Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, in a live broadcast from Burma, addressed the Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York. Suu Kyi, who engaged in a conversation with moderator Charlie Rose and fellow Nobel laureate Demond Tutu, engaged in a wide ranging discussion (video) on human rights, the democracy struggle in Burma, and her views on the Arab Spring.

Suu Kyi reflected on recent uprisings in the Middle East and the role of the Arab Spring in spreading democracy. She said:

Movements like the ones that have been going on in the Arab countries mean something to peoples all over the world who are struggling for their own freedom. It reminded many of us in Burma of what happened in 1988 when our people rose up to ask for democracy. Of course our societies are very different but in the end we’re all human beings. And I think we can all understand each other’s hopes and fears and aspirations. We would like the Arab countries to be as happy and prosperous and secure as we would want our own countries to be.

Watch it:

Suu Kyi, who spent 15 years under house arrest for her role as the opposition leader against Burma’s military junta, reflected on the sacrifices she and her family have made:

All journeys are made step by step and that’s how I’ve made this journey, step by step. To be honest, I didn’t think when I first started out in the movement for democracy, that I would have to devote my whole life to it. [...] But I’m not the only one who is in this position now. Many of my colleagues are working alone, without the support of family and friends. So I get tremendous courage from looking at them, how hard they struggle. And they are the unknown soliders of our cause. And the unknown soldiers are far braver and far worthier than people like me who are known to the world.

Suu Kyi’s appearance was part of the Clinton Global Initiative’s (CGI) annual meeting, which convenes global leaders from both the public and private sectors to address the world’s most pressing humanitarian challenges. Initiative members have made more than 2,000 commitments, which, according to the CGI, have improved the lives of 300 million people in more than 180 countries. Member commitments, when fully funded and implemented, will be valued at over $63 billion.

In an op-ed in the Washington Post last week, Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) complained about a report that the Obama administration is considering keeping 3,000 U.S. troops in Iraq past the end-of-the-year total withdrawal deadline — not because the president is maintaining a U.S. troop presence there, but because it’s too small:

We have frequently traveled to Iraq, meeting with national leaders in Baghdad, local officials throughout the country, and U.S. military commanders and diplomats. What we have consistently heard on these visits is that Iraq’s security and stability will require a continuing — though greatly reduced — U.S. military presence after the end of this year, when our current security agreement with Iraq expires. We have also heard that, given the essential missions that this post-2011 force must carry out, no fewer than 10,000 and as many as 25,000 troops will be required. No one has suggested that 3,000 would be enough.

While Army Chief of Staff and former top U.S. commander in Iraq Gen. Ray Odierno and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike Mullen have both suggested that it may be unwise to keep a large U.S force structure in Iraq, McCain, Lieberman and Graham conveniently omitted that the Iraqis may not want tens of thousands of U.S. troops in their country past 2011. But that’s not all they left out. As Just Foreign Policy‘s Robert Naiman points out in a letter to the editor, keeping American forces in Iraq beyond the pullout deadline costs money:

According to the Congressional Research Service, it currently costs an average of $802,000 to keep one U.S. soldier in Iraq for one year. At that rate, to keep 10,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq from 2012 to 2021 would cost $80 billion; to keep 25,000 soldiers there would cost $200 billion. This $200 billion represents one-sixth of the $1.2 trillion target of the debt reduction “supercommittee.” It is also more than the government would save over 10 years if it were to cut the cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security and raise the Medicare retirement age to 67, as earlier discussed by President Obama and House Speaker John A. Boehner.

It’s not surprising McCain and Co. didn’t consider the financial burden of keeping a sizable U.S. force in Iraq indefinitely, ignoring the war’s cost has been a hallmark of the entire campaign.

House Armed Service Committee Chairman Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) has served up a myriad of scarcely legitimate reasons for why Congress should not cut the bloated Defense budget: It’s “dangerous,” no one will save us “when we’re attacked,” or that entitlement programs are “the main drivers of our deficit.” But his latest claim has even raised the eyebrows of some Republicans.

On Fox News yesterday, McKeon bemoaned that the proposed cuts could endanger the strength of our military. “We also need to understand what it’s going to mean to keep an all-volunteer force. Do we want to reinstitute the draft,” he asked. “Some of the cuts we’re talking about would take 200,000 out of end strength of our military.” South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson (R) — notorious for shouting “you lie” at the president — called McKeon out on this actual fib:

Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., chairman of the Armed Services personnel subcommittee, on Wednesday expressed concerns about defense cuts but said a draft was unnecessary.

“I’m concerned that the cuts are so devastating to our national security that almost any negative consequence can arise, but I actually have supported and continue to support as a budget-cutting measure elimination of the Selective Service,” Wilson said in an interview.

The lawmaker, who attended the Marine Corps graduation at Parris Island last Friday, said service members are volunteering even in a time of two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We have the new greatest generation,” Wilson said. “We don’t need as large a military due to the technology we have, the equipment we have outfitting our personnel. They really are storm troopers.”

It is important to note that Wilson chose to compare the U.S. military force to Nazis or (more charitably) to the fictional foot soldiers of the evil imperial army in Star Wars.

However, he is correct that there’s virtually no possibility of a draft. The Army recently exceeded its recruitment goals without sacrificing standards. Wilson also correctly notes that recent technology makes certain military earmarks obsolete. For instance, the Pentagon itself requested that Congress kill funding for the F-35 fighter jet, stating that “every dollar additional to the budget that we have to put into the F-35 is a dollar taken from something else the troops may need.” Moreover, as Political Correction noted in a post on McKeon’s comments, even if the most drastic cuts are implemented, defense spending would go back to 2007 levels. Needless to say, the U.S. military did not need a draft then even while fighting two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The U.S. currently spends more on the military than the next 14 biggest spenders combined. To claim that the much-needed and very sustainable cuts could spur a draft reeks of political spin. The whole idea left Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) bemused: “The all-volunteer Army seems to be working pretty well. Reinstating the draft? I don’t know what that accomplishes.”

The most immediately striking thing about President Obama’s speech today at the United Nations was the contrast in tone between it and his May 19 “Arab Spring” speech. I commended that speech at the time for its attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and for what it demonstrated about Obama’s understanding of the way that the irresolution of the conflict continues to negatively impact U.S. interests and relationships in the region, and how this would only increase as a result of the Arab awakening.

Addressing the issue in today’s speech, Obama gave a nod to the first part of that analysis — “Now I know that for many in this hall, one issue stands as a test for these principles – and for American foreign policy: the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians” — but nothing to the second. Indeed, perhaps the most disappointing thing in the speech was the way in which it attempted to cordon off the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the broader shifts in the region, as if this were remotely possible. The May 19 speech was a courageous recognition of coming change, and a bold step toward adapting American leadership to those changes. Today’s was a step toward increased American isolation and irrelevance.

While Obama made a stirring and important statement regarding the security threats with which Israel lives, he made no similar statement about the Palestinians, nor any recognition that it is Palestinians, not Israelis, who are living under military occupation. And he certainly gave nothing to the Palestinian leadership that might help them justify to their public the sort of stand-down that he’s been pressuring them for. It’s hard to see how already-embattled Palestinian moderates don’t come away from the U.N. weaker and with even less political legitimacy than they had before. That is, to say the least, not a good thing for the goal of two states.

Having repeatedly and rightly declared the status quo in Israel-Palestine “unsustainable,” the administration’s efforts at the U.N. this past week, capped off by the president’s speech today, appeared as little more than an effort to preserve that status quo, at significant diplomatic expense and at considerable cost to America’s global standing. It was, in other words, probably the best demonstration possible for why the Palestinians decided to go to the U.N. in the first place.

Cross-posted from Middle East Progress.

The neocons and war hawks that helped get the United States into war in Iraq do not want American troops to leave. That’s the message pro-Iraq war members of Congress and the neocon groups such as the Foreign Policy Initiative (a.k.a. “PNAC 2.0“) have been pushing since reports surfaced recently that the Obama administration is considering keeping only a few thousand troops in Iraq past the year-end total withdrawal deadline. The neocons argue that Iraq will descend into chaos and the nine years U.S. troops spent fighting there will be for naught if tens of thousands of American forces don’t stay in Iraq indefinitely.

Absent, of course, in any of these arguments is how the Iraqis may feel about it. Indeed, because of the security agreement President Bush signed with Iraq in 2008, the current order of battle is have zero American troops in Iraq by Jan. 1, 2012 and the Iraqis must agree to allow any U.S. troop presence beyond that date. But as the evidence so far would indicate, they don’t seem all that interested. Some Iraqi leaders are worried about security when the U.S. finally leaves. Ayad Allawi, former Iraqi prime minister and top rival to current prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, is one of them, but he said having American troops past 2011 isn’t the solution, Yochi Dreazen reports:

“We have serious security problems in this country and serious political problems,” Allawi said in an interview at his heavily guarded compound here. “Keeping Americans in Iraq longer isn’t the answer to the problems of Iraq. It may be an answer to the problems of the U.S., but it’s definitely not the solution to the problems of my country.”

Popular Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his followers have repeatedly and consistently made clear that they do not want any American military in Iraq past 2011. “I will say it frankly: If the American soldiers stay, even one, we will fight them with force, with our militias and our brigades,” Sadrist lawmaker Jawad al-Shihaily told Dreazen.

One key security concern is the volatile Iraqi Kurdistan border region, and it’s the reason some, like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), want more U.S. troops in Iraq past 2011. “We need at least 10,000 to 13,000 troops on the border between Kurdistan and Iraq — it’s very dangerous,” he said last night on Fox News. While the autonomous region’s leader has also called for U.S. troops to stay, some Kurds in Parliament are speaking out against any continued U.S. presence:

Maliki also faces pressure from unexpected sources like Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish lawmaker considered one of the most pro-American members of parliament. In an interview, Othman said his own thinking had shifted in recent weeks as the debate over the troop extension dragged on.

“Personally, I no longer want them to stay,” Othman said. “It’s been eight years. I don’t think having Americans stay in Iraq will improve the situation at all. Leaving would be better for them and for us. It’s time for us to go our separate ways.”

Without an agreement among the Iraqis, U.S. forces will totally withdraw in three months. “We are on track to meet the president’s goal of withdrawing all American troops from Iraq by the end of the year,” a spokesman for Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen said yesterday.