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Tom Donilon was sworn in as the 23rd National Security Advisor on the 8th of October last year -- and though it's a bit late in the month to pounce on the anniversary date of his ascension, I am putting together an article looking at whether America's foreign and national security platforms have been enhanced or undermined by President Obama and his team.

But a couple of data points from Obama's White House that jumped out at me really need to be highlighted.  A bigger piece on Donilon Inc. is in the works -- but let me just toss out some data.

Since Obama has come into office and Donilon has either been National Security Adviser or Deputy National Security Advisor under Jim Jones, Donilon has called together 700 "Deputies Meetings," and 200 "Principals Meetings."  This is an astonishing number of gatherings of the likes of Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Bob Gates (recently resigned), Leon Panetta, and others.

Each meeting has paper flow -- and a decision memo or a memo outlining points of consensus prepared within 24 hours of that meeting. 

Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough is the axe man who makes sure that no deputies take their tasks lightly and wander into meetings unable to "speak for their building" -- something that seemed to happen too frequently during the Bush administration according to some of the memoir material in Condoleezza Rice's recent book.  According to a White House source, McDonough enforces preparedness across the national security bureaucracy and trades responsiveness from his bosses for preparation by them. 

Tom Donilon has 'done' 480 morning briefings for President Obama.  One wonders if Michele gets jealous -- or alternatively, what the President and Donilon do to keep spark in their relationship.

And it's not just Donilon, but also five other horsemen -- Vice President Biden, McDonough, Biden National Security Adviser Antony Blinken (who is also a deputy assistant to the President -- no more rogue ops in the White House); Counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan, and the Chief of Staff -- previously Rahm Emanuel and now Bill Daley.  This is the very tight circle that has been meeting with the President from the star nearly every working day of his tenure.

As National Security Council chronicler David Rothkopf writes, the Donilon-crafted and run operation is disciplined both in ginning up ideas but then executing them.  Rothkopf has concerns about sustainability -- but I think the machinery that the young mid-20s and early-30s types are now learning to work with will create a national security-style muscle memory that could be lasting.

More on this in a longer piece later -- but I wanted to get the frequency of meetings figure out just on their own.  It's a staggering pace. 

I asked one senior White House staffer what happens if Donilon catches a cold or gets sick or just can't show up for some silly but real human reason -- and was told that that's not allowed.  Donilon is in fact pretty much married to the job.  His wife, Catherine Russell, runs Jill Biden land; and his brother, Michael Donilon, is domestic policy adviser to Vice President Biden.

There are rumors that Donilon could be in play to succeed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.  Not sure why he would want to move to a less powerful job than he has now -- and not sure that the President would be willing to have just anyone move in and run the machinery that Donilon has running at a precise and wicked fast pace.  McDonough probably could do it -- but very few others.

More soon on what the Obama team has scored on in the national security arena as well as repeatedly belly-flopped on in coming days.

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

The congressional "Super Committee" by most accounts is working feverishly to get some sort of deal that would avoid triggering an automatic $1.2 trillion set of cuts across government accounts.  The committee's work has been done mostly in secret -- though some are reporting that the Republicans on the committee have dug in their heels against any form of tax increases.

But what has reached me through a senior national security official is that the level of likely defense cuts that would be part of a potential deal is approximately $465 billion.  I don't know whether that figure is a 10-year cut target, or 12-year, as there are two calendars floating.

Earlier this year, President Obama called for $350 billion in defense cuts over ten years -- but also used a figure of $400 billion in defense cuts through 2023, or 12 years.

A senior Obama national security official made the sensible comment to me that the President knows he has very hard choices ahead and that the cutting edge of global affairs will not be in the Middle East but will be in Asia.  He said that the defense portfolio and commitments had to be rebalanced -- that too much of America's capacity and focus was in the Middle East/South Asia.

The official said that with the withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq and a clear and steady drawdown of US forces planned for Afghanistan -- most likely leaving a nominal force that would preempt anyone in Afghanistan from overthrowing the government and which would continue support and training of Afghan forces -- created a major opportunity for defense rebalancing.

Interestingly, the senior White House official said that the decision had been made by the President not to cut any force levels or defense commitments in Asia.  The official made it clear that the President and his team would be continuing to build out and reaffirm America's presence and alliances in the Asia-Pacific scene both in economic and security dimensions and that some of this would be reflected in remarks the President would make at the APEC Leaders Summit in Honolulu November 10-11.

Bottom line.  The White House is expecting slightly bigger defense cuts than the President proposed.  A lot of the savings will come from extracting US forces from costly, low return wars in the Middle East -- and that while other defense accounts may be under pressure and will be reduced, the Asia defense portfolio will remain where it is now, if not more robust.

It is interesting to note that former Obama Senate staffer and national security confidant to the President, Mark Lippert, has just been nominated by President Obama to serve as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Affairs.

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

A close friend with whom I worked in Senator Jeff Bingaman's office in the 1990s, Wayne Propst, was forged into who he is today in part because of his experiences teaching people how to create fish ponds in Ghana.  And although he's kind of tight on the number of words he uses in any given sentence, he's a very cool policy guy. 

Another of my friends was a volunteer in Zambia -- and there have been tens of thousands of others in the JFK-launched Peace Corps program who not only did important work and bridge-building abroad but also helped themselves become more informed and enlightened through these experiences.

Vanity Fair special correspondent Maureen Orth also was one of those who heeded Kennedy's call and traipsed off to Medellin, Colombia to set up school houses.  She is enormously committed to education in Colombia and elsewhere in Latin America and has established and funded several schools. 

Every time I run into Maureen or hang out with her friends, I don't hear about her living in the wake of of the death of her megastar journalist husband Tim Russert, or spending lots of time on political swirl in DC.  Rather, she is obsessively-compulsively devoted to the Peace Corps, telling the organization's and her story, and getting people on board to help.

I have tremendous respect for her -- and as a salute to Maureen and the Peace Corps on its 50th -- and for keeping America engaged in real people's lives abroad and not just engaged with arms buyers and oil sellers -- I am posting Maureen Orth's video Peace Corps postcard above and linking to a site that has others she has helped produce.

Below follows an email I got from her today about these new Peace Corps postcards:

Subject:  My cool new interactive website Peace Corps Postcards is live!

Today is a very exciting day for me and celebrates a labor of love, the
launch of a new interactive website: www.PeaceCorpsPostcards.com.

Fifty years ago the Peace Corps was born, I became a volunteer in the
sixties, as most of you know, in Medellin,Colombia, and the experience
became one of the most important in my life.  I am still involved today
with three One Laptop per Child schools in Colombia @ 
www.MarinaOrthFoundation.org.

To celebrate the Peace Corps 50th anniversary and to share the
stories of amazing volunteers of all ages and backgrounds at work across
the globe today, my friend, the award winning filmmaker, Susan Koch,
and I have produced a series of video postcards we hope you find
inspiring and moving. We also feature former volunteers like Chris Dodd
for whom the Peace Corps had a profound affect throughout his life.

We are very grateful to American Express and the Bank of America for
helping to fund us and we are very proud of our new website which allows
anyone in the Peace Corps community to post his or her story, picture
or blog which we also locate on a Google map.

We are not asking you to do anything but share these postcards widely if you like them, send them out on your lists and tweet them to your network. We will frequently
add new ones so visit us often.

Here's even a sample tweet:
 
Check out these inspiring video postcards of amazing volunteers to
celebrate #Peace Corps 50th anniversary www.peacecorpspostcards.com 

 Enjoy!

Well done Maureen -- and thank you.

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

Think tanks in Washington scramble and compete with each other to influence the policy debate on a variety of fronts -- but what is desperately needed is for one of them to put forward a white paper on how to spell Moammer Gaddafi's name. 

This is not a trivial matter. President Obama's national security and foreign policy legacy will be inextricably tied to the action against Libya's late long-serving dictator, and the history books and blogs need a better guide than we have today on how to get the Libyan boss' name right.

Many have struggled with this.  This work by Danny Sullivan does a masterful job of drawing together many of the Gaddafi/Qaddafi/Libyan bad guy options.  While this spelling struggle isn't new -- but it has bothered me that my own colleagues at The Atlantic have a variety of names for him.

The Atlantic's International Channel editor Max Fisher uses "Qaddafi."  I use "Gaddafi" -- but flip to the Q on occasion, usually when I'm having a more festive day.  Atlantic writers have also used "Khaddafi", "Khadafy", and "Quadhafi".

I wonder if Moammer (and yes, there's a spelling dispute with the first name also) used to google his different names to see what got the most hits. 

If he had, here are the google mentions of a few of the myriad possibilities:

Khaddafy  409,000
Gaddafi  84,900,000
Khaddafi 4,900,000
Qaddafi 8,400,000
Gadhafi 15,900,000
Quadhafi 11,400

I can't find a version of the name with more hits that "Gaddafi", which is what I use -- so at least in my editorial and New America Foundation hats, I propose that we go with what the market tells us and use GADDAFI.

As Danny Sullivan reports from a Library of Congress survey, there are a lot more possibilities:

(1) Muammar Qaddafi, (2) Mo'ammar Gadhafi, (3) Muammar Kaddafi, (4) Muammar Qadhafi, (5) Moammar El Kadhafi, (6) Muammar Gadafi, (7) Mu'ammar al-Qadafi, (8) Moamer El Kazzafi, (9) Moamar al-Gaddafi, (10) Mu'ammar Al Qathafi, (11) Muammar Al Qathafi, (12) Mo'ammar el-Gadhafi, (13) Moamar El Kadhafi, (14) Muammar al-Qadhafi, (15) Mu'ammar al-Qadhdhafi, (16) Mu'ammar Qadafi, (17) Moamar Gaddafi, (18) Mu'ammar Qadhdhafi, (19) Muammar Khaddafi, (20) Muammar al-Khaddafi, (21) Mu'amar al-Kadafi, (22) Muammar Ghaddafy, (23) Muammar Ghadafi, (24) Muammar Ghaddafi, (25) Muamar Kaddafi, (26) Muammar Quathafi, (27) Muammar Gheddafi, (28) Muamar Al-Kaddafi, (29) Moammar Khadafy, (30) Moammar Qudhafi, (31) Mu'ammar al-Qaddafi, (32) Mulazim Awwal Mu'ammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Qadhaf

Gaddafi is way easier.  Takers?

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

photo credit: Reuters

 Update:  My colleague Max Fisher had a terrific post, up a while back but that I had not seen, on Gaddafi's passport application and the spelling there:  Gathafi.

Pervez Musharraf, the former Army general turned (former) President of Pakistan, is a different man than the Musharraf who has now declared that he will again contest for his nation's presidency.  The earlier version of Musharraf would bristle at questions about his respect for democracy, about the relationship of the Taliban to the security organs of the government, and, well, just about anything.  Musharraf, before, was self-confident, a talker more than a listener, and personally intimidating.

The man who spoke to the students of Washington College on the eastern shore of Maryland yesterday evening struck a significant contrast to the man that so many believed had become a de facto dictator during his tenure as Pakistan's president.  Musharraf listened.  He met students and engaged them seriously.  He spoke to them like mature adults who were informed -- and didn't dumb down his commentary.

The former four-star general said that while he grew up "as a man of war", he now knew how to "construct the peace" in his neighborhood, even with India -- though he had a number of testy comments about India and what he considered to be its meddling in Afghanistan and its efforts to create an "anti-Pakistan Afghanistan."

Musharraf offered a sweeping historical narrative of why Afghanistan had become the hotbed of regional proxy conflicts and had since American disengagement after the "defeat of the Soviet Union in 1989" become a "total disaster."  His perspective on Pakistan's allies and strategic choices is forged in realpolitik -- in which Pakistan's interests actually ally well with many interests of the United States.  He said it was extremely frustrating and disheartening for Pakistan to watch the US tilt toward India after the demise of the Soviet Union -- even though Pakistan had helped the US and its proxies defeat the Soviets inside Afghanistan, thus in many ways triggering the end of the Cold War.

He suggested that weak political leadership inside Pakistan and the failure to align institutions, their objectives, and conduct could be resulting in rogue military and intelligence elements freelancing in ways that were detrimental to both Pakistan's and America's security.  He believes that bin Laden living in Pakistan represented a real intelligence failure for Pakistan -- and severe negligence, not complicity, is the explanation.  Interestingly, President Musharraf said that bin Laden is now dead -- and off the minds of people; what is not off their minds though is the violation of Pakistan's sovereignty.

Most of the questions I posed while chairing this meeting with President Musharraf were drawn from Washington College students -- and I'll be posting the video when it appears on the college website -- but I did ask Musharraf about his views on Pakistan's blasphemy law and the assassination of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, on religious militancy, and whether if he was President of the United States, whether he would fire drone missiles at al Qaeda leaders.

Musharraf said that more than forty nations had blasphemy laws and that Pakistan was among many.  Religious extremism and militancy, he said, is often a manifestation of other social turmoil -- and that it would take time to urbanize, to educate, and liberalize a populations undergoing huge demographic shifts.  On the drone issue, Musharraf said that as a military man with a military objective -- if serving as the US President -- he might in fact decide to use drones.  He would, however, operate cautiously and carefully because of the obvious violations of sovereignty, which is deeply toxic to a nation's identity.

Musharraf's most compelling commentary focused on the importance of economic and political modernization -- the importance of exposing people to what was going on in the world and building the economy.  He kept referring to the strong economic growth rates that Pakistan had achieved during his term -- and that Pakistan was considered to be in "the next set" of eleven fast growing nations after the larger lead developing countries today.  He lamented the loss of pride and self-confidence of the Pakistan people in the current period and said that the political leadership was insolvent, corrupt, nepotistic, and failing.

There's much more that I'd like to share about Musharraf, who intends to make his first campaign trip back to Pakistan in March 2012 and until then is operating through Skype, Facebook, and other new social network media to build out his campaign and new political party.  He had just the day before spoken to a crowd of more than 3,000 Pakistanis via Skype -- and was proud that he now had more than 400,000 "fans" on Facebook.

I did push Musharraf privately on the democracy question, which he said a young Pakistani lady had posed to him that very day on a BBC event and program.  He was pushed on a number of fronts -- including the question of whether Pakistan could really be considered an ally of the United States anymore.  I'll write more about this democracy question when I post the Musharraf video. 

The former President didn't get irritated, or ruffled, or dismissive -- he got more deeply engaged and answered questions succinctly, posed questions to some of his student handlers, and spent the evening charming and chatting with several tables of college VIPs after his speech.  He was compelling and deeply informed on the details of global security and economic issues as well as many dimensions of state and global governance.

Last night with Musharraf reminded me of a time I secured Bill Clinton as a dinner speaker for a major Nixon Center event -- and the President (then) came to the cocktail party, sat down for dinner, gave a long and thorough speech, and hung out a bit after.  While I remember the content of that April 1995 speech, few others do; but almost everyone remembers how much time that night a sitting President of the United States spent at one dinner party.

In a more modest way perhaps, former President Musharraf did the same as Clinton for the Washington College community.  He gave those in the community and the students and professors a lot of time -- not because he actually had a lot of time -- but because he is out testing the new Musharraf, the listening Musharraf, the Musharraf concerned and interested in the tough and complex questions a public can pose.

And I have to say that much to my surprise, I was impressed with this version of the controversial former president of Pakistan.

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

The World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Index offers comparative rankings for 139 countries.  Here is the pdf of the United States report.

Here's how the United States ranked on the various criteria in the 2010-2011 Global Competitiveness Report. 

The picture is not good.  One of the few categories in which the US leads the world is "University-industry collaboration in R&D" -- and many engineering and science department chiefs, most recently at UC San Diego, tell me that America can't afford to take this leadership position for granted.
Continue reading this article

-- Steve Clemons

Reuters

This morning, Washington Post editors challenge Mitt Romney's foreign policy views in this morning's lead editorial and also give Jon Huntsman a working over. 

The editors applaud Romney's call for American leadership but call his approach to US foreign policy challenges unimaginative and devoid of key details -- particularly how he would wrangle the hundreds of billion dollars of new military spending he called for in his recent Citadel address.

But then the Washington Post challenges Jon Huntsman by slur rather than logic on his Afghanistan policy.  The Post writes:

In contrast, Mr. Huntsman is relatively bold but decidedly more misguided: His promise to "bring home" U.S. troops so as to rebuild an American "core" he views as "broken" sounds like an updated version of George McGovern's "Come Home America" campaign of 1972. Americans didn't buy it then; it would be surprising if GOP primary voters lined up for it now.

Jon Huntsman has offered a strategically coherent view on why American force deployments to Afghanistan undermine rather than enhance American interests.  He sees American power being trapped and tied down by the deployment -- and that higher tier problems, like Iran, are emboldened rather than constrained by the perception of an overstretched American military.

Huntsman also thinks it is irrational for the United States to spend upwards of $120 billion per year in a country with a $14 billion GDP.

What is the Washington Post's rational for labeling this logic "misguided"?  The Post offers no explanation at all as to why Afghanistan is strategically more significant to the US than other vital American challenges -- or why Afghanistan should stand as the "Moby Dick" of the US foreign policy portfolio. 

The Post should table counterpoints and alternatives that are themselves strategically coherent if they decide to challenge Huntsman.  All that the Post does in this attack on Jon Huntsman is to assert without explanation that withdrawal from Afghanistan will weaken the US, at least that is the implication.  It is equally possible to reasonably argue that a withdrawal or sizeable drawdown in Afghanistan will strengthen the United States -- free troops and other military resources to be available for other higher priority contingencies (i.e., Iran, Asia, etc.).

One hopes that the Post will pick up its game as its editors are the ones that are 'misguided' in setting such a low bar in the manner in which they challenge Jon Huntsman's efforts to explain the costs and benefits of various national security strategies to the American public.

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

News is breaking now that U.S. investigators have arrested suspected senior officials of Iran's Revolutionary Guard/Quds force for an alleged plot to orchestrate the assassination of Saudi Ambassador to the United States Adel al-Jubeir.

As I write this, Attorney General Eric Holder is speaking to the press -- and I am watching events from Abu Dhabi where I am attending the Global Council on Geopolitical Risk session of the World Economic Forum. Thus, my information is limited to that which I am hearing from U.S. Department of Justice officials.

What is listed in an official complaint filed by the U.S. government is that a bombing was allegedly planned, perhaps to take place in a Washington, DC, restaurant. The possibility that 100 to 150 people might be killed in the alleged plot was, according to FBI officials, waived off and of no concern to the Iranian interlocutor. According to statements at the news conference, $1.5 million was wired to the alleged perpetrators to finance the costs of the attack.

A couple of key things to consider as this story evolves.

First of all, Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir is not a member of the Saudi royal family, but he is widely considered to be the closest national security adviser and confidant to King Abdullah.  Al-Jubeir is constantly flying to and from Riyadh and Washington and wherever the Saudi King is as the King constantly depends on him for counsel and advice -- and thus al-Jubeir is far more than just an Ambassador.

Secondly, one of the key themes that has frequently emerged here at the Abu Dhabi meetings of the World Economic Forum this week is that a more intense proxy struggle is taking place between Saudi Arabia and Iran throughout the Middle East as the perception of American strategic contraction grows. 

This alleged assassination plot simultaneously may indicate both the intensity of anti-Saudi passion among Iran's senior leaders and a greater aggressiveness by Iran against the U.S.

This is a serious situation -- and this kind of assassination is the sort that could lead to an unexpected cascade of events that could draw the U.S. and other powers into a consequential conflagration in the Middle East.

If Iran was indeed willing to attack a Saudi Ambassador and close confidante of the Saudi King on U.S. soil and countenance the death of 100-150 Americans, then the U.S. has reached a point where it must take action. 

The President's National Security Council and intelligence teams led by Thomas Donilon must construct a response that is "more than reactive." This is time for a significant strategic response to the Iran challenge in the Middle East and globally -- and if the U.S. does not take action, then the Saudis will most likely retaliate in ways that will escalate the stakes and tensions with Iran throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denies any government involvement in this plot -- and there no doubt will be much more that surfaces in coming days. But Iran has officially denied any complicity in this plot and has accused the U.S. of fabricating these claims.

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

At the 2011 Washington Ideas Forum, former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf tells Atlantic Media Chairman David Bradley that he was 500 percent sure that at least he did not know about bin Laden residing inside Pakistan.  If true, that's very bad news.

This means that Pakistan, which has been behaving like a badly wounded, now unpredictable, tiger since the US killing of Osama bin Laden, may have more highly developed, compartmentalized command and control national security operations completely siloed from each other.  This has long been thought about the ISI, but that agency may be just the beginning of a very fragmented set of operations -- cocooned from each other -- that neither the President nor the Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Kayani, have full command of.

The information that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and outgoing Joint Chiefs of Staff Commander Mike Mullen have revealed on Pakistan's direct hand in the inner-Kabul terror attacks that are taking place with greater frequency, including an attack on the US Embassy compound in Kabul but starting in part with the bombing of the British Council offices which I blogged about that morning, means that the US government is clearly now in conflict with at least part, if not all, of Pakistan's national security forces. 

This report, "The Failing US Strategy in Afghanistan," by Tufail Ahmad and Y. Carmon and published by the Middle East Media Research Institute, deserves a careful read.

The authors carefully demarcate what is credible effort to deal with the Taliban from what is fantasy and delusion.  It's clear to most now that the Taliban, while still distinct in fundamental goals and objectives from Pakistan's ISI, nonetheless are fundamentally so dependent on direction and resourcing from the ISI that there theoretical independence is meaningless.  The Taliban for all real purposes are not an outgrowth or even a real affiliate of al Qaeda; the Taliban are an appendage of the ISI.

What is particularly disturbing about the MEMRI report is the cataloguing of events sponsored by Pakistan forces directly rather than through their proxy Taliban agents.

Here is a clip:

The Pakistani Military Invasion of Afghanistan

Separately from the Taliban, Pakistan too launched a series of military attacks on Afghanistan this year.

In February 2011, Pakistani planes also bombarded Afghan Border Police posts and civilians' homes in Afghanistan's Nangarhar and Khost provinces. According to the website taand.com, the Pakistani attacks were timed to convey a warning to President Karzai against visiting India that month.

In June 2011, Pakistan launched a series of missile and artillery attacks on the Afghan provinces of Kunar, Nangarhar, Khost and Paktia, killing dozens of civilians which were described by the Afghan government in a resolution as an "act of invasion" by Pakistan. On June 26, 2011, Afghan President Hamid Karzai accused Pakistan of firing 470 missiles into the eastern Afghan provinces.

In a July 2, 2011 testimony before the parliament, Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak confirmed that two Pakistani helicopters entered the Afghan territory sometime in the summer of 2011. On July 5, 2011, Afghan border police commander Aminullah Amarkhel reported that hundreds of fighters from the Pakistani Taliban crossed the border into Afghanistan's Nuristan province, where they attacked police outposts and torched homes.

In August 2011, General Aminullah Amarkhel, expressed concern that Pakistani forces have established 16 checkpoints inside the territory of Afghanistan, violating the border with Pakistan. General Amarkhel noted that there have been 50 incidents of border violation by the Pakistani forces on the eastern borders of Afghanistan with Pakistan, and that Pakistan has established 16 security checkposts inside Afghanistan's territory; 31 Pakistani security checkposts on the border with eastern Afghanistan were also seen as a threat to Afghanistan.

It also emerged that Pakistan has established control on some areas inside Afghanistan and offered citizenship to the local tribes. General Amarkhel made startling revelations that Pakistan has offered citizenship to the Afghan tribes, noting that there is proof that  Pakistan provided Pakistani citizenship cards to Afghans in the eastern border towns, particularly in Kunar and Nuristan provinces.

In September 2011, Pakistan fired hundreds of rockets into eastern Afghan province of Kunar, forcing hundreds of people to flee their homes. Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Sidiq Sidiqi said: "We call on Pakistan [regarding] whoever is behind the attacks, to prevent them immediately."

On September 26, 2011, the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Pakistani Ambassador to Kabul, Mohammad Sadiq, and told him to ask his government to immediately stop the shelling, a report by Pajhwok News Service said, noting that he Pakistani Army fired more than 340 rockets into Kunar and Nuristan provinces, causing loss of life and property and displacing hundreds of families.

Hoping that Pakistan will all of a sudden become a more dependable and trustworthy ally after what we have recently seen Pakistan authorities unleash inside Afghanistan would be naive.

America's war in Afghanistan in part depends on Pakistan's support and the provision of supplies and supply routes; it also depends on the Pakistan military working simultaneously to keep pressure on the Taliban and Islamic militants in the tribal areas while supporting trust-building measures between India and Pakistan, which many have argued is the only long run
solution to stopping the crisis and instability in Pakistan. 

As long as the US is dependent on Pakistan's support, and fears that a nuclear-armed Pakistan that is untethered, would be disastrous for US and global interests, then Pakistan has license to continue to misbehave and taunt the US political and military operations inside Afghanistan.

America has got to shrink its footprint in Afghanistan, become less dependent on Pakistan with which it is already in low level hot conflict, and begin a new strategy in the region that helps contain Pakistan and the danger it represents.  That can't be done mired in an Afghanistan quagmire.

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

Reuters/Mike Segar

As David Frum has said, if the Republican Party is an oligarchy, Mitt Romney will head the GOP ticket.  If it is a democracy, anyone but Romney will. 

Despite the agitations and clatter of the Tea Party, my hunch is that the Republicans are an oligarchy and Romney will be the last one standing when all the others have fallen. 

The Obama White House fears Romney and would have loved to run against Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann or Chris Christie of Sarah Palin (or Herman Cain!!).  Obama has spent so much political capital irritating the left and holding the pragmatic, wanna-do-a-deal center that for the Republicans to now throw a generally sensible, northeastern, Nelson Rockefeller style Republican at him seems like a game foul.

But Romney has been campaign tested once, and at least for the time being -- he's the candidate who deserves a deep dive into what he believes, thinks and who he surrounds himself with.

Romney's speech on foreign policy was depressingly conventional.  I am acquainted with many of his now outed foreign policy advisers -- and think that some how the tug between the different perspectives on the team must have warped beyond coherence whatever strategic frame Romney hoped to deliver.

Continue reading this article

-- Steve Clemons

Today at 12:15 pm EST, I'll be chairing a session with former Former National Intelligence Officer and current Harvard professor Ezra Vogel on his new book, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China.

Join us in DC at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in person -- or watch live here at The Washington Note.

-- Steve Clemons

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Reuters/Mike Segar

President Obama's speech at the United Nations yesterday paled in comparison to the soaring, expectation raising addresses he gave early in his administration, particularly in Cairo, but also at past UN General Assembly gatherings.  The President has lost his groove.

Obama opened with FDR's line that "We have got to make, not merely a peace, but a peace that will last." This was the perfect set up line for the President to describe how the United States was going to reinvent its leadership in an increasingly complex world where the old rules are not working.  

President Obama could have described in his address a new set of global deals among the world's last era powers and ones now rising -- particularly Brazil, India, Turkey, China -- and talked about the need for responsible stakeholders in the international system to deliver on a package of rights and opportunities for citizens of the world, perhaps a new Global Social Compact that America could help design but which would need to be supported, ratified if you will, by other of the world's great powers. 

That would have been something.
Continue reading this article

-- Steve Clemons

I am embarrassed not to have previously known the work of MIT historian Pauline Maier, winner of the 2011 George Washington Book Prize for her gripping account of the state by state drama over ratifying the US Constitution.

I am a history junkie and just served two exciting years as one of a three member team on the Los Angeles Times History Book Prize Committee and would make my way through 80-90 volumes a year that were being considered, but while in the weeds, missed the emergence of Maier's excellent work, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788.

Most are familiar with the key roles played by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay in taking on the propaganda responsibilities for seducing and/or pommeling those skeptical of or opposed to a new constitutional framework for the barely tethered together states under the Articles of Confederation. But there is so much more to the story.

What Pauline Maier delivers are rich accounts of what the disparate state conventions themselves thought of the enterprise in Philadelphia. Her account gives a much richer, less cliched treatment of the tug and pull that surrounded Constitutional ratification.

Her account also hardens the reality that the Constitution project was a conspiracy of a few who hijacked the machinery of governance then, just as many of the state conventions and political heavyweights of the day feared. Fortunate for the nation, it was a conspiracy that worked.

From my vantage point, American political history is one long line of political machinery hijackings whose roots go back to what happened in Philadelphia -- capped off most recently by the emergence of the Tea Party movement. But there will be many more such political hijackings in the years ahead.

One of the great gems of the Eastern Shore of Maryland is the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, directed by Adam Goodheart and based at the 1782-founded, colonial era liberal arts school Washington College. Goodheart, whose recent book 1861: The Civil War Awakening has been captivating Civil War junkies and more, helped establish the $50,000 award named after America's first President and founding father as a joint project of Washington College, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and Mount Vernon to highlight the best book each year focused on America's "founding era."

I sit on the Advisory Council of the Starr Center, which is one of the easiest responsibilities I've ever had because the Goodheart-run operation produces some of the best work of any US culture and history I have seen in the country.

For those nearby Washington College and Chestertown, Maryland this evening -- join at 5 pm for a talk by Pauline Maier on her George Washington Book Prize winning historical thriller titled "Making History: A Conversation with Pauline Meier and Adam Goodheart" in the Gibson Center for the Arts. Here's a link to get directions to the college.

As a special additional treat, folks will be able to see Maryland's original 1788 parchment copy of the United States Constitution, which will be on display in a one-night only appearance -- which sadly and oddly has not been publicly exhibited for nearly a quarter century.

And if that wasn't enough this evening in this not-as-sleepy-as-you-thought corner of the Eastern Shore, award-winning playwright Robert Earl Price is doing the world premier of his new Miles Davis-named All Blues before the production moves to Atlanta to be managed by the world renown 7 Stages Theatre Company. That starts at 8:30 pm.

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

Joshua Roberts/Reuters

This article first appeared at The Atlantic.

Senator Jon Kyl made news this week by telegraphing in advance the tantrums he would throw -- including resignation from his responsibilities as a member of the so-called "supercommittee" -  if the Congressional group pushes for more defense cuts. 

It's unclear whether Kyl will tolerate the $350 billion in cuts slated for the next ten years already called for by President Obama -- or whether he is talking about cuts above this amount.

From my experience, it is probably the former -- but my calls to his office yesterday asking clarification have not yet been returned -- so I leave open the option that the Senator and President Obama may be on the same page about the relatively modest cuts Obama has called for.

To be fair to Senator Kyl, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said that he doesn't think that the Pentagon can maintain its responsibilities in assuring the nation's security if the cutting goes deeper than that which President Obama has already outlined.  Both Kyl and Panetta have significant concerns about the "sequestration mechanism" that would be triggered by provisions in the Budget Control Act of 2011 as significant cuts would be forced in Medicare, defense spending, and other accounts if the supercommittee fails to reach agreement on at least a $1.2 trillion spending cut.

I hope Senator Kyl was simply posturing.  Kyl is a serious defense intellectual, a tough-minded hawk who has been concerned about America's eroding global position and assaults, as he sees it, on America's sovereignty.  I don't agree with Kyl's take but I respect him as a serious thinker and strategist.  

He has been deeply involved in making sure that America's national weapons laboratories had the resources to responsibly manage the nuclear stockpile -- and to some degree, although he became a serious but overcome impediment during the effort to pass the US-Russia nuclear arms deal START Treaty last year, his wrangling with Vice President Biden behind the scenes to get more resources into the nuclear weapons labs is what allowed other conservatives to support passage of that vital treaty.

Whether Kyl wins or loses in the various positions he stakes out -- some of them fairly out there in a "bomb them now and get it over with" world with former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton -- Kyl typically behaves as a responsible legislator and doesn't make the kind of threats he made about the supercommittee.  He is essentially saying "I want it my way or there will be no deal."  That's irresponsible, toxic and demeaning to others on the supercommittee with whom he agreed to work.

Three quick reactions.  First, I hope Senator Kyl reconsiders; his legacy deserves more than to be punctuated near its end by tantrums that are beneath him and the institutional character of the Senate.

Second, the Senator needs to think back to his positions on the Iraq War, the surge, and the various upticks he has demanded -- and often secured -- in defense appropriations.  He has never, to my knowledge, worried about the income part of the equation to balance out the national security spending he was engineering.

Since Osama bin Laden's acolytes changed the world and America with their attack on US targets on September 11, 2001, the United States has spent -- just in appropriated Pentagon dollars and not taking account of large expenditures in other security accounts -- $2.263 trillion ABOVE what it was already spending on national security before 9/11.  This is on a cash basis -- out the door -- and does not account for ongoing obligations to veterans and other delayed costs that Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes often mention in their cost assessments of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. 

Kyl should have been the tenacious, never give up, never surrender Senator who demanded not only more spending on the Pentagon but also more revenue to pay for it.  He has done almost nothing that I know of to commit his core constituents -- many on the wealthier end of America's economic teeter-totter -- to providing more resources for the kind of national security investments Kyl demands.

Third, while I don't share the world view that Jon Kyl has, I agree with him that national security investments and capacity are important.  If he focuses only on dollars -- then Americans -- whether on the political right or left -- will ultimately not feel that they are getting a good return on tax dollars spent.  Dollars do not automatically equate to security deliverables.

We are paying more in many cases for a bloated and often inefficient private defense contractor industry in which we see cases of US Air Force captains and majors retiring from the military only to go into the private sector making three or four times their pay in the military and doing exactly the same jobs.  Where is Senator Kyl on these sorts of abuses and inefficiencies.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had it right when he came into offices as George W. Bush's Pentagon chief.  Rumsfeld started with strategy and became committed to thinking through what kinds of wars and conflicts America needed to prepare for -- and what kind were least likely to be fought in the future and wanted strategy to drive a reorganization of spending and Pentagon structure.

September 11th changed everything -- and created a world in which the Pentagon no longer had to make hard choices because it saw coffers in nearly all of its accounts filled to overflowing.

Jon Kyl and his colleagues would be wise to check in with Secretary Rumsfeld and reinitiate a discussion of strategy and structure that informs spending. 

To talk dollars alone and think that more or less spending is the only measure of whether America is safe or unsafe is unfair to taxpayers, undermines US national security, and would blight Jon Kyl's legacy as a Senator who understood the deeper mechanics of national security decisions and spending.

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

Bleak views of the US economy abound.  Real unemployment for August -- which according to a monthly newsletter report prepared by Leo Hindery includes discouraged workers (3.9 M), part time of necessity workers (8.8 M), and marginally attached workers (2.6 M) those on the unemployment roles -- is up to 29.3 million workers, or 18.2% - compared to the still bleak official unemployment rate of 9.1%.

EJ Dionne has today penned one of the most depressingly accurate homages to labor I've read, suggesting that we change the name of "Labor Day" to "Capital Day", arguing that we have "given up on honoring workers as the real creators of wealth and their honest toil. . .as worthy of genuine respect."

But I've always had respect for contrarian views -- and I found one in my inbox a few days ago from the insightful research operation of the ISI Group.

The preamble to the report opened: "We are not trying to look at economic releases through 'rose colored' glasses, but the distinctly negative climate in the U.S. three weeks ago has since brightened.

Something to consider on this rather gloomy Labor Day are the ISI Group's observations:

1.     Monster online employment index continues to trend up.
2.     Consumer confidence is generally rebounding
3.     Chain-store sales were solid in August
4.     Motor vehicle sales were solid in August.
5.     Mfg PMI was better than expected (even after adjusting for the quality of the indicators,   most notably inventories)
6.     Household employment jumped.
7.     Temp employment is up two months in a row.
8.     Unemployment claims are trending lower.
9.     Verizon workers returned to work which should add about 45K to September's gain.
10.   Historically, September - November job growth is above the long term average gain

So, while today is cloudy, there is some hope that America's no job growth economy may be tilting slightly up for workers in coming months. 

Let's hope the ISI Group's view holds.

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic.  This post ran originally at The Atlantic. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons

(photo credit: Minh Le)

My friend Minh Le who has been doing a lot of work in Mongolia lately took this shot from the air while flying over Japan.

He sent it in response to a note I posted on Facebook noting that Mt. Rainier is like Seattle's Mt. Fuji. Rainier and Fuji are both spectacular -- and yes, I know that one is easier to climb than the other.

Thanks for the shot Minh.

-- Steve Clemons

Most Americans know former First Lady Laura Bush as a strong supporter of education -- and she puts her time and travel into this cause.  What is less known about Bush is how committed she was to international bridge-building and encouraging Americans to connect abroad.

I want to tip my hat to former First Lady Laura Bush. 

She is an internationalist -- and young folks, in fear of burying the lead, you should know that there is a "Laura W. Bush Traveling Fellowship" administered by the Department of State (Deadline extended to September 26, 2011) that is a great opportunity for young people to work abroad in line with the goals of UNESCO.

Most Americans know Laura Bush as a strong supporter of youth education -- and she puts her time and travel into this cause.  Just today, The Education Alliance -- a support group of business and community for "public" schools in Charleston, West Virginia -- announced that Mrs. Bush would be the keynote speaker of the Alliance's annual fundraiser on November 9th.

On October 7th, Laura Bush will visit the Lubbock-Cooper
Independent School District in Texas to attend a ribbon cutting at a middle school named in her honor.  This really impresses me as Charleston while a fine city (and the same goes for Lubbock) doesn't tend to rank among America's most acclaimed metropolises.  She is pushing education in a retail way, out in places that too often get overlooked.  Impressive.

What is less known about our former First Lady is how committed she was to international bridge-building and encouraging Americans to connect abroad.

Continue reading this article

-- Steve Clemons

In September 2008, then US Senator Lincoln Chafee did what many other smart, sensible Republicans should do today.  He distanced himself from the pugnacious, anti-informed, increasingly deluded and violence-hugging wing of his GOP party. In a talk I moderated at the New America Foundation, now Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee called Sarah Palin "a cocky whacko."

Today, the too silent majority of Republican Party members who are decent, believe in classical conservative values of decency and fair and honest work, who shun flamboyance, and want to see the nation move ahead for everyone need to stand up and knock back the idiots in their party who are celebrating and breeding thuggery and promoting violence.
Continue reading this article

-- Steve Clemons

The fact that the GOP is now experiencing the kind of outrageous character assaults against Muslims that many Dems, like US House Representative Keith Ellison, have endured only means that the push back has come much later than it should have. 


Reuters/Rebecca Cook

Are you or are you not a card-carrying member of the pro-Shariah, Muslim Brotherhood network trying to force the citizens of the United States of America to submit to the hateful will of Allah?

I haven't heard anyone in the network of scholars, validators, or activists -- profiled in the just-released Center for American Progress report Fear Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America -- utter the above statement precisely.  However, the propaganda of a growing American-based network agitating against the spread of Shariah Law, an entirely fabricated fear-mongering movement, sounds a vibe close enough.


Recently, Atlas Shrugs blogger Pamela Geller -- who is a key player in the Fear Inc. report, decided to focus her anti-Muslim rants at a Muslim GOP candidate, David Ramadan, that former Reagan administration Attorney General and Ronald Reagan Chair in Public Policy at the Heritage Foundation Edwin Meese was helping to support in a local Virginia House of Delegates race.

Continue reading this article

-- Steve Clemons

This morning, I hope to reflect a bit about this interesting report that the Center for American Progress just released, titled "Fear, Inc.:  The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America", but will be doing so from taxis, buses, and cars trying to make my way back from upper New York.

I had hoped to live blog what was shifting from a Hurricane category 1 to a tropical storm from the beaches of Southampton, New York which took a very bad hit from a category 3 hurricane in 1938.  But we were compelled by local authorities to evacuate to higher ground and ended up in Bedford, NY -- where the storm hit only lightly but where trees and power lines nonetheless were snapped apart all over the area.

I should add that what I had hoped to do was not smart.  I took to heart the tongue-lashing that NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave two kayakers who thought they could handle the mess and nonetheless had to be rescued from a violently churning New York Harbor.  It would have been stupid of me to try and live blog the storm from the beach -- but maybe less so, a couple of hundred yards away from the beach.  Next time perhaps.

Now all Amtrak trains to DC are cancelled today (Monday) so need to make my way home in buses -- and maybe by hitch-hiking.

Will be back soon with reactions to the CAP report.

-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons