Steve Clemons

I have a stunted sense of humor, but I really liked what TIME did with it's latest cover.

Much could happen that throws the GOP race into a somersault, paraphrasing Charlie Cook and Ron Brownstein, but I basically agree with David Frum's blunt assessment offered last night on CNN that Romney will be the last man standing in this race and will ultimately win the primary.

I sort of wish this were not true because 'any' of the other candidates would keep this interesting -- Romney will help us snooze.

Here is Joe Klein's piece that was TIME's December cover story.  And here is the new one by David von Drehle's piece just posted this morning.

Biden's Next Big Project:  Recognizing that Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping will be China's president-in-waiting through much of 2012, the White House will move Vice President Joe Biden to the helm of the Obama administration's US-China policy.

Reuters

A senior White House official has confirmed that Vice President Joe Biden will take the lead on the administration's next phase China policy.

While the Departments of State and Treasury have held important functional roles in conducting the China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue meetings, raising the bilateral status of US-China relations with ongoing meetings between two senior US Executive Branch officials with two of China's most senior leaders, Vice Premier Li Keqiang and State Councillor Dai Bingguo, there has been a general sense that neither Timothy Geithner nor Hillary Clinton and her team were comprehensively driving US-China policy. 

The White House official made clear that the coming shift in the locus of US-China policy management was not a critique of either Clinton or Geithner's management of the China portfolio -- but rather, the rise of Hu Jintao heir apparent and current Vice President Xi Jinping as the likely next President of China created certain practical challenges in dealing with him on a same-status level throughout much of 2012 until Xi's accession to the presidency is formalized.

The view of some of the administration's China-handlers is that management of US-China policy has become so central to a vast array of other policy challenges that the administration's approach needs to be both broad and managed with "a deep and senior bench."  The evolution of many functional offices at the Department of State and Treasury tasked with various line items in the China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue has helped stabilize many aspects of the relationship and has helped to benchmark meeting to meeting progress on core concerns. 

National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon has essentially been holding the China policy portfolio himself since September 2010 when in the early part of that month he and then Obama national economic advisor Lawrence Summers went to Beijing to attempt a reset in a quickly deteriorating US-China economic and military relationship.  For the most part, currency politics aside, Donilon's mission has succeeded -- and he has since preempted either Clinton's China hands, particularly Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, or Geithner's team from taking primacy over US-China policy. 

The shift to a strategy of engagement with Biden at the top, orchestrated by Donilon, allows the US to deal with China's likely next president from a Vice President to a Vice President/Next President status -- and to continue both the Departments of State's and Treasury's ongoing engagement with other designated key Chinese leaders.

After President Obama's 2008 presidential win, the original intention of the White House was to focus the Vice President primarily on domestic matters -- telling this writer at the time to remember that Joe Biden had recently been featured in Working Mother magazine.  Part of the concern at the time was that with such personalities as Defense Secretary Bob Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, then National Security Advisor General Jim Jones, super-general-in-the-field David Petraeus, CIA Director Leon Panetta, Envoys Richard Holbrooke, former Senator George Mitchell, Stephen Bosworth, and Dennis Ross -- Joe Biden as a roving foreign policy/national security hand wasn't perceived to be stabilizing to a strong-on-divas Obama team.

However, Joe Biden quietly took on national security tasks that were key to President Obama and that needed more off the newspaper front page handling.  These included laying the groundwork for the major nuclear materials summit that the Obama administration hosted in April 2010 as well as lining up the continuity of thinking and policy deployment tying together this nuclear materials and WMD summit with President Obama's Nuclear Posture Review and the Senate passage of the New START treaty.  Biden also played a leading role -- along with Defense Secretary Bob Gates -- in the "Russia reset." 

And whether Iraq's democratic-appearing government survives or not, the person who did more than any other behind the scenes to broker the deals and to play communications envoy between factions of Iraq's fractured political order was Joe Biden.  Biden has worked nearly every day -- and definitely every week of his tenure in the vice-presidency trying to seduce former, bitter enemies to realize that they had more ultimately to gain for their constituents, their nation, and themselves personally if they held together the semblance of a constitutional arrangement rather than ripping it up and devolving into civil war once again.

Biden has checked off the boxes of Iraq, Russia, and nuclear materials -- and his foreign policy slate is largely clear.

While this writer thinks he should be the person who does for US-Afghanistan policy what he did in the US-Iraq case, a topic for another day, Biden's next big task will be the next phase evolution of US-China policy.

In the latest issue of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, former Clinton administration National Security Council staffer and Georgetown University international affairs professor Charles Kupchan has published an interesting essay titled "Grand Strategy: The Four Pillars of the Future." 

The Kupchan essay is partnered in a set considering the future of US grand strategy featuring contributions by Rosa Brooks of the Georgetown University and Law Center and New America Foundation; Truman National Security Project co-founder Rachel Kleinfeld; former Virginia Congressman Tom Perriello; and Duke University professor and co-author of The End of Arrogance: America in the Global Competition of Ideas Bruce Jentleson.  I will be chairing a session with several of these thinkers along with Democracy editor Michael Tomasky from 12-2 on 11 January 2012 at the New America Foundation.  (Those interested, drop me a note, and I'll forward an invitation.)

Kupchan suggests a recipe to rebuild American leadership and power in the world.  His four pillars:

1.  Restore the domestic consensus on national security and rebuild the economy at home

2.  America must judiciously retrench and deal with the problem that its commitments abroad have extended far beyond its interests

3.  The US needs to work with emerging powers (like the BRICS plus Turkey) to create a more representative global order that preserves a rules-based international system

4.  The US should resuscitate a flagging, choking Transatlantic relationship

Kupchan concludes his grand strategy contribution with this graph:

Progressive leadership at home is essential to the nation's political and economic renewal, which in turn is the foundation for progressive leadership abroad.  Since World War II, the United States has been dramatically successful in making the globe more stable, prosperous, and liberal.  The recipe for ongoing success in this mission is no different than in the past:  a solvent and centrist America reliant on a progressive combination of power and partnership to safeguard the national interest while improving the world.

My sense of what America's strategic course needs to be rides closely to Charles Kupchan's thinking -- but his neatly drawn pillars distract I think from the dire situation America finds itself in today.

First, there are no magic wands to remedy the ailments Kupchan has outlined.  Building out the US economy and resuscitating America's social contract with workers and the non-financial sector will require a massive shift in thinking and policy about industrial and domestic innovation policy.  China is is driving realities in the global economic sphere today; not the United States -- and America, to revive its economy, needs to figure out how to drive Chinese-held dollars (along with German and Arab state held reserves) into productive capacity inside the United States while not giving away everything. 

America must knock back Chinese predatory behaviors by becoming more shrewdly predatory and defensive of America's core economic capacities.  Without a shift in America's economic stewardship -- which also means a shift in the macro-focused, neoliberal oriented, market fundamentalist staff of the current Obama team -- the US economy will flounder and on a relative basis, sink compared to the rise of the rest.

Also, while I strongly support Kupchan's call for a principled, centrist, non-partisan approach to foreign policy affairs -- the problem is not one between progressives and conservatives, or Democrats and Republicans.  The problem is that both parties are deeply divided within, split among five and perhaps more camps.  Realists or some version of the school of thought that thinks that America must tend to its stock of power first and judiciously apply its national security and economic capacity in a way that either advances US national interests, or at a minimum, doesn't diminish its power capacity, populate both political parties.  Realists today are one of the buried, subordinate personalities of America's schizophrenic national security psyche today.

The dominant personality of the Republican and Democratic parties runs under two monikers -- but is essentially tied to the notion that the US has a moral responsibility to re-order the internal workings of other nations that constrain the freedoms and rights of their citizens.  The liberal (or humanitarian) interventionist school dominates the progressive foreign policy establishment and more significantly populates the power positions of the Democratic Party today than its rivals; and in the Republican Party, various strains of neoconservatism (there is now competition among the heirs of Irving Kristol, Albert Wohlstetter and other founding fathers) dominate.  Neoconservatives and liberal interventionists put a premium on morality, on reacting and moving in the world along lines determined by an emotional and sentimental commitment to the basic human rights of other citizens -- with little regard to the stock of means and resources the US has to achieve the great moral ends they seek. 

I would put the late Richard Holbrooke in this school of liberal interventionists -- but what made Holbrooke such an outstanding global policy practitioner was his willingness to deal with the devil and to hammer out playbooks that were tenaciously committed to results.  Holbrooke was a Nixonian progressive -- and this is what both the neoconservative and liberal interventionist schools have been too short of, a results oriented global progressivism that assured that US national power grew with its achievements and was not squandered on high cost, low return causes that may have been morally gratifying for policymakers to pursue -- but disasters when it came to the national bottom line.  Think Iraq and Afghanistan.

On his second point, Kupchan is absolutely right.  America must judiciously retrench and strategically re-organize its national security assets.  Isolationism is not the answer here -- but extracting America from commitments that make its allies doubt its ability to help them in times of need or that embolden the ambitions of foes is a vital step. 

Withdrawing from Iraq has already been painful.  Perhaps the political deal-making among Iraq's various hate-thy-neighbor factions that Vice President Biden and his team, particularly Antony Blinken, along with former UN Iraq Representative Ad Melkert will hold, but the Iraq invasion and then nation-building enterprise there was nonetheless a major strategic mistake that helped undermine the US economy while removing the cork in the bottle that is Iran and its growing regional aspirations.  Iraq has cost trillions of dollars and never mattered nearly as much as Iran does -- and today, America is in a significantly worse position to deal with an ambitious and not easily deterred Iran.  Afghanistan needs to be next.

When the Obama administration came into office, I believed that his rhetoric about laying new track where other US political leaders had not gone was correct.  Obama talked about outreach to leaders in Cuba, North Korea, Iran and elsewhere.  But what he mustered on the whole were halfway efforts.  His Cuba policy doesn't surpass that which was in place during the Clinton administration -- and if he goes back and looks at the secret files historian Peter Kornbluh is assembling is of what every US president since Gerald Ford (except G.W. Bush) wanted to do on Cuba, Barack Obama will see that despite his lofty pre-presidential vision for a new US-Cuba relationship, his vision pales in comparison to what they were trying then to orchestrate.

Whether it was with Cuba, or setting solid track on Israel-Palestine peace, Barack Obama had an opportunity to show that he was setting the terms of a new global gravity -- starting with some of the seemingly intractables and solving them.  This could have contributed to the perception of revitalized US power in the world.  It is true that Obama and Joe Biden did successfully reset US-Russia relations.  Also with Biden's back room orchestration, Obama pulled off a key global nuclear materials and WMD summit that is far more important historically and internationally than many have issued credit for.  But at the same time, Obama has repeatedly let Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly embarrass him and show his weaknesses.  When Obama did flex US muscles on one occasion, it was over inane posturing about Futenma Air Station in Okinawa, Japan which eventually knocked out Japan's then prime minister Yukio Hatoyama and undermined Japan's first real test of genuine democracy and transition between political parties.  Obama took out the wrong prime minister.

Thus, strategic, judicious retrenchment only solves part of America's geostrategic mess. Smarter policies, deployed well, must replace what has been a line of mistakes not all of which were inherited from the Bush administration.

Kupchan is right that it would be wise for the US to work with the rising powers -- but history is showing that calamity and shocks are what drive America's limited innovation on global governance.  The shift to the G20 was out of necessity given the global financial crisis -- not smart advance planning.  My sense is that Brazil, Turkey, China, and India are not waiting for the US and the West to cede them seats at the table.  They are taking them through new economic might and a 21st century rationalization of what is right.  America's influence on global problems has diminished rapidly in the last decade -- and the relevance of the rising powers increased.  Striking a new "global social contract" with these powers would be smart and forward-looking but there is little chance of this happening short of the emergence of new crises that focus the mind of warring factions inside Congress and the Executive Branch.

Lastly, on Kupchan's point about reviving Transatlantic relations.  OK.  Sure.  Would be nice. But the bottom line is that Europe is internally dissolving and becoming more fragile, less dependable and a drag on global economic growth and stability.   I hope Europe changes these trends and saves itself -- but Germany has decided to engage in a one-upsmanship with its siblings and has driven a deadly internal mercantilism within Europe that will consume the passions and attention of Europe for a very long time. 

Chalmers Johnson used to lampoon NAFTA by pointing out that an economic alliance including the world's then two largest net debtor nations, Mexico and the US, hardly sounded like a threat to other economic powerhouses at that time.  To some degree, restoring and revitalizing a Transatlantic relationship that produced the world's last great global institutions to which they have been overly devoted to preserving is not a recipe for the kind of change and institutional innovation needed today.

In my mind, getting things right with the BRICS plus Turkey are vital to all national security challenges in the future -- and managing the reality that China matters more than all the rest -- is the vital challenge that matters.  Whether or not the US has a track to restoring the Transatlantic relationship is second tier to this much more important task.

Again, I will be discussing the Kupchan paper and others of the series in a program that will stream live on this site from 12-2 pm on the 11th of January.

Iraq surge architects Frederick and Kimberly Kagan have published an informed, provocative, yet thoughtful commentary, "Is Iraq Lost?", in the latest Weekly Standard.

The authors open with a blast at what they characterize as a self-congratulating Obama administration.  They write:

With administration officials celebrating the "successful" withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, thanking antiwar groups for making that withdrawal possible, and proffering outrageous claims about Iraq's "stability," "sovereignty," and the "demilitarization" of American foreign policy even as Iraq collapses, it is hard to stay focused on America's interests and security requirements. Especially in an election year, the temptation will only grow to argue about who lost Iraq, whether it was doomed from the outset, whether the current disaster "proves" either that the success of the surge was inherently ephemeral or that the withdrawal of U.S. troops caused the collapse. The time will come for such an audit of Iraq policy over the last five years, but not yet. For the crisis in Iraq is still unfolding, and the United States continues to have a huge stake in the outcome. The question of the moment is not "Who lost Iraq?" but rather "Is Iraq definitely lost?"

The Kagans share their granual understanding of the conflict and deal-making between various factions in Iraq's political ecosystem. 

They suggest, and I agree, that the US troop withdrawal has impacted the previous equilibrium and changed the calculations of power players in the government -- and that President Nouri al-Maliki is moving to consolidate his control over the state, working to move Sunni rivals out of their positions -- and has used the pretext of an alleged plot against his life by Vice President Tariq al Hashimi to make his moves.

The Kagans write:

The withdrawal of all American military forces has greatly reduced America's leverage in Iraq. U.S. military forces were a buffer to prevent political and ethno-sectarian friction from becoming violent by guaranteeing Maliki against a Sunni coup d'état and guaranteeing the Sunnis against a Shiite campaign of militarized repression. The withdrawal of that buffer precipitated this crisis and removed much of our leverage. The withdrawal is complete and unlikely to be reversed. Still, the United States maintains some leverage in Iraq and considerable leverage in the region. The Obama administration will have to use all of its skills to maximize the impact of what leverage it retains.

I agree with most of the observations by Kimberly and Frederick Kagan about the fragility and downward course of political trends inside Iraq. 

That said, I believe that a combination of creative diplomacy and deal-making behind the scenes orchestrated and directed by Vice President Joe Biden and his national security adviser Antony Blinken -- in addition to the good work done until his departure by UN Senior Iraq Representative Ad Melkert -- held together a fractious political mess of rival groups that aren't yet fully sure that a democratic order best serves their interests.  But Biden, Melkert, and others made something work that was a complete mess previously and helped many powerful Iraqis realize that there was the possibility of a stable democratic political order rather than a future of convulsive, sectarian civil war.

That said, US forces withdrawing have changed the equation.  One senior White House official recently said that the US "can't midwife Iraq for 18 years; the baby is born and now we have to move back and see what comes of this country."

The point of disagreement I have with the Kagans about the audit they suggest is coming about who has been responsible for success or failure in Iraq has to do with how they frame responsibility for key decisions.  They write:

We can relitigate the wisdom of the invasion, the course of the war, the success of the surge, and other important questions endlessly, but one thing should be perfectly plain. From the moment U.S. forces left Iraq, President Barack Obama owned the policy and its outcome.

From my perspective, President Obama and particularly Joe Biden took a miserable part of the US foreign policy portfolio -- that had already greatly sapped American power and prestige and undermined US credibility -- and improved matters in a way that would not have been achieved without their efforts.

The daily negotiations Biden engaged in between Barzani, Talabani, al-Maliki, al-Hashimi and others -- who to this day have difficulty speaking directly to each other -- allowed for an elemental level of trust-building in the Iraq national enterprise among these rival individuals an groups they represented.  Maybe this will hold and maybe not.  But it's wrong-headed to think that Obama and his team "own" this mess because they have downsized US vulnerability to affairs inside Iraq.

The more significant accounting needed on Iraq is that which led the United States not only to invade -- but then to double down on the surge, an attempt to obligate the US to an empire-building set of responsibilities that the US public never really debated or signed off on.  This is the conceit of many strategic elites who believe that the nation's national security decisions should be made without regard to the public's appetite for sacrificing blood and treasure abroad on questionable ventures.

Saddam Hussein was a monstrous leader -- no doubt.  But the world has many.  Saddam did not contribute to the al Qaeda machine that attacked New York and Washington on September 11, 2001; was largely in a controlled box that the British and US were imposing with a no-fly zone over Iraq; and had not re-engineered stockpiles of WMDs.  The US invasion of Iraq was an enormous strategic mistake because it triggered a downgrade regarding US power in the world in the eyes of other important nations -- and emboldened the aspirations of Iran which the US and its allies have a diminished stock of power to deal with today.

I think Biden and his team have done the best job that any outsider could have done in helping to calm sectarian distrust and to generate a commitment to a semi-democratic process as Iraq evolves.  That said, al-Maliki could turn out to be a successor strong man to Saddam Hussein; time will tell.

A fair accounting of this escapade, however, must start with those who wrongly obligated the US to an invasion and nation-building project that harmed American interests from the outset.  Blame or achievement starts there. 

To presume that American citizens would go on paying the tab for the midwifing of Iraq for generations is very much out of touch with American aspirations and priorities today.

More »

(photo credit: Reuters)

A hat tip to Jim Pinkerton for sending this my way.

Washington Post, 22 December 2011:

"The rise of the Islamists could be seen as game-changer for Hamas," said Fawaz Gerges, director of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics. "Hamas no longer sees itself as a besieged island in a sea of hostility. This goes to the very psychology of the movement. . . . They feel that they have strategic depth now."

President George W. Bush, 20 January 2005:

By our efforts, we have lit a fire as well--a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power, it burns those who fight its progress, and one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world.

(photo credit: TSA)

James Fallows is one of the least rufflable people I know -- and yet, this cryptic criticism of TSA people-handling made it into one of his posts a couple of days ago (the update at the bottom of the piece). 

Jim writes:

Update, from the boarding area: Some day I would like TSA Administrator John Pistole to go through security at Dulles, with no one knowing who he is. I have a couple of officers I'll introduce him to; I've memorized their names, including Officer O... today.

Today while being frisked myself I saw a spectacle that made me embarrassed for my country: it involved a disabled child, in a stroller and with a feeding tube attached, who appeared to be about three years old and from India. But I digress. Season's Greetings, even to the TSA!

I hope the TSA Administrator and his team really do read this admonition from Fallows -- and my reposting of it.  I realize that there are many great TSA staff who treat those they are managing with respect and courtesy -- but some do not.  Some are on serious power trips and remind me a bit too much of those prison guards in the famous Stanford study, who intoxicated with their superiority became seriously abusive.

I have a long list of TSA grievances -- ranging from the rudeness of TSA staff when I choose to be "frisked" rather than going through the hands up, x-ray machine to the "enforced freeze in your place" command that often happens at LAX Airport in Los Angeles when everyone is ordered not to move and stand -- often for five minutes or more.  This seems to be an infringement on my liberty of movement and have thought about filing a complaint on TSA's extensive complaints page.

What Fallows writes about the young disabled child, most likely from India, is a scene I have seen far too often at airports around the US.  I too feel an urge to walk up to these people who have in every case been innocent of whatever suspicions TSA had of them and apologize for the behavior of that officer and for our country.  This isn't to say that one can't investigate security threats -- even when they are young or very old people -- but the TSA officials I have seen demonstrate no humor, no generosity of spirit, no courtesy and respect to those they are putting through extra security hoops.

Bottom line is that I hope TSA Administrator John Pistole takes Fallows' challenge and goes through a high traffic TSA checkpoint without his badge, perhaps wearing some grungy clothes and sunglasses, and checks out the demeanor and attitude of his employees.

It's not fun.  The TSA brigades I see who seem uninterested in the welfare or needs of travelers remind me of what we used to think security types in the former Soviet Union were like -- unresponsive to citizens.

Something for those who think Christianity and Islam are deeply divided, a holiday card greeting I received from Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir, Ambassador of Saudi Arabia to the United States:

In the name of God, Most Compassionate Most Merciful,

Behold, the angels said:

"O Mary, God giveth thee glad tidings of a Word from Him:

his name will be Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, held in honour in this world and hereafter and of  (the company of) those nearest to God;

-- Aurat Al-i-Imran, Holy Quran

I'm a devout secularist, but it's good in this season to be reminded of the deep ties between cultures which some use to divide.

Happy holidays.

Inspired by The Atlantic's 2011 Holiday Gift Guide in which our food and culture senior editor Corby Kummer curated gift idea offerings from the great and the good, I have some ideas of my own.

But to remind, Arianna Huffington wants an old-fashioned analogue alarm clock; former Blogger and Twitter CEO Evan Williams wants a Nest learning thermostat; Nora Ephron wants an extra freezer; former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle a kayak; British Ambassador to the US Nigel Sheinwald Bose headphones; and Zeke Emanuel (yes, the other brother) wants a Yemenite mezuzah. 

I've already suggested two Civil War related ideas given the 150th anniversary this year of that national, bloody tear -- first The Atlantic's special commemorative issue titled The Civil War as well as Adam Goodheart's brilliantly crafted 1861: The Civil War Awakening. 

But one of the gifts I just received from one of my colleagues (but there is no bias in this recommendation) is an attractively labeled bottle of Bully Boy Massachusetts concocted organic vodka.  Here are the online retailers for Bully Boy.  Great stuff.  Mixes well.

When we asked Arianna, Ambassador Sheinwald, Senator Daschle, Evan Williams and others what they wanted for the holidays -- we also asked them to let us know what their favorite charity was. 

Zeke Emanuel told us he supports Mazon, a Jewish charity that distributes food.  Arianna focused her spotlight on the Acumen Fund which invests in start-ups from Karachi to Kenya.  Tom Daschle gives to Southwest Youth and Family Services of Seattle.

Awesome.  In that spirit, my significant other and I host a fairly large, DC-style holiday party each year, asking all who come to bring with them canned food and other non-perishables which we donate to Food and Friends, which helps foster a community of care for those living with HIV/AIDS, cancer and other life-challenging illnesses. 

The folks at Food & Friends do a terrific job preparing and delivering meals -- and some of these non-perishable items in packages -- to those on their care rosters.

Last night, when Andrew and I were packing up the pick-up truck bed full of cans and boxes, we found a check for $1,000.00 from a friend made out to Food & Friends saying that this might be more help than then cans.  Thanks so much Walt.  Moving.

Giving and getting need to go together.

Ok, back to what I'd like to have on my holiday gift list -- or what I might suggest for yours.

Among those interesting people who showed up at our holiday party was Marc Pachter, long time and former director of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington who is simultaneously brilliant and humble -- and just knows so much.  I didn't get to spend enough time with Marc at the party -- so one of the gifts I want for the next year is a long dinner and night cap with this amazing intellectual.  He not only spent much of his life collecting and curating the images of our nation's great and good -- but interviewed J. William Fulbright, convinced Julia Child to allow her kitchen to appear as an avant-garde portrait en masse of her life and contributions, and engineered the hanging of Stephen Colbert's picture of himself near the bathroom door of the Portrait Gallery. 

I do a lot of interviewing of folks -- sometimes on camera and some times just to learn.  Watch this TED interview with Marc Pachter who shares wonderful insights about the art of the intimate interview.  It's been watched 150,000 times -- three times by me.

This gift of quality time with Pachter is probably one I can arrange on my own -- but what I need some help on and probably won't get but would love is Cisco's TelePresence System 3010.  I'm not sure what this costs rack rate, but have been told for friends and family, it's around $30k.  I know, pricey -- but it completely changes the way one interacts with others who are 7,000 miles away.  I do love video skype, but when one is sitting across from three screens that have life-sized images of the people sitting at the same height and level you are -- and you can share data and drawings and smiles and photos in real time, almost as if in real life -- you would always prefer that over getting on a plane and spending a day or two traveling no matter how much you loved the miles.

I went to see how the Cisco TelePresence system worked the other day and told them that they should start an affinity program of points given to people for miles they didn't fly by using the system.  I'm sure that there are some downsides with this system that some informed tech writer might have pointed out -- but I can't find any.  I love this system and want one.  I wonder if President Obama has one.

If I did get a Cisco platform like this or was even able to borrow it now and then, I'd organize live chats with Matt Damon on his global work with Water.org; would chat about Brazil's demands to play a larger role in global governance with the very impressive Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota; and would talk with women active in the Nablus, Palestine-based Tomorrow's Youth Organization that I think is doing amazing work in an area of the world too many are ignoring.      

So that's what I want.  Maybe Cisco will just let me visit one of these things now and then;  And maybe get Matt Damon on line on the other end.  I'll even see the movie.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy New Year!

I've been reading a copy of the The Atlantic's Special Commemorative Issue, The Civil War, which includes an introduction by President Barack Obama. 

Most of the essays and photos curated for the issue were drawn from the pages of The Atlantic during and after the Civil War -- and capture a wide swath of the mood and torment of the divided nation at that time.

In the collection, Ralph Waldo Emerson offers a poem written in the fall of 1863, "Voluntaries," in praise of soldiers who gave their lives for the Union. . .

In an age of fops and toys,
Wanting wisdom, void of right,
Who shall nerve heroic boys
To hazard all in Freedom's fight,--
Break sharply off their jolly games,
Forsake their comrades gay,
And quit proud homes and youthful dames,
For famine, toil, and fray?
Yet on the nimble air benigh
Speed nimbler messages,
That waft the breath of grace divine
To hearts in sloth and ease.
So night is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, Thou must,
The youth replies, I can.

From September 1896, Booker T. Washington commented in his piece, "The Awakening of the Negro":

Some one may be tempted to ask, Has not the negro boy or girl as good a right to study a French grammar and instrumental music as the white youth? I answer, Yes, but in the present condition of the negro race in this country there is need of something more.

Three months after President Abraham Lincoln's assassination, Charles Creighton Hazewell opened his piece published in The Atlantic in July 1865 with:

The assassination of President Lincoln threw a whole nation into mourning . . . Of all our Presidents since Washington, Mr. Lincoln had excited the smallest amount of that feeling which places its object in personal danger.  He was a man who made a singularly favorable impression on those who approached him, resembling in that respect President Jackson, who often made warm friends of bitter foes, when circumstances had forced them to seek his presence; and it is probable, that, if he and the honest chiefs of the Rebels could have been brought face to face, there never would have been civil war, --at that all that they had any right to claim, and therefore all that they could expect their fellow-citizens to fight for, would be more secure under his government than it had been under the governments of such men as Pierce and Buchanan, who made use of sectionalism and slavery to promote the selfish interests of themselves and their party ... Ignorance was the parent of the civil war, as it has been the parent of many other evils, --ignorance of the character and purpose of the man who was chosen President in 1860-61, and who entered upon official life with less animosity toward his opponents than ever before or since had been felt by a man elected to a great place after a bitter and exciting contest ...

There are essays as well by still living writers -- including, as mentioned, President Obama, and Atlantic editors James Bennet, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Jeffrey Goldberg. 

In the collection's opener, "The Duty to Think," James Bennet writes:

Sheltering from a thunderstorm in an empty freight car, the one-term congressman--the one with the habit of telling dirty jokes, and dodging tough questions, and lying to deflect annoying visitors--squatted on the floor, wrapped his arms around his knees, and roared with laughter at his wife's ridiculous ambition for him. "Just think of such a sucker as me as President!," Abraham Lincoln told our correspondent, Henry Villard. Villard would later marvel that this man, who caused him "disgust and humiliation," would prove "one of the great leaders of mankind in adversity."

As the writers in this issue witnessed the country's most terrible and transformative passage, they felt, and reported, the "magnetic personality" of John Brown; walked the anxious streets of Charleston on the eve of the attack on Fort Sumter; joined with Union soldiers quartering (and making mock speeches) in the House of Representatives; listened late one starlit night as Ulysses Grant, puffing on a Havana cigar by his tent, defended himself against the charge that he was a butcher of men. They saw the tide of war turn, and were in Richmond when it was liberated--when Lincoln, holding his young son's hand, passed through the jubilant crowd, pausing to remove his hat and, in silence, return the bow of an elderly black man.

It's simply a magnificent collection of essays -- all brief -- complemented by evocative photography of the day.  The photos were curated by David Ward and Frank Goodyear of the National Portrait Gallery. 

A hard copy of The Civil War can be ordered here.  Ipad here.  Kindle here.

I also highly recommend 1861: The Civil War Awakening by Adam Goodheart that starts much in the same spirit of The Atlantic's special report -- opening with a nearly real time feel for the decisions, constraints, and conflicting orders received by Major Robert Anderson whose squad sustained the first assault from Confederate forces.

What is terrific about the Goodheart book is the rendering he gives of the state of play politically, culturally, psychologically in the nation before the war. 

It too would make a great holiday gift for those people who like a powerful read.

More to come, and happy holidays to all.

In the clip above, GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich was queried in Oskaloosa, Iowa by Scott Arnold, an adjunct professor at William Penn University, about how he would engage the gay community that supports same sex marriage.

The thrice-married Gingrich implies that he'll take support from gay voters who care about other issues -- like jobs and national security -- first, but those wanting his support on gay marriage ought to vote Obama.

Only problem is that President Obama isn't a gay marriage supporter either.

Michael Bloomberg is -- and this blogger would love to offer some space to Mayor Bloomberg to share his thoughts on both Newt Gingrich's position and that of Barack Obama.

But until then. . .a reminder of Bloomberg's bold position on gay marriage, it's worth watching this short clip from the 2011 Human Rights Campaign dinner where he was introduced by Sarah Jessica Parker.

Ron Paul's supporters* offer a stinging critique of US foreign policy in this provocative campaign ad that should win some sort of prize for making a serious policy point with more than a talking head.

For more interesting writing on Ron Paul, also check out my Atlantic colleague Conor Friedersdorf's deep dive into a "racist newsletter" controversy that deserves some discussion.

*  I originally noted that this was an ad produced by Ron Paul's team.  It was instead created by a group of grassroots individuals and then promoted by RevPac, a Ron Paul supporting SuperPac.

North Korea's despotic "Dear Leader" has died and is now succeeded by the newly dubbed "Great Successor."  It may be time for the makers of Team America World Police to issue a sequel to memorialize in Western pop culture both the demise of Kim Jong Il and the rise of a son, Kim Jong Un, few know much about other than alleged, celebrated ruthlessness.

As the media race to tell the story of the weirdness of hereditary succession in a communist state, I wanted to share a couple of observations and historical slices in time that should add color and nuance to what little we know about Kim Jong Il and his kingdom.

First of all, watch for any writing by North Korea expert and scholar Peter Beck as well as Center for International Policy senior fellow Selig Harrison, who met Kim Jong Il on several occasions.  Evans Revere, a former senior state department official and former Korea Society President, is also of of America's best experts on all things Kim.  Wendy Sherman, newly installed Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, also played a role during the Clinton administration as an envoy on North Korea affairs and laid the groundwork for the historic visit of then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to North Korea in October 2000.

Several other interesting policy practitioners on the US side are Ambassador Christopher Hill who now heads the Josef Korbel Center of International Studies at the University of Denver; US Special Representative for North Korea policy and Fletcher School Dean Stephen Bosworth, former Korean Talks envoy Charles Kartman; and senior Asia policy adviser to President George W. Bush Michael Green.

Some miscellaneous thoughts. . .

First, China knows more than it tells the US on North Korea (of course) but its influence over North Korean leadership decisions has been weaker than many presume.  An imperfect but still useful analogy for the China-North Korea relationship is America's relationship with Israel, in which the ties that bind are tight but where the smaller party has figured out how to impose painful costs on the patron in the relationship.  Yes, Israel is a democracy and North Korea is one of the most backward, repressive regimes on the planet -- but they share a resolve and confidence about their status that often has more influence on more cautious, large states than the other way around.

Chinese Premier Li Peng in the late 1990s was frustrated with the lack of high quality intelligence the Chinese government had on North Korea's Dear Leader and thus decided to up China's brief by inviting himself to visit Pyongyang to visit Kim Jong Il.  The North Korean government sat for a bit on Li's self-invitation only to counter that it would be more appropriate for Kim Jong Il to visit China -- and this he did in May 2000 in his iron train.

While North Korea depends on Chinese economic support and does enjoy some privileged access and latitude in the relationship that is greater than any other nation, the threat of instability on the Korean peninsula and prospect of millions of refugees streaming into China from North Korea in the event of a crisis has emboldened the regime in Pyongyang to push the limits in its demands from China and the rest of the world. 

Essentially, North Korea survives through extortion -- and thus has had few incentives to stabilize itself, rid itself of nuclear weapons, and to stand down militarily.  It's too lucrative for North Korea to threaten the world with its naughtiness -- and for the rest of the world, including China, paying off the North Korean regime is cheaper than all other options.

Chinese intelligence and the senior political leadership has probably known for some time the severity of Kim Jong Il's ailments -- though some told me as recently as two months ago that they thought his health was rebounding, that in the recent trip Kim had made with his heir apparent son that Kim Jong Il was more robust than he had been in other trips. 

US intelligence on the other hand had a remarkably good read on Kim's coming, likely demise -- arguing in a number of sensitive analyses that the violent clashes, missile launches, and the mysterious sinking of a South Korean warship were a function of leadership succession struggles inside Pyongyang.  Former Ambassador Christopher Hill once told me that what we were seeing was the manifestations of "Kim Jong Il being 'Kim Jong Not Well'".

One other measure of the North Korean regime's isolation from the world hit me in 1995, after Kim Il Sung's death and in the early period of Kim Jong Il's reign.  At that time I directed the Nixon Center in Washington and was hosting Japan's Liberal Democratic Party Secretary General Koichi Kato for a meeting.  Kato told me that he was getting frequent calls from Kim Jong Il and other elites close to the leader at his home phone number.  These calls ranged from questions about potential rice imports from Japan to various other kinds of political, economic, and cultural queries. 

Because of the outreach, Kato worked hard to understand who the new power centers around Kim were -- and what was driving the rise and fall of political players in Pyongyang.  I called Senator John McCain's office to see if he would like to meet with Kato and hear the reports on these calls he had received as well as other intel info that the Japanese government had assembled.  McCain listened carefully, taking precise and extensive notes -- and then asked Kato if he could share the material with the Central Intelligence Agency and defense intelligence.  Kato agreed.

The takeaway from Kato's telephone encounters was that the North Koreans had almost no sense of what was happening in the outside world.  These calls eventually led to large scale visits of Japanese Diet members to North Korea -- the slow-built honeymoon ending with the counter-trend of Japanese anger at revelations about North Korea's abduction of scores of Japanese citizens who were later held against their will in order to inform Kim Jong Il and the North Korean state about culture and events beyond their border.

As my colleague Max Fisher points out, doubts abound about the solvency and stability of a regime under the new "Great Successor", Kim Jong Un.  He will face not only self doubt about the genuineness of loyalty from those in the military -- but will face tests from China, Japan, South Korea, the US, even Russia in how competent he is and how solid his control of the political and economic machinery of the country is.

A Neo-Nixonian approach that I have been supportive of for some time would be one that strongly promoted political and economic engagement with North Korea's leading generals and political glitterati.  As they have watched former comrades in Russia as well as China join the world's billionaires rosters and be courted into outfits like the World Economic Forum, there may be a substantial amount of robber baron envy stirring inside North Korea. 

One way to change a regime is to seduce half of a nation's top leadership with gold and treasure and a horizon for increasing their power while leaving the other half alone.  Some senior Chinese authorities believe that this approach is something that they feel is the only way to eventually get North Korea on a China-like track that emphasizes economic development and progress while not necessarily yielding on political control.

Chalmers Johnson used to pay back-handed respect to Kim Il Sung, grandfather to the new leader of North Korea, by suggesting that he dug a big hole and painted a bucket red, saying that he had a nuclear weapons program underway -- and the world began to grovel.  Former President Jimmy Carter went to North Korea, preempting an American attack on the big hole in the ground during the Clinton administration.  Madeleine Albright visited with Kim Jong Il -- and Bill Clinton came remarkably close to visiting North Korea as the closing act of his tenure in office -- choosing instead to distract himself with another failed act in Israel-Palestine peacemaking.

When George W. Bush came into office, Secretary of State Colin Powell worked hard to maintain continuity with the progress the Clinton team had made with the North Koreans -- only to be undermined by then Under Secretary of State John Bolton's sharp attacks on the North Korean leader (which were substantively true but undermined US diplomacy) as well as George W. Bush's own disdain (then) for the kind of realist foreign policy track that emphasized deal-making with thugs over regime change.

President Obama's foreign policy team did not make much headway with North Korea.  Attempting "not" to over-react to North Korea's predictable, global irascibility has marked Obama's approach more than anything distinctly proactive.  Obama & Co. will no doubt work to test the waters of a more stable, more sane and constructive relationship with the new North Korean leader -- but my hunch is that the leadership will double down on its misbehavior and threaten its neighbors and the global system.

Now may be the time for Obama, as well as leaders in Japan, South Korea, China and Russia to offer trips to North Korea's political and military elite -- to show them what they could have if they engineered some shifts inside the regime. 

Then just stand back and watch.

(photo credit:  Paramount Pictures)

I became the 599,464th person to dislike Rick Perry's anti-gay ad titled "Strong" on YouTube. Only 17,811 people have clicked they like it. This is the Rick Perry zinger:

You don't need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can't openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.

Bigotry out loud. Perry probably can't pull off a win in the presidential primary at this point. He was the big anti-Romney hope of many GOP candidates, until he began speaking in debates.

My worry is that he'll rank up in the stratosphere for a cabinet level job if Romney or Newt managed to beat President Obama. Perry's bigotry will dog him for sure -- but so too will GOP strategist Mike Murphy's delicious tweet:

Listening to Perry try to a put a complicated policy sentence together is like watching a chimp play with a locked suitcase...

One can't retweet this too much.

photo source: C-Span

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey said yesterday at a meeting hosted by the Atlantic Council that the absence of a public discussion about shifts and changes in US military strategy amidst certain significant budget goods is a 'good thing' for now.

Dempsey acknowledged that behind the scenes and in "the tank" -- a place where military commanders can meet "without note-takers" and discuss complex strategic problems -- a serious review of security objectives and resources is underway and that he's "encouraged" by the military's process and progress.

C-Span's video of the entire meeting is available here -- and the question I posed on budgets and a responding military strategy shift kicks in at 53:50. 

Washington Post national security columnist David Ignatius conducted the exchange with General Dempsey who in what was one of his first debut chats in a public forum was very relaxed, clearly informed about macro and micro military policy issues.  He even wrapped up his policy talk with a surprising, full-throated performance singing "Christmas in Kilarney."  He was terrific -- much better than John Ashcroft, with all due respect to the former Attorney General.

That said, General Dempsey and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta do a disservice to the national debate by promulgating the notion that America's strategic course should be a function of closed debates by generals and admirals behind closed doors -- that are then negotiated in mostly secret sessions with legislators and appropriators on Capitol Hill.  General Dempsey referred to a copy of the US Constitution that he carries with him which he said reminds him of who is responsible for what, noting that Congress is responsible for providing for the provisioning and training of an army and navy.

American citizens and their appetite for strategic obligations are wrongly excluded from these discussions.  The General is right that Members of Congress should represent those public interests and its through the Defense Department's exchange with Congress that this gets sorted out.  But this is a time of significant discontinuity, a time when America's global social contract with other nations is under stress.  Americans rightly feel that the quid pro quo of what America got from the rest of the world in exchange for the economic, geostrategic, and global institutional public goods the US provided has been downsized significantly.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta very frequently offers a roster of the strategic threats facing the United States in his efforts to preempt further defense cuts.  At one such presentation in Nebraska at Offutt Air Base, Panetta led his roster of threats with al Qaeda, which earlier in the week the intelligence community which he used to help direct had stated was hanging on by threads.  I don't want to take a cheap shot at Panetta who I think has the potential to be a consequential and thoughtful defense secretary. 

But the fact is that the military establishment is offering a range of "threats" ranging from Iran's nuclear ambitions to cyber threats to North Korean adventurism, the rise of Chinese swagger, al Qaeda and more.  General Dempsey said bluntly that America's strategic risks were shifting to the Asia Pacific, meaning China.  He also said in response to David Ignatius' question on whether the age of large-scale US counter-insurgency deployments was over that he would not sign up to the notion that we wouldn't do any more Iraqs in the future -- meaning that he was not willing to go where Defense Secretary Robert Gates went in saying those kind of deployments hurt more than help America's strategic position today.

While Dempsey's knowledge and facility discussing the nuts and bolts of military strategy across a lot of disparate terrains was clear, he didn't show any ankle at all beyond what Obama has said in the past -- mainly that the Pacific matters to America more than the Middle East.

America is most likely going to be in the global policing business for a long time -- but it's clear that the US has to make some choices about what its highest security priorities are and aren't and how to leverage constrained budgets to achieve more with less -- something that Leon Panetta said at the recent Halifax International Security Forum he expects from America's partners in NATO.

This discussion needs to have more inputs from American civil society and those who are asked to pay the bills.  There is too much presumption by America's strategic class that strategic commitments can be sorted out and made in the absence of public discussion and debate -- and this is not healthy.

Frequently, generals have gone on political talk shows and made assertions, for instance, on how long US troops should stay in Afghanistan, often pointing to dates or implying troop levels that are larger or that extend beyond official policy as communicated by President Obama and his national security team.  These involve commitments of hundreds of billions of dollars without a discussion of the larger strategic costs and benefits to the country.  The public should be a part of this discussion, and frankly -- those generals and admirals in the tanks would be wise to take the temperature of an American public that is growing weary of seeing the services that they pay for at home hollowed out in favor of building out the national infrastructure of countries abroad.  It's still a remarkable and disturbing data point that the United States is now spending about $120 billion per year in Afghanistan which has a GDP of approximately $14 billion.

The transcript of my exchange with General Dempsey follows below -- but for those with the time and interest, I think that the entire C-Span covered session is worth watching, including the General singing a Christmas tune.

Atlantic Council 'Commanders Series' Meeting with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey; interviewed by David Ignatius

David Ignatius: 

Steve.

Steve Clemons, The Atlantic:

Thank you General, Steve Clemons with The Atlantic.

At the Halifax International Security Summit, Leon Panetta seemed a bit frustrated.  Part of his message was that there is an age of austerity upon us and that NATO members, particularly NATO defense secretaries there -- he pushed them sort of hard, saying that they needed to do more with less.  We understand that you have less -- but you need to do more.  There was some grumbling about the notion that there was not a lot of talk about how the US would do more with less.

He made a statement:  "I refuse believe that we have to choose between fiscal responsibility and national security."  But in the talk, while he was admitting that there are financial hits coming -- as you have done today -- he tilted more towards almost disbelief that it was really happening as opposed to talking about shifts in strategy.  When Don Rumsfeld came in as Secretary of Defense before 9/11, you may remember he wrestled with the generals a lot ...

General Martin Dempsey:

I do...

Steve Clemons, The Atlantic:

...and talked about smart soldiers, smart systems, the applications of IT, the changing nature of war, that we were going to create greater efficiencies in this sector, and I have been surprised that we haven't seen more discussion of that kind of changing role.  How can you actually get more security deliverables even if you are going to have less fiscal resources.  We talk a lot about dollars but not about capacity, and I'm interested in your reactions.  And that was the tone you got from Leon Panetta at that Halifax summit.

General Martin Dempsey:

Sure. I'll have to go back and tell Leon thanks a lot.  That's the third time he has been quoted to me for me to react.

Let me pick up on one thing you said and maybe I can tie it together, and that is that you've been surprised by the lack of discussion about what kind of shifts in strategy...

I'm actually quite remarkably pleased by that, that we haven't played this out in the media.  I mean, no offense, but we've had to make some, I mean really go through, I mean multiple "tank sessions" -- and you know what the "tank" is -- it's where military leaders gather and try to have conversations without note-takers; it's just to try to wrestle with ourselves, these complex problems, to provide advice.  Then do the same with combatant commanders; do the same with our civilian leaders.

I frankly can only tell you that I am encouraged by where we are.  I think some time in the next couple of, well before the budget is submitted we actually have to consult with Congress.  I carry a little copy of the Constitution, a little pamphlet of the Constitution, in my black jacket with me to remind myself of who is responsible for what, and of course Congress is responsible for maintaining the navy and organizing, equipping and training an army. That's not to say that they are not interested in the air force or the marines.

The point is that they have responsibilities.  We have to consult with them. And then we have to show what the budget does to build a force for the nation.  I think the process we've made, the progress we've made, has been encouraging.  

There are hard decisions that will manifest themselves here shortly. I wouldn't read too much into the silence. I think the silence has allowed this thing to follow a process that is best for the country.

For those interested in singing along with General Dempsey at the end of the C-Span video, here are the lyrics to "Christmas in Kilarney."

More »

This morning, The Atlantic hosted a forum on high-growth business (video should be posted on the site later for those interested) and I got to moderate the first session -- where Gallup Chairman & CEO Jim Clifton hammered on the point that despite the economic fragility and doldrums of the US economy today, America's system of laws, particularly contract law, creates a base for entrepreneurs unmatched in the world. 

Clifton said that prevalent corruption in many places around the world -- the forced forfeiture of property that entrepreneurs develop which ends in the hands of a government official's cousin or son -- compels small firms to sell out before the government takes what they have.

Clifton was quick to note that the sub-prime crisis and the lack of accountability in that fraud were a problem for the US -- but largely, America led the rest of the world on legal protection for business owners by leaps and bounds.

Along these lines, I just read this segment of a piece by Peruvian economist and property rights evangelist Hernando de Soto that recently ran in the Financial Times.  The piece is called "The Free Market Secret of the Arab Revolutions":

If Marx taught us anything, it is that the powerless can crystallise into a revolutionary class when they become conscious that they share a common suffering - and especially when a martyr embodies that suffering. There is no doubt that millions of Arabs see Bouazizi as their icon. "We are all Mohamed Bouazizi," Mehdi Belli, a university IT graduate working as a merchant in L'Ariana market in Tunis, told me.

To understand this you have to appreciate the details: Bouazizi flicked his lighter on at 11.30am, one hour after a policewoman, backed by two municipal officers, had expropriated his two crates of pears ($15), a crate of bananas ($9), three crates of apples ($22) and an electronic weight scale ($179, second hand). While a total of $225 might not appear to justify suicide, the fact is that, as a businessman, Bouazizi had been summarily wiped out.

Without those goods, Bouazizi would not be able to feed his family for more than the next month. Since his merchandise had been bought on credit and he couldn't sell it to pay his creditors back, he was now bankrupt. Because his working tools were confiscated, he had lost his capital. Because the customary arrangement to pay authorities three dinars daily for the property right to park his vendor's cart on two square yards of public space had been terminated, he lost his informal access to the market. Without property and trade, his reputation as a reliable administrator of goods was now undermined in the only market he knew.

He was not on a salary. He was a budding entrepreneur. According to his mother and his sister, his goal was to accumulate capital to grow his business. But this was impossible as we discovered when we investigated the records and the laws he had to comply with.

I'm meeting with de Soto this afternoon along with some other journalists to explore his latest thinking and commentary -- much of which is provocative and also the target of reasoned criticism.

But it seems to me that many in Washington who talk about aid and development towards newly liberated Arab Spring countries and other nations low on the development track tend to organize around what the West can do in terms of deployed dollars to these countries -- rather than focusing to a greater degree on the internal legal organization of these countries.  My sense is that attention needs to focus on what sorts of 'market failures' these governments and partners abroad can fix that either provide a better foundation for people to buy and sell -- and thus help themselves as opposed to waiting for some command and control engineered opportunity from a foreign aid giver. 

Nancy Birdsall's team at the Center for Global Development do very good work in this arena -- but it still seems to me that in a world where there is not enough resources, certainly not enough US-provided aid, to raise people from impoverished circumstances, we need to focus on some of the frameworks that Jim Clifton and Hernando de Soto suggest.

Along these lines, just on Monday, Visa announced its first full national partnership with a foreign government, Rwanda, to create a "branchless" financial market system that essentially allows anyone with a cell phone, which is a vast majority of the population to get out of operating in cash and to operate in point to point financial transactions.  This may have a real impact on opportunities for the kinds of entrepreneurs that Tunisia's Mohamed Bouazizi aspired to be.

Ten days ago, Sean Kay, a political science professor at Ohio Wesleyan University and author of Celtic Revival? The Rise, Fall, and Renewal of Global Ireland, sent me the note below outlining Germany's options now after having failed to take the steps that might have put it in front of Europe's growing economic crisis:

One thing that is crucial to keep in mind is that the peripherals -- Ireland, Portugal and Greece -- may likely not even be worth in terms of assets  the actual value that Germany and the rest of Europe and the IMF is bailing them out at, particularly if deepening recession stunts any prospects of economic growth.

Crucially, the argument for the Irish bailout (and Portugal and the first Greek tranche) was containment to stop contagion. But that was the "theory" behind it.  Aggressively get Ireland early into that fold to stop the bleeding, especially to shore up  German and other major bank exposure at the time.

Here's the key: that approach has clearly failed.  Key to the Germans, It was not in to help those peripherals - but it instead wanted to use them to send the  strongest possible messages to Italy (and Spain) about budget reform and austerity - and in both cases that has  clearly failed as we are seeing the contagion nightmare unfold. What is amazing to me is that scenarios just a few week ago unthinkable now seem very possible.

1) Spin out the three peripherals - out of the Eurozone - gone, let them go, default, twist in the wind, whatever you call  it - but dump them and see the capital in those states flee back to Germany  as a safe haven.  Use what is left as the key to leverage up Italy and protect French exposure.   Then it becomes doable in the smaller Eurozone to include Italy and  lets Spain make its own really hard choices and fast.

2) Spend a decade transferring North European capital to southern Europe.  Not too likely - but that is what it means  to "save the Eurozone" at this point.

3) Spend a decade driving down North  European wages to match those in southern Europe to balance out the Eurozone  wealth.  Also can't see the German voters going for that.

4) Germany itself bolts the Eurozone - and then rebuilds a much smaller one around like-minded Northern neighbors, plus Italy if it can be saved.

Of course there is also the hope that it can be muddled through - but we are watching a slow motion replay of the 10 year bonds from what we saw a year ago in Ireland, and with the size of these economies and major global exposure, trying to patchwork this together - while hopefully will work, seems less and less realistic.

Kay's framework draws in part from analysis offered in July this year (pdf of "Europe on the Brink") by Peter Boone and former IMF Chief Economist Simon Johnson who have published a sobering assessment that concludes that the "Euro Area is Coming to an End."

The opener which makes clear the price Germany is now paying for not having acted more boldly sooner:

Investors sent Europe's politicians a painful message last week when Germany had a seriously disappointing government bond auction. It was unable to sell more than a third of the benchmark 10-year bonds it had sought to auction off on Nov. 23, and interest rates on 30-year German debt rose from 2.61 percent to 2.83 percent. The message? Germany is no longer a safe haven.

The reality, though, is that there are no safe havens anywhere any longer.

More »

I have been a proponent of engagement with Iran in the past -- but this kind of thuggishness and the failure of the Iranian security forces to protect the integrity of foreign embassies (again and again and again) underscores much of the reason why Iran is so very far away from being a nation in which others can have basic trust.

An attack on Iran leads to more nightmares than it solves -- but containment may be the only serious option left unless the more reasonable factions of Iran's political elite take over from a Supreme Leader who is undermining the interests and future of his country.

From Atlantic Wire's Adam Martin:

Students in Tehran stormed the British embassy there on Tuesday, forcing their way inside, where they threw papers from the windows and took down the British flag. The attack started with dozens protesting outside the building "to commemorate the death anniversary of Iranian nuclear scientist Majid Shahriari who, according to Iranian authorities, was murdered by Israeli's Mossad in cooperation with UK's MI6," Al Arabiya reports. The Times also reminds us that Iran had moved on Monday to downgrade diplomatic relations with Britain in retaliation for Western sanctions.

Here is a live blog and video of the Embassy attack.

Update:  A good Reuters piece on factions inside Iran's government and how this Embassy incident further complicates nuclear negotiations.

Source: Reuters

As my Atlantic colleague Jeffrey Goldberg and his co-author Marc Ambinder outlined in last month's Atlantic cover story, Pakistan can be the ally from hell.  But this week, the tables are turned -- and from the perspective of ferociously independent, nationalistic Pakistan citizens, the United States and NATO appear to be approximating the behavior of enemies.

A two hour siege on a site inside Pakistan by NATO forces killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.  The siege continued even after alleged appeals by Pakistan military command staff to NATO commanders to stop the assault.  Various Afghan intelligence sources are reporting that a joint US-Afghan patrol was fired upon by heavy Pakistan-based artillery -- and thus the NATO air attack was against the source of that attack.  Turned out the site targeted involved two Pakistan Army-manned check points.

Rather than defending its right of self defense, NATO seems to be cowering and has called the attack "tragic and unintended."

If the Pakistanis initiated the firefight, then the US and NATO should not run from this.  If indeed this was a tragic, unintended, poorly managed assault on the Pakistan military, then those of us concerned with greater escalation of a costly war in the Af/Pak region should be furious with NATO and its commanders.

Going to war with Pakistan is not an option -- though it sometimes feels that both the US and Pakistan are already in some form of half way, informal war -- taking a love-hate relationship to a higher game level.

If the NATO strike was a mistake, then it just raised the costs enormously across the board in what the US and its allies will have to give the Pakistanis to 'maintain' a relationship.  If it was not a mistake, then NATO is worsening the problem by calling it a tragic error.

And no matter which is true, it's clear that the situation is so fragile that just about any other party can hijack conditions and send the US-Pakistan relationship in directions that can't be controlled.

Comments on the influence of neoconservatives on GOP foreign policy establishment.

Former Dick Cheney chief of staff and now Heritage Foundation vice president David Addington dropped his strong aversion to the public spotlight and offered one of the questions to GOP presidential candidates at the national security/foreign policy debate last week sponsored by CNN, the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute.  AEI adjunct visiting fellow and former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz also offered a question as did several other prominent neoconservatives.

Clearly, the foreign policy wing characterized by Richard Lugar, Chuck Hagel, even Henry Kissinger deserves endangered species status.

I shared some thoughts on the resurrection, yet again, of neoconservatives in the foreign policy establishment on The Rachel Maddow Show.  Clip above.