The rising violence in the Middle East has apparently caused the editorial board at the Wall Street Journal to rethink its understanding of the war in Iraq. They write today:

Critics of the Bush Administration will surely find a way to blame it for the current crisis, on the theory that this is what happens when you push for change in the Middle East. But the real problem is the growing perception among Arab regimes and terrorist frontmen that the U.S. is so bogged down in Iraq, and so suddenly deferential to the wishes of the “international community,” that it has lost its appetite for serious reform. This has created openings for the kind of terror assaults on American allies we are now witnessing.

Despite trying to cast their stance as one that “critics of the Bush Administration” would dispute, the position that the WSJ editors take today is one that “critics” have been arguing for some time. American Progress’s Iraq strategy, Strategic Redeployment 2.0, explicitly states that, “As long as the United States is bogged down in Iraq and refuses to admit the thousands of mistakes it has made, it will not have the moral, political, and military power to deal effectively” with the threats it faces.

Sen. Chuck Hagel argued in Aug. 2005, “I think our involvement there has destabilized the Middle East. And the longer we stay there, I think the further destabilization will occur,” adding, “We are locked into a bogged-down problem not unsimilar or dissimilar to where we were in Vietnam.”

But the idea that the U.S. was “bogged down” in Iraq – which the WSJ now appears to embrace – has been repeatedly blasted by their editorial page. For example:

The political class and media treat the war as something whose “policy” details can somehow be revisited, even rethought. At home, the war is a political event, a normal partisan phenomenon. Its metaphors are borne out of Vietnam — quagmire, bogged down, body counts, Ted Kennedy. Guess what? Vietnam isn’t coming back. The people of this country tore the nation’s fabric terribly over Vietnam. They are not going to do it again. [Daniel Henninger, WSJ, 4/30/04]

Being “bogged down” in Iraq has had damaging consequences in the Middle East due to the disastrous choices the administration made. The WSJ finally seems to understand that. Better late than never.

Reacting to a new conflict igniting on Israel’s northern border, President Bush stuck to his standard talking points about freedom and democracy during today’s press conference with German Chancellor Merkel:

We’re concerned about the fragile democracy in Lebanon. We’ve been working very hard through the United Nations and with partners to strengthen the democracy in Lebanon. The Lebanese people have democratic aspirations, which is being undermined by the actions and activities of Hizbollah.

Indeed, the United States must support the advance of freedom and democracy in the Middle East. But simply holding elections – the focus of the Bush administration – will not create stability in the region. Consider:

- In Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, elections have empowered, not defeated, Islamist extremists like Hizbollah and Hamas who espouse violence.

- In Iraq, two elections and a constitutional referendum still has not brought freedom or stability to the country, which slips further into violence each day.

Democracy is not simply about going to the polls. It also means having institutions operating within the rule of law, a system of checking the power of strong executive bodies, and political actors that respect the rights of women and religious minorities.

We need to think beyond elections and take serious diplomatic steps to promote stability in the Middle East.

- Brian Katulis

Sixty percent of violence in Iraq takes place in Baghdad. Following his visit to Iraq last month, President Bush trumpeted a major joint US-Iraqi effort to improve security in Baghdad. From a June 14 press conference:

The Prime Minister is taking immediate action to implement a plan to improve security and his top priority is around Baghdad. Operation Together Forward started this morning. This operation is a joint effort to restore security and rule of law to high-risk areas in the capital city. It will be carried by some 26,000 Iraqi soldiers, some 23,000 Iraqi police, backed up by over 7,200 coalition forces.

How is “Operation Forward Together” going? Yesterday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad addressed the question:

Q: Hello, Mr. Ambassador. So the security crackdown in Baghdad has been going on a
couple of weeks — what’s your assessment of how well is it going? Is it succeeding?

AMB. KHALILZAD: It has not produced the results I expected so far. The plan is being reviewed, and adjustments will be made. No, it has not performed to the level that was expected.

According to Army Col. Jeffrey Snow, “I think since we have started Operation Together Forward, you’ll find that the number of attacks are going up.”

The Financial Times reports this morning that the Pentagon, guided by General Counsel William Haynes, recently reversed course and decided that all detainees held in U.S. military custody are entitled to protection under the Geneva Conventions. The timing of the announcement appears in part to have been guided by an administration effort to build support for Haynes, whose nomination to sit on the 4th Circuit was taken up by the Senate Judiciary Committee today.

Haynes — who is strongly backed by Vice President Cheney — has been described as a “prime mover” in the effort to contravene the dictates of the Geneva Convention with respect to the interrogation of prisoners. A 2003 working group appointed and supervised by Haynes argued the Geneva Conventions “must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to [Bush's] Commander-in-Chief authority.” That position, as applied to military commissions, was repudiated by the Supreme Court in the recent Hamdan decision.

A group of 20 retired military leaders recently wrote to Sens. Arlen Specter and Patrick Leahy to express their “deep concern” about the nominee (Read it HERE):

Had Mr. Haynes been ignorant of the likely consequences of these policies, the profound errors he made could perhaps be understood. But the uniformed JAGs of each of the services clearly and repeatedly expressed their concerns about the impact these policies would have both on the reputation of the United States and on the integrity and safety of military personnel. … These prescient warnings were echoed by the flag officer Judge Advocates General of the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. But Mr. Haynes failed to heed them.

Writing in a separate letter, former Judge Advocate General of the Navy John Hutson argued, “If civilian leadership of the military means anything at all, it must mean there is accountability for failures such as his.” Read it HERE.

Today, the media obtained a memo from Undersecretary of Defense Gordon England telling Pentagon officials that all detainees are entitled to protections under the Geneva Conventions. Specifically, England says the Supreme Court found the administration’s “military commissions…are not consistent with Common Article 3″ of Geneva:

The Supreme Court has determined that Common Article 3 to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 applies as a matter of law to the conflict with Al Qaeda. The Court found that the military commissions as constituted by the Department of Defense are not consistent with Common Article 3.

Apparently, someone from the Pentagon’s legal team didn’t get the memo. From today’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on detainee treatment:

Under questioning from the committee, Daniel Dell’Orto, principal deputy general counsel at the Pentagon, said he believes the current treatment of detainees — as well as the existing tribunal process — already complies with Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. [...]

“The military commission set up does provide a right to counsel, a trained military defense counsel and the right to private counsel of the detainee’s choice,” Mr. Dell’Orto said. “We see no reason to change that in legislation.”

The Pentagon needs to get on the same page – this page in particular.

Today Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld held a press conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and promised that the Taliban will be defeated:

At a joint news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Rumsfeld said militants “don’t want to see a country like Afghanistan have a successful democracy. They won’t succeed.”

Yet for the past four years, Bush administration officials — including Rumsfeld — have been insisting that the United States has already defeated the Taliban.

Rumsfeld, 12/18/02:

KING: What’s the current situation in Afghanistan?

RUMSFELD: It is encouraging. They have elected a government through the Loya Jirga process. The Taliban are gone. The al Qaeda are gone.

President Bush echoed Rumsfeld’s comments in Sept. 2004, saying the “Taliban no longer is in existence.”

– Geoff Miller

Poland has been a strong Bush administration ally in the Iraq war. It was one of the original countries to join the 2003 invasion and President Bush has repeatedly pointed out the country’s support, reminding Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) in 2004 that he “forgot Poland” and its support for the war.

But the Bush administration’s mishandling of Iraq is alienating even this strong ally. In a recent interview, Poland’s undersecretary of state for defense, Stanislaw Koziej, said that Poland is unlikely to join the United States in a future attack on Iran because of its experience in Iraq:

[The operation in Iraq] wasn’t optimal, wasn’t very effective and quite a lot of mistakes were done there and still we make a lot of mistakes. … I personally believe that military intervention in Iran is improbable. … So we should get used to the fact that we will have to deal with Iran having nuclear armaments.

It appears the Bush administration’s incompetence in Iraq will complicate U.S. foreign policy for years to come.

Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) has argued recently that in Iraq, President Bush should follow the lead of President Reagan in Lebanon, who redeployed U.S. forces. Last week, Cheney responded:

If we follow Congressman Murtha’s advice and withdraw from Iraq the same way we withdrew from Beirut in 1983…we will simply validate the al Qaeda strategy and guarantee more terrorist attacks in the future.

The departure of U.S. troops did not stabilize the situation in Lebanon: the civil war raged on, Syria’s influence grew, and U.S. prestige throughout the world, especially in the Islamic world, was tarnished. But Reagan’s decision saved the United States from becoming further entangled in a raging civil-regional war and was essential to winning the broader Cold War.

As Reagan’s Asst. Defense Secretary Lawrence Korb and I have argued, the real lesson of Lebanon is that our country must be willing to change course when an operation does not advance our strategic interests.

While the Soviet Union was sinking deeper into a quagmire of its own in Afghanistan, Reagan recognized that the United States had overreached in its effort to “solve” a civil-regional war with military force. The Bush administration faces a similar choice today — whether to further drain our resources in a civil-regional war in Iraq or redeploy our assets to defeat global terrorist networks.

Much as Reagan redeployed U.S. troops to better fight the Cold War, so must we redeploy today to better fight the war on terror. Cheney’s approach “” sapping U.S. resources, further taxing the U.S. military, and immersing the United States in an escalating civil war “” endangers the entire effort.

– Max Bergmann

Last week, foreign relations committees in both the House and the Senate quietly passed resolutions expressing support for a potential U.S.-India nuclear energy deal. The proposal would provide India with access to nuclear fuel, technology, and reactors from the United States.

Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), access to peaceful nuclear technology has been provided by nuclear states only to those nations that agree to forego nuclear weapons, something that India has not pledged to do nor has the U.S. required. Congressional committees carved out an exception to the nuclear trade law so that India can receive nuclear technology. But the committees refused amendments that would have required the Bush administration to certify the technology would not be used to benefit the Indian nuclear weapons program.

The U.S.-India nuclear deal is “going [to] weaken our case with Iran; it’s going to weaken our case with North Korea,” argued Christopher Paine, senior nuclear programs analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Rep. Diane Watson (D-CA), who voted against the nuclear deal, explained why:

Terming India as a ”reliable steward” of nuclear technology, Watson said her concerns were beyond India. ”I do not fear India with nuclear power. I do fear a world where both India and the US must face a nuclear Iran or a nuclear North Korea. Our key tool for constraining nuclear designs of Iran and North Korea has been Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, or NPT,” Watson told The Indian Express. Watson said her main fear was that this legislation would damage the NPT to the point that we would make it harder to stop the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programmes.

The Bush administration does not seem the understand the difficulties. Bush said in response to the recent North Korean missile tests: “I view this as an opportunity to remind the international community that we must work together to continue to work hard to convince the North Korean leader to give up any weapons programs.” The India nuclear deal makes that case harder.

The right wing has latched on to North Korea’s unsuccessful missile launch to renew its calls for increased funding for the Pentagon’s failed $92-billion missile defense system. Yesterday on Fox News, Rep. Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA) attacked Democratic “backbiters” and “naysayers” — including guest Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA) — for questioning the program. Watch it:

But despite Rohrbacher’s rhetoric, the U.S. missile defense system can’t — and probably never will — protect the nation against an attack. Some problems:

– The Pentagon’s Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system “hasn’t successfully intercepted a missile since October of 2002. … And the last two times it tried to hit an oncoming missile, the interceptor didn’t even leave the ground. Things have gotten so bad that the Missile Defense Agency’s independent review team concluded last year that more tests may only undermine the GMD’s value as a deterrent.”

– A recent Pentagon Inspector General report found that security vulnerabilities are so serious “that the agency and its contractor, Boeing, may not be able to prevent misuse of the system.”

– “A little-noticed study by the Government Accountability Office issued in March found that program officials were so concerned with potential flaws in the first nine interceptors now in operation that they considered taking them out of their silos and returning them to their manufacturer for ‘disassembly and remanufacture.’“

Full transcript here.

One landed in the Sea of Japan, according to an AP report. “Japanese government officials were trying to determine whether it was a long-range ballistic missile that had been readied for launch recently.”

UPDATE: “North Korea launched a long-range Taepodong-2 missile early Wednesday in an apparently unsuccessful test that failed in flight, a senior State Department official said. North Korea also tested at least two smaller missiles, U.S. sources told CNN.”

UPDATE II: A Pentagon official, contradicting the CNN report, tells the AP the long-range missile was not fired. “North Korea test-launched two missiles Wednesday that landed in the Sea of Japan, but a Pentagon official said they were Scud missiles and not the longer-range variety that has been the focus of international concern.” The AP now reports the Taepodong-2 was fired.

UPDATE III: The New York Times says a long rangle missile was fired. “North Korea apparently test-fired several missiles in the early hours of Wednesday, July 5 (Tuesday afternoon Eastern time), including the Taepodong-2, the long-range missile at the heart of diplomatic tensions with the United States and its allies, according to reports by Reuters, The Associated Press, CNN and other agencies.”

UPDATE IV: CNN now reports there were five total launches, including the long-range Taepodong-2, which failed after 42 seconds.