Joe Arpaio, an Arizona sheriff who is already facing a Department of Justice (DOJ) probe into his controversial immigration enforcement tactics, has vowed to continue hunting down “illegals” with or without federal authority. That will soon be complicated by the fact that immigration authorities have reportedly nixed Arpaio’s agreement with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) which allowed his deputies to act as federal immigration agents. His police agency will still be permitted to check the immigration status of its inmates.

According to the Phoenix New Times, Arpaio appeared on KTAR 92.3 FM’s Jay Lawrence Show last night vowing to continue operating his “Hispanic-hunting dragnets,” even if it means driving undocumented immigrants back across the border himself:

“I’m going to tell you something, Jay…I don’t need the feds to do my crime suppression to opt to arrest illegals. I can do it without the federal authority, and I’m going to continue to do it. It makes no difference. It helps us. Because I don’t have to do all the paperwork for the feds, number one. And number two, I won’t be under their umbrella, their guidance. So I will operate the same way, nothing is going to change.

Nothing changes…because pursuant to our duties in these crime suppression [sweeps] we arrest anybody that violates the law. If we find during the arrests that that there are illegals, we arrest them. Now the only difference [is] we’re going to take ‘em down to ICE. I hope they accept them, if they don’t, I’ll bring ‘em myself to the border. So nothing really has changed. This is all politics. They want to use me to get rid of this 287 agreement across the country.”

Arpaio seems to believe that the White House is going out of its way to single him out and curb his immigration-policing powers for “political reasons.” And just in case anyone doubts whether Arpaio is serious, he has proclaimed that he will do another “crime suppression” immigration sweep in the coming days just to “show Washington and everybody else I’m not changing.”

It seems more likely that while reviewing their agreement with Arpaio’s police agency, federal immigration authorities became concerned about the racial profiling allegations, the 2,700 lawsuits filed against Arpaio, the local budget shortfall, and the increase in unsolved violent crimes that the Sheriff’s expensive preoccupation with targeting non-violent undocumented immigrants has caused.

In an article exploring the available options (all bad) on Iran, Michael Rubin asserts at the outset that “for President Obama and most of the American foreign-policy apparatus, a nuclear-weapons-capable Islamic Republic would be strategically untenable.”

While I’m pleased that Rubin is not among those on the right who have been excitedly preparing the ground for an Israeli attack on Iran — he clearly recognizes that such a strike, in addition to likely failing to achieve Israel’s goals, would have disastrous consequences for the region and for the U.S. — it seems to me that he avoids following his own good analysis to its logical conclusion, which is that, in the likely event that the Geneva talks fail to secure a substantial capitulation from Tehran on its nuclear program, we’re going to be looking at a policy of containing a nuclear-capable Iran.

I think we can see the consensus around this policy already forming. As I reported last week, Brookings Institution scholars Ken Pollack and Michael O’Hanlon, both hawkish supporters of the Iraq war, recognized containment, if somewhat grudgingly, as the least-worst option.

Yesterday, Fareed Zakaria voiced support for this policy, noting that “In fact, we are already moving toward a robust, workable response to the dangers of an Iranian nuclear program — one that involves sustained containment and deterrence”:

Iran’s rise has aroused suspicion in the Arab world. Many countries in the region are developing closer ties with the United States, including military ones. In the West, European nations worry about nuclear proliferation and are irritated with Iran’s deception and obstructionism. They have gotten tougher over the years in combating Iran and its proxies, and they are getting tougher at implementing some of the financial sanctions that target Iran’s elites. Even Russia and China, which have tried to maintain their ties with Iran, are conscious that they cannot be seen to be utterly unconcerned about proliferation and the defiance of U.N. resolutions. So they’ve allowed for some actions against the Iranian regime (and according to some reports were critical to the outcome of last week’s talks in Geneva).

All this means that Iran has become something of an international pariah, unable to operate with great latitude around the world. The country is in a box and, if well handled, can be kept there until the regime becomes much more transparent and cooperative on the nuclear issue. [...]

Deterrence worked with madmen like Mao, and with thugs like Stalin, and it will work with the calculating autocrats of Tehran. The Iranian regime has amply demonstrated over the past four months that it is interested in hanging on to power at all costs, jailing mullahs and ignoring its own clerical elite. These are not the actions of religious rulers about to commit mass suicide.

We should not fear to negotiate with these rulers. We talked to the Soviet Union even as we implemented a far more extensive policy of containment toward Moscow.

While such historical comparisons shouldn’t be overplayed, the example of containment as practiced against the Soviet Union is helpful. It’s important to remember that the same sort of hysterical assertions currently being made about Iranian “irrationality” were also made about the Soviets. (It’s also worth noting that there was a school of U.S. national security thought that advocated cultivating an image of U.S. “irrationality and vindictiveness.” I didn’t say it was a good school.)

I’ve been glad to see the Helsinki Accords being referenced more frequently — most recently by Ray Takeyh and the Project on Middle East Democracy’s Andrew Albertson here. I also brought up the example of Helsinki last June in an L.A. Times exchange with Rubin. At the time they were signed, the accords were seen as a major victory for the Soviet Union (and decried as “appeasement” by American conservatives). Over the long term, however, they became part of a series of measures that worked to challenge and constrain a hostile power while also creating political space for dissidents who suffered under its rule — precisely what we should aim for with Iran.

Dealing with a nuclear Iran would of course be highly unfavorable, but that’s not the same as “strategically untenable.” I think the Obama administration is right to avoid discussing this option, but given that it is likely to be the least-worst one available, it’s important that we start talking about what the policy would look like.

Last week, the United Nations fired its number two official in Afghanistan, U.S. diplomat Peter Galbraith, after he wrote a “scathing” letter accusing the U.N. mission leader of concealing election fraud that benefited Afghan President Hamid Karzai. On ABC’s Good Morning America today, Galbraith stood by his complaint. “The flaw that took place in Afghanistan was preventable,” he said, adding that the U.N. “did not exercise its responsibility” in ensuring a fair election.

Later in the segment, Galbraith argued strenuously against flooding more troops to Afghanistan:

GALBRAITH: In the absence of having a credible Afghan partner…it makes no sense to ramp up. On the other hand we cannot afford to pull out. … At this point, no surge. … [W]e also don’t have unlimited resources and unless those troops can secure an area in a way that then Afghan partners, the government, the Afghan army, the Afghan police can come in and fill in after them, we’re going to be there as an occupying force for a very long time and that to me doesn’t make sense.

Watch it:

Those such as Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) are urging President Obama to escalate the war in Afghanistan, citing the “lessons of Iraq” (i.e. President Bush’s troop “surge” there in 2007). But Galbraith dismissed McCain’s logic, noting that the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan are not the same:

GALBRAITH: Unfortunately, there is no analogy between what happened in Iraq and what’s going on in Afghanistan. In Iraq in the Sunni areas of the country, the al Qaeda element, the fundamentalists, moved from attacking the Shiites to attacking the tribal sheiks themselves so this was a matter of their self-defense.

In Afghanistan the tribal elders, many of them are supporting the Taliban, they are the Taliban or and this is the more common situation, they are neutral. They see no reason to choose a government which they experience as inexperienced, corrupted and abusing power.

Despite this obvious disconnect, McCain accuses those who disagree with his “surge” call of “playing politics.”