Middle East

Safety of the Green Zone Called Into Question

U.S. Embassy employees in Iraq are growing increasingly angry over what they say are inadequate security precautions in the heavily fortified Green Zone, where recent mortar and rocket attacks have claimed the lives of six people, including two U.S. citizens.

In spite of the attacks, embassy employees complain, most staff members still sleep in trailers that one described as "tin cans" that offer virtually no protection from rocket and mortar fire. The government has refused to harden the roofs because of the cost, one employee said.

A second official called it "criminally negligent" not to reduce the size of the embassy staff, which a year ago was estimated at 1,000, in the face of the increasing attacks and blamed the administration's failure to respond on concerns that doing so might undermine support for President Bush's Iraq policy.

"What responsible person and responsible government would ask you to put yourself at risk like that? We don't belong here," the employee said, adding, "They're not going to send us home because it's going to be another admission of failure."

More from McClatchy...

2/3 of Americans oppose military action against Iran...

From CNN.com

Monday, May 14, 2007 Majority of Americans do not favor military action against Iran

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll released Monday shows a majority of Americans oppose any military action against Iran and a large portion of Americans believe Iran is an enemy.

U.S. Military Action Against Iran

Favor 33%
Oppose 63%

A New Approach to Iran

The WAPO details a turn towards engagement with Iran by the Bush Administration:

The White House confirmed yesterday that the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad is likely to meet in the next several weeks with Iranian officials about stabilizing Iraq, as the administration embraces a tactic outsiders have long recommended as essential to reducing sectarian violence in Iraq.

A White House spokesman said that Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker will meet with Iranian counterparts in Baghdad to prod Tehran to play a "productive role in Iraq." The confirmation came after the official Iranian news agency disclosed that the two sides had agreed to meet in Baghdad. U.S. officials said the meeting could occur as early as next week.

"The president authorized this channel because we must take every step possible to stabilize Iraq and reduce the risk to our troops, even as our military continue to act against hostile Iranian-backed activity in Iraq," said Gordon D. Johndroe, the spokesman for the National Security Council.

On Iraq

On Iraq, Congress continues to act responsibly, challenging the Administration to offer more than more of the same.  While the bill passed last night may not become law, our country is now in the midst of a large and important debate about an issue of vital national interest, ensuring that whatever the final outcome the process for getting there will be more of the kind imagined by our founders than the "don't worry be happy" approach of the Bush years. 

In a powerful editorial this morning, the Times sums up the events of recent weeks:

The difference between mainstream hawks and mainstream doves on Iraq seems to have boiled down to two months, with House Democrats now demanding visible progress by July while moderate Republicans are willing to give White House policies until September, but no longer, to show results.

Then there is President Bush, who has yet to acknowledge the reality that Congressional Republicans and even administration officials like Defense Secretary Robert Gates now seem to tacitly accept. Three months into Mr. Bush’s troop escalation, there is no real security in Baghdad and no measurable progress toward reconciliation, while American public support for this folly has all but run out.

The really important question now facing Washington is the one Mr. Bush still refuses to address: how, while there is still some time left, to design an exit strategy that contains the chaos in Iraq and minimizes the damage to United States interests when American troops inevitably leave...

A defining moment for the Bush Presidency

Now that the President has vetoed Congress's alternative strategy for Iraq, we have come to a defining moment in his Presidency, for the nation, and the two parties.  At the core of this moment is the uncomfortable recognition that despite his lofty rhetoric about the intent of his foreign policy, Bush's foreign policy has failed at just about everything it has set out to do. 

The list of our failures are long.  Our dramatic intervention in Iraq has been costly and has been bungled beyond imagination, leaving the Middle East hurtling much more towards chaos and sustained regional conflict than democratization.  Al Qaeda has regrouped, has gained a regional legitimacy that it lacked prior to 9/11, and their allies, the Taliban, are resurgent in Afghanistan.  Terrorist attacks around the world have increased.  More states have acquired nuclear weapons, and despite recent encouraging signs in North Korea, the Administration's efforts to halt nuclear proliferation have been very disapointing, and thus dangerous.  The 9/11 Commission gave the Administration across the board failing grades, and as we saw with Katrina, our homeland is no safer today despite billions spent and unending photo ops and press conferences.  We've failed to reform our immigration system, worsening our already frayed relations with our Latin neighbors.  We've ignored the challenge of global climate change.  The tragedy of Darfur has been ignored.  International institutions, critical to keeping the nations of the world working together on our common challenges, have been weakened.  Our military has been ground down, anti-Americanism is on the rise just about everywhere, historic alliances strained, and our standing in the world dramatically diminished.  We are simply less able today to act in our national interest.

And of course, as we all know now, that the Administration ignored significant and repeated warnings about potential terrorist attacks prior to 9/11, including the famous August 2001 memo that warned that Bin Laden was poised to strike targets in the US.  

Less obvious but I think equally troubling has been the Administration's lack of interest in global economics, and lack of advocacy for trade liberalization, one of the key pillars of our foreign policy success in the 20th century.  The Doha trade round has faltered, and here at home the Administration has over seen a dramatic decline in public support for liberalization, without offering any plan on how to help Americans better succeed in this era of dramatic economic change.   For a Republican President, the lack of leadership in this whole area has been staggering, and has done much to harm our long-term national interests.

Which brings us to today.  My hope is that as a proud and patriotic American the President will begin to acknowledge his mistakes, and seek to work with other responsible leaders to put America back on track.   We've come to a place now in Iraq where the President is no longer acting in our national interest, but in his own political interest.  Given the overwhelming evidence of system failure in all areas of his foreign policy, and the weakened state he has left the country he loves, he needs to find a new and better path.  Our Congressional leaders have acted responsibly by offering a thoughtful and constructive alternative to the President's plan.  They are acting in the nation's interest.  They are, in essence, asking a failed President to sit down and work out a better path, one much more in our national interest. 

I hope the President sees the next few weeks as an opportunity to finish his term by constructively cleaning up the mess he and his team have left us.  It would be the highest act of patriotism, leadership and courage expressed by this President in his entire term in office, and the kind of leadership our nation so desperately needs today.

I also hope that the Democrats use this time to not just work to "end the war," as admirable and important as that is, but to lay out a vision for the world in the post-Bush era.   Bush's failure has not been just Iraq, but a flawed foreign policy that has left America weaker.  The ultimate goal here should be to fashion a new foreign policy for America, starting with a new and better path for our policy in the Middle East.

Reagan's NSA Director pleads with Bush to change course in Iraq

In what can only be discribed as a remarkable event, a former head of the super-secret National Security Agency under President Reagan gave the Democratic Radio Address this weekend.  You can listen to it here.  His powerful and persuasive words follow:

“To put this in a simple army metaphor, the Commander-in-Chief seems to have gone AWOL, that is ‘absent without leave.’ He neither acts nor talks as though he is in charge. Rather, he engages in tit-for-tat games…I hope the President seizes this moment for a basic change in course and signs the bill the Congress has sent him. I will respect him greatly for such a rare act of courage, and so too, I suspect, will most Americans.” - Lieutenant General William E. Odom

General William Odom"Good morning, this is Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army, retired.

I am not now nor have I ever been a Democrat or a Republican. Thus, I do not speak for the Democratic Party. I speak for myself, as a non-partisan retired military officer who is a former Director of the National Security Agency. I do so because Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, asked me.

In principle, I do not favor Congressional involvement in the execution of U.S. foreign and military policy. I have seen its perverse effects in many cases. The conflict in Iraq is different. Over the past couple of years, the President has let it proceed on automatic pilot, making no corrections in the face of accumulating evidence that his strategy is failing and cannot be rescued.

Thus, he lets the United States fly further and further into trouble, squandering its influence, money, and blood, facilitating the gains of our enemies. The Congress is the only mechanism we have to fill this vacuum in command judgment.

To put this in a simple army metaphor, the Commander-in-Chief seems to have gone AWOL, that is ‘absent without leave.’ He neither acts nor talks as though he is in charge. Rather, he engages in tit-for-tat games.

Some in Congress on both sides of the aisle have responded with their own tits-for-tats. These kinds of games, however, are no longer helpful, much less amusing. They merely reflect the absence of effective leadership in a crisis. And we are in a crisis.

Most Americans suspect that something is fundamentally wrong with the President’s management of the conflict in Iraq. And they are right.

The challenge we face today is not how to win in Iraq; it is how to recover from a strategic mistake: invading Iraq in the first place. The war could never have served American interests.

But it has served Iran’s interest by revenging Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Iran in the 1980s and enhancing Iran’s influence within Iraq. It has also served al Qaeda’s interests, providing a much better training ground than did Afghanistan, allowing it to build its ranks far above the levels and competence that otherwise would have been possible.

We cannot ‘win’ a war that serves our enemies interests and not our own. Thus continuing to pursue the illusion of victory in Iraq makes no sense. We can now see that it never did.

A wise commander in this situation normally revises his objectives and changes his strategy, not just marginally, but radically. Nothing less today will limit the death and destruction that the invasion of Iraq has unleashed.

No effective new strategy can be devised for the United States until it begins withdrawing its forces from Iraq. Only that step will break the paralysis that now confronts us. Withdrawal is the pre-condition for winning support from countries in Europe that have stood aside and other major powers including India, China, Japan, Russia.

It will also shock and change attitudes in Iran, Syria, and other countries on Iraq’s borders, making them far more likely to take seriously new U.S. approaches, not just to Iraq, but to restoring regional stability and heading off the spreading chaos that our war has caused.

The bill that Congress approved this week, with bipartisan support, setting schedules for withdrawal, provides the President an opportunity to begin this kind of strategic shift, one that defines regional stability as the measure of victory, not some impossible outcome.

I hope the President seizes this moment for a basic change in course and signs the bill the Congress has sent him. I will respect him greatly for such a rare act of courage, and so too, I suspect, will most Americans.

This is retired General Odom. Thank you for listening."

Vali Nasr: so thoughtful

Last Thursday night in New York we hosted a small event for an author who has had a profound impact on my thinking, Vali Nasr. Photos of the event can be found here.

We connected to Vali through my writing about his book here on the blog. Some of you may remember that I commented at the time that this was one of the most influential books I've read in recent years, and has helped me, more than any other thing I've read, understand what is happening in the Middle East today. If you haven't read it, it is called the Shia Revival, and a new paperback edition comes out this month. Buy it.

In person Vali did not disapoint. His knowledge of the region is extraordinary, his insight fresh, his vision I think correct. I felt lucky to have spent 90 minutes listening to him the other night.

In the process of connecting with Vali we also learned that he was a teacher of mine at Tufts when I was an undergraduate. He was too was an undergraduate and taught a course on Islam for other students. It was an excellent class, and he was a very good teacher. Who knew that I would connect with him again all these years later in this way. He is moving to Boston this summer and will be once again be teaching at Tufts, this time at Fletcher, Tufts' International School of Law and Diplomacy. My guess is that it will be tough to get into his classes.

Look for a notice soon about a talk Vali will give to NDN in DC in May. We are still working out details, and will announce it soon.

Another general disses Bush and the neocons

In the debate prior to Bush's decision to "surge," there was a remarkable campaign by our military leaders to pursuade the Administration to head the warnings of the ISG report and invest greater energy in diplomacy and regional politics.   In the Post today, retired Marine Corps General John Sheehan repeats this criticism of the Administration in an op-ed about why he did not take a new position with Bush:

The third strategy takes a larger view of the region and the desired end state. Simply put, where does Iraq fit in a larger regional context? The United States has and will continue to have strategic interests in the greater Middle East well after the Iraq crisis is resolved and, as a matter of national interest, will maintain forces in the region in some form. The Iraq invasion has created a real and existential crisis for nearly all Middle Eastern countries and created divisions among our traditional European allies, making cooperation on other issues more difficult. In the case of Iran, we have allowed Tehran to develop more policy options and tools than it had a few years ago. Iran is an ideological and destabilizing threat to its neighbors and, more important, to U.S. interests.

Of the three strategies in play, the third is the most important but, unfortunately, is the least developed and articulated by this administration.

The day-to-day work of the White House implementation manager overseeing Iraq and Afghanistan would require a great deal of emotional and intellectual energy resolving critical resource issues in a bureaucracy that, to date, has not functioned well. Activities such as the current surge operations should fit into an overall strategic framework. There has to be linkage between short-term operations and strategic objectives that represent long-term U.S. and regional interests, such as assured access to energy resources and support for stable, Western-oriented countries. These interests will require a serious dialogue and partnership with countries that live in an increasingly dangerous neighborhood. We cannot "shorthand" this issue with concepts such as the "democratization of the region" or the constant refrain by a small but powerful group that we are going to "win," even as "victory" is not defined or is frequently redefined.

It would have been a great honor to serve this nation again. But after thoughtful discussions with people both in and outside of this administration, I concluded that the current Washington decision-making process lacks a linkage to a broader view of the region and how the parts fit together strategically. We got it right during the early days of Afghanistan -- and then lost focus. We have never gotten it right in Iraq. For these reasons, I asked not to be considered for this important White House position. These huge shortcomings are not going to be resolved by the assignment of an additional individual to the White House staff. They need to be addressed before an implementation manager is brought on board.

House Committee to Look Into Lynch, Tillman Incidents

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform announce that they are going to investigate two high-profile events in recent US military history.  Those two events: the friendly-fire death of US Army Ranger and former NFL star Cpl. Pat Tillman and the rescue of Pvt. Jennifer Lynch.  In Tillman's case,  there are clear signs of a serious cover-up over the circumstances of his death, and Lynch's story which was spread far and wide appears to be one part fairy tale, one part exploitative propaganda.  It'll be the committees job to investigate misbehavior and see how high up in the chain of command, military and civilian, it went.  We'll be following this story closely at NDNblog, as we continue to look at the failures of the period of conservative ascendency. 

Bush Administration Can't Find A General to be War Czar

According to the WAPO, the Bush Administration has approached at least three retired four-star generals to ask them if they would accept a War Czar position giving them strategic oversight over the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.  All of them have said no."  Marine General (Ret.) John J. "Jack" Sheehan put it best:

The very fundamental issue is, they don't know where the hell they're going," said retired Marine Gen. John J. "Jack" Sheehan, a former top NATO commander who was among those rejecting the job. Sheehan said he believes that Vice President Cheney and his hawkish allies remain more powerful within the administration than pragmatists looking for a way out of Iraq. "So rather than go over there, develop an ulcer and eventually leave, I said, 'No, thanks,' " he said.

And Gen. Sheehan works for Bechtel right now on "developing oil projects in the Middle East."  When the was profiteers want out, maybe it's time to take a second look...

The new Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell is having similar problems:

Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell has been unable to find a deputy acceptable to the White House during his first six weeks in office.

Several candidates approached by McConnell either turned down the job or were rejected by the White House, according to current and former administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to discuss the matter.

The position of deputy director of national intelligence has been vacant since May, when Gen. Michael V. Hayden left to become the director of the CIA. Lt. Gen. Ronald L. Burgess Jr., who was appointed to replace Hayden, had to vacate the post in January because regulations limit how long a person can hold the position without Senate confirmation.

While the matter lingers on, McConnell said this week, he has been working 18-hour days "at least six days a week" to handle the crush of work.

The general unwillingness on the part of qualified people to join the Bush Administration is threatening the operations of our government, particularly in areas critical to national security.  The end of the Bush years can't come quick enough.

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