Bush's Legacy

Like many people in the foreign policy community, I've been spending an inordinate amount of time grappling with the issues associated with Afghanistan. I have been reading newspaper reports, listening to interviews and testimony, weighing the assessments of experts. It is a tiny microcosm of the process that is taking place within the highest levels of the U.S. government right now with a couple differences. First, I don't have access to classified reports (although for the most part my experience has taught me to approach these with great caution.) Second, I don't have to worry about the politics of the decision I reach -- internal or external. And third, and most importantly, my opinion really doesn't matter. I'm up here in the cheap seats -- the blogosphere being the "noisebleed section" of the political arena -- and we all know that a stadium full of people shouting their opinions just sounds like cheering or booing and isn't much more nuanced than that.

Still, as with any discussions concerning whether or not and how to conduct a war, this is a debate that has a strong sense of urgency about it. It also involves a host of really interesting questions about what our real objectives are, about whether this is a counter-insurgency or a counter-terrorism operation, about how victory can be measured, about who our real allies and enemies are, about how much cost we are willing to bear, about what the role for NATO should be, about how to deal with a corrupt, dysfunctional partner in Kabul, even about more fundamental issues such as how do we ultimately keep ourselves safe from terror, whether we can ever be successful at nation-building, and whether there is even truly a nation to build in a country like Afghanistan that is really (much as Iraq is) a confection of the minds of British imperialists that overlooks ancient tribal realities.

To those who say that the Obama administration should not be reconsidering a strategy it announced only last spring, my reaction is that's nonsense. We should constantly be reviewing our strategy based on the changing situation on the ground and the ebb and flow of other external priorities and factors. To those who say that the process has gone on too long, I also say, that's ridiculous given the human stakes involved.

But I am among the group concerned that the final decision may be tainted by factors that should not come into play when forging a strategy. One factor is campaign rhetoric: The president should not be locked into a course of action because of what he said as a candidate. Another factor is momentum: It is hard to reverse any enterprise as massive as this operation in Afghanistan. Another factor is fear of perceptions of an internal rift: I am on the record as feeling that General McChrystal went too far in publicly arguing his case and I feel the President should not be cowed into nudging the needle one jot in the direction of escalation of our involvement because he is unsettled by the political consequences of subordinates who didn't get their way. I also fear the impulse some have to seek an answer that will make everyone happy. In this case, it's just not there.

But the more I grapple with this problem in my own head, the more I feel like we are collectively falling victim to a fatal heuristic trap. After 9/11 nothing was more important that getting the terrorists that committed the act or making America safe from future attacks. This turned Bush as it would have turned any president toward Afghanistan. When he made his weird wrong turn toward Iraq, it led some among his opponents to argue even more vigorously that Afghanistan should have remained our top priority. This had two advantages: It immunized them from critiques they were "soft on terror" or "weak" and it was supported by a certain logic. Barack Obama and most Democrats were among this group.

When Obama came into office therefore, his mandate was to switch from Iraq to Afghanistan and we began to ramp up our involvement there. It became "his" war. It was the "war of necessity." The more involved we got there, the more "important" the debate about our strategy there became. The issue grew to the point that it is common to see reference to Obama's decision on whether or not to increase our troop presence there as the most important foreign policy decision he will make this year.

It might be. But that is different from saying that Afghanistan is actually important itself and different from saying it is really important to the interests of the United States. In fact, the reality is that there are few measures indeed by which it can be honestly argued that Afghanistan warrants the attention it is getting or the resources we are devoting to it.

National Security Advisor Jim Jones was quoted as saying there may be only 100 Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The terror threat has moved elsewhere. Almost every country in Afghanistan's immediate neighborhood can be argued to pose a bigger terrorist threat. It can be argued that we don't want the Taliban to come back into power in Afghanistan. First, of all, that our departure would produce their return is by no means a certainty and it is a view shared by many in Afghanistan. Next, again, they are actively sponsored by elements in Pakistan and their fate is really driven from there.

For sure the biggest security threat in the region is not Afghanistan but Pakistan, a country careening toward the possibility of being divided by civil conflict. The core of the threat is Pakistan's nuclear arsenals and anyone tells you the U.S. knows where the weapons are and is confident in their security is just outright lying to you. Pakistan is the home to terror. Pakistan is the 170 million person nation on the verge of chaos. Pakistan is the nuclear threat. Afghanistan is only relevant relative to Pakistan.

Does that make Afghanistan important? Only if we can use it as a base from which we can contain the threats posed from within Pakistan. But the reality is given the terrain in the mountains on the border, we have spent eight years proving that we can't really do that. And our friends in Kabul are running such a bogus government that it is unlikely they will prove to be a useful aid in such matters anytime in the foreseeable future. Thus, if Afghanistan is only relevant as far as it can help deal with threats in Pakistan and it can't really help very much with those, it is actually not that important.

What's the conclusion? View all our actions in Afghanistan relative to our real interests in the region, which are for the most part in Pakistan. To the extent we can position ourselves in Afghanistan in ways supporting cross-border activities into Pakistan and that gives a rapid deployment capability should the worst happen there, fine. Give them aid. Encourage them to stabilize. But recognize that we shouldn't have an extended military presence in a place that is not actually that important to us -- especially if most experts think our likelihood of success with regard to military objectives in the country is in the slim to none range.

As periodically happens in American life, we are engaged in a furious debate about the wrong issue ... and our failure to recognize this is certain to have negative implications for our ability to deal with what should be our real priorities.

MICHAEL KAPPELER/AFP

While we here at FP don't recommend eating disorders as an effective weight control technique, sometimes it's hard to pass up the canapés at those fancy Washington parties -- like GQ's "50 Most Powerful People in DC" cocktail blast at 701 last night. 

Of course, GQ's party had its own built-in trigger of the gag reflex for most Washingtonians: their names weren't on the list. (I talked with one of GQ's writers as she was working on the list, a conversation I enjoyed right up until the moment it was clear they didn't think I was list-worthy. As for the final product's, um, curiosities see FP's earlier take. But, Leon Panetta ahead of Hillary Clinton? Tom Donilon on the list, but his boss Jim Jones off it? Various worthy but random journalists and bloggers and not Tom Friedman or David Sanger? The Sidwell admissions director ahead of the GDS admissions director? Insiders know the truth ... even as they all hungrily pour over the list looking for their own names and those of their allies, enemies and worst of all, their friends.)

But when a glossy, man-perfume scented equivalent of a long hairy finger down your throat isn't readily available, then knowledgeable Washingtonians know there is always another place they can turn, the Capital's naturally produced form of Serum of Ipecac. Just follow the news until you develop the acute reaction to hypocrisy that is certain to launch away your own indiscretions in one or two turbulent but satisfying moments.

For example, here's a recipe for Capitulimia drawn from just what's going on around town today:

Take just one dose of insurance companies trying to suggest in print and broadcast advertisements that after years of making indefensible profits from literally killing people and destroying families with their policies (the one's they didn't actually deny to those who needed them), it is they who are actually looking out for the interests of Americans in need of health care.

Add one 30 second American Petroleum Institute commercial in which they actually argue that the pending climate bill might hurt consumers by producing more highly priced gasoline? After their record? While they should actually all be hovering in their basements waiting for the class action suit from the planet for selling a product they have known for years was destroying it?

Then sit down and take a listen to say, Rush Limbaugh complaining the media is making spurious, emotional, and uninformed attacks against him ... and that "the media" has too much power. The media? Who is he? Where does his power and obscene wealth come from? Appearances to the contrary, he is not a manatee sunning on a rock. 

If that hasn't done it, listen to one-time supporters of the havoc wreaked by the Great Decider's impulsive and catastrophic policies in Iraq or his ineffective blundering in Afghanistan as they criticize President Obama for actually taking some time to work out a sensible adjustment to tackling the mind-boggling challenges posed in the AfPak region ... challenges that were altered by the recent elections embarrassment in Afghanistan.

Or listen to Republican legislators responsible for the biggest deficits in American history and the collapse of the American economy, attack President Obama for doing what had to be done to clean up their mess.

Not there yet, go to Amazon.com and pre-order not only the Sarah Palin book but the upcoming books from President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Hank Paulson, and Karl Rove. Then think about the millions that will be generated by these books. (In New York State, I seem to recall once upon a time in the days of "The Son of Sam" they passed a law blocking criminals from writing books allowing them to profit from retelling the tales of their wrong-doing. These aren't criminals, of course ... well, not all of them ... but what are we to make of millionaires who gutted the American economy making millions from telling us all how they did it?)

Still on the verge of relief but not quite cleansed? Well, pick up a paper and read about the fact that roughly $140 billion in compensation will be paid out on Wall Street this year, a record beating out the last peak year of 2007. (And while you're at it, flip back to the FT from a day or two ago and read Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein's call for more industry reform and ask yourself: was placing this oped at the time the bonuses were going to be announced just a little cynical? Do they really think we're going to fall for that kind of grade-school spinning -- even if he did make a number of good points.)

There, that ought to do it. Feeling better now? Lighter on your feet? Angry but empty? No need to thank me. Just another public service from your virtual friends here on the Internet who will always do what we can to ensure our Washington readers are ready for another day of making the rounds from the Four Seasons to the Palm to the usual receptions sponsored by the likes of the American Foot Odor Institute and the National Alliance for Getting Children to Make Their Beds. And for the rest of you outside the beltway, with America's health care system unlikely to be high functioning any time soon, it's probably a good idea to drop a few pounds and get into better shape. 

And here's our hint for turning what could be an eating disorder into a sustainable diet: just keep watching those headlines -- they're the world's most effective non-addictive appetite suppressant. If you follow Washington without losing your appetite, you're not paying attention.

TIM SLOAN/AFP/Getty Images

Foreign policy is a fast-paced business. Despite the fact that at least someone in the Obama Administration is actually celebrating the art of indecision, you can save the world with snap judgments if you know what you're doing.  I know what I'm doing. 

To demonstrate I will now solve some of the biggest foreign policy problems confronting some of the world's most important newsmakers in a matter of just a few seconds each. (I will also solve a few lower-grade domestic problems as well.) If you are an important figure on the international stage, just look for your name below. Next to it will be the advice you need in a couple of quick sentences. If you are not a world leader but know one, please feel free to forward this to them.

To Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan of the Pakistani Muslim League: If you don't like the provisions of the U.S. aid package, keep it to yourself. Your complaints are precisely how we know the deal has been constructed properly. (Hint: Turn back the Americans who are offering aid and you'll end up with those who want to make all future deliveries by drone.)

To President Barack Obama: If you think that George's war (that'd be Iraq) is likely to look better than yours (Afghanistan) in five years -- and that'd be my bet right now -- then you really do need to listen to the people calling for a change in strategy.

To Manuel Zelaya: Fair or not, your five minutes are just about up...unless you choose to start dating Kate Gosselin. (And if that is Plan B, I have to say, I'd stay locked in the basement of the Brazilian Embassy, too.)

To Kim Jong-Il: You tell Wen Jiabao you want one-on-one talks with the United States to establish peaceful ties as a prelude to returning to the nuclear arms negotiating table? No problem. Two steps: First, ask for them. Second, realize Michael Jackson wrote "The Man(iac) in the Mirror" for you. As in the "how many shrinks does it take to change a lightbulb?" joke, the punchline is that it's you who've really got to want to change.

To Jon Corzine: You don't get re-elected governor of New Jersey by attacking fat people. I have a two word clue for you on this front: Tony Soprano.

To Silvio Berlusconi:  Are you the one that's tanned now or is that just a red face? The ruling by the Italian Supreme Court stripping you of immunity from prosecution just because you are Prime Minister certainly seems likely to put a hitch in your mambo Italiano. With three trials going on that involve you or your holdings, you might want to start planning your post government career. (I know your wife has some interesting ideas for what to do with you ... or parts of you.)

To Donald Tusk: As Poland's Prime Minister dealing with a corruption scandal, you have learned some important truths: gambling always produces losers (in your case, the three ministers who have been forced out of your government for corruption) and you can't beat the house (even if you try by suggesting you'll fire the anti-corruption official who blew the whistle on your cabinet) ... especially if the house is run by the two who stole that stole the moon and you don't fit in with their plans. 

To Robert Mugabe: You say you want better ties with the U.S.? Well, you're going to need a long rope... Kim Jong-Il has a better shot at restored relations with the United States ... by a lot. Frankly, so does Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Frankly, so too does Rufus T. Firefly. Dictator, purge thyself.

To David Letterman: Ok, so far there's no rumors of foreign affairs in this story. But my advice to you is: continue doing just what you're doing. The openness is working...on the ratings...and on what's left of your image.  Silvio, you randy slimebag you, pay attention. Old men apparently can screw around with younger women if they are charmingly self-deprecating about it, not political leaders and not you. 

To Mazen Abdul Jawad:  You may have been condemned to 1,000 lashes in Saudi Arabia for discussing your (kinda gross) sex life on a tv talk show.   Here in America (see above), the same thing would actually get you your own talk show.  Time to consider relocating...almost anyplace else.  And speaking of Saudi outrages...

To Mohammed S. Al Sabban: If, as head of the Saudi delegation to the global climate talks, you are actually as reported going around saying if measures are taken to reduce world dependency on oil that the planet should offer aid to Saudi Arabia ... then get used to the idea that you are going to replace the woman who buried her husband in a rented suit as the living embodiment of laughable chutzpah.

To David Axelrod: Stay out of camera shot in photos about major foreign policy decisions. You're the president's right hand guy. He needs you: You have the "mind-meld" thing going, offer invaluable advice and by all reports are actually a good guy. Which is why what neither the president nor you need are the uncharitable whispers that you are out-Roving Rove in terms of day-to-day influence over administration operations. (Oh and to Karl Rove, re: your WSJ article that the GOP is winning the health care debate: There's a reason you guys are out. Wrong again. See the CBO report. The Obama-Baucus bill is getting closer and closer to being a done deal.)

AFP/Getty Images

I've got some real serious advice for my friends in the Obama administration: act quickly or the "dithering thing" is about to become this president's "vision thing."

For those of you who are too young to remember -- and I know this blog skews toward a younger, hipper crowd than the rest of FP's more staid, respectable, and credible offerings -- the "vision thing" became the brutal short-hand describing George H.W. Bush's supposed lack of vision. It was one of those terms that was so memorable that it slipped into those every day water cooler conversations and became an unshakable part of the conventional wisdom that helped make Bush 41 a one-term president.

We've seen the phenomenon many times before. Sometimes, the phrase is self-inflicted as was "vision thing" or "I am not a crook." Sometimes it is an image: John Kerry windsurfing, Michael Dukakis with silly helmet on. And as Gerald Ford and all these others discovered, the truth is not a defense. You can be, as Ford was, the best athlete ever to be president of the United States, a football All-American, and stumble down a flight of stairs or two and you are a clumsy doofus for the rest of your life.

Sticky phrases tied to potent concepts can undo a president or public figure as much as any action they take. Whether it's a reputation for micro-management or skirt-chasing, once one of these nutshell descriptions sticks, it never goes away.

The alarms started going off in my head regarding this when I saw Tom Ricks's post on the FP site earlier this week which was headlined "The Ditherer in Chief." In it, Ricks laid out with typical economy and insight, why Obama's "dithering" on settling on a strategy in Afghanistan or really moving forward in Iraq is a kind of unsettling counterpoint to George Bush's "panic" in the wake of 9/11. Ricks, who I believe readers should take very seriously on matters such as this, said that as a result of the president's seeming lack of decisiveness on these critical issues, he (Ricks) had become, for the first time, worried about Obama's foreign policy.

Ricks concluded by saying that if he were forced to choose, he'd take dithering over panic. But it was clear, he has become a member of an ever growing group, many of whom are extremely pro-Obama Democrats, that have grown impatient with the president's handling of those aspects of his presidency that have life and death implications for U.S. troops.

I should note, I am not personally of the same view. Provided the administration reaches a decision on its going forward strategy in Afghanistan in the next several weeks as Secretary Gates indicated this weekend that it would, I welcome the systematic assessment and reassessment of our situation, the reaching out for multiple views including those of our allies (as reflected in the comments of NATO Secretary General Rasmussen yesterday), and the recognition that it is worth the delay to come to the best possible solution. We've seen where impulse and dogma-driven reflex will get us. We should welcome the impulse to interject thought into the process as we should the apparent willingness to puncture groupthink by seeking divergent perspectives.

To me the issue is whether the decision is the right one or not. Which, as readers of this blog know, in my view is a much narrower mission in Afghanistan, a focus on getting a tolerable, semi-effective government in place in Kabul, and then moving more toward a counter-terror strategy that involves fewer locally-based forces and more over-the-horizon interventions be they drones or ship-based special forces operations as recently took place in Somalia.

But as mentioned above, the facts won't matter to opponents of the president or to the average voter who has bandwidth for little more than a twitter-length description of the president, a string of bits of conventional wisdom that constitute what passes for the total persona of the commander-in-chief.

Professor Obama and community-organizer-in-chief Obama are both compelling identities to many Democrats (and in many ways welcome ones). But they simply don't cut it on pressing national security issues.  The expectations of the public and the defense community which people like Tom Ricks knows so well may be conventional but they are unshakable. Leaders must lead. Decisions must be crisp. The human stakes are in fact undeniably high. Days and weeks do matter...and commanders need to show they "get it." And over all, you need to convey a sense that you have that "vision thing", a sense of where you want to go and that it doesn't take a seminar to reach every decision.

Part of the problem for Obama is that he started out headed in the wrong direction in Afghanistan and he needs to change course. There is no easy way to do it. And it may sting politically. But ultimately, courage carries a lot of weight and is one of the antidotes to the dithering argument.  Another potential antidote is offering up different, better stories and images. I am not sure why the Somalia operation did not get more play. It seems to have been a great example of good leadership and the U.S. military effectively doing their very tough job. Identifying the president more closely with the successes of the military will help (assuming they are real and he is truly behind them ... "Mission Accomplished" moments are precisely the kind this president ... and all presidents ... need to avoid.) And of course, the best potential antidote is more decisiveness whenever it is responsible.

It is not too late to keep this label from sticking. But it's getting there. 

JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

And Dick Cheney thinks he knows something about terror. Republican terror threats are for sissies. Even Tom Ridge is willing to admit ... some of the time ... that they kinda-sorta-maybe were overblown. (Ridge's now-you-see-em-now-you-don't revelations have permanently damaged him. Either he screwed up back in the day by caving to pressure to elevate the threat level or he has screwed up by misrepresenting the situation in his memoirs or he screwed up most recently by caving to pressure to back off the "explosive" admissions that he thought would sell enough books to pay for his retirement.) 

But Democrats have all the luck. They didn't want a national terror threat. They don't even like talking about the "war on terror" (most of the time). But they've got a doozy brewing that makes the country's post-9/11 post traumatic stress disorder induced inclination to look for a terrorist behind every potted palm look mild by comparison.

Yesterday, I walked across the campus of Columbia University in New York and amid the light blue and white balloons and banners fluttering in welcome of new students, amid the registration tables and the orientation sign-up booths, every so often there were large Purell dispensers. No explanatory signs. No instructions, just big honking containers of disinfectant crying out to every passerby to stop and make that next handshake a safer one. The absence of signs made it all the more ominous. Signs weren't necessary as they once were along highways when people were asked to call in and report "suspicious activity."

While this threat was as hard to see as was the one that had the Bushies in a swivet, you didn't need Karl Rove's classified Ouija board to magnify this one, a microscope would do. 

The other day a dean at a major DC-area academic institution indicated that he and others on his team had spent much of the summer developing the distance learning protocols they would employ if H1N1 virus required them to shut down their campus and send everyone home. At around the same time, I received an email from the college one of my daughters attends explaining just how they would tackle swine flu. Today, the city of New York, a city now reporting that perhaps 800,000 of its citizens caught the disease in the first phase of its appearance, announced a new set of guidelines for how they would handle the disease as it appeared again this flu season.

Estimates suggest that perhaps as many as 90,000 Americans could die of the disease this next time around. That may be high. Estimates of the severity of this pandemic have been inconsistent and fortunately, thus far the illness has not taken an extreme toll. But the nervousness is palpable. For example, take this CBS story of a school district in Long Island that has banned touching for the foreseeable future (of course, just after my daughters leave high school is when they decide to ban touching!)

Chest bumps. High fives. Hugs and handshakes. Glen Cove Middle School students Ali Slaughter and Hannah Seltzer say that's what friends do on the first day of school. But when students in the Nassau community return to school next week, the superintendent will be urging abstinence. Everyone from the tiniest tots to the biggest high school football players will be asked to limit skin-on-skin contact in an attempt to prevent the spread of swine flu when it re-emerges this fall.

Thus far, it seems authorities worldwide have responded swiftly to the pandemic and, even if it seems like they are over-reacting, their caution is not misplaced. Flu annually kills 250,000-500,000 people worldwide each year, 36,000 in the United States. And that's not when a particularly virulent strain comes along, such as the 1918 pandemic that killed perhaps 50-100 million people and infected perhaps 500 million.

The 9/11 attacks claimed fewer people than would die worldwide of flu on the average weekend. So, it is quite clear that the current invisible threat is a lot worse than the old invisible threat. But there is another way to look at all this. First, it casts the current health care debate in a different light. Having 50 million people who don't have health insurance (thus more reluctant to see a doctor and more inclined to seek free emergency room treatment) puts everyone else at greater risk. Having hospitals teetering near insolvency and cutting back services does likewise. When you think about the real threats to our homeland security a broken health system (especially in the context of the threats of not just epidemics but biological or WMD attacks) may be at the top of the list.

Next, if this epidemic gets as severe as some people worry, it'll very quickly overshadow Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and the financial crisis. It'll become Obama's war and, absent a crisp, orderly, sustained response, his Katrina. There's no sign that's happening yet. It may not rise to that level. The response may be excellent and it could be one of the decisive factors in the 2010 elections in either case. But for the first time in years, a nation that has come to view threat level Orange as normal has started to get edgy over something bigger. Tell me Mr. Ridge, what color should we use to indicate to everyone that the threat could be real?

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Despite a growing desire on my part to avoid the cage-match side of blogging, it is hard not to respond to Christian Brose's post "What is David Rothkopf smoking?" Brose seems to have, in President Obama's words, become all "wee-wee'd up" over my article in Sunday's Washington Post. I respond, of course, as a public service because so much of what he said provides a useful insight into how far we have come since the days of the Bush administration and how desperate Bush apologists are to find a way to suggest that their man and the policies they promoted were not actually the nadir of American foreign policy.

I should note however, that I also do this reluctantly because I think Brose is a pretty good writer and a fairly thoughtful guy. Still, when someone suggests that I have been a member of "the foreign policy hoi-polloi that went into intellectual hibernation in 2004 and only awoke this January" I figure, it's probably OK to offer a few words on behalf of my views. (Although it does explain the acorn residue I found in my cheeks.) 

I will ignore for a moment the fact that Brose clearly is willing to spot the world the first term of the Bush administration as indefensible and focus on his core notion that somehow the years Condi was at State were almost indistinguishable in intent, concept and execution from what we have seen to date from the Obama team. It should be noted that coincidentally Brose was a speech-writer at State during the Bush administration.

Let's take his points one at a time:

• Brose opens with a snarky summary of my article. The thrust is: Obama foreign policy is not revolutionary and I am kissing the asses of the Obama administration. I refer folks back to the past eight months of daily blogging as evidence that I have no inclination to butter up the new team and regularly do not. He does not note that he spends the entire article kissing the wholly discredited asses of his former employers.

• He then goes on to wonder aloud how anyone who "thinks and writes about foreign policy for a living" could think Clinton or Obama are transforming U.S. foreign policy. I have to admit, whatever the flaws in their individual policies, I find it hard to see how anyone could think they are not. Does he really think these folks just picked up where George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice and Dick Cheney left off? In Iraq? In Afghanistan and Pakistan? With their approach to engagement? With their commitment to multilateralism? With their approach to Guantanamo or torture? With their outreach to the Muslim world? With their commitment to reverse nuclear weapons proliferation? I could go on ... but will just take his main points in succession to continue in this vein.

• Brose lists Bush administration development "advancements" to suggest that they effectively covered the waterfront when it comes to reforming the development process. While Bush actually did some good here (and I didn't argue he didn't), that doesn't mean the work is done or that what the Clinton team is doing at State is not promising. The Obama team inherited an aid apparatus that was still deeply dysfunctional, underfunded and focused on missions that were not core. The QDDR process I mention in the article represents a commitment to strategic reevaluation that recognizes the fluid nature of international affairs today and seeks to institutionalize change in much the same way that the QDR does at DoD. Further, there is a massive amount of work that needs to be done if development policy is to be rendered effective in the current environment ... creating the ability, for example, to effectively do post-conflict reconstruction that so flummoxed the Bush administration for so long comes to mind, as does a civilian-side Goldwater-Nichols and other ideas that are currently being reviewed within State and the NSC process.

• His next paragraph argues that since the Bush administration participated in many multilateral forums that is the same thing as the Obama administration's commitment to the centrality of new partnerships. Can he actually believe that the Bush administration was a champion of multilateralism? By this same theory all people who go to church are virtuous and I, who talk a very good diet game, am actually 20 pounds lighter than reported this morning by the scale. Admittedly, there was a line in my article that was cut due to space considerations that I wish had been left in which said that while many of the current policies have roots in the past, what is happening now is very different because of the way it is being approached, the centrality it is being given, the degree of involvement of top officials, etc. Nothing illustrates this as much for me as the role emerging powers are being given. First, this is not a "Bush-era" inheritance. I know. Because I actually helped develop and run the first inter-agency process focused on U.S.-Emerging Markets relations during the Clinton years. Second, he cites a four-year-old Condi speech in which she mouths words he may have written about partners in the emerging world but seriously, wasn't he paying attention? At the time she did it, the perception that the U.S. was arrogantly acting apart from the rest of the world was near its apotheosis. The core concepts of Bush era foreign policy were of "us and them" and of our ability and willingness to effectively act alone or within sham coalitions to advance our interests. The core concept of the Obama administration is that just won't work anymore and that effective partnerships with a core group that includes new allies are the sine qua non of international progress.

• He then goes on to say that the administration has too little to show for its efforts. He minimizes restoring American relations with the world as if that weren't central to foreign policy. He then argues that this is not so meaningful because "cooperation has not always followed." Seriously? Will the Obama-Clinton restoration of America's relations with the world only be complete if everyone in the world cooperates with us always? This reveals his core misunderstanding of the nature of the kind of partnerships on which the Obama-Clinton team is seeking to build U.S. foreign policy. Also, in terms of not having much to show for their efforts, that's just ridiculous. Only seven months into their efforts U.S. policy has changed dramatically in Iraq and in AfPak, the administration has become deeply involved in the Arab-Israeli issue (which took the Bush administration about 7 years to discover), it has helped engineer an international response to the financial crisis, it has restored America's damaged reputation worldwide, the president's Prague and Cairo speeches represented dramatic breaks with the Bush past and set U.S. policies with the Muslim world and re: elimination of nuclear weapons in a new direction, and so on. It's just the beginning ... but it is a beginning very unlike the past eight years.

• Further his one-sided assessments of issues worldwide is full of inaccuracies. He says others won't help with Guantanamo but fails to note the benefits accruing to us from shutting it down. He says India and China don't share enthusiasm for a climate deal while failing to acknowledge that we are in a global negotiation, that the United States is now deeply involved as an advocate for progress for the first time or to note the differences in position between India and China (China is much more forward leaning and inclined to a deal). He inaccurately suggests that the only thing we can agree with the Russians is to reduce the number of nukes (as if that were a small thing). He says Pakistan is dysfunctional but fails to note how much more we are currently doing to address that. He says Iran and North Korea are a still difficult while failing to acknowledge the recent progress made with the North Koreans or that engagement with Iran is a real departure (on which the jury is admittedly still out).

• He concludes with the notion that we "are still a world of nations" (simplistic and wrong ... we are a world of many actors some of the most important of which on key issues are non-state actors) and that the Obama administration has been getting "mugged" by our differences since coming into office. This suggests again a misunderstanding of the nature of international relations. Good foreign policy does not produce a problem-free world. It just minimizes threats while advancing our interests. But, it also fails to note the central point that no doubt will resonate in the mind of the rest of the planet...which is that during the Bush years, it was the United States that was mugging the world and the system of international law we had fought for a century to advance.

That's the key point about these early days of this new foreign policy team. All administrations talk about partnerships and new relationships. To my mind, this one seems to believe what it is saying and is doing something about ... and at the very least is not as transparently hypocritical about such matters as was its predecessor. That in and of itself is perhaps the transformation most of the world was most hoping for. 

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In its obituary of the famed and beloved Columbia philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser back in 2004, the New York Times wrote:

In the 1950's, the British philosopher J. L. Austin came to Columbia to present a paper about the close analysis of language. He pointed out that although two negatives make a positive, nowhere is it the case that two positives make a negative. 'Yeah, yeah,' Dr. Morgenbesser said.

Austin was clearly unprepared for Morgenbesser. But he was also clearly unfamiliar with diplomacy in which the double positive can be deadly. 

For example, on one level, if you are an ally like Israel, you might think that the only thing better than being visited by one senior U.S. official (say, Secretary Gates) would be another visit in the very same week from another senior official (say, National Security Advisor Jim Jones). Even better would be adding yet another bit or two of senior level attention, say that of Mideast Negotiator George Mitchell or NSC Mideast guru Dennis Ross. But four times the high-level visitors are hardly four times the fun, or to put it another way, one high level visit is an honor but four in a week is a serious sign of trouble.

While all the visits to date have produced upbeat official statements at their conclusion, behind the scenes it is clear that concerns about the Israeli stance on Iran and the Netanyahu stance on settlements has pushed this relationship to what may be one of its lowest ebbs in modern memory. As one Israeli said to me, "We spent half the Bush administration complaining our issues weren't getting any attention. Now, we're starting to look back on being neglected as the good old days..."

Also, of course, too many envoys raises another question, "if your government speaks with one voice, how come I am hearing so many voices?" This is related to another classic set of double-positives encountered in politics and diplomacy, the problem of too many chiefs. For example, having copresidents of an organization doesn't mean having twice as much leadership, it usually means half as much…or less. 

Which brings us to another instance this week in which the positives have been signs of the negatives: the U.S.-China Strategic Economic Dialogue, which is cochaired on the U.S. side by both the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury. As Glenn Kessler wrote in the Post today:

On Monday, about 200 senior Chinese officials traveled to Washington and heard soothing words of reassurance from U.S. officials: The dollar is still sound, your investments are safe and we are working really hard to restructure our economy.

Such is the nature of the U.S.-China relationship today. Behind all the reassuring language is a nervous sense that the fate of the world economy is increasingly dependent on the United States and China working together.

In other words, it's our turn to sing "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing" which, of course, means, in the best interpretation, that our partners the Chinese are worried and at worst means, "worry!" (How things have changed since we were beating them up about their economic management.) Certainly every reassurance we offer is more a sign of an underlying concern than it is a true positive statement about the economy. Thus, the more positives, the more worries. 

This, in turn, brings another Morgenbesser anecdote to mind, also recounted in his Times obit:

In the 1970's, a student of Maoist inclination asked him if he disagreed with Chairman Mao's saying that a proposition can be true or false at the same time. Dr. Morgenbesser replied, 'I do and I don't.'

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The U.S. Congress has their knickers in a twist because apparently the C.I.A. kept from them plans associated with a program designed to kill off al Qaeda leaders. While I think the Congress is right to be disturbed by this apparent cover-up -- and they should go after whomever may have violated the law by keeping the program from them -- it seems to me we're missing the point here.

Shouldn't we be at least equally concerned that in the eight years since the 9/11 attacks, the C.I.A. couldn't get its act together sufficiently to actually deploy the program to kill the al Qaeda leaders we intended to target? If there was ever an instance where the covert use of force was utterly justified it was in hunting down and killing this enemy.

In today's New York Times story "C.I.A. Had Plan to Assassinate Al Qaeda Leaders," the reasons the program got bogged down are laid out. Bureaucratic debates about whether it would be legal to employ such methods are perhaps inevitable and frankly, I'm all for having checks in our system that actually indicate a respect for the rule of law. But let's be serious, we find it is ok to violate national sovereignty with unmanned aircraft but not with people? It's ok to use those unmanned aircraft to fire missiles at bad guys that may or may not blow up dozens of innocent by-standers but it is not ok to undertake an approach where such collateral damage is even less likely? This is through-the-looking-glass legalism, so twisted and absurd that it must be about something else.

One hopes it is not about another reason the plan was difficult which is offered in the article -- the difficulty of figuring out where to base such operations. It is easy for anyone who has been in the U.S. government to imagine such a discussion ... but I wouldn't advise it. Because it makes your head want to explode.

Which brings us to the real problem. It's reflected in the quote: "It sounds great in the movies but when you do it, it's not that easy." Clearly, the concern was that the operation would fail and in failing it would be an embarrassment. But, who said these things were supposed to be easy? They are clearly as difficult as any operations the government can undertake. But when you are confronted by an enemy who uses foreign sovereignty and the presence of innocents for cover, such initiatives are essential.

Yes, it's hard, risky and will put U.S. lives and our national reputation on the line. So too is winning a land war in Afghanistan. So too is working with a divided, complex, unreliable ally like Pakistan. So too is trying to achieve anything on the shifting sands of the Middle East. 

Also very difficult and very risky is coordinating an attack on the other side of the world that involves multiple hijackings and airborne attacks on major U.S. targets. So too will be the WMD attack that will inevitably change the nature of the war on terror. In other words, this is a different kind of enemy. It doesn't help matters that the Bush administration overstated the risks from this enemy, bungled the war against them and sought to use national panic over this real risk to justify extraneous and calamitous missions. But as President Obama has been clear, that doesn't mean the threat from al Qaeda and similar groups has abated. Drones have an important role to play, especially in areas in which the risks of collateral damage are more limited. More densely populated areas provide a different kind of cover that requires a different kind of solution. 

The CIA needs to report as the law requires to the Congress. But the U.S. intelligence community needs the ability to do what this program reportedly intended to do. Killing the program wasn't the right response. Redoubling efforts to make it work would have been.

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