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SUNDAY,  FEBRUARY 8,  2009

OBAMA DOWN - AT 9:07 P.M. ET:  Rasmussen reports continued erosion in support for President Obama:

Overall, 59% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance so far while 39% disapprove. Today’s results mark the first time that Obama’s overall rating has fallen below 60% as either President-elect or President.

COMMENT:  It seems to me that what this shows is that Americans are following the stimulus debate closely.  They are far better informed than many in "elite" circles believe.  Also, I suspect that Mr. Obama's petulant performance before Democrats on Thursday evening hurt him.  And, of course, the continued ethical problems of some of his appointees are hardly advertisements for "change we can believe in." 

OUR SCHOLARS AT WORK - AT 4:23 P.M. ET:  Reader Jim Meyer alerts us to this quote from a Politico article, showing us exactly how the system in Washington works.  Pressure and threats.  Pressure and threats.  The culprits this time are "educators": 

The 3.2-million-member National Education Association, one of the biggest union backers of Democrats, has sent a letter to Senate Democrats threatening to lower their rating with the group if they vote against the original level of school aid funding.

"We strongly urge your opposition to the Nelson-Collins amendment to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that would cut funding allocated for education. Votes associated with this issue will be included in the NEA Legislative Report Card for the 111th Congress," wrote NEA execs Diane Shust and Randall Moody.

COMMENT:  Remember, it's all for the kids, all for the kids.  Oh, and for the moms.

BEWARE THE "REFORMISTS" - AT 4:10 P.M. ET:  From AP:

Iran's former reformist president declared Sunday that he will run for president again in the country's upcoming elections, posing a serious challenge to hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

There had been speculation for months that Mohammed Khatami would seek the presidency in the June 12 vote. The 65-year-old popular reformist is a powerful counterpoint to Ahmadinejad, whose mixture of Western defiance and fiery nationalism sharply contrasts Khatami's tempered tones and appeals for global dialogue.

COMMENT:  Khatami is a "reformist" compared to Ahmadinejad like Goering was a conformist compared to Hitler.  These adjectives lose their meaning in a theocracy like Iran's.  Also, Khatami may not be allowed to run by the Guardian Council, which controls the elections.  If he is permitted to run, and he wins, he could be more dangerous than the heavy-handed Ahmadinejad, for Khatami can put on his "moderate" mask and still forge ahead with the country's nuclear program.

THE "GOOD" WAR

Posted at 12:25 p.m. ET

Critics of former President Bush often assure us that they regard Afghanistan as the "good war," the one we should be fighting.  President Obama said that, in effect, during his campaign, pledging to devote more resources to the Afghanistan instead of the "bad" war in Iraq.

Not so fast.

There are some signs that the administration, and certainly the left wing of the Democratic Party, might be having some revised thoughts.

First, an American traveler to the region, an Urgent Agenda reader, comments on the Russian pressure that caused the recent closing of an American air base in Kyrgyzstan, a base critical to supplying our forces in Afghanistan:

The Russian effort to close the Manas Air Base comes at a particularly interesting time:

1.  Their push to close Manas comes so soon after Obama taking power that it seems a move to test his resolve, especially since...

2. ...we are right on the cusp of a major expansion of forces in Afghanistan, a time when we will need all the points of entry we can get.

The Pentagon is airily dismissing Manas as insignificant, and of course we will figure out a way around its closing if we must, but I think our quiet acquiescence to the Russian strongarming will be noted for the future by Putin and the boys.

Based on his rhetoric so far, on what basis will Obama say "this far and no farther?"  Where do our interests lie, other than in assuring others that we
have the best of intentions?

Also, The Times of London is reporting that President Obama is balking at increasing American strength in Afghanistan:

PRESIDENT Barack Obama has demanded that American defence chiefs review their strategy in Afghanistan before going ahead with a troop surge.

There is concern among senior Democrats that the military is preparing to send up to 30,000 extra troops without a coherent plan or exit strategy.

Concern?  Or a way to wriggle out of the thing?  That is the question.

The president was concerned by a lack of strategy at his first meeting with Gates and the US joint chiefs of staff last month in “the tank”, the secure conference room in the Pentagon. He asked: “What’s the endgame?” and did not receive a convincing answer.

But the chief of Central Command is General David Petraeus.  It's inconceivable that he hasn't thought this through, and developed a strategy.  That's his strength. 

Leading Democrats fear Afghanistan could become Obama’s “Vietnam quagmire."

Well, there's the old rhetoric again.  We heard that in the first days of the Iraq war as well.

This story is developing, but we're seeing signs that the Democratic left, always opposed to Iraq, may want out of Afghanistan, too.  The ball is in the president's court.

February 8, 2009.      Permalink          

MOSCOW MUM - AT 11:25 A.M. ET: 

MUNICH (AP) -- Russia sees no need for an immediate response to U.S. overtures to improve relations, the deputy prime minister said Sunday after a meeting with Vice President Joe Biden.

COMMENT:  How nice of them.  And the Iranians aren't rushing to the microphones either.  So much for the new atmosphere.  Are you listening, Mr. President?

MELANIE UNMELLOWED - AT 11:01 A.M. ET - From London's Spectator:  Melanie Phillips is a passionate British writer who sees the world rather clearly, and holds nothing back.  She's written an absolute broadside against the Obama administration, which begins this way:

President Obama has had, by general consent, a torrid First Fortnight. To put it another way, it has taken precisely two weeks for the illusion that brought him to power to be exposed for the nonsense that it so obviously was. The transformational candidate who was going to sweep away pork-barrel politics, lobbyists and corruption has been up to his neck in sleaze...

She has difficulty with the man.  Her piece ends this way:

Tax cheats, pork-barrel politics, ancillary child abuse, incompetence, chaos, treachery and infantilism. America – what have you done?!

COMMENT:  Melanie has not been invited to write for the Daily Kos.  The stuff in between those two quotes is just as juicy.  If you want a little visceral entertainment, click on the link.

NOTHING FOR DEFENSE - AT 10:32 A.M. ET:  From The Washington Post:

In all the talk of economic stimulus in the White House and on Capitol Hill, one element has been conspicuously absent: defense programs. Yet including $20 billion to $25 billion per year of increased defense spending in the stimulus -- a tiny amount in a total package of hundreds of billions -- would be both smart politics and sound policy.

COMMENT:  This is an excellent piece, and touches on a mystery.  Marty Feldstein, the great conservative economist, made the same point last week:  Defense spending is one of the greatest stimulants this economy can have.  The spending is done quickly.  The assembly lines already exist.  The military knows what it wants, and most sane people agree that a great deal of worn-out equipment must be replaced.  So why is there no defense spending in the stimulus package?  That's the mystery, but probably not too deep a mystery.  Just look at the makeup of the House Democratic caucus.  It tilts heavily to the left, with some members openly hostile to American defense.  In all probability, and this is informed speculation, there's no defense spending in the package because it offends the sensibilities of the fashionable left, which controls much of the Democratic Party.

FROM BRITAIN, WATCH OUT! - AT 9:22 A.M. ET:  From the U.K.'s Telegraph:

Barack Obama has been warned by the CIA that British Islamist extremists are the greatest threat to US homeland security.

American spy chiefs have told the President that the CIA has launched a vast spying operation in the UK to prevent a repeat of the 9/11 attacks being launched from Britain.

They believe that a British-born Pakistani extremist entering the US under the visa waiver programme is the most likely source of another terrorist spectacular on American soil.

COMMENT:  One of the first rules of intelligence work is that the plots you hear about never come off.  This story is important, but I hope we're not closing our eyes to threats from elsewhere, including Latin America, where ties between Hugo Chavez's Venezuela and the Iranian regime are growing.  Giving the porousness of our southern border, the possibility of terrorist infiltration should never be discounted.

CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN?  I'M NOT SURE - AT 9:01 A.M. ET:  From The Washington Post:

President Obama plans to order a sweeping overhaul of the National Security Council, expanding its membership and increasing its authority to set strategy across a wide spectrum of international and domestic issues.

There has been a consistent trend since the start of this administration to center more power in the White House.  James L. Jones is the national security adviser.

Jones, a retired Marine general, made it clear that he will run the process and be the primary conduit of national security advice to Obama, eliminating the "back channels" that at times in the Bush administration allowed Cabinet secretaries and the vice president's office to unilaterally influence and make policy out of view of the others.

COMMENT:  Thanks, Washington Post, for the editorial within a news story.  But shouldn't the president, and not the national security adviser, decide what information he wishes to receive?  And by what logic is the vice president's office a "back channel"?  This is a very strange story with potentially large implications.  It looks to me like a bureaucratic coup by Jones, with the potential for restricting, rather than expanding, the president's choices.  The president appears to have a passive role here, an image that has disturbed us in the last two weeks.

NO PROGRESS WITH IRAN - AT 8:45 A.M. ET:

MUNICH (AP) -- Vice President Joe Biden was there along with a senior Iranian official -- and at first glance, that's about all that can be said for the first public opportunity to make good on President Barack Obama's proffered hand to Tehran.

Negative feelings at the Munich Security Conference seemed to outweigh the Obama administration's recent positive messages on when -- or if -- eye-to-eye talks with Iran could begin.

The United States, while opening the possibility of direct talks, has not relented on its demands that Tehran resolve international concerns over its nuclear program and its alleged support of terrorists.

COMMENT:  This report pretty much sums up most the reports I've read.  However, policies don't necessarily remain frozen.  We have to watch Obama's foreign policy develop day by day to see if he's consistent, or if he caves under pressure.  Apparently the Iranians object to our carrot-and-stick approach, feeling it's coarse.  But they have created that issue for themselves through their behavior, and show no signs of changing that behavior.

SATURDAY,  FEBRUARY 7,  2009

MR. PRESIDENT, WOULD YOU PLEASE CLARIFY- AT 10:38 P.M. ET:  The New York Times describes the conflict in Congress over the stimulus bill:

But the competing bills now reflect substantially different approaches. The House puts greater emphasis on helping states and localities avoid wide-scale cuts in services and layoffs of public employees. The Senate cut $40 billion of that aid from its bill, which is expected to be approved Tuesday.

The Senate plan, reached in an agreement late Friday between Democrats and three moderate Republicans, focuses somewhat more heavily on tax cuts, provides far less generous health care subsidies for the unemployed and lowers a proposed increase in food stamps.

But another Times story features this appeal by the president:

WASHINGTON — President Obama urged Congress on Saturday to swiftly resolve its differences in the sweeping economic recovery measure and “put this plan in motion” to bring fiscal relief and new jobs to all corners of the country.

COMMENT:  Which plan, Mr. President?  Which plan?  Some leadership might be indicated here.  You spent hours last night with some friends at a dance program.  Fine.  Wonderful.  Great art form.  Now spend hours urging your party to get rid of the pork in that "stimulus" bill.  Turning everything over to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid hasn't exactly gone over big with the American people. 

SOME TRUTHS ABOUT IRAN - AT 6:16 P.M. ET:  My Iranian-freedom activist friend Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi refers us to an article from the Progressive Iranian-American Committee containing this quote from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates:

“I have been involved in the search for the elusive Iranian moderate for 30 years. (Laughter.) I was in the first meeting that took place between a senior U.S. government official and the leadership of the Iranian government in Algiers at the end of October, 1979.

Every administration since then has reached out to the Iranians in one way or another and all have failed. Some have gotten into deep trouble associated with their failures, but the reality is the Iranian leadership has been consistently unyielding over a very long period of time in response to repeated overtures from the United States about having a different and better kind of relationship.

COMMENT:  President Obama should have this quote mounted on his desk, and look at it the next time he goes into flights of fancy about "negotiations." 

THIS JUST IN - AT 1:09 P.M. ET:   Reader Joseph J. Gallick rushed us this news photo of a global warming protest.  Things are getting tense: 

FINE PIECE - AT 11:29 A.M. ET:  Reader James Birdsall alerts us to this fine piece, published at Hudson New York (for which I also write), dealing with the Mideast, and explaining the new divisions within the region.  This is very well done and required background for anyone hoping to understand what's happening on the ground:

The recent Gaza war was portrayed by the international media as a local military conflict between Israel and Hamas. However, this war, like the 2006 war in Lebanon and various other military and political events in the last three decades in the Middle East have a common denominator - namely, all stem from the conflict between revolutionary Iran and the Saudi Kingdom and the respective camps of each. This conflict is key to understanding the Middle East in the 21st century.

COMMENT:  Like all recent presidents, Mr. Obama will try to "solve" the Arab-Israeli conflict.  But without an appreciation of the larger conflict around it, he will have as much success as his predecessors.

STRAIGHT TALK - AT 11:12 A.M. ET:  From London's Telegraph:

Basra is now less dangerous than Manchester, the general commanding British troops in Iraq has said.

Maj Gen Andy Salmon told The Daily Telegraph that following months of steady improvements in the security situation in Iraq's second city, the rate of violent crime and murder in Basra has fallen below some major British cities.

"On a per capita basis, if you look at the violence statistics, it is less dangerous than Manchester," he said, hailing a "radical transformation" in Iraq's prospects.

COMMENT:  Says a heck of a lot about Manchester, doesn't it?  But what it says about Iraq is great.  I wish someone would give former President Bush the credit he deserves.  Won't happen for a while.

FOX NEWS CALLS IT THE "SPENDULUS" BILL - AT 10:18 A.M. ET:  From Fox:

Senators have reached a tentative deal on a version of President Obama's economic spending plan, including about $811 billion in spending and tax cuts, that will win enough Republican votes to move forward.

Sens. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Susan Collins of Maine appeared to be the critical Republicans to sign onto the bill, giving Democrats the 60 votes needed to advance to a final vote. Democrats also voiced confidence that Republican Sen. Olympia Snow of Maine also would vote for the plan.

COMMENT:  There apparently will be no more than three Republicans voting for this monstrosity.  That pretty much tells the story.  The Republicans are correct in opposing the bill.  Something of this size deserved more than three days of debate.  It takes three days just to read the thing.  One observer said the printed bill weighs more than seven pounds. 

NOT BAD

Posted at 9:42 a.m. ET:

The president has had a bad week, and is nursing a series of self-inflicted wounds - poor vetting of appointees, incompetent handling of the so-called "stimulus" bill, and an improperly partisan speech Thursday night, right in the middle of stimulus negotiations.  He needs a set of instructions.

And so we looked apprehensively at the new administration's first major international outing - a speech by Vice President Biden at an international security conference in Munich this weekend.  We promised at Urgent Agenda to be fair.  Automatic opposition is not our thing here.  Biden, when speaking off the cuff, can be a walking train wreck.  His Munich speech was carefully prepared, and not bad at all.  We've read a number of reports and, despite the attempts by some journalists to label it "a clean break" from the Bush years, it was not.  There was far more continuity than break, and that is good.  Obviously, we have to wait for the words to be put into practice to see if the American spine remains firm, or starts to bend.  That will be the real test.

The New York Times gives a comprehensive report:

MUNICH—Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. rejected the notion of a Russian sphere of influence, promising that America’s new government under President Obama would continue to press NATO to seek “deeper cooperation” with like-minded countries.

Mr. Biden, in a much-anticipated speech at an international security conference, also said that the Obama administration would continue to pursue a planned missile-defense system that has angered the Kremlin, provided the technology works and isn’t too expensive. The missile defense shield, Mr. Biden said, is needed to “counter a growing Iranian capability.”

Fine thus far, although we must object to the "too expensive" notion.  Defense against nuclear-tipped missiles is never too expensive.  If money becomes the escape clause, then we go into opposition.  But the overall thought here is fine.

In the Obama administration’s first outline of how it will conduct America’s relations with the rest of the world before an international audience, the vice president signaled a tough line on Iran. “We will be willing to talk to Iran,” Mr. Biden said, in a departure from the Bush administration. But Mr. Biden quickly tacked back to a refrain common during the last years of the Bush presidency, and spoke of offering Iran’s leader a choice: “Continue down your current course and there will be pressure and isolation; abandon the illicit nuclear program and support for terrorism and there will be meaningful incentives.”

Has to be spelled out, of course.  The details are critical.  But that was a good statement of basic American policy. 

“We will not agree with Russia on everything,” Mr. Biden said. “For example, the United States will not recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states. We will not recognize a sphere of influence. It will remain our view that sovereign states have the right to make their own decisions and choose their own alliances.”

Good.  Fine.

...any chance for a rapprochement between Washington and Russia at this conference all but evaporated, foreign policy experts said, after Obama administration officials concluded that Russia pressed Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet Republic, to close the American base in that country. The base is crucial to the American-led fight in Afghanistan that Mr. Obama has identified as his central national security objective.

Okay.  At least the United States came to the right conclusion and made its feelings known.  The base-closing, a major act of hostility to our interests, wasn't papered over.

On Friday, the opening day of the conference, Iran’s Ali Larijani, the speaker of the parliament, told the audience that Mr. Obama’s decision to send George Mitchell, his new envoy, to the Middle East to listen and not to dictate was “a positive signal” but also said that, in terms of Iran, “the old carrot and stick cliché” — ironically, the very strategy that Mr. Biden outlined — ”must be discarded.”

So, the conflict remains pretty much where it was.  I have no idea what the Bush haters will say now.  Maybe they think Bush is still under the Oval Office desk and that Dick Cheney is sending daily memos to Biden.  (Not a bad idea.) 

We'll watch this day by day for any signs of slippage or deception.  But the vice president acquitted himself well on this first international outing, and, although our judgment must be tentative and cautious, we're pleased to say it.

February 7, 2009.      Permalink          

WATCH THIS CAREFULLY - AT 8:33 A.M. ET:  The New York Times updates the very important story of Pakistan's release from house arrest of A.Q. Khan, the world's greatest nuclear proliferator.  The release is widely seen as a snub to the United States:

Mr. Khan, 73, considered in the West as a rogue scientist and a pariah who sold technology to North Korea, Libya and Iran, is revered as a national hero in Pakistan for his role in transforming the country into a nuclear power.

The ruling to set him free seemed as much a political decision as a legal one, intended to shore up support for the government of President Asif Ali Zardari, which has been derided in the Pakistani press as being too close to the United States...

...Issued by a court of limited jurisdiction set up under the previous government, the decision came just days before the Obama administration’s special enjoy to the region, Richard C. Holbrooke, was scheduled to visit Islamabad.

COMMENT:  The key now is how the United States reacts.  We need Pakistan, but we also need it to be cooperative.  The Bush administration withdrew an earlier demand for Khan to be interviewed by the CIA over his past proliferation activities.  Obama could restore the demand, now that Khan is free.  Holbrooke is an effective diplomat.  Watch this one closely.