Last night, Conan O'Brien offered a tribute to Ed McMahon, longtime sidekick to his predecessor Johnny Carson. McMahon died yesterday and was eulogized in today's New York Times as the "top second banana." O'Brien commented on how, as a great number two guy, Ed always knew just when to step in and when to step back and leave the spotlight to the headliner. He was completely in tune with Carson and together they formed a seamless whole. Naturally, mulling this, my thoughts turned to England and the current situation in Iran.

Sidekicks have, of course, long played a central role in the history of international affairs. Adolf had Benito. Nikita had Fidel. Cheney had Bush. Today, Hugo has Evo.

Such sidekicks are employed in multiple ways. Sometimes they simply stand by the star for support, sending the message that the views the big guy expresses are more than the ideas of one nation, that they drive a movement, an alliance or an axis. Sometimes they play bad cop to the good cop. Sometimes they are the fall guys when the star can't afford to take the hit. Sometimes, they offer comic relief. Sometimes, they handle the secondary chores, like invading British Somaliland when you just don't have the time to do it yourself. And on certain occasions, sidekicks even offer benefits to one's enemies or rivals, giving them a secondary target at which to direct everything from invective to troops, depending on the circumstances.

Of course, in the international affairs business, there have been few modern stars that have shined quite so brightly for so long as the United States. As a consequence, we have over the years been joined on stage by a panoply of Ed McMahons. Sometimes they played with us only on regional stages, like Vietnam or Israel. Some have played the role well in countless circumstances, like Canada. 

But there have been no sidekicks as enduring or as useful in modern international affairs as the U.K. has been to the United States. You can almost see British prime ministers sitting on the couch laughing while their respective U.S. presidents cracked wise behind the big desk. Put a plaid sports coat on Tony Blair and it's clear: He was the Ed McMahon of the Iraq War.

The trick is that as the headliner changes, so too does the role of the sidekick. Affable Ronald Reagan needed edgy Margaret Thatcher, the Joan Rivers of British politics. Bland George H.W. Bush required even blander John Major. Blair managed to adjust his role as the submissive sophisticate to suit the two bubbas with whom he worked.

The most recent twist in this enduring relationship has been playing out in Iran these past few weeks. There, with Barack Obama's United States no longer quite so hate-able as Bush's (or Carter's for that matter), and with Obama inclined to pursue a more aloof strategy, the U.K. has started playing a different part. On the one hand, it has been more out in front in its criticism of the Iranians. And on the other, the British have assumed the role of preferred Western target for the Tehran leadership. They are the substitute villain, the Rather Good Satan standing in while the Great One tries a different approach for a change.

Of course, for sidekicks as for the rest of the world, the transition from Bush to Obama has been seismic and deeply challenging. The host has somehow gone from being a somewhat less sophisticated version of Jeff Foxworthy ("you know your president is a redneck when he can be compared to a Blue Collar Comedy tour star") to being the love child of Charlie Rose and Tavis Smiley. 

Britain has ably stepped up, perhaps recognizing that it is in their interest and the planet's to have a headliner of the western world who neither delivers nor takes all the punch lines. So too, at least in terms of their stance on the Iran issue, have Germany and France. In fact, throughout the Obama term, the roles played by Angela Merkel (acerbic, more independent, critical of the United States on financial markets reform) and Nicholas Sarkozy (pushing for greater market reform too, but also both more visible and more visibly supportive of the U.S. than any recent French leader), have also evolved into something new. This is clearly due in large part to who they are...but it is also due to a changed dynamic on the international stage thanks to the very different nature of the role sought and played by Obama and the United States.

This effect extends further, of course. Enemies and those with competing offerings find they have to play a different role as well thanks to the arrival of Obama on the scene. Those whose shtick has been anti-American bluster find it doesn't play as well as it did back when George Bush made anti-Americanism easy. The case in point here may well be Ahmadinejad...although Hugo Chavez and others ought to pay close attention here. As in late night comedy...as in everything that happens on any stage...the play is about the relationships between the players. Change one and you fundamentally change the chemistry among all of them.    

In fact, this chemistry factor may be the single greatest foreign policy change of the first half year of the Obama era. (After all, many of his policies are actually not that different from what Bush would have or did employ.) Later, of course, the president will be judged by how he manages the complex processes of global policy. But for now, for allies and enemies alike, having a new star with a very different vibe has changed the roles of all the supporting players, second bananas and rivals alike, all of whom must to some extent play off of the new guy and who have thus been changed by his arrival whether they like it or realize it or not.

It's sad to see a trusty old sideman like Ed McMahon go. But as for having a new guy with top billing on the world stage, the early results seem to suggest that may play very well indeed.

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

Too much voting, not enough free press. As we have seen in Iran, that's the problem bedeviling many would-be democracies worldwide. The people vote with their ballots, the governments vote when the tallies are taking place or later in the streets, and throughout the open flow of information is impeded or neglected as a priority. It's also the problem with many of the democracy promotion programs that have been offered up by the United States and the international community during the recent past. It's the formula for what Fareed Zakaria has dubbed "illiberal democracy" and for what citizens in ill-served countries know is sham. 

From Russia to China to Venezuela, you have voting and claims that some form of democracy is operating. But in each case, as in Iran, such claims are undercut by the reality that free speech is being quashed. In just the past few days alone we have seen stories of the Chinese government's regulations requiring that computers sold in that country contain software enabling the government to censor Internet access. The alleged target is pornography but the software also enables the government to block access to sites they deem politically objectionable. Also, today's Wall Street Journal contained a story talking about the sophistication of the Iranian government when it comes to the tools it uses to control Internet access in that country. And we have seen that they are equally comfortable with the blunt instruments of press suppression from expelling journalists to floating bogus stories to beating the opposition to death.

The U.S. State Department made a demarche to the Chinese protesting the censorship. That's an encouraging and important step. But we need to go further. Not only do governments need to ratchet up their emphasis on the centrality of a free press to any democracy -- and take a stronger stand against those who pretend at representative government -- they also need to find a better way to collaborate with and if necessary regulate or impede those companies who provide Internet and other media censors with the technologies and tools they need to do their jobs. It is absolutely appalling that supposedly "enlightened" companies like Google trumpet their saintly behavior on the environment and other PC issues and then work behind the scenes to enable censorship and thus the evisceration of the fundamental human right to access to the truth about their lives.

Outreach and achieving common standards and an agreement to adhere to them would be a good first step. But because ultimately, some businesses will need stronger disincentives not to do business with government censors, we should reflect the centrality of a free press in programs that deny U.S. government contracts to technology, software or consulting companies that enable such suppression. In fact, better still would be an agreement among all democracies to do so. We can start with Europe and NATO and work out from there. Perhaps other forms of international agreements may also be possible. Certainly, we should attempt to advance the idea of the Internet as a free global commons. For those with concerns about pornography, let families rather than governments wield the tools to make those value judgments about content. 

What is clear is that while modern technologies make it much harder for authoritarian regimes control access to information as they once did, they also provide new tools which can corrode and choke off important avenues of expression and information flows. With its diplomatic challenge to China, the Obama administration has indicated a willingness to grapple with this problem. But they and all governments who are supposedly committed to free societies can go much further.

For over two centuries we have believed that the legitimacy of governments derived from the consent of the governed. But, of course, that famous concept does not go far enough. The legitimacy can only be derived from informed consent. Anything less is less than true democracy.

SHADISHD173/AFP/Getty Images

Like any new president, Barack Obama has stumbled as he grappled with the learning curve associated with the world's most demanding job. Given the range of issues with which he was confronted from his first day in office, it has only been fair that he should be not be judged too quickly and that his ideas and his team had time to take root and grow. In some areas, he has achieved notable success, such as his efforts to improve America's image in the world and his effort to move quickly to respond to the economic crisis.  In others, such as the efforts to restart the auto industry or make meaningful changes in the regulation of the financial sector, the jury is out. As for real health care reform and meaningful steps to combat climate change, the key legislation is still being shaped, the key votes months away.

But as this week comes to an end, I think it is fair to say that Obama's foreign policy has suffered its first major failure, one that may haunt it for a long time to come. As those of you who have been reading this blog for the past few days know, I've been grappling with the issue of the administration's response...or lack thereof...to Iran's stolen election and the opposition's efforts to contest the results in the streets. Because I see the merits in stopping and evaluating a situation before responding. And I understand the reasons to maintain an open dialogue with the regime in Tehran. 

But as each day of the week has gone by, America's silence seems less defensible. Do we really intend to engage the current regime as if nothing had happened? Do we really believe it is useful to send a message that America doesn't care any longer, won't act, won't speak out, won't penalize or criticize or seek to pressure those who compromise or crush democracy? 

The administration seems to be saying that we can't afford ill will from anyone, even countries whose regimes denounce us and our allies. They seem to be worried that by supporting the opposition they will be tainted by association with us rather than empowered by it. And they seem to be saying that they can't think of any approaches better than their silence to advance our interests.

Why? Because multilateral diplomacy is so difficult? Britain, France, and Germany have all made stronger statements, we could have made one together? Why? Because the Chinas of this world would never go along with our statements because it puts them in a difficult light? The statement could have come from western powers alone. We don't need unanimity in matters like this. We need a forceful message that countries that violate the basic rights of their citizens should expect to pay a price for such behavior in the international community. Those who rise up in those countries should also know that the international community or a substantial portion of it will work tirelessly to support them to make the risks they are taking worthwhile.

We can seek engagement without checking our values at the door.   Indeed, to do otherwise is to make engagement pointless. Why engage if it is not to advance our interests? How naïve it is to think that won't involve challenging, offending, even battling those with whom we are engaged.  That doesn't mean our battles must be wars or produce the needless rifts of the Bush years. 

But we must ask, in our silence did we send a message to Ayatollah Khamenei that might make he and his cronies feel more comfortable in using violence to suppress the pro-Democracy protestors? In our weak response to Kim Jong Il do we send a message that he may proceed with his nuclear and missile provocations effectively unchecked? In our desire to undo the damage of the Bush years by reaching out to former enemies, do we strengthen those who we should seek to weaken, tolerate the intolerable, fail to take action where action is called for?

I'm afraid the answer is yes. We are back on our heels. This does not make the world safer or conflict any less likely. Quite the contrary. Bush debased American leadership with his actions. Obama should remember that it is just as possible to do so through inaction.

There are many things this administration could have and should have said that would not undercut that which is sound in their foreign policy. They could have said… ideally in chorus with our allies… that the international community was disturbed by apparent irregularities, that any recount or investigation should be made by objective observers, that the suppression of peaceful protests would be viewed with great concern, that Iran would jeopardize its talks with the international community if it undertook violence or condoned voter fraud, that nuclear weapons agreements depend on trust and that countries that seek such trust must act accordingly, that while we seek to maintain engagement, there are limits to what we will tolerate and that we reserve all our options to advance our interests. They could have convened a meeting among like-minded countries to discuss options, sent an envoy, formally postponed further discussions of the nuclear issue until this situation was clarified. They could have raised a doubt in the minds of the leaders in Tehran about how we would react in the face of a crackdown, that there might be consequences.

If all this would make the Chinese uncomfortable because they might fear they could be accused of similar indifference to the rights of their citizens, well, that's too bad. It's a message they too need to hear. Capitulation to them on every issue simply because they are big (and yes, I am talking to you, Google management) creates terrible precedents and invites further bad acts. 

Is the vision a world in which engagement becomes the ultimate objective of all foreign relations? Just as critics once rightly reminded the Bush administration that terror was not an enemy it was a tactic, so is it worth remembering that engagement is also just a tactic and not a goal in and of itself? While we should sacrifice to preserve our core values and interests, we should not sacrifice those values and interests to preserve our tactics.

JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images

After all the flying I've been doing the past couple weeks, I was genuinely sorry to hear today's story of the Continental Airlines pilot who died while flying back from Belgium.

While resisting the tasteless temptation to observe that dying after having visited Belgium strikes me as needlessly repetitive, I have to say the story hit home because on my flight last night back from Latin America I was actually surprised that the "cabin service director" did not herself expire mid-flight. This woman was so old that at one point during the flight I thought I could actually hear her osteoporosis. While I admire her for setting such a good example for other senior citizens by continuing to work, I do feel that her insistence on wearing a leather flying helmet and a jaunty scarf she held on to from her days in the Lafayette Escadrille was a bit unnerving to the other passengers. It wasn't too unnerving however, because we hardly saw her. Being that this was a flight on a U.S. carrier from Latin America, she did not actually feel compelled to speak to a single passenger during the flight (I don't think I'm exaggerating here). She just sat up front and every so often would make an announcement that was so unintelligible that it made Jimmy Carter's mumblings the other day on behalf of Hamas seem coherent.

Speaking of that other octogenarian, you couldn't help but be struck by two things while watching Carter offer the weight of the office bestowed upon him by the American people to lend support to the Hezbollah-backed group of allegedly reforming terrorists. (You can imagine the 12 step program Hamas is running to keep its guys "political": "Hi, I am Khaled and I am a terrorist. I have not launched a missile at a nursery school in 17 weeks.")

The first was: "Aha! Here is an American president who is not afraid to stand up for an Iranian political movement."

The second was that for once I wish Walt and Mearsheimer were right, and that taking a stand that was anathema to the Israel Lobby really did mean the end of a political career in the United States, because Jimmy is well past his sell-by date. (For more on this last point, see Jeffrey Goldberg's observations on "The Taboo That Won't Shut Up.") 

Carter's signature message was "Never before in history has a large community been savaged by bombs and missiles and then deprived of the means to repair itself." The view is so typically one-sided in its selective recollection of history  -- he neglects to note who, for example, fired the first 10,000 or so missiles in the recent confrontation -- that it would make Carter the Flat Stanley of U.S. politics were it not for the fact that Flat Stanley actually had two dimensions. (And I say this as someone who believes that the international community and the Israelis owe it to the Palestinians to help them heal and to find a sustainable solution that offers both them and their neighbors dignity, security, and a chance at prosperity.)

Finally, as a parent, I found myself misting up a bit at Chastity Bono's recent reappearance in the news. (Since her father ended up being a Congressman, I think it's perfectly appropriate to discuss her in this blog. Chastity is a Washington insider once-removed. Although frankly as a lesbian child of celebrities, she probably makes it as a Washington insider entirely on her own what with this being a Democratic administration and all.) In any event, given the fame of her parents, you can't help but feel for poor Chaz, wondering how she was going to make a name for herself. Yet, here she has done it. With her decision to have a sex-change operation, she boldly went into the one area of plastic surgery her iconic mother never considered. (Which is saying something, as the only thing left about Cher that is authentic is the signature on her monthly retainer checks to the plastic surgeon she keeps on call.) 

And the international affairs insight in the Chastity Bono story? (Besides the fact that post-surgery she will be the only other person still using the same first name as one-time National Intelligence Council nominee Chas Freeman.) Well, presumably if she could find someone who would sew a pair on her perhaps we might look into a way to do the same for our current foreign policy.

Irresistible sexist jokes aside, I am pretty sure our current problem is not so much the amount of testosterone in our system -- the feminist in me actually thinks you can never have too little -- as it is the vaguely masochistic impulse to effectively respond to every threat or provocation with an Oliver Twist-like, "Please, sir, may I have some more?"

MAHMUD HAMS/AFP/Getty Images

Where am I? My eyes are open and my fingers are moving across the keyboard so I know I am awake. But it feels a little like morning and the sky says night, a little like Asia and the signs say Europe, I woke up in Japan and my next meeting is in Brazil and it will be 72 hours between the last time I slept in a bed and the next time I do.

I saw G.I. Jane. I know how hard it is for Navy SEALs.  But Demi Moore would be curled up in the fetal position if she had to take this trip.  (By the way, for an interesting perspective on the times, watch that movie sometime. No, not for Demi's one-handed push ups or the great chemistry with Viggo. But because when they are trying to break her as she seeks to become the first woman SEAL they actually waterboard her. And when someone complains that it looks uncomfortable, Viggo responds "that's why it's such an effective interrogation technique." Who knew such a cheeseball movie could be so trenchantly topical?)

Where was I? Oh, right. The question is where I am? Somewhere between "Where's Waldo?" and "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?" I think?  Round about there. Actually it looks a lot like the giant human terrarium that is Heathrow's Terminal Five. But it seems oddly pleasant at the moment. It could be all that Immodium coursing through my system. Or the fact that my last stop was Narita. If I die and awake and the first thing I see is Narita Airport I will know that Higher Powers did not approve of my dissolute life. Narita is the Miami International Airport of East Asia. Just like Mumbai is the Miami International Airport of the subcontinent. And just like root canal surgery is the Miami International Airport of things you can do with your mouth.

I pick up a newspaper to orient myself. Seems like there is still upheaval and unease in Tehran. Still precious little reaction out of the Obama Administration about this. Obama's brief statement of concern said more with what was left out than what was actually said. I know that Obama will still have to deal with whatever Iranian government is left standing, but I wonder if he's being a bit too measured or and carefully calibrated for its own good? Sometimes, after all, a little righteous indignation is exactly what's called for. (And where, by the way is Hillary Clinton these days?) 

I'm of two minds on all this. Which is not so bad considering at the moment I am of about four time zones. On the one hand, I am all for restraint.  Particularly given that the opposition candidate, Mousavi, is not exactly a wonderful guy as far as I can tell and would soon be a big pain in our American arse (wait, I said "arse"...this must be England) even in the best moments of successful engagement. And there's a lot to be said for a foreign policy that actually involves thinking before acting, especially when the evidence about the election is, well, not really evidence yet. 

On the other hand, I know in my heart that Ahmadinejad, who looks more like a ferret with every passing day, stole the election and I love the vigorous and vital nature of the opposition. Iran has a democracy in it waiting to be allowed to be free and what a great game changer that would be for almost every policy concern we have in the region, especially if a freer Iran was also not as resolutely anti-U.S. as the current crew. I also don't much like that hanging back has left it to the Euros like Merkel, Sarkozy and Brown to lead in the strong condemnation, summoning ambassadors department. But hey, that's such a novelty it's almost as exciting as the real challenge to Ahmadinejad. 

I guess I would rather see the United States vigorously orchestrating a challenge to the apparently stolen election both because it's right and because they shouldn't be allowed to get away with it if indeed they stole it (which of course, they did) and if indeed the Guardian Council review is a sham (which of course, it will be.) I also don't think we're building up a great track record when it comes to how we treat provocations from our enemies (North Korea or Iran) or obscene behavior from our allies (see the CNN piece on the Karzai regime's violence against journalists.) Reason and cool I like. But I worry that we are a step away from seeming paralyzed by pragmatism.

But really what I would rather see is a bed.

Getty Images 

Maybe the problem in the United States isn't that we're paying our business executives too much. Perhaps it's that we pay our government officials too little. 

The Obama administration has made headlines this week by appointing yet another czar, this one to ensure we don't pay too much to the executives of the financial institutions the United States has bailed out. They have also made noises about trying to tackle the broader issue of executive pay in the United States. The second point is idle posturing that almost certainly will amount to little constructive change. The first has already sent the companies we bailed out scurrying to the exits of the TARP program and it will be a while before we see whether this is a healthy step, getting them off the dole, or an unhealthy one, with institutions hopping out of their hospital beds before they were fully cured. I also can't help but wonder if cutting executive pay is the best way to attract the kind of brains and efforts that will be needed to fix our busted banks.

Meanwhile, I have arrived in Singapore, home according to one count, of the 30 highest paid government officials in the world. And trust me, given the extraordinary success this city state has enjoyed, none of the people with whom I met today were complaining that those officials were overcompensated. This country wants the best minds in the government and recognizes that they have to pay to get them there otherwise they go work in the financial community, sell their souls and ultimately add to the overcrowding problem that is currently one of the biggest social issues facing Hell.

Come to think of it, the overcrowding in Hell probably plays directly into the hands of management down there. I know this because I was in Mumbai airport last night. And for all my enthusiasm for India, Mumbai airport, thronged with people as the late night flights prepare to depart, hot, fetid, and chaotic, would have had Beezelebub feeling right at home and Hieronymus Bosch reaching for his paint brush. In fact, I think I may actually have seen the Prince of Darkness himself there. He was manning a security line and he gave me such a thorough pat down that I think we are now engaged.

It would have been unbearable were it not for the staff of Singapore Airlines who met us, mere ticket holders albeit of premium tickets, at the door and whisked us through the crowds and ultimately onto the plane. And once on the plane, I knew exactly how Dante felt once he left Virgil behind and had reconnected after all those years with his old squeeze Beatrice. 

Suffice it to say that it does not appear that Singapore Airlines is even in the same business as American Airlines or United. From the meticulous, exceptionally well-appointed aircraft to a seemingly enthusiastic commitment to service, the airline that was one of the first of the businesses created by the Singapore government when it gained its independence in 1965, is achieving its strategic goal. It makes you want to travel through Singapore on every flight. Treat me like they did last night and I'd be happy to have a Singapore Airlines connection on my next flight to New York from DC. Especially when the only other option is travel on run down U.S. airlines whose flight attendants seem to have been trained under some footbridge somewhere by a particularly obnoxious family of trolls. 

Then you arrive at Singapore's Changi Airport and you are powerfully reminded that the excellence of the airline is not a fluke. This is the best airport in the world, spacious, efficient, and attractive. As such, it is the perfect preparation for Singapore itself, almost certainly the best run political entity on the planet. Admittedly, the country, led from the start by the man who is now known as its Minister Mentor Lee Kwan Yew, has practiced what I would characterize as constrained form of democracy but few places have ever so compellingly made the case that what is trade away in terms of the occasional citation for spitting gum on the sidewalk is more than made up for in a society that is prosperous (Asia's second richest), innovative, and safe.  

It is a government that has led the way by behaving in many ways like a corporation, taking ideas like competitiveness and strategic planning seriously. (At dinner tonight with a senior business executive who is one of the country's great entrepreneurial success stories, she said, "In the beginning, in Singapore, the state was the entrepreneur." And that was said with a genuine appreciation for all the state achieved in that role.) Even in the midst of a global recession it has been seen as not just responsive, but creatively responsive, promoting retraining of workers and focus on new growth industries. 

Part of the credit must go to its unique system of senior government official compensation. Ministers are paid via a formula: two thirds of the average of the eight highest salaries in six key professions (lawyer, accountant, banker, multinational executive, local manufacturer, and engineer). As a result in recent years the president and the prime minister have made in excess of $2 million a year in salary and other ministers in excess of $1 million. The result is that many of the best minds will be found in the government, zero corruption and terrific results. Want an example of the innovation? The president, prime minister, and ministers took an almost one-fifth pay cut this year because of the recession. What? Accountability among public officials? Real incentives? Imagine the loud "gak" you would get out of the U.S. government as they choked on those ideas. 

I could go on regarding the innovation here, and perhaps I will tomorrow, but while we're on the subject of incentives, one last thought. Yesterday, I noticed that in exchange for taking those 17 Uighur terrorists, Palau was getting $200 million from the U.S. government. That's $14 million or so per terrorist. And incentives being what they are, I immediately concluded that I want some of that terrorist action.

I will take 100 of them or however many they have left. 100 will fetch me $1.4 billion. With this I will spend maybe $200 million on a small island on which to house them (and my appropriately comfortable warden's compound). Maybe I could buy Devil's Island from the French space agency -- which apparently currently controls it -- for about that much. Then I would set aside another $200 million to care for the prisoners (at $50K per year for an average of 40 years each that would cover it). And I'll pocket the billion as my fee. Secretary of Defense Gates or his representatives can contact me at FP to work out the details.

luxtonnerre/flickr

Developing further my Airport Theory of Foreign Relations, it is impossible not to marvel at the creativity and industry of the Indians. Arriving after an eight-and-one half-hour-long flight from that shopping mall from Hell also known as Heathrow Terminal Five, we raced into Mumbai for a meeting. Naturally, we were seething with hostility after bad treatment and flying here on what seemed to be the original Boeing 777. In fact, parts seemed to be made from balsa wood suggesting they had been salvaged from earlier aircraft... a de Havilland Jenny for example. 

At any rate, this is the kind of subtle undermining of international relations that our painfully inefficient and unpleasant system of connecting the globe produces. We were ready to be ugly Americans, well-prepared for the job both by circumstances and genetics. 

So, what is rapidly expanding India -- today's papers announced that the country expects to grow in this global economic annus horibilis at the breathtaking rate of 7 percent -- to do with visitors like us? Answer: build in a cool-down period (no mean feat when the temperature is over 90 and everyone is nervously awaiting the arrival of the monsoon season). Where? The highway from the airport. A trip that should take 40 minutes took almost two hours. It was an exceptionally effective buffer. By the time we got to the hotel I could barely muster a sneer at the reception lady when she told me my room wasn't ready. Of course, I'll admit I was subdued somewhat by the sight of the gutted remnants of the terrorist gutted Oberoi which we passed on the way in. (And also by the security we had to pass through just to enter the lobby of this hotel.)

Admittedly, thanks to a tube strike, the city from which we came, London, is also offering massive traffic jams from the airport. The problem is they are also offering massive traffic jams to the airport. And they don't have anything like 7 percent growth to explain the rapidly growing number of cars on the motorways. Nor, of course, do they have anything like the slums that line the route into downtown Mumbai...but I'll admit it, despite the gut-wrenching deprivation in which the slum-dwellers live, it is hard to not to look around at cranes on the horizon or the ubiquity of cell phones (a phone line for life costs $2) or to think of the recent successful elections in this complex country of a billion and not think that India has the wind at its back at the moment. That doesn't minimize the social challenges but it clearly gives a feeling of vitality and hope.

What a relief to be seeing the stories of Manmohan Singh's new government on the front page of the paper and not the stories from the front pages in my last stop noting the electoral success of the BNP, the racist, troglodyte British National Party. America elects an African American. Britain sends haters to the European Parliament. (What a relief that it is a useless organization.) Worse, the papers also noted similar recent right wing successes across Europe. For example the triumph of anti-gypsy nationalists in Hungary. Great to see Europe stepping up to meet the great challenges of our times with these creatures who have crawled out of the shallow end of the political cesspool. 

That said, I can't say that I am that heartened by the news my blackberry keeps sending me from home, either. Can it really be that America is either surprised or interested that Adam Lambert is gay? (Really? Really?!) Can a Washington Post columnist actually be praising Obama for boldly taking a stance against Holocaust deniers (what next, a bold defense of Copernicus?), even as he seems to be allowing the country of those deniers to creep its way into the nuclear club? (If you don't see the irony here, write in and I will draw you a picture.)

is actually going to help either? Chrysler's best minds left after their last merger with Daimler Benz. Fiat doesn't have one single leading international brand. Is it really credible that if one of the world's most successful auto companies (Daimler Benz) couldn't save Chrysler that a combination of one of the world's most mediocre (Fiat) and a bunch of government guys who don't know anything about cars plus some union members who helped screw things up in the first place are going to do it? 

Here in India, taxi drivers talk with palpable pride at the advent of the Tata Nano, a tiny car that is a source of great national pride. Business executives cite the ease with which they meet much higher average gasoline mileage targets than posed in the United States. I mean, I get it, this is a very poor country with a wide range of desperate needs (over 40 percent of Indians don't have access to electricity yet). But you've got to ask which way the trends are pushing us...and you also have to ask why the United States has not made a more urgent priority of dramatically strengthening relations with this country. Such a relationship could not be more central to containing the threat in Pakistan, counter-balancing China, promoting democracy and managing a whole host of global threats from climate to proliferation. To be perfectly honest, I think a lot more real and lasting (rather than symbolic and likely to be fleeting) good would be likely to come from President Obama making a trip to the land of Gandhi than his recent trip to the land of Mubarak and Nasser.

PAL PILLAI/AFP/Getty Images

Among the most hotly debated issues arising from President Obama's speech in Cairo was whether or not he was implying a moral equivalency between the plight of the Palestinians and that faced by the Jews during the Holocaust. He and his team have denied this, but the juxtaposition of ideas in speeches does not occur entirely by accident. Neither does the juxtaposition of stops during presidential trips.

That President Obama went from Cairo to Germany and from a day where the central message was associated with his outreach to the Muslim world to one in which his central message was a commemoration of the Holocaust was purposeful. Frankly, to me it was slightly grotesque. "Ok Jews, if Cairo gave you heartburn here's a little Holocaust for you. Feeling better now?" 

Further, the message delivered by the president at Buchenwald, was as carefully calculated as all his messages are to resonate different ways with different audiences. Again, the juxtaposition of Buchenwald with Cairo colors how we hear words like:

This place teaches us that we must be ever vigilant about the spread of evil in our times. ... We have to guard against cruelty in ourselves. ...And it is now up to us, the living, in our work, wherever we are, to resist injustice and intolerance and indifference in whatever forms they may take and ensure that those who were lost here did not go in vain."

Palestinians will undoubtedly greet those remarks as affirmations of their cause even as Israelis may greet them as a recognition of the lessons of the Holocaust. It is a deft politician who can use such a blend of language, setting and day-to-day context to deliver potent and seemingly supportive message to two deeply divided groups at the same time. 

Whose evil is he referring to? Whose cruelty? He dances with issues of equivalency but never gets so close as to actually embrace them.

This helps him with his outreach to the Muslim world because he seems to be saying the Israelis are hypocrites and while they have used the Holocaust for years to justify the existence of their state and the often tough tactics they have used in defense of it, perhaps we can now join together in using it against them. And for the Jews he says, I feel your pain. 

Indeed, on this trip, for all the talk of Muslims he has sought to take a page out of the playbook of a popular Christian icon, Santa Claus, offering something for everyone. For Muslims the speech, for Jews Buchenwald, for Palestinians tough talk about Israeli settlements, for Israelis talk of an unbreakable bond with the U.S., for anti-Iranians criticism of Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial, for Iranians acknowledgement of their "right" to a civilian nuclear program, for the American right attacks against "violent extremists," for the left no use of George Bush's favorite word "terrorism." And so on.

Thus, while the equivalency debate may continue to boil for some time without resolution (because everyone can hear what they want to or what they fear to in his recent statements), it underscores that the message of this trip seems to be that there is no position so divided that the U.S. cannot be on both sides of it, no group pair of enemies so embittered that we cannot offer support to both sides. While I am willing to accept the Administration's assertion that there was no implied equivalency between the actions of the Israelis against the Palestinians and those of the Nazis against the Jews, I am more troubled by the fact that the President or his team somehow think that leadership and diplomacy require that we view all issues as somehow equivalent...that there is no idea that cannot be bartered for another, balanced by a countervailing thought.

Obama on this trip has become President of Newton's Third Law of Motion. For every action, for every word, there is an equal and opposite reaction...and the United States will embrace both. 

While some may hope to see this as the impartiality of the peacemaker, others might reasonably fear that it is the moral vacuity of a politician who seeks to be all things to all people. As my friend Tom Friedman often says, "just because George Bush or Dick Cheney says something doesn't always mean it is not true."  There are absolutes. There are countries with whom we have greater shared interests than others. There are crimes that are worse than other wrongs. To restore American leadership does not mean having everyone like us. We can take stands that are more difficult and controversial than the President's statements today opposing Holocaust denial and genocide. (Though it might be worth exploring whether we are opposed only to genocide during or after the fact or whether we are willing to actually try to stop those who threaten it...as do the Iranians and the leaders of the militant wing of Hamas in their views toward the destruction of Israel. And by the way, by stopping them I don't mean reprimanding them.)

The answer as to whether Obama ultimately lives up to our hopes or our fears come when his actions illustrate whether there are values we are not willing to negotiate, points that can't be balanced, enemies we are willing to oppose, friends we are willing to stand by even when it is unpopular. Tell me the day that Obama is willing to make his first enemy in order to defend a deeply held principle and I will tell you the day he ascends from being a politician to being a statesman.

JENS-ULRICH KOCH/AFP/Getty Images