The Phantom War will be different from all the others that came before it. There will be no triggering incidents, no frantic diplomatic efforts to stave off conflict, no declaration of war, no battles, and there will be no end to it. It will certainly, however, take a huge toll, destroy lives, shake great nations, and, ultimately, almost certainly result in death and mayhem. It may even result in more traditional forms of conflict.

And make no mistake about it, the Phantom War will touch you personally and, in all likelihood, it will rock your world ... and I don' t mean that in a good way.

Indeed, you will understand just how different Phantom warfare from the fact that it has already begun and most people don't even know it.

Some dimensions of the war have made headlines, such as the successful Stuxnet attack on Iran's nuclear program. Others are hinted at in reports, such as the just released report from the U.S. Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive (ONCIX). The 2011 report, produced in compliance with an act of Congress, details the degree to which foreign powers are actively invading U.S. cyberspace and conducting thousands upon thousands of operations that in a more traditional sense might be called reconnaissance, spying or sabotage.

The report is particularly striking in that it calls out Russia and China as particularly egregious violators who pose "significant and growing threats" to America's security and economic vitality. Calling them "the most aggressive collectors of U.S. economic information and technology," the ONCIX report goes on to predict that the two rival powers "will almost certainly continue to deploy significant resources and a wide array of tactics" in support of their efforts to level the playing field between themselves and the United States. But of course, the implication is clear, particularly in the wake of Stuxnet, cyber-reconnaissance and spying are just the tip of the iceberg. They test our defenses, test our borders and prepare for the days ahead of deeper engagement.

Said one experienced U.S. diplomat with whom I spoke this week, "the war is already under way and we are ill prepared for it. We know it is going to happen but we don't have the doctrines or the strategic awareness we need to manage the growing threat." Said one investor with whom I spoke this week, "This is the black swan I worry about. One day...one day soon, in the next couple of years...I expect a power grid to go down or a stock market to be penetrated in a way that will cause a massive disruption, even a panic."

There are signs everywhere that the issue is growing in importance and being viewed with a sense of urgency by those who are aware of it. Take this week's cybersecurity forum in London designed to address a problem that Britain alone estimates already costs it 27 billion pounds per year. Or look to the story that stirred some notoriety earlier this week when it was revealed the international group of online hackers known as Anonymous were challenging Mexico's brutal Zetas, a cartel that has been reaping havoc near the U.S. border for years. (See the New York Times: "After a Kidnapping, Hackers Take On a Ruthless Mexican Crime Syndicate.") The latter story indicates that just as modern conflicts are often between state and non-state actors, so too will this new form of conflict involve a plethora of groups all with very different objectives, often very difficult to trace or tell apart.

Read on

If Iraq and Afghanistan ... not to mention Vietnam ... are any indication, it'll soon be time to declare victory in Libya and head home. But we don't have to wait for that to produce a list of the big winners so far in the non-war-no-fly-zone-not-regime-change-undeclared-police-action that is currently reminding the world that diplomacy is harder than community organizing in Chicago.

These may not be the only winners, but so far they're doing pretty well...

5. The People of Libya
There's no way this war is going to end with Qaddafi still in power. That's the good news and why the people of Libya make this list. The bad news is that we don't know who is going to come out on top once a new government is in place and that some of the people actively supporting the opposition are not very nice. Don't take my word for it. According to a CNN report, Abu Yahya al-Libi, a Libyan-born al Qaeda leader recently said, "ousting these regimes is not the end in making a change." In the same article, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is quoted as offering a statement saying, "We will be side by side with you, Allah willing."

4. The Blissfully Ignored
The cynic-realist in me thinks the Arab League backed the intervention in Libya because it was in the interest of so many in the Arab world to focus attention elsewhere. How happy are the Saudis, that they can stomp their boot on rebellion in Bahrain with cameras trained elsewhere? The Syrians? The UAE that they can support the Saudis in Bahrain but also appear to support the west in Libya? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the world is distracted from his little science experiments in his basement (see below)? Not to mention everyone from the North Koreans to the finance ministers of places like Portugal and Spain who are happy to let Muammar & Co. take the heat for a while.

3. Greater Persia
Tehran, of course, is not just happy because the world is distracted ... they're happy because so far the uprisings have benefitted them in countless ways. Enemies in Egypt and Libya have been deposed or soon will be, Shiites are rising up in Bahrain, the moderate Jordanians and the Saudis are nervous and the Israelis are perhaps most nervous of all as to what is happening. Further, America is going to come out of the Libya adventure even less inclined to devote time and resources to Iraq and Afghanistan thus creating voids the Iranians are already filling.  We may call it the Arab Spring, but it doesn't translate that way in Farsi.

Read on

From its start, I have viewed the Iran sanctions regime the Obama administration has helped devise with great skepticism. However, if recent reports are to be believed, the sanctions may someday be seen in retrospect as a vital element of an effective strategy to curtail the Iranian nuclear program. In fact, the possibility is beginning to emerge that they could be seen as part of what may someday be seen as one of the signal triumphs of Obama-Clinton foreign policy.

My initial concerns about the sanctions program were several. First, it was my sense that such sanctions programs tend not to be terribly effective where authoritarian regimes are concerned. Next, sanctions tend not to be effective if they do not are not supported globally by all the economies interacting with the country facing sanctions. Third, in the case of these sanctions, the Russians and the Chinese carved out elements that protected important components of their own trade with Iran. Fourth, my sense is that the Iranians are engaged in a cat and mouse game with the international community in which they make a few seemingly constructive moves, even appear to make concessions, and then continue on with their nuclear development work behind the scenes.

My sense was also that international diplomatic and economic pressure would simply not be enough to really impede their program -- especially if the threat of the use of force to punish them if they did not back down was not credible. And the message from the administration was not tough enough on that last point.

However, when last week, the departing boss of Israel's intelligence service, Meir Dagan, stated that in his view the Iranian program had in fact been set back to the point that it would not be able to develop nuclear weapons until 2015 at the earliest, it suggested that whatever was being done was working. No one, for obvious reasons, takes the Iranian threat more seriously than the Israelis (although WikiLeaks confirmed for all how worried the Iranians make all their neighbors). If they who had been saying two years ago that the Iranian threat would reach a critical level within a matter of a year or so were now saying it has been pushed out several years, it was more than just an interesting sound bite.

Read on

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad triumphantly tours southern Lebanon and says to cheering crowds of thousands, "The occupying Zionists today have no choice but to accept reality and go back to their countries of origin." He predicts Israel will disappear. Not too far away, families enjoy the happy diversions of the latest tourist attraction, the Magic Kingdom of sectarian warfare called, "Tourist Landmark of the Resistance" in South Lebanon. There they play on captured Israeli weapons and buy souvenir caps and T-shirts.

Earlier this week, the New York Times ran a column by Roger Cohen, in which he asserted that however odious Ahmadinejad may seem, he's really nothing to worry about. Why? Because Cohen doesn't think he is, that's why. Surely, one must conclude, he would dismiss these Lebanon antics -- rabble-rousing at one of the world's most dangerous frontiers -- as more showboating from his favorite "all hat and no cattle" "paper tiger." Pshaw. Silly frivolous Hezbollah-sponsoring Mahmoud.

And then, in the midst of this, comes a rather different New York Times op-ed, this one from Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, who offers a calm, well-reasoned, and compelling argument as to why the Palestinians should recognize Israel's identity as a Jewish state. But for all Oren's heartfelt and coolly-argued reason, even coupled with his exceptionally well-turned phrases, nothing he writes makes his case as persuasively as the combination of the provocations of the president of Israel's most dangerous enemy and the efforts by glib U.S. elites to shrug him off.

As unproductive as the Israeli stance on settlements has been the Palestinian stance on the nature of the Israeli state, and its ability to continue operations as conceived and sanctioned by the United Nations nearly six and a half decades into its modern existence is just as unconstructive and indefensible. The core concept of the existence of two states, central to any real and lasting solution of the Israeli-Palestinian dilemma, requires acceptance of the sovereignty and self-determination of those states. Neither side can expect a hand in the shaping of the societies within their neighbor's borders.

Indeed, the concept of accepting Israel involves accepting its Jewishness or, as Oren points out, it invites the demographic negation of virtually everything associated with Israel's own concept of itself thanks to Israel's commitment to democracy. To fail to acknowledge this would be the same as accepting the idea of a Palestinian state, but then imposing upon it borders that made its economic self-sufficiency impossible.

Peace requires moving past such destructive argumentative approaches. Clearly, we are not near to that point. Which is why Mr. Ahmadinejad is hardly "all hat and no cattle." His grandstanding and inflaming crowds on Israel's borders with the language of obliteration is not just rhetoric. It is part of a systematic and thus far effective effort to exacerbate dangers and, not secondarily, to prolong the misery of the Palestinian people whose right to a free, independent state created in their own image is, of course, every bit as great as that of the Israelis.

In a world in which Tony Blair could receive an award this week for his commitment to "conflict resolution," perhaps it is not a surprise that we are moving inexorably toward approving a massive $60 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia. Memories are short, and these events are just the latest evidence that we are moving out of what might be called the "post-9/11 era" and are moving into something new.

The Blair award is just one of those preposterous things that happen to leaders when they enter the eminence grise (which is to say the rubber chicken-lecture tour) phase of their lives. He's got a big book out and after all, he did make a real contribution to peace in Northern Ireland. That he was George W. Bush's most important international enabler in conducting the most notorious, least necessary major war of the past several decades is hardly a disqualifier for a "conflict resolution" award, apparently. We have started to hit the public opinion statute of limitations for such disastrous "War on Terror" era missteps.

The United States seems on the verge of okaying the biggest arms deal in American history to the country that provided 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers, much of the critical funding for al Qaeda and was home to Osama bin Laden. This is a sign of something more than just the passage of time or our acceptance of the manifold official statements that there was no linkage between the terrorists and the Saudi government. (After all, such arguments hardly seem necessary as we know that the hijackers were backed both by elements of the Pakistani secret service and the Taliban and these days we seem willing enough to cut deals with them or, the case of "good" Taliban, at least contemplate it.)

No, the reason that the U.S. government -- that would not have done a deal like this in the years right after 9/11 -- is willing and even a little eager to move ahead with the deal now is that the War on Terror is being overtaken among top U.S. concerns by the advent of a nuclear Iran.

Read on

This weekend the Obama Administration will send a team to China headed by the somewhat unlikely duo of Larry Summers, head of the National Economic Council, and Tom Donilon, deputy national security advisor. The purpose is to send a clear message that the U.S. is approaching its relations with China strategically, with a view that integrates the full range of economic and security concerns.

While such trips are old hat for Summers, the journey represents a bit of a change of pace for Donilon, the inside guy who is credited with having done a great job making sure the policy process trains have been running on time within the National Security Council. Some in Washington are buzzing that this is a profile- and skill-raising trip intended to make Donilon a better candidate to replace National Security Advisor James L. Jones should Jones decide to depart, as many expect he will. Others grumble that the trip represents precisely the kind of "operational" role for the NSC and NEC that many cabinet departments have long thought should be out of bounds for White House policy coordinators.

But beyond the Washington gossip the trip has caused, the juxtaposition of economic and security concerns offers an illustration of an often over-looked fact -- the centrality of economic issues to current U.S. national security concerns. In China, the tricky calculus is fostering collaboration on security issues from North Korea to Iran in the face of political pressure back home to press Beijing harder on issues like currency valuation and unfair competitive practices (especially those associated with pressuring foreign firms to transfer proprietary technologies).

The U.S. has never been especially effective at coordinating its multiple interests in China so that pressure in one policy area produces progress in another -- or even simply avoids causing setbacks. So this trip, in concept at least, represents a step in the right direction -- at least if Congress doesn't undercut the administration's efforts by, for example, drafting its own legislation on currency issues.

But China is just one of a host of current hotspots where Summers, Geithner, and the international economic team are playing a central role on national security issues.

For example, in Afghanistan, the story of the week turns on the amazingly brazen behavior of the Karzai gang in trying to pressure the United States into bailing out a clearly corrupt and mismanaged bank in which President Hamid Karzai's brother, Mahmood Karzai, is the third largest shareholder. Mahmood has publicly called for a bailout even though his affiliation with a bank through which U.S. funds flow to Afghan security forces compromises both him and the president. Both remain unabashed, however, behaving like the proverbial kids who murder their parents and seek the mercy of the court on the grounds that they are now orphans. So the United States is in a pickle: Step in and support the Afghan kleptocracy and its culture of corruption or stand on principle (and law), and run the risk that the bank falters. It's not a situation that General David Petraeus can handle, but how the economic team manages it will have direct ramifications for him.

In the same way, some of the most sensitive concerns regarding Pakistan turn on economic policy. Will the Zardari government pump too much cash into the economy to deal with the aftereffects of the devastating flooding, and risk a major inflationary episode? Or will it introduce price controls and a set of micro economic measures that, if mismanaged, could produce social tensions or even rioting? The wrong mix of policies could plunge the already fractured and battered country into political turmoil and perhaps the reintroduction of military rule.

In talks with the Israelis and the Palestinians, many of the core concerns will turn on how to improve the economic conditions for the Palestinian people. If they can get past initial hurdles, they will, of course, ultimately have to move to a state structure that will enable organic economic growth in a Palestinian state, actually fostering job and wealth creation for people who have lived in an economic no man's land for too long.

In North Korea, it is reported that the administration, conducting high level meetings on the subject this week, is seeking to explore "engagement." In the case of the economically isolated and struggling North, that inevitably will mean economic packages in exchange for gradual normalization of relations or reductions of threats.  At the same time, this week, the administration widened sanctions intended to force Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.

In Iran, the core initiative at the moment is making targeted economic sanctions work. In Iraq, the issue is fostering economic growth to help "purchase" social stability. The list goes on. It is clear that wherever the stakes are highest for the United States in the world, even as military and diplomatic initiatives garner most of the attention, behind the scenes much of the most critical work is being undertaken by international economic officials.

It is interesting to note in this respect that the responsibility for conceiving and coordinating most of these activities lies in the White House to a much greater degree than it does with military or diplomatic initiatives. The White House team on these issues is excellent. But in the end, these functions are so fundamental that the real leadership capabilities need to be cultivated elsewhere.

The economic team at the State Department could and should play a greater role in this respect; Undersecretary for Economic Affairs Robert Hormats is a talented and experienced official. As I have written before, State also could and should develop a dramatically enhanced capability when it comes to emergency economic intervention -- pre- or post-crisis. And all the other economic agencies need to be prepared to collaborate on this, not on an ad hoc basis but through a permanent program promoting cross-training and what the military might call inter-operability. Call it an economic rapid response capability -- or call them economic green berets.

We need people we can drop into critical situations and help manage them with an eye to our security and political needs rather than traditional purely economic metrics. That's a critical role for which development officials are ill-suited, and we still don't really have the fully developed institutional structure we need to support it.

Looking at the issues faced by the United States today, while one can't help but admire much of what is being done, the strategic side of the international economic agenda is such that it warrants some real thought about how and with whom we should be meeting such challenges in the future.

One of the greatest challenges America faces at the moment is our inability to tell the difference between what makes news and what really matters.

Not only is this week's "big story" in Washington -- the Rolling Stone-assisted career suicide of General Stanley McChrystal -- not actually an important story, it's not even the most important national security story of the week. It's not even the most important story about a key general quitting this administration at a vital moment in a badly bungled struggle.

In fact, in the botched coverage of the McChrystal hullaballoo I see not just one but six degrees of wrong.

1. First, we have had most of the media coverage devoted to the soap opera elements of this story. The President vs. His Hand-picked Battlefield Commander. The inviolability of the chain of command vs. McChrystal's perverse compulsion to bare his soul in a magazine whose cover features Lady Gaga doing something similar while wielding a couple of deadly weapons in a manner not recommended in any army training manual. Problem is, of course, this is superficial personality stuff that pales in comparison to the real story about Afghanistan.


2. That real story was nailed in a particularly incisive piece by Tom Friedman in yesterday's New York Times in which he smartly sidestepped the hubbub that was mesmerizing the cablerati and pointed out that it doesn't really matter who is in command of our Afghan folly, our "only real choices are lose early, lose late, lose big or lose small." If McChrystal and literally every other senior official involved in the Afghan effort feels making significant progress will take more time (a decade more) and money (hundreds of billions more) than the American people or the President or the Congress are willing to spend then the issue is not who is commanding on the ground but when they are going to supervise our ignominious withdrawal...and when and how the bad guys will capitalize on that.


3. Of course, in terms of our national security interests in the Middle East, what happens in Afghanistan is trumped by what is happens in Pakistan... and that in turn could well be soon trumped by the consequences of Iran's run at being a nuclear power. Thus shifting Petraeus from CENTCOM to Afghanistan reflects what could be seen in retrospect as a politically motivated strategic misstep - focusing on covering the president's behind on a signature initiative instead of addressing more significant threats. And the even bigger problem with the Middle East is our dependence on the region's oil ... and here we have this amazing reality that there is an oil-related crisis in this country that could be driving real moves toward reform and all we are getting are half-hearted, half-steps in the direction of the new energy policy we desperately need.


4. As big as the story of our political leadership's unwillingness to mount a credible offensive on the energy front is, even that story of the week is not as significant in terms of our national security as our continuing unwillingness to address the debt bomb that lies ticking ominously at the foundation of our economy. For this reason the really important resignation of the week was not McChrystal, it was that of budget chief Peter Orszag. In speaking to senior administration economic officials, whatever the official story is there seems to be a sense that at least in part the OMB chief is heading for the exit because he worries that the efforts to confront the deficit will be postponed or sub-optimal.


5. They'll find someone to run OMB, naturally. It's a little worrisome that the choices currently being bruited about are talented folks but not specialists in getting things done on Capitol Hill, which is where the real heavy lifting will be needed. Proof of that - and of the utter gutless, visionlessness of the Congressional leadership -- came this week as House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced that they would not seek a budget via traditional channels this year, suggesting a mid-term election year dodge to avoid having to address the real issues associated with starting to reduce the threats to America's future represented by big deficits and even bigger "off balance sheet" and "phantom balance sheet" real and likely obligations. (See my FT piece last week on this phenomenon - and in the last category consider that among other things the Federal government may soon find itself in the position of having to bail out public pension funds that are currently underfunded to the tune of something like a trillion dollars. Just to pick one particularly worrisome illustration as to why this problem is bigger than just the very very big federal deficit.)


6. And if you thought that expecting politicians to actually lead themselves was too much to ask then all you had to do this week was to look to the United Kingdom where the fledgling government of David Cameron had the genuine political courage to introduce a budget ... after just weeks in office and with a coalition government ... that proposed 25 percent cuts in British public spending. I was no fan of Cameron and I am still a skeptic ... but this was a courageous political move that should be seen by Americans as a sign both of what is possible and what will be required of whoever genuinely cares about American leadership and national security.

In yesterday's post, I noted some of the most relevant developments in the political world that've occurred recently. But we're hardly out of the neck of the woods. The summer of 2010 promises to be an ... interesting time.

As promised, here's an idea of the potential Black Swans to come:

1. Wars of Summer, Part I: The Koreas

As we've seen just in the past couple of days, "engagement" doesn't seem to be doing the trick with North Korea. When you have two countries that have been pointing guns at each other for half a century and one of them is run by the kind of guy who makes Mahmoud Ahmadinejad look like Albert Schweitzer trouble is always just a Dear Leader moodswing away. When one of those countries starts firing torpedoes at the other, that raises the temperature a bit ... and when that same country has a diplomatic tantrum because its neighbor actually doesn't like having its ships sunk, you get a sense of how off-balance and dangerous the whole thing is. (You also get dictionary editors everywhere rushing to insert North Korea's reaction into the official definition of chutzpah right where "burying your husband in a rented suit" used to be.) While most people assume this is just one of those periodic Korean peninsula hiccups, you never know.

2. Wars of Summer, Part II: Somalia, Yemen, etc.

These places are just two examples of plenty where conditions are chronically horrible and getting worse. If you're going to worry about the Koreas where the stakes are high and both sides would pay an unimaginable price for a conflict, don't rule out conflicts in places where everyone has a gun and life is cheap.

3. Wars of Summer, Part III: Israel, Syria, Lebanon

Speaking of places not to rule out, over the years few places have proven themselves more reliable breeding grounds for warfare than the borders of the state of Israel. And tensions are rising along the most northern of these as we speak. The Israelis are worried about growing stockpiles of missiles being deployed in Lebanon, new missile capabilities in Syria and Iranian mischief in both places. Of all the possibilities for tensions turning to a shooting war this summer, this one may top the list. And, what a great distraction it would make from Iran's nuclear issues (or what great cover for an Israeli strike against the Iranians who are paying for the missiles and underwriting Hezbollah trouble-makers in Lebanon and elsewhere).  

4. The Other "Big Spill"

While Washington works itself up into a lather over the spill in the Gulf, it effectively ignores a much bigger catastrophe. A recent NPR report indicated that the amount of man made pollutants that have flowed into the Gulf during the current crisis flow into the air every 2 minutes or so. That's 30 crises like this an hour. 360 a day. Over 1,000 a month. That means this summer there will be 3000 crises like this offshore drilling calamity ... and throughout this period the likelihood that the U.S. government or the world move any closer to addressing this much larger, much less photogenic disaster is pretty close to zero.

5. The Financial Crisis They Call "The Big One"

Remember the financial crisis that took down Bear Sterns? Now we look at that as only prelude. Remember the one that took down Lehman, Merrill and AIG? Perhaps we'll look at that as just the appetizer. Because with the world economy now trembling at the thought of further deterioration in the Eurozone, it wouldn't take much to send us into territory that was unimaginable even two years ago. Likely? No. But possible? Well, let's see, Japan has a debt to GDP ratio that is worse than most of Europe's. What if the markets sour on lending them any more money? What if that takes down some of their banks and they start calling in IOUs and cut lending in places like China? Tim Geithner said this week that overall China's economy is not a bubble. Maybe so. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have some pretty big bubbles in it (see: real estate). 

6. The Dem Rebound

The big political story in the United States is supposed to be the losses Dems will suffer in mid-term elections in November. Big time members of the punditocracy are calling for a big swing to the right, a likely Republican take-over in the House and even the possibility of one in the Senate. But by the end of the summer, once campaigns have started in earnest, the loony, fringy, dysfunctionality of the "just say no" party will be revealed and the big surprise U.S. political story of the year will start to take shape. The Dems may have modest losses in November, but it won't be anything like the washout the chattering classes expect.

7. Argentina's Surprise Victory

Despite Lionel Messi's dominance on the soccer field, Argentina won't win the World Cup this year. That'll be Spain. But maybe as the summer ticks on a few more people will start to realize that having done everything wrong and utterly alienated the financial system by telling the big banks to take a hike a few years ago, Argentina is actually having something like a recovery worthy of a tango. Oh, all is not rosy to be sure, but take a look at its per capita GDP in purchasing power parity terms. It just passed Chile to be number one in Latin America (according to Latin Business Chronicle). Between this and the U.S. dollar strengthening despite the fact that the U.S. has also done practically everything wrong (and China's flourishing for years despite its penchant for, how shall we put it, well, communism) who knows... this could be the summer that moral hazard makes its long awaited big comeback.

8. Someone Writes the Truth About Financial Reform

This is the least likely black swan on this list. But it is possible that once financial reform passes later this summer and is signed into law that someone will note that "the most sweeping financial reforms since the Great Depression" actually don't amount to much when it comes to fixing the problems we face. Mortgage defaults, unregulated global derivatives markets, unintended consequences of interconnectivity of markets, lack of global regulatory mechanisms, failure to address the trading culture's perversion of finance, etc... this is like the health care bill and Beatlemania: not the real thing, just an incredible simulation.

9. The White House Gets Humble

Ok, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is the most improbable of the Black Swans. But the folks in the White House are good people at heart and smart ones. Sooner or later they will realize that their mixed, incomplete record in office trumps the historic nature of their victory and that a little humility is in order ... if not because they feel that way then because by alienating even their most enthusiastic supporters they are doing themselves great political damage. As for the American people, they would do better with more realistic expectations. We all want Washington, Lincoln or Roosevelt whenever we elect a president. But the vast majority of the time we get Chester A. Arthur. Bush was Chester A. Arthur. Clinton was Chester A. Arthur. And in all likelihood Obama will end up being Chester A. Arthur.

10. Iran Cooperates

Ok, never mind. This one is most likely. But the dangerous twist here is that cooperation from Iran is actually just them buying time to move toward their goal of possessing nuclear weapons technology. The only thing that will stop them from such a stalling course is if they are much further ahead of schedule than we think and that the big black swan of this summer will be the announcement that the world's largest state sponsor of terror will actually have gone nuclear.

Whether the deal brokered by Turkey and Brazil with Iran ultimately actually defuses the stand-off between Tehran and the international community remains to be seen. And even if it does, it seems unlikely to actually stop Ahmadinejad & Co. from continuing surreptitious efforts to cultivate nuclear weapons capability -- especially given the Iranians' decision to simultaneously announce that they will continue their enrichment program in any event. Indeed, it, like the sanctions program the United States has been engineering, seems more likely to simply hit the "pause" rather than the "reset" button, thus buying the one commodity the Iranians want most: time.

That said the effort is significant on another level. It represents the return of Plan B both to Middle Eastern and global relations. During the Cold War, international actors typically had a binary choice. They could seek the favor and advocacy of the East or the West, the Soviets or the Americans. Then, almost twenty years ago that all ended. And for a while it appeared, the choice was America or an international community that couldn't get its act together terribly effectively. 

But Turkey and Brazil working closely with Russia, India, and China, have effectively sent a message that Plan B has returned to the global equation. They have essentially said they didn't want to go along with the American approach to solving the problem (sanctions) and were vehemently against the Israeli approach (bombs away). The Turks in particular have been vocal with their BRIC partners in expressing their skepticism of the effectiveness of sanctions and their sense they would be very counterproductive.

The Iranians in turn seem to have recognized that the Brazil-Turkey deal is a win-win for them. It makes them look like they want to be constructive and thus takes the heat off of them and buys time. They get to tip the geopolitical scales in the direction of the relevance of emerging powers, tweak the U.S. efforts, and seemingly help usher in a new era in international diplomacy.

Something else vitally important to notice has happened here. This has become the first Middle Eastern stand-off in which the most important player from outside the region was China -- because China is the one country that had and has the power to determine whether or not a sanctions regime would work. The Chinese, while still internally debating just how much they want to lead on the international stage, have played this deftly so far. They have engaged in talks with the United States and with their BRIC plus one partners. They have evaluated. Behind the scenes they have been constructive and moderate with reports coming out of recent meetings among BRIC leaders that they have made the case for understanding the pressure that President Obama is under. And they have pressed the Iranians to make a deal while sharing like the others in the emerging power leadership a healthy skepticism of Iranian motives and likely compliance.

Thus this deal may seem smallish and technical from afar, but it could well signal a change in the way international diplomacy works. Certainly, it signals an intent on the part of a group of vitally important emerging powers not to be cowed by the "with us or against us" mindset that still permeates some in the U.S. foreign policy establishment.

What would the world do without Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? While it may be pleasing to contemplate, the reality is that Iran's leader has become the one nut job that many of the world's other leaders can't do without.

Consider for a moment the following cases:

• Benjamin Netanyahu's apparent vision of himself turns on his role as protector of Israel in the face of the existential threat posed by the Iranians. And while the Iranians have long been seen as posing such a threat, with a front man like Ahmadinejad who denies the Holocaust, defies international law when it comes to nuclear weapons development and regularly calls for the destruction of Israel, it makes Bibi's job that much easier.
• The Iranian religious elite, paradoxically, also must thank goodness for their country's president on a regular basis because he often makes them look thoughtful and reflective by comparison. The reality of course, is that many of them live further down toward the end of Insanity Lane than Ahmadinejad, but he is an ideal front man, a limit-tester who can take matters to the brink and then be dialed back when it suits the real regime, the clerical inner circle.
• The Iranian opposition, of course, is delighted to have a thug like Ahmadinejad in power -- at least for the moment. Because he is the kind of callous, brutal, crude politician that does more to stir up his enemies than he does to effectively unite his allies. He is a big part of the reason that thoughtful observers like the CFR's Richard Haass believe that regime change is actually a plausible alternative in Iran. (Although it is unclear who we would get after Ahmadinejad or whether they would actually change some of the policies that make the West most uncomfortable.)
• The Saudi leadership and others from throughout the Arab world have been worried about Iranian hegemony (or Iran's hegemonic aspirations) for years. But thanks to the little guy in the tan windbreaker, they are now increasingly gaining the support of the rest of the world in their efforts to isolate and contain the country. He is also giving those that seek it, a good excuse to cultivate their own nuclear weapons program.
• Hugo Chavez loves his BFF in Tehran because mere association with him makes Hugo seem larger and more dangerous than he really is. Talk of a "mysterious" daily flight from Caracas to Tehran is all the rage among the anti-Chavistas carrying with it the most sinister sort of implications. Will Venezuela go nuclear if Iran does? Is Venezuela a partner in a new kind of axis of crackpots that will work to be destabilizing in a variety of situations worldwide? By making people ask these questions, the five foot two Ahmadinejad is like a pair of elevator shoes for the five foot eight Chavez.
• The government of Brazil has also embraced Iran as a way of sending the message to the world that it is charting its own course, that it is not in the thrall of U.S. or Western views. It sends a message of solidarity with the new non-aligned without really having much impact except irritating the U.S. government (which is a plus in many political circles in Brazil). Lula hugs Ahmadinejad and says, we are a rising major power that will be quite different from the 20th century-variety of major powers. Is it a responsible stance? Not if it gives cover to dangerous Iranian programs or legitimizes repulsive Iranian policies... but Brazil now also gets to offer itself up as a channel to the bad guys, a useful middleman role that makes it relevant in two different worlds.
• Ahmadinejad also is helpful to the Russians and the Chinese. While both dither over sanctions, they also both remain close to Tehran in important ways -- from Russian security cooperation to Chinese dependency on Iran for 20 percent of its oil. The United States is distracted and bears a huge cost through the need to maintain militarily present in the region... and again, two rising powers get to send a mixed message that well suits their domestic and international objectives.

While this list goes on, however, there is another dimension to the festering tensions with Iran over its nuclear program that may not, as of yet, be fully understood. This relates specifically to Netanyahu's framing of Iran as an existential threat. It may be just that, but not in the way he was envisioning.

Because over the past several years, growing concerns over Iran and its nuclear program have come to trump most others in the Middle East proper. They have transcended in terms of the security threat involved those associated with either the Israeli-Palestinian issue or those associated, at least for now, with al Qaeda (thanks in part to defeats for al Qaeda like today's killing of its leader in Iraq, and thanks in part to the fact that Iran seems to be, in the words of a former colleague of mine who was a career naval officer and Jack London fan, the wolf closest to the sled). Is a potentially nuclear Iran more dangerous than an unstable Pakistan? Probably not... but that's like saying you have two forms of cancer. You want to treat both, but the one that is most threatening at the moment will dominate your attention.

The Israeli government has played up this threat for completely legitimate and understandable reasons. Getting Iran's nuclear program just a little bit wrong might be minor for the world but a really big deal for Israel. However, having thus framed the issue, the Israelis have to live with the consequences... and the consequences are not what they intended.

Because if, as seems likely, the ultimate result of the Iranian nuclear program is (after "engagement" and sanctions ultimately prove ineffective, as seems likely) that we accept the idea of a nuclear Iran and revert to a strategy of containment, paradoxically Israel may move to be less central to U.S. interests in the region, trumped by the urgent need for a strong alliance with Arab states like Saudi, the UAE, Iraq, etc. designed to contain the new Iranian threat. Further, if we create a "nuclear umbrella" for the region, it is hard to imagine treaty or diplomatic language that did not, of necessity, promise to protect those states from all nuclear threats including those posed by Israel.

We're already seeing signs that the risks of having to live with a nuclear Iran are sufficiently real that relations with anti-Iranian Arab states are becoming more and more central -- and thus are likely to give those states an ever greater voice in the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Hence all the buzz about seeking to set American terms for a peace, gain Arab support and then go to the Israelis and say, here's the deal: You want to contain Iran, you need to give this serious consideration. 

Israel felt compelled to sell the Iranian threat. But their pitch really only would work if they persuaded the world to preempt that threat. If Iran got the bomb, then the geopolitics change, U.S. interests align more closely with those of some historic enemies of Israel, and a difficult relationship becomes even more complex. (And it's not so good now. My bet is that if the Palestinians unilaterally declared independence tomorrow there would be two kinds of reaction worldwide: celebration and, perhaps in a few cases, effective silence. Another point the Israelis need to consider: in the 21st Century emerging powers that are less sympathetic to their case are playing an increasingly important role in shaping multilateral outcomes.)

Ahmadinejad may be the region's indispensable lunatic, but if things keep trending in the current direction, he may ultimately be one that the Israelis could well have done without.

The word is that the decision to hammer Bibi Netanyahu on Friday for Israel’s settlements screwup last week came directly from President Obama. 

He was apparently very upset at the seeming contempt the Israelis showed for the vice president and by extension for the president himself and his administration. In addition, Obama, like many of his top aides, felt that the Israeli action was undermining U.S. standing at a critical time in American efforts to both advance the "peace process" and to weave together tough, effective international sanctions on Iran.

Here's the problem: This is one of those diplomatic flareups that may trigger fire drills in the governments and polemic fireworks from pundits but which, upon analysis, is really much less than meets the eye. It's actually a fake crisis. 

First, of all, on the face of it the Israeli action seems genuinely to have been much more of a screwup than a calculated affront. And if someone was trying to undercut the U.S.-Israel relationship, it seems certain they represented a fringe group and not the Netanyahu government. Subsequent statements of defiance by Netanyahu regarding building within Jerusalem were more in response to U.S. efforts to make additional political hay out of the dustup than they were related to the initial misstep.

Second, there is no real "or else" backing up U.S. demands for a reversal, an inquiry and the offering of a meaningful olive branch to the Palestinians. Obama, with few foreign-policy accomplishments to point to thus far in his young presidency, needs the peace process at least as much if not more than Netanyahu does. Time and leverage are, for the near term at least, on Netanyahu's side ... which is one reason why the U.S. government is opportunistically trying to use this crisis as a pretext to gain concessions out of the Israelis in advance of talks with the Palestinians. 

Further, the United States can't really turn its back on Israel and embrace the Palestinian side any more closely than it has because there is really no there there. And were the United States to ally itself more closely to the Palestinian position (as I believe some at high levels wish they could), the administration knows they would inevitably find the Palestinian authorities made gaffes of the magnitude of this most recent Israeli blunder on an uncomfortably frequent basis -- thanks to the fact that the Palestinian government is more defined by rifts than by meaningful accomplishments.

Finally, most importantly, the U.S. argument that the Israelis need to be seen to be more quietly cooperative with U.S. efforts or Obama won't be able to effectively stop the Iranian nuclear weapons program is undercut by the fact that the United States won't, in the end, actually stop the Iranian nuclear program. We just don't have the domestic will or the international support to do so. Just as each successive deadline for Iranian compliance with international cease and desist requirements has evaporated so too will the illusions that the U.S. can engineer anything like effective sanctions against the Iranians in an effort to penalize them for their noncompliance. 

Containment is rapidly replacing engagement as the false hope on which the U.S.-Iranian relationship will be built. (Engagement was dependent on the other side wanting to engage back. Containment is dependent on the government or some other rational actor exercising effective control over all nuclear warheads. Neither precondition will, I'm afraid, prove to have been sufficiently certain to warrant betting our vital interests on it.)  In any event, when the Iranians do ultimately go nuclear, the United States will want and need a strong relationship with Israel more not less. 

This has created the current, almost bizarre, set of circumstances. Everyone, including the Israelis, agree Netanyahu's government made a big-league error last week. (In a way, it's a real breakthrough: finally something that everyone on all sides of the Israeli-Arab divide can agree on.) But the reaction of the United States, regardless of all the robust language and diplomatic dressing down of top Israeli officials, is indicative of weakness not of strength. 

The bigger message that will be unintentionally have been delivered to the world at the end of all this is that the United States is willing to get fierce with its friend Israel over a perceived insult but that we are likely to remain ineffective in the face of self-declared Iranian enemies' efforts to destabilize the entire Middle East with nuclear weapons. This is not only a problem for the president because the outcome is so dangerous. It's also that "tough on your friends, weak with your enemies" is neither a common trait among great leaders nor is it a particularly good campaign bumper sticker.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, the front page of the New York Times contained stories on school dress codes, violence between Israelis and Palestinians, the struggling U.S. economy, stem cells, nuclear smuggling, and morning television. 

Which is to say history is what happens when you are looking in the other direction.

That's not to suggest that the lead story in the newspaper is never the most important story of the day. It is however to urge we approach "news" with considerable caution. What seems newsworthy (Woods-Uchitel) is (the Salahis) often (Going Rogue) just a reflection of conventional wisdom about what's important and ignores other minor factors like history or the fact that people tend to want to read about salacious crap or journalists like to write about things that are easy to caricature politically. As with food we tend to be drawn to the fast, easy or tasty without really much consideration of what we really need.

So it is with the Afghanistan story. Now, it's hard to dismiss any presidential decision that will put over 100,000 American troops at risk as being unnewsworthy.  But it is undeniable that most of the coverage misses the bigger point: Afghanistan is a costly distraction for the president, the military, and reporters on the lookout for the big stories of our times.  It just barely makes the list of our Top 10 Concerns in the Region and would be unlikely to make the list of our Top 20 or 25 National Concerns overall. At least that would certainly be the case had we not made the decision to put so many of our sons and daughters at risk over there.

President Obama's speech seems brilliantly conceived to mesmerize the punditsphere thanks to what will either be seen by supporters as its balance or by its detractors as its compromises. (It's the Certs approach to speech writing: it's both a breath mint and a candy mint -- both an escalation and an exit, an effort to be tough with and to support the Afghan government, to strengthen institutions but not to do "nation building", to make the war about Afghanistan and about Pakistan, to support the military and to support the critics of the war.) But what all that masks is that every minute further the president is focused on Afghanistan and every dollar further we spend there is withdrawn from some other account, some other higher priority.

Let's just take the Middle East to illustrate the point. We begin, of course, with the fact that Afghanistan is not even the biggest challenge we face in AfPak. (That would be Pak, in case you haven't had your coffee yet.) 

In fact here's a handy list you can argue about around the water cooler, the biggest challenges America faces in the Middle East in terms of the broader consequences associated with the problem:

1. Dependence on Oil from the Middle East
2. Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Exhibit A: Pakistan (includes potential for loose nukes or conflict with India)
3. Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Exhibit B: Iran
4. Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Exhibit C: Likelihood of Regional Arms Race
5. Growing Influence of Muslim Extremism in Countries from Egypt to Saudi
6. Growing Loss of Influence in the Region to the Russians, the Chinese and others
7. Deterioration in the Israeli-Palestinian Situation (Could include further conflict there or even Israeli action against Iran)
8. Failure of the "American Experiment" in Iraq
9. Consequences Internationally and Regionally of Economic Failures in the Gulf (...watch Greece, Russia, and others carefully on this front...)
10. Afghanistan

And the only reason the decline of the dollar and the fiscal burdens on the U.S. economy that will severely limit our ability to act in the region are not on the list is that they seem very domestic ... but they would rank near the top otherwise. And as I noted before they are linked to the host of other issues domestic and international which actually outrank the Middle East (hard though that may be to believe to all our friends from all those lobbies, think tanks, and government contractors out there.)

This misplaced focus is revealed especially effectively in the regional context thanks to the juxtaposition of the final stages of this "Afghan decision" (and don't delude yourself into believing this is the last such "decision" or that the new policies will go very far toward resolving the core issues associated with stabilizing that country or getting out) with the recent announcement by the Iranians to proceed with plans to build 10 nuclear enrichment facilities. Whether or not they are capable of doing this, by now it should be quite clear that Iran has adopted a stance that virtually every one of America's enemies in the world has adopted during the past year. They have challenged us to demonstrate that we will simply not confront them in any effective way. 

Call it Iraq fatigue, blame it on the economic crisis at home, call it a propensity for dithering, call it a learning curve, the primary message the Obama Administration has sent to the world this year is an unintended variation on the one they intended to send: this administration really is different from that of George W. Bush. On international matters, Bush acted without thinking whereas until this week, it seemed, Obama thought without acting. Given the developments of the past few days, it seems the president has now become adept at thinking and then giving the illusion of action while actually compromising many of the benefits of decisiveness away. For example, while committing the troops must be seen as a kind of an action, it is presented as a double negative thanks to the escalation-exit strategy structure. It's what Groucho Marx might have called the "Hello, I must be going" approach.

And the Iran problem illustrates the consequences of focusing elsewhere (although it is just one such example.) Because thanks to Bush's erroneous decision to focus on Iraq and Obama's premature (last Spring) decision to move his chips to Afghanistan -- thanks to their political and economic costs -- the United States has found it ever more difficult to credibly suggest to Iran that there will be any kind of negative consequences to their move toward becoming a nuclear power. And giving the bomb to the world's largest state sponsor of terror is almost certainly a much greater threat than anything we might see in either Afghanistan or Iraq. (Admittedly, Pakistan poses a similar problem ... and for my money, Pakistan and Iran are the places we ought to be focusing the most of our energy and efforts.) In fact, I sometimes wonder who is pulling the strings for the Iranians in the U.S. government because almost every action we have taken in the past decade or so seems to have inadvertently benefitted them or at least made it harder for us to influence them.

In the end, I'm going to cling to optimism and hope that Obama's decision produces the best possible outcome, the one he and his team clearly are hoping for: a few strong blows against al Qaeda and the Taliban, some measurable stabilization and an exit. Because history is happening elsewhere and as long as we are distracted with wars like this, we raise the likelihood that it will be happening to us rather than that we will have a constructive role in shaping it.

SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

Today, it's all good news in the world...

Remember back a couple weeks ago when the G-20 leaders agreed to get rid of subsidies on fossil fuels? Well, guess what? So far not much has happened here on that front ... not surprising perhaps since the "commitment" by the G-20 leaders did not include a timeline. But one bold, shining light has emerged that is leading the way for us all. Who should Barack Obama and his fellow statesmen call for advice? Why their old pal Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Because just this past Sunday the Iranians moved to cut back on their subsidies for fuel (and food) in the interest of trying to trim their budget. Admittedly, the money they save will be used to attempt to make a big hole in the ground where Israel is, but since this is Good News Tuesday, let's focus on the upside. Today, Tehran is our good governance pick of the week.

Have you seen those promos for the latest movie by catastrophe specialist Roland Emmerich, 2012? They'd be pretty horrifying even if they did not, as pointed out in Entertainment Weekly, use collapsing twin towers as one of their money effects. But fortunately, it turns out that we don't have to go see the movie in order to help prepare for the doomsday it suggests was predicted by ancient Mayan calendars. According to an AP story yesterday, the Mayans that are still with us say this end of days frenzy is just an over-wrought misinterpretation of the calendars which do note that late in 2012 some unusual astronomical developments will take place. This may, they imply, be worth a visit to the backyard with a telescope but it doesn't warrant hiding in the basement with a year's supply of franks and beans. Or going to see 2012, which according to early reviews is itself such a disaster, it'll have audiences wishing for the real thing before they've finished their popcorn.

What's better than good governance in Iran and the fact that the world's not going to end in three years? How about something that seemed impossible just a few months back: economic recovery? Yup, according to Larry Summers, the president's top economic advisor, in a letter to Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner, happy days are near again. Consumer confidence is coming back and the housing market is stabilizing. But, for most Americans, an even more credible source than a senior government official who happens to be one of the world's leading economists has emerged: TV ads. Yep. According to a front-page story in today's New York Times, "While economists and investors study housing starts and gross domestic product predictions to measure economic vibrancy, General Electric, Bank of America and other companies are using commercials to proclaim America's future is bright." And if they say it in a TV ad, you know it's true. Otherwise how do you explain all the ShamWows and that Popeil Pocket Fisherman in your basement?

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has reported following talks with Secretary of State Clinton that there is a "good chance" of cutting a deal with Iran on its nukes. He also called the threat of sanctions "counterproductive," revealing a resolute and moving faith in the fundamental decency of mankind ... and especially in the Iranians despite a track record that would and has made lesser nations doubters. State Department spokespeople said that they didn't seek anything from the Russians during the trip, which provides us with more good news since nothing is precisely what they got.

In today's Washington Post, Anne Applebaum, almost certainly their best regular commentator, finally digs deep enough to find the positive spin on our favorite prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. This is important because without Berlusconi, newspapers would be dull grey things ... er, even duller, greyer things. We need a buffo world leader and I suspect we can all agree he's the perfect guy in the perfect place given his special breed of apparently corrupt ludicrousness and the not unimportant fact that Italy is probably the largest country we could trust to such a clown without really dire consequences to the planet. Writes Applebaum, seeking to explain his popularity, "Besides, with Berlusconi as your prime minister, you don't have to take yourself too seriously. You don't have to trouble yourself with geopolitics or the state of the planet, or poverty and failed states. You can stay at home, remain unserious and argue about the latest legal scandal. And maybe that too, is part of the prime minister's appeal."

And in other good news: The five short-range missiles tested by North Korea yesterday were only short-range missiles, while the recent spate of bombings in Pakistan have been tragic they do serve as a useful reminder that our real problems in that neck of the world are not in Afghanistan, despite the fact that the Baucus health-care bill doesn't actually fix a single one of the problems it sets out to address according to members of the House of Representatives it may actually get a helpful makeover in conference, Nicolas Sarkozy loves his 23-year-old son enough to advance him for a job running a good chunk of Paris's financial district, and perhaps most upliftingly the founder of Cirque du Soleil returned safely from a trip to outer space today thus guaranteeing the world more of his trailblazing work creating the theatrical equivalent of Muzak. Next up: why not an evening of bad jokes, young scantily clad women, acrobats, plastic surgeons and opera music called "Berlusconi!"

OMAR TORRES/AFP/Getty Images

I think for a lot of Americans, particularly those of a more liberal inclination, like Michael Moore or my mother, there was a kind of flickering hope earlier in the week that America might be on the verge of exiting the Middle East once and for all.

The loud tick tick tick of the withdrawal timeline has been audible throughout Iraq for months. And with the debate triggered by the McChrystal Report and the pushback calls for more troops seemed to be generating from Vice President Biden and others within the administration, it seemed we might be moving toward a decision by the President that would have us narrowing the mission in Afghanistan. This argued many ... including conservatives like George Will, for that matter ... could only reasonably lead to our withdrawal from that misbegotten place.

And they may even hoped, the United States might finally be ready to pressure the Israelis into backing down on settlements as a way of getting to serious talks about a peace agreement with the Palestinians. No Jewish settlements equals lasting peace settlement, seems to be the calculus there.

Then, reality crept back into the picture. First, it was hinted at when Obama ... at least temporarily ... backed down on pressuring the Israelis on the settlements. But then it came roaring back into focus with a vengeance thanks to the "news" of Iran's second nuclear enrichment facility. Never mind that Obama was briefed on this facility before he became president, that allied intelligence services had known about it for years and that everyone knew Iran was lying about its existence all along. There comes a moment in these things when their lying and our willingness to lie to ourselves or at least to our publics slip out of whack. And that's when the truth creeps out and spoils the party.

And so as the week draws to a close, the picture now looks somewhat different. Iran is revealed again to be a liar and immediately responds by saying "we won't back down." America, Britain, and France make statements condemning Iran, but they range from bland and process oriented (Obama) to bold but toothless (Sarkozy and Brown). Meanwhile, Angela Merkel (who my sources tell me is not one of Obama's faves in Europe to begin with) and the Russians and the Chinese can't or won't make it to the "shocked, shocked" photo op.

Russia and China are the "or" and the "else" of any international threat to Iran. Absent them, countries like the United States and our European allies can only stomp their feet or introduce sanctions that will be largely ineffective. So this problem festers on and looks very likely to get much worse before it gets better.

Meanwhile, days after the Untied States votes to triple aid to Pakistan, the Washington Post runs a story today about the growing anti-Americanism in that country and how it threatens our goals there. Given that Pakistan is where our real enemies are, this reminds us that this is the AfPak War and regardless of what we want to do in Afghanistan, we will for many years be grappling with the much, much bigger problems associated with nuclear Pakistan.

And on top of it all, the Iran revelation makes Bibi Netanyahu (see today's other post) one of the big winners of this week, proving that while Ahmadinejad lies about the Holocaust and nukes, Netanyahu has been accurately characterizing the Iranian threat. Further, it is becoming clearer and clearer to the Obama team that however difficult the Israelis may be, they are matched step for step by the Palestinians.

In short, for those of you who thought we might have been on the verge of getting the heck out of Dodge, reconsider. We can draw down troops in Iraq, but there will be 50,000 there when Obama's successor arrives in office. We can narrow the focus in Afghanistan, but there will be U.S. military dealing with threats in AfPak when Obama's successor arrives in office. We can extend the "unclenched fist" to Iran, but they will spit in it and represent a deep and lasting threat to regional security for many years, certain well past whenever Obama's successor arrives in office. And Israel and Palestine may make peace ... although that seems a long way off...but the volatility in the region will ensure that sooner or later everyone will be clear that they are not the lynchpin of the region's stability issues.  (Although they are certainly an important one.)

The decisions Obama makes about Afghanistan, about dealing with a difficult ally in Pakistan, about how to forge an effective international coalition to contain Iran (which will involve coming up with credible, meaningful consequences if they fail to fall into line), and about just how to get two difficult parties to accept the peace they both need and want, will play a large role in determining whether Obama is around for another 3 or another 7 years. But it seems clear that almost regardless of which path he chooses, his successor will face many of the same problems.

A week that began with murmurs of hope among those who would like to see America disengaged from the region -- a group with which I am very sympathetic not to mention one that includes plenty of my relatives -- is distressingly ending with a slightly different tone, better characterized by the shrieks of noted foreign policy observer Mathew Broderick at the climactic moment of "The Producers." "No way out!" he cries, "No way out!"

I'm not always a pessimist. But I am right now.

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