Obama's Middle East End Game, ctd.

Introduction: On the Brink

Like Sisyphus, Obama is moving his grand strategy for the Middle East closer to the top of mountain. It's possible he's walked Israel back their coming war with Iran, he's made Russia responsible for monitoring Iran's nuclear program - and Russia does not want a nuclear Iran - and he's begun a "deck clearing" for building a regional security alliance to contain Iran.

Israel Decides to Dance With the One that Brought 'em

Earlier this summer I was one of a cacophony of voices who believed that Israel was probably on the verge of striking Iran's nascent nuclear program. I even ventured to guess that Israel would do with the tacit approval or even active support of the U.S. and the Gulf States.  I assumed that Israel really did not trust MAD to keep them secure vis-a-vis a nuclear Iran and I assumed that once the Gulf States got on board it was only a matter of time before the JDAMs started falling.

I was probably wrong.

Obama has always pursued two strategies WRT Iran; one was to get them give up the bomb peacefully, the other was to build a regional alliance to contain Iran once they went nuclear. Now, given that Iran lives in a really bad neighborhood, with nasty neighbors who harbor terrorists - including Bin Laden and Mullah Omar - it's logical for Iran to want either an actual warhead or at least break out capacity.

So that leaves containment.

But getting containment right involves building a security alliance for the Middle East ala NATO in Europe (just imagine the day those Gerrys and Frogs work together! Madness I say,  Madness!). And getting that security alliance involves getting the Arabs and Israelis to clear the deck -so-to-speak- when it comes to the two generations of animosity they share (it's a bullshit argument that there has "always been war in the Middle East, the regions has enjoyed long stretches of peace punctuated by periods of violence following imperial decline and everything we've seen since WWII is fallout from the British, French and German empires running out steam).

So, for the time being at least, Israel appears to be ready to gamble on with Obama towards some better greater Middle Eastern end-state.

Clearing the Deck

In this context, clearing the deck means putting the Palestinian issue to rest, thus providing top cover for the Saudis to finally recognize Israel's right to exist. To that end the talks that Obama announced late last week couldn't be more important to the future of the region.        

Make the Switch: A 2011 Meme in the Making

Biden out, Hillary in as V.P.?

But this, this is madness!

Madness? This. Is. Old news! 

But there's a flip side to the good news. Once his midterm penance is finished Obama will have to return to the job of governing, and he'll have to do it with a vice president who is pretty clearly out of step with one of the key tenants of his foreign policy. From Biden's perspective, he'll know just what his boss actually thinks of him and everyone in town will know nothing Biden says carries any weight what-so-ever.

It seems that the best solution would be, after the mid terms, Biden and Obama should both to begin quietly hinting that the V.P. may be considering retirement in December of 2012. From there either elevate Hillary or go outside the box and appoint Petraeus.

That was me, back on July 15th. Now Douglas Wilder has taken up the meme:

During Biden’s June trip to Florida, for example, the presumptive Democratic gubernatorial nominee Alex Sink, was so upset that she told POLITICO the whole trip was a “screw-up” and she was “embarrassed” by his speech. The Democratic Party is trying to elect this woman governor of a swing state — one Obama will need in 2012 — during the middle of the oil spill crisis in the Gulf. No vice president should leave such ignominy in his wake.

A few weeks later, Biden comes south and says at a fundraiser, “[T]he heavy lifting is over,” and now the campaigning can begin.

Really? Has the crude oil off the Gulf Coast disappeared? Is the unemployment rate back to its mid-1990s lows? Is the deficit magically under control? Are the president’s approval ratings in the mid-60s? Do large majorities of Americans believe we are on the right track?

I don’t think so. But none of that seems to matter to Biden. People around this country are hurting, and Biden has told them Democrats in Congress and the White House have done all they can or will for them.

As BP chief executive, Tony Hayward said he wanted his life back, then went off on his yacht. The BP board wisely replaced him. What’s so different about Biden saying, in the middle of several crises, that he wants to get back to politics when the people are craving leadership?

Has Biden ended these 18 months with the stature of a man ready and able to be president should the moment call for it? The answer, sadly, is “no.”

I say none of this to detract from Biden’s service to the people of Delaware through his many years in the Senate. But these times demand our country’s best. If Democrats and the president don’t see this, the people will look elsewhere.

Can all the president’s political ills be laid at Biden’s feet? No. But Obama must look through his administration and make a wholesale change. The vice president should not be immune.

Clinton is better suited as the political and government partner that Obama needs.

I suggest this as one who vigorously supported Obama over Clinton in 2008. In fact, I campaigned across the country and engaged in spirited debates with former colleagues. I don’t regret any of that. Yet, now I think Clinton brings bounty to the political table that few can match.

If both John McCain and Obama were given a sip of truth serum, both would admit they made serious mistakes in choosing running mates in 2008.

McCain can’t do anything about his blunder. Obama can and should

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/40523_Page2.html#ixzz0vc2DSGkK

My thoughts, almost exactly. I think Wilder downplays the apparent daylight that exists between Biden and Obama when it comes to the war in Afghanistan, but overall I think Wilder is correct that the time has come for Joe Biden to step back and for Hillary Clinton to step up.

It is highly unlikely that Clinton would want another turn at Foggy Bottom, so that leaves both the SECSTATE and SECDEF jobs will have to be filled during the next Obama administration. It only stands to reason that Biden could take over at either the State Department or the Pentagon and Clinton could easily slip into the V.P. slot.

 

The NYT Rethinks the Strategic Assumptions of the Bush Administration

In June, I had a post I called "Rethinking the Strategic Assumptions if the Bush administration", in which I argued that:

But both things can be true: Bush was a bad president; he was also right about Iraq versus Afghanistan in 2002. He was right that Afghanistan would turn out to be un-winnable.

In short, I argued that all the assumptions about Bush's policies towards Afghanistan missing some opportunity in 2002 or 2003 were probably wrong, and that in hindsight taking out Hussein remains a pretty good bet given the alternative of doubling down in the 'Stan.

Now, the NYT's David Sanger seems to be coming around to my point of view:

Removing the Taliban from power in 2001 was deceptively easy, leading Washington to believe that the Afghans could largely take it from there. Fewer than a thousand American troops and C.I.A. officers, some on horseback, joined with the indigenous Northern Alliance to chase the Taliban leader Mullah Omar and his forces out of Kabul. That would have been the moment, it is argued, to put 20,000 to 30,000 American troops — and perhaps a similar number of NATO forces — into the country as a stabilization force.

But Mr. Bush and his defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, wouldn’t hear of it. “The consensus was that little could be accomplished in Afghanistan given its history, culture and composition, and there would be little payoff beyond Afghanistan even if things there went better than expected,” Richard Haass, a senior official at the State Department in the Bush administration who advocated the insertion of a far larger force, wrote recently. “They had no appetite for on-the-ground nation building.”

Gee, I wonder why?

Bush and Rumsfeld's first instincts on Afghanistan were correct. Iraq was an easier - and likely more successful - venture in nation building. Also, the doctrinal changes that occurred during the tough slog in Iraq allowed American to build a skill set that can be applied to the Af/Pak theater.