The Obama administration is in the midst of doing something rather extraordinary. While most of the U.S. government and frankly, most major governments worldwide, are mired in a swamp of political paralysis, victims of their own inaction, the president and his national security team are engineering a profound, forward-looking, and rather remarkable change.

It is addressed directly in National Security Advisor Tom Donilon's column in today's Financial Times entitled "America is back in the Pacific and will uphold the rules." It has been manifested in the president's recent trip to Asia and it will be further underscored through Secretary of State Clinton's historic trip to Myanmar later this week.

Superficially, this shift can be and might be perceived to be what Clinton has called "the pivot" from the Middle East to Asia as the principal focus for U.S. foreign policy. But as Donilon's brief article effectively communicates, this shift is far more sweeping and important than has been fully appreciated.

In the beginning of the article, he writes that presidents must struggle to avoid become so caught up in crisis management that they lose sight of the country's strategic goals. Listing the astonishing array of crises President Obama has faced, Donilon then notes that he has nonetheless managed to pursue "a rebalancing of our foreign policy priorities -- and renewed our long-standing alliances, including NATO -- to ensure that our focus and our resources match our nation's most important strategic interests." Asia, he asserts, has become "the centerpiece" of this strategy.

As the article goes on it reveals dimensions of this pivot that have gotten less attention than the simple but nonetheless refreshing restatement of the Obama administration's recognition that -- to oversimplify for contrast's sake -- China is more important to America than Iraq. Because while Donilon writes of regional security agreements and the decision by the administration to embark on a "more broadly distributed, more flexible and more sustainable" defense strategy in the Pacific Basin, what is striking about the article is how often the words it uses and the subjects it references are economic in nature.

Donilon speaks of our priorities in the region as tying to "security, prosperity and human dignity." He defines security needs in terms of concerns about commerce and navigation. He talks about alliances as being "the foundation for the region's prosperity." And he makes a core point of saying that "As part of an open international economic order, nations must play by the same rules, including trade that is free and fair, level playing fields on which businesses can compete, intellectual property that is protected everywhere and market-driven currencies."

Establishing, observing and enforcing international rules are another core theme of the piece and of the statements that Obama, Clinton, Donilon, and others have regularly been underscoring.

Read on

America's special relationship with the United Kingdom began at conception. We were born as a nation of British stock and despite periodic tensions and the occasional war, we have built and deepened the relationship until it has become one of the closest on the planet. But being a special relationship and being especially important are two different things and it may be that another special relationship is brewing that in the 21st century could transcend that with Britain.

That said, Brits can take comfort. This newly ascendant relationship remains within the extended family of their former colonies.

Currently, President Obama is on his first official visit to Australia. So far, during his stay, he has sent several clear messages that America's almost always warm relationship with our cousins down under is getting warmer and is being seen by this White House as strategically more important than ever. His interactions with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard have been characterized as especially warm. He has described America's shifting focus to the Asia-Pacific region that is increasingly be presented as the centerpiece of this administration's foreign policy. And, backing up his assertion that the region is "of huge strategic importance to us", the President and Gillard have announced a new defense deal that will establish a U.S. military presence in Darwin and will deepen and enhance cooperation between the two nations' air forces.

There is no coyness about why a United States that is pulling back from other deployments around the world is establishing this new relationship. While Obama has said that the presence is not intended to contain China, there is no question that it is intended to both counterbalance what is seen as China's growing military clout and in particular to assure the ability to control key regional sea lanes. One of Obama's security deputies asserted that the deal was struck in direct "response to demand" from China's neighbors.

Britain's importance to the United States through most of the last century was due in large part to her strategic location off the coast of Europe, the area of America's principal economic and political interests. That Britain, though a fading empire, was still one of the world's most powerful nations and one that was deeply tied to America in almost every conceivable way, added to the "specialness" of the relationship.

While Australia is not as closely integrated with the U.S. economy as Britain nor is it as militarily powerful -- spending less than half of what Britain does on defense -- it does have a few things going for it. Much as Britain was the most natural ally in the European region, so too is Australia the most natural in the Asia-Pacific region. Its location -- near to Asia but separated by the sea -- offers a similar set of strategic advantages. It has cultivated close regional relationships and can be an effective interlocutor -- in some ways more effective than outlier Britain can be in the context of modern Europe (whatever that is). Moreover, with China and the rest of Asia on the rise, Australia is only likely to grow in significance and potential value as an ally.

What Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are doing in Asia is as clear as it is deft. They are making China the centerpiece of their efforts, engaging deeply across a wide range of issues. They challenge where they feel they should. They cooperate wherever they can. And thus they are managing to deepen what is clearly the most important bilateral relationship on the planet. Meanwhile, through efforts like that in Australia, they are strengthening the U.S. position throughout Asia -- from the Koreas to Japan, across ASEAN, and on to India and the sub-continent. In all this, the old ties of empire give special place and ease of dealing to relations with the Australians, the Indians, and the Singaporeans. It is hard to see how these relationships will not continue to grow in significance during the decades ahead -- perhaps to a time when the relationship between two or more of England's stroppier colonies end up being more important than those any of them share with the "mother country."

(By the way, as a closing footnote, it should be noted that Secretary Clinton, who has played a central and effective role in these efforts working closely with the NSC team and a Department of Defense for whom this shift in focus has long been a top priority, is currently enjoying yet another affirmation of her special role in the cabinet having just won the top ranking among all senior members of the Obama team in the Partnership for Public Service's rating of leadership performance.)

If you have been wondering where America's Commerce Secretary was, I have finally found the answer. Hillary Clinton ate him.

The evidence for this assertion is that once again Hillary Clinton has demonstrated just the kind of leadership and insight into international economic policies that one might hope for from a Commerce Secretary if Congress actually thought the position important enough to confirm one.

Of course, I am kidding. About Hillary Clinton eating the Commerce Secretary. Not about anyone thinking the job was important enough to fill. Clearly, the Republicans in Congress don't seem to think that confirming a business leader like John Bryson to add needed heft and his considerable and useful experience to the President's team is a good idea in the middle of the kind of economic crisis we are currently enduring.

No, I make the comment about Clinton because once again she has stepped up and shown herself to be both an innovative Secretary of State and President Obama's most valuable cabinet member. For the second week in a row she is devoting her Friday to demonstrating how central she sees economic work to be to the job of the State Department and the international standing of the United States. Last week, the interaction turned on a meeting with the President's job council at which the focus was how to help America grow through international economic engagement, such as the smart initiative led by her Under Secretary Bob Hormats to promote more foreign investment in the United States. (It's what I call the OPM Stimulus...in which OPM stands for "other people's money.")

Today, Clinton spoke at the Economic Club of New York, delivering a speech entitled "Economic Statecraft for a New Era." The speech is part of a series of four she is delivering on key themes of this key dimension of the administration's foreign policy agenda. As she noted in the speech, according to a pre-delivery draft I reviewed:

...Economic forces are transforming foreign policy realities around the globe. We have seen governments toppled by economic crisis. Revolutions born in a Tunisian marketplace have swept across an entire region. Europe faces its strongest test in a generation, thanks to recession and debt. And everywhere I travel, I see countries gaining influence not because of the size of their armies, but because of the growth of their economies.

She then went on to say,

Simply put, America's economic strength and our global leadership are a package deal. A strong American economy has long been a quiet pillar of our power in the world. It gives us the leverage we need to exert influence and advance our interests. It gives other countries confidence in our leadership and a greater stake in a deeper partnership with us. And over time, it underwrites all the elements of "smart power": robust diplomacy and development and the strongest military the world has ever seen.

The speech turned on four key points -- that the administration is "updating foreign policy priorities to include economics every step of the way", that the State Department is "honing" its "ability to find and execute economic solutions to strategic challenges" (from energy to supporting democracy in the Middle East), that the Obama team is "modernizing our agenda on trade, investment and commercial diplomacy to deliver jobs and growth", and that they are focusing on the challenge of growing wealth being wielded by state controlled funds and companies.

That a Secretary of State asserts an economic agenda is not news. Clinton's predecessors have regularly done so and the reality of course is that economics has always played a big role in foreign policy from wars fought over oil to the centrality of revitalizing economies to enhance security as during the Marshall Plan. That a leading figure in a government whose fate depends on job creation and restarting growth would raise such an issue is also not that shocking. What makes this speech different is that Clinton is not just talking the talk she is walking the walk, restructuring State to enhance its economic resources significantly, placing economic issues more central to our policies in places like the Middle East where promoting reforms that create opportunity is seen as a better alternative than say, invasion, when it comes to enhancing stability, mobilizing her team and embassies around the world on these issues and simply by actually credibly engaging with the business community in a way that has eluded many of her predecessors.

Like her excellent Hong Kong speech regarding the administration's "pivot" toward Asia-another element of foreign policy with important economic consequences and in which economics is among the most vital levers -- the New York Economic Club leader provides among the very best examples of the Obama Administration taking its international economic policies and putting them in a coherent framework. Take Clinton's good work in this regard, the recent trade deals and Tim Geithner's excellent and, one might add, courageous engagement with the Europeans in the recent crisis, and you have the most impressive sustained international economic initiative the U.S. has mounted in years.

And early in this administration it was hardly a foregone conclusion there was ever going to be such an initiative. I recall eating a soggy tuna fish on whole wheat toast sandwich in the White House mess with a former senior Obama official who said, "this administration isn't like we were back in the Clinton administration. Back then, international economics was one of our central priorities. Today, it seldom comes up except in terms of financial markets." That was in the wake of the 2008-2009 crisis and the focus on stimulus and health care had put domestic issues center stage. Inevitably however, what has happened is that the administration has come to realize that there are no such thing as domestic economic issues that don't have important international components -- nor are there security interests worldwide without economic components.

The Clinton speech therefore is not only a sign of a successful Secretary of State continuing to work to reinvent the department she leads -- to "think different" in the words of Steve Jobs which she quoted in today's remarks -- it is also the sign of an administration maturing and developing better priorities and vital competencies where they are needed. (Although it still might help to have a Secretary of Commerce. I'm just sayin'...)

In fact, the Clinton speech has to be seen as a big success except for one egregious error. Seeking to describe the changes she seeks within State, Clinton asserted, "We need to be a Department where more people can read both Foreign Affairs and a Bloomberg Terminal." I get the bit about a Bloomberg Terminal. But I think she misspoke. A really forward-thinking State Department should probably be turning to a different foreign policy-focused media organization, don't you think?

While America sleeps, I awake early this morning on the banks of the Isis River, here in Oxford, England. Outside my window are the dreaming spires of the university has been here for the last 12 centuries or so dominated, from where I sit, by the weatherworn dome of the Radcliffe Camera. The Rad Cam, as it is known, is a massive, round library built by John Radcliffe, physician to William & Mary, and a man known as much for his fondness for good drink as he was for his medical accomplishments.

Another thing for which old Radcliffe was known was his apparent allergy to reading which led him to actually keep an alarmingly small library for a doctor thus creating some considerable amusement among his friends and colleagues when he endowed the library that ultimately became the russet-colored landmark I can see outside my window at the moment.

This phenomenon of making a bold gesture in the opposite direction of your fundamental impulses is known in the psychological line as reaction formation. It is what causes people who hate to fly to get their pilot's licenses and people with a fear of big cats to become lion tamers. It may also be to the old "there's no zealot like a convert" phenomenon or the fact that many people who were once fat become the most intolerant sort of fattists.

I can check at least two of those boxes and, although I haven't piloted a plane for years, I still have more than the usual intolerance for fatsos. This is due to the fact that up until two years ago I weighed 75 pounds more than I do today and if I didn't allow myself the privilege of being critical of those who are unable to push away from the table at the proper moment, than I fear I will be sucked back into the gravitational pull of my old midsection -- which, as it happens, bore a remarkable resemblance to Radcliffe's monument to himself over there in the shadows of the Bodleian. (In terms of roundness and prominence ... not orangeness.)

As a consequence of this particular one of my many defects ... and six years spent on the advisory board of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health ... I am acutely aware of the threat posed to America's health, finances, and general appearance by the obesity epidemic that has swept the country. Today the obesity rate in the United States is ten times that what it is in say, Japan. Fully a third of Americans are obesity and the costs to the country of caring for these self-indulgent loads is breaking us as surely as would giving them all piggy-back rides. In fact, that's what we are doing ... because they will require more doctor's care, medication, time in hospital, treatment for diabetes, for heart disease, cancer and countless other maladies brought on by over-eating ... we're all going forced to carry them on our fiscal backs for the next few decades.

For this reason, it was with great admiration and delight that I read of Europe's latest innovation that America should immediately and unhesitatingly adopt. As usual, it comes from the smarter half of Europe (the cooler, northern portions) which, while not necessarily the half where I would prefer to spend my summer vacations, does regularly come up with good ideas that are worth adopting (the Magna Carta, the location of the ignition on the Saab, many kinds of herring, that kind of thing). In this case, it is the Danes who have made the latest breakthrough. It is described in an article in the Guardian entitled "Body blow for butter-loving Danes as fat tax kicks in."

As of today, "Danes who go shopping today will pay an extra 25p on a pack of butter and 8 p on a packet of crisps, as the new tax on foods which contain more than 2.3% saturated fats comes into effect. Everything from milk to oils, meats and pre-cooked foods such as pizzas will be targeted. The additional revenue raised will fund obesity fighting measures." Apparently ... and without a hint of irony ... the country that led the way on this was Hungary, land of my grandmother's matzoh balls, which "recently imposed a tax on all foods with unhealthy levels of sugar, salt and carbohydrates, as well as goods with high levels of caffeine."

This resonates here in Britain, which is the tubbiest country in Europe with, according to estimates cited in the article, 70 percent of the country destined to be obese or overweight by mid-century, which does not bode well in the looks department for a country that is already known for bad teeth and fly-away hair. And it should resonate in America, land of the Fat Burger and KFC's double down sandwich consisting of two pieces of fried chicken on either side of a bacon cheeseburger.

We love you Chris Christie. We feel your pain. And we have to help you. The United States needs new taxes like it needs about an hour a day in the gym. This is a place to start. It is good public health policy. It is good fiscal policy. And it resonates with the words of one of England's great thinkers, worth recalling as I look out over dawn at the world's greatest university. It was Kate Moss, I believe who said, "nothing tastes as good as being thin feels."

New York at U.N. General Assembly meeting time operates with the kind of fevered intensity of a B movie with just about as much artificial drama. Layers upon layers of security guards and police and blockades and magnetometers stir up congestion and resentment and tension even before you enter the rooms full of government officials and the coteries of aides who follow them around like the cloud of dust at Pigpen's feet.

This year, of course, the central drama centered on the Palestinian bid for statehood and how, if at all, it could be managed so it was not a huge setback to Israel and a huge embarrassment to the United States. In the hotel in which I am staying, some of the principals in this drama were camped out buzzing about the latest rumors and fretting that events were spinning out of their control.

Thus far the drama is unresolved. President Obama gave a speech that managed to thread the needle offering a string of formulations designed to resonate well in Israeli ears, Palestinian ears, and, most importantly, in the ears of those (comparatively few) American voters who really cared enough to be following this particular episode of the Real Diplomats of New York City. The Palestinians appeared unmoved. The Israelis seemed pleased. Obama went on to his next event, at the Clinton Global Initiative.

Yet for all the familiarity of the arguments that both separate and bind together the Israelis and the Palestinians, there was something different about the feel of this particular minuet.

The Palestinians had clearly taken the initiative and set the statehood vote drama in motion. The Israelis, knocked back on their heels at first by the Palestinian move, regrouped and launched a political offensive in the United States (as well as around the world) to seek support. As the New York Times reported yesterday in its on target story "Netanyahu's Ties to G.O.P. Grow Stronger", the Israelis deftly reached out to key U.S. Republicans to win support and succeeded in generating enough that the President felt the pressure. If he did not line up with Israel in the clearest possible way, he might well lose a key part of his base in swing states like New York or Florida. At the same time, Europeans and major emerging powers all staked out their positions, most in direct or indirect opposition to the United States and the Israelis.

America, once the orchestrator of Middle East peace talks, always until now a prime driver behind the scenes, had assumed a new, much more reactive role. While the Obama team worked furiously behind the scenes, at every turn, it was responding to someone else's moves. It's own initiatives largely seemed to fall flat or come a little late.

The Obama Administration has been dramatically more engaged in the peace process than was the first term Bush Administration. So this may be part of a longer term trend. But in any event, America now seems to be a less influential actor than it has been for most of the modern history of the Arab-Israeli relationship.

That doesn't mean President Obama's remarks struck a wrong note or that U.S. diplomats don't have an important role to play in this process as it moves forward. It is just that amid the frenzy of this U.N. General Assembly week, one gets the impression that much of the most important work is getting done in rooms where the Americans are not present.

I think I am pregnant. It's not that I am putting on weight. It's the morning sickness.

Every day this week I have awakened and within minutes have been overwhelmed by nausea. Of course, I'm a bit past my prime child-bearing years. So, it might be something else. I'm pretty sure it's not something I ate. But it may well be things that I have read.

In fact, now that I think about it, what with being a middle-aged male and all, that's probably it. I'm suffering from news poisoning.

Daily newspapers ought to come with a warning label these days. "The Surgeon General has determined that reading the following newspaper could cause loss of appetite, mood swings, uncontrollable weeping, suicidal tendencies, rage, dizziness, chain-smoking, alcoholism, agoraphobia, uncontrollable nostalgia, and a strong impulse to live on a desert island."

Every day the relentless drumbeat of negative stories has seemed to grow more insistent, ominous, louder. Economic bad news in the United States, Europe, Japan, and the emerging world. Continuing instability in the Middle East. Violence in Syria. Qaddafi at large. Al Qaeda in Nigeria. Pipeline explosions in Kenya. Starvation. Disappearing ice caps. Futility in Afghanistan. Political dysfunction.

What's more, each day there are a handful of stories or opinion pieces that are so odious that they seem to challenge every bile duct in my body to act up and start my internal organs to churn.

For example, at the start of the week, in the New York Times, there was that op-ed by Turki al-Faisal titled "Veto a State, Lose an Ally." In it, the author, one of Saudi Arabia's most influential foreign-policy voices, demanded that the United States support Palestine's bid for statehood or else. Or else what? "If it does not," he wrote, "American influence will decline further, Israeli security will be undermined and Iran will be empowered, increasing the chances of another war in the region. Moreover, Saudi Arabia would no longer be able to cooperate with America in the same way it historically has."

Gak. Blerg. There is so much in that to offend the digestion of even those, like myself, with both a strong constitution and a predisposition to support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state at the earliest reasonable moment. First, there is the snide assertion that U.S. "influence will decline further." In other words, you guys in America are already on the ropes; we know it and we will try to play it to our advantage. Next, there is the feigned concern for Israeli security. Then, there is the notion that somehow Iran will be empowered more by resisting the Palestinian state than by further elevating and empowering its clients like Hamas.

Read on

You have to give George W. Bush and Dick Cheney credit. While the two wars they unleashed on the Middle East have not brought stability to either Iraq or Afghanistan, they have managed to pacify one group of extremists. Last night's Republican Party presidential debate was notable for the fact that a decade after 9/11, the would be successors to the Bush-Cheney legacy seemed to have very little appetite for the kind of military adventurism for which their party had become known during the first years of this century. 

In fact, the rest of the world should sit up and take notice that on the eve of an anniversary that still resonates deeply with all Americans and with U.S. troops still on the ground in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the "war on terror" was one recent Republican favorite that effectively did not show up at the Reagan Library for last night's gabfest. Neither did "with us or against us" unilateralism or even much militaristic jingoism -- except when the conversation turned to the needs for "boots on the ground" to keep Mexicans out of the United States. 

Jon Huntsman, who effectively committed political suicide by being thoughtful, intelligent, adult, and constructive throughout the debate, made a reference to America's "shattered innocence" in the wake of 9/11 (quite a concept after two centuries that included slavery, the genocidal slaughter of native Americans, a civil war that was the bloodiest the world had ever seen until that moment, two world wars, Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Japanese internment camps, the Ku Klux Klan, the Oklahoma City bombings, and countless other events of similar character). He also rather boldly spoke common sense when he said it was time the U.S. was out of Afghanistan. And there were other murmurs on similar subjects from sideshow characters like Ron Paul and Rick Santorum who collectively have less chance of ending up the Republican nominee than did the event's moderators.

Read on

We are not living at a moment of particularly glittering leadership on the international stage. Mediocrity, timidity, and poor performance are found from continent to continent. Even setting aside those leaders of the developing world who face the special challenges associated with poverty, failed or struggling states and related social and political tensions, we find the world's larger and more prosperous countries rudderless and with plenty of room for improvement at the top.

There is a leadership void at a moment when strength, vision, and executive deftness could not be needed more.

But among the lackluster crop at the helm of the world's major economies -- the G20 countries for example -- there are several classes of mediocrities. There are the leaders of promise for whom we still may have high hopes but who have yet to find their footing on a regular basis. The best example here is Barack Obama. There are leaders who are too new in their jobs to judge, such as Japan's brand new Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Brazil's Dilma Rousseff. There are the mixed bags who have had flashes of strength but who have revealed themselves as too flawed in character or ideology to be likely to ever ultimately ascend to a higher level -- France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Britain's David Cameron are good examples here.  Angela Merkel might also be seen to be in this group, compromised by her indecisiveness. There are even those who have done well by many important measures but who have been compromised by lingering problems at home or who have not assumed a highly effective leadership role on the international stage. Manmohan Singh, among the most distinguished of the bunch, might fall into this category. Hu Jintao's China has performed well ... but no man whose government must resort to oppression and censorship, that still gives in to police state impulses, can be considered a first class leader.

There are also those who are just mediocre, not great, or worse. You can fill in the names. You can designate who might fall into each category or make up other categories of short-comings and reasons for frustrations with their performance.  But I suspect very few people will step up with a vigorous defense for any of the current class of top dogs.

And then, among this group there are those at the bottom of the barrel: The ones who have actively been bad for their countries or their regions or the world at large (which is not to say the shortcomings of even the better leaders have not produced bad consequences for some on the planet). For my money Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah certainly falls in this group, an autocrat who has exploited his people, resisted needed reforms, presided over the systematic mistreatment of women, and offered wink and a nod (and more direct) support for dangerous extremists. It is still not clear to what degree Dmitri Medvedev is his own man, but certainly the Russian government has been no champion of democracy or due process.

Now Silvio Berlusconi has not sought to crush the people of Italy to his will nor has he, despite an impressive rap sheet, underwritten terrorists. That said, he has, over the years really made a good case that among the world's most important leaders he is perhaps the biggest embarrassment to his country.

It is not enough that the business empire he built has been demonstrated to have engaged in a wide range of unsavory practices. It is not enough that he has been at the center of a steady string of sleazy scandals. It is not enough that he has regularly made public statements that were racist, undiplomatic or just plain inappropriate to the office with which he has been entrusted. It is not even enough that he has run Italy into the ground, to the brink of an economic calamity that literally threatens not just the futures of his people but the fate of the Eurozone and indeed, of the entire international economy. (Although, you'll have to admit, all that constitutes a pretty compelling case for including him at or near the bottom of our list.)

But now comes word of Berlusconi being overheard during a conversation which was taped by police involved in a blackmail investigation. That investigation, into one Giampaolo Tarantini, a man who has said he supplied 30 women for some of the Prime Minister's famous parties, is focused on payments he reportedly received from the Prime Minister. While the arrest of Tarantini and his wife in one of Rome's poshest neighborhoods was dramatic enough, it turns out that in the course of the investigation the Prime Minister, was taped venting his frustration over his perceived mistreatment by the country that enabled him to become a billionaire and the head of its government.

According to press reports, Berlusconi was overheard to say in mid-July, "They can say about me that I screw. It's the only thing they can say about me. Is that clear? They can put listening devices where they like. They can tap my telephone calls. I don't give a fuck. I ... In a few months, I'm getting out to mind my own fucking business, from somewhere else, and so I'm leaving this shitty country of which I am sickened."

Imagine how long a president of the United States would last in office after referring to the U.S. as a "shitty country." Of course, it's hard to imagine how a leader with Berlusconi's personal and professional track record could remain in office long in most countries. But, all that aside, the comments add yet another crowning turd on top of the steaming pile of Italy's Prime Minister's political career. And they make us wonder: Could it be, that among the current class of compromised, faltering, average, unproven, undistinguished and sometimes much worse leaders of the planet's major powers, Berlusconi is actually the least of them?

Libya is not an important country. It's important to its people and in its region. It's a symbol and it's an indicator. But in a geopolitical sense, it belongs to that list of places like North Korea, Cuba, and Afghanistan that only have gained attention over the years as the platforms of dangerous men. Libya without Qaddafi is unlikely to make headlines for long … unless, yet again, an extremist or an extremist group uses it as a vehicle for their own warped ambitions.

We should not, therefore, be unhappy should Libya ultimately fade from the radar. That would be an encouraging sign. And there are many truly important issues to which we ought to devote our attentions. But we can't allow ourselves to believe that what is happening in Tripoli is the endgame in that country or allow ourselves the luxury of letting our attention drift away as soon as the celebrations stop.

To understand why, we need only ask what lessons this recent chapter in Libya's history holds, what conclusions we may draw, and what implications it may have for the world at large.

First, the greatest immediate benefit from the fall of the Qaddafi regime will be the departure of Qaddafi himself, a fundamentally evil man who has been responsible for much suffering, both for his own people and for the victims of the terrorism he supported. Sealing his fate once and for all, securing his inability to again influence world, regional, or national affairs, is a necessary precondition to regarding this chapter as having come to a satisfactory conclusion.

Second, as the situations in Egypt and Tunisia remind us, we should resist the impulse to become too intoxicated with the natural high afforded by the celebrations that come with the end of brutal, autocratic regimes. Just as it has taken longer than many would have liked to bring down Qaddafi, it will be many months or years before we know the character of the regime that will succeed him, and a happy ending to this story is far from being assured.

Third, as a consequence, we must hope that the patience and perspective shown by the international coalition that has supported the efforts of the Libyan rebels is maintained. Just as President Obama, NATO, and regional leaders who have helped orchestrate the campaign that is now culminating in Tripoli deserve credit for methodically pursuing their goals, we must hope that they will be willing to work to ensure that the legitimate advocates of democracy, pluralism, and tolerance among the leaders of the opposition successful take control of the new regime and that they receive what technical support they need. Libya, as the source of 2 percent of the world's oil, can fund its own recovery if allowed to reintegrate with the global economy. By the same token, the international coalition must remain vigilant that extremists are not able to hijack or pervert the outcome of this revolution.

Fourth, we must hope that this triumph, should it be consolidated, reinvigorates the world's best hopes for this Arab Spring that has continued on into an Arab Summer in which the promise of positive change endures. That means a redoubled international effort to ensure the Assad regime in Syria is also consigned to the dustbin of history in which we find the Egyptian, Tunisian, and, we trust, the Libyan dictators of the past several decades. It also, just as importantly, means that the international community should provide significant but appropriately conditional support for new governments should they promote open societies. Political success stories in these changing societies will be impossible without concurrent economic successes, the creation of opportunity for the young and those who have been victimized by greedy, corrupt systems that have seen leaders and cronies exploit their people for years.

Fifth, the willingness of the Obama administration to step back and let France and Britain lead the initiative in Libya has been a sign of the strength and wisdom of the U.S. president rather than of weakness. America's response to the first phases of this crisis was sloppy, and the Obama team's messages were conflicting to the point of incoherence for weeks. But, Obama has successfully balanced a recognition of the limitations of U.S. military resources and of American political will to get deeply involved in another Middle East war with a desire to remain relevant. He chose -- boldly, given the American bias toward control -- to actually try to find another path, a multilateral, cooperative approach in which the U.S. could influence outcomes, support our interests, but allow others to play a more central role. In so doing, he presaged what must be a new approach by the United States in world affairs. It was not perfect, not neat, but then again, inventing new approaches seldom is those things.

America is entering a new era in its foreign policy. It will be marked not by the end of U.S. leadership but by a change in U.S. leadership. This will naturally require others to step up, and that in turn will demand real changes not only within national foreign policies but also within institutional structures like those of NATO and the EU that are not yet robust enough for the new roles they must play, not strong enough to swiftly produce coherent policies or decisive collective action. The actions of the Sarkozy and Cameron governments in this instance have been especially helpful -- if not without complications and missteps -- in moving the Western alliance in that direction.

For the foreseeable future, a primary focus of that evolving alliance and a changing, more constrained, more multilateralist America will be the Middle East, still roiling as it is, still dangerous with calcified, out-of-touch governments, ancient hatreds, and bad actors. As the reflections on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Soviet Union remind us, revolutions start fast but take decades to reveal their true character.

It is far too early to know whether the events of this year in Tunis, Cairo, Tripoli, or Damascus and Hama will be seen as an opening to a period of sweeping, constructive changes in the region or whether it will leave us and more importantly the people of these countries frustrated. While the major changes to take place are the responsibility of those people, we must understand that it can't happen without the effective ongoing involvement of the world's leading countries. And that's the fascinating, challenging question that underlies all of what is happening and will happen: How can a changing Western alliance work with a changing regional power structure to produce the enduring political and economic changes the people of the Middle East crave and deserve?

The world is ending! We're back! The end is nigh! Hallelujah, we're saved! Pawlenty! Bachman! Perry! Oh my God, maybe the end really is nigh! No, Ryan Mallett and Tim Tebow looked good and the heat wave in DC has broken, maybe a better autumn is ahead.

Suffice it to say, it's been a rough week. And amid the wreckage and rivers of bile, adrenaline, and tears that have flowed this week, a few stories have slipped through the cracks, a few perfectly bloggable topics have gone uncommented upon. And it's Friday and we can't let the week go by without offering a few quick takes on at least four of those bits and pieces:

• China's first aircraft carrier set off in the foggy waters around Dalian. This naturally led America's China-phobes to drop their crocheting and totter out of their rocking chairs howling. But on any level the story should not be too worrisome. First, it underscores just how far China lags behind the United States militarily. Even with China's refurbishment of the Ukrainian carrier that went to see this week, they are years away from having an operative carrier battle group, decades away from having anything like America's 11 carrier-group global capabilities, and frankly, they lag behind a host of other players in this category, including, to name a few, Thailand, Brazil, India, Spain, and Italy. Next, China, as a major power, certainly has every right to such capabilities and frankly, the world is better off when a balance among the capabilities of major powers ensures stability. Finally, while it is possible China may some day emerge as a formidable adversary of the U.S., most of their major problems are at home and will consume them for the foreseeable future. (And can any country be that worrisome that produces anything like the YouTube "Dancing Carrots" sensation?)
• For all the talk of this being Barack Obama's worst week, David Cameron has certainly given him a run for his money. Cameron's response to the riots in Britain has gone from being rhetorically over-the-top to being politically tone deaf to flirting with authoritarianism. What is it about the right wing, those supposed champions of "small government" that when the going gets rough or their "values" are threatened, they become the champions of much bigger, more intrusive government, constitutional principles be damned? Cameron's week included the latest illustration of this phenomenon with his suggestion that Britain consider curtailing social media at times of crisis because it can be used to stir up crowds. What could possibly violate fundamental principles of free speech, free association and free press more? Does anyone else see the ugly paradox in the fact that the right would have big businesses unregulated or self-regulating even to the point that they wreak havoc to the lives of millions but that the moment a crowd of the angry, disenfranchised poor take to the streets, they are willing to discuss suspending their inalienable rights?
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Think regulatory oversight of credit rating agencies is going to increase in the months ahead? Think Washington is going to put Standard and Poor's through the ringer as a consequence of its downgrade decision? It is as certain as the fact that in lieu of vision, courage, and action, the political swamp rats of D.C. will play the blame game while trying desperately to change the subject from the current crisis.

Think the decision of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to stay on through the election will fill the markets with confidence? Geithner is earnest, incredibly hardworking, and intelligent, but he has been snake-bitten from the start and the president is misreading the mood of the markets and voting public if he thinks that what this situation calls for is "staying the course." That's a mistake that's been made before … and it would be a stark irony if in his efforts to avoid being a one-term president like Jimmy Carter, President Obama instead became one like George H.W. Bush.

Think the intervention of the European Central Bank to prop up the debt of Italy and Spain is going to restore investor confidence in the eurozone, or is its action more like that of a drowsy emergency room doctor in the middle of a long shift waking just long enough to place a few Band-Aids on the gunshot wounds of several recently admitted critical-care patients?

Think the fact that the U.S. Congress being in recess at a time of great risk to the nation is a big story … or is it a bigger story that most Americans think that is a net positive, given how unlikely it is that the petulant children of the U.S. Congress would be likely to get anything positive done were they actually in their offices working?

Think that with the great economies of the world circling the drain that profound security and humanitarian concerns will fester and worsen -- from famine in East Africa to Iran's nuclear program to the mess in Afghanistan that took such a tragic toll this weekend (undoubtedly thanks to the support the Taliban receives from elements in the government of Pakistan)?

Moments like this will get you thinking. Unfortunately, most of the thoughts that are likely to cross your mind are unsettling ones. In many ways this moment is more complex and daunting than the crisis in 2008 and 2009. Because back then there was a pervasive sense that we would and should do anything in our power to avoid a global economic meltdown. Not that we actually did do what should have been done. But at least we felt like everyone was pulling in the same direction.

Now, not only is Europe as riven with political divisions as is the United States, but there is a widespread belief that certain types of actions are off the table either because we tried them and they didn't seem to work the last time around or because they seem to be politically not viable. I would argue, however, that while this may be the conventional wisdom, we all need to work to undo it at the earliest possible moment.

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In this moment of national confusion and public despair with officials in Washington, variations on the following cry have often been heard, "Somewhere in the world there must be an American political leader with a vision of tomorrow, a focus on what is really important and an ability to translate rhetoric into success."

I'm pleased to report that there is. If it has escaped your attention it's because that politician has been on the other side of the world the past couple of weeks advancing American interests and the policies of the president with meaningful results and exceptional skill.  

That politician is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is just completing an around-the-world mission that has taken her from the economic frontlines of the eurozone crisis to the markets of tomorrow in Asia. The trip, obscured in the noise around the debt ceiling debate, has been a real triumph for the Obama administration and has revealed that many of its policies over the past two years are now bearing significant fruit. It has also revealed the State Department's deftness and bench-depth in dealing with an Asia agenda that is vastly more important in every respect than virtually anything that has been discussed inside the beltway for months.

Given that most trips by senior officials, even secretaries of state, are more often than not a series of pro forma efforts in diplomatic box-checking, the scope and results of the Clinton trip are worth noting. In Greece, she conveyed at a critical moment, America's unequivocal support for that country's economic recovery plan. When visiting Pakistan, the site of America's most difficult relationship, her performance was even hailed in the local press. The Pakistan Observer carried an article stating, "Drum roll for Hillary because she has hit a home run." Her India visit was also widely hailed producing progress on a number of fronts from counterterror cooperation to opening up investment flows between the two countries. More importantly, it also continued the important work that will be a central legacy of her efforts at State which is the elevation of the U.S.-India relationship to being a centerpiece of America's 21st century foreign policy.

The focus on the U.S.-India relationship is, as the trip also revealed, part of an even broader reorientation of U.S. foreign policy under President Obama. This administration was the first in U.S. history to enter office acknowledging that China was America's most important international counterpart -- one that was both vital partner and challenging rival. But, rather than simply acknowledging this fact and focusing on that relationship, Obama, Clinton and their Asia team have systematically worked to establish a foundation for managing that relationship. What is more their choice was not kow-towing or bluster nor was it the blunt instrument of containment. Rather than have chosen what might be called broad engagement, deepening not only the relationship with Beijing and with potential counter-weights like India, but also systematically and often invisibly working to strengthen ties with many of the smaller countries in Asia.

The approach was clearly illustrated during several other stops on Clinton's trip. In Hong Kong on July 25, she delivered an address to the American Chamber of Commerce which was not only a model for a sweeping, specific, thoughtfully-argued policy address, but which revealed a clear vision for the future of America's relationship with China and the rest of the region. It did not hesitate to press the Chinese to abandon unfair economic practices and to embrace the openness healthy markets demand. It was effectively built around the enumeration of four core principles: markets be open, free, transparent, and fair. But it also underscored the mutual dependence at the center of the relationship and outlined a systematic strategy for how to build upon it. It did not stop there, however. It addressed as effectively as anything I have heard the nature of the current debt-ceiling debate in an effort-successful to date at ensuring continuing Asian market confidence. And it emphasized the importance the United States places on deepening ties elsewhere in Asia, from the Korea-U.S. trade agreement the administration is pushing hard to win passage of to links to ASEAN's rising economies. The full text of the speech is worth a read and appears here.

Prior to the visit to Hong Kong, Clinton attended the ASEAN Regional Forum in Bali, Indonesia, and actively engaged with not only many of the region's leaders but made real substantive progress on issues from re-opening conversations with North Korea to managing a constructive multi-national approach to addressing tensions in the South China Sea. These meetings were also a chance to advance the systematic strengthening of relations with all the region's players, including many that have often been overlooked by the United States. This process has over the past two years included both establishment of formal policy dialogues with many countries in the region and also work on issues from reform in Myanmar to those associated with the Mekong River delta area that have been an important part of the Obama team's Asia strategy.

Regional diplomats not only give Clinton high marks for her efforts and in particular for this trip, but they also cite her top lieutenants including Under Secretary of State Robert Hormats and Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell. One of Washington's most respected senior diplomats specifically cited to me the contributions of Campbell in helping Clinton shape the regional strategy, in managing complex core relationships with China, Japan and Korea but recognizing the importance of other players as well. "He is the most effective assistant secretary of state for East Asia in modern memory," said the official. "No one else even comes close and I have high regard for many of them."

Let's peel away the diplomatic varnish, shall we? Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's statement today in New Delhi that the U.S. and India are "allies in the fight against violent extremist networks" was essentially the announcement of an alliance against Pakistan. 

Pakistan is America's ally, of course. We say it all the time. Unfortunately, Pakistan also harbors our enemies, supports our enemies, tolerates the intolerable by our enemies, and is therefore also our enemy. Not all of Pakistan, of course. Just some of the most influential of its elites and institutions as well as substantial cross-sections of its population.

Pakistan therefore has no one to blame for the steady deepening of the security ties between the United States and India than itself. As containing the problems within Pakistan through cooperation with the Pakistanis looks increasingly difficult, it is only natural that the United States should simultaneously develop a Plan B approach. That approach is containment and it necessarily must involve a partnership with India.

That India and the United States share many other interests, are the world's two leading democracies, having rapidly growing, deepening economic ties, and share cultural links associated with their past experiences within the British empire make the partnership a natural one. Differences and frustrations will exist naturally -- and some surrounding the U.S.-India nuclear power deal have surfaced during Clinton's India visit -- but there is perhaps no single major power relationship likely to undergo more positive change over the next several decades than that between Washington and New Delhi. To put it another way, this is the emerging world-developed world major power axis of cooperation to watch most closely as it is the one where the aligned interests are perhaps greatest.

The deterioration of U.S. relations with the Pakistanis coupled with the acceleration of Pakistan's development of its nuclear arsenal is only one aspect of these ties and, for Clinton, among the most delicate to handle. That's why her directness in making the statements she did is so striking, timely ... and utterly appropriate.

The recent attacks in Mumbai may not, as of yet, be linked to any groups associated with the Pakistanis, but they certainly remind of the attacks that took place in 2008 and claimed 160 lives which were the handiwork of extremist groups with close ties to some in the Pakistani intelligence services.  The fact that these most recent incidents took place while the head of Pakistani intelligence services was visiting Washington was a particularly uncomfortable coincidence.   

So when Clinton said that the U.S. would not accept any nation offering "safe havens and free pass" it is clear who she was talking about. It is clear that the discovery of Osama bin Laden being nurtured in the bosom of Pakistan has had a permanent impact on the relationship and that the subsequent bristling of the Pakistanis and their push back on key aspects of U.S.-Pakistani cooperation in combating terror have pushed the alliance to being, in key respects, to use the words of one U.S. government official with whom I recently spoke, "stubbornly dysfunctional." 

The U.S. has had, in the past, myriad dysfunctional alliances. But you have to go back to that with the Soviets in the waning days of World War II to find one in which a leading ally was simultaneously viewed as a leading threat. While the statements in New Delhi today do not suggest that our alliance with Islamabad is finished, it does send a clear message that, as was the case with the Soviets, flawed alliances can be turned into dangerously adversarial relationships almost overnight if the sides involved do not work in good faith to resolve their differences.

Last night I attended a dinner of old Washington hands. Some had served in high government offices, some were lobbyists, some were think tankers, some were still running for office, others were active in campaigns of one sort or another.  These were seasoned players who had seen it all … and there was fear and outrage in their eyes.

They felt the leaders of both parties had lost any sense of accountability. They were appalled by the degree to which, at a moment of national crisis, twisted notions of ideological purity and cynical politics had obliterated any focus on solving the problems at hand, on public service. Whether or not the country averts fiscal default, that we had come to this point was a sign to all that a leadership default had already taken place.

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