If mathematics is the universal language, here are a few numbers that should communicate volumes to all:

2000
That's the approximate number of employees in the CIA's Counterterrorism Center. And according to the Washington Post's lead story today, that means more people are now doing counter-terror work for our Central Intelligence Agency than there are as members of al Qaeda. How's that for a tenth anniversary message about America's response to the 9/11 attacks? Personally, I think it is just great and an appropriate use of U.S. national security resources, these couple of thousand of people will do vastly more to contain the terror threat than most of the hundreds of thousands we deployed in old-style land ground wars in the Middle East.

2000
As it happens, 2000 is also the estimated number of militants and civilians killed by U.S. drone attacks. The use of drones along with the application of intelligence assets above are among the ways America is better learning how to contain the terror threat. Of course, the civilian death toll, the violation of the air space of sovereign nations and the moral implications of rich nations being able to wage war against poor ones without putting the lives of their own people at risk are all questions hanging in the air like the drone that circled above Osama bin Laden's residence in the hours before he died.

9.1
That, of course, is the current jobless rate in the United State, an ominous figure as we enter this Labor Day weekend. But much worse are numbers like...

16.7 and 16.4
Those respectively are the official numbers regarding unemployed blacks and unemployed young people in America. In cities like Detroit, Cleveland, and Milwaukee, old hubs of the industrial Midwest, the official numbers are above 25 percent. And of course, being official numbers, we know they are wrong. They don't include those who have stopped looking for jobs and dropped out of the labor force altogether. They don't include the under-employed. The real numbers are much higher. In fact they are so much higher that they are not actually numbers any more. They are a social crisis, a breakdown that is tearing apart the fabric of America, crushing hopes and inviting backlash of a type we haven't seen in decades. Which leads us to...

46.5
Which is the gut-wrenchingly high ... appalling ... failure-of-our-system type .... percentage of black young people who were out of work in August. And all these unemployment numbers lead us in turn to...

0 and 0
Which is both the number of net new jobs created in August ... and also happens to be Barack Obama's percentage chances of re-election if these job numbers do not improve measurably over the next 12 months. Having said that, it's always good to have a Plan B in mind. Which explains, I suppose, why White House chief of staff Bill Daley reportedly arranged a below-the-radar retreat in June for his senior team at Fort McNair with historian Michael Beschloss as a guest speaker to help answer the one question on everyone's mind: "How does a U.S. President win re-election with the country suffering unacceptably high rates of unemployment?"

51 and counting
That's number of months since George W. Bush's EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson said that existing Federal smog standards "do not adequately protect the public." It's "and counting" because today President Obama put a stop -- until at least after the 2012 elections -- to the EPA's plan to issue new ozone standards despite the fact that his own EPA team had been working on them intensively for over two years now. The EPA has said (in each of the past four years) that a new smog standard would provide between $13 billion and $100 billion in health benefits at a cost of $19 billion to $90 billion. Further, the pushback leaves the U.S. again lagging on a global environmental regulatory issue -- ozone -- gaining in importance almost everywhere else. It is also a sign that the President (see the above numbers) is starting to see everything to through the lens of the above job numbers (and his poll numbers that are directly linked to them.) For their part, Republicans on the Hill and corporate voices up and down K Street that have been hammering home the point about potential job losses associated with the possible new regulations were heard cheering. Congressman Fred Upton, the House's energy honcho calling it a "welcome breakthrough."

Robert Gates may well be the best secretary of defense the United States has ever produced. He has had an extraordinary national security career, distinguishing himself not only in terms of its duration or the number of senior positions he has held but even more so in terms of the quality of his service. He is capable, exceptionally intelligent, and an unhesitating truth-teller to presidents.

That is why it is important to very carefully weigh his statement on Monday that in Afghanistan "we've still got a ways to go and I think we shouldn't let up on the gas too much, at least for the next few months." Clearly, it reflects a belief on his part -- days before his departure from office -- that continued application of U.S. military force at present levels of intensity could speed the movement of the Taliban to the negotiating table and thus make reconciliation talks and potential stability in that country more feasible sooner.

He is in a better position than almost anyone to make that judgment given the constant stream of intelligence and feedback he gets from his generals on the ground. That his view is apparently shared by General David Petraeus, America's top commander there, adds credence to it.

"If we keep the military pressure on through this winter," he was quoted as saying in the Washington Post, "and we are able to hang on to what we've taken away from these guys over the last year to 18 months...then it may be that sometime around the end of this year these guys decide maybe we ought to start talking seriously about reconciliation. That certainly is my hope."

It is an understandable hope for a man who has devoted so much time to finding the best possible outcome for the United States in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, in this instance, Gates has it wrong. First, there is the issue of who he means by "these guys." While some elements of the Taliban and other anti-government forces in Afghanistan might be coaxed to the negotiating table as a consequence of further applied pressure from the U.S. military, it is almost certainly the case that these will neither be representative of the whole of anti-United States, anti-Karzai-government opposition nor will they be drawn from the most extremist and potentially disruptive elements from among our current enemies.

Further, even if such a group were to come to the table there is neither any guarantee that talks would be productive nor is there any that winning an extension in power for Karzai or some power-sharing government would actually ultimately make Afghanistan any more stable or any less likely to become a haven for terrorist groups. Given that the United States and our allies are unwilling to stay indefinitely and that we have set a deadline of 2014 for departure, a deadline so close as to virtually guarantee we can not know the viability of any regime established in the next year or two, we will have little long-term leverage to ensure the outcome Gates believes we should wait longer to attempt to produce.

Finally, most importantly, 2014 is effectively now. If you are in the Afghan opposition -- a Taliban or a restless warlord or mischievous Pakistani ISI officer with an agenda -- Gates' message sounds a lot different to you than it does to American audiences. To Americans it sounds like "let's get out slowly." But to the committed extremist all they hear is "let's get out." What's a few more months when you have been fighting for a decade...longer still since many of those fighting see this as a continuation of a war with the Russians that began more than three decades ago?

Go slow or go fast, they think, in three winters the invaders will be gone and the rules will change rapidly.

It is unreasonable to think that if ten years of waging this war have been so unfruitful that six or nine more months of perhaps 10,000 or 15,000 more troops will make much of a difference. And indeed, in the long run it will not and by leaving the troops there a little longer, by withdrawing a little more slowly, President Obama can say he listened to his generals, gave it every chance, and only then drew down more rapidly.

But lives will be lost in the interim. And every American troop on the ground costs roughly $1 million a year, so even a few thousand troops makes a difference of billions in expense to a strung-out U.S. budget. But more importantly, whatever the expense is, it is extremely unlikely to be effective and staying longer is likely to only have utility as a political exercise. The troops should go now, as fast as we can draw them down. We should not start with 5,000 troops, but a multiple of that. The New York Times piece today suggesting a group was emerging within the National Security Council advocating a more aggressive withdrawal is encouraging.

What seems likely to happen is that the president will stick with Gates and Petraeus on this but will try to send a message by announcing larger interim targets. It would be the kind of effort at balancing conflicting views with which the president has seemed most comfortable in the past. One set of headlines might read: the president sticks with military pull-out approach in the near-term while another says, the president will be more aggressive in getting out in the medium term.

Whatever the decision, the one thing that is certain is that for the United States, there is no long term in Afghanistan. This one is done. To paraphrase the old joke, we've already established whether this war is successful or not, now we're just haggling over the final price.

It would be too easy to say that Barack Obama has been a big loser so far since the onset of operations against the Qaddafi regime in Libya. It would also be wrong. The Obama administration has mishandled many elements of the crisis, but nothing they have done wrong thus far is irreversible and in terms of the simple objectives of imposing a no-fly zone and containing Qaddafi, the effort has been effective.

Further, whatever the criticism of Obama may be, his intentions have been both defensible and sound: The desire to forestall a humanitarian disaster and to do so through multilateral mechanisms were worthy and responsible goals. The challenge thus far has been in the execution ... although clearly, the risks going forward remain high and were this to result in a protracted U.S. involvement, unacceptable costs, a stalemate on the ground that left Qaddafi in power or the installation of a new government that ultimately proved to be as bad or worse for U.S. interests than its predecessors, then we would have to revisit our list.

Meanwhile, at this stage of the game, the five biggest losers associate with the whadeveryacallit (see Jay Carney's convolocution above) are:

5. Qaddafi

Much as the Libyan people were only the number five beneficiary of events so far in our winners list because the outcome is so uncertain, Qaddafi is only the number five loser of the major international military onslaught targeting his regime because it is not certain how this will all end up for him. With the UN's promise not to put boots on the ground, Qaddafi's tenure in office could be a long one and absent a "lucky" missile strike or a major increase in the effectiveness of opposition forces, a stalemate in which he retains considerable power over important chunks of Libya seems a strong possibility. Another alternative which might not be so bad is exile and the prospect of living with billions of dollars and all the Ukrainian nurses that can buy (which is a lot). So, while the most advanced military forces in the world are working against him, right now Muammar still is clinging to hope of a better tomorrow ... or any tomorrow ... which could prove to be a very unsatisfactory outcome from the political perspective of some of his leading international adversaries. That said, my money is on him not surviving as Libya's leader and in any event all his attempts at remaking his image over the past half decade have been undone and he has been permanently restored to his much deserved lunatic pariah status.

4. NATO

While the forces in the field have been performing admirably, the early days of this operation in terms of the alliance's political operations haven't been pretty. The world's most important, powerful, experienced, best-equipped military alliance has all the toys a middle-aged coalition could want but someone seems to have misplaced the instruction manual for smooth establishment of a command structure. From the minute they committed to this there have been arguments about who is in charge, about goals, about tactics, about basing, about burden-sharing, about virtually everything that alleged friends could possibly fight about. While the attacks NATO has carried out have apparently been effective, it is still unclear whether in the long-term they will be making the region any safer. Further, and more damagingly, they have revealed real problems in the ability of the alliance to work together on the kinds of conflicts with which they are most likely to be confronted in the near future. The apparent decision, a week into the crisis, to put a clear NATO command structure to be in charge helps matters considerably ... but the delays in getting there also underscore the kind of fault-line issues bedeviling the participating countries. This will all be papered over once this draws to a close but going forward, resistance of countries like Germany and Turkey to participation in undertakings like this could remain high for some time to come.

3. Arab League

Not that they had much credibility to begin with and not that many people expected much of them when it came to championing either democracy or even the basic human rights of the people of their region, but the Arab League at least during the early days of this operation did the near impossible and reduced the value of their role as a force of good within their region by their inability to follow up on their welcome promise of playing a key role in containing Qaddafi. Again, it's possible that they could undo the damage that has been done by stepping up their commitment of men and materiel to the mission -- and today's welcome announcement of substantial air support from the UAE buttresses the commitment of the Qataris in important ways -- but there are plenty in the coalition who acted in response to their promises who are absolutely furious at how so many members of the League have proven to be all keffiyeh and no camel on this issue. (A reference to the old Texas slam about posturing would-be ranchers who were "all hat and no cattle" for those of you wondering where I was going with that.)

2. Multilateralism

Viewing points 3 and 4 above, one can't help but worry that at the dawn of what could be a new era in international affairs, an essential idea has been set back by messy execution. In the wake of the Iraq debacle, America and the world both were motivated to move away from the ugly inequities of a one superpower world dominated by a we-can-do-it-all-ourselves USA.  The only alternative was better sharing of responsibilities for decision-making and problem-solving when it came to global problems. Barack Obama's willingness to embrace that new approach in the face of this first real 3 a.m. phone call type crisis of his presidency was welcome and the right thing to do but it could produce more damage than good if critics ultimately feel we did the right thing in the wrong way. If the message about multilateralism is that it is slow or messy or costly or politically damaging, it will not only become harder to rally allies in the future but in the U.S. unilateralists will have a case in point to use when next they want to drop the hammer on someone without benefit of the blessing of the international community.

1. Coherence

It is a good thing that William Safire, the New York Times redoubtable lover of words and their meanings is dead because if he weren't the White House press statements on this crisis would have killed him. We don't have to start with the good and capable Jay Carney's ill-considered coherence-limited characterization of the Libya conflict cited in the title of this post. We can turn to Ben Rhodes' clarity-challenged clarification of whether or not the U.S. was seeking regime change cited in an earlier post this week. Or we can go to Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough's appearance on the PBS NewsHour which was described by the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin as "He was asked questions. He answered them. And in the end you had no idea what he said." (For our international readers let me note that the Washington Post is not seen as a crazy right wing mouthpiece of the Republican Party.) Speaking however of crazy Republicans, they are not immune from the disease currently affecting Washington, either. Take Newt Gingrich who may have finally stuck a stake through the heart of his already slim chances of being a credible candidate for president when he offered two completely contradictory positions on intervention in Libya within the course of a couple of weeks. (Although his creative "patriotism excuses infidelity" stance -- also known as the flag-made-me-do-it excuse for cheating on your cancer-stricken wife -- is likely to ensure him a few male votes should he ever run.) It is almost as if the underlying foundation of the United States's current foreign policy is Newton's Third Law of Motion, paraphrased to suggest that for each guiding principle of our actions there is an equal and opposite principle to which we also adhere. We're leading and we're not. We're for regime change and we're against. We're for democracy in some places but not in others. For those seeking comfort, there are always the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald that "the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." For those worried by the trend outbreak of double-talk there is however the fact that Fitzgerald offered that observation in an essay called "The Crack-Up."

The Japanese nuclear crisis, though still unfolding, may, in a way, already be yesterday's news. For a peek at tomorrow's, review the testimony of General Keith Alexander, head of U.S. Cyber Command. Testifying before Congress this week and seeking support to pump up his agency budget, the general argued that all future conflicts would involve cyber warfare tactics and that the U.S. was ill-equipped to defend itself against them.

Alexander said, "We are finding that we do not have the capacity to do everything we need to accomplish. To put it bluntly, we are very thin, and a crisis would quickly stress our cyber forces. ... This is not a hypothetical danger."

The way to look at this story is to link in your mind the Stuxnet revelations about the reportedly U.S. and Israeli-led cyber attacks on the Iranian nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz and the calamities at the Fukushima power facilities over the past week. While seemingly unconnected, the stories together speak to the before and after of what cyber conflict may look like. Enemies will be able to target one another's critical infrastructure as was done by the U.S. and Israeli team (likely working with British and German assistance) targeting the Iranian program and burrowing into their operating systems, they will seek to produce malfunctions that bring economies to their knees, put societies in the dark, or undercut national defenses.

Read on

Update, 9/12/10: In the following post due to a mistake regarding which draft I submitted to be posted, a couple of key words were dropped that have been noted by several commenters.  They refer to the paragraph regarding the mosque project in Lower Manhattan.  What I intended to write (and had actually written in the draft that I mistakenly did not submit) was not "It is odious..." but instead "It may seem odious to some, but if our freedoms..."  I appreciate those who noted the incongruity of the remark given that I was early and strongly on the record supporting the right of those supporting the Islamic Cultural Center to build it wherever they wanted to.  As should be clear to anyone who reads this blog, I find the objections and efforts to block the cultural center to be what is really odious and that is the point that I would have made here were it not for my typo.  Apologies.

A week ago, Fareed Zakaria wrote a piece for Newsweek entitled "What America Has Lost." It was subtitled "It's clear we overreacted to 9/11." As is typical for Zakaria, it is exceptionally thoughtful and well-argued. Its timely focus is on the enormous costs associated with building up the massive U.S. security apparatus that targeted a terrorist threat that was and is clearly overstated. Zakaria makes reference to the landmark Washington Post "Top Secret America" series that outlined how, in the wake of the World Trade Center attacks, the United States has "created or reconfigured at least 263 organizations to tackle some aspect of the war on terror. The amount of money spent on intelligence has risen by 250 percent to $75 billion (and that's the public number, which is a gross underestimate.) That's more than the rest of the world spends put together."

Even today, nine years after 9/11, it took considerable courage for Zakaria to argue that we overreacted to the horrific events of that day. Given their scope and visceral impact on every American, it seemed in the days after the blows were struck that overreaction was impossible. But in the years that followed, the feelings seem hardly to have ebbed at all, and critiques of our national reaction are, with the exception of the near consensus that invading Iraq was wrong, considered almost unpatriotic -- nearly sacrilegious, in fact.

Yet I believe that Zakaria's column understates the problem. I attribute this to its appropriately limited focus rather than any narrowness of his perspective. It was, after all, just a single column in which he focused on making an important point about America's security priorities and the opportunity costs associated with our strategic overreaction. That said, the damage done by letting emotion and adrenaline get the best of us in the months and years after the attacks extends far beyond the distortion of foreign policy priorities or the impact on the U.S. federal budget.

Read on

Think tanks being what they are -- large meat lockers in which future government bureaucrats are stored until needed -- the reports they produce tend to be little more than exercises in reputation management. They state the obvious, then slather it in a bland, nutrient-free sauce of quasi-academic qualifications that seek to explain why they are really not saying anything new or practical. The best of them offer course corrections that are minuscule at best, and new ideas are as hard to find as honest politicians in the Karzai administration.

Which brings us to the latest such report to be issued, one that proves to be the exception to the rule. That report is "A New Way Forward: Rethinking U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan" from the New America Foundation. It is one of the very few such documents that I have recently read and found myself nodding at almost every turn of the page. It is so good that it almost restores my youthful belief in the potential benefits of putting smart people around a table and letting them cogitate and argue and bullshit and grapple with tough problems. Produced by a glittering group of wonks, it contains real thoughtful insights into America's situation in Afghanistan and comes to sound, generally implementable conclusions about what the United States should do to avoid making a very bad situation even worse.

The report is well summarized in an article by Steve Clemons, one of its architects, that appears in Politico. In short, it makes the case that spending $100 billion a year to fight a war we can't win in Afghanistan is just one of several reasons that America's policies are misguided and demand immediate correction. He writes, "Though Obama is more likeable, and often more inspiring, than the fictional captain in the Melville novel, Afghanistan has now become the Moby Dick to Obama's Ahab."

The report begins by revisiting the forgotten territory of America's initial reasons to be involved in the region in the first place. It correctly notes there are only two: preventing Afghanistan from being a staging ground for further terrorist attacks against the United States, and doing what we can to reduce the threat that Pakistani weapons of mass destruction might fall into the wrong hands. It argues correctly that if we focus on these two goals, then our mission, military and diplomatic presence in the region would and should look very different.

It makes five key recommendations. The first is promoting power sharing and political inclusion in a more decentralized Afghanistan: In other words, trying to work with rather than against the historical and cultural tides in the country. Second is downsizing and ending military operations in southern Afghanistan and reducing the military presence there. Third is focusing the military's attention on Al Qaeda, which is no longer really present in Afghanistan but remains an issue in Pakistan. (Notably, the New America group suggests using the cost-savings the drawdown would produce to bolster U.S. domestic security and contain the spread of weapons of mass destruction worldwide.) Fourth is encouraging the promotion of economic development, while emphasizing that this should be an internationally rather than U.S. led effort. (Hallelujah to that.) Finally, it recommends collaborating with influential states in the region to ensure Afghanistan is not dominated by "any single power or being permanently a failed state that exports instability." The report notes that those states -- Pakistan, India, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia -- aren't the best of pals, but suggests correctly that there are ways to work with each or even small clusters of them to promote these outcomes that are, for the most part, in their interests.

Point five is a bit of a stretch. Point four is more or less boilerplate, though worthy of emphasizing. The reality is that Afghanistan will become a strongman dominated quasi-failed state, but that as long as our core goals in the region -- the two mentioned above -- are met, then we should be less concerned with whatever structure produces an outcome supportive of them.

Personally, I think the international community needs to be involved actively in ensuring that whatever successor state emerges, the rights of all Afghans -- and notably women and tribal minorities -- are respected and protected. It is also true that Pakistan is the real problem and appropriate subject of U.S. attention in this region, and that this requires forthrightly addressing what diplomatic and force structure is required to promote stability and contain threats within that country.

But this report is clear-eyed, direct, well-argued and in its tone even more than its substance sends a message that the only door we should head for in that country is the one with the exit sign over it. In Clemons article he notes that the United States spends seven times Afghanistan's own GDP on our involvement there -- an amount equal to the cost of the recent U.S. health care legislation, and one that if saved could pay down the U.S. deficit in 14 years. The recklessness and irresponsibility of such a costly involvement, given America's other urgent priorities and the true nature of the threats within Afghanistan, makes the blood boil.

It does no dishonor to our military to wish their lives and services were available for other missions. Reports like this raise the hope that opinion is shifting in ways that may lead us to just such a desirable outcome.

I've recently laid my hands on the Obama administration's super secret Iran plan. Because it is highly classified, I can't offer all the details here. (Also, because there are very few details to begin with.)

The plan begins with the sanctions program that was approved Wednesday by the U.N. Security Council. It should be noted however, that after the description of the sanctions are a few hand-written notations. The deadlines, for example, have been struck through ... repeatedly. In fact, there are almost more deleted deadlines than there are deleted proposed sanctions. Almost. But there are actually scores of proposed elements that were one after one cut out of the program ranging from "petroleum products" to "anything that might negatively impact trade or relationships with China or Russia." In fact, the only original item in the sanctions program that remains intact is prohibiting Iranian television from airing episodes of the first season of Glee until early next year. 

However, the sanctions are followed by the following note: "It is very unlikely that the sanctions program will work even if it is not eviscerated by our "partners" in the diplomatic process." (Here there are just a bunch of exclamation marks and the letters "LOL" in the margin.) It goes on to say: "We know this because a.) Sanctions programs rarely work; b.) When they do work they never work quickly enough to actually achieve our prime purpose here which is stopping the Iranian nuclear program; and c.) Because this will be the fourth set of sanctions, weaker than prior sets and therefore will be seen as a nothing more than a "used handkerchief" by the Iranians. Or anyone else."

And from there it goes on to say: "Nonetheless, these are our damn sanctions and even if they are an empty sham we cannot allow them to be upstaged by even the naïve and equally unlikely to succeed programs of others. Because such programs will both marginalize us and at the same time underscore the pointlessness of our efforts. Thus, even if we don't take forceful action to stop the Iranian nuclear program we must take forceful action to stomp out other programs that might seek to stop the Iranian nuclear program."

Next something is written about the necessity of having a forceful and credible military response in the event the sanctions don't work but this too is scribbled out. In the margin: "If we're backing toward the exit in Iraq and Afghanistan, who's going to believe any of this mouthwash? Just parrot the old "reserve all our options" formulas and hope people are too busy following whatever Charlie Sheen's latest scandal may be to notice how transparently impotent this all is."

Next the main body of the memo consists of a number of possible steps listed under "Program of Escalation." These are only to be implemented if the sanctions fail to markedly slow down Iranian nuclear progress. They include: "U.S. U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice pointedly eats at a different table from the Iranian delegation in the United Nations cafeteria," then "Rice starts eating with the Turks to demonstrate we have friends in the Islamic world" (this has however, been crossed out), then "Robert Gibbs to complain that cable media have empowered the Iranians and cancels appearance on Morning Joe," then "Criminalization of possession of Iranian pistachios and spontaneous display of pouring pistachio ice cream into the street in front of SEIU headquarters," then "Public display of affection with Bibi Netanyahu" (also crossed out), then "President Obama tells touching story about how Malia tugged on his PJs and asked whether he had stopped that nasty Mahmoud from getting the bomb," then finally "President Obama delivers very tough speech employing soaring rhetoric declaring the success of our engagement program, punctuated with threats about 'kicking ass' and announcing the appointment of a bipartisan committee to explore 'forceful next steps' -- end with tight shot of clenched jaw."

After these there is a concluding paragraph which reads: If none of the above initiatives work see next memo (NSC document code redacted) entitled "Learning to Live with a Nuclear Iran."

As promised -- trumpet fanfare -- "The Winners and Losers of the Decade." Or, as I like to think of it, "The Winners and Losers of the Oughts," in deference to the zeros in each year of the decade's numbering, the zeros who were in charge and all that we ought to have done that we did not do.

The Losers

George W. Bush: It almost seems too easy. But upon reflection, it's not even close. Bush wasn't just born with a silver spoon in his mouth -- he inherited America, the world's sole superpower, with a budget surplus and clear skies ahead. When we were attacked on 9/11, the immediate consequence was unprecedented support for him and for the country. And yet, almost immediately thereafter, he started on a catastrophic set of missteps and bad decisions that had alienated the world by the end of his term. George W. Bush was not just the biggest loser produced by the American political system in the past decade, he was in all likelihood one of the worst presidents in American history and he presided over what was almost certainly the worst international relations calamity since, I don't know, maybe the Alien and Sedition Acts.

How did he get there? What was the worst of all the bad choices he made? Was it invading Iraq or picking Dick Cheney to be his vice president in the first place -- or more properly, letting Dick Cheney choose himself? In the literary biz, we call that foreshadowing ... but in the history biz they will almost certainly call it the beginning of the end for a president who undercut American stature like no other, compromised our historic values and at times, seemed like he could barely speak English.

Not only does he get my nod for loser of the decade in the United States, he takes the international crown as well. All hail George W. Bush. Thanks to his bumbling in the highest office in the land, he also achieved the rarest form of comic apotheosis: He became the punch line that didn't even need a joke. Sadly, for us all, it will always hurt when we laugh.

Al Gore and the American People: There are losers and then there are those who lost.  For the remainder of our lives we will always wonder what might have been. Seldom have there been forks in the road of history as clear as the 2000 U.S. presidential elections. The difference between the two candidates was as thin as the sheet of paper on which the politically stacked Supreme Court reached its compromised decision. In retrospect, it is ever more clear that the election was stolen and America, and countless victims worldwide, were sent hurtling toward a destiny that we and they did not deserve. Gore later would go on to win the Nobel Peace Prize for his work battling climate change and has handled the defeat and its aftermath with a grace that would warrant the prize had he done nothing at all. But we cannot help but think how much more we would have done by now to combat climate change had he been in office, how much stronger our relations would be with the world, how many innocents killed by our wars in the Middle East would still be alive. It is the decade's defining political defeat.

Read on

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The one blog I read every week is Peter King's "Monday Morning Quarterback" at Sports Illustrated. King aficionados might recognize my weak (if unattributed) shout-outs to him which come in the form of not really worrying so much about the length of any post, covering a variety of subjects, and liberally blending in the pop culture references. They will also recognize that I am not in his league and that the subject about which he writes, football, is significantly more interesting than most of the subjects about which I write.

One of the things he does frequently is offer lists of rapid fire opinions which often come under the rubric of "Ten Things I Think I Think." Consider the following yet another tribute to him ... because that is a much nicer way of thinking of it than concluding I simply stole his title and format. 

1. Jim Jones is coming into his own. He was just what Obama needed this weekend: Solid, thoughtful, and immune to Republican taunts that this administration doesn't get the military.
2. Good as Jones was, frankly, I am surprised General McChrystal has gotten off so easy for his comments last week about why narrowing our objectives in Afghanistan wasn't a good idea. It was totally out of bounds and bordering on insubordination. He is trying to play political hardball with his Commander-in-Chief ... a game he is always going to lose. Jones put it to rest elegantly however, with his pointed comment that gracefully reminded everyone where McChrystal sits in the chain of command.
3. As good and skeptical as the administration seems to be about the advice they are getting on Afghanistan, we seem to be on the verge of once again allowing ourselves to be played on Iran's nuclear program. Teheran creates the illusion of dialogue and simulated openness ... but they are proven liars who have every incentive to have a long-process and with each passing day, less to ultimately play by international rules. (They are Lucy with the football. We are Charlie Brown. When will we learn?)
4. This kerfuffle about Chicago is nonsense. The president went and promoted his home city for a few hours. It's not like he was out of touch. It's not like he didn't use the time to achieve other things.  Imagine the press if he hadn't gone and the results were what they were. A non-story.
5. I am from New Jersey. I hate the Washington Redskins. I love that they are condemned to wander aimlessly through the Swamps of Snyder testing the limits of their own mediocrity. But their lousiness only makes it a greater insult to Native Americans that the team continues to cling to a name that is a repulsive relic, an ethnic slur that would not be tolerated if the group being insulted were more politically powerful. Enough. Change the name.
6. Rumor has it the administration is -- at the highest levels -- trying to figure out a way to get the Panama and Colombia trade deals done. That's good news. To the extent it is the only trade liberalization that gets done on Ron Kirk's watch, that would be a bad thing. Remember folks, these are measly little deals.  Do them...but let's not buy into some twisted logic that argues that if you do them it will excuse a raft of protectionist measures (Chinese tires, anyone?) as counterpoint in a "balanced" policy.
7. Speaking of balance: The problem with U.S. foreign policy is that more often than not the true Secretary of State of the United States is yesterday's newspaper. That's what determines what today's policy will be. We achieve balance in complex relationships through cyclical inconsistency. Slam China on tires ... tiptoe around them on Tibet ... hope that gives you some room to make nice with Taiwan on arms transfers. Too often the countervailing measures are out of whack in terms of real importance to us or to them. 
8. The Times has a piece today headlined "The G.O.P. Campaign Message in a Word: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs." While it might be argued that's three words, it's right on point. This is what campaign 2010 will be about, especially with growing certainty that the unemployment rate will pass 10 percent. But I worry we are missing a bigger problem: the jobless recovery. Who's to say the six million jobs we lost come back or come back fast enough to keep up with demand for work? Look at the auto industry: rapid shift of well known brands to China, India and Korea. New brands rising. Same story elsewhere. I think we need to prepare for a future that is actually rather different from the past.
9. The Pew Research Center releases a study today saying that most of coverage of the economic downturn focused on problems on Wall Street and government issues and that how average folks were hit got short shrift. Hope they didn't spend too much money on the study ... because as worthy as the intent may be and as important as the message is, we already knew that, right?
10. I can't tell whether the picture of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mohammed El Baradei on the cover of today's Wall Street Journal struck me because it reminded me of Wallace Shawn and Andre the Giant in The Princess Bride or because I think it may end up being used as a model for the little plastic statuettes to be used on wedding cakes for gay men of a certain age, but it brought welcome absurdity to the front page of the Wall Street Journal (as opposed to the editorial page where it is usually found).

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This week is a three ring circus for the international community. The U.N. The G20. The Clinton Global Initiative ... and a host of other side shows for good measure. But with most of the activities featuring little more than the foreign policy equivalent of jazz hands ... eye-catching moves amounting to much ado about nothing ... it may ultimately be remembered for a reason no one saw coming. Because I think it is pretty likely that in the future we will look at this week as the beginning of the end of America's presence in Afghanistan and by extension, George W. Bush's 8-year involvement in the Middle East.

It will take some time to wind things down. I also think history may come up with some better name to describe the Bush war in the context of related wars that took place before it, during his father's time in office, and will almost certainly take place after it. Perhaps it will be seen as the Second Gulf War in a series of several. Perhaps it will be seen as the Second Oil War. But we can leave the lasting labels to historians.

The reality is that the reaction to the leak of the McChrystal Report is indicative that there are really only two options in Afghanistan open to the administration. One is that they do not provide McChrystal with the additional resources he requests and they further narrow his mission as a justification for their decision and we begin an inevitable process of winding down. The second is that Obama does grant McChrystal's request but due to the growing doubts about the entire endeavor that the leak of the report has both revealed and exacerbated, that he sets much more specific goals and timelines that in turn pre-sage an ultimate winding down.

The Vietnam analogy is sticking -- the quagmire paradigm -- and no one near the President wants making that mistake again to be his legacy. The fact that Karzai's regime is turning out to be just as corrupt and feckless as our partners in South Vietnam were doesn't help. Further, as we approach the 10 year point at which Russia ended its occupation (which we'll hit in less than two years), comparisons with yet another futile military effort will become too strong for many to bear. Finally, of course, there is the small fact that we're playing whack-a-mole with the insurgents, we can't close the backdoor to Pakistan and if we could, they would go someplace else in the world. In fact, they already are whether to Yemen or Somalia or, apparently, to Colorado.

The seemingly serious threat posed by an Afghan-led terror group associated with al Qaeda that wanted to use explosives to attack U.S. transport hubs underscores two other important points. One is that as we squeeze Afghanistan we may crush some opponents but we do create new ones. Further, it is also clear that we really need to do some new thinking about how one actually does reduce the risk of terror attacks ... and accept that effective homeland security enforcement as apparently has taken place this week, may be the best front line on which we can prosecute this effort.

Meanwhile, of course, in New York and later in Pittsburgh, the headlines that were hoped for from the three-ring circus are unlikely to be materializing ... and the ones that do emerge are likely to be rather disheartening or, at best, underwhelming.

The United States is likely to frustrate the world by providing it with just what it has been asking for. On climate, on the business of the U.N., at the G20 meeting, America will be the key player but it will not dominate or direct or make the tough calls. It will be a better partner than at any time in the recent past. But the result is a three ring circus without a ringmaster. And paradoxically, the United States will be (is being) fiercely criticized for not being strong enough. We can call the world hypocrites all we want but the reality is that everyone wants the same thing: a leader who will take the heat and always lead in the direction they want to go. Any deviation from this ideal will produce howls ... and reading the news this week should produce plenty of corroboration for this observation.

For the Obama administration, the problem is not being an America we can never be.  Every girl sooner or later (it always happens around her 29th birthday if the girl's still single), realize that Prince Charming is a myth and must settle for a real man. But when they do, they then want that man to have some demonstrable qualities and being better than the last jerk you dated only gets you so far. For Obama though, the world is looking for proof that he can actually deliver on one or more of his international priorities: make engagement work with Iran, embrace a new approach to Israel and Palestine that actually produces results, refocus to AfPak and make that work, get our leadership on with regard to climate, be a better neighbor in the hemisphere, jettison tired old artifacts of policies (see: Cuba), help foster real reform and new levels of cooperation and transparency in international markets, and reduce the threat of WMD proliferation.

One by one these issues will play in one or another of the three rings that makes this week's foreign policy circus so compelling. The Obama team is hoping there will be signs of progress ... but that seems unlikely. Taken together, the United States may end up being seen as the absent ringmaster not because we have chosen a different style of leadership but simply because we can't deliver. Sometimes this will be because circumstances truly are beyond our control and America doesn't have the influence or options that others ascribe to us. Sometimes it may be because we ourselves promised more than we could deliver. Obama's credibility is at stake ... and given the way most of the issues listed above are trending, regaining it is going to be a challenge that could take a long, long time to address.

As with Afghanistan, here's the secret: resetting expectations. Identify some goals you can actually achieve. Achieve them. That should have been the approach to domestic policy. Go slower. Build up a head of steam. And it needs to be the approach to international policy. Ringmaster or not, in the three ring circus of international affairs, the last place Obama wants to be is with his predecessor and many of his critics in a clown car full of people the world no longer takes seriously. 

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With the statement of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asserting that his country would not support sanctions against Iran and his dismissal of U.S. calls for a negotiating timetable with that country, several important questions are raised. They are:

First, how do you like your Iranian nukes? Fried or over-easy?

In other words, without sanctions Iran's program progresses. That leaves two choices: Israel steps up and takes military action to set back the program or second, we simply roll-over and get used to the world's largest state-sponsor of terror producing the nuclear weapons the U.S. intel community now believes they are capable of making.

My sense is that the risk of Israeli military moves just went up dramatically ... and it was pretty high to begin with. But they will only set back the Iranian program briefly if they do intervene and the resulting turmoil on the international scene is likely to produce plenty of blowback for an Israel that is already more isolated than it has been in forty years.

But on the question at hand, let's be absolutely clear: Russia has just essentially unilaterally given the green light to Tehran to join the nuclear weapons club. Russia can block action in the Security Council and no effort to, for example, halt oil and gas flows to Iran could work without Russian cooperation. The last chance of stopping the Iranians over the long-term has probably therefore been undercut. As disturbingly, the Russian message is clearly that this is something they actually support. Otherwise, they could have kept their own counsel while negotiations continued. They didn't have to tip their hand now unless they wanted to scuttle the entire negotiation process. They are saying they believe their approach is the one most likely to work with Tehran. Tehran may even find ways to pretend it is working. But without any effective international levers against the Iranians, they have been given the go-ahead to pursue whatever agenda they choose.

Second, in a related vein, what was Bibi doing in Moscow?

If he was there, as current speculation suggests, to press the Russians to stop shipments of S300 missiles to Iran, that didn't turn out so well, with Russia standing by its right to engage in arms sales with the Iranians...and then adding a threat of severe consequences if Israel or another state used military measures to stop the Iranian nuclear program. At this point, with the Russians providing so much diplomatic, political and military cover for the Iranian efforts, it is almost tempting to start referring to Tehran's initiative as a joint Russian-Iranian nuclear program.

Third, will it be NPT 2.0, NPT 1.1 or N²PT?

Once it is recognized that Iran's entrance into the nuclear club proves (yet again) the impotence of the non-proliferation treaty do we go for an entirely new agreement, a variation on what we have now or just accept that what we have is really the N²PT, which is to say the non-nonproliferation treaty (this is one case where a double negative definitely does not equal a positive.) A completely new deal is, in reality, a non-starter because it would be impossible to get agreement from many nations to opt in. The U.S. view is to renovate the sagging framework of the existing agreement with a much more robust international mechanism for dealing with the creation and disposal of nuclear fuel. But the real question is whether or not there will ever be an enforcement mechanism strong enough to enable multilateral inspections and to ensure multilateral action in the face of proven violations. Actually, Russia has gone quite a long way toward answering that ... which in turn raises another question: Just what is the best way to safely dispose of spent nuclear agreements?

Finally, just how much does Russia have to do before they go from being a contentious partner to actually once again being an enemy?

Ok, this is rhetorical. Given that this week Russia became the world's largest petroleum exporter, we're not going to be outright enemies with them. After all, we've long proven that if you give us a nice meal and pump enough oil into us, we're easy ... or at least flexible. Still, after a rough visit to Moscow by Obama, differences on missile defense, Russia's calls for a new global currency, Russian efforts to place itself at the center of every emerging global alliance to counterbalance the United States, provocative weapons deals with among others Tehran and Caracas, possible missile shipments on board ships that disappear and reappear, aggression in the near-abroad and torpedoing our efforts to stop Iran short of gaining nuclear weapons, you've got to start wondering when we're going to get the message. They'll take whatever we have to give but their agenda diverges from ours on a wide array of critical issues and on some, they conflict with us directly and, one might almost say, exultantly.

Oh, we'll try to put a good face on it. But note: they have given us every incentive to start working hard on our new BIC strategy ... which is to say trying to isolate Russia among the leaders of the emerging world by forging stronger ties with China, India and Brazil (among others). This in turn raises the final question in this litany: which is how much do you think we can get on eBay for one virtually new, unused reset button? Perhaps there is a museum somewhere that would like to put it in a display alongside Neville Chamberlain's umbrella.

Today Hillary Clinton made a statement in Thailand that the United States would work to create a defensive shield to help protect Gulf allies from a potential Iranian nuclear threat. Her point is that Iran should not think creating nukes will give them a strategic advantage because we will work relentlessly to blunt any edge nukes might provide.

Seems reasonable enough. Not surprisingly though, Clinton's comments landed in Jerusalem like a dud scud. According to Agence France Presse, Israel's Intelligence Services Minister Dan Meridor responded:

I heard without enthusiasm the American declarations according to which the United States will defend their allies in the event that Iran uses nuclear weapons, as if they were already resigned to such a possibility. This is a mistake. We cannot act now by assuming that Iran will be able to arm itself with a nuclear weapon, but to prevent such a possibility."

I also agree with this view. That's what I like about the Middle East. It's rife with complexities and no issue has fewer than three sides. What I don't like much about the Middle East is when it becomes, as it often does, that magical fantasy land where passions can be applied to fantasies to produce facts ... or where the insupportable is often the unshakable foundation of absolute certitude. (Which explains a number of religious developments in the region ... but I will gingerly sidestep that discussion for now.)

My recent post on shifting attitudes in Israel and the United States regarding the relationship between the two countries produced among those commenting on it a host of really interesting comments from all over the spectrum ... and some of the nasty/loony stuff we could all do without. 

Of course, item number one in this latter category is racism or prejudice of any sort against any group. Examples of this were visible in a number of the comments, sometimes boldly, sometimes insidiously. The big winner in the makes-ya-wanna-barf contest came from a guy named "briand" who, in reference to a rather overheated pro-Israeli post by AllanGreen, wrote, "If this is parody, kudos! I think the thing I'll miss the most about you Jews is your sense of humor. Not so much the apartheid/lebensraum mentality though." Scroll on through the comments ... there's lots of hatred there, in and among some fairly thoughtful arguments for one side or another.  

Another commenting technique that drives me up a wall is imputing views to me (for whatever reason) that I don't actually hold. For example: I'm no fan of the settlements, think they ought to be dismantled, am not a Zionist, don't support the views of the Likud, and based on his track record to date am no Bibi fan. I also don't think that taking a tough stand against the Iranian nuclear program implies the need to attack and lay waste to Iran. Rather, we need an international program of inspections and enforcement that explicitly asserts the right to use force to compel compliance and offers a multilateral guarantee of providing that force. (Not just in the case of Iran, by the way, but in the case of all future signatories of the new NPT we will start negotiating next year ... an NPT that should offer the framework within which the deal with Iran ought to be included.) 

Another aggravating approach which often undercuts otherwise reasonable arguments is making insupportable assertions. For example, one reader argued that Israel had Iran and Ahmadinejad all wrong, that the Iranian president's comments about destroying Israel were really a deliberate, unfair misquoting of him and that by extension; Israel had nothing to fear from Tehran. Really? Aren't we forgetting 30 years of official pronouncements or the guy who chants "death to Israel" at afternoon prayers? I think it was the same reader who argued another reason to chill out about any potential Iranian threat was that Iran has not attacked anyone in 250 years. This overlooked, as another reader pointed out, the fact that the country has for decades been the world's leading state sponsor of terror...which ought to count for something.    

In this vein, one of the most popular insupportable assertions is that somehow solving the settlements problem or even the larger Israel-Palestinian problem will in turn solve or contribute greatly to solutions for all our other problems in the Middle East -- this despite the fact that many of the biggest problems in the region antedate the founding of Israel by a number of centuries.

In the interest of dispelling this misconception, here, off the top of my head, are 15 major problems in the Middle East that would not be solved by solving the Israeli-Palestinian dispute:

1. The Iranian nuclear program
2. The regional arms race that may be triggered by the advancement of the Iranian nuclear program
3. The Saudi succession problem
4. The problems associated with getting Shias, Sunnis and Kurds to get along in Iraq
5. The problems associated with possible Kurdish succession from Iraq and Turkey
6. The Egyptian succession problem
7. The battle between moderates and hard-liners in Iran
8. Our dependency on Middle Eastern oil and its economic, political and environmental consequences
9. The efforts of Taliban, al Qaeda and other extremists to assert their influence in Afghanistan
10. The efforts of Taliban, al Qaeda and other extremists to assert their influence in Pakistan
11.  Anti-U.S. and anti-Western terrorism not associated with Israel but with the promotion and expansion of Western cultural values and perceived global inequalities
12. The ability of the Palestinians to form a stable, working state with functioning political processes
13. The historic competition for resources in the region including, increasingly, water
14. The conflict between Hezbollah and pro-Western political groups to gain a foothold in Lebanon
15. Israel's historical tensions with Syria, Iran, and virtually every other major Arab state

This doesn't include related issues like the tensions between extremist or tribal Islamic groups with roots in the region and Russia, China, and other bordering countries. Perhaps you have others, feel free to add. (Just try to restrain yourself if you feel the impulse to make a comment that uses as its primary source The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.)

Dismantle the settlements. Create two states. Create an internationally monitored buffer between those states. Let billions in aid flow in to help relieve the plight of the Palestinians. Please, do all these things. They are all long overdue. But know this: They may remove an irritant, they may remove an argument from extremists, they may put U.S. relations on a more even footing with other countries in the region. But they won't make the Middle East appreciably less dangerous or difficult and I guarantee you, they won't stop efforts by the countries of the region to continue to scapegoat, confront and battle Israel on countless other pretexts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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