1.“[B]ring the Iraq war to a responsible end.”

Partially met. Outlined a plan to withdraw all U.S. troops by end of 2011, in accordance with U.S.-Iraq security agreement. Iraqi national elections are to occur in January 2010, after which U.S. troops will draw down to 50,000 by August 2010.

2.”[L]aunch a comprehensive regional and international diplomatic initiative to help broker an end to the civil war in Iraq.”

Unmet. No overt movement toward a comprehensive regional and international diplomatic initiative to help resolve internal political conflicts in Iraq has occurred.

3.“[F]ocus our attention and influence on resolving the festering conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians”

Partially met. Appointed former Senator George Mitchell as senior envoy on Middle East peace, but has achieved little in terms of Israelis and Palestinians keeping their previous commitments or returning to the negotiating table.

4.“Although we must not rule out using military force, we should not hesitate to talk directly to Iran.”

Incomplete. Engaged Iran in serious direct negotiations on its nuclear program and engaged in public diplomacy, but has not received a positive or constructive response yet from Tehran.

5.“Diplomacy combined with pressure could also reorient Syria away from its radical agenda to a more moderate stance”

Incomplete. The administration has engaged Syria at the assistant secretary and special envoy levels, but results remain unclear. Additionally, Administration officials have stated a desire to send an ambassador to Syria, but none has been sent so far. However, the U.S. military held talks in August with Syrian officials on Syria-Iraq border control issues.

6.“[E]xpand our ground forces by adding 65,000 soldiers to the army and 27,000 marines”

Met. The Bush administration implemented this increase. Secretary of Defense Gates has since announced an expansion of the Army by 22,000 more troops.

7.“[W]ork with other nations to secure, destroy, and stop the spread of these weapons in order to dramatically reduce the nuclear dangers for our nation and the world. America must lead a global effort to secure all nuclear weapons and material at vulnerable sites within four years — the most effective way to prevent terrorists from acquiring a bomb.”

Partially met. The administration has achieved outline agreement on replacement for START treaty with Russia, with negotiations currently underway. Serious engagement underway on Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs. President Obama has pledged ratification of Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, but no action has yet been taken in the Senate. The review conference for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is upcoming in 2010.

8.“[P]rovide $50 million to jump-start the creation of an International Atomic Energy Agency-controlled nuclear fuel bank”

Unmet. Stalled in the IAEA.

9.“We should pursue an integrated strategy that reinforces our troops in Afghanistan and works to remove the limitations placed by some NATO allies on their forces. Our strategy must also include sustained diplomacy to isolate the Taliban and more effective development programs that target aid to areas where the Taliban are making inroads.”

Incomplete. Sent 32,000 U.S. reinforcements and engaged in diplomacy with Afghan neighbors. There has been no success in easing NATO caveats, and the heralded “civilian surge” has yet to reach full capacity. A review of U.S. strategy is currently underway.

10.“[E]ncourage dialogue between Pakistan and India to work toward resolving their dispute over Kashmir and between Afghanistan and Pakistan to resolve their historic differences and develop the Pashtun border region.”

Unmet. Special Representative Richard Holbrooke did not have India included from his portfolio after Indian preemptively protested at the prospect. It remains unclear who is coordinating between U.S. policy on India and Kashmir, though Holbrooke has visited the country. There has been no visible movement on Afghan-Pakistan border resolution, though increased tactical cooperation between U.S., Afghanistan, and Pakistan on issues like counternarcotics. It remains unclear if Pakistani security establishment has really given up on Afghan Taliban and associates.

11.“[W]e need a comprehensive strategy to defeat global terrorists — one that draws on the full range of American power, not just our military might.”

Unmet. The administration has yet to produce such a strategy, much less a formal national security strategy as required by law. However, administration has indicated its desire to use non-military means to counter terrorism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere, and Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan outlined the basics of such a strategy in an August speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

12.“[R]ebuild the alliances, partnerships, and institutions necessary to confront common threats and enhance common security.”

Partially met. Relations with traditional allies in Europe have greatly improved on a popular level, though NATO remains reluctant to engage more deeply in Afghanistan. Brief spasm of discord among eastern European elites over revised missile defense plans, though old plans were unpopular.

13.“[F]orge a more effective framework in Asia that goes beyond bilateral agreements, occasional summits, and ad hoc arrangements, such as the six-party talks on North Korea.”

Unmet. The administration has held a Strategic and Economic Dialogue summit with China in the U.S., but upcoming trip to Asia is the first attempt to engage with the region and falls into the “occasional summit” category. President Obama has not yet put forward a broad framework for trans-Pacific relations.

14. “[T]he United Nations requires far-reaching reform… Yet none of these problems will be solved unless America rededicates itself to the organization and its mission.”

Partially met. The U.S. joined the UN Human Rights Council and “paid our bills,” but there has been little movement so far on UN reform.

15.“As president, I intend to enact a cap-and-trade system that will dramatically reduce our carbon emissions… We need a global response to climate change that includes binding and enforceable commitments to reducing emissions, especially for those that pollute the most”

Unmet. The House of Representatives has pledged to go to the upcoming conference on climate change in Copenhagen if he believes his presence will help result in a “meaningful agreement.”

16.“[E]nding the practices of shipping away prisoners in the dead of night to be tortured in far-off countries, of detaining thousands without charge or trial, of maintaining a network of secret prisons to jail people beyond the reach of the law.”

Partially met. President Obama announced his intention to close Guantanamo Bay prison within a year, though precise deadline is unlikely to be met as disposition of prisoners remains unclear. He also ordered overseas CIA “black sites” closed, and has argued for detention policies within existing legal framework.

17.“[H]elp build accountable institutions that deliver services and opportunity: strong legislatures, independent judiciaries, honest police forces, free presses, vibrant civil societies.”

Unmet. A USAID director was only appointed last week. There is a perception of the administration not focusing as much on human rights issues and too much on security force capacity building.

18.“[D]ouble our annual investment in meeting these [development] challenges to $50 billion by 2012”

Incomplete. The Foreign Operations request (minus security assistance) has increased $2.7 billion from the $26.4 billion spent in FY09 to a request of $29.1 billion in FY2010.

While the Obama administration has met only one of the foreign policy and national security goals candidate Obama set for it in mid-2007, it has made some progress — however uncertain and fragile — on a great many issues. Progress on a number of these issues – engagement with Iran and Syria or obtaining a new climate change agreement, for example — is dependent on factors outside President Obama’s control. Most of his goals receive incompletes, as the results from current initiatives have yet to bear fruit.

With an apparent consensus on the need to train more Afghan security personnel more rapidly, it’s instructive to take a look at the United States’ smaller scale efforts to build security forces elsewhere in the Middle East. On Tuesday, I attended an event at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on Yezid Sayigh’s report on security sector reform in Palestine, Lebanon and Yemen. Sayigh’s presentation made several interesting points that should have a direct impact on U.S. decision makers and the implementers, most likely in the military, as they prepare for a larger train-and-equip effort in Afghanistan.

First, Sayigh noted that U.S. and EU efforts tend to have competing priorities — in the cases of Palestine, Lebanon, and Yemen, embedding security forces in a democratic rule of law framework versus building an effective counterterrorism force. In the cases he studied, Sayigh found that U.S. and EU efforts tend to focus on creating special counterterrorism units to the detriment of the rest of the security sector, and these new CT units are then prime targets for capture by political factions. Nicole Ball, a panelist at the event, later made the point that even solely CT-focused efforts wind up unsuccessful at achieving CT objective.

Second, success in building and reforming security sectors is possible when there is local ownership of the overall effort. As Sayigh told the attendees, “no amount of external coercion or bribery will work without local ownership.” He cites the relative success in reforming the Palestinian Authority’s security sector under Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad in 2007 and 2008.

These two main points have important implications for an expanded training effort in Afghanistan. The most important in my view is the need to get buy-in for the expanded effort from President Hamid Karzai and his new government, especially the defense ministry. Current Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak has long argued for a bigger Afghan army, and should he remain defense minister it’s likely he and his ministry will be on board with an expanded training mission. U.S. and NATO country diplomats should also work to make sure the opposition to Karzai, such as Abdullah Abdullah’s political faction, also support the new training program.

After buy-in is obtained, the United States will have to avoid Karzai politicizing the security sector. While Karzai has so far avoided overly politicizing Afghanistan’s national security forces, leaders with dubious legitimacy will always face the temptation to create regime protection forces loyal to themselves rather than professional security forces loyal to the state. U.S. and NATO diplomats and military trainers will have to work in tandem to ensure Karzai does not go down the path of security force politicization. Such politicization has occurred in Iraq, where former mayor Najim Abed al-Jabouri has stated entire divisions of the Iraqi army are beholden to the various political parties there. In addition, the United States needs to be careful to not let elite units like the ANA’s commando force become pawns in political jockeying in Kabul.

These largely political issues need to be considered by decision-makers here in Washington and implementers in the military as they embark on an expanded training effort. The key takeaway from our much smaller-scale efforts in Palestine, Lebanon, and Yemen is that these political issues can make or break a training effort, and are therefore integral to success. Fortunately, Afghans regard the ANP and ANA generally positively, and Karzai has shown little inclination toward politicizing them so far. The key for the United States is to keep its eyes open for signs of politicization and make sure Karzai and other Afghan government and political figures stay bought-in to the expanded training program. This task may be difficult, but it’s not insurmountable.

This timeless joke about the economics profession popped into my head as I was reading Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s leaked Afghanistan assessment. Overall, the assessment makes good recommendations as to what changes the international military effort in Afghanistan needs to make to improve the odds of success. Increased embedding and enhanced partnering with Afghan security forces, taking greater force protection risks to better protect the population, reversing the insurgency’s momentum, and the like will all be important if the Obama administration decides to go forward with McChrystal’s strategy.

But there’s an incredibly important blind spot in the assessment. Like the economist assuming a ladder, the assessment assumes a more effective Afghan government, and what’s more, an Afghan government that wants to be more effective. It’s astonishing that the assessment makes this assumption given the ink it spills detailing the severe problems the Afghan government has delivering security and basic services — not to mention the crisis of legitimacy the August election has exacerbated. To wit:

The weakness of state institutions, malign actions of power-brokers, widespread corruption and abuse of power by various officials, and ISAF’s own errors, have given Afghans little reason to support their government. These problems have alienated large segments of the Afghan population. They do not trust GIRoA [Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan] to provide basic services, such as security, justice, and basic services.

But at the same time:

ISAF’s center of gravity is the will and ability to provide for the needs of the population ‘by, with, and through’ the Afghan government. A foreign army alone cannot beat an insurgency; the insurgency in Afghanistan requires an Afghan solution. This is their war and, in the end, ISAF’s competency will prove less decisive than GIRoA’s; eventual success requires capable Afghan governance capabilities and security forces. [Emphasis added.]

What these two statements say to me is that even if McChrystal gets all the resources he asks for, (which probably won’t be enough anyway) and even if the ISAF executes the best counterinsurgency campaign in history, it won’t matter much unless the Afghan government can make a noticeable improvement in its ability to govern the country on a minimally satisfactory basis. And that objective in and of itself requires that the Afghan government has the desire and willingness to make an effort at improving the way it operates.

As Spencer Ackerman asked on Monday, “Is a government that was willing to return itself to power by stealing an election really willing to enact the kind of good-government reforms that would be necessary to mitigate this [insurgent] threat?” This question is exactly the one the Obama administration needs to answer before giving General McChrystal the 40,000 troops he’s apparently going to ask for.

It’s also why, contra Eliot Cohen, it’s good to see that there’s still a healthy debate going on in the Obama administration. Vice President Biden has taken the lead in formulating an alternative, and so far President Obama has not committed one way or another. The decision to send more troops to Afghanistan is the biggest foreign policy decision the Obama administration has had to make so far, and it is entirely appropriate and correct not to rush it.

Of Gen. Deptula’s two other main points, his argument about anti-access threats — which deny the Air Force the use of airstrips and other staging areas in a particular theater of combat — is the most credible and worrying. But the anti-access threat undercuts the rationale for systems like the F-22 and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. These relatively short-ranged fighters need bases close to the zone of conflict from which to operate, and are therefore especially vulnerable to anti-access weapons. Long-range strategic bombers like the B-2 Spirit or B-52 Stratofortress can carry more weapons from bases well outside the range of anti-access weapons. If Deptula is right on this point (and I happen to think he could be), then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ postponement of developing the so-called Next Generation Bomber is a mistake — albeit one that can be corrected.

However, Deptula’s assertion that Russia and China are developing “fifth generation” fighters with “near F-22 performance” that will be produced en masse in the near future warrants skepticism. The most immediate example, the Russian PAK-FA hasn’t yet flown, has been repeatedly delayed in its first flight (it was to have flown last August but didn’t), and no one really knows what it really looks like or what its performance will be.

By comparison, it took the USAF six years to get from the concept YF-22 to the first production-type airframe in 1997, and then another 8 years to get to initial operating capability in 2005. The F-35 had its first production-style airframe flight in 2006, and won’t reach IOC until 2012 according to current projections and plans — about 6 years of projected development to get to an operational aircraft, even with the experience with similar systems on the F-22. Being generous, the PAK-FA is probably looking at at least another 10 years before it enters service with the Russian air force — if ever. By which point the United States will probably be working on whatever will replace both the F-22 and F-35.

At the same time, the Russians continue to invest in upgrades to their highly capable current-generation frontline fighter, the Su-27 Flanker — which indicates Russia probably doesn’t have a whole lot of confidence that the PAK-FA will be coming online anytime soon.

And then there are measures beyond sheer platform performance. Things like pilot skill, tactics and integrated strategy, and especially training — which is extremely important, as it doesn’t matter how sophisticated planes are if your pilots never are able to fly and develop tactics for them — are all areas where the U.S. Air Force is far ahead of potential challengers and competitors. These are all areas where the likes of Hugo Chavez — who has bought advanced Su-27 derivatives — simply cannot compete with the United States. And the Russian air force’s performance in last year’s brief war with Georgia doesn’t paint a positive picture of Moscow’s ability to conduct an integrated air campaign.

Surface-to-air missiles are different animal, and are cheaper and easier to use in isolation from an integrated air strategy than high-performance fighters. Gen. Deptula is right to worry about the threat from the current generation of Russian SAMs, but unless he thinks they can target the F-22 and F-35 — and therefore that the U.S. government has wasted huge sums of money in an effort to make these two planes as stealthy as possible — it seems unlikely the United States will be in danger of losing air dominance as the F-35 begins entering service in quantity over the next decade.

While we should exercise caution about the F-35’s development schedule and acknowledge geopolitical uncertainties, it’s unclear as to who or what the United States will be fighting over the next ten years that will make its current and projected mix of conventional and stealthy aircraft so vulnerable as to erode its current air dominance. According to the Air Force itself, the United States currently has far more F-22s in service (134) than Venezuela does Su-27 derivatives (24). Iran’s top-line fighters are 25 aging MiG-29 Fulcrums, a type repeatedly bested by American pilots since the 1991 Gulf War. Other countries who have bought upgraded Su-27s like China and India are unlikely to become threats in the near future — and in any case, it will be extremely difficult for tactical fighters like the F-22 or F-35 to be involved in an air campaign given the distances from the closest land bases.

Should we be complacent about the state of American air power? No. General Deptula has made some legitimate points about potential vulnerabilities. But he probably underestimates the capabilities of our own systems, tactics, and people while presuming the best about those we might face. The Air Force faces a number of problems: the aging of its current aircraft fleet, difficulties adapting to the irregular war paradigm, and continuing procurement issues. However, these problems aren’t well-served by dire pronouncements about the erosion of U.S. air dominance.

First, despite fears of widespread disruption by the Taliban and other militants, voting did occur. While there was violence across the country — nine civilians and 18 Afghan security force members were killed — the Taliban generally failed to follow through on threats to attack polling stations. Nevertheless, these threats did appear to suppress turnout in the violent south of the country. In Garmser district, where recently deployed U.S. Marines have been fighting the Taliban for almost two months, only 1,683 men voted out of a population of 80,000. Even Kabul had low turnout, though reports indicate that the capital’s low turnout was more due to disillusionment with the government than militant threats.

Second, there’s a real effort on the part of the international coalition to manage expectations. Special Representative Richard Holbrooke noted that “every prediction of disaster has turned out to be wrong” and “it seems clear that the Taliban utterly failed to disrupt these elections.” Marines on the ground in the town of Khan Neshin expressed surprise that the 250 to 300 people who voted did so at all. The local battalion commander “didn’t think we’d even get 10 people, to be honest with you, because of the intimidation campaign.”

Finally, the legitimacy of the vote is questionable. Most notably, female turnout appears to have been low across the country. There are two interrelated issues to be concerned about here: first is the effective disenfranchisement of Afghan women, which is in and of itself enough to delegitimize an election in the eyes of the international community. But this disenfranchisement leaves the door wide open for fraud — there are suspicions that registered female voters, both real and fictitious, will be used to stuff ballot boxes. The fact that voter registration cards were on sale for $10 a piece before the election further heightens suspicious of fraud. (Even Britney Spears managed to get registered to vote in Afghanistan.) A close election possibly decided by fraud only two months after a fraudulent election next door in Iran is a recipe for instability. Add the possibility of a run-off and the United States and NATO are looking at a precarious couple of weeks in Afghanistan.

So far, the U.S. has been right to manage expectations and emphasize the established election process in Afghanistan. But as Holbrooke stated, “The test is going to be in the counting.” If there is instability resulting from the official election results, the United States should continue to emphasize the primacy of the process without favoring one candidate or another. The elections process may slow down the counterinsurgency campaign by holding the Afghan government in stasis, but it is simply something that needs to be plowed through with an eye toward the legitimacy of the future government.

Yesterday, I wrote about the importance of the opium crop and the plans to dramatically increase the Department of Agriculture’s presence in Afghanistan. But from what Holbrooke and others said today, it appears the main force of the United States’ counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan – beyond clearing locales of Taliban fighters – will be thrown behind rebuilding that country’s agricultural sector.

It was good to hear from Holbrooke himself that opium eradication efforts were futile and being phased out. Opium production is only a symptom of the much larger problems facing Afghanistan’s agricultural industry (such as it is) after decades of war. Since most Afghans rely on agriculture for their livelihood – 80 percent are involved in farming, herding, or some combination of the two – transitioning from an opium-based illicit agro-economy to a more sustainable and legal one will be critical if the United States is to have any success in Afghanistan.

The overall theory behind rebuilding the licit Afghan agricultural sector is relatively simple: help average Afghan farmers get back on their economic feet, and they’ll be more likely to support the Afghan government and less likely to acquiesce to Taliban rule. Of course security is a necessary component for such an effort, and it shouldn’t be out of sight and out of mind. It’s necessary if U.S. civilian personnel are to get “outside the wire” of security compounds, as Holbrooke pledged to do today. But rural development has long been a staple of counterinsurgency efforts in predominantly agricultural economies facing guerrilla wars.

The Civil Operations and Rural Development Support program is often cited as one of the bright spots of the U.S. effort in Vietnam. CORDS attempted to erode the communists’ appeal by providing an alternate means through which Vietnamese peasants could realize their aspirations, but it was ultimately undermined by a national government that simply did not care about those peasants. In short, if a partner government isn’t on the same page with the United States’ own efforts it’s unlikely the best designed and implemented programs will work.

The same thing could happen in Afghanistan. American and international efforts could do a superb job in rebuilding the Afghan agricultural economy, but it won’t amount to much if those running the Afghan government are concerned primarily with enriching themselves or doling out government posts and favors to cronies. The upcoming elections will hopefully instill some accountability into the Afghan government by either scaring the incumbent, President Hamid Karzai, with surprisingly close results or bringing in a new administration.

Holbrooke should be personally aware of the difficulties facing the U.S. effort in Afghanistan. Over 45 years ago, he served as a Foreign Service Officer and pacification adviser in Vietnam at the bottom end of an ultimately futile counterinsurgency effort. Now he’s on the top end of an uncertain counterinsurgency effort, and plans to use agricultural development and political shifts to help turn the effort around.

Today’s briefing by him and his team was a good indication of what the United States plans to do to turn that effort around. But the American public is going to need better than “we’ll know it when we see it” to gauge whether or not our program is going according to plan.

The 50 traffickers on the 367-strong target list are not subject to “targeted assassinations,” but U.S. and NATO troops do have authorization to kill or capture them if they’re encountered on the battlefield. The ruckus over the addition of drug traffickers to the kill-or-capture list points to the increased importance of the international community’s counternarcotics effort in the renewed effort in Afghanistan.

It’s become conventional wisdom that the Taliban receive large sums of money from the drug trade – the SFRC report cites military and UN estimates of between $70 million and $125 million a year in drug income. But conventional wisdom could be wrong. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the United States’ Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, has stated on more than one occasion that the Taliban’s primary source of funds are sympathizers in Persian Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar – not the illicit opium trade.

But this uncertainty over the opium trade’s role in funding the Taliban doesn’t mean the United States should give up on trying to tackle the problem. As the SFRC report shows, the Taliban use protection of the opium trade as a critical component of their establishment of a parallel government in parts of Afghanistan. In exchange for this protection, the Taliban extract taxes from opium farmers, heroin manufacturers, and drug traffickers.

Insurgents often impose taxes on populations as a means of legitimating their rule in addition to the obvious purpose of raising funds. The underlying argument runs like this: unlike the Afghan government and international forces, we, the Taliban, will let you farmers (and drug traffickers) continue to grow and trade opium as you’ve been doing. All we ask in exchange for our protection is a small tax.

This dynamic is more complex than a simple racket. The Taliban don’t have to threaten anyone’s opium-based livelihood to reap the benefits of offering protection – early international efforts at crop eradication do that work for them. So the opium trade as it stands now probably reaps the Taliban bigger political benefits than financial ones. The key for the United States and NATO will be to break the embryonic political link between opium cultivators, traders, and traffickers, and the Taliban.

The new effort in Afghanistan has shifted efforts away from attempts to eradicate opium that have marked U.S. counternarcotics efforts in the past and toward crop substitution and agricultural development. The USDA plans to increase its presence in Afghanistan to 64 personnel by early next year to assist in this effort. But it remains to be seen whether this commitment to increased civilian personnel actually translates into more civilian boots on the ground in areas where they’re needed. Are our civilian institutions up to the task? We’re about to find out the hard way.

Eighty-one percent of Pakistanis now see “Islamist militants and Taliban in FATA and settled areas” as a “critical threat,” while 67 percent view the “activities of religious militants in Pakistan as a whole” as a similarly critical threat. There is little support for Taliban governance – the government leads the Taliban by forty points in providing “effective and timely justice,” “preventing corruption,” and “helping the poor.” Significantly, in each case double digits say that both or neither will do better job, and the government only scores above 50 points in the justice category. These results indicate that while there’s little appetite for Taliban rule and general confidence in the government, the latter is weak and has much room to grow.

Al Qaeda, as distinct from Pakistani militants, is also seen as a critical threat. Eighty-two percent of Pakistanis now view al Qaeda as such, double from 41 percent in September 2007. But while 88 percent think al Qaeda should not be allowed to operate training camps in Pakistan and 74 percent thinks the government should use military force to close the camps if necessary, only 12 percent actually think there are al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan. Moreover, while 62 percent of Pakistanis oppose al Qaeda’s attacks on the United States, 59 percent say they “share many of its attitudes toward the U.S.” What’s perhaps most disturbing is that a quarter of Pakistanis share both al Qaeda’s attitudes and approval of its methods – a significant reservoir of support in a critical country.

Part of these results can no doubt be explained by the Pakistani military’s long-standing cultivation of and support for militant groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, the chief organizational suspect behind the Mumbai attacks. Pakistan’s notoriously unreliable and self-serving Inter-Services Intelligence agency leaked today that membership in LeT is about 150,000 people and that its members “were good people” who could be controlled. While there’s still uncertainty as to the actual relationship of LeT to the military, the fact that someone in ISI (described as a “midlevel officer”) still talks about controlling the group indicates that the culture of militant support within the Pakistani military may be far harder to uproot than the militants themselves.

After steamrolling through Swat with artillery and airstrikes (creating 2 million refugees in the process), the Pakistani military has put offensive operations in the tribal regions on hold. As one local politician with the largely secular Awami National Party put it, “It’s an insane dream to expect anything different from the Pakistani government… The Taliban are the brainchildren of the Pakistan army for the last 30 years. They are their own people.”

For years the Pakistani military has been playing a double game with the United States -– supporting its favorite militants, giving up those that posed too much of a problem, and taking money from the United States in the process. Now it’s embarking on a double game with its own population, a population that now supports overwhelmingly operations against militant groups that have begun targeting Pakistan itself.

With the removal of Saddam, the Kurds were eager to expand their control over territories from which they had been expelled in the course of the previous regime’s “Arabization” program. The status of these territories was addressed in the Iraqi constitution, whose Article 140 called for a referendum on the status of Kirkuk and other territories by the end of 2007. Thanks to a combination of Arab opposition and Iraqi government incapacity, this referendum did not occur. Despite the formation of a committee to create a power sharing formula for Tamim Province (where Kirkuk is located), little progress has been made on the issue.

Now, Kurdish leaders are reporting that relations with the central government in Baghdad have reached a nadir. Massoud Barzani, the President of the Kurdistan Regional Government, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki have not spoken to each other directly for an entire year. This lack of communication is compounded by a series stand-offs between Kurdish forces and the Iraqi army, going back to the August 2008 confrontation in the Diyala province town of Khanaqin. Most recently, Kurdish and central government forces stood off on June 28 in the town of Makhmur, between the contested cities of Mosul and Kirkuk. In addition to territorial disputes, the KRG and the central government remain in conflict over hydrocarbons legislation and a new KRG constitution. Despite the hard work of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), the KRG and the Maliki government appear headed for conflict.

What this amounts to, as Brian Katulis, Marc Lynch, and I argued in our September 2008 report Iraq’s Political Transition After the Surge (pdf), is that the surge of U.S. forces that helped reduce violence did not fundamentally deliver on its central objective of political consolidation. Indeed, by strengthening the Iraqi government, it has probably exacerbated the Arab-Kurd dispute.

Tom Friedman yesterday advocated a sort of special envoy for Iraq a la Richard Holbrooke’s work in Bosnia. He’s six years too late –- and so is the United States. With Iraqi demands for sovereignty only growing, it will be difficult to get the Iraqi government to sign on to yet more U.S. intervention in its internal disputes. Indeed, Maliki told Vice President Joe Biden during his July 4 visit to Baghdad that “the reconciliation issue is a purely Iraqi issue and any non-Iraqi involvement might have a negative effect.”

The United States had ample time to resolve the Arab-Kurd dispute non-violently when it had far more power and leverage over Iraqi actors over the past six years. It squandered the opportunities it had, and is now faced with the potential of renewed conflict as it exits Iraq. Appointing an unwelcome special envoy to work in an undetermined relationship with the new U.S. ambassador is probably not the best way to use the influence we have left to help resolve Iraqi conflicts.

Leaving aside Stewart’s tendency toward self-congratulation — he believes those who think like him possess “detailed knowledge of each country’s past, a bold analysis of the causes of development and a rigorous exposition of the differences, for which few have patience” while others apparently are dull, impatient conformists — Stewart’s proposal is fundamentally flawed. Its proposed focus on development runs aground on the problems of security and financial integrity. All the development aid in the world isn’t going to make a whit of difference if development workers are being brazenly killed in the field or can’t make it to project areas. Then there’s corruption –- development aid isn’t going to matter much if corrupt officials line their pockets with it.

Ultimately, these are problems of effective governance -– a concept that Stewart goes out of his way to deride. While there are no doubt problems developing and putting into practice programs that result in effective governance, simply pointing these issues out doesn’t invalidate the diagnosis that ineffective, corrupt, and incompetent governance is at the heart of Afghanistan’s woes. The problem isn’t that good governance and legitimacy are pie-in-the-sky foreign notions as Stewart argues, it’s that there’s so little of either.

Worse, Stewart seems to view the Taliban with a sort of romanticism, writing that their spread is based “complaints about corruption, human rights abuses and aerial bombardments appeal to a large audience.” But the Taliban are extraordinarily unpopular in Afghanistan –- a recent BBC poll showed only seven percent of Afghans view the Taliban favorably, with 91 percent viewing them unfavorably, with 79 percent viewing them “very unfavorably.” By contrast, the United States has a combined favorability rating of 47 percent. So it’s reasonable to conclude that the Taliban aren’t exactly doing a bang-up job of winning hearts and minds and that the incompetence and ineffectiveness of the Afghan government –- which 82 percent of Afghans would prefer to rule the country versus four percent for the Taliban –- is a key component behind the upsurge in violence.

Stewart’s proposed focus on counterterrorism doesn’t stand up much better. This mission is oddly paired with development, though there’s no logical reason a pure counterterrorism mission using mostly special operations forces and increased development aid go together. If the United States’ primary goal is counterterrorism and, as Stewart suggests, there’s no real danger of the Taliban marching on Kabul, then why waste time, money, and lives on development projects that will get development workers killed, likely line the pockets of corrupt officials, and be unsupportable by an Afghan government that takes in (according to Stewart’s figures) only $600 million a year?

In Stewart’s scenario, large areas of southern Afghanistan will effectively be ceded to the Taliban. At that point, the United States might as well just expand the drone strike program from Pakistan’s tribal areas to incorporate southern Afghanistan. Putting special operations forces on the ground to do the dirty work is feasible, and it’s unlikely to require the 20,000-strong footprint to do this. Instead of a Central Asian Valhalla, the United States will be creating a Central Asian Phoenix Program. On top of this, the United States and its allies would probably still be on the hook for financing the Afghan security forces -– adding another couple billion dollars to the tab, in perpetuity.

Stewart is correct that there are severe problems with building an effective Afghan government that can resource itself, but these aren’t caused by an essential and intractable Afghan nature that resists centralization. As Peter Bergen points out, modern Afghanistan first appeared in 1747 -– prior to the appearance of the United States. Our problems are the result of the people in public power in Afghanistan –- people the United States has supported -– who are in politics for personal or “community” gain, not something inherently chaotic about Afghans themselves or ideas of good governance.

In any case, if an “ungoverned or hostile” Afghanistan doesn’t present a threat to the United States or its allies, as Stewart argues, then why care anyway? The logic of this analysis leads to the ultimate conclusion that the United States ought to pull out and stop throwing good money after a pointless cause. Sharp critics like Andrew Bacevich have made precisely this point, but Stewart’s recommendations avoid this conclusion. There are legitimate questions and criticisms of Obama administration policy on Afghanistan, but Stewart doesn’t raise them well and provides a muddled way forward.

The main goal of protecting the population is to create time and space to build effective Afghan government institutions and deliver public goods to the people. This effort at improving governance and economic development is the linchpin of the administration’s new strategy. As National Security Adviser Jim Jones put it in a recent interview with Bob Woodward, “The piece of the strategy that has to work in the next year is economic development. If that is not done right, there are not enough troops in the world to succeed.”

But, as Rajiv Chandrasekaran reports today, U.S. civilian agencies haven’t been able to increase their numbers on the ground to help with reconstruction and governance. Only two additional State Department officials have deployed to Helmand thus far, and another dozen are not expected to be on the ground until the end of the summer. Despite the Obama administration’s emphasis on a civilian surge in Afghanistan, the military is still having to make up for the lack of civilian capacity –- 50 Marines, most of them reservists with experience in local government here in the U.S., are attached to the Marine unit now deploying in Helmand.

The failure of civilian foreign policy agencies to deploy significantly for the first big push of the new Afghanistan strategy shouldn’t come as a surprise. Since at least the end of the Cold War, more and more of the heavy lifting of U.S. foreign policy has been handed to the military. As counterinsurgency guru David Kilcullen has noted, “there are substantially more people employed as musicians in Defense [Department] bands than in the entire foreign service.” This problem isn’t one we’re all just becoming aware of now -– nearly two years ago, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates pointed out just this problem in a speech at Kansas State University. Despite a general, bipartisan recognition over the past several years that the United States lacks the civilian capacity to conduct foreign policy properly, little has been done to rectify this problem.

Acting now probably won’t help us in Afghanistan -– it will take years to build up civilian capacity to the levels needed there. And on top of the demand for civilian expertise in Afghanistan, U.S. involvement in Iraq will continue to demand diplomatic and development resources. Add to those two conflicts increased assistance to Pakistan, and demand for civilian personnel and resources will continue to grow faster than budgets or training allow. There will likely be further reliance on the military to get the job done in Afghanistan: even after General Jones effectively told commanders there that they were not going to receive any more troops, Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen told reporters there were “no intended limits” on future troop strength.

Part of the resourcing problem is structural: there’s no diplomatic-industrial complex that can bring jobs and federal dollars home to Congressional districts the way defense contracts can. And, let’s face it, diplomacy and development simply aren’t as sexy as F-22 fighters or DDG-1000 destroyers. But they may be just as important in both preventing conflict and winning those that the United States finds itself in in the future. While improving America’s civilian foreign policy apparatus may not happen in time to help the effort in Afghanistan, the long-term benefits of doing so are just too great to continue deferring. More speeches bemoaning the lack of civilian capacity aren’t what’s needed -– action is.

Iraq has already seen its first post-withdrawal violence, with at least 15 people reported killed by a car bomb in the contested northern city of Kirkuk. The specter of continued and possibly increased violence in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq’s cities reflects the failure of U.S. strategy to resolve the fundamental intra-Iraqi tensions driving the conflict. While a combination of the surge, the Awakenings, and the marginalization of the Mahdi Army led to today’s low levels of violence, the lack of a political settlement has frozen existing conflicts -– particularly the Sunni-Shia sectarian war and the intra-Shia fight –- while allowing long-standing problems –- namely the Arab-Kurd divide –- to fester.

This reduction in violence has corresponded to an increase in political power for Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki. With relatively successful campaigns against the Mahdi Army in Basra and Baghdad and the successful negotiation of a withdrawal agreement from the United States, Maliki has gone from a weak and ineffectual leader to Iraq’s most powerful political figure and, in the view of some, nascent strongman. Maliki has staked his legitimacy on two pillars –- the ability to achieve security and reclaiming national sovereignty from the United States.

In the view of many American analysts, these two pillars are at odds –- Iraqi security forces aren’t ready to assume control, and will need U.S. forces to ‘advise’ them for some time beyond the December 31, 2011 withdrawal date. (Nevermind that U.S. advisers will need other Americans and “fortified compounds” to protect them from their advisees.) But these views underestimate the strong desire among Iraqis to reclaim their sovereignty, a desire Maliki has claimed as his own. His rhetoric about today’s withdrawal from the cities -– comparing it to the 1920 rebellion against British forces -– has given him little political leeway to renegotiate the security agreement, even if he wanted to. He’s even rejected the potential for U.S. forces to intervene: “We will not ask them to intervene in combat operations related to maintaining public order… It is finished.”

Maliki is clearly wagering that the Iraqi security forces are strong enough to keep other armed Iraqi groups from challenging the stability of his government. The lack of meaningful reconciliation with and integration of largely Sunni Arab Awakening groups and brinksmanship with the Kurds indicate Maliki thinks the forces under his control are capable enough to take on all domestic comers. Measured against the domestic political gains achieved via his strident pro-withdrawal stance, it’s difficult to imagine Maliki taking the enormous political hit by renegotiating or abrogating the security agreement to reap marginal gains in capability for forces he already thinks are ready.

If Maliki can’t manage Iraq’s multiple frozen conflicts and one or all explode following today’s withdrawal, the United States will be tempted to intervene unilaterally, in effect abrogating the security agreement. But doing so will undermine the Iraqi government more than it will help it secure stability, giving anti-government forces an easy rallying cry and voiding Maliki’s pro-withdrawal political rhetoric. If, during the time period between now and the full withdrawal of U.S. troops at the end of 2011, the Iraqi government requests our intervention under the terms of the security agreement, we should give it if circumstances warrant.

But doing so shouldn’t commit the United States to re-freezing Iraq’s internal conflicts. Those who advocate, in effect, sitting on these conflicts indefinitely need to justify the concomitant commitment of resources. The six-year diversion of scarce human, material, and financial resources to Iraq has had dire consequences for American strategic objectives in Afghanistan and Pakistan. What will the opportunity costs be for an large-scale American military commitment to Iraq beyond 2011?

However successful the surge and related developments were in reducing violence, they did not resolve the fundamental political questions that threaten to renew violence today. This failure is no excuse for prolonging large-scale U.S. military involvement in Iraq beyond the date agreed-upon by both the Iraqi and American governments.

According to the Times, the Israeli offer will only last three to six months, during which a final status deal with the Palestinians and a broader end to the Arab-Israeli conflict will be negotiated. Construction projects currently under way would not be affected by the Israeli proposal, nor would construction in East Jerusalem. While this offer represents a shift from the Netanyahu government’s earlier stance of allowing “natural growth” in settlements, it’s still a far cry from the complete freeze demanded by both President Obama and the roadmap. Portraying it as a “freeze” when it allows settlement construction currently underway to move forward and excludes East Jerusalem –- the status of which is presumably subject to final status negotiations -– is rhetorical sleight of hand that attempts to portray Israel as being reasonable.

This dishonesty is compounded by reports that Barak’s Defense Ministry approved the construction of 50 new homes in an existing settlement just before Barak came to Washington bearing the Israeli government’s new proposal. This new construction is supposed to give settlers evicted from an illegal outpost homes, but it’s unclear why an existing settlement needs to be expanded to accommodate them. An illegal outpost is dismantled, but its residents are relocated to an existing settlement that will require additional construction in order to house them. Meanwhile, the Israeli defense minister will come to Washington bearing a settlement freeze that isn’t really a freeze.

So far, President Obama has been right to remain steadfast on a complete settlement freeze as outlined in the roadmap. Neither he nor Special Envoy Mitchell should let the Israeli government get away with rhetorical sleight of hand or shell games when it comes to the settlements. The fact that the Netanyahu government has already inched away from its own uncompromising position indicates that the United States can obtain more concessions if it remains firm on the issue.

In his speech, Fayyad called on Palestinians to “unite around the project of establishing a state and to strengthening its institutions… so that the Palestinian state becomes, by the end of next year or within two years at most, a reality.”

This schedule is extremely ambitious, given that any attempt to build Palestinian state institutions will face the everyday obstacles of the occupation – checkpoints, the separation wall, closures, and the like – as well as the likely hostility of the current Israeli government. While the United States Security Coordinator under Gen. Keith Dayton is currently working to build coordinate the building of professional Palestinian security forces, the United States will have to lead a more robust diplomatic effort to both ease the problems the occupation poses to state building and provide the necessary support to the Palestinian Authority to actually build the necessary state institutions.

In other words, the United States needs to get Israel to trust that the Palestinian Authority can effectively govern and control the West Bank. It’s ironic that this situation exists, considering Israel apparently trusts Hamas – the group that’s committed to Israel’s destruction – to run the Gaza Strip, while not affording the same trust to the PA, which has been negotiating on the basis of the two-state solution since the early 1990s. Via the USSC, the United States has played a valuable role in soothing some Israeli fears about Palestinian security forces, but more could be done on a broader scale.

What Fayyad is proposing will require a crash program that both builds long-term institutions while ameliorating current conditions in the West Bank. These two efforts are complementary, given that effective state institutions will be worthless if they’re unable to function properly due to the restrictions imposed by the fact of the occupation. Working out a realistic plan for Palestinian state building in Fayyad’s timeframe will require coordination between the United States, the PA, and Israel, as well as coordination between executive departments and agencies and Congress and the White House here in Washington. Senator Mitchell’s team will have its work cut out for it.

Beyond the difficulties inherent in state building and the burdens of the occupation, the other huge hurdle Fayyad’s plan will have to overcome is the political split between the PA-ruled West Bank and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. While it’s possible for the United States and PA to confine state building efforts to the West Bank, Fayyad (along with most observers) believe reuniting the Palestinian Territories is critical to the effort. As Fayyad stated in his speech, “ending the occupation and building the state requires ending the split.”

But he’s staked out his own markers for what a successful intra-Palestinian reconciliation will entail. “There is no pluralism in security. The Palestinian Authority is solely responsible.” The state having a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence is pretty much State Building 101, and it would mean that Hamas would have to renounce its own armed forces for a potential reconciliation to work. For their part, Hamas didn’t giving any indication of bending in their predictable rejection of Fayyad’s speech.

Despite these titanic obstacles, Fayyad is basically on the right approach. If there’s going to be a Palestinian state, then there are going to have to be effective Palestinian state institutions. But despite 16 years since the start of the peace process, too many of these institutions are still grappling with the basics. Making a Palestinian state (and thus the two-state solution) work will require intensive effort by the United States to build these institutions, and there’s no time like the present.

Up until now, the regime has been able to survive so long because of its relative flexibility. Khomeini continued the slaughter of the Iran-Iraq war for six years beyond the expulsion of Iraqi forces from Iran, but agreed to a UN cease-fire after becoming convinced the United States was about to intervene more directly after the accidental shoot-down of an Iranian airliner in 1988. He ruefully called his acceptance of the cease-fire resolution “more deadly than taking poison.” His successor, the current Supreme Leader Khamenei, allowed a reformist, Mohammad Khatami, to win the presidency twice, but undermined his efforts toward liberalizing Iranian society and politics whenever he and the conservative establishment could.

Apparently Khamenei couldn’t face the prospect of another reformer winning power, no matter how moderate and committed to the system, and decided to fix the election. But he didn’t count on hundreds of thousands of average Iranians wanting their votes to mean something and demonstrating in the streets of major cities to make sure they did. Even then, though, the regime could have showed flexibility and maintained the general contours of the system. After all, the main challenger, Mir Hussein Mousavi, has solid credentials as a member of that system, and the framed his objections to the rigged vote in the context of fidelity to the 1979 revolution’s ideals.

Mousavi’s framing and the recent bloody crackdown have probably done deep damage to the regime’s legitimacy. Khamenei prevented President Khatami from making any real changes to the Iranian system when he was in power from 1997 to 2005, and prevented Mousavi, a committed disciple of the revolution, from winning the presidency by the system’s own rules. And when Iranians then protested peacefully and framed their demands in accordance with the system, Khamenei denounced them and then sicced the state’s security forces on them. What the Supreme Leader and his allies have done is made peaceful change within the regime’s system impossible.

While I can’t read minds (I’m no Charles Xavier or Emma Frost), I think Roger Cohen hit the dynamic on the head in another recent column: “…the loss of trust by millions of Iranians who’d been prepared to tolerate a system they disliked, provided they had a small margin of freedom, constitutes the core political earthquake in Iran. Moderates who once worked the angles are now muttering about making Molotov cocktails.”

These two Irans – the vibrant, diverse coalition that voted for change and then demonstrated in the streets versus the authoritarian, rule-by-force regime – will remain in conflict no matter if the government manages to disperse street protests in the short run. Khamenei and his successor(s) may be able to hold onto power by force for years, but they must do so now knowing large swaths of the population find their rule illegitimate and their system discredited. As Cohen wrote earlier, “Whatever happens now, all is changed in Iran.” We can only hope that the change is positive for the Iranian people, and that it comes sooner rather than later.

The Center for a New American Security recently released a report entitled “After the Fire,” detailing what the authors think the U.S. relationship with Iraq should be after the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2011. There is little controversial or bold in the report for reasonable readers to disagree with — the basic thrust is that the United States should remain diplomatically engaged in Iraq after 2011 as it would in any other important post-conflict country with which it has diplomatic relations. Beyond this banal main point, the report suggests that the United States might maybe keep a number of adviser troops in Iraq beyond 2011 -– which is something of a CNAS hobbyhorse -– but political realities in Iraq (which the authors themselves point out) make such a development exceedingly unlikely.

But the report does suffer from two main flaws, one specific to the topic and another afflicting DC policy reports in general. First, the report doesn’t mention Iraqi refugees or internally displaced persons (IDPs). These people will have to be dealt with one way or another, either by returning them to their homes or by resettling them elsewhere in Iraq or overseas. Either way, refugees and IDPs present a tremendous political problem for the Iraqi government –- one that could spark renewed violence if handled improperly. And if Iraqis choose or are forced to resettle overseas, the brain drain preventing Iraq’s economy from rebuilding itself will become permanent. This oversight is glaring given the relatively common-sensical main recommendations of the report.

More broadly, though, the CNAS report reflects a major problem with DC foreign policy reports -– assuming away strategic questions while focusing on operational and tactical issues. For instance, the report asserts that we have a “strategic imperative of establishing an enduring relationship with a key country in a region of vital importance to the United States” without establishing why this is so. It may be true, but no one actually argues why. Maybe we don’t have to have an “enduring relationship” with Iraq for it to be stable. Maybe we do, but DC discussions don’t really go beyond the assertion that this sort of relationship is necessary.

Moreover, the authors assert “the primary objective and guiding principle of U.S. Middle East policy must be to keep the region politically stable and secure in order to protect American allies in the region and avoid sudden disruptions in the supply of energy resources.” Which is well and good, but it really begs a broader US Middle East policy which isn’t really found beyond faint outlines in a report that, after all, focuses on Iraq. To my eyes, at least, it seems like the report’s goals for Iraq are informing the overall regional strategy (such as it is) rather than the other way around. This sort of thinking is all too common in various DC foreign policy reports -– there’s little questioning of overall U.S. strategy and too much focus on questions of technique.

There’s also a realist balancing impulse throughout — the authors view Iran as hostile, and want Iraq to be part of the group of states the United States is organizing to balance against it. But without a clearly articulated regional strategy, there’s no reason to choose the CNAS balancing view over, say, an attempt to bring Iran into a regional security architecture.

It also overstates U.S. leverage in Iraq. One of the report’s laudable goals is “a stable Iraq that can serve as a constructive partner,” which is defined as “An Iraq without the capacity to govern effectively and mechanisms to resolve internal conflicts peacefully would be a destabilizing presence that would harm U.S. interests in the Middle East.” But there’s no reason to believe that Iraq will be able to govern itself effectively and resolve internal conflicts peacefully even with an “enduring relationship” with the United States if yesterday’s New York Times article on the ineptitude of the Iraqi parliament and today’s LA Times article on the volatile situation in Nineveh province are any indicators. Quite frankly, we had our chance to shape Iraqi institutions in 2003-04, and we blew it pretty badly.

The United States can try to uses diplomacy to broker deals with Iraqi factions, which could be effective. But there’s little we can hold over the heads of the Iraqi government to make it compromise. We haven’t been able to squeeze much compromise out of the system even when we’ve had 150,000-plus troops in Iraq, and I doubt Iraqi factions do much at our behest that truly contradicts their own parochial interests. And Iraqi leaders can always play the nationalist card to wriggle out of U.S. demands.

While the CNAS report is a good if unremarkable contribution to its specific niche -– what our operational and tactical post-withdrawal relationship with Iraq should look like –- it doesn’t really answer the strategic questions. Instead, like so many DC think tank reports, it assumes that they’re already agreed on. We DC think tankers need to resist the temptation for groupthink that’s so prevalent in Washington and stop assuming everyone already agrees on strategic premises. There needs to be a more robust debate on the direction our country takes on foreign policy, and the operational and tactical focus of most of our reports don’t move that debate forward.

President Obama’s measured response to Iran’s pro-democracy demonstrations has driven conservatives crazy. With the notable exceptions of Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) and former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, many conservatives are rending their garments and gnashing their teeth at the president’s cautious response. Robert Kagan went so far as to accuse President Obama of “siding with the Iranian regime”; House Republicans compared themselves to Iranian protestors; and a number of conservatives have spoken as if Ronald Reagan’s rhetoric alone –- and not Mikhail Gorbachev’s “new thinking” or the human rights activism of Eastern European dissidents –- was responsible for ending communist rule in Eastern Europe.

All of this overheated grandstanding over to the Iranian protests has exposed a deeply silly strain of contemporary conservativism. Stunts like comparing their vacuous Twittering to the use of technology to organize demonstrations by Iranian protesters or calling President Obama a “cream puff” are juvenile to most observers.

But the height of conservative inanity during the protests has been the almost narcissistic focus on American action -– in particular being “steadfast” (in what?) and assuming that Iranian protesters “await just a word that America is on their side.” Because obviously people can’t act unless they know where the United States stands in bright, screaming neon letters. This particular silliness is tied in with the previously mentioned misreading of the end of the Cold War, in which conservatives believe that Reagan’s speechifying caused the end of communism.

What the particular silliness that is the conservative response to the Iranian protests reveals is the more fundamental moral and intellectual bankruptcy of conservative foreign policy thinking. There is apparently little more to it than sloganeering, where somehow the utterance of words by the United States magically transforms their sentiments into action. Rather than thinking through what the United States’ interests, ideals, and objectives are and how best to obtain them, conservatives have decided that it’s enough to simply shout what we want at the top of our lungs and demand the world bend to our wishes. It’s as though conservative foreign policy thinking amounts to nothing more than the applied power of positive thinking.

This pose is deeply morally unserious as well. People like Charles Krauthammer and Dana Rohrabacher aren’t putting their lives on the line marching in the streets of Tehran. But they’re certainly holding themselves up as the moral equivalent of those marchers (both implicitly and explicitly) in their demands that President Obama perform an act of moralistic preening on the world stage. They don’t betray any sense of having thought about the possible consequences of their actions for those who really do have their lives on the line. Whereas President Obama’s concerns about meddling –- so derided by conservatives –- are rooted in the tortuous history of U.S. interference in Iranian politics and the way that strident U.S. support could undermine demonstrators. Conservatives can crow all they want about “moral clarity,” but it’s clear they’re more interested showing off their own perceived moral superiority than the actual fate of democracy in Iran.

By their general reaction to the Iranian protests, conservatives have shown that they’re more interested in satisfying their own need for moral posturing than in engaging in a serious policy debate of how best to support the Iranian pro-democracy movement. For all their prattling about democracy and freedom, conservatives don’t seem to understand that Iranians (and Eastern Europeans and others before them) are quite capable of protesting for greater rights and freedoms without being the United States making a noisy fuss about it.

With foreign journalists effectively being ordered out of Iran, the circle of available public information about what’s going on in the streets of Iran will narrow to videos and emails sent to blogs (like Huffington Post’s live blog, run by Think Progress alum Nico Pitney) and Tweets coming from inside the country. As our information becomes more limited, the debate as to what the Obama administration should do with regard to the pro-democracy protests in Iran is heating up. Conservatives like John McCain and Eric Cantor say the United States should make a noisy show of support for the protesters, believing that by being “steadfast” we can somehow bend the will of the Iranian regime.

President Obama has taken a different tack, stating in a press appearance that he is “deeply troubled” by the post-election violence and affirming “the democratic process -– free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent –- all those are universal values and need to be respected.”

At the same time, the president has made clear that the choice of their country’s leadership is ultimately in the hands of the Iranian people. On Monday, he struck the made “very clear that it is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran’s leaders will be.” Speaking Monday with South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak, Obama struck the same note, saying the course of the protest movement “is something ultimately for the Iranian people to decide.”

While this measured, delicate approach may not satisfy the consciences of some observers, it’s probably the correct approach for the United States to take. On the one hand, it couches the Iranian protesters’ courageous battle on behalf of their votes in terms of universal values of democracy and human rights rather than making it a conflict between the Iranian government and Washington. On the flip side, it also acknowledges the history of U.S. involvement in Iran’s internal politics, and recognizes that this history means full-throated, direct American support for the protests could undermine them by giving the hard-liners an excuse to crack down.

It’s equally important that Iranians make democratic change themselves, without the United States taking or being seen to take credit for such change. Too often during the Bush administration, conservatives exploited positive developments toward more democratic systems in places like Lebanon and Egypt (the so-called “Arab Spring”) to vindicate their own policy preferences. But these developments soon faded as violence in Lebanon, Iraq, and the Palestinian Territories grew, and the chaos began to be associated with U.S. promotion of democratic governance. Trumpeting democratic reform as the result of U.S. policy serves more to undermine it than to facilitate its spread.

The moral posturing from the United States that conservatives advocate also undermines the universal potential of democratic ideals and human rights. The example of the Iranian people forcing democratic change on their own, without moral preening coming from the United States, reinforces the universality of democratic ideals and provides an example for aspiring democrats elsewhere in the region. Rather than having to rebut false charges that democracy is an alien, “Western” concept, local reformers can point to the Iranian example that democratic aspirations are universal and indigenous.

By framing American concerns over Iran’s election and the resulting protests in the language of both universal human rights and national self-determination, the Obama administration has thus far managed to thread a very difficult needle without undermining the efforts of pro-democracy protesters. As the situation on the ground in Iran develops, so too should the Obama administration’s response. If pro-democracy opposition leaders call for more vocal American support, they should receive it. If the ruling elite engage in a bloody, Tiananmen-style crack down, it should receive the full measure of repudiation and outrage from the United States and its government.

But until then, President Obama’s caution and framing of the protests in terms of universal democratic values is the right way to go.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give a speech this Sunday at Bar-Ilan University outlining his government’s policy toward Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians. Israel’s Haaretz reports Netanyahu is expected to embrace the 2003 road map while adding new conditions to its implementation, and rebuffing the Obama administration’s call to freeze all settlement construction. While acceptance of the road map –- and therefore the existence of a future Palestinian state -– represents a significant step by Netanyahu, it should by no means be recognized as a “concession.” It is simply a recognition of Israel’s past commitments.

But by accepting the road map without acceding to one of its key components –- halting all settlement growth –- Netanyahu is in effect undermining the viability of the road map. President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton have rightly held fast to a settlement freeze, fending off the dubious arguments for “natural growth” (which is impermissible under the road map anyway). Despite whatever concessions Netanyahu offers in his speech this weekend, the Obama administration should not bend in its insistence that all settlement growth stop and both the spirit and letter of the road map be adhered to.

It seems clear that Netanyahu is playing a difficult two-level game now: he is attempting to appease Israel’s indispensable patron, the U.S., which has taken a harder line on settlements and other issues relating to an Israeli-Palestinian agreement, while maintaining his governing coalition in Israel, which doesn’t like the idea of a Palestinian state at all. This balancing act is tricky, and Netanyahu’s track record suggests he might not be able to pull it off.

Some of Netanyahu’s other conditions -– demilitarization of a Palestinian state, airspace control, and the like –- have been discussed as part of negotiations. Presenting these as conditions for negotiation rather than subjects for negotiation simply adds an additional, unnecessary hurdle to restarting serious negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. It’s basically asking the Palestinians to surrender some of their bargaining chips before entering into negotiations.

Netanyahu’s last and most contentious condition is largely symbolic –- the demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Considering that the Israelis themselves haven’t been able to pin down what a Jewish state is –- religious? ethno-nationalist? -– putting the Palestinians on the spot to recognize it as such simply confuses the primary issue of Palestinian recognition of Israel’s right to exist, which the PLO has done since the late 1980s. After all, if Israel has a right to exist, who outside of Israel cares whether or not it defines itself as a Jewish state or not? That should properly be a matter for Israelis themselves. Ironically, by demanding the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state, Netanyahu is basically inviting the Palestinians to become intimately involved in the domestic debate over the self-identity of the Israeli state. This does not strike me as a smart move for an Israeli leader concerned about his country’s long-term future.

From a domestic political perspective, such a recognition demand simply amounts to red meat for Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition partners. And it may work to keep Netanyahu in power by stalling Israeli-Palestinian negotiations over an ultimately pointless semantic distinction. But for U.S. interests, such an impasse would have deeply negative consequences.

Unless Netanyahu surprises everyone this weekend and fully embraces the road map without further conditions, the Obama administration should stick to its current policy of demanding a settlement freeze. It cannot allow the Israeli government obfuscate and play semantic games in order to break free from the obligations it has assumed over the years.

Tomorrow, Iranians will go to the polls to choose their next president. This election (and the possible run-off) will be far from free and fair – who can and cannot run for president is determined by the Guardian Council, the unelected theocratic body that approves all candidates for elected office. Despite this circumscribed choice, Iranians do have options in these elections.

Current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, well-known as a radical conservative to the outside world for his inflammatory rhetoric, faces the internal opposition of reformists and pragmatic conservatives in his quest for a second term. These groups believe Ahmadinejad’s outlandish behavior on the international stage and economic mismanagement are driving Iran to ruin. They include people like former president and 2005 Ahmadinejad opponent Hashemi Rafsanjani, who recently accused Ahmadinejad of lying about his [Rafsanjani’s] public service record in a letter to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Ahmadinejad faces three challengers, two relative reformists and one moderate conservative. Of these, the challenger perceived to have the greatest support is the moderate reformist Mir Hussein Mousavi. A former conservative and prime minister during the Iran-Iraq war, Mousavi has cultivated the support of students and women. In a recent televised debate, Mousavi accused Ahmadinejad’s foreign policy of “adventurism, illusionism, exhibitionism, extremism, and superficiality.” Other opponents include Mehdi Karroubi, another reformist who promises to appoint a female minister if elected, and Mohsen Rezai, a pragmatic conservative and former Revolutionary Guard head who warns Ahmadinejad is leading the country to a “precipice.”

The biggest issue facing Iranian voters, like those in much of the rest of the world, is the economy. Ahmadinejad’s economic policies have bought him the political goodwill of the rural poor at the cost of rampant inflation – 23.6 percent according to Iran’s own central bank. The IMF estimates that Iran’s economic growth has slowed from 8 percent in 2007 to 4.5 percent in 2008, and projects that it will further decrease to 3.2 percent this year. All three alternatives are promising to end the current president’s economic mismanagement and take a less confrontational approach to foreign affairs.

But will it really matter who wins? As Laura Secor observes in The New Republic, all four presidential candidates are playing on essentially the same rural, conservative political terrain. Urban Iranians with more liberal attitudes “are so disenchanted with the Islamic Republic that they are as a whole increasingly disinclined to vote.” And even if one of the alternatives to Ahmadinejad wins in the end, he will not be the most powerful person in Iran’s convoluted political system. That honor goes to the Supreme Leader, to whom all roads of political power ultimately run in the Islamic Republic.

To be sure, an Ahmadinejad defeat would be a good thing. Replacing an ideological blowhard with a more pragmatic or even reformist figure will certainly make it politically easier for the United States and Iran to engage one another after 30 some years of estrangement. But the United States can’t bank its Iran policy on who occupies an office with powers that ebb and flow on the whim of an unelected senior cleric. We must deal with the byzantine Iranian political structure as it is, not place unfounded hope in individual changes in positions with fluctuating status and power.