This afternoon, Obama signed the controversial Defense authorization bill, despite his reservations about provisions related to the treatment of terrorism suspects. The National Journal reports:

President Obama signed on Saturday the defense authorization bill, formally ending weeks of heated debate in Congress and intense lobbying by the administration to strip controversial provisions requiring the transfer of some terror suspects to military custody.

“I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists,” Obama said in a statement accompanying his signature.

The AP has more from the signing statement: “My administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation.”

Full text of the signing statement below:

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The head of the venerable Israeli spy agency Mossad reportedly told a group of Israeli ambassadors that even if Iran should get a nuclear weapon, it would not pose an existential threat to the Jewish State. The comments come amid increasing war chatter and rising tensions between the West and Iran over the latter’s nuclear program. Iran says the program is for peaceful purposes, but the West, backed by some evidence, claims it’s aimed at weaponization.

According to a report in the Israeli daily Haaretz, Mossad chief Tamir Pardo told a gathering of about 100 Israeli ambassadors that, while Iran’s nuclear program does constitute a threat and Israel will continue to do covert work to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions (hand-in-hand with the U.S.), an Iranian nuclear weapon would not necessarily pose an “existential threat” to the Jewish State. Based on the accounts of three ambassadors at the meeting, Haaretz’s Barak Ravid quoted Pardo as saying:

What is the significance of the term existential threat? Does Iran pose a threat to Israel? Absolutely. But if one said a nuclear bomb in Iranian hands was an existential threat, that would mean that we would have to close up shop and go home. That’s not the situation. The term existential threat is used too freely.

The remarks stand in contrast to frequent statements from hawkish Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that Iran poses an “existential threat” to Israel. But others have disagreed with the assessment. This year, Defense Minister Ehud Barak was quoted as saying, “I am not among those who believe Iran is an existential issue for Israel.” A former Mossad chief, Ephraim Halevy, also suggested Iran didn’t pose such a threat and issued a warning about the potential consequences of an attack. (That lines up with yet another former Mossad chief’s assessment, as well as other former high-ranking Israeli security officials.)

While Iran’s program does constitute a threat to nuclear non-proliferation efforts as well as Israel’s security — exacerbated by a long history of belligerent anti-Israel rhetoric from among Iran’s top leadership — comments like Pardo’s seem to be pushing back against one casus belli. The U.S. has vowed to not take any “options off the table” for dealing with Iran’s program, and calls an Iranian nuclear weapon unacceptable. The top U.S. military officer recently said he doesn’t know if Israel would warn the U.S. before attacking Iran.

Arab League monitors arrived in Syria this week to begin inspecting parts of the country where the regime of President Bashar al-Assad has unleashed its bloodiest crackdown on pro-democracy activists. Yet rights groups are criticizing the Arab League’s decision to appoint Sudanese Lieutenant-General Mustafa al-Dabi to head the delegation because of his links with allegations of Sudan’s own human rights violations:

Eric Reeves, a professor at Smith College in Massachusetts, who studies Sudan and has written strong criticisms of its government, said the choice of a Sudanese general was a sign the Arab League might not want its monitors to produce findings that would force it to take stronger action.

“There is a broader question of why you would pick someone to lead this investigation … when he is part of an army that is guilty of precisely the sort of crimes that are being investigated in Syria,” Mr. Reeves said.

“I think a Sudanese general would be one of the least likely people in the world to acknowledge these findings even if they are right there before him… It doesn’t make any sense unless you want to shape the finding. They want it shaped in ways that will minimize the obligation to do more than they already have.”

Reuters notes that Dabi has held senior Sudanese military and government posts, including four positions in the Darfur region, where the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court says the army carried out war crimes and the U.N. says as many as 300,000 people may have died.

Human Rights Watch Sudan researcher Jehanne Henry said Dabi “certainly would have been in a position to know what the security services were doing at that time,” adding, “He obviously does not fit the profile as a human rights monitor.”

Omer Ismail of the Center for American Progress’s Enough Project also criticized the Arab League’s decision, calling it “perplexing.” “Instead of heading a team entrusted with a probe of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity by Syria, the general should be investigated by the ICC for evidence of similar crimes in Sudan,” he said.

About 60 Arab League-sponsored monitors arrived in Syria last night and began inspecting the situation on the ground in cities that have served as focal points of the pro-democracy demonstrations. The AP reports that Syria suspended military operations and began withdrawing tanks as the Arab League monitors moved in and met with local leaders.

The monitors are charged with making sure that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is complying with an Arab League brokered deal to end the violence and begin negotiations with the opposition. But activists fear Assad’s latest move is mainly just for show:

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said some army vehicles pulled out of Homs while others relocated to government compounds “where [they] can deploy again within five minutes.” …

Given the intensified crackdown, the opposition sees Syria’s agreement to the Arab League plan as a farce, and some even accuse the League of complicity in the killings. Since Syria signed on to the deal Dec. 19, activists said nearly 300 civilians have been killed. About 150 more died in clashes between army defectors and troops—most of them defectors.

Reuters reports that around 20,000 Syrians gathered in Homs today, as the Arab League monitors arrived, to protest against Assad’s government and violent crackdown.

Sudanese General Mustafa Dabi is leading the monitoring team and said 100 more monitors are to arrive in the coming days. Dabi said his teams will use transportation provided by the Syrian government but insisted that his monitors will be able to maintain an “element of surprise” and be able to go wherever they choose without notice.

For a month now, a nascent protest movement has roiled Russia as Prime Minister Vladimir Putin seeks to reassert himself as president, the same position he gave up in 2008. His successor and likely soon-to-be predecessor President Dmitri Medvedev responded to the protest movement by offering reforms on his way out the door after a planned March election. But today’s protests stand as a strong rebuke to the eleventh hour concessions.

Security sources told the U.K’s Guardian that 80,000 people showed up to protest in Moscow — the largest demonstration since the collapse of the Soviet Union — to demonstrate against what they contend was a fraudulent parliamentary election. Here’s a photograph of the crowds in Moscow on Saturday:

In the first days of the protests, U.S. Secretary of State HIllary Clinton said the elections were a “fraud,” drawing criticism from Putin.

Thousands also demonstrated in St. Petersburg, one of Russia’s largest cities and a financial and cultural capital. The U.K. telegraph paper carried a video report from the protest.

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The GOP presidential field is quick to criticize President Barack Obama’s relationship with Israel. But concerns about Obama’s lack of support for the Jewish state are nowhere to be found in recent statements by Israeli officials. On Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak praised Obama’s commitment to Israel’s security. Barak, who last month characterized Obama as an “extremely strong supporter of Israel,” told Israel Radio:

We are asked, sometimes, whether Obama is really a soft appeaser. To that, I say: ‘Go ask Osama bin Laden.’

Earlier this week, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta emphasized that “there are no options off the table” in dealing with a potential Iranian nuclear weapons program and General Martin Dempsey sought to dispel concerns raised in an interview last month in which he suggested the Israel might not warn the U.S. before undertaking a unilateral attack against Iranian nuclear facilities. Yesterday, Dempsey told CNN:

We are trying to establish some confidence on the part of the Israelis that we recognize their concerns and are collaborating with them on addressing them.

Barak also emphasized that Israeli-U.S. defense coordination was “absolutely fine” and sought to downplay rumors of tensions between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:

They don’t have to love each other. It’s enough that they respect and understand that no one works as if they were alone, in a bubble.

Barak’s comments come as Republicans seek to portray Obama as weakening Israel’s security. Earlier this month, Bill Kristol, speaking through a press release for his far-right-wing pressure group, the Emergency Committee for Israel, said the White House “keeps acting to weaken the security of the state of Israel.” And GOP presidential candidates speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s Candidates Forum took turns criticizing Obama’s handling of Iran and commitment to Israel’s security. Rick Perry accused the administration of a “torrent of hostility” toward Israel and Mitt Romney claimed, “Over the last three years President Obama has… chastened Israel.”

But Barak’s praise of Obama’s relationship with Israel and Netanyahu’s appreciation for the White House’s “unprecedented” security cooperation would seem to stand in direct contradiction with the right-wing voices seeking to portray the administration as insufficiently committed to Israel’s security.

Our guest blogger is Elizabeth Marcus, an intern with the National Security team at the Center for American Progress.

The Middle East is undergoing dramatic political transformation. Despite the prominent role women have played in organizing these popular movements, the treatment of women in Egypt, Yemen, and Libya, raises serious concern about the future of democracy and human rights in the region. A central issue is the use of rape by both government and non-state forces as an attempt to silence opposition forces. In the context of patriarchal religious societies, rape and sexual violence holds unique potential as a horrific tool of political repression, and its use has been widespread as an attempt to stunt the growth of the Arab Spring.

Women agitating for political change in these countries face the ever-present threat of sexual abuse and the societal stigma that results from sexual violence in highly patriarchal societies. Unlike physical violence, rape and other forms of sexual violence can permanently damage a woman’s reputation and status within her community. Not only is she considered unfit for marriage but rape causes profound humiliation to the male members of her family and, potentially, her community.

Rape was used excessively during Moammar Qaddafi’s attempt to remain in power in Libya. Towards the end of his struggle, his regime ordered soldiers to go into villages and rape the female adults and children, some as young as 8 years old, in front of family members. Condoms and Viagra were found in pockets of dead Qaddafi soldiers. Benghazi journalists reported seeing the ground littered with Viagra after troops had been through.

Rhetoric related to women and sexual violence always comes back to ideas of honor, which is held in the highest regard within Islamic societies. Raping a woman strips the woman, her family, and her community of “honor.” Qaddafi understood this dynamic and used it as a tool to prevent women from organizing opposition to his regime.

Despite Egypt’s notorious reputation for sexual harassment and violence against women, female activists have been at the forefront of efforts to change Egypt’s political system from the very beginning. Perhaps predictably, Egyptian women have also faced sexual violence as they seek to effect political change.

On March 9, 2011, just under a month after President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, protesters returned to Tahrir Square to express frustration with the slow pace of reforms. The Egyptian military broke up the demonstration and arrested demonstrators, including at least 18 women. These women were beaten, charged with prostitution, and forced to submit to “virginity checks.” When confronted, a senior general said, “The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine… these were girls who had camped out in tents with male protesters in Tahrir Square.” In a patriarchal religious society in which female sexuality is heavily policed, accusations of promiscuity serve to damage the reputations of female protesters.
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Speaking to a Fox News audience this weekend, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney dodged a question about whether, knowing what we know now about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs in the early 2000s, the U.S. would have invaded in 2003, setting off a costly war that just drew to a close. “At that time, we didn’t have the knowledge that we have now,” said the former Massachusetts governor. “And in the light of that — that belief [that Iraq's programs were active], we took action which was appropriate at the time.”

Today on MSNBC, the presidential hopeful ditched the dodge. Asked by Chuck Todd, he answered that “of course” the U.S. would not have invaded Iraq had intelligence reports indicated that, as we later learned, there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq:

ROMNEY: Well, if we knew at the time of our entry into Iraq that there were no weapons of mass destruction — if somehow we had been given that information, why, obviously we would not have gone in.

TODD: You don’t think we would have gone in?

ROMNEY: Well, of course not. The president went in based upon intelligence that they had weapons of mass destruction. Had he known that that was not the case, the U.N. would not have put forward resolutions authorizing this type of action. The president would not have been pursuing that course.

But we did not know that. … [K]nowing what we know now, they did not have weapons of mass destruction; there would have been no effort on the part of our president or others to take military action.

Watch the video:

Compared with his dodge this weekend, Romney here presents a fair accounting of what his position would have been if there were no WMDs in Iraq. (Romney, as ThinkProgress noted on Sunday, supported the push for war at the time.) While some Iraq war supporters — including some in the Bush administration — have made apologia for the botched (or cooked, depending on how you look at it) intelligence in the run up to the war, others have been more honest in their assessments. Take Paul Wolfowitz, a top Bush Defense Department official and Iraq hawk, who said this year: “We did not go to war in Iraq or Afghanistan to promote democracy, but rather to remove regimes that were dangerous to us and to the world.” Romney’s assessment rightfully recognizes the dynamic that was at work during the run-up to the war.

The funding behind Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions for Winning the Future, an independent political committee, offers an intriguing clue into the financial deep pockets backing Gingrich’s candidacy. This week, McClatchy revealed that American Solutions footed the $8 million bill for private jet charters while Gingrich weighed whether to enter the 2008 and 2012 presidential races. Casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson was the biggest funder of American Solutions, contributing $7.65 million and rumored to have committed $20 million to a pro-Gingrich super PAC, a report denied by an Adelson spokesperson. Whether the report is true or not, the facts increasingly show that the billionaire casino magnate is a central figure in Newt Gingrich’s political career.

Sands Corporation CEO Sheldon Adelson is based in Las Vegas but has business and political interests in Macau, China and Israel. In Israel, Adelson’s importance stems from his close friendship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ownership of Israel HaYom, a free daily newspaper which supports Netanyahu’s Likud party. Back in the U.S., Adelson sits on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition and is outspoken about his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

During the George W. Bush presidency, Adelson opposed efforts to jump start peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians and even took sides against the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) when the organization supported peace talks. “I don’t continue to support organizations that help friends committing suicide just because they say they want to jump,” Adelson told the Jewish Telegraph Agency.

Gingrich, who characterized Palestinians as “terrorists” during a December 10th GOP debate and told the Jewish Channel that Palestians are an “invented” people, would seem to be mirroring the hardline positions taken by his early, and cash flush, benefactor.

“Sheldon has always loved Newt. He stuck with him through all of this,” Fred Zeidman, an Adelson friend and major player in the American Jewish community who is backing Mitt Romney told The Daily Beast’s Aram Roston. “He stuck with him when he stumbled. Newt, I think, is very reflective of Sheldon’s mindset. Particularly with Israel.”

While Adelson and Gingrich appear to share the same right-wing agenda on the Middle East, the casino magnate’s business dealings in China have proven a political liability for him at home. Adelson allegedly helped crush a congressional measure by House Republicans opposing Beijing’s Olympic bid. “The bill will never see the light day, Mr. Mayor. Don’t worry about it,” he reportedly told Beijing’s mayor in 2001 after phoning then House Majority Whip Tom Delay. The Sands Corporation went on to receive a lucrative casino license from the Chinese government, permitting them to begin a massive development in the Macau Special Administrative Region (SAR).

Responding to Adelson’s close dealings with the Chinese government, the Christian Coalition of Alabama’s president, Dr. Randy Brinson denounced Adelson for “not sharing our values.” “Where Sheldon Adelson has placed his treasure makes it quite clear where his heart is: in gambling and backing the regime in China that persecutes Christians,” he said.

Gingrich will face his own difficulties in persuading Christian evangelicals troubled by his multiple marriages and extramarital affairs to support his candidacy. But Sheldon Adelson’s noticeable presence in the Gingrich camp may prove another obstacle in winning over the all-important Christian-right.

The U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice expressed strongly-worded concern about recent developments in Iran’s nuclear program during remarks at a U.N. Security Council briefing on the issue. She cited a November IAEA report and a recent statement from an Iranian military official that the Islamic Republic plans on moving some of its enrichment activities to “safer places” — presumably underground facilities constructed near the holy city of Qom. Rice called the news “yet another alarming development.”

In her remarks, Rice raised the two issues as a call to international action:

The start of enrichment at Qom will serve as yet another illustration of Iran’s flagrant disregard for the Council’s very clear position on Iran’s enrichment activities. Iran’s behavior plainly belies the purported peaceful nature of its nuclear program.

…The Council therefore must redouble its efforts to implement the sanctions already imposed. Full implementation of these measures will show Iran there is a price to be paid for its deception. Full implementation can also slow down Iran’s nuclear progress, buying us more time to resolve this crisis through diplomatic means.

In her demand that the “international community must speak with one voice,” Rice is doubling down on one of the few measures taken against Iran’s nuclear program that have actually been effective in slowing its progress: Security Council sanctions on the nuclear program barring weapons and nuclear-related business with the Islamic Republic. In a May report, a U.N. experts panel concluded that those international sanctions “are constraining Iran’s procurement of items related to prohibited nuclear and ballistic missile activity and thus slowing development of these programs.”

While international diplomacy and the resulting sanctions have worked to slow Iran’s nuclear progress, the former head of Israel’s vaunted Mossad spy agency Meir Dagan said this week that the threats of military attack on Iran “may lead the Iranians into a reality in which they are (pushed over the edge) and try to obtain nuclear capabilities as quickly as possible instead of treading rather carefully while taking the international community’s demands into consideration.” According to reports, the current classified U.S. intelligence estimate on Iran’s nuclear program concludes that Iran has not yet taken a decision to construct a nuclear weapon.

It’s been difficult for the Republicans to attack President Obama on foreign policy, particularly seeing that he oversaw and ordered the operation that ended up killing Osama bin Laden. But the Republicans have a strategy on that: pretend Obama had nothing to do with it. Rick Santorum says repeatedly that Obama had no role in getting bin Laden. “The president doesn’t deserve credit” for getting bin Laden, Santorum said last week. “The people who deserve credit for that were the military whose mission it was to find them,” he said.

Rick Perry has picked up on this too. CNN reports that after Perry called Obama’s foreign policy an “abject failure,” a student pointed out that the President should get some recognition for getting bin Laden. But instead of agreeing with this obvious conclusion, Perry took the Santorum route — denial:

“I would suggest to you that it was Navy SEALs and our intelligence community that was the reason bin Laden was taken out, not the President of the United States,” he said.

Asked again by CNN if he believed that the president should be given some share of the credit for bin Laden’s death, Perry answered: “I’m almost positive it was Navy SEALs.”

Of course Perry and Santorum are correct; without the Navy SEAL team and their skills and professionalism, bin Laden might still be alive today. And Obama said so himself. “These Americans deserve credit for one of the greatest intelligence and military operations in our nation’s history,” he said. But of course it goes without saying that the raid would not have taken place if not for Obama’s push to “redouble” efforts to find bin Laden and his order to raid the al Qaeda leader’s compound in Pakistan, a decision Robert Gates said was “one of the most courageous calls I’ve ever seen a president make.”

But Perry and co. will most likely still carry on living in this denial. After all, despite all of the turmoil the United States and the world have faced throughout history, the Texas governor believes “the world has never been as dangerous as it is today” because of Obama.

An accusation that a vice president led a death squad targeting police and government officials roiled Iraqi politics yesterday — just a day after the last of the U.S. forces there withdrew across the border. The crisis deepened today when, speaking from the autonomous Kurdish north — out of reach of the central government’s security forces — the Sunni politician denied the charges and accused Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of using the warrant as a ploy to consolidate power. Does any of this dramatic political maneuvering surprise the Iraqi people? Judging by a poll released yesterday, probably not.

According to results of the survey by Zogby Research Services (PDF), Iraqis expressed concern about the departure of U.S. forces, but are nonetheless cautiously optimistic. Six in 10 Iraqis, said a report on the results, feared a possible civil war, partition of the country, outsized foreign influence by neighbors, terrorism, or economic woes. The concerns played into mixed Iraqi emotions:

Iraqi views can again be described as conflicted: 22% saying they are happy; 35% saying they are worried; and 30% saying they feel both emotions.

Iraqis, overall, feel that their country is “worse off” because of the U.S.-led war there — perhaps, for example, because Baghdad recently ranked as the worst place on the planet to live — with strong divergences across ethnic groups. Likewise, in the U.S., respondents were split between political affiliations about whether they thought Iraq was better or worse off. This chart breaks down the various responses to the survey:

So, if not themselves, who do Iraqis think became better situated vis-à-vis their country?

When asked who benefited the most from the war in Iraq, Iraqis most frequently point to Iran (54%), the United States (48%), and Iraqi elites (40%). Additionally, more than one-quarter of Iraqis see al-Qaeda as a chief beneficiary of the war. Only 4% think the Iraqi people benefited the most from the war.

Majorities in five of the six other countries surveyed — “Egypt (88%), Lebanon (86%), Tunisia (81%), Jordan (66%), Saudi Arabia (58%), and Iran (50%)” — agreed with the plurality of Iraqis who saw the U.S. benefiting the most, with nearly half (47%) of respondents from the United Arab Emirates sharing this view.

The survey — of 1,000 Iraqis across sect, ethnicity, cities, regions, age groups and socio-economic status — did bear out recent reporting on Iraqi resistance to undue Iranian influence in their affairs. Overall, two thirds of Iraqis view Iran unfavorably, with 90 percent of Sunnis, 83 percent of Kurds, and, notably, a bare majority of Shiites — Iran’s co-sectarians — holding that view.

All told, Iraqis responded with a guarded optimism about the prospects for their country’s future. While, only 21 percent overall both want a democracy and think it possible, 55 precent of Iraqis are either “very optimistic” (9 percent) or “somewhat optimistic” (46 percent) that Iraq will be stable and make progress.