or not using it. It's just not being used."

President Obama used the phrase a bit during the campaign, but I'm glad to see his Administration dropping it. The entire "war" terminology is unhelpful, whether we're talking about drugs or cancer or poverty. Against terror, the phrase was particularly misapplied. In addition to it being impossible to wage war on a tactic (David Cross famously said "It would be like fighting a war on jealousy"), it has been used to justify all manner of unconstitutional unitary executive rulings that took away civil liberties. There is no reason to be imprecise when talking about war. People may get the idea that you're waging it on them.

All in all, a pretty good day for change in the Obama Administration.

Why Obama on Legalization Bugs

Just to show that I'm not some drug-addled hippie looking for a safe toke (in fact I've never smoked pot more than once or twice in my life), let's have a slightly more scholarly discussion about reforming our nation's drug laws than the President wants to have. You can even do it without snickering!

I don't think it takes much to convince everyone that the nation's current drug laws have failed, and failed utterly. Don't take my word for it, take the word of the Secretary of State.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled to Mexico on Wednesday with a blunt mea culpa, saying that decades of U.S. anti-narcotics policies have been a failure and have contributed to the explosion of drug violence south of the border.

"Clearly what we've been doing has not worked," Clinton told reporters on her plane at the start of her two-day trip, saying that U.S. policies on curbing drug use, narcotics shipments and the flow of guns have been ineffective.

"Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade," she added. "Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police, of soldiers and civilians."

Let's be extremely clear about what Clinton means by failure. At home we have a policy focused on decreasing demand through law enforcement and incarceration. This has only sent the industry underground, made it more violent, increased the ranks of the jailed in our prisons, which typically provide college-level courses in how to commit violent crime instead of rehabilitation and treatment, and done nothing toward the central task. Abroad, we have a policy of interdiction and eradication, which inflames local populations, again sends the industry underground, makes it more violent, and does nothing toward the central task of decreasing supply.

Charles Lemos links to a CNN report by Jeffrey Miron that goes into this subject in greater detail.

Prohibition creates violence because it drives the drug market underground. This means buyers and sellers cannot resolve their disputes with lawsuits, arbitration or advertising, so they resort to violence instead.

Violence was common in the alcohol industry when it was banned during Prohibition, but not before or after.

Violence is the norm in illicit gambling markets but not in legal ones. Violence is routine when prostitution is banned but not when it's permitted. Violence results from policies that create black markets, not from the characteristics of the good or activity in question.

The only way to reduce violence, therefore, is to legalize drugs. Fortuitously, legalization is the right policy for a slew of other reasons.

Prohibition of drugs corrupts politicians and law enforcement by putting police, prosecutors, judges and politicians in the position to threaten the profits of an illicit trade. This is why bribery, threats and kidnapping are common for prohibited industries but rare otherwise. Mexico's recent history illustrates this dramatically.

Prohibition erodes protections against unreasonable search and seizure because neither party to a drug transaction has an incentive to report the activity to the police. Thus, enforcement requires intrusive tactics such as warrantless searches or undercover buys. The victimless nature of this so-called crime also encourages police to engage in racial profiling.

Prohibition has disastrous implications for national security. By eradicating coca plants in Colombia or poppy fields in Afghanistan, prohibition breeds resentment of the United States. By enriching those who produce and supply drugs, prohibition supports terrorists who sell protection services to drug traffickers.

Prohibition harms the public health. Patients suffering from cancer, glaucoma and other conditions cannot use marijuana under the laws of most states or the federal government despite abundant evidence of its efficacy. Terminally ill patients cannot always get adequate pain medication because doctors may fear prosecution by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Now that is the argument for legalization. It is not ridiculously popular and I don't think the data even show much of a generational shift yet. But it's not an unserious argument. It's not worthy of snickering. The truth is that, even while opposing the eventual argument for legalization, there are a host of issues that the Obama Administration could tackle, and indeed says they are tackling, to reduce the worst effects of the failed war on drugs. Eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing for nonviolent offenders, as they are moving toward in New York with the repeal of the Rockefeller drug laws, is a start. So would increasing funding for treatment centers, and decriminalizing low-level drug crimes, and ending the raids on perfectly legal medical marijuana centers in the states. While the Obama Justice Department has vowed to do the latter, they forgot to tell someone at the DEA today:

Drug Enforcement agents yesterday raided a medical marijuana dispensary in San Francisco, a week after US Attorney General Eric Holder said federal authorities would no longer prosecute providers that are not otherwise in violation of state laws.

Yesterday, agents raided Emmalyn's California Cannabis Clinic, hauling out plants and growing equipment. The dispensary, which gives out free marijuana to the poor once a week, had a temporary city permit allowing it to operate.

The DEA special agent in charge told the San Francisco Chronicle that Emmalyn's was skirting state laws as well. According to Holder's remarks last week, that would make it a candidate for federal legal action. Also:

A source in San Francisco city government who was informed about the raid said the DEA's action appeared to be prompted by alleged financial improprieties related to the payment of sales taxes. DEA Special Agent Casey McEnry, spokeswoman for the local office, would not comment on that information.

I don't remember the DEA raiding any other business that had a state sales tax issue, ever, in history.

My point is that advocates for legalization, and I'm not entirely one (I believe that there would be a similar issue with advertising and sales to minors as you have with cigarettes), have an argument to make, and it can be handled entirely seriously, with the pros and cons weighed and the final judgment reached. The dismissiveness of the President today is the problem, not his verdict.

Zardari Blinks

I didn't think it would turn out this cleanly, and it probably hasn't. But the Pakistan crisis has at least been delayed, as the government decided to reinstate Iftikhar Chaudhry as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. This led Nawaz Sharif to call off the "Long March," as this was its goal. Some reports are calling this the first triumph of diplomacy for one Hillary Clinton.

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s appears to have succeeded in persuading warring political leaders in Pakistan to soften their attitudes towards each other, the US media reported on Saturday.

Various US television and radio networks noted that soon after Secretary Clinton called President Asif Ali Zardari, a presidential spokesman announced in Islamabad that the government will restore the deposed judges in the light of Charter of Democracy and will file a review petition in the Supreme Court to undo the disqualification of Sharif brothers.

A spokesman for opposition leader Nawaz Sharif later described these decisions as ‘a corrective measure,’ the US media noted.

If true, that would be great, and another sign of a positive foreign policy from the Obama Administration. However, the fact that local police in Punjab apparently refused to honor the house arrest for Sharif forced Zardari to recalculate and give in to demands to save his political skin. Plus, as Juan Cole notes, Pakistan's political strife is not over.

The Punjabi population resents Zardari's imposition of 'governor's rule" or a Federal take-over of the province, which has an elected provincial legislature in which the PMLN is the leading party. And, the Sharifs are not going to put up with being excluded from politics, and Zardari and his courts tried to do.

Those issues have to be resolved before the political situation can calm down. Moreover, Iftikhar Chaudhry is himself an iconoclast, and what if he indicts Musharraf or even Zardari? Or maybe Dick Cheney. If Chaudhry is worried about Pakistanis who were made to disappear without habeas corpus or formal legal proceedings, as part of a 'war on terror,' I have suggestions for perpetrators he should look into, who now live in Texas.

So, good news, but not an end by any means.

Like Clockwork

I'm trying to figure out this US-China naval row. The US says the Chinese surrounded their ship, China says the USNS Impeccable was illegally surveying Chinese waters, and apparently the crew on the unarmed Impeccable had to use fire hoses - FIRE HOSES - in self-defense.

Anyway, the Secretary of State and China's Foreign Minister spoke yesterday and agreed to work to avoid further incidents. This happened eight years ago at the beginning of Bush's regime with a mid-air collision and 24 Naval airmen briefly held on Hainan Island. I would say that Obama's Administration acted a bit better, but you get the sense that China just wants to feel things out at the beginning of a new Presidency to test the boundaries.

Movement On Iran

Gary Sick notices a lot of attention being paid to Iran by the Obama Administration in just the first six weeks.

There is a flurry of signaling by the US -- both positive and negative: keeping pressure on Iran (Stuart Levey and restrictions on banks), reassuring Israel (appointment of Ross) & Arabs (Hillary's downplaying of expectations at Sharm el-Sheikh), providing some funding for the Palestinians while pressing Israel to relax entry into Gaza, renewing an opening to Syria, talking about cutting US nuke stockpiles (US Ambassador Schulte in Vienna), talk of including Iran in Afghan security discussions (Holbrook), willingness to remove (anti-Iran) missile defense in E Eur while cajoling Russia on Iranian missile development, nice words from Obama (sometimes), harsh words from Susan Rice (always?), tough words from Adm Mullen, more soothing words from SecDef Gates, unified declaration about Iran by all five UN veto powers at the IAEA (without threatening new sanctions or return to the UNSC), etc etc.

We've seen nothing like this for as long as I can remember. Almost none of this would have been possible under Bush. It's actually possible that what we are seeing is (gasp) diplomacy, or preparation for it. It includes pressure on Iran, which I think was inevitable, but it potentially allows for much more.

In particular I think the invite of Iran to talks on Afghanistan is huge. Iran actually did aid NATO forces in the early stages of that war, and they are the direct neighbor to the west, with a stake in what happens in the region. One can already see bargains and deals that could be made, similar to the deal offered by Iran in 2003 that Cheney summarily dumped in the garbage. The Afghans seek positive relations with Tehran as well, so this would satisfy multiple interests.

The other interesting part of this is that, because it would be an Afghanistan conference, Richard Holbrooke would take the lead:

Holbrooke is the obvious diplomat to send here, given his portfolio; Dennis Ross was never going to participate, since his new brief doesn't include negotiations, but he'll surely advise Holbrooke and Clinton from Washington.

Now to see how the Iranians respond. We've apparently entered a period where Washington and Teheran are basically talking through the press. We make a statement (Obama's inaugural address), they reply (Apologize to us!), and so forth. If international momentum lines up for this conference -- and it's really hard to see how Clinton would have made a public statement if she didn't have this conference worked out, to some degree, behind the scenes -- Iran will be hard-pressed to refuse. Nor is it clear why it would.

Ross is seen as more belligerent toward Iran and more skeptical of their intentions, the bad cop on this beat. I'm much more comfortable with him advising from Washington than on the front lines of negotiation.

It's time to engage Iran. National security advisers from across the political spectrum agree. This conference is tentatively slated for March 31 in the Netherlands. Let's hope Iran shows.

Clinton's Middle East Adventure

Setting aside war policy, Barack Obama's strategy for dealing with the world, while secondary to current economic concerns, has been fairly good. He's delivered on the promise of using diplomacy over belligerence, most recently by sending envoys to Syria to hopefully break them out of Iran's sphere of influence, welcome them back in the world community, and move forward on an expected peace treaty between them and Israel. Obama's somewhat odd letter to Russia, seeking their help in controlling Iran's nuclear desires in exchange for removing missile defense, was a bit misunderstood. I think that the letter was part of an effort to reset US-Russian relations, and aside from Iran this includes strategic arms limitation talks and better economic cooperation. In 95% of the cases, you can see a fostering of better understanding with the nations of the world, a rejection of the unilateralism of the Bush years, and a move to a better path.

Then there's the other 5%. And that was highlighted by Hillary Clinton's Middle East trip this week. First, she arguably poisoned upcoming Iranian negotiations by expressing pessimism that they will be productive. I just don't understand why this is something you say out loud, even if the comments were in a private meeting and leaked (I wonder who leaked them - Dennis Ross?). Then there were her visits to Israel and the West Bank, which exuded both optimism for a solution and yet also a lack of even-handedness. She called the movement toward a Palestinian state inescapable, and the goal a comprehensive solution on all fronts. She also called plans by the Israelis to bulldoze Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem unhelpful, which they are. And yet, beyond the talk, in the first instance of tangible action at a donor's conference to rebuild Gaza, Clinton and the US limited and conditioned its aid package:

The Obama administration intends to spend most of a $900-million Palestinian aid package on support for the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, rather than in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip communities that were badly damaged in the recent weeks-long Israeli offensive, a State Department official said Sunday.

Robert A. Wood, the department's chief spokesman, said that about $300 million of the money would be spent on humanitarian relief for Gaza, and the remainder would help offset the Palestinian Authority's budget shortfall and fund its economic development, security and other projects in the West Bank. The authority is run by the more moderate Palestinian faction Fatah.

None of the money will go to rebuilding Gaza, even though the aid is to be announced today at an international donors conference convened by Egypt for reconstruction in the war-scarred seaside enclave.

This is the same kind of walling off of Hamas that has paradoxically improved their standing with their own people. Marc Lynch writes:

But her remarks suggest that rather than seize on the possibility of Palestinian reconciliation, Clinton prefers to double-down on the shopworn "West Bank first, Fatah only" policy which has been conspiciously failing for the last two years. The concrete manifestation: two-thirds of the U.S. contribution to the reconstruction of Gaza will go not to Gaza but to the West Bank.

I understand what Clinton is trying to do, and appreciate the challenges facing her team as it navigates this shattered environment. But her approach risks missing an important possible opportunity to reshuffle the deck. Clinton has been pouring cold water on the hopes that the Fatah-Hamas dialogue might lead to a workable national unity government by insisting that such a government would only be acceptable if it met the pre-existing Quartet conditions [...]

This all seems stuck in a bit of time-warp. It ignores the two year history of Israeli and Western failure under the identical discourse and policy to deliver meaningful benefits to the Palestinian Authority or the West Bank. It ignores the reality of Hamas power in Gaza, and the reality of Fatah's limited capabilities and legitimacy (which were not enhanced, shall we say, by Abbas's performance during the Gaza war). And it ignores the promise of the dramatic moves towards Arab reconciliation and the accomplishment of a tentative Hamas-Fatah accord last week.

It's an open question whether or not there are partners for peace on the Israeli side, particularly with a new conservative government coming in and rocket fire still falling. But sticking with Fatah and isolating Hamas, AGAIN, makes no sense from a tactical perspective. We've seen this movie before. And it not only ignores the promise of the two movements' reconciliation, it threatens to poison it.

The effects of Clinton's signals may already be starting to be felt. Abd al-Bari Atwan, editor of the leading "resistance camp" newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi, suggests that yesterday's comments by Mahmoud Abbas suggest that he is being emboldened by Clinton's approach to already move away from the lines of the Cairo accord. Reports are already trickling in about the Hamas-Fatah committee meetings get bogged down. And Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal reportedly repeated yesterday warnings by other members of the Saudi leadership yesterday that the Arab peace initiative would not be on offer to Israel forever.

This feels like a badly bungled opportunity based on stale thinking. I would have preferred the approach of Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair John Kerry, who called for direct investment in Gaza, an honest assessment of the corrosive nature of Israeli settlements, and a need to deal with the realities on both sides.

...Kerry's been pretty good on Iran and direct engagement, too.

Afghanistan/Pakistan Update

There have been some key developments in Afghanistan this week. The biggest, in my opinion, is the announcement of regular trilateral talks between the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan, aimed at finding a comprehensive regional solution.

Clinton had hosted high-level delegations from Afghanistan and Pakistan for a rare trilateral meeting of allies in the seven-year-old Afghan war, part of the Obama administration's review of U.S. policy toward the volatile region.

"Our three nations have a common goal, a common threat and a common task, and my government commits itself to our friends and to the success of this common endeavor," said Clinton, flanked by her Afghan and Pakistani counterparts. She said the next meeting was tentatively to be held in April or May [...]

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta emerged from talks in Washington on Tuesday declaring they had reached a new environment of trust and confidence.

Spanta earlier said his call for more support to build Afghan security forces and to forge a broader war strategy met with a "very, very positive response" from his U.S. hosts.

To this point, we have dealt with the war in Afghanistan in isolation. We paid off the Pakistani military to do counter-terrorism work, and they pocketed it and tried to hold off Taliban forces in their own country while looking away when they attacked Americans. But that has changed, and now the new Pakistani government realizes their stake in reducing the threat of safe harbor. They reportedly defeated militants in a key region along the Afghanistan border, and have enlisted the support of a Special Forces unit to press the battle in the tribal areas. They have also secured peace agreements in the Swat Valley, leading to a tentative cease-fire and also the installation of Sharia law, which is an uneasy peace (I personally think the surrender at Swat is a setback) but at least an acknowledgment that leaders must make peace with those who can enforce it. In fact, this points to increased negotiation with breakaway Taliban elements as part of a comprehensive solution, along with buy-in from, of all nations, Iran.

Over recent days, high ranking authorities in Iran and America have arrived in Kabul one after the other to visit Afghan government authorities. (Passage omitted: visits by Iranian First Vice-President Parviz Davudi, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi)

Now, the terrorism concern is not only threatening Afghanistan, it has also created joint concerns for the authorities of America and Iran. The three countries are concerned about the Taleban reorganizing and reinforcing in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

With no doubt, we can say that, despite the confrontation of America and Iran's interests in the world, both countries have been trying to establish security in Afghanistan over the past seven years and they have indirectly invested in the same project [...]

Aljazeera English gives an exclusive report on the British role behind the scenes in kickstarting negotiations between Gulbadin Hikmatyar of the Hizb-i Islami and the Karzai government. Apparently the hope is that Hikmatyar would go into exile in Saudi Arabia for a while and then ultimately receive amnesty and return to Afghanistan.

What we now call the "Taliban" are actually 5 distinct groups and movements: 1) The Old Taliban of Mulla Omar, now based in Quetta, Pakistan; 2) the Hizb-i Islami [Islamic Party] of former prime minister and warlord, Gulbadin Hikmatyar; 3) the followers of warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani; 4) the Taliban Movement of Pakistan in that country's tribal agencies; and 5) disgruntled Pushtun villagers who object to foreign troops on their soil or whose poppy crops were forcibly eradicated, leaving them destitute. Hikmatyar and Haqqani at one time or another were opposed to the Old Taliban, but have now allied with them. According to the Pajhwok News Network, a joint US and Afghan patrol targeted a militant of the Haqqani group near Khost on Thursday, capturing 6 militants and some light arms.

Some speculate that the alleged British negotiations with Hikmatyar may be aimed at detaching the Hizb-i Islami from its current Taliban allies.

While these negotiations continue, Hamid Karzai has moved up the election date by three months, apparently to catch his somewhat disorganized opposition off guard. This is somewhat less positive than the trilateral talks or the attempted bargaining to break the Taliban alliance.

Karzai's decree may also intensify tensions with the United States, which backed an Independent Election Commission decision scheduling the vote for Aug. 20 so that an additional 17,000 U.S. troops could be deployed to bolster security [...]

A vote that is not seen as free and fair could deal a serious blow to the Obama administration's emerging strategy for blunting the insurgency, which relies in part upon rebuilding sagging popular trust in a political system plagued by corruption and incompetence.

"There are concerns about the legitimacy of this vote," said a Western official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

We are not going to create a flourishing democracy in the Middle East, but we do at least need a central government with at least the legitimacy of its own people conferred upon it. Karzai is losing that, and if the United States hasn't been blamed already, the Afghans are not far from doing so. This latest maneuver, designed to use incumbency to maintain power, is very dangerous. It's one thing for American leaders to say that we have no long-term designs on the region and another to see the American-backed leader use tactics to keep his grip on power. Under Obama we are trying to disassociate from Karzai, as his government is marked by corruption and the inability to provide security to the region, but that's not going to be an easy sell with the public, I fear. The Taliban insurgency is strengthened by failures at the governmental level.

This is another example of why we shouldn't be sending in troops without a defined mission at this time. 17,000 additional forces flooding the region precisely when Karzai calls to speed up elections sends a bad signal.

Human Rights Tabled?

This is very disappointing from the Secretary of State, and I have to imagine, the Administration.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that she would not emphasize contentious issues such as human rights in talks this weekend with the Chinese, focusing instead on topics on which progress may be more likely: the global economy, climate change and security issues [...]

"We know what they're going to say because I've had those kinds of conversations for more than a decade with Chinese leaders," Clinton told reporters.

"We have to continue to press them. But our pressing on these issues can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis."

This is that "common ground" approach that Obama wants to make a standard, and to be sure the United States has a long history, in both Democratic and Republican Administrations, of cozying up to human rights abusers. Of course, ghetto-izing human rights as a "side issue" and not one that is linked to, say, the economy (slave labor and sweatshops in China) or cooperation on security (how can we lecture some nations on human rights but not others with more clout) does no service to American or global interests. Especially when the White House tries to highlight Clinton's commitment to women's rights ON THE SAME TRIP.

I do believe that it’s important for someone in my position to raise the role of women on an ongoing basis, even in countries where women are not given full and equal rights. So I don’t think it’s enough that people deal with me; I want them to deal with their own women, I want them to think about giving all women the rights to be fully functioning, productive citizens. So that is part of the mission that I feel I carry as the Secretary of State of the United States, and that’s what I intend to promote as I travel around the world talking about a lot of these important matters that are really at the core of the kind of future we’re going to have for ourselves and our children.

Unless we're talking about China, and then women who criticize the government, along with men, can have their rights taken away. So can any woman living in Tibet.

State Department House Blogger

We're hardly talking about our relationship to the world these days, what with us being so mired in economic meltdown. But especially with the globalized nature of our world, re-engagement and an end to discredited and tired Bush policies is vitally important. In her inaugural blog post as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton discusses some of these challenges.

Over the past 30 years, I've had the privilege of traveling to a very different Asia. Today, Asia is on the cutting edge of so many of the world's innovations and trends. In making my first trip as Secretary of State to Asia, I hope to signal that we need strong partners across the Pacific, just as we need strong partners across the Atlantic. I have become fond of saying that America is as much a transpacific power as it is a transatlantic one.

The Obama Administration believes that the futures of the United States, countries in Asia and around the world are increasingly inextricably linked. As you may know, I spoke from the Asia Society in New York City on Friday afternoon where I outlined the opportunities that I see for stronger bilateral, regional, and global cooperation and ongoing collaboration to deal with the economic crisis, to strengthen our alliances, to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and to build on efforts to face challenges like climate change, clean energy, pandemic healthcare crises and so much more.

As I've said before, America cannot solve the problems of the world alone, and the world cannot solve them without America. A Chinese aphorism says, "When you are in a common boat, you need to cross the river peacefully together." The wisdom of that aphorism must guide us today.

Secretary Clinton hasn't always offered the best policy remedies, but this perspective of re-engagement is important. Not a lot of Americans are going to be watching these developments, yet they will make us a stronger country in the long run.

Secretary of State Clinton

I thought that John McCain was trying to dispense with the roll call, but the Senate just confirmed Hillary Clinton as the next Secretary of State of the United States by a 94-2 vote. Freedom Fighter Jim DeMint and David Vitter voted no. Vitter is up for re-election in 2010, and it seems to me that the PUMAs now have their activism target.

Now, of course, David Paterson has to actually pick a successor. He says he has someone in mind but wants to think it over for a little while longer. Hey, no hurry!