World War III, anyone? Palin echoes McCain

Sarah Palin suggested in her first public discussion of world affairs on ABC with Charlie Gibson tonight that the U.S. should quickly make Georgia a NATO ally and then be prepared to go to war with Russia in case of further Russian-Georgian conflict:

GIBSON: And under the NATO treaty, wouldn't we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?

PALIN: Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help.

This simple syllogism needs to be viewed in the context of McCain's longstanding adventurism and provocation in Georgia.

McCain has for years urged that Georgia's membership in NATO be fast-tracked, notwithstanding that NATO's rules call for aspiring members to settle territorial disputes before they can be provided with membership "action plans." Since its civil war in 1991-1992, Georgia has insisted that full sovereignty over South Ossetia and Abkhazia is essential to its territorial integrity, though vast majorities in both regions do not want to be part of Georgia. McCain, schooled by his lobbyist-advisor Randy Scheunemann, who has taken over $800,000 in lobbying fees from the Georgian government since 2001, has offered unequivocal support for Georgia's claims to complete sovereignty over those regions.

In August 2006, McCain visited Georgia and added a visit to South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoiti. He was disappointed to hear from Kokoiti that "The people of South Ossetia see their future within the Russian Federation." Back in Tbilisi, McCain proclaimed, "Your country is a friend of America, and is worthy to become a NATO member," adding "Putin will never be president on Georgian territory" -- a statement literally true now that Putin is prime minister rather than President, but essentially belied today by South Ossetia's eager move into the Russian bear's embrace. On the same trip, McCain and other senators flew in a helicopter with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili over South Ossetian airspace -- and were fired upon by the South Ossetians.

In Georgia as in other global hot spots, McCain has been more aggressive and confrontational than the Bush Administration. Anatol Lieven Lieven, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, noted McCain's provocative role in his prescient essay "War in the Caucasus?" -- published in October 2006:

The Bush administration has repeatedly assured the Kremlin that it is putting heavy pressure on Saakashvili’s government not to attack the breakaway regions. Yet Moscow can’t help but see a contradiction. Exhibit A is the fact that the United States continues to arm and train Georgian forces. Moreover, Russians see Georgian adventurism as encouraged by less restrained U.S. politicians, such as John McCain and other senators who visited Georgia in recent months and expressed strong support for Georgian aspirations. McCain’s helicopter allegedly came under fire as it flew over South Ossetia.

Vladimir Putin's recent assertion that the Bush Administration urged Saakashivili to invade South Ossetia in order to help John McCain get elected was doubtless a cynical and paranoid overstatement. But McCain's constant provocations fuel Russian paranoia; his election would bring that paranoia to fever pitch. In February 2008, Interfax relayed Russian official thinking in the voice of one Sergei Markov:

The U.S. and Russian political analysts wonder why McCain hates Russia so much. There are different assumptions here. Some believe he cannot come over his wounds suffered in Vietnam, for which he blames the Soviet Union. McCain is the last Cold War warrior. Despite the fact that neither the USSR nor this war exist any longer, he is continuing it.

One does not have to condone Russia's disproportionate force in Georgia or its continuing effort to unseat Saakashvili to recognize that there were two sides to that conflict -- and that the idiotic Saakashvili gave the Russians rhetorical and moral cover by attacking first. But McCain recognizes no such nuance. In his telling, Georgia is simply "a wonderful little country...one of the earliest Christian nations" -- now "suffering terribly" under unprovoked Russian aggression. Palin echoed this simplified morality play today, asserting, "For Russia to have exerted such pressure in terms of invading a smaller democratic country, unprovoked, is unacceptable."

Was Russia's deep incursion into Georgian territory "unacceptable"? Yes. Was it "unprovoked"? No. Did Russia provoke the provocation? Probably. But it's McCain's way in this election cycle to keep things comic-book simple -- in fact to lie relentlessly to make things simple.

Georgia is not the only theater in which McCain has exceeded all other public figures in belligerence. On multiple occasions, he's advocated risking war in North Korea. In 1999, he criticized Clinton's "prevent defense" even as he acknowledged that the "firmer response" he called for "might have triggered a war." In 2003, he urged the Bush Administration to impose strict sanctions and a blockade -- again stating openly that he was ready for all-out war:

But if we fail to achieve the international cooperation necessary to end this threat, then the countries int he region should know with certainty that while they may risk their own populations, the United States will do whatever it must to guarantee the security of the American people. And spare us the usual lectures about American unilateralism. We would prefer the company of North Korea's neighbors, but we will make do without it if we must ("Rogue State Rollback, January 20, 2003 - recently removed from McCain's Senate website).

McCain may in fact prove a grave risk to world peace. In addition to coming out in favor of war with Iraq within weeks of 9/11, he has advocated providing Taiwan with a missile shield, blockading North Korea, bombing Iran (in jest, right?), and imposing an investment blockade on Russia after Putin jailed oligarch Khodorkovsky in 2003.

Sarah Palin, if she accepts her pastor's teaching, believes literally in Armageddon. John McCain seems willing, even eager, to risk it.

McCain finds a Christian Crusade in Georgia's misfortune

Among the great disgusting moments in U.S. presidential campaign history, ring up John McCain recasting the Russian invasion of Georgia as a religious war in last night's Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency, hosted by megapastor Pastor Rick Warren. In a great pandering mush, McCain managed to fuse democratic evangelicalism with Christian evangelicalism in a fairy tale version of the current catastrophe (excuse the caps; that's how the available transcript is formatted):

I'M VERY SADDENED HERE TO BE WITH YOU AND TALK ABOUT A RUSSIA REEMERGENCE IN THE CENTURIES OLD AMBITION OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE TO DOMINATE THAT PART OF THE WORLD. KILLINGS, MURDER, VILLAGES ARE BEING BURNED. PEOPLE ARE BEING WANTONLY EJECTED FROM THEIR HOMES. LATEST FIGURE IS FROM HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATION IS 118,000 PEOPLE FROM THAT SMALL COUNTRY. IT WAS ONE OF THE EARLIEST CHRISTIAN NATIONS. THE KING OF THEN GEORGIA IN THE THIRD CENTURY CONVERTED TO CHRISTIANITY. YOU GO TO GEORGIA AND YOU SEE THESE OLD CHURCHES THAT GO BACK TO THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CENTURY. IN FACT THE PRESIDENT SAAKZSHVILI IS A MAN WHO IS EDUCATED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ON A SCHOLARSHIP. HE WENT BACK TO GEORGIA AND WITH OTHER YOUNG PEOPLE WHO HAD ALSO RECEIVED AN EDUCATION THEY ACHIEVED A REVOLUTION THEY HAD DEMOCRACY PROSPERITY AND A GREAT ALSO NATION AND NOW THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING IN THERE IN AN ACT OF AGGRESSION AND WE HAVE TO NOT ONLY BRING ABOUT CEASE FIRE BUT WE HAVE TO HAVE HONORED ONE OF THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF ANY NATION AND THAT IS TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY. WE MUST RESPECT THE ENTIRE TERRITORY OF RUSSIA -- EXCUSE ME -- THE RUSSIANS MUST RESPECT THE ENTIRE TERRITORIAL INTEGRITY OF GEORGIA AND THERE'S ONLY 4 MILLION PEOPLE IN GEORGIA MY FRIENDS. I'VE BEEN THERE. IT'S A BEAUTIFUL LITTLE COUNTRY THEY ARE WONDERFUL PEOPLE. THEY ARE SUFFERING TERRIBLY NOW (my emphasis).

Never mind that Georgia's current nominal territory was cobbled together by none other but Stalin, and so its "territorial integrity" supports about as much social cohesion as that Yugoslavia or Iraq. Never mind that vast majorities in South Ossetia and Abkhazia no more want to be part of Georgia than Georgia wants to be part of Greater Russia. (Yes, the situation is complicated; Georgians were ethnnically cleansed from Abkhazia in the early '90s, and Russian proxies largely run both provinces. But McCain doesn't do nuance.) Never mind that that young western-educated paragon Saakashvili - who held up McCain as a political model for himself shortly after his election* -- recklessly started the current war with an invasion and bombardment of South Ossetia.

What is the relevance of Georgia's status as "one of the earliest Christian nations"? Is that a simple pander to an Evangelical audience - we have to take care of one of our own? Pander yes, simple no. In McCain's comic-book historical narrative, there's a straight line from Christianity to democracy; arrayed on the other side are the Godless communists and autocratic Muslims. Unfortunately he can't tie Russia to radical Islam (though maybe Russia is less Christian than Georgia, since Christianity didn't come to Russia till around 1000?), but in his universe the Russians are still Godless communists. And the U.S. can return to the simple imagined moral clarity of Ronald Reagan's "evil empire" stance early in his presidency:

THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES HAS THE GREATEST ASSET IS THE BULLY PULPIT. THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND I GO BACK AGAIN TO RONALD REAGAN HE WENT TO THE BERLIN WALL AND SAID TAKE DOWN THIS WALL. CALLED THEM AN EVIL EMPIRE. MANY SAID DON'T, DON'T ANTAGONIZE THE RUSSIANS OR DON'T CAUSE A CONFRONTATION WITH THE SOVIET UNION. HE STOOD FOR WHAT HE BELIEVED AND HE SAID WHAT HE BELIEVED AND HE SAID THAT TO THOSE PEOPLE WHO WERE THEN CAPTIVE NATIONS THE DAY WILL COME WHEN YOU WILL KNOW FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY AND THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF MAN. OUR JUDEO CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES DICTATE THAT WE DO WHAT WE CAN TO HELP PEOPLE WHO ARE PRESSED THROUGHOUT THE WORLD AND I WOULD LIKE TO TELL YOU THAT I STILL THINK THAT EVEN IN THE WORSE PLACES IN THE WORLD TODAY IN THE DARKEST CORNERS LITTLE COUNTRIES LIKE BELARUS, THEY STILL HARBOR THIS HOPE AND DREAM SOME DAY TO BE LIKE US AND HAVE FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY AND WE HAVE OUR FLAWS AND WE HAVE OUR FAILINGS AND WE TALK ABOUT THEM ALL THE TIME AND WE SHOULD, BUT WE REMAIN MY FRIENDS THE MOST UNUSUAL EXPERIMENT IN HISTORY AND I'M PRIVILEGED TO SPEND EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE IN IT. I KNOW WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE WITHOUT IT.

Never mind that the revered Reagan negotiated over many years with Gorbachev, establishing trust over time, supporting his reforms within the Soviet Union, and proceeding with caution and tact as communism unraveled in Eastern Europe. In the aureate glow of McCain's nostalgia, Reagan simply shouted ant the Wall came tumbling down.

My friends (as McCain loves to say), this is dangerous stuff. McCain for years has advocated kicking Russia out of the G-8. He continues to promote the fantasy of a League of Democracies (Judeo-Christian democracies?) as a way to undercut the global influence of Russia and China. For years, he's championed Georgia's admiission into NATO and egged Saakashvili on in his quest to restore "terrotorial integrity" to Georgia; indeed, he's as responsible as anyone other than Saakashvili himself for the current debacle. A few days ago he even suggested, in a somewhat muted way, that NATO should consider sending troops to Georgia.

McCain is by this point a more extreme historical fabulist than George W. Bush himself. He is indeed likely, as Patrick Buchanan warned us with a laugh, to "make Cheney look like Gandhi."

* Saakashvili, Nov. 30, 2003, quoted by Peter Baker in The Washington Post: "I was really raised on American democracy, not only my studies but much more," he said. "JFK is my political idol." In modern terms, he patterns himself after another American politician. "For me, the closest thing in terms of political orientation is John McCain," the renegade Republican senator from Arizona.

World War III, anyone?

True to form, McCain is calling for NATO to deploy peacekeeping troops to Georgia:

NATO's North Atlantic Council should convene in emergency session to demand a ceasefire and begin discussions on both the deployment of an international peacekeeping force to South Ossetia and the implications for NATO's future relationship with Russia, a Partnership for Peace nation. NATO's decision to withhold a Membership Action Plan for Georgia might have been viewed as a green light by Russia for its attacks on Georgia, and I urge the NATO allies to revisit the decision.

Now, McCain may be calling, like Obama, for deployment of a peacekeeping force after the Russians have somehow been induced to withdraw. If so, it's unclear how either candidate envisions getting the Russians to withdraw - via a Security Council resolution they're sure to veto? But McCain, by calling on NATO to begin discussions on deployment of such a force, seems to suggest that NATO might send troops to impose peace.

If that's the case, then McCain, ever ready to risk war in Korea, Iraq and Iran, has distinguished himself as the first western leader since World War II to intimate that it might be a good idea to start a ground war with Russia.

More likely, placing discussion of a peacekeeping force in the NATO context is a bit of shadow bluster, of a piece with proposing that the G7 meet without Russia -- suggesting that the antecedents of McCain's fantasy League of Democracies might somehow craft a solution without engaging Russia, by sheer force of will.

Of course, McCain is not wasting the opportunity to paint Obama as soft on...everything. Perhaps he'd rather threaten war than lose an election. And as President, much evidence suggests that when faced with crisis, McCain would rather start a war than be cast by any critic in the Neville Chamberlain role he habitually hangs on his opponents.

P.S. It's rather creative of McCain to suggest that Russia may have been encouraged to act by NATO's hesitance to fast-track Georgian NATO membership, rather than provoked to act because NATO is considering inviting Georgia to join.

McCain on Georgia: lying or deluded?

Newly released accounts by the independent observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OCSE) of this summer's Georgian war, reported in today's Times, emphasize three conclusions:

1. Georgia's shelling of the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali was not preceded by large-scale South Ossetian shelling of Georgian villages, as claimed by Georgia. "According to the monitors...no shelling of Georgian villages could be heard in the hours before the Georgian bombardment. At least two of the four villages that Georgia has since said were under fire were near the observers’ office in Tskhinvali, and the monitors there likely would have heard artillery fire nearby."

2. The shelling was indiscriminate - " Georgian artillery rounds and rockets were falling throughout the city at intervals of 15 to 20 seconds between explosions, and within the first hour of the bombardment at least 48 rounds landed in a civilian area."
3. While hitting civilian areas throughout the city, the attack also targeted Russian outposts. "Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, said that by morning on Aug. 8 two Russian soldiers had been killed and five wounded. Two senior Western military officers stationed in Georgia, speaking on condition of anonymity because they work with Georgia’s military, said that whatever Russia’s behavior in or intentions for the enclave, once Georgia’s artillery or rockets struck Russian positions, conflict with Russia was all but inevitable. This clear risk, they said, made Georgia’s attack dangerous and unwise."

None of this proves that the Russians did not draw the Georgians into this suicidally foolish assault, or that Ossetians did not shell Georgian villages at some point prior to the attacks. But it does highlight the dangerous absurdity of John McCain's Manichean pronouncements and saber rattling in the wake of the Russian attack. (McCain has a long history as Saakashvili's enabler-in-chief. ) Here's Christian warrior McCain at Saddleback:

I'm very saddened here to be with you and talk about a Russian re-emergence in the centuries-old ambition of the Russian empire to dominate that part of the world -- killings, murder. Villages are being burned. People are being wantonly ejected from their homes. The latest figures from a human rights organization is 118,000 people in that small country. It was one of the earliest Christian nations. The king of then-Georgia in the third century converted to Christianity. You go to Georgia and you see these old churches that go back to the 4th and 5th century.

My friends, the president, the president, Saakashvili, is a man who was educated in the United States of America on a scholarship. He went back to Georgia, and with other young people who had also received an education, they achieved a revolution. They had democracy, prosperity and a great little nation.

And now the Russians are coming in there in an act of aggression. And we have to not only bring about cease-fire, but we have to have honored one of the most fundamental rights of any nation, and that is territorial integrity. We must respect the entire territory of Russia -- excuse me -- the Russians must respect the entire territorial integrity of Georgia. And there's only 4 million people in Georgia, my friends. I've been there. It's a beautiful little country. They're wonderful people. They're suffering terribly now.

And parrot Palin, distilling McCain's take to its essence:

"For Russia to have exerted such pressure in terms of invading a smaller democratic country, unprovoked, is unacceptable and we have to keep...

GIBSON: You believe unprovoked.

PALIN: I do believe unprovoked and we have got to keep our eyes on Russia, under the leadership there.

Palin, following McCain's logic to its apparent conclusion, pledged faith even unto World War III:

GIBSON: And under the NATO treaty [if George were admitted], wouldn't we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?

PALIN: Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help.

The airing of the OSCE observers' inconvenient truths should drive home what we've been spared by rejecting a McCain presidency -- policy driven by wishful thinking, reflexive posturing, Manichean polarization--not to mention cozy lobbyist relationships. McCain may well have made Cheney look like Gandhi, as Pat Buchanan forecast.

Russian Empire without Tanks?

Two weeks ago Paul Berman warned in TNR that Russia's invasion of Georgia would strengthen autocracy and weaken democracy on multiple fronts, including the internal politics of Russia's "near abroad":

The vast and irreversible effects of the invasion of Georgia will be felt everywhere in the ex-Soviet bloc, and not just there. Each of the ex-bloc countries has what could be called its own pro-Russia party, which is hostile to the democratic revolutions. The pro-Russia parties stand on several solid and distinct foundations: ethnic Russian minorities in the countries bordering on Russia; a variety of business interests linked to Russia, based either on Russian gas and raw materials, or on networks descended from the Soviet-era military and police agencies; nationalist groupings in the old Slavophilic style; and some (not all) of the heirs to the old Communist political tradition.

From atop those several foundations, the pro-Russia parties derive strength from a variety of physical threats: a threat of cyber-attack (already waged against Estonia on behalf of the Russian ethnic minority there, and, shortly before the invasion, against Georgia); a threat of a cut-off in gas supplies, which Russia has already wielded against Ukraine; and, more vaguely, a threat of murky political tension. Today, the pro-Russia parties in each of Russia's immediate neighbors and in some of the more distant neighbors can add to those the ultimate threat. The one involving tanks. The pro-Russia parties in every country have therefore emerged from last week's events massively reinforced, and they will remain so for years to come even if every one of those Russian tanks were to exit Georgia tomorrow.

Looks like this process is already playing out in Ukraine. From today's FT:

Ukraine’s pro-western coalition descended into chaos on Wednesday even as western leaders sought to demonstrate their support for Kiev following Russia’s intervention in Georgia.

Ministers backing President Victor Yushchenko walked out of a cabinet meeting on Wednesday after their Our Ukraine party threatened to quit a coalition with the bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko, the prime minister.

Addressing the nation, President Yushchenko accused Ms Tymoshenko’s bloc of plotting an ”anti-constitutional coup” by voting in tandem with communists and the Moscow-leaning Regions party in favour of legislation to cut the president’s authority. “Without a doubt, the collapse of the coalition was a well-planned action,” he said. He threatened to dissolve parliament unless politicians agreed a new coalition. Andriy Portnov, a lawmaker backing Ms Tymoshenko, said the coalition could be saved if Mr Yushchenko’s camp apologised for ”systematically trying to sabotage” the government. The partners still have up to 40 days to try to reconcile their differences....

Moscow has denied suggestions it could challenge Ukraine’s territorial integrity, but has openly protested against the speedy westward integration drive adopted by Mr Yushchenko, including plans to join Nato.

McCain used to like to talk about "rogue state rollback." Today, it looks like Western Alliance rollback is gaining momentum. Putin has already started working rhetorically to pin that process on McCain, suggesting that the Bush Administration triggered Georgia's invasion of Ossetia to help his candidacy. Russia, with good reason, considers McCain its most inveterate enemy in the U.S.. If he's elected, count on Cold War II.

"Robin" Medvedev gets red-breasted over missile defense

Is it unduly speculative to infer that Medvedev's newfound tough-guy demeanor is early fallout from the WikiLeaks cable dump? From The New York Times online:

MOSCOW — President Dmitri A. Medvedev, expressing continued wariness over the prospect of military cooperation with his country’s former cold war adversaries, warned on Tuesday that a failure by Russia and the West to reach an agreement on missile defense could provoke a new arms race. [snip]

The following alternatives await us in the next 10 years,” Mr. Medvedev told an audience of Russia’s top leaders gathered at the Kremlin. “Either we reach an agreement on missile defense and create a joint mechanism for cooperation or, if we do not succeed in entering into a constructive understanding, there will begin a new arms race.”

In the absence of cooperation, he said, Russia would be prepared to deploy “new means of attack.”

Caucasus Belli: Russia's Rhetorical Blitzkrieg

Not only has the Russian military overrun Georgia's. Now a Russian media blitzkrieg is rolling over Western handwringing. Op-eds by Russia's minister of foreign affairs Sergei Lavrov in the Financial Times (Aug. 13) and Wall Street Journal (Aug. 20) and by former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev in the New York Times (Aug. 20) mount a point-by-point assault on the Western narrative of Soviet-style aggression against"a beautiful little country" and its "wonderful people," to quote Saakashvili's enabler-in-chief, John McCain.

Since that idiot Saakashvili attacked first, bombarding and invading a province where the overwhelming majority no more wants to be part of Georgia than the Georgians want to be part of Russia, it's been easy for Russian leaders to turn the Western tale of "Soviet-style aggression" that "has no place in the twenty-first century" on its head -- and to do the same with Western threats to cut the Russians out of various forms of membership, collaboration and consultation with the West.

This is not to suggest that Russia's response to Georgia's rash grab was "proportionate," or restrained, or benign. As Putin's probably-murderous meddling in Ukranian politics made plain, he and his proxies do not want functioning democracies in Russia's near abroad to offset his bogus "managed democracy." That's what makes Saakashvili's miscalculation so catastrophic. He handed the Russians a sword, not only to gore him, but to terrorize the entire neighborhood. And the opening was not only military but rhetorical, legal, moral -- a causus belli you could driving a tank through.

Here's a sampling of how Lavrov and Gorbachev have rolled over Western talking points, one by one, in their three-pronged attack through the FT, NYT and WSJ (links above).

Spoiling for war?

Gorbachev: Russia did not want this crisis. The Russian leadership is in a strong enough position domestically; it did not need a little victorious war. Russia was dragged into the fray by the recklessness of the Georgian president,Mikheil Saakashvili. He would not have dared to attack without outside support. Once he did, Russia could not afford inaction.
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Lavrov, FT: Let me be absolutely clear. This is not a conflict of Russia’s making; this is not a conflict of Russia’s choosing. There are no winners from this conflict. Hours before the Georgian invasion, Russia had been working to secure a United Nations Security Council statement calling for a renunciation of force by both Georgia and South Ossetians. The statement that could have averted bloodshed was blocked by western countries.
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Lavrov, WSJ: Another real issue is U.S. military involvement with the government of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Did Washington purposely encourage an irresponsible and unpredictable regime in this misadventure? If the U.S. couldn't control Tbilisi's behavior before, why do some in the U.S. seek to rush to rearm the Georgian military now?

Russian tanks rolling over small, peaceful, neighbor?

Lavrov, WSJ: Meticulously avoided in those [Western] statements: The decision of Tbilisi to use crude military force against South Ossetia in the early hours of Aug. 8. The Georgian army used multiple rocket launchers, artillery and air force to attack the sleeping city of Tskhinvali.

Some honest independent observers acknowledge that a surprised Russia didn't respond immediately. We started moving our troops in support of peacekeepers only on the second day of Georgia's ruthless military assault. Yes, our military struck sites outside of South Ossetia. When the positions of your peacekeepers and the civilian population they have been mandated to protect are shelled, the sources of such attacks are legitimate targets.
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Gorbachev: The acute phase of the crisis provoked by the Georgian forces’ assault on Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia is now behind us. But how can one erase from memory the horrifying scenes of the nighttime rocket attack on a peaceful town, the razing of entire city blocks, the deaths of people taking cover in basements, the destruction of ancient monuments and ancestral graves?...

The news coverage has been far from fair and balanced, especially during the first days of the crisis. Tskhinvali was in smoking ruins and thousands of people were fleeing — before any Russian troops arrived. Yet Russia was already being accused of aggression; news reports were often an embarrassing recitation of the Georgian leader’s deceptive statements.

Democrat good, autocrat bad?

Lavrov, WSJ: When the mantra of the "Georgian democratic government" is repeated time and time again, does it mean that by U.S. standards, a democratic government is allowed to act in brutal fashion against a civilian population it claims to be its own, simply because it is "democratic"?
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Gorbachev: Mr. Saakashvili had been lavished with praise for being a staunch American ally and a real democrat — and for helping out in Iraq. Now America’s friend has wrought disorder, and all of us — the Europeans and, most important, the region’s innocent civilians — must pick up the pieces.

Self-determination?

Gorbachev: Those who rush to judgment on what’s happening in the Caucasus, or those who seek influence there, should first have at least some idea of this region’s complexities. The Ossetians live both in Georgia and in Russia. The region is a patchwork of ethnic groups living in close proximity. Therefore, all talk of “this is our land,” “we are liberating our land,” is meaningless. We must think about the people who live on the land.
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Lavrov, FT: Last Friday, after the world’s leaders had arrived at the Beijing Olympics, Georgian troops launched an all-out assault on the region of South Ossetia, which has enjoyed de facto independence for more than 16 years. The majority of the region’s population are Russian citizens. Under the terms of the 1992 agreement to which Georgia is a party, they are afforded protection by a small number of Russian peacekeeping soldiers....

No country in the world would idly stand by as its citizens are killed and driven from their homes. Russia repeatedly warned Tbilisi that it would protect its citizens by force if necessary, and its actions are entirely consistent with international law, including article 51 of the UN charter on the right of self-defence.

Destroying trust and partnership?

Lavrov, WSJ: Russia is committed to the ongoing positive development of relations with the U.S...However, it must be remembered that, as between any other major world powers, our bilateral relationship can only advance upon the basis of reciprocity. And that is exactly what has been missing over the past 16 years. I meant precisely that when I said that the U.S. will have to choose between its virtual Georgia project and its much broader partnership with Russia.

The signs are ominous. Several joint military exercises have been cancelled by the Americans. Now Washington suggests our Navy ships are no longer welcome to take part in the Active Endeavour counterterrorism and counterproliferation operation in the Mediterranean. Washington also threatens to freeze our bilateral strategic stability dialogue.

Likely to be punished?

Lavrov, WSJ: Of course, that strategic dialogue has not led us too far since last fall, including on the issue of U.S. missile defense sites in Eastern Europe and the future of the strategic arms reduction regime. But the threat itself to drop these issues from our bilateral agenda is very indicative of the cost of the choice being made in Washington in favor of the discredited regime in Tbilisi. The U.S. seems to be eager to punish Russia to save the face of a failed "democratic" leader at the expense of solving the problems that are much more important to the entire world.

It is up to the American side to decide whether it wants a relationship with Russia that our two peoples deserve. The geopolitical reality we'll have to deal with at the end of the day will inevitably force us to cooperate.

Lavrov in particular has been methodical, thorough and subtle in offering the Russian counter-narrative. Whatever the merits of the case -- and the Russian briefs are full of exaggerations, elisions and distortions -- one has to acknowledge that Lavrov is a rhetorical master. There's a mind there. The substance is above. The deeper framing, the construction of counter-narrative, is equally impressive. Relatively early on in the media campaign, in his Aug. 13 FT piece, he led off by going head-on after the West's broadest archetype before dissecting it:

For some of those witnessing the fighting in the Caucasus over the past few days, the narrative is straightforward and easy. The plucky republic of Georgia, with just a few million citizens, was attacked by its giant eastern neighbour, Russia. Add to this all the stereotypes of the cold war era, and you are presented with a truly David and Goliath interpretation – with all its accompanying connotations of good and evil. While this version of events is being written in much of the western media, the facts present a different picture.

That opening gambit is nicely balanced by Lavrov's conclusion in today's WSJ piece -- challenging the West to accept his inversion of that tale:

Just admit for a moment that the course of history must not depend entirely on what the Georgian president is saying. Just admit that a democratically elected leader can lie. Just admit that you have other sources of information—and other objectives—that shape your foreign policy.

Is Lavrov oversimplifying Western response to the crisis? Consider this bit of mythmaking from John McCain at the Aug. 16 Saddleback Forum:

I am very saddened here to be with you and talk about Russian re-emergence in the centuries-old ambition of the Russian Empire to dominate that part of the world — killings, murder, villages are being burned, people are being wantonly ejected from their homes, the latest figures from human rights organizations 118,000 people in that small country. It was one of the earliest Christian nations. The king of then-Georgia in the third century converted to Christianity. You go to Georgia and you see these old churches that go back to the 4th and 5th century.

My friends, the president — the present, Saakashvili, is a man who is educated in the United States of America on a scholarship. He went back to Georgia, and with other young people who had also received an education, they achieved a revolution. They had democracy, prosperity and a great little nation, and now the Russians are coming in there in an act of aggression, and we have to not only bring about ceasefire, but we have to have honored one of the most fundamental rights of any nation, and that is territorial integrity.

We must respect the entire territory of Russia - excuse me - the Russians must respect the entire territorial integrity of Georgia — and there’s only 4 million people in Georgia, my friends. I’ve been there. It is a beautiful little country. They are wonderful people.

Envision the author of this disjointed, pandering ramble going head-to-head with the Russian leadership. Looks like a Russia-Georgia scale mismatch.

McCain to Europe: I'm not Bush

With Democrats branding a McCain presidency as Bush's third term, McCain used the Financial Times yesterday to send a message to Europe and the world: not so.

McCain's pitch was for renewed transatlantic partnership. Its subtext was 'I'm not Bush':

At the heart of this new compact must be mutual respect and trust. We Americans recall the words of our founders in the Declaration of Independence, that we must pay “decent respect to the opinions of mankind”. Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed.

We need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies. When we believe that international action is necessary, whether military, economic or diplomatic, we will try to persuade our friends that we are right. But we, in return, must also be willing to be persuaded by them.

"A decent respect for the opinions of mankind"..radical! Recall Bush's ferocious vows that the U.S. would never ask any entity's permission to act as it saw fit. Never mind that this bow to multilateralism is folded inside a proposal to bypass the unmentioned United Nations (and to a lesser extent, China and Russia) in all matters of substance:

We need to renew and revitalise our democratic solidarity. We need to strengthen our transatlantic alliance as the core of a new global compact – a League of Democracies – that can harness the great power of the more than 100 democratic nations around the world to advance our values and defend our shared interests.

The superannuation of the U.N. might make McCain's outreach to the multilateralist Europeans a bit of a stretch. Still, he does set out several marked departures from the substance and style of the Bush Administration policies, including:

Stopping torture: "We all have to live up to our own high standards of morality and international responsibility. We will fight the terrorists and at the same time defend the rights that are the foundations of our societies. We cannot torture or treat inhumanely the suspected terrorists that we have captured. We must close the detention facility at Guantá­namo and come to a common international understanding on the disposition of dangerous detainees under our control."

This does leave unexplained McCain's recent vote against subjecting the CIA to the U.S. Military code of conduct in treatment of detainees. The 'common international understanding' he calls for remains a black box. Nonetheless, the impression persists that McCain would roll back at least some of Bush's outrages against civil liberties and international law.

Going first on climate change: "We need to reinvigorate the US-European partnership on climate change where we have so many common interests at stake. The US and Europe must lead together to encourage the participation of the rest of the world, including most importantly, the developing economic powerhouses of China and India" (my emphasis)...."We need a successor to Kyoto, a cap-and-trade system that delivers the necessary environmental impact in an economically responsible manner." Gone, it would seem, is the Bush insistence that China and India must move with us before we take a step.

Eur-autonomy on defense: "We welcome European leadership to make the world a better and safer place. We look forward to France’s full reintegration into Nato. And we strongly support the EU’s efforts to build an effective European Security and Defence Policy [ESDP]. A strong EU, a strong Nato and a true strategic partnership between them is profoundly in our interest."

While support for ESDP may not be a departure from Bush Administration policy, it is a departure from the McCain of yore. In a speech at Kansas State University in March 1999, he warned:

Second, Europe's growing determination to develop a defense identity separate from NATO. Once only the product of French resentments, the idea of a separate defense identity is now even entertained in London. We must be emphatic with our allies. We encourage their efforts to assume more of the burden of their defense, but only within the institutions of NATO. Defense structures accountable to the WEU or any other organization other than the alliance will ultimately kill the alliance.

McCain is doubtless aware that upwards of 85% of polled world population supported Kerry over Bush in 2004. With much of the world intoxicated by the prospect of Obama as atonement, McCain seems to be moving fast here to prevent the global encirclement of his campaign. True, Bush prevailed in the only vote that mattered to him. But four years later, Americans are plainly more attuned to the downside of alienating the world. Good for McCain that he recognizes this changed reality.

Recall, though, Patrick Buchanan's pronouncement that McCain as President will "make Cheney look like Gandhi." Somehow, I had the feeling that Buchanan knew what he was talking about. The responsible tone McCain strikes in the FT steers clear of several past and present signature positions. Mostly hidden here is the McCain who

• Advocated risking war with North Korea in 1999, 2002 and 2006 (potentially nuclear war, the last two times) rather than conciliating Kim Jong-il's regime in any way.
  

• Relentlessly frames al Qaeda in Iraq (conveniently conflated with al Qaeada proper) as the antagonist that "will win" in Iraq if we don't stay indefinitely. His recent confusion of AQI with groups supported by Iran (the very day this op-ed appeared) underscores McCain's longstanding penchant for lumping disparate militant and radical Islamic antagonists together.
  

• Voted against a Senate bill that would have held CIA interrogators to the code of conduct adopted by the U.S. military--repudiating his longstanding argument that the U.S. undermines its own security when it engages in torture.
  

Which McCain would we see as President? An unrollable but not immovable multilateralist, or Cheney on steroids?

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Silent Sarah submits to SNL skewering

Sarah Palin acquiesced to her own humiliation on Saturday Night Live last night. In two skits, the central trope was her refusal to say anything. She played right along and allowed the show's creators to write all over her. Not only did no one on the show have any substantive verbal interaction with the potential-president-in-purdah. No one really even looked at her.

In the opening skit, Tina Fey conducted a Palin press conference with her signature goofiness. The consistent theme is to mimic (and only slightly exaggerate) the you-can-see-Russia logic characteristic of the McCain campaign's Palin scripts. In this case, the line was, the American people are angry, and in the debate McCain was angry, so McCain won the debate, q.e.d.

Of course, Sarah walked in on Tina. You'd expect that the candidate would highlight the absurdity of the caricature with an ostentatious display of brilliance. You'd think that the McCain people would have insisted on something like that skit in which Hillary Clinton (I think on the Daily Show), walked a technician through a fix of an equipment failure. Instead, she simply chased Fey off the stage and announced that she would take no questions.

In the same skit, the real Palin watched Fey on-screen with Lorne Michaels. Alec Baldwin walked up and, mistaking Palin for Fey, told Michaels, You can't let Tina go out there with that woman. She goes against everything we stand for. I mean, good lord, Lorne. They call her...what's that thing they call her?" Palin responded "Caribou Barbie."Baldwin briefly glancing a Palin and realizing his mistake, said, "Forgive me, but I must say this, you are way hotter in person." He stared straight ahead as he said that. There was no real interaction, no contrition, no "I was wrong" recognition of her humanity. It was a sexual dismissal, a reinforcement rather than repudiation of the Caribou Barbie image.

The second skit was more of the same. Joining the anchors on Weekend Update, Palin announced that she would not do the planned routine because "It might be a bad idea for the campaign." Instead, she sat silently bobbing and gesticulating while Amy Phoeler launched a derisive rap highlighting McCain's creepy smile, Russia porch sightings, Todd's snowmobiling, Palin's Ayers and prospective Wright attacks, and Alaska's otherness generally -- loudly punctuated by repeated rifle fire as (and after) Phoeler felled a moose mascot with a rifle finger. It was harmless enough in itself -- except for the peculiar spectacle of the would-be-veep herself, silent again, letting the lampooners speak for her -- rocking in her seat, waving her arms as the rappers sang, "all the mavericks in the house, raise your hands," and saying nothing. Nothing!-- except a farewell "you betcha" and "good night." How could the McCain camp, which has controlled every venue in which Palin speaks since the Katie Couric disaster, have allowed this appearance without at least partly scripting it?

The SNL crew doubled the decibel level of Palin's silence -- and made moosemeat of the McCain-Palin campaign.

Breaking the Commander-in-Chief Chokehold: Obama maps a strategy

Obama has pitched two perfect games in a row. His speech on foreign policy, delivered today in Fayetteville, NC, had all the conceptual clarity and layered complexity of his speech on race, delivered yesterday.

The speech accomplishes several interlocking goals. It yokes McCain and Clinton together (with Bush) as blinkered tacticians who lacked the judgment and the strategic breadth to recognize our main enemy. It delivers a series of hammer blows that lay bare the blind alley of our current course. It explains how the debate about the past frames our decisions about what we do next. It lays out a coherent strategic vision that shifts our emphasis from Iraq to Afghanistan. Finally, it delves into the mindsets of masses throughout the world who regard the U.S. as an enemy and outlines how to turn those minds around.

In his critique of McCain and Clinton, Obama differentiates as well as equating the two. In Obama's telling, McCain was Bush's fellow ideologue, and Clinton was the fellow traveler who went along for political expediency:

History will catalog the reasons why we waged a war that didn't need to be fought, but two stand out. In 2002, when the fateful decisions about Iraq were made, there was a President for whom ideology overrode pragmatism, and there were too many politicians in Washington who spent too little time reading the intelligence reports, and too much time reading public opinion. The lesson of Iraq is that when we are making decisions about matters as grave as war, we need a policy rooted in reason and facts, not ideology and politics.

Make no mistake, for Obama it's McCain who's rooted in 'ideology' and Clinton in 'politics.' And it's because Hillaray went along, Obama argues, that politics as well as policy dictates that he will be the stronger candidate:

It is time to have a debate with John McCain about the future of our national security. And the way to win that debate is not to compete with John McCain over who has more experience in Washington, because that's a contest that he'll win. The way to win a debate with John McCain is not to talk, and act, and vote like him on national security, because then we all lose. The way to win that debate and to keep America safe is to offer a clear contrast, and that's what I will do when I am the nominee of the Democratic Party – because since before this war in Iraq began, I have made different judgments, I have a different vision, and I will offer a clean break from the failed policies and politics of the past

The promised "clear contrast" structures the speech. It starts with the initial decision to go to war, the point onPublish Post which Obama has largely based his claim to good judgment. But before dissecting that error, Obama pauses to rebut McCain's complaint that Obama just wants to talk about the past. How we view the decision to invade Iraq, he argues, determines how we conceive our strategy going forward:

...the judgment that matters most on Iraq – and on any decision to deploy military force – is the judgment made first. If you believe we are fighting the right war, then the problems we face are purely tactical in nature. That is what Senator McCain wants to discuss – tactics. What he and the Administration have failed to present is an overarching strategy: how the war in Iraq enhances our long-term security, or will in the future. That's why this Administration cannot answer the simple question posed by Senator John Warner in hearings last year: Are we safer because of this war? And that is why Senator McCain can argue – as he did last year – that we couldn't leave Iraq because violence was up, and then argue this year that we can't leave Iraq because violence is down.

That last bit of mockery recalls the oft-repeated point that Bush justified his tax cuts first by surplus, then by recession, then by recovery (and now McCain is justifying them by impending recession). This drives home his point that for Bush and McCain "ideology overrode pragmatism" and our policy was not (and will not be with McCain) "rooted in reason and facts."

The past is prologue for Obama because he wants to turn our foreign policy inside out. His core argument is that Afghanistan, not Iraq, is "the central front in the war on terror," and we can't win in Afghanistan (and Pakistan) unless we divert resources for Iraq. Hence the heart of his critique drives home with anaphoric hammer blows the ill effects of our inverted strategy, in ascending order of priority:

The war in Iraq has emboldened Iran, which poses the greatest challenge to American interests in the Middle East in a generation, continuing its nuclear program and threatening our ally, Israel. Instead of the new Middle East we were promised, Hamas runs Gaza, Hizbollah flags fly from the rooftops in Sadr City, and Iran is handing out money left and right in southern Lebanon.

The war in Iraq has emboldened North Korea, which built new nuclear weapons and even tested one before the Administration finally went against its own rhetoric, and pursued diplomacy.

The war in Iraq has emboldened the Taliban, which has rebuilt its strength since we took our eye off of Afghanistan.

Above all, the war in Iraq has emboldened al Qaeda, whose recruitment has jumped and whose leadership enjoys a safe-haven in Pakistan – a thousand miles from Iraq.

Having laid out the damage and brought us to the present, Obama reminds us of a reality that Kerry, to be fair, stated forcefully almost four years ago. Since then there's been a seismic shift in perception, so perhaps we're ready to hear this:

The central front in the war against terror is not Iraq, and it never was. What more could America's enemies ask for than an endless war where they recruit new followers and try out new tactics on a battlefield so far from their base of operations? That is why my presidency will shift our focus. Rather than fight a war that does not need to be fought, we need to start fighting the battles that need to be won on the central front of the war against al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This is the area where the 9/11 attacks were planned. This is where Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants still hide. This is where extremism poses its greatest threat. Yet in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, we have pursued flawed strategies that are too distant from the needs of the people, and too timid in pursuit of our common enemies....

It is not too late to prevail in Afghanistan. But we cannot prevail until we reduce our commitment in Iraq, which will allow us to do what I called for last August – providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our efforts in Afghanistan.

The speech is packed with detailed argument over about policy specifics -- about why Iraq is likely to do better if we withdraw troops steadily (I confess to serious doubts about that), about how to regain credibility in Pakistan, how to go after al Qaeda. But there's one more piece to the large strategic sweep, and that's a vision for winning, to lapse into a tired phrase Obama avoids, the battle for hearts and minds. Just as in the speech on race Obama sketched in a couple of paragraphs the mindset of blacks embittered by discrimination and whites embittered by affirmative action, here Obama takes a swift flyover the world's interior landscape:

What lies in the heart of a child in Pakistan matters as much as the airplanes we sell her government. What's in the head of a scientist from Russia can be as lethal as a plutonium reactor in Yongbyon. What's whispered in refugee camps in Chad can be as dangerous as a dictator's bluster. These are the neglected landscapes of the 21st century, where technology and extremism empower individuals just as they give governments the ability to repress them; where the ancient divides of region and religion wash into the swift currents of globalization.

It is hard to imagine a more, er, nuanced depiction of the challenges of asymmetrical warfare. The common theme in Obama's prescriptions for the broader contest is leading by example -- by focusing aid to countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan in large part on education and welfare; by strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and returning to Reagan's goal of "a world without nuclear weapons"; by restoring habeas and other civil liberties and banning torture; by doubling foreign assistance aimed at poverty and disease; by leading world efforts on global warming; and by investing in education at home to maintain our competitiveness.

There's broad consensus on some of these goals, but the strategic framework in which Obama places them raises the hope once again that the force of his words can build a working majority that will enable meaningful action on all or most of these fronts.

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Why did Putin do it?

Like almost anyone watching, I would be delighted if a U.S. strike against Syria could be averted by an agreement to place Syrian chemical weapons under international control.

At the same time: A world in which Vladimir Putin defuses a crisis by proposing and following through on an executable plan to reduce violence is not the world I thought we live in.  I can't help but at least half-expect yesterday's hope to go up in a puff of smoke, perhaps as Assad simply denies that his regime has any chemical weapons (Syrian buy-in thus far has been voiced by foreign minister Walid al-Moualem). Yet events are rushing forward. France has proposed a Security Council resolution calling on Syria to empower the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to destroy its chemical weapons and require Syria to join the OPCW, the implementing authority for the Chemical Weapons Convention. It's hard to see Russia blocking some kind of Security Council resolution to execute its proposal, if not France's current draft per se, and China too has indicated support. So even if action to secure Syrian CW does not materialize quickly, the Russian proposal seems to be on course at least to break the Security Council logjam and hence defuse the impetus for near-unilateral U.S. action. 

Why did Putin do it? The authorization for military action against Syria that the administration has sought seemed headed for near-certain defeat.  Almost two thirds of Americans are opposed to a strike.  Regarding international conflict, Americans don't want the country to lead, whether from in front or behind. According to the latest New York Times/CBS poll, released today, 62 percent say the U.S. should not take the lead among all other countries in the world in trying to resolve international conflicts, and 61 percent oppose air strikes against Syria. Those numbers are trending the wrong way for the administration.  So why would Putin move to avert a military strike that pretty clearly was not going to happen, at least not until further atrocities hit the headlines? Four possibilities come to mind:

"The difference between a tactic and a strategy..."

James Fallows notes that while McCain claimed in Friday's debate that "Senator Obama doesn't understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy," it's Obama who's run the more strategically savvy campaign. Fallows might have added that Obama also take a more strategic approach to fashioning policy.

Hard as it is to fathom in our celebrity-death-match political arena, Obama has got as far as he has because alone of all the candidates in both parties, he has consistently explained how his proposed domestic and foreign policies advance clearly-articulated goals -- in other words, how they advance a strategy.

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Domestically, Obama's core goal is to reverse the last thirty years' rise in income inequality and risk transfer. The key tools: shift the tax burden, put a workable plan for universal healthcare in place, and jump start an alternative energy industry. Politically, the strategy is to cast this agenda as a return to core American values of shared prosperity and fairness -- to move the political center back to the left after a thirty years' rightward lurch.

In contrast, McCain's all-tactics-no-strategy orientation is extreme on the domestic front. What could be more absurd than to obsess about cutting out earmarks as a panacea for our economic ills? That's like coping with a ballooning jumbo mortgage by giving up your HBO subscription.

In foreign affairs, Obama's simplest and most-reiterated strategic point is that Iraq is not "the central front in the war on terror" -- Afghanistan/Pakistan is. More broadly, it's to a) return to realist diplomatic engagement and b) work on multiple fronts to boost the U.S. soft power arsenal.

That last is hard to deliver on. But Obama understands the magnitude and dimensions of the challenge. In March, he gave a remarkable speech, far too little noticed, that laid out, as he did in the debate Friday, the full range of strategic costs of our entanglement in Iraq -- but also articulated, as he didn't do on Friday, the interconnectedness of foreign and domestic policy:

In addition to freeing up resources to take the fight to al Qaeda, ending the war in Iraq will allow us to more effectively confront other threats in the world - threats that cannot be conquered with an occupying army or dispatched with a single decision in the middle of the night. What lies in the heart of a child in Pakistan matters as much as the airplanes we sell her government. What's in the head of a scientist from Russia can be as lethal as a plutonium reactor in Yongbyon. What's whispered in refugee camps in Chad can be as dangerous as a dictator's bluster. These are the neglected landscapes of the 21st century, where technology and extremism empower individuals just as they give governments the ability to repress them; where the ancient divides of region and religion wash into the swift currents of globalization.

Without American leadership, these threats will fester. With strong American leadership, we can shape them into opportunities to protect our common security and advance our common humanity – for it has always been the genius of American leadership to find opportunity embedded in adversity; to focus on a source of fear, and confront it with hope.

Here are just five ways in which a shift in strategy away from Iraq will help us address the critical challenges of the 21st century.

First, in addressing global terror and violent extremism, we need the kind of comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy I called for last August. We need to strengthen security partnerships to take out terrorist networks, while investing in education and opportunity. We need to give our national security agencies the tools they need, while restoring the adherence to rule of law that helps us win the battle for hearts and minds. This means closing Guantanamo, restoring habeas corpus, and respecting civil liberties. And we need to support the forces of moderation in the Islamic world, so that alliances of convenience mature into friendships of conviction.

Second, the threat of nuclear proliferation must serve as a call to action. I have worked across the aisle with Richard Lugar and Chuck Hagel in the Senate to secure dangerous weapons and loose nuclear materials. And as President, I will secure all loose nuclear materials around the world in my first term, seek deep cuts in global nuclear arsenals, strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and once more seek a world without nuclear weapons.

Third, the danger of weak and failed states risks spreading poverty and refugees; genocide and disease. Now is the time to meet the goal of cutting extreme poverty in half, in part by doubling our foreign assistance while demanding more from those who receive it. And now is the time to build the capacity of regional partners in conflict prevention, peacekeeping, and the reconstruction of ravaged societies.

Fourth, the catastrophic consequences of the global climate crisis are matched by the promise of collective action. Now is the time for America to lead, because if we take action, others will act as well. Through our own cap and trade system and investments in new sources of energy, we can end our dependence on foreign oil and gas, and free ourselves from the tyranny of oil-rich states from Saudi Arabia to Russia to Venezuela. We can create millions of new jobs here in America. And we can secure our planet for our children and grandchildren.

And fifth, America's sluggish economy risks ceding our economic prominence to a rising China. Competition has always been a catalyst for American innovation, and now should be no different. We must invest in the education of our children, renew our leadership in science, and advance trade that is not just free, but fair for our workers. We must ensure that America is the economic engine in the 21st century just as we were in the 20th.

And what about McCain? What's his foreign policy strategy? Obama caught it on Friday:

We have weakened our capacity to project power around the world becauuse we have viewed everything through this single lens....

The "single lens" in this context was Iraq. But the mindset that made McCain a cheerleader for the Iraq expedition is also a "single lens". For McCain, every conflict and stress point has the same cast of characters: Hitler (Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong-il, Saddam, Milosevic), Chamberlain (Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, even, in a muted allusion re North Korea, George W.), and Churchill (McCain). McCain is almost as Manichean as W. -- maybe, by this point, more so.

Which brings us back full cycle to campaign strategy. McCain belittles and insults Obama as he belittled and insulted Romney (who deserved it), and Bill Clinton, and doubtless the various rivals he's defeated in his own political career. The narrative is hero vs. venal mortals, Country First vs. Me First. The irony, of course, is that Mr. Country First is at the center of every narrative.

Can Obama cope with success in Iraq?

John McCain would not be where is if the surge had not led to real improvements in security, and possibly the beginnings of real political rapprochement, in Iraq. It makes sense that Republican primary voters would be more responsive to signs of progress than would the electorate as a whole. A strong majority of Americans still say that the war was a mistake, and a strong majority still favor swift withdrawal. But perceptions may lag a changing reality by several months. If conditions in Iraq continue to improve between now and November, McCain may reap a rich harvest.

Say what you like about McCain's repeated and egregious misstatements of foreign policy fact (Iran aiding al Qaeda, troop levels down to pre-surge levels, we've fruitlessly negotiated with Iran for decades, etc. etc.), his strategic straitjacket (every troublesome dictator is Hitler; every Democratic leader from Bill Clinton to Barack Obama is Neville Chamberlain; McCain is Churchill-in-waiting), his over-reliance on force and coercion (advocating a hyper-aggressive stance against North Korea in 1999, 2002 and 2006; advocating force against Saddam since 1998), his strategic incoherence (assembling a League of Democracies, aka a permanent 'coalition of the willing,' that would isolate China and Russia and undercut the UN). As wrong as he was in cheerleading our entry into Iraq, he may have been equally right about the potential of the surge (though we'll never know what the effect of following the Iraq Study Group blueprint would have been).

Maliki's latest military successes in Basra, Sadr City and possibly now in Mosul, and Sadr's latest rope-a-dope should make unbiased observers at the very least hesitate to assert that the apparent progress is all a bridge to nowhere. And from a political point of view, serially denigrating sign after sign of progress is not a good place to be.

All of which is to say that a McCain attack like this one, delivered yesterday in Arlington to AIPAC, packs a force to be reckoned with:

Another matter of great importance to the security of both America and Israel is Iraq. You would never know from listening to those who are still caught up in angry arguments over yesterday's options, but our troops in Iraq have made hard-won progress under General Petraeus' new strategy. And Iraqi political leaders have moved ahead - slowly and insufficiently, but forward nonetheless. Sectarian violence declined dramatically, Sunnis in Anbar province and throughout Iraq are cooperating in the fight against al Qaeda, and Shia extremist militias no longer control Basra - the Maliki government and its forces are in charge. Al Qaeda terrorists are on the run, and our troops are going to make sure they never come back.

It's worth recalling that America's progress in Iraq is the direct result of the new strategy that Senator Obama opposed. It was the strategy he predicted would fail, when he voted cut off funds for our forces in Iraq. He now says he intends to withdraw combat troops from Iraq - one to two brigades per month until they are all removed. He will do so regardless of the conditions in Iraq, regardless of the consequences for our national security, regardless of Israel's security, and in disregard of the best advice of our commanders on the ground.

This course would surely result in a catastrophe. If our troops are ordered to make a forced retreat, we risk all-out civil war, genocide, and a failed state in the heart of the Middle East. Al Qaeda terrorists would rejoice in the defeat of the United States. Allowing a potential terrorist sanctuary would profoundly affect the security of the United States, Israel, and our other friends, and would invite further intervention from Iraq's neighbors, including an emboldened Iran. We must not let this happen. We must not leave the region to suffer chaos, terrorist violence and a wider war.

Andrew Sullivan, reflecting on the Maliki government's recent gains, emphasizes the policy challenge but does not look at the political challenge that those gains pose for Obama:

The trap Obama must not be caught in is one of excessive pessimism. Conditions now favor expeditious withdrawal more than they did only a few months ago. But the manner of withdrawal, its pace, and its concomitant diplomacy now require a different cast, and may require an even different one next February and March. None of this means that this war was not a mistake; it does suggest it need not in the medium term be a catastrophe. Petraeus deserves the lion's share of the credit; luck and time and the self-defeating nihilism of the Jihadists have helped. But Bush and McCain equally merit points for pursuing the surge, even though the metrics pointed to failure. Obama needs to capitalize on these gains, not dismiss them.

The hard task of "capitalizing on those gains" will be the unquestioned business of the next president. What's more problematic for Obama is to position himself during the campaign to be able to do that -- and to maintain credibility through the campaign if progress in Iraq continues. As Sullivan suggests, Obama in office may plausibly be able to maintain or even further progress in Iraq by steadily drawing down troops (and in fact, McCain has responded to the political pressure generated by his "100 years statement"to indicate that he will look for opportunities to do the same). What's hard is for Obama to grant now that progress in Iraq is not all illusory or temporary, that the surge was at least a major catalyst of that progress, that fostering stability in Iraq is a necessary goal, and that doing so may conflict at times with unbroken troop withdrawal. He has to find a way to acknowledge during the campaign what Samantha Powers spilled off-message: that "listening to the generals" may affect strategy as well as tactics.

The toxic part, politically, is that McCain's claim that "America's progress in Iraq is the direct result of the new strategy that Senator Obama opposed" has real bite, and Obama may need to find a way to acknowledge its partial truth. The elements of framing such an acknowledgment might include asserting that a) drawing down the U.S. troop presence remains crucial to furthering the Iraqi government's sovereignty, to the health of our armed forces, and to advancing our core strategic needs elsewhere, e.g. Afghanistan; 2) the surge's success is welcome but cannot be sustained in a vaccuum; building on gains requires the kind of concerted multi-front diplomatic effort proposed by the Iraq study group, and also requires a visibly shrinking U.S. presence; 3) the surge was means to an end of Iraqi self-sufficiency; its gains cannot be sustained with 'more of the same.'

There is at least a symmetry in the gravitational pull of both candidates toward the center. McCain needs to walk back his enthusiasm for an unending troop presence, and Obama needs qualify his commitment to a rigid withdrawal timetable. McCain needs to answer for enabling and cheer-leading a war that Americans will always regard as a mistake, , and Obama may ultimately be challenged to explain his rooted opposition to the surge.

UPDATE: The New Yorker's George Packer has weighed in with a blueprint for Obama adjusting his position on troop withdrawal.

Obama picks his battleground

Those of us who have watched with distress a chastened post-election Obama revert to futile bipartisan gestures and gratuitous mea culpas have wondered what he would choose to take a stand on in the lame duck session, as Republicans move to stymie all meaningful action.  The Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest? Didn't look like it, though the signals have shifted a bit in recent days. DADT?  Votes to bust a filibuster probably aren't there.

Today we have our answer. There is one battle Obama can't afford to lose -- and will lose if he defers it. That is ratification of the New START treaty with Russia.  The treaty is essential to national security, future nonproliferation efforts, United States credibility on the world stage, and, by extension, Obama's ability to conduct foreign policy.

Since Kyl's betrayal on Tuesday, I have wondered why Obama has not wrapped himself round with the six secretaries of state, seven STRATCOM commanders and five secretaries of defense who have voiced support for the treaty. Today he did that. And cleverly, he brought Ronald Reagan to the table where also sat James Baker, Madeline Albright, Henry Kissinger, William Cohen, William Perry, Brent Scowcroft, Sam Nunn, along with his current national security team:

If we ratify this treaty, we’re going to have a verification regime in place to track Russia’s strategic nuclear weapons, including U.S. inspectors on the ground.  If we don’t, then we don’t have a verification regime -– no inspectors, no insights into Russia’s strategic arsenal, no framework for cooperation between the world’s two nuclear superpowers.  As Ronald Reagan said, we have to trust, but we also have to verify.  In order for us to verify, we’ve got to have a treaty.

I think that as with healthcare reform, Obama is going to go all out and get this one over the line.  Yesterday Dick Lugar laid out the blueprint: force senators to vote yea or nay on a treaty that the entire foreign policy establishment of the last thirty years not currently holding elective office supports:

"I'm advising that the treaty should come on the floor so people will have to vote aye or nay [even if there's no deal]," he said. "I think when it finally comes down to it, we have sufficient number or senators who do have a sense of our national security. This is the time, this is the priority. Do it."

Flashback: a moment of choice

Jonathan Bernstein's Republican-eye view of the battle over New Start -- a minor PR hit for the GOP that helped run out the clock on the omnibus spending bill and so positioned them much more strongly on next year's budget battles -- is sobering but true.  It's equally true, though, that New Start was one battle that Obama could not afford to lose, though he could have fairly quietly delayed the hit by deferring (and probably dooming) the ratification effort until next term. 

By picking and winning this fight, Obama arrested the fast-hardening perception that electoral defeat at home would cripple his ability to advance U.S. interests and policy abroad.  His high-stakes, highly effective full court press on New Start also marked the end of his personal post-election remission.  I can't resist a flashback to November 18, when Obama very publicly doubled down on New Start. Re-post from that day is below.

Obama Picks his Battleground


Those of us who have watched with distress a chastened post-election Obama revert to futile bipartisan gestures and gratuitous mea culpas have wondered what he would choose to take a stand on in the lame duck session, as Republicans move to stymie all meaningful action.  The Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest? Didn't look like it, though the signals have shifted a bit in recent days. DADT?  Votes to bust a filibuster probably aren't there.

Today we have our answer. There is one battle Obama can't afford to lose -- and will lose if he defers it. That is ratification of the New START treaty with Russia.  The treaty is essential to national security, future nonproliferation efforts, United States credibility on the world stage, and, by extension, Obama's ability to conduct foreign policy.

Since Kyl's betrayal on Tuesday, I have wondered why Obama has not wrapped himself round with the six secretaries of state, seven STRATCOM commanders and five secretaries of defense who have voiced support for the treaty. Today he did that. And cleverly, he brought Ronald Reagan to the table where also sat James Baker, Madeline Albright, Henry Kissinger, William Cohen, William Perry, Brent Scowcroft, Sam Nunn, along with his current national security team:

If we ratify this treaty, we’re going to have a verification regime in place to track Russia’s strategic nuclear weapons, including U.S. inspectors on the ground.  If we don’t, then we don’t have a verification regime -– no inspectors, no insights into Russia’s strategic arsenal, no framework for cooperation between the world’s two nuclear superpowers.  As Ronald Reagan said, we have to trust, but we also have to verify.  In order for us to verify, we’ve got to have a treaty.

I think that as with healthcare reform, Obama is going to go all out and get this one over the line.  Yesterday Dick Lugar laid out the blueprint: force senators to vote yea or nay on a treaty that the entire foreign policy establishment of the last thirty years not currently holding elective office supports:

"I'm advising that the treaty should come on the floor so people will have to vote aye or nay [even if there's no deal]," he said. "I think when it finally comes down to it, we have sufficient number or senators who do have a sense of our national security. This is the time, this is the priority. Do it."

Boehner gives the game away on missile shield in Eastern Europe

John Boehner's denunciation of Obama's cancellation of the missile shield deployments in Poland and the Czech Republic shows what the plan was always really about:

“Scrapping the U.S. missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic does little more than empower Russia and Iran at the expense of our allies in Europe,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader. “It shows a willful determination to continue ignoring the threat posed by some of the most dangerous regimes in the world.”

Note the sequencing of threats in this knee-jerk reaction. What does that say about Bush's repeated protestations that the shield had nothing to do with Russia?

And don't expect any subtlety from John McCain, enabler-in-chief of that Georgian fool's Saakashvili's furnishing of a pretext for Russian intervention in 2008:

“I fear the administration’s decision will do just that [undercut allies],” Senator John McCain, Mr. Obama’s Republican rival in last year’s presidential election, said Thursday, adding that the decision came “at a time when Eastern European nations are increasingly wary of renewed Russian adventurism.”

The Poles and Czechs, meanwhile, seem to have been concerned mainly to get American boots on their soil, whatever the pretext. They're about as worried about Iran as we are over incoming meteoroids.

The decision's possible downside -- raising Polish and Czech anxieties, perhaps emboldening Russia with an unforced 'concession' over a program that allegedly had nothing to do with them--does highlight what may be the signature challenge of the Obama Administration: unraveling bad policies that entail real commitments to various parties.

Another national security election?

These numbers from the USA Today/Gallup poll (as relayed by the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza) gave me a really sick feeling:

McCain has a ten-point edge on which of the two nominees is better equipped to handle the situation in Iraq and a 17-point bulge on terrorism.

That's the way it was with Kerry-Bush, too. Why does a candidate who was talking about invading Iraq days after 9/11, who promised Iraq would be a cakewalk, who said that we could invade with less than 100,000 troops, who thought we were doing just fine in Afghanistan three years ago, who has been the chief cheerleader for Georgia's reckless Mikheil Saakashvili, who advocated risking all-out war with North Korean in 1999 and 2002, who holds out the fantasy that the U.S. can cut the emerging powers out of world decision-making with a U.S.-dominated League of Democracies, and who chose a running mate who has never concerned herself with foreign policy issues in any position or forum get high marks on national security?

To be fair, McCain was right about the surge, and voters may feel that Iraq may come unglued if the U.S. pulls out too quickly. Then there's the eternal credit McCain gets for his combat and POW experience. Voters are right to credit this; having been tested under fire and torture is a powerful qualification for the highest-pressure office on earth. But it's not dispositive: a leader needs courage, but judgment too. And McCain's foreign policy prescriptions since at least 1999 have been hair-trigger, ill-informed and ham-handed. He's recommended giving Taiwan a nuclear shield, blockading North Korea, bombing Iran (is a jest about such matters really a jest?). He's been Chalabi's dupe, Saakashvili's enabler, and Russia's perceived public enemy #1.

The Dem mantra this year has been "it's the economy, stupid" squared. Post-9/11, despite appearances, I suspect that won't fly. Obama will have to convince voters, probably in the debates, that he is has the steadier hand and superior strategic mind on matters of foreign policy and national security. It's true -- will that help?

We are all Fukuyamans - except W. and McCain

Because "The End of History" has been so widely mischaracterized by critics, I was pleased to see Fukuyama assess the new authoritarianism in today's Washington Post.

In the common caricature, Fukuyama essentially proclaimed "game over" when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. That's true in a sense - but only in an ideological sense. Fukuyama never suggested that the path to worldwide liberal democracy would be smooth or swift. His point was that with the collapse of communism, the world had no viable ideological alternative to liberal democracy that could attract widespread lasting support. Today he asserts that that remains true:

Today's autocrats can also prove surprisingly weak when it comes to ideas and ideologies. Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and Mao's China were particularly dangerous because they were built on powerful ideas with potentially universal appeal, which is why we found Soviet arms and advisers showing up in places such as Nicaragua and Angola. But this sort of ideological tyrant no longer bestrides the world stage. Despite recent authoritarian advances, liberal democracy remains the strongest, most broadly appealing idea out there. Most autocrats, including Putin and Chávez, still feel that they have to conform to the outward rituals of democracy even as they gut its substance. Even China's Hu Jintao felt compelled to talk about democracy in the run-up to Beijing's Olympic Games. And Musharraf proved enough of a democrat to let himself be driven from office by the threat of impeachment.

If today's autocrats are willing to bow to democracy, they are eager to grovel to capitalism. It's hard to see how we can be entering a new cold war when China and Russia have both happily accepted the capitalist half of the partnership between capitalism and democracy. (Mao and Stalin, by contrast, pursued self-defeating, autarkic economic policies.) The Chinese Communist Party's leadership recognizes that its legitimacy depends on continued breakneck growth. In Russia, the economic motivation for embracing capitalism is much more personal: Putin and much of the Russian elite have benefited enormously from their control of natural resources and other assets.

Democracy's only real competitor in the realm of ideas today is radical Islamism. Indeed, one of the world's most dangerous nation-states today is Iran, run by extremist Shiite mullahs. But as Peter Bergen pointed out in these pages last week, Sunni radicalism has been remarkably ineffective in actually taking control of a nation-state, due to its propensity to devour its own potential supporters. Some disenfranchised Muslims thrill to the rantings of Osama bin Laden or Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but the appeal of this kind of medieval Islamism is strictly limited.

Obama is essentially a Fukuyaman, as any American president should be. According to Fukuyama, sheer competitive pressure pushes countries first toward a market economy and then toward democracy, as a rising middle class demands an accountable government that can't take away property or personal autonomy by fiat. In Obama's telling, a government promoting human rights, free markets and democracy is swimming with the tide; it can lead primarily by example and by positive reinforcement of liberalizing trends and groups within authoritarian states. Here's how he put it in an interview last week with Time's Karen Tumulty:

When you think about our greatest victories — reintegrating Japan, Western Europe after World War II into the free world — there were enormous sacrifices, a lot of resources, but what was really powerful was how we could hold up ourselves and say, "Individuals are able to live a better life under this system." And I don't think that we should be ashamed of asserting that rule of law is better than no rule of law, that democracy is better than authoritarianism, that a free press is better than a closed press. Yet how we achieve or how we approach this, I think, has to take into account that not everybody is going to be at the same place right away, and that if we think we can simply impose our institutions through military means, that we'll probably fall short, because the world may be smaller, but it's not that small.

There's nothing startling about this approach. Every president from Roosevelt through Clinton subscribed to it in theory if not always in practice. A Fukuyaman faith underpinned the doctrine of containment, which held that if the U.S. could contain Soviet expansion while avoiding all-out military confrontation, the Soviet Union would eventually collapse because communism could not compete with democratic capitalism economically. Again, it's the pressure to keep up or catch up, to capture a share of the world's wealth, that pushes governments toward capitalism.

Whether authoritarian capitalist or quasi-capitalist states will eventually be subject to and yield to internal pressure for democracy and human rights is now widely regarded as an open question. Perhaps the rage of Chinese parents whose children's poorly-built schools collapsed in the recent earthquake, or escalating unrest from Chinese uprooted and barely compensated by government-driven development or disinherited by rampant pollution, point toward an answer.

Bush and Cheney abrogated the postwar U.S. foreign policy consensus - through their doctrine and practice of pre-emption, their messianic determination to spread democracy by fire and sword, their sustained violation of the Geneva conventions and implementation of a torture regime. McCain would extend the Bush-Cheney abrogation -- by seeking quixoticaly to cut the emerging Asian powers out of world governance with his phantasmagoric League of Democracies; by advocating sutained military action everywhere American interests or security may be threatened, e.g., Iraq, Iran, Georgia, North Korea; and by preserving the CIA's freedom to torture terror suspects or anyone else deemed a threat to American security.

Related Post:
Breaking the Commander-in-Chief Chokehold: Obama Maps a Strategy

Yes, Weigel, Palin really needs to learn something

Dave Weigel's cynicism about the media's engagement with politicians and the electorate's engagement with media is so extreme that it converts to an odd sort of credulity. Imagining "the media that's actually going to cover the 2012 elections," Weigel predicts:

This media is not going to care about her policies. If policies come up during debates, and she gives the same answers she gives on Fox now, and Mitt Romney pounces on her, the story will not be that the GOP's frontrunner gave a pallid answer. The story will be that Mitt Romney pounced. What does this do to his image? What does Mike Huckabee have to say about it?


And so on. It's hard to imagine Palin competing at the policy level the press claims she needs to get to, but easy to imagine her competing at the level they actually play on. Quick, cast your mind back to the countless 2007/2008 Democratic debates. Do you remember Hillary's mastery of policy? No. You remember her fumbling an answer on drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants, you remember Obama telling her she was "likable enough," and perhaps you remember Dennis Kucinich talking about aliens.

Okay: perhaps people's chief takeaways from the 50-odd Presidential debates of the 2008 campaign were not smart policy pronouncements -- such as Obama's assertion in his first debate with McCain, regarding the war in Iraq, "We have weakened our capacity to project power around the world because we have viewed everything through this single lens."  But that doesn't mean that viewers assess the candidates merely as celebrities. What do people remember about Palin's performance on policy questions in her national media appearances in 2008?  Incoherent babble about seeing Russia from Alaska and what happens when Putin rears his head and flies in American airspace.  Her obvious cluelessness when Charles Gibson asked for her thoughts about the Bush Doctrine. Her faux-Reagan, target-free "there you go again, Joe" in her debate with Biden.