First, the weirdness…

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday during a meeting in New York that the new GOP majority in the House will “serve as a check” on the Obama administration, a statement unusual for its blunt disagreement with U.S. policy delivered directly to a foreign leader.

“Eric stressed that the new Republican majority will serve as a check on the Administration and what has been, up until this point, one party rule in Washington,” read a statement from Cantor’s office on the one-on-one meeting. “He made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel and the United States, and that the security of each nation is reliant upon the other.”

If a Democrat would have talked to a foreign leader so bluntly, the right would have literally called for them to be jailed.

Oh wait…they did. More importantly, Cantor did.

And it was for something that wasn’t even nearly as egregious…

Presenting Assad with “a new Democratic alternative” — code for making President Bush look feckless — Mrs. Pelosi usurped the executive branch’s time-honored foreign-policy authority. Her message to Assad was that congressional Democrats will forbid the president from increasing pressure on Damascus to stop its murderous way. Several leading legal authorities have made the case that her recent diplomatic overtures ran afoul of the Logan Act, which makes it a felony for any American “without authority of the United States” to communicate with a foreign government to influence that government’s behavior on any disputes with the United States.

Wait, Pelosi went to Syria? Why’d she do that?

Because Republicans met with the Syrian President too. Reps. Robert Aderholt (R-AL), Frank Wolf (R-VA) and Joseph Pitts (R-PA) were part of a bipartisan visit. And yet Pelosi was accused of committing a felony?

So why does one of the highest ranking members of the GOP get to do it and we barely hear a peep? Because not only did he do something far worse than what Pelosi did…he put out a press release.

Welcome to what happens when the GOP gets a taste of power.

(h/t: Steve Benen)

Jake Tapper, the ABC News Senior White House Correspondent, reports that Secretary Clinton will announce the administration’s new policy toward the government of Sudan. And that policy is controversial:

U.S. officials acknowledge the reaction from human rights groups has been mixed. Officials from the groups largely agree with the Obama administration’s goals to implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ended the civil war and, among other provisions, provides for a Southern Sudanese referendum in 2011; and to negotiate a peace treaty that will end the crisis in Darfur and allow the Sudanese people to return to their homes.

Their concern is that history suggests that the government of Sudan responds only to pressure, and they worry President Obama’s Special Envoy to the Sudan, Maj. Gen. Scott Gration (ret.) has been reluctant to apply that pressure.

The situation in Darfur is, by every measure, a human tragedy. But American efforts have been ineffectual. Christopher Preble, director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, noted in July 2004:

With Secretary of State Colin Powell’s recent visit to Sudan and the Pentagon moving troops into neighboring Chad to assess the situation, some form of intervention appears likely.

Preble goes on to criticize the use of American forces unilaterally in such cases, and describes all the proposed solutions as inadequate. Now, five years later, we know that the American military did not intervene, but he still seems prescient on at least that last point.

There is sure to be hand wringing about Darfur, and those stricken with “Obama Derangement Syndrome” will cry “appeasement!” once again. But foreign policy is often messy, and finding solutions is tough. In this case, we have five years of failed attempts to stop the wholesale rape and murder of millions. We have failed. Perhaps a new approach is necessary.

I will express my doubts that “engaging” with a mass murderer wanted for war crimes is the proper thing to do. It may be immoral. But life often gives us choices between two bad things, and we must decide which is less bad than the other.

The Obama Administration has embarked on several initiatives to change the way American foreign policy is perceived around the world. World leaders have praised the new approach. Conservatives view most of these initiatives skeptically, but there is a certain rationale behind many of the changes. For instance, liberals and libertarians have shared the view that calling attention to specific Al Qaeda leaders only enhances their reputation and serves as a powerful recruiting tool. De-emphasis on the “war on terror” rhetoric seems intended to reduce that attention.

The thing that matters, of course, is whether these new approaches work. Conservatives would do well to avoid the temptation to criticize the new approach in Darfur prematurely. While it does remind us of the old claim that conservative administrations were too quick to embrace right-wing dictators like Marcos in the Phillipines and the Shah of Iran, in the end it is pragmatism that must win out. If the strategy works in Darfur, Secretary Clinton and President Obama will deserve the credit.

Cross-posted to FrankHagan.com

There’s a difference between sensationalism and lying…and the above is a lie. The US has known that Iran had a second “secret” nuclear plant since at least 2002-2003.

Here’s more from The Policy Page:

The truth is that Iran only decided to reveal the existence of the uranium enrichment operation to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) when it discovered that at least three countries had already known about the plant for a number of years.

Indeed, the United States not only knew about the facility, our intelligence had already learned that the plant was too small to be used to produce nuclear energy (Iran’s professed purpose for their nuclear program) and would likely only have value for producing nuclear weapons – one to two bombs per year. American intelligence also knew that the plant was about three months from being completed to the point where they could begin operating centrifuges inside the location.

But hey, never let the truth get in the way of an opportunity to bash Obama. That would be bad for business.

Moving on…

Doug points this one out, and if true, well, no wonder France took a pass on backing us in Iraq.

French journalist Jean-Claude Maurice recounts the tale in his book release in March, Si Vous le Répétez, Je Démentirai (If You Repeat it, I Will Deny).

From Secular Humanism:

President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse.

Honest. This isn’t a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.

Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith” (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”

This bizarre episode occurred while the White House was assembling its “coalition of the willing” to unleash the Iraq invasion. Chirac says he was boggled by Bush’s call and “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs.”

Again, if true, I think it speaks for itself.

And given Bush’s insistence on saying he was chosen by God, etc., we have every reason to believe that something like this is not only plausible, but also highly likely.

Ugh.

This one’s a puzzler.

The potential 2012 candidate who has the least foreign policy knowledge since George W. Bush is the #1 choice for GOPers when it comes to keep us safe?

More at True/Slant.

The Obama administration has undoubtedly breathed a sigh of relief after the pro-western coalition won yesterday’s parliamentary vote in Lebanon. After the president’s big speech about improving relationships between America and the Mid-East, a Hezbollah win in Lebanon would have been seen by many as a strong rebuke to Obama.

Of course, calling the election an Obama win might be overstating the matter:

Obama’s outreach did not appear to have resonated with the electorate as much as a last-minute appeal from head of the influential Maronite Catholic Church. Cardinal Nasrallah Sfeir warned voters on the eve of the election of what he called an attempt to change Lebanon’s character and its Arab identity, a clear reference to Hezbollah and its Persian backer, Iran.

The makeup of the Lebanese parliament will remain largely unchanged from the outgoing legislature, meaning it’s unlikely the political situation in Lebanon will dramatically change. In fact, tensions may increase as the ruling coalition has vowed not to give the Hezbollah led coalition veto power over major government decisions – a power they previously negotiated after nearly provoking a civil war.

We’ll see what the future holds. At least for now, Obama’s hope for a better relationship with the Mid-East remains viable.

Obama has arrived in Cairo to give a major speech that is expected to focus on improving ties with the Islamic world. One speech alone is obviously not going to be enough. The Islamic world is angry enough with the West that they are unlikely to suddenly forgive us just because the US has a black president who has spent some time in an Islamic country. Although commentators say that the speech will focus on improving relations and not focus on specifics it is unlikely that Obama will be able to avoid for long the main issue that poisons relations with the Arab people; Israel.

Finding a way through the tangle of thorns that is the Arab-Israeli dispute will not be easy. Obama will find it very difficult to improve ties with the Islamic world while not causing too much outrage among the Israel lobby. The US can’t abandon its staunchest ally in the region yet needs to gently push it into some kind of acceptable solution. The situation is complicated by many other issues; the war of words between the US and Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the split in control in Palestine between Fatah and Hamas as well as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the fight against terrorism. These issues have all become intertwined in the Islamic consciousness making any solution much harder to find.

Debate the issue more at: can Obama’s visit to the Middle East change Arab perceptions of the US

Well, North Korea has the world’s attention. Exploding a nuclear bomb and launching missile tests will do that. All that’s left now is for the world to respond.

North Korea has long been a foreign policy conundrum, frustrating a long line of U.S. presidents who’ve attempted to stop the so-called hermit nation from threatening its neighbors. North Korea’s leadership has repeatedly placed raw pride over any other consideration, content to let their people suffer rather than enter normal relations with the world. To complicate matters more, both Russia and China have, at various times, backed North Korea, finding such alliances a convenient way to irritate the United States and our allies or, in China’s case, the easiest way to prevent massive numbers of refugees from streaming over their border.

Has this latest outburst from North Korea changed anything? Early indications are that, if nothing else, the world is generally united against Pyongyang.

Russia, which called the test a “serious blow” to the effort to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, suspended a Russia-North Korean intergovernmental trade and economic commission, apparently in response to the nuclear test. The slap on the wrist was a telling indication that Moscow, once a key backer of North Korea, was unhappy with Pyongyang.

And China, which has been the closest thing North Korea has to a friend, is reacting by holding high-level meetings with South Korea to discuss ways to respond.

At this point, I doubt China will want to do anything which might create the feared refugee crisis. And outside of military action – which really isn’t on the table for a large number of reasons – nothing will change in North Korea without Chinese intervention. That leaves President Obama in an unenviable position. He has to take a tough stand but knows he’s no more likely to directly affect North Korea than were his predecessors. As such, his best bet is to work behind the scenes with Chinese and Russian officials (because it’s always prudent to include the Russians in these matters) to develop a coordinated and meaningful response.

Unfortunately, that’s not the kind of resolute response presidents (and the American people) prefer. But I’m not exactly sure what other options we have.

Looks like Iran decided to remind us why we don’t want that nation getting nuclear weaponry:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran test-fired a new advanced missile Wednesday with a range of about 1,200 miles, far enough to strike Israel, southeastern Europe and U.S. bases in the Middle East.

Experts believe Iran is still six to eight years away from being able to equip such a missile with a nuclear warhead (not to mention that they don’t yet have nuclear capabilities), but the today’s test will hardly make relations with Iran any easier. It’ll be interesting to see how President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton choose to react to such a provocative action.

As always with these unfriendly nations, options are limited and every course of action will have undesirable consequences.

Usually, when people debate why the conservative movement has hit hard times, they argue about whether Republicans are fiscally conservative enough or whether they are too focused on social issues. Rarely does the third tent pole of modern conservativism get mentioned: the national security conservatives. But that’s the exact group to blame argues Daniel Larison in The Week:

The faction most responsible for the GOP’s political failure is national security conservatives. Yet within the party, they remain unscathed, their assumptions about the use of American power largely unquestioned, and their gross errors in judgment forgotten or readily forgiven. Among the mainstream right, the foreign policy of the Bush administration is barely a subject of debate. Rather than reorienting Republican foreign policy towards a political center defined by realism, humility and restraint, the GOP’s leadership and activists have redoubled their commitment to Bush and Cheney’s hawkish stances and to a lock-step defense of the Bush administration’s policies.

Larison is a contributing editor at The American Conservative, part of the Pat Buchanan wing of the conservative movement (wing? More like alcove these days) – so you know he comes at this with a certain isolationist bias. But is he right? Are Republicans losing because they can’t divorce themselves from the national security policies of the Bush years?

Seems to me it’s a lot more complicated than that. But it’s worth considering. After all, the Republicans were once known for their realism abroad and that, in turn, made the party look mature and capable. Without that realism on weighty matters, can the party hope to regain the trust of the American people? Does Larison have a point?

“I don’t consider him a particularly reliable source of information.”
- Hillary Clinton on Dick Cheney

Washington Post has more on the “Return of Hillary Clinton“

It wasn’t the most stirring defense, but a defense it was, and it served as a reminder of Clinton’s relatively low-profile in the first months of her tenure. To an extent, that makes sense; it’s not the job of any Cabinet secretary to overshadow her boss, Obama has generally preferred to make major public announcements himself, and the White House is surely relieved that the Obama vs. Clinton storyline has been largely dormant since the Inauguration.

But Clinton is a bona fide celebrity, the only one in the administration — apologies to Hilda Solis and Shaun Donovan — other than Obama. So when the president needs a surrogate to step up and help deliver his message, and rebut the criticism of a major figure like Cheney, Clinton is the obvious choice.

Frankly, I’m not exactly sure why Cheney keeps going off on Obama. Some have speculated that he thinks Cheney is worried about prosecution, but I honestly don’t think that’s it. Obama isn’t going to risk a show trial. It just won’t happen.

No, I just think Cheney misses the limelight and wants to protect his legacy. And so his logorrhea.

Question: Is Dick Cheney the Republican’s Jimmy Carter?

Discuss.

Barack Obama’s handshake with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has managed to upset more than a few observers. Of course, the negative reaction from the right has been so predictable and overblown, there’s been little room for a more reasonable critique of Obama’s performance in Latin America.

Thankfully, Eugene Robinson, writing for the Washington Post has written what I think is a generally appropriate reaction to Obama’s a bit-too-passive moment with Chavez. Robinson thinks that, while discourtesy would have been out of place, the President could have shown more displeasure with Chavez and his antics.

Obama was right to show respect for the leaders of neighboring countries big and small at the Summit of the Americas. Those who were not gracious enough to show respect for him deserved to be given — metaphorically, of course, and in the spirit of hemispheric cooperation — the back of the presidential hand.

Robinson doesn’t suggest what sort of “back of the hand” moment he’d have liked, but even a cold stare or a pithy yet undeniably negative remark from the president wouldn’t have been inappropriate. Chavez may not be the great danger some paint him as, but he is an anti-democratic force and a potentially destabilizing presence in the region. There’s no harm in Obama letting Chavez know that a kinder gentler America is still not going to cozy up to wannabe strongmen.

While I think people do read too much into the symbolism of national leaders meeting one another, I also think Obama could have reacted with more noticeable displeasure when Chavez provocatively and inappropriately gave him the “gift” of an anti-American screed. Allowing Chavez to turn a diplomatic affair into political theater wasn’t Obama’s best moment. Hopefully the president will avoid or at least counterpunch such a situation next time.

(Egypt’s 1973 October War Panorama Museum — NY Times photo)

One of my biggest regrets during my post-college backpacking jaunt through Cairo was that the October 1973 War Panorama Museum was closed.

Like a kid stretching his neck over the fence at a shut-down amusement park, I stared through the iron grates at a sculpture garden decorated with Russian MiG fighter jets. I wanted to at least bring home a snowglobe from the gift shop, but the place was undergoing renovations.

This museum is a monumental tribute to Egypt’s “victory” in the 1973 October War (or Yom Kippur War if you’re willing to acknowledge the military value of surprise and meanness to attack on a religious holiday).

According to the Egypt State Information Service, the museum was inspired by President Hosni Mubarak’s 1983 trip to North Korea and is divided into four areas:

The Circular Hall: Highlights the achievements of the Egyptian Armed Forces in the period from 1967 to 1973.

Hall 2: In which the crossing of the Suez Canal is graphically shown.

Hall 3: Showcases the achievements of the various branches of the Army during the October War.

Hall 4: A library with a reading hall attached.

Now, thanks to The New York Times, I can see what one of the museum panoramic views looks like. Looks like a lot of Egyptian model railroaders were employed by the state in some kind of job stimulus package.

The Times also reports that many younger Egyptians are pissed about the 1979 Camp David Peace Accords. An entire generation grew up without shedding a drop of blood in the Sinai desert and they are pissed.

They saw a couple of war movies and well, it looks like a whole heck of fun!

From the Times:

“Today Egypt is not influential in anything,” said Osama Anwar Okasha, a leading Egyptian television writer. “It is a third-class country in this region. Egypt was the leading country and it gave up this leading role. Now it is like a postman, delivering messages.”

“The public mood is dark all around right now, and the sentiment points to the treaty as the start of Egypt’s decline and diplomatic impotence.”

But the 81-year-old Mubarak, who has been eligible for his AARP membership for those same 30 years, is still alive and he remembers how unfun bleeding in the Sinai can be.

Yet, he’s also the guy who likes to build war museums. Even if his exhibits don’t tell the full story (memo to Mubarak: Israel won — even Wikipedia says so), I still want my October Panorama snowglobe.

**

Darren Garnick is a freelance writer and documentary filmmaker obsessed with the offbeat side of the Middle East, such as the latest “Austin Powers” fembot fashions that are the latest rage in Syria.

Fred Kaplan has an excellent article in Slate detailing why North Korea is so hard to deal with and how Obama should proceed after the recent missile launch.

Over the last few decades, our policies towards North Korea have seemed to be all talk and no action. We’ve all but wagged our finger off. Kaplan explains why:

The strange mix of high drama, tense showdown, then limp backpedaling has been going on for decades, and it stems from two immovable facts—the nature of the North Korean regime and China’s vital interest in keeping the regime from imploding.

The nature of North Korea’s regime is to act like a guerilla state because it knows the only way to stay relevant is to irritate the major powers. As for China, they hold most of the international bargaining chips because they supply North Korea with most of its aid and trade. But China is very reluctant to take real action against their neighbor because they know the failure of Kim Jong-il’s regime would lead to millions of North Koreans rushing across the border into China, creating a humanitarian crisis Beijing desperately wants to avoid.

So, if North Korea is hell-bent on causing trouble and China won’t use the only bargaining chips the international community has, what can the Obama administration do?

Whatever President Obama does, he should not go rushing off to the negotiating tables. Despite its failure, the rocket launch did violate a U.N. resolution warning North Korea not to launch any more missiles, and the reaction cannot be a reward. However, Obama should also resist mounting a long and ambitious campaign to stiffen the sanctions already in place—unless he can get the Chinese to agree beforehand that they’ll go along. Too many times, U.S. officials have labeled some North Korean action as “unacceptable”—only to accept it in the end, thus making all future warnings still less credible.

The best thing right now is to spend as little time as possible on this subject, then drop it. We have a lot more important things on our plate than North Korea’s puny bomb and flaccid missiles. As Daniel Sneider, associate director of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, said of the missile launch in a phone conversation today, “This is not the action of a strong state—this is the action of a weak state.” Obama should behave accordingly.

I think they used to call that strategy “containment.”

While liberals tend to promote the healing power of “talks” and the recent generation of conservatives have promoted the decisive power of “action,” there’s something to be said for just keeping the situation stable. North Korea is hardly the world’s greatest threat. There’s little use in treating them as such.

“There is no such thing as a neoconservative foreign policy.”
- Richard Perle talking to a gathering sponsored by National Interest magazine.

WTF?!

Dana Milbank digs through this nonsense…

So what about the 1996 report he co-authored that is widely seen as the cornerstone of neoconservative foreign policy? “My name was on it because I signed up for the study group,” Perle explained. “I didn’t approve it. I didn’t read it.”

Mm-hmm. And the two letters to the president, signed by Perle, giving a “moral” basis to Middle East policy and demanding military means to remove Saddam Hussein? “I don’t have the letters in front of me,” Perle replied.

Right. And the Bush administration National Security Strategy, enshrining the neoconservative themes of preemptive war and using American power to spread freedom? “I don’t know whether President Bush ever read any of those statements,” Perle maintained. “My guess is he didn’t.”

Gotta love the logic, eh?

Just because Bush doesn’t read it means that the neoconservative foreign policy doesn’t exist.

Brilliant stuff.

Steve Benen points out that the folks at the talk found it equally amusing…

It was apparently quite a performance, which literally drew laughter when Perle insisted, “I’ve never advocated attacking Iran.” He added that he doesn’t “accept” the notion that there’s even a “neoconservative school of thought,” and said his book, “An End to Evil,” is actually a text devoted to realism. “There’s hardly an ideology in that book,” Perle said.

As Milbank reminds us, the book argues, “There is no middle way for Americans: It is victory or holocaust. This book is a manual for victory.” No, no ideology there.

Apparently, at the end of yesterday’s event, the moderator thanked Perle for being there: “You certainly kept us all entertained.”

And scene.

Well, Joe Biden did warn us that our adversaries would challenge Barack Obama if he was elected. Looks like North Korea is doing just that. In a statement released today, the government in Pyongyang said the North is prepared for war against the South and would consider retaliating if the U.S. and South Korea go through with planned training exercises.

The North Korean saber rattling corresponds to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Seoul today. As of yet, the U.S. has issued no formal response, but I imagine the Obama administration will not be pleased. Look for U.S./North Korea relations to remain as strained as ever.

The Obama Administration may be trying out a kinder, gentler style of foreign policy, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has already put North Korea on notice: test a long-range missile and they can forget about a better relation with the U.S. While in Japan, Clinton responded to North Korea’s assertion the nation has a right to “space exploration” with this comment:

“The possible missile launch that North Korea is talking about would be very unhelpful in moving our relationship forward,” she said, adding that if Pyongyang wants to end its isolation it also has to fulfill unmet denuclearization pledges made during the Bush administration.

“The decision as to whether North Korea will cooperate in the six-party talks, end provocative language and actions is up to them and we are watching very closely,” Clinton said, referring to the six-nation talks aimed at getting North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons.

“If North Korea abides by the obligations it has already entered into and verifiably and completely eliminates its nuclear program, then there will be a reciprocal response certainly from the United States,” she said. “It is truly up to the North Koreans.”

North Korea is one of those foreign relation situations where there is no good answer, just a series of bad answers with varying consequences. Apparently, the Obama Administration is not going to rush to establish a new tactic to handling Pyongyang and will stick to the Bush Administration’s policies for the time being.

I don’t expect Obama to have any more success in reforming North Korea than did his predecessors. I do expect him and his team to be smart enough to follow a policy of containment. Really, the most important aspect of the six party talks is not to get North Korea to agree to change but to get China, South Korea, Japan, Russia and the U.S. to all agree (and to continue to agree) that the rogue nation needs to be contained. The best Obama can probably hope for is ensuring the large powers don’t fracture over the issue. Changing North Korea seems unlikely. Ensuring the nation is more nuisance than threat is the real goal.

When the important matters of our day are all but forgotten, I think the Clintons will still be remembered, if not accurately, then at least as meaningful figures of their time. Inside that couple is a Shakespearean play. Too bad all we have so far is Primary Colors.

As you all know, today marked Hillary Clinton’s official ascension to Secretary of State. That makes the Clintons the only American couple in history in which both husband and wife became one of the world’s most powerful people. That’s no small feat.

What I hope this marks is the end, or at least the beginning of the end, of the era when powerful, capable women served as hidden advisors to their powerful husbands. Obviously, women have served on their own merits in government for awhile now and I don’t mean to minimize their achievements. But there is still the expectation in our culture that powerful men will not have equally powerful wives. Hillary Clinton has fought that expectation and, despite her shortcomings, I admire her for her tenacity in the face of a culture that still sees her more as Bill’s wife than her own person.

Hillary Clinton lost her party’s presidential nomination and could have easily taken that as the ultimate sign that she would never rise above the position of senator. Instead, she did what few said was possible — she made nice with Barack Obama and secured for herself the most powerful position in the cabinet. She’s not the first (or even the second) woman to serve as Secretary of State and she still has to prove herself capable, but, thanks to her, fewer couples will feel compelled to make the either/or choice. Both husband and wife can aspire and achieve great heights. That seems obvious, but it’s a surprisingly new cultural phenomenon.