Threats Before Diplomacy?

The White House is actually making threats to Iran on the eve of negotiations, and I would characterize these threats as somewhat empty.

The Obama administration is laying plans to cut Iran's economic links to the rest of the world if talks this week over the country's nuclear ambitions founder, according to officials and outside experts familiar with the plans.

While officials stress that they hope Iran will agree to open its nuclear program to inspection, they are prepared by year's end to make it increasingly difficult for Iranian companies to ship goods around the world. The administration is targeting, in particular, the insurance and reinsurance companies that underwrite the risk of such transactions.

Officials are also looking at ways to keep goods from reaching Iran by targeting companies that get around trading restrictions by sending shipments there through third parties in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Hong Kong; and other trading hubs.

The administration has limited options in unilaterally targeting Iran, largely because it wants to avoid measures so severe that they would undermine consensus among countries pressing the Iranian government. A military strike is also increasingly unpalatable because, officials said, it probably would only briefly delay any attempt by Iran to produce a nuclear weapon.

As I noted yesterday, Iraq would presumably be able to provide Iran with lots of goods smuggled across the border, which would hurt efforts to isolate them economically. I don't think China would play entirely straight with this either. In addition, hanging a threat like this over negotiations like a cloud seems to poison those talks.

Meanwhile, Glenn Greenwald actually made some points on the teevee this morning that you don't normally see, seeking to tamp down some of the generated hysteria about their nuclear ambitions.



Greenwald bats aside the silliness of hyping the fear over random statements from Ahmadinejad or missile tests (who makes more threats or tests more missiles, Iran or their counterparts like Israel?), and correctly notes that the Iranians have not violated anything under the Nonproliferation Treaty yet, having announced the existence of the facility at Qom before actually enriching uranium there. Iran is vowing to allow IAEA inspectors into the facility, which would comply with any order to "come clean" and end the potential for Qom to be used as a weapons production plant.

Scott Ritter makes some good points as well.

Beware politically motivated hype. While on the surface, Obama's dramatic intervention seemed sound, the devil is always in the details. The "rules" Iran is accused of breaking are not vague, but rather spelled out in clear terms. In accordance with Article 42 of Iran's Safeguards Agreement, and Code 3.1 of the General Part of the Subsidiary Arrangements (also known as the "additional protocol") to that agreement, Iran is obliged to inform the IAEA of any decision to construct a facility which would house operational centrifuges, and to provide preliminary design information about that facility, even if nuclear material had not been introduced. This would initiate a process of complementary access and design verification inspections by the IAEA [...]

In March 2007, Iran suspended the implementation of the modified text of Code 3.1 of the Subsidiary Arrangements General Part concerning the early provisions of design information. As such, Iran was reverting back to its legally-binding requirements of the original safeguards agreement, which did not require early declaration of nuclear-capable facilities prior to the introduction of nuclear material.

While this action is understandably vexing for the IAEA and those member states who are desirous of full transparency on the part of Iran, one cannot speak in absolute terms about Iran violating its obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. So when Obama announced that "Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow", he is technically and legally wrong.

I think the problem is more with the Nonproliferation Treaty. As Matt Yglesias notes, the Qom plant almost certainly was designed as either a weapons production facility or a really inefficient facility for nuclear energy. But the NPT has no enforcement for preventing facilities that appear to be a weapons plant, and Greenwald is right that Iran met their treaty obligations to this point. The treaty itself needs to be tweaked to give less latitude over time for potential proliferation, given the standard of ending nuclear weapons on this planet. As Ritter says:

Calls for "crippling" sanctions on Iran by Obama and Brown are certainly not the most productive policy options available to these two world leaders. Both have indicated a desire to strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Iran's action, in declaring the existence of the Qom facility, has created a window of opportunity for doing just that, and should be fully exploited within the framework of IAEA negotiations and inspections, and not more bluster and threats form the leaders of the western world.

Regardless, if Iran's plant is now under the inspection umbrella, then its threat is absolutely no different now than it was before we learned about this plant, and therefore the possibility of sanctions or even military action seems a bit much at this point, especially on the eve of talks. Let's have some discretion.

Secret Enrichment Facility Discovered In Iran

A day after passing a UN resolution to move toward total nuclear disarmament, Barack Obama joined Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown to disclose the existence of a secret Iranian site used to enrich low-grade uranium. Iran has acknowledged the site, but “The (IAEA) also understands from Iran that no nuclear material has been introduced into the facility." Obama had this to say:

Appearing before reporters in Pittsburgh, Mr. Obama said that the Iranian nuclear program “represents a direct challenge to the basic foundation of the nonproliferation regime.” President Nicholas Sarkozy of France, appearing beside Mr. Obama, said that Iran had a deadline of two months to comply with international demands or face increased sanctions.

“The level of deception by the Iranian government, and the scale of what we believe is the breach of international commitments, will shock and anger the entire international community,” Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain said, standing on the other side of Mr. Obama. “The international community has no choice today but to draw a line in the sand.”

It sounds like US intelligence had been monitoring the facility, near the holy city of Qom, for years, but recently had their cover broken, which led Iran to disclose the existence of the plant to the IAEA. Obama said today that "the size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful program," although I'm wondering about the exact meaning of that remark, given the claim that no enriched uranium exists there, which American officials confirm (they say it could be ready by next year).

This comes right before the October 1 meeting between Iran and Western powers, and is sure to add some intensity to them.

This latest disclosure, along with the stolen election and state-sponsored repression of dissent, is turning Iran into a pariah regime, like North Korea.

Iran has the right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to learn how to produce enriched uranium to fuel the reactors it is building. But the centrifuges it is using are an open-ended technology, such that if a nation can learn to use them to enrich uranium to 22 percent (enough for reactor fuel), there is no absolute bar to its learning to enrich to the 95 percent required for a nuclear bomb. Iran can therefore only allay suspicions that it actually wants a bomb by allowing thorough (and even surprise) U.N. inspections and by granting greater access to its scientists, engineers and equipment. Iran was caught doing undeclared weapons-related research in 2002, which is forbidden in the NPT, so it is on a kind of probation from the point of view of the West [...]

Iran may be counting on Russia and China to come to its aid. Khamenei and Ahmadinejad would be foolish to make that bet. Although Russia's prime minister (and de facto leader), Vladimir Putin, recently spoke out against further sanctions on Iran, President Dmitry Medvedev indicated in a CNN interview on Sunday that Russia's patience is not infinite. He said, "Iran must cooperate with the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency], this is an absolutely indubitable thing, if it wishes to develop its nuclear dimension, nuclear energy program." It is possible that Russia will be more flexible on the Iran sanctions issue now that President Obama has canceled plans to build missile shield facilities in Poland and a radar station in the Czech Republic, plans to which Moscow had vehemently objected. Likewise, Obama is seeking to blunt Iran's propaganda campaign concerning the nukes of the great powers by pushing for further nuclear disarmament in the U.S. and Russia.

From the standpoint of Obama, who may be on the verge of a reality check on Afghanistan, he cannot vow to end the existence of nuclear weapons in the world and then sit idle as Iran reveals yet another secret facility. The sanctions may only endanger the Iranian people; but so many are fed up with the ruling regime anyway that it could tip the balance.

Juan Cole has a photo essay contrasting Ahmadinejad's UN rhetoric with reality.

Ending The Scourge Of Nuclear Weapons

One way in which Barack Obama has separated himself from a standard-issue foreign policy hawk, at least in the modern conception, is on the issue of nuclear weapons. The paleo-cons and realists have generally come to the conclusion that there is no purposeful use for nuclear weapons on this planet, and the President agrees with them. Today, he presided over a session of the UN Security Council and got a unanimous agreement from the member nations to a resolution calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Gordon Brown even vowed to reduce his country's nuclear arsenal in conjunction with this pledge. In his remarks, Obama applied his prodigious rhetorical skills to a very good end.

As I said yesterday, this very institution was founded at the dawn of the atomic age, in part because man's capacity to kill had to be contained. And although we averted a nuclear nightmare during the Cold War, we now face proliferation of a scope and complexity that demands new strategies and new approaches. Just one nuclear weapon exploded in a city -- be it New York or Moscow; Tokyo or Beijing; London or Paris -- could kill hundreds of thousands of people. And it would badly destabilize our security, our economies, and our very way of life.

Once more, the United Nations has a pivotal role to play in preventing this crisis. The historic resolution we just adopted enshrines our shared commitment to the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. And it brings Security Council agreement on a broad framework for action to reduce nuclear dangers as we work toward that goal. It reflects the agenda I outlined in Prague, and builds on a consensus that all nations have the right to peaceful nuclear energy; that nations with nuclear weapons have the responsibility to move toward disarmament; and those without them have the responsibility to forsake them.

He's asking for more than just a hand-holding kumbaya. The resolution would commit nations to a lockdown of all loose nuclear materials within four years. It would strengthen the mandate of the IAEA and the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It of course follows that nations seen as out of compliance with the NPT and the IAEA would have to face sanctions, and Obama got Russia to agree to that standard with respect to Iran. But you really cannot call for an end to nuclear weapons worldwide without calling attention to those countries threatening to defy that. I am unconvinced that Iran belongs in that number, but the pressure of proposed sanctions has led to international talks and moves toward engagement.

I share the President's vision of a world without nuclear weapons. In order for that to become reality, we need to use all necessary tools to capture loose nuclear material, confer legitimacy on the process by drawing down our own stockpiles, and ensure that all proliferation stops. That includes making all parties live up to treaty obligations. This is a worthwhile goal.

"A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. And no matter how great the obstacles may seem, we must never stop our efforts to reduce the weapons of war. We must never stop until all -- we must never stop at all until we see the day when nuclear arms have been banished from the face of the Earth."

That is our task. That can be our destiny. And we will leave this meeting with a renewed determination to achieve this shared goal. Thank you.

"I don't know what we're getting out of it."

I kind of buried it in a separate post, but the deal in Russia for the world's top two superpowers to reduce their stockpiles is a pretty big deal. This would eliminate up to 28% of all nuclear weapons on the planet. And the President followed on that success with an agreement at the G8 summit to reduce all nuclear arsenals toward a goal of eliminating them; strengthening the Non-proliferation Treaty; and cleaning up loose nukes and preventing them from falling into the hands of extremists. The President will also host a Global Nuclear Security Summit in March 2010, and has taken more legitimate steps to rid the world of nuclear weapons than any President in decades.

And in response, Lindsey Graham says:

Republicans are already demanding that Obama press Russia into allowing a missile defense system in Eastern Europe in return for the U.S. agreeing to reduce its nuclear arsenal to between 1,500 and 1,675 warheads.

“I don’t want the Russians to get something and we get nothing. I don’t know what we’re getting out of this,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), an influential member of the Armed Services Committee.

“I think the administration is going to make a mistake if they don’t recognize the missile-defense components of this debate have to be addressed.”

How about the ability to live without the threat of being vaporized?

This is really the problem with a philosophy of selfishness. The idea of eradicating nuclear weapons isn't good enough. We need a payoff as well.

So much for politics ending at the water's edge...

More Screaming From The Korean Peninsula

North Korea draws out the sabers over their neighbors to the south joining the Proliferation Security Initiative.

North Korea threatened Wednesday to launch military strikes against South Korea if any of its ships were stopped or searched as part of an American-led operation to intercept vessels suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction.

South Korea agreed to join the global interdiction program after North Korea tested a nuclear device on Monday — its second nuclear test in three years. The North had earlier warned the South not to participate in the effort, known as the Proliferation Security Initiative.

“We consider this a declaration of war against us,” an unidentified North Korean military spokesman said Wednesday in a statement carried by the North’s official news agency, KCNA. “Any hostile act against our peaceful vessels, including search and seizure, will be considered an unpardonable infringement on our sovereignty and we will immediately respond with a powerful military strike.”

The North Koreans also said in the statement that they “no longer feel bound by the armistice” that ended the fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War. Technically, the two Koreas have remained at war for more than 50 years, because the 1953 armistice never gave way to a final peace treaty. North Korea has previously called the armistice a “useless piece of paper.”

I guess this newfound bluster is a combination of testing a young President and jockeying for power inside North Korea in the event of the death of Dear Leader. Regardless, their threat is ridiculous. The Proliferation Security Initiative, maybe the only half-decent thing John Bolton ever came up with, allows South Korea, in this case, to search ships in their own territorial waters suspected of carrying WMD. North Korea may try to provoke a skirmish at the DMZ, but their true threat is from selling weapons technology to other nations. I believe in a strong nonproliferation effort, no matter how much North Korea screams.

More interesting than North Korea's idle threats is the evolution of China on the matter. Not only have they signed on to the strong statement condemning the nuclear test, but Kevin Drum finds this:

North Korea's latest nuclear test raises the question of just how long the bonds forged between old communist allies will endure....Increasingly, China itself is questioning whether the relationship is worth the effort.

Within the Chinese intelligentsia there is a deep divide over how to handle North Korea. The Global Times, a newspaper with close party ties, Tuesday published a survey of 20 of the country's top foreign policy experts. It found them split down the middle — 10 arguing for tough sanctions against North Korea, 10 opposed.

If China throws down the hammer, North Korea will truly be isolated, far more than they are today. International solidarity is more important than the belligerence of empty threats.

North Korea Continues Its Screaming Baby Act

North Korea reports a lot of things, so I'm waiting for independent confirmation of the success of their underground nuclear test. Clearly the President is taking it seriously, given his comments today.

Appearing on the White House steps, Obama said that its latest nuclear underground test and subsequent test firings of short-range ground to air missiles "pose a grave threat to the peace and security of the world and I strongly condemn their reckless action."

It was his second statement within hours of the tests, the latest in a number of nuclear actions that Obama said "endanger the people of Northeast Asia." He called it "a blatant violation of international law" and said that it contradicted North Korea's "own prior commitments." Obama had released a written statement chastising the North Koreans in the early morning hours of Monday.

In his statement in the White House Rose Garden, he noted that the latest tests had drawn scorn around the world. Pyongyang's actions "have flown in the face of U.N. resolutions" and had deepened its isolation, he said, "inviting stronger international pressure."

"North Korea will not find security and respect through threats and illegal weapons," the president said. "We will work with our friends and allies to stand up to this behavior. The United States will never waver from our determination to protect our people and the peace and security of the world."

I just don't see the North Koreans paying much attention to these threats. With troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States is hardly in the position to invade, and making an airstrike seems unlikely as well. The sanctions are about as deep as you can get already, and the Kim Jong-il regime has dealt with it. He seems to have no compunction against mass starvation of his own people. The nuclear explosion triggered an earthquake in the country, suggesting that the North Koreans don't exactly care about the safety and security of their own people. I don't see a lot of options here. The North Koreans historically have sought headlines rather than peace or stability. They are the screaming baby in the corner demanding attention. It's unclear what they want after that attention is paid.

What this does show is the need for a robust nonproliferation program. The President's seriousness about this is a hopeful sign, but that does little for the situation at hand.

Game Of Chicken In The Middle East

At the AIPAC conference, both the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Vice President called for a settlement freeze in the West Bank as a step toward peace in the region. Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have responded by saying "Um, no."

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is beginning to implement, on the ground, what he talked about in the course of the election campaign. A high-ranking source close to Netanyahu said that the prime minister planned to unfreeze land for construction in the existing settlements for the purpose of natural growth.

He also said that as for the clash that could arise on this subject between him and US President Barack Obama, Netanyahu will tell the president that he does not intend to break promises made by the previous government and does not intend to build new settlements. "We are going to open the tap so that people can live," he said, only one day after the UN issued a report saying that there were contingency plans in Israel for building 30,000 housing units in the Etzion Bloc.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman yesterday expressed a similar position during his visit to Berlin. He said that it was premature to talk about an arrangement with the Palestinians that is based on "two states for two peoples."

Netanyahu's making a distinction without a difference. Settlement construction is settlement construction, and it deeply damages the peace process. Of course, the right-wing government in Israel wants no part of peace, so that follows logically.

Obama does, however, and this sets up an interesting showdown between the two leaders. Obama would be expected to hold the cards, but peace requires a partner. MJ Rosenberg has an interesting take:

The new president is committed to the two-state solution and intends to insist that the Israeli government not take actions that thwart that goal. That means moving against ever-expanding settlements (which the Israeli press today reports are about to be expanded even more by Netanyahu), easing the flow of goods in and out of Gaza, and removing checkpoints and other obstacles to Palestinian freedom of movement. The administration is also moving away from Israel's ironclad opposition to dealing with Hamas [...]

So is a clash inevitable?

In my opinion, no. That is because I believe that no Israeli government can successfully oppose a popular American president who sets out to pursue Arab-Israeli peace [...]

And not only because it is the United States that is the super power. It is also because President Obama will not be asking Israel to sacrifice any vital interest. On the contrary, in leading an effort to achieve peace, Obama will be advancing Israel's security, along with our own.

That is also why American Jews will rally behind him. It is not because they are indifferent to Israel's security but because they understand that maintaining the occupation undermines Israel's long-term survival.

Most people I know understand this, that from the basis of demographic reality, a two state solution is the only way to have a functioning Jewish Israeli state without apartheid, although on the extremes there are a few holdouts (with increasingly ugly views). But given this argument, and I urge you to read the whole thing, the issue of whether Obama will get a peace deal rests with Obama.

He is scheduled to meet with Netanyahu later this month. What will he decide?

...A key component of all of this is what to do about the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Though everyone knows that Israel has nukes, they are not signatories, and this makes it very hard in the Muslim world for the United States to demand Iran's cooperation on their nuclear programs. Over time, I find it crucial to bring Israel and all the other states with weapons into the framework of the NPT, but obviously this will only bring more resistance from the Israeli government. In a typical Solomonic compromise, I could see Obama bargaining this away in exchange for progress on a two state solution.

North Korea, Missile Defense And Proliferation

North Korea's rocket launch has led to a round of denunciations from global leaders and apocalyptic visions of nuclear proliferation. Can we at least acknowledge that the launch, as consistent with other efforts by the North Koreans in this area, failed?

"The satellite is transmitting the melodies of the immortal revolutionary paeans 'Song of Gen. Kim Il Sung' and 'Song of Gen. Kim Jong Il' as well as measurement data back to Earth," it said, referring to the country's late founder and his son, its current leader.

But South Korea's defense minister and the U.S. military disputed that account. North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command officials said in a statement that the first stage of the rocket fell into the waters between Korea and Japan, while the two other stages, and its payload, landed in the Pacific Ocean.

I heard an entire hour of the Sunday shows about the rise of proliferation and the failure of sanctions without remarking on this. The North Koreans claimed this was a satellite launch, and yet nothing went into orbit. Given that North Korean society is built on juche, or self-reliance, it seems that more sanctions making them MORE self-reliant, none of which have worked to this point (they are already internationally isolated), are less crucial than loudly noting in the international media that they failed. The US response has been that the launch itself is a violation of international law, but doesn't their consistent failure to pull off a launch merit at least some notice?

Obama's speech, by the way, while including a condemnation at North Korea, concerned his vision of a nuclear-free world, which is absolutely commendable, and a first among US Presidents, to my knowledge.

Shifting on an eight-day European trip from the economic crisis to the war in Afghanistan and now nuclear capabilities, Obama said his goal of "a world without nuclear weapons" won't be reached soon, "perhaps not in my lifetime."

But he said the United States, with one of the world's largest arsenals and the only nation to have used an atomic bomb, has a "moral responsibility" to start taking steps now.

It is not only a lofty goal. Gary Samore, Obama's arms control coordinator, said the plan has a strategic aim: to give the U.S. extra leverage in opposing the pursuit of nuclear arms in adversarial countries such as North Korea and Iran. "We are trying to seek the moral high ground," Samore said.

Devoting an entire speech to the longtime "no nukes" cause of the political left is more popular in Europe than in the United States. Obama signaled he would not allow America to become more vulnerable, saying that surrendering nuclear weapons must be a global all-for-one, or not-at-all, endeavor.

In this respect, he conditioned the deployment of missile defense in the Czech Republic to the threat from Iran. Calling the system "cost-effective and proven" is a real stretch - there is no conclusive evidence that hitting a bullet with a bullet works, and it's sad to see Obama going down that road, even in service to the noble goal of a nuclear-free world.

Overall, I give Obama a mixed review on all this, so far.

Obama's New Vision Of Foreign Policy

One area where we've almost unequivocally seen good Obama is in the area of foreign policy, where, despite what the media wags want to claim, he's been remarkably consistent in his vision for placing Iraq in geopolitical context, strengthening alliances, finding and eradicating loose nukes and offering a more hopeful vision to the world. He's put together another national security ad which stresses that judgment and a change in mindset is what's needed, and in particular putting an end to this idea that problem-solving can only be achieved with guns and rockets. This was endorsed today by, of all people, Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned yesterday against the risk of a "creeping militarization" of U.S. foreign policy, saying the State Department should lead U.S. engagement with other countries, with the military playing a supporting role.

"We cannot kill or capture our way to victory" in the long-term campaign against terrorism, Gates said, arguing that military action should be subordinate to political and economic efforts to undermine extremism.

Gates is of course accurate. The State Department, NGOs, and anti-poverty organizations have been sidelined in favor of private military contractors, the police state and the World Bank trying to hold rogue states for ransom. The reliance on supreme military power means that no military action can fail, lest we look weak in front of our enemies. And as Robert Farley notes, this leads to some sunk costs.

To the extent that the United States must devote years, billions upon billions of dollars, and hundreds of thousands of troops to "winning" in Iraq, the very purpose of the invasion is undermined. It does no good to "throw some little country against the wall" if in doing so our own capacity to act is severely wounded; other little countries that might have been intimidated take note of the fact that we are incapable of acting. This was, of course, why Don Rumsfeld bitterly resisted proposals to go into Iraq with substantially more troops, why he resisted the idea of increasing troop levels, and why he resisted the shift to counter-insurgency; he understood that such moves undermined the purpose of the invasion in the first place. To the extent that the war has been about the extension of American imperium, it has failed disastrously.

But that was one of the real purposes of Iraq - to show those A-Rabs who's boss, and to project massive military power over the Middle East. This does nothing for stability, only for hegemony. And our faltering approach has even screwed that up.

This is what Obama is reacting against. He offers a new strategy based on common interests and mutual respect; he wants to place everything on the global stage in full context and allow one element of our foreign policy to connect to all the others. McCain is about separation, about "winning in Iraq" and "winning in Afghanistan" without noting the relationship between the two. And despite Obama's approach being as far removed from George Bush as possible, that's McCain's latest area of attack:

The McCain campaign is taking their effort to distance their candidate from the unpopular President Bush to a whole new level: McCain's advisers are now openly attacking Bush on Iraq -- and not only that, they're also saying that Barack Obama is the one who is like Bush on the war!

On a conference call just now with reporters, McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann compared Barack Obama's insistence on a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq to Bush's insistence that we were winning even as things went badly for years.

Considering Scheunemann's past as the author of the Iraqi Liberation Act and a close confidant of AHMAD CHALABI, ferchrissakes, you'd think he'd be careful not to ever question anyone else's judgment again. But of course, that would require a passing familiarity with the concept of shame.

Barack On Iraq

I caught a good bit of Sen. Obama's Iraq speech today, and it was not calibrated to curry favor with bipartisan elites. In fact, the very serious Michael O'Hanlon is livid.

Michael E. O'Hanlon, a Democratic defense analyst at the Brookings Institution who has been an outspoken supporter of the war in Iraq, said he could not believe that Obama would put such a definitive timeline into print before a trip to Iraq, where he is to consult with Iraqi leaders and U.S. commanders.

"To say you're going to get out on a certain schedule -- regardless of what the Iraqis do, regardless of what our enemies do, regardless of what is happening on the ground -- is the height of absurdity," said O'Hanlon, who described himself as "livid." "I'm not going to go to the next level of invective and say he shouldn't be president. I'll leave that to someone else."

Actually, O'Hanlon is the living embodiment of absurdity, having called for just such a withdrawal in 2004. Furthermore I'm pretty sure he doesn't live in Iraq or speak Arabic, and he's been wrong pretty much all the time with respect to Iraq, and yet he manages to put his thoughts into print every day. One would think he'd be embarrassed.

Here's a link to the speech. As Greg Sargent says, Obama has taken his Iraq policy to a higher level, placing it in a strategic context and rejecting the typical back and forth of the tactical debate. Good for him. I think what people innately understand is that trying to spend unlimited dollars reaching something that can pass for stability in Iraq has distracted us, devalued us, and threatened our national security. Obama talks about the missed opportunity in the days following September 11, something else that Americans innately feel. This is one of the strongest moments of the speech.

Imagine, for a moment, what we could have done in those days, and months, and years after 9/11.

We could have deployed the full force of American power to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, the Taliban, and all of the terrorists responsible for 9/11, while supporting real security in Afghanistan.

We could have secured loose nuclear materials around the world, and updated a 20th century non-proliferation framework to meet the challenges of the 21st.

We could have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in alternative sources of energy to grow our economy, save our planet, and end the tyranny of oil.

We could have strengthened old alliances, formed new partnerships, and renewed international institutions to advance peace and prosperity.

We could have called on a new generation to step into the strong currents of history, and to serve their country as troops and teachers, Peace Corps volunteers and police officers.

We could have secured our homeland—investing in sophisticated new protection for our ports, our trains and our power plants.

We could have rebuilt our roads and bridges, laid down new rail and broadband and electricity systems, and made college affordable for every American to strengthen our ability to compete.

We could have done that.

Instead, we have lost thousands of American lives, spent nearly a trillion dollars, alienated allies and neglected emerging threats – all in the cause of fighting a war for well over five years in a country that had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.

Obama's plan looks at the big picture and identifies five steps to guide his foreign policy: "ending the war in Iraq responsibly; finishing the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban; securing all nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states; achieving true energy security; and rebuilding our alliances to meet the challenges of the 21st century." On the war, I wish he would remove all residual forces, and he should be demanded to do so once in office instead of perpetuating the occupation. But he does understand that foreign policy does not begin and end in Baghdad. And he understands the economic and diplomatic incentives that we can undertake to strengthen our national security while lifting up nations of the world from poverty. His discussion with Fareed Zakaria has been instructive:

ZAKARIA: But how do you view the problem within Islam? As somebody who saw it in Indonesia ... the largest Muslim country in the world?

OBAMA: Well, it was interesting. When I lived in Indonesia -- this would be '67, '68, late '60s, early '70s -- Indonesia was never the same culture as the Arab Middle East. The brand of Islam was always different.

But around the world, there was no -- there was not the sense that Islam was inherently opposed to the West, or inherently opposed to modern life, or inherently opposed to universal traditions like rule of law.

And now in Indonesia, you see some of those extremist elements. And what's interesting is, you can see some correlation between the economic crash during the Asian financial crisis, where about a third of Indonesia's GDP was wiped out, and the acceleration of these Islamic extremist forces.

It isn't to say that there is a direct correlation, but what is absolutely true is that there has been a shift in Islam that I believe is connected to the failures of governments and the failures of the West to work with many of these countries, in order to make sure that opportunities are there, that there's bottom-up economic growth.

By rejecting the narrowness of the debate from McCain (who was sputtering the same empty, petty phrases like "the surge is working" and "no surrender" and "conditions on the ground" today - tell it to the 35 dead Iraqi recruits at the hands of a suicide bomb today), Obama elevates the need to look at national security in a global context, and to use all the tools at America's disposal to benefit the globe rather than pounding it into submission. He's forcing that a different judgment be made on the war, one that respects Iraqi sovereignty while acknowledging that we can't waste unlimited resources propping up their government. It's a very good re-framing of the debate.

I've already remarked upon his plans for Afghanistan. But I do want to talk about his emphasis on nuclear nonproliferation, which extends not only to removing loose nukes but also eliminating the threat of nuclear weapons from the world generally. This is a big idea and one I hope he'll keep hammering. In fact, there's a companion TV ad that makes this point as well.

BO at town hall: We are a beacon of light around the world. At least that's what we can be again. That's what we should be again.

BO in interview: The single most important national security threat that we face...

BO VO:...is nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists.

BO VO: What I did was reach out to Senator Dick Lugar, a Republican, to help lock down loose nuclear weapons.

BO in interview: We have to lead the entire world to reduce that threat.

BO at town hall: We can restore America's leadership in the world.

BO VO: I'm Barack Obama, and I approve this message.

Instead of expelling Russia from the G8, Obama would reach out to them on this issue to gather loose nukes. This is generally agreed as one of the world's greatest threats, and yet the current Administration has really done a terrible job at securing radioactive materials in this country and abroad. I know that I've been wondering, particularly in the wake of Ryan Lizza's New Yorker article, what Obama is holding this political capital for, and where he plans to spend it. He's been running a different campaign every four years or so for over a decade, what will he spend his time on when there's no office left to conquer? I think nonproliferation will be a key component, as will building coalitions out of mutual self-interest to confront humanitarian crises or strengthen national security. A President with a vision of a non-nuclear world is a very new conception. That alone has the power for massive change, and will make us all safer. And this isn't some DFH on the side of the road with a "no nukes" sign, but the man in charge of all levers of statecraft.

It's a good speech, I encourage you to read it and think about it.

UPDATE: I forgot to flag this part:

George Bush and John McCain don't have a strategy for success in Iraq—they have a strategy for staying in Iraq. They said we couldn't leave when violence was up, they say we can't leave when violence is down. They refuse to press the Iraqis to make tough choices, and they label any timetable to redeploy our troops "surrender," even though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign Iraqi government—not to a terrorist enemy. Theirs is an endless focus on tactics inside Iraq, with no consideration of our strategy to face threats beyond Iraq's borders.

Crucial point. When the choice is "surrender" vs. "conditions," there's one answer. When the choice is "responsible plan" vs. "stay in Iraq forever," it's quite a different picture.

Judging The Crazy

Two of the three potential Vice Presidential nominees shuttled to Chez BBQ last month for a powwow with John McCain were Mitt Romney and Bobby Jindal. They're both a real pair of winners. Today, Romney called nuclear nonproliferation a "liberal position."

This morning, failed Republican presidential candidate and former governor Mitt Romney was interviewed by CNN anchor John Roberts. During the interview, Mitt dutifully repeated the McCain campaign's latest anti-Obama smear, that he's "never been a part of a bipartisan group that came together to solve a controversial issue." [...]

When it was pointed out that Obama has worked with Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Indiana on the Lugar-Obama Nonproliferation legislation, signed into law by President Bush, and with Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Oregon, on increasing gas mileage efficiency requirements, this was Romey's actual response:

"Actually, on both cases, you’re talking about two liberal positions, non-proliferation as well as the gasoline mileage."

It is now considered liberal to want to reduce the potential of nuclear destruction. For context, four years ago George Bush and John Kerry agreed that nuclear proliferation was the greatest current threat to global security. Romney either doesn't know what non-proliferation means, or thinks that anything with the word "non" involves taking away the sweet sweet cash funnel to military contractors. Henry Frickin' Kissinger believes in nonproliferation, fercryinoutloud.

This position puts Romney on the radical left when compared to Bobby Jindal's latest bill-signing ceremony:

On the heels of today's SCOTUS decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana barring the death penalty for sex offenders, Gov. Bobby Jindal released a statement calling the ruling an "affront to the people of Louisiana" - and what's more, vowing to do whatever possible to amend the state’s laws in order to maintain the death penalty for child rape.

But that's not all he did.

Today, Gov. Jindal signed the "Sex Offender Chemical Castration Bill," authorizing the castration of convicted sex offenders. They get a choice: physical or chemical. Oh, and they don't just get castrated and leave - they still have to serve out their sentence.

Hammurabi would be proud. Would this hold for those offenders who committed forcible optical intercourse, too?

Good Lord these people are out of their skulls.

McCain: I Rulez!!!

Rule number one of politics: when in a war, never say that you're fine with 100 more years of it. Having learned this lesson, John W. McCain tried to reduce his commitment by 96 years, claiming that Iraq will be "won" by 2013 and most combat troops will then be home (left unsaid is that the 100-year occupation would then begin at that point).

John McCain, looking through a crystal ball to 2013 and the end of a prospective first term, sees "spasmodic" but reduced violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden dead or captured and government spending curbed by his ready veto pen.

The Republican presidential contender also envisions April's annual angst replaced by a simpler flat tax, illegal immigrants living humanely under a temporary worker program, and political partisanship stemmed by weekly news conferences and British-style question periods with joint meetings of Congress.

How dare he support a timetable for withdrawal! Doesn't he know that the terrorist murderers will just wait us out?

That wasn't much of a speech at all, basically saying "McCain would be awesome, vote McCain!" without explaining how he would accomplish any of this. Eric Martin calls it the Straight Pony Express, a fantasyland of proposals that amount to "we'll win because we will win."

Alternatively, Ezra Klein finds a couple things worth liking in the speech.

First, McCain addresses nuclear non-proliferation right at the top. There's an argument whether someone with such a loose view of treaties and a dismissive view of multilateral institutions could actually coordinate international action on this, but it's heartening that he's attentive to the issue. Similarly, I was struck to see him come out forcefully against presidential signing statements and executive office overreach. "The powers of the presidency," says McCain, "are rightly checked by the other branches of government, and I will not attempt to acquire powers our founders saw fit to grant Congress. I will exercise my veto if I believe legislation passed by Congress is not in the nation's best interests, but I will not subvert the purpose of legislation I have signed by making statements that indicate I will enforce only the parts of it I like. I will respect the responsibilities the Constitution and the American people have granted Congress." It's testament to how far we've fallen that a president simply saying he'll abide by the law is cause for celebration, but hey, we're there.

I don't know about the second part, McCain has basically endorsed Bush's view of radical executive power that shouldn't be "constrained" by the judiciary. So his demurral on signing statements is nice (so is Republican Walter Jones' bill which would provide oversight on signing statements), but it's hardly the full story.

No Nukes

It really is a throwback kind of autumn: OJ's in the news, the Phillies are in the playoffs, and the no nukes movement is back.

Make no mistake: we must always be prepared to use force to protect America. But the best way to keep America safe is not to threaten terrorists with nuclear weapons – it’s to keep nuclear weapons and nuclear materials away from terrorists. That’s why I’ve worked with Republican Senator Dick Lugar to pass a law accelerating our pursuit of loose nuclear materials. And that’s why I’ll lead a global effort to secure all loose nuclear materials during my first term in office.

But we need to do much more. We need to change our nuclear policy and our posture, which is still focused on deterring the Soviet Union – a country that doesn’t exist. Meanwhile, India and Pakistan and North Korea have joined the club of nuclear-armed nations, and Iran is knocking on the door. More nuclear weapons and more nuclear-armed nations mean more danger to us all.

Here’s what I’ll say as President: America seeks a world in which there are no nuclear weapons.

There's a slight hedge here (and rightly so) that Obama wouldn't disarm unilaterally, but a President with the courage and fortitude to stand up and call for an end to the spectre of nuclear weapons is one I'd like to see. It should be noted that Edwards called for this at some point as well.

What I liked even more about Obama's speech was this part:

As Ted Sorensen’s old boss President Kennedy once said – “the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war – and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears.” In the fall of 2002, those deaf ears were in Washington. They belonged to a President who didn’t tell the whole truth to the American people; who disdained diplomacy and bullied allies; and who squandered our unity and the support of the world after 9/11.

But it doesn’t end there. Because the American people weren’t just failed by a President – they were failed by much of Washington. By a media that too often reported spin instead of facts. By a foreign policy elite that largely boarded the bandwagon for war. And most of all by the majority of a Congress – a coequal branch of government – that voted to give the President the open-ended authority to wage war that he uses to this day. Let’s be clear: without that vote, there would be no war.

Some seek to rewrite history. They argue that they weren’t really voting for war, they were voting for inspectors, or for diplomacy. But the Congress, the Administration, the media, and the American people all understood what we were debating in the fall of 2002. This was a vote about whether or not to go to war. That’s the truth as we all understood it then, and as we need to understand it now. And we need to ask those who voted for the war: how can you give the President a blank check and then act surprised when he cashes it? [...]

We thought we learned this lesson. After Vietnam, Congress swore it would never again be duped into war, and even wrote a new law -- the War Powers Act -- to ensure it would not repeat its mistakes. But no law can force a Congress to stand up to the President. No law can make Senators read the intelligence that showed the President was overstating the case for war. No law can give Congress a backbone if it refuses to stand up as the co-equal branch the Constitution made it.

That's a direct attack on the Democratic establishment who helped sell and authorize this failed war. Obama gets some credit for standing up against the war when it was unpopular, but he hasn't exactly led a movement while in the Senate to end our involvement in Iraq. His moves have been cool and measured. However, this is a very bold stance, and it does sharpen the differences between a Clinton dynasty and a new direction in an Obama Administration.

Also, the RNC are a bunch of fools.

"In a world with terrorists trying to acquire nuclear technology and with Iran and Syria threatening their neighbors, it is difficult to comprehend that a major presidential candidate wants to eliminate our nuclear arsenal. This is yet another example of Senator Obama playing to the fringe elements of his party and failing to understand the threat America faces," says (RNC) spokesman Danny Diaz.

The plan Obama has signed on to was drafted by those fringe extremists George Schultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn.

Nonproliferation would be a great legacy of a Presidential term in office. It certainly would be better than endless caution.

No Nukes

Say wha-

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton drew another distinction between herself and Sen. Barack Obama yesterday, refusing to rule out the use of nuclear weapons against Osama bin Laden or other terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

OK, I didn't love Obama's original "we should strike at Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan without telling them" comment, but clearly our policy there now is failing miserably, so I think a debate can be had on the topic. But nukes? Are you out of your mind?

Nuclear weapons on a Muslim country at this point in time would make us an even bigger target than we are right now. There seems to be this "I'm more batshit insane than you" game going on currently among the Democratic front-runners.

Maybe that's why I'm not sold on the Democratic front-runners.

(To be clear, I think Obama has been making a reasoned argument when it comes to foreign policy. Clinton appears to be appealing to Republicans.)

While You Weren't Paying Attention...

This has gotten completely lost because the news churn has been so enormous over the past week or so, but the IAEA quietly disputed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's boast that over 3,000 centrifuges were operating at its nuclear facility.

The head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency said Thursday that Iran was operating only several hundred centrifuges at its uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, despite its claims to have activated 3,000.

Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Iran's nuclear program was a concern but discounted its claims of a major advance in uranium enrichment, a process the U.N. demands Iran suspend or face increasing sanctions.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday that the Natanz facility had begun "industrial-scale" production of nuclear fuel [...]

Experts say that 3,000 centrifuges would be enough in theory to develop a nuclear warhead in about a year, but they doubt Iran has that many devices successfully running.

ElBaradei said, "Iran is still just at the beginning stages in setting up its Natanz enrichment facility."

This is the kind of information that winds up in the back of the paper when it should be on page 1. It's glaringly obvious that the President of Iran is not a reliable narrator of Iran's nuclear program, nor is he even in charge of it. Yet our media, and certainly the conservative movement, appears to take him at face value, and uses his claims to push for more war. And when the most knowledgeable people in the field dispute the claims, it doesn't get broadcast widely.

I saw Henry Waxman speak in Los Angeles over the weekend, and he reiterated the same neocon-framed rhetoric that "no option can be off the table" regarding Iran. Waxman was on the tour of the Middle East with Pelosi, and in general his thoughts on the region were right in describing the interconnectedness and the complexity. But he feels the need to sound belligerent on Iran, and in so doing he stokes the fires for war from the liberal side of the aisle. Waxman also said that he rejected the notion that an amendment requiring Congressional approval for any funds used for an attack on Iran because he felt that the Congress has that authority anyway and Bush would subvert it, besides. If Congress has the authority, where's the harm in reiterating it? If "Bush would subvert it" was a decent answer to why not to pass a law, why pass any law? This is self-serving rhetoric that allows the drumbeat for war with Iran to continue. And even though it's been obscured over the past week, it's sure to bubble up again.

He's The Madman We Listen To!

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held a press conference, so the whole Western world should stop what their doing and listen to what he had to say, right?

Um, why?

A year ago he claimed that Iran has successfully enriched uranium, without saying how much or whether it could even power a flashlight. Now he's coming back with more boasts, and the Western media follows happily along (although at least there's a little skepticism):

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran said today that his country has started to produce nuclear fuel on an industrial scale, and had reached the next phase of what he described as an irreversible program that his country had a right to pursue.

Some diplomats who follow the standoff between Iran and the West over its nuclear program wondered whether the claim might be at least partly a bluff.

OF COURSE it's a bluff, in the sense that he's making a claim, the impact of which is unknown. And all publicizing the bluff does is play into the hands of those in our government who have already decided on their desire for war, and are just hoping for a pretext. The Europeans get this:

Iran’s penchant for exaggerated public boasts about its atomic program made it difficult to assess the significance, if any, of today’s announcement. A European diplomat said the declaration seemed to have more to do with political showmanship than with technical breakthroughs.

But our homegrown neocons, who are desperate for an angle to allow them to put on their war helmets and lay maps on the floor and make attack plans, are lapping it up. Stanley Kurtz is breathlessly reporting estimates based on... well, the words of Ahmadinejad and scribbles on the back of an envelope. Gateway Pundit gets angry because Iranians are calling Americans names. Blue Crab Boulevard sees the Ahmadinejad statement as proof that, "While the West fiddles along, Iran is busy charging ahead with its nuclear weapons program." And here's some suggestive talk from Instapundit:

Everyone says that a nuclear-armed Iran is intolerable, but they mostly seem inclined to tolerate it rather than actually do anything, and even mild suggestions about doing anything are treated as beyond the pale. The likely consequence of this squeamishness and sloth, of course, is that when things come to a head more people will die than if we took effective action now.

He doesn't explain what that effective action is, but you can figure it out. And there are enough posts and stories like this out there to pretty much know that the Republican establishment welcomes the rhetoric.

All of this fretting and belligerence is based on an Ahmadinejad press conference. Mind you, these are the same people who often say that Ahmadinejad cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons. We can't trust him in that sense, so... why are we trusting him now? There is no independent confirmation that Iran will be able to have a bomb in, say, a year. Not even the IAEA can determine if there is an active weapons program. The rest is noise. And the noise is coming from the Iranian President who is routinely derided as "an irrational madman." Except when he's talking about the precise details of uranium enrichment.

The British sailor crisis averted last week showed to me that the inner workings of Iranian government is incredibly complex and occasionally contradictory. Public statements from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad bear little resemblance to official Iranian policy, and both the ruling mullahs and the President have their own motives. We cannot base our policy on celebratory government statements, any more than we should base the war on terror on every word that comes off Osama bin Laden's lips. We have unreliable narrators in Iran when it comes to their nuclear program. I know that the White House is willing to be duped by statements like this because they have a vested interest in finding a pretext for war. But Democrats shoudn't make the same mistake, and they should demand some independent confirmation from the intelligence community before believing anything coming out of Tehran.

0-For-Infinity

When the Bush Administration first turned themselves to the North Korea question in 2001, they did so with a reflexive anti-Clintonism, one which stated that anything Bill Clinton advocated was necessarily wrong and must be reversed. The White House found their opportunity to do so with Pyongyang, by pulling out of the Agreed Framework, by claiming that North Korea was secretly developing enriched uranium in violation of the agreement. They so wanted to believe this transgression that they willed it into being as a pretext, and severed all ties to the Clinton policy. 6 years later, after North Korea acquired plutonium and built testable nuclear devices, BushCo went back to the bargaining table and essentially re-ratified the Agreed Framework, from a position of weakness, because now the North Koreans had the bomb. Funny thing, though. Turns out that North Korea may have never enriched uranium at all:

For nearly five years, though, the Bush administration, based on intelligence estimates, has accused North Korea of also pursuing a secret, parallel path to a bomb, using enriched uranium. That accusation, first leveled in the fall of 2002, resulted in the rupture of an already tense relationship: The United States cut off oil supplies, and the North Koreans responded by throwing out international inspectors, building up their plutonium arsenal and, ultimately, producing that first plutonium bomb.

But now, American intelligence officials are publicly softening their position, admitting to doubts about how much progress the uranium enrichment program has actually made. The result has been new questions about the Bush administration’s decision to confront North Korea in 2002.

“The question now is whether we would be in the position of having to get the North Koreans to give up a sizeable arsenal if this had been handled differently,” a senior administration official said this week.

Josh Marshall and Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings have great analyses of this story. Suffice to say that we pulled out of the Agreed Framework based on overhyped intelligence, enabling the North Koreans to build a bomb quickly and without international inspection. So we let another country join the nuclear club for no reason at all. Here's a taste of how immensely stupid this is, from Josh:

Because of a weapons program that may not even have existed (and no one ever thought was far advanced) the White House the White House got the North Koreans to restart their plutonium program and then sat by while they produced a half dozen or a dozen real nuclear weapons -- not the Doug Feith/John Bolton kind, but the real thing.

It's a screw-up that staggers the mind. And you don't even need to know this new information to know that. Even if the claims were and are true, it was always clear that the uranium program was far less advanced than the plutonium one, which would be ready to produce weapons soon after it was reopened. Now we learn the whole thing may have been a phantom. Like I said, it staggers the mind how badly this was bungled. In this decade there's been no stronger force for nuclear weapons proliferation than the dynamic duo of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush.

And so we put another "L" in the foreign relations ledger for these guys, who have been wrong on every major piece of international policy for the last 50 years. They overstated Russia's defense capabilities, overthrew Mossadegh leading to the Islamic Revolution in Iran, armed Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, thought we would be greeted as liberators and that the Sunnis and Shiites had no history of ethnic strife, called Iran part of the Axis of Evil when they were offering us a deal, allied ourselves with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan when they're the greatest threat to our security, and now let North Korea have nuclear weapons based on a figment of their imagination.

There are probably a hundred more. It's breathtaking when you line them all up like that.