Other Stuff

So because I have some kind of obsessive-compulsive disorder and am posting less right now as I await the ramp-up to a dedicated site on FDL, here are some quick hits on stories I didn't get to on that site today:

• Congress will hold hearings on those forged letters from astroturf groups sent to swing-state Dems urging them to vote against the House climate bill. This needs to be more than investigated by Congress; the Justice Department should get involved.

• Another day, another GOP front group headed by neocons. This one's called "Keep America Safe." It's a Bill Kristol/Liz Cheney special. Nothing but good can come of that.

• NOAA steps up and warns against indefinite offshore drilling without limits. This is one of those small benefits of the Obama Administration, that relatively sane regulatory agencies are starting to assert themselves.

• A nice piece from Peter Orszag on the delivery system reforms in the bill.

• Jon Corzine has a couple new attack ads out, slamming Chris Christie for his ties to corporate interests and the Bush Administration. Corzine has been relentless.

• Publius calls it Rick Perry's Saturday Night Massacre, and I agree. He's now fired ANOTHER member of the commission looking into whether Texas killed an innocent man. This is a huge story going completely unnoticed by the national media.

• Charlie Rangel's getting a primary challenge. Charlie Rangel NEEDS a primary challenge. Corruption is not a partisan issue.

• North Korea may be launching missiles, but they're also agreeing to talks. Guess the missile launches aren't going well. Meanwhile, Russia is splitting from the US over the issue of sanctions for Iran, with the Foreign Minister calling them "counterproductive."

• Tim DeChristopher, the activist who bid up oil and gas leases without the ability to pay in an effort to deep-six the potential drilling, is charged with two felony counts for his activism. For bidding on something? Really?

Scaling Back Missile Defense

I had thought this already happened a couple weeks ago:

WASHINGTON -- The White House will shelve Bush administration plans to build a missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, according to people familiar with the matter, a move likely to cheer Moscow and roil the security debate in Europe.

The U.S. will base its decision on a determination that Iran's long-range missile program has not progressed as rapidly as previously estimated, reducing the threat to the continental U.S. and major European capitals, according to current and former U.S. officials.

The findings, expected to be completed as early as next week following a 60-day review ordered by President Barack Obama, would be a major reversal from the Bush administration, which pushed aggressively to begin construction of the Eastern European system before leaving office in January.

Cue the howls that Obama is a terrorist trying to kill all of us in our beds.

Actually, this is a nod to the Russians, who found the missile defense system provocative. Russia wasn't willing to sanction Iran in the UN Security Council, and the Obama Administration wants their support. So as much as I'd like to think that the White House recognized that hitting a bullet with a bullet is kind of fantastical and untested, as the GAO says in this report, and we shouldn't blow a bunch of money trying to make it work, actually it's more of a political play. Anyway, the Administration still wants to fund regional missile defense sites throughout Europe. Leading me to wonder, if Europe is threatened by short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, um, why can't they develop their own defense system?

I know, that's outrageous, we have to be the world's protector...

...I should say that on balance this is a good idea, as Robert Farley explains. I love this notion on the right that Obama is abandoning Europe - because conservatives have been alone in their proud defense of European values over the years, right?

Between A Rock And A Hard Place In Iran

In the next few weeks, expect to hear the Wurlitzer ramp up again for action against Iran. We got a taste of this already this week, when a US envoy to the IAEA claimed that the Islamic Republic had enough uranium to make a nuclear weapon. That's not been confirmed anywhere, but it's a sign that Washington is moving toward tougher rhetoric as a precondition to action. Engagement went out the window after the election chaos, I fear, and while Iran has delivered a document calling for a global nuclear freeze, which the US, despite President Obama's call for an end to nuclear weaponry, summarily rejected. The document isn't really much of a proposal; it doesn't mention Iran's nuclear program at all, and is generally vague about its offer to help fight terrorism and collaborate on energy issues.

The problem for the United States is that Russia seems to be satisfied with the document.

Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov on Thursday all but ruled out imposing new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, brushing aside growing Western concerns that Iran had made significant progress in recent months in a bid for nuclear weapons.

Mr. Lavrov said he believed that a new set of proposals that Iran gave to European nations on Wednesday offered a viable basis for negotiations to end the dispute. He said he did not believe that the United Nations Security Council would approve new sanctions against Iran, which could ban Iran from exporting oil or importing gasoline.

“Based on a brief review of the Iranian papers, my impression is there is something there to use,” Mr. Lavrov said at a gathering of experts on Russia. “The most important thing is Iran is ready for a comprehensive discussion of the situation, what positive role it can play in Iraq, Afghanistan and the region.”

Without Russian buy-in on sanctions, they won't happen. Either the Russians will block them in the Security Council or they won't participate, rendering them meaningless.

Obama, almost to a fault, seeks common ground, so I could see him accepting the Iranian document and moving forward with it. But there will be a lot of pressure on him to take action as well.

...True to my theory, the US did accept the Iran talks. They had little choice given Russia's intransigence, and I actually think it's the right move, not the least of which because it will piss off John Bolton.

In coordination with European allies, Washington said today it would accept Iran's offer of comprehensive talks, to test out if Iran was serious about negotiations.

The comments from the State Department came as China and Russia said they weren't prepared to support new sanctions on Iran at this time given Tehran's written proposal this week [...]

"The United States and five partner countries have decided to accept Iran's new offer to hold talks, even though Iran insists it will not negotiate over its disputed nuclear program," State Department spokesman PJ Crowley was cited by the AP.

"As the EU indicated today, Javier Solana is in touch with Iranian officials to try to set up a meeting as soon as possible," Crowley further said in an email.

They're basically calling Iran's bluff.

Go Ahead, Use Our Roads To Speed Into That Quagmire

So what did the President and Dmitry Medvedev decide upon at their Moscow Summit today? The big news is that the two sides have agreed on arms reduction amounting to as much as a 1/3 cut in nuclear stockpiles. More on that here. This is an excellent first step to the ultimate goal of ridding the world of the scourge of nuclear weapons.

A side deal permits Russia to allow transit of US military supplies through its country and into Afghanistan:

On July 6, 2009, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Undersecretary of State William Burns concluded an agreement that will enable the United States to transport its military personnel and equipment across Russia to support American and Coalition forces in Afghanistan.

This agreement complements a NATO-Russia arrangement, under which the United States began shipping non-lethal equipment to Afghanistan through Russian territory earlier this year.

This agreement will enable the United States to further diversify the crucial transportation routes and decrease the amount of time needed to move troops and critical equipment to resupply international forces in Afghanistan and to bring needed supplies to the government and people of Afghanistan. This will permit 4,500 flights per year. The new transit routes will save the United States government up to $133 million annually in fuel, maintenance and other transportation costs, and this agreement is free of any air navigation charges. By providing access to these transit routes, the Russian Federation is ena b ling a substantial increase in the efficiency of our common effort to defeat the forces of violent extremism in Afghanistan and to ensure Afghanistan’s and the broader region’s security.

Given Russia's past history in Afghanistan, do you think they signed this agreement with a curl of the lip, saying, "Yes, good luck with your war in Afghanistan, by all means, let us help you!" In the 1980s, the United States helped the mujahedeen fighting the Soviets. These days Russia can just speed the flow of US transit into that snake pit of the country and achieve virtually the same goal. As a side benefit, the move gives the appearance of resetting US-Russian relations at the same time.

Holiday Engagement

Barack Obama's message to the Iranian people on Nowruz, their new year's holiday, is the first historic thing he has done. Obviously the domestic agenda will swamp everything else in the short term, but in retrospect, historians will remember this message, fulfilling his promise to offer a new level of engagement to the whole world, without the silly constraints American bullies put on themselves.



I've put the whole text in case you can't watch the video right now. The Farsi script was also placed on their website, along with a subtitled video. A celebratory video will not unfreeze relations overnight. Indeed, the near-term headline in the region will probably be the two Navy warships colliding in the Straits of Hormuz, which will set the conspiratorial tongues wagging. But it is a powerful symbol, the extended hand to the clenched fist. Obama, as per usual, speaks to the common humanity that transcends culture, and the need to resolve differences through mutual respect and international cooperation (Russia is responding well to calls for a deal on Iran, so we are not lifting the entire bale here). This is just his negotiating style, summed up by the line from a Persian poem he quotes: "The children of Adam are limbs to each other, having been created of one essence." Obviously the policy differences get in the way of this approach - this would be a better method - but at the end of the day we're all human beings, and tone matters. It will be harder for Iranian hardliners to call the man in that video the great Satan. The pressure for a resolution will increase. The lowered voices are less susceptible to demagoguery.

Of course the words must match the action - but I am very happy to see this outreach.

THE PRESIDENT: Today I want to extend my very best wishes to all who are celebrating Nowruz around the world.

This holiday is both an ancient ritual and a moment of renewal, and I hope that you enjoy this special time of year with friends and family.

In particular, I would like to speak directly to the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Nowruz is just one part of your great and celebrated culture. Over many centuries your art, your music, literature and innovation have made the world a better and more beautiful place.

Here in the United States our own communities have been enhanced by the contributions of Iranian Americans. We know that you are a great civilization, and your accomplishments have earned the respect of the United States and the world.

For nearly three decades relations between our nations have been strained. But at this holiday we are reminded of the common humanity that binds us together. Indeed, you will be celebrating your New Year in much the same way that we Americans mark our holidays -- by gathering with friends and family, exchanging gifts and stories, and looking to the future with a renewed sense of hope.

Within these celebrations lies the promise of a new day, the promise of opportunity for our children, security for our families, progress for our communities, and peace between nations. Those are shared hopes, those are common dreams.

So in this season of new beginnings I would like to speak clearly to Iran's leaders. We have serious differences that have grown over time. My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran and the international community. This process will not be advanced by threats. We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.

You, too, have a choice. The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations. You have that right -- but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization. And the measure of that greatness is not the capacity to destroy, it is your demonstrated ability to build and create.

So on the occasion of your New Year, I want you, the people and leaders of Iran, to understand the future that we seek. It's a future with renewed exchanges among our people, and greater opportunities for partnership and commerce. It's a future where the old divisions are overcome, where you and all of your neighbors and the wider world can live in greater security and greater peace.

I know that this won't be reached easily. There are those who insist that we be defined by our differences. But let us remember the words that were written by the poet Saadi, so many years ago: "The children of Adam are limbs to each other, having been created of one essence."

With the coming of a new season, we're reminded of this precious humanity that we all share. And we can once again call upon this spirit as we seek the promise of a new beginning.

Thank you, and Eid-eh Shoma Mobarak.

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.

Nuke Bailout

Apparently Presidents Nelson and Collins got it in their heads to include a billion dollars to the National Nuclear Security Administration for "weapons activities" in the stimulus. Once again we see that fiscal responsibility is deathly important, and fixing up dilapidated schools is not in the public interest because big gubmint shouldn't be messing around with education, but building another generation of muclear weapons is legitimate because military spending is magic and it never affects the budget bottom line.

By the way, here's a list of the main sites for US nuclear weapons research, development, testing, and production. You'll notice that they're conveniently located all over the country so that lots and lots of Senators have a vested interest in their continued production.

This is one issue where the Obama Administration has actually been pretty clear. They are implementing a full review which will examine the needs for nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War environment, and they are seeking sharp reductions in stockpiles in a comprehensive treaty with the Russians. There is absolutely no need for additional funding of nuclear weapons given that the President has called to rid the world of them.

But we can't afford more money for Head Start, you see. Or critical public health priorities.

They Call It Diplomacy

In his final year, George Bush almost restarted the Cold War by demanding that the missile defense boondoggle be placed in Eastern Europe, raising the ire of the Russians, who threatened to site their own missiles there as well. It's a new Administration and a new era:

Russia has dropped plans to install missiles near Poland after the Obama administration signalled a change in US attitude to the region, a Moscow military official has reportedly said.

The official suggested that Mr Obama's White House had made clear it would not prioritise executing the Bush administration's plan to install a missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

An unnamed official in the Russian military's general staff said: "The implementation of these plans has been halted in connection with the fact that the new US administration is not rushing through plans to deploy" elements of its missile defence shield in eastern Europe, according to the Interfax news agency.

Very pleasing. We're going to need the Russians' help on a variety of issues, and even if we didn't, pointing missiles at one another for the sake of installing a non-functional Star Wars system is needlessly hostile. This is a very smart move.

Now let's take missile defense out of the budget so we can deal with that deficit, right Blue Dogs and Republicans?...

World Report

Here are a few things that caught my eye.

• Will you look at that, another foreign policy failure for the Bush Administration. They're basically saying that, with the Israeli government in a fair bit of turmoil, there isn't likely to be any movement on a Mideast peace deal. This is what happens when you wait 7 1/2 years to pay any attention to the Arab-Israeli conflict. I know the economic crisis is all-consuming, but Obama would do well to attack this early in his Administration, because it truly is the linchpin to peace throughout the region, and ignoring it for years will only cause more violence and resentment.

• Not that Israel is necessarily going to be inclined to cooperation with Obama. Tzipi Livni, who is the more "dovish" of aspirants for the Prime Minister's post, warned the President-elect that dialogue with Iran would be unwise because it may project "weakness." I don't think Obama will agree - but this gives you an insight into the prevailing mindset in Israel regarding Iran, driven more by paranoia than facts (the consensus of the US intelligence community is that Iran has no nukes, a fact that is conveniently forgotten).

• The E.U. is eager for financial reforms to regulate international banks, but waiting for President Bush to do the right thing is a Godot-like experience. Their plan, to hammer out reforms now and reassess them when Obama takes office with his input, is decent enough, I just think it's wishful thinking.

• Practically the only politician coming out of the financial fallout looking sound is Gordon Brown, who was one of the few to implement a solution that matched the problem. Voters in England appear to be responding by giving his party a boost, as Labour won a key byelection in Scotland. Brown was part of the Blair regime that was as asleep at the switch as every other world government leading up to the crisis, so I'm not sure he deserves all this praise, but I do think he's recovered enough to actually contend for his re-election instead of the sure defeat to the Tories predicted earlier.

• All hell is breaking loose in Zimbabwe, and right on schedule. After negotiating a power-sharing agreement, Robert Mugabe is now going to form his own government and deny cabinet posts to his rival Morgan Tsvangirai. The only surprise is that this didn't happen sooner. I hope Tsvangirai has a food-taster. Mugabe plays for keeps.

• Remember when the Russian "invasion" of Georgia was the greatest international crisis since the end of the Cold War? Turns out that it not only was not a consequential crisis on par with, say, the war in Iraq, but it was not a Russian invasion.

TBILISI, Georgia — Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the longstanding Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against separatist and Russian aggression.

Instead, the accounts suggest that Georgia’s inexperienced military attacked the isolated separatist capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7 with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm.

This is good journalism but you could have considered the source of the scaremongering - neocons with an agenda - back when the whole thing was in the news, and drawn the same conclusion. Neocons are wrong about everything. And the way to break their lock on power is to find everyone who hasn't been wrong about everything, regardless of ideology or political party, and put them in a room together, and unify them against these clowns. There's a lot at stake.

The World Is United!

Except, you know, it's not.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned in a nationally televised address Wednesday that he will deploy short-range missiles near Poland capable of striking NATO territory if the new Obama administration presses ahead with plans to build a missile defense shield in Europe.

The threat, which came just hours after the conclusion of the U.S. election, appeared intended to signal Moscow's priorities to the American president-elect. It could present an early foreign policy test for Obama, who says he supports a missile defense system against Iran but has also accused the Bush administration of exaggerating the system's capabilities and rushing deployment for political purposes.

If he were smart, Obama would cancel missile defense, which doesn't work at all and is both costly and unnecessary. Yet there's this whole puffed-up serious foreign policy establishment that thinks their testicles will shrink if the big bad Russian Bear forces Obama to back down from a policy that no sane person would ever want in the first place.

So there's that box. And then there's Hamid Karzai's take:

The Afghan president congratulated Barack Obama and called on him Wednesday to halt civilian casualties as villagers said U.S. warplanes bombed a wedding party, killing 37 people — most of them children.

President Hamid Karzai said airstrikes cannot win the fight against terrorism.

"Our demand is that there will be no civilian casualties in Afghanistan. We cannot win the fight against terrorism with airstrikes," Karzai said. "This is my first demand of the new president of the United States — to put an end to civilian casualties."

Which he needs to do, of course; these airstrikes do far more harm than good. But there's also the matter of sabotage from Afghan forces seeking to undermine American troops and attack them.

This is the source of a lot of my tension today. People say "we have great challenges" because we do. The Bush regime has driven us into a ditch and I am concerned there's no way out.

This Blackmail Isn't Really Blackmail

Potential peace talks with Afghanistan? Strategic arms reduction deals with Russia? Is the Bush Administration going all soft on me at the end of their reign? Can't they do something like blackmail a foreign government?

Oh, right.

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military has warned Iraq that it will shut down military operations and other vital services throughout the country on Jan. 1 if the Iraqi government doesn't agree to a new agreement on the status of U.S. forces or a renewed United Nations mandate for the American mission in Iraq.

Many Iraqi politicians view the move as akin to political blackmail, a top Iraqi official told McClatchy Sunday.

In addition to halting all military actions, U.S. forces would cease activities that support Iraq's economy, educational sector and other areas _ "everything" _ said Tariq al Hashimi, the country's Sunni Muslim vice president. "I didn't know the Americans are rendering such wide-scale services."

Hashimi said that Army Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, listed "tens" of areas of potential cutoffs in a three-page letter, and he said the implied threat caught Iraqi leaders by surprise.

"It was really shocking for us," he said. "Many people are looking to this attitude as a matter of blackmailing."

For a second there, I thought Bush had been replaced by Eisenhower!

This is kind of a horrible thing to do, but isn't this what the Iraqi people are ASKING for? They want national sovereignty and an end to the occupation. The fact that the political leadership is calling this blackmail is a tell that they don't want the Americans to actually leave, or at least that they want continued help in reconstruction and social services. I don't think such a free lunch is possible anymore. The leadership needs to keep listening to their people. They want the Americans out and this is the consequence.

As for the Afghan talks, one former Taliban commander throws cold water on a possible Al Qaeda-Taliban split, but Spencer Ackerman is hopeful:

But Waheed Muzhda, a senior Taliban official when the movement was in power who is now a researcher in Kabul, said Westerners would be disappointed if they sought to drive a wedge between the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

“You cannot separate the two,” he said. “The Taliban didn’t give up Osama bin Laden, under the greatest possible pressure. Why would they break from Al Qaeda now?”

One answer could be because the Afghan insurgency can be cleaved apart through methodical applications of peaceful inducement, population security and military pressure — leaving at least some Taliban factions to calculate that it’s better to enjoy the blessings of power in Kabul than to be hunted from Kandahar to Quetta.

But the point is a rather salient one: if the Taliban won’t break with Al Qaeda, then there’s not really anything to negotiate. It would be irresponsible to broker the return to power of an Al Qaeda-aligned political movement.

You don't need the WHOLE Taliban to sign off, just enough to broadcast the schism.

Four More Wars

I'm going to step cautiously with this bit of newsmaking from Sarah Palin's first national interview.

GIBSON: Would you favor putting Georgia and Ukraine in NATO?

PALIN: Ukraine, definitely, yes. Yes, and Georgia.

GIBSON: Because Putin has said he would not tolerate NATO incursion into the Caucasus.

PALIN: Well, you know, the Rose Revolution, the Orange Revolution, those actions have showed us that those democratic nations, I believe, deserve to be in NATO.

Putin thinks otherwise. Obviously, he thinks otherwise, but...

GIBSON: And under the NATO treaty, wouldn't we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?

PALIN: Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help.

But NATO, I think, should include Ukraine, definitely, at this point and I think that we need to -- especially with new leadership coming in on January 20, being sworn on, on either ticket, we have got to make sure that we strengthen our allies, our ties with each one of those NATO members.

We have got to make sure that that is the group that can be counted upon to defend one another in a very dangerous world today.

GIBSON: And you think it would be worth it to the United States, Georgia is worth it to the United States to go to war if Russia were to invade.

PALIN: What I think is that smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against. We have got to be cognizant of what the consequences are if a larger power is able to take over smaller democratic countries.

And we have got to be vigilant. We have got to show the support, in this case, for Georgia. The support that we can show is economic sanctions perhaps against Russia, if this is what it leads to.

It doesn't have to lead to war and it doesn't have to lead, as I said, to a Cold War, but economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, again, counting on our allies to help us do that in this mission of keeping our eye on Russia and Putin and some of his desire to control and to control much more than smaller democratic countries.

His mission, if it is to control energy supplies, also, coming from and through Russia, that's a dangerous position for our world to be in, if we were to allow that to happen.

Now, let's be crystal clear on this, even if our friends on the right would certainly not be. Palin is accurately describing the state of affairs if a NATO member country is attacked. Signatories to the treaty would be obligated to go to war with them.

What you can be terrified about is her absolute certainty that Ukraine and Georgia ought to be allowed into NATO. That would put the United States in a position of restarting the Cold War with Russia if Georgia provokes them by invading South Ossetia first and trying to massacre Russian peacekeepers. Of course, that is also John McCain's position, and he's quite adamant about it. What you can also be terrified is that John McCain thinks Palin knows Russia very well because she lives next door to them, and yet she continues to argue for NATO expansion and a generally belligerent attitude toward Russia. (She also has national security credentials because she "knows energy." Really, that's the terrible interview of the day.)

Now, the other issue here is that Barack Obama has argued for something similar to NATO inclusion for Georgia.

Going forward, the United States and Europe must support the people of Georgia. Beyond immediate humanitarian assistance, we must provide economic assistance, and help rebuild what has been destroyed. I have consistently called for deepening relations between Georgia and transatlantic institutions, including a Membership Action Plan for NATO, and we must continue to press for that deeper relationship.

There is a difference between arguing for expansion of NATO and arguing for a Membership Action Plan. The MAP is a process where the country in question must prepare a long list of qualifications for possible future membership. It does not mean instant membership.

However, it's not the polar opposite of what Palin has advocated, either. It's part of the way there.

Later in the interview she offers a slightly more cogent imminent threat standard for pre-emptive military action, but of course George Bush offered the same standard, he just lied about the imminent threat coming from Iraq and now Iran. So that doesn't warm my heart. She didn't know what the "Bush Doctrine" was.

I think going on national television and saying we might have to go to war with Russia is perhaps ill-timed, but it also happens to be John McCain's policy. He just won't tell you. She did. Whether or not it's Barack Obama's policy is unclear - there is indeed a difference between an MAP and membership.

UPDATE: Just to make myself clear - Democrats should go after this comment. The Governor is calling for possible nuclear war with Russia over a non-strategic internal skirmish in a region with a history of skirmishes. I agree that it would be tantamount to Russia saying "If the US ever invades Panama again, we'll declare war!" Whether or not the Obama campaign will say anything about this depends on how far they've gone with their Georgia/NATO policy. Maybe seeing the stakes laid out this clearly will show them how dumb it is to argue for NATO expansion.

World Report

Because I'm almost out of here, I'll just mash these together, but they're all important, and would all merit a post of their own.

• So the ruling party in Pakistan chose Benazir Bhutto's widow, Asif Ali Zardari, to be their President. Of course, when Bhutto was Prime Minister, she and Zardari bilked the country for millions upon millions. Zardari doesn't want to reinstate Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the head of the Supreme Court, because Chaudhry might then arrest him. So this is cutting a wedge through the fragile coalition. The former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, wants to slash the Presidential power before Zardari accedes to the position. Sharif's Muslim League also wants Chaudhry back on the bench. Pakistan is a mess, and a mess we can't afford right now.

• While George Bush finally came around on a withdrawal timeline, he's still not all the way where Muqtada al-Sadr needs him to be:

The debate over a deal that would chart the future of U.S. troops in Iraq has reignited the rhetoric coming from Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr, who denounced the plan Friday for not setting a firm date for American withdrawal [...]

Iraq's government spokesman, Ali Dabbagh, reiterated Friday that any departure of U.S. troops was "subject to Iraqi national security" and that the dates were hypothetical. The final departure date "will be jointly set" by Iraq and the United States, he said, downplaying suggestions that the draft was the final deal.

At the weekly prayer service in Sadr's Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City, chants of "No to the agreement!" rang out through loudspeakers positioned along the street. Worshipers responded with applause and repeated the chant as the service ended and people drifted away [...]

At prayer services across the country, Sadrist preachers said any deal struck with the Americans was a blow to Iraq's sovereignty. In Sadr City, listeners agreed.

"Everyone is talking about how it will really serve the interests of the Americans, not the Iraqis," said Mohammed Fadim, whose well-stocked grocery store overlooks the wide avenue where worshipers knelt side by side in prayer. "Everyone knows the U.S. administration. Once they occupy a country, if they want to make an agreement to stay, 80% of the terms will fulfill their interests."

This is bad news. Sadr leads a cultural movement regardless of who holds the guns, and Maliki was pushed to a timeline in the first place because of pressure from the Sadrists. If Sadr turns against a deal pushed by the Parliament, Maliki's team will be crushed in the provincial elections. Just the act of getting this ratified (Maliki is going through the Parliament) could rip the country to shreds. Not good.

• In a neglected corner of the "war on terror," Somalia is going to crap.

Islamic militants said Saturday they had seized control of Somalia's third largest city after three days of fighting that left about 70 people dead and saw thousands flee Kismayo.

The Islamic courts movement, which controlled the capital, Mogadishu, and much of the south for six months in 2006, said it wrested control of the southern port city of Kismayo from clan militias.

The ICU never really stopped fighting, as the US paid little or no attention, despite the fact that Somalia, with almost no real government and extreme poverty, is a hotbed for extremism. This goes down as another failure of Bush-era foreign policy.

• Russia is leaving Georgia. Mostly leaving. Georgia is apparently disputing the checkpoints Russia has set up in Georgian territory. It's a bit dodgy, but to characterize it as the greatest crisis since the Cold War is king of nuts.

Russia/Georgia Update

Meanwhile, in the most elongated cease-fire in history, it looks, shall we say, unlikely that Russia's leaving.

Russia plans to establish a long-term presence in Georgia and one of its breakaway republics by adding 18 checkpoints, including at least eight within undisputed Georgian territory outside the pro-Russian enclave of South Ossetia, a ranking Russian military official told reporters Wednesday.

The checkpoints will be staffed by hundreds of Russian troops, the official said, and those within Georgia proper will have supplies ferried to them from breakaway South Ossetia.

If implemented, the plan would in effect put under Russian control the border between Georgia and the South Ossetia region, which is seeking independence, as well as a small chunk of Georgia proper.

If we had a news media that was in any way curious, the upshot here would be what McClatchy is saying - that for all the tough talk, all the bluster, the West is essentially impotent when it comes to Russia, especially in the current posturing of pure belligerence. McCain may have play-acted like Gen. Patton and acted like a hothead, but the result was negligible. I mean, what are we going to do, boycott the Olympics in 6 years?

Basically, Mikhail Saakashvili can get his own cable show and it won't matter at all. The Bush/McCain hothead approach to foreign policy yields nothing. In fact, Max Bergmann had the best take.

Each of those statements from McCain sound like they came from an excited media pundit. Well that’s because they did.

McCain’s approach and tone on foreign policy has always been more emblematic of a tv pundit rather than a sober president. While McCain has attacked Obama as the "celebrity" candidate, the fact is that a bad place to be over the last 25 years has been between John McCain and a TV camera. The New York Times on Sunday noted that one of the first things McCain did after 9-11 was go on just about every TV program - where he incidentally called for attacking about four countries. In its biographical series profiling the candidates the Times also noted that McCain was attracted to the celebrity of the Senate with one close associate noting that McCain “saw the glamour of it. I think he really got smitten with the celebrity of power.” McCain clearly enjoys being on television and he has been a constant commentator on the Sunday news shows and the evening talk news programs.

But TV appearances encourage sound bites, over-the-top rhetoric, and good one-liners, not reasoned and nuanced diplomatic language. This is especially true from guests who are not in the current administration, since you are less likely to get invited back on Face the Nation if you down play a crisis or take a boring nuanced position. Thus on almost every crisis or incident over the last decade, McCain has sounded the alarm, ratcheted up the rhetoric and often called for military action - with almost no regards to the practical implications of such an approach.

And TV pundits make lots of money and maybe don't know how many homes they own, but they don't make for an attractive Presidency. McCain is the O'Reilly of politics.

...Mikhail Gorbachev had some interesting thoughts on the conflict.

Stuck In The Middle Of The Road

Russia appears to be having a problem with the withdrawing part of the withdrawal agreement, sounding a bit like the Bush Administration in the process:

Russia claimed that it had begun withdrawing its troops from Georgia on Monday, but there was little evidence of it on the ground: Russian soldiers continued digging in to positions along the highway approaching the capital, Tbilisi, showing no sign of pulling back from the severest confrontation between Russia and the West since the collapse of the Soviet Union [...]

(Dmitry) Medvedev on Monday cautioned that any force used against these soldiers would provoke a response.

“Obviously, if anyone thinks he can kill our citizens, our soldiers and officers who are serving as peacekeepers, and go unpunished, we will never allow this,” Mr. Medvedev said. “Anyone who tries this will receive a devastating response. For this, we have all the means — economic and political and military. If anyone had illusions about this some time ago, then they must part with those illusions now.”

He added: “We do not want to aggravate the situation, but we want to be respected, and our government to be respected, and our people to be respected, and our values.”

They do appear to be trolling for a provocation. The other issue is that the cease-fire agreement, which allows for “security operations” by the Russians inside Georgia, if you read it one way, enables them to be both in compliance and outside of compliance simultaneously. That was bad work by the drafters.

NATO is holding an emergency meeting today on this, but the alliance is not united on what to do:

As Nato's 26 foreign ministers gather in Brussels, the BBC's Jonathan Marcus says there is disagreement among the alliance as to how to respond, so the focus will be on where members can agree.

It is thought that in one camp, Britain, Canada, the US and most Eastern European member states will seek a tough stance on Russia, but most of Western Europe, led by France and Germany, is expected to be more cautious of harming ties with Moscow.

I think Russia is dragging their feet because they can, and they're taking out key installations inside Georgia to try and pre-empt any additional attack on the breakaway republics. Today they detained a bunch of Georgian soldiers at a Black Sea port. It looks like the Russians aren't exactly concerned about a Western response.

The Georgia Saga Continues

The Russia-Georgia conflict has been hard to understand on a day-to-day basis due to the unreliable narrators. Russia claims that Georgia firebombed South Ossetia and committed genocide in their initial attack; Tom Lasseter tours Tshkinvali and finds no evidence for the allegation. Georgia has been claiming repeatedly that Russian troops are advancing on the capital despite a cease-fire agreement, and while this one may be true today, it's not entirely clear. So you kind of have to be a detective and wait until all the facts are in to see where things are going.

But certainly, Russia is dragging its feet on withdrawal, and using the "genocide" of South Ossetia as a casus belli. The cease-fire itself has certainly stalled to some extent, and Russia bombed a Georgian bridge over the weekend that was a key east-west artery for the country. This may eventually serve Putin's goals of teaching its near abroad states a lesson, and South Ossetia and Abkhazia probably will rejoin the federation. But that doesn't mean this operation was an unqualified success for Russia:

The West was never going to actively approve of the Russian invasion, but if Putin had limited himself to a short, sharp clash in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, it would have been an almost unalloyed victory. The murky status of the provinces combined with the fact that Saakashvili sent in troops first would have kept Western reaction to a minimum, and Russia's message would still have been sent loud and clear: don't mess with us in our sphere of influence.

But then Putin got greedy — or just made a mistake — and sent Russian troops into Georgia proper. This was almost certainly militarily unnecessary, and it succeeded mainly in uniting virtually everyone in outrage against Russian aggression. Putin can pretend all he wants that he doesn't care about Western opinion, but he obviously does — and what's more, Western unity makes a difference in concrete terms too. Poland's quick turnaround on missile defense is probably just the first example of this. The U.S. has gotten lots of bad reviews for its handling of the situation, but in the end, the countries on Russia's border are more firmly in our camp now than they were even before the war.

I don't know if I agree with that last part. Georgia seems just as mad about our failing to intervene as they are about the Russian invasion. In addition, while Poland's missile defense turnaround is interesting, their pro-Western government has been firmly ensconced for some time. And I'm not so sure who needs who here - does Russia need the West as a market, or does the West need Russia's goods - particularly their energy resources?

Some smarter takes have been given by Joseph Galloway:

Although Vice President Cheney bravely rattled a sword or two and George Bush was talking a little tougher to his old soul mate Vlad the Impaler, the simple truth is that there's not a damn thing we can do about the Russian invasion and perfidy short of nuking them. Defense Secretary Robert Gates made it amply clear that we aren't going to do that, or much of anything else beyond sending some humanitarian medical aid and supplies for the Georgian refugees [...]

Washington can respond only with tough talk. We can threaten to punish the Russians by expelling them from the International Monetary Fund and the Group of Eight wealthy nations, but with a fat bankroll bulging with Arab-size oil earnings, the Russians don’t really need to care about this [...]

Things have truly come to a sorry pass when both our military and our diplomatic threats are as empty as our national treasury, and the Russians of all people can afford to laugh them off.

Bush and Cheney seven and a half years ago inherited control of the world's only reigning superpower, and in that short time they've squandered our military power, our international good name and our national treasury.

Julian Barnes:

WASHINGTON -- In the last week, two major pillars of President Bush's approach to foreign policy have crumbled, jeopardizing eight years of work and sending the administration scrambling for new strategies in the waning months of its term.

From the earliest days of his presidency, Bush had said spreading democracy was a centerpiece of his foreign policy. At the same time, he sought to develop a more productive relationship with Russia, seeking Moscow's cooperation on issues such as terrorism, Iran's nuclear program and expansion of global energy supplies [...]

Since the Georgia conflict erupted, Bush has repeatedly cited that nation's progress toward democracy as he promised American support. "The people of Georgia have cast their lot with the free world, and we will not cast them aside," he said.

Faced with a massive deployment of Russian military power, however, the U.S. response was confined to condemning Moscow's actions, pushing for humanitarian aid and pressing Georgia to accept a cease-fire agreement brokered by France that would leave Russian troops still inside Georgia's two breakaway enclaves.

"What freedom strategy?" asked David L. Phillips, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and author of a report on Georgia. "It is scorned worldwide. Afghanistan is backsliding. The bar has been set low in Iraq. Georgia is in ruins."

And Michael Dobbs:

It soon became clear to me that the Ossetians viewed Georgians in much the same way that Georgians view Russians: as aggressive bullies bent on taking away their independence. "We are much more worried by Georgian imperialism than Russian imperialism," an Ossetian leader, Gerasim Khugaev, told me then. "It is closer to us, and we feel its pressure all the time."

When it comes to apportioning blame for the latest flare-up in the Caucasus, there's plenty to go around. The Russians were clearly itching for a fight, but the behavior of Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili has been erratic and provocative. The United States may have stoked the conflict by encouraging Saakashvili to believe that he enjoyed American protection, when the West's ability to impose its will in this part of the world is actually quite limited.

This is the truth of the matter: Ossetians identify with the Russians more; the Georgian invasion was scandalous, though not as bad as the Russians advertised; the Russian incursion into Georgia was deeply wrong; the West was fairly powerless to do anything about it; US-Russian policy on key issues like nuclear proliferation and the Iranian question is in tatters; the cease-fire agreement allows for continued security operations inside Georgia by the Russians, so it's not even clear they're dragging their feet or taking advantage of a bad agreement; Georgia is ruined, America is exposed, and NATO has little recourse.

I agree with Scarecrow - this is good news for John McCain.

The Biggest Crisis Ending In A Cease-Fire In The History Of The World

I think when this is all said and done, the conflict between Russia and Georgia, now reaching an endgame, will be, as Kevin Drum notes, a blip on the radar screen. South Ossetia and Abkhazia were already breakaway republics, Georgia got a full head and attacked one of them, Russia made them pay for such foolishness, and the whole scene ends with Mikhail Saakashvili blubbering on camera. And it's shameful how John McCain seized on it for his own ends and to paint himself as the only true patriot in the entire world.

By the way, this golden beacon of democracy, Saakashvili, isn't so golden:

Saakashvili's recent statements demonstrate how well he has learned to push America's buttons, probably with the help of his government's lobbyists in Washington. In several interviews and articles, including an op-ed in yesterday's Post, he has compared the recent Russian attack on Georgia to the Soviet invasions of Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. He has also invoked former president Ronald Reagan and tried to frame the war as a Russian assault on Western values. "We are attacked because we wanted to be free," he said on CNN.

But the situation inside Georgia belies Saakashvili's rhetorical commitment to freedom. Most glaring was his handling of opposition protests last fall. The State Department's 2007 Human Rights Report, released just a few months ago, found "serious problems" with Georgia's human rights record and notes "excessive use of force to disperse demonstrations"; "impunity of police officers"; and declining respect for freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and political participation. Ana Dolidze, a democracy advocate and former chair of Georgia's Young Lawyers Association, has described in detail how Saakashvili acted quickly after entering office to empower the executive branch at the expense of parliament and to strengthen the government by "stifling political expression, pressuring influential media and targeting vocal critics and opposition leaders" -- including by using law enforcement agencies. Saakashvili is far from the morally pure democrat he would have the West believe he is.

Meanwhile, this deal with Poland on missile defense, supposedly as a result of Russia's belligerence, is the real destabilizing event going on in Eastern Europe this week. We are needlessly pushing this useless defense system to antagonize Russia and endanger many lives.

And finally, we can't even get humanitarian assistance right:

President Bush Wednesday promised that U.S. naval forces would deliver humanitarian aid to war-torn Georgia before his administration had received approval from Turkey, which controls naval access to the Black Sea, or the Pentagon had planned a seaborne operation, U.S. officials said Thursday.

As of late Thursday, Ankara, a NATO ally, hadn't cleared any U.S. naval vessels to steam to Georgia through the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, the narrow straits that connect the Mediterranean and the Black Seas, the officials said. Under the 1936 Montreaux Convention, countries must notify Turkey before sending warships through the straits.

Ugh.

Looking The Part

It's amazing that all it takes for the media to swoon over John McCain is for him to huff and puff while Russia goes ahead and does whatever it wants anyway.

For the last several days, Senator Barack Obama has seemed to fade from the scene while on his secluded vacation here, as his opponent, Senator John McCain, has seized nearly every opportunity to display his foreign policy credentials on the dominant issue of the week: the conflict between Russia and Georgia.

Only once, at the beginning of the week, did Mr. Obama discuss the fighting in public, when he emerged from his beachfront rental home to condemn Russia’s escalation, in a way that seemed timed for the evening television news. He took no questions whose answers might demonstrate command of the issue.

Mr. McCain and his surrogates, however, have discussed the situation nearly every day on the campaign trail, often taking a hard line against Russia to the point of his declaring the other day, “We are all Georgians.”

First - Honolulu is a major city, and not secluded in any way. Second, McCain has "displayed" his foreign policy credentials in ways that are ignorant:

My friends, we have reached a crisis, the first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War. This is an act of aggression.

Presumptuous:

Standing behind a lectern in Michigan this week, with two trusted senators ready to do his bidding, John McCain seemed to forget for a moment that he was only running for president.

Asked about his tough rhetoric on the ongoing conflict in Georgia, McCain began: "If I may be so bold, there was another president . . ."

He caught himself and started again: "At one time, there was a president named Ronald Reagan who spoke very strongly about America's advocacy for democracy and freedom."

And thuddingly stupid, not to mention dangerous, involving himself in a foreign conflict where one of his staffers is a registered lobbyist for one side, talking to the Georgian President several times a day, which obviously sends mixed messages, and advocating what amounts to war with nuclear-armed Russia.

But none of that, of course, matters. I understand fully the optics of this. Whether McCain is cynically using the conflict to make himself look Presidential or not, the contrast between the two candidates when you have the sound off is pretty glaring. If Obama comes back tomorrow at the Saddleback Church event in Orange County (the first joint event of the campaign) and looks the part a little bit then this could blow over. However, there is a contrast here that the right will be sure to exploit. And it certainly gives reporters the shakes to see bravely bold McCain strongly calling for the mass deaths of their sons and daughters. That makes him "serious."

Georgia, Georgia, No Peace I Find

Well, I guess the rumors of a cease-fire in the Caucasus were very overstated, as the Russians have held their positions, warned the United States not to get involved, and basically redrew the map:

Russia's foreign minister declared Thursday that the world "can forget about" Georgia's territorial integrity, and officials said Russia targeted military infrastructure and equipment — including radars and patrol boats at a Black Sea naval base and oil hub.

...the comments from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov appeared to come as a challenge to the United States, where President Bush has called for Russia to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia."

"One can forget about any talk about Georgia's territorial integrity because, I believe, it is impossible to persuade South Ossetia and Abkhazia to agree with the logic that they can be forced back into the Georgian state," Lavrov told reporters.

And that, as they say, is that. The US has astonishingly little leverage in this conflict, considering their sustained support for Georgia and inability to be seen as an honest broker, as well as a reluctance to get into a shooting war with Russia. It ought to give the whole nation pause as to the effectiveness of the cowboy diplomacy of the Bush years, which John McCain wants to further and even enhance.

It's EASIER for someone like McCain to put on his combat boots and strut about and make belligerent statements against the Russians. It's a war that neoconservatives understand and find more potential in as an electoral tool than talking about Iraq and Afghanistan.

And it's hard not to recognize that sad figure in the Max Boots and John McCains and Bill Bennetts and all the rest with their sustaining roots planted firmly at AEI HQ. After all, what happened to the long twilight struggle against radical Islam? So yesterday, I guess. Or can we do both simultaneously, even though the Russians are themselves up against hostile Islamic groups on their southern periphery?

Watching the Bennetts and the Krauthammers get all jazzed up about Georgia as the new Afghanistan, with all the painfully awkward nostalgia and excitement of an 80s era Gilligan's Island reunion flick is entertaining. But much less so when you realize these jokers might be running the government in six months.

Meanwhile, McCain can't even keep his own words straight on the conflict when they're not completely fed by Randy Scheunemann.

In effect, this is a local conflict where Russia is settling a Near Abroad dispute in their sphere of influence, and the degree to which we have to have a policy on that, especially when Georgia kicked off this conflict by indiscriminately firing on the South Ossetians, is dubious. I agree with Matt Yglesias:

The reality, however, is that Russia has no actual ability to move from Tblisi to Kiev. Georgia is tiny, poor, and geographically located so as to make it difficult for the West to provide it with any practical support. Ukraine has 10 times Georgia's population, 20 times its economic output, and extensive land borders with countries firmly in the Western orbit. The practical impossibility of conquering Ukraine, not American threats, is what will keep the Russians out of Kiev. Meanwhile, it turns out that, contrary to the fears of the hysterics, Russia isn't even going to Tblisi today, much less Ukraine tomorrow or Estonia the day after that. Vladimir Putin, unlike the leader of the United States, is apparently shrewd enough to recognize that military occupations of foreign territories have high costs and scarce benefits.

But while Russia's punishment of Georgia may not have major consequences for America or for world security, a hysterical American response just might. Most obviously, if we were to take things like John McCain's Aug. 12 proclamation that "we are all Georgians" seriously, we would be in the midst of a shooting war with Russia and literally risking the end of human civilization in a nuclear exchange.

By all accounts, McCain just wants to engage in some irresponsible posturing rather than to follow through on the implications of his words, but even excessive posturing and loose talk of a new Cold War with Russia would have real costs. Specifically, both McCain and Barack Obama have recognized that an agreement with Russia related to nuclear-weapons reductions is key to revitalizing the global nonproliferation regime. Russia can't conquer Ukraine or Estonia, but it can play a key role in helping or hindering American efforts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons. And unlike the status of South Ossetia, nuclear proliferation is actually important to the United States. Having frittered away the past seven years on a foreign policy driven by hubris, the United States can ill-afford to misplace its priorities. With the active phase of the war over, we need to move beyond it as quickly as possible to more important issues, not indulge baroque fantasies of renewed great-power conflict.

Exactly. Humanitarian assistance to an ally is fine, but the talk of World War III is very dangerous.

Peter at Duck of Minerva has more.

International Incident Watch

It's upsetting to see the glee with which John McCain has taken to this crisis in Georgia, the thrill in his eyes as he attempts to re-fight the Cold War while claiming the opposite, and with all the honor and moral authority that goes with it. Only he's leaving some things out:

In the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations.

You hear that, George Bush? McCain's coming for you! Nations don't inv- what, he supported the surge?

Hey, every rule has its exception, right?

McCain also is sending envoys (his Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Graham and Lieberman) to the region, and consulting with the Georgians daily - you know, like a real live President. How presumptuous! Do you think all this back-channel meddling is kind of hurting efforts to bring peace to a still-fragile situation?

Consider, then, the other loose cannon in all of this, Georgian President Saakashvili:

President Saakashvili today told Georgians that the US military was moving in to take over control of the country's air and seaports -- which would be a pretty big deal since much of the country still appears to be an active war zone.

And about five minutes later the Pentagon said he didn't know what he was talking about.

"We are not looking to, nor do we need to, take control of any air or seaports to conduct this mission," said Geoff Morrell, Pentagon press secretary. "The role of the U.S. military is strictly to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the victims of this conflict."

When McCain promises air cover for the next strike against Russian forces, is he going to fly to the region himself and apologize to all those Georgian mothers for the deaths of their sons?

What a nightmare.

UPDATE: See too this backgrounder from Scarecrow. I know Obama's on vacation and all, but he needs to push back on this. McCain is being reckless and needlessly belligerent.