Attending the Foreign Policy Initiative’s inaugural conference on Afghanistan today at the Mayflower Hotel, I was struck by how very little that was said was controversial. And that’s really the point — in the wake of Iraq debacle, for which the neocons are widely and rightly held responsible, it simply won’t do to bang the drum for American military maximalism. One has to be a bit slicker than that. And these guys are nothing if not slick.

As their website makes clear, FPI intends to re-brand and mainstream-ize neoconservatism as a “reasonable” and “moderate” — and of course “serious” — alternative to the rising tide of isolationist sentiment in American politics (the fact that no such tide of isolationist sentiment is rising in American politics is entirely beside the point.) This strategy was evidenced in the morning’s first panel, as Robert Kagan praised President Obama’s “gutsy and correct decision” on Afghanistan, but warned that “the United States is at a tipping point between desire to maintain extensive engagement in the world, as it has done since World War II, and the temptation to pull back…[Obama] has decided to maintain the commitment.”

This is a pretty obvious strawman (one that Kagan built more fully in this article last spring, arguing that American foreign policy has essentially always been neoconservative.) There is no real substantive argument for America “disengaging” from the world. There is, on the other hand, a real debate over the nature of that engagement, a debate that the neoconservatives have largely lost. No longer do we insist “with us or with the terrorists.” We now understand that international partnerships and multilateral institutions are key elements of America’s national security architecture. No longer do we insist that we are in a “global war on terror.” We now accept that we face a number of challenges from discrete groups and organizations, some of which work together, some of which compete with each other. No longer do we insist that “we don’t negotiate with evil; we defeat it.” It is now broadly understood that we do negotiate with our enemies in order to gain strategic advantage over other enemies. Ten years ago, the sponsors of today’s event would have condemned all of this as “weakness.” Today it was simply accepted as wisdom.

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George Packer has a couple of posts on Kristol and Kagan’s neo-neocon Foreign Policy Initiative. Packer’s comments on the outsize role that the neoconservative Project for the New American Century played in getting up the Iraq war drew a protest from PNAC’s Gary Schmitt, who writes that “no one who ever worked for PNAC or was on its board worked in the Bush administration. Congress passed the Iraq Liberation Act, not PNAC.”

That is true. Similarly, George W. Bush invaded Iraq, not PNAC. But it’s pretty safe to say that neither the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act nor the 2003 Iraq invasion would have happened without PNAC’s activism. For a sense of how this worked in regard to the former, read former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter’s account of how PNAC board member Randy Scheunemann — who was then national security adviser to Trent Lott, and later John McCain’s foreign policy adviser, and then a lobbyist for Georgia, and then John McCain’s foreign policy adviser again — leaked a UN weapons report on Iraqi WMD (which turned out to be false) to con artist Ahmad Chalabi, who then provided it to the Washington Post.

The resulting story provided the major impetus for the passing of the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, which made regime change in Iraq the policy of the United States. The piece is fascinating on a number of levels, notably for how pleased with themselves Chalabi’s little cabal of neocon supporters were with their plan to install him as the new post-invasion Iraqi leader, how up front they all were about their scheme to get America into a war, and how completely wrong they all turned out to be about what would happen afterward.

As for Gary Schmitt, he himself served with Scheunemann as an officer on the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a front organization founded in 2002 in collaboration with members of the Bush administration to publicly lobby for the Iraq invasion. So while it may be true that “no one who ever worked for PNAC or was on its board worked in the Bush administration” (though both Schmitt and Scheunemann worked as Pentagon consultants) the clear fact is that PNAC and those closely associated with it played a key roles both in laying the early legislative groundwork for the Iraq war, and then later in developing and disseminating Bush administration propaganda leading to the invasion.

Last month, The New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh revealed in Minnesota that former vice president Cheney presided over an “executive assassination ring.” “Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving,” Hersh explained.

Today, CNN interviewed Hersh and former Cheney national security aide John Hannah. Although he expressed regret for revealing the story (calling it a “dumb-dumb”), Hersh stood by his initial statements. “I’m sorry, Wolf, I have a lot of problems with it,” he said about the assassination scheme:

HERSH: I know for sure…the idea that we have a unit that goes around, without reporting to Congress… and has authority from the President to go into the country without telling the CIA station chief or the ambassador and whack somebody. … You’ve delegated authority to troops in the field to hit people on the basis of whatever intelligence they think is good.

Hannah replied that Hersh’s account of the assassination scheme “is not true.” Yet in the same breath, when asked about a “list” of assassination targets, Hannah echoed Hersh’s statements. Hannah said that “troops in the field” are given “authority” to “capture or kill certain individuals” who are perceived as a threat. “That’s certainly true,” he said:

Q: Is there a list of suspected terrorists out there who can be assassinated?

HANNAH: There’s clearly a group of people that go through a very extremely well-vetted process, interagency process…that have committed acts of war against the United States, who are at war with the United States or are suspected of planning operations of war against the United States, who authority is given to our troops in the field in certain war theaters to capture or kill those individuals. That is certainly true.

Hannah didn’t directly dispute Hersh’s claim that Congress wasn’t informed about the assassinations. “It is extremely hard for me to believe,” he said. Watch it:

Speaking about the program to MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, former Nixon White House counsel John Dean said, “It’s potentially a war crime, it‘s potentially just outright murder, and it could clearly be in violation of the Ford executive order” — referring to a 1976 Executive Order that said, “No employee of the United States government shall engage in or conspire to engage in political assassination.”

Appearing on CSPAN’s Washington Journal last Friday, Bill Kristol was confronted by a caller on his role and that of his magazine, The Weekly Standard, as the main ideological drivers behind the Iraq war. As Think Progress noted, Kristol showed absolutely no remorse for having been completely wrong in almost every particular about the war’s consequences for the United States, blithely asserting that “I think the war was right, and I think we’ve succeeded in the war.”

Watch it:

As I’ve written before, the Iraq war has “succeeded” only in the sense that we seem for now to have avoided the very worst imaginable outcome there. Though violence has declined from the catastrophic levels seen in 2006-7, Iraqi factions remain at odds over key political issues of the new Iraqi state, and as shown by the upsurge in violence between the Iraqi government and Sunni militias this weekend, remain prepared to resort to violence to press their claims.

Watching the video, I did get the distinct sense that, at some level, Kristol knows that he’s peddling snake oil, given the way that he quickly pivoted away from Iraq to argue that “in Afghanistan, incidentally, it’s President Obama who’s announcing the increase in troops today” — as if the further deployment of U.S. troops to that country was an affirmation of his ideas, rather than proof of their failure.

Kristol also protested that Obama’s plan “is not something he was forced into by the Weekly Standard or anyone else.” As with most of what comes out of Bill Kristol’s mouth, though, this is not entirely true. The main reason that President Obama has had to commit further troops and resources to Afghanistan is that President Bush failed to finish the job there. The reason he failed to finish the job is that he went and started a war in Iraq, aided and abetted by the trash journalism and shameless jingoism of Bill Kristol and The Weekly Standard. While The Weekly Standard didn’t “force” Obama to escalate in Afghanistan, they did play a central role in creating a situation wherein escalation is the least worst option. But Kristol is far less interested in honestly considering the costs of the Iraq debacle to American national security than he is in mitigating the costs to his own reputation, as he attempts to re-introduce his discredited ideology into the American political discourse.

Since President Obama announced his new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan last week, he and his administration have been careful to distinguish it from President Bush’s surge in Iraq. Today on Fox News Sunday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates stressed that the focus of the mission in Afghanistan has been “narrowed”: “I think what we need to focus on…is making headway and reversing the Taliban’s momentum and strengthening the Afghan army and police, and really going after Al Qaeda.”

Today in an interview with CBS’s Bob Schieffer, Obama underscored this point. He pointed out that the reason he has increased troops in Afghanistan is because levels there are “greatly underresourced.” However, he is not going to “simply assume that more troops always result in an improved situation”:

OBAMA: What I will not do is to simply assume that more troops always result in an improved situation. [...]

But just because we needed to ramp up from the greatly underresourced levels that we had doesn’t automatically mean that, if this strategy doesn’t work, that what’s needed is even more troops.

There may be a point of diminishing returns in terms of troop levels. We’ve got to also make sure that our civilian efforts, our diplomatic efforts and our development efforts are just as robustly encouraged.

Obama added that it this strategy doesn’t work, the answer won’t necessarily be more troops. “It’s not going to be an open-ended commitment of infinite resources,” he said. Watch it:

The 17,000 additional U.S. troops will be focused on fighting the Taliban in the south and east, allowing the U.S. to “partner with Afghan security forces and to go after insurgents along the border.” Later this spring, Obama will also be sending another 4,000 U.S. troops to help train Afghan security forces.

While the increase in U.S. forces has received the majority of media attention, Obama’s Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy is actually a “comprehensive civil-political effort to improve basic services, accountability, and overall governance in order to defeat the hard-core Taliban and al Qaeda fighters at the heart of the insurgency,” as CAP’s Peter Juul has written. The President has also ordered an increase in humanitarian aid and civilian support, recognizing that the effort there cannot be won solely by military means.

Transcript: Read more

Our guest blogger is Peter Juul, a research associate at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

This morning, President Obama laid out his new strategy for the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In addition to the 17,000 troops already announced, Obama will deploy a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division to train and advise Afghan security forces – making the total increase in U.S. forces in Afghanistan roughly 21,000. These forces will be needed to improve the security situation, especially in southern and eastern Afghanistan, as weather improves and the fighting season begins.

But an increase in troops doesn’t equal an overall shift in strategy. President Obama’s speech focused less on the military aspects of the United States’ effort in Afghanistan and more on a comprehensive civil-political effort to improve basic services, accountability, and overall governance in order to defeat the hard-core Taliban and al Qaeda fighters at the heart of the insurgency. This emphasis on the civil and political sectors is a welcome development, and comes on top of previous news that there will be a substantial civilian “surge” in Afghanistan. Moreover, by my interpretation of Obama’s speech, training of Afghan security forces will be better integrated into the overall state-building effort rather than being simply treated as a cure-all for both governance and military problems of the insurgency.

At the same time, Obama’s new strategy suggests that the administration is attempting to give Karzai or his successor a decent shot at improving Afghanistan’s governance and political problems without sucking the United States into an endless military commitment. The emphasis on the civil-political and governance issues suggest that the new team recognizes that it is on those issues that the United States and its allies will succeed or fail in Afghanistan, as I argued earlier. Read more

This part of President Obama’s Afghanistan speech deserves attention, if only because it’s one of so many things that conservatives used to condemn but now have become part of the conventional wisdom:

In a country with extreme poverty that has been at war for decades, there will also be no peace without reconciliation among former enemies. I have no illusions that this will be easy. In Iraq, we had success in reaching out to former adversaries to isolate and target al Qaeda. We must pursue a similar process in Afghanistan, while understanding that it is a very different country.

There is an uncompromising core of the Taliban. They must be met with force, and they must be defeated. But there are also those who have taken up arms because of coercion, or simply for a price. These Afghans must have the option to choose a different course. That is why we will work with local leaders, the Afghan government, and international partners to have a reconciliation process in every province. As their ranks dwindle, an enemy that has nothing to offer the Afghan people but terror and repression must be further isolated.

Compare this to Dick Cheney’s assertion (on behalf of President Bush) that “we don’t negotiate with evil; we defeat it,” in reference to North Korea — which, if you haven’t heard, is now threatening to test a new ballistic missile. In Iraq, not only did we negotiate with evil, we paid evil vast sums of money to change sides. And now we’re going to attempt something similar with Taliban elements in Afghanistan, as well as with Iran: Try various methods and inducements — some of which have been/will be derided by many conservatives as “appeasement” — to change the strategic calculations of some of our enemies in order to gain advantage against other, worse enemies.

As we continue to discuss and debate the way forward, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, it’s hugely important to remind people that this central insight — our enemies are not monolithic, they can be disaggregated — represents a resounding refutation of the neoconservative “war on terror” approach that characterized the Bush administration’s foreign policy in the years after 9/11. Clearly, there are terrorist networks that seek to do Americans harm, but they do not represent anything like a united “Islamofascist” front against the West, no “axis of evil” necessitating “with us or against us” ultimata. The fact that progressives have won this argument is, of course, small comfort when one considers the enormous costs incurred by the Bush administration in making our case.

What do you do if your previous organization — and the ideology behind it — has become inextricably bound in the public’s imagination to one of the worst foreign policy blunders in American history? Obviously, shut it down, and start a new organization with a new name.

The Foreign Policy Initiative lists Robert Kagan, Bill Kristol, and Dan Senor on its board of directors, so no prizes for guessing what they’re about (more power, less appeasement, stronger wills.) Kagan and Kristol need no introduction, they’re the Tick and Arthur of disastrously counterproductive military adventurism. Given the staggering costs in American blood, treasure, security, and reputation incurred by their boundless enthusiasm for blowing stuff up, you might think they’d have had the decency to retreat to a Tibetan monastery by now, but sadly no. The way it works in Washington is, if you’re willing to argue for more defense spending, you’ll always find someone willing to fund your think tank.

Dan Senor is less known to the general public, but familiar to those who’ve followed the Iraq debacle closely. From 2003 to 2004, Senor served as a Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman under Paul Bremer. After that smashing success, Senor returned to Washington, where, among other things, in September 2004 he helped write speeches for Iraqi interim prime minister Ayad Allawi’s U.S. visit, and then apparently went on television to praise those speeches as evidence of Bush’s accomplishments in Iraq.

On March 31, FPI holds its first public event, Afghanistan: Planning For Success, though, given the heavy representation of Iraq war advocates, I think a far better title would be Afghanistan: Dealing With The Huge Problems Created By Many Of The People On This Very Stage. The broad consensus among national security analysts and aid officials is that the diversion of troops and resources toward Iraq beginning in 2002 was one of the main reasons the Taliban and Al Qaeda were able to to re-establish themselves in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border areas, facilitating the collapse of the country back into insurgent warfare. Having failed to complete the mission in Afghanistan, Bush and the Iraq hawks handed the Obama administration a war that promises to be as difficult and costly as Iraq has been -– if not more. It’s deeply absurd that some of the people most responsible for the crisis in Afghanistan would now presume to tell us how to deal with it.

Our guest blogger is Moran Banai, U.S. editor of the Middle East Bulletin.

If today’s Army Radio reports are true, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister-designate, and Avigdor Lieberman, its likely foreign minister, have made a secret agreement to start building homes on a piece of land called E1.

Just yesterday, Middle East Bulletin published an edition focused on settlements -– one of the main stumbling blocks on the road to a sustainable two-state solution -– and included a primer about and photos of E1. E1 is a corridor of land between Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim that has been a point of contention between Israeli governments and the United States for over a decade.

Israelis see Maale Adumim as a suburb of Jerusalem and one of the settlements that will remain in Israeli hands at the end of any negotiations and government ministers have said in the past that they are building E1 to establish contiguity between Jerusalem and Maale Adumim. There have been plans to build approximately 3,500 homes in E1 for several years, but they have been repeatedly put off.

In 2008, however, a police station was opened in E1 and overall, Israel has invested over NIS 100 million in infrastructure in the area. There are already signs in the area bearing the name of the new neighborhood –- Mevasseret Adumim. Establishing such contiguity through E1 would deeply cleave the West Bank at its narrowest point and separate East Jerusalem from the West Bank, leading to what President Bush famously cautioned must be avoided — a “Swiss cheese” state for the Palestinians.

Both Acting Prime Minister Olmert and designee Netanyahu have pledged that they are “partners for peace” with the Palestinians. Olmert signed on to Annapolis, under which the United States was to monitor both sides’ compliance with their obligations, and Netanyahu just signed a coalition agreement with the Labor Party that according to Haaretz includes the stipulations that “Israel will formulate a comprehensive plan for Middle East peace and cooperation, continue peace negotiations and commit itself to peace accords already signed.” Freezing settlement growth and taking down outposts is a Road Map obligation for Israel and the Sharm el-Sheikh fact-finding committee (chaired by now Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George Mitchell) called in its 2001 report for a complete settlement freeze — including “natural growth.”

As Congressman Robert Wexler (D-FL) said in a hearing on rebuilding Gaza in February:

I think those of us… who are deeply committed to … the security of the state of Israel—must say, and must say it in an unequivocal fashion: It is incumbent upon Israel to freeze settlement activity. While in and of itself that is not the only part of this equation, the Palestinians have enormous responsibilities; but the notion that Israel can continue to expand settlements, whether it be through natural growth or otherwise, without diminishing the capacity of a two-state solution, is both unrealistic and, I would respectfully suggest, hypocritical.

The Washington Post reported this morning that “the Obama administration appears to be backing away from the phrase ‘global war on terror,’” encouraging instead the use of the phrase “Overseas Contingency Operation.”

In a conference call later this morning, however, OMB director Peter Orszag said he wasn’t aware of any such directive.

Hopefully that will change. As counter-insurgency expert John Nagl tells the Post, the “war on terror” was “enormously unfortunate because I think it pulled together disparate organizations and insurgencies.”

Our strategy should be to divide and conquer rather than make of enemies more than they are…We are facing a number of different insurgencies around the globe — some have local causes, some of them are transnational. Viewing them all through one lens distorts the picture and magnifies the enemy.

It’s important to recognize what a propaganda bonanza the “war on terror” has been for Osama bin Laden. The attacks of 9/11 made bin Laden a major figure in Arab media and culture; the decision by Bush and Cheney to cast him as the sinister leader of a global Islamofascist front against the West made him a legend.

Whatever actual methods were brought to bear against Al Qaeda, it would have been far better from a rhetorical standpoint simply to treat them as criminals. Rebecca Malloy writes in the latest CTC Sentinel (pdf) that, unlike the early Muslim warriors upon whom they claim to model themselves, the behavior of bin Laden and his ilk “fits Islamic legal definitions of brigands (muharibun) and rebels (bugha) who spread terror and destruction.” By elevating them to the level of soldier, the “war on terror” helped buttress bin Laden’s own self-glorifying narrative, needlessly complicating the work of capturing or killing him, as well as the much more important work of discrediting him.

Former Bush administration speechwriter Christian Brose warns, however, that while “dropping the war talk may build support for the mission abroad, or at least make it more tolerable, but it may reduce support for it at home.”

Regardless of what we call it, to be successful in this conflict requires significant domestic spending and unprecedented, often controversial authorities, even by Obama’s standards, as he is learning. Mobilizing and maintaining public support for these commitments is in large part why the War on Terror was proclaimed in the first place. It served a real domestic purpose, and though some took that too far (see Giuliani, Rudy), advocates of a new name, or no name, for the War on Terror must recognize that we are making the case a tougher sell to the American people.

Exactly. Call me old fashioned, but I think vast and enduring overseas military commitments should be a “tough sell” to the American people. This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t ever undertake them, just that our leaders should be expected to make the case for them on the merits, in a way that recognizes the seriousness of the undertaking, and not try and sell them with apocalyptic half-truths.

As Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in 2007 in a thorough evisceration of the Bush administration’s fear-mongering, “the damage these three words have done — a classic self-inflicted wound — is infinitely greater than any wild dreams entertained by the fanatical perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks when they were plotting against us in distant Afghan caves.”

The vagueness of the phrase was deliberately (or instinctively) calculated by its sponsors. Constant reference to a “war on terror” did accomplish one major objective: It stimulated the emergence of a culture of fear. Fear obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue. The war of choice in Iraq could never have gained the congressional support it got without the psychological linkage between the shock of 9/11 and the postulated existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Brzezinski closed by asking “where is the U.S. leader ready to say, ‘Enough of this hysteria, stop this paranoia?’” By thus far eschewing the sort of imprecise bellicosity that characterized George W. Bush’s national security rhetoric, President Obama has shown that he may be that leader. It remains to be seen, however, whether he’ll take the important step of publicly disavowing the key framing device of his predecessor’s disastrous foreign policy.

Leaping to Dick Cheney’s defense against President Obama’s claim that “we have not done a particularly effective job in sorting through who are truly dangerous individuals that we’ve got to make sure are not a threat to us, who are folks that we just swept up,” The Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes insists “of the approximately 250 detainees currently at Guantanamo, no more than a handful could be counted as ‘folks that we just swept up.’”

Perhaps this is true of the 250 detainees currently at Guantanamo. Despite his assertion, Hayes actually has no way of knowing. But of the 775 detainees brought to Gitmo since October 7, 2001 — every single one of whom, we were repeatedly (falsely) assured by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al, were among “the worst of the worst” — quite a few could be counted as “folks that we just swept up.”

Hayes also refers to this January 24 Newsweek story on “a new Pentagon report on former Guantanamo detainees who had returned to the jihad after their release,” noting that the report “hasn’t been released.”

And it now looks like the Pentagon is attempting to hide it further behind a bureaucratic blind. In an email two weeks ago, we were told that in order to see the report we would have to submit a Freedom of Information Act request — a process that can take months, even years. Why did the the self-described “most transparent administration in history” suddenly reverse itself? Where is the report?

A growing chorus of individuals and organizations are now demanding that the buried Gitmo report be released.

This is absolutely hilarious. Not the Pentagon refusing to divulge information, but Hayes trying to spin it as evidence in favor of Cheneyism. The information that Hayes would like us to believe he’s concerned about has been absent from the Pentagon’s website since before Obama took office, when the Pentagon first made its new claims about the “61 Gitmo recidivists” (later increased to 62 with the al-Shihri revelations.)

Noting the lack of proof for the Pentagon claims, CAP’s Ken Gude told the Wonk Room on January 15 that “previously, the defense department had issued a dossier when it made its first statement that they believed 30 detainees had returned to the fight.”

In that dossier, they were only able to identify seven cases of actual violence, and some of those were based on reports from foreign intelligence services that we would normally not view as terribly reliable. […]

Interestingly, that dossier has been removed from the defense department web site. We no longer have access to it. They didn’t release a similar dossier with this number 61 that they came up with this time. Interestingly, they did say that they have confirmation that 18 of the 61 have returned to the fight –- however they describe it -– and they suspect that an additional 43 have. No information was provided on how they suspect that. No information was provided on what the criteria is for returning to the battlefield.

Interestingly, Hayes was not clamoring for the release of this information back then. Read more

Via the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, the Guardian reveals that “a confidential EU report accuses the Israeli government of using settlement expansion, house demolitions, discriminatory housing policies and the West Bank barrier as a way of ‘actively pursuing the illegal annexation’ of East Jerusalem.”

The document says Israel has accelerated its plans for East Jerusalem, and is undermining the Palestinian Authority’s credibility and weakening support for peace talks. “Israel’s actions in and around Jerusalem constitute one of the most acute challenges to Israeli-Palestinian peace-making,” says the document, EU Heads of Mission Report on East Jerusalem.

Haaretz also reports that “the dispute between the United States and Israel over the razing of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem is intensifying and will likely become the first clash between the Obama administration and the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.”

A specific controversy concerns the Jerusalem municipal government’s plan to “evict 1,500 residents and raze 88 homes in an area Israel has designated as a national park, on top of other demolition plans for the Silwan neighborhood.” The position of the U.S. is that the destruction of Palestinian homes constitutes a violation of the road map. Israeli officials say that Silwan “is a domestic issue of law enforcement and that the future status of Jerusalem is only to be discussed in the final status negotiations.”

Israel asserts that the targeted houses in Silwan were built without proper permits, but Palestinians contend that “permits are impossible to obtain and that many of the homes were built before Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967.”

On March 5, in a joint press conference with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, Secretary of State Clinton criticized the planned demolition in Silwan, calling Israel’s activities “unhelpful” and that it was “an issue that we intend to raise with the government of Israel and the Government at the municipal level in Jerusalem.”

The following day, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat “rejected” Sec. Clinton’s criticism calling it “a lot of air,” and speculating that Clinton had been misled by Palestinian “disinformation.”

Rabbis for Human Rights has research detailing how the Israeli government uses various bureaucratic measures to prevent the growth of Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem, while at the same time (as reported by Israeli human rights group B’Tselem) facilitating an increased Jewish presence in an around the city through the discriminatory enforcement of building codes.

Israeli officials may insist that “the future status of Jerusalem is only to be discussed in the final status negotiations,” but the clear goal of Israeli settlement policy is to determine as much of that status as possible in advance of negotiations through the creation of “facts on the ground” in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

In an interview last year with Middle East Progress, Lt. Col. (Res.) Ron Schatzberg of the Tel Aviv-based Economic Cooperation Foundation said “most of the Israeli public understands that the dream of keeping Jerusalem united is unrealistic.

However, there are right wing factors on our side that hinder such a development by building or buying properties in East Jerusalem. The municipality of Jerusalem encourages this phenomenon and the Israeli government provides security to the settlers, which is funded by the Israeli tax payer.

And the American taxpayer, too.

Interestingly, while Israeli Foreign Ministry officials responded to American concerns about “punitive” house demolitions by arguing that “the East Jerusalem demolitions were not punitive, but rather part of enforcing municipal building codes,” last Tuesday, Haaretz reported that Israel plans to demolish the home belonging to the extended family of Hussam Duwiyat, who stole a bulldozer in Jerusalem last July and plowed into nearby vehicles, killing three and injuring dozens. That is, not as part of enforcing municipal building codes, but rather as a punitive measure.

On Thursday night, President Obama sent “a special message to the people and government of Iran” on Nowruz, the start of the Persian New Year, an act that has been described as “groundbreaking.” Speaking directly to Iran’s “leaders,” Obama acknowledged “serious differences” but said the U.S. is seeking “engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.”

But more importantly and perhaps somewhat overlooked, Obama indicated that he is willing “to deal with the current government” and that his goal is not regime change. He referred to Iran as the “Islamic Republic of Iran” twice in the message and stated specifically that it has the “right” to exist:

In particular, I would like to speak directly to the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran. [...] The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations. You have that right — but it comes with real responsibilities.

Israeli President Shimon Peres also delivered a “special message” to Iran on Nowruz, but “was addressed specifically to Iran’s people and not their government, reprising the tone of [former President] Bush.” And Peres explicitly contradicted Obama and called on the Iranian people to overthrow their government:

“[I suggest] you don’t listen to [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, it is impossible to preserve a whole nation on incitement and hatred, the people will become tired of it. [...] I think that the Iranian people will topple these leaders…these leaders who don’t serve the people, in the end the people will realize that.”

The New York Times reports today that “experts” and European diplomats “applauded” Obama’s message “but expressed dismay” that Peres followed with his strictly to the Iranian people. “This is a real shame because the key effect should be Obama, and this dilutes from that,” one unnamed European official said.

Moreover, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said yesterday that both messages were not part of a coordinated plan and that the White House notified “allies” (presumably including Israel) of what Obama planned to do. But when asked if the Israelis had done the same, Gibbs suggested they had not. “I’d have to check,” he said.

MJ Rosenberg at the Israel Policy Forum writes that Peres’s goal may have been to “intentially undermine” Obama and that the Iranians might not view the conflicting messages as just a coincidence. “They would see America and Israel playing ‘good cop, bad cop,’ diminishing the effect of Obama’s remarkable overture,” he said.

Indeed, the super hawks over at the Weekly Standard picked up on the contradiction as well saying that Peres taught Obama “a thing or two,” adding, “Now that’s how a president should be speaking to the prisoners of the Mullahcracy.”

Our guest blogger is Natalie Ondiak, a Research Associate at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

While the economic crisis in the United States continues to freefall, the Obama administration has taken bold steps to stabilize the housing and financial markets. These policies have been met with applause and condemnation. Meanwhile, some lament that: “On foreign policy, he [President Obama] has only sketched the outline.”

Other Washington foreign policy pundits are worried about the administration’s willingness to engage with Syria and Iran. President Obama’s approach to economics and national security suggest an understanding that these areas are inextricably linked and that domestic and international distinctions and boundaries are less relevant today.

President Obama has signaled that the United States economy is his key domestic priority. Throughout the world, countries think that the United States has a considerable (largely negative) influence on their economy. Nina Hachigian points out that “in an era of globalization, the effects of domestic policy don’t stop at the water’s edge.” Indeed, President Obama’s actions point to the idea that taking bold economic steps is part of his larger foreign policy strategy. In other words, economic security is national security.

On foreign policy, Afghanistan is poised to be one of the Obama administration’s biggest challenges. Yet, Obama seems poised to recalibrate U.S. engagement there. The announcement this week of a civilian surge of development and diplomacy professionals to work alongside U.S. and NATO troops is a massive shift in thinking. Gone are the days of Bush’s foreign policy characterized by saber rattling and military might alone. Indeed, this strategy in Afghanistan suggests that the war must be won, but development assistance with the aim of creating better lives and livelihoods for Afghans is smart foreign policy.

Obama’s foreign policy strategy is heavily influenced by the idea of sustainable security that argues that national security must integrate defense, diplomacy and development capabilities. Fundamentally, sustainable security is about using all tools in the national security toolbox to build a more stable world. A holistic approach to policy issues takes into account the complex linkages between countries in the world today.

Sustainable security seems poised to be the hallmark of Obama’s presidency and this recalibration suggests that the United States must engage with the rest of the world to solve complex problems. This idea will guide not only what President Obama says as a statesman but also what he does. He seems poised to take the lead in public diplomacy and redraw America’s role in the world.

Earlier this month, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) announced their opposition to the nomination of Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill to be the next U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. “While Mr. Hill is a talented diplomat who has served our country for many years, his selection for this post concerns us,” said the two senators in a statement. The McCain/Graham statement was the first shot fired by “a cadre of Senate Republicans” aiming to sink Hill’s nomination.

But the senators’ effort to derail Hill took a major hit today when Foreign Policy’s Laura Rozen reported that “Centcom commander Gen. David Petraeus, top Iraq commander Gen. Raymond Odierno, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are frustrated by the delay in getting a U.S. ambassador confirmed and into place in Iraq.” Though Rozen’s initial report was based on anonymous sources, she later updated with an on the record statement from the Pentagon:

The U.S. military chief spokesman Geoff Morrell told The Cable Thursday: “Generals Odierno and Petraeus have come out very publicly and very forcefully in support of Amb. Hill’s nomination. I know they support it. They know him from previous assignments, they like him, they believe he is well suited to the job and are anxiously awaiting his confirmation because they do need help, frankly. … With regards to [Senate] members who have issue with him, I would say this,” Morrell added. “We appreciate their steadfast support of the Iraq mission. But you can’t be bullish in support of that mission and not send an ambassador in a timely fashion.”

The pushback from Petraeus must be especially stinging considering the high esteem that senators like Graham and McCain have for the general:

– Asked in August to name “the three wisest people” who he “would rely on heavily in an administration,” McCain replied, “First one, I think, would be General David Petraeus, one of the great military leaders in American history.”

– “Thank God for General Petraeus, one of the great generals in American history,” said McCain in April 2008.

–On Meet The Press in July 2007, Graham spoke of Petraeus as though he “could see past obstacles that blocked ordinary men.” “I will not vote for anything until generous—General Petraeus passes on it,” said Graham.

– “If I could promote you to five stars, I would,” said Graham when Petraeus testified before Congress last April. “I cannot tell you how proud I am of both of you,” he said to Petraeus and Ryan Crocker.

Former McCain aide Michael Goldfarb writes at the Weekly Standard that Petraeus and Odierno’s support for Hill deals “a serious blow to the campaign against his appointment.”

In today’s Washington Post, Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and John McCain (R-AZ) have an op-ed calling for a robust “comprehensive civil-military counterinsurgency approach” to the war in Afghanistan, demonstrating “unambiguous U.S. political commitment to success…over the long haul”:

As the administration finalizes its policy review, we are troubled by calls in some quarters for the president to adopt a “minimalist” approach toward Afghanistan. Supporters of this course caution that the American people are tired of war and that an ambitious, long-term commitment to Afghanistan may be politically unfeasible. [...]

Loose rhetoric about a minimal commitment in Afghanistan is counterproductive for another reason: It exacerbates suspicions, already widespread in South Asia, that the United States will tire of this war and retreat. These doubts about our staying power deter ordinary Afghans from siding with our coalition against the insurgency.

This pivot to Afghanistan is new for McCain. During the presidential campaign, when Barack Obama was already calling Afghanistan the “central front” in the war on terrorism, McCain was still insisting it was Iraq.

Additionally, as ThinkProgress has highlighted, in November 2003, McCain was tossing around all sorts of “loose rhetoric about a minimal commitment in Afghanistan”:

McCAIN: I am concerned about it, but I’m not as concerned as I am about Iraq today — obviously, or I’d be talking about Afghanistan — but I believe that if Karzai can make the progress that he is making, that in the long term we may muddle through in Afghanistan.

Watch it:

Last month when McCain was delivering a speech on Afghanistan at AEI, the Wonk Room’s Matt Duss challenged the senator on his comments. McCain was at a loss for a response, other than, “Well, obviously you are taking that statement out of context.”

Via Attackerman, Defense Secretary Robert Gates plans to name Navy Admiral James Stavridis to NATO’s top command post. Stavridis is the current head of U.S. Southern Command, and would be “the first naval officer to hold the prestigious post of Supreme Allied Commander Europe.”

Stavridis has no previous experience of Afghanistan but he is regarded as intellectual, ambitious and energetic.

He holds a doctorate in international relations and has cultivated a reputation as a creative thinker, writing a blog and organizing movie nights at his Miami headquarters featuring Latin American films to educate staff about regional issues.

This article notes that “putting a Navy officer in the job in the midst of a ground war” — Afghanistan — “may concern some, but Stavridis oversees elements from all the U.S. military services in his current role” at SOUTHCOM, which is responsible for Central and South America and the Caribbean. Further, Stavridis’ tenure at SOUTHCOM provided experience in dealing with two of the main drivers of the war in Afghanistan — narcotics and Islamic extremism — and the nexus between them.

Stavridis testified last year that Islamic extremist groups are a “less immediate force in the region, but [they have] the potential to become of greater concern.”

At the moment, I would say, at an unclassified level, [their efforts are] largely centered in proselytizing, recruiting, money laundering. It is hooked somewhat into the narcotics trade and, above all, it is a means of generation of revenue, largely for the Hezbollah Islamic radical organization. Monies are garnered here in Latin America and go back to Hezbollah.

Yesterday, Stavridis told the House Armed Services Committee that “we see a great deal of Hezbollah activity throughout South America, in particular.”

[Stavridis] noted the direct link between the illicit drug trade and the terrorist groups it bankrolls, noting the threat posed by Islamic radical terrorism.

“Indentifying, monitoring and dismantling the financial, logistical and communication linkages between illicit trafficking groups and terrorist sponsors are critical to not only ensuring early indications and warnings of potential terrorist attacks directed at the United States and our partners, but also in generating a global appreciation and acceptance of this tremendous threat to security,” he said.

According to the State Department, despite a 19-percent drop in cultivation last year, Afghanistan remains the world’s largest opium poppy producer, and the drug trade fuels the insurgency there.

I admit it, I was wrong. I didn’t think it was possible to find a conservative whose Iran analysis is dumber than Michael Ledeen’s. But the Washington Times has done it, offering its semi-valuable op-ed real estate this morning to one Roger Chapin, who argues that America’s “only rational course of action [is to] launch a massive series of preemptive strikes on Iran as soon as possible and send in special ops forces to ensure the mission was accomplished.”

I won’t go too much into Chapin’s reasoning here, except to say that he thinks Ahmadinejad runs Iran, he thinks Russia intends to foment nuclear apocalypse in the Middle East to drive up oil prices, and he fears a Iranian electro-magnetic pulse attack on America that Iran has shown no capacity to deliver. And:

For those that wonder why Iran would invite its own obliteration by attacking the United Sates, understand that the apocalyptic, messianically driven mentality of their leadership views martyrdom as a reward and not a deterrent.

This claim, a common trope of the conservative discourse on Iran, is the rhetorical equivalent of putting on a red clown nose and rainbow afro wig. There are no actual Iran scholars that I’m aware of who find the “suicidal Iran” thesis to be credible. The Iranian regime has had numerous opportunities to commit suicide over the past decades, but has repeatedly behaved according to a rational strategic calculation of its interests.

So Roger Chapin doesn’t know much about Iran. He does, however, apparently know a lot about founding veterans charities and then scamming those charities for lots of money. An investigation last year found that Chapin’s charities — which include the Coalition to Salute America’s Heroes and Help Hospitalized Veterans — “raised more than $168 million from 2004 to 2006, but spent only a pittance — about 25 percent — to help veterans.”

The rest, nearly $125 million, went to fund-raising, administrative expenses, fat salaries and perks. Mr. Chapin gave himself and his wife $1.5 million in salary, bonuses and pension contributions over those three years, including more than $560,000 in 2006. The charities also reimbursed the Chapins more than $340,000 for meals, hotels, entertainment and other expenses, and paid for a $440,000 condominium and a $17,000 golf-club membership.

Chapin’s bio in the Washington Times op-ed states that he is the “founder and president of Make America Safe, a new San Diego-based policy and educational organization focused on the threat posed by radical Islamics [sic] to U.S. national security.” We’ll wait and see how many new condos, steak dinners and golf-club memberships making America safe requires.

The Boston Globe reports that Defense Secretary Robert Gates “is preparing the most far-reaching changes in the Pentagon’s weapons portfolio since the end of the Cold War, according to aides.”

Two defense officials who were not authorized to speak publicly said Gates will announce up to a half-dozen major weapons cancellations later this month. Candidates include a new Navy destroyer, the Air Force’s F-22 fighter jet, and Army ground-combat vehicles, the officials said.

More cuts are planned for later this year after a review that could lead to reductions in programs such as aircraft carriers and nuclear arms, the officials said. [...]

“Let’s be honest with ourselves,” Gates told the National Defense University last September. “The most likely catastrophic threats to our homeland — for example, an American city poisoned or reduced to rubble by a terrorist attack — are more likely to emanate from failed states than from aggressor states.”

This is welcome news. As I wrote yesterday, one of the key strategic misconceptions of the Bush administration was to focus on threats from strong state actors rather than non-state actors operating within weak and failed states. (Last fall, CAP’s Brian Katulis argued — as did I — that Gates’ demonstrated approach to 21st century national security challenges was a good reason to keep him in place in an Obama administration.)

In a speech last September, Gates recognized the need to maintain U.S. military superiority, but warned “we must not be so preoccupied with preparing for future conventional and strategic conflicts that we neglect to provide both short-term and long-term all the capabilities necessary to fight and win conflicts such as we are in today.”

Far from signifying “decline,” as some conservatives have predictably claimed, CAP’s Sean Duggan and Laura Conley wrote last month that “spending less money on expensive procurement programs…could signify a renewed commitment to diplomacy and development and help us rebuild credibility overseas.”

There’s also really no overstating how significant it is that the Obama administration — recognizing that many current defense projects are completely unsuited to the threats America actually faces — has effectively decided to confront the military-industrial complex. The article notes that, according to aides, Gates is ready “to counter the defense companies and throngs of retired generals and other lobbyists who are gearing up to protect their pet projects.”

Girding for a showdown with Congress, Gates took the unusual step of making the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other participants in budget deliberations sign nondisclosure agreements to prevent leaks.

But already lawmakers and defense contractors are preparing to fight back. Lockheed, maker of the F-22 jet, recently launched an ad campaign to protect its fighter. Northrop Grumman, which could face cutbacks to its ship-building programs, has hired consultants to write op-eds. Unions are raising alarms about job losses.

Andrew Exum suggests that the Obama administration should “prepare to fight three wars at once: one in Afghanistan, one in Iraq, and one …against the bi-partisan coalition of lobbyists, congressmen, and industry leaders who will fight…tooth and nail on this.”

I think Ali and Yglesias say most of what needs to be said about Hague-bait Dick Cheney going on TV to engage in the same sort of fear-mongering that characterized his vice-presidency, but Cheney’s assertion that “we’ve accomplished nearly everything we set out to do” in Iraq deserves some attention.

Cheney told CNN’s John King said that “if you hark back and look at the biggest threat we faced after 9/11, it was the idea of a rogue state or a terrorist-sponsoring state with weapons of mass destruction — say, nukes, for example — and providing those to terrorist organizations.”

What happened in Iraq is we’ve eliminated that possibility. We got rid of one of the worst dictators in the 20th century. We got rid of his government. There is no prospect that Iraq is going to become a place where once again they produce weapons of mass destruction or support terrorists.

I think this argument — thanks to the invasion of Iraq there is no prospect that Saddam will provide WMD he didn’t have to terrorists with whom he had no substantial relationship — is ridiculous enough even without even considering all of the other costs of the war, both in lives, dollars, as well as American security more broadly. Specifically, though, it seems like King missed a real opportunity here to ask about Afghanistan.

Afghanistan and Pakistan are casualties of the Iraq war. Unlike (pre-invasion) Iraq, the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 did and do operate in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Unlike Iraq, Pakistan — which is increasingly threatened by an Islamic extremist insurgency — does possess nuclear weapons. There’s no question that, even in 2003, the situation in these two countries represented a far greater threat to the United States than did Iraq. And yet Bush and Cheney chose to invade Iraq, based upon the determination that, in Cheney’s words, “this is a war..”

Up until 9/11, it was treated as a law enforcement problem. You go find the bad guy, put him on trial, put him in jail. The FBI would go to Oklahoma City and find the identification tag off the truck and go find the guy that rented the truck and put him in jail.

Once you go into a wartime situation and it’s a strategic threat, then you use all of your assets to go after the enemy. You go after the state sponsors of terror, places where they’ve got sanctuary.

We can see disastrous consequences of the conception of anti-terrorism that gave primacy to state sponsors over non-state actors: The Bush administration destroyed the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and considered the job essentially finished, even though Osama bin Laden was allowed to escape. They secured the commitment of the unpopular Musharraf regime to fight terrorism, and checked that box. Then they turned to Iraq, leaving Pakistan and Afghanistan to fester. These costs are not theoretical.

The determination that we were in a war — while domestically politically advantageous — led to the Bush administration emphasizing military solutions to what is a primarily an intelligence and yes, law enforcement issue, at the expense of other tools of U.S. power. Moeover, by casting US anti-terrorism efforts as a “war,” Bush and Cheney helped affirm Al Qaeda’s status as the vanguard of the global Islamic resistance, needlessly forcing governments throughout the Islamic world into the politically difficult position of either supporting or rejecting that resistance.

As Congressman — and former Admiral — Joe Sestak told King later in the program, “The Bush administration may have created, after six, seven long years, some stability with Iraq, but they have not kept the most precious constitutional duty of the presidency in highest regard, which is to enhance the security of America.” To use one of Cheney’s favorite phrases, the fact is that when you strip away the tough talk and the ersatz gravitas, Bush and Cheney just weren’t up to the challenge of national security in the 21st century, which is why he now has to rely on a combination of unfalsifiable assertions and counterfactuals to argue for his administration’s success.