According to the eye-opening lead story in today's New York Times, when President Obama gave the order to go get Osama, he also gave the order to go with enough strength to fight off resistance or interference from our Pakistani allies. Which has to trump (in both timeliness and relevance), the story broken by The Guardian detailing how about a decade ago the United States and Pakistan reached a secret deal allowing the U.S. to go into Pakistan after bin Laden ... and Pakistan the right to complain about it afterwards.

It has gotten far beyond face-saving posturing in the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. This was further demonstrated by the sorry effort made by Pakistan's Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani in his first post-raid speech to the Pakistani parliament. His assertion that suspicions of Pakistani complicity in protecting bin Laden were "absurd" sounded just as desperate and hollow as his threats that Pakistan would "retaliate with full force" if the United States violated its sovereignty again. Clearly, per the excellent Eric Schmitt, Thom Shanker, and David Sanger story in today's Times, the United States had anticipated such a response this last time around and come to the conclusion that an extra few dozen troops and two helicopters should just about do it in fending off that threat.

Having said that, the degree of unease with the relationship illustrated by the expectation of possible resistance from the Pakistanis may be a less worrisome sign of how troubled the relationship is than the apparent ok by the president to use force against our nominal ally if it came to that.

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When the United Kingdom's prime minister stands up in front of an elite audience and slams an old friend alongside of whom Britain is fighting the war on terror for its government waste and because too many of that country's richest are getting away without paying much tax at all, it's got to sting. But fortunately for Jeff Immelt and the rest of us here in the United States, David Cameron was in Islamabad and the broken, favoritism-ridden, inefficient system he was excoriating was not the one in Washington but the one that, at least nominally, is responsible for Pakistan.

That said, Cameron is among a rapidly shrinking number of folks who have yet to pile on to the revelations of GE's protracted tax holiday and, by extension, President Obama's appointment of Immelt to be his competitiveness advisor. In fact, my guess is Immelt will not be able to survive indefinitely in his capacity as an informal consultant to the president. When I spoke to two different senior economic officials in the administration about him this morning, they both rolled their eyes and wondered aloud what the White House was thinking when he was picked.

America has produced few better respected senior executives than Immelt. And for an administration that needed better ties with the business community in a hurry, he seemed like an excellent choice. But as one of the officials observed to me, he was a disaster waiting to happen even before the tax hubbub and GE's ties to the Fukushima nuclear calamity became hot topics. Why? Because with so much of GE's revenue coming from outside the United States, it was only a matter of time before the company made a decision to invest in an overseas project that would be seen as sapping American jobs or at least failing to create them.

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While President Obama may have ignored my personnel advice, he may have made excellent decisions anyway. If, as the rumor mill has it, Bill Daley, the former Commerce Secretary is to be the new chief of staff at the White House and Gene Sperling is to replace Larry Summers at the National Economic Council, Obama will have picked two pros who can both provide needed continuity and needed change. Daley knows how to get things done and is well-liked by business people. Sperling has done the job, is exceptionally smart and will run a much more open, inclusive shop than Summers … and empowering the economic cabinet is a key must-do for the Obama team.

David Brooks's op-ed in the New York Times on the uselessness of the pro and con debate about "big government" is half right and half wrong. He's right it does not matter how big or small government is but whether it works effectively and in support of a nation with the will and resources to succeed. But it is half wrong in that within the debate is a question about the appropriate role of government. Here Republicans argue that government should stay out of people's affairs and market's business wherever possible and Democrats are willing to accept a more expansive role. The reality, of course, is that no country can tackle the problems we face as a country without a major role for government. Whether the issue is infrastructure, energy policy, education, fixing what is broken fiscally, ensuring honest and fair markets, protecting the environment or preserving the peace, America's biggest challenges require the government be there and be effective. Right now though the debate sounds like two dating services that are suggesting the choice in the dating market is between Mother Theresa and Snooki. It is not even the right discussion to be having.

While it may not have been very politic for a U.S. battlefield commander in Afghanistan to liken the situation on the ground to a Tom and Jerry cartoon, it offers yet another insight into the futility of the conflict there. Richard Cohen in the Washington Post gets it exactly right when he calls this an unnecessary war and likens our tolerance of it and the public's lack of urgent interest in it to factors which could fuel our national decline, akin to what happened during the fall of the Roman and British empires. He is not overstating it. We're going bankrupt and wasting lives trying to do the impossible for a cause that's un-winnable. Every day we continue to fight in Afghanistan U.S. leaders are abusing the public's trust, killing our young and stealing from their orphaned children to pay for it.

Speaking of bankruptcy, I have a sense that Obama's "air traffic controller moment" will come when a big public pension fund goes belly up and the federal government is asked to step in to bail it out… with a long-line of similar cases on deck. He will face a dangerously slippery slope and public opinion will be heavily for giving the public workers a haircut on their benefits. Obama will face huge pressure from SEIU, one of the most important unions backing him. And he will define whether he is serious or not about pulling the United States out of this mess and getting us back on our feet by whether or not he gives in to that pressure. The right answer is to start negotiating deals downward now, walk the crisis back before it happens, reduce the benefits packages and give the states and municipalities the breathing room they need… or huge lay-offs and deteriorating public conditions are certain to result. Not to mention a big financial crisis.

I have all the respect in the world for Zbigniew Brzezinski. But his op-ed in the Times, in which he calls Chinese Premiere Hu's visit one of the most important in 30 years, while thoughtfully argued, is misleading on that core point. No doubt, the visit is more important than the last because China is more important than the last time the leaders met. However, by the same logic, the next visit will probably be more important. Further, with a leadership change in the offing, the first meetings with the next generation of leaders are almost certain to be more important still. The key issues for the two countries to resolve are longer term in nature and go to the core question of shaping a successful working relationship between two strategic rivals that are also vital partners. Right now, too much of the power in the relationship seems to have swung to the Chinese. The United States must -- through a better understanding of its own national interests and competitive advantages, through marshalling diplomatic support worldwide for its initiatives, and through regaining economic momentum and avoiding international distractions --resume a stronger stance in the relationship. It must resist the temptation to mesmerized by China hype and it must build an international coalition to counterbalance Chinese influence and ensure that before China assumes a greater role on the international stage, it is clear the country is willing to play a constructive role helping to address global challenges from combating proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to maintaining stable financial markets to fighting global warming.

The most important story in the world as 2011 begins: the continuing political unrest in Pakistan, marked by the weakening of the government's coalition over the weekend and the assassination of the prominent governor of Punjab, a Zardari supporter. A political meltdown in Pakistan is the one event that will have great powers worldwide holding their breaths (although further economic meltdown in the Eurozone and in U.S. states and localities is a close second on this watch list.)

The news that Osama bin Laden is -- according to a NATO official -- in hiding in Northwest Pakistan hardly qualifies as a shock. That said, the resurfacing of rumors about the location of the greatest villain of our age reminds us just what a massive story the resurfacing of the man would be. In some respects, the fact that bin Laden is still alive, while a black eye for U.S. intelligence, provides President Obama with what has to be the greatest "Get Out of Jail Free" card in the world. Find and capture or kill Osama at any time during the next two years and Obama sails into a second term.

Oversimplification? Perhaps. But the emotional impact of writing the final chapter on the bin Laden story would be so great, and the coverage of that final chapter would be so over the top, that it's hard to imagine another single development on the positive side of the ledger that could provide greater political lift for the president.

Of course, if catching the elusive al Qaeda mastermind were so easy, it would have been done during the past 10 years. Indeed, the U.S. government has been trying to dispatch him for considerably longer than that -- since the Clinton years. That a guy the size of an NBA guard, one with supposedly complex medical needs, who happens to be the most wanted man on the planet earth, has managed to go to ground in a way that makes Saddam's trip down the spider hole seem poignantly amateurish, is really quite a remarkable achievement. Even more amazing is that despite the fact that he has been out there on the lam for a decade, virtually no one on either side in fractious, no-holds-barred world of U.S. politics is willing to suggest that not finding him is a failure. (With the exception of perhaps Joan Rivers who, as chronicled in the recent documentary about her life, A Piece of Work, suggests that as a dialysis patient he ought to have been fairly easy to find in a country like Afghanistan which, she suggested, had only one electric outlet. Just follow the cord is her recommendation.)

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With new reports of flood-related calamity in Pakistan today, it is time to launch a different sort of international response to the problem in the Indus River Valley. Because as tragic as this disaster that has shattered the lives of perhaps as many as three New York Cities full of people has been, it is really only a prelude to even greater problems.

On one level, those problems are associated with the ever-present possibility of future floods, a threat that exists because of inadequate flood control infrastructure, flood warning mechanisms, and flood response resources within the country. On another level, as highlighted in Steve Solomon's insightful August 15 op-ed in the New York Times, perhaps an even greater problem in the years ahead -- due to both population growth and melting Himalayan glaciers that might even be a culprit in the current disaster -- will be linked to potential water scarcity, droughts, and resulting food shortages in the same region.

But there is a third looming problem, also addressed but not fully explored in Solomon's piece. That is the problem associated with the fact that the waters of the Indus are shared -- which is to say competed for -- by Pakistan and India. The less water for irrigation, drinking and energy production in the region, the more likely it is that there is conflict between these two nuclear states. Indeed, despite the ethnic and political tensions that have existed between these countries since Pakistan's founding, it could well be that water rather than religion or border disputes is the most likely trigger of future fighting, a prospect made deeply unsettling given the arsenal these two massive nations possess.

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For all the debate of Afghanistan and troop levels and strategies and the views of Generals McChrystal and Petraeus, there are two vital facts that have been ignored. First, we are missing the one general who is probably most essential to our ability to ultimately achieve our goals in Afghanistan (including leaving) and we are ignoring the army that will not only be most useful to that general, but also the army that happens to be the largest in both of our Middle Eastern theaters of war.

More troubling still is that the general could have and should have been appointed by the president and approved by the Congress many months ago, but the position has been allowed to remain open throughout a critical period. And the army is more or less entirely within the control of the U.S. government and yet we lack the proper mechanisms to command or control it.

Whether our goal in Afghanistan is counterinsurgency or counterterrorism, whether we are "all in" or "all out" (or something in between), whether we are there for the long haul or the short term, there are nonetheless a few things all can agree upon. We need a stronger central government in Kabul and to become stronger the government will need to better provide services, strengthen existing institutions and win the support of the Afghan people. Infrastructure and economic growth will be key elements of this success formula. As it happens, they are also key elements of the counterinsurgency strategy argued for by General McChrystal as they are essential to both winning hearts and minds and to sending a message that the option we support has more to offer each individual Afghan than do the options offered by the Taliban or by the war lords who favor the kind of perpetual tribalism that has left the country vulnerable and dissolute for centuries. In addition, without creating the conditions conducive to a strong Afghan government, we will have no one capable of Afghanizing ... which is to say, we can't leave without handing the baton to someone else.

Central to our ability to achieve these goals are the people in the U.S. government who are specifically organized to handle post-crisis intervention and reconstruction functions. Unfortunately, despite our regular need for such capabilities, we don't actually have a department or agency that is specifically built and sufficiently supported to achieve these goals. This despite the fact that such interventions have been among the most regular and crucial functions of the U.S. government for decades. Hopefully, Secretary Clinton's QDDR process will produce some recommendations to remedy this.

In the meantime, the next best thing we have is the U.S. Agency for International Development, a worthy but inefficient and often lumbering entity. Nonetheless, it is going to play a critical role in what we do in Afghanistan ... or it can and should play such a role. It also has related and vital roles to play in Pakistan, Iraq and other regions where state failure or state weakening create security as well as humanitarian risks. 

These are the things it has. What it doesn't have is a leader. It is now almost November and the new administration has failed to arrive at a candidate for the job everyone can agree on and who can pass the muster of the absurd vetting processes that now dog would-be senior officials and impede this government's ability to function. We came close a while back but the candidate withdrew his name. There is behind the scenes scuffling over this one, partially because there is a sense the agency needs to change and there is a division of opinion as to whether it should be more independent or more closely integrated into the State Department. (The correct answer is "b." The work of A.I.D. is a critical component of American statecraft and the levers of its function need to be controlled by America's chief diplomat.)

Whenever this missing general is brought on board however -- and one can only hope that it is very, very soon -- he or she is going to have to cope with another reality that is not fully understood by most Americans and which is vital to the function of the U.S. government and to our success or failure in Iraq and Afghanistan. And that is how we get to the phantom army I mentioned earlier.

That army represents the majority of people currently on the ground in those two countries on behalf of the U.S. government and is therefore the largest single force on the ground in our Middle Eastern theaters. It is the army of contractors that have become the Hamburger Helper of American military and diplomatic initiatives in our two current wars. 

One person who does understand this evolving reality is Middlebury College Professor Allison Stanger, author of One Nation, Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of Foreign Policy. The book, now out from the Yale University Press, is a must read for anyone interested in how foreign policy really works in the 21st Century. And it reveals a reality that is radically different from what many expect. Stanger calls Iraq and Afghanistan America's first two "contractor wars" because so much of the work done in each country is being done by cadres of workers reporting not to the U.S. government but to the lowest bidder. She points that the lion's share of AID's budget actually goes to contractors -- that in effect, AID is essentially a contracting agency.

Stanger sees benefits to this approach -- getting the right people for the job, creating efficiencies -- and she sees weaknesses -- Blackwater, anyone? But the vital message of the book is that the system has undergone a massive change but our views of it and the strategies and tactics we apply have not. Nothing makes this point more clearly than the fact that the largest army on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan does not actually report up the chain of command ... or, for that matter, any coherent chain of command. Single capable individuals, like Richard Holbrooke, help mitigate this with energetic management of non-military operations ... but the Holbrookes of this world are few and far between and throwing czars at problems is no way to provide lasting solutions.

To achieve whatever success is possible in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and ultimately the Palestinian Territories and elsewhere is going to require that we address these two problems. First, find that missing general. Then, let's get down to the business of understanding what business we are really in ... and create the strategies and structures we need to make the most of what we've got.

DAVID FURST/AFP/Getty Images

As indicated late last week by the first half of my foreign policy report card, President Obama has put a first class team in place to manage his international agenda and so far they are working well together.   But what about the policies themselves?  It's early yet, of course, but it's worth asking-where have they made their mark and what kind of marks is that likely to get them.

Remaking the American Brand, Grade: A

Job one was slamming the door on the George Bush Era then locking it, boarding it up, doing a "Cask of Amontillado" brick wall on top of that, and then depositing the whole thing in Yucca Mountain for safe keeping.  Related to this was getting out there, introducing Michelle, and letting intelligence, charm and competence tell the story. My belief is most of the world wants to like America so this task was not quite as hard as some had made out (which makes Bush's alienation of the planet all that much more of an accomplishment), but Obama has shined as the new front man for the "new, improved" good old USA. 

North Korea, Grade: B

Oh, right. As if I am stupid enough to evaluate the North Korea policy in the wake of Bill Clinton's historic visit... Well, actually the outcome was easy enough to predict; Clinton wouldn't have gone if the release of the two journalists weren't a pretty sure thing. The North Koreans wouldn't have accepted him if they didn't think it was time to take a little breather (as we periodically do) from all the heavy breathing. But the long-term issues will remain. Clinton himself once said nuclear weapons were North Korea's only cash crop and so they will likely keep playing the game we're used to. Frankly, if Clinton hadn't gone, I think I would have given a D on this front because they have been toying with us on the nuclear issue and our multilateral efforts have been ineffective. Also our policy has been virtually identical to Bush's.  Or maybe I would have given the administration a "C" because I enjoyed Hillary's mudslinging with the Dear Leader a few weeks ago. It was lousy diplomacy but had a higher truth content and more comic content than such exchanges usually do. (Come to think of it, I wonder how our former president and Kim Jong Il handled the "funny lady" who looks like a "pensioner going shopping" comments at dinner tonight?  And however they handled it, if only we could have gotten a glimpse of the "Annie Hall" subtitles that would have revealed what they were really thinking.")

Iran, Grade: C+

The big plus in the current team's policy re: Iran is clearly the move toward engagement. The big negative is clearly the move toward engagement.  They cancel each other out which is why I give them a "C." Engaging with Iran is the right thing to do. This is a country with the greatest possibility of leading the Middle East toward democracy and integration with the west.  It is sophisticated, cosmopolitan and too diverse to pigeonhole just because the views of a few leaders are crazed. (We in the United States should have learned this lesson from how we wanted to be treated when W was at the helm.) But as has been said here before, engagement is a tactic -- not a policy objective. We were so eager to achieve it that we were late in condemning the unrest in the streets in Tehran. And I fear that the success or failure of engagement in Iran will be seen as so central to the President's ultimate foreign policy grade that we may be too accepting of the promises of a regime with almost two decades of history of breaking promises. I give the plus because I think Hillary Clinton leads a group of tough-minded policymakers in the administration on this issue and I think there is still a decent chance we may get the best of both worlds: engagement and the ability to respect ourselves the next morning. 

Israel and Palestinian Territories, Grade: B

As discussed here earlier, we may be on the verge of a historically bad patch in the U.S.-Israel relationship. The United States feels the need to get tough just as an Israeli administration comes in that is inclined to defend the indefensible (which is the expansion of settlements). But frankly, only through such toughness will the United States be able to be an effective intermediary in defusing this chronic crisis.

Also: the administration has been hugely more engaged on this front than their predecessors... which is a big plus. But we have to ask: when push comes to shove, will the administration be as tough with the Palestinians as will be necessary? Will a perhaps too soft stance on Iran create a deeper rift with an Israel with legitimate security concerns regarding a nuclear Iran? My guess is we will make some progress on this front in the next three years...more than at any time since the Clinton days. But now that we have established that we recognized what needed to be changed...we need to prove that we recognize what also needs to be preserved in our relationship with Israel. 

Afghanistan and Pakistan, Grade: D

This is the "Be Careful What You Wish For, War." The administration framed this as the good war during the campaign and now it has become theirs. This is where their military management skills will be tested. This is where their geopolitical mastery will be tested. And, I believe, this is where they will start to fail those tests ... not because they won't be working the issues as hard as possible or putting their best people on the problem. Rather it is because ancient ethnic divisions, geography, religious politics and history make victory ... victory of any sort ... almost impossible. The best we can hope for is to get some bad guys and get out, hand the problems over to locals and forge a partnership with the other great powers in the region, notably India and China to contain the spillage from a place that is likely to be an open wound on the world for decades to come.

Iraq, Grade: B-

Look, Obama was elected to get us out of here and that's what he's doing.  Having said that, watch closely as to what happens as we leave. My sense is a combination of government incompetence and corruption and the intractability of local problems is likely to produce festering unrest that keeps 50,000 or so U.S. troops in this country for...well, maybe not John McCain's 100 years...but a long time. (Which was the point McCain was inartfully trying to make, I think.) And if you want to start a betting pool, I say the over-under on an independent Kurdistan is 2020 and I'll take the under. 

BRICs-Russia: C, China: A-, India: A-, Brazil: B-

The Obama team has made a great contribution by recognizing the rightful place of these emerging powers within whatever organization ultimately succeeds the G8. But the policies with each country have been a mixed bag. The most important of the relationships by far is with China...it's the most important bilateral relationship in the world by far.  Obama has put in place a terrific ambassador, early meetings have gone pretty well and most importantly, the clear message has been sent about the centrality of the relationship. If the Chinese are beating us up a bit on economics well, turn about is fair play...and an important dimension of a relationship among equals. While the Indians gave Hillary a hard time on climate, her trip and the up-coming meeting in Washington with PM Singh suggest this relationship too is entering a new era. The U.S.-India relationship has never been more vital to us or to them ... that's a good thing. So far the relationship with the Russians has left everyone a little uneasy. I happen to think that's roughly how we should feel about the Russians, but it is hard to say the relationship is in especially good shape and we are cutting them a little too much slack. (Did you notice the Russian-Iranian naval exercises a few days ago?)  Lula and Obama have a natural affinity and we are also sending a great ambassador to Brazil but the cave to Sen. Grassley on the ethanol tariff takes away something the Brazilians wanted a lot. So, the future of that relationship will really depend on what the U.S. does to help Brazil claim a larger role on the international stage.

Europe, Grade: B

The Euros started out loving Barack. But the administration dragged its feet on European proposals for major global regulatory reform in finance and the Euros dragged their feet on upgrading their help for the United States in AfPak. It's going to get worse if the "special relationship" we have with the U.K. ... which has been crucial in managing our other relationships in the region ... is damaged because, as seems likely, the next British PM is a guy, David Cameron, who the Obama team is going to have a tough time getting along with. It's going to get worse still if our budget constraints start having us cut back further on our international military activities and more pressure will be applied to Europe to step up. But so far so good on this front and it seems likely that given strong working relationships at the highest level with France and Germany, things should be fine. (Although it's quite a thought: the U.S. could be closer to Sarkozy's France than to Cameron's U.K.)

Latin America, Grade: C

Face it, the U.S. only cares about Latin America when it has to. So far, Obama and company have given Mexico good attention and although the security situation in that country remains unsettled and that could lead to a likely resurgence of a PRI that may be harder for Obama to deal with, it is hard to imagine any U.S. administration handling the relationship better.  There has been slight movement on Cuba. I mark the administration down a whole grade on this point since there should have been major movement on Cuba-the removal of a policy that is so bad I really hate to speak its name.  Sin embargo, even worse are likely to be the consequences of our hesitant policy toward Hugo Chavez. Read the recent NY Times article on what Venezuela has been doing with the FARC in Colombia. Chavez may be a tinpot crackpot but he is working to undermine democracies in the region like Colombia ... and of course, Venezuela ... even as he continues to proclaim his democratic legitimacy. This is a place where the clown show in Trinidad is going to look worse and worse as engagement with this truly bad actor is quickly ruled out.

Africa, Grade: B

So far the administration has made the case that it wants to do more for this relationship. Now, of course, it actually has to do more. Thus far, the issues of the region have gotten precious little bandwidth and the failure to put in place someone to run U.S. A.I.D. hasn't help. So...good message but the proof is in the pudding. (Also, the over-under on the next time we send U.S. troops to Africa is 2015. I'll take the under. In other words: a dangerous policy mistake to watch is under-estimating the geopolitical importance of Africa going forward.)

Multilateralism, Grade: C

High marks are earned for starting to mothball the G8 in favor of the G20.  Low marks for sluggish and limited trade policy, likelihood of a punt in Copenhagen, very limited results at most summits, failing NPT and no good successor in sight, and not very effective use of the UN to date.  (Though that could change I do have a lot of faith in Susan Rice to change it.)

So, there you are. Ruminate. Admire. Cast aspersions. I can take it. Where I am right now Washington seems far far away and I am finding new clarity. (Or possibly suffering from oxygen deprivation.)

Middle: Joe Raedle/Getty Images; Top Right, clockwise: Joe Raedle/Getty Images, Mark Wilson/Getty Images, JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images, KNS/AFP/Getty Images, David Silverman/Getty Images, ALI AL-SAADI/AFP/Getty Images

I don't know about you, but I find it a little peculiar that after an election campaign during which it was regularly argued that Pakistan was one of the most dangerous places in the world -- and after the new administration's very appropriate decision to devote significant new resources to the challenges we face in that country...and after top officials working the issue since almost day one...and despite the fact that throughout this period the country was primarily described as the unstable haven of our terrorist enemies -- it now turns out, rather surprisingly, that there seems to be an organized civil war going on there in which those same enemies were making substantial progress marching on the capital. They are functioning more as a coordinated guerrilla force and the prospect of them picking off multiple provinces of the country (much as the FARC did in Colombia creating pockets of failed or radicalized provinces in the wrapper of a weak state...what you might call a hybrid state) is looming as a real one. 

Even given the fact that Pakistan was the site of one of our greatest intelligence failures of modern history (failing to catch their development of nuclear weapons...a failure that may, in future, look even worse than it does today) it is still surprising to think that we have been viewing this situation so incorrectly for so long. Yet, as evidenced by Admiral Mullen's reactions following his recent trips, the situation has deteriorated dramatically and we seem to have been caught flat-footed. Sure, the Zardari government has now started to make a show of going after the Taliban. And yes, their ambassador Husain Haqqani, an old friend and a good, smart guy with a tough job, had a piece in the Wall Street Journal saying "everything's fine, please send helicopters" yesterday as an attempt to soothe fraying American nerves. But behind the scenes, policy types and military leaders are concerned this country, which is ground zero in many of the worst-case scenario exercises gamed out by national security officials, may be on the verge of spiraling out of control.

That would be a very, very bad thing. What with the nukes and all. Made worse by the fact that the options available to us are slim. The Pakistanis don't want us on the ground. (So instead they get Predator attacks which they don't much like either. And, utterly appropriately, Holbrooke attacks which, as Slobodan Milosevic would tell you...if he weren't deservingly dead...can be worse.) We can't work too closely with our best potential ally in the region, India, because it would only inflame the Pakistanis. And the situation in Afghanistan is also not so great. 

One specter that is raised in my mind is that Pakistan becomes a bit like Cambodia. Everyone has accepted our troops should be on the ground in a neighboring country but the war has shifted across a border and we are now faced with the dilemma of whether or how we should cross that border. The Cambodia thing, by the way, did not turn out so well. (The main difference of course, is that back then the primary war was in Vietnam. Today, it is in Pakistan.)

So what are we left with? Comforted by? Well, by Plan B of course. And to understand that, you have to meet General Plan B: Pakistan's top soldier, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. Kayani, who replaced former President Musharraf as head of the army, is the first Pakistani chief of staff who also headed up their notoriously unreliable (which is to say divided in terms of loyalties) intelligence services, the ISI. He's the default option for DC policy hounds, the guy who steps in when the bell finally tolls for Zardari as it inevitably will. He is the man whose leadership stands between us and 60 or more Pakistani nukes going unsecured, between us and a radicalized Pakistan.  

And the American people will gladly go along with it. It won't be much comfort to Musharraf...in fact, he may find the irony rather galling, but if we could be sure that a strong military government could keep a lid on Pakistan for the foreseeable future we would jump at it. Jump back at it. Take it again.  Democracy schemocracy.  Let's have stability and worry about the details later.  Heck, we're taking a stand against torture that ought to buy us at least this pragmatic diversion from our alleged national ideals, right? At least that is pretty much the conventional wisdom in Washington. (Which, oddly enough, in this case actually makes pretty good sense.)

In fact, looking at the region and the instability in Afghanistan and Iraq, it does not seem farfetched at all to imagine a successful Obama presidency ending with strongmen or juntas in charge of each of these countries. Because the alternatives are messy and unstable at best, requiring more military resources than we can muster or military options we'd rather not consider at worst. 

Ironically, the one country in the region we have not invaded, Iran, may be the one with history and the public discourse most likely to actually produce something like sustainable democracy. (Which as one noted expert in the region suggested to me...somewhat optimistically...could spill over into the political approaches of Hezbollah and Hamas.) It's not on the imminent horizon to be sure, but it is fair to say that Iran has always been a better candidate for stable, functioning democracy than the other three places. 

So, could that be the Obama legacy? Three juntas and a democracy? In these four places? It wouldn't be according to the game plan and we'd have to hold our noses from time to time, but it's worth considering just how welcome such an outcome would be if it produced greater stability and the time we needed to reduce our dependence on the region's oil and contain the region's nuclear and terrorist threats. Come on, admit it, you'd take that deal in a heartbeat.

AAMIR QURESHI/AFP/Getty Images

President Obama is now coming to the end of the candyman phase of his presidency. That's the part where he can play to core constituencies and those whose support he would entertain with big gifts -- stimulus money, tax cuts, and promises of policy changes. It's the part where the booty of an election win is spread around -- jobs are given to loyal supporters, and foreign policy victories are scored simply by telling a once-disgruntled ally what they've long been waiting to hear.

But now starts the hard part. Now, the president must grapple with the tough part of leading -- where friends don't get what they want, where allies are pushed and prodded and threatened and punished if they don't fall into line. When force is required, and all eyes are on the United States and the policy initiatives that are under fire can no longer be blamed on the last president.

To help prepare for this period, here are 10 tough decisions that Obama will face in the very foreseeable future.

1. Cap-and-trade

Will he soon be forced to sacrifice putting a price on carbon for political expediency? Will he actually be willing to trade cap and trade for health care as current conventional wisdom would have it...and then enter into a midterm election year when doing a cap and trade deal may be even harder? Will he be willing to use the classification of carbon as a pollutant as a regulatory bludgeon on this issue hard... and necessary... as that may be on many industries?

2. Failing economy

When the U.S. economy underperforms estimates in the next few years, will he be willing to increase taxes on middle class taxpayers... or exacerbate class tensions by continuing to place all the burden on the most affluent Americans? Where is he willing to make meaningful cuts? Defense? Entitlements? 

3. Necessary roughness

He won't use force in Iran to stop proliferation; that already seems clear. But will he use it to stabilize Pakistan's nuclear arsenal should it come under siege? Or to stop massive slaughter in Central Africa? Where will he be willing to use force in a place that the U.S. is not already engaged in a conflict?

4. Walking the walk

Europeans love hearing a U.S. leader talk multilateralism, but they don't yet seem to realize that when he talks the talk, they have to walk the walk. Will he be willing to confront and pressure them to step up in a way they did not at the last NATO meeting?

5. Open trade vs. U.S. jobs

How and when will he reconcile his promises to the world to maintain open trading systems and his promises to unions to protect American jobs? Since he can't, who is he willing to anger when he backs off his competing pledges? 

6. When the bailouts only go so far...

What will happen when it is clear that GM can't be saved in its present form and the resulting dislocation will knock tens of thousands of people out of work?

7. An uncooperative Israel

What happens when ultimately his desire to mediate in the Middle East and to reduce tension runs up against an ally, Israel say, who is not cooperative? Is he willing to pay the political consequences of confronting the Israeli government? What if they are in the right and Hamas or Iran is clearly the problem? Is he willing to pay the political consequences of getting tough on them?

8. China & Russia

Is the United States willing to accept growing Chinese or Russian influence in the Western Hemisphere due to their engagement and our disengagement? What happens when resource pressures force the United States to say no to big international aid programs at precisely the moment when he and his team want to give more? Is he willing to be unpopular overseas to maintain support at home? 

9. Wall Street

If it is clear that Wall Street firms can't recover without paying Wall Street salaries... or that the administration can't function without actually hiring lobbyists... is he willing to back off his completely understandable but perhaps impractical populist stances on these issues, admit he was wrong and defend a course of action that is unpopular but necessary?

10. No more Mr. Popular

On what issues is he willing to actually be unpopular? Thoughts? (This is only a partial list of course, and your suggestions are welcome.) Personally, I'm willing to bet that he rises to the test and sooner than you would think.

One good sign from my perspective: the apparent decision to hire Harold and Kumar, Van Wilder and "House" star, Kal Penn, to join his public liaison team. After all, who better to get down into the weeds of an issue or to help the president achieve the high highs promised in the campaign than Kumar? Next up: Neil Patrick Harris for surgeon general (why put all that valuable Doogie Howser experience to waste?)

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If there's one thing you've got to love about tough times is: they're tough on everyone. These days, it's not easy even for those who have taken historically proven paths to amassing wealth, fame, power, social acceptance and happiness -- like becoming a billionaire or pope or U.S. Treasury secretary or an Austrian sadist. Admittedly, it's hard to work up too much sympathy for most of these mighty who have fallen, but sympathy is not the only reason to reflect on their fates. There are also the cautionary lessons offered up by their Icarus-like descents. Nah, who are we kidding? That's for some other blog. There are only two real reasons to revisit these stories. It's fun to watch the bastards squirm. And because recently the headlines have been filled with so many prominent people who for one reason or another are royally screwed, we want to know: Who's the most screwed? Which of these figures who have chosen a well-worn path to the limelight, has done the most damage to their own reputations and the lives of those around them?

Here are thirteen choices from this month's headlines ranked by just how little sympathy we should have for them:

13.) Edward Liddy

The only reason this guy is on the list is that his career is probably finished simply because most people will forever associate him with A.I.G. But while the company has already joined Enron, Long Term Capital Management, Drexel Burnham Lambert and Blue Horseshoe in Wall Street's Hall of Infamy, Liddy himself is something like a hero, coming to work for a dollar a year as a public service in the most thankless job in the global business community.  (And what is Blue Horseshoe? Hint: "Blue Horseshoe loves Anacot Steel.")

12.) Forbes Billionaires List

According to Forbes, the official magazine of Wall Street greed, the world's billionaires managed to misplace $1.4 trillion in the past year, their ranks thinning from 1125 to 793. Their average net worth has fallen by almost a quarter to only $3 billion. Both Warren Buffet and Carlos Slim each lost $25 billion. One, Adolf Merckle, ended up killing himself. Former Wall Street titans like Hank Greenberg and Sandy Weill fell completely off the list as did Facebook wunderkind Mark Zuckerberg. But Zuckerberg is only 25 and still has $900 million left. So as far as sympathy goes this is pretty much a mixed bag. The reality is that these days even a few hundred million gets you pretty far so let's not lose too much sleep over them. (The reason they are this low on the list is not because I feel sympathy for them... it's because I feel considerably less for everyone else on the list.)

11.) Eliot Spitzer

Poor Eliot. If only he had kept it in his pants, this would have been his moment. One can hardly imagine what is making his life worse right now, the fact that the A.I.G. scandal and the collapse of Wall Street could have been his apotheosis, the moment the howling dogs of ambition in his breast might have finally gotten enough red meat of press exposure... or the fact that his wife Silda has stood by him and thus will have the moral high ground in his marriage until he dies. Admittedly, while Spitzer unzipped his own career, his worst violation did not come against the public but against his family.

10.) Gordon Brown

It's hard to hate Gordon Brown. In fact, it's hard not to feel bad for the guy. This is due in part to the fact that he is Britain's first prime minister who is also part basset hound. Also, he had to follow Tony Blair who was quite telegenic and appealing, particularly in that phase of his career when he was being played by Michael Sheen. (Less so later when he was being played by one of George W. Bush's hand-puppets.) Still, Gordon did accept the job of PM, did screw it up to a fare-thee-well and now is on the verge of blowing his last big moment on the public stage as he prepares to host a G20 Summit that is very likely to realize somewhere between zero and few of his grand ambitions for it. 

9.) Bibi Netanyahu

The fact that a man President Clinton's White House spokesman once called "one of the most obnoxious individuals you're going to come into -- just a liar and a cheat" has managed to bring himself to the verge of returning as Israel's prime minister is something of an amazing feat. Although perhaps not so much if you are familiar with what people in Israel euphemistically call politics. But Netanyahu assured that he was lost before he even took office by teaming up with racist boor Avigdor Lieberman. Together the two may fight so hard to protect Israel that they irreversibly weaken it.

8.) A.I.G. Bonus Babies

The NY Times writes, "Residents who had been pillars of Connecticut towns are finding themselves the focus of populist rage." But shouldn't we have hated them already for even wanting to be pillars of Connecticut towns? I mean, these people actually chose to become insurance executives and live in John Cheever hell just to become wealthy? Didn't they see The Ice Storm. Oh, the humanity! I hate them for their stale dreams more than I do the fact they squandered one of the great names of Wall Street while gaming both global financial markets and the American taxpayer. 

7.) Ben Bernanke

In ancient societies, dark uncontrollable forces were placated by throwing virgins into volcanoes. In Washington, the ritual involves throwing officials under the bus. (The bus is implacable but near-sighted.  As it approaches one victim, it will be at least temporarily satisfied if that victim throws someone else in its path.) Edward Liddy was in front of the bus this week during Congressional hearings and at the last minute, threw Bernanke in its path by saying the Fed knew everything A.I.G. was doing re: bonuses. But later the bus claimed other more delicious victims and Bernanke escaped... then he announced the U.S. government was going to print a trillion dollars in monopoly money to stem the crisis. Inflation was a near certainty before... now it will be Bernanke's inflation. No one will even remember he had anything to do with A.I.G. ... and that won't be a good thing.

6.) Tim Geithner

Sadly for Tim Geithner, he even looks like a sacrificial lamb. Earnest, brilliant, trying his best, he will never be able to escape the fact that he is one of the few who will get the blame for both the misguided Bush era bailouts and the false-starts of the Obama administration. Every time there is a mistake, the bus will head in his direction. Obama says he has confidence in Geithner. That is exactly what they said about Tom Daschle before they pulled the plug on him. Heck, Obama said he would no sooner disown Jeremiah Wright than his own grandmother shortly before he disowned him, as they say, with prejudice. Geithner might survive, but he has been wounded. The good news for the economy: sometimes they say people who have been through near death experiences actually develop psychic powers.

5.) Asif Ali Zardari

Zardari was known to be a bad guy long before he became Pakistan's president. Many of the closest friends of his late wife, Benazir Bhutto, could not stand him. Now, as it turns out, neither can most of the Pakistani people. Locked in a bitter struggle with opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, Zardari showed his weakness by capitulating to demands to reinstate Pakistan's former Chief Justice per Sharif's demands. Now in a desperate attempt to reassert control of his own party he may be plotting the ouster of his Prime Minister according to Indian press reports. He's on the ropes, his opposition is gaining strength, and meanwhile fraught, dangerous, complex Pakistan is hardly being governed at all.

4.) Chris Dodd

The Nutmeg State's longest-serving senator got his job the old-fashioned way, he [effectively] inherited it from his father, Sen. Thomas Dodd. He is also now virtually certain to lose it the old-fashioned way, as a result of a combination of arrogance, corruption, lying, and misreading the mood of the times. From his questionable home-mortgage finances to the comedy of errors this week when he denied having anything to do with legislative provisions allowing the A.I.G. bonus then blamed it on his staff then blamed it on the Treasury, Dodd is serving himself up on a silver platter to his opponents. And none of that even addresses the issue that as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee he was at the center of a fat-donations-from-Wall Street-equals-zero-oversight-from-Congress culture that helped get the world into this mess in the first place.

3.) Bernie Madoff

What more can you say about Bernie? For a decade and a half he went to bed every night knowing that he was lying, cheating, faking trades, committing fraud, and putting his and countless other families at grievous risk. And yet he lived his life like a king, like the former chairman of the National Association of Securities Dealers that he was, with yachts and mansions in the Hamptons and Mayfair. In fact, noted judge of character and bankruptcy-addict Donald Trump said "he was a pretty respected guy." That says it all.

2.) The pope

To non-believers he may be just a creepy old ex-Hitler Youth member who wears funny clothes and has appalling values, but to Catholics he is so much more than that. For example, according to one Vatican insider quoted in the U.K.'s Daily Telegraph newspaper, "he's out of touch with the real world" and his papacy is "a disaster." Another is reported to have said he "is isolated and fails to adequately consult his advisors." At least. His Africa trip pronouncement that condoms not only don't help the fight against AIDS but that their distribution actually "aggravates the problems" is not just a PR nightmare for the Holy See; delivered on the continent where both AIDS is most rampant and the Church is growing fastest, it is a formula for massive death and suffering.

1.) Josef Fritzl

Back in the good old days, when Joseph Alois Ratzinger was a little boy, being an Austrian sadist was a surefire path to the top, it could lead anywhere, perhaps even to world domination. But today, Austrians are outraged that one of their own could have locked his daughter in the basement, made her his sex slave, and killed one of the seven children he had with her. Which is really bad. Austria has changed, you see. There is no tolerance for twisted brutality there anymore. Well, less. In fact, fewer than a third of Austrians voted for the hate-spewing, neo-fascist extreme right parties like the Freedom Party and the Alliance for the Future. And while cynics (Jews or Muslims) might point out that this was the same proportion of the population who voted for Austria's leading party, the Social Democrats, their point is undercut by the fact that it was only a relatively few Austrians who honor Nazi heroes in public ceremonies on the anniversary of Kristalnacht or who have participated in nasty little rituals like the recent unfurling of a Nazi flag in Hitler's hometown of Braunau. No, there is no place for a Fritzl in modern Austria and so he will be sent to a psychiatric prison for the rest of his life. But one must wonder, is the outrage because of his crimes, because they were against fellow Austrians or because he thought so small?

This post has been modified since posting.

TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images; ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/Getty Images; Mario Tama/Getty Images; Chris Hondros/Getty Images

One area in which the Obama administration is carrying forward a long tradition has to do with the vital issue of national security memo naming and acronym establishment (NSMNAE). Administration after administration has felt it was absolutely vital to discard the memo names and acronyms established by their predecessors in order to make their mark with brand new and different memo names and acronyms that communicate that it is a new day in America, a safer day, a more powerful day.

In Washington, everything tastes better wrapped in a new acronym. In Presidential Security Directive 1, President Obama memorably asserts:

This document is the first in a series of Presidential Policy Directives that, along with Presidential Study Directives, shall replace National Security Presidential Directives as instruments for communicating presidential decisions about national security policies of the United States."

So now, knowledgeable insiders will refer in short-hand to PPDs and PSDs instead of outré and so-five-mintues-ago NSPDs or even more outmoded Clinton Era Presidential Decision Directives (PDDs) and Presidential Review Directives (PRDs). Not to mention the antiquated National Security Decision Directives (NSDDs), National Security Decision Memorandums (NSDMs), National Security Presidential Directives (NSPDs), National Security Study Directives (NSSDs) or National Security Study Memorandums (NSSMs) or Presidential Review Memorandums (PRMs) of the past. Clearly, we are all, deep inside, the children we once were and this whole memo-naming exercise is a message from each President to the world that "it's my NSC and I will play with it any way I want to."

Of course, PPD 1 does more than just carry forward this great American tradition of leadership. Like other such establishing memos, it importantly determines who will have their seat at the situation room conference table reserved for them by a small nameplate that whispers (authoritatively) that they are a member of the inner circle. At least, that's what they think it whispers. In the case of this NSC, maybe not so much. Because the most notable take-away from PPD 1 is that the Obama administration is going to be really inclusive. Too inclusive, in fact, to work as laid out in the memo.

The NSC shall have as its members the President, Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and Secretary of Energy, as prescribed by statute. In addition, the membership of the NSC shall include the Secretary of the Treasury, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations, the Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff (Chief of Staff to the President), and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (National Security Advisor). The Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as statutory advisers to the NSC, shall attend NSC meetings. The Counsel to the President shall be invited to attend every NSC meeting, and the Assistant to the President and Deputy Nation Security Advisor shall attend every meeting, and serve as Secretary.

When international economic issues are on the agenda of the NSC, the NSC's regular attendees will include the Secretary of Commerce, the United States Trade Representative, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, and the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. When homeland security or
counter-terrorism related issues are on the agenda, the NSC's regular attendees will include the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counter-Terrorism. When science and technology related issues are on the agenda, the NSC's regular attendees will include the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. The heads of other executive departments
and agencies, and other senior officials, shall be invited to attend meetings of the NSC as appropriate."

That's quite a group. But if history is any indication, official meetings of the NSC will take place infrequently at first and then become even less frequent. Principals Committee meetings (which are meetings of the NSC at which the president is not present and where the National Security Advisor chairs) happen more often and in the Obama years, these will also include, in addition to everyone cited above, the participation of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Deputy Secretary of State and the Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs.

They may have to add stadium seating in the situation room. Now, bloating the membership of the NSC is not an Obama administration innovation. (And it is getting pretty bloated, particularly when you consider that the NSC's statutory membership started out as the President, Vice President, Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense.)

The group has, over time, consistently gotten steadily bigger, even as specifics ebbed and flowed with each administration. As a consequence, what also has happened over the years, as the group gets bigger and bigger, is that these bigger formal structures have proved unwieldly and the really key work has been done in smaller groups whether they are informal lunchtime conversations with the President or small regular phone groups between the National Security Advisor, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, which have been a common feature in recent administrations.

The other group where the heavy lifting of policy making is done is the Deputies Committee. As in the past, this memo indicates that this group will consist of Deputy Secretaries and agency heads, but it won't. Soon under secretaries and others who actually know the briefs being discussed will work their way in and ultimately will be far more regular attendees at most of these meetings.

Reading between the lines, this memo further underscores what is already becoming apparent -- this is very much a White House centric administration. Obama, Biden, Jim Jones, Rahm Emanuel, Greg Craig (who one imagines might be behind the language that specifies the White House Counsel "shall be invited to attend every NSC meeting"), and Jones Deputy National Security Advisor Tom Donilon will be fixtures at every meeting. Then, given the nature of the world, the heads of the big White House economic team will also be in many. Notably, also, the PPD also sets up Jones to be the real driving force behind these processes which puts him in a position to be, after Obama, the single most important voice in shaping U.S. national security policy. (A role he is strengthening via his shrewdly managed lowish profile, emulating the gold standard among National Security Advisors, Brent Scowcroft.) Adding U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, formerly one of the President's top campaign advisors, and some of these other White House voices to the mix while also firmly establishing Jones's primacy in terms of process coordination might be seen as something of a dilution of the power of the Secretary of State who is certainly one among many in this throng. While you might say the same about the voice of DoD, with Gates, Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen and two former four-stars, Jones and Denny Blair, in every meeting you imagine the voices of the defense community will be heard.

In a related development, the White House has also produced its first Presidential Study Directive (PSD-1), launching an internal review to be run by counter-terror advisor John Brennan designed to evaluate whether or not to trash can the Homeland Security Council and fold its operations into the NSC where they belong. This is kabuki theater designed to protect the White House from anti-terror zealots who will inevitably criticize them for being soft on terror when they do the right thing and get rid of this duplicative council. Nobody, including some of the folks who served on the council with whom I have spoken, thought it added much value (beyond the appearance of elevating the issue) and the idea of separating overseas threats (most of which are covered by the NSC) from defending the homeland is, well, absurd and rather dangerous.

Reading about the Pakistani government's decision to free notorious nuclear weapons technology proliferator A.Q. Khan, it was hard not to wonder if we had any enemies in the world more dangerous than some of our "friends." That Khan's misdeeds have not yet resulted in the use of a nuclear device by a terrorist group or a rogue state is fortunate but almost irrelevant in that someday they almost surely will contribute to just such a tragedy. The likes of Khan should not be walking the streets.

Last week, Dick Cheney worried aloud in an interview that the United States would in the not-too-distant future be attacked by terrorists armed with WMDs. He characterized such a threat as "high probability" and said "That's the one that would involve the deaths of perhaps hundreds of thousands of people, and the one you have to spend a hell of a lot of time guarding against." He went on to say: "Whether or not they can pull it off depends whether or not we keep in place policies that have allowed us to defeat all further attempts, since 9/11, to launch mass-casualty attacks against the United States."

While there is certainly a strong element of legacy-defending in such statements and more than a hint of that dark Cheney worldview that fed into so much Bush era malfeasance, to paraphrase my pal Tom Friedman, just because Cheney says it doesn't mean it isn't true.

Sitting opposite a senior national security type who is close to President Obama the other day, I asked what he thought about the comments. His response was fairly dismissive. "Yes, well, it's a high probability event if you mean sometime in the indefinite future."

While this was a serious, thoughtful guy, I certainly hope he was not providing a glimpse into the current administration's worldview. The stakes are too high for complacency on any level including the fact that if the president gets everything else right and this wrong, he will be judged a failure -- especially given the warning delivered on September 11, 2001.

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