PERINO: There is one thing that I would say about Fort Hood that I feel very strongly about, which is — and I don’t say this to be political — I think it matters a lot what we call it. And we had a terrorist attack on our country. And we should call it what it is because we need to face up to it so that we can prevent it from happening again.

HANNITY: I agree with you. And you know, why won’t they [the Obama administration] say what you just so simply said?

PERINO: It’s — they want to do all of their investigations, I don’t know all of their thinking that goes into it, but, you know, we did not have a terrorist attack on our country during president Bush’s term. I hope they’re not looking at this politically. I do think that we owe it to the American people to call it what it is.

The decision whether or not to call an act of violence “terrorism” — which is, after all, defined as the use of violence against civilians in the pursuit of a political goal — is inextricably bound up with politics. Though I tend to lean toward “yes,” I think there are real questions as to whether Nidal Hassan’s shooting spree qualifies as terrorism. Those who think there aren’t tend to be die-hard “war on terror” types interested in marketing a particular (and politically advantageous to conservatives) conception of an undifferentiated Islamic threat.

Obviously, a former Bush official waxing sanctimonious about the politicization of national security is, to say the least, bold. It’s a matter of public record that the Bush administration was exploring ways to exploit 9/11 for political ends literally before the fires had been doused at Ground Zero.

As to Perino’s claim of “no terrorist attacks under Bush,” one of the main Bush legacy talking points handed out to administration officials as Bush was leaving office was “No terrorist attacks… since 2001!” Maybe Perino just forgot to mention that last part. Or perhaps Perino has gotten so used to insisting that the administration she served actually had an effective strategy for fighting terrorism that she’s simply come to believe that the attacks took place before Bush’s presidency began.

Another side of this, though involves effort, thus far unsuccessful, by some conservatives to cast Fort Hood if not exactly as “Obama’s 9/11,” (which would be ridiculous on its face) then at least as a “terrorist attack” sufficient for their purposes of attacking Obama’s response to the shooting as insufficient, and his broader counter-terrorism approach as ineffective. A Google search of “Fort Hood, Obama, Pet Goat” turns up quite a bit, none of it making much sense, but revealing nonetheless the continuing conservative shame at President Bush’s response to the September 11 attacks, and a deep desire to believe that President Obama’s response to tragedy was just as bad, if not worse, than Bush’s.

Conservatives have been telegraphing this tactic for while. As far back as January 2009, Robert Robb complained in the Arizona Republic that “Bush has been given remarkably little credit or appreciation for the fact that there has not been a domestic terrorist attack since 9/11,” but went on: “If, however, there were to be a terrorist attack during Barack Obama’s watch, the public’s view of Bush would spin on a dime.” It should be pretty obvious that Perino and others are trying to use Fort Hood to change the public’s view.

Someone needs to say it now. John Bolton was right. When the Obama Administration proclaimed victory on October 1st by announcing that a break-through had been reached in Geneva and that Iran had committed to shipping 2,600 pounds of fuel to Russia, expert Iran watchers were appropriately cynical… Bolton, however, was the first to stand up and call the Iranian pronouncement a sham – and he did it within hours of the announcement.

This misses the point entirely and demonstrates a totally one-dimensional view of diplomacy that was endemic during the Bush administration. During the Bush years, figures like Bolton blustered endlessly about Iran, but despite all of this empty rhetoric, nothing came of it. Iran accelerated its nuclear program, leaving the Obama administration to deal with an Iran well on their nuclear way.

Furthermore, the Bush administration’s refusal to engage Iran prevented an international consensus from emerging. Our European allies, Russia and China weren’t willing to support stronger action against Iran as long as we refused to even try diplomacy. And the threats of war from figures like Bolton only served to make the United States look like a hyper-aggressive belligerent power, further undercutting any hopes of gaining a tough international consensus. In the end, Bush left office with a divided international community and with Iran closer to developing nuclear weapons.

The point of Obama’s decision to engage Iran was to put the onus on the Iranians and force them to decide whether they are with the international community or against it. Our willingness to engage in serious talks, and Iran’s willingness to reject them, has made Iran the bad guy and given us the credibility to establish a more robust international response.

Far from being wild-eyed optimists about talks, the Obama administration and progressive foreign policy experts thought it quite likely that Iran would reject talks. Sure, the best case scenario was that Iran would decide it was in their self interest to abandon the prospects of developing nuclear weapons in exchange for improved ties with the west, but this was always the best case scenario. So while Obama has been engaging Iran, he has also been working to significantly strengthen the international community’s stance on sanctions should the Iranians walk away. The US and Europe, which were frequently at odds during the Bush administration, are now largely in sync. This is crucial since any effective sanctions policy requires the Europeans, which have a lot more economic leverage over Iran than we do. Additionally, the improved relationship with Russia has increased the prospects that Russia will support tougher sanctions on Iran.

There is still a lot of uncertainty as to what will happen. But by engaging Iran diplomatically, the Obama administration has laid the groundwork for a much more robust international response to Iranian intransigence than would have ever been possible during the Bush years.

For a start, did Hasan or Muhammad ever say what “killing” of which “Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan” they had in mind? There isn’t a day goes by without the brutal slaughter of Muslims in both countries by al-Qaida or the Taliban. And that’s not just because most (though not all) civilians in both countries happen to be of the Islamic faith. The terrorists do not pause before deliberately blowing up the mosques and religious processions of those whose Muslim beliefs they deem insufficiently devout. Most of those now being tortured and raped and executed by the Islamic Republic of Iran are Muslim. All the women being scarred with acid and threatened with murder for the crime of going to school in Pakistan are Muslim. Many of those killed in London, Madrid, and New York were Muslim, and almost all the victims callously destroyed in similar atrocities in Istanbul, Cairo, Casablanca, and Algiers in the recent past were Muslim, too. It takes a true intellectual to survey this appalling picture and to say, as Wright does, that we invite attacks on our off-duty soldiers because “the hawkish war-on-terrorism strategy—a global anti-jihad that creates nonstop imagery of Americans killing Muslims—is so dubious.” Dubious? The only thing dubious here is his command of language. When did the U.S. Army ever do what the jihadists do every day: deliberately murder Muslim civilians and brag on video about the fact? For shame. The slippery slope—actually the slimy slope—is the one down which Wright is skidding.

It’s probably important to point out here the yawning chasm between saying that “we invite attacks on our off-duty soldiers” through a “hawkish war-on-terrorism strategy” — which Wright did not do — and saying that a “hawkish war-on-terrorism strategy” and its attendant right-wing propaganda has generated resentment which in turn fed Hasan’s and Muhammad’s extremism, which is was Wright does say. As a general point about radical extremism, I think it’s so obvious as to no longer be controversial. In specific regard to Hasan and Muhammad, I think the jury’s still out.

I find it hard to believe, though, that Hitchens hasn’t yet moved beyond this idea that saying “the terrorists are very bad!” and then detailing some of the very bad things that “the terrorists” do constitutes an actual argument. This sort of petulant sanctimony went out of style years ago. For the record: Yes, “the terrorists” are very bad. So are some of the consequences of our poorly thought out policies for dealing with them. These two ideas are not mutually exclusive.

Limbert spent 33 years in the Foreign Service, serving in Algeria, Djibouti, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. From 2000-2003 he served as ambassador to Mauritania, and retired in 2006 with the rank of Minister-Counselor. In 1979, he was among those taken hostage by radical Iranian students at the American embassy in Tehran. As Politico reported, Limbert “is the recipient of the Department’s highest award, the Distinguished Service Award, as well as an Award for Valor for his more than a year as a hostage in Iran, months of it spent in solitary confinement.”

Though Limbert made clear that he was speaking yesterday as an author and not in his capacity as a State Department official, his comments do provide insight into the thinking of a key U.S. official dealing with Iran.

The important question of his book, Limbert said, “is not ’should we or shouldn’t we’” negotiate with Iran. “The important question is, when we finally end our thirty year estrangement, how do we do it?” It is important to acknowledge, Limbert said, that “hostility and suspicion still run very deep, and they run deep on both sides.” The Iranian view is typified, Limbert said, “in a famous rhetorical question from Ayatollah Khomeini. When asked about negotiations with the United States, he [Khomeini] replied: ‘What for? What does the wolf have to negotiate with the sheep?’”

On the American side, Limbert said, “you find something similar.” There is an idea “that one could never have successful negotiations with leaders who do and say what Iran’s leaders do and say… Because they are too fanatical, too xenophobic, too suspicious, and too untrustworthy to deal with.” This view is alive and well in Washington, Limbert said, “and I’ve encountered it as recently as last week.” Limbert suggested that this view was simply a reverse of Khomeini’s view, asking instead “what do the rational have to negotiate with the crazies?”

Knocking down some of the caricatures of Iran that tend to dominate U.S. media coverage, Limbert said “There’s much more to Iran — and much more to negotiating with Iran — than the absurdity of presidential statements coming out of Tehran and the nastiness of the current system.” Trained as an historian and fluent in Farsi, Limbert noted his great interest in Iran in the 14th century, a time in which he said “you had creative, vibrant artistic people living under rulers who, to put it bluntly, were thugs, fanatics, and bigots.” It was not incorrect, Limbert said, to notice “a similarity between conditions then and conditions now.”

Limbert was asked at what point the administration might say “enough is enough” and walk away from engagement. “I think you’re going to need a lot of patience,” he said. But “if it’s worth it — and I think from what I read and what I hear, this administration has decided that it is worth it, and knows that it will take a lot of patience. Thirty years of suspicion, thirty years of trading insults, thirty years of name-calling, and sometimes exchanges going beyond just rhetoric, that’s tough to overcome.”

Asked whether Iran’s current domestic politics would impact negotiations, Limbert replied “obviously it will,” and would likely make striking a deal more difficult. But, Limbert said, “if you wait for a good time” to try and change the relationship, “it will never come. It’s always going to be a bad time.”

Limbert said it was clear that “The system that’s been in place, where you have a ruling men’s club of about twenty five senior people” was passing away. “The core elite of the Islamic Republic… are getting old and departing the scene,” but more important, Limbert said, “the consensus which had existed among this group whose cohesion allowed the Islamic Republic to survive some horrific shocks…seems to be breaking down, and something different is coming out of it.” Limbert said that “the system to seems to be reverting to an earlier model of rule by the gun, and rule by force. Some of the features you see emerging now are reminiscent of what you saw under the Pahlavis.”

Asked whether human rights should be part of the negotiation, Limbert’s answer was direct: “Of course.” The Iranians deserve a far better government than they have, Limbert said. “Should it [human rights] be a matter for negotiation? Of course. Should it be the only matter for negotiation? I don’t think so. I would hope that we’re smart enough to deal with one issue at a time. And I think we are.”

Kyl claims to be shocked, shocked! – that the START treaty is about to expire. Kyl said in a floor statement this week (pdf):

Mr. President, I don’t say this lightly, but, this borders on malpractice.

Kyl goes on to argue that this will leave all the verification procedures up in the air and will allow the Russians to cheat on the treaty. But by making this argument Kyl has either miraculously seen the light on the value of arms control treaties or he is simply one of the biggest hypocrites in the Senate. After doing nothing for eight years to advance a new START treaty, it takes some real chutzpah for Kyl to attack the Administration for not getting a treaty done in eight months.

By warning of the dangers when the Treaty expires, Kyl is actually making an argument for ratifying a new START treaty right away. If the treaty expires and no new treaty is ratified in the Senate, the Russians will be able to do whatever they want with their nuclear arsenal. Yet, Kyl has not committed to supporting a new treaty and many conservatives like Kyl have consistently lambasted arms control treaties in general, arguing that they make us weaker by constraining our nuclear arsenal. So it is rather duplicitous that with START about to expire, Kyl suddenly finds enough religion on arms control to argue how unconscionable it will be if there is no treaty in place.

In fact, Kyl makes the amazing claim that:

only recently has verification gotten the attention it deserved all along.

This is pretty shocking coming from Kyl, since he never seemed to care much about verification before Obama was in the White House. During Bush administration negotiations over another arms control treaty – the 2002 SORT treaty – Senate Republicans expressed little concern that the treaty had few verification measures in place. Arms Control Today writing in 2005 explained that the Bush administration had a “casual” approach to verification and “did not negotiate any verification measures for the treaty because it claimed to have confidence that Moscow would limit its warheads by the treaty’s terms.” Kingston Rief added, “It’s telling that some of the same conservatives who supported the SORT approach are now accusing the Obama administration of being weak on verification.”

If the START treaty were to expire, it would allow the Russians to tinker and adjust their nuclear arsenal in violation of the spirit of the treaty. This is exactly why the Administration is in the midst of negotiating an interim bridging agreement.

In each case, Israel attacked only after a long period of procrastination. In 1967, Washington’s hands-off posture tipped the balance in the cabinet in favor of preemption. In the case of Osirak, the Carter and Reagan administrations’ unwillingness or incapacity to intervene left Israel feeling cornered and compelled to act unilaterally. One lesson to be learned from this is that Israel is more likely to use force if it perceives Washington to be disengaged.

I’m not sure what lesson this has for Obama. No one can say that he’s been “disengaged” in the Middle East. Clearly, Obama hasn’t been “engaged” in precisely the manner that Netanyahu would probably prefer — i.e. taking a harder line on Iran while ignoring Israel’s settlement building — but he has repeatedly stressed both the U.S. commitment to Israel’s security and that he recognizes Iran’s nuclear program as a threat to that security. So I suppose the question is whether, or at what point, Netanyahu will decide to interpret Obama’s pursuit of engagement with Iran as “disengagement” from Israel.

Simon concludes that, while Israel could carry out such a strike, the margin of error for a successful strike — that is, one that destroys or at least seriously incapacitates Iran’s known nuclear facilities — is razor thin.

And then there are the consequences of such a strike. Here’s a summary:

First, regardless of perceptions of U.S. complicity in the attack, the United States would probably become embroiled militarily in any Iranian retaliation against Israel or other countries in the region. [...]

Second, an Israeli strike would cause oil prices to spike and heighten concerns that energy supplies through the Persian Gulf may become disrupted. [...]

Third, since the United States would be viewed as having assisted Israel, U.S. efforts to foster better relations with the Muslim world would almost certainly suffer. [...]

Fourth, the United States has a strong interest in domestically generated regime change in Iran. Although some argue that the popular anger aroused in Iran by a strike would be turned against a discredited clerical regime that seemed to invite foreign attack after its bloody post-election repression of nonviolent opposition, it is more likely that Iranians of all stripes would rally around the flag. [...]

Fifth, an Israeli attack might guarantee an overtly nuclear weapons capable Iran in the medium term.

Sixth, although progress toward an Israeli-Palestinian final status accord remains elusive, an Israeli strike, especially one that overflew Jordan or Saudi Arabia, would delay fruitful renewed negotiation indefinitely. [...]

Finally, the United States has an abiding interest in the safety and security of Israel. Depending on the circumstances surrounding an Israeli attack, the political-military relationship between Jerusalem and Washington could fray, which could erode unity among Democrats and embolden Republicans, thereby complicating the administration’s political situation, and weaken Israel’s deterrent. Even if an Israeli move on Iran did not dislocate the bilateral relationship, it could instead produce diplomatic rifts between the United States and its European and regional allies, reminiscent of tensions over the Iraq war.

That’s a lot of downsides. One that I have yet to see discussed, however, is the potential effect on U.S. public support for Israel of attacks by Iran on American troops in retaliation for an Israeli strike. As retired General Anthony Zinni put it back in September, “Eventually, if you follow this [a strike on Iran] all the way down, eventually I’m putting boots on the ground somewhere. And like I tell my friends, if you like Iraq and Afghanistan, you’ll love Iran.” A solid majority of Americans support the U.S. Israel relationship, but I’m not sure Netanyahu really wants to test the depth of that support once America starts taking casualties as a direct result of precipitous Israeli military action. And no one wants Israel to be put into a position where he has to do that.

“Inevitably, you are going to put [new] sanctions on Iran,” Mr. Makhmalbaf told a small group of Iran specialists and journalists in Washington. He said the U.S. should “let the Iranian people know why you are going to sanction and what the targets are so they can support you.”

He rejected proposed U.S. legislation that would target gasoline imports to Iran, saying that would hurt average people. He said it was better to focus on the Revolutionary Guards, who have been at the forefront of repressing demonstrations and who have taken control of considerable elements of the Iranian economy.

You know who also opposes U.S. legislation targeting gasoline imports to Iran? The Iranian regime. For some, this shared interest is quite enough to tar Makhmalbaf as a regime apologist. Those who are genuinely interested in supporting Iran’s opposition — and not just in smoothing the road toward a U.S.-Iran war — understand that this is silly, of course. The Iranian opposition — and its supporters outside the country — include a number of different factions and trends with various end goals and methods of reaching them.

Speaking of smoothing the road toward a U.S.-Iran war, the very same Washington Times also runs an editorial today telling Americans to Get Ready To Bomb Iran:

Force need not be used to be effective, but the threat of force must be credible to have any chance of influencing Iranian behavior. Right now, there is no credible threat emanating from the United States. The Obama administration unambiguously opposes military action against Iran, particularly by Israel. But it would help to have a little ambiguity on this issue. So long as Tehran thinks the United States will work actively to prevent Israel from taking action, it has one less reason to worry. It would be most helpful if the United States began to send signals to Tehran that the United States will assist Israel in its preparations for military action and maybe even participate when the attack ultimately is launched.

If the regime in Tehran is not made to fear serious consequences for its continued intransigence, it has no reason to abandon its nuclear ambitions.

Leaving aside that anyone who talks seriously about bombing Iran has revealed themselves to be no friend of Iran’s opposition — Abbas Milani represents the overwhelming consensus when he writes that “the forces now controlling Iran would be immeasurably strengthened by an American or (especially) Israeli attack” — this shows a pretty serious misapprehension of the situation in Iran right now.

It’s not at all clear that Iran’s ruling hardliners, who are currently weathering the most serious crisis of legitimacy in the Islamic Republic’s history, wouldn’t actually welcome a military strike by either Israel or the U.S. Such a strike, in addition to extinguishing the Green Movement, would effectively end the ongoing debate within the regime over whether to obtain a nuclear weapon in favor of those who have been arguing “yes,” in very much the same way that the preventive U.S. invasion of Iraq convinced Iran’s hardliners that they needed to keep open the option of having a strategic deterrent.

It’s pretty broadly understood across the U.S. defense establishment that a strike on Iran — either by Israel or the U.S. — would very likely result in a number of disastrous consequences, consequences Iran knows that the U.S. would rather avoid. There’s really no credibility to be generated by pretending otherwise.

Obama has made ratifying the treaty a major priority and there are hopes that the Senate will bring it up next year, yet conservatives led by Kyl are looking to block it. One of Kyl’s main arguments against CTBT is that it would prevent the U.S. from physically exploding nuclear weapons, which he insists we need to do to ensure the effectiveness of the US nuclear arsenal. Writing an oped in the Wall Street Journal last month titled Why We Need To Test Nuclear Weapons, Kyl wrote that “a ban on testing nuclear weapons would jeopardize American national security.” He asserted that “concerns over aging and reliability have only grown” and insisted that “the reliability of U.S. nuclear weapons still cannot be guaranteed without testing them, despite more than a decade of investments in technological advancements.”

Unfortunately for Kyl, a new congressionally-commissioned study (pdf) conducted by a panel of independent scientists has proven him dead wrong. The study concluded that the current programs in place to maintain the effectiveness of the US nuclear arsenal – a program called the Life Extension Program (LEP) – have demonstrated that:

Lifetimes of today’s nuclear warheads could be extended for decades, with no anticipated loss in confidence, by using approaches similar to those employed in LEPs to date.

In other words, there really is no need to ever test a nuclear weapon – something the US hasn’t done in the last 17 years – or build new replacement warheads. This study effectively undercuts one of the main arguments of CTBT opponents and should strengthen the push to ratify the treaty next year. As Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association concluded: “There is no technical or military reason to resume U.S. nuclear weapons testing, and it is in the U.S. national security interest to prevent nuclear testing by others. A growing list of bipartisan leaders agree that by ratifying the CTBT, the U.S. stands to gain an important constraint on the ability of other states to build new and more deadly nuclear weapons that could pose a threat to American security.”

Looking at the deliverables from President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao’s first summit is a lot like looking at the box score on the sports pages: it only tells part of the story. Sometimes, the best plays — astute defense, patience in the pitch count, taking the charge — won’t manifest in the final readout, but they could be the game-changing plays.

At first glance, the results of the summit were a mixed bag. The trip, at times, seemed to highlight the differences between the United States and China more than it did to deliver results. There was agreement on the need for free trade but also mutual finger-pointing on currency and protectionism, recognition of the progress in the Strait but the same catechisms on arms sales and One-China.

Perhaps the biggest loser was human rights. To be fair, President Obama did speak directly to President Hu about the issue, asserting “America’s bedrock beliefs that all men and women possess certain fundamental human rights,” and urging Chinese leaders to meet with the Dalai Lama. But at the end of the day, what some deem as President Obama’s more practical approach resulted in some missed opportunities. Unlike in past presidential summits, China didn’t release any political dissidents as a symbol of goodwill. Indeed, China went the opposite direction and detained activists before the President Obama’s arrival. The Obama team did not meet with any political activists or dissident leaders in China, nor did they directly reference China’s human rights record on the trip. The president’s much-publicized call for greater internet freedom was, ironically, censored in China. And ultimately, President Obama’s more conciliatory approach seemed to soft-pedal human rights.

But there was progress, too. Obama and Hu recommitted to improving and increasing military exchanges, programs, and dialogue and have laid out an affirmative agenda focusing on law enforcement and counterterrorism. They reaffirmed a unified approach to the crisis on the Korean peninsula. On non-proliferation, Presidents Obama and Hu agreed to work together to achieve a successful Review Conference of Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 2010 and supported the launching of negotiations on the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty at an early date in the Conference on Disarmament. Most surprising was the progress made on climate change. So, all in all, a mixed tally.

But what the score, and many accounts of the trip, won’t reflect is the important contributions that President Obama’s trip made to U.S.-China relations. There were three intangibles that we cannot overlook. First, he signaled that the United States is back in Asia, ready to assume its role as an engaged Pacific power once again. Second, his remarks at the joint press conference with President Hu on Tuesday threw support and momentum behind sustaining the U.S.-China dialogue at the highest levels in both governments. Third, he made clear to the Chinese and to the American audiences at home, that, like it or not, on the big issues — security, economy, climate change — we’re in this together.

United Nations and Iranian officials have been secretly negotiating a deal to persuade world powers to lift sanctions and allow Tehran to retain the bulk of its nuclear programme in return for co-operation with UN inspectors. …The plan would require the UN Security Council to revoke the three existing sanctions and five resolutions ordering Iran to halt its uranium enrichment — an unthinkable development at a time when the West is focused on how to impose more, not fewer, sanctions on Iran.

Fox News profiled the story, Rachel Abrams of the Weekly Standard concluded that ElBaradei was a “collaborator with tyrants,” and John Hull writing in the Examiner papers concluded that “Elbaradei conspired with Iraq, as he is now doing with the Islamic Republic of Iran, to hide nuclear weapons from the infidels.” This comes a day after the IAEA released a report accusing the Iranians of misleading the agency over the extent of its nuclear program. A report, Julian Borger of the Guardian said, was “marked by the impatient and sceptical language that has become an increasingly regular feature of the agency’s Iran reports.” This is hardly the tone or the conclusions one would expect from an agency headed by a guy who collaborates with tyrants. But reality rarely matters when developing a conspiracy theory.

Furthermore, the Times story that they have all seized on seems highly dubious for a number of reasons.

First, this apparent “plan,” according to the Times, was put together in September – not November. But this would likely make the Times’ “plan” totally irrelevant, since the talks with Iran in Vienna that resulted in the current deal on the table took place in October. The IAEA has also denied the plan’s existence but if there ever was such a plan it was probably just one of the many possible plans being floated prior to the October meeting.

Second, any “secret deal” negotiated by ElBaradei with the Iranians would ultimately have to be agreed to by the U.S. and other powers – and lifting sanctions definitely won’t be agreed to.

Finally, if this draft plan is current, than none of this really make any sense. If the Times story is right that – “It was thought that Mr ElBaradei was anxious to secure his legacy after infighting over his perceived weakness in dealing with Iran” – then why would he be advancing a plan to remove sanctions that he knows would be dead in the water with the West and which would only serve to exacerbate his “perceived weakness” vis-à-vis Iran.

ElBaradei has been a constant target of the right. He entered their cross hairs after correctly assessing Iraq’s WMD programs and questioning Bush administration claims that a Saddam sponsored mushroom cloud was imminent. So despite the dubious nature of the Times’ claims, the right has grabbed hold of its conclusions and gone crazy with it.

[W]hile Bibi had a number of “conventional” options for dealing with the issue, he chose to go nuclear by making this issue — and his defiance of US concerns — a top story. In doing so, he has undermined the prospects for the very negotiations he claims he wants. [...]

The plan, if implemented, will allow the construction of 844 units, and these units won’t be inside the existing footprint of the settlement. Rather, they will be on the settlement’s southwestern flank, expanding Gilo in the direction of the Palestinian village of Wallajeh (a village in which a large number of the homes are fighting Israeli demolition orders). This new Gilo plan clearly dovetails with another plan to build a new settlement, called Givat Yael, which would straddle the Jerusalem border and significantly extend Israeli Jerusalem to the south, further sealing the city off from the Bethlehem area and the West Bank (and connecting it to the Etzion settlement bloc). That plan, it was reported yesterday, also appears to be suddenly gaining steam. (for a map showing both the Gilo plan and Givat Yael, click here.)

The Gilo plan is thus extremely provocative on several levels. It represents a clear and public statement from the Netanyahu government that it is neither “freezing” nor acting with “restraint” in East Jerusalem. It compels the Palestinians to respond, just as it compels other regional actors to respond. Finally, it has important strategic implications, since the plan, implemented, would impact on border options for Jerusalem under a future peace agreement.

Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth reported — and a U.S. official confirmed – that Obama administration envoy George Mitchell had asked an aide to Netanyahu at a meeting in London on Monday to block the proposed construction in East Jerusalem. This latest affront comes less than a week after President Obama met with Netanyahu for 70 minutes in the White House.

Writing in yesterday’s New York Times, Roger Cohen suggested that recent history “makes clear that the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won’t deviate from the pattern of settlement growth established since 1967.” The U.S. has its own history of recognizing the illegitimacy of the settlements, and recognizing the role that they play in powering Palestinian resentment and violence, while never undertaking serious measures to pressure Israel to curb them. The Obama administration showed admirable clarity at the outset about these things, but then refused to stand strong behind its demand that Israel abide by its previous commitments to halt settlement growth, and its credibility has suffered for it.

The administration has certainly made its own mistakes on this issue, and I think the Palestinians have been unwise in refusing to negotiate without a complete settlement freeze. But we need to recognize that Netanyahu’s intransigence, born of an ideological commitment to seizing as much Palestinian land as possible, is a huge part of the problem here. Add this to his tendency to provoke crises and humiliate his country’s key patron, the United States, at almost every opportunity, I wonder when the Obama administration will simply stop pretending that Netanyahu is a partner for peace.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton again made it clear that Hamid Karzai’s government must do more to eliminate corruption if he wanted continued civilian aid from Washington. Government corruption at all levels has been a huge problem in Afghanistan, preventing the state from establishing any genuine legitimacy and powering the resentment that feeds the Taliban insurgency.

Yesterday, the government of Afghanistan “announced new anticorruption measures in response to pressure from Washington and its allies, unveiling a special task force that will investigate graft by senior officials”:

“This force will make sure no high-ranking official who is involved in corruption will go unpunished,” said Interior Minister Hanif Atmar, accompanied by the U.S. and British ambassadors to Kabul. The new body will get training and support from the European Union and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, officials said.

The task force, which began operating in recent days, has netted three high-ranking government officials and charged them with stealing money meant for the families of policemen killed in the line of duty, said Amrullah Saleh, chief of Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security. He didn’t identify the detained men beyond saying that one of them was a general.

Obviously, simply creating a new anti-corruption unit and making some arrests isn’t the same as actually “fighting corruption,” but it’s a positive step. As with the Pakistan Army’s move against Taliban redoubts in Waziristan, a sustained commitment on the part of the Afghanistan will significantly impact the ability of the U.S.-led coalition to roll back the Taliban and stabilize the country. Karzai’s move is a welcome one, though, and should be recognized as the result of the successful use of American leverage by the Obama administration to elicit a positive change in behavior — as well as proof that the administration’s hawkish critics continue to be best ignored.

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.

The turnaround in US-Russian relations is a huge foreign policy accomplishment for President. In the final years of the Bush administration US-Russian relations deteriorated to the point where many in the Bush administration were advocating an outwardly confrontational approach. This only escalated further following the Russia-Georgia war in August of 2008, as John McCain actively pushed for escalating the hostility. However, sensible foreign policy experts from both parties rejected this dangerous approach, arguing that the US needed to prevent relations from deteriorating further and should seek to establish a more grounded business-like relationship with the Russian. In September of last year, five former Secretaries of State all emphasized this point. Henry Kissinger, hardly a liberal softy, insisted:

We have a number of common issues that we have to settle, if possible, with Russia. We need Russia for a solution of the Iranian problem. We may need Russia if Pakistan evolves in some of the directions that it might. And it is helpful to cooperate with Russia not just on the [nuclear] question, but on the issues of energy.

James Baker added:

Look at it [Russia] in a strategic context and not tactically…we have some big-picture issues that we need to be conscious of when we think about our future with Russia, and we ought to cooperate with them where we can, where they fit, but we ought to also be willing to confront them where our vital interests are involved.

This past year has seen the Obama administration successfully implement this approach. Unlike President Bush, Obama has kept the relationship in the right context, avoiding naïve pronouncements of a new beautiful friendship (as Bush did in 2001 when he looked in Putin’s soul). Instead, the relationship is now about getting stuff done on issues of key strategic importance like nuclear proliferation, Iran, and Afghanistan. This level-headed policy has resulted in major progress in reducing the dangers of nuclear proliferation, as well as potentially removed one of the biggest obstacles to a cohesive international response on Iran. There is still a long way to go on all these issues, but the turn around in relations is clear.

Yet neoconservatives today seem to see improved relations with Russia and the fact that a new Cold War has not materialized as not a cause for rejoicing, but one for panic. What does it say about a political movement that sees improved relations as a form of bad news?

That’s why I want to see Guantánamo closed. It’s so harmful to what we stand for. We literally bang ourselves in the head by having that place. What are we doing this to ourselves for? Because we’re worried about the 380 guys there? Bring them here! Give them lawyers and habeas corpus. We can deal with them. We are paying a price when the rest of the world sees an America that seems to be afraid and is not the America they remember.

You can drive up the road from here and come to a spot where there is a megachurch over here, a little Episcopal church over there, a Catholic church around the corner that’s almost cathedral-size, and between them is a huge Hindu temple. There are no police needed to guard any of this. There are not many places in the world where you would see that. Yes, there are a few dangerous nuts in Brooklyn and New Jersey who want to blow up Kennedy Airport and Fort Dix. These are dangerous criminals, and we must deal with them. But come on, this is not a threat to our survival! The only thing that can really destroy us is us. We shouldn’t do it to ourselves, and we shouldn’t use fear for political purposes — scaring people to death so they will vote for you, or scaring people to death so that we create a terror-industrial complex.

Today in the Weekly Standard, one of the key organs of the terror-industrial complex, former Bush administration official Michael Anton exemplified this mindset. “The odds are of course against KSM winning an acquittal, though one never knows,” Anton wrote. “But that is not the point.”

The point is that our civilian justice system is designed to do specific things, and to try non-citizen enemy combatants who make war on this country and slaughter innocent civilians is not one of them. Now that system will be used for what will likely be a months-long propaganda circus that will make a mockery of our principles and broadcast a message of weakness and pusillanimity to terrorists, their fellow travelers, and intellectual mentors around the world. Even if the U.S. government ends up winning the legal case, we all lose. And the reversion to a federal court trial will, along with other actions of the current administration, conspire to lull the American public into the view that we’re not really at war.

The indefinite detention without trial of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay has itself been a years-long propaganda circus that did make a mockery of our principles and broadcast a message of weakness and pusillanimity to terrorists, their fellow travelers, and intellectual mentors around the world. As Powell noted more than two years ago, correcting the Bush administration’s tragic error in opening the Guantanamo facility in the first place is essential to re-establishing American credibility on the rule of law. That credibility an important force multiplier in U.S. attempts to combat global extremism. As Gen. David Petraeus said in his statement of support for closing Guantanamo Bay prison, “We ought to live our values.”

Earlier this week, as he prepared to leave for Asia, President Obama called the U.S. relationship with China a “strategic partnership.” This is a big move. The term is an upgrade from President Bush’s label “constructive and cooperative and candid” and a far cry from Bush’s campaign term “strategic competitor.” President Obama’s comments are 100% certain to be met with accusations of appeasement and naivete by the not-always-so-loyal opposition. The neocons didn’t like the concept of “strategic reassurance” that Deputy Secretary of State Jim Steinberg unveiled a few weeks ago, and spoke about at a recent event, and they are going to like this even less. But using this term before his first visit is a very smart move.

First, let’s be clear about what President Obama said and the context in which he said it. In response to a reporter’s question about how he views China, President Obama began by saying that he sees China as “a vital partner, as well as a competitor.” Later he stated that “on critical issues, whether climate change, economic recovery, nuclear non-proliferation, it’s very hard to see how we succeed or China succeeds in our respective goals without working together. And that is, I think, the purpose of the strategic partnership.”

So it is clear, in case you hear otherwise, that President Obama does not think China is our best friend. In addition to calling China a “competitor,” he went on to say that he raises human rights, “universal rights” he called them, in every meeting with the Chinese. We know that he hasn’t hesitated to anger Beijing when policy calls for that, as his controversial decision on trade sanctions on Chinese tires illustrates. In fact, the entire trip itinerary makes clear that China is only one element of US Asia policy. President Obama is strengthening our traditional alliances in Japan and South Korea, and finally getting the US in the game of multilateral diplomacy in APEC and ASEAN on which China has been running the tables over the last eight years.

Obama referred to a strategic partnership with China in the context of major transnational threats. China is the world’s largest emitter of carbon, its most dynamic large economy and a nuclear power that neighbors North Korea and buys more oil from Iran than any other country. If China isn’t our partner, then we are in trouble.

The problem is that China has not been a reliable partner. It has been reluctant to take the kind of proactive steps on global challenges that the US wants and needs it to. As I detail in a new report, China is very engaged in all the international institutions and very prepared at the international summits—and this is a big step in the right direction—but you can count on a couple of fingers the number of times China has taken proactive leadership on a global threat: (1) North Korea (but it took enormous and constant US pressure to get them to lead on the Six Party Talks) and (2) the avian and swine flu pandemics, but on those their active leadership has consisted of convening international conferences, not exactly a mind-blowing example of international problem-solving.

Beijing is not using its leverage with Iran to end its nuclear program, it has so far resisted agreeing to limits on its carbon emissions that would make a necessary global deal to address climate change possible, and the steps China is taking to move to a domestic-led growth model that will address global economic imbalances are welcome but too few and too slow.

What the Chinese will tell you is that they achieve a trusting relationship by, first, developing trust with their counterpart and only then doing things together. This is exactly reverse, they will say, of Americans, who want to get things done together and develop trust in the process. President Obama’s gesture gives China’s leaders some strategic reassurance that he has a positive view of the relationship. He is offering a modicum of pre-trust that the Chinese say they need. This is not weakness — it is clever diplomacy.

If, over time, the Chinese do not cooperate more deeply, then “strategic partnership” will fail to become an accurate description of the relationship. The term could end up just a blip in the historical fluctuations of US-China terminology. But instead I hope that, in a few years, it turns out to be a positive, accurate and unremarkable description of our relationship with China.

In our time, nothing was bigger than the nearly 3,000 killed on September 11. But anyone who got involved with the development of public policy then knows that for the next seven years the battle never stopped over the details of the Patriot Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, then Guantanamo, then waterboarding, renditions and secret prisons and all the other issues that for some could be summed up in two words: “Bush-Cheney.”

This will never come up in the Lieberman hearings next week, but I think that nonstop policy battle is why Hasan’s overseers dropped the ball.

The most-heard reason for the possible failure is political correctness. No doubt. But Sen. Lieberman’s committee should avoid making this its main line of inquiry, because that is a problem without a policy fix. It minimizes the real problem.

The problem is confusion. The combatants at each end of the spectrum in the war over the war on terror know exactly what they think about surveilling suspected terrorists. But if you are an intel officer or FBI agent tasked with providing the protection, what are you supposed to make of all this bitter public argument? What you make of it is that when you get a judgment call, like Maj. Hasan, you hesitate. You blink.

Now everyone thinks the call was obvious. But it wasn’t so obvious before the tragedy. Not if for years you have watched a country and its political class in rancorous confusion about the enemy, the legal standing of the enemy, or the legal status and scope of the methods it wants to use to fight the enemy.

In war, uncertainty gets you killed. It just did.

Yes, if we could all just stop being so confused and see things more clearly, we could do something about all the problems. It should go without saying that the idea that we can simply do away with “uncertainty” when managing the tension between liberty and security is nonsense. Did authorities either miss or fail to act on what, in retrospect, seems like solid evidence of Hasan’s increasing radicalization? I think it’s fair to say yes. Is there any evidence that this failure was the result of “confusion” generated by the “nonstop policy battle” between the Bush administration and its critics? No, there isn’t.

Essentially, Henninger’s argument is that the practice of democracy itself set the stage for the Fort Hood tragedy. If everybody would have just shut up after 9/11 and not distracted President Bush with stupid questions about warrantless surveillance and indefinite detention and torture and the Constitution, then maybe the FBI wouldn’t have been so scared of hurting peoples’ feelings. And of course it goes without saying that this applies only to criticisms coming from the left. Conservatives who challenge Democratic presidents are just patriots asking tough questions. Progressives who challenge Republican presidents are sapping the nation’s vital essence.

In one funny segment, Farley and Mueller chuckle over the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) “awareness movement” — I think the “Pulsers” deserve their own spot alongside the Birthers and Deathers in the grand and glorious tapestry of goofballery that is the contemporary conservative movement — noting that achieving the sort of effect that they warn of — detonating a nuclear device at a high altitude, shutting down electrical power across most of the continental United States — would require a level of technical expertise that even the United States may not possess:

MUELLER: There’s a guy named Lawrence who used to be head of the Los Alamos lab, in weapons design, and in a recent book he asked somebody who knew all about EMP about that, and the idea that the North Koreans could do that, could basically wipe out the communications of the United States with a single bomb — I mean, right now their delivery system can barely hit the Pacific Ocean –but he didn’t even think the United States could do that. [...]

The technological ability to do that is fantastically high. It takes a huge amount of ability to even begin to do that.

Watch it:

Farley recently wrote an article about the EMP crowd which offers up this slice of fried gold:

Despite the effort that conservatives have devoted to this cause, it appears to have gained little traction in the mainstream media. The New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, and other major television news organizations declined to cover the EMPACT conference. Indeed, even the neoconservative Weekly Standard, which seems perpetually on the lookout for ways to plug purported existential threats to the homeland, stayed away from Niagara. One Standard editor said in an interview with the author, “I don’t go for that EMP stuff. Kind of more interested in dangerous scenarios that might actually happen.”

Think about that for a moment: The threat from EMP is so remote that not even the Weekly Standard is willing to fear-monger about it. This hasn’t stopped two of the leading likely GOP presidential contenders, Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich, from making it a big part of their national security agenda. In terms of “serious ideas about things that might ever actually happen,” it’s the equivalent of a leftist candidate calling upon Americans to simultaneously begin chanting and thinking good thoughts about Al Qaeda in the hopes that our “love rays” will cause them to abandon their war against us. It’s a sad commentary both on the state of the GOP and on the nature of the U.S. national security debate that Gingrich and Huckabee’s advocacy of these ideas hasn’t prevented them from being taken (kind of) seriously.

Jeffrey Goldberg writes that “Elite makers of opinion in this country try very hard to ignore the larger meaning of violent acts when they happen to be perpetrated by Muslims,” and suggests this “simple test“:

If Nidal Malik Hasan had been a devout Christian with pronounced anti-abortion views, and had he attacked, say, a Planned Parenthood office, would his religion have been considered relevant as we tried to understand the motivation and meaning of the attack? Of course. Elite opinion makers do not, as a rule, try to protect Christians and Christian belief from investigation and criticism. Quite the opposite. It would be useful to apply the same standards of inquiry and criticism to all religions.

The obvious example here is the assassination of abortion doctor George Tiller by anti-choice activist Scott Roeder. Roeder had a long association with extremist anti-abortion groups, had been caught with bomb-making materials before, and had threatened violence against abortion providers before.

I think relevant to point out that acts of murder by devout Christians do not, as a rule, result in reprisals and discrimination against American Christians. To the extent that some opinion makers were trying to “protect” anyone, I think they are (rightfully) simply trying to avoid jumping to conclusions and lower the temperature on a situation that could have real consequences for American Muslims. I’d also suggest that an aversion to drawing immediate conclusions about Muslims and violence is appropriate, given the very recent American history of using wild claims about Muslims and violence to generate public support for enormously stupid invasions and occupations of Muslim countries. That said, obviously we shouldn’t avoid recognizing the evidence of religious radicalization when it’s there.

As for the question of whether the Ft. Hood shooting qualifies as an act of terrorism, as I noted Friday, despite what Daniel Pipes and Michelle Malkin would have us believe, the definition of terrorism is not “any violence by any Muslim anywhere, at any time, for any reason.” It’s gotten somewhat lost in the years since 9/11, but terrorism actually does have a fairly broadly accepted meaning, “the use of force or the threat of force against non-combatants to achieve a political goal.” Did Hasan have a political goal, as Scott Roeder clearly did? Did Hasan intend his violence to frighten Americans away from enlisting in the military? Did he intend to cause Americans to withdraw their support for U.S. interventions in the Middle East (even more than they already have done)? As James Joyner writes “If he’s just an angry Muslim who went nuts and started shooting people, he’s a psychopath and a killer but not a terrorist.” On the other hand, if it’s determined that Hasan did hope to achieve some broader political goal through his violence, then it should be considered terrorism.

Speaking at the symposium After the 2009 Elections: Domestic, Regional, and International Dimensions, Stanford University professor Abbas Milani said that that the Islamic Republic is currently dealing with “the most serious crisis in thirty years,” and “is more divided than it has ever been.” Milani said that “Two pillars of the regime” — Khamenei and Rafsanjani — “are at each others’ throats.” More importantly, Abbas said, not do people no longer believe in the regime, but many of the people “now believe that the regime is afraid of them.”

At the same time, according to Milani,”The international situation has never been as dangerous for [Iran] as it is now.” After significantly increasing its political reach and influence as a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, post-election repression has caused the regime to lose legitimacy not only in the eyes of much of the international community, but also in the eyes of many Islamists throughout the Middle East who had previously looked to Iran as a standard bearer of resistance against the West.

Milani referred to a recent paper by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the seminal Islamist organization in the Middle East, which he said described the Brotherhood’s shifting view. “Before June 12,” Milani said, “the view among the Muslim Brotherhood was to support Iran against the West’s bullying.” But now “Brotherhood leaders are finding it more difficult to defend Iran.’

Groups like Hezbollah and Iraq’s Shia parties, Milani said, are also “hedging their bets, [and] are no longer assured that their future lies in an alliance with the Islamic Republic.

Assessing Iran’s appeal to the Arab Middle East, Panelist Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace quipped that “Iran is to the Middle East what Rush Limbaugh is to the US.” They appeal to “the alienated and downtrodden.” Iran’s “Death to America” propaganda resonates most “when people are outraged over U.S. and Israeli behavior”.

UMD’s Shibley Telhami noted the divergence between how Arab governments view Iran and how Arab publics view Iran. “Many Arab regimes are unpopular for their own corruption,” Telhami said “but also, in the case of Egypt and Jordan, because of the Israeli issue.” It is the continuing importance of the Israeli-Palestinian issue to their publics, and anger at regional governments for not having donw more to help the Palestinians, Telhami said, that compels states like Egypt and Jordan to hype the threat from Shiite Iran.

Iran’s loss of appeal could have negative short-term consequences for the region, however. Sadjadpour said that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps is now “essentially running Iranian foreign policy in the region, [while] the foereign ministry been sidelined.” Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaqi “is basically a spokesperson, [and] not deciding policy,” according to Sadjadpour.

The recent seizure by Israel of what Israel claims were Iranian arms headed for Hezbollah could be an ominous sign of what’s to come, as the Iranian regime may look to regain some of its lost resistance bona fides by drawing from the well that never runs dry: The Israel-Palestine conflict.