George Soros has gone to Berlin to tell the Germans that their policies are leading to the disintegration of not just the Euro, but Europe itself.

Yesterday in a panel on the "Future of Europe" at a conference organized by the Institute for New Economic Thinking, Soros said:

The Euro has really broken down. It has sprung defects, some of which could have been anticipated and some were anticipated. But some actually couldn't. Effectively, heavily indebted countries [in Europe] have ended up in the position of a third world country that is heavily indebted in a foreign currency. And that is only one of the unanticipated results of how things worked out [with the Euro].

Soros went on to say that Europe is simultaneously suffering from a Euro Crisis, a sovereign debt crisis, a balance of payments crisis, a banking crisis, a competitiveness crisis and suffering from other serious structural defects.

Bottom line. Soros thinks Europe is over unless Germany immediately changes course and develops a policy framework that is far more flexible and pragmatic than it is forcing now.

Here is the clip of George Soros on the "Future of Europe" panel:
 


More on the INET meeting in Berlin soon.

-- 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

German Minister of Finance Wolfgang Schäuble in his welcome note to an Institute of New Economic Thinking convening of some of the world's leading economic theorists and practitioners in Berlin this week wrote:

I would also like to point out that it is not just new thinking that we need.  Rather, it is often equally important to recall older ideas and approaches that may have fallen out of the limelight in the meantime.  For example, we in Germany have sharpened our focus on the necessity of pursuing economic and fiscal policies that are consistent with the principles of markets and competition -- what we call Ordnungspolitik.  This approach can make crucial contributions to the concrete design of policies and especially institutions.  In my view, Germany's "debt brake" is an institution that lays the groundwork for reliable long-term policymaking and that by itself can counteract undesriable fiscal and economic developments.

Ordnungspolitik seems to roughly translate into a government debt-averse, laissez-faire approach to economic policy that runs along similar lines to what Republican House Budget Committee Paul Ryan is promoting.

What is frightening many in Europe today is that Schäuble's views are mainstream in Germany, a current account surplus national oasis in a world plagued by debt desertification.

In other words, Germany is not only unwilling to extend a real lifeline to other sinking economies in Europe, it's using this moment in history to promote an ideological austerity that it wants to compel other nations -- when their economies are reeling -- to do the same as the price for German support.

George Soros, anchor speaker among many luminaries at this INET conference, has offered contrarian views to those of Schäuble and published this oped in yesterday's Financial Times, "Europe's Future Not up to Bundesbank."  However, in the side chatter here, most believe that the gap between Germany's economic prescriptions and floundering European siblings won't be bridged.

There is sort of a feeling among many here that the European titanic is sinking and that Germany has control of all the life boats and won't let them out.

In a way, developing 'new economic thinking' is similar to researching and promoting use of renewable energy sources -- vital but it takes a long time and major investment to retrofit a world organized around traditional energy. 

Soros and some others at this conference have been arguing that the very foundation of equilibrium-driven economics is wrong, that markets are instead prone to bubbles and collapse and require constant regulatory involvement. 

But just as the gap between Germany on one side and Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal, and others on the other is growing -- so too is the gap between market fundamentalists like German Finance Minister Schäuble and 'new economic thinking' market skeptics.

While millions of other-than-German Europeans may sink given Germany's tenaciousness about a debt brake for all and a conservative Ordnungspolitik, also hit hard could be President Obama's reelection aspirations.  Stay tuned.

-- 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/Alexander Demianchuk

Nobuo Tanaka's hair is on fire.  The immediate past executive director of the International Energy Agency is on a mission attempting to alert officials in the United States, Japan, Europe, China and elsewhere that post-Fukushima Japan may be approaching an energy death spiral.

Tanaka's argument is mathematical at its core.  He argues that if Japan does not find a way to 'turn on' its now shuttered nuclear energy reactors, not only will Japan's already sluggish economic condition be crushed with much larger oil and gas imports from Russia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East -- but because of the costs and risk uncertainty -- Japan's powerful manufacturing base may begin pulling out of the world's third largest economy.  In a morning meeting with me last week, Nobuo Tanaka said that if Japan didn't get its domestic energy production back on line soon, Japan would experience serious 'deindustrialization.'

Tanaka explained that at current levels, Japan consumes about 5 million barrels of oil a day.  Without domestically produced nuclear energy -- for which Japan has stockpiled for decades the world's largest non-weaponized highly processed plutonium reserves -- Japan falls about 10% or half a million barrels of oil short of what it must have. 

Japan has 54 nuclear energy reactors -- only two of which are running at the moment and both of which are scheduled for regular check ups and will shut down either late this month or in early May 2012.  As regular maintenance has required shutting down plant after plant, none of Japan's governors has allowed the nuclear energy plants to be returned to operation.

On top of the post-Fukushima nuclear plant disaster, global tensions with Iran are threatening Japan's dependence on Iranian oil exports, which Japan's share amounts to about 300,000 barrels a day. 

This makes Japan's current potential daily energy deficit about 800,000 barrels per day. 

Tanaka, who after leaving the International Energy Agency is biding his time now as Global Associate for Energy Security and Sustainability at Japan's Institute of Energy Economics, acknowledges that the Saudis have offered Japan, Europe and others who are jittery about the growing tensions with Iran more of its own domestic capacity, which most put at about 2 million barrels a day.  Tanaka says the problem is that that's just not enough to manage global shortfalls if there is a strike on Iran and oil flows are interrupted -- and he believes that the Saudis will favor European needs over Japan's.

On top of the gloom about nuclear energy supply doldrums in Japan, the hard consequences of tensions with Iran, there is a third area of concern Tanaka has:  the weather.  He said that if Japan has a very hot summer -- which some are projecting -- Japan will run another 10% short of supplies on top of the shortages it already projects.

But even all this is not the end of the squeeze.

Japan's other partial energy option is the importation of liquified natural gas (LNG) -- which it imports from Malaysia, Brunei, Qatar, UAE, Indonesia and Australia. Japan needs to further boost imports if it can but prices for LNG are surging.  The combined energy deficit Japan is facing would require a net increase, according to Tanaka, of LNG and oil that would run about $40 billion a year -- wiping out completely Japan's trade surpluses and more.

In meetings hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies this past week, Nobuo Tanaka made an appeal for the US to export some of its cheap LNG supply to Japan.  The price of LNG in Japan is currently four times the price in the United States. 

However, House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Edward Markey has over the last several months been agitating in speeches and correspondence with Energy Secretary for the US to restrict LNG exports -- thus keeping prices low in the United States and leaving key strategic allies like Japan vulnerable to surging global LNG prices and to the geostrategic flirtations from Russia.  Tanaka said that with Russia, about which the US has increasing concerns about its mercantilist global energy behavior, Japan may be forced to build new grid and pipeline infrastructure with Russia given the cold shoulder the US is thus far showing Japan.

Tanaka told me that one high-ranking Chinese official recently approached him asking if and when Japan would turn its nuclear reactors back on -- as Japan's massive energy needs now were disrupting supply patterns and costs and could affect China's energy investment picture if Japan's needs were to become structurally permanent.

To some degree, without the Pulitzer and best-selling energy reality books to his name, Nobuo Tanaka is the Daniel Yergin of Japan and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the patterns and vectors of energy production and consumption by all the major global energy actors.  His warnings matter -- and yet Japan's political leaders, he believes, have not honestly talked with the Japanese public about the hard choices it faces and a possible economic unraveling that comes with the status quo national nuclear energy allergy.

Tanaka thinks that the U.S. could play a constructive role in helping Japan weather its challenges -- not just in exporting cheaper LNG but it helping bridge the 'trust gap' between Japanese citizens and their government.

The former senior Japan Ministry of Economy Trade & Industry official joked that the only place in the world where an elected legislature may be less popular with its citizens that the US Congress is Japan -- where government incompetence and false statements made during and after the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear plant disasters have collapsed Japanese trust in their officials.  And trust wasn't high before these incidents.

Tanaka realizes that there is a legitimate debate to be had about the safety and management of Japan's nuclear energy facilities and that standards need to be improved and a national conversation has to take place -- but that a total rejection of nuclear energy will send Japan over a cliff as deindustrialization is triggered by energy shocks.

One solution he thinks is for former US Nuclear Regulatory Commission commissioners and other US-based, respected nuclear energy experts form an ad hoc commission designed to consult with the Japanese nuclear energy industry and political authorities -- and to create what would be a bilateral, or perhaps even an international, peer review structure.  This might allow Japanese citizens to possibly fasten their trust in the international Commission even if doubtful about the solvency of their own business, political, and energy leaders.

It's an interesting proposal -- one that gets to the core issue of trust and lurking uncertainties about nuclear energy in Japan.  Some critics could argue that creating such a US-Japan or international commission would allow Japan to push this needed debate under the rug and cover up dangers lurking in Japan's energy system.

Maybe so -- but it also seems that Nobuo Tanaka could be right that Japan's economic future further unravels if it doesn't figure out some way to get safe nuclear energy back online. 

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

Politico's Dylan Byers has written one of the fairest, most earnest reviews of another journalist's work that I've read in some time, particularly when it is about a writer who enjoys enviably high degrees of access at the White House, CIA, State Department and Pentagon.  There is none of the cheap shot snark that invades too much of today's punditry.

I am referring to Byers' piece that just appeared today profiling the work of David Ignatius, who recently was given some insider access to Osama bin Laden files taken during the Navy SEAL Team 6 raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad; and in general has been a valuable lead in the journalistic corps digging out detail on the Obama administration's course that many others have been unable to do.

Just today, Ignatius continues his exclusive reporting on the bin Laden files in the Washington Post with a piece titled "A Lion in Winter."  Here is an interesting excerpt from Ignatius article highlighting bin Laden's lament about al Qaeda's situation and fears about the state of his movement and the deaths of his key followers:

Bin Laden wanted to save what remained of his network by evacuating it from the free-fire zone of Pakistan's tribal areas. He noted "the importance of the exit from Waziristan of the brother leaders. .?.?. Choose distant locations to which to move them, away from aircraft photography and bombardment."

This evacuation order comes in the most revealing document I was shown, which is a voluminous 48-page directive to Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, who served, in effect, as bin Laden's chief of staff. Throughout this document, bin Laden pondered the likelihood that al-Qaeda had failed in its mission of jihad.

Bin Laden begins by recalling the glory days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when his al-Qaeda mujaheddin were "the vanguard and standard-bearers of the Islamic community in fighting the Crusader-Zionist alliance."

But the al-Qaeda leader turns immediately to a bitter reflection on mistakes made by his followers -- especially their killing of Muslims in Iraq and elsewhere. The result, he said, "would lead us to winning several battles while losing the war at the end." Bin Laden ruminated on the "extremely great damage" caused by these overzealous jihadists. Not only is the organization's reputation being damaged, he noted, but "tens of thousands are being arrested" in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

I was pleased to see that Sally Quinn, wife of legendary Washington Post executive editor Benjamin Bradlee and editor-in-chief and co-founder with Jon Meacham of On Faith, credits the book America and the World: Conversations on the Future of US Foreign Policy with Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft as a pivot point helping to trigger Ignatius' recent three year ascent to the top of national security columnists. 

Ignatius was the 'interviewer' in this book -- which I put together with then Basic Books editor (now editor at Yale University Press) William Frucht as part of the New America Foundation/Basic Books series.  This book, which I think is still highly relevant to today's geostrategic challenges was selected in 2008 as among New York Times book review editor Michiko Kakutani's top ten favorite books of the year.

From Dylan Byers' article:

But it is in the past three years, during the Obama administration, that Ignatius has really earned his reputation as perhaps the most important media voice in national security circles, particularly related to the Middle East.

Quinn, who says Ignatius is "at the pinnacle" of his career, believes he began to take off in 2008 with the publication of "America and the World," a book of conversations between Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft moderated by Ignatius.

Clemons, who commissioned the book, agrees and recalls the book party in Sen. John Kerry's backyard that marked a watershed moment in Ignatius's career. "When Chuck Hagel and John Kerry did the book launch for us at John Kerry's home, and Ignatius interviewed Scowcroft and Brzezinki in Kerry's backyard, it was a signal to the national security community that David Ignatius had broadened his portfolio significantly."

Ignatius is also respected among White House officials because of his nonideological approach to national security, which puts him at odds with the Post's editorial page editor, Fred Hiatt.

"Fred sees himself as a liberal interventionist, which David definitely is not," Clemons said. "David has a moral spine, but he is fundamentally a realist." (Hiatt told POLITICO he wasn't "big on labels," but acknowledged his support for a foreign policy "founded on ideals, helping those who are striving for freedom and human rights.")

During the George W. Bush administration, Ignatius wrote a piece profiling the then hardly-reported-on David Addington, titled "Cheney's Cheney."  He wrote this piece after an off-the-record salon dinner the New America Foundation had hosted with former top National Security Council lawyer and then Counselor to the Secretary of State John Bellinger -- in which battles between Bellinger and Addington inside the administration about the legality and course of the Bush/Cheney's anti-terror measures were beginning to surface.  It was a very important article at the time as Addington had largely escaped any media interest in his activities until then.

It's in that spirit that I title today's response to Dylan Byers' good essay, "David Ignatius: A National Security Wonk's National Security Wonk."

-- 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:  Charlie Rose Show

The New York Times editors nail it today in a piece ridiculing the settlement between too-big-to-fail banks and states designed to assist anti-foreclosure efforts and underwater home mortgage victims.

Although the Obama administration did get some financial sector reforms through, like Dodd-Frank, the result seems to have been not a rewiring of the system to change the balance of power between economic stakeholders, particularly consumers and workers, but rather a resuscitation of the old system with some fig leafs (like this $26 billion foreclosure settlement) designed to cover up the corruption.

The editors write:

When it comes to helping homeowners, banks are treated as if they still need to be protected from drains on their capital. But when it comes to rewarding executives and other bank shareholders, paying out capital is the name of the game.

And at a time of economic weakness, using bank capital for investor payouts leaves the banks more exposed to shocks. So homeowners are still bearing the brunt of the mortgage debacle. Taxpayers are still supporting too-big-to-fail banks. And banks are still not being held accountable.

National Journal Chief Correspondent Michael Hirsh concurs, writing along these lines a few days ago, "Has Wall Street Really Changed?" as well as his "A Tale of Two Financial Heroes" which pivots off The Atlantic's Economy Summit that brought together the likes of Paul Volcker, Robert Rubin, Sheila Bair, Lawrence Lindsey, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Lawrence Summers, Gene Sperling, Laura Tyson, Allan Meltzer and others.

-- 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

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all.  I'm not really all that into this festive day but I can be dragged along to get into the fun now and then.  That said, A friend has been wearing this O'Bama shirt all day today.

And what it makes me think of is Sarah Palin as depicted in the film Game Change repeatedly saying "O'Biden."

I really, really want a green O'Biden shirt, coffee mug, refrigerator magnet, bumper sticker. . .And to be totally balanced, I'd enjoy some O'Romney paraphernalia too.  Someone get Cafe Press on it.

Happy St. Patrick's to all of the O'Bidens and all of you!
-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons


UPDATE:

A reader sends in this note that is well informed about the abbreviation battles sounding St. Patrick's Day:

This was always St. Paddy's day (short for Padraic or Padraig) until recently, when it turned into St. Patty's Day for reasons I don't understand.  I thought that you would be interested in this clarification, complete with the rolling Twitter feed at the bottom.

http://paddynotpatty.com/

This morning, starting at 9:15 am EST, I'll be having a discussion with Virgin Group founder Richard Branson on his new campaign to decriminalize drug possession and to generally knock out the rationale of the so-called Global War on Drugs.

Also joining us will be Drug Policy Alliance Executive Director Ethan Nadelmann who will forever be remembered for the zinger line to Bill Maher: "Pot is the new gay."

Feel free to join us -- starting in less than an hour.

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

Today, more than 800 people will attend "The US Economy Summit" organized by The Atlantic and presented at the Capital Hilton Hotel.

The entire program (here is pdf of schedule) will stream live here on this blog as well as the Atlantic Live site -- and will air in full, live, on C-Span and also be featured in certain segments on Bloomberg TV and CNBC.

The program features a full 360 degree view of the economy policy debate from major, and some controversial, thinkers and policy practitioners from across the political and economic spectrum.  The program includes former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, former Clinton economic adviser Laura Tyson, former FDIC chief Sheila Bair, former McCain campaign economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, Obama economic adviser Gene Sperling, Export-Import Bank President Fred Hochberg, former G.W. Bush economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey, Federal Reserve Board expert and economist Allan Meltzer, former Ron Paul economic adviser Peter Schiff, among many others.


Free desktop streaming application by Ustream
Each of these people have been tasked with addressing not only what is fragile and not working in the economy today -- both substantively and politically -- but what they'd do to fix things.

What would you do?  I'd like to hear thoughtful, constructive thinking on this -- and add the smart commentary that may come in by email or comments to a roster of what we'd consider the best ideas from the day on this important subject.

Out on the news stands today is also the April 2012 issue of The Atlantic  which features Ben Bernanke on the cover with a profile of his work and performance -- a great and interesting story that weighs whether he is a hero or villain.

More soon.  Hope you find the live broadcast of the program interesting.

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

Former Senator and compulsive diarist Bob Graham along with former Senator Bob Kerrey (who has just announced his plans to run in Nebraska for the Senate again) have said that they think that the Saudi government may have been involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

From a report in the New York Times that ran last week:

Now, in sworn statements that seem likely to reignite the debate, two former senators who were privy to top secret information on the Saudis' activities say they believe that the Saudi government might have played a direct role in the terrorist attacks.

"I am convinced that there was a direct line between at least some of the terrorists who carried out the September 11th attacks and the government of Saudi Arabia," former Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of Florida, said in an affidavit filed as part of a lawsuit  brought against the Saudi government and dozens of institutions in the country by families of Sept. 11 victims and others. Mr. Graham led a joint 2002 Congressional inquiry into the attacks.

I'd love to see what evidence or key questions they think are unresolved or which lead to Saudi government sponsorship of this terror attack.

But strategically, their assertions about Saudi behavior make zero sense.  The attacks precipitated a direct military intervention in the region that brought down Saddam Hussein -- which unleashed the constraints on arch-Saudi rival, Iran.  These attacks created massive tensions between the Arab world and the US -- and have made the generally pro-US foreign policy role played behind the scenes by the Saudis much more complicated.

Fantastic conspiracy theories are part of the currency of the Middle East, but perhaps the trend is spreading to America.  Will be watching to hear more detail on this. 

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

My Atlantic colleague Jeffrey Goldberg just scored an extensive interview with President Obama in which Obama says to Iran and Israel, "As President of the United States, I don't bluff."

Goldberg's preamble is important and must-read, but the interview itself is vital and gives one a good sense of both Obama's strategic strengths and weaknesses.

The decision of the White House to talk to Goldberg reflects their desire to speak to what Obama defined in the interview as "the Israeli people, and. . .the pro-Israel community in this country" less than a week before the annual Washington meeting of AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. 

This was not an interview designed to warn Iran of the consequences of proceeding down a nuclear weapons acquisition track. This read more like a combination of assurances to the American Jewish community that Obama was a serious national security hawk on Iran during an election year.  It felt like pandering -- not too dissimilar to presidential candidate Obama's speech to AIPAC in 2008 when he made the remarkable, provocative, Arab-offending statement, "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided."

During the interview, Obama expressed dismay that despite standing with Israel on challenge after challenge -- every key issue facing the country -- that many doubted the sincerity of his support for Israel.  The President sounded emotionally 'needy', wanting validation that the American Jewish community and Israelis really, really liked him and understand that he's on their side. 

This is not presidential; this is not the way the President of the United States should be positioning himself -- and it's clear that the emotional and political leverage that Netanyahu has engineered over Obama has had a real impact. 

Israel is a client state of the United States -- and while it has its own interests, Israel's security is deeply entwined with the strategic choices the United States makes, which is what this Iran debate is about. 

Israel, under Netanyahu's leadership, seems to want to drive a dynamic in which it demonstrates its power by compelling the President to attack Iran on its behalf, to set up triggers and red-lines, and railroad track that lead to a binary choice of bombing Iran or acquiescing to and appeasing a new nuclear weapons power.  This is neither in Israel's real interests -- nor America's. 

Obama tries to convey this stating that Iran is "self-interested", i.e. rational.  He says that over the last three decades, Iran's leadership has demonstrated that it does care about the regime's survival and is sensitive to the opinions of their citizens and disturbed by Iran's general global isolation.

Obama states:

They know, for example, that when these kinds of sanctions are applied, it puts a world of hurt on them. They are able to make decisions based on trying to avoid bad outcomes from their perspective. So if they're presented with options that lead to either a lot of pain from their perspective, or potentially a better path, then there's no guarantee that they can't make a better decision.

But what Obama seems not to understand in the well-meaning description of his attempted Iran strategy is that he is actually creating a railroad track to disaster.  He conveys in the interview a disinterest in containment, suggesting that Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon changes the world and triggers a rampant and dangerous proliferation in an unstable part of the global neighborhood. 

Not all nuclear bombs are the same.  Israel's 200 plus thermonuclear warheads are not simple fission devices and have a destructive capacity that could seriously end Iran as a functioning state.  Iran, even if it were to produce a nuclear warhead tomorrow, would have none of the destructive capacity that Israel could rain down on the Islamic Republic of Iran. Anthony Cordesman, David Albright and others have done extremely important and useful, admittedly Stangelovian analyses of what a back-and-forth firing exchange of nuclear weapons would mean for both states.  As Cordesman told me recently, Israel would survive fine -- Iran would be devastated.

Many analysts believe that Iran's appetite for either a nuclear weapons capacity or a Japan-like "near nuke" capacity (meaning it has the potential but does not actually build the systems) would help provide Iran with a shield behind which it could protect itself while then continuing to operate global, transnational terror networks with impunity.  Perhaps this is true -- or perhaps three decades of paranoia about American calls for regime change in Iran have hard-wired the place to want anything that solves its security dilemma.  I see both tracks as having merit.

That said, what Obama is doing in this interview and in his needy solicitation of American Jewish community and Israeli citizen support is the opposite of where he started his interview with Jeffrey Goldberg:  :"I...don't, as a matter of sound policy, go around advertising exactly what our intentions are."

But he did.  Obama essentially is saying in this interview that Iran is one of the top five foreign policy concerns of his since moving into the White House, that he is attempting to organize a pressure-based effort to cause pain for Iran's leaders and move it to a different course, and that he won't accept failure -- that he will squeeze and surround and bomb (if needed) Iran to compel it never to acquire nuclear weapons.  That's not strategy.  Obama is overplaying the endgame and creating expectations that if sanctions don't work -- which they often and usually don't -- that he will bomb the country.  This is irresponsible and harmful to American and Israeli and broad Middle Eastern interests. 

Obama needs to call former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft and have a long chat.  President Obama, Tom Donilon, Denis McDonough and other members of the NSC team often reference Scowcroft as one of their north stars on strategic policy -- but word is that the President has rarely connected with the sage strategist.   And then the President should check in with Zbigniew Brzezinski who could help the President understand the chess board in front of him a bit better.

Both would tell him that it is a mistake for a US President to constrain himself to two choices -- and he should keep his powder entirely dry.  He should not be telegraphing key red lines to Netanyahu who has been one of his global adversaries and antagonists -- who has been the key reason why so many Israelis and members of the American Jewish community have doubts about Obama's seriousness and resolve about Israel's core security. 

Netanyahu has done more to create global doubts about Obama's toughness as the result of the Obama-Netanyahu skirmish over the further expansion of Israeli settlements during the fragile, early efforts to move Israel-Palestine peace talks forward.  Netanyahu became the Krushchev to Obama's Kennedy -- and Obama, to this day, is struggling to look strong when he's in the same room or engaged with Israel's pugnacious prime minister.

Jeffrey Goldberg's interview with Obama was serious and reasoned -- but the one area that I think he missed, or didn't give Obama a chance to unload on Israel's strategic mistake in not doing more on the Palestine peace effort. 

What didn't come out in this interview is what happens the day after the US might bomb Iran; or better yet, if Israel bombs Iran.  Given what we have seen in the Arab spring, which Arab governments will crumble and which will survive after they see an American or Israel strike against Iran? 

My sense is that the Arab street will churn, that the depth and breadth of Islamic political movements will grow.  I've often said that US security commitments to Israel are like a New Orleans levy -- working fine for the time being -- but beware a massive storm.

Israel's failure to do more to resolve a serious and sustained peace with Palestinians has demonstrated how it has undermined its own long term security interests with short-sighted, impulsively narrow obsession with territorial expansion.   This pugnacious disinterest in doing anything to change the Palestinian status quo undermines even luke-warm support for Israel in the region among Arab citizens and limits the ability of realpolitik-driven Arab governments from doing too much to embrace Israel's concerns, even if the many Sunni governments in the region largely fear Iran's rise as well.

President Obama should have used this interview to counsel Israelis about the strategic myopia of their government.

Obama told Goldberg that "we've got Israel's back."  What Obama failed to ask is whether "Israel has America's back." 

If Israel worked harder at achieving regional peace, if it did less to undermine the perception of American power and the capabilities of President Obama, if it put options on the table other than a desperate need to know when the US would 'bomb' Iran, then Israel might have America's back. 

But there is little indication that Israel is shifting its behavior despite the uncertainties brought by the Arab spring and the rise of political Islamic movements around it.  A kinetic, direct military confrontation with Iran could actually produce the nightmare Israel and the US want to avoide -- a completely alienated, isolated Iran whose nuclear program is delayed but eventually achieved and scores to settle.

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

Admittedly, this is a little Dr. Strangelovish -- but was very intrigued by this video clip a reader sent of "Robot Quadrotors Performing James Bond Theme."

The reader who sent me this wrote to me that this might have been an alternative way to do   (expensive as high tech approach, but cheap in terms of lives sacrificed).   He writes:

Imagine militarized versions of this flying around in the COIN zone, with not only the capacity to observe, but to strike. As in, if this bird- or maybe insect-sized drone flitting around all the time at ground level catches you with weapons, bomb materials, cell phones tune to suspicious channels, etc., the little sumbitch will simply zap you dead in your bed, while not blasting your entire clan.  

Not ACLU approved, to be sure, but this would be true shock and awe.  That is, perhaps something so paralyzingly scary that it might have the effect, in the 21st century, that the machine gun had in the 19th century.    So scary that it simply shuts down opposition.   

As you know, I am not particularly fond of COIN in general, in the sense of thinking that it's something that the US should be doing much of, but if we are going to do it, we ought to do it right.  The problem with the neocons is that they were so hopped up on moral clarity that they neglected the technology that would have made their schemes possibly--possibly--work.

Whether one buys this argument or not, what this video reminds me of is that as former Center for a New American Security President John Nagl would often say:  "There are more musicians working for the Pentagon than there are diplomats in the State Department."

Musical copters -- Like unmanned bombers (drones), perhaps we are one day going to see unmanned marching bands.

Take it easy.  It's Friday. . .
 
-- 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: TED

This evening, The Atlantic's new event series, Atlantic Exchange, will host former Al Jazeera Director General Wadah Khanfar for a discussion I will moderate titled "Arab Revolutions Televised, Tweeted and Blogged: The Exit & Entrance Interview with Wadah Khanfar."

Khanfar is now the founding President of the Sharq Forum.

This will stream live here (see below) on this site between 5:45 pm EST and 7:00 pm EST.

For those who want an early dose of Wadah Khanfar, here is his mesmerizing talk about media and the Arab Spring given at TED last year.

If you have any questions you want posed, send to my Twitter Account, @SCClemons.


Free desktop streaming application by Ustream
Should be interesting.

-- Steve Clemons

Here are some thoughts on the churn inside Egypt over pro-Democracy NGO institutions that I shared on Al Jazeera yesterday.

Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham see the crisis coming to a close soon, with the NGO workers released. I hope this is the case -- but the now politically dominant Muslim Brotherhood's support for the actions of Egypt's military government is clearly a warning shot across America's bow.

I think it's important to realize that the US needs to be careful of the footprint it maintains in nations that are undergoing such profound political change. Americans and Europeans hugging the victors of these revolutions too strongly may undermine the legitimacy of those who toppled the previous regime.

-- Steve Clemons

Gordon Shaw of Lincoln, Nebraska writes to the editors of the Journal Star:

As I look over the leading candidates for president of the United States, I and many I have talked with have the common reaction: "none of the above."

After a long look for a quality write-in candidate who can inspire engagement in the political process, Chuck Hagel came to mind.

With Chuck's Republican roots yet independent bold character, an internationalist's vision, solid financial discipline and experience, we have the man the nation can rally around and gather a winning write-in campaign. He is the sensible alternative to what the major political parties have presented as the best they have to offer.

I challenge this nation to do better -- say none of the above and mount a winning national write-in campaign with Hagel as the sensible alternative.

I know that Senator Hagel who now co-chairs the President's Intelligence Advisory Board won't run for President -- but while my powder is still dry in this next election, I like the idea of people writing him in.

Writing in Hagel's name would be like a petition for a smart national security policy that doesn't make false choices between Israel and the Arab Middle East, that understands that competition with China needs to be organized constructively around each other's core strategic ambitions and interests, that Russia can't be shrugged off, that the United States needs a coherent national energy policy, that engaging in numerous wars around the world without paying for them is not a recipe for national strength but rather for security disasters.

Hagel won't run -- but supporting his brand of politics is an important market signal for President Obama to see and hear.

-- Steve Clemons

photo credit:  Reuters

While everyone knows that the defense budget is large -- even in the numbers that the public sees as the formally admitted figures by the Department of Defense -- the truth is that when one scratches beneath the bureaucratic veneer, national security spending is much larger, nearly double the amount US citizens are told.

A Republican, numbers-compulsive defense wonk at the Center for Defense Information, Winslow Wheeler, has published a great summary of what America's defense budget 'really' is. 

Wheeler offers a chart of the budget figures for both 2012 and 2013 -- starting with what is called the "DOD Base Budget (Discretionary)".  He then adds line items from different accounts throughout other parts of the budget that really should be part of what is considered defense and security -- including the odd factoid that the Department of Defense and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issue different figures of what the DOD Base Budget really is -- with the Pentagon shorting what it gives the media by about $6 billion.

Some may quibble with what Wheeler includes in his roster of the nearly $1 trillion the US government is spending to help Americans feel safe -- but I find it a good guide to thinking around the corners of the defense and national security budget.

I also think it's useful to look at the share of "net interest" that Americans are paying for this level of defense expenditure, $$63.7 billion in 2013. 

Just like tax and tip noted on a receipt at a restaurant, perhaps we should require those spending US tax dollars to publicly acknowledge the 'extra tax' their spending entails in terms of interest payments on debt.

And to take this just one step further, I really would like to know how many cars and how much it costs to ferry US military personnel, generals, colonels, and the like back and forth between the Pentagon and the US Capitol.  The amount of money dedicated by the Pentagon to engage and penetrate the legislative branch of government must be impressive.

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

Last evening I had an interesting chat with Lawrence O'Donnell, host of MSNBC's The Last Word, considering how President Obama has done answering the "3 am call" versus how Mitt Romney might answer the crisis call. 

As promised, here is the clip.

The Atlantic's Steve Clemons speaks to Lawrence O'Donnell about the "3 am call"

And yes, I know that I should 'never' use sports metaphors when talking politics.

In the clip above, I mention Obama's nuanced use of the clock with Iran, comparing it to "that football game we just saw. . .uh, the Superbowl."

We use what we have in our experience to communicate -- and for the first time in many years, I watched the big game and got obsessed with the clock and those final plays.

I bet something like this shows up in President Obama's White House Correspondent's Dinner speech.

-- Steve Clemons

Tonight at about 10:45 pm EST, I will be chatting with MSNBC anchor of The Last Word, Lawrence O'Donnell about the comparative foreign policy and national security strengths of President Obama versus GOP contender Mitt Romney.

I wonder how many layers of staff (i.e. servants) Romney's hypothetical 1600 Pennsylvania household would have to work through before handing him the phone -- but that aside, this is an interesting issue. I wasn't impressed with Romney's Citadel speech, though I do think he has a smart foreign policy advisory team around him (John Bolton being a serious recent exception).

But Obama has pulled off a Nixonian strategy of talking democracy, principles, values that we Americans care about, as well as transparency -- while at the same time not running away from the fact that America has core strategic interests and has no magic wand to dispense with thugs. Dealing with thugs around the world is part of how America moves the foreign policy needle and how it ultimately (used to anyway) made the world a more stable and less dysfunctional place.

More tonight for those of you who want to stop in. I'll post the clip from the show here in the morning.

-- Steve Clemons

Holy Indian reservation roulette wheels Batman! 

The newly launched Republic Report, an anti-corruption blog focusing on how self-interested dollars are warping the public-interest responsibilities of America's democratic institutions has actually hired convicted felon Jack Abramoff to be one of its lead bloggers. 

Yes, that Jack Abramoff, "Casino Jack", as profiled in the Alex Gibney film, Casino Jack and the United States of Money.

The Republic Report may be "pulling a Joe Kennedy" here -- and I think it's provocative, bold, will attract a huge heaping pile of hate mail -- but nonetheless brings in DC's version of The Fantastic Mr. Fox to tell the world how the system works and what to watch out for. 

This is what Franklin Roosevelt had in mind when he hired Joseph Kennedy Sr., a known stock manipulator and inside trader, to serve as the inaugural chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.  Roosevelt wanted to catch the crooks on Wall Street, and said to a person asking why he had appointed a crook to be the watch dog, "Takes one to catch one."

And to the naysayers out there, it's probably better for Abramoff to be writing out about how DC-style corruption works so as to help those unfamiliar with the nuts and bolts of 'how to make a Senator smile' do a better job reforming the system rather than getting Ambramoff back out there advising the bad guys how to cash in on the system.

The other bloggers in the group are outstanding and have, for the most part, crystal clear clean progressive track records -- including former Think Progress writer Lee Fang, former Center for American Progress youth and college program activist David Halperin, also another former Think Progress correspondent Zaid Jilani, former Foreign Policy and The Atlantic staffer Suzanne Merkelson, tough-minded investigator for the conservative Senator Charles Grassley Paul Thacker -- and one of the undisputed early leaders of modern grass roots, digital political activism, Matt Stoller.

Thacker the exception -- the rest are real progressives and none have done felony convicted jail time.  Bringing Abramoff into this mix is one really interesting way for this blog to distinguish itself in a very crowded marketplace.

Nick Penniman, the well known former TomPaine.com editor and former lead of Huffington Post's investigative unit is the president of United Republic which has launched the blog.

I really want to go to the holiday party these folks throw and see if Stoller and Abramoff can do a buddy to buddy thing under the mistletoe -- and unite in their common work highlighting the corruption of America's key democratic platforms.

Abramoff's first post has gone up -- and in it he offers a Joe Kennedy-esque rationale for why he's doing this with a bit of confession:

It is a privilege for me to add my insights and experience to
their strong and sagacious team and I look forward to working with them
to reveal to our nation the way Washington really works.

There is a rising tide of outrage in our land about the abuse in
our system. Sadly, in my former life as a lobbyist, I participated in
this dysfunctional and byzantine world. But now, in these pages, and
with my other efforts, I intend to do what I can as we all attempt
to repair our democracy.

Interesting move by Nick Penniman and his team.  We really look forward to following the entire line up there but also to the next and next next contributions by Jack Abramoff.

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

Chris Matthews speaks with The Atlantic's Steve Clemons and Matthew Hoh of the Center for International Policy

Last night, former State Department official and US Marine Matthew Hoh, now a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy, and I had a very good discussion with Chris Matthews on MSNBC's Hardball about Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's comments that the US would cease combat operations in Afghanistan in 2013 -- rather than the end of 2014.

Key points made during the discussion: First, this is a key shift in strategy -- and a positive one.

Second, this remains consistent with the President's announced strategy, also articulated well by Vice President Joe Biden, that the military's job today is not to "beat" the Taliban but rather to shape the choices in the field for the political stakeholders and to be able to preempt any effort to overthrow the government in Kabul.

Third, I believe that there is a bit of an 'invisible hand' at work here in sending confidence building signals during a fragile early process of trying to negotiate with the Taliban. There are secret negotiations that various sides are attempting to hatch -- and Panetta's comments may be designed to shore up the process. The trip by Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar to Kabul yesterday and his comments blessing the peace talks seem likely to also be part of this mutual posturing, confidence building process.

Lastly, for those like GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who think that the US should commit itself, its military manpower, and a bigger hold of debt to a longer stay in Afghanistan, I suggest to Chris Matthews that the outcome after another five or ten years would be a much more strategically deflated and impotent United States that fuels the ambitions and agendas of nations like Iran in the region, and China globally.

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

Steve Clemons discusses with Lawrence O'Donnell Obama's big gamble deploying Navy SEAL Team 6 on another high-risk mission

I shared some thoughts with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC's The Last Word on the yet again amazing performance of the Navy SEALs, Team 6, in rescuing American Jessica Buchanan and Dane Poul Thisted.

A couple of quick items that I mention in the video clip above.

First, Obama does really keep his cool when major, high risk actions are underway and he's off giving big speeches like he did Tuesday evening at the State of the Union address or when he was speaking at last year's White House Correspondents' Dinner and the bin Laden action was being readied for the following morning.

If this incursion into Somalia had failed, had members of the SEAL team been captured and/or killed as happened during the Clinton administration -- that loss would likely tip the electoral contest towards the Republican candidate, whether Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich.

Obama didn't play it safe, and he and his team deserve credit for that.

Second, I ran into a senior legal adviser in the administration who made the good point that this is "not Rambo, not John Wayne, not bravado and swagger." The person said that there is multilateral coordination and legal authority that has been carefully constructed to both legitimate and support these police actions. This is effective, multilateral, legally-valid action, not unilateral swagger that says damn the international rules.

Killing Somali pirates who have kidnapped Americans and Europeans may appeal to the action-lust many have when watching action movies or reading a Tom Clancy novel, but the real achievement of the Obama White House is not just knowing how to deploy this great Navy SEAL team but also how to operate in the international system in a rules based way (and yes, I include the killing of bin Laden in this calculation).

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

View of my balcony at the Grand Hyatt, Doha
-- Steve Clemons is Washington Editor at Large at The Atlantic, where this post first appeared. Clemons can be followed on Twitter at @SCClemons