We Don't Even Have A Partner To Receive Aid

As a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine of war go down, the Administration and Congress has talked of a "civilian surge" in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region, providing more non-military and development aid to both countries. This was realized in the Kerry-Lugar bill, which gave $7.5 billion in aid over 5 years to Pakistan. It was one of Joe Biden's old bills that they repurposed, and would give an opportunity for the US to help Pakistanis out of grinding poverty and achieve some goodwill with them.

And Pakistan went apeshit:

The Obama administration's strategy for bolstering Pakistan's civilian government was shaken Wednesday when political opposition and military leaders there sharply criticized a new U.S. assistance plan as interfering with the country's sovereignty.

Although President Obama has praised the $7.5 billion, five-year aid program -- approved by Congress last week -- Pakistani officials have objected to provisions that require U.S. monitoring of everything from how they spend the money to the way the military promotes senior officers.

Their criticism threatens to complicate the administration's efforts in the region, where Pakistan's assistance is seen as crucial to the war in Afghanistan.

"Obviously, it demonstrates we've still got work to do," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said of the Pakistani criticism.

Kerry and Lugar tried to push back by calling out some myths being put forward by the Pakistanis. For example:

MYTH: The $7.5 billion (Rs. 62, 500 crores) authorized by the bill comes with strings attached for the people of Pakistan.

FACT: There are no conditions on Pakistan attached to these funds.

The $7.5 billion (Rs. 62,500 crore) authorized is all for non-military aid. These funds are unconditioned— they are a pledge of U.S. friendship to the Pakistani people. There are strict measures of financial accountability on these funds that Congress is imposing on the U.S. executive branch—not the Pakistani government, to make sure the money is being spent properly and for the purposes intended. Such accountability measures have been welcomed by Pakistani commentators to ensure that funds meant for schools, roads and clinics actually reach the Pakistani people and are not wasted.

MYTH: The bill impinges on Pakistan’s sovereignty.

FACT: Nothing in the bill threatens Pakistani sovereignty. Period.

This bill is an extended hand of friendship, from the people of America to the people of Pakistan. It will fund schools, roads, energy infrastructure, and medical clinics. Even when Americans are going through a deep recession and tough economic times, the United States is pledging $7.5 billion (Rs. 62,500 crore) as a long-term commitment to Pakistan. Those seeking to undermine this partnership, to advance their own narrow partisan or institutional agendas, are doing a serious disservice to the people of the United States and of Pakistan.

But this isn't going to be good enough. The real problem here is that the Pakistani people HATE the Americans, and any effort to infringe on their sovereignty will be met with this kind of anger, whether true or false. There are many in Pakistan who would probably want to be left alone rather than be given aid as a fig leaf for the destruction and death in the region. And disapproval of this package probably equals popular support across much of the country. In particular, the Pakistani army is angered by this, I would guess because so much of it is non-military aid, and they control a lot of the economy there. And remember, the Pakistani army and Pakistani intelligence is intimately linked to insurgent forces of the kind who may have blown up the Indian Embassy in Kabul, just like they did a year ago.

If we can't give money to Pakistan without an international incident, it says quite a lot about our prospects for controlling outcomes in the region.

Can I Write The Sack Of Rome II?

I've been reading The Sack of Rome: How a Beautiful European Country with a Fabled History and a Storied Culture Was Taken Over by a Man Named Silvio Berlusconi by Alexander Stille, which is a rollicking read, about one of the greatest monsters currently running the world, Italy's richest man, who basically cheated his way to billions, bought his way into the Prime Minister's chair, and saved his own ass from criminal charges time and again by having his handpicked Parliament give him amnesty. It's really good, but I keep thinking that I'm reading the original but missing out on the sequel. Berlusconi returned to power this year, and immediately sank into a sex scandal, a divorce, a scheme to run a bunch of starlets as candidates for Parliament to get notoreity, and a general series of embarrassments for the people of Italy. Now this is all coming to a head with a potentially ultimate ignominy: getting kicked out of the G8.

Preparations for Wednesday's G8 summit in the Italian mountain town of L'Aquila have been so chaotic there is growing pressure from other member states to have Italy expelled from the group, according to senior western officials.

In the last few weeks before the summit, and in the absence of any substantive initiatives on the agenda, the US has taken control. Washington has organised "sherpa calls" (conference calls among senior officials) in a last-ditch bid to inject purpose into the meeting.

"For another country to organise the sherpa calls is just unprecedented. It's a nuclear option," said one senior G8 member state official. "The Italians have been just awful. There have been no processes and no planning."

"The G8 is a club, and clubs have membership dues. Italy has not been paying them," said a European official involved in the summit preparations.

The behind-the-scenes grumbling has gone as far as suggestions that Italy could be pushed out of the G8 or any successor group. One possibility being floated in European capitals is that Spain, which has higher per capita national income and gives a greater percentage of GDP in aid, would take Italy's place [...]

Silvio Berlusconi has come in for harsh criticism for delivering only 3% of development aid promises made four years ago, and for planning cuts of more than 50% in Italy's overseas aid budget.

This really would be a delicious come-uppance for Berlusconi, the mogul who turned to politics to "save Italy" and has only succeeded in tossing it into the toilet. He's holding the summit in L'Aquila, which basically crumbled to the ground in an earthquake three months ago, and the region is still having aftershocks. Both the images of Berlusconi showing off his country by proudly displaying rubble, and the idea of the Prime Minister pronouncing Italy's stability in an area where the ground is still moving have rich figurative possibilities.

Most Dangerous Trouble Spot In The World Update

Did anyone else find this article in the NYT yesterday really irresponsible?

WASHINGTON — As the insurgency of the Taliban and Al Qaeda spreads in Pakistan, senior American officials say they are increasingly concerned about new vulnerabilities for Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, including the potential for militants to snatch a weapon in transport or to insert sympathizers into laboratories or fuel-production facilities.

The officials emphasized that there was no reason to believe that the arsenal, most of which is south of the capital, Islamabad, faced an imminent threat. President Obama said last week that he remained confident that keeping the country’s nuclear infrastructure secure was the top priority of Pakistan’s armed forces.

But the United States does not know where all of Pakistan’s nuclear sites are located, and its concerns have intensified in the last two weeks since the Taliban entered Buner, a district 60 miles from the capital. The spread of the insurgency has left American officials less willing to accept blanket assurances from Pakistan that the weapons are safe.

Pakistani officials have continued to deflect American requests for more details about the location and security of the country’s nuclear sites, the officials said.

Look, the Taliban is in no position to overrun the Pakistani government. While the recent advances of Taliban forces in the Swat Valley region and elsewhere in Pakistan should concern policymakers, as well as the reluctance of the Pakistani forces to get into the fight, the civic structures inside Pakistan are not nearly as fragile as these responses would make you think. I have no doubt that the Taliban seeks an Islamic emirate in Pakistan, but at the same time, the largest mass gathering in the country in recent years sought to get the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court restored to the bench. You don't see such respect and admiration for the rule of law in a country on the verge of collapse. The democracy movement just pushed a dictator out of power. Tens of millions of people participated in this effort. They may not like the government they have, and Pakistan may have a history of military coups. But a Taliban takeover? Pretty unlikely.

I find Pakistan very dangerous now, as I always have. I don't think scaring people about loose nukes fits with reality, and it could be used to gain desired policies that don't make sense for America or Pakistan. Far be it from me to side with Pakistan on this question, but I feel like the quiet Americans always think they know better than the locals how to best secure countries abroad, but they are inevitably based on American goals than the goals of the other countries. Pakistan's government worries about India, but they only worry about the Taliban to the extent that the neighboring war in Afghanistan has increased tensions and inflamed the extremist element.

The US can help the situation in Pakistan, for instance by helping to fund educational development so that the decrepit schools can actually compete with madrassahs teaching a militant form of Islam. But talking about failed state in Pakistan is really unhelpful and misreads the threat.

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.

Aid For Gaza

You want to know what will make the United States a global leader again? Moves like this. Granted, US provides the aid to Israel that supports the bombs and guns that destroyed Gaza in the first place, which gives us the responsibility to step up. In the future, we should rethink the consequences of that aid. But helping Gaza rebuild just makes sense. At $900 million dollars, this is ten times the amount that the Bush Administration earmarked for NGOs to work to rebuild Gaza in December.

There is one troubling component, that money will be set aside for the Palestinian Authority but not for Hamas, a punitive, naked effort to increase Fatah's standing amongst the population, one that has been battered by the invasion into Gaza. Because this appropriation has to go through Congress, there isn't much of another way, though I'd prefer it all go to NGOs. And there are additional issues:

But even if the bulk of the money goes to Gaza, it will do little good unless Israel first opens the border crossing into the territory, said Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, a research organization in Washington.

“It’s a good effort, but the money can’t be spent unless materials can get into Gaza,” Mr. Levy said. “The next step is opening the border crossings, and that requires more than just signing a check.”

J Street concurs with Levy's analysis:

J Street is encouraged by reports that the Administration will pledge $900 million in humanitarian aid for Gaza reconstruction to ease the ever deepening humanitarian crisis and to enable the civilian population to rebuild in the wake of recent Israeli military operations.

This aid is critical to urgently addressing the widening humanitarian crisis in Gaza and for creating a situation in which a sustainable ceasefire can take hold. It is, however, only a first step. In order to leverage the aid’s impact, we must address the underlying causes of the humanitarian crisis in order to achieve a broader ceasefire. This means opening border crossings for all materials necessary for reconstruction, as well as bringing an end to arms smuggling and rocket attacks on Israel.

If the White House can get the crossings open, they will have earned some trust among the Palestinians. Of course, with Netanyahu looming as the new Israeli Prime Minister, it's difficult to see where any of this goes.

Most Dangerous Trouble Spot In The World Update

I know there are new Oscar contenders in the theaters, and Obama showed his pecs and all, but two nuclear powers are moving toward war and you'd think people would begin to pay attention to that, what with the potential for radioactivity to spread across the Earth and all.

Pakistan began moving thousands of troops away from the Afghan border toward India on Friday amid tensions following the Mumbai attacks, intelligence officials said.

The move represents a sharp escalation in the standoff between the nuclear-armed neighbors and will hurt Pakistan's U.S.-backed campaign against al-Qaida and Taliban taking place near Afghanistan's border.

Two intelligence officials said the army's 14th Division was being redeployed to Kasur and Sialkot, close to the Indian border. They said some 20,000 troops were on the move. Earlier Friday, a security official said that all troop leave had been canceled.

These are not two countries known for their restraint - they have fought three wars since Pakistani independence in 1947. In the post-nuclear era, they almost started a fourth war in 2001, after militants attacked the Indian Parliament. Earlier in the week, Pakistan scrambled fighter jets over its own cities to protect them from an Indian attack, after the Indian foreign minister ratcheted up the rhetoric.

"We have so far acted with utmost restraint," Pranab Mukherjee told the more than 120 envoys from posts around the world. But he added, "We will take all measures necessary as we deem fit to deal with the situation."

A senior government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, later called Mukherjee's tough talk "an expression of political will that India will not take this lying down." He added that the option of "precision airstrikes" on terrorist training camps in Pakistan would remain on the table if Islamabad did not act effectively against groups fomenting terrorism against India.

There was a point in this renewed conflict after the Mumbai attacks, when Pakistan was rolling up elements of the Lashkar-i-Taiba extremist group and cooperation between the two South Asian countries appeared possible. Things have deteriorated since then, as India is accusing Pakistan of playing games with their homegrown militants:

In a background briefing, another senior government official said India is tired of the conflicting signals from Pakistan.

"We hear different voices from different places in Pakistan. Every day, different stories are floated. First we heard that Masood Azhar is arrested, then they say they do not know where he is," he said, referring to one of the fugitives India has demanded that Pakistan hand over. "If Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jamaat-ud-Dawa have been proscribed, then why is their Web site active and operational?" the official added.

Pakistan has at the very least tolerated, and at the most actively supported through their military and intelligence services, the existence of extremists for a while. Not only has that partially been funded with the copious amounts of US aid that goes toward the Pakistani military, but this recent activity at the Indian border is being financed by our tax dollars as well. So instead of using American treasure to fight terrorism, it's being used to underwrite it, as well as raise tensions between nuclear powers.

The Indian Prime Minister has called for calm but there is no reason to expect that either side will comply. Just add this onto the pile of major foreign policy crises that the incoming Obama Administration will face. And of course, it's intimately connected to Afghanistan, since each Pakistani soldier moving to the Indian border is one less stopping insurgents and Taliban from crossing over and carrying out attacks.

The Last Straw

Outside of the murder of thousands of innocent American citizens, I was all set to ease up on Al Qaeda in this new climate of bipartisanship and unity. But then Ayman al-Zawahiri goes and calls Barack Obama a House Negro. I guess literally translated he said "house slaves," but the English subtitles that Al Qaeda helpfully provided said "House Negro."

For a legitimate analysis of this speech, go to Juan Cole (basically Zawahiri was calling Obama a pro-white slave, which is crucially wrong). But I'm going to just shake my head and wonder, "If we can't trust the terrorists to be tolerant of all races, what hope do any of us have?" By the way, Ayman, you're not exactly Aryan yourself. And neither are 99.9% of all Muslims who have experienced the sting of discrimination.

I think Cole's final thoughts are on point:

It is absolutely clear toward the end of the video that al-Zawahiri is petrified of Obama's popularity and is very afraid that he will be a game-changer in relations between the Muslim world and the United States. Hence his flailing around talking about house slaves, as though Obama were not (as of Jan. 20) himself the most powerful man in the world, catapulted into his position by nearly half of American whites (who voted for him in higher proportions than they did for Clinton and Kerry).

Al-Zawahiri has seen a lot of Muslim politics, and if he is this afraid of Obama, it is a sign that the new president has enormous potential to deploy soft power against al-Qaeda, and al-Zawahiri is running scared, trying to pretend it is still the 1960s, when it just isn't.

(Strangely, Zawahiri and McCain, through the focus on Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground, share this error!)

There is certainly a desperation in the Al Qaeda leader's speech, a recognition that moderate Muslims can be pushed back to the side of the West in this struggle. The fact of Obama's skin color and his policy on diplomatic engagement disarms a major element of Al Qaeda's propaganda, that the US punishes minorities and ignores the world. More than anything, Al Qaeda detests open societies, which is among the promises of an Obama victory. They fear the change he represents.

However, beyond the symbolism, which is significant, this also has to be about policy. To truly capitalize on this moment to marginalize terrorist extremists, we need to end practices like this:

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 19--The United States, the world's largest international aid donor, is among the worst at promoting the independence, impartiality and neutrality of humanitarian aid deliveries to needy populations, according to a survey by a Madrid-based nonprofit group that monitors donors' performance.

The Development Assistance Research Associates (DARA) Humanitarian Response Index 2008 measures how effectively the world's 23 largest donors deliver aid. The United States ranked 15th in overall effectiveness and only 13th in the level of generosity measured by the size of its economy.

But it ranked near the bottom, 22nd, when it came to adherence to principles and guidelines established by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to ensure that political considerations don't exclude worthy recipients of aid.

DARA's findings reflect what it called the United States' use of humanitarian assistance to achieve military or political goals in eight crisis zones the group studied, including Afghanistan, Colombia and the Palestinian territories.

A more progressive counter-terrorism strategy not only takes into account the role of local law enforcement and intelligence in disrupting plots, but it treats the world less like pieces on a chess board and more like equals. And in this context, the security benefit to seeking real humanitarian goals and reducing poverty is incalculable. In other words, less missile strikes and more bowls of rice, schools and bridges. We must lead with our values because that's the best way to show countries the world over that this Administration is really different.

Spencer Ackerman had a great piece on what a progressive counter-terrorism policy would look like that is well worth your time.

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.

World Report

Quickly, let's turn off the TV and get some international news:

• In a striking GAO report, severe problems are seen with the foreign aid payments from the US to Pakistan. There is simply no accountability or proof that the funds are going to their proscribed ends of counterterrorism, and the program is scarred with massive fraud.

The Pentagon paid about $20 million for army road construction and $15 million to build bunkers in Pakistan, but there is no evidence that the roads or bunkers were ever constructed, the Government Accountability Office reported. Islamabad also billed Washington $200 million for an air defense radar system that may not have met a U.S. condition: that reimbursement cover combat or logistical costs supporting U.S. military operations against terrorism beyond what a country would spend on its own needs.

"It seems as though the Pakistani military went on a spending spree with American taxpayers' wallets and no one bothered to investigate the charges," said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. "How hard would it have been to confirm that a road we paid $15 million for was ever built? It is appalling that the Defense Department did not send any embassy officials working in Pakistan to verify these enormous costs." Washington should "stop pouring money into a black hole," Harkin said.

Our ally in the war on terror, ladies and gentlemen. Meanwhile Afghanistan is accusing Pakistani intelligence of playing a role in the assassination attempt of Hamid Karzai. Robbing the US Treasury blind WHILE providing material support for terrorism; that's awesome!

• If you read the headlines of news accounts, you'd know that rockets from Gaza broke the truce between Hamas and Israel. If you bothered to read the actual story, you'd see that Israel targeted and killed Islamic Jihad leaders in violation of the truce, and the rockets were in response. Hard to figure out which part of the scale the media has their thumbs on, isn't it?

• Bush must be getting real antsy about his precious status of forces agreement in Iraq, he's getting personally involved in the meetings. Speaking of Bush, this isn't really part of the world report, but since it involves him insulting an entire nation of people, I thought I'd mention it.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Madam President, it is a pleasure to welcome you back to the Oval Office. We have just had a very constructive dialogue. First, I want to tell you how proud I am to be the President of a nation that -- in which there's a lot of Philippine-Americans. They love America and they love their heritage. And I reminded the President that I am reminded of the great talent of the -- of our Philippine-Americans when I eat dinner at the White House. (Laughter.)

PRESIDENT ARROYO: Yes.

PRESIDENT BUSH: And the chef is a great person and a really good cook, by the way, Madam President.

One of the real sources of relief after January 2009 will be less embarrassment at the thought of the elected leader of my country.

• Darfur is a true mess, worse off now than it was 18 months ago after a fragile cease-fire agreement, and attacks on villages in the region have begun anew. This is a failure of the international community.

I was going to add a bit about North Korea and Iran, but I think those deserve more attention than a digest format.

Did I Say 100 Years? I Meant 100 Years.

So John McCain must have gotten out into the world and realized that people kind of don't want to stay in Iraq for the next 100 years, and they certainly don't want to pay for it. So he's sliding away from that now.

"The surge is succeeding," he said today. "We can bring our troops home with honor. And we can bring them all home or we can have security arrangements much along the lines we have had with other countries."

His earlier comment on 100 years "was taken out context -- wildly," McCain said. "But I understand that. We are not playing bean bag here."

Actually, no, it wasn't taken out of context at all. McCain was making the false assumption that Iraq is thisclose to being a secure civil society like South Korea or Japan or Germany, when that is clearly not the case. Heck, if Muqtada al-Sadr lifts the cease-fire that he called for six months ago, the precise moment when security started to improve, than we're going to be right back to pre-surge violence. There's no sustained peace or really any hope for it under the current situation. But this doesn't matter to McCain, who thinks we can just occupy every country on the planet:

ROBERTS: So it’s clear you have no regrets in saying that the U.S. could be in Iraq for a hundred years.

MCCAIN: The U.S. could have a military presence anywhere in the world for a long period of time.

"...and under my Administration, we will."

Actually, with just our current deployments the military is stretched dangerously thin, and it's unreasonable to expect that we could credibly wage another war right now. That's the mess Iraq has put our national security into.

The difference between McCain and his fellow Arizonan Presidential nominee Barry Goldwater is that Goldwater's slogan was "in your heart, you know he's right," and the media slogan on McCain is "in your heart, you know he doesn't mean it." That's a powerful hill we're going to have to climb in this campaign. But clearly, he's not hiding the fact that he advocates for more war as a solution to pretty much every foreign policy problem. The challenge is to rip off the teflon coating and make that stick.

Pakistan Update

The crisis in Pakistan has practically shut down the country. Internal unrest has resulted in upwards of 40 deaths, and the government appears to be closing ranks. They have rejected international help in the probe into Benazir Bhutto's assassination, instead going with their official story that her death was the work of Al Qaeda. They declined to do an autopsy on Bhutto's body, yet changed their story on how she died, from a gunshot wound to shrapnel to hitting her head on the sunroof of her vehicle. But on the scene reports tell a different story (including the fact that the police abandoned their posts protecting Bhutto shortly before the attack), new video images have resulted in even more questions:

The new images of the men who appear to have been Ms. Bhutto’s assassins showed one dressed in a sleeveless black waistcoat and rimless sunglasses, and holding aloft what appeared to be a gun. He had a short haircut and wore the kind of attire reminiscent of plainclothes intelligence officials, though Al Qaeda and other militants have also been known to dress attackers in Western-style clothing in order to disguise them.

That man is seen standing in front of another whose head is covered in a shawl in the style of Pashtun men from the Pakistan’s tribal areas, where Al Qaeda has regrouped in the past year. He is described in the newspaper Dawn as the suicide bomber.

Mr. Minallah, the hospital board member, said Ms. Bhutto’s doctors raised the likelihood of a bullet killing her in their report, when they wrote, “Two to three tiny radio-densities underneath fracture segment are observed on both projections.”

The report said the doctors tried for 41 minutes to revive her. It said “the patient was pulseless and was not breathing,” when she arrived at the hospital. “A wound was present on the right temporoparietal region, through which blood was trickling down and whitish material which looked like brain matter was visible in the wound,” it said.

Ms. Bhutto’s colleagues who were in the vehicle with her said the interior was covered in blood, and the doctors wrote that “her clothes were soaked with blood.”

I don't know how you get that bloodied by hitting a sunroof.

The questions of the circumstances of her death are mirrored by questions over the fate of Parliamentary elections. After initially calling for a boycott, opposition parties have vowed to contest them. Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party will be led by Bhutto's husband and her Oxford-matriculating 19 year-old son, which sounds almost like a feudal line of succession. But the real question is when these elections will actually be scheduled.

Parliamentary elections seen as key to restoring democracy are set to be postponed for weeks in the wake of Benazir Bhutto's assassination, Pakistani officials said Monday.

A senior government official said that he expected a six-week delay in the elections now slated for Jan. 8, despite calls from Bhutto's party, other opposition politicians and world leaders for the polls to be held on time. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information.

Election Commission Secretary Kanwar Dilashad told reporters that a decision on the timing would be announced on Tuesday, but a recommendation "has been sent to the government for a delay." The opposition has accused the commission of favoring President Pervez Musharraf's backers.

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the country's most prominent opposition leader, threatened street protests if the vote was delayed.

"We will agitate," he told The Associated Press in an interview. "We will not accept this postponement."

Holding elections in a week during a time of turmoil is probably unsound, but there are larger questions here. Pakistan does not have an independent judiciary right now. It does not have a free media. Pervez Musharraf is hated within his own country and the suspicions of his complicity in Bhutto's death are growing. Juan Cole is right on here.

6. The US must keep the pressure on Pervez Musharraf to hold free and fair, early elections in Pakistan. The elections probably cannot be held on Jan. 8, as planned, because of the extensive turmoil and destruction of polling stations and ballots during the past few days. But they should not be postponed past March 1. Musharraf's own legitimacy has collapsed, and he is in danger of becoming a Shah of Iran figure, hated by his own people and driven from office. Such a scenario could be very bad for the United States. That is why Joe Biden is right and John McCain is wrong when the latter warns against dumping Musharraf. Why cannot the American Right learn that backing the wrong horse is often worse than not having a horse in the first place?

It's important that we don't posthumously laud Benazir Bhutto as the savior of her country. She stole billions from the Pakistani treasury when she was Prime Minister, and on her watch Pakistani links to the Taliban grew, and A.Q. Khan sold nuclear technology all over the world. And her family is still in control of this political party which is supposedly the last best hope for democracy.

Poor Pakistan. Poor People's Party supporters. Both deserve better than this disgusting, medieval charade.

Benazir's last decision was in the same autocratic mode as its predecessors, an approach that would cost her – tragically – her own life. Had she heeded the advice of some party leaders and not agreed to the Washington-brokered deal with Pervez Musharraf or, even later, decided to boycott his parliamentary election she might still have been alive. Her last gift to the country does not augur well for its future.

How can Western-backed politicians be taken seriously if they treat their party as a fiefdom and their supporters as serfs, while their courtiers abroad mouth sycophantic niceties concerning the young prince and his future.

That most of the PPP inner circle consists of spineless timeservers leading frustrated and melancholy lives is no excuse. All this could be transformed if inner-party democracy was implemented. There is a tiny layer of incorruptible and principled politicians inside the party, but they have been sidelined. Dynastic politics is a sign of weakness, not strength. Benazir was fond of comparing her family to the Kennedys, but chose to ignore that the Democratic Party, despite an addiction to big money, was not the instrument of any one family.

(Dynastic politics as a sign of weakness... Hmm, who were our last three Presidents, and who might be the next one...)

However, blind acceptance of a despot like Musharraf is certainly not the answer. Immediate reinstatement of the Supreme Court and a unity caretaker government to prepare for actual elections that are fair and free ought to be demanded, as well as a legitimate investigation into Bhutto's death. A Musharraf who is weakened or overthrown would have negative consequences for the region. We should probably stay the hell out of this and not try to install some other kingly figure without the consent of the Pakistani people. But the encouragement should be toward an end to despotism. If that happens with Musharraf or without ought to be of no consequence.

Good Thing That State Of Emergency Has Been Lifted

Since the terrorist threat in Pakistan is obviously in its last throes.

More than 30 people were killed on Friday in a suspected suicide bombing at a mosque in northwest Pakistan, where a former interior minister was offering Muslim Eid festival prayers, police said.

Former interior minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao, who belonged to President Pervez Musharraf's government, was at the mosque at the time of the attack but it was unclear if he was the target. He said he escaped unharmed but his son was injured.

"More than 30 people have been killed in the blast," Feroz Shah, a senior police official at Charsadda district, in North West Frontier Province, told Reuters. "We still don't have an exact figure."

Militant Islam was never the reason for the imposition of martial law, and nothing has been done to decrease that threat in any meaningful way during that martial law. And in the meantime, while the government lost all credibility inside the population due to the hijacking of any vestige of democracy, they're also dealing with their very own Abu Ghraib:

Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies, apparently trying to avoid acknowledging an elaborate secret detention system, have quietly set free nearly 100 men suspected of links to terrorism, few of whom were charged, human rights groups and lawyers here say.

Those released, they say, are some of the nearly 500 Pakistanis presumed to have disappeared into the hands of the Pakistani intelligence agencies cooperating with Washington’s fight against terrorism since 2001.

No official reason has been given for the releases, but as pressure has mounted to bring the cases into the courts, the government has decided to jettison some suspects and spare itself the embarrassment of having to reveal that people have been held on flimsy evidence in the secret system, its opponents say [...]

In one case, a suspect tied to, but not charged with the 2002 killing of Daniel Pearl, the American journalist, was dumped on a garbage heap, so thin and ill he died 20 days later. He, like one other detainee, was arrested in South Africa several years ago and released in Pakistan this year.

You think that's not driving the militant strain? You think that's not a recruiting tool?

One of the positive steps Congress took before breaking for the holidays was to restrict military aid to Pakistan and condition it to the restoration of democratic institutions. If we can't control our government at home, maybe at least we can stop funding one that's imitating it.